Little Miss Bond loves the Siriwatana (she's not so fond of spelling it or philimonic?)

The Siriwatana

Where is here?

All this talk of the how, I neglected to inform you of the where. Or the why. Why this particular location is it’s near to an Island that has great history with a King Rama 5, a man considered a God King who brought the West and many great things to Thailand, so I am following his path.  I am currently residing in the Siriwatan Hotel 35 johm jhen phon, Sri Racha. I sit at a small square desk restored with pine effect laminate flooring and rough nails which appear to be crafted by the hand of man rather than duplicated in their thousands from machine. The desk faces the blue emulsion hut wall, bare but for its indiscrepancies and open wiring. Aside me sits a table created of two separate entities fixed with the same nails and laminate effect lino flooring. To my left lies the final resting place of the old clothes horse provided with the room above this a metal rack 4 misshapen orange wire hangers messily struggle to keep their grip.

The room is spacious yet, dark in the day. Upon realizing this usher over to the mesh windows and the shutters behind me in an attempt to let the morning sun flood through any way it sees fit. I’m pleased with the results. The two windows take up a good part of the wall behind me they are guarded with first curtains, a faded blue paisley print forgotten at the printing press decades ago droops from a half way point, secured by rustic wire covered in yellow plastic tubing. I unhook both sets of wire to gain access to the mesh bug shields which are to be my next adversary. The hinges are the same nails I can see in all the furniture, this pleases me. I pull back the shields and reach me arms through the cast iron floral caging to the mahogany painted shutters. The shutters do not match, one is slated like that of cowboy saloon doors and the other is in fact an old door. I love them.
Through the window I can see a quadrangle of sea at me feet, darted with thick cumbersome concrete blocks, some used and others disregarded, yet not forgotten. The quadrangle wall to my left is a window bigger than mine with 3 larger matching shutters. Opposite is the decking that leads to my room and more windows, and to my right a pile of drift wood, ladders and old planks of anything brings me much joy, as I know sooner as later as the tide moves and sea lashes these will become part of the place I have deemed my 3 day home. The disregarded concrete columns will probably meet with these washed up and abandoned bits of timber and becomes someone elses walk home long after I am gone.

To get to the Siriwatana Hotel, one must first know it is here. There are no signs in any European language.  Crossing the road from a corner 7-11 one would only assume that where the fruit stall ends is where the corner turns not much would reside down the forgotten little alley, one would be wrong.  Follow the forgotten and you’ll be met with 2 higiidly piggildy jetties both of with are a hotel of sorts, one to the right hangs a wooden sign of sorts with a European lettering, the other the Siriwatana does not. You could pass a hundred times and not see it, unless like me someone luckily told you it was there. One sign hangs above the jetty at the top barely visible and reads poorly in faded partially covered Thai what I can only assume is the word SIRIWATANA.

At the top of the ramp, sits a desk and two concrete benches separated by a table to the side. When I returned last night the bench was  populated by a few older locals one of which had his back to me, the others wore old shirts drank small amounts of Thai whiskey and swayed and smiled. The man whose face I could not see took in a deep inhalation (this I could tell by the raising of his shoulders) and to my surprise emitted a piercingly beautiful spiel from a previous undetected harmonica shrouded by his faceless silhouette. I smile and so too does grey haired gentleman at the table who catches my eye, leans back on his bench and lifts his arms in grand yet graceful gestures as if he were conducting the London Philomonic Orchestra rather than sippling whiskey on a dilapidated old bench. I beam and bow as I walk the rickety decking, to my hut. I certainly know which where I’d rather be, amongst the turquoise wooden shanties and the loose shutters and twists and turns of make shift flooring feet above the water. This is the Hotel Siriwata, I urge you come and find me… if you can.  I’ll be back around 7.