The Stickman Story Part 4, Early 2011 – April 2015, Reset & A New Dawn

A few months in Auckland, spending Christmas with family and summer with old friends had been just what the doctor ordered. At the same time I missed Bangkok. It was time to head back. I returned to Thailand refreshed and ready to discover what had changed over the few months I was away. The previous few years in Bangkok had been turbulent and uncertain. I hoped time in New Zealand had broken that pattern. I didn’t know then that the next 4 years in Bangkok would be my last. There would be few dramas, but I would feel largely like I was in control of my own destiny – to the extent that any foreigner in Thailand can be.

I moved into an apartment on Sukhumvit soi 33. I had never really fancied living on Sukhumvit before so this would be something new. As a keen walker, I would be within easy walking distance of all of the places I write about. I would be living amongst it and would have a ringside view.

The foundations being laid for EmQuartier, April, 2011.

The new neighbourhood was rather different to all the other areas I had lived in Bangkok. Soi 33 had its share of bars but was well past its prime. Around the corner were a couple of British pubs, and Emporium was less than 5 minutes walk away. Construction had just begun on EmQuartier.

You wouldn’t find me in the bars every night – far from it – but I did walk past or walk through bar areas most nights for the next 4 years. Living in the area was a boon for the column and I felt like I really had my finger on the pulse. Any changes I noticed right away. A pool table appeared on the ground floor of Nana Plaza and was gone days later. A fire in an abandoned bar. A fight between a ladyboy and a drunk punter. Living in the area, I saw it all.

I hit the ground running and was back into photo shoots. Bar owners asked why I hadn’t been around. “I’ve been in New Zealand for a few months.” They’d laugh, think I was joking and I let them believe that even though it was the truth. All but my close friends had no idea that I really had been away from Thailand for a few months.

Remember the pool table on the ground floor of Nana Plaza? It lasted a few days…

There was pent up demand from bar owners for photos. The high season had come to an end and they needed to promote the bar. Over the next 4 years I would do dozens of photo shoots and between 2011 and 2015 I took around 150,000 photos. It sounds like a lot but it only works out at around 100 per day.

The funny thing is that I’ve never actually been that keen on shooting ladies in the bars, at least in terms of posed photos. The idea of carrying along lights, lighting umbrellas and other accessories has zero appeal. I’m more of a street photographer, and prefer capturing real life. If I shot girls in the bars, I liked it when they were doing their thing – dancing on stage, applying their makeup in the changing rooms or fooling around with friends and I’d snap candids. But the bars needed someone to shoot their girls on stage looking glamorous and sexy. There weren’t many people doing photography in the bars at that time, and they came to me. And unlike others, I was happy to take photos for free. The proviso was that I could use the photos in the column.

You didn’t have to look far to capture something quirky through the lens.

I quickly settled into a new routine. Shortly after breakfast I would walk from Soi 33, along Sukhumvit Road to the Asoke intersection, turn left and head down to Benjakit Park. I’d do 3 laps and then head back to the apartment. That was around 9 km. It would be website work for much of the day and by night I’d meet up with friends for dinner most nights. That was another big benefit of living on Sukhumvit – most of my friends lived in the area so it was easy to meet up. After dinner, I’d often go for a walk around the bar areas. If I was around Nana, I’d stop by and see Dave The Rave and we’d perch outside on the balcony and catch up. And then it was back to the apartment. The next morning the cycle would start again.

Most Friday nights I’d be out with the Dirty Doctor. And every Saturday afternoon I’d do a big walk around Sukhumvit with a camera over my shoulder, looking for anything that had changed / was newsworthy along Soi Nana, Soi Cowboy, sois 7, 7/1, 8, 22, 23, 33 and 33/1.

In late 2010, I’d left a lady I had been living with at Onnut. Lovely lady, but that was the past.

I’d become fed up with Internet dating which felt like it had become the place for desperate Thai women, not desirable Thai women. At the same time it was the easiest way to meet someone so I gave it one final shot. One lady stood out. Her profile photo captured her in a fit of laughter, her eyes shining bright like headlights on a dark country road. I messaged her and established that she was Bangkok born and bred. I’d become fixated on the idea of only getting involved with a lady who was born, raised and educated in Bangkok. All other profiles were dismissed.

Outside The Strip, Patpong soi 2, 2011.

She had a look I would not usually go for. Short hair. Had she just come out of a relationship? Some Thai women who have just come out of a long-term relationship or have had their heart broken get their hair cut short. Some of these ladies are not ready for a new relationship. Obi Wan Kenobi’s line in Star Wars before entering Mos Eisley applies equally to Thai women fresh out of a long-term relationship, “We must be cautious.”

At the same time, short hair can be an accurate indicator of a lady’s natural beauty. Many women – even some who are moderately attractive – don’t look great when their hair is cut short. But those who are truly attractive still look great with short hair. This lady? Short hair accentuated the soft features and the proportions of her face. She was very easy on the eye.

We met up and the first date lasted most of the day. And, no, there wasn’t so much as a thought of any funny business. We had so much in common and shared similar views on many controversial topics. She was easy to be with and the date went well. 15 years later we’re still together.

The girls’ changing room in a Patpong gogo bar. Many gogo bars had filthy changing rooms.

I was living on Sukhumvit but I made it down to Patpong at least once a week. I had known Big Andy for years and he was perching at the bar in Club Electric Blue most nights. I was also friendly with the owners and management of Black Pagoda, The Strip & Bar Bar. The owners of each of these 4 bars opened their bars up to me and I had carte blanche freedom to take photos in the bars. Snake shows, shower shows, lezzy shows, simulated sex shows, anything goes! I was allowed to shoot wherever, whenever. So long as I was mindful of punters in the bar, it was never a problem. Some nights I would sit in the bar and shoot all night long. I knew many of the girls and they were relaxed around me. Some even encouraged me to shoot in the changing rooms as they came to understand that I liked to shoot real life.

I launched a new section in the column, Girl of The Week. Each week I would include a few photos of a girl I had photographed that week along with a little bit about her. It proved popular.

