PattayaPete

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Incontestable: If anybody wonders about the crowd-pulling power of dance contests or special events in dens of the chrome pole, the period between Friday 27 April and Monday 30 April would be sufficient to dispel all doubt. Over the four-night period three ogling dens conducted contests worth quite a bit of prize money and all three places attracted large crowds. The first contest off the rank took place in the Taboo chrome pole palace (Soi 16, Covent Garden complex) and featured 26 dancers from Club Boesche (also Soi 16), Coyotee’s (Soi Marina Plaza), Highway Star (Beach Road),Living Dolls Showcase (Walking Street), Tahitian Queen II (Soi BJ), and Tigers Lounge (upstairs in Soi Diamond) as well as the home side. With 5,000 baht to the winner, 3,000 baht for second and 2,000 baht for third place, the contest proved close. One of the presumed drawbacks for inter-bar contests, be they of the dance, wet T-shirt, or even dwarf throwing variety, is the belief the host boozer ‘rigs’ the judging in such a way as to ensure a home-town victory. Having been involved with quite a few contests in a number of joints down through the years what’s most noticeable is the effort by the management of the host establishment to see a result that is as fair and equitable for all participants. My own experience has been that the winner is always the damsel genuinely favoured by the judges, whether she represents the home side or not. Occasionally, the composition of the finalists is fudged in such a way that visiting contestants are given priority: for example, if the points between two dancers are the same, the girl from the visiting den will be given the nod. The home side is always the toughest to beat, no matter whether we are talking about football matches, cricket or Fun Town dance contests. In Taboo the four judge’s scores after the first round showed a tight contest between seven or eight dancers. The eventual winner was Khun Fern from Taboo who outdanced Khun Nui from Club Boesche and Khun Koy from Coyotee’s. As regular readers will be aware I’m not a fan of the average ogling den DJ, as most seem to possess the between-the-ears capacity of a two-watt light bulb. Not so the guy in Taboo: he knows his craft, understood what the dancers in each team wanted to hear, and once he’d got the joint pumping he kept the momentum going. Nothing, musically at any rate, went on too long. The second special event was a sexy body dance contest in Coyotee’s on Sunday night with 10,000 baht in total prize money and featuring dancers from Bangkok as well as Diamond (Soi Diamond), The Sea (Soi Diamond), Taboo, and Tahitian Queen II. The dancing kicked into life around 11:00PM and the place was standing room only for most of the competition. One of my mates made the comment that he had never seen a bar as packed. As far as sexy bodies were concerned I would have hated the judging job because there wasn’t one dancer who didn’t rate highly in the physical attraction stakes. Although I didn’t stay until the end, I’m told a girl from Coyotee’s finished first ahead of a dancer from Diamond. Just like the Taboo and Coyotee’s contests that preceded it, the Miss Suntan/Black Widow contest held in Diamond on a wet Monday night also drew a large crowd. There were just 13 competitors who came from Angelwitch (Soi 15), Casino Club (Soi Diamond), Coyotee’s and What’s Up (Soi 15) as well as Diamond. This wasn’t a dance contest per se, rather a Miss Dark-Skinned Personality competition divided into three rounds. In the first the damsels came on stage and were each asked three tough questions: What’s your name? How old are you? What province do you come from? The hardest part for the girls was remembering what name they were using this week and what age they should be this year. The second round saw the damsels perform as dancers while the third and final round had the contestants whittled down to just five finalists and they were each asked a different question. For example: which brand of mobile phone do you own, today? Does it have a ring vibrator? And, do you like the vibrator? Another question asked what nationality a girl preferred, and the answer was “Finland”, the damsel suggesting they are good performers in the mattress dancing stakes, although the terminology she used was a word in common usage and rhyming with ‘duck’. As with the Taboo and Coyotee’s contests the judging was close and the winner of 5,000 baht first prize was Khun Dao from Angelwitch by one point from Khun Coco from What’s Up who collected 3,000 baht. The competition for the ogling den baht is more fierce now than at any time in Fun Town’s long history and dance contests and other special promotions and events are one way for many places to try and keep ahead of their competitors. Corporate Merger: The XXX, Baby Dolls and Club 69 ogling dens (Soi 15, off Walking Street) were sold in recent times to the people who also operate the successful Windmill and Tramps chrome pole palaces (Soi Diamond). The latter trio are now being run along the same lines as Windmill, although by the time you read this the XXX and Baby Dolls, which had already been turned into one den, should be closed for a complete refit. Club 69, which was closed during April for renovations, was due to re-open at the beginning of May. As a promotional tool, a VIP card offering a 10 percent discount on all bills above 200 baht, including lady drinks and bar fines, has been established for use in Windmill, Tramps, Club 69, and Baby Dolls. There is also a two-for-one libations offer on bottled amber fluid operational as well as a two-for-one for 95 baht house liver wasters promotion between 10:00PM and 3:00AM in all the dens except Tramps. An Afternoon Friendly: There are only a handful of ogling dens open from the early afternoon and one of them is Far East Rock (Soi Post Office). They play good music and the den has a friendly atmosphere with a small crew of dancing damsels, 11 on the afternoon I was last in. It would be ridiculous to expect the afternoon dancing brigade to be of the same standard as, say, the Coyotee’s or Peppermint chrome pole palaces, but there were two or three who wouldn’t have been out of place in many a Walking Street establishment while the remainder were a personable bunch. Worth a stop-off on a hot afternoon. Around and About: Denis the Menace, mine host of the OK Corral (Soi Rungland) was recently back in the Land of Unused Soap and ran into Laurie, one of Fun Town’s former well-known beer boozer operators who asked to send his best wishes to all his old mates back in Pattaya. Laurie used to have what is now the Wonderful II beer boozer (corner of Second Road and Soi 13) for some years before moving to Skaw Beach and then to the small soi behind the Tim ogling den. The Lennies beer boozer (Soi Diamond) opened a Bob’s BBQ Express in the joint on 1 April with food available from 7:00PM until 2:00AM. The happy hour in Lennies goes from 5:00-7:00PM and anyone purchasing an alcoholic drink between 6:00 and 8:00PM can have a free Taco; good for soaking up the booze. On Saturday night 19 May the Nagas Motorcycle Club will be opening their new boozer in Sri Racha. The party gets under way around 7:00PM and the boozer is formerly the Beretta bar, situated next the night market. All welcome. I’m told the Club Electric Blue Jnr table-dancing den (Soi Diamond) was sold a little while ago by the original management and has since been sold again. After a hold-up in putting the details on the website, the third edition of Pattaya By Night magazine is now available on-line at www.dcothai.com The magazine is also available in the best bookshops, but not Bookazine, where it is currently banned because it has pictures of females rather than males. The Dollhouse ogling den’s (Walking Street, behind the Muay Thai boxing ring) shower area seems to be very popular with the convention of amateur gynaecologists who live in Fun Town, and the damsels are quite content to offer a tactile (with soap) experience for a small red-coloured note as a token of customer appreciation. There’s also now a ‘play’ area in one of the back corners of the den where dancers throw beach balls around; for all I know there could be a collection of plastic building blocks and colouring-in pencils back there as well. On Wednesday afternoon 23 May the Boxing Roo beer boozer (Third Road, opposite Soi Lengkee) will be the place to be to watch the first State of Origin rugby league match. The Origin, an annual series of three matches between New South Wales and Queensland (Australian states for those whose geography is on a par with the average US or UK 10-year-old), are always close-fought tough encounters and a terrific introduction to the game of rugby league for sports lovers. The Boxing Roo is a perfect place to watch the games as the atmosphere is always good and the management have prize draws and bring in free pizza from Scoby’s next door. Piece of Pith: It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a bad example.

