Stickman Weekly, November 10, 2024

Mystery Photo

Where is it?

Last week’s photo was taken when I was a passenger in a car on the expressway, south-bound, not far from the exit to Ploenchit Road / the Nana area. I was impressed that quite a few of you – a couple of dozen or so – got it right. I took this week’s photo on one of the few days it rained when I was in town in August. This is another shot I’d consider somewhat challenging – so impress me, dear readers, and tell me where it is!

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

A reader’s bar experience.

I thought I’d tell you about my experiences of the two lady drink rule. As a regular gogo bar visitor I’m often given the choice to buy one or two lady drinks, especially in places like Twister and Mandarin where they know me. I was in Soi Cowboy on Saturday night and popped into Rainbow. I saw a girl on stage I’ve known for the last 4 years, and offered to buy her a drink. Straight away they brought a small glass of Coke and a little thimble of Tequila. I got a vodka soda and my total bill came to ฿605. I wasn’t that bothered, because that’s all of £13:80 and having recently been in central London, that will buy you 2 pints of lager, if you’re lucky. Said girl was very engaging and beautiful. I barfined her, went to one of the outdoor bars and watched Liverpool vs. Brighton before going off to a short-time room. Her short-time fee was only ฿2,000, so those prices still do still exist if you’ve known a girl for a few years.

The (missing) girlfriend experience is what counts.

On whether girls in the bars were more attractive a decade or two ago, that is subjective. Everyone has different tastes. But what surely isn’t in doubt is that there is far less of a girlfriend experience now. And isn’t that what used to make a visit to the bars so appealing for many?

All relationships are transactional.

Thais often side with Thais.

The guy who chased the ladyboy into the bar. It pisses me off how the Thais stand with an alleged criminal over the guy who was allegedly ripped off by a ladyboy.  This is one aspect of Thai culture I can’t get on board with.

More Readers’ Emails

Soi Cowboy, post-Covid.

From a long term perspective, I thought that the Cowboy vibe died during Covid. I have only returned to Cowboy a few times after Covid to see if it had recovered from Covid yet. I have never been satisfied with the results. The last trip to Thailand, I didn’t even try Cowboy, opting to spend my money in Nana over the few days I spend in Bangkok before heading down to Pattaya. In fact, I thought Cowboy was better “during Covid” when they had BBQs etc to pull people in during those attempted Covid restarts. At that time it was just a bar beer street with no dancers. Once the dancing girls came back to Cowboy, I wasn’t impressed with the quality or quantity of Cowboy compared to Nana. Cowboy became like Patpong.

Be wary of freelancers.

During my last trip, I met a freelancer and invited her to my room. In the room, she wanted half the money up front and then proceeded to get on her cellphone and, from what I learned later, arrange a drug deal. She told me she had forgotten to get something at 7 Eleven. I asked her what she needed because I might already have it. After some discussion, she admitted that she was going to meet her dealer who was on his way on a motorbike to sell her some Ketamine and then she would come back and spend time with me. I told her she’s not allowed in my room with drugs and was ready to say goodbye if that is what she wanted. She got me to compromise by saying she wouldn’t do the drugs in my room, but would come back to finish our date. I accompanied her to the lobby and she went out to meet her guy. I was surprised that she actually came back. When we got back to my room, she proceeded to go into the bathroom and do the drugs. I asked her to leave. She didn’t want to leave. She wanted to hang out with me and have a place to do her drugs, but I made her leave. I am no Saint; I just don’t wish to involve myself with any kind of activity that could potentially get me blacklisted from my favorite country on earth.

Dave recommends Chula.

Even though it is a government hospital, I highly recommend Chulalongkorn Hospital. It is affordable and has competent doctors, specialists and nurses. However, there can be long waiting times. I had two toe amputations at Chula. Along with all outpatient treatment, I was satisfied. The hospital bills were a fraction of what private hospitals charge. This is a great alternative for those on a budget, but you need patience. Chulalongkorn is a great alternative for those who are not wealthy and / or do not have health insurance. At that time, I was earning 70,000 baht and didn’t have a work permit or medical insurance. The amputations and post-op and treatment were of a good standard. Dave The Rave

Big things are coming to Nana Plaza in 2025.

