The Stickman Story Part 1: April 1998 – April 2001, Background & Beginnings

Thai Temple, Te Atatu Peninsula, Auckland, Sunday, April 5, 1998

It was another stinking hot day at the Thai temple in West Auckland as the Indian summer of 1998 rolled on. We’d been asked to leave the shed because the Thais wanted to use it for some reason. As kind as the Thais were offering free language lessons to all who wished to learn, they liked to subtly remind us that we were last in the pecking order. We relocated under a tree on the sprawling back lawn. I was one of just 3 survivors of a group who took advantage of free Thai lessons every Sunday. It started with a dozen or so and now there were just 3. This would be our final lesson. I would fly out to Bangkok 3 days later, while Nick would leave the following week and hoped to never return. Years earlier he had tired of the UK and now he’d had enough of New Zealand. Like me, his final destination was Phuket. The other guy in our group was Dr. John, a lecherous retired GP who talked about nothing but the girls. He would tell me that he shouldn’t keep going back, but he couldn’t help himself. He was headed for Bangkok, a trip he made a few times each year. And then there was me. I was 40+ years younger than the other two and had no particular interest in the nightlife. I’d been working hard for a few years and felt like I was living for a tomorrow that never came. I wanted a change of scenery for a year or two. 3 days later I departed New Zealand. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it would be 17 years before I would move back home.

 

Bangkok, Wednesday, April 8, 1998

I arrived in Thailand with a clear plan. I’d just completed my teacher training the week before and was keen to live and work in Phuket. A Kiwi mate living in London was flying in the next morning. We’d hang out in Bangkok for a few days before heading down to Phuket. He’d stay for a few more days before flying home to New Zealand. I’d relax in Phuket for a month or so, get a lay of the land and when I got bored of the beach, I’d look for work. The plan was to spend weekdays in the classroom and weekends at the beach. A couple of years in Phuket and I’d return to New Zealand well before my 30^th birthday. What do they say about the best laid plans?

The Thai Airways flight touched down in Bangkok late that night. I had a night booked at the Indra Regent, so chosen because I was vaguely familiar with that part of Bangkok, having stayed a few days at the nearby Amari Watergate the year before. I checked into the hotel around midnight and early the next morning my mate who had flown in from the UK met me at the hotel. We had 4 days to hang out in Bangkok so we did what young guys do and made a beeline for Khao San Road.

The Indra Regent is in a busy part of town, surrounded by the Pratunam Market. The moment we stepped outside it was an assault on our senses. Noise echoed around the area, Thais chattering away in a language I’d been studying for months yet I only picked up the odd word or two. Even at that early hour, the heat had us sweating in minutes. But it was the smells that struck me most. That thick mixture of pollution, fried food and tropical fruits. It was the start of durian season and to us, it stunk!

We ended up at Tawee Guesthouse on Samsen Road, a kilometre or so from Khao San itself. Air-con rooms ran 350 baht / night.

Why hadn’t we headed to the Nana or the Federal or the Ambassador or the Honey or any of the downtown hotels that were popular back then? To two young guys, that part of town didn’t interest us. The naughty nightlife was but a curiosity, something we would like to see with our own eyes, but something in which we had no interesting in partaking. That was for the old, lecherous guys, like Nick and Dr. John.

We did the all the usual stuff, visiting the Palace, Wat Po and hiring a long-tail boat to take us up and down the river. Nights started in the guesthouse lobby and ended up on Khao San Road itself.

Everything was so cheap back then and that was a big part of the reason for visiting. I’d never been especially fascinated by the Far East, Buddhism, the nightlife or even Thai food which I liked – but no more than Chinese which was much more popular at the time. The Thai baht had plunged the previous year, exchange rates were favourable and Thailand was incredibly cheap.

Fast forwarding a little, several weeks later I remember sitting at a small street-side restaurant between the World Trade Center (today, expanded and branded as Central World) and the Saen Saeb canal, where a plate of chicken fried rice and a bottle of Coke cost the grand total of 31 baht. I had come to Thailand with a couple of hundred thousand baht which I had exchanged before leaving home, at 32 baht to the Kiwi dollar. A meal and a Coke in the heart of downtown Bangkok was less than one NZ dollar / around 75 US cents. And that was not an especially cheap place. It felt like everything was a bargain.

 

 

I’d visited Patpong one night the year before and truth be told, I didn’t particularly like it. It was loud, dirty, smelly and the touts were aggressive. It was congested, and the layout was confusing. There was a Tourist Police van parked up and it felt like at any moment there could be trouble. And we discovered it really was a place you had to keep up your guard when my mate turned to me and said, “I went to put my hand in my pocket and someone else’s hand was already there!” Patpong was not a relaxing place and hooker bars held no interest to me at all. I’d never had difficulty meeting ladies so why would I go to such places?

Someone at Khao San told us about Nana Plaza and said it was a place you had to see, so we took a taxi there one night. I remember seeing the Nana Hotel as the taxi worked its way along Soi 3, with the iconic hotel’s neon sign in the distance.

Nana Plaza was nothing like Patpong. There were no touts. You could see the entire complex from the moment you stepped inside and it was easy to navigate your way around. It wasn’t congested, although the bars themselves were busy. We spent time in Pretty Lady bar on the ground floor and were blown away at how pretty the dancers were. Everyone was so friendly and no-one was pushy. This was nothing like Patpong!

 

 

We got talking to those around us in the bar – as you did back then – and someone suggested we check out the Thermae. We had no idea where it was and after what I seem to recall was a long taxi ride, we got out of the taxi ….. at a construction site! Sukhumvit Road was a mess. The skytrain was under construction, lanes were closed and traffic slowly snaked its way past piles of construction supplies and rubble, much of it not even fenced off. There was dust everywhere and the air was filthy with construction taking place around the clock. Where was the Thermae?!

