JAM!

 

JAM! is a super-laidback cafe and bar that I discovered on this trip, which unexpectedly turned into a kind of home base for a few days, and one of my favourite places in the city. It is run by the same people who produce BANG! magazine, which was helping me to promote my book so I went down for a visit and ended up hanging out for a while. It is a really cool place, a bit like someone’s living room, furnished with kitschy old Thai movie posters and rubber toys in a converted Chinese shop house on a very “local” street. Here  I met designers, singers, food writers, local party promoters, fashion entrepreneurs, photographers and artists. Many live locally in the surrounding quaint Thai neighbourhood, with great street food on winding lanes, tucked away behind a freeway near Thanon Sathorn.

As luck would have it they were also staging a really cool event while I was there, an art launch for painter and illustrator Dao Paovamin. Her psychedelic works included 3D paintings to be viewed through special glasses (and the effect was surprisingly vivid, the dayglo blues really seemed to recede into the distance as you put the glasses on), projections and line drawings to be viewed under UV lights.

I also heard some great music while I was there – stuff I never would have heard otherwise, old luk thuung, Thai heavy metal and Western hipster tunes. JAM! is totally recommended. Here is a map to help you find it (its about ten minutes walk from Surasak BTS):

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