Stickman Weekly, November 17, 2024
Mystery Photo

Where is it?
Last week’s photo was taken from the skywalk near Gaysorn Plaza, above the Rajadamri intersection, looking west along Rama 1 Road. Just 9 of you got it right. This week’s photo might look obscure, but look closely and you might recognise the location which is very much in the Stickman zone.
Stick’s Inbox – The Best Emails From The Past Week
Raining inside a gogo bar.
I spent a night bar-hopping around the larger gogo bars on Walking Street: Pin Up, Fahrenheit, Shark & Chick. In Shark, I witnessed a group of Japanese men making it rain with stack upon stack of 20 baht bills. The stacks being thrown were around ½-inch thick. They had two huge stacks of 20 baht bills which created a frenzy and was fun to watch. Shark had the best-looking ladies of all the bars I visited on Walking Street.
More mamasan shenanigans.
In one of the King’s Castle bars in Patpong, I was in the process of barfining a lady. I paid the bar bill and the barfine directly to the mamasan. As the lady was about to go and change, the big mamasan came into the bar and saw money being exchanged and asked, “Barfine?” Both the other mamasan and the lady herself froze and didn’t answer. Big mamasan looked at me and I confirmed that yes, I had barfined her. Big mamasan then took the tray of money from the other mamasan, sat next to me, and told me I had to pay for the lady up front because she was new in the bar. After this whole transaction took place and the big mamasan left, the other mamasan came back to talk to me. She was annoyed. She wanted me to report this to the owner of the bar. I didn’t know what to do. I told her that I didn’t understand the bar policy, the 2 manasans relationship, and would rather not get involved. Maybe I should have stood up for her and said something to the owner.
Beautiful Walking Street.
The LED war on Walking Street continues. Yes, the signs hanging over the street are gone, but I think the frontages of the bars around make up for it. 2 years ago, Palace A Gogo had one of the most impressive frontages. Now, 2 years on, their frontage hasn’t changed, but the bars around them have, and the frontage of Palace can now be described as average at best, by Walking Street standards. You mentioned it already, but Shark has one of the most impressive frontages right now.
Fleeing from Soi LK Metro.
More Readers’ Emails
When you see many thin ladies.
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Getting the best hotel price.
Contacting hotels directly to get a cheaper price is a common practice. Nowadays, hotels get most of their business from sites like Booking, Agoda and Expedia. That costs the hotel 15 – 20% in commissions (but sometimes even more), so a direct booking for 10% less than the displayed price online still makes it a good booking for the hotel. Online booking sites used to put clauses in their contracts stating that the price they charged could not be lower elsewhere. However, at least in Europe, several courts have ruled against such practices as it’s anti-competitive and not allowed in Europe.
Hope for bald men.
A few times on Beach Road an Indian guy would point at my bald head and start chatting with me. I immediately smelled a scam, and ignored them. But being curious I finally talked to one of them. It turned out the Indian had a “respectable friend” working in a shop, and this friend had a secret potion able to grow hair, all for a very affordable price. And, of course, he was eager to take me there because of his good heart. He was disappointed that I turned down his honest offer. So I was right, it was just another scam in paradise.
Airport departures easy-peasy.
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The rise of the security guard.
This trip has called attention to the rise of the security guard. I’ve had two less than friendly encounters. Ten years ago, one might expect to see a guard napping in a corner. Now it’s “that guy with the mace can on his belt and the laser pointer” who shows you a seat. Some suggest buying the guards a drink for the best VIP service. It’s another thing I never predicted.
This Week’s News, Views & Gossip
Things are happening on Soi Cowboy. As mentioned a month or two back, Shark Soi Cowboy has been tarted up with a fresh, modern frontage. The new façade, three floors high, is the same one used at the relocated and expanded Shark Gogo Club on Walking Street. For now, the Cowboy frontage will be the only change, but come low season, the entire first-floor of the gogo bar will be gutted and renovated to match the layout, colours and lighting of the Pattaya bar of the same name.
