Stickman Weekly, July 14, 2024
Mystery Photo
Where is it?
Last week’s photo was taken of Superman near the steps leading down to the basement of the Nana Square Shopping Mall, on the corner of Sukhumvit Road and soi 3. Surprisingly few of you got it right. This week’s photo is something of a trick. I’ll not say more than that. Many thanks to Arsenal Alex.
Stick’s Inbox – The Best Emails From The Past Week
Why you can’t go home.
You quote a guy about the good old days, and that you can’t go home. I think what he does not understand is that Thailand and the bars is very different from what it was before. In the good old days, desperate women came to the bars with no alternative to make a living, hoping to meet a rich farang who would take them out of misery into civilization. And there was a considerable number of farangs who planned to do just that. Today, you can make a living in Thailand and the girls go to the bars for easy money. The customers have changed, too. Most don’t expect to find a lady to live with. Not only that, a lot of the customers today are Indian and Chinese. What sane Thai girl would honestly want to live there?
The changing face of Pattaya.
My friends in Thailand are sending me reports of the very same things I saw when I was there in March. Indians have taken over Walking Street while Soi LK Metro and Buakhao are full of things way past their expiration date. Walking Street has the mega bars with mega salaries for the best lookers. You need to be prepared to pay top baht to play. If you don’t like competing with Asians who don’t care about how much it costs then go hang out at some bar beers or maybe you can find a diamond in the rough on Soi 6. I like the better bars in Pattaya. I really don’t care if the girl I like wants 1,000 baht or 10,000 baht to get out of the bar for a few hours of whoresplay. Those guys who decided to give up the west when they were 45 or 50 and have limited funds to enjoy themselves chose their path. Nobody forced them to stop working. Som nam na.
Why checking out of a hotel in Thailand is so slow.
The comments about hotel room deposits reminds me of when I worked for a 5-star hotel in Bangkok. Part of my role was to teach the department managers English. It was a great chance to catch up on hotel gossip. In one class I remember the Executive Housekeeper was seething. She explained the reason for her anger was due to a guest who had paid a cash deposit. Said guest then went to Pratunam and bought the cheapest white polyester bedsheets available. The guest switched them with the hotel’s Egyptian cotton bedding before checkout. The switch was only noticed when the Housekeeping Attendant came to strip the bed. Having to wait a few minutes to checkout is necessary because some guests just can’t be trusted.
Remembering Bangkok for an odd reason.
My mom had a similar experience to your reader on checking out of her hotel. She had to wait about 15 minutes when checking out of a Bangkok hotel and was accused of stealing a coffee cup. They eventually found it in the microwave. It’s probably the one thing she remembered most about her trip to Thailand.
Whether to approach a lady in public.
Japanese women share the same opinion as your wife about approaching women in public. I never approach a lady there, lest I appear rude. I discussed this with a friend while visiting him and his family in Yokohama. He said that the best way to meet a respectable single Japanese lady would be by introduction. But with so few locals speaking English, and the difference in culture, customs and accepted courtesy, it would be most challenging.
More Readers’ Emails
Pattaya eatery recommendations.
I can report that Nicky’s menu is the same as before. The 99 baht English breakfast is good value. It compares well with Cheap Charlie’s and Hungry Hippos but my favorite 99 baht English breakfast is at Time bar which can be found in Soi LK Metro, opposite Billabong. All bottled beer is just 50 baht. You can also find Sunday roasts at these venues at very competitive prices.
Bye-bye Thailand, hello Cambodia.
I agree that Thailand has seen an increase in expats from all over. As noted by many others, I have found Russians by far the most invasive i.e. Pattaya and Phuket. As Vietnam vets are aging out, the western male visitor / expat has been in decline the past decade. As stated in earlier articles, it seems that Cambodia has been favored by many Anglo expats. This has been my experience as I have visited Thailand frequently the past 30 years. <Many who choose Cambodia over Thailand do so due to the lower cost of living and trouble-free visas – Stick>
The changing face of expats.
