Stickman Weekly, July 28, 2024

 

 

Mystery Photo

Last week’s photo was taken on Sukhumvit Soi 8, opposite the first sub-soi on the right. Many of you got it right, as I expected. This week’s photo is very much in downtown Bangkok.

 

 

Stick’s Inbox – The Best Emails From The Past Week

Pattaya low seasons a thing of the past?

I really think Pattaya will not see a classic low season like before when the city was somewhat quiet at this time of year. With the more diverse visitor base there’s always at least one of the main groups around in decent numbers (at this moment it is the Indians, but there are also many East Asians). Together with the influx of Thais, each weekend (which by itself gives the city a lively feel during Friday, Saturday and Sunday), I think the days of the classic Pattaya low season are gone.

Done with Walking Street.

We visited Walking Street on Friday night. Yes, it really was Pattaya but you could be forgiven for thinking it was Walking Street in India. It felt like 70% of the bars and eating places are now owned and staffed by Indians. We got to our favourite spot, the recently demolished and rebuilt Windy Inn Pool Bar, only to find it is now Indian-owned, Indian-staffed and only offering pizzas. We feel like we are done with Walking Street.

The Burj, Walking Street.

A good friend happens to be a friend of the guys who run The Burj on Walking Street. It’s the same group that runs the Burj in Jaipur, India, and they wanted to replicate its success in Pattaya. Word is that they raised over one million dollars to get things up and running, and got nearly all their employees from India to keep costs down. Why did it shut? The answer is….it just didn’t seem to work. Despite a massive marketing effort and having a good set of freelancers on board initially, it failed to attract a crowd and then got stuck in the chicken-and-egg problem of having no girls, having no customers, having no girls, etc. They took a loss of as much as they could but shuttered after realizing it’d take much more to keep the lights on. At the moment I don’t know of any plans to restart the place soon, but given The Burj Jaipur is immensely popular, and profitable, they could revisit an opening closer to the peak tourist months.

Soi Eden, 2024.

Soi 7/1 used to be known as Soi Eden after the eponymous knocking shop run by Marc the Frenchman. Many eager farang made a beeline for Eden without success and wandered Soi 7 in Quixotic quests for the legendary Yellow Line. Posted frustrations on Internet forums led to whimsical musings from expat residents who knew that 7/1 does not equal 7. Then Subway opened on the corner making directions simpler: turn at the yellow and green sign. Alas, Subway, Eden Club and even Marc no longer exist in the Big Mango of 2024.

Why the cloth drapes the meter.

The “cloth hanging over the meter scam” is sometimes not to pretend that there is no meter in the car. The idea is that you agree on a fixed price, let’s say 1,500 baht from Bangkok to Pattaya. Arriving at the destination, the driver pulls the cloth back and wants a much higher amount from the (often) tricked meter that’s been on the whole time. Jet-lagged and without proof of the initial deal, you are in a tough situation. I spotted it leaving the airport and defused it with mutual smiles. But after this – and other hilarious experiences – it’s the AOT Limousine service for me every time.

More Readers’ Emails

Kiwi brothers and Thai coppers win : win.

On the subject of the two Kiwi lads who were released and returned to New Zealand, why are readers making such a stink? It’s a win : win for all. The boys in brown got their tea money, and the Kiwi boys are free. Hopefully with lessons learnt.

Thai reaction to Kiwis walking free.

Regarding the story of the Kiwi brothers back in NZ, feedback from my Thai partner and her friends are completely different from your assessment. They are incensed. First, because such an affront to Thai authority has gone unpunished. Second, that, as you insinuate, some cops got paid off. Considering that everyone in Thailand assumes police are likely to be corrupt, the second point is more infuriating to them. As an international story, it ruins the reputation of Thailand (ok…low barrier, admittedly). But worse, it means Western tourists with their larger buying power now have a better chance of navigating around punishment than the average Thai citizen.

Other forms of justice.

Your mention of the outrage felt by some over the return to New Zealand of the brothers who ‘acted inappropriately’ with a Thai policeman highlighted the difference in approach between Thailand and Farangland in dealing with crime. Some might describe ‘our’ style as vindictive – lock them away, even if that doesn’t actually solve anything (and many reoffend anyway). The Thai way is often more practical. Someone is compensated financially, whereas in the west the victim usually receives only a sense of justice but nothing practical at all. And there are other forms of justice too. A good-for-nothing nephew would come to my house uninvited, hang around for an hour, steal some snacks, not interact with anyone and leave. I banned him, and a few days later, while I was away, he took the spare key kept by family and robbed the house one night, even stealing a phone and money from beside where my wife was sleeping. The family knew who was responsible, and despite one member being a police officer, the way it was dealt with was that he was sent off to serve in the army for a year. He came back as, I’m told, a reformed character.