A new gogo bar will soon open in the space that was previously Weed Hub, on the other side of Soi Cowboy, next to Long Gun. Signage is up already, revealing the name of the single-shophouse bar to be Majestics. There were too many weed shops on Cowboy and they hardly ever seemed to have any customers so it’s good to see a new chrome pole bar.
But it’s not all good news on Soi Cowboy where Arab bar antics continue. It’s hard to believe that the first reports of this fellow’s crap appeared online almost 20 years ago and, amazingly, continue to this day. A Stickman reader was convinced by hello girls to step inside Spice Girls. He would be joined by a lady who asked if he would like to move to the booth in the front corner of the bar. What he did not know – and what she did not tell him – was that this was considered a “VIP booth”. What he didn’t know was that VIP booths come with VIP pricing. A round of drinks set him back 7,500 baht! He paid up, walked out and has vowed to never return. Yes, even after all of these years it’s best to avoid The Arab’s bars.
Shark Bar’s new signage features the words “gogo club”. I note that owners and employees of some of the better gogo bars often use the word “club” when talking about their venue. What’s that about? Some of the better bars appear to be moving more upmarket and making an effort to accommodate those looking for something a bit more than your typical Thailand gogo bar. You can see this in bars which have a VIP area which can be reserved, or is only available to big-spenders. These bars may offer premium drinks not available elsewhere. It’s still early days but certainly there is a movement as some bars are making an effort to evolve. A move in this direction would allow the better bars to separate themselves from the rest, offering a superior product – and pricing it accordingly. I’m interested to see how this goes. My feeling is that there’s a percentage of punters willing to pay more for a better experience.
Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy were both bursting at the seams on Friday night with Sukhumvit enjoying high season crowds. There are white guys everywhere and the domination of Asian guys early evening in the gogo bars is over for now. A couple of reports noted an unusually high number of Eastern Europeans about. Bangkok hasn’t traditionally been their playground but perhaps things are changing?
In Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza, Loy Krathong (this past Friday night) felt like Christmas, with shoulder to shoulder crowds. Lower Sukhumvit at 10 PM was a sea of humanity, with groups plodding along at a snail’s pace. Cowboy was impassable at times between the gawkers, phone scrollers, shutterbugs and watch sellers. Nana’s walkways moved at a crawl and seats were nearly impossible to find in many bars. It was much the same in Cowboy’s best bars.
Thursday was a big night for Bada Bing in Patpong where the 15th Anniversary Party got off to a late start thanks to two hours of rain from 6 – 8 PM. But by 10:30 PM it was standing room only. It felt a bit like a French Embassy event with a large swathe of that country’s expat community on hand to congratulate the French ownership. It was also a full house of ladies, with everyone on the roster showing up.
Speaking of French-run bars, still no-one has offered me an explanation as to why their bars are often top-tier. Anyone?!
Some folks get quite testy about my irreverent comments about Patpong, but I maintain they are justified. To those less familiar with the area these days, Patpong seems to stutter along and the constant changes and lack of direction make it hard to justify a trip away from Sukhumvit. This week, we were reminded again that the glory days of the Pong are very much in the past as the area’s newest gogo bar, Virgin X, on Patpong soi 2, lasted not even a month. Initial reports from Virgin X were very positive. But someone in charge has seemingly changed their mind and it has been converted into a ladyboy cabaret. Needless to say, my previous recommendation to readers to stop by Virgin X no longer stands.
The parties continue this next week with two big anniversary celebrations Friday and Saturday at Baccara and Butterflies. Baccara’s 25th anniversary bash is this coming Friday, November 22. There will be free food and a pig will be sacrificed for the barbecue. On Saturday, November 23, pizza will highlight the free buffet at Butterflies in Nana Plaza and 100 8th anniversary commemorative drink glasses will be given away. The evening will conclude with the Butterflies Babe of the Year pageant, with 70+ ladies vying for 50,000 baht in prizes.