Downtown was dark. There were few neon signs, and most were turned off. Sukhumvit Road was quiet. Fewer businesses were open late at night and there were few people about. I don’t recall seeing any street vendors within cooee. The cab driver had long gone. Where had he taken us?!

We asked someone where the Thermae was only to discover the driver had dropped us off at the wrong spot! About 100 metres down the road we saw a small sign for the Thermae and steps leading down to the basement. I would later learn that the Thermae had recently relocated and we’d been dropped outside the location of the old Thermae.

Inside it was busy, but it wasn’t packed. It was very smoky – as every bar in Bangkok was – with a layer of smoke visible below the ceiling. As we walked around the bar, it felt like every girl in the bar didn’t just give us a smile when we made eye contact, their eyes followed us. Why were we getting so much attention? Had we been pegged as newbies? We were probably 15 or 20 years younger than every other guy in the bar that night and were very much an anomaly.

 

 

Bangkok’s expat community back then was mainly white, male and middle-aged. It felt like there were as many Americans as there were all other nationalities combined. Many of the Americans were former military. Most expats had a job or were early retirees – with many of the former military having completed their 20 years. Older guys say 65+ and older retirees? There were some, but really not that many.

We had never gone out that night with the intention of meeting a lady, but my willpower wasn’t strong. I got chatting with a lady I thought was the most attractive in the bar and I didn’t make it back to my hotel that night. Upon learning where we were staying, she was most unimpressed. She was not going all the way out there! My friend headed back to the guesthouse while the lady and I hopped into a cab which she directed to a short-time hotel not far away. I woke up late the next morning in a strange room in a strange part of town next to a beautiful lady.

I had trouble getting back to my guesthouse because I didn’t know exactly where it was! All I knew was its name, Tawee Guesthouse. I had no idea where it was except that it was in the wider Khao San area. Taxi after taxi wouldn’t take me because they didn’t know it either. Eventually, a tuktuk driver agreed to take me. He headed first for Khao San Road where he asked other tuktuk drivers about the guesthouse which he was directed to. I eventually made it back to the guesthouse early that afternoon by which time my friend was worried about what had happened to me.

A day before the Songkran holiday, we flew down to Phuket. I’d visited a year earlier and loved it. The beaches, the food and the laid-back lifestyle left me wanting more. Not a couple of weeks more, a couple of years more!

We made a beeline for Patong Beach but every hotel we tried was full. We ended up getting rooms in a short-time hotel next to a beer bar soi. The location was not ideal for an overnight stay with the rooms filled with noise from the bar area. Outside, the water wars had started but it was impossible to sleep so we went out and joined them. That was the one and only Songkran when I played water.

The year before I’d stayed at Karon Beach, and the next day we left Patong and went over the hill to Karon. It was quiet, laid-back and wasn’t centred around nightlife. There were some beer bars, but it was nothing like Patong which felt like a party town. Karon was my happy place. It was very much “me”.

 

 

A few days later my pal left and I was on my own. The plan was to spend a month at the beach, take it easy, swim every day and when I got bored or my funds got low, look for work.

Part of the reason for going to Thailand was what I would term a failed “OE”. OE in New Zealand is short for “overseas experience”. It was once a rite of passage for young New Zealanders to graduate and then head to London where we’d work for a couple of years. As New Zealanders aged under 26, we’d automatically get a 2-year work visa on arrival. You’d work in the UK for a couple of years, and avail yourself of the opportunities to travel to Europe and beyond. Eventually, most of us would return home. A few years earlier I had embarked on my OE, backpacking around continental Europe for a few months before ending up in the UK. The economy was lousy and most of the work for us young Kiwis and Aussies was in pubs. Working in a pub was of zero interest to me. I got a part-time job in a computer games store on Oxford Street but the pay was lousy. Winter came early that year and London at that time of year wasn’t nice! I returned to New Zealand having been away for just 6 months. An OE is about more than travel, it’s about getting a job, immersing yourself in a new country and experiencing all that it has to offer. I was not a failed OE entirely – I’d had a fantastic time travelling – but I’d only worked briefly in the UK and still had a desire to work abroad.

My plan was always to live and work on Phuket for a couple of years. I’d spent 10 days there the year before and loved it. I’d had a few days in Bangkok and it wasn’t for me. The idea of teaching during the week and being able to head to the beach at the weekend year-around had huge appeal.

I found a comfortable hotel with weekly rates, the Karon Café. It was American-owned, well-run, had comfortable rooms and was just a few minutes’ walk from the beach.

 

 

I really liked that hotel but I only stayed a week after I became friendly with Yu, a waitress in the hotel restaurant. If I wanted to spend time with her after her shift ended, we couldn’t do that at that hotel which was also her place of work.

I suppose Yu was my first girlfriend although we never talked about it like that. We were just two young people enjoying time together. Yu worked long hours and I would meet her every night for dinner and then it was back to mine.

I spent every day at the beach, from well before lunch-time until late afternoon. Day after day after day, I lathered myself in Coppertone SPF 4, read novels, listened to bootleg tapes on my Walkman, and basted. I’m a life-long sunbather and am seldom happier than when I’m relaxing under the summer sun.

I really liked the Karon Café and it was a shame I left, even though there were obvious advantages being somewhere else! But there was something about that second hotel that I didn’t like and couldn’t put my finger on. Maybe the feng shui was off?

 

 

I didn’t fancy changing hotel in Phuket again, so I thought I’d head somewhere new for a couple of weeks and then return to Phuket, and Yu. I love the beach and had heard good things about Ko Samui so I thought I’d check it out for a couple of weeks.

Yu didn’t like it that I was going to Ko Samui but I told her I wouldn’t be gone long. A couple of weeks, and I’d be back. And I meant it. Little did I know then that I wouldn’t make it back to Phuket for 3 years, and I never would see Yu again. She didn’t have an email address and neither of us had a phone.

I wonder if I hadn’t changed hotels whether I would have stuck with the original plan and stayed in Phuket. Maybe things would have developed with Yu – although that would have been a mistake. Lovely girl, but I was not looking for anything serious. And over time I would learn that relationships where a foreign man gets involved with the first lady he meets in Thailand seldom work out.

