Arab Nana vs. Nana Plaza

I wonder how it would be go grow up with the last name "Patpong" or "Nana". Guess if you're loaded .. who cares. Or ask Lek Nana.

Nana is actually split into two, and the South Nana of beers and bargirls is a world away from North Nana and its "Soi Arab," with Middle Eastern restaurants and shops that make up a sort of separate country within Bangkok.
Much of the land on which North Nana and "Soi Arab" now rests belonged to one family: the Nana family, a prominent business clan with Middle Eastern roots.

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BBC story on escape from Bangkok prision 13 years ago

Nice read about a prison escape from a Bangkok prison in 1996 by David McMillan:

I started at midnight with hacksaw blades that had been sent over in a care parcel, carefully hidden, so I took those out and began working on the bars.

In fact only one bar was cut, and only partially at that. So my Swedish friend, he was built like a Viking, he had to stretch the thing out, as I squeezed through, oiled up, wearing nothing but my underwear and a pair of trainers.

I just got outside, and then I used a plank to get out and across the yard. It was a bookcase, in fact everything in the room had been built to assist the escape. Furniture turned into step ladders and shower curtains disassembled into long bits of rope. Read more..