Stickman Weekly, May 18, 2025

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Mystery Photo

Where is it?

Last week’s photo was taken of the set of steps leading up to the Asoke BTS station, in front of the Westin Hotel with the El Goucho Steakhouse in the background. Of possible note, one reader mentioned that this pricey steak house has a 50% off promotion on the first Tuesday of the month. Less than 10 of you got last week’s photo right. Was it really that difficult?!

The one clue I’ll give for this week’s photo is that it is not somewhere on Sukhumvit Road. I think it’s not so difficult – but then I thought the same about last week’s photo and I got that wrong.

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

Buddhist holidays and a dirty weekend.

In tourist areas during prohibition, it has always been easier to find a girl than a beer. It’s beer monsters like myself that struggle.

Thais and Christmas I.

A long time ago my Thai girlfriend asked me about Christmas. She seemed very interested so I gave her a crash course in Christianity. After listening intensely for about 10 minutes, I really thought she was getting it. When I finished there were several seconds of silence, followed by, “What you buy me?”

Thais and Christmas II.

I had to chuckle when you wrote that most Thais don’t know what Christmas is all about. Actually the Thais know exactly what it’s about – eat, party and spend!

People still skimping on travel insurance.

Regarding the poor guy stuck in hospital after the waterfall accident, why do people think they don’t need travel insurance? GoFundMe pages are not the travel insurance substitute. Would the new suggested Thai arrival tax which was going to offer insurance cover this accident if / when it is in place?

Thermae this week.

Thermae was packed but with ladies out numbering the visitors 3 : 1. It must be a sign of the downturn. There were not many westerners inside when I visited early in the week, close to midnight. And the ladies asking price dropped very quickly. Usually the union there keeps the girls requesting their agreed rate of 3K short-time…..unless there is too much competition.

Gentlemen’s clubs.

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Changing Thailand.

Sandwiched between my hotel and a weed shop, an upmarket looking cafe popped up. What just a few short years ago would have got you banged up in prison, in some cases indefinitely, you are now encouraged to spark up a joint with your morning latte. People do, and they could not be more blatant. I hate the smell when I walk past. I find it ironic that on Sunday night Nana Plaza was closed due to the Buddhist public holiday and the sale of alcohol was banned, yet you could still buy weed at any of hundreds of cannabis shops.

Changing visitors.

I note a reader suggested a younger male demographic is now travelling to Thailand. While I agree with his assessment based on four visits in the last year, I believe the legalisiation of pot smoking is the major attraction to the under-30 punters. Thailand now has the appeal of Amsterdam, which also brings a level of legitimacy. Where once it was males travelling solo to Thailand as sex tourists, today it is now just an edgy but more mainstream travel destination. The downside of this demographic is they can get a bit aggressive after a few beers, hence the uptick in bar related violence.

Changing payment options.

Soi Cowboy, Sunday night last week.

This Week’s News, Views & Gossip

The new alcohol laws introduced last week were supposed to bring clarity and allow the bars to open and serve drinks without hindrance. But is anyone surprised that confusion reigned last weekend? On Sunday night, the majority of bars in Sukhumvit’s bar areas and bar sois were closed. The photo above was taken on Soi Cowboy on Sunday night. A few bars were open, amongst them Cowboy 2 and Suzie Wong’s, while most were closed.

Nana Plaza was in darkness with security turning away anyone who showed up. Bars scattered up and down the soi were mostly closed but the odd bar had the lights on and it was business as usual. Restaurants could open but were not supposed to serve alcohol, but a few did just that in coffee mugs.

And in a throwback to how things used to be, while most of Sukhumvit was closed, most of Patpong was open.

One reader laughed when he saw a sign saying “No alcohol served today” with punters sitting right next to the sign happily chugging down a Chang. Said reader went for a stroll around Sukhumvit and when he turned around and headed back to this hotel, some of the bars that had been open were now closed. It was very much situation normal for a Buddhist public holiday in Bangkok.

Nana Plaza, Sunday night last week.

