Stickman Weekly, May 4, 2025
Mystery Photo
Where is it?
Last week’s photo was taken from the R Walk at the Novotel Hotel, looking down Ratchadamri Road across Phetchaburi Road towards the Palladium Mall on the right side of the photo. Many of you knew the spot.
This week’s photo was taken by a friend this week, and I wouldn’t have known where it was if he hadn’t told me.
Stick’s Inbox – The Best Emails From The Past Week
Gogo bars today.
I agree with you about gogo bars being named “clubs”. In my opinion, the business model does not work. Gogo bars became popular because of the prostitution and sex appeal, and nightclubs are popular because there’s the possibility of bringing home a girl who isn’t a prostitute. Tourists my age go to nightclubs particularly because they don’t have connections to the sex trade (or, at least, that’s what they think, not knowing what a freelancer is). There’s very little overlap between the two apart from loud music and alcohol. You’re going to end up bifurcating your customer base when you try to appeal to both groups. Unless of course your audience is wealthy Indian and Chinese tourists who don’t seem to give a damn where they spend their money. Gogo bars are a dying breed. I enjoy them, of course, as do many people, but like you said, it’s become much more robotic and transactional and that’s exactly why people avoided prostitutes in their home country. Will the industry ever turn around? Probably not. I expect gogo bars in some form will always exist, and they will be comfortable, safe and exciting with diamonds in the rough, but overall I expect it to decline. The industry won’t ever be as exciting as it was 10+ years ago because the girls and bars just don’t want to operate on that business model of “you can find a girlfriend here” any more. And that sucks.
Connections, and Patpong.
On your topic of making a connection, I find that in Patpong I get more of a connection. Things are less rushed in Patpong and the girls seem to have somewhat of a pass from dancing if they are sitting with customers earning money for the bar. I sat with the girls outside Kinky Girls, joked around with them and it only cost me one beer and one lady drink. In Pink Panther, I sat quietly by myself until I sussed out a connection with a Roi Et girl who had only been working a few months. When I went to Virgin, there was a girl eyeing me from outside the bar. I ordered a beer inside and then she and a friend came over. They were jovial, didn’t ask for another drink when they finished the first one, it was me who offered the second. I am convinced the chilled out Patpong scene is more conducive to a better connection if one wants to hook up with a trophy girl. And with Patpong being away from most of the whoremonger hotels on Sukhumvit, I imagine there is less pressure for a girl to rush the deed and return to the bar.
Low season no longer exists.
There is no more low season. There’s a constant flood of digital nomad / crypto bros, refugees from Western nations, families from Eastern Europe, whoever from India and the Middle East, Koreans and Japanese, visitors from greater China, a United Nations overflowing like lava into Thai airports ready to boogie.
Hotel earthquake damage.
Attached are some photos from a hotel in Sukhumvit 24 that opened in 2023. I stayed there last month. The hallway photo was taken on the 19th floor. The hotel has a skybridge between the two buildings that will be closed for at least 6 weeks.
Earthquake damage from a new hotel on Sukhumvit 24.
More Readers’ Emails
Beware the Canadian!
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Big brother, and Cambodia.
That TDAC system is exactly what I want to avoid. I got blindsided by it on a trip to Cambodia. I was first off the plane and had to use iPads at the airport and was the last person through Customs. Doing it on my laptop is much easier but make one mistake and you have to start over. I have the Cambodia app on my phone and might try it rather than the computer next time. It really is more about Big Brother tracking you than anything else.
Philippines eTravel experience.
Regarding the digital travel card, the Philippines did something similar a couple of years back. It was the eTravel card, the same sort of BS info fill. I think it was more to have updated tourism stats. Of course I had it filled out and ready, QR code loaded etc. What do you think happened at Immigration at Manila Airport? They did not even bother asking for it and just did the usual passport / biometrics processing.
Don’t make the devil look at you.
My experience of Songkran is that the more you absolutely don’t want to be soaked, such as being well dressed, struggling with your bags or exiting the hair salon, the more fun it will be for the bullies to soak you. I’ve avoided it for years. My last experience was in Pattaya where a girl I was talking to felt it was a good idea to blast a cop riding by on his motorbike. The last I saw of her she was hand-cuffed and on the back of his bike!
A lot of worries over nothing?
On the tax thing going quiet, from what I’ve read no law has actually been passed. It has always been something under consideration but, naturally, drew a lot of attention. Especially with salivating lawyers.
Soi Cowboy, midnight, Tuesday night….dead!
