What Was Thailand Like Years Ago

[Mosha]

Early 90's and one of my friends announced he was marrying his girl. So we decided on a stag night. No women just beer. So we told our girls, upto you but we boys are having a night out. One of the girl's sister had a British Brother in Law and understood. She explained it to the rest. So we went to out to favourite evening haunt down Sukhumvit, the Cock and Bull. It's long gone. The girls there tried every trick in their reportoire. We just laughed and got drunk, at the end out of desperation one girl jumped on the table and showed us she had no knickers on. We just doubled up in laughter, I think they thought we liked boys more at that stage.

[Felt 35]

What Was Thailand Like Years Ago

Chiang Mai girls would come to my house and knock on the door at all hours of the day and night just to have sex. No money involved. They just wanted sex.

Clearly better

[Ulysses G.]

What Was Thailand Like Years Ago

Chiang Mai girls would come to my house and knock on the door at all hours of the day and night just to have sex. No money involved. They just wanted sex.

Clearly better

Everything is accurate other than the "no money involved" part, but 100-500 baht is almost no money!

[grumpy_old_retired]

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?au...&user=35372

(NOTE: I do not know how to link my albums. Any help would be appreciated.)

I will not take credit for the pictures in the photo album. I found them on the internet, recognized some of the girls and downloaded them. From very early 1970s of Korat, Utapao, and Bangkok.

1966. Bangkok had a population of approx 2 million. Stayed at Opera Hotel where a lot of Gis from Viet Nam spent their time on R&R. Other R&R hotels included Rose, Grace, Florida, First, Imperial, Windsor, among many others. Beer Singh, 40 baht large bottle. Hotel 80 baht day. Girls 100 baht all night. Hired car and driver 100 baht all day (including all night). Bangkok had many canals/klongs and very clean. Trees lined many of the streets. Working girls (office workers) wore the traditional Thai dress. From Don Mong to city, nothing but rice fields until getting to Victory Monument. Street cars everywhere. I believe Dusit Hotel was in the mist of construction at the time (the first major high rise hotel).

1967. Spent 6 months in Thailand traveling to the city and military bases at Nakorn Phanom, Korat, Ubon, Udorn, Takhli, and Don Mong. Spent 3 weeks at each location with breaks in Bangkok. Traveled by military C130 to each location. If you saw one city at this period of time, you saw them all. No paved streets. Each town was surrounded by rice fields or forest. Bars were everywhere. Cannot describe the bars - some were open air, some enclosed. No large hotels. Food was very cheap. Thai noodle soup 3-5 baht, beer 30 baht, girls (all night) 60 baht and no bar fine - independent workers. Tuk-Tuk to town anywhere from 2 - 5 baht. Girls in bars dressed any way they wanted to. Go-Go bars were unrestricted (everything went on at these bars - drunk customers eating at the 'Y' was common (????)) - bare breast and everything in between (?).

1967. First trip to my former wife's village 7 KM outside Phayao. Trip from Bangkok to Phayao - 2 days. Last 137 KM was over a 2-lane (?) dirt road through the mountains. Cannot describe how terrifying it was! No guard rails, traffic from both directions, and shear drops! Once out of Bangkok all roads were 2-Lane, some paved, some not. The paved road from Bangkok to Korat was originally built by the Triple Nickel outfit (USAF/Corp of Engineers).

1968. Another 6 months in Thailand traveling to the same cities and military bases at Nakorn Phanom, Korat, Ubon, (except) Udorn, Takhli, and Don Mong. Also included Utapao. Met up with and spent time with some of the same girls from first trip. Traveled by train to Ubon - asked for first class ticket but ended up with (?) - ate bugs all the way over there - all windows were open and no AC compartments (what a miserable trip).

1974-1976. Utapao - 6 months then transferred to Ko Ka Air Station (Lampang). Lived in Bang Chang. Pattaya was a small country town. Many grass constructed beer bars on both sides of main road. Water, as everyone has stated, was crystal clear. Ko Ka - Traveled 2 times a week to Chiang Mai airport to pick up supplies. Many of the main roads were paved, side roads unpaved. No high rise hotels. Prince hotel was first hotel I stayed at.

1986. Last trip to Thailand as a 'tourist'! Stayed 2 weeks. Many things had changed - many large hotels, some of the old bars from the 1966-1967 period - gone, canals/klongs disappeared, form Don Mang to City, business everywhere, no more girls in the traditional Thai dress, traffic everywhere, obvious air pollution, etc. Opera Hotel 200 baht day, girls and bar fine 500 baht, and beer Singh 80 baht.

1999. Returned to Thailand to retire. Have not left.

The above is just a very brief synopsis of my travels to Thailand. Have seen it all and done it all.

Back to the original question. The years described above were the best time of my life and I am glad that I was able to experience it. I am among the very few who would love to go back to that period in my life. Everything was so simple. No or limited electricity, no AC, no TV, no air pollution, forest and trees everywhere, girls dressed in their traditional Thai dress, we (foreigners) were and oddity, Thai people were a whole lot more friendly, corruption was not obvious, no internet, no mobile phones, no 'dying cows', no 'sin sod', I could go on and on.

