Pattaya, Budget Booty On Soi Bua Khao

This submission is an experiment for me. Dana, during his last visit, suggested I write a Chiang Mai Kelly tour of Pattaya. Where do I go? What do I do and why do I do it?

Pattaya is full or writers. Published writers who have had or who have best sellers. Guys that have had books on the New York Times best seller list. Guys who have been on Thailand book stores best seller lists and many more. I meet with a few of them to chat a couple times a week on a soi off of 2nd Road. I hope some of their skill or charisma will rub off on me and I enjoy talking to professional writers. After that I walk east on Soi Diana Inn past a number of bars and past the bar complex on the way to Soi LK Metro. If the 6’2” ladyboy is not in Pa Pa’s Bar I stop for a drink.

There are 20 or so bars in the three blocks between Second Road and Soi Bua Khao on Soi Diana. There is even a convenience store where one can have a beer for 25 baht and watch the ladies arriving for work. Turning left I check out the gogo clubs and Lolita‘s on Soi LK Metro. I take a look at the beer bars and Hell Club also on LK Metro. There is even a beer bar there where the ladies wear uniforms.

I walk to the sois to the left and right of Soi Bua Khao for restaurants as well as beer bars, oily wank massage shops, short time bars and the Oasis gogo. Good cheap restaurants, unique bars and interesting people hangout there away from the hustle of Beach Road and Walking Street.

However, sometimes it is a sterile and empty and guilt ridden life being an expat living in Pattaya. I listen to the moral majority on websites and in the newspapers revel in the fact that more expensive high rise hotels are going up and Pattaya will soon be rid of those awful sex tourists from all over the world. Soon you will be able to bring your wife and children here.

I was chatting with a Thai man the other night at a local karaoke bar. He had brought his wife and children here and he was having a wonderful time. I asked him how much he got for them and he said his wife was not moving very well but his teenage son and daughter were selling briskly. He attributed this to the money he had spent on English lessons. Again education demonstrates its value to the Thai economy.

A few nights ago chasing balloons and free food I ended up at Oasis A Gogo where a gentleman having a birthday was pulled up on stage. He was surrounded by four naked women undressing him and gyrating all over his body. He finally got down to his boxer shorts (note, always wear clean underwear in Pattaya, just like your momma told you). While he was having fun a fifth naked lady sneaked in the club through the back door and up on stage behind where he was seated in a chair. She was a looker, high perky breasts and a perfect hourglass figure. She reached around his waist and freed his woody from the confines of his red checked boxers. Somersaulting over his head she landed with her naked quim on his lap. It was, of course, his wife, an ex-gogo dancer and an all around good sport.

The next night at Oasis it was Ian’s going away party. Again free food and the crazy lady with an Afro did a lesbian S&M show that featured her throwing and bouncing two other leather clad females off of the dance floor. This along with 50 baht draft beer and two for one drink specials makes it hard to stay home at night. This is the slow season, at 1:30 AM the bar fine goes from 550 baht to 200 baht. Bill the owner wants to go home to bed.

Oasis A Gogo has a sentimental significance in my life. It is the first place Princess’s daughter (Little Princess) wore see-through panties. It is also the first place she danced nude. And the first place she suggested I bar fine her. It is also the first place she suggested I bar fine her and her girlfriend.

Plus, Oasis is the new home of “Chicken”. Chicken has had most of the men I know but I was the first. Of course she had a couple of kids before she had me but I was her first Farang. Which somehow means she has acquired some kind of status in my life. When I met her she was a shy, demure little thing from the north who spoke no English and hung on to me like a Titanic survivor in a sea of icebergs. Not anymore. Most dancers will keep a low profile if you enter the club with a date. Not Chicken. It doesn’t matter who I am with she brazenly comes up to me and grabs my crotch and says howdy.

When Chicken has been bar fined by another unsuspecting Farang and is ensconced in a local pub with said gentleman if I should happen to walk in she flirts with me unrelentingly even though she has hooked a new long time companion.

Chicken is a petite little dancer but seems to have no fear. She is not even afraid of the Afro-headed S&M babe. This speed addled chick scares most of the people I know. Although I am attracted to the crazed tribal Coyote type, since she lived with Little Princess I am hesitant to bar fine her. In general I think it can be said it is wise to avoid having an affair with your girlfriend’s daughter’s roommate. Even a little STD and you have thrown half the income from a small village off line for a couple of weeks.

Chicken came from Champagne A Gogo. I don’t know why she left there. Champagne is becoming the hot spot of Soi LK Metro. Free BBQ and shepherds pie on Sunday and free pizza on Wednesday may have something to do with it or it may be the new hires. Seems the new manager / owner (same family, different generation) has an eye for youthful beauty and the fresh non-tattooed look of unspoiled femininity. The girls can also dance and that is a refreshing change from the Bangkok shuffle.

I am beginning to wonder why anyone pays for food here. Murphy’s law, also on Soi LK Metro, has free food on Friday nights. Neeroys from Soi Chayaphon cooks the food for Murphy and that small restaurant always turns out a decent spread. Seaside II is across the street and Thai girls seem to like the food and they also offer a large Farang menu. With all the new Irish bars in the area one wonders if there any publicans left in Cork.

I am not a cheap Charley. I am saving my money by eating free food so I can afford the 3,600 baht fee for 90 minutes at the Hell Club. They are now running 15 to 20 girls instead of the 4 to 6 they had in a few months ago. The Hell Club is interesting to watch. They do many unusual things for this market. I wonder how long they will be in existence in Pattaya. I hope they last.

Eden‘s, always popular in Bangkok, has a reputation that would have carried the Hell Club in Pattaya all by itself. But without the name I guess it is only word of mouth that lets anyone know they are using the same system. I fear without the name it is an uphill battle. Pattaya is not Bangkok and the bar girl and gogo prices are mostly 50% less here than in the Big Mango.

Four girls sit outside the Hell Club doing their makeup all day long. What this does to entice customers is beyond me. I think it is a good idea they don’t yell at passers by but there must be a better way to present them. When you get in the Hell Club you have to request the girls come downstairs and assemble for viewing. I don’t know about most guys but I am hesitant to bother the girls or wake them up just so I can ogle them. The inside of the club is beautiful but choice for me is a visual thing and unless I can see and chat with the girls for a while I find it difficult to make a decision to spend that kind of cash. I also don’t think the 90 minutes makes any sense in Pattaya. I walk by the Hell Club a number of times daily because it is between Champagne and Oasis and most of the other bars and restaurants I frequent. I see few customers going in and always 4 ladies outside. Seems to me 2 or 3 hours would be a better seller than 90 minutes for that kind of money in Pattaya.

If the Hell girls average two customers a day their cut is about 50,000 baht per month. I would think that would be worth 6 hours a day of labor. Hell Club also does little to promote some of its obvious features. The ladies get tested weekly and I don’t think there is any other bar in Pattaya that tests that frequently. The money back guarantee is also unique. Knowing the average bar owner’s mentality I imagine the ladies pay back the money in case of complaint plus some kind of penalty so one can assume the ladies are very motivated. Few clubs that put the punter in the drivers seat like the Hell Club does.

I have only run a couple of strip clubs but I find it hard to believe Hell Club hires girls who work on the right side of the yellow line. It is obvious they are chosen much less than the ladies on the left side. But this is Thailand and there are a lot of things I don’t understand.

Stickman's thoughts:

It sure sounds like you keep busy in Pattaya!