Stickman Weekly, October 12, 2025

 

 

 

Mystery Photo

Last week’s photo was taken at the pedestrian bridge at the western end of the Nana BTS station, looking up Sukhumvit Road with The Landmark Hotel in the background. Many of you knew the spot.

This week’s photo is outside of Bangkok. I took this shot when I was last in town so that should be a big giveaway about where in Thailand it is. No clues besides that, suffice to say it’s a popular spot for foreigners.

 

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

Visa rule flip-flopping.

Regarding the 60-day-visa-waiver, who are the quality tourists the Thai government has been targeting for the last 25 years? I am sick to death of seeing this catchall phrase in TAT news and press releases. The hyper wealthy do not visit Thailand as their first choice, nor are they even the largest driver of tourism income. The Thai government does not know at all how to target these people or what appeals to them, and for many decades the government has been flipping laws every 6 months over it. How can they suggest to halve the visa waiver time when a year ago they introduced the now-widely-abused DTV that allows 5 years of entry based on having 500k THB in a bank account?

A complex of drink hustlers.

The problem with the Center Point / Soi 7 bars is that few of the young, slim, attractive ladies working in those bars will go with a customer for extra activities. They are lady drink hustlers only willing to have you buy lady drink after lady drink while the older, heavier, less attractive ladies will do more than that with a customer. That was not the case pre-Covid. Over the past 2 or 3 years, this has been my experience and that of my expat friends and frequent visitors. We now all avoid the place which is a bit of a scam for anyone interested in more than being lured in by a young, slim cutie only to hear, 2 drinks in, that, “I don’t go with customer, drink only.” I live nearby and still cruise by and through those bars often. In all those times I have not seen one young, slim, attractive lady leaving a bar with a customer as though they might be going somewhere to spend some private time together. Not once.

YouTube vloggers running rampant.

I was in Pattaya in August. I saw people videoing everywhere. It made me feel unsafe. When will the Thai government crack down on YouTube vloggers in Pattaya? They make videos to make money and film everyone without their permission. Men and women. If you are filmed in Pattaya by those vloggers, there is a risk you will be recognized by your wife, colleagues, or family, and suffer the consequences of that. The argument that only their target audience watches the videos is weak. Besides, the most beautiful women in these videos are usually not working women and are unavailable, despite the impression the vloggers give! It’s time for the Thai government to lock up those vloggers and make them sleep on the floor with 50 cellmates. Lock up a few, and we’ll be rid of these unscrupulous wretches!

The new Phnom Penh Airport.

The new Techo International Airport in Phnom Penh is spectacular. The old airport was well-loved for how small and fast it was. You could be off the plane, clear Immigration and be in a taxi in 15 minutes! Techo is much larger with room for expansion but is still very quick to navigate. And you don’t interact with any Immigration officers! Arrivals and departures have electronic gates where you scan your passport (the same as you do in Singapore), you never have to speak to an Immigration officer or get a stamp in your passport. Cambodia has made entry completely painless. Perhaps Thailand should take a look at how Cambodia does it.

No ghost flicks for Missy.

Regarding ghosts in Thailand, years ago I remember my girlfriend had come to stay and we started to watch “The Others”, a superb ghost story with a plot twist up there with “The Sixth Sense”. It’s suspenseful and ultimately more sad than scary. About 40 minutes in, she turned to me and told me to turn it off immediately or she was leaving. I was shocked as this was a woman who could happily eat snacks whilst watching the “Saw” franchise and seemed immune to gore. She has got over it and we’re both looking forward to going to see Tee Yod 3 when I visit next week.

Ghosts make her bashful.

I recall my former Thai girlfriend would wrap a towel around herself when she got out of bed to use the toilet night or day because, “The spirits will see me”. I said maybe the spirits would like to see you with nothing on. “No!”

 

 

 

This Week’s News, Views & Gossip

Heavy rains this week meant the lights were turned off as often as they were turned on, on Soi Cowboy. It’s not a good look and anyone not used to Soi Cowboy’s rainy season light shenanigans may think it was closed, when it wasn’t. Lights off kills the vibe and as a friend says, makes the soi feel like Covid all over again. And who wants to experience that?!

To answer the question that some of you keep asking, no, there’s still no update on when the sewage pipes below Soi Cowboy will be repaired. Like I say, Bangkok is still very wet with rain most days, which disguises the problem and dilutes what’s coming up from below ground.