Yes, I prefer yesteryear over today. It was the most enjoyable time I have ever had - and survived.

[sabaijai]

What I remember most about the 70s was the curfew in Bangkok. It was at midnight after the October 1976 coup, and then later was changed to 1am. If you were caught on the street before 5am you'd spend a night in jail. Patpong was the main bar area. The Mississippi Queen (with identical twins Joy and June dancing) and Mike's Place were the leading bars, as I recall. The girls could really dance in those days, but Patpong was always pretty commercial.

Along Sukhumvit, the place to go was the Grace Hotel Coffee Shop, which was mostly German tourists at the time. It had taken over (as the most popular late-night spot) from the Thai Yonuk Coffee Shop on Ploenchit, which had been popular in the GI years. The Arabs hadn't moved in yet. The Grace was open all night. On Buddhist holidays, when alcohol wasn't allowed, the Grace would serve beer out of teapots as this apparently fooled any police who happened to come by.

At the time, the Thermae was a bit dismal compared to the Grace but it came into its own in the late 70s. At 12.55am every night there was a great roar as a great wave of tuk-tuks left the Grace and Thermae and screamed up Sukhumvit Road taking farang to their hotels and girls to their bungalows in Soi 22. Nobody wanted to get stuck in a coffee shop with the deadbeats until 5am. Sukhumvit was 2-way at the time.

Other nightlife areas were Klong Toey (the Mosquito Coffee Shop, the Venus Club, etc), which was on the decline, and Petchaburi Road, which was mostly gaudy nightclubs left over from the Vietnam era and since frequented mostly by Thais. Soi Cowboy was just a couple of bars. The Red Diamond was run by a Swede called Rolf (who was later involved in a free-Internet venture that CAT blocked) and Cowboy's Bar featured Cowboy himself walking around wearing six-shooters. He taught his girls to dance himself and they could really dance. Ah, yes, and there was Mukdha's bar with Mukdha herself doing "the candle show" now and again. The girls in general tended to be younger then and couldn't speak any English. Some couldn't even speak much Thai. All had to have a health card stamped once a week to say they were free of VD.

There was a row of four bars on the south side of Sukhumvit at the entrance of Soi 16, The Rose, The Rosemary I & II, and the El Toro (all later moved to Nana Plaza). Nearby was the Nipa Hut (I think) Mexican restaurant, which had a dwarf with a Viva Zapata moustache and a sombrero sitting outside. Further along was Mitch 'n Nam's Soulfood Restaurant, from the Vietnam War era. On the corner of Soi 19 was the Cock and Bull run by the legendary Peter, the only place you could see decent movies (from Peter's huge private collection of video tapes). In the 70s, Thailand had a huge tax on foreign movies so the only films you could see at the cinema were French B-movies starring Alain Delon.

You couldn't buy foreign music cassettes in Thailand then. You bought them on the visa run to Penang or had Rex Records on Petchaburi Road record the songs you wanted from vinyl record to tape. A tourist visa was for one month. To get an extension you took some BG down to Immigration and said you were going to marry her. They gave you a 21-day extension followed by 10-day extensions up to a maximum of 3 months.

At some point the government introduced the much-reviled Tax Clearance Certificate requirement (later abolished by Anan Panyarachun), so any foreigner in Thailand more than 90 days for any reason had to go to the Tax Dept on Rajadamnoen, declare income, pay any tax due, and get the certificate before leaving the Kingdom. If you were working but hadn't paid tax and didn't have documentation, they were likely to simply assess you and force you to pay tax on what they thought was appropriate income. To get the certificate, you needed to have an official "guarantor," and these guarantors could be found hanging around outside the building. They charged 200 baht and walked you through the process. The place was bedlam with no queues and no air-con. It could take hours to get out. There was a huge sign inside the main hall saying, "All foreigners working in Thailand must have a work permit!" but no one ever hassled you about it. They just wanted the tax money.

I remember transport as being a hassle, but cheap. A taxi would take you from Sukhumvit to Thonburi for 30 baht, but often pissing and moaning all the way about the price agreed on. Buses were hot and crowded, with people hanging out of the doors. Open song-theows were cooler but they drove like maniacs and tried to overcharge or didn't give you your change.

Floods were common in the rainy season, with Bangkokians wading thigh-deep in water during the worst ones. I have a picture of myself with a boat on Sukhumvit Road in the flood of 85. I think we have Bangkok governor Chamlong Srimuang to thank for the end of the really bad flooding in the city.

Overall, I'd say in the 70s Bangkok still seemed exotic and Oriental. It had its own identity. It's more convenient now but it's lost its charm. But no one shouts "YOU! YOU!" at you anymore.

Fond memories of Rex Records I lived in Thonburi back then and used to take a bus to Rex almost every weekend to have them record the latest Western music. Speaking of memories, yours is excellent, Camerata. I had completely forgotten about those seedy Soi 16 bars and Nipa Hut (Filipino rather than Mexican, as I recall?). But I'll never forget Mitch 'n Nam's, Bangkok has seen nothing like it ever since.