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This Week’s News, Views & Gossip

Nana Plaza is the one bar area which records visitor numbers. In 2023, Nana Plaza received a grand total of 1,721,979 visitors. As of a week ago, Nana Plaza had eclipsed last year’s total with 1,723,576 visitors so far this year. And with the best part of a couple of months to go, the plaza will easily reach its target of 2 million visitors annually. Amazing!

The operators of Nana Plaza have plans to further improve the plaza in 2025. A light and sound effect system will be installed which could be used for special occasions, and there have been discussions about redesigning the frontage of the complex. The most recent talk has been around an entire LED frontage which would be very impressive. Nothing has been decided just yet but it’s something to keep an eye on.

Sport Corner on Sukhumvit Soi 20 has moved and can now be found a little bit further up the soi. It has been renamed Sports On 20. I am told that the venue has dozens – yes, dozens! – of TV screens so wherever you are in the bar, you should be able to watch your favourite sport.

Observers and bar owners alike say it was almost like someone flipped a switch, as high season crowds pour in to Bangkok and Pattaya. The difference in the last week-plus has been remarkable. Saturday last week on Soi Cowboy – following a rainy Friday – was literally shoulder-to-shoulder with observers saying they’d not seen the street or the bars that busy since last high season. Nana Plaza was packed on Thursday night, with crowds clogging stairs, gawking outside doorways and throwing cash around like two-week millionaires.

Over in Patpong, Kinky Girls has a drinks special with 2 for 1 on Leo and Chang from 7:30 – 9:00 PM. A good deal in a gogo bar.

Further along Patpong soi 2, Virgin X continues to get plaudits. First and foremost, this is not one of those bars where some nights there are less than a dozen dancers. There is always a good number of dancers and many are described as cute. The bar has only been open about a month or so and everything still has that shiny new feeling. A couple of readers have commented on the comfy sofa seating and the dark corners where you can cuddle up to one of the dancers. Bottled beers go for 180 baht and lady drinks are 230 baht.

After late-October’s blockbuster Billboard anniversary and Friday’s boss’ birthday at Tycoon, party season really kicks into high gear this week with Thursday’s (November 14) Bada Bing 15^th Anniversary Party. Run by a couple of Frenchies with decades in Thailand between them, expect a who’s who of Bangkok’s bar industry there to offer congratulations on not only surviving, but thriving through a period that saw the Red Shirt riots on their doorstep, the floods of a century, a coup, pandemic and arrest-fueled implosion of Patpong’s bar industry. Both floors of the Patpong soi 2 gogo bar will be open for the first time in years and you can buy 6 bottles of spirits – with no expiration date on bottle tickets – for only 6,000 baht. Doors open at 8 PM.

This coming Friday is Loy Krathong, often described as Thailand’s Valentine’s Day. It can be a hit-and-miss night in the bars, as many ladies may take the night off to be with their boyfriend / husband / family. As such, Tycoon has punted on this month’s Full Moon Party at Nana Plaza but it’s “full krathong ahead” at Red Dragon and Mandarin in the Plaza and Shark on Soi Cowboy, three bars where ladies always dress up and uniforms are a neon mix of holiday traditional and sexy. There will be free gourmet bites, surprise entertainment acts, Loy Krathong-themed shows and an “immersive, glow-in-the-dark environment”. Just like Bada Bing mentioned above, these 3 bars are also French-owned.

Speaking of French connections, I’ve asked the question in the column before but no-one has ever offered an insightful answer, so I’ll ask again. Why is it that the French-owned and run gogo bars are usually top-tier? It’s like our French friends have discovered the secret formula of running a successful gogo bar. I’ve never been able to put my finger on just why the French run such good bars. Anyone have any ideas?