The most popular Girl Of The Week was First, who danced at The Strip. First was unlike most of the ladies. She was fair-skinned, tall and very attractive with a look that appealed equally to Westerners and Asians. She also happened to be a self-declared nymphomaniac. I talked her up in the column and readers flocked to the bar to meet her. A week after I had featured her, I stopped by the bar. First ran across the back and threw her arms around me. Being featured had made her the most popular girl in the bar. She was barfined by Stickman readers every night for a week, including a reader who flew up from Singapore especially to see her. He barfined her for a couple of nights and left her with a large sum of cash.

First, the popular Girl Of The Week who entertained many Stickman readers.

The Strip, Club Electric Blue and the other bars at the Silom Road end of Patpong soi 2 were a train ride away, but they were a great place to hang out. It was a very different crowd from Sukhumvit, and made up mostly of expats. Some of these guys were in Patpong most nights, but hadn’t stepped foot in Nana or Cowboy in years.

I almost always had the camera with me. Some nights the photos got quite racy and I would be mildly concerned in the taxi late on the way home. There was often a police checkpoint where Rama 4 Road meets Rachadapisek Road. The taxi would be stopped, a torch would be shined in your face and when police saw a farang, you’d be asked to get out. Sometimes they wanted to have a look in your bag, if you had one. There were nights when I had taken some particularly spicy shots. Perhaps not illegal, but some fast talking might be necessary. Photos from Nanapong dance contests would probably be classified as pornography. The cops never wanted to take a close look at the camera but had they seen the shots, it might have got awkward. I thought about keeping the memory cards at the bar and collecting them the next day – but they could get lost. So I hid the cards in a secret compartment in my camera bag and put a card in the camera that had innocuous photos from around Bangkok. If the cops had taken a look, they’d have seen temples and the river. They never did take a look.

Inside the girls’ changing room, Club Electric Blue, Patpong.

Just as the bakery on the ground floor of the Novotel at Siam Square had been my office several years earlier, the branch of Au Bon Pain on the corner of Soi 33 would become my new office. It was a short walk from the apartment and being close to a skytrain station, it was a convenient place to meet up with people.

One of the first people I met at the office was a young Thai guy who had started a new escort service, ViagraGirl. I thought it was a daft name for a website and there was something about it which made me think of ladyboys. But any reservations I had melted away soon after I sat down with this fellow and his Mrs. He was the youngest guy to advertise with me, and the smartest. This young Thai guy spoke *perfect* English and his Internet knowledge and technical skills were miles ahead of anyone I know. He had a keen business brain and presented as a stand-up guy. He was all about doing things right and doing them well so that everyone benefited. He reminded me a little bit of myself, a nice guy in a dirty business. This young fellow was such a breath of air that I couldn’t help but be impressed.

He tested the market with an ad for a month. It worked. He would go on to become my best advertiser for the next 4 years.

Some of the lovely ladies from BangkokEscort.

2011 was the year escort services really took off. There had always been escorts operating in Bangkok but your average naughty boy really didn’t know much about them. What was involved, and how much did it cost?

The name ViagraGirl didn’t last long. Pfizer sent a lawyer’s letter demanding the website cease using that name. They complied and ViagraGirl was rebranded as BangkokEscort. It would become the leading escort service in Bangkok.

On the face of it, most escort services offered the same thing. A dozen or so ladies, each with a profile highlighting their height and weight, a brief description about them along with various acronyms understood by naughty boys outlining what services were on offer. The standard fee across most escort sites was 5,000 baht for two hours. She would come to you.

So these escort services were simply providing a delivery service, right? That would be true for some escort services, while others offered much more. Think superior English skills, good manners and some of the ladies were somewhat refined.

Sandbags outside Villa supermarket to protect from the floods. Sukhumvit Road, near soi 33/1, November, 2011.

In late 2011 I flew back to New Zealand which was hosting the Rugby World Cup. While I was enjoying the rugby, there was bad news coming out of Thailand. The country was flooding. Not small areas, but large swathes of the central region. The country had experienced unprecedented rainfall and the water had to make its way from the central region, all the way down the Chao Praya River – which had burst its banks and flooded many provinces – and out into the Gulf Of Thailand. There was real concern that Bangkok would be flooded.

The flooding in Thailand had been big news all around the world and people were cancelling their travel plans. In mid-November when I was due to return, many of Bangkok’s northern suburbs along with much of the west of the city was under more than a metre of water. Downtown had prepared for flooding and most bars, shops and restaurants had sandbags piled at the entrance.

Dutch experts were called in and they were confident that they could divert some of the water away from downtown. I flew back on a Thai Airways flight with only around 50 people on board as people were cancelling all but essential travel to Thailand. I had columns to write and a girlfriend to see, so my travel was essential! Fortunately, the plan to divert water worked and downtown was spared.

The 2011 flood was just another in a long list of challenges the tourism industry had faced. In 2008, the Yellow Shirts had closed down both Bangkok airports for more than a week. In 2010, the Red Shirts had shut down much of downtown Bangkok for a couple of months. And now we had the floods.

The Soi 22 entrance to Washington Square.

Washington Square was one of Sukhumvit’s second-tier bar areas and just a short walk from Soi 33. Scattered around the area were a bunch of bars, some with an American theme. The area was a popular hangout for Vietnam War veterans and offshore oil industry workers. Two of the area’s favourite sons, Dean Barrett and Mekhong Kurt, each lived for a period above one of the bars in the area. The venue’s anchor tenant and the one place in the area that brought in the masses was Bourbon Street.

It was a ramshackle bar area that had been around since the ’80s. For all the time I knew it, Washington Square was dilapidated and many shophouses were empty for years. It was a large plot of prime real estate that had been on the chopping block for as long as I can remember. December 2011 would see the demolition of Washington Square.

Some staff from the bars that had closed moved to bars in Soi 22. Bourbon Street relocated to Soi Ekamai. Expats said it would fail. Ekamai is too far away, they said. The opposite happened and it boomed. It was yet more proof  that Thais spend more on a night out than your average Westerner.