It’s time for an update from the bar area on Soi 7. As I reported some time back, the bars under the structure that was once the Biergarten weren’t doing so well compared with bars nearer the main Sukhumvit Road. Some of the smaller bars didn’t make it and have called it a day. Since then, a couple of new bars have opened. With high season here and throngs of people on Sukhumvit after dark, they have reason to be optimistic.
The bars in Soi 7 are still on rolling 6-month leases / contracts – which happen to coincide with the low and high season. Each high season renewal comes with a rent increase.
So why should you stop by the beer bars on Soi 7? What sets it apart from other bar areas? Some say the vibe is more laid-back. Others like it that it doesn’t get lots of lookyloos and mainstream visitors. You don’t get a view of the world like you do in bars on Soi Nana, but then you don’t get non-bar people walking past and taking photos with the lens pointed in the bar. Many of the bars in Soi 7 have a pool table and at last count there are at least 15 pool tables throughout the complex.
Drinks are cheaper than elsewhere, but perhaps not lady drinks. What will a lady drink set you back in Soi 7? Some bars have kept lady drinks at 200 baht while others now charge up to 240 baht. These days, lady drinks is where so many bars make their money. That said, many of those who go to Soi 7 play pool and may not buy lady drinks.

High season has arrived in Pattaya.
Down in Pattaya, the new gogo bar on Soi Diamond below what was once Heaven Above will be called Rocket Club A Gogo, not Rock Club as mentioned last week.
Champagne A Gogo is coming back to Soi LK Metro. How can that be the case when it’s currently a music bar called Tuk Tuk Club? It seems someone is about to open a new gogo bar on the soi and call it Champagne A Gogo. Different location, different people behind it, but same soi. Hmmm….
Trade in Pattaya’s bar areas is up although it doesn’t seem to have hit the levels being seen in Bangkok. Word is that it isn’t as busy as it was at the same time last year. This said, expect visitor numbers to continue to rise over the next couple of months and reach a crescendo that will last through most of January.
As far as the mix of visitors goes, the places in North Pattaya which are increasingly popular with North Asians are not that busy. And for those of you who are less keen on our friends from the sub-continent, the peak travel time for Indians has long passed and there aren’t nearly as many Indians around. Peak season for visitors from India seems to be June, July and August.

High season has arrived in Pattaya.
As for the areas once known as farang strongholds like soi 6 comes an interesting observation from the girls. Many customers go to the bars, have a few drinks and leave without going upstairs. What’s that all about?
The end of the rainy season is something to celebrate, right? Well, it will be, when it comes to an end! In Pattaya, there was a huge downpour late Thursday afternoon and Friday also saw steady rain. It’s mid-November and it’s still raining in Bangkok and Pattaya! I had a paragraph all lined up to say that the rain was done for the year, but then on Friday friends told me that was hardly the case. When the rainy season finishes, the cooler weather follows and with it the air quality takes a turn for the worse. Even as the rainy season refuses to end, the mainstream media reported this week on deteriorating air quality in the capital. One day it was bad air, and the next day it was rain. But don’t let me sound like a party-pooper. Now is a great time to be in Bangkok. The holiday season is around the corner. Visitor numbers are up significantly on just a couple of weeks ago. There are more people about, more smiles and this time of year there’s very much a party vibe.
It’s much the same in Pattaya where pollution has made the view out over the bay rather hazy some days.
There’s been a lot of talk in this column about the double lady drink nonsense. What ought to be pointed out is that the best bars do not have a mandatory double lady drink policy. Think of the very top-tier gogo bars in Bangkok and Spanky’s, Baccara, Billboard and Butterflies come to mind. These bars do NOT have a policy of compulsory double-lady drinks. If the best bars don’t push this nonsense on punters, how do other bars get away with it?
