Sybarite

Post update: My original comment here has been retracted as could be construed as being libellous.

My main reason for my initial post was just to provide a timely reminder to other board members that they should always keep a close eye on their bins – especially if you have been coming to Pattaya for a while, think that you are an “old hand” at this and therefore have a tendency to become complacent. But clearly in some bars you need to be far more careful than in others! I am aware of my option of voicing my concerns to management, which is essentially what I am doing here. The manager was not around when the incident happened, they are not always present, and as mentioned the other senior members of the staff i.e. the mamasans were amongst the guilty parties who added the drinks to my bill without my permission - so I could hardly complain to them. I have never at any stage stated that that if I voiced my concerns to management that I believed that I “would receive a kicking for doing so”. Go back and read my post and you will see that what I said was that it was not wise for someone to leave a bar without paying for all of their bill if they are disputing it. It is better to pay up even if you are in the right. Papillon, you specifically posed the question to me as whether I felt that I would be subject to violence from Club Mistys if I did not pay my bill and in my reply I did not say that I thought this would have necessarily been the case. All I stated was that Soi 15, where Club Mistys is situated, is generally regarded as a Soi which has in the past recorded quite a lot of violence. I have even seen violent confrontations with Thais and farangs in Soi 15 myself. http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/3-Estonian-m...ce-t165277.html http://pattayarag.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html http://www.pattayaghost.com/2008/10/03/2-p...arre-incidents/ As I did not say that Club Mistys staff have a reputation for beating up customers who dispute their bill - I can’t apologise for something that I didn’t say. However if I had left without settling the bill then it is likely that the staff would not just have let the matter lie. If a bunch of angry members of staff pursues a farang out on to the street from a bar and then enter into an argument then it is possible that other Thais will get involved with nasty consequences – especially in Soi 15. If I had not monitored my bin for an hour or two while continuing to buy drinks then yes I would agree that I am possibly negligent. However, I did not expect that after only 20 minutes of being in the bar that chits for so many unauthorised drinks would have appeared in my bin. Now it is just my word against the word of the staff – but why would I suddenly make this up? – and why about Club Mistys? – unless the incident actually happened. I have over a thousand posts on this board but have never related a similar incident about another bar. Having visited Pattaya 11 times in the last 3 years and spending 5 – 8 hours each evening mainly in go go bars I have certainly visited a lot of bars – and I make a point of visiting different go go bars. So I have some experience. I can’t insist on my money back if there is no proof however in the interests of customer relations most bar managers would have made some sort of token good will gesture. As in the case of the offer of a free beer to the other poster who claimed that the staff had made a mistake of 40 baht with his change – yet no offer to me when I had been deliberately che*ted out of a sum many times that amount. An apology from the manager along the lines of - that he was not there so can’t really comment in full on the matter but that if it happened as related then what happened was not appropriate behaviour – would have been more than adequate. Especially if the manager gave assurances that he would discuss the matter with his staff to ensure that this sort of thing does not happen again. But at present the impression I am getting is that there is not really much concern if a customer is seriously che*ted out of a significant sum and that things will just continue as normal and therefore be highly likely to happen again. So other customers are likely to befall the same fate. I am not being vindictive or malicious however I regard it as my duty to let others know that they need to keep an exceptionally close grip on their bin when drinking in Club Mistys. On the other hand they may feel that what is the point of going to a particular bar when you can’t relax and enjoy yourself – one of the reasons why many board members avoid well known other offenders like Kittens club. I am also beginning to question the motive behind this new 'Club Misty's madness' campaign. Is it done with the cynical thinking that if customers are plied with cheap beer for a couple of hours at the start of the evening then they are less likely to be monitoring their bins? - if so then it is indeed 'madness' for anyone to fall for this.

Aaaaaaargh!...Ghostly!

I think the staff prefer to kick you in the wallet...where it most hurts.

