You experience everything in Thailand (55)

Pattaya in 1991 (photo: Mike Shopping Mall)

Dolf Riks is a legendary Dutchman, who spent the last 30 years of his life in Pattaya. Everyone who regularly visited Pattaya before the turn of the century knew him. He owned the first western restaurant in Pattaya, was also a painter, writer and a fascinating storyteller.

You can read his life story in partly English and partly Dutch at  www.pattayamail.com/304/

Blog reader and writer Dick Koger knew him well and years ago wrote a story about his friendship with Dolf Riks. That story appeared in the Newsletter of the Dutch Association Thailand Pattaya and Dick has now offered it to Thailandblog to include in the series "You experience all kinds of things in Thailand", This is his story

My friendship with Dolf Riks

Ten years before I left for Thailand permanently, I said in an interview that I didn't live to work, but worked to live. I later explained that as soon as it became financially possible, I would move to the Far East. I meant that I would move to Thailand after visiting Indonesia, Philippines, India and many more countries in the East. So I knew what I was doing.

Still, I was careful in 1991. I rented my first apartment from Dolf Riks. I was a regular guest in his restaurant on my vacations. First on a corner of the Beach Road in old Pattaya and later diagonally opposite Hotel Regent Marina in the Soi of the same name in North Pattaya. Above the latter restaurant there was room for a few large apartments and Dolf only rented them out if he could foresee in advance that he would not be bothered by the tenant. I had the room on the corner and could therefore see the sea from the window.

I only lived there for a few months, as I soon met Sit, who turned out to be an excellent guide in my explorations of Thailand. He was married and soon the three of us decided to rent a house and that cohabitation has continued to this day, although three children have now been born, two daughters and a son.

However, I continued to visit Dolf Riks frequently. Dolf Riks Restaurant was more than an occasion where you could eat excellently. It was a meeting point, on the one hand because this was the first and for a long time the only Western restaurant in Pattaya, on the other hand because Dolf Riks was a man who had clearly gathered an interesting circle of people around him. You could therefore not describe his life as boring.

Born on Ambon in 1929. Lived in many places in Indonesia and finally became a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp there. Terrible things experienced, but fortunately did not succumb. In 1946 back to the Netherlands. There, eventually, to the Maritime Training School. With a diploma working at the Holland-America Line as an apprentice mate. As a helmsman he left the sea in 1961. Nostalgia for the Far East brought him to Thailand to become a painter in Bangkok. In 1969 he came to Pattaya and opened a restaurant there.

When I went to eat at Dolf, it always started with a drink at the bar. That bar was soon full of Dolf and acquaintances of his and stories about the past were told. Food almost never came. Fixed point was one minute to nine. Everyone knew, another sixty seconds, then Luuk will come down. Luuk also lived upstairs in an apartment and was a man of fairly regular habits. Exactly nine o'clock he made his appearance and sat down at the bar. I also made many acquaintances and friends at that bar.

Dolf certainly did not live in the past. He was the first with a computer, then little more than a fancy word processor. He not only used it for his administration, but in addition to being a painter and restorer, Dolf was also a writer. He first published in a disappeared English-language newspaper in Bangkok, later in the Pattaya Mail. When he bought a new model, say a real contemporary computer, I got his old one and thanks to this gift I noticed that writing was an extremely enjoyable activity. I will always be grateful to Dolf for that.

I made quite a few trips with Dolf, mostly to villages in Esan, where his staff came from. Chilled white wine was drunk during the journey. In the village we offered a pig. Such an evening always ended in music, singing and dancing with all the inhabitants.

The restaurant had a curious phenomenon. There was of course an extensive menu, but there was also a mobile blackboard, showing the specialties of the day. And the nice thing was that those specialties never changed in my opinion. I never understood the deeper meaning of that. Incidentally, my most favorite dish was the rice table, which could be ordered in single portions and consisted of fried rice and ten to fifteen small dishes with side dishes.

Dolf's love life was also colorful. In Pattaya, he fell in love with a Thai young man, who was already married and had children. The young man was apparently very flexible. He moved in with Dolf and Dolf took care of his children. His partner received a thorough training in the kitchen and when he had become a fine cook after years and apparently had the financial means, he left Dolf and started his own Thai restaurant with his wife a few Sois away. This type of relationship is not uncommon in Thailand and you should not try to understand it. Later, Dolf platonically focused his affection on his driver, who lived with his wife and children in his house and managed the household affairs there.

Unfortunately, it is fair to say that Dolf's business was not going well. Slowly the quality of the restaurant deteriorated and the number of visitors dropped just as slowly. Dolf, also still struggling with his health (left over from the Japanese camp), was distressed that he could not leave anything to the Thai family in his house. He decided to sell the restaurant and that was only possible because his good friend Bruno, director at Royal Cliff, wanted to start his own restaurant. Whether the purchase of Dolf's restaurant was commercially justified or whether human motives played a role is unknown. Dolf was able to start a small restaurant in Naklua, near his home, where his driver became a cook. Obviously, this case was unsuccessful. In any case, the family was left well cared for when Dolf Riks died in 1999.