Dolf Riks: Chef, Writer, painter and story teller extraordinaire, always quick to smile, passed away last week.

In his last years he had been plagued by a variety of age related illnesses, some no doubt a legacy of his arduous childhood, much of it spent in Japanese prisoner of war camps in Indonesia. He had nevertheless maintained his humorous, if sometimes irascible, approach to life that made him such an internationally popular raconteur.

Dolf first came to Pattaya 30 years ago during the Vietnam war, travelling by truck on what he described as a "hazardous trip" from Paknam. Dolf’s abiding passion, right to the end, was food and its preparation. So it was not surprising that he had been chosen by another early Pattayan character, Charlie Cattanach, to manage his restaurant Charlie’s Hideaway, one of the first in town. His inexperience in the business made the venture less than profitable, and, happily as it turned out, there came an amicable parting of ways. Having given up a house in Bangkok and with nothing else to do, but still forever tied to Pattaya, as with many others then and since, he rented another old beach restaurant which became the first "Dolf Rik’s Restaurant"—which, with Dolf’s own inimical style imprinted, became an instant success.

Dolf’s parents emigrated as teachers to Ambon, then a Dutch Colony, where he was born in 1929. Soon after they transferred to Java and Dolf only saw Europe when he was 6 years old. Later, they moved to Batavia, now Jakarta, which was abandoned by the Allied Forces and occupied by the Japanese in 1942 when Dolf was just 13. There followed 3 traumatic years in Japanese "Protection" (sic) and POW camps. His father had joined the gallant "Land Storm", an auxiliary military division, which eventually cost him his life in the sinking of the ill-fated Yunyo Maru as a prisoner of war. Dolf, his mother, 16 year old sister and two younger brothers were interned together, but Dolf, being over 11 and thus considered by the Japanese as being old enough to constitute a danger in the case of a coastal invasion, was separated from his family and sent with other potentially dangerous over 11 potential warriors to an inland camp in a disused insane asylum on the site of the present day Sukarno-Hatta Airport and later to a POW camp in the highlands of West Java until the final "liberation" in 1945. Dolf’s sister Caroline, who survives him, returned to Holland at the end of that year but it was not until 1946 that Dolf, his mother and brothers were to see Holland again.

His early experiences in his beloved Ambon, the harrowing war years and later his career in the merchant marine which, in spite of his love of travelling—"I joined not because of any abiding love of the sea, but simply to avoid the draft!" —gave Dolf an inexhaustible supply of reminisces, which he never tired of passing on to his eager listeners. His travels as a sailor in an Indonesian coastal steamer also gave him the opportunity to seek out more exotic recipes, herbs and spices in his beloved Asia.

Amongst a bunch of colourful and eccentric expatriate characters then and now in Pattaya, Dolf stood out. Not only as a character, but as an all-round Renaissance man-Asia style. Apart from his love of cooking, which made visits to his restaurants a memorable experience (his was chosen by the Wall Street Journal as one of 10 best in Asia), he was an accomplished writer (especially on food—his weekly columns in the Pattaya Mail were collectors items), a painter of some renown and a man of strong opinions which he was not afraid to express.

Whilst he admitted to a number of prejudices, these in no way included racism and, in spite of his sometimes horrifying experiences at the hands of the Japanese occupying forces, he had no dislike of the Japanese. He explained to me once that war brings out the worst in people of all nations and the worst gravitate to the positions where they can exercise their evil power: the POW camps and prisons. "This does not reflect on the rest of the race and I am fond of Japan," he told me, "and the Japanese."

Three years ago Dolf sold his famous Dolf Riks Restaurant and tried, unsuccessfully, to retire. Within a year he had opened another small restaurant in out-of-the-way Naklua, "to give me and my Thai dependants something to do." Unfortunately, Dolf’s ailments, which became more numerous in the last years, and the location did not allow it to become the success his other restaurants had been. But he was still there often, to regale his customers with tales of the old days or exciting discoveries of a new recipe or herb.