One of the reasons why it is next to impossible to get the staff to back down and remove from your tab drinks that you did not specifically order, is that many bars have a rule that if the customer does not pay for the drink that was 'ordered' for a particular staff member then that staff member has the cost of the drink deducted from their wages. As for the option of only paying for the drinks that you think that you ordered and not the rest - well, Misty's is on Soi 15 which is the Soi where there have been quite a few falangs guys recently who have been given a kicking by Thai's for one reason or the other.

There are few of them who look as if they have been auditioning for 'Michael Jackson the musical' with all of that skin whitening paste.... ...and I see that it is not just the Western men's magazines that have discovered airbrushing and re-touching.

Eh Paul! Where's my free beer then! I was smoked 900 baht within 20 minutes whereas Vid had a couple of 10 baht coins fall through a hole in his shorts or something - total cost 40 baht (assuming that 40 baht is not actually stuck to the bottom of his shorts rather than really lost!) The point that I did not really emphasize was that the mamasans ordered drinks for themselves and a couple of other girls which I had NOT agreed to. I had only gone in Mistys to have one or two beers and buy a couple of LDs when I noticed this girl who I had known for over two years who always freelanced but had decided to get her first bar job in Mistys (maybe times are hard!). I bought her a couple of drinks and her friend but then the two mamasans descended in a pincer movement. I did talk to the mamasans who came round out of politeness but I did not agree to them ordering themselves drinks or drinks for the two other girls who also briefly walked by and said hello. Who would want to buy a drink for a mamasan let alone two anyway - what's the point! I am an old hand at this but in a momentary lapse I did not monitor my bin until after 20 minutes by which time the damage was done. Knowing that it is nigh impossible to get drinks off the bill once it is on there - even ones which I did not authorise - I decided that the best thing was just to pay up and leave. I can remember the slightly sneering look on one of the mamasan's face which read 'there's another one that we have managed to way lay tonight. He has probably learnt his lesson but there will be others along at some point who we can ambush to make up for the slow nights that we have been having'. Unlike many guys who just drink their one draught beer and agree to buying no lady drinks I had attempted to at least play the game. The problem was the mamasans thought here was someone who was at last opening his wallet so lets just abuse his genorosity and sting him for all he is worth. As I mentioned this was on the first day of my holiday and I never went back.

Apparently they have 'happy hours' in here, but they normally forget to tell the girls that they are allowed to be.

Martin, you're right. I was out of order in that last post. Shane I apologise,... and thanks for the free drinks that night.

Shane, I'll be sure to buy you a few drinks when I am next in town.

This was as much as I was able to get from the site behind the link: "Responding to waves of negative publicity created by the release of a new Belgian TV drama on Pattaya, City Hall today made good on last week's promises to crackdown on scantily clad girls and bars soliciting customers from the street by closing downtown Pattaya's afternoon bars. Shortly after noon, Banglamung officials swept through the city, presenting owners with official letters that all the bars cannot now open until 6 p.m. with no working talent allowed on the street. By 2 p.m., Soi 6 looked like a ... " What is there to do on Soi 6 during the day...there is only a few other places other than the bars e.g. a bank, a hotel and a cafe... I can't see these bars making as much as they used to do in the 7 hours between 6pm - 1am. Maybe they will start opening later till 3 or 4am like the beer bars.

The last time I was there in August on my first night in Pattaya I was descended on by both the mamasans ordering drinks for themselves and some girls, who hardly spoke to me, that I was down 900 baht within 20 minutes. I never made it back for the rest of my trip as a result.

I remember mamasung Miki from the days when she used to work at Baby Dolls. She looks like everybody's favourite auntie with her horn rimmed glasses but enters into the spirit of things at these 'naughty' venues. She would encourage guys to get involved with a mischievious wink and getting hands on herself..

I'm not due in town until 16th October

Well I can't!

Martin, sorry - I've just realised that you mentioned in the thread title itself that it is near Polo bar.

