Stickman Weekly, June 1, 2025
Mystery Photo
Where is it?
Last week’s photo was taken of the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit Hotel, where the skybridge enters the luxury property.
This week’s photo was taken by the same fellow who provided last week’s. It’s a walk down memory lane for me – the location of my first job in Bangkok, a language school I worked at between 1998 and 2000. It’s very much in downtown Bangkok, but a little outside what I sometimes refer to as the Stickman zone. And if you’re a real expert, feel free to take a guess at the location of the last photo in this week’s column, just above my closing comments.
Stick’s Inbox – The Best Emails From The Past Week
Low season.
Low season is definitely a thing right now, and I love it! From around November till April it was very busy in the bar areas, even on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when we often had drinks after work. Things are much quieter now. You are kind of right that the girls may not always be in the best mood, but the later it gets, the more fun it becomes, especially in the bars where they serve the girls (as far as I know, free) Tequila. Some girls also often share a bottle of their own between dancing. Fun nights can still be had, but the fun starts a lot later. Perhaps the only thing I don’t like about low season is that it is more likely the usual suspects are still in the bar. I think I know too many girls these days! They know I am a soft touch for lady drinks and that I don’t take girls for funny stuff. Many girls these days appreciate that. They prefer to earn 1,000 – 2,000 baht by just drinking and talking, versus 3,000 baht doing the thing in a short-time room.
Is the girlfriend experience available across the border?
On the subject of the discount girlfriend experience having long vanished from the bars of Thailand, does it still exist in Cambodia and Vietnam – if it ever did? Could that influence the holiday destination for those who yearn for the ‘good old days’? Any reader experiences?
Airport experience this week.
I flew in to Suvarnabhumi yesterday. The pilot announced that due to high air traffic, Air Traffic Control had ordered us to circle for 25 minutes. So I thought the city must be really busy. We landed in the new Sat1 satellite terminal, which means you need to take a shuttle train to the main building for Immigration and luggage collection. When I finally reached the Immigration hall, there were only 4 people in front of me. The guy before me did not fill out the TDAC form and was sent back by the officer to fill it out.
Walk away from the grenade!
Next month is the 20th anniversary of being married to a Thai, of which 18 years have been living in the UK. More often than not, I find that the wider Thai community brings drama to our door rather than my wife per se, but we have had our moments. I asked the wife the other day why she was washing raw chicken in the same sink we wash our dishes. I served in the military 40 years ago so I am a bit obsessive when it comes to being clean and tidy. The military does that to you. But, boy, did this start a rant from the wife which went from, “Oh, my god” followed by, “If we were living in Thailand…” to a continued rit rat rabbit chunder rumble thunderous round of mutterings which descended into Thai for about 20 minutes thereafter. I have long learnt that it is better to walk away after the grenade has been thrown, and left her to it knowing I would be back later to deep clean the sink anyway. There are loads of examples I could give, but yup, being with a Thai in the West certainly has its moments.
Nope to dope!
Dope gets a big thumbs down from me and it will be interesting to see how pervasive it is. Let’s hope, as has been talked about in the press, that Thailand backtracks on this, as indeed many other countries which had loosened up their laws are now doing. Long-term cannabis use leads to psychiatric issues and, in my opinion, it is the main driver in the increase in senseless violence often occurring these days.
Dopehead hates cigarette smoke.
What non-smokers or users do not understand is that weed smokers do not consume the same way cigarette smokers do. Even when I smoke, it is a few hits at home from a pipe, just to ease my back pain or stimulate my appetite. Cannabis helps with that. If I am outside, I will find a place where I am far enough away from others and take a few hits from a cone and put the rest of the cone in a plastic tube for later. If you tried to smoke an entire cone yourself, depending on the strain, you’d pass out. People who are stoned do not get into fights. Those are alcohol-fuelled. In Amsterdam, you walk into any coffee shop and buy what you need. In the US, proper ID must be provided and your details are input to a database to record your visit. Cameras are all over the place and some places have armed guards, depending on state / city laws. Here in Thailand, you just walk in and the boutiques are a much nicer and more elegant experience. Here you are actually taught about weed, what strains to try and how to try smoking (or eating) for the first time. By comparison, it is a far more educational experience with the various products, with weed and accessories nicely displayed. Some places have separate areas where you can smoke as well. Walking into a shop here you do not get hit with the smell of weed as you would in Amsterdam, where in the evenings it was so smoky I was getting ill. Over there they tend to mix hashish with weed which is super strong and too harsh for me. And while in the evenings you can probably smell weed being smoked, it dissipates (the same as cigarette smoke) after a few seconds. Not a big deal. For me, I hate walking by a smoking area outside any bar where you get hit with cigarette smoke which I hate <So you should well understand why similarly some of us hate walking by a place where dopeheads are smoking and we are hit by the foul smell – Stick>.
