Nightmarch

[PattayaPete 530]

Time Gentlemen, Please: Look what happens when I go away. I’ve just spent the last few weeks down in the Land of Oz and what do I come back to: early closing. For Australians of a certain age it would probably remind them of the days of the infamous six o’clock swill.

 

To explain, there was a time (in the dim Dark Ages around 1946) when the government of Australia determined that all boozers had to close their doors at 6:00PM in order to preserve the moral fabric of society. So what happened, naturally, was that an illicit and illegal trade grew up and so-called sly grog shops proliferated. In other words, normally respectable, law-abiding citizens were quite prepared to break the law in the pursuit of a convivial libation or six after the boozers closed.

 

Eventually the government woke up to reality and now there are places where it’s possible to drink alcohol 24-hours a day, seven days a week. Yet here in thirsty Fun Town the persons in charge of communal sobriety have determined that adults, most of whom have the vote in their own countries, should not be allowed to indulge in tossing back a few glasses or bottles of intoxicating liquid beyond 1:00AM. This brings Pattaya into line with the fleshpots of the City of Angels. Of course it may just be a case of the ‘new broom sweeping clean’ and the pre-October status quo will soon return. If the aim of early closing is to reduce the incidence of Thai females offering their sexual favours to foreign men (or women as the case may be) then it is a dismal failure. The damsels of the demimonde simply start hanging around street corners and som dtam carts asking the age-old question: “lookin’ for a bit of business, love?”, or words to that effect.

 

Top of the Guinness Charts: If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs’ It’s taken me a long time to realise Kipling’s famous line from his poem ‘If’ was referring to a pint of Guinness. I was put in mind of it the other night when I wandered into the fairly new Maggie May workingman’s alehouse and sports emporium (Soi Chaiyapoon). The Liverpudlian owner flogs his Guinness off at 150 baht a pint and as a friend remarked, noticing the strong head on an already half empty glass, “that’s how you can tell a good Guinness.”

 

Maggie May stands out like a nun with a bad habit; you walk through the front door and feel as if you’ve been transported back to a north England boozer, all framed prints, wood panelling and talk of stolid English batsmen and Fred Trueman (‘aye, nowt there were a fast bowler, lad’). As far as I can tell, the owner has resisted the temptation to have photographs of Rod Stewart anywhere in his establishment. A man of good taste.

 

And the Record is? So which beer boozer in Pattaya can lay claim to being the longest in operation at the same location and under the same ownership? Tommy’s boozer (a member of the Wednesday night quiz) has been at the one place on Third Road (near the Fire Station) for 13 years. How long have Colin and Stan of Cheers boozer been watching the passing parade on Pattayaland Soi 2? Abbe’s (Walking Street), Flintstone and Coral Reef in Soi 8, Poppy on the corner of Soi 7 and Beach Road, Five Star on Beach Road and Scandinavia, also on Beach Road, may also be able to claim longevity, although I’m not sure each place has been owned by the same individuals.

 

One man I know believes the Vicki beer boozer in Soi 8 may well have all the above beaten: he thinks it’s been in the same spot under the same owner since the late 1980s. I’d be interested to know what other bars have been run by the same connections and in the same location for 10 years or longer.

 

Delusions of Ganja: Psst…you want to get hold of some sweet Mary Jane? After a little horse? Just between you, me and the gatepost I think Fearless Leader’s War on (Illicit) Drugs might not have been quite as successful as he led us to believe. There I was, minding my own business as I strolled down the Beach Road promenade, when a whispered voice from the shadows asked the question, “Marijuana?” Just because I look like a person with a serious drug habit does not mean I actually have one, yet I am forever being whispered at from behind palm fronds and assorted foliage and always it is the same refrain: “Marijuana?”

 

Occasionally I am flatteringly upgraded to, “Marijuana, Cocaine, Heroin?” Perhaps our little volunteering types could spend part of their undercover time weeding out the illegal drug peddlers instead of prancing about in their black shirts and bothering flower sellers on Walking Street. Then again, the flower sellers represent the line of least resistance.

 

Swiss Pitstop is now an English Waterfall: In what is fast becoming Pattaya’s answer to Melbourne’s Lygon Street, the three Day-Night sois are filling up with budget-priced munching dens. One of the first nosheries to open in the area some years ago was Pitstop, in Day-Night 3. The Swiss-owned operation served up standard mid-European fare at reasonable prices but the owner became ill (I’m assured it wasn’t from eating his own grub) and sold out. A few minor adjustments have been made to the interior and exterior and the nosh-house now offers English vittles under the name Waterfall. There’s a daily set menu of starter, main and dessert that varies between 130 and 195 baht.

 

Long Time Between Drinks: I have to confess to not traversing the pair of ogling dens in Soi Yamato, namely the long-running Nice N Eazy and Stringfellows, for quite some time. With so many places to attract the attention of the casual pervert, these two, which I know from previous experience rarely have more than a handful of chrome pole molesters, tend to get overlooked in favour of the more populous outlets. Although I am loath to become effusive over either place, they both cater to a localised clientele and do not gouge customers when it comes to libations, be they alcoholic or of the lolly water variety. The music in Stringfellows is good and not loud, the damsels hardly outstanding but far from being the worst around and lady drinks are reasonable at just 80 baht. Nice N Eazy can probably lay claim to being the smallest den in town and also offers lady drinks at 80 baht and a small pod of friendly chrome pole huggers.

 

Tales from the Crib: My friend Ray purchased a brand new CD player complete with AM/FM radio tuner in Australia, brought it with him to Thailand and presented it to his girlfriend. The young lady had recently opened a hairdressing salon and appreciated the gesture, as she would be able to listen to music while working away in her shop. After her initial burst of enthusiasm and delight at having received this wondrous piece of Australian-built technology she frowned, turned to Ray and said, “Thank you, but this no good for here.”

“What do you mean?” asked a befuddled Ray.

“Have FM radio, but can only play Australian song,” she declared matter-of-factly.

Ray plugged the device into a power point, turned it on and flicked through the dials until he came upon a Thai radio station. Upon hearing the Thai voices and music his girlfriends’ eyes lit up in the manner of a person who believes her paramour is imbued with qualities not normally assigned to mere mortals, especially farang mortals. She believed he had been able to convert the AM/FM tuner so it could receive Thai music instead of Australian. Is this how Jesus Christ got his start?

 

Wouldn’t Touch ‘em with a Barge Pole: That seems to be the impression given in a recent report by some impossibly named government think-tank based in the northeast of the country writing about the average characteristics of the Thai wives of foreign men. ‘They are mostly typical Issan women, with rather dark skin, quite strong and healthy and not the type to attract typical Thai men,’ says the report. Most of the more than 15,000 wives of foreigners (who predominantly hailed from Britain, Germany, and Switzerland) came from Udon Thani, Nong Khai, and Khon Kaen provinces; the majority had been married before and, hardly surprisingly, many had children from previous relationships. Sound like anyone you know who works in a Pattaya beer bar?