Living and owning a business in Thailand, CS style.

[MeMock]

I have read bits and pieces over the past few years since meeting the Captain online (aparently my first post to him was threatning to throw him in a Klong - or so he says) and one thing that had interested me was learning that he used to own a business in Kanchanupuri.

I have always wanted to know more and with the Captains permission I am going to do a bit of a Q & A session with him over the next few weeks. Who knows, it might even be interesting or better still Poolie might gain some good ideas and what and what not to do in starting up a business in the LOS.

First of all, is the above correct Captain and what kind of business did you start?

[aging one]

He has the ticket booth on the bridge, eyes you up and down and then delivers the price. One place it is cheaper for farungs.

I had to do it!!

[dirtydog]

I hope they dont charge farangs to go onto that bridge, it was POWs that built the foking thing for them...

[MeMock]

They don't DD but I'm sure it wont be to far away!

[MeMock]

Now where the hell is the Captain?

There was a huge, and I mean huge storm in Brisbane today, I do hope he is allright.

[dirtydog]

I assume Brisbane is the same as most third world towns, ie rain=power failures

[Captain Sensible]

Yeah it was a fekking beauty of a storm too. It is still going as it happens.

Well Memmers ol' thing you have asked so I will answer.
I first came to Thailand way back in 1992/3. It was a spur of the moment thing and it all came about because of a Geordie lass as it goes. I had met her at the Glastonbury Music festival where we dropped acid together and had a really out there time of it. It was the first time that I had taken acid since I was a teenager and I actually really enjoyed it. When the festival was over I drove her back to London and she announced that she was going to Thailand in two days time for a short holiday before she was to go on to Japan to teach Engrish.
I was selling advertising for a very suss publisher in Islington at the time and when I finally went back to the office her mother phoned me and gave me the phone number of the guest house where she was staying and asked me to call her. I did. It was a bit naughty calling internationally from work but who gives a fok.
Anyway, we had a long conversation and as I put the phone down my boss was standing behind me and asked me if there was any danger of me actually selling any space that day. I turned to him and said that I would do a feature on the banks in Thailand. It was the first thing that popped into my head.
He said that it had been tried and it wouldnt work. Of course I told him that it may have been tried, but not by me.

I then picked up the phone and blagged up the opening double page spread from Thai International Airways on a contra deal worth 16,000 quids worth of airline tickets. I was off to Thailand the following week.

Of course when I arrived I headed straight to Khoa Sarn Rd and met up with my galfriend.

Some years prior to all this I had worked at the Australian Newspaper and had run a similar feature so I also blagged up an office and an interpreter from the Thai Dept of Export Promotion who had continued to send me xmas cards ever since. They were very kind in giving me an office and the help of a chap called Dr Paisan who was to accompany me to interview the big knobs of all the Thai Banks.

Crikey I have just realised that I am giving way too much history to how I came to set up my pub in Kanchanaburi so I will just give you a little more as a prece.

Basically, things went wrong in selling ads to the Thai Banks so my new galfriend and I set off on a wonderful exploration of Thailand that was to last about 3 months.
She eventually did fly out to Japan and I then rang my boss back in England and explained that I had done all the research and had gathered all the leads and was now ready to come back to the UK and that I would finish the ad sales from there.

My boss wasnt very happy with me as I hadnt made any contact with him for over 4 months and he told me to fok off. He also said that as far as he was concerned, I could walk back to London.
So I was fokked. There I was stuck in Bangers with about 1500 baht in my pocket.
I headed straight out to Kanchanaburi as it was dead cheap by comparison to Bangers and I had made a few friends out there in a previous soiree some months prior.

One of these friends was a German guy by the name of Armin who had built a restaurant which was failing miserably. He was lucky if he got even two customers in his restaurant on any one night. I told him my plight and he offered for me to sleep in the room above the restaurant provided I could bring in some customers to his restaurant. So at 6pm every night I would set up a table and chair at the front of the restaurant and spruke for customers from the backpackers who were walking past back to their guest houses along the river. Armin had offered me free booze into the bargain.
So I would sit there and say things like "Dont you drink beer?" to folks as they walked past. There were other things I said and I found that I was able to entice ppl into the restaurant by just being cheeky.
It all worked fine and his business picked up a lot.

During the day I would go out on his bicycle looking for falangs and con them into coming along on the many treks that I took up to the Burmese border. My galfriend and I had done the trip up to Sangkhlaburi months before and I just told folks that I was leading a trek that was leaving the following day but we needed just a few more folks to make it viable. This was the only lie that I ever told, I swear.

