Nightmarch

[PattayaPete 530]

Baby Drinks: Congratulations to Alan Ladd, the owner of the Living Dolls ogling den (Walking Street), whose trouble-and-strife gave birth to a healthy baby boy towards the end of September. To celebrate, a party will take place on Wednesday 2 November at the bar with free draught amber available from 8:00 until 10:00PM.

 

The den is once more giving away a free motorbike (Honda Wave) with imbibers receiving a ticket for every thirst-quencher purchased in the den between now and the draw on Tuesday 15 November. The 300 baht bar fine for the last hour of the night is still in vogue and Alan Ladd says he expects it to continue for the next few months.

 

I haven’t asked whether it’s proved a worthwhile move, although I suspect it has during the low season when a lot of customers are either local expats or long-termers working within a budget.

 

Party Time: Break out your best lederhosen all you Bavarian balloon chasers, the Susi boozer and occasional lying-in facility (Naklua Road) will be celebrating 10 years of dispensing alcohol to the thirsty burghers of Germantown with a party on Sunday evening 6 November. Plenty of pork knuckle and bratwurst should be available to help imbibers soak up the steins of frothy lager and the occasional liver-destroying shots supplied by the bar. Kick off is 8:00PM.

 

Everybody’s Doin’ It: Happy hours in most ogling dens along Walking Street have a consistent theme that retros my brain into thinking about the question posed in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy asking what is the meaning of life. The answer was 42; whereas the number in the case of the Walking Street dens is 45. I’m talking of course about the price of draught amber fluid in places such as Heaven Above, Diamond, New Star, The Sea, Shark Club, Highway Star, Peppermint, Happy, Carousel and the list goes on.

 

It’s probably easier to note the number of dens that don’t offer 45 baht for draught than those which do. In some cases, the 45 baht for draught amber continues all night, making it possible for those interested in expanding their waistlines without destroying their budgets to imbibe for hours and hours in air-conditioned comfort while enjoying the best eye candy in the Kingdom.

 

I make mention of this because I recently spent one night in Bangkok -there’s a song in that somewhere- with a friend who was visiting for the first time from Australia. He had spent a few evenings in Pattaya, especially enjoying Club Electric Blue and Carousel, so when we wandered into the Rainbow 4 ogling den in Nana Plaza, his reaction to the damsels of the City of Angels was interesting.

 

Rainbow 4 is on the site of the former Woodstock boozer and noshery and is the Plaza equivalent, in size anyway, to Peppermint in Fun Town. In my opinion, and that of my friend, it rates very poorly when compared with Pattaya dens. There were plenty of chrome pole huggers, some attractive (as you would hope), but nothing outstanding or superior to what’s on display down here. The music was standard car alarm and, as with almost all Bangkok dens, the clutch of dancers on stage remain in the same position throughout their set, unlike Pattaya where they move down a pole or two after each song, thus giving punters a good look at the talent on show.

 

With libations overpriced at between 110 and 120 baht and not an exposed mammary gland in sight it’s perhaps no surprise so many Bangkokians make the trek to Fun Town for their weekend jollies. Apart from that, Nana Plaza looks like a dump and no amount of fairy lights seems able to spruce up the place.

 

Not Quite Indian Cuisine: I was recently pointed in the direction of a feed at the Neeroy’s noshery (Soi Chaiyapoom), located opposite the popular Crazy Dave’s munching shack, and told the fish and chips was worth the 99 baht impost. The joint doesn’t open until the early afternoon and promotes itself as offering typical Bradford-style Indian gut fillers: Vindaloo, Chicken Tikka Masala and the like. I have no idea what Bradford-style Indian nosh looks or tastes like, but I will say the fish and chips are indeed great value, good tasting, and filling. Definitely worth placing on your list of good eats at fair prices.

 

Still Looking for Scalps: Two places I know of in Fun Town offering more risqué and unusual forms of entertainment involving females and an assortment of devices and creatures ranging from darts, candles, razor blades, goldfish, amphibians, and small Eurasian rodents are Top Girls (Soi 14, off Walking Street) and Coconut Grove (South Pattaya Road, near Soi Rungland). Both joints are aimed at fleecing those who are bored with watching standard chrome pole huggers, table dancers, Les-be-friends shows and the like.