[Naam]

What Was Thailand Like Years Ago

i can only think of the expression "paradise" (referring to the years 1973-1979).

[hazman]

I first visited Thailand in 1970 after I met a Thai girl at the Pink Pussey Cat bar in Orchard road Singapore those were the days before Lee Kwan Yu cleaned the place up when the bars, beer, and girls were everywhere, anyway she told me she was going to Bangkok on a bus tour organized by the Thai Buddhist temple that was out along east coast road and if I flew to Bangkok she would meet me at a designated place, anyway to cut along story short I didn’t meet her in Bangkok but sure met quite a few other ladies one of whom I continued to go back to Bangkok to see every year until one day I found out she was married to a German guy and was two timing him as well as me.

I eventually got a job working offshore in Malaysia in 1979 and spent my month off in pattaya living in hotels for the first six months and later renting a bungalow in soi potisan

Met heaps of women and didn’t trust any of them until I met my now wife who was from Isaan and hadn’t been corrupted by the pattaya lifestyle, I have now been married for 25 years and have two grown up children and live in Australia I have been back to Thailand twice in the last twenty six years the last time in May of 2007 and the only changes for the better I have seen are the buses in Bangkok don’t blow out a cloud of smoke like they used to and now you actually see a bit of blue sky every now and then in Bangkok, up country nothing has changed.

[Xangsamhua]

don muang air port was surrounded by ricefiels, the ride into town was an experience on its own

I seem to remember that a cab fare from the city to Don Mueang in 1969 was 20 or perhaps 25 baht. Is that right or is my memory playing tricks on me?

There've been some great postings on this thread, and I've only just started looking at it. Some remarkable memories - pretty right, too, for the period I'm thinking of (1969-75), though some things I'd quite forgotten until now. I didn't live in Bangkok. I lived in Korat and Vientiane - mostly the latter - but visited Bangkok frequently on visa extensions and other business, as well as recreation, shopping and for my wife to have a baby in the old BNH, then in the colonial-style bungalow you can still see at the back of the present hospital. We used to stay at the Suriwong Hotel, which was cheap and clean and had not yet become a popular establishment among gays. With children we later used to stay at the Bangkok Christian Guesthouse, a very pleasant and reasonably priced place, which was low rise and had nice gardens.

Korat was OK, quite well developed, but still a Thai provincial town. Lots of nice little Thai-Chinese style restaurants, but other places for USAF personnel and the few other Westerners (mainly teachers) in town. There was also a VFW which served really nice steaks brought in from the States. After the Thanom-Prapas clique established military rule in 1971 (?) we (teachers in government schools) were not supposed to leave the province without permission from the governor, but in practice this meant that we just had to record in a book at school when and where we were going.

So many things to recall and talk about, but others have done this so well. One comment though. I was in Vientiane from 1969-1971 and late 1972 to end 1975 and find it hard to agree that the old Bangkok was like the new Vientiane. Bangkok in the early 60s, so friends told me, was still a town where people got around by water and the streets were tree-lined, but by the late 60s it was starting to become a concrete jungle and the traffic fumes were pretty unpleasant, especially from the buses. Vientiane, however, was a French colonial town - at least in the centre. There were a few main roads with French and shophouse buildings surrounded by villages. I haven't been there for 10 years now, but I can't imagine the old colonial vestiges to have disappeared in the meantime. There was always quite a different "feel" to Vientiane than Bangkok, at least the Bangkok I knew in the late 60s and early 70s.

[hazman]

don muang air port was surrounded by ricefiels, the ride into town was an experience on its own

I seem to remember that a cab fare from the city to Don Mueang in 1969 was 20 or perhaps 25 baht. Is that right or is my memory playing tricks on me?

There've been some great postings on this thread, and I've only just started looking at it. Some remarkable memories - pretty right, too, for the period I'm thinking of (1969-75), though some things I'd quite forgotten until now. I didn't live in Bangkok. I lived in Korat and Vientiane - mostly the latter - but visited Bangkok frequently on visa extensions and other business, as well as recreation, shopping and for my wife to have a baby in the old BNH, then in the colonial-style bungalow you can still see at the back of the present hospital. We used to stay at the Suriwong Hotel, which was cheap and clean and had not yet become a popular establishment among gays. With children we later used to stay at the Bangkok Christian Guesthouse, a very pleasant and reasonably priced place, which was low rise and had nice gardens.

Korat was OK, quite well developed, but still a Thai provincial town. Lots of nice little Thai-Chinese style restaurants, but other places for USAF personnel and the few other Westerners (mainly teachers) in town. There was also a VFW which served really nice steaks brought in from the States. After the Thanom-Prapas clique established military rule in 1971 (?) we (teachers in government schools) were not supposed to leave the province without permission from the governor, but in practice this meant that we just had to record in a book at school when and where we were going.

