Page 014 Bangkok, Thailand
A morning at the river
Mandarin tea, river light and the kind of breakfast you remember longer than planned.
We woke before the alarm, which never happens at home. The curtains held a thin line of gold where they did not quite meet, and behind it the Chao Phraya was already working: rice barges, longtail boats, a ferry leaning into its turn.
The city was already awake, but the room still felt like a secret.
Breakfast was set on the terrace by a man who remembered, from one single mention the evening before, that I take my tea without sugar. There was mango, cut the proper way. There was rice soup with ginger that I think about more often than I should admit.
We stayed at the table for two hours. Nobody came to move us along. That, more than the linen or the orchids, is what luxury actually is.
Later we crossed the river on the hotel boat, ten minutes of warm wind and engine hum, and the city took us back. But the morning stayed where we left it, on a terrace above brown water, folded into a napkin.