The decriminalisation of weed in Thailand has polarised Stickman readers.
This Week’s News, Views & Gossip
Bangkok bar trade continues to be inconsistent with various factors playing a part in whether a night will be fantastic or a fizzer. There is relief amongst bar bosses that May is over, and much hope that June will be better. I mentioned to one bar owner (who I don’t really like and felt like winding up) that he needed to be patient for just a little longer with the influx of Indians due very soon. His response can’t be printed in this family-friendly column! In all seriousness though, May has always been a quiet month and it won’t be long before the number of European visitors spikes as they head away for their summer break. I wouldn’t expect any records to be broken in June, but I would expect July and August to be significantly better than May.
The regular rains which have been a daily occurrence for weeks have bar owners pulling their hair out. The heavens opened over Bangkok on Friday night, starting around 6:00 PM, and absolutely hammering down for an hour or so before easing, but continuing to fall well in to the night. Heavy rain around 6:00 PM is the bane of the bar industry. Persistent heavy rain at that time of the day can be enough to dissuade girls from going to work. Ditto, heavy rains might cause expats to choose Netflix instead of Nana. To make matters worse, it was the last Friday night of the month which is payday for many expats. They would have been flush – and this is not lost on the bars, some of which count on the last Friday of the month to be a big night which helps them pay monthly salaries (which many bars don’t pay until between the 3rd and the 5th of the next month). Friday night was a disappointment because of the rain and Saturday wasn’t great either.
At the risk of sounding like a cheerleader for Nana Plaza, if you fancy a night out when it’s raining, you really should head to the plaza. The roof gives Nana a huge advantage over all the other bar areas.
Rain is having a negative effect on bar trade. May in Bangkok felt more like September.
The renovations at Red Dragon in Nana Plaza are coming along well. While the new section of the bar is being worked on, Red Dragon is open as usual. They have taken out the DJ station and moved it. The old VIP area in the back has been removed, while the rest of the bar is operational and it’s business as usual. Entering the bar, the area on the right is now covered with a large tarp and what was a wall has been knocked down as work takes place during the day on the other side. What was the DJ station has been made into a passageway in the new extension. The entire extension is dedicated to a new, “Super VIP” area. It’s a big space with U-shaped sofas so it should be cosy. Expect work to be complete and the new section to be open by the end of this month.
A new night-time lighting system was installed at Nana Plaza recently. Individual bar exterior lights must be turned off at closing time, which is officially 2:00 AM, and the plaza could be quite dark at the end of the night. High-powered lights now illuminate the entire complex at closing time.
In Nana Plaza’s Sexy Night, apparently the second DJ mentioned in last week’s column is the son of the owner. Persistent rumours have it that he will take over the lease of the bar. You may remember a year or two back I mentioned that the lady who has run the bar since the ’80s had made noises that she would not operate it forever. So it looks like Sexy Night will stay in the family.
Do Stickman readers have a new favourite bar? For a long time, Sexy Night in Nana Plaza was the clear favourite, a bar which many readers often mentioned. It’s still popular but reader taste might be changing with more of you telling me you enjoy spending time at……the railings in Stumble Inn, out the front of the plaza. It’s a hard spot to beat for people-watching and taking in the whole Soi Nana vibe.
The cops rounded up ladies lingering on Soi Nana on Monday and Tuesday nights this week.
Twice this past week, the authorities swooped on Soi Nana and rounded up more than a dozen working girls. On each of Monday and Tuesday nights, Thai and foreign ladies were taken away. The coppers didn’t discriminate. If it looked like she was working and she didn’t skedaddle quickly when the men in tight brown uniforms descended on the soi, she was taken away to the local cop shop. I note that these roundups seem to be happening rather more often on Soi Nana, with a number of such reports over the past several weeks.
Despite the cops being more active, groups of African girls were doing their thing last night (Saturday) on Soi Nana.
Speaking of Africans, the friendly African men who’d love to sell you something they insist would improve your mood now congregate on Sukhumvit soi 11. A cynic might say that it’s almost like someone had a quiet word and told them to stay off the main Sukhumvit Road where they had become rather visible. It sounds like they have been shepherded into Soi 11 to do their thing there. There were so many on Soi 11 one night this week that it was observed there were more drug dealers than freelancers.
In response to the question asked by a reader last week regarding the closure of the long-running Angel Massage, apparently the reason is that buildings on both sides of soi 24/1 are going to be torn down. That soi has been a haven for full-service massage shops for more than 20 years and had a keen following with Asian men.