More and more positive reports are coming out of Patpong with one friend describing Bangkok’s oldest bar area as very much alive. When visitors rushed back to Bangkok post-Covid, more than a few questioned whether Patpong would survive. Patpong was very slow to get going and many months after tourists were flooding back to Thailand, much of Patpong had not reopened, some of the classic old bars had been abandoned and visitor numbers were dire. Today, Patpong is experiencing something of a renaissance. What is the appeal of Patpong today? After all, it has been much-maligned for years. The answer is usually the same: “It’s not Sukhumvit.”

King’s Corner and the revamped King’s 3 are packed with girls and punters most nights, even the quieter nights early in the week attract a good crowd.

Virgin is open with 20 odd attractive girls, although it’s still waiting for punters to catch on.

Bada Bing on Patpong Soi 2 and Radio City on the main Patpong soi are each said to have a solid lineup of ladies. That said, this week while other bars were pumping, both these bars were quiet.

And despite being surrounded by gay bars at the Suriwong Road end of soi 2, Pink Panther was doing well mid-week.

Nana Plaza rocks on and remains the standout of the three gogo bars areas. More people mention the Nana Beer Garden to me which is consistently busy, and a great alternative for people-watching to the bars out front of the plaza. It’s a good spot for first-timers and veterans alike.

Still in the plaza, a friend noted that Red Dragon has a heap of attractive ladies, but wasn’t drawing in the masses. Funny, that’s exactly how it was when I was last there.

Last week I made mention of Red Fern on Sukhumvit soi 7/1, which some like to think of as the new Eden Club. Currently, there are around 15 maidens on duty. A session runs 3,800 baht. When you consider that includes 2 ladies, 90 minutes, the room and there is no barfine i.e. this is the total cost, it compares very favourably with what’s available elsewhere. What if you only wish to take one lady upstairs? Is that just 1,900 baht? No. The 3,800 baht fee applies whether you take one lady or two! As a sidenote, when you consider that 25 years ago the price of a session with two ladies in Eden Club was 3,200 baht, this represents decent value for money.

Back on Soi Nana, The Kicking Donkey runs a popular burger promotion every Monday: a juicy burger and beer combo is 350 baht. And for those craving a pint of Guinness, they have it on tap and it will set you back 285 baht.

The Kicking Donkey, near the Sukhumvit soi 4 / soi 6 turning.

Down in Pattaya, Thailand’s “family resort”, some say there are more freelancing hookers parading along the bay after dark than ever before. Working girls waiting for a hansum man to sweep them away have been a thing on Beach Road for as long as anyone can remember. Sure, from time to time the police flex their muscles, round up a dozen or two, fine them 500 baht each and let them loose, only for them to be back at the same spot within a few hours. The freelancers of Beach Road have tended to line up within a kilometre or so of Walking Street. The closer you got to Mike’s Shopping Mall, the more the crowd thinned out. These days, friendly girls perch under palm trees after dark from Walking Street to the rest area opposite Mike’s to Central Festival, all the way down to Soi 6, and beyond. Pattaya may strive to be a family resort – but will it ever shake off its sex tourism roots? I suspect not.

Mister Egg’s new Rum Runner bar on Soi Buakhao opened yesterday. I like the concept – rock music and 80’s favourites in a no-hassle, laid-back gogo bar open from 3:00 PM – 10:00 PM. In recent years, Mister Egg has become something of a Pattaya celebrity, partly because he’s a well-known bar operator and partly through his YouTube channel. Did you know that Mister Egg got his lucky break in the bar industry through this column? 20 odd years ago, I mentioned that Big Andy was looking for a manager. The Egg applied and that was the start of his career as a bar manager. As he said to me this week, there have been a few bumps in the road but it’s been a good run and Rum Rummer looks like it will be the conclusion – his words, not mine. Do stop by and say hi to Mister Egg, AKA Phil.

Rum Runner on Pattaya’s Soi Buakhao is now open.

In the Emails To Stick section, a reader asked about gentlemen’s clubs and why there are so many in Pattaya and none in Bangkok. I explained that rooms on the premises available for short-time activities made these venues illegal and what flies in Pattaya may not fly in Bangkok. So how do these huge massage parlours operate when everyone knows exactly what takes place inside? They are explained away as a place of massage and a shower. What about the smaller places with rooms on the premises? To operate legally, some venues have had separate leases, under different company names, for adjacent buildings. In one building you would have the bar / parlour / lounge area where you could have a drink, mingle with and choose a lady. And when you went to a room, you would often step outside one building and in to another. For a while Eden Club did this with a facility with rooms across the soi. And in Pattaya, Devil’s Den had the bar in one shophouse and the rooms in the building next door. You made your selection in one shophouse and had your fun in the other – and all quite legal!