So many things to recall and talk about, but others have done this so well. One comment though. I was in Vientiane from 1969-1971 and late 1972 to end 1975 and find it hard to agree that the old Bangkok was like the new Vientiane. Bangkok in the early 60s, so friends told me, was still a town where people got around by water and the streets were tree-lined, but by the late 60s it was starting to become a concrete jungle and the traffic fumes were pretty unpleasant, especially from the buses. Vientiane, however, was a French colonial town - at least in the centre. There were a few main roads with French and shophouse buildings surrounded by villages. I haven't been there for 10 years now, but I can't imagine the old colonial vestiges to have disappeared in the meantime. There was always quite a different "feel" to Vientiane than Bangkok, at least the Bangkok I knew in the late 60s and 70s

This might bring back a few memorys.

[url=http://www.fescanphoto.com/korat/bargirl/index.htm%20-]http://www.fescanphoto.com/korat/bargirl/index.htm%20-[

/url]You might have to manually enter the link

Edited January 10, 2008 by hazman

[Naam]

I seem to remember that a cab fare from the city to Don Mueang in 1969 was 20 or perhaps 25 baht. Is that right or is my memory playing tricks on me?

i remember taxi fares to Don Muang 50 (from Nana area) and to the sleepy village Pattaya 200 Baht in the mid 70s. dollars were almost everywhere accepted USD 1 = THB 20.

[Xangsamhua]

This might bring back a few memorys.

[url=http://www.fescanphoto.com/korat/bargirl/index.htm%20-]http://www.fescanphoto.com/korat/bargirl/index.htm%20-[

/url]You might have to manually enter the link

Thanks Hazman, but I couldn't get in to the link. I did manually enter it.

[Thai at Heart]

Does anybody have any old pic's from the 70's or 80's.

please post.

PKG

I have seen a picture of Patong from 40 years ago and there was nothing but palm trees from the beach back to the mountain. There was one building higher than the palm trees.

[Xangsamhua]

This might bring back a few memorys.

[url=http://www.fescanphoto.com/korat/bargirl/index.htm%20-]http://www.fescanphoto.com/korat/bargirl/index.htm%20-[

/url]You might have to manually enter the link

Thanks Hazman, but I couldn't get in to the link. I did manually enter it.

Found it! The link's on this thread at post#232.

I was engaged, then married during my time in Korat, so didn't get to meet any of the ladies in the URL. Pity, they were lovely. Wonder what they're doing now?

[yorkman]

up country nothing has changed.

Hmmm. you sure? I have seen massive changes in Issan in 12 years. That maybe because of 2 visits in 26 years as a tourist

Edited January 10, 2008 by yorkman

[JimsKnight]

2000-1 - Hardly any mobile phones in circulation. Taksinomics and the puritan factor hadn't quite hit the country so the bar scene was still rockin'. Expats all over the place. Internet slow as fck.

Samui very quiet in low season and moderately busy in high-season.

Patong beach like womanisers utopia with hardly any traffic lights and a fresh-vibrant feel to the place. Hardly any fights between farang due to the pacifying effect that seemed to be eminating from the place. Speaking with some of the old-hands in Bangkok about the amazing place that is Thailand. Most of them agree but some mention that it's loosing it's magic. Thai chicks in the night scene seem to be lot sweeter and carefree.

Visa runs were unheard of in Phuket as a parcel stuffed full of passports would be despatched to Malaysia every month to be stamped and returned

Chiang Mai a very rock-and-roll place with some nice girly bars sprinkled about in the center of the inner city

They'd be replaced with some tame and lame reggae hippy bars in a few years time.

2002-3 - Visa changes mean the visa run becomes the staple of many farangs livin' in Thailand. Clamp-downs on farang working are all the rage now. Internet getting better. Night scene still pretty good but more samsonite brigade everywhere so the lame factor is kicking in. Attitude's from farang in Thailand starting to change along with the clamp-down on the night scene.

2006 - Onwards. A different place compared with pre-2000. For the better with improved tech. For the worse for us expats longing for the good old days where everyone was more carefree and easy-going.

Edited January 10, 2008 by JimsKnight

[Xangsamhua]

Anyone remember the infamous Thai Song Greet hotel at Hualumpong, The Atlanta (Soi 2), the Malaysia Hotel and the Blue Fox Coffee Shop in Soi Ngarm Du Phlee? All early hangouts of backpackers.

I stayed at the Thai Song Greet for a couple of days in 1969. It was a dump, but a great place for a young person to pick up travel tips. The downstairs "coffee shop" area really buzzed. A friend and I moved from there to a very nice place in Soi Lang Suan (7?), a private house with a dormitory-style area set aside for backpackers (I think they were called "travellers" in those days). It was run by a German chap and his Thai wife. Soi Lang Suan was very pleasant then with a strong fragrance of frangipani. It was dark walking home, but never any sense of being unsafe (or unsavoury). When I made a bit more money I used to stay at the shiny new Mandarin Hotel on Rama IV. I thought I'd hit the big time then.

[Pepe']

2000-1 - Hardly any mobile phones in circulation. Taksinomics and the puritan factor hadn't quite hit the country so the bar scene was still rockin'. Expats all over the place. Internet slow as fck.