I would eventually return to Phuket 3 years later, when I flew south for a short break from Bangkok. I dropped by the hotel to see if by chance Yu still worked there. She had long gone. She was a nice girl, and I hope life has been good to her.

On Ko Samui I headed for Chaweng Beach and found a comfortable bungalow about 50 metres from the beach. I would meet many people on Samui and it was a much more social scene. Phuket quickly became a memory.

 

 

I did my usual thing, spending long days at the beach. I became friendly with an Israeli in the bungalow next to mine and we’d sit outside at night, have a drink, and he’d tell me about all the problems he was having with local ladies. She love me too much, or she only want my money were his two favourite phrases. I thought it was absolutely bonkers how a guy could fall in love with a hooker!

In the bungalow on the other side was an English engineer who was taking a few days’ break from his work on the new airport in Hong Kong. We got on really well. He was recruited to work on the new Hong Kong airport straight out of university and had come to enjoy expat life. He would tell me all sorts of tales about the expat lifestyle across the region. He seemed to know everyone. I couldn’t help but notice that he, like other expats I’d talked to, seemed unusually focused on bargirls. I remember once he told me to be careful at the Thermae because “there is a lot of AIDS in there”. I freaked out because I’d had a dalliance with a lady from the Thermae just a month earlier! Of course I had wrapped up but it was like this fellow knew everyone and everything in the region so how could he possibly be wrong. Had I slept with a lady with AIDS?! I was a newbie and AIDS was frequently in the news. Could my liaison with the Thermae lady a month earlier in Bangkok have deathly consequences? It played on my mind for quite a while!

I would hang out with some English guys who insisted I join them for football matches when I would rather have been laying in the sun. I’d jump on the back of one of their motorbikes and we’d head out to a soccer field on the other side of the island that was as hard as concrete and play their beloved football under the beating heat of the April sun. Back to Chaweng after the game where most nights would be spent in the bars on Soi Green Mango.

 

 

Along with the Brits, there were a couple of other Kiwis, and a few Scandinavians. Like-minded guys from all around the world, we played soccer by day and hung out in the bars at night.

I wasn’t looking for female company, but one night I would meet Sabine, a German lady. We spent a few nights together. I forgot all about Yu.

We were young people whose paths would cross for a short time. We’d hang out, enjoy everyone’s company before one by one, we’d get back on our own path. Hot days, warm nights, cold beers, cool friends. We were in the prime of our lives, anything was possible, there were no limits – and I don’t think we knew it.

I was young, and I was free. But I couldn’t keep up this beach life forever.

The weeks passed by, and there were fewer people on the beach. I’d spent a month in Phuket and after a few weeks on Samui, I’d gone through about half of my money. The English guys had all returned home. The engineer had gone back to work in Hong Kong. The Israeli’s funds were getting low and he moved to a cheaper room. There were no more soccer games. Sabine was long gone. I enjoyed my time on Samui because of the people I spent it with. But Ko Samui wasn’t Phuket, and without that crowd I’d had such good times with, it felt like it was time to move on.

 

 

After Sabine, I had forgotten about Yu, and after several weeks at the beach I needed a change. As much as I’d enjoyed bumming at the beach for the best part of 2 months, I thought I’d head up to Bangkok and take a look around. I’d stay for a week or two and then fly back to Phuket and look for a job.

The Lonely Planet described Soi Kaseman 1 as a convenient downtown soi with a small number of guesthouses of a higher standard than most places on Khao San Road. That sounded like me so I flew into Bangkok and headed for the soi. Wendy House looked the best from the outside and a spotless, but windowless air-con room ran 450 baht / night. It was just another grey Bangkok soi lined with shophouses. But the location was primo. MBK was at the end of the soi and buses connected with all corners of the city.

One morning I got chatting with a Canadian in the small lobby over breakfast. He was travelling around the region on business, promoting a university in his hometown to international students. I wondered at the time what sort of university puts their staff up in a guesthouse until I realised he had a hotel allowance which he used on basic accommodation while the rest could be spent on more enjoyable things. We hit it off and would spend a few nights out on the town.

The Canadian knew I planned to teach and mentioned he’d seen an ad in the Bangkok Post for a teachers job fair at the Emerald Hotel. I didn’t plan to stay in Bangkok, but we ventured over for a look. I will never forget a recruitment officer telling me that on paper I was an ideal candidate – but there was a problem. “Thai students prefer white teachers.” But I am a white guy, I protested! I know you are, he said, but the students won’t! I’d spent so long in the sun that it wasn’t clear what I was.

Back then, if you were white and a native speaker, there was a teaching job for you. And if you were under 40, clean cut and presentable, you were in hot demand. Teaching credentials? No need! Look good, wear a white shirt and a colourful tie, smile often, make the students laugh and you’ll be a roaring success!

The Canadian returned home a few days later. We stayed in contact and I would tell him about all of my adventures. A year later he moved to Bangkok. We would become best friends.

 

 

From Wendy House I would discover Patumwan House, a recently completed apartment building at the end of the soi. I can’t remember what caused me to decide to stick around Bangkok and sign a condo lease. I guess Bangkok was growing on me. I would be the first person to stay in room 620 and for 5 years that small 36-square metre studio would be home. At 12,000 baht / month for the first 6 months which I later negotiated down to 10,000 baht / month, it was much nicer than the hovel most teachers stayed in. I never understood why people left the West to live in Bangkok and ended up in a really ratty room in a dodgy part of town.

I answered an ad in the paper and was offered the job in, I swear, less than 30 seconds. It was at the main branch of Siam Computer & Language at Victory Monument, not far from where I lived. The Thai staff were great; the foreign teachers were not. Not one of the foreign teachers had a teaching qualification. Most were much older than me, and most were in Thailand for one reason. The school paid miserably – starting at 20,000 baht / month – although in fairness you could still have a pleasant, if basic, life on that back then.