And it’s a trio of bad news reports this week from Soi Cowboy where the ill-fated Showtime remains in darkness. The much hyped ladyboy cabaret bar has not opened, and there are doubts it ever will, at least under the original plan. Word is that the venue is still in Stumble Inn’s hands despite a real effort being made to get rid of it. People are talking and why wouldn’t they be – when a group goes from putting a lot of money into a new design, and promoting the concept heavily, to abruptly cancelling it. Now the space is vacant and, seemingly, no-one wants it. That’s quite a turnaround. Before Covid, any vacant lease on Soi Cowboy would be snapped up very quickly and for some properties the demand was so strong there would be a bidding war. Not anymore.

It’s a different story up the road in Nana Plaza where there are no vacant spaces and operators fight to grab the lease if a space becomes available. Nana Plaza’s newest gogo bar, Orbit, has yet to open – but word is it’s not far away. Given who’s behind the new bar, do drop by when opens as this fellow is known to stack his bars with lookers.

 

 

Over in Patpong, nothing is happening at the shuttered Bada Bing. The popular soi 2 Patpong gogo bar had a good reputation and was regarded by other bar owners and punters alike as one of the best run bars in the area. It has been closed for a while now and is starting to feel awfully like Stumble Inn Soi Cowboy with nothing happening. Word was Bada Bing would be renovated but it’s all gone quiet and today it looks like just another of the many properties in Patpong that were abandoned during Covid and remained closed since. Fingers crossed Bada Bing makes a comeback.

Elsewhere on Patpong soi 2, Kinky Girls – previously known as The Strip – has jumped on the Jacuzzi bandwagon. It’s nice to see a bar make an effort but at the same time the vibe has changed and that edginess that made the bar special has gone. Up the other end of Patpong soi 2, Pink Panther rocks on, neither setting the soi alight, nor in any danger of going out of business. Opposite Foodland, Virgin has lots of agency girls perched outside but despite so many lookers, there’s conjecture about how busy it is, or perhaps more succinctly, it isn’t.

On the main Patpong soi, King’s 3 is temporarily closed. King’s management say it will reopen in high season – which is when? No-one is quite sure! Most of the girls from King’s 3 can currently be found in King’s 1. So for now, King’s 1 has a lot of ladies and business is thriving.

Across the way, Radio City is terribly quiet most nights.

Perhaps the busiest bar in Patpong is King’s Corner which is frequently packed. There are lots of girls and if you don’t manage to get there early, expect Billboard-syndrome and not a seat to be found. The VIP rooms out the back are also frequently full, usually with Asian customers.

I’m no fan of Patpong, but kudos where it’s due – the girls across all of the bars in the King’s Group bars are amongst the most attractive you’ll find in chrome pole bars in Bangkok. And they tend to be younger than what you find on Sukhumvit where age appears to be no barrier to employment.

 

 

If you’re in Bangkok and have no plans tonight – or any Sunday evening, for that matter – and / or you are on a tight budget, you might like to stop by The Kicking Donkey near the turnoff for Soi 6, just off Soi Nana. Kicking Donkey has Killer Pool every Sunday from 6:30 PM and there’s a free BBQ. The selection of meat on the BBQ changes weekly.

In recent columns I have talked about the number of Asian guys on Soi Nana and commented that what was once very much Soi Farang now feels much more like Soi Asia. But this week some of you told me there appeared to be a dip in Asian visitor numbers. In some chrome pole bars popular with Asian men there were noticeably more white guys. Is this seasonal or is something else going on? And it’s a similar story down the road in Baccara which has been a firm favourite of the Asian men for as long as anyone can remember. This week? More white men than East Asians and plenty of Indians too.

Add Rio in Soi Cowboy to the list of bars you should think twice about stopping by after a reader reported a double rip-off this week. His bill for a few drinks for himself and a few lady drinks was 3,900 baht which he thought was far more than it should have been. He handed over 4 x 1,000 notes, the server disappeared, only to return to say that he had only handed over 3,000 baht and she needed another 1,000 baht note. Rio is one of The Arab’s bars. Need I say more?

This photo below was not taken on the Gaza Strip, It was, in fact, taken of a bar area in Thailand. But where? Take a good, long look and see if you can work it where it is. The two big clues are the shape of the bar area and the landscape in the background. When you think you know where it might be, scroll down 3 paragraphs to the paragraph that begins, “We don’t get a lot…..” for more about this photo / news from this area.