This Week’s News, Views & Gossip
Last week it was Patpong’s turn and this week it was Soi Cowboy that was described as slow. Mid-week reports made it sound like Soi Cowboy was in the throes of low season with even the most popular bars on the soi struggling to attract punters. The snapshot of Soi Cowboy above was taken at midnight on Tuesday. It is, of course, just one moment in time – but you’d expect it to be much busier than that. Not everywhere on the soi was quiet, mind you. While the gogo bars featured bored girls standing outside pleading with passersby to step inside, live music venues Penny Black and Country Road were going gangbusters and the crowd was concentrated at the Asoke / Terminal 21 end of the soi.
A bit over a kilometre up the road, trade at Nana Plaza was decent but even so, some bar owners are starting to whine. One farang bar owner insists that trade is down while a friend who dropped by a couple of times this week reported the bar was packed. It’s the same old story – low season often means fewer big spenders, while some punters sit on a beer for an hour, alone, happy to enjoy the music and the vibe with absolutely no interest in engaging with the girls, let alone buying lady drinks.
Billboard on the top floor of Nana Plaza is widely regarded as the best bar in Nana Plaza. And which gogo bar in Nana Plaza is believed to have the lowest regular / non happy house prices on bottled beer? Funnily enough, it’s Billboard. In any industry, how often does the cheapest also happen to be the best? Don’t expect it to be that way for much longer. Drinks prices are about to go up at Billboard and at its sister bar, Butterflies. New menus are in the works.
Patient punters and princesses queue to enter Nana Plaza.
The plaza is looking brighter than ever with the B52 ladyboy bar erecting a large, new sign this week. Manager Alex says that since the sign went up, customer numbers are also up. Angelwitch is another bar which put up a new sign not that long ago. If you haven’t been inside the plaza for a while, you’ll be amazed at how bright it is inside these days.
From Patpong, King’s Castle has a policy of a minimum number of lady drinks before you can barfine a lady. This has been a thing in various bars on Sukhumvit but I was unaware it had been adopted in some Patpong bars. There is some conjecture about just how many lady drinks you have to buy before you can barfine a lady. One lady insisted a punter must buy her 3 drinks before she could be barfined. Said customer asked the mamasan for clarification after the fact and she said it was only 2. Whether this is the policy across all the King’s Group bars, I am not sure – but I imagine that it is.
Various reports have it that bar trade tapers off earlier in the evening than it once did. Is midnight the new 1:00 AM? Prime time in the bars used to be around 10:30 PM or so until midnight, at which point things would ease and in many bars there’d be a dramatic fall off in numbers around 1:00 AM. For a while now I have been hearing that not long after midnight, many bars empty out. Every bar is different, of course, and some nights the party runs through until closing time, but it does seem in Bangkok that not long after midnight, things ease off markedly in the gogo bar areas. This would especially appear to be the case in Soi Cowboy and Patpong. Nana comes off the boil earlier than it once did, but perhaps not in the dramatic fashion as has been seen some nights in Cowboy and Patpong recently where come midnight, the bars empty out and the last couple of hours of trade can be a lonely affair for those who remain.
Legendary Bangkok freelancer bar, The Thermae, earlier this week.
If you’re looking for an alternative to the gogo bars, the Thermae has plenty going for it – a laid-back vibe, cheap drinks, better music and no barfines. In the Thermae, local beers run around 140 baht, which makes them anywhere from 30 – 80 baht cheaper than what you typically pay in Sukhumvit gogo bars. It’s not just cheaper customer drinks, the maidens of the Thermae are not looking to milk you for lady drinks. Many will even decline your offer to buy them a drink as they wish to remain stone-cold sober. And there are no barfines so takeaway is a whole lot cheaper. The music is at a sensible level and there is none of the awful Thailand soundtrack you get elsewhere. A friend who stopped by this week was quoted between 2,000 and 3,000 baht for a dalliance. Yes, the Thermae is popular with Japanese men but don’t think that means silly asking prices. The Yen has been weak for years and the Japanese punters are not flush like they once were. The Thermae might not be the place to party in the way that bars with chrome poles are, but it has much going for it, especially if a laid-back vibe is more to your liking. If you’ve never been – and, amazingly, plenty of readers tell me they have never stepped inside – put that right. The Thermae is a Bangkok nightlife institution!
Speaking of freelancers, it has been noted that during the day, there are periods when there are no ladies out front of the Nana Hotel at all, nor in the general vicinity. Is it a time of year thing? Now is the hottest time of the year and it can hardly be pleasant standing out in the heat, hoping for a customer. The ladies do come out after the sun goes down. For those brave enough to take a lady off the street, the consensus is that there’s some real rough trade on Soi Nana these days.
The newest bar from the Bunny Group opened this week with Bunny Sports Bar on Sukhumvit Soi 11 joining the fray. Where on the soi is it? You can’t miss it, the frontage is bright red and huge! The Bunny Group, run by T, a Thai gentleman who has been involved in the bar industry for ages, continues to expand.