Every month, the teachers from the many branches would attend a meeting at head office followed by the highlight, a group visit to Nana Plaza. That sort of thing was very much the norm back then. And while salaries for teachers were terribly low back then, it was enough to have a good time. A beer in most Nana Plaza gogo bars was 70 or 75 baht.

There was just so much less to spend your money on. Most of us teachers were quite happy eating street food at 20 or 25 baht a meal. A set at McDonald’s was around 100 baht and if you wanted a coffee at Starbucks – good luck – you had to fly back home for that. Starbucks wouldn’t arrive for a few months when the first branch opened on the ground floor of Central Chidlom.

 

 

I never did attend one of those meetings that ended up in Nana Plaza because that month, the meeting at head office was replaced by a training session in Pattaya. 40 foreign teachers were put on a bus to Sin City in what would be my first visit to the party town. A few hours of the most basic teacher training and we were let loose on the town in what I had come to realise was not a training session at all, but a junket.

I would leave that school after a month. The hours were too long and the pay too little. My one and only day off was Sunday and I will never forget one Saturday night when I went out to the Thermae, ended up taking a lady back to my place, fell asleep and then woke up around 6:30. There wasn’t much light in the sky. Had I only got an hour or two’s sleep? It wasn’t 6:30 AM but 6:30 PM! I’d slept more than 12 hours and it would soon be time to go to bed again, and get up for another 6 days of work. I quit that week.

After a visa run to Hong Kong in July, I returned to a new job at a small language institute in Amarin Tower. This was nothing like the first place. This was the real deal, a professional language school which was foreign-owned and well-run. The teachers were all qualified and experienced and I would learn a lot from them. The classroom I taught in was on the corner of the 16^th floor and looked down on the World Trade Center and the skytrain lines which were still under construction.

 

 

Home was less than 2 km from work which was a major consideration back then. You did not live on one side of Bangkok and work on the other. You had to get a job first and only then could you search for a place to live. Do it the other way around and you could spend half of your life in traffic.

It was a small language school with just a few teachers. They introduced me to Soi Cowboy and we explored the bars of Nana. Bangkok may have been known for its nightlife, but it was so much less diverse back then. It felt like all expats were, at the very least, familiar with the main foreign nightlife areas. Nana Plaza had established itself as the most popular bar area. Patpong was still popular but long-timers decried the night market which they said had ruined it. Soi Cowboy was a backwater, so quiet that even on a Saturday night most bars had but a smattering of customers. For years, Long Gun was the only bar on Cowboy I ever saw full.

The language school operated from Tuesday through to Saturday so I didn’t usually go out until Saturday night. I have always liked routines and my Saturday night routine went something like this. Sometime after 7:00 PM, I’d take the bus – from memory blue #8, or red #25, #40 or #48 – from the end of my soi to Sukhumvit, getting off at the first bus stop after the Nana intersection. I’d hit Foodland for dinner which was either a club sandwich at 67 baht or chicken fried rice at 38 baht. I’d then head over to Nana Plaza for a few drinks, usually in Pretty Lady. Around 11:30 PM or so, I’d walk down to Soi Cowboy and have a few more drinks, usually in Black And White, Our Place or Pam’s Bar. And at 2:00 AM, I would join the throngs of girls from Soi Cowboy who would head to the Thermae. I’d stick around for an hour or so and seldom went home alone. That was my Saturday night routine for much of the next two years, and I loved it!

 

 

I’d have several beers over the course of the night and I would get home feeling perfectly fine. Unlike many of my fellow countrymen, I was never a boozer. But here I was, drinking several beers a night and feeling just fine. I figured that my tolerance for alcohol had improved. My drink of choice was Singha Gold, Singha’s premium lager, I had been told. It always surprised me that Singha Gold just wasn’t that popular. Why would this premium product not be popular with those who were obviously keener drinkers than me? One night in Soi Cowboy a server asked me why I always ordered Singha Gold. I responded that it was a premium product. She looked at me like I had just arrived in Bangkok. “No, Singha Gold low-alcohol beer!” Duh, that was why I felt just fine at the end of the night!

Bangkok had never been part of my plan. When I had spent a few days there the year before, I hadn’t been impressed. The shopping was good as was the food but I found it dirty, smelly and disorientating. The few times I tried to walk anywhere I got lost. But Bangkok really grew on me and I warmed to its charms. Phuket was always there in the back of my mind but I was enjoying life in Bangkok and making friends so there was no thought of leaving.

For most of 1998, I didn’t have a computer. Laptops were much dearer back then and I’d always had a desktop at home. And that was a time when laptops were terribly underpowered compared to desktops. I didn’t have a computer, or a mobile phone as phones from outside Thailand were blocked from being used on the local network and handsets cost multiple times what they did at home. Once or twice a week, I would drop by the local Indian tailor’s store which had an Internet café upstairs. There were three computers, each connected to its own phone line. Rates were lower than most places, something like 120 or 150 baht per hour to use the ‘net.

I had a background in IT and mentioned that I could network the three computers to the same phone line. It would save money on phone lines, phone calls and Internet service provider hourly rates. Save him money, he asked? I don’t think I have ever seen anyone smile so bright!

 

 

We traipsed off to Panthip Plaza, a 25-minute walk away, grabbed some network cards, went back to his shop and I set it up. That was the start of a friendship that remains to this day. The network connected 3 computers which shared the same dial-up connection. When someone else was online at the same time, it was super slow. Just getting into Hotmail or Yahoo to check your email took forever.

In lieu of setting up the network and fixing any problems, I used the net there for free. But it was too slow to do much of anything. And I didn’t like it that I had to go out outside to use the net so in November I bit the bullet and spent a month’s teaching salary – around 40,000 baht – on a computer.

