Guest Posted September 10, 2001 Report Share Posted September 10, 2001 It had been some 18 months since I was last in the ‘street of the great unwashed’. So what had driven me there on an extremely wet and soggy Sunday afternoon? – actually, the fact that many friends had told me Khao San Rd had gone up market. Gone up market? Khao San? Yes, apparently there were now clean, hygienic restaurants where a meal could actually cost you in excess of 100 baht (shock horror) and the place was predominantly full of Thai yuppies swigging imported beers and looking for farang boyfriends. Let me put your mind at rest by saying it simply isn’t true. Sure there are one or two posher establishments that wouldn’t serve you a banana pancake if you dropped to your knees and begged, but apart from that – it’s still Khao San Rd. The hair braiders are still there. The dodgy ID card sellers are still there. The bare-chested male travelers and the ugly females are all still there. It’s like I’d never been away. I was frankly disappointed. Perhaps the Thai yuppies come out at night but I never spotted one on this occasion. Had there been any real changes? The booksellers were charging even more for dog-eared paperbacks than they were in the past – in itself quite hard to believe. In one shop, I picked up a Bill Bryson priced optimistically at 480 baht. I had bought the same paperback brand new in Asia books for 100 baht less just a week earlier. I asked the miserable-looking girl on duty if the price was correct. And yes it was. I put the book back on the shelf and left. Old misery-guts didn’t actually sell me a book but she did learn the English expression ‘taking the piss’. Then again, I’m sure she’d heard it from a few other people. The sellers and shopkeepers of Khao San Rd look jaded. I mean really jaded. They really don’t give a f*** if you buy their fake CD’s, their African masks, their bottles of drinking water or not. Gone are the days when you would arrive dusty and thirsty and stand at one end of Khao San with a cumbersome backpack and then have a kindly old Thai woman tug at your arm and offer you an accommodation bargain. Nowadays the street is full of Thais for whom the slogan ‘Land of Smiles’ has been buried and long forgotten. I’d never actually seen Khao San Rd so busy during the day and negotiating the narrow footpaths was slow going. Not helped at all by being stopped every 100 meters by an Indian tailor just because I was wearing a pair of trousers (this is a man who obviously dresses up) “special deal for your Sir” I couldn’t be bothered to stand and pass the time of day. I did enjoy one thing though – looking at the photographs in the tailor shop windows showing happy-looking world travelers trying on their new threads. If there is a person in the world (and I know this sounds mean) who can make a suit look like shit – then it’s a backpacker. It didn’t strike me as being particularly clever to put these photos in the window and tell the world that you too can look like this if you have your clothes made here. As I made my way up the street amid all the pierced nipples, henna tattoos, and saggy breasts, I suddenly felt a tinge of sympathy for my old mate John who runs the official Khao San Rd website. Quite how he squeezes enough content out of this never-changing soi is beyond me but he does it admirably. Because of a heavy downpour, I sought refuge in a lively bar called ‘Gulliver’s Tavern’ which is located at the ‘temple’ end of Khao San. It’s been there about 3 years apparently and sees itself as a kind of ‘Khao San Rd Hard Rock Café’ with loads of flashy neon, uninteresting music memorabilia, and staff decked out in baggy dungarees. Plus points – the music was good and the cocktail menu was imaginative. Minus points – the service was slow, the food was expensive, and when it did finally arrive was very, very ordinary. The internet cafés are everywhere in Khao San. Even the dirtiest, cockroach-infested restaurant has a couple of terminals where you can sit and punch the keys with ash drooping from your fag and a bottle of suds perched precariously near the keyboard. And while you type out a message to Gaz and Shaz to let them know which tropical island you’re dragging your raggy arse off to next, half of the restaurant sits there totally mesmerized by the big-screen goings on of ‘Poltergeist 7’. No, nothing much had changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 10, 2001 Report Share Posted September 10, 2001 hehehe I do actually enjoy Koh San on the odd time I go but it is always evenings. That visit usually suffices for another couple of months though. However, I do know a few Thai females who go there on the prowl. At least you were shown 'honest' pictures of possible customers. The last tailor shop I was dragged into showed me his 'previous customer' book. It was about 40 pages of Armani, Hugo Boss and Versace models that he had snipped out of magazines supposedly pouting sexily in togs he had made for them !