Okeanos, on Walking Street, was in darkness this week. Is it still open?
Down in Pattaya, the stars are lining up for Mister Egg and his new bar, Rum Runner, on Soi Buakhao. The bar is still under construction and it should open around the middle of the month. The Egg didn’t know that another new gogo bar would be under construction on the opposite side of the soi. The intriguingly named Dirty Money will be a brand-new gogo bar. With Mister Egg’s “gogo lounge”, and a new gogo bar opposite, that’s a couple of reasons for locals to stop by. The exact location of the bar is near the s-bend on Soi Buakhao, not far from the market at the South Pattaya Road end road of the soi.
Speaking of Mister Egg, his old bar, Le Pub, on Soi Diamond, is said to be on the market. What’s that all about? A young Aussie just bought it a month or so ago. Did he have a change of heart?
Large Walking Street gogo bar Okeanos was in darkness this week. Has it closed? No-one seems to be sure. Questions to the owner have gone unanswered.
Tomorrow, Monday, May 5th, is a public holiday in Thailand. Figure most government departments to be closed along with some private businesses, but in shops, restaurants and bars it should mostly be business as usual.
A couple of sexy creatures wander along Sukhumvit.
Everyone has a mobile phone in their pocket and sometimes it feels like every other person has a social media presence. But does that explain the steady stream of videos we see these days of farangs behaving terribly in Thailand? In recent weeks there has been a seemingly never-ending stream of videos showing fights between groups of foreigners, fights between foreigners and Thai security guards, and foreigners generally behaving badly. Amongst the videos that appeared this past week was one in which two sets of Arabs were going for it at Patpong Beach, Phuket. The highlight this week, however – or is it the low-light? – was the video featuring a Belgian who went bonkers inside a 7 Eleven store in Pattaya, first pouring a can of Coke over his own head before throwing bottles of red wine all around the store. There’s one thing that most of these videos have in common. Is it that they all involve Brits? No, not at all. Is it that Russians are always involved? No, that isn’t right either. The one thing that all of these videos have in common is that they did *not* take place in Bangkok. It seems that most videos showing farangs behaving badly are from Pattaya or Phuket. Yes, there was a fracas on Soi Nana a few weeks back which I included a link to – but it didn’t involve farangs, rather it was Thai ladyboys and African hookers. Most of these fights and other incidents of disgraceful behaviour featuring foreigners take place in Pattaya or Phuket. These two locations seem to attract a different crowd these days. It wasn’t always this way.
Scroll back up and take another look at the photo above with the two sexy creatures strolling Sukhumvit. It’s not apparent from the photo that they’re tall, have big hands and deep voices. Yep, it’s a pair of ladyboys.
How you doing?, he asks passersby who make eye contact.
The number of African men lingering on Sukhumvit has not returned to what it was. Yes, some are still around, but not in anything like the numbers they were. A group has resumed congregating late at night near the start of soi 13.
Monday is Cinco de Mayo and Charley Brown’s on a sub-soi off Sukhumvit soi 19 has a great promotion. Every Margarita ordered after 6 PM (which marks the end of happy hour) comes with an extra shot of Jose Cuervo on the side. Their Margaritas are already strong enough so adding an extra shot will make them lethal. My favourite Margarita at Charley Brown’s is the passionfruit. You don’t know Charley Brown’s? Opened in 1992, it’s Thailand’s longest running Mexican restaurant. The food is fantastic and along with the strong Margaritas, it’s known for a fun, upbeat vibe.
A bar owner friend in Bangkok has lived in a high-end condo building for many years. This building was damaged by the earthquake in March and he was forced to vacate. Hunting for a new property has been, to use his words, a giant headache. Here’s what he wrote in an email to me this week. “It crumbled. They say it’s safe but I don’t believe it. The last 28 days have been an obsessive search to find a new place. I just got a place on Saturday, low-rise and no cracks. Low-rise and houses went up 40%. What used to be 75K / baht is now 120K – 150K baht a month. It’s crazy. And when you find something you like, the broker goes back to the landlord and says my client will pay 20K baht more! It’s been a real struggle. Honestly, I am surprised more buildings didn’t fall. There are so many unsafe places, bro, life means nothing here and that really made me realize it. My bartender got a 2-bedroom on the 43rd floor of a cracked building for 8,500 baht / month and he’s happy like hell. It’s insane here as always, but you know that.”
Many expats remain concerned about the integrity of tall buildings in Bangkok, following the earthquake.
