Nightmarch

[PattayaPete 530]

When is a gogo a show bar?

When is a Show Bar not a Show Bar? Let me just clear up a slight misunderstanding. In my last missive I suggested the price of 120 baht for certain alcoholic libations in the Misty’s ogling den (Pattayaland Soi 2) was over the odds for a non-show bar. As one correspondent mentioned, Misty’s does conduct shows. Agreed. What I should have been more clear about was my definition of show bars. While a great number of dens run shows (Diamond, Carousel, X-Ray come to mind immediately), for my money a ‘show bar’ is one where the set pieces are almost continuous throughout the night.

 

Places such as Model Club (The Market on Second Road), Las Vegas (Russian performers in Soi BJ), Polo (Walking Street), What’s Up and Fantasia Showcase (next door to each other in Soi 15, off Walking Street) can be genuinely classified as show bars. Of course, Living Dolls Showcase (Walking Street) doesn’t begin its series of shows until after 10:00PM but before that time owner Captain Picard is sensible enough to have a cheap happy hour.

 

The First Swallow of the New Season: The only ogling den running dance contests of any kind on a somewhat regular basis is Diamond (Soi Diamond). Owner Khun Tee was asked by one of his customers to put on an in-house dance contest and one took place on Sunday night 9 January.

 

As usual the place was packed to the rafters as 30 of the Diamond dancers went up against each other in an effort to try and snare a share of the 13,000 baht in prize money on offer. First prize was originally 3,000 baht but this was doubled early in the dancing stakes when a customer added 3,000 baht to the pot. The same man also put up 2,000 baht for the dancer who received the lowest number of points from the five judges.

 

Khun Joy, one of Diamond’s longest-serving and friendliest chrome pole huggers, won the Miss Flower (or Miss Popular with the Customers) contest and collected 2,000 baht while Khun Ooh was the overall winner. The next contest will more than likely not take place until after the current high season.

 

Puss in Skirts: Naklua’s only ogling den, the long-running Kittens (Naklua Road), may well be a shadow of its former self when it was known as Pussycat, but it keeps going season after season with a tried and tested formula. On a recent visit the place seemed to have a few more pole polishers than the last time I was in, and they ranged from veterans of many a high season campaign to others less well versed in the ways of the two-week bonkaholic. The music is good- none of that obscure bargain-basement techno- and the dancers are now sporting attractive short skirts. Some feel the exertions involved in dancing are a good excuse to remove the upper part of their apparel; certainly no objections from customers.

 

After leaving Kittens we were walking past the beer boozers down the road when a damsel gained our attention by using a megaphone to inquire “where you go?” Nice touch.

 

Not Quite Ladies of the Lamp: The X-Ray ogling den (Soi Zero) has a happy hour running from 8:00-9:00PM with draft amber at 45 baht. Outside happy hour the draft is 59 baht. The dancing stage is a neck stretcher and the dancers are a motley crew of varying shapes and sizes bedecked (almost) in nursing attire. Florence Nightingale would be doing handstands in her grave if she could see what these dancers have done to the uniform of the women of the healing hands. One dancer came on stage for a brief ‘show’ involving a whistle and a trumpet, neither of which went anywhere near her mouth yet she could quite conceivably have led the charge of the Seventh Cavalry at the battle of the Little Bighorn. Would have made Custer’s Last Stand even more memorable. The music is good and the girls are good for a laugh.

 

No Surprise: The ranks of ogling dens away from the bright lights of Walking Street have been reduced by one following the closure of Hot & Cold II (Soi Yamato). Hardly surprising considering the place wasn’t much bigger than a Japanese condom and on my only visit there were a mere four dancers, three of whom would have struggled to attract customers in a beer boozer let alone a chrome pole palace. The door girl was wearing jeans and had the sort of backside that made me think of two hippos fighting in a corn sack.

 

Around the corner in Soi Post Office, the original Hot & Cold is still packing in the punters between 9:30 and 10:30PM for the shows that could be described as the gynaecologists guided tour with props.