 

 

Two old Thailand hands celebrated their birthdays this week. A belatedly late happy birthday to Bangkok-based writer Dean Barrett, and Pattaya-based bar operator Ricky, who each had their big day this past Friday. Ricky says he is 77, while Dean is early 80s.

There are a few real-deal Caucasian gangsters in Thailand. They are outnumbered by the many wannabe Caucasian gangsters. When the Russians first descended on Pattaya en masse in the late ’90s, there were plenty of gangsters amongst their number – and they made a point of being highly visible. They soon disappeared and it would be the best part of a decade before the Russians returned in significant numbers. Everyone in Pattaya knows there’s a Russian criminal element based there. China seems to be exporting plenty of its crooks to various places across South-East Asia with many in Thailand and Cambodia. Their specialty is scam call centres but no doubt they’re involved in all sorts of other nefarious stuff too. The number of Indians visiting Thailand will soar over the next decade – and plenty of Indians already call Thailand home with Pattaya a firm favourite. How long until Indian organised crime sets up in Thailand. Or are they established and up to no good already?

It’s so much more difficult for foreigners to open a bank account in Thailand today than it was in the past. Even if you meet all of the criteria such as having a one-year visa, proof of residence etc, some staff in some bank branches run a scam where any foreigner attempting to open a bank account is told they must take out an insurance policy. This is not an official bank policy but staff in some branches make out as if it is. What’s this all about? Is the insurance policy bogus? No, it’s real. Staff get a commission on all insurance policies they sell and foreigners desperate to open an account are an easy target. This has been an ongoing issue in some bank branches for many years. And don’t think that this is confined to bank branches in far-flung provinces. On the contrary, it’s an issue at some bank branches in downtown Bangkok. If you meet the criteria to open a branch and they try this crap with you, try another branch.

We don’t get a lot of news from Phuket these days and I am totally out of touch with what is happening on the island. This past week I learned that the last of the “bar sois” off Bangla Road was levelled. The photo above is, of course, not a warzone. It is in fact what was Soi Eric. Last month the once much-loved bar soi was flattened and is now unrecognisable. In more recent times it was known as Soi Freedom, but I still think of it as Soi Eric.

 

 

High season can’t come soon enough in Pattaya where trade is almost non-existent in some of the smaller bar areas, and the girls look very, very bored. The rains should end in a few weeks and with that the avalanche of visitor arrivals should begin. Some businesses will get through the low season – but plenty haven’t. At the end of every month, more “for sale” signs go up and for some foreign locals who enjoy walking around town daily, it has become a game to spot the new signs when the calendar ticks over.

The new name for what was Tantra, is The Hive. In addition to the new name for the bar, the girls in the Walking Street gogo bar will be dollied up in all-new uniforms. The bar is undergoing a gradual renovation with new lighting and new VIP sections.

Tonight is the huge birthday party for Oliver, one of the major French partners in the Fahrenheit / Shark / Mandarin / Red Dragon group. The party is actually a bar crawl. It starts early in the evening at Bliss and then moves to Geisha before going to Fahrenheit and the “grand finale“ at Shark. If you see some raucous Frenchmen cruising Walking Street this evening, this may well be Team Oliver celebrating his big day.

 

 

What must the staff in the Pattaya money exchange booth have thought when they saw the two fellows in the photo above approaching? I imagine it was something along the lines of, “They’re coming to rob us!”

The Maggie May beer bar complex is supposed to open on November 1st but those on the ground say that looks optimistic with a lot of work still to be done. Its location is curious, stuck in behind the Myth bar complex, which us old-timers used to know as the Made In Thailand beer bar complex. I always thought that was a rather odd name for a bar complex. Anyway, to get into the new, yet-to-open Maggie May beer bar complex from Second Road, you will have to walk past dozens of bars in Myth – a very loud complex – and you just know the girls will be grabbing at anyone trying to get by. You will also be able to enter from the back / Soi Buakhao, but again you will have to make your way past dozens of bars to get to the new Maggie May’s complex. Access is going to be a real problem.

 

 

You know times are tough when businesses close and the space remains vacant for months or, in some cases, years. Swathes of Pattaya including large plots which were once a beer bar complex remain empty after the complex fell over and have not been reborn. And there are plenty of prime spots which remain vacant. Take the gogo bar on the ground floor of the Penthouse Hotel, for example. It reopened as Penthouse X, lasted a few months, closed, and has been in darkness ever since…..just like other chunks of that soi which also remain in darkness.

