Nightmarch

[PattayaPete 530]

Heferlumps, buffaloes and Captain Picard

 

I Wanna be Your Beast of Burden: Disturbing incidents involving Pattaya’s population of roving elephants and their mahouts are on the rise. As many people would be aware, elephants ranging in size from large to baby big can be seen wandering the streets of Fun Town led by their mahouts. Due to a lack of opportunities to work in Thailand’s severely degraded forests, the elephants and their mahouts have been forced to come to a city like Pattaya in an effort to survive.

 

There are mahouts who spend their evenings trawling the booze bars enticing people into purchasing 20-baht lots of snacks to feed their elephants. Sadly, the mahouts- either in their greed or ignorance, or both-sometimes allow their charges to become overfed. The result: an elephant unloading the overloaded contents of its stomach onto the street. Not a pleasant sight, particularly in a crowded bar area such as Soi 7 or 8. This has happened at least twice according to one person who has witnessed it.

 

Police sometimes spend their time attempting to keep the elephants away from the more populated bar areas and on at least one occasion Soi 7 has seen a lumbering pachyderm legging it at some speed away from approaching members of the plod, urged on by its mounted mahout. The danger is obvious. Imagine the headlines if an elephant on the run crushes and injures, or even kills, a tourist in one of the major bar areas. It is possible for an elephant to run amok among a clutch of beer boozers: a great story for the six o’clock news but hardly conducive to attracting customers.

 

The whole issue of elephants on the streets is a very difficult one for authorities to control without causing great economic distress to both pachyderms and their owners. The conundrum is simple enough: elephants eat a lot. Mahouts also need to eat and feed their families. There’s no work in the provinces and the tourist shows can only take so much. When times are tough, there aren’t too many options left except to take to the streets and virtually beg.

 

For many tourists, and indeed locals, the sight of a lumbering elephant on Pattaya’s mean streets is a source of wonder and excitement and a great photo opportunity. The sad fact remains, that these animals should never be exposed to the dangers of motorised traffic, concrete and asphalt walkways and uneven pavements. They belong in the jungle, not on the streets of Pattaya.

 

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato: The Kennel Pub (located in the colloquially known Pattayaland Soi 1/2, between Pattayaland Sois 1 and 2), is owned by one of Fun Town’s longest-surviving ex-pats: ‘Scootish’ Dave. The Kennel is one of those boozers that could be classified as a no-hassle establishment catering to locals and their mates.

 

Dave has recently been offered a job he couldn’t refuse (probably large sackfuls of cash) and is off to work on contract in Gabon (that’s some steamy outpost in West Africa) for a little while. Del, his manager, has departed for Scotland (that’s some nippy outpost in a small island off Europe), but never fear, into the breach has stepped Terry ‘Three Potatoes’ to take charge of the meeting and greeting duties. I’m not sure if Terry has North American Indian heritage (you know, ‘Two Dogs’, ‘Crazy Horse’ and the like), but according to Dave, Terry’s nickname is justly earned as his stomach is more than capable of demolishing of handling three jumbo-sized spuds at any one sitting.

 

Mutton Dressed as Kwai: One of the friendliest and most popular beer boozer cum Sierra Tango outlets in Fun Town is the Buffalo on Third Road. The place is practically an institution and very much a hangout for locals. My own feeling on the veritable squadrons of assembled ‘talent’ is that much of it is mutton dressed as lamb, a little like an elephant’s graveyard. When I asked one friendly lady the usual “how old are you?” question she replied, I’m sure tongue most firmly in cheek, “29.” I didn’t have the heart to ask if she had included VAT and service charges in that calculation.

 

The attraction for many punters is that it is off the beaten track, drinks prices are not outrageous and the assembled damsels are attentive and friendly. As the night wears on the music does tend to get a little loud, strange considering the majority of regular clientele are usually on the wrong side of 40.

 

The bar fine situation is also a little weird. To take a lady for a short period of mattress inspection is 200 baht and a lady drink, or 270 baht without a lady drink. For longer terms, the fee rises to 400 baht and a drink for the damsel, or 470 baht without the aforementioned libation. The employees are asking for 1,000 baht to help keep the customer satisfied. There’s definitely better value for the banging baht elsewhere.

 

Anyone for Meatloaf? Probably one the best, and undoubtedly one of the more popular, ogling dens away from Walking Street is the Tim chrome pole palace on Second Road (opposite Soi 14). Over the years I can’t say Tim has ever employed much in the way of quality chrome pole talent, but on a recent visit I was pleasantly surprised by the quantum leap the place has taken. Granted, there were no classic beauties or youthful nymphs, but it seems many of the veterans of past years have been put out to pasture.

 

With liver wasters at 90 baht and lolly water 50 baht, the den is not gouging customers and the draught beer, according to those who drink this stuff, is cold, not lukewarm as in some other places. If there’s one constant I guarantee whenever I go in I will not be able to leave without having heard Meatloaf doing either ‘Paradise By The Dashboard Light’ or ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ videos on the big screen. Great music for sure, but I do think Tim is well overdue to invest in a few more videos of a similar ilk.

 

The Next Generation: In order to concentrate on promoting and building up his new disco CEB (Walking Street), Big Andy has handed Captain Picard the poison chalice of running the Hooty’s chrome pole palace (located next door). The Captain has been associated, one way and another, with Andy since the opening of The Dollhouse ogling den a few years ago. That den is rightly credited with beginning the renaissance of Walking Street and Captain Picard managed the place with aplomb. Since then he has been operating the pair of Living Dolls ogling dens. It will be interesting to see if the Captain can draw the early birds into Hooty’s. The shows, which kick off after 9:30 pm, are generally busy enough, but from the opening bell at 8:00 pm the place struggles to attract much business.

 

Open Wide and Say ‘Aarrghh’: The management of the Lolita’s talking-in-tongues boozer and dental academy (off Soi Diana) have made a few improvements to the seating arrangements for customers since I was last in by installing a fish tank enclosed in a solid room divider and erecting see-through curtains (that, I have to say, put me in mind of the sort of covering you find in showers) to enclose the vinyl seating and make pre-assignation conversation a little less confronting. I still think they’d be better served by creating horseshoe-shaped booths and reducing the overhead lighting, but you can’t argue with the value of a wax and polish in the dental chairs upstairs for 600 baht. The employed damsels are on a rotation system, apparently doing one week in Pattaya and then back to Bangkok for two weeks.