Anyway between taking ppl trekking and being the chief barman/bottlewasher and front of house person at Armins restaurant I was able to cut a living while I was stranded in Thailand.

Obviously, it is a very long story but eventually Armin took a job as a chef in a big Hong Kong hotel and I took over the restaurant and turned it into a pub. It was Kanchanaburi's first pub for falangs and was quite a success.

I got pics. In fact I have hundreds of pics and I will upload them fom disc and post them in my next and subsequent posts.

btw, I called the Pub 'The Pub' in its first incarnation but it had several name changes over the time that I was the landlord including 'Barbeer JD', 'The Gone Fish Inn' and finally 'Bar Hua Chang' (The Elephants Head)




So whats your next question MeMock mate?

[dirtydog]

Originally Posted by The Caps Sales techniques exposed

"Dont you drink beer?"

I assume most punters that walked past wondered who was the drunken Aussie sitting in the bar

[Captain Sensible]

Originally Posted by dirtydog

I assume most punters that walked past wondered who was the drunken Aussie sitting in the bar

Well that was the thing dog. I used to change my patter to suit different folks. For delicate young English gals I would be ever so polite and ask them if they were hungry and might they care to look at the wonderful 'authentic' Thai menu. The fact that it was all cooked by a myopic German guy with a sense of humour like a brick was neither here nor there. I actually shagged more young English birds in Kanchanburi than I did in England. I saw it as a public service as these gals were fresh off the plane from Heathrow, likely just out of uni, and determined to do everything that thier mother had told them not too. I was very helpful toward the young English roses.

With the blokes I took a different tack. The trick was finding out where they were from as quickly as possible and then take the piss out of them however I could. I used to tell English blokes that they would probably get barred on their first night in the restaurant because they didnt know how to behave themselves. It was like a red rag to a bull mate. Wild horses couldnt have kept them away. Armin was well pleased too.

[Captain Sensible]

ok I have just uploaded some pics. Here is one of the front door when it was simply called The Pub. I used to use the chalk boards on either side of the doors to announce news items that I had heard on the BBC using my wotsit radio. We didnt have the internet and RSS feeds back in those days so folks would stop to read what my interptretation of the headlines were. I also used the chalk boards to list who I had barred from the night before. It worked a fokkin treat with the poms. They loved seeing their name listed on my chalk board and sure as shit were back in that night,

[Captain Sensible]

And here is a pic of the pub taken from up the street. Notice the washing that some Thai woman had hung on the fence to dry.

[Captain Sensible]

Here is a nice pic of me standing next to my newly written menu on one of the window shutters that I had painted with blackboard paint. I am dead clever me.
Notice the guy in centre of pic? He only ever drank water and drove me crazy with his surviving in Thailand on 35 baht per day attitude. He was a German guy who eventually went troppo and is now in a mental home in Oberursal, Germany.



These were the very early days just after Armin had fokked off to Honkers.

[dirtydog]

I didn't realise the corks were detachable on those Aussie hats

[Wayne Kerr]

So how much was a big bottle of Chang beer going for back then?

[Wayne Kerr]

No sheilas hanging about?

[Captain Sensible]

hehehe. I just found this pic and I have to say that I had completely forgotten about this gal. She was a solicitor from Nottingham. She was a screamer and my Thai staff used to giggle and fall about because they lived close by and heard her screaming when I shagged her. They thought that it was hilarious. She did make a lot of noise actually.

[Captain Sensible]

Originally Posted by Wayne Kerr

So how much was a big bottle of Chang beer going for back then?

From memory, I think I used to charge 82 baht for a large quat of Chang.

[Captain Sensible]

Here I am behind the bar trying to add up someones bin. I was off my chops most of the time and often had ppl come up to me the next day and give me money from last night that I had completely forgotten about.



I had a beard in those days.

[Captain Sensible]

Ah, what great memories. I remember this guy came to me and said that he would perform live music in my bar for a meal and just a few beers.


He was pathetic and I turfed him out after three songs. If you could call them that. I did give him a Pad Thai though.

[Captain Sensible]

I am really glad that you posted this thread MeMock, you old Klong pusher inner you.
I aint seen these pics in yonks.
This one is of 3 of my favourite customers.



Johnny on the left is the brother of Bon Scott from AC/DC and still lives in Kanchanaburi with his wife Laad. Centre is David, an English teacher from Bournemouth. I aint heard from him in a couple of years now. Far right with her back to the camera is Alison who I am still in contact with. I got some right saucy pics of her and I coming soon.