The following week sees a monumental milestone: Baccara Soi Cowboy’s 25^th Anniversary. Baccara is another French-run bar and has survived 3 coups, protests, the Purichai Puritanesque crackdown on nightlife in 2001 and a fire. They will celebrate on November 22 with a spit-roast barbecue and other free food.

A night later in Nana Plaza, the second of the season’s three big top-floor parties will kick off at 8 PM on November 23 with the Butterflies 8th Anniversary bash. There will be a free pizza buffet and 100 free commemorative drink glasses as gifts. The highlight of the night will be the Butterflies Babe of the Year pageant, where more than 70 Butterflies lovelies will take to the stage in the hope of walking away with 35,000 baht in cash prizes, the crown and boasting rights for the next year. The event is always a sellout, so to be sure you get a seat, you can join the Butterflies VIP Club on LINE and pre-order two bottles of spirits to get a table. (https://lin.ee/S90qfMQ)

In Pattaya, Friday night saw crowds doing the typical tour-group thing on Walking Street, standing around and blocking the road. Shark was pandemonium and Fahrenheit, which has seen some of its thunder stolen by its huge new sister bar, was back to top form. Bar owners and managers alike seemed caught by surprise that things have picked up. While no two people will agree on just how busy it is, the consensus from those I have been in touch with is that things have picked up markedly, however they’re not at the level they were last year, likely due to the post-Covid holiday spree.

Burj Club on Walking Street remains closed. It opened with much fanfare and noise, and then closed within months (or was it weeks) after opening. Very strange indeed.

Last week I wrote about how bar owners and managers may be unwelcome in competitors’ bars. Almost as if on cue, violence erupted over just such a circumstance. The scene was Soi LK Metro, and the victim wasn’t who the German bar bosses thought he was. The victim – a widely known, 20-year Pattaya industry veteran who actually doesn’t run a bar at the moment – was, he admitted, stoned out of his mind after someone slipped him a super-potent gummy. He was sitting in the bar with a couple ladies plus the bar’s DJ, who worked for him two decades ago. Good times were being had until the two German bosses approached his table and stood there, angrily glaring at him. Before the victim had a chance to understand what the issue was, both men, plus a Thai security guy, began punching him in the face. The victim kicked over and broke the bar table and ran out, jumped on a motorbike and fled to the police station. “Do you know who that was?!” the DJ screamed at the bar bosses, who replied he was the manager of a particular Walking Street bar, which he wasn’t. “No, that’s XXXX” the DJ replied. “Everybody knows him, and he’s really rich. You’re fuxxed!” Indeed, the Germans do appear to be in hot water as the well-connected victim isn’t taking this lying down.

The still dark side of Soi Diamond might soon become bright again with a new gogo bar to open soon, Rock Club A Gogo. It’s right underneath where Heaven Above used to be.

A Pattaya landmark that closed after the pandemic will become Sin City’s newest Indian-centric nightclub. Boss Club opens this coming Friday, November 15, in the spot that once was Marine Disco and also once housed the popular (fake) Thai boxing ring.

There’s an ironic twist to the emergence of all these Indian discos in Pattaya. I hear that the majority of these mega clubs are not actually Indian-owned. While management and some partners might be from the subcontinent, the money behind them is said to be Arab, much of it from Dubai.

Speaking of Dubai, that’s apparently where the head of Pattaya’s biggest and highest-profile gogo bar group is reportedly stuck. Word on Walking Street is that this European fellow has been banned from Thailand for an indiscretion related to a Glittery trip to Vietnam.

Finally in Pattaya, another (somewhat) familiar name is coming back, for a third time. Milk A Gogo, founded and then sold by LePub’s Mr. Egg, has been sold again, this time to the Indian man behind the revived Penthouse Hotel and the coming-soon Penthouse X gogo bar. The Indian is said to be a partner in the new Milk on Soi Diamond, but isn’t the largest shareholder. Milk’s opening hasn’t been announced.