Cirrhosis of the liver revisited.

This comment from your reader, “The liver does regenerate fully, however. An alcoholic, even a cirrhotic one, only needs 1 – 2 months before their liver is back to normal” is self-delusional. Liver cells that are killed by alcohol are permanently dead. They do not regenerate; they scar, the scarring eventually becoming “cirrhosis.” When the alcohol (or other hepatotoxin) stops, the abnormal blood levels of transaminases (markers for liver damage due to chemicals released from damaged / dead cells) will return to normal, but that does NOT mean all those cells have returned to normal function. The liver has tremendous redundancy of cellular function, many more cells than needed to serve normal activities, so people can sustain considerable damage and scarring, but once a threshold is reached, normal function will NOT return…ever.

 

This Week’s News, Views & Gossip

From Bangkok to Pattaya to Phuket, all the reports I received from the nightlife areas this week were that trade was reasonable. One friend described trade in Pattaya as “perky”. I’m not sure I have ever heard that word used to describe the bar business before, but we’ll take every bit of good news we can get.

In Bangkok, Sexy Night is a favourite for many of you. That said, it is most popular with the over 60 crowd. There is another bar which perhaps even more readers talk about. It’s not Billboard and nor is it Spanky’s which probably round out the top 3. Red Dragon is the gogo bar more Stickman readers have talked about recently than any other. What is interesting is that the 4 most popular gogo bars in Bangkok amongst Stickman readers – Sexy Night, Red Dragon, Billboard and Spanky’s – are all in Nana Plaza. Bada Bing and Virgin, both in Patpong soi 2, would probably be the next most popular. This is hardly scientific and I am simply going off comments from readers. Why aren’t Soi Cowboy bars being talked about much recently? Even the once uber popular Crazy House hardly gets a mention these days.

Speaking of Nana Plaza, some nights Red Dragon is open through until 3:00 AM. Ladies from Mandarin (owned by the same group) join the Red Dragon team at 2:00 AM and there’s a party atmosphere for the last hour of the night.

I mentioned last week that Bun Bun 1 gogo bar in Nana Plaza was for sale. A couple developments on that. For starters, it’s not called Bun Bun 1 anymore. This week the name changed to “Bunny 3”. Named for owner Tee’s wife Bunny, the numbered Bunny bars include Bunny 2 on the ground floor and the Bunny beer bar in front of the plaza.

The other development is that it’s not just Bunny 3 that’s being shopped. It’s actually the entire four-floor shophouse section of Nana Plaza that Tee acquired last year from the Stumble Inn Group, which had operated the Balcony Bar and the short-time hotel which used to be there. After hotels were banned from the plaza, Tee renovated the structure into Bunny 3, the new Bunny Balcony bar and offices upstairs. Tee often builds and / or renovates bars and then flips them and that appears to be the case here. In this case, he wants to sell the whole lot in one go. Interested? Do you have 30 million baht?

One group which might consider it is the French owners of Red Dragon and Mandarin who were interested in acquiring the property last year to expand Red Dragon, but were never given the opportunity to bid on it. It will certainly cost them a lot more to get it now than when it was a hotel.

The Carnevale di Venezia comes to Nana Plaza on Wednesday of next week, August 7, when Tycoon A Gogo celebrates its second anniversary. The girls will be dressed up Italian Carnival-style and the bosses will be on hand to make sure the vibe is cranked up to the max. Tycoon parties are always wild, so expect high times and plenty of shots.

In Soi Cowboy, Penny Black’s upper-floors club has been closed since the beginning of June for renovations but, nearly finished, the first views of the revamped venue have emerged and they are, in a word, impressive. The same agency that created the elaborate Iron Fairies bar is behind it. Will the renovation finally include a second way to access or perhaps more importantly – escape – the third floor? With one way in and one way out, Penny Black has long been called a potential death trap in the case of a fire with many swearing they’ll never go there (again).

Virgin in Patpong soi 2 generates a lot of positive chatter and has a decent following. It is also said to have a complement of very attractive dancers. But venture to the bar at the weekend and you might wonder what all the fuss is about. Where are all these so-called hotties?! Virgin has developed in to the rarity of a gogo bar that is best enjoyed mid-week. Most bars are at their best on a Friday or Saturday night when most of the girls show up for work but in Virgin, currently, it appears to be the opposite. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the sweet spot and come the weekend, the most attractive girls are nowhere to be seen. What’s that all about? Best guess is that the lookers are agency girls who are shuffled around different bars on different nights of the week. Which all goes to show that while you might have a great night in one bar one night, and recommend it to your friends, when they stop by the next night they wonder what you were on about!