Fresh is Best: The management of the Dollhouse ogling den (Walking Street) celebrated the first anniversary of their takeover from the original owners on 21 April. The area behind the bar has been turned into three showers, luckily with hot water so the water nymphs don’t catch pneumonia in the air-conditioned boozer. It’s been suggested that any chrome pole molesters who have snared a bar-fine will take their shower before departing the den with their victim. Since cleanliness is next to Godliness we can be assured the girls can at least say one out of two ain’t bad. A Good Sunday Roast: Congratulations to Palmers noshery and boozer (Pattayaland Soi 2) who finished top of the recent Sunday night Quiz League. Maybe it has something to do with the Sunday roast dinners for which the place has been famous for some time; or is it the bromide in the tea, keeping the quizaholics at home studying English county towns instead of in the ogling dens studying cleavage and valleys? A Long Way from the Top: It’s always difficult to write about a place of which you have fond memories when it has clearly slipped quite a few rungs down the pecking order of chrome poles. Such is the case with the Carousel ogling den (Soi Diamond). For many years this was one of my favourite dens but a recent brief excursion into the joint left me disappointed. The den offers a generous happy hour with all libations at just 65 baht between 8:00 and 10:00PM. The music -except when Dutch Claude was managing some years ago- has always been a bit hit and miss and this was the case the other night. Sadly, the damsels were a very average lot: not butt ugly, just average. In the time we were in not a single one smiled, although one did move her mouth in the manner of a smile, but I think she had just swallowed a fried insect and it had gone down the wrong way. Since this was a Saturday night, when all the best dancers should be on deck, it was a motley collection. In fairness to Carousel, this was right at the start of Songkran and many of their best chrome pole cavorters may have gone home, so a second visit is probably in order sometime in the future. What’s Really in a Name: While wandering the mean streets of Fun Town I have encountered a poster proclaiming something like ‘DJ Domination the Best in Asia now playing at Lucifer’s’. The late-night boogie barn in Walking Street is one of the most popular places in Fun Town, but I somehow doubt the reason for its people-drawing allure is related to the house DJ, no matter what his name. OK, I admit to knowing very little about the world of persons who play records. Many appear to have all the allure of rock stars without the concomitant talent. I happened to come across the following less-than-flattering comment about this sadistically-named person in the Bangkok Post’s Guru Magazine. Somebody with the equally strange moniker of ‘The Lost Boy’ wrote, ‘DJ Domination was never really ‘in’ to be out’… Shunned by genuine sxratch DJs, such as Craze and QBert [now there’s a couple of household names], Domination has always been the least humble performer to grace the planet. Party tricks and body tomfoolery have given him a reputation of being a DJ-clown…’ I’m no fan of the journalist who wrote this, but I suspect in this case he might well be ‘on the money’ as my first thought when I saw the poster, which sported a picture of a man in the traditional skewed baseball cap with his hands balled into fists and giving the usual ‘I’ve-just-had-a-baseball-bat-shoved-up-my-rectum’ look, was DJ Domination should, if the comments are indeed true, rename himself DJ Abomination. The day the girls stop going into Lucifer’s is the day the boys also stop, and no matter who the DJ may be, he’ll be looking for another gig. Triumph of the Nomads: More than a few owners of ogling dens have noted that with the rapid increase in the numbers of chrome pole establishments the trend among the g-stringed damsels is to change places of employment far more regularly than was the case just a few years ago. The damsels are spoilt for choice and most are always thinking the other ogling den’s customer base is always larger. The consensus among owners is the average monthly attrition rate can be up to 20 to 25 percent of their dancers. Some bars have more, others less and sometimes a line-up will remain fairly stable for a few months. With so many dens from which to choose the damsels are like itinerant rug salesmen. This Gypsy-like nomadic existence is just one more example of the freedom enjoyed by the dancing damsels of Fun Town. This complete freedom of movement must really piss off the God-bothering do-gooders and hand-wringers who claim the poor impoverished farm girls of Issan are compelled to work like drudges for slave wages for grasping foreign pimps. Their whole argument falls apart faster than a Thai-made video recorder when the realisation sets in that the girls basically use any and all nightlife places merely as their base of operations. Any girl operating for longer than six consecutive months out of one den is almost eligible for long-service leave. It’s amazing just how many wallet emptiers couldn’t give a rat’s backside how much they make -if anything- as a salary. More than one bar owner has told me he’s had to nudge the odd high-earner to come and collect what little salary they might have earned the previous month. For the best lookers in town their only concern is to have a good time and snare as many punters as possible. Blame it on the Bosanova: As each year closes out and bar owners scratch their collective heads and wonder where all the punters have gone, a veritable raft of possible causes in the downturn in tourist numbers is wheeled out like some time-machined crystal ball. We’ve had a neat collection of acronyms: from HIV/AIDS to SARS and H5N1 or whatever the official avian flu virus is called; then there’s been the Asian Economic crisis of late 1997; the 2004 tsunami (it may not have affected Fun Town but there was a belief people would just stop coming to Thailand anyway); the increasingly violent insurgency in the Deep South; the military coup in September 2006; changes to company formation regarding property ownership for foreigners; and changes to visa regulations. All of these, and more, are cited as reasons why revelling numbers appear to be down, yet no one seems to be aware of the elephant in the room. In the space of less than half a decade the number of establishments catering to foreigners thirst for booze and females is not far away from double. I’ve noted previously how the number of chrome pole palaces on Walking Street has exploded from 15 or so in 2001 to just on 50 as this missive was being penned. That’s a whopping 233 percent as far as numbers are concerned. There’s no way tourist numbers to Pattaya have increased by anything like that number in the last five to six years. The reality is Thailand is no longer the great bargain-hunters paradise it once was as far as ladies of easy virtue are concerned. It wasn’t so many years ago that a short-time was an experience many punters had in the boozers of Soi 6 and the like. Most beer boozer damsels and many of the ogling den shufflers were happy if they managed to snare an all-night bunk-up. Now, the dynamic has shifted and it seems most business in the mattress-dancing stakes is being conducted on a short-time basis: more business-like, but with that inscrutable Asian smile to make you think it’s all been such a great pleasure. It also wasn’t so long ago that a female horizontal therapist would be happy to play hide-the-salami with a walking wallet for the price of a bar-fine and a purple note. From what I’m told, nowadays even the cleaner wants a grand for giving a tumescent customer the opportunity of exploring her most intimate regions. A recent email I received made mention of the rapid escalation in the price of female company in Fun Town and noted: “Last time I was in London walking around Soho the short time was 20GBP (1400B) Polish girls and local etc. A Soho short time is a quickee with the ‘have you come yet’ putting the damper on it for me but still Pattaya can no longer be considered cheap at todays prices. Amsterdam is a similar 50 Euros. Only difference is no kissing.” In a similar blue vein another emailer said he had been in a den of the chrome pole “where a girl said ‘2500 Baht, that only 50 pounds your money’. I reminded her I lived in Pattaya and only thought in Thai Baht, to which her reply was to walk off without another word.” With the wonders of email and internet chat rooms and dating websites, the clued-up damsels are making a fistful of baht without doing much more than tapping a keyboard and sending a few ‘I miss you too much’ and ‘love you forever’ notes along with the odd risque happy snap. They are living proof that we men are completely dominated by that lump of meat residing in a dark place between our legs. Piece of Pith: No one is listening until you fart.

