Asia Hotel is fine. And convenient. I mean safe also cos you can return home from late night shopping via train cos the hotel is linked with the train station. I find it okay lah.
BKK Palacce is great when I went there. Cheap and clean to me....breakfast nothing much lah and dun expect the comforts of a 5 star hotel....but it is walking distance to WTC, along with great street side shopping on the way there. Very convenient.
PP is ex but of course nice and clean and next to (also considered above) Maboonkong (MBK) the biggest shopping mall in BKK. So it is very easy to go buy last minute stuff. But then again, cos it is city central, everytime you wanna go out, it is JAM.
Another cheap and good place is where most travel agents bring you....Empress Hotel/ D'ma Hotel / Mercury (last known as Bangkok Palacce). You can walk (alongside hawker stalls and great food and a tailor I always got to) to major shopping area of town from there!!!!
I find BKK safe. Unless you walk in dimly lit streets and back alleys lah....but hor, walk on the roads and no one disturb you. I feel safer than in Malaysia....namely cos I feel that the people there understand the impt of tourism to them...so they also dun try to be funny with us....Me and my gf took cab to MBK at 7+ and shop by ourselves till it close, wander the streets for makan and wait for her hubby. Quite alright. Just practise cautious in terms of not wearing too revealing clothes and not wearing too much jewellery, do to ladies in pairs, slash your cash here and there dun put everything in one wallet..blah blah blah....