I didn’t write much at all about Washington Square closing and despite living just a few minutes walk away, didn’t take all that many photos. It just wasn’t an area popular with the average Stickman reader.

Bangkok’s best Irish pub? I thought so. The Dubliner, November, 2011.

A few years earlier I had stopped writing the column for a few months. This opened the door to existing sites and some new ones came along. Many of those sites went quiet. There were no new posts. Others went offline altogether.

Social media hadn’t taken off yet. I would learn from readers that someone was impersonating me on Twitter. I had no idea who they were, or why they were doing it, or even what Twitter was! But after what I had been through a few years earlier, I had to check it out. I took a look and had no idea what the person behind it was trying to achieve. It was all rather innocuous. The only thing I could be sure of was that whoever was behind it read the column and was familiar with the nightlife. I never took social media seriously and never envisaged that it would take over from websites.

Thailand’s expat population was rising rapidly and where it was once mainly middle-aged white guys, in 2012 it was becoming much more diverse. Many new arrivals tried their luck online with a website. Bangkok’s expat webscape was flooded with property agents, most of whom didn’t know the difference between Bang Kaen and Bang Kapi, or the Thai words for near (ใกล้, glai, falling tone) and far (ไกล, glai, flat tone). Many arrived with a hiss and a roar, promising the earth. “We are Bangkok property experts, your one-stop shop” they’d say, nonsensical for someone who hadn’t even lived in Bangkok for a month. So typical of those in marketing, they were all looks and no substance. All sorts of websites popped up, and many were beautifully designed. I remember one of the new arrivals mocked this website for its dated look. Most didn’t survive a year or two.

Foreigners were piling into Thailand as tourism boomed and the expat population swelled.

I wasn’t visiting Pattaya much at all. I’d like to have made it down there more often but I had so much going on in Bangkok that I just didn’t have the time to venture away from the capital.

In the first half of 2012 I would buy the new version of my camera, a Canon 5D Mark III. It was a more refined version of the camera I had. I would seldom leave home without it.

Most people were still comfortable around cameras, even in the bar areas. Walk down the street with a camera slung over your shoulder and some Thais would pose and gesture for you to take their photo. If you stood outside a bar and pointed the camera at staff, they’d smile and pose. Camera technology was coming along and people still liked to have their photo taken. It wouldn’t last.

The girls’ changing rooms and lounge, Spanky’s, Pattaya.

When someone told me that Nana Plaza was about to be sold, my immediate response was that Trink had been writing about that since the ’90s. No, this time it’s for real, they insisted. The owners want out! I’d heard all of the rumours for years. The most popular was that the plaza would be demolished and a new car park would be built for the Landmark Hotel which towers over it.

But this time there seemed to be more to it. I was hearing rumours from people who move in different circles. It sounded like the owners really did want to sell.

Nana Plaza had fallen into a dreadful state, was in disrepair and desperately in need of a makeover. Most letters on the neon sign were in darkness. There were piles of trash everywhere and some looked like they were a permanent fixture. The complex was filthy and stunk. Vendors sold crap around the walkways, making it difficult to walk around. A couple of obese dogs called the plaza home, as did an army of cats. The feline situation got so bad that a cat catcher had been hired. Nana Plaza had become a shithole.

One of the obese dogs that called Nana Plaza home. Rumour has it that it never left the second floor.

The Indian Thai owners did something they seldom do and sold that prime piece of land. The purchaser was a savvy businessman who could see the potential. The price paid? Word is it was close to a billion baht.

The sale of Nana Plaza is as big as news gets in the bar industry. No-one had reported it so as soon as I was tipped off, I placed a large graphic on the main page of the site saying the plaza had been sold and more details would follow in the next column. Within minutes of placing that graphic, Dave The Rave was on the phone anxious to know what was going on. Dave had worked in Nana Plaza since 1999, and lived on the soi the whole time. Dave was as much a part of the plaza as the spirit house in the corner and the obese dog that never left the second floor. Dave couldn’t believe it that I knew about it and he didn’t.

That was a time when bars changed hands for large sums. Large gogo bars in Nana Plaza commanded north of a million US dollars. A double shophouse gogo bar in Nana Plaza would go for 15 – 20 million baht. The days when the money saved from a year’s work on the rigs offshore was enough to buy a Bangkok bar were well and truly over.

Nana Plaza, early 2013. The yellow colour scheme earned it the nickname, Banana Plaza.

The sale of Nana Plaza in 2012 felt very much like a changing of the guard. A new generation of bar owners replaced the old. David Walls, head of the Crown Group, sold all of his bars in a deal that almost didn’t go through as the stubborn, perpetually difficult disbarred lawyer played games with the licences in an act of brinkmanship that could have brought the plaza as we knew it to an end. Some years earlier, three areas of Bangkok had been designated as entertainment areas. That was a problem for Nana and Cowboy because they were not designated entertainment areas. You could only apply for a gogo bar licence if you were in one of those areas. It meant no new gogo bar licences could ever be issued in Nana Plaza. Existing gogo bar licences were grandfathered and could be extended each year. However, if they weren’t extended or they were forfeited, that establishment could not operate as a gogo bar. Sanity prevailed, David sold his bars to Glen Bullard and the gogo bar licences were retained. Nana Plaza would continue as a gogo bar area.

When Nana Plaza changed hands, the new owners set about an extensive, much-needed renovation that went far beyond merely dollying it up with a slap of paint and a new sign. All of the infrastructure including the plumbing and the electrics was completely redone. The complex was painted yellow. Welcome to Banana Plaza.

Away from the bars, escort services were thriving. It seemed like every other week a new escort service would start up – and most were run by foreigners. There was very good money in it and some people got rich. The money was usually split between the agency and the girls 50 : 50. Agencies averaged a dozen or so girls and most girls averaged a customer or two per day. At 5,000 baht a booking, do the maths.

The escort industry was flourishing.

