What's good in Bangkok?
Mr_Delmont
279 Posts
As far as record shops....Any info on Restaurants, Flea Markets and shady Thai cat houses will be appreciated as well. 
Comments
In Bangkok, shady "cat" houses, means they're filled with trannies. That's not what you're looking for right?
Na Na Plaza.
Any taxi or tuk-tuk driver will know the way.
perhaps he after something younger?
But I did pull about a dozen Impossibles LP's and 45's amongst a whole bunch of other crazy crap (sealed Bill Withers and Issac Hayes LP's too)
Oh....and the 'cats' I was talking about look more like this: http://www.geocities.com/shadowstalker_98/kanyarut1.jpg .
I'm not with that pedophile shit.
Say anything that you like about me except that I drink water. Of course, now I touch nothing stronger than buttermilk: 90-proof buttermilk. I never drank anything stronger than beer before I was twelve.
I on the otherhand exercise extreme self control. I never drink anything stronger than gin before breakfast.
A-ha! I was stranded in the desert for weeks without a corkscrew and was forced to live off nothing but food and water!
Carry on....
ok, so hopefully you're not staying in khao san road - that area's not very good for food, so don't go there, or, if you're there, you should probably leave. There's a Time Out Bangkok that has excellent restaurant reviews and is worth picking up. Also has excellent bar recommendations (look for tawaendeng brewhouse).
Most of the street food is excellent - if you see someone with a wok they can likely make you these two dishes: krapow (chicken & thai basil & chilis) and phad siew (broad noodles cooked with soy) both are great. The street satay can be good, but try and get some just cooked stuff, as rubbery squid is not so appealing. Basically, try it all out - corn waffles, fish cakes, whatever, it's probably tasty. If you want something spicy (which, although I could never handle the spice levels that Thai people eat, was sometimes necessary, since people would tone it down for you whether you wanted them to or not) say "keen pet die" it means something like 'it's ok hot'.
There's a great food court in the MBK mall at Siam Square. There's a pork and eggs stew that is particularly delicious.
Issan food (from the Northeast of Thailand) is great, and worth seeking out - if you see someone roasting chickens that's likely gaiyang, and is definitely worth having, along with a papaya salad (som tam, 'keen pet die') and sticky rice. In Siam square (and there's another somewhere, I don't remember) is Cafe de Lao which serves some really good Issan food with lots of laabs (basically meat salads) and sticky rice. There's also an Issan cook-your-own hotpot style food called 'jim-jum' or Issan-suki that my GF and I had in Patpong of all places (it was on soi convent? maybe?) A giant suki restaurant is called Coco Suki, and is 3 floors of cook-your-own frenzied excitement. There's also a restaurant in the lobby of the Wittayu centre on wireless road that serves sour issan sausage (raw, if you're daring) and other not-normally-found-on-english menu items.
More upscale restos are found around the sukhumvit strip - cabbages and condoms (yeah, yeah) is realy nice (eat upstairs, outside), another cool place was called 'a day cafe', there's also hualumphong food station.
Other Bangkok advice - don't bother with the tuk-tuks - sure they're cute, but taxis are cheaper and less hassle (they use the meters - don't take one that doesn't) and air-conditioned. Also it's not so pricy, you can go all the way to across the city for pretty cheap. Or take the skytrain - it's a great way to get around, fast, and you can get all over the city, also the boat-bus that goes down the river is good, too.
hmm, there's probably more, but that's all I can think of. PM me for more.
Thanks Sooks!
I am staying on Khao San Rd. Heard it is to Bangkok what Long St is to Cape Town or Kings Cross is to Sydney. I'm only going to spend a couple weeks there then I head up north.
oh yeah i guess all the shops are in chinatown.
when did you go to that shop? i was there last year and didn't find shit.
place was dissapointing for records really. get your hands real filthy too. one shop owner didn't want me using my portable i guess cause everytime i would play a record he would turn his music real loud so i couldn't hear the portable.
best record i found was a sealed sylvers. thai land is great though. don't go there for records.
Also, many of the services that are aimed at tourists can be done in a much easier, and much nicer alternative, that often costs only a touch more. For instance, people always take these absurbly cheap busses around Thailand, but they take fucking forever, and someone will probably go through your bags in the process, but, for a small amount more, you can have a sleeping compartment on the train, complete with a/c and a guy who comes and folds down the sheets for you. No contest.
The other good place we found was Seafood City, Sukhumvit Soi 24 (sois are side streets off the main Sukhumvit Road), the one that has the sign, "If it swims, we have it". Pick your food off the ice, take the basket to the checkout, pay, and they bring it all over to you, cooked how you want.
Singha beer - mmmmmmmmm.... 6.5% alc though, so marathon it, not sprint it. Watch the live bands from the bar across the road from king's court bar on Patpong - bizarre ingrish versions of your chart faves. Me and the wife still crack up over "Musiiih, mexa people, cam togezza.. yeah!, Musiiig, mix a bourgeousie (pronounced perfectly) an za revel"...
Cringe at the 300lb 50 year old german businessmen walking hand in hand with teenage local boys. Don't worry, it's not common, only around Patpong, but you DO notice it. Drink through it.
Shirts - I am into the pure captain-of-industry/Alan Whicker/Hefner white-cuff-&-collar look. Stripier the better. Go to one of the Indian tailors on the sois off Sukhumvit, pick your cloths (cotton, silk, whatever), get the shirts made in 24 hours as you want (bonus points for ill monograms) and pay about $12 each. You can get measured there but my advice is to take a shirt that fits you well and get them to copy the measurement from it.
If you go for a suit, get a contrasting silk lining for mega pimp points. You know it makes sense.
Got some good raerish import CDs in the World Trade Center record shops - giveaway prices. Great city, Very friendly people, skytrain is best way around, yes you will be shown sharkskin wallet shops halfway through every taxi ride, but it's the way it works there. Enjoy!
where is the "stop-fetishing-Ms Damn " police when you need it ?
I know the fucker with the dog you're on about - his shop is on the hump of a small bridge, right?
There is another, much better record shop in BKK closer to Khao Sarn than Sapan Lake... you have to walk out of the bottom of Khao Sarn, turn right and you'll be on the big six lane road with big round-abouts. At one end of this road, within eyesight of the bottom of Khao Sarn, is a hotel called something like "Royal Prince Hotel" sitting on a corner. Head for that, and take a left along a road that runs next to a smelly canal. Keeping the canal on your right, follow the road and you'll find a record shop owned by a Thai cat whose name means 'Tiger'. He speaks broken Engrish, he's very helpful and lets you use his record player to listen to stuff. His wife runs another record store, but it's across town, in a huge mall out in the middle of nowhere.
Accomodation: Get off Khao Sarn. You're getting ripped there. My fav place is called PS Guest House. It's on a road called Thannon Samsen. Ask a tuk-tuk driver to take you there if you can't find it, but it's only a 15 min walk from Khao Sarn.
Place is near the river, rooms are nice - but modest; fan, two beds for 140 baht a night. The best thing about the place is the roof. People go up there to sit, drink, eat and smoke pot. There are a few tables and chair, laundry facilities - guests always stay there longer than they anticipated, really nice communal atmosphere there.