In recent years, many news articles have featured a foreigner who had an accident or medical episode in Thailand, didn’t have health or travel insurance and couldn’t pay the bill. I wonder what percentage of visitors to Thailand have travel insurance? And for that matter, what percentage of expats have health insurance? I always have travel insurance when I travel. I had health insurance about half the time I lived in Thailand. Based on conversations with friends living in Thailand, my best guess is that about two thirds do not have health insurance. Those who don’t have a lot of money tend not to have health insurance, while those who are better off and could cover any medical bills themselves if they had to, do have health insurance. If I was living in Thailand now, would I have health insurance? Honestly, I probably would not. Does that make me irresponsible? It’s a moot point, of course, because I don’t live in Thailand.
The new market in what was the vacant space at the mouth of Sukhumvit Soi 12 with Times Square on one side and Korea Town on the other side is taking shape, as per the photo below, which was taken on Friday. Will this market be anything like the short-lived Artbox that was in the space that was Chuwit Park, at the start of soi 10, less than 100 metres away from this location? If it is anything like that, I’d expect it to be very popular.
A market emerges in the large empty lot next to the mouth of Sukhumvit soi 12.
What is it with Thais and dramas? They just love drama! Many Thais may say they don’t like drama and claim that they try to avoid it, but that’s not what I see. Case in point is a friend of ours in Bangkok who lost her job a while back following a dispute with a colleague which escalated to the point that that colleague laid complaints to management about breaches of company policy – and our friend was shown the door. To be clear, our friend was very much in the wrong and her dismissal was entirely justified. The colleague with whom she was in dispute had also made various breaches of company policy so revenge was sought. Our friend provided documents which showed her colleague had been a naughty girl and she was also fired. The two of them now jobless, it didn’t end there. Messages were traded with threats and a level of nastiness and violence that sounded like the script for a splatter film. Sanity would prevail and things cooled down, but it would be temporary. These two middle-class, middle-aged ladies on 6-figure monthly salaries were behaving like children. I don’t know when it will end but I told my other half, I don’t want to hear any more about it. Thais often cannot let things go and when they feel aggrieved, many escalate things to a point most of us would consider ridiculous. Thais can lose all rationality when they feel slighted or disrespected and lose their mind. Thais often have preconceived ideas about rules in relationships – and not necessarily a personal relationship but a work relationship, a business relationship, whatever – and if things don’t go as they expect them to, they can lose their minds. The constant drama in Thailand – which is replicated in expat circles, to some extent – is something I really don’t miss.
The new Thailand Digital Arrival Card system went live this week. Count me amongst those expecting a snafu, it’s good to see that it seems to have gone smoothly with, as far as I am aware, no reports of any major issues. While much has been made of the dip in Chinese visiting Thailand, comments from a friend at the airport this week was that there were long queues at Arrivals, suggesting no shortage of people are flying in.
Arrivals at Bangkok, this week.
Thailand-Related Links & News Articles
Quote of the week comes from Mister Nana, commenting on all the fight videos and negative press coming out of Sin City, “These farangs who try to defend Pattaya need a check-up from the neck up.”
From The Stickman Archives, Memories Of The Thermae, Bangkok’s Legendary Bar, was published in January, 2011.
YouTube video of the week is a short historical documentary, Thailand, Land Of Rice, from 1957.
From The Nation, Thailand’s tourist appeal wanes as gripes over price hikes and dodgy systems mount.
Two Brit tourists have been fined after brawling with locals in a rowdy road rage clash in Pattaya.
In Phuket, a Brit loses control of his BMW and crashes in to a store, injuring his Mrs in the process.
A young Kiwi who had cocaine tucked inside his passport is still behind bars in Phuket, 3 weeks after he was first caught.
A Polish couple arrested for public nudity on Koh Phangnan told police they were just expressing their love.
Signs have gone up on Ko Phangnan saying no public nudity.
A Belgian nutcase goes crazy in a Pattaya 7 Eleven store, causing 35,000 baht worth of damage.
A Ukrainian woman trashes the Phuket apartment she had been staying in for a bit over a year.
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Circling Suvarnabhumi Airport.
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Closing Comments
I can relate to recent articles in the mainstream press where visitors have been questioning the value for money they get in Thailand. I was checking out airfares from my part of the world to Bangkok this weekend and jeepers, did I get a fright! Prices are up 20% – 25% on what we paid last year. Silly me, I thought that with oil prices down, airfares might have eased a bit, or at least remained around the same level. Not a chance, at least not on flights to Thailand from this part of the world. And hotel rates are up markedly on last year too. I’m keen to get back to Bangkok but with airfares at their current levels, I’ll hold off. I’m keen to get back, but I’m not desperate.
Your Bangkok commentator,
Stick
Stick can be contacted at : stickmanbangkok@gmail.com
