BREAKING BANGKOK

It's always the third table from the breakfast buffet near the glass windows, always between an interracial couple with a religious preference to the salad bar and a lanky white man clutching his usual bowl of cereal and cookies, and always while a petite Asian mature is picking fallen orchid petals in the poolside, her unintedend seduction a welcome distraction from the morning tedium of the usual ham and cheese, sunny side ups, stringy bacon, butter-and-jam smeared croissants and a cup of latte that will be reincarnated as the customary mid-day smorgasbord of pizza, spicy salad, Indian food, Thai soup and orange juice.         

Chatrium Residence Sathon was built with the $9,720,000 of the last barrel and haunted by the ghosts of Hank, Todd and Walter White who shyly melted into the shadows as Jesse Pinkman, disguised as the hotel manager, led his guests to a welcome dinner of fried chicken and sea bass, vegetable stew and salad, and a rained out view of the Chao Phraya River from the 5th floor of Icon Siam between nights of som tam, grilled pork neck and oyster omelette from Mustafa's favorite place, and street noodles and spicy pork salad from parts previously unknown.   

And for three days, 9 countries gathered at the Spring Ballroom to watch the last season of Breaking Bad and the last episode of Better Call Saul where on the last day, it was announced that Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman/Gene Takavic  who sold cinnabon and stolen identities tested positive and will be quarantined for 86 years while in Room 3095, a case of hypoglycemia and 5 negatives were reported. 

But there was no miracle at the Suvarnabhumi Airport whose lounge served the same menu after more than two years of the pandemic, almost like Chatrium's monotonous breakfast buffet but unlike the pretentious dinakdakan and grilled tuna belly from Gerry's Grill that is easly topped by the IBP's version, nor the igado and dinardaraan at the Sidcor Sunday Market that reminded me of the weddings and funerals a long time ago in Almaguer...