Nightmarch

[PattayaPete 530]

Irish Eyes Are Thai-tinged: Warmest congratulations to Deadly Derek, mine host of The Clinic couch-potatoes sports emporium (Soi Yamato), and his long-suffering colleen Khun Oi, who produced a son (named Ryan) on 19 September. Delusional Derek somehow thinks the lad will grow up to captain the Irish Rugby Union team to World Cup glory around 2026. Methinks Derek’s been hitting the Guinness a tad heavily; more likely young Ryan will become the great white hope of Muay Thai or takraw.

 

Given the continuing problems with supplies of H2O to various areas around Fun Town, Deadly Derek, is offering regular customers who may be without the precious liquid to come and use his shower facilities free of charge. The boozer will even supply the towels and soap, the latter optional for Poms of course.

 

Born to Run a Bar: A birthday party for Rambling Ricky will be held on Sunday 9 October in the Diamond ogling den (Soi Diamond). The usual unfortunate pig will meet its maker and balloon companies will reap handsome rewards as a large number of their products are first inflated and then pricked (if you’ll pardon the expression). All regulars welcome.

 

Looks Like Clams: The in-house dirty dancing contest held in the revamped Club Electric Blue ogling den (Walking Street) on 10 September proved a reasonable success in what remains a large venue to try and fill. Sixteen dancers were given a chance at snaring a share of 10,000 baht in prize money (5,000 baht for first, 3,000 baht second and 2,000 baht for third). One failed to make it anywhere near the stage after over -imbibing in tequila, but the remaining 15 gave it their best shot and the judges scores at the end saw just three points separating first and third. While they were doing their best, the dancers upstairs were doing their usual nightly chrome pole shuffle and a quick look around the room made me think it would not be inappropriate to re-name the joint Club Exposed Bush (and I’m not referring to the current White House ncumbent). Apparently Club Electric Blue is the only den in Fun Town with Jagermeister on tap. It looks like sump oil and tastes…well, the word ‘acquired’ comes to mind.

 

Smells of Dead Fish: Six table dancers of varying shapes and sizes scattered about the room and a lack of vibrancy were enough to stop me bothering to take a seat in the Shark Club (upstairs, Soi Diamond) on a recent visit. Though the place offers draught amber all night at 45 baht, standard liver wasters run to 105 baht (no value for money at all) and bottled nectar to 95 baht. There are better table dancing operations around town at present if staring at uncovered beaver is your fetish.

 

Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves: One partner thought Legs was a good name; the other considered Tramps to be appropriate. Finally, after a few jars of something alcoholic they compromised and went away from two-legged, human cognomens and decided Beavers would be the new name for the ogling den that should be open for business by the time this missive makes it into print. Look for Fun Town’s latest ogling den at the Beach Road end of Walking Street.

 

Chew On This: Some booze bar operators possess an interesting, if somewhat warped, sense of humour and the re-naming of the Absolute boozer in Soi Yamato to Mee Chew is a case in point. To my distinctly warped mind there are two ways of interpreting the new cognomen. First, and perhaps most obvious (at least to genuinely sick minds such as yours truly), it may be attributed to the sorts of activities engaged in by some members of the employed staff when a customer offers to pay a bar fine and escort said employee either upstairs or out of doors for an organ recital.

 

Second, and more mundanely although nonetheless inventive, the new name could be a variation on the Thinglish phrase “Miss you”, as in, “Oh teeluck ja, chun mee chew too mutt.” Of course this translates into English as, “Oh my sweet darling, I miss you so much.” In real Thai it is, “Perfect timing sucker, I was just beginning to wonder where the next blasted bar fine was coming from.

 

”You’re Opening a What? Apparently the La Carina boozer (Soi Yamato) has been completely refurbished and turned into a late night boogie barn with the name Club 131 (a subtle reference to the official number of the soi: 13/1). Rumour suggests the thirst-quenchers in the joint will be priced at 131 baht, not cheap. I hate pouring embalming fluid on the grand plans of people who think they have a new concept/idea and want to bring it to the denizens of Fun Town, but I can’t quite see how a night-club is going to work in the relative wilds of Soi Yamato.