You can fly direct Bangkok to Siam Reip with Bangkok Air.

Post-Songkran Party: The management of the Dollhouse ogling den (Walking Street) are busy making a few changes to their internal decor with the aim of making it a more interesting and customer friendly environment. As part of the low-key celebrations a Pattaya By Night magazine party will be held inside Dollhouse on Tuesday night 24 April. The den will play host to some of the best dancers from Club Boesche (Soi 16) and the nearby Living Dolls Showcase as well as their own collection of chrome pole huggers, and copies of the third issue of Pattaya By Night magazine, which, among other things, features dancing damsels from these three dens, will be on sale. There will also be a number of copies of the best-selling humorous book Porn Unplugged to be given away as prizes to customers. Got a Black Magic Woman? First it was regular in-house dance contests, then a tattoo show/contest and now it’s a Black Magic Woman contest. On Monday night 30 April, starting at around 9:30PM, the Diamond ogling den (Soi Diamond) will be hosting yet another innovative idea in the form of a contest featuring young ladies with dark skin. The average Thai girl from Issan happens to think she’s as black as a moonless night, but there are definitely shades of this dusky hue with many damsels hoping to lighten their colour by avoiding daylight hours and staying up until dawn carousing in karaokes and discos. Even so, there are some ladies who revel in the deep tan of their skin and it is these whom owner Khun Tee is hoping to gather together in competition. The in-house dance contest held on 6 April proved to be one of the most successful ever with a standing-room only crowd from about 11:00PM onwards. Towards the end of the contest there was a slight variation in the standard procedure of past events when three dancers from the Super Models ogling den strutted their stuff on stage. The eventual winner of the contest, Khun Oh, pocketed 5,000 baht, part of an overall 15,000 baht that went off in prize money. Now That’s an Oil Slick: The Living Dolls Showcase chrome pole palace (Walking Street) is renowned for its shows, starting from 9:30PM onwards. The physical quality of the damsels engaged in these shows is always top-shelf but there’s one piece that really highlights their prowess. Anyone who’s seen body-builders in competition would probably have seen how the liberal use of baby oil highlights the pecs and lats and other walnut-like lumps and bumps. In Showcase, the Captain Picard-directed dancers also employ liberal doses of baby oil in one routine, making them shimmer like the Exxon Valdez slick under the UV lighting. Considering how much of the stuff is splashed about I’m hoping to find out which company makes the oil and buy some shares in it. The End is Nigh: Those with a crystal ball might like to make a solid prediction, but those of us with a snout designed for sniffing out the news and listening to rumours think the night entertainment places of Soi 7 and Soi 8 may only have a very few years left, not much past 2009-2010. I’m told by a reasonable source no new contracts for beer boozers or dens of the chrome pole are being issued for Soi 8 and its surrounds. Strong rumours suggest the boffins at City Hall are determined to gut whatever nightlife exists between the north end of Beach Road and Walking Street and force it to be relocated to the area between Second and Third Roads. Anyone who has wandered along the beachfront in recent times can’t help but notice the change to the skyline. The demise of such places as the Noble House and Steak Bao nosheries (both near Soi 10) and their replacement with shops and upmarket accommodation are just two examples of this change. The rapid expansion of nightlife entertainment down Soi Buakhow over the last couple of years is also having a knock-on effect for the boozers on Sois 7 and 8 as more and more punters choose to spend their nights carousing in dens like Club Oasis (Soi Buakow), Champagne and Memories (Soi LK Metro), as well as Papagayo (Soi Diana). Two More to Add to the Score: It’s hard to believe, but yet another two chrome pole palaces have opened their doors, both on the ever-expanding Soi 15, off Walking Street. Called Rock Girls and Fun Room, both are operated by the same team who have Nui’s 2, Hot Girls and Pinky Girls on Walking Street. If you’ve spent time in any of the three aforementioned places then you know what to expect with this new pair. These new additions take the number of ogling dens to 76 in Fun Town, yet another record. Of these, Walking Street now boasts an incredible 51. Just how many will survive or really struggle through the looming low season is anyone’s guess. According to a recent news story, there are now 100 7-11 convenience stores in Pattaya. I think I can guarantee in a couple of years the 7-11 franchises will well and truly outstrip the number of chrome pole dens. Get Excited on the Web: The new-look Club Boesche ogling den (Soi 16) website is up and running with some interesting streaming video to whet the appetite. You can find it at: www.clubboesche.com Is that a Python in Your Pocket or are you just happy to see me? You have to hand it to the management at the Angelwitch shows-r-us den (Soi 15, off Walking Street). They seem to be always thinking up new styles of shows to attract punters through the doors and one of the latest and best involves a most unusual prop: a legless, slithery reptile. The very long python spends its time being manipulated like a length of Plasticine by dancers who clearly have no fear of the scaly creatures and so far the snake has maintained its decorum amidst all the hustle, bustle and noise one would associate with a show den. Not quite sure what monthly salary the python commands, though I expect field mice and other delectable rodents are part of the package. Angelwitch is one of the largest and deservedly one of the busiest in Fun Town with a large selection of friendly dancers and great show girls engaged in extremely well-choreographed performances. Happy in the Hour: Phil Bull, the editor of the well-known British racing form book Timeform, talking to the 1978 British Royal Commission on Gambling noted, ‘Gambling is clearly enjoyed as an entertainment and a relaxation, and one is entitled to take one’s entertainment in whatever form it pleases one, provided no one else suffers in the process. It is an arrogant impertinence for the socially fortunate, better educated, wealthier, more cultured members of society to look down on those less well endowed, think them unworthy on that account, and presume to tell them what they should or should not enjoy.’ I make note of the above because as Fun Town grows larger by the day and as the prices of property continue to curve ever upwards, I’ve noticed a trend as some of those who are ‘socially fortunate, better educated, wealthier’ start to make disparaging comments about those who are not in such positions, particularly with regards to money. There’s an insidious attitude creeping in that if you can’t afford, or refuse to pay, stupid prices for drinks in some chrome pole palaces and late night boogie barns and do your trawling for horizontal companionship among those damsels willing to still accept a single purple or grey note, then you ‘shouldn’t be here’. The egalitarian nature of Fun Town was, apart from the obvious charms of its all-too-willing females, a key element in its attractiveness. Of course bar owners want to make as much money from as many people as possible in as short a time as possible. That’s why they’re in business: to make a profit. A few go beyond the pale and start to gouge their customers, treating any complaints in this regard with an arrogance born of disdain. Some use that completely spurious and untenable refrain, ‘oh, in [insert name of expensive First World nation] you’d be paying [insert silly amount of money] for what you get here’, conveniently forgetting of course they don’t have to cough up for worker’s compensation insurance, superannuati on, overtime rates and the like. When their establishment starts to attract fewer customers and some former regulars look elsewhere for their pleasures these same owners look for any excuse to mask the fact their customers have woken up to their gouging game. Most seem to reserve their harshest comments for those places with happy hours, ridiculing the owners and claiming the customers for these dens are not the ‘type’ they want through their doors. In many cases the boot’s on the other foot: it’s the customers who aren’t interested in spending their hard-earned in a joint where the owner maintains higher-than-average prices for less-than-average entertainment. Piece of Pith: A foreign pessimist is a man who thinks all Pattaya beer-bar girls are inherently bad. A foreign optimist is a man who hopes they are. (Rae Lambert, artist and cartoonist)

