‘It’s like a graveyard’: Thailand’s famous Khaosan Road is struggling despite return of tourists

[webfact]

McDonald's clown mascot stands inside an empty burger joint on the famous Khaosan Road in Bangkok, Thailand. (Photo: Pichayada Promchertchoo)

 

Pichayada Promchertchoo

 

While international tourists are again visiting Thailand, places that rely on nightlife to draw people have yet to reap the benefits.

 

BANGKOK: The McDonald’s clown mascot stares blankly at the empty road outside the restaurant. Its wide red grin and big lifeless eyes were visible through the glass window.  

 

“Open 24 hours”, reads a blue sign on the door. But there was nobody inside the burger joint. The business has closed as a result of the pandemic, a grim fate shared by many others on Bangkok’s landmark street where they are all located - Khaosan Road.

 

The 400m stretch is well-trodden by visitors from around the world, once drawn to its active nightlife, cheap street food, shops and hotels.

 

Full story: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/thailand-khaosan-road-covid-19-nightlife-businesses-struggling-2307656

 

-- © Copyright Channel NewsAsia 2021-11-13

 

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[richard_smith237]

The area more popular with ‘budget’ tourists (back-packers) is hardly going to get busy over night as most of those who would usually stay in the area are ‘transient’ tourists who may be visiting Thailand in addition to many other countries.

 

These ‘type’ of tourists are simply not travelling at the moment due to the difficult and costly entry requirements of many countries combined with prevalence of local restrictions and then of course the actual health risks.

[grain]

Well KSR was basically a young budget traveler hangout, and it's unlikely many, if any, backpackers are currently coming in, so KSR will remain a graveyard for a long time yet. 

[jvs]

KSR was already changing before the pandemic,

They "improved "it so much it nearly collapsed onto itself.

It worked well,there was no need to fix it.

Bangkok will never be Singapore.

[Chad3000]

7 minutes ago, jvs said:

KSR was already changing before the pandemic,

They "improved "it so much it nearly collapsed onto itself.

It worked well,there was no need to fix it.

Bangkok will never be Singapore.

I'm totally with you on this but I think the travelers changed and had become much more soft. They'd come to need air conditioning and western food, smoothies, clubs and pub crawls.

 

I'd often wondered why they bothered leaving home.

 

Aside from evening beer/s when I was traveling hard a Magnum was a splurge.

 

Really hard to shed a year for those businesses.

[ezzra]

This country is littered with tourists graveyards broken lives and business in the millions and they still wont open until the 16th of Jan if they will that is.. Way to go Thailand...

[SheikYabodyline]

A victim of its own success; in their wisdom, the powers that be decided Khao San Road, heaving night after night with partiers, was a blemish on their vision of a shiny new Bangkok, replete with cleaned up klongs and vendors swept off the streets. Much that made Bangkok the mecca it was has disappeared, never to return. Such is the way of the World.

[KarenBravo]

27 minutes ago, jvs said:

KSR was already changing before the pandemic,

They "improved "it so much it nearly collapsed onto itself.

It worked well,there was no need to fix it.

Bangkok will never be Singapore.

What happened in KSR, Singapore did to Bugis Street. It became as sterile as the rest of Singapore and customers stopped going there.

 

 

Edited November 13, 2021 by KarenBravo

[khunPer]

Quality turists don't hang out in places like Khaosan Road...
The kind of Khao San Road-visitors won't come back as long as it's complicated and costly to enter Land Of Smiles, and they might in my modest opinion never come back in big lots if the tourism-recovery is based on mainly wealthy quality tourists...????

[Will B Good]

Years ago a car bomb went off in Bangkok and the RTP were on high alert (if there is such a thing).

 

The police were all lined up in the street at the end of KSR (at that time they didn't even have full uniforms...some in jeans, some wearing trainers).

 

A car broke down nearby and was being pushed down KSR and the police had to make way to let it through!

 

What a weird sight.....on high alert for car bombs and then making way for a car to be pushed through their ranks.

[mommysboy]

26 minutes ago, Chad3000 said:

I'm totally with you on this but I think the travelers changed and had become much more soft. They'd come to need air conditioning and western food, smoothies, clubs and pub crawls.

 

I'd often wondered why they bothered leaving home.

 

Aside from evening beer/s when I was traveling hard a Magnum was a splurge.

 

Really hard to shed a year for those businesses.

