At 6000 baht pounds l00 it was probably a good price by international

At 6,000 baht (pounds l00), it was probably a good price by international standards, but I decided to create an ultimate pampering day of my own. I started on the beach the following morning, arriving just as the litter-picking crew were passing through; perhaps King Bhumibol was due. How he knew the King’s movements I didn’t discover, but he was open about the source of the tip-off that brought him to Hua Hin “The cousin of friends of ours had her heart attack here. She recommends it highly.”Downtown Hua Hin has changed little over the years, but on the southern shore is a new establishment that hopes to continue what the Chakri dynasty began. The Chiva-Som, Asia’s first ultra-luxurious herbal health spa, has started to bring in the international jetset. “Wealth without health is meaningless,” begins the Chiva-Som blurb. “Do royals drop by?” I asked Barbie, the exotic marketing director, as we padded across polished floors to inspect rooms dripping with orchids, gold and marble.

Forget limousines to the airport, international cuisine and cultural evenings; this is a slice of Old Siam and very likeable it is, too.Hua Hin has the most stylish railway station in Thailand, all gleaming mahogany and tiled floors; a long beach, a colonial-style hotel, a fishing industry, and a nest of seafood restaurants that stride on stilts into the surf, serving the sort of spicy soup that will blow a hole in the roof of your mouth.This remains the resort where the locals go, and that doesn’t necessarily mean Thais. On the beach I met Peter and Janet Merchant, British teachers working in Bangkok, regular visitors to Hua Hin because it’s a “real town with real people”.”The King is here,” confided Andrew Ritchie, lying by the pool in the Royal Garden Village. Mr Ritchie, also an expatriate Brit, was working in China for an oil company, and something of an expert on rest and recreation in South-east Asia. Hua Hin, how- ever, remains essentially the same, and the Bangkok crowd and King Bhumibol and family are still regular visitors.
This is not a sanitised resort for foreigners, but a proper Thai seaside town with real shopping and a lively night-market that pays little attention to overseas tourists. The ruling royal family, the Chakri dynasty, discovered the seaside town of Hua Hin, 230km to the south, and beach tourism was born. Since then Thailand’s tourist landscape has changed beyond recognition, with the likes of Phuket and Ko Samui – just ignored palm-fringed strands 30 years ago – soaking up the Schmidts and the Joneses seeking a change from the Med. MANY, MANY years ago, before the first package tourists were ever delivered, the coming of the railway to Thailand lured the aristocracy out of Bangkok for the first-ever Thai weekend breaks.

The rich have long used hotels as surrogate homes but now, in the US at least, they have started buying into the hotel, gaining special privileges and dictating standards. So much for a change of scene.For further details of the hotels mentioned, contact: Westin Century Plaza (tel: 0800 282565); Hyatt (tel: 0345 581666); Mayfair Intercontinental (tel: 0171-629 7777); Le Mirador, Switzerland and Peninsula, Hong Kong can be booked through Leading Hotels of the World (tel: 0800 181123); Lindner Hotel, Frankfurt (tel: 0037 211 59 97 310).. The phone also mutes the background sound of running water and compensates for that cavernous bathroom sound.And there is a TV set in the wall at the end of the bath with a remote control panel close to the wallower’s hand. Hotels of the future will be great places for catching up on the latest TV and movies.

Those waiting for friends in the lobby at the Lindner Hotel in Frankfurt will be entertained by a TV monitor wall with 12 screens and plug-in headsets.Hotels will not be just for business or holiday visits; in some cases they will be for life. Couples will appreciate bedside sockets, which allow one to enjoy radio or TV without disturbing the other. Touch panels show weather reports; shoe boxes automatically signal the attendant to come and clean shoes; phones with world time clocks automatically set themselves to guests’ home time on check-in and display world time and public holidays.In the Pen’s bathrooms, lights can be mood set and a hands-free phone automatically mutes the radio or TV during calls while bathing or shaving and restores the programme on hanging up. Guests will no longer need a degree in engineering to operate the shower; they will just talk to the shower to control temperature and pressure Self-cleaning baths are already starting to appear. After the water drains out of a tub at Le Mirador in Switzerland it automatically spits up water through spray jets to clean itself with an alarming hissing and rumbling.Hong Kong’s Peninsula hotel already has high-tech devices powered by no fewer than 90 electrical outlets in each room.

The traditional dresser or bureau will become part of an all-purpose media wall according to Hyatt.Coming clean will also be a lot more fun. Glass screens separating bath from bed areas will defuse sun glare and reduce fly light, stopping the fading and discolouring of the decor. Hilton thinks bathroom walls will go entirely, replaced by opaque screens that can be electronically activated when privacy is required. Furniture, to appeal to both the business and the elderly leisure traveller, will be multi-purpose.