BangkokEscort.com established itself as the biggest name in town. I had become friendly with the owners and frequently hung out at their spacious HQ. The owner was a whizzkid and created all sorts of features that none of the other escort sites had. He built a database and customer management system which was more advanced than those used by most companies in Thailand. When a customer called up, all of their details came up on the screen including their entire order history. The operator would then tailor the script to match, and might say something like, “You asked about Hayley last time but she was busy. I can confirm she’s available today.” Customer service wise, they were streets ahead of the opposition. The business grew and they expanded with more websites and more ladies. And that meant more advertising for me.

BangkokEscort HQ was a fun place to hang. I’d chat with the girls who came and went as they pleased. Sometimes I’d take photos of the girls. Other times I’d play with the dogs or just chill. The girls opened up about their lives. So many love to say that these girls are all the same. Beer bars, massage parlours, gogo bars, freelancers, escorts, they all come from the same place and they all play the same games. That was not my experience with these ladies at all. The escort world was very different from the gogos. The latter was full of lies, deceit, cheating and general bullshit. The escort world, at least the BangkokEscort group, was completely different. They really took their work seriously and customer satisfaction was paramount. Few of the ladies had boyfriends – and if they did, it was more likely a Westerner than a Thai. This is in stark contrast to the gogo world where most ladies have a Thai man hiding in the shadows.

Hanging out at BangkokEscort HQ.

Of all of the business owners I have met while running this website, the team behind BangkokEscort were the very best. They were the nicest people and far and away the most professional. And I imagine they were amongst the most successful.

The emergence of escort services was not lost on gogo bar bosses. They noticed there were far more ads for escort services on this site than for chrome pole bars. One Patpong bar took the bull by the horns and built an escort website. There was no pretense of high-class girls. It was a girl delivery service. If you didn’t fancy going to the bar to get the girl, you could get online, make your order and she would come to you.

The bar owner got a room in a Patpong hotel and over the course of a few afternoons and evenings, a stream of girls would come up to a room where I’d be waiting to take their photo.

For a while it felt like everyone wanted a piece of the escort bandwagon. Another escort service that asked me to take the photographs was operated by a fellow countryman of mine. From the outset it was clear it would fail, but I was happy to help nonetheless. A website was built and this fellow set about recruiting……freelancers from the Biergarten. He spent time in the Biergarten explaining the concept to ladies. He would put their profile and photos online. When someone wanted to book them, he would call them and tell them where to go. They’d collect the money and give him half. One day, he rounded up a dozen or so of these ladies, got a room at the Nana Hotel and we photographed them. Most of the ladies weren’t great looking. It was never going to work. These ladies don’t always answer their phone. They’re not reliable. And the trust model where they would split payment with him was pie in the sky stuff. Needless to say, it failed.

A dancer from Club Electric Blue, photographed on the roof of a nearby hotel.

The website was going well. I was happy with the column. My girlfriend was great. Everything had been going well and when it’s been that way for a while, you wonder when things will go wrong. But they didn’t. Life was good and I had nothing to complain about.

Vietnam had opened up many years earlier, and was getting popular. I took a trip to Ho Chi Minh City and loved it, so much so that I returned again a month later. Hanoi soon followed and then I visited Ho Chi Minh City again.

I made multiple trips to Vietnam and loved it there. There was something about that country that drew me in and I found my mind wandering about the opportunity and the possibilities. I never really thought a lot of Bangkok on that first trip. It grew on me over time, and I came to love it. Ho Chi Minh City was different. It got under my skin from day one.

Thailand made things difficult for foreigners, and you were frequently reminded that you were a foreigner. “You’re not Thai!“, they loved to remind you. You would never have the same rights as a Thai. And in Thailand, the Thai is always right!

I found the Vietnamese to be very different. They were genuinely open-minded. Make a suggestion and they would be all ears. Thais would dismiss what you had to say before you’d finished the first sentence. The Vietnamese were proud and unquestionably patriotic, but I didn’t detect the xenophobia so common in Thailand. It was easy to see how Vietnam would shape up as serious competition for Thailand.

The idea of an extended stay in Vietnam appealed but I was established in Bangkok. I did give it some thought but ultimately I wasn’t ready to give up what I had.

Vietnam was emerging and for a while the country really got under my skin.

An investigative journalist with decades of experience on Fleet Street had lived in Thailand for many years. On his self-named website he published in-depth articles about expats up to no good. His was not a site you wanted your name to appear. He touched on the nightlife industry and I knew, or knew of, quite a few of the people he wrote about. And some of the stuff he wrote made me a little bit uncomfortable because I had dealings with these people. Were these people as bad as he made out?

American visa lawyer Brian Wright had been advertising with me for several years. We would meet up for a bite from time to time. On one occasion he turned up with two young ladies. How young? My best guess is that they were 14 or 15. He was vague about what they were doing with him and said something about looking after them because their mother was no good and they had problems at home. They just sat there and didn’t say anything. I didn’t ask.

The investigative journalist wrote an article about Brian. He had been arrested by the Thai police for kiddy fiddling. This was a big problem because Brian had been advertising with me for years. He had become flaky in recent years, had become hard to get hold of and hadn’t paid for his ads for a few months. That was all now irrelevant. If he was fiddling with kids, I did not want anything to do with him. I removed all of his ads. Apparently, Brian got bail and disappeared. He was sentenced in absentia to 27 years behind bars. It’s presumed he fled from Thailand but no-one really knows.

The elegant grand dame, Mama Noi.

I was meeting new people all the time. Interesting people. Successful people. Some dodgy people. And a few scary people.

Charming wasn’t a word I’d use for many of the people I met, but that word describe Mama Noi perfectly. She was the lady of the house at CheckInn99 where she had been working since the Vietnam War. It was through this column that I got to meet her but the truth is that anyone could have met Mama Noi. If you were at CheckInn99 and sniggled with your mates about the old lady shuffling around, you missed out on meeting the grand dame of Sukhumvit. Those who took the time to engage with her were regaled with the most amazing stories spanning decades and some truly fascinating history about Sukhumvit’s nightlife. The Mama Noi interview was a hit.