The Internet in Thailand might be blazing fast today, but it hasn’t always been that way. Unless you were a big corporate with a large budget to spring for a dedicated line, the only option was dial-up. For my first 5 years in Bangkok, my Internet access was a slow, unreliable dial-up connection. And it wasn’t cheap. The first package I had was 900 baht for 20 hours per month. That wasn’t enough time to do much of anything. I changed to another provider which was 30 baht per hour. Every time you made a phone call to connect to the service provider, it cost 5 baht. There was a limited number of lines at the apartment building so you couldn’t always get a line out. And when you did get a free line, calls were limited to 40 minutes at which point it would cut off and you’d have to make another call. That was another 5 baht. And calls frequently disconnected for no obvious reason. It was incredibly frustrating!

I didn’t tend to do much in the evenings during the week. Dinner from my favourite vendor in the soi might be followed by a wander around MBK or the general neighbourhood. Back in the apartment I read a lot and would go through a new book most weeks.

 

 

In New Zealand I had a small homepage, as they were called back then. I used to write about things that interested me like rugby, the economy and business ownership. With time on my hands, I thought I’d create a new homepage and write about my life in Thailand. It would be an easy way for me to let friends and family back home know what I was up to, and what it was like living in Thailand.

That homepage was hosted at GeoCities, a free web-hosting site popular in the ‘90s. I never intended for that page to be seen by anyone other than friends and families, but I received the odd email from strangers who had stumbled upon it. What I had written had not been intended for them to see, but they liked it. I was encouraged. That homepage would transform into this website. The original name was Stickman’s Guide To Bangkok. That was late 1998.

As I learned more about Bangkok, I wrote more. The page was made up of 3 articles: Living in Thailand, Teaching in Bangkok and Thailand’s Naughty Nightlife. Each article was one long page, text only, and perpetually a work in progress. As I learned more, I would add more. This wasn’t ideal for people who read the article one week and returned sometime later – but didn’t know what was new, or what had been added, edited or removed.

 

 

People seemed to like what I was writing, particularly the article on the naughty nightlife. There was nothing else quite like it at the time. When I bought my first digital camera in 1999, a 2-megapixel Kodak DC280, I was one of the first to publish photos of the bars online. Readers loved it! There were forums which had largely replaced the newsgroups and there were sites like the original International Sex Guide that were full of trip reports, but no-one had written a simple guide for the first-timer about how things worked, where to go etc, along with photos.

The website was growing. I would change server and moved to the chopsticks.net web address. It wasn’t until late 2001 when the StickmanBangkok.com domain name was registered and I didn’t start publishing the column at that address for a few more years. Why was that? In a word, I was being cheap. Website hosting was more expensive back then and I was getting free hosting on a friend’s server – and that worked just fine. Despite being hosted at a strange address, the Stickman brand name was starting to grow.

One of the highlights of the week back then were the Friday night Woodstock get-togethers. Every Friday night a bunch of us would meet up early evening at Woodstock, on the middle floor of Nana Plaza, in the back right-hand corner. These get-togethers first started with guys from ASFO – the alt.sex.fetish.oriental newsgroup group – the original place online where frequent visitors traded info about Thailand’s naughty nightlife. What had been an ASFO group morphed into a group hosted by Dutch Marcel who ran the Sanuk In Thailand forum. It would later become NanaPlaza.com and eventually be rebranded as Thai360.com. A small core of guys living in Bangkok, myself included, would stop by most weeks along with those who happened to be in town that week. There would never be less than a dozen of us and some weeks there would be 30 or more like-minded guys. We’d take over the landing, have dinner, drinks and head out into the night. It was a fantastic way to meet new people, share info and make friends. Many great nights were had.

 

 

By early 2000 I had become bored with teaching. I was fed up that this otherwise professional language school had reneged on their promise to get me a work permit. It meant that every 3 months I had to make a visa run. That’s fun for a while but it soon gets old. When a couple of teachers I was close to resigned, I decided it was time for me to move on too. I was coming up to 2 years in Bangkok and I very much enjoyed the lifestyle. My original plan had been to return home around that time. That wasn’t happening. I was enjoying life in Bangkok way too much!

I would go from teacher to student and for most of 2000, I studied Thai full-time at Union Language School. It was Thailand’s oldest language school and was located on Suriwong Road, just around the corner from Patpong. Each morning I would take the skytrain from the National Stadium station at the end of my soi to the Sala Daeng BTS station. I’d walk down Silom Road, through Patpong soi 1, and turn left on to Suriwong Road. Just around the corner from Patpong was the CCT building where the language school was located. I was in class from 7:45 AM until midday, Monday to Friday. My Thai was pretty decent already and the idea of studying Thai was more about maintaining some structure in my life than any real desire to improve my language skills. At 6,200 baht per month, tuition was cheap and I figured I’d improve my Thai and meet some new people.

 

 

I was an anomaly. Pretty much everyone else was new to Thailand, and started as genuine beginners, whereas I could already speak the language quite well and read & write. The students largely fit into one of two groups – missionaries or Japanese & Koreans. There were only a few Westerners and despite studying there for most of the year, I made just two friends from my time there.

For much of 2000 I learned good Thai by day, and bad Thai by night. I became a regular on Soi Cowboy. I drank too much and put on weight. I remember the scales topping out at 81 kg, a number I had never seen before and have never seen since. Drinking every other night catches up with you.

I was drinking too much, and I was chasing girls in the bars and online. And I was taking regular weekend trips away down to Pattaya. After a while I noticed that it was the same guys on the bus back to Bangkok on Sunday afternoon – and none of us looked great after a couple of nights in Sin City!

I wouldn’t say 2000 was a year of hedonism, rather it was a year of ill-discipline. Studying Thai gave me structure, but it didn’t stop me from going out and playing around. If I had a late night out, I’d turn up for class at 9:00 or even 10:00 AM and slip in during the 10-minute break between periods. The school was quite rigid and even though all of the students were adults, they treated us like children. The Thai teachers really didn’t like it when I came to class late, but they acknowledged that I was also a teacher and because of that they sort of saw me as one of them, gave me a little leeway and looked the other way.

