Stick Reaches The End Of The Road

This time last year I came very close to calling time on this column. I thought things over for weeks, and in the end I decided to stick with it. I’ve had similar thoughts this year. When I was in town recently, I told a few friends where my mind was at, and indicated this year might be the end of the road.

Why would I walk away from something I’ve been doing for 23 years when it has a loyal following?

It’s almost 10 years since I left Bangkok. When I left I planned to stop posting to the site. But out of the blue, I received an offer from someone to buy the site that was too good to turn down. One of the conditions was that I had to stay on and write the column. I left Bangkok almost 10 years ago and live 10,000 km away, yet I still write a column about Bangkok. Remote work is a big thing these days, but this is pushing it!

When I am in Bangkok, my desire to go to the bar areas is about as strong as my desire to get a tattoo – and regular readers know how much I hate tattoos. But writing this column means that I have to visit the bar areas. I need to see what’s happening with my own eyes, to engage with people in the industry and nurture those relationships. In other words, I have to spend time on holiday doing something I’m just not that keen on.

When I was visiting Bangkok 3 times a year I felt like I still had my finger on the pulse. I don’t feel that way now. Things move fast in Bangkok and what’s all the rage today can be old hat before you know it. Trends can come and go during the time I am away which is a problem for someone writing about life in Bangkok.

I rely heavily on bar industry insiders and friends for news and gossip. Where once I knew – even if I was not necessarily close to – every bar owner in Nana and many in Cowboy, today I know few. Some I wouldn’t recognise if they walked past me in the street. And with many friends losing interest in the bars and moving on, the pool of people I rely on for news and gossip has become small. That makes things tricky.

Those of us who ran Thailand-centric websites used to get together frequently and talk shop. We helped one another and celebrated everyone’s success. There was real camaraderie. It’s not like that today. There are some real shitbags. Nasty stuff is written and threats of bodily harm are common. It’s toxic and I don’t want any part of it.

While writing the column is fun and enjoyable, it means my focus is not where it should be and that undermines my ability to take on projects at home.

But perhaps more than anything, there was a time when I felt that writing this column was doing something genuinely beneficial. I really believed I was helping people. With the content of the column largely dominated by bar industry news, I don’t feel the same way any more.

There’s so much I love about Bangkok, but the bar industry is not part of it.

This column falls into a curious space. For a decade, reader numbers have been in a gradual decline that I believe cannot be arrested, let alone turned around. Social media is crushing websites and younger generations prefer video over text. Older guys eventually lose interest in the bars and no-one lives forever.

It’s never been about reader numbers for me and so long as there was a core group who enjoy what I write, I was happy to keep at it. They’ve supported me for so long that I figure I can repay them by sticking with it and doing my best to produce a readable column each week, even if doing it from afar is like having a hand tied behind my back. But at what point do reader numbers reach a level when you say it’s no longer worth it?

At its peak, the regular readership of this column was well over 30,000. That’s how many people would read each column before the next one came around. Close to 10,000 people would tune in over the first 24 hours of a column going live, and the number of readers would drop by 20 – 30% each day until the following Sunday when the cycle would start again. A month after a column had been published, there’d still be hundreds tuning in daily to read it. A year after being published, most columns had been read by more than 50,000 people. Today, the column has a loyal readership but numbers struggle to reach five figures. In other words, the regular readership – as I like to think of it – numbers less than 10,000. Not a big number but all things considered, not terrible.

If I was all about the numbers, I’d change format completely and move over to YouTube. For that, I’d need to be there on the ground, living in Bangkok. But I’m happy living in New Zealand and don’t fancy moving back to Bangkok. Been there, done that, and got the t-shirt so to speak.

Last year I agreed to produce the column until the end of 2024. That’s just two days away. I feel like I have reached the end of the road. Is this the end?