There are public proxys available which would achieve this but they are generally very slow and they come and go very quickly. You may find one that works with google but it probably wont be fast enough to watch TV. Also the Thai authorities quite often block public proxies to stop people getting around their censorship. If you are really desperate you could rent some internet space on a UK provider and run your own proxy on it. I have an american server and I run a proxy on it enabling me to have a US ip address which can be useful sometimes. It is still considerably slower than a direct connection though. I am happy to recommend this guy. I have sent over a dozen people his way and they all report great service and competitive prices. I am not at home at the moment so I don't have their busines card and I never can remember the name but it is easy to find. Head up to Naklua via the Dolphin roundabout. Once you are in Naklua town, the shop is on the corner where the first traffic lights are. There is an electronics shop on each corner. The one you want is on the furtherest away corner. If you turn right at the lights it will be the shop on the left. Ask to speak with the boss and tell him Peter sent you. He'll give you a good deal. He seems to be able to get whatever you need even if he does not have it in stock. If you want to have a look at a unit first then the Central Department store at Chit Lom in Bangkok has a huge selection on display on the 6th floor. I often window shop there then get my Naklua man to order what I want for me.

I don't think there is a better solution for newsgroups than newsleacher and supersearch. It's all I use.

Making up some quick policy on the fly I decided to remove warnings that were more than 1 year old. That seems fair. Anyone accusing me of malfeasance will be subject to further warnings unless they send money or provide copious quantitys of beer.

We don't actually have a system in place to reduce warnings. Most people here behave so it is not much of an issue. I'll check out your respective warning levels and if its been a while and you promise to buy me a beer, I'll reduce them a little.

Just a word of warning. The OP asked me if he could post this and I said yes. He is not associated with the club. For reasons unknown to me some people do not like Eden / Hell Club. If you don't like it fine, feel free to post your reasons. DO NOT feel free to get abusive. Abusive posts from anyone will be deleted and the poster's warning level will be raised. Please note if you are on a 75% warning an increase in your warning level will result in you being banned from the forum.

members@pattayatalk.com is a working email address. We use it everyday for new members and it is working fine.

Martin (MM) is away at the moment. I don't see a problem with it though.

Dancing for Dollars: On Friday night 6 April the Diamond ogling den (Soi Diamond) will be holding its first in-house dance contest for some time. There are quite a number of new faces strutting their g-stringed stuff in the den so it should make for an interesting evening. The contest is scheduled to kick into life around 9:30PM. Then, on Saturday night 14 April the chrome pole palace will conduct its own pre-Songkran preview with a wet T-shirt dance contest, again set to jiggle into action about 9:30PM. Chest infections and pneumonia will be optional extras for the dancers. No Gambling on the Quality: The Casino Club late-night boogie barn (Soi Diamond) held its first in-house coyote dance contest on Tuesday night 20 March and the event proved a resounding success. A total of 31 dancers, divided into 10 teams, gyrated like marionettes in a hurricane in the hope of sharing in a massive 28,000 baht in prize money. The initial first prize was 3,000 baht but a few generous patrons kicked in a bundle of grey notes and the first place rocketed to a healthy 12,000 baht. The contest didn’t kick off until 11:30PM but within an hour or so Casino was practically full. What was impressive were the numbers of very attractive Thai females scattered throughout the audience and the majority of the coyote dancers were more than easy on the eye. For the judges the gap between the best and the worst dancer wasn’t much more than thigh-high bootstrap but in the finish it was a lady named Khun Golf who walked off with the 12 grey notes, knocking her rivals into the bunker with a nine-iron. All in Price War Lather: I have to confess to not being a great fan of the X-Zone ogling den (Soi 16, Covent Garden Complex). I think the place is far too big and square and lacks ambience. Perhaps it’s the stairs you have to negotiate prior to getting in the front door. They put you in a wary mood before you make it inside and the place is big enough to hide a Roman legion. That said, the management are trying to entice punters through the doors and their happy hour, from 8:00-10:00PM, is on par with the best in town. All libations, from draught and bottled amber nectar, house and top shelf liver wasters, Thai rotgut, and ly water, are just 50 baht during that two-hour time frame. X-Zone has become quite well known for its risque soapy party shows involving ladies of easy virtue getting into quite a lather with items of a cleansing nature and then exploring each others’ bodily cavities in the search for germs. The soapy parties begin at 9:00PM and for anyone who wants to get or keep the damsels in a free-spirited frame of mind all night, a bottle of Tequila costs 1,000 baht and is sure to be ingested faster than a horny octogenarian with a Viagra tablet. One Down, One New, One Sold: The Broadway ogling den (Soi BJ, off Walking Street) appears to have closed its doors. On a couple of recent forays in and around the small soi the place hasn’t shown any sign of life so I’m making the assumption it’s gone. No great loss. Sweethearts chrome pole palace (Walking Street) finally opened its doors to the paying public at the start of March. The former beer boozer turned ogling den turned late-night boogie barn turned back into a palace of the chrome pole has gone the table dancing route in this new incarnation. There’s a good happy hour between 8:00 and 10:00PM with draught amber, house liver wasters, Thai rotgut, and ly water at just 45 baht a glass. The music is quite good, at least it’s not the standard car alarm of so many other places although I wondered how hard it was for the table shufflers to jiggle to the strains of Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’. At this stage the place is struggling to attract enough table tappers, but with Khun Satit at the helm it shouldn’t be too long before a few more recruits are added to the stable. Around in Soi 15 the newly-opened Club 69 ogling den has been sold into the same interests who run the successful Windmill gash-gobbling palace (Soi Diamond). There are still plenty of changes expected to be made to the layout of the den but the same style of interactive fun, the very reason for the success of Windmill, is already being instituted in Club 69. Come to Paradise: East Pattaya, that’s all those expansive hectares on the ‘other’ side of Sukhumvit highway, has always had a smattering of daytime and early evening boozers offering horizontal therapy sessions for the weary golf tragic, but as the area continues to expand it’s noticeable the numbers of dens combining alcoholic refreshment and female friendship are also on the rise. One of the most recent to set out the bar stools is the less-than-imaginatively named Paradise boozer. Situated on the left-hand side of Soi Watboon, off Sukhumvit highway and down past the Mike Orchid Village, I’m told Paradise is being run by the former mamasan of the popular Dao boozer in Soi Ngern Plub Wan. An Open Secret: Leaping Larry is now officially the daytime manager at the Secrets lounge lizard libation room (Soi 14, off Walking Street). The genial American, also known as ‘Soi 7’, also does the occasional evening of meeting and greeting. The members of the Secrets web board/forum/blog/gabfest, or whatever these things are, meet every Sunday evening at around 6:00PM in the bar at Secrets and set the world to rights. There’s usually a bit of free nosh to line the empty stomachs. Non-members are welcome. Ready to Bend Over? With the continuing steady growth of pink palaces in the Pattayaland Soi 1 and 2 area, one wag commented that the Cheers no-hostesses-in-here boozer, which celebrated 18 years of operations at the tail end of 2006, might soon have to re-name itself Queers. Maybe Welsh Colin might be able to persuade his partner American Stan to compromise and call the place Llarreggub in honour of Dylan Thomas, the famous Welsh poet and alcoholic, who set much of his radio play Under Milk Wood in this fictional seaside town. A Reconstructed Virgin: The convoluted thinking processes of some of the walking wallets who take dancing damsels out of dens and into the comfort of their own boudoirs never ceases to amaze and amuse. One prominent ogling den owner told me of a self-deluded tourist who had been complaining because his lady’s photo happened to be on the bar’s website. “She’s not a whore, but she’s my bitch,” he allegedly told the bemused bar owner. Yep, and I’m a handsome, sexy, young man and the girls don’t want my money. Now for the Third: The third issue of the glossy magazine Pattaya By Night should be on the shelves by the time this column hits the streets. This issue continues the traditions of the first two but will be bigger (up to 56 from 52 pages) and more broad-based than ever, with no less than 15 of the best ogling dens and night entertainment venues providing photographic eye candy for the lens of ‘Hopalong’ Dave, the shutterbug and partner- with your humble correspondent-, in the production of the publication. There are dance contests, anniversary parties and just simple photo shoots from Angelwitch, Casino Club, Catz, Club Boesche, Club Oasis, Diamond, Dollhouse, Heaven Above, Living Dolls Showcase, New Living Dolls 1, Secrets, Super Baby, Super Girl, What’s Up, and Windmill Club. The price remains the same, 150 baht, and the magazine will be available from the internet at www.dcothai.com as well as bookshops such as DK, Soi Post Office, DK, Central Pattaya Road, Pattaya Beach Books (second floor of Tops Supermarket, and Soi Buakhow), Foodmart in Jomtien and around 40 other outlets as well as the participating bars themselves. Piece of Pith: Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.

