The Golden Hour of Laan Sukaprok
(Part 1)
©  -  Travelers' Net

- text by Joe Josef
-pictures by trv.net

Place with no name on it

If you have stayed in Patong for more than the average two to three weeks, you might have noticed this place. Certainly every expat knows it.

I'm talking about the Thai eatery located on the corner of Rath U Thit and Bangla, facing the Hard Rock. The most prominent feature of the place are its opening hours. I have never seen it closed except once, on the King's 60th birthday - which made a deep impression on me. I know that the King is like God to Thai people, but closing down the Thai eatery on the corner of Rath U Thit and Bangla is something else.

What's funny is - if the darn place has a name, I never met anybody who knew it. People have to euphemise, saying they are going to "that place which is open all the time" or something to that respect. Maybe it doesn't need a name because every Thai body knows it anyhow To Thai palates it produces the best down home soulfood south of the Northpole, you see.

On the other hand, if you consider the many names Thai people put on persons and places they know and like, you couldn't understand why an omnipresent topos like this should go unnamed. It's just one of these Thai mysteries I guess.

Show of life

The most popular of dishes at the unnamed eatery is Mee Jinn, Chinese noodles. They come with spicy Phuket style sauce and a plate of tua and tua ngo - beans and soy sprouts. I myself do not eat at this place, I must admit. It is dirty. Lizards, cockroaches and rabiate dogs chase each other under the tables. The single toilet is a horror even to Thai standards. To Western eyes the Mee Jinn looks more like something that has been in somebody's body once already than anything else. And the stench…

My wife used to call the place "Laan Sukaprok" (the Dirty Shop) and finally that became the nickname to stay with it.

To me it doesn't matter much, you see, because like I said, I don't eat there. I just have a Radler - a Bia Chang mixed with tonic - and use my eyes.

I do not use my eyes on the cockroaches. I do not see the rusty oilcans nor the rotting piles of garbage on the street in front of the shop. I don't even perceive the eggshells on the floor. What I do is, I enjoy looking at the show.

There is no real show, of course. Just real life. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week the Laan Sukaprok entertains its visitors with life. It's like a concert with the tenor changing by the hour.

No assault

During the evening the tables slowly fill with Thai people who enjoy salted fish with tender bones, chicken intestines, fat pigskin and all the many delicacies with white rice served on a mix of household utensils like plastic plates and sheet metal dishes. After nine the waitresses start moving. No more time to take long naps with the head on the table.

One of the good things about Laan Sukaprok is the absence of background music. Unlike most Thai eateries and bars of that caliber, there is no assault to your ears by either wailing Isaan songstresses or slashing pop music cymbals. Instead there are the sounds of people. Laughing girls, the sputter of Phuket dialect, a few noisy farangs and the languages of Babylon. Pidgin Thai-English is the common nominator. Behind it all is the accompaniment of traffic. The taxis, the Honda Dreams and every twentieth minute a young Thai man screaming by on one of those high-pitched motorbikes. Then there is an eruption in the kitchen, a gush and a cloud of chili.

The concert of life crescents after midnight. Bargirls come in for a plate of mee jinn, some of the supermarket and hotel girls in their uniforms, too. The joint begins to jump.

Part 2