The Motley Fool

Your worst side effect is going to be a heart attack. I cant believe people who will take prescription medicine without seeing their doctor, let alone buying it in Bangkok where it could be anything

Be very carefull with the Nana Ibis. It is now a hotel for packages from India and could be full of Indian men. I went there in October for a visit and it was packed with indian men, The couldnt stop ogling the girl I was with and were rude beyond explanation

I stayed one night at the City Lodge. The aircon stinks of cigarettes, the hotel is the old Chinese style, brown. Girl on reception had to work very hard to drag herself away from the TV when I checked in. I wouldnt go again

Dont work for me. I never pay over £20 a night, and there are some very very good hotels for that price. Why pay big money for a hotel youre only going to shower and shag in?

I always use this guy, from the Airport to the City and back and have also used him to take me up to Kanchanaburi and back several times. 500 baht. its a small aircon van type but very comfortable and he doesnt expect tips.

Guys name is Mr Pimdee and the phone is 089 5037564  or 084 1310679

I've heard that some of the rooms in the Nana Hotel have no windows at all.  That would be a bit grim.

 

Worth making sure that you are not in one of the them when you make a booking.

Most hotels in Bangkok have some rooms without windows. That does mean they are quieter.

The one problem for the Nana untill they revamped it was it was a specifically Arab Hotel. Then when the Nana Plaza was built and took off,the management realised that they just werent going to get lots of Farangs in and booted all the Arabs out. For me it still has that memory and I just wouldnt stay there. The one time I ate there I was served by a very surly and bad tempered Katoey. I pissed him off even more by not leaving a tip!

that seems a bit unfair , anytime i went there there were maybe 12 to 15 men , mainly 40 y.o. to 60 y.o. also about 30 freelancers from about 26 y.o. to 45 y.o. 

the men seemed fairly normal, there was no great unwashed odours , and the freelancers were from a 3 to a 7 on the monger scale . 

 

perhaps you had an off day yourself ?

I popped in there last October and thought the same, smelly dirty, unkempt old guys (and Im old but not unkempt)  and the girls didnt look very inviting either. I wont go back there.

Anyone remember the old original RIFIFI bar, where poor old Mick used to sit looking depressed at the end of the bar every night ??

Practically every Hotel will have a travel desk so have a walk arund several of them and see who does the best trips as well as some of the small travel shops..

The one I loved was the coach up to Ayutthaya and river boat back along with free food.

Go to MBK and buy one of the 3000 Baht Samsung ripoff Tablets and use that to carry around. Get the one with 2 sim slots, bung a memory card in one and a 500 Baht DTAC roaming Data sim in the other, worked for me in October

Ive been going to Bangkok and Pattaya since 1969 and I can tell you theres been a 'crackdown' announced virtually every year since the late 70's. Theres always been crackpot suggestion of turning it into a 'Family Resort' but that never happened.

What realy got up my nose was all the mongers who used to go out there in the early 80's chasing girls, then moving out there and becoming 'respectalised' and forming the Pattaya round table and condemning the bars. Thats not to mention one certain 'monger who ran his won TV station and found respectability as he denounced all the bar owners yet he used to be one.

Pattaya does funny things to people, but the one thing you must never forget, it brings in a LOT of money to certain people.

Going back to the original question - for the first two lines opened on Dec 5th, 1999 - physical construction of the lines (piling work) was started as early as 1995/1996.  

They did the construction work in stages on Sukhumvit, Ploenchit, Rama 1, Phayathai Roads...

 

Here is another good site for Bangkok - http://www.2bangkok.com/

I can tell you that construction started way earlier than that as I can remember some of the big supports being put in around 1989