When I was there just before the pandemic it was still a really vibrant place.  There's more to the area than KSR.

[Will B Good]

3 minutes ago, mommysboy said:

When I was there just before the pandemic it was still a really vibrant place.  There's more to the area than KSR.

I remember the streets around there were lined with those brightly lit cocktail VW campervans, blasting out music......I imagine they have all gone now.

[FritsSikkink]

35 minutes ago, Chad3000 said:

I'm totally with you on this but I think the travelers changed and had become much more soft. They'd come to need air conditioning and western food, smoothies, clubs and pub crawls.

 

I'd often wondered why they bothered leaving home.

 

Aside from evening beer/s when I was traveling hard a Magnum was a splurge.

 

Really hard to shed a year for those businesses.

Nothing to do with hard or soft but with having money and willing to spend it.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, grain said:

Well KSR was basically a young budget traveler hangout, and it's unlikely many, if any, backpackers are currently coming in, so KSR will remain a graveyard for a long time yet. 

Used to be, till the greedies sought to profit from the reputation and ruined it, IMO. Ask the Bkk trendies why they are not there anymore. Perhaps it is no longer "the place" and they have moved on, which is what trendies do.

 

The bagpackers were relegated to the back streets around KSR.

 

IMO the best thing to happen to KSR would be a very large bulldozer.

[thaibeachlovers]

16 minutes ago, Will B Good said:

I remember the streets around there were lined with those brightly lit cocktail VW campervans, blasting out music......I imagine they have all gone now.

Good news if true.

[thaibeachlovers]

35 minutes ago, khunPer said:

Quality turists don't hang out in places like Khaosan Road...
The kind of Khao San Road-visitors won't come back as long as it's complicated and costly to enter Land Of Smiles, and they might in my modest opinion never come back in big lots if the tourism-recovery is based on mainly wealthy quality tourists...????

KSR had morphed into a Thai trendy place that was too expensive for most real bagpackers. The area around KSR was the bagpacker ghetto, no longer the road itself.

Happened many years ago when I couldn't find a cheap hotel on the road itself, and ended up staying in some place down a little lane.

[thaibeachlovers]

40 minutes ago, KarenBravo said:

What happened in KSR, Singapore did to Bugis Street. It became as sterile as the rest of Singapore and customers stopped going there.

 

 

It became a popular restaurant street, but yes sterile and boring, like the rest of the city.

Happy days there in the 70s when it rocked till after dawn ( didn't even really start till after midnight ).

I spent many a night there till the tables were removed and the cars started driving through. That toilet block should have been preserved for posterity, given what happened on its roof.

[thaibeachlovers]

57 minutes ago, Chad3000 said:

I'm totally with you on this but I think the travelers changed and had become much more soft. They'd come to need air conditioning and western food, smoothies, clubs and pub crawls.

 

I'd often wondered why they bothered leaving home.

 

Aside from evening beer/s when I was traveling hard a Magnum was a splurge.

 

Really hard to shed a year for those businesses.

They went there as the first stop on the way to the bucket and drugs parties on Had Rin. Before corona Had Rin had shed it's cheap places to stay and become a flashpacker hell hole complete with foam parties and black moon parties. Sad times.

[scubascuba3]

Without backpackers it will lack atmosphere. It was always a ball ache to get there, nowhere near sky train, maybe that's changed I haven't been for a while, but it was only good because of backpackers

[RichardColeman]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

While international tourists are again visiting Thailand, places that rely on nightlife to draw people have yet to reap the benefits.

Just reflects the rest of thailand with the thai in the ass pass remaining in place, the slow drip of only thai returnees and expats with links to thailand will save no businesses

[JensenZ]

1 hour ago, jvs said:

KSR was already changing before the pandemic,

They "improved "it so much it nearly collapsed onto itself.

It worked well,there was no need to fix it.

Bangkok will never be Singapore.

And thank God for that ("Bangkok will never be Singapore").

[JensenZ]

37 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

Without backpackers it will lack atmosphere. It was always a ball ache to get there, nowhere near sky train, maybe that's changed I haven't been for a while, but it was only good because of backpackers

It might never come back - just like Walking Street in Pattaya. A relic of times past.

[Chad3000]

1 hour ago, FritsSikkink said:

Nothing to do with hard or soft but with having money and willing to spend it.