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashman Posted September 10, 2001 Report Share Posted September 10, 2001 Phil I'm surprised I didn't see you, I was there yesterday afternoon getting drunk in the sidewalk cafe. Although I saw someone with dread locks who looked a bit like you. Did you get that done yesterday? [ September 10, 2001: Message edited by: Ashman ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 11, 2001 Report Share Posted September 11, 2001 Your friend runs the official Khao San Rd website?? The one that hasn't seen an update in 2 months and still doesn't have a complete map of the road? Lordy, lordy he has a while to go before he needs to worry about digging up new news to post As for Khao San changing. I can not imagine staying there but it is a fun place to visit. It's nice to keep perspective and when ever I feel too down on Thais I take a stroll over and feel refreshed to go on. Gullivers is doing surprisingly well considering its in a place that I always felt had very bad Feng Shui. Before them it used to changes owners regularly with each business going bust in months and then lying empty for an equal number of months. As to hardened sellers. I've always found the t-shirt sellers to be fun if you talk and joke with them in Thai. Why at one place they got me a chair and a drink because they felt bad they couldn't keep chatting because customers kept coming in. Khao San is just like any other part of Thailand, IMHO, you get out of it what you put in. Besides I like the odd banana pancake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 11, 2001 Report Share Posted September 11, 2001 Hi Grimmbro (or should that be Mr Khao San) You'll be telling me next that you can get the hard-faced booksellers to come down 50% on the outrageous price of their wares. Yes I will admit that John is hardly 'King of the update' but he does try (well, he tries every couple of months) As for a map of Khao San - why bother? I could skateboard from one end to t'other in about 15 seconds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 11, 2001 Report Share Posted September 11, 2001 No I would never buy a book on Khao San. Did I say I did??? I also never understood how they could price a book by converting it's US$ price printed on the cover to baht with no discount. King of Khao San, I kind of like that. Though I would prefer to be the Prince of Phra Athit as the cafes are better there and the street much quieter. Face it Phil, you are a curmudgeon that would hate to miss pointing out the clouds on a sunny day. That makes your writing very funny, but not always balanced factually. Khao San also used to have a great cheap Indian restaraunt and a beer bar right out of some Vietnam era hootch. All sadly missed in the make over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 11, 2001 Report Share Posted September 11, 2001 As always Phil, your biting sarcasm is always appreciated. Especially the line about the backpacker e-mailing Gaz and Faz? about what island he's going to drag is ragged arse off to. Great stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jagoturner Posted September 11, 2001 Report Share Posted September 11, 2001 Last time I stayed on Khao San Road those internet cafes were all pay as you go international phone booths. I still love it and spent some of the greatest times of my life around Banglamphu. There are some beautiful women there amongst the overweight sunstroke victims and underweight junkies. When you've been swept up by yellow fever it's often hard to notice them but they are there. Hippie goddesses with glowing sun-kissed skins and braided hair talking softly about their journey's into spiritual enlightenment throughout Asia. The books have always been overpriced but that's supply and demand. People who are heading off to Koh Pang Ngan for a possible eight months will pay top dollar for the latest Stephen King. Once on the islands these books are worth even more. Their value rises like the value of fags in the nick. I still think that this is the best area to start off any trip to Thailand if only because there is a chance you will walk around and see a few things before you end up a fixture in the bars. I don't know about now but when I was staying there there was also something going on. Certainly enough to keep a website ticking over with constantly new material. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashman Posted September 12, 2001 Report Share Posted September 12, 2001 [ September 11, 2001: Message edited by: Ashman ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashman Posted September 12, 2001 Report Share Posted September 12, 2001 quote: Originally posted by Alexander Turner: I still love it and spent some of the greatest times of my life around Banglamphu. . Me too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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