One tale I love telling concerns the sheer greed of bar owners and Arsenal Alex, an avid Stickman reader. We’d traded many emails, and Alex told me he was coming to Bangkok and looking to buy some bars. He had 50 million baht to invest. I put this in the column. I had wondered whether many bar owners read the column, and it was answered emphatically that week. Bar owner after bar owner emailed me, keen for an introduction with Alex. I was happy to oblige. For months, Alex hung out with many bar bosses who befriended him, comped him drinks all night long and invited him into their homes. They were keen to get their paws on his pot of gold. We’re not talking small bars here, but some of the biggest names in the industry like Billboard, Angelwitch, Tilac and others. Some bar owners drew up contracts themselves for the sale of their bar with the most ridiculous clauses and holes big enough to drive a truck through – which was ironic because what they didn’t know was that Alex was not a high-flying businessman, but a truck driver. Alex didn’t have 50 million baht, he probably didn’t even have half a million baht. He couldn’t keep the ruse up for ever and a few months later the bar bosses got wise to Alex. They’d wined and dined him for months, and they had nothing to show for it. Some got angry and vowed revenge. Alex made a dash to the airport. He stayed away for several years and when he eventually returned, he’d been forgotten by some and forgiven by others. There was nothing sophisticated about Alex. He showed some of the bar industry’s biggest names to be cocky, gullible and greedy. Arsenal Alex

Shirtless, pumped up, heavily tattooed and draped in gold, Sharky was regular sight around Pattaya. His real name was Tim Ward, but he was known by most as Sharky. I had seen Sharky around Pattaya but knew little about him. When I learned that he was a fellow Kiwi, I was keen to meet. He knew the column and was receptive to sitting down for a chat. He invited me into his beautiful, beachfront condo where we chatted about life. He looks scary, but he was softly spoken and very considered…..until he wasn’t. At one point in our conversation he said, “I could throw you off my balcony and pay my way out of it. Bullshit my way out of it somehow. You know that. You know how this place works…” Shark of Pattaya

These were just some of the many incredibly interesting people I was meeting regularly. The best part of being the guy behind the column is the doors it opened and the people I met.

Tim Ward, Pattaya, 2012. This photo has appeared all over mainstream media – and not once have the sods asked permission to use it.

Of all of the characters, Glen Bullard was one of a kind. Glen arrived in the bar industry from nowhere and set about making his mark on the industry. With a southern US drawl that was particularly hard to understand, a penchant for high-end European sports cars and a willingness to throw large sums of money around – quite literally – he quickly established himself as a major player, both as a bar owner and as a punter. Many bar bosses fish off the company wharf, but Glen took it to new heights. One, two, sometimes even three at a time. The benefits of owning the bar, eh?

One night I was perched on the top floor of Nana Plaza when I see Glen striding towards me. I always dreaded seeing him out and about. I needn’t have been concerned because he was always decent with me, but he was volatile. You just never knew what he was going to do next. I could literally feel my nervous system react when I was in close proximity to him. “Paul, or do I call you Stick, or how about Dick?” he bellows at me at maximum volume, emphasising the last word and trying to be funny. Or at least that’s what I thought he said because his accent was so thick that I was never really sure what he was saying. “I just bought Nana Plaza!“! He told me exactly what he had paid for it – 750 million baht – and what he would be doing to redevelop it. “And you can go ahead and write every last little detail!” He was good like that and encouraged me to write whatever I wanted. It was just as well I didn’t write that because he hadn’t bought the plaza. He believed the deal had been done. He was wrong. Exactly what happened, I don’t know. While Glen didn’t get to buy the plaza, he would become the plaza’s biggest tenant.

I never felt at ease around Glen. Actually, that would be an understatement. He was highly volatile and was known to explode for no reason. And when that happened, look out! Glen died in early 2015. Remembering A Bully

Playskool, Nana Plaza, 2013.

One of the main things that held this column back from going to the next level – whatever that level would have been – was me. Business is about relationships, but the truth is that I struggled to maintain relationships with many bar owners. If I don’t really care for someone, I’m not good at faking it. Plenty of bar owners had a dark side. They came from a background very different to mine. I grew up as a good, middle-class white boy who played soccer and cricket. No-one in my extended family had ever been in trouble and about the raciest thing anyone ever did was share copied VHS tapes of blue movies. And I think many bar bosses quickly reached the same conclusion as me – we’re really different! And when you’re so different that you have little in common, you don’t stop by their bar or reach out to see how things are going. You’re out of sight and out of mind. They forget about you, and when it comes time to renew their ad, they’re less inclined to do so.

December 2013 wasn’t a great month for the site. It was high season and the bars were rolling in money. But that month not one advertiser renewed their ad. And I didn’t get a single new advertiser either. There was nothing wrong with the column – I was producing good stuff and reader numbers were great. Nonetheless, site revenue was declining. I have never been a big spender and it wasn’t an issue in terms of my lifestyle, but it wasn’t a good sign. Some new players had started websites and they were more visible around the bar areas. In terms of traffic and brand recognition, it wasn’t a contest. Stickman was light years ahead. But these new guys were hungry. They were out most nights and unlike me, they enjoyed hanging out with bar owners, kissing their asses and barfining their girls. I couldn’t compete with that.

And I didn’t do myself any favours with some of the stuff I wrote. I have always written the sort of column I would want to read myself. That meant that it had to be accurate and real. If a bar sucked, I’d say so! And then silly me would scratch his head when ads weren’t renewed! Ok, so I didn’t actually say that someone advertising with me sucked – that would be moronic – but sometimes I hinted at things that may not have been entirely complimentary.

The sign for Lollipop1 at the mouth of Sukhumvit Soi 10.

2006 may have been peak Stickman in terms of total reader numbers, revenue and for want of a better term, market domination, but the period from early 2011 until April 2015 was peak Stickman in terms of quality. I missed little bar industry news and was all over the gossip. There were lots of photos & photo essays and every column had an opener.

I’d been pedal to the metal for 3 years. A lot of effort went into the column, and there’s a lot of other stuff to do. All the emails, all the reader stories, spending time with advertisers, it all added up. It was tiring. I loved what I was doing but there was a limit to how long I could do it.