 

 

First they take over parts of Pattaya, and then Bangkok follows? The email this week about the changes on Walking Street and how what was once Pattaya’s ground zero now feels like an area for Indians is not something that happened overnight. This change in the punter profile has happened over many years with the rate of change accelerating post-Covid. That particular email was sent in by a friend, someone who has long been very positive about Pattaya. It was not the rantings of a grumpy old man. This begs the question: with Walking Street falling off the map for many white guys, could we see this phenomenon in Bangkok? There is one particular bar area in Bangkok where more and more readers are commenting on the number of Indians about. “Soi Delhi” some have started referring to it as. Will white guys be crowded out? This is essentially what happens. When one nationality descends on a bar area in significant numbers, bars tend to cater to them and before you know it, the traditional customer base has been crowded out. Are we seeing a change in the bar industry that could be every bit as big as the arrival of the mobile phones? Or is that being overly dramatic? You tell me!

Indians taking over some bar areas is not going down well with quite a lot of punters. I can’t help but find this amusing as I actually find Indian men to be quite engaging and interesting to chat with. There’s an element amongst some in what was the traditional customer base who really do not like Indians. Some in this group have long perpetuated the myth of half a dozen Indians in a gogo bar sharing a single glass of Coke with 6 straws. Anyone with half a brain knows this is nonsense – no bar allows customers to stay if they don’t buy a drink. In Bangkok, Indians are not evenly spread throughout the various bar areas. If Indians go on to comprise, let’s say, 50% of all customers in a bar area, what will white guys make of it? What if the Indian contingent reaches 60% or 70%? I think you’ll find the white guys will be squeezed out as bars cater more to the Indians and Indian entrepreneurs acquire leases and start Indian-themed venues as has happened in Pattaya. It would be sad for the traditional customer base, but it would also be poetic justice. Low-class white guys have been talking s$%t about Indians for a long time. I would not be at all surprised if before long some find their favourite bar area has been taken over by Indians. Poetic justice indeed.

On the subject of Bangkok gogo bars’ traditional customer base – middle-aged white guys – slowly being squeezed out, one of the consequences of so many East Asians in some of the best bars is that the atmosphere has changed in a way you might not have thought about. Today, some of these bars have become very smoky. Some bars have invested in industrial-strength air purifiers but even these struggle to filter the air when the bar is literally full of smokers.

And if you think you might shoot across the border to rejoin Team Middle-Aged White Men in Cambodia, think again! From a friend who is a very long-time resident of Phnom Penh, came this message yesterday, “Last night was Africa night in my local, and the night before Paki night. Not digging it.”

A former Bangkok accountant who was making 30,000 baht / month chose to give up performing audits in favour of performing oral. She is now freelancing on ThaiFriendly and doing the books is very much a thing of the past. She charges 2,000 baht for a good time + taxi money, and claims to average multiple customers every day. As a former accountant, she knows where the money is. The day a friend saw her she claimed to be averaging 5 customers per day. Once upon a time, the bar scene was full of ladies who grew up poor / come from a difficult background. These days, it seems there are more ladies who see it as a chance to make better money than they would elsewhere.

I heard one of the more bizarre rip-off stories from a Thai-owned gogo bar in Soi Cowboy which I have chosen not to name. But to be clear, it’s a bar which has a following amongst Asian men and it’s not Baccara (which is not Thai-owned). Just to be clear, Baccara has an excellent reputation and I have never heard of any funny business there. In this other Soi Cowboy bar popular with Asian men, an expat regular known by many staff in the bar ordered multiple lady drinks for a number of girls in the bar. When the total bill came, he was not billed for one lady drink for each drink the ladies had consumed, nor two – as per the double lady drink nonsense. He was charged FIVE lady drinks for every drink he bought for the ladies. A lady drinks one lady drink from one glass, and for each drink he was charged for 5! He bought multiple drinks for multiple ladies and the bill was ugly. There was no explanation such as the ladies were world-class supermodels for whom 5 drinks is the norm. A one-off rip-off or regular pricing for some ladies in the bar, I really have no idea. But for sure, this sort of thing is out of hand.

I am loathe to name bars where punters have problems with the bill because some bar owners these days can get very nasty about it. What I will say is that it’s the same old story with inflated bills – it happens to those who are drinking a lot and have already run up a sizeable bill. It’s a lot easier to pad a bill which has dozens of drinks than one where someone has just had a couple of drinks. There is an easy solution to this as has been noted by numerous readers over the years – pay as you go. Sure, you shouldn’t have to do that but it’s the one way to make sure none of this nonsense happens to you.