 

Maybe Third Time Lucky: The Erdinger Beer Garden (formerly known as Schlemmer Garten, and before that as the Fight Night complex) still has its sign above the entrance to what is now being called the Happy House complex (I know the name might put you in mind of a lunatic asylum), on Second Road, near Soi 13. All told there are around 22 beer boozers operating out of the site and so far this high season most seem to have done reasonably well.

 

Needless to say, the beer boozers at the front of the complex have the lion’s share of the passing trade as weary trudgers plonk themselves aboard a stool and are willingly subjected to the “what you name?”, “where you come from?” litany.

 

A couple of the boozers are run by people who have been in Fun Town for some years and have built up a following (the Moonlight for example, run by Nick, who used to be in the Queen Vic in Soi Honey Inn), while for others this is their first attempt at the beer boozing trade.

 

One of these is the Dj’s Chillout boozer. Opened by Mick and Gary in November, they tell me they had planned on being a bar where people just came and relaxed and shot some pool. Instead, it’s become a favoured watering hole of people from Hull, a city in the north of England. Instead of baulking at the trend, the pair have embraced the idea and have been pleasantly surprised at just how many people from Hull and its environs seem to make their way into Pattaya, either on holidays or on a permanent basis.

 

Hot Lips and Hot Licks: The recently expanded Hot Girls ogling den (Walking Street, opposite the Roo Bar) is a place where the dancing damsels could be said to ‘get down and dirty’. This is a fun and friendly joint, although the new layout- think, long and thin- means punters can only get a good view of one stage at a time. They have to look at the wall mirrors to see what’s happening on the other stage. Then again, what is sometimes happening right in front of you is enough to make you forget about what might be occurring elsewhere.

 

Apparently there are two DJ’s. One, a graduate of the Brain Dead Academy of Techno Inanity, is let loose and plays garbage; the other has had the frontal lobotomy and plays good dance music. So it’s a 50-50 split on the aural level.

The joint is usually busy, no mean feat when punters have to ascend a flight of stairs. Then again, the shows are worth the chance of a cardiac arrest. One night the ‘rubber hose’ prop used in the sadist/masochist piece split, such was the vigour with which it was being employed by the enthusiastic lass playing the ‘sadist’.

 

The ‘les-be-friends’ show just goes on and on; I have the strong impression at least two of the sweet young things involved in the performance have truly found their calling. This is especially evident when the double-ended plastic toy (appropriately rubber-suited I might add) comes into play.

 

Pattaya Institution on the Market? Is Fun Town’s longest-established ogling den, Tahitian Queen (Beach Road), up for sale? Or is it Marilyn’s? It’s always interesting to look through the business opportunities section of the Pattaya Trader monthly magazine just to see what is up for grabs. Apart from the usual beer boozers and restaurants, the January 2005 edition had a couple of adverts offering chrome pole palaces for sale, but one noted ‘The lease of this beachside go-go bar has been renewed annually for 30 years…’ There are just three ogling dens fitting the ‘beachside’ criteria: Tahitian Queen, Marilyn’s and World Wide. The latter has not been operating as an ogling den for anything like 30 years, whereas Tahitian Queen has been around since 1978 and Marilyn’s since the mid 1980s. A ‘phone call to the company entrusted with marketing the den left me none the wiser as to which place was for sale as, not surprisingly, they were reluctant to disclose the name of their client.

 

Condolences: To Jaap Klasema, the manager of the Flamingo Hotel and adjoining Renoir’s munching den (Soi Day-Night 2) and owner of the Timber beer boozer in the Made in Thailand complex (Second Road), who suffered a dual loss when his 87-year-old father and 81-year-old mother both passed away with a few days of each other in Holland in the early part of January. They had been married for 58 years and, as Jaap told me, were still “very much in love.”

 

Piece of Pith: There is a fine line between a ‘hobby’ and ‘mental illness.’

 

 

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

Author of Pattaya "Patpong on steroids"

No reproduction without specific reference to: nightmarch@hotmail.com

[ricosuave 130]

You mentioned that the DJs chillout bar had become a favoured hangout for people from the city of Hull. Does anyone know where it is, as im from Hull and would like to hook up with my fellow cod heads'.

 

Rico

[MeGoDanceNow 4,281]

Rico, I gather the location is the Erdinger Beer Bar Complex, Second Road near Soi 13.