jetassistedostrich

So you did. My apologies for not paying better attention.

p.s. I'll offer a finder's fee to anyone who can locate a low mileage Grand Vitara 4x4 for me! They are really difficult to locate.

Thanks a lot for your prompt response. Unfortunately I'm only interested in 4x4. That's what puts the Vitara in my sights. I launch a boat  from a slippery slipway. I used to have a Suzuki Caribbean but I want something that's more comfortable on long trips.

Is this vehicle still available?

If so what's the mileage now please?

Later Grand Vitaras did not have 4x4. Is this one 4x4?

Thanks for your attention.

David

Shame I didn't take more photos back in the 80's !

Although around that time (early 90's) I spent a few trips with friends who were working in BKK at Laem Set Inn.

A search on the internet showed up that it was closed and even someone seemed to have taken photos recently of the place almost totally overgrown !

Does anyone know what happened.

A guy called Christian first opened Laem Set Inn when one day some locals did the place over and gang raped his Thai wife on the restaurant tables in front of him. After that he sold the place to a Brit pilot we knew as Crazy Dave, who served behind the counter with a loaded shotgun and a guard dog by his side. We had just opened Kati Lodge on Chaweng (now Tradewinds) and used to visit Dave which my Thai wife remarked she would never live there as it was too remote.

Holy c... didn't know that ! Was it "crazy Dave" there in '92-'93 ?

Had some really good weekends there with friends. Can't believe its more than 20years ago.

Yes Dave and his wife Toi ran a great show and the food was good too. As I recall. during the '90's access was becoming more and more difficult with landowners putting up fences and blocking the old trails and once Centara built their holiday villas next door, there was no way in so we stopped going.

Here's what actually happened, from the horse's mouth so to speak: Toi and I were neither bullied, (well, not more than we could easily handle anyway), nor forced out. We sold and retired and have, for several years, been living on our barge-yacht in France, cruising the European waterways. We worked hard for 20+ years and moved on. Laem Set Inn was so far out of the mainstream tourist format that subsequent owners found it impossible to run. The whole shimmering illusion was held up by our focus, and when we removed that, it all collapsed. I am sometimes asked if I am sad to see pictures of it in its state today, and the answer is: "no, Angkor Wat is in ruins; civilizations themselves rise and fall, I have just had an accelerated lesson in the temporal nature of all things. I am happier to see the skeleton of a dream than to watch a Frankenstein-like resurrection on its bones." Old guests can contact us via the website: www.laemsetinn.com . We know that we changed many lives through our work: people met there, came back to get married, and then visited with their children, and many others carry the memory of a dream with them even today. That was our oeuvre; we made many people happy and that's where the legacy lies, not in the crumbling physical structure.