HugoFastor

There is a 2013 republished/reprinted 20th anniversary edition of Tim's book available on Amazon in paperback for around $17 and a kindle version too I believe. It appears you can also download the original book for free from archives.org in either ePub or PDF formats. Or just read it online from the link below: https://archive.org/details/whatthebuddhanevertaughttimward_48_B Also, did anyone read the book that was written about Trink titled "But, I don't give a hoot!" by Jennifer Bliss?

An interesting read from the early nineties, away from the nightlife, was: "What the Buddha Never Taught: A 'Behind the Robes" Account of Life in a Thai Forest Monastery" by Tim Ward. And on a more lighthearted note, you have these 2 from the early nineties: Waylaid By the Bimbos by James Eckardt Kicking Dogs by Collin Piprell

I don't know much about The Malaysia Hotel, as I was rarely in that area and never went there myself. But following is an excerpt from the 1992 edition of the Lonely Planet guide book on Thailand. Sounds like it could have been a mixed bag, depending on the time of day:

In the late nineties a friend of mine would check in to The Atlanta early in the day, either on a Friday or Saturday, and then often bring girls back there with him in the evenings. Never a problem as far as I know. Not sure if he was charged a joiner fee or not. There was also The Golden Gate hotel on Soi 2, in the same area of The Atlanta, not sure what it was like though. The Manhattan Hotel I mentioned in a previous post was actually on Suk Soi 13. Similar location as The Miami Hotel. Gone now though. There is a new 3-star hotel now on Suk Soi 15 called Hotel Manhattan. Unrelated I assume. The other 2-star hotel I was thinking of earlier was the Malaysia Hotel (not the Asia Hotel) on Soi Ngam Duplhi. Although, not in the Sukhumvit area, I think it had a lot of girls hanging out in and around the lobby and the coffee shop of the hotel, kind of like the Nana Hotel had back in the day. So it was a bit of a scene at that time and yet the hotel is still there today.

It was either a Nokia 2110 or one of the various other Nokia models that looked very similar at the time. Nice big screen. Was actually a bit smaller in width (possibly height too) than many of the larger smartphones around these days. Fit nicely in either my back or front pocket. My company must have paid over 25,000 Baht for it at the time. I had a Motorola brick phone almost 10 years prior to that.

Someone mentioned cell phones earlier, I remember the company I was working for gave me a cell phone to use in 1996. That was my first one in Bangkok. They had been around for at least 5-6 years already at that time I think. We also had internet and email access already in 96'

I stayed not far from WS at that time. There were some good places around the area to eat. An excellent Thai restaurant on Soi 22 around the corner called Rahn Derm. Also a northern Thai place a few shops down from it called Ging Glao. And then you had that New Orleans place, which was popular, I think I went once and wasn't particularly overwhelmed. The WS movie theatre was a good value though. Saw a number of films there, before it turned into a cabaret show venue. All the beer bars in there looked pretty tired though. Never ventured into to any of them. There were many better options at the time.

A house on Soi 11? Still to this day? Don't recall ever seeing one. 30 years ago a friend of mine used to stay there at the Grand President in a serviced apartment. I would go down there to meet him. Wasn't much on that Soi back then in the way of restaurants or bars. Only a few. There was mainly an Italian place I think and The Federal Hotel coffee shop. Living there now must be a wasteland of noise at night though.

Yes, by 2000, the whole scene changed. Patpong started entering into the death throes era. Cowboy and Nana had become cliched and more frequented by Japanese tourists. The club scene in Suk Soi 11 had emerged. Thermae had also become something mainly for the Japanese. Bossy and Spicy out by National Stadium area became the new after hours replacements for expats. And fewer and fewer local expats, the ones who weren't regional expat tourists, had abandoned most of the old haunts.

My memory is a bit foggy, but I think there were even a few more hotels in this genre: The Tai-Pan, The Asia (Soi Ngam Duphli I think), The White Orchid, and I think there was also one on Petchaburi Road close to the Sukhumvit Soi 3 intersection, but the name of that one evades me now. Maybe someone else with a better memory can help to fill in the blanks and correct any errors I made. In one of my previous posts, I also accidentally referred to the Atlanta as the Atlantic. Was there also one called The Atlantic somewhere too?

