Stickman Weekly, November 16, 2025

 

 

Mystery Photo

Last week’s photo was taken from the popular Monsoon bar and restaurant on Sukhumvit soi 8, looking at the construction site directly opposite. I thought it was rather challenging so I was impressed that around 20 of you got it right.

This week’s photo was taken by Arsenal Alex. It’s in the usual part of downtown where Stickman readers have likely strolled by.

 

 

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

Exotic, erotic and feeling superior.

Tourists want the exotic, and often, even if they don’t realize it, they want to feel superior about the “back home” thing. So of course, ping pong shows! We see something exotic, and can tell our friends back home how disgusted we were by the whole phenomenon.

In the queue at the Star Of Light.

Regarding the person who wondered what guys in the Star Of Light queue might have chatted about, I thought the answer would be quite obvious, “So, come here often?”

One more prank?

The Maggie May blurb made me think. Since you are on the home stretch, maybe you should just fill one column with utter BS, from top to bottom. Get some bar owners really riled up and readers wondering WTF! At the end in your closing comments, say you wanted to get one more April fool’s column in for old times’ sake. <I *love* the idea but I wouldn’t do it. I don’t want to let down people who take the time to tune in each week. I’d feel like I was cheating them. I figure if people are willing to spend 15 minutes of their Sunday reading this column, I have a responsibility to produce the best column I possibly can. That said, I do like the idea! – Stick>

Bangkok today.

I was in Bangkok last week and was horrified how fast-paced and transactional the bars have become. The girls neck their “tequila” or small Coke lady drink in no time, then the waitress pushes you to buy another and the mamasan pushes you to pay the barfine, which, in some bars, is for only one hour. One hour?! They’ve got to be kidding! It’s going to take at least 15 minutes to get to the nearest short-time hotel – and she will need 15 minutes to get back (and she will be anxious to do so, or she will be fined). Then she has to take a shower (and some of them take a long time about it) and you have to take a shower, and she has to shower again and get dressed afterwards, so you’ve got 20 minutes or less on the job, and there is such a thing as foreplay. Is it any wonder that many, me included, have lost interest?

 

 

More Readers’ Emails

Where are the Indians?

From what I read in your column I had expected Indians would be dominating Pattaya right now. It ain’t true. Yes, of course, they are around, but even at the south side of Beach Road and in Walking Street it doesn’t really look like Little Mumbai. I can enter 7 Eleven safely, without checking first to see if a group of Indians is being a big pain in the ass for the staff, and holding up everybody at the counter. There are certainly fewer Indians around compared to July and August.

Why you might choose Cowboy over Nana.

I visited Billboard, Butterflies, Angelwitch, Spanky’s and other bars in Nana Plaza and without exception, every bar allowed smoking inside. I had to leave each one. They certainly need to look at some kind of air filtration or evacuation systems. I won’t be back. I hit four or five bars in Soi Cowboy and I’m glad to say none had smoking inside.

Pattaya tourism patterns following Europe.

Thailand is still following the path of Western Europe post-Covid, but with a time delay of about 7 – 8 months. But there might be some hope. After a – by Amsterdam standards – rather slow high season, October was the first real good month in Amsterdam since April. It’s still a high season month and this year’s October saw normal turnover, making it a better month than the previous few. Low season usually starts in November, but so far it hasn’t been that bad. If Pattaya follows this pattern, the coming high season won’t be a real winner, especially not compared with the last 2 years, but things might pick up again in 2026.

Button shop visitor.

At least one of your readers has stepped into the button shop at the Asoke intersection. I’ve been in there for needles and thread. I always wondered how they stayed open. The ladies working there were very friendly. Good luck to them.

 

 

 

This Week’s News, Views & Gossip

The rainy season has a long tail this year with some torrential downpours earlier this week, the heaviest of which was Wednesday night when the rain came late and didn’t have a terrible effect on bar trade – but caused problems for punters going home with the main Sukhumvit Road and many sois flooded and under a foot or more of water. Spare a thought for visitors in Bangkok at this time who are facing high season prices but have been experiencing low season weather.

It’s been a funny old weather week in Bangkok. Earlier in the week there were torrential downpours. This was followed by heat and humidity. And then Friday it cooled down, the sky was clear and after a week of interrupted trade, Cowboy and Nana each had a great night.

Nana Plaza was described as crazy busy on Friday night – and it was that way from early on. A couple of bars were full as early as 8:30 PM. Later in the night, there was a long queue of people waiting to go through the security checkpoint and enter the Plaza.