Gardening Uphill: The Pattayaland Soi 2 area continues to undergo a series of changes and can now probably be termed just as ‘gender-confused’ as its cousin Pattayaland Soi 1 with two former chrome pole palaces seeking solace in the rainbow baht. The Crystals ogling den has been bent over and converted into a pink palace by the Top Class Entertainment management; probably a wise move considering the place has been going downhill faster than an Everest avalanche in recent times. It began life as Bubbles, back in about 1998 if my addled memory serves me correctly, and for some time could lay claim to being one of the best dens of the chrome pole in Fun Town. By the time the cosmetic surgery of a name change was made a few years ago it had long since slipped down the ratings. Across the way, in the small laneway linking Pattayaland Soi 1 with Soi 2, a swish-looking joint called Vassa (short for Vaseline perhaps?) has just opened its doors on what used to be the site of your typical beer boozer. The demise of Crystals reduces the number of distaff chrome pole palaces run by Top Class to just two: All Girls and Rodeo Girls. The former Jupiter’s (formerly Planet Rock) also turned the other cheek and became Wild West Boys a few months back. Perhaps the reduction to two dens is going to prove a strategically smart move because Rodeo Girls, when I wandered in late on a Sunday evening recently, could probably lay claim to being the best ogling den in the soi and, with a few tweaks at the edges, could easily be ranked among the best away from Walking Street. Let me point out the things I think are wrong: the music is truly awful. In the time I spent in the den the only aural stimulation emanating from the speakers was rap. Not hip hop, nor techno, house, or trance, but rap; and it was of the kind that begs to be upgraded into a four-letter word: crap. The lady drinks, a glass of cola, are 150 baht, thereby making them the most expensive libation in a bog-standard ogling den in Pattaya. At least management have had the good grace to put up prominent notices indicating the price. Now for the good points: the dancing damsels were all, bar a couple, worthy of donning the g-string and high-heel stompers. They were, in the main, young, slim, and attractive and attempted to gain eye contact and smile at the customers. The place wasn’t busy, with only four or five customers when I went in, but every one of them had one or two attentive wallet-emptiers by his side and they seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. Rodeo Girls has had an extensive refit and now boasts long two-tiered bench seating on the left-hand side as you go in and there are five girls dancing at any one time. Worth a look if you can handle ©rap music. Super Lot That: Naming your den, or dens, ‘Super’ you would think could easily be a recipe for ridicule, especially as the expectation of the average customer wandering through the portals might be subliminally geared to seeing ‘super’ bodies and faces. Thankfully, in the case of the Super Baby and Super Girl ogling dens (Soi Diamond), the tag ‘super’ is not misplaced. Khun Pradid, the very amiable but nonetheless sharp-eyed entrepreneur who has owned and run both joints for many years, pays especial attention to his super ‘Baby’. I don’t know if he sticks them on the scales or has a special height-to-weight formula but the cast of chrome pole huggers in this particular den almost always look to be fashioned from a similar mould: young and lean. It’s rare to find a damsel whose looks would ‘take your breath away’, but equally, it’s rare to find one about whom you could be overly critical. This consistency is one of the reasons both Super Baby and Super Girl are always well patronised, especially by the north Asian crowd as well as a dedicated expat clientele. Release the Devil Inside: The Hell Club (Soi LK Metro, off Soi Buakhow), the clone of the well-known Eden Club in Bangkok, should probably be called orgasm heaven for those with eclectic physical tastes in the mattress dancing department. For an hour and a half, a customer with the tooled-up energy of a latter-day Casanova, or the rock-hard power provided by the Pfizer Corporation and its little blue pills, can entertain or be entertained by, a couple of the most willing mattress actresses this side of a nymphomaniacs convention. The ‘menu’ is as extensive and wide-ranging as the Maquis de Sade’s imagination and covers most of the horizontal activities portrayed in such celluloid skin-flick classics as Hung Like a Donkey, Hee Haw, Hee Haw; Philippa Fondles Fifteen Farmers or Lesbos Lisbeth Licks More Lips. If you are into restraining bracelets -either worn by you or the girls- or you fancy nurses uniforms (although when I asked if they had one to fit me the management seemed to find this amusing) or you would like to have a firecracker inserted in your clacker while a birthday-suited damsel blows smoke rings through a penny-whistle and her partner sings ‘Come As You Are’ in Mongolian while dressed as a yak-herder, then the Hell Club is the place to go. Changed and Different: The Super Models ogling den (Soi Diamond) has been sold and a new manager, from Bangkok, has taken up the reins. From what I understand he has the right kinds of connections to help him in this tough task and my spies claim the den has taken a leap forward in recent weeks. The management of New Living Dolls 1 (Walking Street) are always looking to improve their ‘product’ and to this end recently installed the almost-ubiquitous Jacuzzi and, more innovatively, they have coyote dancers who are all attired in the same fashion as the day they entered the world. A sign has finally been erected outside the defunct The Roof (Walking Street) proclaiming the imminent opening of the Sweethearts ogling den. A new manager in the Club Electric Blue Jnr chrome pole palace (Soi Diamond) I’m told is starting to bring a few more customers into the joint. Heaven Above (Soi Diamond) are back to promoting their happy hour with nicely printed free drink vouchers offering draught amber, house liver wasters and Thai rotgut from 8:00PM until 9:30PM. The showgirls, as with most dens nowadays, don’t make an ‘entrance’ until a few minutes before their first shows get under way a little before 10:00 PM. The current crop of showgirls is a mix of some long-term faces and a few tasty new recruits. Around in Soi 15 the Venus lounge lizard libation room has closed its doors after failing to attract enough customers to keep the shutters up. The former Camel Club was taken over by new management last year and played good music but lacked the numbers and quality of damsels to keep if afloat. Although the Stringfellows all-cock-and-no-pussy den (Soi Yamato) is the only dancing palace for boys who would be girls, in adjoining Soi Post Office the Far East Rock ogling den could easily be re-named Far East Cock after 7:00PM judging by the ‘girls’ with deep voices who sit outside trying to entice customers into the den. Yet, during the afternoon, it is very much a distaff dancing den. The Club Oasis ogling den (Soi Buakhow) continues to pack the punters in most nights from its early opening at 7:00PM and I’m led to believe the management are planning to reduce some of their drinks prices as low season approaches in order to keep their customers satisfied. Foaming at More Than the Mouth: Even a deaf, dumb, and blind person would soon realise many of the cavorting damsels in the What’s Up ogling den (Soi 15) really enjoy the company of their fellow chrome pole molesters and soap suds appliers. The den is deservedly busy most nights with the large bathtub proving a major attraction for the amateur gynaecologist crowd and persons obsessively concerned with cleanliness. Any punter who takes a damsel out for an organ recital can be pretty sure every orifice has been cleaned and polished to the point of squeakiness. For many of the girls the island of Lesbos would be viewed as their spiritual home. Show Us Your Tatts: The Diamond ogling den (Soi Diamond) will be having a Sexy Tattoo Show contest for Saturday 24 March, starting around 11:00PM. Outside will be a tattoo artist who will be offering to stick needles in tender skin at a 50 percent discount. This will be the first show/contest of its kind in Fun Town and the den should be full of damsels for whom a tattoo needle is just a small prick on the way to a fashion statement. Note the Parallels: The following is a note written by a G. Thomas in November 1936: ‘Shanghai is a large modern city, notable mainly for the mad whirl in which it lives and its amazingly cosmopolitan population. It is a world unto itself. Many of the foreigners here seem to have lost their home ties. On the other hand they know less about China and the Chinese than the person who stays home and reads about it.’ Substitute the word ‘Pattaya’ for ‘Shanghai’ and ‘Thailand’ and the ‘Thais’ for China and the Chinese and I think it would not be an unfair comparison, albeit 70 years later. Piece of Pith: Age doesn’t always bring wisdom. Sometimes it comes alone.