Samui very quiet in low season and moderately busy in high-season.

Patong beach like womanisers utopia with hardly any traffic lights and a fresh-vibrant feel to the place. Hardly any fights between farang due to the pacifying effect that seemed to be eminating from the place. Speaking with some of the old-hands in Bangkok about the amazing place that is Thailand. Most of them agree but some mention that it's loosing it's magic. Thai chicks in the night scene seem to be lot sweeter and carefree.

Visa runs were unheard of in Phuket as a parcel stuffed full of passports would be despatched to Malaysia every month to be stamped and returned

Chiang Mai a very rock-and-roll place with some nice girly bars sprinkled about in the center of the inner city

They'd be replaced with some tame and lame reggae hippy bars in a few years time.

2002-3 - Visa changes mean the visa run becomes the staple of many farangs livin' in Thailand. Clamp-downs on farang working are all the rage now. Internet getting better. Night scene still pretty good but more samsonite brigade everywhere so the lame factor is kicking in. Attitude's from farang in Thailand starting to change along with the clamp-down on the night scene.

2006 - Onwards. A different place compared with pre-2000. For the better with improved tech. For the worse for us expats longing for the good old days where everyone was more carefree and easy-going.

----------------------

Nice painting JIm...

[qwertz]

Chiang Mai circa 1979 - night life centred on the night market and Tapae. Rustic bars, only farang music, mice and roaches racing up and down the bar tops.

Pattaya - One guest house and one bar (Thai run) in Soi 7, none in Soi 8. Main night life - Marine bar & disco, Pattayaland 13 and walking street, Baby a

Gogo 1 & 2 were top.

Koh Samui - idyllic, clean, quiet. Beach practically deserted, sea crystal clear. A scattering of bars, main night life - disco. A large bowl of porridge

topped with fresh fruit and a sprinkling of Mj - 30 Baht, enough to keep you fed and high for most of the day; coconuts free if you weren't killed when they fell.

Udon Thani - the only farangs I saw were two suits, American CIA types, one black, one white. Nong Khae and Khon Khaen, no farangs in sight.

Everything was cheaper and better then. Thais were nicer people when they had less wealth. same as everywhere else, I suppose.

[fergus]

Can this thread not be pinned??? Too good not to . . .

[hazman]

Chiang Mai circa 1979 - night life centred on the night market and Tapae. Rustic bars, only farang music, mice and roaches racing up and down the bar tops.

Pattaya - One guest house and one bar (Thai run) in Soi 7, none in Soi 8. Main night life - Marine bar & disco, Pattayaland 13 and walking street, Baby a

Gogo 1 & 2 were top.

Koh Samui - idyllic, clean, quiet. Beach practically deserted, sea crystal clear. A scattering of bars, main night life - disco. A large bowl of porridge

topped with fresh fruit and a sprinkling of Mj - 30 Baht, enough to keep you fed and high for most of the day; coconuts free if you weren't killed when they fell.

Udon Thani - the only farangs I saw were two suits, American CIA types, one black, one white. Nong Khae and Khon Khaen, no farangs in sight.

Everything was cheaper and better then. Thais were nicer people when they had less wealth. same as everywhere else, I suppose.

The two farangs in suits were probably Mormons used to be quite a few around years ago, i think the government ended up banning them from the country.

[shochu]

About 20 years ago, I came here for the first time, quite young and visiting a friend from back home whose father had remarried with a thai lady from a good family, although, she was quite a bit younger.

We never did anything out of the ordinary - meaning no naughty stuff - strictly touristy stuff for a month. I remember i came with about $4000 and spent it all, and even though I thought it was cheap at the time, depending on where you went, it was also quite expensive. Remember, no naughty stuff, and most of my accommodation was free except for a few hotels in chiang mai, and pattaya - maybe a total of 1 week paid accommodation and the rest free - we stayed at relatives of his step mom who had family everywhere. Even in Pattaya, we stayed at a resort club she was a member of so it was discounted and it was near the southern part of the beach where there was absolutley nothing except some shacks on the beach and this one resort that thais' were members of.

My friend who was fully western took me to Patpong for sightseeing and we got wisked upstairs to a club in the afternoon where we were promised no charge for the show and 30 baht per drink. We ordered two drinks and as we sat at the bar, we could see them washing - let me rephrase that - just dipping dirty mugs into a bucket of water and filling them with beer - so we did not touch our drinks. There were two other groups there - a married middleage couple and two aussie blokes. The girls were all over us and the blokes asking for drinks and rubbing up against us, and we were like no, whereas the ausssies where hands everywhere. When the show, which was interesting and also showed a guy and girl having sex on stage was over, the aussies asked for their bill and freaked. Apparently, everyone was being charged 600 baht for the show (i can;t remember if it was per person or not). When the aussies were screaming for the cops, the staff slid the steel entrance door shut and put a pad lock on it. My friend, who spoke fluent thai, said that his stepmother was good friends of one of the nai emperers of bangkok and we were asked to just pay for the beer and wisked out a back door. I believe the marreid couple paid for their padded bill. I have no idea what happened to the aussies, but my friend said calling the cops would only make it worse as they were a part of this and there would be more money to pay.

