Will cleaning up Thailand’s most famous party street improve it, or kill its soul? – in The Daily Telegraph

Leonardo Di Caprio has been here. As have countless young backpackers from the West. Over the past forty years, Khao San Road, once a quiet residential street on the fringes of Bangkok’s historic centre, has morphed into the world’s best-known backpacker hub. Loud, inexpensive, garish and in your face, the 400 meter long strip has […]

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The Overstay – Thailand´s Worst Hotel is a Gem! Just Don´t Sleep There.

The crowd surges forward. The singer, a 40 something skinny white guy, screams into the microphone, which has been taped to the top of a camera stand. The room is so hot that water drops from the ceiling. The linoleum is coming off the floor in long torn rolls of dirty plastic. The drums thud […]

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Die Akha in Bangkok – Die Opiumbauern in der Metropole

Der folgende Text ist eine Reportage, die ich für meinen Titel Kulturschock Thailands Bergvölker und Seenomaden, 2006 bei Reise Know How erschienen, recherchiert habe. Ich bin damals ein paar Nächte lang den Akha, die in Bangkoks Touristenvierteln arbeiten, gefolgt…. Mirchu ist 27 Jahre alt. Die leicht dicke Mutter von zwei Kindern gehört zu einem der […]

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From Backpacker-Ghetto to Global Shopping Mall – Joe Cummings on Bangkok’s Khao San Road, in The South China Morning Post

Khao San Road, one of the world’s greatest and most fascinating tourist ghettos, is coming of age. Last week the first MacDonald’s outlet opened inside one of the guesthouse complexes on the strip. Legendary hippy hangout, subject of a Hollywood blockbuster and barely more than 300 metres long, the Khao San Road offers a stop-over […]

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