Once More into the Breech: From a beer boozer to an ogling den to a late-night boogie barn and back again to an ogling den. to a late-night boogie barn and back again to an ogling den. That’s the potted history of what should be Walking Street’s umpteen-somethingth palace of the chrome pole, Sweetheart’s, which was due to open around the middle of February, but which looks more like it will open towards the middle of March instead. The den is on the site of the failed The Roof late-night boogie barn, which itself was formerly known as the Highway Star ogling den. Khun Satit, who’s been around the fleshpots of Fun Town for more years than even he would probably care to admit, will be making the move from the present Highway Star (Beach Road, above the Siren bar complex) to the newly refurbished Sweetheart’s. Further away, in the wilds of Jomtien, a second den of the chrome pole, called the YU? Club opened its doors in late January on Thappraya Road, opposite the Jomtien Complex. These two new dens will take the numbers of chrome pole palaces to cricket-score levels, and yet wherever I go the whispers of impending closures and desperate days for any amount of dens become louder and louder. The general line of these rumours follows the time-honoured standard of: “wait until low season really starts to bite.” It doesn’t take a degree in applied mathematics to work out that with Fun Town doubling the number of chrome pole palaces in the space of about five years requires a concomitant doubling of the type of punter needed to fill the seats in these dens if they are all to continue to be profitable. The vast majority are making a profit, despite the doom and gloom prophecies, it’s just that some owners suddenly realise the hours they spend to soak up a smaller slice of the ogling den pie really aren’t worth the effort. What’s on Special: The Lennies beer boozer (Soi Diamond) has joined the gradual increase in the popularity of the so-called ‘coyote’ style of dancing den by installing three podiums for ladies who jiggle to strut their stuff. Happy hour extends from 7:00 until 9:00PM every night with, for example, bottled Singha at 75 baht and Chang at 60 baht. Further down the soi, the Tiger Club ogling den has its happy hour as a two-for-one offer for house liver wasters and Thai rotgut at 110 baht. For the mathematically-challenged, that’s 55 baht a drink. The non-happy hour price for these libations is 95 baht each. The much maligned- at least in its early days- Roxy chrome pole show palace (Walking Street) has quite a long happy hour running from 8:30 until 10:30PM with all standard thirst-quenchers at just 65 baht. Lady drinks are 110 baht and the so-called non-stop erotic shows commence at 9:30PM and continue until 1:30AM. My spies tell me the shows are well choreographed and the den has lifted itself above the ordinary. Others say the place is hanging on by the thread of a g-string. An Early Nipple: While most of Pattaya’s now 75 dens of the chrome pole open their doors for ogling business around 8:00PM, there are quite a few who turn on the strobe lights and crank up the speakers from the early afternoon. These include Club Nevada, Far East Rock, and Hot & Cold in Soi Post Office and Tahitian Queen on Beach Road. A few others kick off not long after sundown, with Club Oasis (corner of Soi Buakhow and Soi Chaiyapoom) unlocking the front doors at 7:00PM, while Champion and The Dollhouse (both on Walking Street) launching into life at 7:30PM. With competition for a finite base of flesh fanciers and even greater struggles with attracting sufficient ladies of easy virtue who are prepared to don the g-string and fondle a chrome pole, many bar owners are willing to try new ways of enticing either through their portals. Tickle Me with a Feather: Funny how rumours and unsubstantiated gossip spreads like wildfire through the boozers of Fun Town, very often propelled into cyberspace by the multitude of web forums and blogs. I’m amazed at the number of emails I receive from people here and overseas asking about the truth, or otherwise, of a variety of rumours. In most cases I’m not completely privy to the facts, even if I know the people being referred to. Therefore, my standard response has been to simply note my own experiences and that of others in the boozer under question. In the vast majority of cases the rumour mill gets it partially right, but substantially wrong. The preamble above was brought about by persistent rumours of the impending sale, closure, financial failure of the Catz ogling den in Soi 16, Covent Garden Complex. I have no idea of the behind-the-scenes activities in Catz, so judging on simple observation alone I would say the rumours are wide of the mark. It may be true that a couple of months ago the den was short of delectable dancing maidens, but on my most recent visit the place had a good crowd in and there were a number of chrome pole molesters who made quite decent eye candy. I saw one show involving a brace of dancers almost dressed in maid’s outfits and armed with a number of feather dusters. I can only say if these damsels should ever wish to seek employment in domestic service, I would imagine the queue for the employers would stretch around the block. Cannot be Stuffed: My apologies to all those readers who may have taken up my suggestion to try the enchiladas at the Sunset Cantina Mexican beans-means-farts noshery (Soi BJ, off Walking Street). A friend went in one evening and was told they didn’t have a key ingredient to make the enchilada and when we returned just a couple of nights later the story was the same. No wonder the place was empty and it’s now on my not-to-be-bothered-with-again list. None So Blind: Are you sending a monthly stipend to the girl who is the subject of your nocturnal emissions? Are you deluded into thinking she’s staying faithful, and not moonlighting in a den of the chrome pole, or a beer boozer? Anyone reading this who happens to be sending any amount of money to a girl they originally found earning her living as a horizontal sounding board and who thinks she is remaining faithful while you are no longer in the country is being completely delusional, in about 98 percent of cases. In Fun Town you get a whole relationship in 24-hours, or less. This leads to feelings of mutual warmth: yours in the heart, hers in the purse. And I know what you’re thinking: your special girl, the one who was only in the bar against her will -was only there to help the cashier (a family friend); had only arrived in Pattaya eight minutes and forty-three seconds before you rode in astride your shining white charger- she is patiently waiting your return. This is the same girl who, so you’ve been telling all who’ll listen, wakes you up with her laughing gear wrapped lovingly around your middle stump; has a wonderful way with plastic phallic-shaped toys; whose wardrobe is so skimpy you’ll fear she’d freeze to death if the temperature ever dipped below 25 Celsius; and was the proud owner of the latest Nokia 374MHz mobile phone with built-in 3.4 zillion Mega Pixel camera and audio system, which she purchased brand new for the equivalent of half the GNP of a small Pacific island nation, when you first met. But, she’s different I hear you say. What amazes me most in these times of nightlife columns (such as this), web forums, and chat rooms, are the incredible number of men out there whose over-inflated testicles have truly addled their thinking processes to the extent they are prepared to shell out substantial sums on a regular basis to women many have only known for not much longer than a short time. This is while they are back home working their butts off and don’t expect to be back in the Land of Stretched Truth for four, five, six months or more. The most pathetic case I’ve ever personally come across was the English guy who was sending an over-30-year-old Thai woman an average of 15,000 baht per week, and he admitted he had never managed to run the slim length of his natural slide rule over the more intimate parts of her anatomy. One interesting situation we’ve found when wandering about some chrome pole palaces to take happy snaps for Pattaya By Night, are the number of ladies of questionable virtue who don’t want their photo taken. This is not because of false modesty but very often, as many bar owners readily admit, the damsel not only has a Thai boyfriend but also one or more foreign puppets on an ATM string. The foreigners are all under the impression she is staying at home knitting tea cosies, learning the fine art of origami, or going to bed early with a cup of hot cocoa. Of course this is not to say there aren’t girls who gladly give up molesting a chrome pole for the surety of a monthly stipend, but I can assure you these are the exceptions that prove the rule. Piece of Pith: What’s wrong with this statement: “I met her in a gay bar in Udon Thani”? It may sound like the opening refrain of a bad country music record, but it’s actually a true statement uttered by a man of North American extraction to me one late night in a Pattaya ogling den.

