[maclaudser]

Senaratne, I'm sure you know what the word serendipity means. That's my feeling about the sois, you never know what you will find and there's often a surprise or two.

I live off a soi, off a soi, off the Sukhumvit 100s and pass through other sub-sois on my way to various places, such as work and maybe Seacon Square.

I found out just the other day that at the end of out small soi there is a small village library.

Not far away we also found a great furniture shop run by a Sikh-Thai couple who also run their own furniture factory.

Another day we went to visit a friend not too far away and dropped off at a car wash. There was a restaurant opposite where we ate while we waited for the car to get washed. Next to the car wash was a TV/radio repair shop (good to keep in mind).

Just outside our soi is a 7-11 and a 24-hour Tesco Express, very handy, and opposite is a small Thai steak restaurant, also handy. It's very much a local shop but the guy does a great T-bone steak and an even better chicken steak with the best sauce I've ever had. Down the road is a makeshift shelter-style restaurant on the bank of a small lake where locals go fishing.

I went to visit a friend once further downtown, still on Sukhumvit, and noticed a small shop selling only harps -- yes, harps! Further down was a small police office. My friend told me later that the police office is there because an old princess lives in the house that the police are guarding.

Someone else I know who lives in a soi off Sukhumvit lives in a flat in a compound where his landlord has a mansion which is a scaled-down version of the US White House. The daughter of Rama 6 lives at the end of his soi. She's really old I think that fact she lives there might have something to do with why that soi doesn't connect Rama 4 Road to Sukhumvit, as a lot of other sois do. In there next soi there are 3 Isaan/Lao restaurants.

I definitelty agree with Jerome that there is so much to discover in the sois - even off the non-touristy end of Sukhumvit.