Nightmarch

[PattayaPete 530]

Paradise by the Soi Buakhow Light: The Paradise ogling den (Soi Buakhow) finally opened its doors at the beginning of October with about 18 or so dancing damsels; not a bad effort for a new place not exactly on the beaten track. It’s at the Tuesday/Friday market end of Soi Buakhow, just around the corner from the intriguingly-named Wor Jackies. There’s nothing outstanding about the place, but if you happen to be wandering about in this part of town and feel a sudden urge to partake of a libation or two in air-conditioned comfort while perving on a few ladies in precious little attire, then it’s worth a look.

 

Not so Poxy: When the former Club Electric Blue ogling den (Walking Street) was extensively subjected to the three r’s: rearrangement, refurbishment, and renovation and then re-opened as the Roxy dancing palace, it was given some of the worst reviews I’ve heard in a long while. Bearing this in mind, I decided it was best to let the new management sort out the glitches and hopefully settle into a rhythm before going in and adding my two satangs worth.

 

Upstairs has gone, replaced with a very high ceiling, which I guess is good if you’re a non-smoker as cigarette smoke probably goes up to the roof. Must be a bugger trying to change the light bulbs. The layout is clean and bright with a series of narrow, raised tables with seating at each for about six people. Before it opened it was being touted as a new ‘concept’ entertainment venue. Perhaps the owners were thinking about what singer Randy Newman called ‘short people’ and the ‘concept’ is aimed at dwarves or midgets as the bar stools at the rim of the dancing stage are surely the smallest in Fun Town. As for what else might be termed conceptual, the introduction of hanging metal chains in place of the traditional chrome poles and strobe lighting that would bring on an epileptic fit in a heartbeat are hardly stunning innovations.

 

There are about 30 or so ladies of easy virtue working the floor and the stage, varying from the well-fed and wrinkled to the svelte and barely legal. See-through tops and very short skirts are the uniform. There are a few reasonably well-choreographed shows, none of them particularly exciting, nor are they done anywhere near as well as those in Angelwitch (Soi 15). It’s far from the worst place in Fun Town, but I see it more as the type of joint for one drink only. They do nice postcards.

 

Up on The Roof: As regular readers of this missive will be well aware, I rarely write much about beer boozers. The main reason for this is the simple fact most joints are very much dependant on the personality of the owner/managers, rather than the ladies employed, to attract customers to the place. The Rooftop (right at the Bay end of the new clutch of joints above the Siren complex at the entrance to Walking Street) is not really a beer boozer in the strict sense of the word, it’s more a place to shoot some pool (there are three small tables), throw a few darts (at a dartboard of course), relax on the settees and look out over Pattaya Bay, or play a few carnival-style games with the rather fetching brace of ladies employed to help empty your wallet.

 

One of these is the water dunking game whereby a girl, or two, sits on a metal seat above a small pool of water and a customer buys three balls (for 250 baht) and attempts to hit a target that will cause the seat to give way and the girl/s wind up getting wet, in the water sense, not the knee-trembling sense, although this might happen later. The owners formerly ran The Roof beer boozer upstairs in Soi Diamond, a place very popular with the US navy and marine personnel around the Cobra Gold military exercises each year, which might explain why part of their promotion involves music such as urban beatz and hip hop. This is a place I could imagine being great fun on the right sort of night.

 

An Expensive Silver Lining: In the last issue I may have led a few people astray when I noted that the new Silver Star ogling den was the ‘first ogling den in Walking Street’; what I meant, of course, is it is the first den of the chrome pole you come to when you first wander under the Walking Street sign. The entrance is by way of a long, dark tunnel; there’s some kind of Jungian maternal complex lurking in the psychosis of the people who put this together.