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This Week’s News, Views & Gossip
Trade in the bar areas the past few weeks has been disrupted somewhat by the Euro 2024 football tournament as some girls complain that customers are glued to TVs and they feel invisible. Reports of bar trade continue to be mixed. Some bars are doing well, others not so well with the weekend much busier than the start of the week. I maintain that if you’re a naughty boy and the bright lights and loud music are the main attraction, this time of year is an ideal time to visit.
Following on from the many reports of Black women in the Sukhumvit area, from Soi Nana down to and beyond Asoke, come the first reports that there are now Chinese working girls on Soi Nana. Chinese ladies on the game have been spotted this week by readers, and their presence has been confirmed by staff in the bars. There is speculation that they might only be available to Chinese men, but that’s to be confirmed. I expect we’ll be hearing more about this over the coming weeks.
Next weekend – that is Saturday July 20th and Sunday July 21st – the bars will almost certainly be closed for the two Buddhist holidays. So if you’re keen on a night out, you might want to venture out during the week. I’d expect Friday night to be very busy.
The lights will go back on at Nana Plaza on Monday after the 2-day holiday with Red Dragon and Mandarin partying under the full moon. With 2 quiet days behind them, the girls will be ready to party.
Across the plaza at Angelwitch, the long-running 75-baht-a-beer happy hour has been upgraded to a buy 1, get 1 free deal. All local beers – Chang, Singha, Leo, Heineken, San Miguel Light and Asahi – are buy 1, get 1 free from opening until 10 PM, every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Las Vegas Beer Garden on Soi Diana in Pattaya opened a few months back to much fanfare. It had been hyped up for months and when it finally opened, the general consensus was that it might just have been worth the wait. Think an enclosed, modern, air-conditioned strip of beer bars much more comfortable than your dated ’80s / ’90s era beer bar complex. A friend gave it the ultimate compliment saying it’s the beer bar complex all others should be judged against. But this past week hasn’t been great with the complex closing a bit after midnight most nights. Midnight is prime time in Sin City and bars closing at that hour are missing out. There has been much conjecture as to the reasons for the early closures. Normally, I’d say crackdowns don’t usually last long and in a week or so things should revert back to normal. But this does not appear to have been part of a wider crackdown; it was only the Las Vegas complex which had to close early. You can’t run a bar that closes at midnight when just metres away bars are open late in to the night. Here’s hoping it gets resolved quickly.
Planning on being in Thailand in September? Make sure you put a big circle around the 28th in your calendar. That’s the date for this year’s Billboard 9th Anniversary Party. If you’re wondering why I’m mentioning a bar party more than 2 months in advance, you’ve obviously never been to a Billboard party!
Dollhouse on Soi Cowboy continues to add new elements, recently installing a pole dancing platform from the ground floor that rises all the way up to the mezzanine floor. The bar is working with 2 experienced pole dancers to create new shows. Starting on Thursday, Dollhouse will have 3 shows a night, from Thursday through to Sunday. The first week will be about finding what works and getting the balance right, but rolling into August, Dollhouse hopes this will elevate the bar beyond being just another gogo bar. Anything to make a bar stand out from the crowd is a good thing.
I’ve long been a big fan of Dollhouse. What is it about I am such a fan of? I guess partly it’s that I have known the Dollhouse bars since the start, and was around when the original Dollhouse opened in Clinton Plaza. And since then I’ve seen all the other Dollhouses open and had a lot of good times spent in them over the years. Where Dollhouse Soi Cowboy stands out these days is its no-hassle policy. All too often these days readers tell me how they walk into a gogo bar and within seconds, not one, but a bunch of ladies are all over them, asking for a drink. Refuse, and the girls get sulky which is no-one’s idea of fun. You don’t get that nonsense at Dollhouse.
A bit further down Sukhumvit from Soi Cowboy, demolition work has finally begun on the old home on the very large (and no doubt, extremely expensive) plot on the corner of Sukhumvit Soi 20. Apparently this will also mark the end of Sports Corner, that “bar space” that hugs the edge of the pavement near the start of soi 20.
Down in Pattaya, the infamous Soi 6 is closed, or at least its short-time rooms are. The swarms of guys – overwhelmingly Asian and Indian, these days – who trawl the soi of sin hoping to get to know a lady better upstairs were frustrated to discover all the rooms were closed by police following more bad press, this time in a Thai-language publication. A manager at a soi 6 bar said he didn’t know what the article said, but it was embarrassing enough to City Hall and the police that the crackdown was ordered.
Punters keen on some action on Soi 6 have had to pay to take the lady away from the bar and back to their hotel, or to the nearby Queen Victoria Inn where rooms are more expensive than those above the bars. It should be noted that such crackdowns on on-premises rooms – which are illegal – are not unusual. They’ve been going on periodically for decades and last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
The room closures haven’t derailed plans for another all-Soi 6 event on July 17 & 18. It’s a street-long Barbie party, with an estimated 1,000 ladies (and likely some ladyboys too) dressed up as their favorite doll. When will the Barbie craze die out in Thailand?
Just off Walking Street, Soi Diamond’s slow revival continues with the planned opening of two new gogo bars. I-Doll, from two well-known figures in Pattaya’s bar industry, and “Windmill 3” are both taking shape on the upper, narrow portion of Soi Diamond, a once vibrant strip where the right-hand side of the lower, wider half is still shuttered and dark. I-Doll, a two-unit, two-storey bar being built opposite Le Pub, is backed by Le Pub’s owner, Mr. Egg, and Deano, the surviving partner in the legendary Coyotes gogo bar in a now demolished building on Soi Marine Plaza. I-Doll will be distinctly classy and upmarket. It is expected to open in October.
“Windmill 3” – which, in fact, may use the owner’s Dollhouse license and open under that name, will be more of the same debased entertainment as is found in Windmill 1 and 2. It’s expected to open in September in the long-mothballed spot that, in 2016, was the two-storey Gentlemen’s Club chrome pole palace next to Katoeys ‘R’ Us. The first gogo bar in that building was called Super Models, but it closed back in 2007. It then became Insomnia Gentlemen’s Club, but the Insomnia moniker was dropped in 2008 when the disco’s owner sold the bar. It continued as Gentlemen’s Club until 2015, closed for a few months and was reopened under the same name by the operators of Glass House, who shuttered the bar a year later. Gentlemen’s Club was best known for having two small private rooms upstairs where pretty much anything went. Will those rooms survive the remodel? Anything goes at Windmill, right?
The long-awaited speakeasy-style nightspot upstairs from Heaven Above on Soi Boomerang is now open and those who have stopped by have said it was worth the wait. Accessed via a back stairway and tucked away behind a hidden door with very good soundproofing is Cleo’s Hideaway, a low-lit, classy little venue where the ladies are dressed up as Roaring 20s flappers, the music is low enough to have a conversation and the spirits menu is top shelf. It has that same intimate appeal as the first-rate Lace Lounge in Nana Plaza, but its décor is done with a warmer palate in gold and black.
Cleo’s screams out as a place where groups can open a bottle or two and indeed it has seen a couple parties this week. And when Heaven Above shuts down about 3 AM, anyone left can move to the Hideaway and keep on partying for another hour. It’s not accessible from the street, so ask for an invite from Captain Hornbag when you visit Heaven Above. I am told that it’s very much worth going out of your way for.
Are you a fan of Peroni? 3 Ways, the new GentsClubs.com bar on Soi Land Office in Pattaya, has introduced Peroni draft and has it on special all month for 150 baht a pint.
I’ve always preferred a lady who embraces her femininity who is sweet and demure on the outside, but tough on the inside when she needs to be. That’s my type. Regular readers know that I find tattoos abhorrent, while at the same time I absolutely respect that some ladies may choose to decorate their body in a manner I personally don’t care for. And I am the first to acknowledge that there are some men who rather like – and in some cases may even prefer – females who have a look which many Thai would describe as “rang“. The best translation of “rang” in this context is probably something like harsh or overtly aggressive-looking. If this is you, and you favour women with copious tattoos and big boobs, head on over to Radio City in Patpong. Digital A Gogo sent me a set of the most wonderful images of ladies in Radio City. These women are not my type but, like I say, if your taste runs to “poo-ying rang“, Radio City is most definitely the place for you.
Speaking of Digital A Gogo, I am very pleased to partner with them and delighted with the lady photos they provide which are featured in this column. I’ve watched as Digital A Gogo has gone from a keen amateur photographer to, in my humble opinion, the best glamour photographer operating in the farang bars in Thailand. No-one produces images of this quality. I had to chuckle when a couple of weeks ago Reader Randy wrote, “The pictures of the girls this week are lovely, are you back in Bangkok?” Kind words, Randy, but to be really clear, Digital A Gogo is light years ahead of what I could produce. You can find more of Digital A Gogo’s work at their website.
While I’m on the subject of tattooed vixens, I get the impression that tats are even more common in the bars than they were, say, just a few years ago. Those ladies who choose to go down the tattoo path are very different from their sisters of 20 years ago for whom a butterfly on their shoulder was considered really quite risqué! And those who start on the tattoo path seem to be staying on it much longer, getting more and more of their body. Long gone are the days when they would be daring and get a tattoo on a part of their body that could be concealed if they wish. Like I say, it’s their body and their choice while at the same time it wasn’t always this way.
Speaking of aggressive ladies, some African hookers were propositioning males walking alone on the skytrain walkway above the Asoke intersection on Friday evening, near the Interchange building. I can’t imagine they will be able to get away with that in that particular location for very long.
An Indian reader tells me that those groups from the sub-continent who we label as Indians are just as likely to be Bangladeshis or Pakistanis. Apparently many men from those two countries are visiting Bangkok these days, and enjoying all that we Caucasians have enjoyed these past few decades.
In a recent column I mentioned the curious phenomenon of Indians approaching strangers on Walking Street, pointing at their belly and / or making comments about ill-fitting clothing. There is a suggestion that this is a ruse to somehow entice the person to an Indian-owned tailor store which pays commissions. While this is plausible, I really wouldn’t think this approach would bear fruit.
Are you involved with a Thai woman in Thailand, and keen to take her for a trip abroad? Thai women love the idea of international travel but be aware that some Thai women simply find some countries, especially the West, funnily enough, not for them. I have heard plenty of stories over the years of Thai women who have been taken abroad by their foreign partner for a holiday finding that it was not really to their liking. Once they have had a chance to show off on social media, they came to realise that they missed Thailand. They miss the food and they seem to miss knowing where they fit in. Many Thais – and it seems to be those from the boonies, predominantly – are uncomfortable when they’re away from the familiar. Some just don’t seem to do well outside of Thailand. Funnily enough, some seem to do better in parts of Asia than Farangland. When you take a Thai woman on holiday abroad, it’s not a slam dunk that a good time will be had.
In the news links last week was a story from the Vancouver Sun about a Canadian former soldier who was paid to take out one of his fellow countrymen in Phuket. Incidents like this are big news in Thailand, especially when the alleged perp is a foreigner. But after the initial report you often never hear anything about it again. Sometimes, you’re reminded of these cases years later when the perp appears in the news for something totally unrelated. You Google the fellow, discover that he was arrested in Thailand for a crime years earlier, and only then do you recall the original case and realise that he never saw the inside of a courtroom, let alone a jail cell. One of my chief complaints about the media in Thailand is the lack of follow up on such stories. I was going to ask what happened to the two Kiwi brothers who assaulted and disarmed a policeman in Phuket 4 months ago, and then yesterday an article appeared in the New Zealand Herald reporting that they had reappeared in New Zealand. The article did not explain how they had managed to get home so fast. My best guess is that the brothers gave the journalist an exclusive in return for him not mentioning anything about how they managed to get back. I think we can all make an educated guess what happened. With this in mind, I wonder what the status is of the Swiss guy who booted that female trainee doctor in the back, also on Phuket? I seem to recall that the Swiss guy was loaded….