Sewer Cowboy was busy on Friday night too, but one does wonder whether the water feature in the middle of the soi might have an effect on visitor numbers at some point? I’m not sure it will have a great effect on visitor numbers as anyone who wants to see the soi will probably brave it, but the stench which has become the norm might cause some locals to head elsewhere. Or you could bring your rubber ducks and let them party.

How long will it be before some entrepreneurial type sets up a gumboot hire stall at each end of Soi Cowboy? ฿100 for a couple of hours sounds fair if it meant you didn’t subject your footwear or worse, your feet, to the filthy sewer water.

 

 

Shark bar was smashing it on Friday night with the renovated bar packed. Just like opening night a week earlier, you were lucky if you could find a free seat.

When a bar is renovated, it can be a chance for drinks prices to be adjusted. A friend who stopped by Shark this week tells me the price for a Jack + Coke plus one lady drink was a total of 460 baht. That’s in the ballpark of what you’ll pay in the better gogo bars in Bangkok today. The lady didn’t mention anything about a double lady drink and returned with just one drink. In Bangkok chrome pole bars today, that’s a win.

Why were so many bars on Soi Cowboy closed a few hours before the usual closing time last night? Crazy House was one of the first bars closed, and all the girls were sent over to Bad Beach which is run by the same people. Then it got weird and bars at the other end of the street were closed including Country Road, Penny Black, Long Gun and all of the Arab’s bars. A bit before 1:00 AM, which was 7:00 AM here in New Zealand, as I was doing my final edit on today’s column, word came through that the police were going through the soi ordering all bars shut due to a failure to show proper respect to the late Queen who passed away recently. But in the end a number of bars remained open and were still going strong until 2:00 AM. Why were some bars ordered closed, but others weren’t? Best I don’t answer that question!

 

 

Add Crystal Palace in Patpong soi 2 to the list of bars offering entertainment in the form of ping pong shows. With so many Patpong bars offering ping pong shows, perhaps it’s time Patpong was renamed Ping-Pong?

Contrary to what was written in last week’s column, Virgin in Patpong soi 2 is still operating and it’s very much business as usual in the gogo bar.

And related to that, in Orbit – the newest bar in Nana Plaza – the number of ladies is now well down on what is was on opening night. It seems like many (most?) of the ladies dancing in Orbit on opening night were brought across from Virgin for just one night – and they have since returned to Patpong. Those who stopped by Orbit this week mentioned there weren’t many ladies and the bar lacked atmosphere. It’s early days but it’s clear they need more ladies.

The Indian presence on Soi Cowboy is generating some chatter and no, I am not talking about all of the Indian nut sellers. Some nights it can feel like Soi Cowboy is full of Indians; other nights not so much. It has resulted in some nicknaming Soi Cowboy as “Soi Mumbai 2” – where the other soi in Bangkok nicknamed Soi Mumbai is a bit over a kilometre up the road i.e. Soi Nana. At this time, Soi Nana seems to be winning the hearts of our Indian friends and you’ll find far more Indians in the Nana area than down the road.

 

 

Speaking of our Indian friends, they will soon have a new venue to stop by with Jalwa – one of the massive, flash Indian-operated and themed nightclubs in Pattaya – to open a brand-new Jalwa location on Sukhumvit soi 13. Will this be the first of many Indian discos in Bangkok? Is that an odd question? Walking Street has half a dozen huge Indian-owned and themed discos / nightclubs – and there’s no reason the same won’t happen on Sukhumvit.

Another Thai-Indian operated venue is the Nana Nightclub, in the car park of the Nana Hotel. When I last wrote about it – several months ago, perhaps – the majority of the punters were Indian. And there weren’t many of them. I sent a friend along this week to get some intel. He reported that it wasn’t dead, but neither was it busy. Its location is prime, the format doesn’t have a huge amount of competition in the immediate area and given the history of the original Nana Disco, you’d think it would be a winner. But it’s not. It costs 200 baht to enter, or 300 baht gets you a drink included. Until recently, you could have a look inside without buying a ticket to decide if you wanted to stay, but it seems that’s no longer possible. Obviously, having to buy a ticket before you go in means you can’t see how many ladies are inside. Apparently, plenty make it to the top of the escalator, are told to buy a ticket, ask to take a look first, they’re told that’s not possible and they do a U-turn and leave.