 

I’ve since taken time to partake of a libation or two in the Club Boesche clone. Anyone who’s been into Club Boesche (Soi 16, Walking Street) will immediately recognise the layout. The place is divided into two floors, the downstairs fairly stock standard with a motley crew of chrome pole molesters and plenty of mirrors while above is the almost de rigueur glass-bottomed stage where, surprise, surprise, there are young ladies of clearly impoverished circumstance cavorting about in a pair of shoes and a beckoning smile. There’s also the Jacuzzi into which a couple of extroverted damsels happily cover themselves in soap suds and conduct a searching exploration of each other’s anatomy. Sound familiar? Club Boesche has a downstairs Jacuzzi, and an upstairs with a glass-bottomed stage.

 

I guess the management of Club Boesche should be flattered that someone has taken their design and deigned to make an almost exact copy. The music, not surprisingly, is standard car alarm and although it has quite a few alluring dancing damsels, it’s not a place offering value for money for a libation: 110 baht for bottled amber fluid and 130 baht for house liver wasters. Compare that with other Walking Street places such as Peppermint, Happy, Super Baby and Super Girl to mention just four dens with lower drinks prices and at least twice the number of dancers.

 

Casting the Net: The second edition of the 52-page glossy magazine Pattaya by Night is now well and truly available on the Internet at either www.dcothai.com or www.pattayabooks.net Webmaster Danny is steadily recovering from his attempt to imitate a bird by launching himself from a ladder and is back at work, albeit not quite at his previous frenetic pace. If you think I have an interest in this magazine, give yourself a gold star.

 

Watching the Defectives: Next door to the Coyotee’s ogling den in Soi Marina Plaza is a little place called the Bondi Burgers Inn. As the name might suggest to some, the place is run by an expat Aussie and offers decent-sized hamburgers (with French fries) at just 100 baht. The place also operates as a boozer with most libations containing alcoholic substances at about 80 baht. Quite a nice place to sit and watch as your favourite damsel of the chrome pole comes sauntering by on her way to her place of employment, or as she clings tighter than a rainforest leech to the latest walking wallet prepared to pay for a night of exchanging bodily fluids.

 

Tweaking at the Edges: Talking of Coyotee’s, the management decided to bring forward the start of their nightly shows from 10:00PM to 9:30PM. There are also plans to make a few cosmetic changes to the layout of the den, with the fireman’s pole, rarely used by the dancing damsels to make their entrance, will be turned into a feature of some kind. There’s unconfirmed talk of another dance contest to be slated for the last week or so of October, but as of going to press this is yet to be announced.

 

Open and Closed, Come and Gone: The 1969 ogling den (Naklua Road) -previously known as Kittens and before that as Pussycat (at the time, one of the best houses of the chrome pole in Pattaya)- closed its doors a couple of months ago and reports say it will be turned into a 7-11. Lanky Bob, who held court in the den when it kicked off (I think in about 1995) and stayed until it changed to 1969, is now happily ensconced in the increasingly popular Catz ogling den (Soi 16, Covent Garden complex).

 

Rambling Ricky, after spending a couple or three months propping up his end of the bar in Catz, has now moved amicably on to unfamiliar pastures by taking up the meeting and greeting duties in the FLB lounge lizard libation room (Walking Street). I think he’ll be a great success in the joint although I wonder how long it will be before the hostesses are cajoled into putting on the odd lick-em-where-the-baby’s-head-appears show?

 

Early October saw the opening of two new ogling dens, Baby Dolls and XXX, side by side in Soi 15. Both small, they are set to be joined by a third, a couple of metres away and on the site of the old Nui’s chrome pole closet, which should be up and running by the time you read this. Depending on your point of view, this clutch will take the score of ogling dens on Walking Street alone to 44. The rooms for rent above the Secrets lounge lizard libation room (Soi 14) are now completed and availablefor sleeping and other nocturnal activities. The London Clock assures me the room rates extremely competitive, considering the location.

 

Try this Quick Quiz: What does the word ‘benign’ mean? A: Benign is what you will be after you be eight.

 

Piece of Pith: Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever.