[exclusivity] it's all about privacy and immediacy

Photo 1 - Rayavadee accommodation, set in the forest

Rayavadee Premier Resort in Thailand, where the esteemed Wolfie is staying, raises for me some interesting issues. Hopefully, this photo post will illustrate these.

Let’s just say you’ve come into a few thousand euros and you and your partner plan to travel. You now get down to priorities. Do you want:

1. some base away from it all, with mod cons;
2. a slice of another culture, relaxing away from the madding crowd;
3. to “do” a country, seeing absolutely everything in a given time;
4. a bit of excitement and adventure in your life?

Photo 2 - Rayavadee eating area

Also, there are three components to your stay –

1. flight and transfers;
2. the resort itself;
3. the excursions.

How much of the kitty do you disburse into each of these areas? Whenever I went away, I was looking for a break from the pressure of work, so N2 [immediately above] was the key and N3 was second. My partner had N3 up front but she also liked her comfort. Faced with a finite sum of money, she opted for N2 next.

Photo 3 - Sai Yok National Park falls

The reason Rayavadee is interesting is that it doesn’t seem to go the polished wood, brass and glass route. Look at photos 5 and 6 and tell me if you see something wrong here? Possibly you don’t see it. For me, they’re too sanitized, too international, too “cocoon” like, too expensive in style. Don't get me wrong - the service was exquisite and the layout open and vast.

I don’t want to pay for glitter and shine or for westernized samples of a country. I want to be deep in the heart of a place, speaking with locals and getting a feel for my surroundings. Of course, paying those prices, you’re never going to be slumming it with the locals but you can come to a sort of compromise.

Photo 4 - Sai Yok National park

When we went to Thailand, we were based at the Royal Cliff but half the trip was at the Sai Yok National Forest encampment near the Burma border and we both voted that infinitely better.

We were actually on the river on a barge with a house on it, our meals were taken on the restaurant barge which would come away from the river bank and be towed downstream and unlike the glassed in, polished wood barge of photo 8, we were on a wood-planking, thatch-roofed raft, complete with servant boys and yet the same food the Thais were eating themselves.

The raft would then jam right in under a waterfall and we could walk out to the end and let the waterfall tumble over us. That’s where we discovered how heavy water really was. We’d hear tales of the wet season and how the river would rise almost up to the high bridge, we’d speak in broken Thai to the staff. In the evening, we’d be sipping on drinks on that barge, as the river flowed beneath us.

Photo 5 - the view from my favourite terrace restaurant at Royal Cliff

I suspect that that’s what Wolfie was looking for.

In my eyes, exclusivity means to be able to reduce the population around you to the point where you can handle it. If I were in prison, for example, I’d hope to be in solitary confinement. I’ve read that people go mad from that but I’d welcome it.

Exclusivity does not have to mean you think you’re better than someone else. It doesn’t have to mean obscene amounts of money although it’s becoming increasingly the case that you can’t find space unless you pay big for it.

Photo 6 - a bit above the accommodation we had but not unlike it

IMHO, it means a degree of privacy and it means you can choose whom to have around you. What I didn’t like about Pattaya was the vastness of the complex although they couldn’t have provided all the ancillary services, such as ludicrously discounted Mercs to Bangkok or the dazzling array of bars and pools unless they were pulling in large numbers of guests.

That’s why I only once went down to the pools and never went to the bars. It was like being in the crush of London or Moscow all over again. You might like the sheer weight of huge numbers swirling around you in the clubs or bars but it’s not for me.

That’s also the beauty of the area where I’m now living – it’s on the edge of civilization, is quite low density and is set close to forest with the water not far away.

This, to me, is what luxury is all about.

Photo 7 - night time dining al fresco

May I give one more example from Russia? No one understood why I opted to travel on the ancient, decrepit tramvai which rattled and squealed along the rusting tracks when there were modern, heated buses and my own car to take into town.

There were two reasons:

1. There was hardly anyone on the tram and it would amble along without restriction, past the clogged road traffic and down some scenic routes which had not changed in fifty years;
2. It was part of the specific culture of the town and opened up interactive possibilities which were just not possible the other ways.

Photo 8 - the type of bland, cocooned tastefulness which removes you from the experience

Finally, the question of envy. I don’t envy Wolfie one little bit although I’m happy he’s happy. I don’t envy you who are living in mansions and driving Mercs either although I can see the allure. There’ve been enough fascinating times over my life to keep me in memories until the end.

What I do envy is the person who has his own little world and is happy in it, who’s surrounded himself with what he likes and enjoys and does it his way. That, to me, is worth all the tea in China.