I shouldn’t complain because life was pretty good. We had moved into a fantastic condo on Sukhumvit soi 16, the nicest place I lived in Bangkok. So many apartments in Bangkok have a funky design that just doesn’t work. This condo was perfect. At 90 square metres it was a good size for two. There was a large lounge, one bedroom and two balconies. It was a 5-minute walk to the park and just a couple of minutes to Foodland. The skytrain and the underground were less than 10 minutes walk away. The condo was beautifully done out with nice furniture, a beautiful work desk and at 25,000 baht / month, I thought it was a steal. Things were great with my girlfriend. We’d been to Vietnam, Laos and New Zealand in addition to exploring many parts of Thailand. We’d taken road trips through Isaan, up north and across towards the Cambodian border. She was, as I would tell my friends, easy to be with. And that was important because I was really putting in the hours with the column. It had become exhausting.

Another day hanging out at BangkokEscort HQ with the cuties.

The website was time-consuming because I did everything myself. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it because I did. It was a lifestyle choice. I was living clean, drinking little and exercising daily. My general health was good, but the site was really taking it out of me. I would crash every night and sleep long and deep. It was the time in my life when I should be working hard, building something up and making good money. But you can only go hard for so long. Eventually you will burn out.

The change in ownership at Nana Plaza 18 months earlier saw it undergo a much-needed renovation. At the same time something else changed, and it wasn’t for the better. The owners did a wonderful job on the plaza, but the vibe in the plaza had changed. And I put that down solely to one man.

When Glen and his gang took over a bunch of bars, the vibe in the plaza – and much of Soi Nana, you could argue – also changed. Glen was in a motorcycle gang and members of that gang had become a regular sight in the plaza. They strutted around in their colours like they owned the place. Some nights, groups of gang members partied loud and late at the ground floor beer bars where they could be seen from almost every corner of the complex. What had been a place of fun had developed an edge.

The cliché that the nightlife industry is full of colourful characters is true, but the word “character” can be misleading. It evokes the idea that someone is odd, different and eccentric – and not necessarily in a bad way. But some of the new arrivals were bad news, nasty people with a lengthy criminal history. Some had spent years in prison for violent crime or serious criminality in their homeland. One of the gang members proudly described the group as equally dangerous and crazy. And they boasted that they played the game, greasing the right palms. They weren’t untouchable – no foreigner is – but they were well protected.

The Strip, Patpong, 2014. There was something about The Strip that set it apart from all other gogo bars.

The expat community was changing. It had always felt like a community. Expats helped expats. And in the early days online, all the webmasters got along. I would frequently recommend advertisers to consider placing an ad on other sites. Those days were gone. Plenty of expats bad-mouthed their fellow expats.

New websites were often confrontational from the outset. They would effectively declare war on you with their first post. I came to realise it was a means of generating interest to bring traffic to their site. They had nothing going for themselves so they would take pot shots at those who were established. It worked initially and they would get a spike in traffic, but when people saw they had little to offer, they failed.

I’ve never been competitive and for the most part have never been concerned with what others are doing. Why worry about that which you cannot control? If another site has more readers or more advertisers or more revenue or they write better or take better photographs or get all the scoops, so be it. Comparison is the thief of happiness and it’s best to focus on the things you can control.

In mid-2014 I put the idea out there that I was open to selling the site. I was pilloried by some readers with comments like, “You’re dreaming” and “No-one will buy it” and “It’s worth nothing!” Various people had shown interest in it over the years and I believed there would be a potential buyer out there. Whether they would be willing to pay what I wanted was another story. I put the word out to see if anyone would bite. And bite they did.

The sun was setting on my time in Bangkok and the word was out – the site’s for sale!

I was approached by one of Glen’s sidekicks. They were curious. I’d already thrown the figure of 10 million baht out there. That number didn’t put them off. They were interested in what I thought the site could do for them. I was frank – I wasn’t sure it would be a great match, save plastering it with ads to promote their own bars. they might also like to consider having Dave The Rave take over to write the column. Dave was employed by the group and could have slipped right into the role. I don’t know if they ever gave it any serious thought. And they never mentioned to Dave that I had suggested he become the new Stickman.

Next I was contacted by someone I didn’t know. He owned an Internet company and it didn’t take much Googling to see that he could be a fit. I met him and his partner at their office a couple of times and they asked all the right questions. It wasn’t just the financials they were interested in, it was the site’s traffic and the breakdown of that traffic that interested them most. They drilled down into the numbers – how many visitors the site had, where in the world they were, how many readers there were in Thailand etc. They did their due diligence. And they wanted to do a deal. The moment of truth – how much was I looking for? Not for the first time I said that I had previously received an offer (I didn’t mention that it was 9 years earlier) to buy the site for $US 100,000. The site was much bigger now and I expected its value had increased. I told them that when I put the idea out there that the site was for sale, 10 million baht was a number I’d accept. They were shocked! Were they shocked because the number was so high, or so low? It would turn out they would be interested buyers in the range of 150,000 – 200,000. In baht! We were a million miles apart. Sorry, guys, you’re dreaming!

Generation Tattoo. In 2014, around half the girls in Club Electric Blue had a full back tattoo.

Some guys never tire of the bars. They visit year after year, or perhaps they live in Thailand year-round. They go out frequently and they have a ball. Some of those who never bore of the bars seem to have the same sort of joy as children playing with their favourite Teddy bear. But most of us eventually lose interest. I wish I could get so excited, so easily. But I can’t. I loved taking photos of the bar scene and enjoyed it as a backdrop when out with friends. But in terms of engaging in what the industry is all about, I was over it. I hadn’t been a player for a long time.

In 2014, if I had to come up with a name for the girls in the bars, it would have been Generation Tattoo. One night in Club Electric Blue I asked the mamasan to help me corral all the girls with a back tattoo so I could photograph them together. There were so many that no camera manufacturer on the planet makes a lens wide enough to fit them all in one photo.

Much of the joy I got from Bangkok in those final 4 years came from writing the column and taking photos. People would often comment that they seldom saw me without a camera slung over my shoulder. You could still walk into gogo bars with a camera in hand and so long as you said that you knew the rules and had no intention of taking any photos they were usually ok with it.

