Changes in Bangkok

[holy cow cm]

6 hours ago, Nyezhov said:

I think I remember that. I spent more time down by the tracks though ????

So you remember the ole drinking spot at the train tracks. 

[Nyezhov]

4 minutes ago, holy cow cm said:

So you remember the ole drinking spot at the train tracks. 

yeah the beer bars. Anybody been to the Tahitian Queen in Pattaya? 

[holy cow cm]

2 hours ago, Nyezhov said:

yeah the beer bars. Anybody been to the Tahitian Queen in Pattaya? 

The beer bars were on the left side just before the tracks, but the oldie would have been on the opposite side of the road just before crossing the tracks sort of in a cut off Sukhumvit road and was the late late drinking open air made of nothing place. No walls just chairs etc and a roof.  Thai locals and girls would go to drink after all had closed just to continue on. That was the first train tracks watering hole for after Nana hours.

[1FinickyOne]

On 10/13/2019 at 12:44 PM, villagefarang said:

I seem to remember there were three tall buildings back then, Indra Hotel, Dusit Hotel and the Chok Chai Building out on Sukhumvit.  No expressway, no skytrain, no cellphones, basically a never-ending list of things big and small.  Life is much easier and more convenient these days.  It can be a bit hard to get your bearings if you have been away for a few years, though.

I was last there 4 years ago... I didn't need my bearings. The taxi turned down Sathorn Tai and just sat there... We didn't move for 30 minutes. I got out and walked. I would have to live somewhere where there is food in walking distance.. 

[villagefarang]

21 minutes ago, kenk24 said:

On 10/13/2019 at 12:44 PM, villagefarang said:

I seem to remember there were three tall buildings back then, Indra Hotel, Dusit Hotel and the Chok Chai Building out on Sukhumvit.  No expressway, no skytrain, no cellphones, basically a never-ending list of things big and small.  Life is much easier and more convenient these days.  It can be a bit hard to get your bearings if you have been away for a few years, though.

I was last there 4 years ago... I didn't need my bearings. The taxi turned down Sathorn Tai and just sat there... We didn't move for 30 minutes. I got out and walked. I would have to live somewhere where there is food in walking distance..

During the 30 years I lived in Bangkok, location was very important.  These days when we visit Bangkok from Chiangrai, we stay in hotels in the area where we use to live or at a friend's condo which is conveniently located fairly near a skytrain station.

[josephbloggs]

1 hour ago, holy cow cm said:

The beer bars were on the left side just before the tracks, but the oldie would have been on the opposite side of the road just before crossing the tracks sort of in a cut off Sukhumvit road and was the late late drinking open air made of nothing place. No walls just chairs etc and a roof.  Thai locals and girls would go to drink after all had closed just to continue on. That was the first train tracks watering hole for after Nana hours.

Soi zero!

[steven100]

1 hour ago, villagefarang said:

During the 30 years I lived in Bangkok

so you were still a tourist  …..  

with 37 yrs under my belt I can remember numerous changes and funny stories.

 

 

Edited October 14, 2019 by steven100

[villagefarang]

20 minutes ago, steven100 said:

1 hour ago, villagefarang said:

During the 30 years I lived in Bangkok

so you were still a tourist  …..  

with 37 yrs under my belt I can remember numerous changes and funny stories.

We are definitely tourists these days when we go to Bangkok and normally a few days is enough to get things done, see friends and shop.  Then it is back to Chiangrai where we have lived for more than 12 years.

 

The last time I was a tourist coming from overseas was back in 1975 to 1977.

Edited October 14, 2019 by villagefarang

[holy cow cm]

1 hour ago, josephbloggs said:

Soi zero!

Basically. 

[Wiggy]

Most of the buses haven't changed though. We still have the smoke-belching pieces of **** plying the same routes.

[kingstonkid]

Property values have risen and people that own the properties are now looking to upgrade and make the changes.  A lot of the old places are going away.

All you have to do is look around the area of sala daeng and you can see it.

 

Personally I think PAT PONG is going to be gone in 10 years if not sooner.

People are not interested in the market there and the stalls and the ping pong shoes are over done.

 

Every other part of the area is upgraded and from what I am told the rents that are being charged are through the roof.

 

Khao san had to make a few changes to stay relevant as there are not as many backpackers as there used to be.

 

For the rest of the city it is easy to explain Bangkok is a major international city therefore like Toronto and Ottawa in Canada and Las Vegas and other NYC and other cities it has to grow.

[Catoni]

On 10/12/2019 at 3:33 AM, OneMoreFarang said:

27 years, and things changed. Amazing, and so unexpected. ???? 

Everything always changes in this world.  My grandfather was shocked at how much things changed between the early 1900's and 1980.  

      Years ago I had next door neighbours.... wonderful very elderly husband and wife in their 90's.... who lived before the Wright brothers got off the ground... and lived to see men walk on the moon and jet travel across oceans. Amazing to visit that couple and spend a couple hours talking about the past and what they had seen and experienced. 

    Things change... can't escape that..... Welcome to life and planet Earth. 

[wavodavo]

On 10/14/2019 at 12:09 PM, moontang said:

oh, and who remembers the Hollywood Bar at NEP...never seen anything better since.  Did a grand mariner and got a juice glass filled to the rim.  