Interesting point and makes more sense why Trink's column was eventually shuttered in 2003. Towards the late nineties, that whole segment of the Bangkok nightlife scene, which had existed since the seventies, had perished. A different style of Bangkok nightlife emerged, away from all the go-go bars, the small expat/British style pubs, and the vibrant Patpong late night disco and bar scene was gone too. So the things that Trink covered, and Stickman did for that matter, were basically more of just a memory by the time the year 2000 rolled in. End of an era really.

Thanks, someone mentioned earlier, it was called Bobby's Arms.

I'm glad that you mentioned Crutchley. This triggered my memory of some of the other proper writers who used to write on various different subjects about Thailand 25-30 years ago. I actually had a list at one time of books I had read back then, and that I liked, but I can't find the list now. However, just going from memory, some of the proper writers that I can still recall are listed below. There were of course, many others, probably another couple dozen in fact. Anyway, if you have any others that you feel are notable and worth mentioning then please do. Pico Iyer Collin Piprell Jerry Hopkins John Burdett Philip Cornwel-Smith William Warren Kenneth Champeon

Because they were. 😂

I remember when someone told me his column was ending or had ended around the time it stopped being published. I personally wouldn't have noticed either way because I wasn't a reader, but, if I recall correctly, the snarky jibes at the time were that he wasn't fired, but that he was being shuffled off to the rubber room where he could continue his writings in peace. I guess the notion was that towards the end of his reign at BP that he was losing touch, that his writings were becoming a bit incoherent, and to the point they no longer offered much utility. I don't know, because I never really read his stuff much anyway, so maybe this is anecdotal. But the fact that he continued doing some book reviews for BP, for a few more years after his column was deprecated, means he was seemingly still able to produce some useful content.

Ah, cheers. The bottles hanging in Mizu's restaurant were Chianti I believe, an Italian red wine. Not sure if he sold it there or not. Chianti bottles these days are no longer packaged in those straw woven baskets though.

Perhaps the Patpong area can't easily be raised and redeveloped into a shopping mall because of the issue that Patpong 1 Road is a city street and property of the government. Speaking of the old days of Patpong, although PP wasn't a place I spent that much time at, does anyone remember the old Mizu's Sarika Steak House owned by Akio Masakari? It was probably the oldest of any of the venues in Patong 1 and I believe it was the oldest independent non-Thai restaurant in the country, until it eventually closed down. I think Akio opened his first location on Patpong 1 in 1954, and, by the mid to late sixties moved his deeper place inside Patpong 1 about 1/3 of the way down from the Suriwong end. Walking through the doorway of that place was like going through a time warp, even 30 years ago. I vividly remember the sticky/greasy red checkered tablecloths, the sizzling Sarika Steaks for under 200 Baht, and old Akio quietly sitting at the register with a cigarette permanently fastened to his lips. And then he had that large gaggle of empty bottles of some alcoholic beverage hanging behind the counter for decoration. After coming inside from the blistering heat and nigh time noise from Patpong itself, and into that cool, quiet place, it was a feeling of being instantly being transcended from a rock concert into an oasis of quiet and calm. I never did figure out what those old bottles were though hanging above and behind the counter? Old Japanese sake bottles perhaps? I also wonder if Trink regularly ate there too? I think Mizu's finally closed down in March 2019 after about a 60 year run. Akio was possibly in his nineties by then.

Was there also a popular watering on PP2 that could only be reached by entering through the carpark above Foodland supermarket?

Maybe I'll quite in 20 years. Eh, make it 40.