Popular writer Dean Barrett enjoying himself in The Strip, Patpong, late 2013. Some guys never tire of the bars.

I’d lost the taste for alcohol and mostly drank water. The column was still fun, but at the same time it was tiring and was starting to feel like a job. I wasn’t enjoying it like I used to. Was it time to walk away? And if I stopped the site, would that mean the end of Thailand for me?

I felt the lure of New Zealand. Every time I visited, I enjoyed myself. I wanted my own house. I wanted cats and dogs.

There was one thing I couldn’t get out of my mind. I didn’t feel secure in Thailand. For foreigners, the future in Thailand is never 100%. Visa extensions always came with a small worry that perhaps it won’t be approved. It didn’t matter when I was young but when you reach 40, uncertainty becomes much less palatable. And if I stopped the website, what would I do? Back to teaching? No, thanks! Ultimately it was a combination of things that made me make the decision to leave. I felt the lure of New Zealand and had no compelling reasons to stay in Thailand. More than anything, I just didn’t see a long-term future in Thailand.

I would be leaving one of the most exciting cities on the planet at a time when it felt like it was really moving ahead. I had built up a website and created a brand. I knew pretty much everyone who was anyone in the bar industry and was the go-to guy trusted to take photos at events, and I had the sort of access to bars very few people get. I wasn’t getting rich but the site provided enough for a pleasant lifestyle. I lived in a fantastic condo and had a loving girlfriend who was not put off that I spent time around gogo dancers and escorts.

Some of my friends were dumbfounded. You’re going to do what?! Why would you do that?! Most thought I was mad.

When you walk away from something, it can be difficult to go back. When you step aside, someone will take your place.

From Mt. Eden, looking out over my hometown of Auckland.

It would take many months of planning to move back to New Zealand. Why couldn’t I just pack all my stuff up and head for the airport? Because I wouldn’t be going alone. I’d been with my girlfriend since early 2011. I’d taken her to New Zealand in 2013 and she liked it. She was interested in what it would be like living there. So we had to get a visa for her, and that takes time. As keen as I was to get back to New Zealand, there was no urgency. A few more months in Bangkok would be no hardship. I just wanted to be gone before Songkran. That was a hard deadline. I didn’t want to face that silliness again.

I was in countdown mode in the column for weeks, and frequently commented that there were x number of columns to go.

A week before we were to fly, a friend contacted me and said he had something he’d like to talk to me about. He knew I was leaving Bangkok the following week. I told him that I had very limited time and what time I had left in Bangkok was precious. Do you just want to catch up or is this something important? His response floored me, “I want to buy your site.”

I knew him well and over the previous few years we had worked closely together. He was a straight shooter and someone I really respected. I knew he had plenty of money and if he said he was interested in buying the site, it was real. His apartment was just a few minutes walk up the soi. “Are you free now? Let’s meet!”

.
To be continued next week…..

Mystery Photo

Where is it?

Last week’s photo was taken from EmSphere, looking across Sukhumvit Road. I was surprised that only about 10 of you got it right.

This week’s photo was taken on Wednesday night and is very much in the Stickman zone.

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

Bangkok this week.

I was in Bangkok for a few days this week. Soi Nana including the plaza was busy. Soi Cowboy looked quieter. I saw a fresh piece of concrete right outside Hot Lips in Soi Cowboy. Did they try to do something about the sewer problems, or did they just raise their entrance a bit so that the sewer water runs to their neighbours and the customers at Hot Lips arrive with dry feet? Water was still coming from underneath the raised floors of several bars though, on what was otherwise a perfectly dry day.

Disneyland, now and then.

.
Pricey Pattaya.

I was out with two visiting Americans the other night. One was on his virgin trip at the age of 60 after a recent divorce, while the other lives in Samut Prakan. They asked me if I could show them somewhere with some top talent. I had met them in TQ, and while the newbie was drooling over the girls, I decided to take them to XS. They both had gals on their laps, and were interested in some “takeaway” until the price was discussed. For a long-time rendezvous (and we all know they leave by 6 AM these days), it was north of 10K baht. The following day, a girl I know who works there (she was off the night I was in) messaged me and asked me when I would be in town again. There was a meeting Thursday night before work, and these are the new “rules”. If a girl goes short-time, she must get 5 lady drinks. If she goes  long-time, she must get 10 lady drinks. So add in that these girls want between 3K and 5K for one shot, and 5K to 10K (if they think they’ve got a sucker) for long-time – out the door by 6 AM, you can see that the prices are absolutely STUPID. This gal used to be a showgirl in a big-name show bar, and still has her looks and an above average body. The ladies need to get 5 drinks a night minimum and need to get barfined 3 times in 10 days. It is busier now each time I have been in (about 3 times in the past 21 days), but it is still not like high season used to be in early November to March. I have lived in Pattaya for 9 years, moved out of town a year ago but still visit frequently, these places are pricing themselves out of the market. A guy living in London could leave on a Ryanair flight Saturday morning for Germany, go to an all-day FKK and bone 3 girls for 80 Euros a piece, get back on a plane and be home the same night for about the same cost as taking a gal from XS for the night.

Remembering watermelons.

On the protest shutdown, my brother-in-law policeman was sent to Bangkok to assist, and when off duty he would remove his uniform and join the protesters. Funny. One of the ‘watermelon’ police.

The stalker.

I’d forgotten about that weirdo stalker! I’ve run into several like him over the years, guys who are just eaten up by hatred and jealousy. They get so obsessed, they ruin their own lives trying to get ‘revenge’ on someone who has never wronged them in the past.

The end of an era.

A few months ago BangkokEyes reposted some old Night Owl columns by Bernard Trink. An interesting read, especially the writing style. The more I read, the more it reminded me of yours. You were the only two writing in such a distinctive, personal way. Bernard stopped years ago, and very soon your column will end as well. There is plenty of information available about Bangkok nightlife and some of it is even useful and accurate, but no one writes about it the way Bernard and you did. It feels like the end of an era.

Who will play Stick?

