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Street of Shame


unit731

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Appolgies if this is mentioned eslwhere.

 

LINK

 

It's been described by both Thais and foreigners as shameful, a disgrace and embarrassing. And those are the words we can print. One of the most popular areas in Bangkok, the lower end of Sukhumvit Road undergoes a rapid transformation late every night when most of the bars and clubs are closing.

 

DIRTY: Bars set up among the night’s rubbish on the lower end of Sukhumvit Road.

 

"After they closed the bars early, the girls just took to the streets. At least when they work in bars like mine, there are some controls and regulations, like regular health checks.

 

What really annoyed me and most of the other bar owners was that we had to stop selling alcohol, while the other unlicensed places that sprung up on the streets can stay open all night.

 

 

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I dont know that the area in question has ever been too flash, at least in my experience, but I find the sheer number of 'bandit' Arab women, complete with that hideous nose 'protector', the most disturbing part of the whole freak show. What the hell are they still doing wandering the streets at midnight, anyway ? As for the Farang who troop through their with their families, what were they expecting ??

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The Grace Hotel actually was one of the three pickup places before the early 1980s. The freelancer troika consisted of the original Thermae Coffee Shop, the Thai Yonok Coffee Shop (now buried beneath Sogo) and the Grace Hotel Coffee Shop. I remember when the Grace was a fun place to go ... but that was in the 1970s. The Arabs started taking over in the early '80s, and the Africans arrived in the '90s.

 

The Grace was indeed enjoyable once upon a time, but that was back before some people on this board had even been born. Still, I have never seen it as bad as it is now. Walk along the pavement north of the Grace and you'll find it smells like a bog. :(

 

 

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The Grace was indeed enjoyable once upon a time, but that was back before some people on this board had even been born. :(

 

 

yes those were golden past years, and beyond suk., the Siam Coffee Shop which is no more.... it all history.... many ppl., do not even know.... I had wonderful time at grace & SCS......

 

cheers

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The Grace Hotel was one of the first places I visited in Bangkok on my maiden trip back in 1979. I'd been inspired by a line in Playboy magazine - "If you can't get laid out of the coffee shop at the Grace Hotel, you can't get laid anywhere in the world."

 

Back in those days, the windowless coffee shop lived up to its reputation. It was open 24/7 and at night, there were at least five girls to every guy. The Grace Hotel itself was a dump. Built in the early 1960s as an R&R hotel for U.S. military personnel, it had become horribly run down by the mid-1980s. The original owners were famous for never spending a single baht on upkeep.

 

The first trip report I wrote for a LOS Internet board was about a very brief return visit I made to the Grace in 2005. I knew was going to be bad, but it exceeded the worst of my expectations. There's fun sleaze and there's ugly sleaze and the sleaze at the Grace had become hideously ugly.

 

But there was a certain geopolitical irony to the fate of the Grace. From an R&R hotel for U.S. military to an R&R hotel for Al-Qaeda in 40 some years.

 

On a dare (actually a challenge) I went back to the Grace in October 2009. I was most likely the only farang in the whole building. There were very few people of any description - it was DEAD, DEAD, DEAD. I don't know if had to do with Rama Dama Ding Dong, but aside from a couple of morbidly obese Thai girls and a few older men in traditional robes, it was deserted.

 

:rip: Grace Hotel ...

 

I agree with the article that the Sukhumvit area has a sharper edge at night than before, but that has to do with the proliferation of African drug dealers and scammers. It would be very easy for the BiB to scare them off - I just wonder why they don't.

 

Evil

:devil:

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agree with the article that the Sukhumvit area has a sharper edge at night than before, but that has to do with the proliferation of African drug dealers and scammers. It would be very easy for the BiB to scare them off - I just wonder why they don't.

 

Good question. Up until recently, making sure that no titties were on show in NEP was more important than the the rampant (and almost certainly more lucrative) drug dealing and worse going on in the lower sois of Sukhumvit. Misplaced priorities from the new social order?

 

It's interesting how Sukhumvit now changes as you go from Nana to Ekkami at night.

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