Do you ever long for the old Bangkok ?

[rookie]

Commissioned officers stayed at the Chao Phaya Hotel, which was chartered by the US military.

 

In late 1969, I _vaguely_ recall that I was put up in the Grace Hotel, but preferring to not stay where the other officers were, I moved to another hotel after the first night. Though a Singha fog erased much of my memory of the measly 5-day R&R you were allowed in BKK, I do recall that I had to pay $11-US (220-Bt) at some bar for the L/T gal. The mamasan also required me provide my identification on some document before taking the gal. BKK was the last of the _3_ R&R's I had; previously I'd visited Hong Kong and later Sydney.

 

[Flashermac]

I was in RVN Feb69-Mar70. Turned down my orders for OCS though, since by the time I got them I could be off active duty in 10 months! (I'd have gone, if they hadn't been infantry.) R&R in Sydney. Tried for a leave in Bangkok, but couldn't get it. Too many people already going.

 

20 baht to the dollars in those days. Big bottle of Singha for 12 baht. When I came here in '73, the taxi drivers always figured I was a GI on R&R and tried to take me to a massage parlour no matter where I wanted to go.

 

Found these via Mr Google:

 

1988 R&R pics

 

 

 

[cavanami]

Had pictures from '68 ~ '70 but, luck of the Irish, they were in the basement and the basement flooded...all the pictures, yearbooks, etc...trashed! Still have a few memories in my "damaged" brain

[Old Hippie]

I really do miss the gold old days when most of the whores on Soi 4 were small brown gals from the Northeast, not tall white males from Ekkamai. I dont share the prevailing attitude on this board that the bleached skin and long legs of the Bangkok 'elite' is the epitome of sexual attractiveness.

 

 

 

Yep love the brown girls! I did hear that during the war, early on, most of the girls were from Chaing Mai and the north as that was the look Thai men liked...later on the Issaarn Invasion happened...

 

I remember my first rip was in 1986, and guys were all saying "...you should have been here 20 years ago..!" Now of course I find myself saying "You should have been here 20 years ago..." I loved it then, I love it now...I would also love to be 24 again, and know what I know now...

[gobbledonk]

OH, we both know that we could have read every warning on this board at 24 and we would still have gone out and made our own mistakes. The main thing that the board alerted me to was things like bill padding and I quickly walk away from any bar that looks like pulling that one. Only one girl has cost me serious money, and that is down to my own Jai Dee white-knight stupidity. Nothing on the board can change the person we were by 7 years of age, but the advice given here might lessen the impact of some of our actions.

[Flashermac]

Many of the BGs and most of the MP gals in the 1970s and early '80s were Northerners. There was one village in Chiang Rai province - Dawk Kham Thai or something like that - that was famous for having the loveliest women in Thailand AND the largest percent of its gals in the sex trade. My Mrs told me she used to be embarrassed to say she was born in CR, since someone would immediately blurt out DAWK KHAM THAI!

 

Apparently, the economy became better in the north, and the Isaan farm gals now far outnumber the northerners in the business. It was already that way by the mid '80s.

 

Having said that, the first gal I picked up was from Bangkok and the second from Ubon. Next one after that was from the south.

 

 

[gobbledonk]

I cant work it out - met a guy in Cambo who told me about this village just inside the Cambodian border that has THE most beautiful women, but his subsequent search for said ladies in Cambo P4P has come up empty. Some of the 'tribes' have managed to keep the family unit together, or so it would seem. (I might add that the most beautiful Farang I have seen to this day was standing near a phone box in Rockhampton, a town notorious for ugly, obese people. She probably has 3 kids by now, but it was one of those impossible moments where you have to pinch yourself). Nature is a funny old tart - gorgeous roses grow in very deep mounds of shit.

[Julian2]

Ditto once in Mansfield Park, Adelaide, Gobble. The home of the most rabid ferals in the state.

 

Flash, I'll agree with you on the beauty of Chiang Rai girls, (we probably won't agree on much else for a while after the theft of Mr T's billions ) but not sure where this village is.

Could you come up with a few alternative spellings? I may have to launch a photojournalistic expedition. Purely out of my sense of duty to my fellow board members of course.

[JJsushi]

Thailand circa pre-mobile phone and internet browsers was a magical time. A man armed with a worn copy of The Lonely Planet had a real adventure.

These days with everything mapped out on blogs it's no different than running to Ibizia or Miami

[torrenova]

Thailand circa pre-mobile phone and internet browsers was a magical time. A man armed with a worn copy of The Lonely Planet had a real adventure.

These days with everything mapped out on blogs it's no different than running to Ibizia or Miami

 

Yeah, I'll second that. Even in my time, mobiles had yet to make an impact, no internet etc. By the time I moved to live in Thailand the mobile had arrived but it was the preserve of the very very few. Still email was unheard of for most. Now, we have a generation who use it all but have no idea how it works. "Magic" is the answer they give you if you ask !