Okeanos on Walking Street was closed this week. Is it temporary or permanent?
Down in Pattaya, Mister Egg has adjusted the hours at his new bar, Rum Runner. The initial plan was for the doors to close at 10 PM. Why so early? It was a lifestyle choice. The egg-headed one is doing many of the duties himself, including playing mamasan. For now, the closing time has been extended to 11 PM.
On Walking Street, East Asians continue to dominate the bigger gogo bars. The current hot list includes Shark, XS, Palace and Chick, all of which are dominated by Asian men to the extent that a white guy who wants some attention better be willing to spend up large.
Is the Walking Street gogo bar Okeanos done? It was closed this week. Temporary or permanent, I don’t know.
More proof, as if it was needed, of how the bar industry is changing. In Shark Gogo Club on Sunday of last week, a group of 5 Korean guys partied with a bunch of girls. They paid 5 barfines. Their bill was 60,000 baht. In addition to the girls sitting with them, they bought drinks for service staff and showgirls too. I mentioned to someone connected with the bar that this was a big bill and he said that actually, it wasn’t. Real VIPs are more likely to drop 100K – 300K baht in a night. Translation: the way things are going in some bars, unless you’re willing to empty the ATM machine before you head out for the night, you might find you’re close to invisible. What I found most interesting is that these big spenders didn’t look particularly wealthy – and in all likelihood they aren’t actually wealthy. They were very casually presented, think wrinkled t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops. At the same time, they’re willing to spend up large to have a good time.
Shark Gogo Club, Walking Street.
On this note, some years back some of you familiar with Angeles City in the Philippines claimed it had been ruined by Korean punters. From what I remember, the complaints were that they paid “over the odds”. There were also claims that they mistreated ladies. I have no idea how much truth there was in this. What’s happening in Pattaya and to a lesser extent in Bangkok today begs the question: could the same thing happen in Thailand?
Getting back to Shark Club in Pattaya, girls working in that bar have an interesting contract. They work 20 days for 30,000 baht, before cuts. They are required to get 120 lady drinks over those 20 days so that’s 6 drinks a day on average to ensure they get the full 30,000 baht without any deductions. That’s the equivalent of a monthly salary of 45,000 baht – but with further drink commissions, tips and extras, some of these ladies earn many multiples of that.
Back in Bangkok, the website for On Top, the upmarket bar on the top floor of Nana Plaza from the people behind Billboard, went live this week. The site will be kept up to date with photos of the ladies currently employed in the bar. For a bar which has pitched itself unashamedly at the top end of the market, the drinks prices are fair – with the full menu on the site. A bottle of Heineken is 210 baht, Jack Daniel’s is 230 baht and Johnnie Walker Black is 240 baht. If you fancy a bottle of Dom Perignon, put your hand deep in to your pocket to dig out 21,000 baht.
So much rain in April and May is getting to some people.
Fed up with the weather? You’re not alone – expats and Thais alike are complaining. From a friend who recently retired to Pattaya, “The weather here for most of the last month has been shit. I get up early and the sky is clear. Great it’s going to be a nice day. By mid -morning its clouded over and then by midday it’s raining.”
A friend resident in Bangkok for more than 20 years said he had never known it to be so wet in May. What makes it so bad for him is where he lives, a sub-soi in the Ekamai area. When the soi is flooded, he gets trapped in his condo and can’t get out. Worse still, a couple of times in the past he has been out and about and the soi has flooded so badly that he couldn’t get back in to his condo. The joys of the rainy season in Thailand!
Interested in getting in to the bar business? The ad below was posted to Facebook this week. The bar group? Think a show of impressive beauty and scale….
Prime Location – Soi Cowboy Proven Business Model Professional Management Great Returns Investments start from 500,000 THB Monthly Payouts
Bangkok is a fantastic place for weed connoisseurs.
From time to time, advertisements run on this site for weed stores. Regular readers know that’s not my world, and some of you have called me out on this. Fair enough. The sale of cannabis is legal in Thailand, but don’t take that to mean I am in favour of it. I sold this website many years ago and have zero input on any ads which appear. At the same time I know and respect that some of you enjoy weed. How you live your life is up to you so go ahead, fill your boots. But it’s not for me.
Last year I took a run on one of the new skytrain lines, jumped off at a few random stations and went for a wander. I thought it would be fun to explore parts of town I’d never set foot in and knew nothing about, and it would make for a fun photo essay column. It didn’t work out that way! Most of the neighbourhoods I checked out weren’t that interesting and some were just plain ugly. Think rows of old shophouses with absolutely nothing remarkable about them. The best of Thailand is the people and the experiences. Bangkok has opened up with electric train lines reaching out all over the city. But don’t go doing as I did and think it might be fun to randomly get on and off the train in the hope of discovering some amazing new places. For sure, there are lots of interesting places all over the city – but do your research before you go.