The thing with double lady drinks is that it’s not necessarily a bar thing, but a girl thing. You offer a lady a lady drink and she comes back with two drinks. When you protest or merely feign disappointment, she claims that this is the bar policy when in fact it most likely is not. In many cases, the girl is taking liberties and ordering two drinks, knowing that most guys won’t say anything. I hate the term but in this case it seems appropriate – some of these ladies really are lady drink whores. Their goal is to get two drinks from a customer, and hit him up for more. She will keep this up until he refuses, at which point she moves on to the next guy. From her point of view, she is merely maximising her income. Remember several months back when I highlighted a lady in a popular Walking Street bar who was earning around 120,000 baht per month in lady drink commissions? For some ladies, this is very much their business model.
When offering a lady drink, be clear when you order and do not get walked over. What a long-term expat friend does is hold up one finger and say, “One drink!” He does this in every bar, even in those bars where he has been a regular for years.
The entire troop in a Bangkok Irish pub was replaced after it was discovered the team had been up to no good with all sorts of funny business taking place. A staff member’s boyfriend was observed drinking a bottle of wine in the bar but when the computer was checked, the order had been cancelled i.e. he would not be paying for it. A bit of digging revealed a long history of cancelled orders. The ingenious staff had found a way to work the system where they would enter an order, the customer would get his drink, he would pay – remember, most customers in the bars pay with cash – and the order would then be cancelled. The staff pocketed the money. From the sound of it, the entire troop was in on it. Now they’re all gone and there’s a whole new team. Oh, deary me.
Thailand has a strong culture of showing off. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. I’ve mentioned this before as it’s very much the opposite to how things are in my homeland where we tend to play things down. I scratch my head when I see high-profile Thais flaunting it on TV and all over social media. One minute they are flying high and next they are brought back down to earth as it’s reported they are under investigation. There have been a number of cases recently of Thais in regular jobs appearing to cultivate a high profile seeing their world come crashing down around them. There was the iCon Group financial scam recently in which some celebrities were involved. For a few years, high-profile cop Big Joke was the darling of the Thai media. He was head of the Immigration Bureau and was seemingly on the warpath against foreign criminals. He got a lot of press and many Thais considered him a hero. He has faced all sorts of accusations recently and had the indignity of fellow officers turning up at his house with a search warrant while he was in what looked like pyjamas. Big Joke has been accused of involvement with a gambling racket and money laundering. The most recent is celebrity lawyer Tam who took many high-profile cases and was frequently on TV. He allegedly accepted 70 million baht which he said was a gift but the donor says otherwise. Surely if you were making decent money through dubious means you’d go try to maintain something of a low profile? That seems not to be the way in Thailand.
Thailand-Related News Articles
Quote of the week comes from a friend, “I’m beginning to feel out of place here in Pattaya without a tattoo!”
A missing 16-year old girl is found working in a beer bar in Pattaya.
The government warns of a possible attack on Israelis at Koh Phangan’s Full Moon party.
The Thai baht fell in value this week.
On Ko Phangnan, an overloaded pickup truck rolls backwards down a hill and topples over.
Closing Comments
What have been the biggest changes in the bar industry over the past 25 years or so? Mobile phones, dating sites and the effects – direct and indirect – of the Internet on the bar industry generally would be right near the top of the list. The difficulty finding the girlfriend experience would be up there too. But there’s another change I am seeing more and more, one which affects me but most likely doesn’t affect you. It is the ultra-sensitivity of some bar owners towards comments made online about their bar. Once upon a time you could say what you wanted about a bar so long as it was factually correct. Bar owners were fine with you expressing your opinion. Today, some bar owners get genuinely nasty if they don’t like what you say and it matters not if what is said is true or otherwise. Some are very quick to make threats. And to be clear, this is largely a Pattaya thing. Does it make what I do challenging? I say what I think and strongly believe that we all have the freedom to express our honestly held opinions. I don’t want to feel like I need a bodyguard to accompany me the next time I take a stroll along Pattaya Beach. It annoys me that some foreign bar owners have adopted local traits, but perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.
Your Bangkok commentator,
Stick
Stick can be contacted at : stickmanbangkok@gmail.com