I'd rather have another two days on the road than a night out at the pub with a bunch of strangers.

[KhunLA]

oops????

Edited November 13, 2021 by KhunLA

[Chad3000]

11 minutes ago, JensenZ said:

It might never come back - just like Walking Street in Pattaya. A relic of times past.

It's often forgotten that along with these bankruptcies and broken businesses there are people becoming fabulously wealthy.

 

Biding their time. They will move in and start new businesses on top of the carnage of decent, hard working folk. IMO this is the future.

[billd766]

1 hour ago, KarenBravo said:

What happened in KSR, Singapore did to Bugis Street. It became as sterile as the rest of Singapore and customers stopped going there.

 

 

I remember Bugis Street in the late 1960s an early 1970s.

 

57 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

It became a popular restaurant street, but yes sterile and boring, like the rest of the city.

Happy days there in the 70s when it rocked till after dawn ( didn't even really start till after midnight ).

I spent many a night there till the tables were removed and the cars started driving through. That toilet block should have been preserved for posterity, given what happened on its roof.

The toilet was a place where even guys would not go on their own, It was a katoey hangout and the smell was bad enough to keep people away unless they were really desperate.

[Lemsta69]

31 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

Without backpackers it will lack atmosphere. It was always a ball ache to get there, nowhere near sky train, maybe that's changed I haven't been for a while, but it was only good because of backpackers

the last time I was there was in 2014 and it was a shodow of its former self. I first visited there quite late in the piece, towards the end of 1997. I believe the heyday was a few years before then. 

 

I hung out on Soi Rambuttri with an eclectic bunch of farang. there was a document forger who also sold pot, a drunk on his ass Yank who claimed to have down F4s out of Urban, English teachers, a crazy drunken Irish dude who claimed to be a bodyguard for Hun Sen, guys who claimed to have spent time in both Indian jails and IDC. they used to go out the back and snort heroin lol. one dude got called away in handcuffs by the BiB for slinging dope lol.

 

the dirt-cheap hostel we hung out had a bar but it was 'expensive' so we'd head out into the laneway where the owner of a little shop right next to the hostel had set up chairs and tables next to the temple wall.  he had a big metal box full of beer and ice which he protected with a chain and padlock. oh, and an Alsatian for good measure. he was allegedly the sworn enemy of our hostel's owner. he had seven amulets on a chain around good neck and he scared the hell out of me.

 

other dudes would turn up with tales of smoking opium up on the Mekong and shooting AKs and RPGs on an army base outside of Phnom Penh.

 

good times ????

 

I knew that the sky was falling in the following year when a group of young flashpackers turned up and went happy listening to Kiss FM (if memory serves) so they asked the barmaid to put on their Kylie Minogue cassette. the horror, the horror!

 

I've been back since and enjoyed it but it doesn't quite have the same edge as back in the "good old days" ????

[Lemsta69]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

It became a popular restaurant street, but yes sterile and boring, like the rest of the city.

Happy days there in the 70s when it rocked till after dawn ( didn't even really start till after midnight ).

I spent many a night there till the tables were removed and the cars started driving through. That toilet block should have been preserved for posterity, given what happened on its roof.

I got there in 1997 and encountered said sterility. no thanks Singers you can jam it. the only reason I stayed for six weeks was because there was a halfway decent bunch of reprobates living at the Waffles Homestay, now Cosy Corner Bagpackers on North Bridge Road. 

 

so more stories about the old days please, everybody know they were better ????

[JensenZ]

11 minutes ago, Chad3000 said:

It's often forgotten that along with these bankruptcies and broken businesses there are people becoming fabulously wealthy.

 

Biding their time. They will move in and start new businesses on top of the carnage of decent, hard working folk. IMO this is the future.

I never fogot this. The world's wealthy have increased their combined wealth by about 50% since the pandemic began. I'm sure that goes for Thailand's billionaires too.

 

However, the wealthy who acquire real estate in KSR and Walking Street might have different ideas of what to do with it.

[cmsally]

12 minutes ago, Chad3000 said:

It's often forgotten that along with these bankruptcies and broken businesses there are people becoming fabulously wealthy.

 

Biding their time. They will move in and start new businesses on top of the carnage of decent, hard working folk. IMO this is the future.

That is exactly what is happening. However I think there is a miscalculation on their part as to who the consumers might be. I think their "vision" is clouded by greed.