Nightmarch

[PattayaPete 530]

Are We Busy Yet? With the 1:00AM closing issue still being touted as the main reason why many Fun Town boozatoriums are not as busy as previous years, it’s interesting to note one ogling den operator who told me he had notched a record turnover for one night of trading on the Monday after the 5 December public holiday. As he said, “it was better than any New Year’s Eve”. Of course, the fact his chrome pole palace is now among the best in Pattaya had a lot to do with setting a new high. So, why is his den doing so well, and yet others seem to complain the punters are nowhere to be seen? The answer is really quite simple: he has a lot of good-looking dancers, plays good music and offers libations at reasonable prices.

 

It doesn’t take a degree in Accounting/Marketing 101 to understand the reasons for the continuing success and popularity of dens like Peppermint, Happy, Diamond, and the new Beach Club to name just four. All of the aforementioned have a lot of dancing damsels and all offer liquid refreshments at imposts that will not leave an unsightly dent in the wallet of an average punter.

 

Every high season I hear the same old tunes: ‘there’s no one here’, ‘where have all the tourists gone?’, ‘if this keeps up we’ll be out of business soon’. In the last five years or so the beer boozers operating in Fun Town have increased by about 50 percent in number. In the same time, the number of ogling dens has gone from 42 to 55, a 30 percent expansion. While tourist numbers have increased in the same time period, the demographics show the majority emanate from north Asian countries rather than Europe, the Americas or the Antipodes. This does not augur well for the long-term viability of many Caucasian-centric boozers in Pattaya. Nonetheless, some of the booze bar owners complaining the loudest are the same ones who think they should charge like wounded bulls for a drink while employing sub-standard eye candy.

 

Let’s take most of the Soi 2 beer boozers as an example. Long-term ex-pats here have noted how ‘dead’ Soi 2 has been recently, compared with a few years previous. No doubt the bar owners are also wondering where all the punters have gone. Well, take a look around you. The bars are old and weather-beaten, much like most of the serving wenches; prices for drinks are high by comparison with air-conditioned ogling dens and the cacophony produced by eight different bands all trying to outdo each other at decibels just short of a Concorde on take-off while playing the same tired old tunes night after night might go some way to giving an answer. In varying degrees it’s much the same with Sois 8 and 7.

 

I recently had a drink at one beer bar, which I shall not name as I’m sure the rest are pretty much the same, in the new Night Out complex (between Soi 7 and Central Road). A bottle of Singha amber fluid was 80 baht; lolly water was 50 baht. And what was on offer? Three lasses who probably remember the days of Desert Sperm: the R & R follow-up in Pattaya to Operation Desert Storm, after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

If you desire to guzzle copious quantities of intoxicating liquids and the choice is between a pair of beer boozers, both with ladies of grandmotherly proportions and the price for an amber libation in one is, say, 10 baht cheaper than the other, is it any surprise the joint seeking a greater turnover to make a profit is busier than the one looking for the odd ‘quality’ customer? Offer a good quality business at the right price and the punters will come; end of story.

 

For My Next Trick: Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus may well have featured such highlighting acts as the fat lady and the human cannonball, but they had absolutely nothing on the showgirls at the What’s Up ogling den (Soi 15, off Walking Street). The shows, designed primarily for the tourist trade, feature the usual pieces of coloured string, plastic flowers and- enough to make Gillette fans wince- razor blades, all emanating from the maps of Tasmania region. One well-endowed lass looks capable of writing the collected works of Shakespeare in Texta, without using her hands. Another opens cola bottles by way of the nether regions, another scrambles her own eggs, without a fry pan while the show involving spring rolls is sufficient to whet the appetite. For me, the piece de resistance is the one-lady fire show; that girl sure swallows some hot stuff. Some of these girls would be great to take on a camping trip. No need for fire-lighters, matches or bottle openers. Drinks aren’t cheap: liver wasters and bottled amber at 125 baht and lolly water at 105 baht. Lady drinks are sensible at 95 baht.

 

Not a Disney Product: The above piece segues nicely into this one: the opening of the Fantasia Showcase ogling den, right next door to What’s Up and run by the same people. Opening night was Sunday 19 December and while the shows are similar to those in its sister den the one major difference is a troupe of katoeys employed to prance about in a series of cabaret-style numbers. The bar is up a set of steep stairs and the seating is arranged in two long rows in front of a fairly small stage, with stools and round tables to the sides. The place is capable of holding about 50-60 people. I found the music a little too loud, and therefore distorted on opening night, but I’m told this will be rectified. Among the shows was the standard ‘let’s be friends and kiss where the sun don’t shine’ show between a clutch of nubile young maidens (unfortunately set to the strains of ‘Hotel California’) and then the ladyboys come on and do what could be the precursor to a re-enactment of the Zulu attack at Rorke’s Drift, sans assegais and shields. Libations run to 130 baht; almost the standard now for show bars.

 

From Russia with Lust I: The team that bring you the Polo and Model Club show dens, the former in Walking Street and the latter in The Market complex on Second Road, have taken over Soi BJ’s white elephant, converted it and on 1 December opened it as the Las Vegas show den with a difference. The difference being a brace of a dozen or so tall, fair-skinned Russian dancers, rather than the usual brown buffalo riders from the wilds of Issan.

 

The bar, first opulently kitted out a few years ago, was called Top Secret. It ran into trouble almost from the start, closed down, then re-opened as the BJ Fun Bar. It too lasted only a short while and now, third time lucky, it may have found a niche by offering Russian dancers in a series of cabaret-style shows. All drinks are 130 baht, which is about standard in bars offering showgirls of whatever hue these days. The dancers are, as one would expect, taller and heavier than their Thai cousins, but they are in proportion. The music is good and the action gets under way from 7:00PM onwards. Worth a look, if only for prurient interest.

 

From Russia with Lust II: High season always brings with it an influx of people from the countries that comprised the former Soviet Union: Russia, Ukraine and most places ending in ‘stan’. They are generally easily spotted. The males purchase, and actually don, the kind of garish gear (usually in shades of predominantly orange pastels) normally associated with seven-day tourists from north Asia. Coming from a climate where the median summer temperature is a shade above an ice-block, I suppose there’s not a lot of call for board shorts and light cotton shirts. Therefore when they see items that resemble a technicolour yawn they consider this the height of hot weather fashion. One I spotted the other day was wearing an all-shades-of-the-rainbow umbrella hat. These items make Hawaiian shirts look like the kind of apparel worn by Baptist preachers on Sundays.

 

The women seem to fall into two distinct and recognisable categories. Most of one group look like the ‘before’ photos in Weight-Watchers commercials; many in the other category could pass for runway models in Paris fashion shows. The latter group, as most regulars to Fun Town are well aware, pay for their time here by offering conjugal services, generally of a short duration, to men who occasionally like to dip and dabble with women named Barbarushka and Valentina rather than Lek or Noi. The price for the service rendered runs to 2,000 baht for a short time (although offering the equivalent in barter form of, say, a dozen bottles of Stoli, may cut it); overnight could tend to send the abacus into meltdown mode. Most of their customers appear to be cashed-up Thai nationals, which is why they seem to get away with being here and rarely get busted for engaging in that most heinous crime of prostitution. When they do get rumbled it’s usually when they wander into places like Marine Disco and Tony’s looking for a little extra business from men with round eyes.

 

 

My e-mail address is: nightmarch@hotmail.com

Author of Pattaya "Patpong on steroids"

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