From time to time I receive email from someone who describes themselves as a long-time customer of a particular bar in which they’ve had many great times over the years. And then one day they have a bad experience – oftentimes it seems to be an interaction with a member of staff – that rubs them up the wrong way and they vow to never return. Lapses with service staff are hardly uncommon in an industry where there is little, if any training. That’s one reason why some staff can be a little pushy at times. Let’s not forget that the bar industry has a higher percentage of employees who are, or were, on the fringes of society. A waitress in a gogo is not anyone’s dream job! They have to deal with high-spirited customers in a language they may not be comfortable with. Most of these girls are just trying to make ends meet and with many customers consuming plenty of alcohol, it’s hardly unexpected there will be a problem from time to time – even in the very best bars. Some punters have high expectations and may vote with their feet and vow never to return to a bar if something happens. I understand how you might choose never to return to a bar that ripped you off, but it does seem that some guys get their knickers in a twist over the small stuff. If you find a bar with music to your liking and ladies who are friendly, is it really worth spitting the dummy over a single service failure? Lower your expectations a little, don’t take things too seriously, up your budget and you’ll probably be happier for it. Unless something bad happens – and it very seldom does – or the bar tries to rip you off (which is not as common as some may think), I always think it’s a shame when someone turns their back on a bar they’ve enjoyed for so long over what may be something quite trivial.

At the start of the news section I mentioned the incredible numbers who visit Nana Plaza and how they are well up on last year’s already impressive numbers. What about the mix of customers visiting the bar areas generally? Asian men continue to dominate early evening trade in Nana Plaza, Patpong and Walking Street. Soi Cowboy and parts of Pattaya like LK Metro and Soi Buakhao tend to have more of a white crowd. Whether the mix changes over the next few months, let’s see.

One evening when we were in Thailand the other half was flicking through the Thai TV channels and came across a movie dubbed in to Thai. It sounded like the same few voices I remember hearing the very first time I heard a movie dubbed in to Thai in the ‘90s. I swear that it was the very same voices I used to hear the whole time I lived in Thailand. There seems to be a small pool of actors they use in Thailand when they dub movies and it’s just plain weird – or should I say wrong – when actors as different as Clint Eastwood, Danny Devito, Morgan Freeman and The Rock all seem to have the same Thai guy doing their voice!

Everyday Thais have very little interest in international politics. President Donald Trump aside, most Thais couldn’t name (m)any world leaders, past or present. But there is one fellow who rather a few Thais know, Boris Johnson. The way that everyday Thais pronounce his name is a hoot. Not only that, there’s something about his appearance with his unkempt shock of hair that elicits an amusing reaction. The final letter of Boris being an “s” makes pronouncing his name awkward for Thais and what tends to come out sounds more like “Bolly John-sun”. Show a group of worldly Thai females a photo of Boris Johnson, ask them to name him and watch as they giggle and say, “Bolly John-sun!”

Thailand-Related News Articles

Quote of the week comes from a friend, “The best way to tell how busy a bar is, is by how many times you see the service staff walking by with a mop in their hands.”

Reader’s story of the week is Vientiane, Laos Nightlife Trip Report from Seeker Of The Way.

Agoda’s CEO says Thailand is likely to receive record visitor numbers in 2025.

Some Brits have been offered a free trip to Thailand if they agree to smuggle weed back in to the UK.

Here’s a summary of the proposed changes to Thailand’s cannabis laws.

The Pattaya Mail looks at how Trump’s presidential win could be good for Thailand.

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Closing Comments

It may be the time of year when people involved in the bar industry make their money, but this was hardly a big week for bar industry news and gossip. It looked like this week’s edition was going to be particularly light until a couple of people came through with tranches of news and gossip at the last minute. I guess this week the neon lights and chrome poles were overshadowed – or should I say trumped? – by the US presidential election.

Your Bangkok commentator,

Stick

Stick can be contacted at : stickmanbangkok@gmail.com