Uke in the "Land of Smiles"

One might think a country which has recently suffered a coup by the military, is not the kind of place you'd want to visit.

But it's quiet and peaceful; my young daughter and I are having a ball. I've visited the best uke shops in Bangkok, Ribbee and Baan, to check out their ukes. Ribbee reports business is better since the military put an end to the "Shutdown Bangkok" movement.

Baan fixed up my KoAloha tenor and added an LR Baggs pickup. They did great work. They also hosted their monthly Uke Lovers Club meeting today. (Ribbee will sponsor another uke festival this Oct. or Nov.)

During today's meeting, one of the performers proposed to his girlfriend. See attached pic. The girl to the left is 12 year old Sydney - a young superstar in the Thai uke scene. She put on a great show tonight, too.
( back in February she taught me how to use my Boss looper pedal ) this girl is talented!

Still the land of smiles despite a military coup!

Nice! No ukes when I was stationed in Thailand. I feel bad about their "troubles." Beautiful country, lovely people.

El U, have you had any luck finding a Uke Club? When I was home in Portland last June I crashed the Ptown Uke Society summer bash...was so much fun, probably 100+ Ukers there. Would love to try and start something up like that here.

Slipperystar said:

El U, have you had any luck finding a Uke Club?

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Well, I've been enjoying the Uke Lovers Club here in Bangkok, but I'm only here on vacation temporarily. I had to start my own club back "home" in Xiamen, China. From there, I'll soon be moving to GuangZhou (Canton), so a new group will need to be started there! Cool thing about Guangzhou is that many of the uke factories are there and they have an annual Expo kind of like NAMM, except only for guitars, ukes and the like.