 

 

The new millennium marked the early days of online dating in Thailand. Like many of the foreigners living in Thailand at that time, I stumbled on it quite by accident. ICQ was a popular instant message program back then, predating MSN Messenger. I had an ICQ account which I occasionally used to chat with a couple of friends back home. I began receiving messages from Thai women. They wanted to chat. White guys were very popular back then. But there weren’t that many young white guys living in Bangkok and probably not that many had a computer and an ICQ account. I got a lot of messages. How had they found me? You could do a search on ICQ for people in a specific location. They had searched for males online in Bangkok and when they saw a male with a Western name, they sent a message.

I term it “Internet dating” but it wasn’t really that at all. This was a whole new frontier.

In 2000, any Thai with a computer at home had money. Most likely had an education, and a decent job. Computers were expensive back then, the economy was in the toilet and salaries were lousy. Most people did not even have a mobile phone. So the women you were talking to were educated Thai women and very different from the ladies you met in the bars. The ladies you met online didn’t play games. They were keen to meet up – and they were looking for fun. Most dates didn’t end at dinner.

I wouldn’t describe that time as the peak of Internet dating – that probably came several years later. There wasn’t the sheer volume of women online back then. That came later. But neither was the expat population that big so those of us who were playing around on ICQ felt like we had it all to ourselves.

ICQ would be followed by Bangkok Chat, a clunky chatroom which was popular in 2001 where you could chat in private with ladies and make arrangements to meet. I never cared for that one. Next was ThailandFriends.com (as distinct from ThaiFriendly.com) which was good. Things really took off with ThaiLoveLinks.com, which would later be rebranded as ThaiCupid.com. More on all of that in Part 3.

So I was chasing country women in the bars and being chased by city women online. It really was quite a time to be a young white guy in Bangkok!

2000 was a crazy year. I’d been burning the candle at both ends. I’d been going out often and I’d been drinking too much. When the calendar rolled over into 2001, I knew I couldn’t go on like this. I needed more structure in my life. I’d studied Thai for several months, had been through all the courses and had plateaued. Further improvement would be made through natural conversation, watching TV, reading newspapers etc.

On January 1^st, 2001, New Zealand announced new visa rules to counter a problem with people overstaying. Czechs and Thais had become known as prolific overstayers and New Zealand changed the rules so passport holders from those two countries could no longer visit without a visa. Up until that point, I had been able to take a visa run, leave Thailand and re-enter the country – and get another 90 days. I was taking the piss which was very much the norm back then and it was never a problem. When the right of Thais to enter New Zealand without a visa was rescinded, Thailand reciprocated. Now New Zealanders would get just 30 days.

 

 

The visa rules changed. I needed more discipline in my life. I was coming up to 3 years in Thailand. It was time to head back to New Zealand, right? No chance! That idea never crossed my mind! I was sick of making visa runs. The best thing to would be to get a job that came with a work permit and a proper visa. It was time to get legal which meant time to head back to the classroom.

My Canadian friend was teaching at a prestigious Thai high school not far from where I lived. He got me an interview, and I got the job. It came with a work permit and a visa. I would have structure back in my life.

The website was going well but its architecture was flawed. I wanted to include news and info about what was happening each week – but that didn’t fit in with the “guides” nature of the site. In April, 2001, I launched Stickman Weekly.

The site was already popular, but within weeks of launching the column things really took off. I had no idea that this new section of the site would become a big part of my life for the next 25 years. But it wouldn’t be a smooth ride and there were plenty of bumps along the road, and some nasty stuff on the horizon.

To be continued next week……

 

Mystery Photo

Last week’s photo was taken from the Ploenchit BTS station platform looking north, with Bumrungrad Hospital off to the far right. The spot where last week’s photo was taken is a short walk from the Nana area but only a few of you got it right. So many people staying in the Nana area walk up to the top of the soi and turn right. Many never turn left. Why is that?

This week’s photo was taken downtown in an area popular with foreigners, but with that said, it is outside the Stickman zone. I’ll be genuinely impressed if many of you know the location of this week’s column.

 

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

High season yet to arrive on Soi Buakhao.

Recent evening strolls have revealed that the naughty boy high season has still not arrived. A stroll last Friday through Soi Buakhao, Soi Diana, sois 7 and 8 and past Myth Night and it was only in Soi Buakhao that some bars were doing ok. It was the usual suspects, mostly the bars with the lowest beer prices which attract a certain kind of customer. Think the standard, old-school Pattaya expat / retiree. Many other bars in Soi Buakhao were quiet, and in the second-tier bar areas you hardly saw a bar with more than just a few punters.

The changing nightlife.

The nightlife has changed so much. If all we wanted was whores and sex, we could find that in our own country and save thousands on airfares and hotels. Most of us want the girlfriend experience, which to me was Thailand’s selling point. I’m actually not sure I want to go back to Thailand. I met some really nice girls in The Kicking Donkey in Soi 6, and some made it clear up front that they have a boyfriend, which is cool. I just wanted company and it was still a lot of fun. I had 6 weeks in Thailand and I returned to the UK a virgin, having not indulged even once on this trip, which feels so wrong!

The whore is shameless!

One of the reasons you see Indian families gawping at everything in Nana and Soi Cowboy is that the idea of women willing to sell their bodies and still speak to people as equals is something bizarre to them. You probably know that upper-class Indian families are still conservative about young people dating, let alone sex. And prostitution in India is a very, very sleazy industry. Most women are trafficked, and treated as people who deserve no respect whatsoever. Indian red-light areas are filthy. Indian streetwalkers look scared, or dead and beaten, or hard and coarse. Many Indians are amazed to see young, pretty, often cheerful-looking women working in Nana and Cowboy, seemingly enjoying their lives! Yes, I know many Thai women in the industry have problems but you wouldn’t generally know it to look at them, would you, and that I believe is because the level of coercion isn’t as bad as in India. I’ve heard an Indian woman say to her husband, “They look nice!”, in a surprised tone. In India, you might find regular-looking, pretty women working as high-priced call girls for the upper classes, but they are very discreet and very expensive. Places like Bangkok and Pattaya force many Indian men to try and be polite to women on the surface, because they realise they have to be, but in their heads, it’s often “The fxxking whore is shameless. She’s smiling!“

Europe for Thai ladies.