In contrast, the Chinese area between Second Road and the Dolphin roundabout is a hive of activity with new shops, restaurants and entire complexes popping up. It’s yet more proof, as if it was needed, that the demographics are moving away from Pattaya’s nightlife origins.

Unlike the two fellows in the photo above, the poor fellow in the photo below appears to be down on his luck. He is often found outside the temple complex on South Pattaya Road. He is in a bad way, doesn’t appear to be able to speak and just puts his hand out as people walk by, and gestures to his mouth. If, by chance, anyone recognises this fellow, he could really do with your help.

 

 

What’s happening in the other nightlife hot spots around the region? Angeles City used to be a popular escape for expats in Pattaya where the girls were said to be sweeter and the bar experience cheaper. How are things today? I hear that prices in the chrome pole bars have increased with barfines (which, unlike Thailand, are an all-inclusive fee) around 5,000 pesos, up from around 4,000 pesos a couple of years ago. In round numbers, that’s getting on for $US100 – so it’s still cheaper than Thailand. Beers run around 150 pesos (or less than $US3), spirits around 200 pesos (less than $US4) so it’s decent value for drinks. Lady drinks will set you back around 350 pesos (about $US6, or so) which is about the same as you’ll pay in many Bangkok and Pattaya chrome pole bars. It is not my intention to diss Angeles City in favour of Thailand but feedback has been consistent – girl numbers in the bars are way down on what they used to be and there is an overriding feeling that the town’s nightlife area has been in decline since long before Covid.

Phnom Penh has probably replaced Angeles City as the place Thailand expats go when they’re craving something different. The bar scene there always felt somewhat undeveloped to me, and almost rustic, but in saying that, I haven’t been there for 12 or 13 years. I am told that the Phnom Penh bar scene is bigger, flasher – and prices are moving accordingly. Word is that the girls are as friendly as ever – and the big thing seemingly everyone mentions: compared to Thailand the girls are not pushy when it comes to lady drinks and don’t try to get lady drink after lady drink in record time. If you’re looking for companionship, the opening gambit of many girls in the better bars in Phnom Penh is $US 100. Hansum men can negotiate. Barfines are not the bargain they used to be with at least one bar setting the barfine rate at $US 25. Bars like Cherie’s and Angry Birds on Street 130 are amongst the most popular and one fellow whose opinion I value tells me that Ponytails on the same street may be the best bar at this time.

I wonder if any readers can help me choose a hotel for my next trip? I am looking for somewhere with some very specific features. It *must* be a hotel and not an Air BnB property. It *must* have a balcony as I like to sit outside for an hour or two in the afternoon and potter away on the laptop. Anywhere on a soi on Sukhumvit from soi 1 to Thonglor is fine and a long way down a soi is totally ok. I don’t need breakfast included or a gym or any particular facilities. Ideally, I’d like to pay less than 3,500 baht / night although I will go to 4,000 baht / night if it’s ideal – but 4,000 baht is a hard limit. Any recommendations for a decent property that meets this criteria would be gratefully received!

 

 

Thailand-Related Links & News Articles

Quote of the week refers to the working girls of Thailand, “Asians get the best, other foreigners get the rest.”

From The Stickman Archives comes Welcome To Hell, a look at Pattaya’s Devil’s Den.

Visitor numbers to Cambodia plunge following the border skirmishes with Thailand.

An American sparked drama after jumping from a ferry in Pattaya Bay.

A German is rescued after falling 20 metres into a well on his property in Chonburi.

Pattaya Police free a young Thai woman kidnapped by a Chinese gang.

A buffalo beauty pageant in Chonburi raises the status of the humble animal.

The New York Times looks at the fascinating history of hairstyles in Thai schools and how it has been harshly policed.

A German couple are attacked in an invasion of their home in Khao Lak.

 

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Closing Comments

I’ve noticed a trend creeping into emails where some people appear to view everything through a political lens – and if they perceive that someone else is not of the same political persuasion, look out! Inevitably the email accuses me of some or other political agenda and I am then labeled, anything from a socialist to far right. Of course I have my own political leanings but I keep them out of the column. I enjoy engaging with column readers by email but please kindly keep your political beliefs to yourself and point any accusations of political bias elsewhere. If things get political, I probably won’t engage.

Your Bangkok commentator,

Stick

Stick can be contacted at : stickmanbangkok@gmail.com