In the mid-1980s I lived in a Bangkok shophouse for two years. Built of cement, the classic three-floor structure was on a dead-end soi (lane) that did not have a proper address; taxi drivers had to be directed rather vaguely to a point "opposite Sukhumvit 26," which was across the road.
I chose to rent the place not for the unique cultural experience it offered but because it was cheap, at $100 a month. As a freelance journalist, I had a Sino-Thai clan to support, so I put up with the inherent drawbacks of the shophouse lifestyle: lack of privacy, window bars to keep robbers out, road noise, inner-city pollution.