I’ve been married for 10 years to a Thai woman and live two-thirds of the time in my homeland in Europe. Most of the Thai women who live here have left their past behind (which you can easily guess). They got a “chance” and they seized it. They play the game honestly, and it’s rarely a life of luxury. It’s not the Farang who adapts to the language, and the food. And if she has children or family in Thailand, the Farang often doesn’t help. Most of these ladies find a job in addition to being a servant (he sits and asks her to do this and that). The husband is often of a low social and cultural standing and alcohol is often over-consumed. If one exploits the other, it’s usually him who exploits her. Upon his death, sometimes a substantial bonus is finally obtained, sometimes a jackpot. It also happens that after exploiting her, the farang’s family (and sometimes with his complicity) arrange to leave her destitute. Several times I have corrected their misconceptions about the lady’s status and rights, which had been deliberately ignored and not explained to her. Sometimes she had been told outright lies. These women are mostly content with their lot; never ending up in poverty was their goal. Some will end their lives in Thailand with a house and some land, something they never dared dream of in their past.

Third-world Bangkok.

Soi Sewer looks even worse on the laptop screen than on the phone. <Experiencing it in person with the smell, it’s worse still – Stick> It’s been going on for what, 8 months now? That’s real third-world shit.

Hallelujah!

I was pretty good friends with a former Nana Plaza 3rd floor bar manager. Actually, we still are friends and I see him whenever I’m in Bangkok. He is a Filipino guy named Roland and was there back in the 90’s and into the new century. He is no longer in the bar business. Nope, he found JESUS! Not just your average Jesus. He has become an evangelical Jesus preacher / pastor although some people call him Bishop too. His entire Facebook page is filled with all things religious……in an evangelical way. His “calling” now is to save all the souls of Thailand and bring them to Jesus so they will be saved. I’ve met up with him a number of times since. Roland is still a good guy but definitely made a huge life change.

 

 

 

This Week’s News, Views & Gossip

Soi Cowboy’s newest gogo bar, Hot Lips, opened this past Thursday. It occupies the prime space in the middle of the soi that was previously Stumble Inn Soi Cowboy. There’s some beautiful neon out front and photos of the interior show it to be up to the usual Stumble Inn quality. I have not seen it with my own eyes but it reminds me of Playskool in Nana Plaza when the same group took that bar over and did a great job fitting it out. A couple of the head honchos at Stumble Inn come from the construction sector in the UK and the quality of their bar builds is better than most. There are a few screens inside the bar (which I am not a fan of….surely you’re there to keep your eyes on the dancers) and more screens will be added to the outdoor area too. The outdoor area has not been kitted out yet, but tables and seating are coming. Beers run 180 – 200 baht, depending on your tipple which is standard gogo bar prices in Bangkok today. In addition to the money spent on the quality fit-out, the Stumble Inn Group put their hands deep into their pockets to lure RJ, also known as Captain Hornbag, back to Bangkok to manage the bar. RJ is a top fellow, one of the best managers in the chrome pole industry, maybe the best. The owners of Hot Lips have to be congratulated for doing everything right. Hot Lips looks great, has a great manager from day one. Expect big things of this bar!

Rumours were swirling after the notices posted at Bada Bing in Patpong soi 2 pointing punters to Radio City soi 1 all disappeared at once. Had the renovation at Bada Bing been abandoned? Would Bada Bing be the latest chrome pole bar consigned to Bangkok bar history? No, that was not the case at all. Quite simply, the renovation of the bar is taking much longer than anticipated. At this stage, Bada Bing is not expected to reopen until January.

I was thinking about what might make a good name for a gogo bar and I came up with Ragdoll A Gogo. Do you like it?

 

 

It looks like the rains finally came to an end this week. Over the past few days, the temperatures dropped markedly and it would appear that the cool season is here.

Across the border in Laos, fines have been increased for foreigners who spend the night with a Laotian woman who is not their wife. This law has been on the books for decades even if it is not typically enforced in Vientiane when foreign men take a local lady back to their room. But in other parts of the country this can be an issue and things can get awkward and very expensive. What’s the backstory with this law? I am told it goes back decades and was enacted to ensure that Laos didn’t become known as a place where local women were available to foreign suitors willing to pay. Whether the law is effective in preventing such liaisons, I am sceptical. While the law typically isn’t an issue in Vientiane, apparently it can be in the countryside – even in the cases where a foreign man is invited to stay with a woman and welcomed by all in to her family home. How much will getting caught with Miss Laos in your bed cost you? Fines are steep, the equivalent of $US 500 – $US 5,000! Best to keep your hanky panky to south of the border.

Speaking of borders, there has been an increase in people being refused entry to Thailand, amongst them several minor YouTube celebrities. When you’re refused entry, you’re detained at the airport and may have to pay for the privilege of being accommodated in bunk-style beds in a windowless room at 800 baht per day. You will be turned around and have to book a ticket on the next available flight back to where you came from. In the case of one YouTube celebrity denied entry recently, he had to fly back to Da Nang. The Thai authorities, however, had alerted the Vietnamese and upon his arrival in Vietnam, he then had to buy a ticket to Singapore and then another ticket to Sydney. Being denied entry can mean real consequences. There have been warnings about taking the piss by coming and going on back to back visa waivers or tourist visas. It may have been overlooked in the past but so many people have been taking the piss for so long that something had to be done about it. Like I wrote in last week’s column, the days of coming and going to Thailand on visa waivers or tourist visas back to back are over. For those who are desperate to remain in Thailand, there are other options, so long as you’re willing to cough up some ฿aht.