 

 

Mystery Photo

Last week’s photo showed part of the renovated exterior of the once infamous Malaysia Hotel in the Soi Ngam Duplee area, off Rama 4 Road and not so far from Lumpini Park. The hotel has been standing in that spot since 1967. Today it’s a very reasonably-priced hotel in an interesting neighbourhood, away from the hustle and bustle of Sukhumvit and a place some readers might like to consider. One reader wrote this about the property: “The Malaysia Hotel was my first stomping ground in Bangkok as a mid-20s backpacker in the ’90s. It was dodgy as, but fun. All sorts hanging around from naive backpackers like me, to full-on hardcore junkies, dealers, working girls, katoeys and the flotsam and jetsam that were part of that scene. The Malaysia was the epicentre and just a short mototaxi or tuktuk ride to Patpong (when it was pumping). They were great days.” This week’s photo is an easy one to end the year on.

 

 

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

Gogo bars are incredible value.

Times are probably changing, and from drinks to girls the bars are getting more expensive. But demographics are also changing. Crypto-bros and young IT specialists, for example, have money to burn. I fall into the latter group. Do I want to overpay? No! But compared to high-so bars and especially sky bars, the gogo bars are still incredible value to me. I don’t really care about taking girls out of the bar and when I do, it’s to send them home or to go party somewhere. What I care about is having a great time inside the bar.

A rising tide….and the bar biz.

I hate how a rising tide lifts all boats. What is perfectly reasonable pricing in Butterflies or Spanky’s is really not acceptable in a run-down back soi beer bar crewed with thirsty women who should have retired a decade ago. It almost feels like these places have unionised with very little variation in prices across the board, especially with lady drinks.

Diamonds in the rough.

As someone who has always been more of a bar-beer patron than an a-gogo patron, I reckon there is still plenty out there for the older blokes who like the long-time / girlfriend experience as opposed to the short time a-gogo ‘wham bam’ experience. Pattaya is the place for the 1,500 baht long time as long as you are happy with a well-travelled, experienced lady. She may have been hanging around the bars as long as you have, and she might have been married to a farang at some point, and lived abroad. She’ll be a decent drinker, love a laugh and she may even be ok in the sack. Seek, negotiate, smile, laugh and ye shall find!

What Thailand attracts.

Is the gradual move to higher prices and higher comfort what punters look for in a bar in Thailand? If so, that makes for a different clientele to that which the country has tended to draw to its shores. Thailand has long attracted bottom of the barrel tourists. Sorry if that offends some, but it’s true – and it includes the Chinese visitors too. It continues today with daily reports in the local media of men behaving badly. You don’t see similar reports of drunken behaviour and street brawls in, say, Malaysia or Singapore or Taiwan or Japan. Thailand attracts trash, for many reasons. For decades, they have come for cheap sex, and if it is no longer available they will go elsewhere. Which might not be a bad thing, and be a relief to many locals.

Christmas in Bangkok is not for everyone.

In my opinion, Christmas is the worst time of the year for adventure in Bangkok. You correctly state many bars are full. If getting a seat is troublesome, finding a girl could be more so. The Billboard Jacuzzi was drained last night, and I’m not referring to the water in it. Add in the cost of outrageous seasonal airfares and higher accommodation costs, the result is poor value for money. The Landmark pool is so frigid I’m surprised they haven’t installed an AED for customers dumb enough to take the plunge. You can, however, walk all the way around Benjakit and Lumpini parks without breaking a sweat. There are many couples, families and what I call “sidewalk zombies” whose lack of familiarity with surroundings give annoyance to anyone trying to walk from A to B. Fewer Indians than usual. Massive numbers of streetwalkers. A Soi 4 girl complained to me last night about it “being cold”!

Still enjoying the bars 27 years later.

Maybe our 747s landed a few days apart in early 1998 as that’s also when I first arrived in Bangkok. 27 years later, a lot has changed in the bar scene. I’ve been a very regular visitor, including a spell living in Bangkok in the early noughties. I regard the period immediately after the Asian economic crash and into the early noughties as the golden age for the Thai farang bar scene. Flights were affordable as were drinks, barfines and the girls. It was made even more so by the fantastic exchange rate to the £. It was starting to get easier to get around with the BTS opening. And the widespread introduction of mobile phones made it so much easier to keep in touch with your favourite girls. That said, the smartphone would become a driver of many changes to the way the whole bar scene worked. The attitude in the bars was so much better and the girlfriend experience was the norm. I still have a great time these days but I’ve had to adapt the way I do things quite a bit – and I pay more for the pleasure! It’s very much the tail wagging the dog these days. I was chatting recently to a friend who is of a similar vintage to me. He still spends part of the year in Thailand but never sets foot in a bar anymore. He said that of all the guys he knows who’ve been going to / lived in Thailand over the last 25 or 30 years, I’m the only one who still hits the gogo bars, buys lady drinks and pays barfines.

