Swelters

Wasn't the casting director Beth something-or-other? She's a friend of mine, with lotsa good stories. Reason I don't know her last name is she's remarried.

Seeking nominations for small restaurants or stalls with good quality inexpensive food and pleasant surroundings. My nominations are mid-Sukhumvit, and sorry about the incomplete directions but want to get this up while the idea is hot. We've been to them dozens of times. Selfish instincts argue for keeping them secret, but the owners are all nice and hard working and deserve a little more business.

1. Supalot, Soi 23. Thai bookstore/restaurant with nice fusion menu, friendly folks, coffee-house atmosphere. A block or so down soi 23 after Taipan hotel.

2. Foodstall on the east corner of the little short soi on the north side of Sukhumvit just to the west of Prom Pong BTS. Just a few tables, good fish dishes.

3. Takop, open garden venue about 200 meters down Thonglor Soi 10, right side. Excellent Plaa Chon, either braised of fried (Larb plaa chon tort).

4. Italian place half a block south of the entrance to Bunrungard Hospital on soi 1 (? first soi after the RR tracks) Owner (Italian) sings. We'd like to find more Italian places like this.

Good stuff here, but getting scattered. I'm going to start another thread called "Small, pleasant, family-run food venues" that might appeal to both thai and fahlang.

Sorry man, I can't help you. (I don't smoke.)

Soon... I might. Who knows?

Nominated for the best reply seen on thaivisa.com since 1963. I'll be sure to let you know if I find any.

My plan .......I am also coming in with a one-way ticket from the United States............

Doesn't sound like a very good idea to me.

Used to be able to buy them, 50 to a wood box, back 40 years ago, BKK or upcountry. Lot of them had wormholes and wouldn't draw smoke, but they were a bargain nonetheless. A little like Parodis. Any one know if they are still around? Or for that matter, where a gentleman can purchase Parodis in these parts?

Swelters, take a look at the picture entitled: "The daily tram - August 31, 2004

Bangkok tram route #4, circa 1964-65" at the tram site: http://www.2bangkok.com/2bangkok/Tram/dailytram.shtml

Actually that jeep is a US military jeep model circa 64 or so. My old jeep was maybe 1952. When it would start to fail they'd just strip it down and rebuild with few if any factory parts.

For Isan fans who want to know the 1950s up around Mahasarakam there is a good book by a Brit called "The Far Country" about his teaching experiences there, he was in the Brit version of the Peace Corps., I forget the name.

I just returned from Isan today which shook loose some amazing things I'll post one of these days.

One comment that deserves comment is the reference here to the now ancient myth that American GIs brought sex and drugs to devout Thailand. Sorry, gents, but it was all here in the prewar sixties in almost exactly the same form as present.

In the villages you could pick marijuana by any roadside for free. It was interesting to see how and when the villagers would choose their intoxicant du jour. Nam kaow (which used to mean rice beer), ganja, and "mekong" which is the same pleasant rum-like stuff you see everywhere now were the usual choices. I don't remember lao kaow but I suppose it was there. too.

Since marijuana seemed so exciting in those days I once asked one of the locals why he didn't smoke that instead paying to drink alcohol.

"I don't like."

"Why?"

"Make me feel very small."

Just to give the flavor of 1963, the first is a nice clean Bangkok canal, you could swim in them

the second a nice clean and empty highway from Saraburi to Korat (approximately where all the cement factories are now), you could wait twenty minutes for a car

and the third the Tambon where I would buy my Singha. My jeep the only car in town. I recently identified the same spot where this photo was taken and there was a new Benz parked there.

I lived in upcountry Isan starting in 1963, it was before the troop buildup there and as someone else has pointing out it was like rural Laos now, unpaved roads, no TV or electricity. I'd buy Singh by the case and canned tunafish in weekly visits to the changwat and at night back in the village listen to the BBC on the shortwave and the local stations which featured a lot of Mor Lam and smoke these Chinese cigars that were like Parodis, except a lot of them had worm holes and you had to throw them away and try a new one. The local pooyai bahn would take me hunting with him, sometimes at night, but I apparently made too much noise so we didn't have much luck, and one night I got dengue fever which discouraged night hunting.

The Erawan Hotel was a wooden building in those days, it seemed on the edge of town. The little shopping center across the street had pizza. There were a few clubs around town, the Beatles were new that fall and the Phillipine musicians were playing "I want to hold your hand" sounding just as good as the Beatles themselves.

I could go on a bit, maybe I'll start a blog on this.

here....

This is an old Thai house.

<p><p>A long drive from Bangkok, the other direction from Dah's village.

This house is, as Auntie Dah said when she saw it, "only about 40

percent fall down." To Jack, it looked like a heap of decayed wood

scraps, good at best to make a campfire.

Hi Isan Folks:

Been in Thailand a while but just discovered this great forum.

Any fahlangs been around Isan in the 1960s? I spent a couple of years myself in the hills south of Korat, before the big US troop influx in 1964. Be interesting to exchange some memories if anyone goes back that far.

Swelters

I don't know about this idea of "one way tickets", doesn't sound wise to me. Better make some progressively lengthier trips and gradual commitments to keep yourself in balance.

Couple of years ago a friend of mine and I, middle age Americans, compared notes on what it took to live comfortably and single in Bangkok's Sukhumvit area on an interim month-to-month basis, we found about $100 US a day would do it. Others seem to be doing it long term on as little as $35 a day but they typically describe themselves as "not having any money."