It’s been another week of torrential, unseasonal rain with dramatic thunderstorms across much of Thailand. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, while, sure, the odd heavy fall in May is nothing unusual, many days of very, very heavy rain and flooding across Bangkok is not something I can remember in May in all the time I have known Bangkok. The photo below was shared by a friend who wrote in an email, “I went to bed last night, it was raining, woke up this morning, still pissing down.”

This May in Bangkok has been unusually wet.

Bangkok bar owners don’t bleat with the same fervour in low season as their Pattaya counterparts. Reports out of Pattaya this week from bar owners described trade as erratic at best, with one saying it felt like the depths of the low season. It’s not that there’s no-one in town – there are visitors about. It’s a combination of the change in the mix of visitors and the rain which keeps expats home and away from the bars. For those who do make it out you imagine there’d be good pickings.

Some of the photos doing the rounds of cracks in condo buildings, units and common areas would make me nervous if I was living there. And even if the building is structurally sound, who wants to live in a place where you walk past damage in the common areas every day and are reminded of the earthquake? Thais aren’t known for keeping on top of maintenance. Could some of the damage take years to get fixed? Might some of it never get fixed? There are plenty of buildings where the common fees do not cover the maintenance. There are also plenty of buildings with units where the owner stopped paying fees years ago, or might never have paid them in the first place. In many buildings the money simply isn’t there to fund the repairs. And how many buildings / unit owners have earthquake insurance?!

Villa, the original “farang” supermarket.

The last decade has seen an explosion in farang supermarkets – by that I mean supermarkets with a wide range of Western products. But farang supermarkets are nothing new. Villa, the original farang supermarket, has been around for 50 odd years. And in fairness, even the local supermarkets carry a larger range of imported products these days. And then there are all the farang food providers online selling favourite brands from the likes of Australia, the UK, USA and Scandinavia, to vendors making favourite items from home like meat pies, Cornish pasties, cured meats etc. If you crave farang food, Bangkok has so much more choice these days. In fairness, a lot of this stuff was available in the past but there was less choice, and you had to hunt around.

A section of the green path between Benjakitt and Lumpini Parks is currently closed as it undergoes improvements. You can still stroll between the two parks, just be aware that there is a short detour which goes through a colourful shanty neighbourhood.

The Asoke intersection and the walkways leading to the Asoke BTS station have long been a favourite spot for foreign missionaries to spread the word. The past month has seen some preaching at ground level at the Asoke and Nana intersections. Typically, they spend around 30 minutes at one location and then walk to the other. They operate with a small, portable speaker on their hip, and frequently switch between different people. In the image below, notice how one guy is holding a microphone to his mouth while an accomplice is standing just a couple of steps away. And they blast their message while walking between Asoke and Nana. Following on from the widely-reported incident on the Bangkok underground this week where a social media influencer annoyed the hell out of passengers by blasting music on the train to create online content, one wonders how these preachers will be received. Doing their thing outside at busy intersections is not bothersome like it would be inside a train carriage and most people just ignore them. I have always felt awkward when I see missionaries in Bangkok. Thais are perfectly happy with Buddhism, and Thais don’t like to offend or upset anyone, so when they are approached by a preacher or someone promoting another religion, the average Thai will often say yes and smile when they really want to say, “Hell no!”

A foreign preacher delivers a sermon at the Asoke intersection.

In last week’s column I mentioned a friend’s hernia procedure at a private hospital in the UK and how it was cheaper than the better private hospitals in Bangkok. It should be noted that there are many private hospitals in Bangkok – and all over Thailand – and prices vary greatly. If you were to shop around, for sure, you could find it cheaper in Bangkok at one of the less well-known / “non-international” private hospitals. With that said, if I was to ever have a medical procedure in Thailand, I’d make every effort to find out who the leading surgeon was in that field. Value for money is always a part of my decision-making process – except when it comes to anything health / medical related, and then I am willing to pay for the best. Find the best person in their field and go with them.