 

Late night boogie barns have been tried a couple of times without success in Soi 8 and also opposite Soi Zero. The main difficulty is in attracting enough of the late night revelling brigade away from the fleshpots of Walking Street. Sure, X-Zyte (Third Road) and Hollywood (off South Pattaya Road) and the old Boom (Soi Pratamnak) are, or were, pretty successful, but they attract more local faces than foreign; the latter are mere icing for an already abundant cake.

 

It’s Worse Than I Thought: In this column recently I noted the price of libations and private dances being offered in the Galaxy Cabaret white-flesh den (Walking Street). Seems I may have been wrong about the price levels: I was too low. An e-mail from a reader noted, ‘Some Thai friends took me there…around 11PM. All drinks (soft and hard) were 400 baht…And the little ‘menu’ on every table said at the bottom: private time with a girl starts from 250 US$.’ A private dance for around 10,000 baht; the dancer would want to be the most sensational in the history of soft-shoe shuffling to be worth anything near that figure.

 

Do people really pay for these things? My e-mailer said the dancers ‘are trained and very good (while dancing).’ He then said they would dance for only one or two songs before coming around to collect tips ‘showing you where to put your money and not saying anything. Unless you refuse to tip. Then you might hear something! Either…in hard Russian or in clear English: “what are you doing here if you have no money?”’ I think I’ll leave the place for the north Asian herd (the quality tourists Fearless Leader is now attracting; good to see the money going into local pockets…not) and well-heeled camel jockeys.

 

Wealth Warning: A warning to travellers on Baht Buses, this time not with regards to the two-tiered pricing system of the operators, but to the potential for wallet theft of foreigners sitting up close and personal with locals taking the same mode of public transport. It’s happened three times that I’m aware of to three friends of mine, one of whom mentioned two other people he knows it has happened to, so I figure it’s bound to have occurred to many others as well.

 

The ploy works something like this. A person of indeterminate gender, a short plump girl in her twenties, a child aged around 10 and her mother, aged in her thirties will either board or already be riding a baht bus. They might sound like the ensemble line-up of a bad movie, but the trick is simple. The mother makes sure she sits as close to the intended victim as possible, as does the katoey. The child then begins playfully bouncing around the victim’s legs and knees while the plump girl engages the person in conversation. Distracted by the chattering girl and leery of the katoey, the victim may not be aware his pocket is being well and truly picked.

 

Two of the three intended victims who are known to me had their pockets picked but were able to recover their wallets before the gang had time to make any escape. In the first instance the katoey legged it, was chased by the victim and ran into the waiting arms of undercover police. In the second case the victim prevented any of the gang exiting the baht bus and found his wallet on the seat. The driver then took off before police could be summoned. The question is whether the driver of the baht bus is also in on the act. The only way to determine this, of course, is for passengers to take careful note of the number of the baht bus they are on at any time. I do this routinely, in case there are problems later.

 

Great Potential Business: Thinking you’d like to stay in Fun Town and make your fortune. Well, a new clutch of beer boozers is being constructed on Second Road at the corner of Soi 4, not far from Big C. Get in now to avail yourself of this ground floor opportunity. If you do miss out, then there’s room down in Soi 6/1, running right alongside the famous Soi 6, for a booze bar. At last count only one person had taken up the cudgels to run a joint, so with high season rushing headlong towards us, now is your chance. Contact Pie-in-the-Sky Realty for more information about turning your dreams into nightmares.

 

Piece of Pith: I’ve learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.

[Soi7 1]

A warning to travellers on Baht Buses, this time not with regards to the two-tiered pricing system of the operators, but to the potential for wallet theft of foreigners sitting up close and personal with locals taking the same mode of public transport. It’s happened three times that I’m aware of to three friends of mine, one of whom mentioned two other people he knows it has happened to, so I figure it’s bound to have occurred to many others as well.

 

Nothing compared to A/C though