I also moss washinhton square .had many a good niye at yhe New squate one bar. It was dirty and grotty but the Girls were great.owned by a pommy.

[metempsychotic]

17 hours ago, holy cow cm said:

So you remember the ole drinking spot at the train tracks. 

Buckskin Joe's viilage, but always referred tos Soi Zero. 

 

Many things have changed radically. 

 

The mrt and Skytrain, there used to be a wet market on the corner of asoke and Sukhumvit. 

[VocalNeal]

17 hours ago, Nyezhov said:

yeah the beer bars. Anybody been to the Tahitian Queen in Pattaya? 

Yes some years ago. A certain Hash usually ends there. Or used to.

 

Back to Bangkok. What about the gravel car park at the corner of Asok. The original? location of Lolitas. 

[Thingamabob]

Loss, years ago, of the original Queen's Castle on Patpong 1. Described in Time Magazine as one of the best nightclubs in the world. And it was.

[OneMoreFarang]

2 hours ago, Catoni said:

Everything always changes in this world.  My grandfather was shocked at how much things changed between the early 1900's and 1980.  

      Years ago I had next door neighbours.... wonderful very elderly husband and wife in their 90's.... who lived before the Wright brothers got off the ground... and lived to see men walk on the moon and jet travel across oceans. Amazing to visit that couple and spend a couple hours talking about the past and what they had seen and experienced. 

    Things change... can't escape that..... Welcome to life and planet Earth. 

Good comment.

 

"Your" old couple reminds me of  biography of Albert Einstein and this theories, especially the theory of relativity. At the beginning of his live he lived in a house without electricity. But his thoughts were decades ahead. Amazing!

[OneMoreFarang]

4 minutes ago, Thingamabob said:

Loss, years ago, of the original Queen's Castle on Patpong 1. Described in Time Magazine as one of the best nightclubs in the world. And it was.

Any pictures?

[Thingamabob]

1 minute ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Any pictures?

I'll check. I have one or two just need to remember where they are.

[holy cow cm]

24 minutes ago, metempsychotic said:

Buckskin Joe's viilage, but always referred tos Soi Zero. 

 

Many things have changed radically. 

 

The mrt and Skytrain, there used to be a wet market on the corner of asoke and Sukhumvit. 

I am actually talking about before Soi 0 or Buckskin Joe's Village popped up. This was directly on the opposite side of the road, a makeshift drinking spot directly sitting pretty near the tracks with chairs and a makeshift roof and if I remember right could have something to eat. It was totally after hours railroad track spot for the Bar Girl and Expat team. You would walk up Sumkhuvit and just before the track flip a right and there you were.

[thaiboss]

BEERGARTEN SOI 7 SUKHUMVIT BANGKOK  Still stand.............open

[holy cow cm]

How about the Farang Connection at Nana in the older days and then over at Patpong the Tavern. those were some great times at both those places. 

[holy cow cm]

Or how about Patpong 1 main Soi at the end near Surriwong. There used to be an open Thai boxing ring on the left side that would let tourists come up and fight the small Thai boxers and lady boys. I used to watch the military guys think they were all that and get the holy stuffing knocked out of them. Funniest was by the lady boys and honestly scariest thing I ever saw. Learned what not to do thinking I am the international tough guy by watching.. 

[dluek]

Forget since I first came to Bangkok; it has changed massively even in the last few years. Tons of new buildings (Icon Siam, Mahanakorn Tower, etc.), many new metro lines either already open or under construction, and the whole character of the city has changed since the military started "sanitizing" the city. Formerly crowded markets like Saphan Han are now empty canal-side walkways, and former villages have been erased from the face of the earth. Fewer street vendors including at whole markets like Suk 38 - that is gone. Khao San Road has completely changed and will continue to change as they revamp it this year. A bunch of night markets were closed and now you have to go out to the fringes to find a decent night market in Bangkok. 

 

Actually there are now more homeless people because of all the forced displacement. The BMA gets most of the blame for that, but some of it has been the result of temples deciding to kick people off their land who had been living there for generations. For example, stilted wood houses used to line the riverfront at Wat Kalayanamit; those were completely destroyed a few years back. And at Wat Yannawa, an entire village was destroyed to build a a concrete lot that is always empty. And then there's the stately British embassy recently destroyed. Come back in a couple of years and Hualamphong station will be, what, a museum? Eventually all of the bus stations except Sai Tai will be moved further out of the city - Morchit to Rangsit and Ekkamai to Bang Na. Lots of heritage buildings have been torn down in Chinatown to make way for the new metro stations. In the Old Town, restorations of century-old shophouses has made them all identical in a lot of places, like Phraeng Phuthon. 

 

And the above barely scratches the surface... 

[Time Traveller]

I miss the times when bars/discos were open 24 hours.

[Jane Dough]

I've been in Bangkok nearly 40 years.

 

I've changed far more than the city. 

 

Rooster

[allanos]

Which all goes to show that nostalgia ain't what it used to be! ????

[tatom]

Television 24 hours a day.

[brakar]

Some pictures taken on my first trip to Bangkok in july 1998. The area around Sukhumvit/Nana.

 

[7000gods]

Very sad news for me...

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