Where’s the bacon?!

I was in town at Thanksgiving and stayed at The Landmark Hotel. I no longer do breakfast buffets every morning but had it twice. There was no bacon! A deal-breaker for me! Nowadays I only eat bacon in Thailand. I’m back in February. Hopefully the bacon returns.

Life in the countryside, as a foreigner.

I’m one of those who moved to the countryside from Bangkok, and I can’t really say I have any regrets. There are fewer ‘temptations’, true, but when I make the occasional trip back to the city I find the crowds unpleasant. But then, I’ve long thought that if I had been brought up in the countryside in the UK, rather than London, I wouldn’t have wanted to go near a city. I’m sure others might feel the opposite. Still, I have all I personally need living in the sticks, and wifey is happy with most of her family just a kilometre away. Do I miss not being able to mix with fellow farangs? No, not really.

 

 

This Week’s News, Views & Gossip

The temperature dips at this time of year in Thailand with the week between Christmas and New Year often the coolest. On Soi Nana, some streetwalkers were forced to put on a light jacket or cardigan and many people wrapped their pets up as Thais are wont to. It’s amusing to see some Thais almost shivering when the temps drop in to the low teens.

From the top floor of Nana Plaza comes confirmation that the hyped new bar from the owners of Billboard and Butterflies will open on Monday, January 9. Like some of 2024’s other new bars, word is it will be a more upmarket affair. Normally I like to give a bar a few weeks before drawing any conclusions but the team behind On Top are the most professional operators in the industry and I’d expect the bar will be on point from day one.

The big talking point in Bangkok’s bar industry in recent weeks has been from outside the bars as the Soi Nana freelancer scene has become more colourful with African hookers flocking to the area. On Tuesday night, a reader wandered from the police traffic control box at top of the Soi Nana down to the turning for soi 6, counting all the African working girls he saw along the way. The total? 40. That might not sound like that many, but it’s just the start. While the greatest concentration of African women is on Soi Nana, there are a few other areas where they can be found. There’s usually a bunch around the escalators going down to the Sukhumvit MRT, just metres from the Asoke end of Soi Cowboy. Some have become more daring, lingering on Sukhumvit Road between sois 4 and 6 (the opposite side of the road from their drug-dealing brethren). So if there were 40 on Soi Nana, more on the main Sukhumvit Road, more still near Soi Cowboy – and no doubt plenty who had not ventured out for the night and others earning money staring at hotel room ceilings, would it be fair to say that there are now probably more than 100 African girls working the area between Nana and Asoke?

It’s worth noting that there was a widely-reported crackdown in Pattaya this week on foreign hookers on Walking Street, resulting in the arrest of 20 foreign nationals. The boys in brown ran the usual dog and pony show, rounding them up, arresting them, and explaining what a scourge they are on pure and innocent Thailand. Many of you had mentioned these ladies were lined up along Beach Road. They had become so visible that something had to give. Which begs the question of why there hasn’t been a similar crackdown in Bangkok? The simple answer is that these are different police districts. Bangkok is divided up into 50 administrative districts, each with its own police station – and each does things its own way.

 

 

On Soi Cowboy, it didn’t take long for Baccara to update their signage after Shark erected its beautiful new Shark Gogo Club frontage. Baccara’s new signage is clean and fresh, but not as striking as Shark’s.

Lollipop in Nana Plaza has a promotion for those looking for something a bit more personalised and private, the rock star experience so to speak. For 20,000 baht, you get access to the VIP Room (I have to admit that I didn’t even know the bar had one), 2 bottles of premium whiskey and a bottle of Champagne served at midnight. It includes all mixers, party hats (is that a euphemism for something else?!), and 4 of Lollipop’s dancers performing for you. There is limited space so drop by and see manager Dennis if you’re interested.