There is another commonality. These scams appear to often be perpetrated by wait staff on……regular customers! Not first-time visitors to Bangkok or those whose face has never been seen in the bar, but regular customers who are friendly with the staff. The regular might have known the staff for a while, shared stories about work and their respective families and might even, rightly or wrongly, consider some of these bar staff as his friends. And he gets a reality check when he realises he has been the victim of bill padding and any notion of friendship was all a facade. Very sad when this happens.

 

 

Pedestrians once again have access to Benjakit Park from the end of Sukhumvit Soi 10, via a temporary footbridge across the khlong. It looks like the bridge itself is nearing completion, though the tie-ins to the existing pavement still appear to have a way to go.

Last week’s mystery photo was taken on Sukhumvit soi 8 and many of you got it right. Soi 8 is a soi I walked past for many years – probably 10+ years without stopping in any of the businesses on the soi. That was a mistake. There are lots of nice little spots on the soi, some pleasant bar and eatery style places with many owned and operated by the same Thai lady. The menus at Viva and The Brew House (plus Typhoon and Velvet, and one other) used to differ a little. What you ordered off the menu did not necessarily come from that outlet’s kitchen. Staff would traipse up and down the soi, delivering menu items from one kitchen to customers in another outlet. Odd and clumsy, but the system worked and the food was almost always very good. The Brew House is a little more upscale than other venues in the same group, but the prices are still reasonable. Word is that if you ask nicely they’ll make you things that are not on their menu but are on others, e.g. nachos aren’t on the menu at The Brew House but can be ordered, and come from the kitchen in Viva. The Brew House has a better – and non-overlapping selection of beers and spirits than other venues in the group – which means you can have your preferred alcoholic beverage and your preferred food.

There have been bits and pieces in the news this past week about the cannabis industry in Thailand. Cannabis was decriminalised not so long ago and an entire industry sprung up. There were proponents and opponents. I am not in to cannabis and I don’t really have any strong opinions either way. Not that long ago it was announced that come the end of this year it would be recriminalised. There was fierce opposition to this by those who had invested in the cannabis industry with some heavy-hitters lined up to lobby for the status quo to continue. This week the picture got even murkier with comment that perhaps it will not be recriminalised after all. There has been talk of consumption socially vs for medical reasons, buds and plants and compounds – most of it way over my head. I don’t know the terminology and I sure don’t get all the intricacies. At this stage, nothing is certain.

 

 

I loved this bar name from the Emsphere Shopping Centre, Fat Bro Bar. Who came up with that?!

A request to foreign YouTubers with Thailand-centric channels: can you pleeeeeease try and pronounce Thai place names right? Or at least get kind of close to the way that these place names should be pronounced. It really is off-putting when you mangle the pronunciation of Thai place names. And why do hardly any foreigners pronounce Pattaya correctly? It’s not hard to get it right!

I so wish Thai Airways would resume flying to New Zealand but word is that it could be some years away. Apparently there is no aircraft capacity in the fleet and with New Zealand being a relatively small market, it’s just not on the horizon. For the time being, anyone flying from New Zealand to Thailand has to take a circuitous route. QANTAS and Singapore Airlines have decent enough connections while other airlines send you all over the place. That 11-hour non-stop flight on the Thai Dreamliner was oh so convenient compared to what we have  now.

Thailand-Related News Articles

Quote of the week comes from a Bangkok business owner, “I think there are only two relationship statuses – Single and It’s Complicated.”

A Nigerian arrested on Ko Phangnan for dealing cocaine is found to have overstayed for 9 years.

The Pattaya Mail profiles an Indian businessman with fingers in lots of pies in Pattaya.

An American and an Aussie argue at a restaurant in Krabi, resulting in the American stabbing the Aussie to death.

A Hong Kong police officer dies after falling out of the back of a baht bus in Pattaya.

Charley Brown’s Mexicana proprietor David Bell talks about the pleasure and the pain of the various hot sauces available at his popular bar and restaurant.

The Bangkok Post takes a closer look at the new Thailand visas.

Thailand visitor arrivals are up 34% on what they were at this time last year.

Closing Comments

There’s a few news stories in this week’s column that I’d rather not have included. From the rip-offs in a bar I have decided not to name, to the changing face of some areas where the traditional customer base is being squeezed out, this week’s edition didn’t give me the lift I usually feel when I put the column up online – and if I don’t feel good about it, I’m not sure whether you will enjoy reading it either. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that this week’s column is a bit negative and I’m not thrilled about that. At the same time, I want to chronicle things accurately and I don’t want to be accused of sugar-coating anything. I’ll strive to produce a more positive column next week.

 

Your Bangkok commentator,

Stick

 

Stick can be contacted at : stickmanbangkok@gmail.com