His happiest times were on visits to his adopted family in Yasothon, where some of his old enthusiasm for life emerged in spite of the pain that had become his constant companion. Happily, with the help of Bob Purdy he had discovered the computer and the Internet and became an avid correspondent—re-discovering many old friends in the process, some from his internment days.

With his passing, of the early expat coterie amongst whom he was known affectionately as "the Frying Dutchman", there remains only Bruno Forrer, also a famous restaurateur and Axel Borsdorf, chief representative of TUI. Khun Suthep and Khun Somsak and Khun Pratheep Malhotra, publisher of this journal, are still around, to mourn him and to tell the tales. Alois Fassbind (Mr Pattaya) of the Royal Cliff, Ed Headley, Angelo Maiocchi and the others have gone ahead, and Pattaya will never be the same. New characters will arrive, some perhaps as interesting as Dolf and his friends were, but there can be no more "early days", nor the bond which grew up amongst the friends who experienced them together.

This is undeniable so, as I arrived on the beach in February 1969 during that disastrous conflict now known as the Vietnam War. History is however a funny thing. When you are in the midst of an earth shattering event you do not seem to realise its significance and only much later, looking back objectively, one starts to get the picture. It took me over fifty years to write about the Second World War and its consequences. Although we had many Americans on the beach that were either directly involved in the Vietnam conflict by being pilots of bombers, or on R & R (Rest and Recreation), or indirectly involved by working for the maintenance of the air base at Utapao, some of my best friends were morticians and young people working for the Chase Manhattan Bank branch on the airbase.

At the PATA Ball. From left to right, Madame Suzanne, Dolf Riks and Alois Fassbind.

Every afternoon the big B 52 bombers, returning from their missions over Vietnam, would fly over Pattaya preparing to land at the Utapao airbase in Sattahip. As I recall there where usually nine, flying in V formation, but sometimes when there had been casualties, the number was less.

It wasn’t until I read "A Bright Shining Lie", a brilliant account by New York Times’ correspondent Neil Sheehan that I finally realised how dreadfully stupid and avoidable the whole tragedy had been, but that was years later.

One day in late February 1969, after a hazardous trip along the old highway from Paknam to Cholburi, I arrived with a truck loaded with my household belongings, plus two children, all girls, and the maid from Bangkok, at the gate of Charlie’s Hideaway on Soi Kanchanavit, which changed names later to Soi 5 in North Pattaya. The restaurant was situated at the exact spot where is now the Carlton Hotel. The second road was a sand path without streetlights and the beach road navigable with a car, but barely so.

The owner, Charlie Cattanach, a retired U.S. Army officer, was a colourful character, one of a collection of similar legendary local expatriate personalities. Charlie, a most amiable and amusing gentleman, but with no business sense at all, had the absurd idea that he could let me run the Hideaway, while he with his wife and four children moved to Switzerland to retire. Being a novice in business myself, I believed that this was plausible.

There were three other privately owned restaurants on the beach, "The Nipa Hut" run by Colonel George serving Mexican fare, located where is now La Gritta Restaurant on the North beach. At the seaside on the South Pattaya strip was "The Coral Reef", a restaurant with class and atmosphere and adjacent to it, the Outrigger, a bar and restaurant, decorated in the style of the South Sea Islands. The late, most talented Ed Headley and his partner Suthep Iemsakul owned the latter two. On the corner of South Pattaya Road and Beach Road was a big Tamarind tree in the middle of the intersection, on the corner of which is at present the building which houses World Gems. That was the location of another what one could call "eatery" called the Seagull, housed in a disused boathouse. The Seagull served hamburgers, pizzas and other dishes while it featured a jukebox with evergreens, and in between, the American owners, Bunny and Walt Kasdorf, played mainly American Western country music. The only first class hotel in Pattaya was the Nipa Lodge, now called the Nova Lodge on the corner of Beach Road and Central Road.

After a couple of months it became clear that the arrangement with Charlie was a folly and he told me that unless I had an alternative, he had to let me go. With no place to call home - I had given up my house in Bangkok - this was not a very bright prospect. Fortunately, Bonny and Walt Kasdorf wanted to lease out their Seagull Restaurant and after a bit of paint, draperies for the huge aquarium windows, removal of the jukebox and a few other changes, we opened for business on the 24th of August 1969 under the new name of "Dolf Riks Restaurant".

