The Changing Of The Guard On Lower Suk ....

[gobbledonk]

OK - I've been reading much the same thing you-know-where for a couple of years now (punters being replaced by 'normal' family groups), so I went looking for 'Family' reviews of places like the Nana Hotel. Basically, if you booked me into a hotel in the heart of Sydney's Kings Cross, I doubt that I would be willing to stay there unless everything else was booked out, yet the people who ticked 'Family' or 'Couple' were almost universal in their praise for the VFM offered by the Nana - most acknowledging that it 'is what it is - old, faded, smelly but cheap and central'. I would add 'quiet' to that list : other than some joker who felt the need to take a screamer to his room while the maids were still cleaning the room next door (even the vacuum cleaner didnt shut her up), I've never heard a peep from another guest's room : sensational in that respect, even if the 'girls' in the small bar area look closer to death each time I walk into the hotel.

 

This comment did amuse me:

 

We were only there one night - and I wouldn't reccommend a longer stay for families. The area becomes really seedy after dark. The street is lined with prostitutes of all ages and the "elder" ones have made the hotel bar their haunt

 

I like the 'becomes really seedy' part - clearly the folks who wrote that have never ventured to the other side of Suk at 8am. Even when the girls aren't in the carpark and the morning shift has moved on from Soi 3 and environs, it still feels 'seedy' to me : part of its charm. Of course, hotels dont begin and end with the Nana - no shortage of cheap rooms right up and down the Soi, and I admit that I have seen the odd family tiptoeing past the circus on the footpath to get to their intended destination, but they were outnumbered by punters roughly 150-1. That was 18 long months ago, so perhaps it really has changed. I doubt it, but nonetheless look forward to finding out for myself.

 

Roll on 2014.

 

(Always considerd the Dynasty even closer to the action than the Nana - perhaps a little *too* close from the look of many of the guests seated in the outside bar. Something to be said for not having to cross the road to get to the chicken-on-a-stick guy, but that's about it - man does not live on fried chicken alone !)

[Flashermac]

I still remember the night we saw a Brit newly-wed wife calling her husband every name under the sun for booking them into the Dynasty for their honeymoon. He kept explaining he'd found it on the Internet and had no idea about it being ... well, what it is.

[gobbledonk]

There are (much) worse hotels - that firetrap I stayed at back in 2008 down the end of Soi 3 was much nastier. Bizarrely, they had spent money tarting up the foyer and reception area, installing attractive (if unsmiling) women on the desk, but I've never been so glad to check out of a Bangkok hotel.

[Mekong]

I still remember the night we saw a Brit newly-wed wife calling her husband every name under the sun for booking them into the Dynasty for their honeymoon. He kept explaining he'd found it on the Internet and had no idea about it being ... well, what it is.

 

Haha the DIE NASTY, Flash if ever you have the misfortune of being in Sukhumvit Soi 4 at anytime soon read the sign in Thai, it really does say Die Nasty rather than Dynasty, just one of many things about this country that bring a smile to my face.

[Flashermac]

I know. I didn't know whether to pronounce it US or UK, so I read the sign. It is indeed Die Nasty.

 

 

p.s. I remember a tailor shop from long ago that was called Hand Job. There was also an S&M restaurant.

[Mekong]

I know. I didn't know whether to pronounce it US or UK, so I read the sign. It is indeed Die Nasty.

 

 

I don't profess to read / write or speak Thai fluently but it is little things like this that are oblivious to 99% of Farangs in Thailand but give me a good laugh, the warped humour that I have.

[Flashermac]

You? Warped humour? Nah ...

[Mekong]

I have tolerated you for over 12 years now

 

May I offer my congratulations on your correct spelling of Humour, most Americans forget the "U"

[Flashermac]

I spent years as an editor and writer using British English, more or less standard in LOS. It's what publications in Singapore and Hong Kong expect too. American spellings look strange to me now.

 

It drives Thais crazy though, since they don't know which is which and mix them up.

[Mekong]

Isaan, Issan, Esarn?

 

Romanic transliterations of Thai are as just as confusing if not more so.

 

One that always gets me, not language based but always an issue is that a US Pint is 16 Fluid Ounces where as an Imperial pint is 20 FLOZ.

 

Extrapulate this further up to thousands of gallons per hour and confusion arises, Oil is sold in US units yet all flow calculations are based upon Imperial units, "Why am I seeing a 20% error" Abdul often asks me, no error habeebe just go back to college, it used to drive me mad.