In pattaya, on the bus, an indian guy had $800 bucks taken from his suticase and he suspected the staff.

On my way back from chiang mai with my friend and a group of girls (all accountants at a department store) who were friends of his that he met through his stepmon, we stopped at a roadside place that can only be described as a really run down shack for lunch. When the food came the rice was full of small black bugs I was picking out of the rice, but the others were just eating. I subseqently got very sick upon my return to bangers and was out for a few days.

I took everyone to pizza hut (i think - I just remember it being a major pizza chain) and paid and it was no different than ordering back home but at the time, I think the bill was the equivalent of a months pay for a thai. My friend said it was a major treat for them as they very rarely ever went to a place like that. And these girls were from well to do families - although not rich.

I remember walking around a small shopping mall in bangers and how everyone was staring at me.

Went to Oriental Hotel for tea and I remember the staff almost lying down to take our orders as they were trying to get lower than us sitting in low cushioned sofa style chairs.

Driving across bangers took hours and traffic was so bad that is was a full day affair just to go across the city for lunch and back. Once our taxi driver got a flat and since he was such an old guy and he was having a hard time, I changed the tire for him and people around us were quite amused.

All in all a great experience for someone who was quite young, early twenties.

If I can make a comparison from then and today,

At the the time I said to my friend that I found the thai people catering to tourists to be not so nice - and only nice if you are doing business with them - and it has gotten much worse and more main stream . Although the general population is still for the most part nice, they have the same affliction that affects most countries as their GDP rises - a much more negative attitude much in line with many western countries - just a natural progression on the way to development - a shame as the attitudes of yore were really the extra ingredient in making LOS that much more attractive - still nice i think - but just that much less so.

The working ladies have changed very much. The girls seems much more mainstream these days - meaning a lot of average girls who would never have worked in the industry in the past are now working in the industry. They don;t really do it because they need the money, but just that they want more, faster, and easier (i guess from their perspective). Seems like a lot of college girls working part time or sometimes full time and just registered to get any degree. Easy come, easy go - buying nice clothes and new phones. I think it is much harder living here when you see the likes of Paragon everywhere and young kids with all kinds of new gadgets. Nobody wants to be left behind and this is making wanting to keep up with the Jones even more difficult and more competive.

LOS has changed a lot in the 20 or so years i have been coming here - for the most part better i think, but also more mainstream with all the associated benefits and problems. Bangers is truly an international city with a lot to do, and travelling around the city, or the country is now a breeze, but also the attitudes have become much more hard and indifferent and sometimes hostile, especially among those struggling with low paying jobs who see us with resentment.

Edited January 18, 2008 by shochu

[Xangsamhua]

The two farangs in suits were probably Mormons used to be quite a few around years ago, i think the government ended up banning them from the country.

No, they're still around. You see them quite often in Bangkok. They've just removed the jacket.

[Xangsamhua]

About 20 years ago, I came here for the first time, quite young and visiting a friend from back home whose father had remarried with a thai lady from a good family, although, she was quite a bit younger.

We never did anything out of the ordinary - meaning no naughty stuff - strictly touristy stuff for a month. I remember i came with about $4000 and spent it all, and even though I thought it was cheap at the time, depending on where you went, it was also quite expensive. Remember, no naughty stuff, and most of my accommodation was free except for a few hotels in chiang mai, and pattaya - maybe a total of 1 week paid accommodation and the rest free - we stayed at relatives of his step mom who had family everywhere. Even in Pattaya, we stayed at a resort club she was a member of so it was discounted and it was near the southern part of the beach where there was absolutley nothing except some shacks on the beach and this one resort that thais' were members of.

My friend who was fully western took me to Patpong for sightseeing and we got wisked upstairs to a club in the afternoon where we were promised no charge for the show and 30 baht per drink. We ordered two drinks and as we sat at the bar, we could see them washing - let me rephrase that - just dipping dirty mugs into a bucket of water and filling them with beer - so we did not touch our drinks. There were two other groups there - a married middleage couple and two aussie blokes. The girls were all over us and the blokes asking for drinks and rubbing up against us, and we were like no, whereas the ausssies where hands everywhere. When the show, which was interesting and also showed a guy and girl having sex on stage was over, the aussies asked for their bill and freaked. Apparently, everyone was being charged 600 baht for the show (i can;t remember if it was per person or not). When the aussies were screaming for the cops, the staff slid the steel entrance door shut and put a pad lock on it. My friend, who spoke fluent thai, said that his stepmother was good friends of one of the nai emperers of bangkok and we were asked to just pay for the beer and wisked out a back door. I believe the marreid couple paid for their padded bill. I have no idea what happened to the aussies, but my friend said calling the cops would only make it worse as they were a part of this and there would be more money to pay.

In pattaya, on the bus, an indian guy had $800 bucks taken from his suticase and he suspected the staff.

