Sanuk in Korat?

[Encore]

Excerpt from BKK Post:

 

"There were two women working at the TAT front desk when I went in. I said hello and I asked them if they had a map of Korat, a phan-tii. You can't do anything in a strange town without a phan-tii. They had a small two-colour map of the province, blue on white, with a city map on the other side. The city map was clearly marked "NOT TO SCALE." It couldn't be to scale, I discovered later, because it would have to be printed on sheet of paper three feet long and about six inches wide.

 

I told the senior of the two women, a middle-aged lady with white-lacquered nails, that among other things I was looking for a coffee shop, someplace to have coffee and a croissant, did Korat have any places like that? It was a long shot, but I figured any town big enough to have an IT Mall ought to offer Continental breakfast.

 

I needed something in my stomach, but I didn't feel like rice or noodles. Thais don't have a special kind of food for breakfast, don't eat different things based on the time of day the way we do, i.e. ham and eggs in the morning, a sandwich at noon. They eat rice and things on top of rice or noodles and things mixed with noodles all day long, morning, noon and night: Thai food. It was too early for Thai food. I just wanted a cup of coffee, fresh juice or fruit and something light, preferably made with wheat.

 

There was a Western hotel next door, across the parking lot, she told me. I could probably get a Continental breakfast there, but that wasn't what I had in mind, either. I didn't want to eat in the dining room of a big hotel. What I wanted was a charming cafe{aac} in the middle of Korat city. I fancied starting my first full day in Isan by sitting out under an umbrella or in the shade of a tree with a cup of fresh ground Caffee Americano and a pastry, watching the locals pass by. Something like I might find in Chiang Mai. What about it?

 

She told me she thought there was a coffee shop near a pizza place somewhere near the centre of town, but she wasn't sure. She didn't know of any Starbucks, Coffee Worlds, or Black Canyon coffees. Maybe in the mall.

 

I pulled my Globetrotter Map of Thailand out of my carry bag. There was a tiny inset of downtown Korat on the back side. I'd seen a Turkish bath on a major street, perhaps it was close by, I couldn't tell from the NOT TO SCALE map. I was thinking that a Turkish bath might be in some ethnic neighbourhood offering the possibility of non-standard breakfast fare: Turkish bath, Turkish coffee, maybe some Middle-Eastern pastries of some kind. "Did she know this place?" I asked, pointing at the map. Roojak mai krap.

 

Plaza Turkish Bath, it read. Her face turned a delicate shade of scarlet. "Roojak rue plao," I asked, again. (You know it or not?)

 

She knew the place, all right, but she wasn't comfortable talking about it. When I asked her why not, she said it was because she was shy. Apparently there are limits to the information a person can expect to get from the Tourist Authority of Thailand and Plaza Turkish Bath was beyond them.

 

The Globetrotter people got the name wrong, though, according to her. It wasn't Plaza Turkish Bath, it was Pailin Plaza. There was nothing Turkish about it and men didn't go there to take a steam.

 

"What's the attraction?" I asked her.

 

"Women," she said. And by now her cheeks were practically in flames.

 

"No fresh-ground coffee in the neighbourhood, then, I guess?"

 

She thought I would be better off at the big hotel next door."

 

 

 

Anyone know of this place?

[Fatbastard]

You are better off asking Stickman, he spends a lot of time in Korat !

[BuffHello]

i found it a boring place apart from the numerous large massage parlours ,it must have been buzzing with dives during the nam war as it was a large airbase area. but no longer