On this note, the best hospitals in Bangkok are often said to be Bumrungrad, Bangkok Hospital, Samitiwej and BNH (my personal favourite). I hear very good things about MedPark which opened a few years ago. There are, obviously, many other very good hospitals. In central Bangkok, the following 3 private hospitals are considered good options and prices are much lower: Bangkok Christian, St Louis and Camillian. And for emergency care, Chulalongkorn Hospital would be a good place to go. Siriraj Hospital on the other side of the river is regarded as the best government hospital in the country and has many top-rated specialists and professors. That said, the public system can be challenging, both in terms of time / long waits and communication – and it might not be the best option for those who don’t speak Thai / have a Thai speaker accompany them. There is a private channel / after-hours system in public hospitals where you can pay and things move faster. If I was seeking general medical care in Bangkok, I’d head to BNH. Many of my friends swear by Bumrungrad. We all have our favourite.

The good old days when you could fly from Auckland to Bangkok non-stop.

Woohoo, maybe I will get back to Bangkok before long. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that fares to Bangkok from this part of the world were north of $2,000. This week I see fares on decent airlines with a good connection for a much more reasonable $1,359.

Business must be good if a massage parlour can afford to advertise at a skytrain station, as per the advertisement for P’s Massage in the image below. At least, that’s what I thought when I first saw this photo taken this week by my friend and readers’ submissions writer, Mega. But it’s not actually an advert at the station, rather it’s simply the composition of the photo which shows the signage for P’s Massage shop which is in a shophouse adjacent to the skytrain station. P’s Massage is a decent bet if you’re looking for a traditional i.e. no-sex massage. They have a few outlets on Sukhumvit including one on Soi Nana, not far down from the plaza.

P’s Thai Massage, advertising at a skytrain station?

Thailand-Related Links & News Articles

Quote of the week comes from a friend, “Thailand’s general lack of transparency covers up all sorts of things, including building cracks.”

From The Stickman Archives comes The Passport Fiasco, a light column from August, 2004.

YouTube video of the week from Global Travel Mate shows the unseasonably heavy rain in Bangkok this month.

Gamblers weigh in on Thailand’s mooted forthcoming entertainment complexes.

An Israeli is the latest foreigner to be arrested for running a business on Ko Phangnan without the appropriate paperwork.

Thailand is improving protection for international air passengers.

A young English lady who was reported missing in Thailand turns up in Georgia where she is arrested for drug offences.

The behaviour of a foreign influencer on the skytrain is a prime example of how annoying these clowns have become.

A brawl between Brit and French tourists in Phuket ends up with a Frenchman being stabbed.

A video of Thai women on Walking Street went viral with them allegedly fighting over foreign customers.

A Brit is stabbed and left with critical injuries on the side of the roadside in Pattaya.

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Friday night out in the bar areas at Soi 80, Hua Hin and it’s dead!

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Closing Comments

There’s been plenty in the press the past few weeks about the downturn in visitor numbers. A few days ago, the Bangkok Post headlined an article saying visitor numbers had plunged, while the body of the article noted that visitor numbers were down by……1%. From the bar areas, reports have been consistent – visitor numbers are trending down. But that alone means little. When someone told me that things had eased back a bit in Nana Plaza, it’s hardly something to be concerned about. Visitor numbers always ease in May and in the case of Nana Plaza, they’re easing back from lofty heights. For first-time visitors, I bet the plaza still feels busy and quite the party place. Reports from Pattaya are unanimous – things have come right off the boil. And from a part of the country that is seldom mentioned in this column, a friend out and about in the Hua Hin bars on Friday night said it was dead (see photo above). Videos from Soi Bangla in Phuket show crowds on the street and it looks like it’s doing fine. I maintain that the drop in visitor numbers is the usual blip that happens every year at this time. Come late October / early November, numbers will ramp up again, as they do every year. There’s nothing to fret about. In fact, there are advantages to visiting from now until late October, especially if you plan to be a naughty boy.

Your Bangkok commentator,

Stick

Stick can be contacted at : stickmanbangkok@gmail.com