Gasohol
Nostalgia is a weird thing, when I browse through some old photo albums, at times perfectly ordinary things suddenly look special.
Only then do you realize that often those things have either changed considerably or disappeared completely.
These changes usually go gradually and very slowly, take for example gas stations.
When I think of how gas stations in Thailand looked like when I started living here, just basic pumps and not much more, certainly no fancy coffee shops (*) and this brings us to the present subject...
Note the bucket on a string, it's used for receiving money!
Last month I was cycling around, suddenly realized I’d passed an old-style gas ‘station’ for motorcycles and did a U-turn.
I went back, talked a little with the lady in charge, and took some photos.
Afterwards I posted it on Twitter, remarked that these kinds of gas ‘stations’ were disappearing and maybe soon extinct.
All chained up!
With that in mind, I decided to actually focus on such 'stations' to see if it really was that bad.
To my big surprise, I found more than a few of these places in one particular area of Bangkruay, although not in an alley, but along a khlong-side road.
Price list of Gasohol 95 (green), Gasohol 91 (orange), & Diesel (Solar) (yellow)
Closer to Bangkok, I couldn’t find any, but I only checked out my area, perhaps there are some more scattered around the city, who knows.
Usually, these places are part of a mom-and-pop kind of local store.
It might look primitive, but it works!
Here's the place that started this blog post!
My bike only needs water and coffee though ;-)
I'd almost passed this place when suddenly I realized what was inside these whiskey bottles!
Luckily enough a customer appeared at the same time.
This gives a whole different meaning to 'bottoms up'!
Another one, complete with an official document on the wall.
Max 5 liters.
I noticed a few of these more 'modern' pumps around as well.
At last a customer!
Fill her up!
Pump it up!
Action!
(*) Only 'kafae boran' and instant coffee in those days...
