The Raja Experience

This has been one of my favorite experiences yet in Thailand. My tailor’s are Raja and Bobby (Raja’s son), recommended to us by Professor Vaz. Last Thursday, was my first experience going there with Andrew (only the first trip not this one), Eric, and Jessie, traveling to Nana station and navigating around the outskirts of the Red Light District (hysterical in and of itself). Anyways the first thing that Bobby or one of Raja’s women (the seamstresses that work in the sales shop) does is get you a Heineken or a cocktail. While waiting 40 minutes for a fitting, a completely enjoyable amount of time, we got to eat peanuts and enjoy drinks, have a tasty apple, look at all the pictures of past raja events, pictures and letters of the senators and Generals who have shopped there, and the coolest thing I saw was a WPI Police Patch up on his wall. Raja’s only had room for about 40 patches on their wall and yep a WPI one made it up, thanks probably to Vaz.

Bobby is the best salesman I have met in Thailand, remember every buddy’s name and greeting them as they walked through the door, no matter how busy it was, and also remembering something about them when he started conversations to boot. This is how he does business, as it was explained he does none of his business through adverting only referrals from customers and it works, as you walk down the street there are many other tailor shops, in better locations and even one or two with the name Raja’s something, but almost all were empty or close enough and then you get to this hole in the wall shopped jammed packed with people buying 1,2,3 suits and 3 to 6 shirts while thanking Raja for taking their money and the experience they received. Just have to say again this place rocks.

While sipping on my second Heineken, I got to talk to this guy in jeans and a tee from jersey who was friends with Bobby and swap stories of home, until Eric came out with his new pants and shirt on. Then the best part started when it was my turn to go back into the small changing room and try on my new cloths. The suit pants are perfect and so is the new shirt and as I got to show Jessie she, agreed. After Bobby was done with Eric it was my turn to be fitted to the jacket by the third head tailor. This was my favorite experience to date, just getting to stand their while he checked over every part of the jackets fit, making chalk marks here and there, measuring the arm lengths, where they sit on the jacket, checking every single little detail for 10 minutes. I got to feel like a king or more importantly a high class business man for a period. This was awesome, and to boot the more expensive fabric I picked out, rocked, and I looked frikken awesome in it all. As we left, Bobby scheduled our next fitting for a week later and we got to leave on awesome terms on cloud nine.

To even add to this story, we found a great Indian restaurant next door with amazing food. I ate the slowest I ever have in my whole life. I got a curry dish, served over a flame, bread, and a whiskey sour all for under 500 Bht. It was amazing.

p.s. Raja’s is featured in the Feb 2008 issue of Men’s vogue as the best tailor shop in South East Asia. Check it out.