RECORDS SHOPPING IN BANGKOK (part 4)

-BREAK STOP 2. Strangely this place don't get much attention in the tourists guides. Downstairs you'll find a condenced version of most of the snacks and sweets from thailand it's really worth a little tour as you can see some made in front of you and  well you will need to walk around anyway if you want to find the CD shop. Little shop with all kinds of thai cds, it's worth 5mn browsing.

-The main attraction  is upstairs with the Mae Mai Pleng Thai shop, it's THE specialist of high quality vintage luk thing re-edition cd's. the packagings are great and often use the original cover designs. Visit their online store prior to your visit to get an idea of what you'll see there. It's a bit more expensive than other CDs (around 150b) but they do a great work. They only have a bunch of Esan music but I guess most of you would also want to buy other vintage luk thung CDs.

-From what I heard last week the small shop that was selling tapes and cds on the last floor recently closed but I did not check. Well it's still a good idea to get around and to enter the food court.

-BREAK STOP 3, if in the food court you will find some shops selling all kinds of thai dishes (tickets sold at the entrance, 40/60b a dish), the main attraction remains the old school karaoke where some local retired people comes to sing some vintage luk krung songs. As you'll be around you should not miss it.

That's It, you are DONE! Well, almost. As you are just 2mn away from the main Indian place in Bangkok: "Pahuarat", you can walk around, there are a bunch of shops selling some Indian music (mostly some Bollywood of all kinds and some religious music). You can take away some good quality Indian pastries in the shops located in the small streets in front or at the back of the India emporium shopping mall. If you are vegetarian, there are lots of nice places to eat around too.

As you will notice, I skipped a bunch of shops on the way and only focuced on what's worth in this area (you sure can visit the other shops but it will take you more time). You can now get in a taxi (+/- 60b I guess) and get back to the MRT station or go to visit one of the major touristic temples such as Wat Arun as they are pretty close).

Of course, be nice with the shop owners and speak slow, carry a list of singer names (or genres) you would like to buy (on paper). The best is to have this list in thai and phonetic so the shop owner will take the time to find what you could like and sugest you some related things (copy paste some names from here and MRPT blog).

Do NOT proudly show up with pictures of those thai records compilations available in your country on your smart phone as reference, some record shop owner consider those as fake or bootlegs and you would not get much help from them.

There are many other places to buy music in BKK but the places I mention here are easy to reach in an 1/2 day records hunting trip, there are a few things to see around too and some nice things to eat. So if you are not on your own your friends won't get too bored...

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions and don't forget to send me some photos of the records you found.
2018 UPDATE: 4 of the listed shops closed already still It remain the best area to find music in BKK. The best shop in the area is actually not listed as you would get lost trying to find it but if you really want to try, contact me and I'll help you.