Three years ago, a good friend in Thailand died of cirrhosis of the liver. He enjoyed a few drinks most nights, but even with that said he was not nearly as heavy a drinker as some I have known in Thailand. This week I heard that a former Bangkok bar owner is dying of cirrhosis of the liver. Apparently, the poor fellow doesn’t have much time left. It caused me to think about all the people I have known over the years in Thailand, some of whom have been very heavy drinkers. Given how much alcohol some people in the bar business consume, I’m amazed there haven’t been more reports of folks passing away due to liver issues. I guess it’s a testament to the amazing capacity of the liver to regenerate.
Hearing that this former bar owner has a serious health issue also caused me to reflect on the relationship I had with him, and the relationships I have had with other bar bosses over the years. With this particular fellow, I don’t recall that we ever met – but we corresponded a lot and he often sent bits and bytes about what was happening at his bar and in the general bar area. We fell out when I wrote about an “incident” that happened at his bar. He wanted it hushed up but I considered it sufficiently newsworthy that I was not prepared to let it go. He didn’t like it, and that was the end of that. We’re going back many years here. That’s how things have ended between me and a good few bar owners over the years. This must have happened more than a dozen times over the years I have been chronicling the bar industry. They like you if you write positive stuff but the moment you report something that doesn’t show the bar in a positive light, you’re the devil in their eyes! To be clear, I’m talking about bar *owners* here, as distinct from bar managers or landlords. Bar owners can be a cranky bunch and are very easily slighted, as distinct from most bar managers who are generally easier to deal with.
It’s the rainy season in Thailand, but is it all that wet at the moment? It all depends exactly when that question is asked. Some days are wet, while others not a drop of rain falls. I really like the graph above which shows historic average rainfall in Bangkok throughout the year. It reinforces what I have long said that from mid-August until the end of October is the time to avoid if you don’t wish to get caught in the rain. The rainy season isn’t all bad, of course, with air quality best at this time of year. Like I wrote earlier in the column, it’s a good time to be in the bars with fewer punters about.
From tomorrow (Monday, July 15), arrive in Thailand without a visa and you will get 60 days permission instead of the 30 it has long been for most of us. And it also looks like the new Destination Thailand Visa will be available from tomorrow too. Good stuff!
I am told that some airlines may still make in-flight announcements saying that an incoming passenger card must be completed when arriving in Bangkok. They don’t have to be, and it’s been this way for some time.
Thailand-Related News Articles
An English woman is denied boarding a flight from Bangkok to India after checking in with a damaged passport.
The legality of weed in Thailand and whether it will remain legal is a big issue in Thailand right now.
A Russian is arrested in Bangkok for selling forged passports.
In Pattaya, about 200 officials raid Club Panda on Walking Street.
The Bangkok Post confirms that the new visa rules will come in to effect on Monday.
The two New Zealanders who assaulted and disarmed a cop in Phuket are now back in New Zealand, 4 months after the original incident.
DNA is being used to track down the fathers of children of Angeles City ladies of the night.
A Thai woman living in the UK wins £200,000 in the lottery.
Closing Comments
When will I get back to Bangkok to check things out with my own eyes, rather than rely on friends and industry insiders for news and gossip? I had hoped to be in Bangkok by now. I’ve always liked visiting in July – it’s not too hot, not too wet and it just so happens to be the worst month of the year weather-wise in my part of the world so it’s an ideal time to visit. I do have plans to get back later in the year. With that said, I really don’t know how much different this column is when I am there myself compared with when I am writing from afar. Some people say it’s totally different, others tell me they don’t see any difference. I’ll let you know when I am back.
Your Bangkok commentator,
Stick
Stick can be contacted at : stickmanbangkok@gmail.com
