adaptorplug
Bangkok. July 2008.
Less Than Zero
The dump that is no more.
Based on an article by Sonia Boonchanasukit on March 5, 2008
www.bkmagazine.com/feature/less-zero
“In June of 2006, a nameless soi (Thai word for “street”) that never officially existed disappeared as the city went through a clean and green phase in honor of HM the King’s 60th year on the throne.”
However, some “cynics” suggest it was ex Pres Thaksin who plonked up a white fence to hide the area from visiting dignitaries arriving from the Rama IV expressway on their way to their posh hotels and an APEC meeting.
The small alley under the expressway began life as a “crappy little tourist market built on wooden planks that used to rattle around when the trains passed.”
When the open-air hostess beer bars arrived it became known as Buckskin Joe’s and then Soi Zero.
“Bare, dingy, and stuck between under expressway and beside a railway; it was a cheap place to get 50 THB beer without the “you buy me colaaaah?” pressure exerted further down Sukhumvit. There was a bit of “market” action at the mouth of the soi, but nothing much.”
“Bars were raised to avoid flooding, which happened anyway, and the wooden floorboards would creak and bow under the weight of the punters skipping about to avoid the treacherous waters below. As a kind of pitch-black underbelly of Bangkok’s dark beer gut, some now credit Soi Zero with a kind of lost trashy appeal.”
I don’t credit it anything. It was a shit hole.
Bangkok. July 2008.
Less Than Zero
The dump that is no more.
Based on an article by Sonia Boonchanasukit on March 5, 2008
www.bkmagazine.com/feature/less-zero
“In June of 2006, a nameless soi (Thai word for “street”) that never officially existed disappeared as the city went through a clean and green phase in honor of HM the King’s 60th year on the throne.”
However, some “cynics” suggest it was ex Pres Thaksin who plonked up a white fence to hide the area from visiting dignitaries arriving from the Rama IV expressway on their way to their posh hotels and an APEC meeting.
The small alley under the expressway began life as a “crappy little tourist market built on wooden planks that used to rattle around when the trains passed.”
When the open-air hostess beer bars arrived it became known as Buckskin Joe’s and then Soi Zero.
“Bare, dingy, and stuck between under expressway and beside a railway; it was a cheap place to get 50 THB beer without the “you buy me colaaaah?” pressure exerted further down Sukhumvit. There was a bit of “market” action at the mouth of the soi, but nothing much.”
“Bars were raised to avoid flooding, which happened anyway, and the wooden floorboards would creak and bow under the weight of the punters skipping about to avoid the treacherous waters below. As a kind of pitch-black underbelly of Bangkok’s dark beer gut, some now credit Soi Zero with a kind of lost trashy appeal.”
I don’t credit it anything. It was a shit hole.