Thanks for writing the last few articles. Will you do an airport book? I could see Leonardo playing an aged Stickman in the Hollywood edition. <No way, *anyone* but that prat Leonardo! Tom Hardy would be a much better choice, we’re the same height, same hair colour and I am sure the stylists can do their magic to make him look as good as me. Just kidding on the last part! – Stick>

Hot Lips actioned a repair. Is Sewer Cowboy finally free of the filthy sewer water?

This Week’s News, Views & Gossip

Did the constant exposure of sewage seeping out from under Hot Lips patio become too much for management? This week the bar concreted over the area outside the bar and woohoo, whadya know, it’s been dry since. And while the repair was finally made, info leaked this week about what had caused it. What has been described to me as “a main sewer opening” is right underneath the patio out front of Hot Lips. During construction of the Showtime ladyboy bar, the Stumble Inn Group was told it was leaking. They were told to fix it, but amazingly for someone with a background in construction, they chose not to. When the patio was up during construction, the sewer opening was there for all to see – and smell. That’s all moot now, and it has been fixed. Hopefully we won’t hear anything more about it.

If you’re looking for a laid-back bar with older music and a chilled vibe, you might like to stop by Down Under bar on Sukhumvit soi 7/1. For a long time it was run by Australians but after Covid it was taken over by a Thai lady called Susie who is determined to retain the current format. She refuses to let it become a girly bar. Being an Aussie-themed bar, it’s a great place to go to watch the Aussies thump the POMs in The Ashes. And if you like cats, there are a couple of felines that call the bar home. So I guess you could say pussy is available at Down Under bar despite the owner’s insistence that it is not.

Down Under Bar, Sukhumvit soi 7/1.

Speaking of Soi 7/1, the soi reminds me of many similar sois in Pattaya with plenty of bars offering the full Monty on the cheap. If you fancy some afternoon delight in Bangkok, Soi 7/1 is one of the less expensive options.

In today’s opener I included a few photos of ladies changing rooms from gogo bars back in the day. Obviously it’s not the part of the bar that the owners focus on, but in so many bars the ladies changing rooms are filthy to the extent they border on disgusting. There is dirt baked on the walls, mould growing everywhere and so often these back rooms have the most foul smell. Given the sensitivity of the average Thai to smell, it’s amazing the girls tolerate it.

Spanky’s in Nana Plaza has T-shirts with an amusing slogan for sale, as per the image below. If you fancy one, drop by the bar. They’re just 300 baht and the owner assures me they make little profit on these T-shirts and they’re of a decent quality. They also have caps and other bar-themed merchandise available.

Down in Pattaya, Rum Runner on Soi Buakhao – a bar I very much enjoyed when I was last in town – bucked the trend and had a good November. Boss Phil has raised a few eyebrows by planning to close on New Year’s Eve. Rum Runner is a small, single operator bar and Phil wants his staff to enjoy the night off with friends and family. He doesn’t need the drunken drama and general chaos that is New Year’s Eve in Sin City. Besides, New Year’s Eve is a funny night for the bars – many people spend the night on the beach watching the fireworks and don’t head to the gogo bars until very late, by which time Rum Runner which closes well before midnight will already have closed.

And Rum Runner is another bar which has invested in an in-bar air filtration system. Just like Spanky’s in Bangkok which spent up large, Rum Runner has invested in a new system. The air quality can be bad in Pattaya at this time of year so the new air filtration systems together with the bar’s no smoking inside policy means Rum Runner may have the cleanest air of any bar in Sin City.

Spanky’s new t-shirt.

I’ve written a few times over the years about one thing that drives me mad about Americans. And just to get this out of the way, I am in no way anti-American, in fact the opposite would be quite true and there’s much I like about the people and the country. Anyway, the thing that drives me mad about some Americans is the way they consider themselves to be the world expert on Mexican food. Some Americans get ugly if you disagree with so much as a single word they say about Mexican food. I have long enjoyed the Mexican food at two spots in Bangkok, Charley Brown’s and Sunrise Tacos. But many Americans will say something along the lines of, “That’s not Mexican food, that’s Tex Mex, or California Mex”. Anyway, Sunrise Tacos has been around for, I think, coming up to 18 years. There are many branches. Charley Brown’s has been around for over 30 years and is going strong. Now, take a look at a list of Mexican places in Bangkok which have come and gone: El Gordo’s, Patty’s Fiesta, Casa Azul, The Mexican Cantina, Coyote (a few branches), Tacos and Salsa (a few failed attempts), El Hefe, Quiero Mas, Barrio Bonito, La Cocina, OMG Mexican, El Diablo, Tacos Factory, The Drunken Mexican, Taco Bell’s flagship branch etc. Notice anything? It just so happens that the two Mexican eateries that I personally enjoy are still going strong after all of these years. Can we conclude that New Zealanders know more about Mexican food than Americans! Now I think my inbox is going to explode!

It’s almost Christmas!

Thailand-Related Links & News Articles

From The Stickman Archives comes Remembering A Bully, a column which received very positive feedback when first published.

A Frenchman is accused of raping an American at the Full Moon Party on Ko Phangnan.

A Mexican-Canadian woman falls to her death from the balcony of a Phuket hotel.

An elderly Thai man is killed by a monkey in the south of Thailand.

There have been calls for Thailand to be more transparent about the updated visa rules.

Two Russians behind an online recreational drugs business in Bangkok are arrested.

In Phuket, a Russian who demands a fight with some Brits gets what he deserves.

Soi Cowboy, Christmas, 2002. The good old days!

Closing Comments

Thanks for all of the feedback about The Stickman Story. It takes quite a lot of time to write each part so it’s nice that it seems to be well-received. Skimming over Part 3, I notice that I got the chronology wrong on a couple of things but in the context of the story, it makes almost no difference. It was a last-minute decision to write this series and I only started 3 days before I published Part 1. Each part is 8,000+ words so the 5 parts combined will be north of 40,000 words. Could it become a book? I guess it could, but that sounds like way too much work. There comes a point when you have to say enough is enough, I’m done!

Your Bangkok commentator,

Stick

Stick can be contacted at : stickmanbangkok@gmail.com

.