Last week’s column mentioned a particular bar which charges punters a fee to exchange large banknotes to 20s so the girls can be tipped. Getting bundles of 20 baht notes and making it rain inside the bar is a thing for some generous punters. Not all bars charge a fee to exchange cash. The top 3 Nana Plaza bars – Spanky’s, Billboard & Butterflies – don’t blink when someone asks to exchange cash. Hand over 2,000 baht and you’ll get that same amount back in 20s, being 100 x 20 baht banknotes wrapped just as the cash left the bank, with the bank’s logo. It’s quick and the cashier doesn’t need to take time to count out 100 x 20 baht banknotes – and then double-check it as they always do! This begs the question. In those bars which charge 100 baht as an exchange fee, is this actually charged by the bar, or are staff skimming? I am curious.

 

 

In last week’s column I acknowledged there hasn’t been a lot of news from Patpong over the past year. Bangkok’s oldest bar area just hasn’t been the same since Covid. Some Patpong owners fiercely dispute this but pretty much everyone apart from the hardcore Patpong faithful comments that it feels rather stale. That is not to say nothing is happening at Patpong. There have been things going on and it’s more a case that I didn’t report on them at the time. On a few occasions I heard about happenings at Patpong well after the fact and I felt it was not sufficiently fresh news to include. But perhaps you’d still like to know what’s been happening at what I now think of as Bangkok’s 3rd bar area? Let’s have a quick look at some of the comings and goings on the main Patpong soi and its classic old bars. Like I say, none of this is breaking news, and some of it happened months ago. King’s Castle 2 moved out of the space next door to King’s Castle 1, across the soi and into a new location directly opposite. It should be noted that the signage now says “King Castle 2” with no apostrophe or ‘s’. It’s a rather small bar with a lounge area featuring couches facing low coffee tables, set off by a partition. The couches are said to look comfortable but the partition does not provide complete privacy. As has been the case for as long as anyone can remember, King Castle 2 has a team of attractive dancers. Next door to the new King Castle 2 is King Sport Bar (note that like King Castle 2, the apostrophe and ’s’ has been omitted). Is that deliberate or an error? I have no idea. The space which housed the original King’s Castle is under renovation. Of these bars, King’s Castle 1 seems to be the busiest at this time. There’s talk of a new King’s Castle 3 coming, or is it King Castle 3?

The classic old Patpong bar with the fitting name, Super Pussy has reappeared on Patpong soi 1.

 

 

In some gogo bars, management are aware that some staff are up to no good and choose to do nothing about it. Why is that? I have a theory. Many (most?) bars struggle to find good staff. If managers / the owners are aware that staff are ripping off customers to line their own pockets, they often look the other way and don’t do anything about it. If they raise this, staff will lose face and almost certainly leave – and they may take friends with them, meaning the bar loses a bunch of staff. In other words, the bar puts its staff ahead of its customers. If, however, the staff steal from the bar then all hell will break loose and those staff would almost certainly lose their job, or worse. This sort of thing only happens in Thai-owned bars, right? Wrong! And that’s a big fat WRONG in capital letters and giant bold text!

It’s the very peak of the high season, Bangkok is booming, and there are tourists everywhere. So what’s the score for someone who makes a last-minute decision to visit Bangkok. Is it possible to find a place to stay or are hotels full city-wide? Bangkok is massive, there are hotels everywhere and I have never heard of a city-wide hotel sell-out. Not only are there hotels everywhere, many condos and apartment buildings have rooms for rent by the day, week or month. There are hundreds of short-time hotels, many of which have rates for longer stays. But some of these places can be a little tricky to find as they might have no online presence whatsoever. Don’t hesitate to travel to Bangkok without accommodation booked – so long as it’s not a requirement to stay in a very specific downtown / tourist area. If you’re the intrepid type, you’ll always find a room somewhere. And if you’re really stuck, just offer a bonus to a taxi driver to find you a room – and you’ll have one in no time. And no, I don’t mean a dingy room in a far-flung corner of the city miles from anywhere. There are so many places to stay in Bangkok that you really needn’t worry so long as you don’t need to be in a very specific location.