SW1 Market, adjacent to Sukhumvit soi 12.
The SW1 market next to the start of Sukhumvit soi 12 has been open for a few weeks and word is that it’s picking up, but it’s not been helped by the regular rains. The old Artbox Market which was just 100 metres or so away at the start of soi 10 was a great success. It was best after dark with lots of small food outlets and it became a popular spot to eat, drink, and chill. I’m told that in the evening there are stalls selling food, some tables and chairs where you can eat and drink….so if you’re at a loss of something to do after dark, it might be worth checking out.
This week a friend asked if I was following the online spat between a retired British journalist who used to be based in Thailand and a Pattaya bar owner. It has been getting spicy. Honestly, I actively avoid this stuff. The same day I was asked about that spat, I received an email from a reader asking if I knew what had happened to “Dead Farang”. Apparently the fellow had disappeared. Who would have guessed with a name like that?! I had no idea who “Dead Farang” was. I would later learn that he was an Aussie with a YouTube channel. One of my favourite YouTubers – who has nothing to do with Thailand – felt the need to create a video recently about the crap he gets online from some odd folks. He has an innocuous restaurant review channel and is not controversial in any way. As anyone who has had an online presence / website / social media channel knows, sooner or later someone will get nasty. It’s sad because it wasn’t always this way. There used to be a genuine camaraderie amongst the webmasters of Thailand websites. People thought me and David who ran MangoSauce didn’t get on, but that was far from the truth. We met up from time to time and had a good relationship. Most website operators were friendly and we’d meet up occasionally. Back in the day, I happily shared the password / login details of this site with Khun Sanuk who ran NanaPlaza.com when I had a technical issue. He was much better at that side of things than I was and I had zero concerns giving him the keys to the castle so he could help fix it. The idea of giving the password to your server to someone these days would be unthinkable! I guess it’s sort of like the days when you didn’t worry about locking your house when you went out. It’s not that long ago (at least it isn’t in my part of the world). Why am I writing this? Have I been getting shit online? Not at all. I just think it’s sad that there’s so much unnecessary nastiness online these days.
Just because you believe one thing and someone else believes another, it doesn’t mean you have to have a spat about it!
Thailand-Related Links & News Articles
Quote of the week is from the marketing department of Bangkok’s Old English Pub, “Our happy hour lasts longer than your relationship!”
From the Stickman Archives comes the weekly column of March 14, 2004, Big Jack, A Bangkok Legend.
YouTube video of the week is from Seeker Of The Way, Inside A Chinese Mafia Enclave – Nightlife Walk – Boten, Laos.
A heavily intoxicated Chinese tourist stabbed a fellow countryman at a Chinese restaurant in Pattaya.
A Phuket restaurant owner is rightly unhappy after discovering foreign female tourists defecating on the restaurant premises.
Two Brits are arrested at Valencia Airport in Spain after flying in from Bangkok with 33 kg of cannabis in their suitcases.
Another Brit is caught smuggling cannabis after arriving in Vienna on a flight from Bangkok.
And yet another Brit, this time a middle-aged woman, is caught on arrival from Bangkok at Heathrow with 26 kg of cannabis.
The Aussie owners of Playgirlz on Soi Buakhao apologise after being involved in a fight with a customer outside their gogo bar.
A Dane missing since March actually died in police custody 2 months ago, but he remained unidentified until this week.
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Daily downpours are not the only issue in Bangkok at the moment. (Experts, feel free to take a guess where this photo was taken)
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Closing Comments
I can’t do the rounds like I did when I was living in Bangkok, but every Saturday afternoon I make a point of checking in with a few friends on the ground to find out what they’ve seen, and gather news and gossip from the bars. Checking in with my long-time pal the Dirty Doctor, the first thing out of his mouth this week was not what I expected, “It’s a good thing you haven’t bought tickets yet because you wouldn’t like Bangkok at the moment!” He knows me better than most and is not prone to exaggeration, so what did he mean? “I’m seeing a lot of masks!” Sigh, Covid is back in the news in Thailand and dutiful Bangkokians are donning masks again. That said, word is that while masks are seen far and wide by day, they are largely done away with after dark. Apparently, Thailand has the latest COVID variant, OCBD. Only Contagious By Day!
Your Bangkok commentator,
Stick
Stick can be contacted at : stickmanbangkok@gmail.com
