Older BKK eh. No air in any of the taxis, not metered either. Everyone still wanted to take you to a massage parlor. The trafffic jams might have even been worse as there were a lot fewer streets.

The sunday market was at Sanam Luang not at JJ, JJ did not exist. The tallest building in Bangkok was the Dusit Thani hotel, and there was no building at all past Suttisan Rd. Going to the airport even from Pradipat was an hour and a half because of all the traffic and stop lights.

For food you had Thai, and a few western style restaurants. Toplight in Siam square had nice burgers and club sandwiches. For eating I did mostly street food like Mu Ping and kau neow. The night markets were great and an adventure watching the foods being prepared.

Beer was about 40 Baht a big bottle but there were 20 baht to the US dollar so beer was more expensive than now. I was paying 300 baht a night for an airconditioned room and a pool.

Buses were one baht 50 and they had no aircon buses, but even back then a very comprehensive network about town.

There was no Kao San Road, the two hang outs were the Thai Song Kreet near Hualompong where the older hands stayed, and the younger travellers were all in the Soi Nam Du Pli area, I moved there and paid 120 baht a night for a nice aircon room at the privacy hotel.

The only way to meet up and get information back then was a big bulletin board at Foodland Ploenchit which is now long gone. It was on Ploenchit about two block before Central on the same side of the street as Central. Any information you wanted was gotten by leaving messages on this big board, there were hundreds at any one time. A good second hand bookstore was also located there.

There was only one department store that being the flagship Central on Silom.

Sathorn was tree lined and became the scene of my first wild adventure in the LOS. Damn it was a pretty street with the klong down the center. The sun could not get through the trees.