Kayiwa · · 4 min read
I left a bag behind at 1981 Soul & Sold, and it had nothing to do with the price.
More on that further down. First, the place itself, because Bangkok opens a new market every other week and this one is genuinely worth the trip out to Ramkhamhaeng.
It is new, and you can tell
Some units are still empty and available to rent. The walls are deliberately finished to look like the building work never stopped, which sounds like an excuse and is actually the best design decision in the place.
It is also busy enough that parking is a real consideration. There is space for cars, bikes and motorcycles, and the management are clearly working at it, but do not assume you will roll straight in.
Vintage clothing from about 250 baht
That is the headline for most people. Both new and genuinely old pieces, classics rather than reprints, and the pricing starts around 250 THB, which is affordable by any standard for this kind of shopping.
Bags start as low as 59 THB. I bought a pure leather one for around 800 THB. There were boots at 2,500 THB that I badly wanted and which existed only in size 41, and a leather shop on the first floor worth stopping in.
The bikes and cars are not decoration
This is the part I was not ready for. There are vintage motorbikes lined up on the second floor with price tags on them, and full documentation — owner’s name, the garage that built it, the paint.
- A Honda Dax at 160,000 THB
- Another at 100,000 THB
- A three-wheeler with no price on it at all
- A build under the name The Iron Church Project
Downstairs there are vintage cars too. I called one of them a Cadillac on camera and was corrected — it is a Chevrolet.
Toy Land
A world of toys for girls and boys, says the sign, and the collection inside is genuinely mad. Ninja Turtles, SpongeBob, Peppa Pig, Bugs Bunny, Daffy, old McDonald’s figures, and an Obama.
It is a collector’s room, not a toy shop — one piece I looked at was 3,500 THB, about a hundred dollars. Bring a kid and they will lose their mind. Bring yourself and you will stand in front of something you last saw when you were nine.
Same energy in the music section: vinyl, cassettes, the formats that were the real deal before flash drives, before streaming. If you collect anything at all, this building is a problem for you.
The bag I put back
It was leather, it was excellent, and it was green camouflage.
Back home, civilians are strictly prohibited from wearing or carrying anything that resembles military kit. Get caught with it and you are in real trouble, unless you are a celebrity, in which case the rules bend like they do everywhere. So a bag I liked, at a price I was happy with, went back on the shelf.
I am curious how common that is. Where you are, can civilians wear camouflage? Genuine question — it is the kind of thing you assume is universal until you travel.
Food, groceries and a live band
The food court is large and the range runs from ordinary street food to gourmet, with pizza in there too. I had a Thai dish heavy with spicy peanuts and sliced cabbage and could not tell you its name. Seating in the middle and around the edges.
There is also a full supermarket for groceries and essentials, which tells you this is built for locals and not only for a weekend crowd.
And there is live rock music. You can watch the performance from the upper level while you shop, which is a much better arrangement than it sounds.
The practical bit
- Where: 1981 Soul & Sold, 49 Ramkhamhaeng Rd, Hua Mak, Bang Kapi, Bangkok 10240
- Budget: vintage clothing from 250 THB, bags from 59 THB, collectibles into the thousands
- Do not miss: Toy Land, the bikes on the second floor, the live music
- Plan for: parking taking longer than you expect
- Video runtime: about 23 minutes, full tour
More Bangkok is in the Thailand travel guide, and more eating is on the food page.