As the rickety lift doors opened, I stepped out into the lobby. It was clad in grey, leaden marble, spruced with artificial flowers, and smelled of the 1980's; a musty mix of Reagonomics and aerosols since banned for environmental reasons. In the restaurant space where I had earlier eaten an attempt at a buffet breakfast, a Thai Elvis impersonator was gamely crooning for a dozen or so largely disinterested Chinese tourists.
I emerged outside into the humid evening, strolling through the waiting taxis in the road and dodging the carefree motorcycle taxis bombing down the pavement. I entered the compact 7/11. It was starkly lit and chilled, like the inside of an oversized refrigerator. A hunchbacked man bought Red Bulls, while tourists dawdled dazedly at the counter.
Stepping back outside into the steamy evening, a steady convoy of taxis passed, a blurring rotoscope of yellow, green, blue, pink. Somebody had bought some grilled pork from a street vendor and dropped it on the pavement for the grateful neighbourhood cats. Some wrestles with chunks of the hot meat, whilst one of the more timid felines slinked to a gap under a concrete base for shelter. A foreign tourist tripped on the uneven concrete.
Returning to the hotel, Elvis was still gamely working his audience. In one of the small shops at the back of the lobby, a middle aged shopkeeper was completing her daily aerobics routine. Briefly tempted to settle in at the rather tired if optimistic hotel bar or perhaps frequent the deserted Brazilian restaurant on the mezzanine level, I instead decided to turn in for the evening and headed for the lifts marked "Low Rise: Floors 1-11 Only".