 

 

High season is underway and observations from those flying in are that the queues at the airport are getting longer. Down in Sin City, the bars must be pumping, right? Err, no, they’re not! Weekend trade is ok but it’s the same old story, Friday and Saturday nights sees the bar full of out-of-towners. Without their custom during the week, Sunday through to Thursday nights aren’t that busy at all in many bars. Word from Pattaya is that this month’s bar trade is nothing compared to November 2023 or November 2024. Plenty of bar owners are complaining that the punters haven’t returned – but is that anything new?

Still in Pattaya, congratulations to Windmill A Gogo which celebrated its 21st anniversary this week. It’s a bar I have never been a fan of as those antics don’t do it for me. Truth be told, they repulse me. But I know I am in a minority and Windmill is a much-loved bar by Pattaya retirees especially, a bar that has enjoyed huge success over the years. Respect to the owners for sticking around for so long.

Pattaya will soon have its very own “Pattaya Eye”. A Ferris wheel said to be 60 metres high will operate at the back of the Runway Food Court, which is just off Second Road, between sois 5 and 6. It’s as good as ready, and is expected to start very soon. That Runway Food Court is getting more and more popular. And with its popularity, more businesses are springing up in the area, catering mainly to East Asians. The Impact Club, that was open for a couple of years right next to Runway, closed earlier this year, and the place opposite Runway, where the wrestling ring used to be, which was converted into the Galaxy Night Club, remains closed. Serious money was sunk into that venue with some very impressive, large LED screens, but it’s not open. Did it ever actually open? Nothing is going on there at this time with the venue in darkness, all while Runway is doing very fine. The bars might be feeling the pinch but in this East Asian-dominated part of Pattaya, low season is well and truly over.

 

 

Just because you have been banned from a bar area and that bar area has a security point which may just happen to the one and only way in and out doesn’t mean you can’t still visit that bar area. A fellow who was banned for assaulting someone on the premises of a popular bar area waltzed back in this week like he owned the place, without a care in the world. Security didn’t recognise him and he spent the night hanging out with one of the foreign bar owners, as you do.

Has the expat community in Bangkok become splintered? Bangkok doesn’t have that same sense of expat community that it used to. Once upon a time it felt like most people were in it together whereas these days it feels like lots of small groups, many of whom don’t actually like each other all that much. Or am I being overly negative? I was thinking about this when I was writing The Stickman Story this week. My mind went back to the old days of the Ploenchit Fair, when it was held on the grounds of the old British Embassy on Ploenchit Road. That really was a great day out, where you would catch up with old friends, and get to know new people – more than a few of whom you’d seen around town. Perhaps it’s because I was the new kid on the block and it was all a big adventure, but what I remember from my first 3 or 4 years in Bangkok was a feeling in the expat community – regardless of your age, job, financial or social standing – that we were all in it together. To me, there was a real feeling of togetherness. And I think that faded away and by 2006 or 2007 it had gone altogether. And it won’t be coming back. Just look at the younger generation today. It’s like a bunch of individuals interacting with each other online and very little of the sense of community of the previous two generations of expats.

 

 

Many Thais don’t trust each other, so don’t worry too much if you find yourself being wary of people and your gut telling you that they’re not someone to be trusted.

A 5th person has put their hand up and said they’d like to write this column when I step down in 5 weeks’ time. That mightn’t be particularly newsworthy, but the fact that he is a farang gogo bar manager is. Who could it be?

How many of you in Thailand use an air purifier? I still shake my head and wonder how it is that I never had one when I lived in Bangkok. I guess I just never really thought about indoor air quality and I certainly had no idea back then that it was every bit as bad – and often actually quite a lot worse – than the outside air quality. The irony is that I actually use air purifiers at home here in New Zealand where the outdoor air quality is as about good as it gets. But indoors, like anywhere in the world, there are no guarantees about air quality. Air purifiers in Thailand are cheap and there are heaps of models on the market but with that said, if I was living in Thailand I’d get a really good one. Here in New Zealand I use a couple of Daikins which are adequate in this part of the world. If I was in Thailand, I’d bite the bullet and pay the necessary ฿฿,฿฿฿ – yeah, a good one will run you 5 figures in Thai baht – and get something like an Intellipure or at IQ Air unit.

 

 

Thailand-Related Links & News Articles

Quote of the week comes from a reader, “This week there was no street food to speak of and no after-hours street bars in Sukhumvit which is sad because for me those are the things that make the place special and give it its soul.”

From The Stickman Archives comes The Day My Nokia Learned To Fly, from February, 2006.

YouTube video of the week comes from Buzzin’ Trevor, Thailand Visa & Driving License CRISIS!

Another Russian is arrested for selling drugs in Phuket.

A naked foreigner rides his motorbike around Kampeng Phet, as you do!

Could Thailand benefit as China warns its citizens against visiting Japan?

Dave The Rave hit Phnom Penh and checked out the city’s naughty nightlife.

A Brit is arrested after allegedly attacking a Frenchman in a jealousy-fueled incident involving his Thai girlfriend.

A Singaporean scammer is arrested at his wife’s house in Khon Kaen.

A Russian hacker with links to the Russian government is arrested in Phuket by the FBI and faces extradition to the USA.

 

 

Closing Comments

For the final 6 editions of Stickman Weekly my focus is on telling The Stickman Story. I plan to run the story of this website in 5 different parts. I’ll be revealing quite a bit that I have never talked about before. The final Stickman Weekly column on December 28 will feature my thoughts on Thailand today, the expat community, the bar industry, and the future of this site. Iit’s going to be a bit of an effort to fit 17 years into 5 parts, but I’ll do my best. I will of course continue to report news from the bars as well as offer my usual thoughts on all the usual stuff, but my main focus will on telling the story of this site. I hope you enjoy it.

Your Bangkok commentator,

Stick

Stick can be contacted at : stickmanbangkok@gmail.com