On my way back from chiang mai with my friend and a group of girls (all accountants at a department store) who were friends of his that he met through his stepmon, we stopped at a roadside place that can only be described as a really run down shack for lunch. When the food came the rice was full of small black bugs I was picking out of the rice, but the others were just eating. I subseqently got very sick upon my return to bangers and was out for a few days.

I took everyone to pizza hut (i think - I just remember it being a major pizza chain) and paid and it was no different than ordering back home but at the time, I think the bill was the equivalent of a months pay for a thai. My friend said it was a major treat for them as they very rarely ever went to a place like that. And these girls were from well to do families - although not rich.

I remember walking around a small shopping mall in bangers and how everyone was staring at me.

Went to Oriental Hotel for tea and I remember the staff almost lying down to take our orders as they were trying to get lower than us sitting in low cushioned sofa style chairs.

Driving across bangers took hours and traffic was so bad that is was a full day affair just to go across the city for lunch and back. Once our taxi driver got a flat and since he was such an old guy and he was having a hard time, I changed the tire for him and people around us were quite amused.

All in all a great experience for someone who was quite young, early twenties.

If I can make a comparison from then and today,

At the the time I said to my friend that I found the thai people catering to tourists to be not so nice - and only nice if you are doing business with them - and it has gotten much worse and more main stream . Although the general population is still for the most part nice, they have the same affliction that affects most countries as their GDP rises - a much more negative attitude much in line with many western countries - just a natural progression on the way to development - a shame as the attitudes of yore were really the extra ingredient in making LOS that much more attractive - still nice i think - but just that much less so.

The working ladies have changed very much. The girls seems much more mainstream these days - meaning a lot of average girls who would never have worked in the industry in the past are now working in the industry. They don;t really do it because they need the money, but just that they want more, faster, and easier (i guess from their perspective). Seems like a lot of college girls working part time or sometimes full time and just registered to get any degree. Easy come, easy go - buying nice clothes and new phones. I think it is much harder living here when you see the likes of Paragon everywhere and young kids with all kinds of new gadgets. Nobody wants to be left behind and this is making wanting to keep up with the Jones even more difficult and more competive.

LOS has changed a lot in the 20 or so years i have been coming here - for the most part better i think, but also more mainstream with all the associated benefits and problems. Bangers is truly an international city with a lot to do, and travelling around the city, or the country is now a breeze, but also the attitudes have become much more hard and indifferent and sometimes hostile, especially among those struggling with low paying jobs who see us with resentment.

Thanks Shochu. Very interesting posting. Did all the people who ate the bugs with their rice stay free from sickness?

[shochu]

I was the only one who got sick - probably because it was my first time to LOS and the region for that matter - new to my system. I never get sick now and i pretty much eat everywhere and anything.

Clarification: The indian guy I mentioned on the bus who had money taken - he mentioned this on the bus - but it happended at his hotel.

[qwertz]

The two farangs in suits were probably Mormons used to be quite a few around years ago, i think the government ended up banning them from the country.

No, they're still around. You see them quite often in Bangkok. They've just removed the jacket.

You may be right on this but these two types spoke to nobody, not even a 'good morning'.

[sabaijai]

Believe Sakol hotel, if on the North side of Rama 1 across from National Stadium was the only hotel in that area and had an upstairs after hours watering hole in the early 70's. Recall a police raid one night that required me to escort several ladies or they would have been arrested. I never stayed in hotel (Golden Palace Soi 1 was my haunt). The Erawan was really a government guest house rather than a commercial hotel and just became too expensive to maintain I suspect. The old Railway Hotel in Hua Hin was more fortunate.

For coups martial music was usually the first clue.

Finally, someone that remembers the Sakol. I'd been asking about it for a long time but no one I've met since that era has ever heard of it. I didn't know there was a bar upstairs, all I remember is the rooms and lobby. I wonder if the building is still there?

I stayed at the Railway Hotel in HH back then too. It was still owned by the SRT and cost 90B a night for a huge room with verandah.

Am revisiting this old thread, because by chance I finally found written confirmation of the Sakol Hotel's existence. I was going through Bangkok Post archives today, doing research for a book I'm writing, and in an May 1977 issue I stumbled across on ad for the hotel. It was on Chula Soi 2, Phayathai. The ad is actually for the hotel's Inter Lounge, which must have been the watering hotel Lopburi3 referred to. Now that I see the name, I can remember seeing the elaborate entrance for the lounge, which I never entered. I spent about a week there in March '77. Moved on from there to Chainat and then Mahasarakham, ending up in Thonburi by mid '77.

The only thing I'm still wondering about is when it closed.