Although with no experience to speak of, we were a success from the beginning and soon became known as Dolf Riks at the "Big Tree, after the old Tamarind tree in the middle of the intersection of South Pattaya Road and the Beach Road." On Saturday nights people tended to drive into this tree, as it had no warning lights and until it was finally cut down, there were several accidents, some of them with serious consequences. From the restaurant’s doorway, I took some pictures of the beach and the fishing boats. This was before a man by the name of Chalia, a most obnoxious person who used to supply drinking water to the village on Gogh Lahn, built a lean-to, which, in spite of several protests against it, spread out like a cancer. He constructed a long pier for the fishing boats and was known for his criminal behaviour. Like many other shady characters in those days, Chalia was shot one day and a few years later his son followed. The eye sore, an enormous beer bar complex, right next to the police box is still there for anybody to see.

Caption four: June 1972. A meeting of the Thai Hotel Association. Standing from L. to R. Siegfried Schreiber, Mathee Chutima and the manager of the Oriental Hotel Bangkok Mr Kurt Wachtveitl. Sitting, from left Tom Gowman and his fianc�, Alois Fassbind, Penny Wachtveitl, Charlie from Charlie’s Hideaway, Suthep Iemsakul, Peter Mueller and Ed Headley.

One early morning the Friends Club, also on the strip in South Pattaya, went up in flames, killing several poor women locked up behind iron grills. Others escaped by jumping into the sea. Meanwhile, Pattaya was changing. The Pattaya Palace opened up under the able management of Alois Fassbind and his friend Bruno Forrer and the Ocean View Hotel followed with Siegfried Schreiber at the helm. The Royal Garden was the domain of the American Military and much different from the first class hotel it is now. Among other facilities it featured a small PX store.

It was in those days that a beauty pageant was organised and the commander of Utapao was invited to sponsor the affair and be present at the event. We, the Dolf Riks Restaurant, sponsored one charming lady who, however, never made it to the finale because she lost her balloons that were bought on the premises and given as a sign of appreciation. I believe her name was Nit or something. All of us restaurant and hotel people were sitting in the second row with the commander and his staff in the front row when the show started, but what the commander had not been told was that the contestants were boys and not girls. Great was the embarrassment for the top brass and the American airforce. After one of the fair damsels fell of the ramp being deadly drunk, the delegation left in a huff while we, who knew the true nature of the event, were very much amused indeed.

Sumali the younger sister of Meechai Viravaidya (the famous family planning man whose name is forever synonymous with that useful object the condom), and the older sister of our well-known Pattaya doctor Sunya, was the leader of the campaign against the regime in the English press. I asked Sumali once if she wasn’t afraid she would be arrested and she answered that in this country a woman can get away with a lot and somebody had to do the job, otherwise we would never get rid of them. She was a brave woman.

In May I left for a holiday in Indonesia, a country which I had left in turmoil in 1957. I was apprehensive because of the hatred the Indonesians had felt for the Dutch in those days but to my great relief, when I arrived in Bali all resentment seemed to have been forgotten and forgiven. People were friendly and helpful and I felt at ease. The only frightening incident I experienced was that not knowing how strong the undertow off the beach in Kuta was on the Indian Ocean coast, I almost ended up in Australia and just barely made it back to land.

No, I did not participate in the ouster of the “Terrible Trio” but tried to extinguish an electrical fire under the watchful eye of our Pattaya Police force.