Not quite true MM. You can force everyone to log in again by changing the name of the cookie the board uses. It's a parameter in General Settings. I've just done it which should clean things up.

Nissan Teana, Toyota Camry, Honda Accord 1.2 to 1.6 million depending on options. Volvo S80 2.8 million. BMW 5 serries 3.9 million. Benz C Class 4 million - 6 million. The motoring supplement in Friday's Bangkok post is a good source of info.

As far as I know it has not been announced yet. With the PS2 it was 18 months after the American release. I don't think the Thai market is a priority.

The PS3 has not been released in Thailand yet by Sony. The ones on sale are all grey market imports and are grossly overpriced.

Avatar appears beside each post you make like the penguin to the left of this post. Personal pic is supposed to be a pic of yourself which appears in your personal profile. Most people here are to ugly to include a personal pic, including me

Dance the Heart Away: On Valentine’s Day, the Coyotee’s ogling den (Soi Marina Plaza) will be holding a dance contest, with the action getting underway around 11:00PM. That gives the romantic among you time to take your main squeeze out for a slap-up feed at the local som dtam cart, plie her with a couple of bottles of red cordial, reel off a few romantic endearments and promise her a trip to the gold shop sometime in the next decade before scooting off to watch the running of flesh in Coyotee’s. Still Running Strong: I mentioned in a previous column the demise of the Hot & Cold II ogling den in Soi Yamato. It’s elder sibling, just around the corner in Soi Post Office, sited right next door to the long-running The Londoner beer boozer, continues to do what it’s young clone couldn’t, and that’s draw enough customers to keep it viable. The den opens in the afternoon and does a steady trade until around 10:00PM when it comes time for the nightly shows. They do some of those tired old shows involving birthday-suited damsels producing lengths of coloured string in one act and, hold on to your testicles, razor blades in another, as well as the stock standard firing darts at defenceless balloons without the aid of a regulation blowpipe. The tongue-me-lots part of the series of shows involves the employment of Heineken bottles in a way their manufacturer never intended, as well as the usual Ballet of the Darting Tongues. The music is OK, libation prices are very reasonable, there are plenty of cavorting damsels and sometimes they manage to have a couple who aren’t too bad on the optic nerve, making Hot & Cold at least worthy of the occasional visit if you happen to be in the neighbourhood. Well On Top: Mention of The Londoner beer boozer (Soi Post Office) reminds me to make note of the fact their Sunday and Wednesday night quiz league teams are doing very well and are now recognised as among the toughest to beat in the two competitions. At the time of writing, however, it is the long-established Palmers boozer and noshery (Pattayaland Soi 2) currently holding down number one position on both tables. World’s Away: The World Wide ogling den Beach Road, between Soi 7 and 8 continues to keep ticking over in good style. Wandered in on a Sunday evening recently and the place was well patronised and as I made a quick inspection of the g-stringed chorus line of eight girls on stage I noted every one of them was slim and well-proportioned. The only downside was the usual candle-wax shows performed by a pair of females who probably double as the cleaner and the bouncer. Libations are extremely reasonable with bottled amber at 60 baht and liver wasters just 85 baht. World Wide probably ranks among the better quality off-Walking Street dens in Fun Town at present and is well worth a visit. In at the Deep End: The Blue Lagoon II ogling den, located at the back of the Best Friend beer boozer complex on Beach Road, finally opened its doors a few days later than rumour said it would, in late January. The place looks pretty stock standard: a central stage with chrome poles, seating on stools at the sides of the said stage with bench seating around the walls. There looked to be about 15 to 20 ladies of the shuffle either being held up by the aforementioned chrome poles or scattered about the room. Nothing especially stands out about the place, although the barkers on the street have signs proclaiming ‘60 sexy dancers’. Must have been written after a hard night on the tiles when seeing double or even triple is not uncommon. Also finally opening in late January after threatening to do so for nearly three months previously was Club 69 in Soi 15. It’s on the site of the original Nui’s (now since long relocated and rebadged as Nui’s 2 on Walking Street), but is twice the width of it’s similarly-designed and owned dens XXX and Baby Dolls. If it’s Thursday it Must be Legless Night: The FLB lounge lizard libation room (Walking Street) has a regular Thursday evening ogling den crawl that involves members going to six chrome pole palaces during an evening of alcoholic indulgence where the management of the aforementioned favoured places offer a two drinks for the price of one special. Perhaps it’s no surprise there are plenty of starters for this carousel who meet at FLB and then sally forth into the depths of the night with the avowed aim of testing their liver. A Sadistic Streak: The non-stop Jacuzzi shows, in which audience participation is almost demanded, in the What’s Up ogling den (Soi 15) are very popular and the management recently installed what I can only describe as a ‘masochists r us’ stage to the left of the entrance. On this raised platform there are usually two young ladies whose wardrobe can only be described as less than minimal and one of whom is generally armed with a soft-rubber tube that she uses quite liberally to flagellate her dancing sister. Over in the far corner to the right of the entrance there are usually a number of damsels engaging in similar activities with their brethren. If this weren’t a Buddhist country and the owners Thai, you’d swear the Catholic church or a defrocked priest had a hand in this place. Bucking the Trend: As I reported in the last edition, the New Living Dolls 1 ogling den (Walking Street) reduced its standard bar fine