By Graham K. Rogers

I tend to become attached to my bags, partly because I choose them carefully before buying. In the environment of Bangkok I tend to keep my back-packs for a couple of years and then start looking for a replacement.

A couple of years ago, I was lamenting the early failure of a particularly nice bag - a broken zip had made it almost useless, but standing outside Siam Discovery Center, waiting for a bus, I saw a van pass by with the name, Mr Bag-Fix painted on the side. I gave them a call and was told that they had a branch in Siam Paragon down in the basement level. This is next to the Oriental Hotel dry-cleaning service.

I took the bag down a few days later and the job was done in about a week. The same happened when I bought a nice backpack from the USA with awful zips: one after the other they failed; and one after the other, they were replaced at Siam Paragon.

I also have a nice leather laptop bag that recently had the total failure of the shoulder strap. I took the strap in and the young lady told me that the company would see about replacement. A few days later, I was phoned and the voice at the other end spoke in good English.

This lady told me that they had decided to replace the webbing only and use the clasps that had come with my bag as these were stronger. This was what I preferred anyway, so for 400 baht I had a new bag. I mentioned that I needed it by Wednesday as I was going away and I had an SMS message on Monday to tell me it was ready. I was grateful and impressed in equal parts, particularly when I collected the repair and saw the way the clasps had been used with the new webbing.

The company has a couple of web pages now at BagFix.Com which is in English; and Mr Bag-Fix which is mainly in Thai. The telephone number is the same for both: 02-717-1849-50, with a Chiang Mai number at 053-279-875.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.