Bangkok certainly has a lot of interesting things to see. The temples, the Presidential Palace…the…Go Go bars? But if one wants to dig deeper, he can find many “off-the-beaten-path” attractions as well…the kinds of attractions that are not typically seen by the typical, mainstream tourist.

One of these “off-the-beaten-path” attractions was the Nightingale-Olympic Co., Ltd., also known across the internet as “Bangkok’s Forgotten Shopping Centre”, or “Bangkok’s Strangest Mall”.

Located in Phra Nakhon District , close to the Grand Palace and Chinatown, Nightingale-Olympic is considered to be one of the oldest [if not THE oldest] department stores in Bangkok, with its current location opening in 1966.

Walking inside this nostalgic shop gives you the idea that you have just walked into a historical exhibit that you might find at Disney’s EPCOT Center. Even the staff members appear to be made of wax, as they are all standing still, with no greetings or body motion. It’s almost as if they started working here back in the 1960s, and never left.

After admiring the iconic Thai-style exterior facade of the building, the first thing you notice when you approach the shop are the mannequins in the windows dressed in 1960’s esque outfits that appear to have been obsolete for years! Have the outfits on these mannequins ever been changed, or were they purposely set up to make this shop look nostalgic? Off to the side, notice the display cases of old toys and sports equipment, laid out in what appears to be no logical order.

Walking inside, you REALLY feel as if you have stepped back in time. It’s almost as if there was a nuclear accident back in the 1960s, forcing everybody to leave at once. Even the interior of the building itself looks as if it was never changed, with its vintage tile flooring and its circular “art moderne” cutout ceiling.

Before arriving, one thing I had heard about this place was that they were total dictators about allowing people to take photos. Therefore, I was happy that I was able to sneak some shots of the vintage items in the shop. Once again, I constantly asked myself this question…”had these items been here all along? Or had this company at some point in time re-marketed itself as a vintage pawn-shop? One woman was even kind enough to allow me to take one picture on the downstairs floor…but she was very specific about saying that I could only take 1 picture. Why were they such dictators about not letting people take photos? My only guess was that they really wanted people to actually BUY the items instead of take photos of them. Why not just call this place a museum and charge admission?

There were two items I saw in the shop that I was particularly curious about, as I had never seen anything like them before. Naturally they were both really ancient items, and I still had this idea that these commodities had been sitting in this display rack since this shop first opened in the 1960s.

The first item I was curious about was called “Sauna in a Suit”. According to box, “The Sauna Suit” suppposedly was meant to “provide all the benefits of a sauna bath in your own home without complicated equipment.” When readily available in shops everywhere, this Sauna Suit appears to have been made of rubber, coming equipped with a dry heat generator, which had to be plugged in, and attached to a hose at the bottom of the suit.

Sauna suits supposedly still exist today, but not in the same way that they did before. Today they come in two pieces (jacket and trousers), and supposedly do not have their own dry heat generators anymore. They’re also no longer made of rubber, but instead of coated nylon cloth. The general purpose of both this antiquated sauna suit as well as modern sauna suits is to make the person wearing it sweat excessively, supposedly allowing him/her to quickly lose weight, as well as to cleanse the pores. Some people actually debate the first theory, claiming that sauna suits do not actually cause any weight loss.

Either way, this was a very unique discovery (although it looks like it has seen better days), and would make a great item for the “Museum of Failure”.

The second item I found quite fascinating (and obsolete at the same time), was the item with the tagline, “Convert Your Own Bed into a Vibrator in Seconds”. Most people are familiar with classic “Magic Fingers Vibrating Beds” which used to be common at hotels throughout the country from the 1960s to the 1980s. What people didn’t realize was that the “Magic Fingers” was not actually a part of the bed itself, but was actually a separate unit, which could be installed autonomously.

Along with the popularity of the Magic Fingers bed came the idea of people wanting to have this style of bed in the comfort of their own home. I just wonder if someone decides to buy this piece of nostalgia, if it still works.

The Nightingale-Olympic Co., Ltd. is one shop that can’t be missed when in Bangkok for an extensive stay. I can honestly say that you’ve probably never seen anything like it.

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