for chrome pole huggers to just 400 baht and eve n the show girls are now just 600 baht. After 2:00 am, the bar fine for any damsel still decked out in something akin to a g-string drops again to just a pittance at 200 baht. Apparently this move in the opposite direction to that being taken by most other places, i.e. reducing prices while most of the rest are increasing theirs, has been met with derision in some quarters. I don’t know what effect it’s had on the bottom line of the den, but I do know that when I’ve been into the place in recent times it’s been busy and the general atmosphere very positive. Nuisance Value: There are currently two things not exactly connected with the nightlife scene but which nonetheless impinge on the movement of people who may be heading in the direction of a house of alcoholic refreshment that are annoying me, and a lot of others I speak with. The first is the gauntlet of Indian tailors stretched from the beginning of the Best Friend beer booze complex on Beach Road to the corners of Pattayaland Soi 2. Dressed neatly in shirt and trousers they line the pavement with a folder of colour fashion photos in hand they flash like a dirty postcard salesman at passers-by. The worst aspect of these guys is their pathetic attempt at trying to work out where a prospective mark has come from. Most seem to think I’m from England so they approach me with hand out-stretched saying, “Awright geezer? Do ya a nice suit, only 20 quid.” I have never heard even the most illiterate Englishman open a sentence to a fellow Pom with the words, “Awright geezer.” Considering I’m usually attired in a fashionable pair of shorts, classy slip-ons and an upmarket t-shirt you’d think these guys would at least be able to figure out I’m not in the market for a suit. The second, and perhaps even greater, annoyance are the sundry males and females who infest the entire area along Beach Road from Mike Shopping Mall and down into Walking Street and along parts of Second Road from the early afternoon until the early evening, armed with a clipboard and purporting to do a holiday ‘survey’. “Excuse me, sir, where you come from?” or “You can help me please?” is their opening line. They receive 20 baht for each survey form they submit, but about the only surveying being done is the potential to relieve you of a chunk of the folding stuff when you attend a lengthy presentation highlighting the value of purchasing time share apartments. Funny, how every time I tell the person asking me to help with the survey I live in Fun Town they go cold on the idea of me answering the survey questions. Piece of Pith: ‘Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.’ (Ogden Nash)

Papillon I still take issue with you over the MP3s Might have to have a beer with you while listening to my system and prove I can tell the difference. As Hippie says some people are more atuned to it than others. I worked with audio for many years including recording bands in a recording studio. When you strive for the best sound anything that falls short can really grate. One of the things I hate about Thailand is that Thai's seem to equate LOUD with good. I've seen many systems that were probably OK, wound up to such high levels that distortion is inevitable. I think the Thai rule for setting volume is turn it up until you just start to hear distortion and then wind it up another 25%. Ouch! I loved the photos of your system. Reminded me of a few I have had over the years. What I have now looks pretty good from the front but the back still looks like yours. I had Ipstar a few years ago now, before DSL was available in Pattaya. It was marginally better than dial up most of the time but it was always unreliable. Some days the speed was OK up to about 200k while other days it would struggle along at less than 10k. There are a lot of users up-country in Thailand and a lot of them complain regularly on thaivisa.com. Check out their internet forum for some more recent feedback. As for your 1 Mbb link

I hate the way Thai is transcribed into English. There really are no rules but about 100 years ago some idiot laid out some general principles which lead to true idiocy. Pattaya for example is often transcribed as Phattaya. You will see that on some official signs. When I do it I try to make the english sound as close as possible to the Thai. In the case of Soi Buakhao I'd write it as Soi Boo Cow. Whatever

Don't get hung up on clock speed Dan. It is basically irrelevant now. My core 2 will do 4 instructions per clock cycle vs 1 or 2 on a single core machine. That means your single core would have to be running at four times the clock speed to keep up with my dual core. It would probably catch fire at that speed. I most certainly could tell the difference on my system. Depending on the sample rate of the MP3 the difference is easily noticeable. At 128 k (which is what most people encode at) the dynamics of any recording are lost. It is more difficult to tell at 320k. If the source material is of poor quality or an old recording then the difference is subtle. It is still noticeable with good source material though. At 320k an MP3 is virtually the same size as a lossless file so there is little point in using a lossy codec at that bandwidth. I've found vga inputs to be less than optimal on my plasma. I can't say what it is but the pic just does not look right. I prefer to use component which my video card supports or a DVI to HDMI cable. I have tried both and the DVI to HDMI is the best but because it introduces a few other problems I am sticking with component for now. Computer video cards with HDMI output are starting to appear and if you have a TV with HDMI input then HDMI will be the best answer in the future. If you have 10 meg connections now I think you will find Ipstar a little disappointing. I had it for a while and it is terribly slow regardless of what their advertising says. Definitely a last resort. The Philippines generally has a good internet infrastructure (better than Thailand) but Samar is certainly remote. I'd be interested to hear how you get on there is your do make it your home.

It sounds like the Sabai Hotel formerly known as The Weekender, opposite Soi 4 on Second Rd in North Pattaya. Some details here Sabai Hotel