 

 

How long until Hot Lips in Soi Cowboy opens? Some time in the next couple of weeks would be a decent guess. Signage for Hot Lips is up while the Showtime sign has yet to be taken down. The bar hasn’t even opened but what will shortly be Bangkok’s newest gogo bar suffered a hiccup when its social media pages disappeared. Like many bar owners, those behind Hot Lips are trying to generate hype before the doors open but X appears to have become really fickle about what can be posted, and what can’t. Content promoting a soon-to-open gogo bar is flagged while elsewhere, porn is allowed. And those who use the platform to promote massage venues know what a headache X is with posts frequently flagged whereby they have to be removed or the entire account is killed. Social media companies have all sorts of terms and conditions and, X aside, are amongst the most woke organisations on the planet. Their platform, their rules – I get it. What is frustrating is the lack of consistency. Best guess is that posts are flagged by an imperfect AI. You would think that if AI flags something, a human would then take a look at it and confirm said post is an issue, or otherwise. The problem then becomes that the person charged with making a decision may be Karen in New York who sees a hot Asian lady in a suggestive pose and freaks out. Those in the business of promoting bars use social media to get the word out – but how long will this last? In this increasingly woke world, can we really expect the likes of Facebook and X to allow posts about hooker bars in the Far East where some underage Asian girls are being exploited? You and I know it’s nothing like that but again, try telling that to Karen in New York. There’s a really good living to be made promoting bars and the social media platforms provide a world of opportunity, but they’re fickle and accounts which take a long time to build up can be killed with a single keystroke.

 

 

The beer bars at the top of Soi Nana are generally considered the best of their genre in Bangkok. The location is prime with a ringside view of Bangkok’s most happening bar area, and in the case of Stumble Inn, located right next to the Nana Plaza security checkpoint meaning there’s always stuff to watch. If you prefer a different vibe where it’s more about interacting with the ladies than the view, you might like to stop by CenterPoint in soi 7. The ladies in the dozen or so beer bars can be quite upbeat and fun to be around. Alternatively, if you like a really laid-back area, you could try some of the beer bars on Sukhumvit soi 22. That said, I find Soi 22’s beer bars can feel as tired as the ladies and there’s rather a real lack of energy. What about if you like Stumble Inn on Soi Nana, and are looking for something similar, but prefer a younger crowd and younger waitresses? You might like to check out Bunny on Sukhumvit Soi 11. It’s the closest thing to Stumble Inn, a similarly large open-air beer bar with a street-front location, lots to watch outside and the bonus of a much younger crew who are easier on the eye. Bunny is right up towards the end of Sukhumvit soi 11, on the right-hand side. There’s a huge sign so you can’t miss it!

I’m not sure when Bunny gets busy, but something to consider is that Sukhumvit soi 11 is very much an “after midnight soi” i.e. many venues on the soi – but not all – don’t get rocking until late.

There are some genuinely lovely ladies in the bars. A small number are tender, sweet and will treat you like no woman has treated you before. Quickly you might find yourself wondering if the two of you might have a future. At the same time, there are some troubled ladies working in the bars who can be borderline crazy. These ladies might be fun for a short-time, but anything more, look out! The ultimate is a lady who is sweet when she needs to be, but knows when to turn on the crazy – and not crank the dial all the way to max! If you find the right lady, it can be an intoxicating mix. But just how do you identify a lady who has that classic mix of sweet and spicy? I don’t know….so you tell me!

 

 

A good few readers rave about Nana Burger, the burger outlet in the car park of the Nana Hotel. And at just 100 baht for a cheeseburger, they represent outstanding value for money. Just what makes these inexpensive burgers taste so good? I have a theory. Could it be something as simple as…..the onions are fried. It’s such a simple thing, but how many burger joints actually fry the onions? Many just throw a small amount of raw onion on a burger. Meh! Fried onions can really make a burger (and they really elevate a steak pie too). Nana Burger is not the sort of place you’d travel / go out of your way just for a burger, but if you’re in the Nana area and have a case of the munchies after a drink or two too many, it might be just what the doctor ordered.

This week the Immigration Department announced changes to the visa rules. If you are someone who stays long-term in the country using visa waivers and / or tourist visas along with extensions, take note. You can now extend these types of visa just twice in a calendar year. With the first extension you will get an additional 30 days . The second time you extend a tourist visa / visa waiver, you will get just 7 more days. And if you enter the country overland / via a land border, you cannot apply for an extension i.e. extensions will only be available to those who fly in to the country. This will be a game-changer for those who have been coming and going on short-term visas which they extend in-country.