[LooseCannon]

I stayed in Sukhumvit Soi 22 for about 6 months in 1976 & remember being there during the October coup. I was renting a room for B200 a month, it was about 200-300 metres down on the left from Sukhumvit Rd & then you had to go along a raised wooden walk way. It was a real rabbits warren of wooden buildings, confusing paths & a mass of humanity. I was on the second floor of a rather rickety wooden building with about 12 rooms on either side of a wide open corridor which served as a communal living area. Nearly all of the rooms where each rented by 2-3 young ladies (most of whom worked in Patpong). I was 19 years old & I was in heaven & these ladies treated me very well - a farang who was their own age. I had very little money but I did have one thing that these girls wanted (well maybe more than one...) & that was the ability to write letters in perfect english. Long before email & the internet these girls were working their farang boyfriends like there was no tomorrow. So if any of you old timers received any creatively written 'sick buffalo' & 'mama's in hospital' letters maybe they came from me. These girls were great fun to be with & every night when they returned home there was an impromptu party out in the corridor.

There were a number of occasional farang visitors who stayed for varying lengths of time & even the odd one nighter if one of the girls got lucky. I got to know some of the longer term farangs from around the Sukumvit area quite well & some not so well. The common denominator was a shortage of money & an involvement in some sort of money making venture (some legal & others not).

Reading some of these posts (especially those from camerata- maybe I ran into you at some time?) brings back some great memories.

The Crown Hotel - I never had the need to stay there, but frequented the coffee shop on numerous occasions. The coffee shop was the domain of the local hotel tout - 'Joe' & his taxi - he could get you anything & do everything & I trusted him about as far as I could kick him. I never had any problems with him & he always did the right thing by me, but his involvement with the local bib was always a bit of a worry. Many years later, some time in the mid to late 80's, I found myself down at the Crown & sure enough he was still there up to his usual tricks.

Starlight Hotel - friend of mine was a long term resident there & had some memorable occasions which are best left unwritten.

Atlanta Hotel - full of junkies & to be avoided at all costs.

Thai Song Kreet - First hotel in Bangkok I stayed in & I thought not too bad, except for the cockroaches running across the tables in the restaurant & the collection of possibly the worst looking whores you will ever see. (Everything is relative - some of the hotels in India were pretty bad).

Patpong - can't tell you anything because I never went (I didn't need too, & didn't have the money). I did go on a number times during the mid 80's & always thought the Superstar to be by far the best.

Malaysia Hotel - Was staying there when they were filming 'Good Morning Vietnam' in the car park. I was in the crowd scene (unpaid) but have never managed to see myself.

The Cock & Bull was a great place to go for a night's entertainment, the Joker Club upstairs was good for playing darts with the local lasses.

This first trip to Thailand shaped my life like nothing I would ever have dreamt about. I have been back there nearly every year since for varying lengths of time, from a few weeks to a few months, to a year, but have never worked there & never will. It is is place to go to enjoy yourself & not work.

Unfortunately I have never seen again any of the people I knew from those days in Soi 22, but if there are any TV members from that time it would be good to hear from you.

[mijan24]

In the early 80's.

There were 25 baht to a US$

Petrol cost 8 baht a litre.

Fried rice was 10 baht for a good plate full.

Chang did not exist, Singha or Kloster was 30 baht a bottle in the bars

a coke was 5 baht a bottle.

Traffic in Bagkok was already h*ll, despite the "new" expressway from Bang Na.

The night life was wild, not like the watered down version today.

The new dual carriageway to Pattaya was being built and it took 3 hours to make the journey.

Jomtien beach was about 1km long, beyond that was all private land.

In 1985 Silom Road was knee deep in flood water for 5 days.

My house rent, just off Silom was 10K a month.

There was no cable or satellite TV, just a video rental shop on Suriwongse Road that

had lots of English films and TV series for rental.

There were odd American TV progammes with the English sound track on a Radio channel, but they

often forgot to switch the language back after the ads.

I wish I had come to LOS much earlier!!!

Astral those were the days 2525 (1982) lived in the Asia 8th floor top of the wazza then @ 1200 baht a day negotiated to 600 by a kind Intelligence Warrant Officer from our Embassy, worked at the Mil Tech Trg Scool in Bangkhen. Attended the 107th Anniversary of the American Marine Corps at the Dusit Thani - Loy Khatrong in Lumpini Park (pond).

Papong 1 & 2 and just around the Cnr on Silom Rd the Alley cat with great steaks & the latest videos (The life of Brian)

Memories are great but then again who is complaining now - not me.

[Farma]

Malaysia Hotel - Was staying there when they were filming 'Good Morning Vietnam' in the car park. I was in the crowd scene (unpaid) but have never managed to see myself.

And I was the guy crouched behind the reception counter paying my bill while you were filming.

[NoSpeakIt]

Being a relative newcomer to Thailand (2001) I was curious as to what life was like here back in the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and how it has changed. I'm sure there are aspects which have improved and others which haven't.

What was the redlight district on Sukhumvit like? Have processes such as visas, WPs and starting a business improved? Has the Thai attitude towards farang changed at all? How was it different before computers and mobile phones? Was it easier or more difficult to find work or stay in country? What was it like in the sticks? Were there as many farang here? What were prices for Chang, massage, general living? Did western money still stretch as far?

Were the women more beautiful?

Since quite a few TV members stretch back a few years, or eons, I thought there would be some very interesting stories to be told and heard.

it seems like half your questions involve

massage

what the girls were like

red light district

lol, so what do you really want to know?