The Irishman
As I was going through the trial of using the WiFi at the Business Centre at the Royal Orchid Sheraton, I spotted a couple who were, let's say, challenging each other. My assumption was that she was working hard on something and his expression seemed to say something like, "Can't you see I've got to level 99 on Frogger ... ?"
The trial was that I had just logged into my free WiFi hour when it was cut off and after some stress, the technician told me that some bonehead electrician somewhere in the hotel had chopped off the wireless router ... aaaaaaggggghhhhh! Got back online later but didn't find out till half an hour before I checked out that they give one hour EVERY DAY free WiFi ... used to be 100% free WiFi in the business centre area. I ASSUMED the free hour was by way of welcome only! Clot!
Back to the couple. I went over to near where they had been sitting and found that the young man at least was Irish: don't know about her as she had gone to another terminal in another part of the centre by then. He was seething and started to talk to me. "I'm sick and tired of this", he said. He went on the explain they had just been to Phuket and had met two men who were in their 40s and had been travelling around South East Asia for 20 years: they didn't own a house, no wives, no kids, no jobs ... nothing! She (pointing towards her indoors) thought the ****ing sun shines now. His fury came in the form of his being more than willing to pay to stay at five star places like the Sheraton but she's got it into her ****ing head that they should stay at much cheaper places. "If someone ****ing offered me a free ****ing five star room, I'm ****ing sure I'd take it!" I mentioned pony tail, tie dye tee shirt wearing Western old men who infect Thailand and he bounced back immediately with, "They should get their ****ing hair cut and get a ****ing job ..."
Richly entertaining and he was a young lad too: no more than late twenties so if he can afford five star hotels, he must be doing well enough. Certainly knows the kind of situation he is heading for over the next 10 - 15 years anyway. Good for him. I took to him!
People Watching at the Sheraton
Now, I am not a voyeur or anything but I do look at people from time to time to assess the situation they are in, given the place they are in. Take the Royal Orchid Sheraton: definitely a five star hotel and I have come to categorise their guests along the following lines
- people perfectly at home there: one gets a sense from some people that they have always travelled five star and nothing that happens to them is in any way unusual. Nothing fazes these people and they know what to expect. They don't cause a fuss unless something really unusual happens to them.
- people in retirement who are probably well off: I tend to be able to spot these people as the ones with masses of wrinkles but who dress like people who should have been using cold creams and night creams all of their adult lives. It is sometimes difficult to spot retired people these days because there are people who are well into their seventies but who look much younger than that. There is another batch of retirees who they are the ones who feel they MUST establish a familiar routine from the moment they arrive, such as the two old Israeli (I think) women who arrived the other day. In the restaurant at breakfast, they hunted shark like for "their" place but when they found it, the air conditioning wasn't perfect so they circled a few tables nearby and found "their" destiny. The following day there they were, in their comfort zone even though everyone else is placed by the staff and can be seated almost anywhere, at random.
- mid career people who are starting to be able to afford to move up the social scale: often youngish looking, late thirties or early forties and they usually look as if they should have children with them. Children will be with their grand parents as mum and dad venture off on a long haul break. I spot these people as the ones who sit down to a buffet breakfast before they realise that buffet means serve yourself. They normally sit with a beatific smile that announces some kind of arrival and peace!
- package tour people: sorry for my prejudice but in the case of English people, they usually have a regional, often Northern, accent and are often cor blimey types. You might remember the Monty Python Old Codgers sketch in which a group of bluff, old, successful Yorkshire businessmen talk about their bad old days before they made the grade. The sketch starts when one of them says the wine was very passable. I heard just the same expression here the other night: the wine was very, Barnsley or Sheffield accent, passable! These people often give the game away by wearing trainers with ordinary business socks or tee shirt and shorts with business shoes.
- business people: they go for breakfast in their suit and tie, ready to face the world of work. Usually quiet and unassuming but clearly not there to while their life away at the pool or on a coach to somewhere else exotic for the day. Someone else is paying their bill! They are respectfully shown to their table and immediately announce that they need tea or coffee as they then disappear without any further by your leave to get their cereal or bacon or whatever it is that they ALWAYS have for breakfast. Quite often these people will sit where they are told even though after years of travel they know where they are, what they want and where they want to sit to see it! Of course, some business people are boorish, you'll spot them too. Some of them like to give off the air of being important and knowing how everyone around them must behave with the appropriate degree of deference and reverence.
There are others, such as the Japanese, who will not be beaten to the earliest of early breakfasts by any other national or ethnic grouping; but that will do for now.
DW