 

Top Girls (or Ghouls as I prefer to call it) has touts on Walking Street and, if you pretend to be a gullible tourist, will try and relieve you of a 300 baht entry fee (that includes a free drink). Otherwise it’s 200 baht (and a free libation). Coconut Grove wants 800 baht for you to enter its portals (includes a free libation) and they claim they have ‘live’ fornication shows. Suppose it’s better than ‘dead’ shows. In reality, I’m told it’s just a series of the usual clutch of unattractive damsels removing everything bar a som dtam pestle from their nether regions under the goggledeyed gaze of north Asian ‘quality’ tourists.

 

A Friendly Bunch: In terms of size it’s one of the smallest in Walking Street, but the New Star ogling den (Soi Diamond) plays good rock & roll music, has amber draught all night at 45 baht, with liver wasters 95 baht. The numbers and visual quality of dancers is not impressive but they’re a friendly lot and would suit those who may be intimidated by the legends in their own g-strings who hug the chrome poles in more popular joints.

 

Changes in the Architec- ture: The police box at the end of Beach Road, at the entrance to Walking Street, has been demolished (although I don’t think any somnolent peelers were inside at the time). Further into the street of excess, the Star Music easy-listening and watch-the-passing-parade venue has also been turned into a pile of rubble. Jackhammers and hammers and chisels are now the sounds greeting the ears of passers-by. The Sharky’s live music venue, near the entrance of Walking Street, has changed its name to Zab Café. I don’t know if the ownership remains the same. Further afield, Soi Chaiyapoom is once more experiencing a resurgence in openings of boozers and nosheries. The Barbie hide-the-salami den was closed for a time after the previous owner lost his staff; it’s now been sold and a new man has taken up the cudgels. Whiskers, The Asylum, Texxan Inn, Crazy Dave’s, Maggie May, The Bunker, Seaside 2 and the nicely-revamped Pim beer boozer are all well-established in the soi and seem to have a solid and regular clientele. CJ’s is a late night boogie barn style of operation, but appears out of place in Soi Chaiyapoom. It looks quite nicely appointed from the outside and when I wandered aimlessly past there were a couple of attractive lasses warming their butts on seats, but a sign out front offering booze at 99 baht turned me off a closer inspection. Walking Street prices out in the sticks and what was really on offer: just a clean, neat bar to prop yourself against while slaking your thirst. Maybe it gets going later in the evening. It looks as though the people who ploughed money into The Market complex down on Second Road, just past Soi 6, have done their dough with the area being bulldozed into a neat pile of used concrete and metal. This includes the Model Club, a show den aimed squarely at attracting the north Asian ‘quality’ tourists.

 

Solitary Man: In a town full of women available for all kinds of physical relief you might wonder why a foreigner would be sitting in the front seat of a jeep for rent on Second Road at 2:30AM engaging in a solitary onanistic experience. According to a friend of mine who happened to be out at that late hour he was surprised to be confronted with just such a situation: a foreigner with a firm grip on himself, whipping the dripping to such an extent he was oblivious of his surroundings. One can only wonder what the cleaner must have thought when she fronted for work the next day and was faced with the result of this guy’s exertions. One wonders if the man had indulged in a little blue pill of happiness but then been frustrated in his attempts to find an accommodating outlet for all his pent up energies. The story put me in mind of the following comment: “Many mothers are wholly ignorant of the almost universal prevalence of secret vice, or self-abuse among the young. Why hesitate to say firmly and without quibble that personal abuse lies at the root of much of the feebleness, paleness, nervousness and good-for-nothingness of the entire community?” The man who uttered those words was one Dr. J.H. Kellogg, the very man who marketed cereal to the world (not sure if he liked cream on his Corn Flakes).

 

Piece of Pith: Depression is merely anger without enthu-siasm.