 

 

The checkbin above made the rounds on social media this week after someone spent 46,190 baht in TomCat’s on Pattaya’s Soi 6. It was quite the outlay for someone who enjoyed a glass of Coke and appears to have spent just 35 minutes in the bar. I am really not sure what to make of this bill which features 60 lady drink Tequilas and a lady stop work fee of 35,000 baht. I don’t know what the backstory is here. Did the customer post this to show off? Or did the bar itself post it? How can there be 60 lady drinks in such a short space of time? My best guess would be that the customer treated every lady in the bar to a drink but the commission was assigned to the girl he was with. But that doesn’t make sense as TomCat’s doesn’t have anywhere near 60 ladies. Maybe there were 15 ladies, they each had 4 Tequilas and the commission went to the lady the customer was with? That’s plausible – but would there even be 15 ladies in the bar mid-afternoon? And then there’s the lady stop work charge which I guess is what we used to refer to as a “lifetime barfine”. Is this crap still a thing? If ever there was a case for human trafficking, charging a fee to release a lady from the bar so she is free to do as she pleases is it! Or more likely it’s a scam with the fee split between the bar, the mamasan and the lady. Lifetime barfines used to typically run 10,000 baht. 35,000 baht today? Inflation must be higher than I thought.

Have you seen any evidence of The Mad Professor’s scribblings in downtown Bangkok recently? A long-time reader who has been as fascinated as I am by the fellow mentioned that he has not seen any scribblings from Nana down to Emporium. In recent years The Mad Professor has been seen regularly around Ekamai, Prakanong and On Nut and there have been reports recently of his work in the Ramkhamhaeng area. It sounds like that’s his new zone. Maybe he got fed up with the district staff cleaning up his artwork so quickly on Sukhumvit?!

The photo below shows a curious message on the side of a skytrain carriage. Is this a brand name, a new product or is it perhaps a slogan? Has something been curiously transliterated from Thai to English? Anyone know?

 

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Thailand-Related News Articles

Reader’s story of the week comes from The Olmec, Impressions From Soi Nana.

A Ukrainian is arrested in Thailand for running a drug lab in Bali.

In Pattaya, a foreign plonker given a ticket for riding a motorbike without a driving licence puts the ticket in his mouth, swallows it and is arrested.

A 71-year-old Brit is under investigation after a working girl’s corpse is found decaying in his Pattaya hotel room.

A British woman is arrested after breaking a table while romping in the lobby of a Pattaya hotel on Christmas Eve.

The behaviour of said British woman who caused a ruckus in a Pattaya hotel lobby is described by a friend as typical of her.

A Brit who spent 18 years in a Thai prison is the latest to write a book about his time behind bars.

Thailand announces total visitor numbers for 2024 will exceed the goal of 35 million visitors.

The death of two people from Thai massage raised questions about whether massage across South-East Asia is safe.

 

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Closing Comments

Do I still enjoy writing this column? Yes, I do. Is it hard to put it together each week? Not really, although it’s not as easy as when I was living there and being so far away can make it frustrating at times. Do I feel I can write columns worth tuning in for like The One That Got Away? and Nana Plaza Through The Years. Yes, but not every week! That opener looking back at 25 years of Nana Plaza took a few days to put together. So, is this the final Stickman Weekly column? No. I seriously considered calling it a day but ultimately, there are still a lot of people tuning in every week who seem to enjoy it. That alone is sufficient reason to continue. I spoke with the owners this week and they want me to continue. I have committed to another year. I guess you could say there was a U-turn just before the end of the road.

My intention is to take things back to the column’s roots with more quirky stuff, more of the amusing stories that are everyday life in Bangkok, and more about the characters. There will be more openers. Nightlife coverage will feature but it won’t be the be all and end-all. While I will continue to chronicle the nightlife, I am not going to mention the same venues over and over – something I have been guilty of this year. I don’t want the column to feel like a dump of the week’s nightlife news, some of which may be from out-of-the-way places that few readers will ever visit. With a bit of luck, a few tweaks and a slight change of direction will make a big difference. Thanks for tuning in this year. See you in 2025!

Your Bangkok commentator,

Stick

 

Stick can be contacted at : stickmanbangkok@gmail.com