A picture of Trink from 2019 linked from the stickmanbangkok.com website: https://www.stickmanbangkok.com/app/uploads/2020/10/Bernard-Trink-September-2019.jpg

You made me more curios about The Serpent's main shooting locations. So I did a bit more digging and following is what I found. As I said, not much shooting was actually done at The Miami Hotel, however many articles written about the series had led people to believe that this was one of the main locations. They only filmed a few scenes in the lobby, outside the hotel, and they had created a fake bar on the second floor in front of the elevator where they shot at least one other scene. The production crew had also wanted to film the murder scenes in The Miami Hotel, but they wouldn't allow it. I also learned that some scenes were shot at The Atlantic Hotel on Soi 2, the hotel I mentioned in my previous post, but I hadn't been aware that The Atlantic was also used as a Serpent location until now. I also found the name of the apartment complex in Soi 4 where most of the shooting was done and it's called Baan Bellawin. It's also still standing and the main apartment used for filming is still occupied. You can find it on Google Maps. The wrong information I had gotten about it already being torn down was something I had read in a Conde Nast article from a few years ago on the link below. Perhaps the reason CN didn't give the name of the apartment complex, and had said that it was being torn down, was because they didn't want a flood of curious lookie-loos popping by. https://www.cntraveller.com/gallery/where-was-the-serpent-filmed Also, the Kanit House, which I mentioned was on Sathorn, was close, but actually over at 77/5 Soi Saladaeng. Not sure what's on the property now and how long ago Kanit was taken down.

BTW, yes, there are/were a few other hotels designed like The Miami Hotel in and around Sukhumvit. The Honey Hotel on Suk Soi 19 is the one I think you were referring to. There also used to be The Federal Hotel on Suk Soi 11. There was also one called The Manhattan, but I can't remember where it was. There was The Rex Hotel on Suk, closer to Ekamai. And still very much standing is The Florida Hotel on Phayathai Road and The Atlanta Hotel on Suk Soi 2. Funny thing about the Atlanta is that the sign right in front of the hotel says "Sex Tourists Not Welcome". Kind of hard to imagine they would get anything but. From what I recall, it was always the Nana Hotel overflow crowd. All of these were probably built in the 50s or 60s too.

I saved 100K Baht for cutting off my Mia Noi FFS!

Sad, I didn't know Cleo passed away over 20 years ago. In fact, after reading the book, I think I only thought of her a few times when books about Bangkok nightlife came up in conversation. Never met her and didn't know much else about what she did with her life after that. She certainly had a lot of spirit though. I just read her wiki and how she died still seems to be a bit of a mystery. Don't know The Cedar Tavern, gone already I assume. Cleo strikes me as the kind of person who would have liked to meet up somewhere around 8th street, McDougall, maybe in Washington Square park or perhaps at The Scrap Bar or The Peppermint Lounge. 😉

I think what made Trink's look so unusual, more than his big round owl medallion, was that he wore the waist of his pants up around the top of his abdomen. Made him appear to have longer legs and a very short upper torso. Not sure why he did that though. I think only a few of the lobby scenes from The Serpent were actually shot at the Miami Hotel. The majority of the scenes were shot at a small apartment complex inside Sukhumvit Soi 4. The complex was actually about to be demolished when the location scouts for the production team of The Serpent spotted it. Because of its layout with the swimming pool, they paid a lot of money to the owner of the small complex to use the location for the shooting of the Serpent and not have it torn down until filming was completed. Now it's gone. The Miami Apartments I was referring to in my original post was on New Petchaburi Road and was not the Miami Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 13. But the two were actually owned by the same owner. The Miami Apartments' architectural design might've been also a suitable filming location for The Serpent, but I think it was already demolished by that time and not sure if it had a pool. They needed one of those small, 1940s style apartment complexes in Bangkok with a swimming pool to mimic the look of Kanit House, which is long gone and was the place where Sobhraj had lived in Sathorn. It wasn't such an easy thing for the scouts to find 60 years later. I read Odzer's book about 30 years ago. Wasn't overly impressed. A bit disappointed in fact how she came to Bangkok to do one thing for her PhD and ended up hooking up with a local guy instead, having a troubled, whirlwind relationship with him, and not really finishing her thesis in the way she had set out. It started out as a project with an interesting and useful narrative and then ended up as a rather typical Bangkok downward spiral story. I don't mean to sound critical of her outcome, because that's how real life often turns out; not exactly as one would have planned. But when you write a book about it, the reader kind of expects things to end on a more enlightening note.