From Bali I travelled with public busses to Jakarta, all the way through my beloved Java, staying for a few days in several towns like Malang, Jogja, Wonosobo and Bandung. From Bandung I took a side trip to Cimahi where I visited my old prison camp, now, as before the Second World War, a military camp. To my surprise the camp commander let me in to see my old barracks, which had been turned into a school for the soldiers, and the Indonesians were utterly bemused that I took pictures of the latrine. It was a place were I spent much time and of which I had special, unforgettable, but not very pleasant memories. Via the beautiful botanical gardens in Bogor, I left for Jakarta and after a few days for Thailand by plane.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere of discontent in Thailand had become palpable and in the first weeks of October the events came to a climax resulting in a massacre of protesting students in Bangkok on Rajadamnern Avenue and Sanam Luang. It was said that Narong Kittikachorn himself participated by flying over the area in a helicopter while shooting at the youngsters. Finally a delegation of students went to the Chitlada palace to ask His Majesty the King to intervene, which he graciously did and this stopped the blood bath. The terrible trio fled the country and the people were jubilant.

On the eve of this event the whole of Pattaya had no electricity because the Power Company had switched it off for the benefit of a large party held at a manor on the beach road with an enormous lawn. It was said that it belonged to the Malaysian Chinese tycoon Johnny Ma, who also was the owner of the Asia Trust Bank and who was buddy-buddy with the powers that ruled the country. Reportedly the terrible trio were among the guests of honour but the next day Johnny Ma disappeared and was not heard of again since. The mysterious mansion is still there and well taken care of but I have never seen a soul or another sign of life in the compound.

I remember some of the tourists who stayed in Pattaya during those dangerous days and one of them was the Tan Sri Ferguson, a thoroughly eccentric but charming colonial Englishman who had received the honorific title from the Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first prime minister of Malaysia. He confessed to me that he would like to come to Pattaya to live, but unfortunately, shortly after he returned to Kuala Lumpur, we got word that he had suddenly died.

The gate to my former prison camp at Chimahi, West Java in 1973.

Another personality of distinction who waited for things to calm down was a Frenchman with an impressionist gallery in Tokyo. He was called Francois de Montfort, a descendant of that infamous man called Count Simon de Montfort who, on instigation of Pope Innocent III, led the only Crusade ever held in Europe. It was against the heretic Albigenses in Southern France in 1209 and he and his hordes slaughtered most of the inhabitants. The country was left in ruin and desolation. I never held it against Francois, who was as the Americans say a "sweetie pie", who spoke English with a delightful French accent.

Onze welbekende stadgenoot Dolf Riks is, na een rijk leven van ruim 70 jaren, niet meer bij ons. Na zijn heengaan op donderdag 20 mei j.l. realiseer je je hoe het leven van Dolf verwoven is geweest met Thailand en met Pattaya in het bijzonder.

Na een tijd van opgroeien in Indonesi� - onder zeer moeilijke omstandigheden - en na zijn loopbaan bij de Indonesische koopvaardij heeft Dolf meer dan 30 jaar in Thailand gewoond en gewerkt. In zijn vrije tijd in Indonesi� beoefende Dolf de schilderkunst waarvan vele fraaie landschap-schilderijen het resultaat zijn.

Het was in Pattaya waar hij uitgroeide tot een meesterkenner van Aziatische kruiden en Aziatische gerechten. Zijn gourmet kritieken in dagbladen in Thailand werden zowel bewonderd als ook gevreesd. Als schrijver werd hij steeds meer bekend en steeds meer gewaardeerd.

De laatste jaren van Dolf ‘s leven zijn voor hem niet gemakkelijk geweest. Gedurende die periode werd zijn gezondheid door een aantal sluipende ziekten hevig aangetast.

Na zijn toch nog plotseling heengaan verloren Holland, Thailand en zijn geliefde Thai "familie" in Pattaya een goede Nederlander en een goede vriend. Velen zullen hem missen, de herinnering echter aan zijn culinaire kundigheid en aan zijn wekelijkse verhalen in de Pattaya Mail maar vooral de herinnering aan hem als mens en een rechtschapen man zullen bij velen van ons nog lange tijd blijven voortleven.

After his rather sudden demise, Holland, Thailand and his beloved Thai "family" in Pattaya have lost a good Dutchman and a good friend. Many of us will miss his culinary abilities and his weekly published stories in the Pattaya Mail but even more the memory of Dolf as a human being and an honest man will live for a long time to come.