 

 

In addition to the changes to the visa rules, there have been changes to the rules on drinking….or have there? This week there has been a lot of flip-flopping and I am not sure exactly how things currently stand. It was reported in the mainstream press earlier this week that not only can you not buy alcohol from supermarkets, convenience stores and the like between 2:00 PM and 5:00 PM (a law that has been in place for decades), if you were caught drinking in any bars during those hours you – as in you, the drinker – would be liable for a fine up to 10,000 baht. The day after this was widely reported in the mainstream media, a friend in Pattaya observed that the local beer bar complexes which usually had a lot of retirees taking advantage of cheap afternoon drinks were dead. Bars which were usually full for much of the afternoon with happy hour prices had only a handful of customers – and those who were there were drinking soft drinks! Within a couple of days it was announced that the law would be rescinded. There has been a lot reported in the media about this and it’s hard to keep up with what is happening with all of the flip-flopping. It has all been a PR disaster. Even now, the situation is as clear as mud. That said, I am pretty sure that sanity will prevail and you will be able to enjoy a drop of your favourite tipple in the afternoon.

With the rainy season just about done, I am of the opinion that what follows…..is worse! The rainy season is followed by the so-called cool season. How can that be worse? The cool season and the first month or so of the hot season (which kicks in around late February / early March) marks the return of the pollution. Frequent rains essentially clean the air – but when the rain stops, the pollution becomes an issue. The worst time of year for pollution in Bangkok tends to be the first few months of the year.

 

 

And when it’s polluted outside, what can you do? Not venture outside unless it’s absolutely necessary? That might be an option for some. Of course, you can always wear a mask! Err, no, thanks. Honestly, while the temperature is cooler and much more pleasant from December through to late February, the high pollution levels mar that time of year.

In last week’s column I mentioned the closure of the “button shop”, just around the corner from the Asoke intersection. How do businesses like that manage to operate for so long in an area where land prices are so high? The rent on a single shophouse on Sukhumvit runs hundreds of thousands of baht per month. How do the finances add up when you’re selling buttons and needles for just a few baht each? Many business owners in the area own the land and building. With no rent / mortgage to pay and no property taxes, there’s no pressure to develop the business into something with a high turnover. So long as the business ticks over, there is no pressing need to change – and all the while the value of the land just goes up and up. It’s natural to wonder how some of these businesses survive. Sometimes, there are other things going on which may not be visible. It could be that the business offers services like currency exchange or be an unlicensed gold trader. It could be an agency for…..all manner of things. And in some cases it might be questionable activities take place in the back room. And no doubt, some of these long-running businesses are probably washing machines. And just to be clear, I am not suggesting this was the case with the button shop.

 

 

Thailand-Related Links & News Articles

Chiang Rai’s white temple doubles the admission fee…..for foreigners only.

A young German wanted in his own country is arrested in Thailand after anti-social motorbike riding.

A light-fingered Frenchman is arrested after pilfering people’s belongings at the airport.

New alcohol laws in Thailand put drinkers on the hook for fines.

A Brit lashes out at a Middle Easterner who put his feet up on the headrest on a bus and refused to take them down.

A young English family with 3 kids sell their house to live in Thailand where they get by on £40 per day.

In Pattaya, a German tourist is tricked into paying €4,000 for herbal products which he thought were priced at 4,000 baht.

There’s a bar on Phi Phi where you can grab a beer and have a boxing bout with other visitors.

In Pattaya, Asian visitors, especially those from China, Japan, and Korea, are seen by the girls as a better bet than Europeans.

This photo essay showcases Cambodia’s big, beautiful but empty new airport, one of South-East Asia’s new photo hot spots.

 

 

Closing Comments

For many years I had a target length for this column of 6,500 words. That just felt like the right length. That’s back in the days when I wrote an opener and I was there on the ground so there was more news and I made a lot more observations of what was going on. A few months after I started this column, my old friend, the late Tim Randall who wrote the Baron Bonk column said to me that it was much too long. “Keep it to 1,500 words or you’ll run out of things to say within a few months!” I kept writing longish columns and always had plenty to say. In recent times, I have had a target of between 3,500 and 4,000 words. Again, no reason other than that length feels about right. Time has caught up with me and what Tim said back in the day is finally coming true. I don’t have that much to say and feel like I have exhausted many of the topics I write about. If I was living in Bangkok this wouldn’t be an issue because you’re living the life and observing things 24 /7. But writing about Bangkok remotely without the daily stimulus of being there on the ground, I have much less to say. That’s why the column is rather shorter these days. On Friday I had less than 2,000 words and it looked like this week’s was going to be a really thin edition – the last thing I want when I am on the home straight. As it turned out, a few things happened over the past couple of days and I managed to get this week’s edition up over 4,000 words without too much waffle. I am doing my level best to produce decent columns through until the end of the year, but not being there on the ground and having only spent 9 weeks in Thailand over the past 6 years….it’s tough!

Your Bangkok commentator,

Stick

Stick can be contacted at : stickmanbangkok@gmail.com