But Martin, I have never been to any of these two places before and so have no idea where this Bartimes bar/restaurant is, apart from the fact that is is somewhere on Walking street.

Head for the campest looking guy at the check in. 'Accidentally' drop your documents over the counter and before he can react, offer to 'retrieve' the document, duck your head behind the counter and.... Well you sound pretty desperate.....

You can take a lady there for a smoke?

Your only 2 weeks late in posting this bit of 'news' to the board. If you had used the search function before you created this thread you would have realised that someone posted the full details and pictures in an earlier thread 'Are you sure you want to fly Etihad?, This could explain their cheap deals!' http://www.pattayatalk.com/forums/index.ph...9&hl=Etihad And even then the poster acknowledges that the story was old news as the story dated back to November 2007. Anyway good to see that you are quicker off the mark than usual.

No, apart from some notable exceptions on this board. However, if the girls were flies I wouldn't mind being a pound of manure for a bit.

It sounds like a lady boy just crawled out of yours...

This is just your way of saying what we know already that it is a shit hole

Really? The large upmarket hotel chains - Marriott, Sheraton, Hilton, etc have always traditionally been snooty about guys bringing girls back. They would probably allow one up but if you brought back two girls then they either would not allow both up or they would charge you a joiners fee or charge you as if there were three people staying there. They do this partly because they have an image that they need to maintain. The majority of the customers who stay there will probably not be mongers and there are likely to be many families staying who will not like the idea of skanky ho's hanging around inside the lobby and outside the entrance to the lifts. So I don't think that these 4/5* hotels can be classed as freelancer central with ladies of night swarming all over the hotel - unless you are thinking of Nana hotel and that cockroach infested sleaze pit is hardly 5* or even 4*.

Many years ago in BKK there used to be nudity in all the bars in Nana, Patpong, etc and the bars/discos could open well past 2am. There was lots of naughtiness happening e.g. restaurants where girls would blow you under the table and some bars in Nana were like those in Soi 6 where customers could be blown publicly in the go go bar. Then came the crackdown a few years ago which banned nudity and fixed closing times at 2am for the go go bars. There have been some relaxation e.g. nudity being allowed in Soi Cowboy (because it is off the tourist path) but the closing times have remained rigidly in place for Soi Cowboy and Nana. Also none of the bars in Nana or Patpong have girls dancing nude openly. A few years ago the Pattaya go go bar scene was mushrooming in size and the authorities were happy for the naughtiness that used to be in BKK to move there because it was out of the way - 2 hours away - instead of openly happening in the capital. Nowadays Pattaya has become an extremely large city and thriving city by Thai standards - with condos, luxury hotels, shopping malls appearing all over the city. I can see a case of deja vu as with what happened in BKK. The authorities will first of all try to move the naughtiness out of the main entertainment street, Walking Street, to somewhere less high profile like Soi Buakhow. They may say that all bars in walking street can't have nude dancing and they may introduce early closing times e.g. 2am like BKK. The authorities have shown that if they want to put the shackles on then they can put them on and keep them on - like they have with BKK. They have had temporary crackdowns like they have had in Pattaya but if they wanted to they could make these crackdowns permanent. They can put restrictions on the naughtiness pretty quickly if big business demands it and I can see that the big business around the malls, condos, hotels, etc being likely to exert increasing pressure on the authorities. Of course I am not saying that one more "4 or 5 star hotel is going to destroy p4p in Patts" by itself however it is part of the general pattern - the same pattern which led to severe restrictions in BKK on P4P. You mention that there is a "thriving p4p scene in and around Sukhumvit and all those 5 star hotels are GF" but there is a difference between girls loitering around the streets, which the authorities have found difficult to stop in ANY city around the world, and girls dancing naked in bars which any member of the public can walk off the street into without paying an entrance fee. The latter would not be tolerated by the authorities in any other city in the world (e.g. it is not allowed in the Philippines) and is certainly something which the authorities can easily stop.