Nightmarch

[PattayaPete 530]

Once More into the Breech: From a beer boozer to an ogling den to a late-night boogie barn and back again to an ogling den. to a late-night boogie barn and back again to an ogling den. That’s the potted history of what should be Walking Street’s umpteen-somethingth palace of the chrome pole, Sweetheart’s, which was due to open around the middle of February, but which looks more like it will open towards the middle of March instead. The den is on the site of the failed The Roof late-night boogie barn, which itself was formerly known as the Highway Star ogling den. Khun Satit, who’s been around the fleshpots of Fun Town for more years than even he would probably care to admit, will be making the move from the present Highway Star (Beach Road, above the Siren bar complex) to the newly refurbished Sweetheart’s.

 

Further away, in the wilds of Jomtien, a second den of the chrome pole, called the YU? Club opened its doors in late January on Thappraya Road, opposite the Jomtien Complex.

 

These two new dens will take the numbers of chrome pole palaces to cricket-score levels, and yet wherever I go the whispers of impending closures and desperate days for any amount of dens become louder and louder. The general line of these rumours follows the time-honoured standard of: “wait until low season really starts to bite.” It doesn’t take a degree in applied mathematics to work out that with Fun Town doubling the number of chrome pole palaces in the space of about five years requires a concomitant doubling of the type of punter needed to fill the seats in these dens if they are all to continue to be profitable.

 

The vast majority are making a profit, despite the doom and gloom prophecies, it’s just that some owners suddenly realise the hours they spend to soak up a smaller slice of the ogling den pie really aren’t worth the effort.

 

What’s on Special: The Lennies beer boozer (Soi Diamond) has joined the gradual increase in the popularity of the so-called ‘coyote’ style of dancing den by installing three podiums for ladies who jiggle to strut their stuff. Happy hour extends from 7:00 until 9:00PM every night with, for example, bottled Singha at 75 baht and Chang at 60 baht. Further down the soi, the Tiger Club ogling den has its happy hour as a two-for-one offer for house liver wasters and Thai rotgut at 110 baht. For the mathematically-challenged, that’s 55 baht a drink. The non-happy hour price for these libations is 95 baht each.

 

The much maligned- at least in its early days- Roxy chrome pole show palace (Walking Street) has quite a long happy hour running from 8:30 until 10:30PM with all standard thirst-quenchers at just 65 baht. Lady drinks are 110 baht and the so-called non-stop erotic shows commence at 9:30PM and continue until 1:30AM. My spies tell me the shows are well choreographed and the den has lifted itself above the ordinary. Others say the place is hanging on by the thread of a g-string.

 

An Early Nipple: While most of Pattaya’s now 75 dens of the chrome pole open their doors for ogling business around 8:00PM, there are quite a few who turn on the strobe lights and crank up the speakers from the early afternoon. These include Club Nevada, Far East Rock, and Hot & Cold in Soi Post Office and Tahitian Queen on Beach Road. A few others kick off not long after sundown, with Club Oasis (corner of Soi Buakhow and Soi Chaiyapoom) unlocking the front doors at 7:00PM, while Champion and The Dollhouse (both on Walking Street) launching into life at 7:30PM. With competition for a finite base of flesh fanciers and even greater struggles with attracting sufficient ladies of easy virtue who are prepared to don the g-string and fondle a chrome pole, many bar owners are willing to try new ways of enticing either through their portals.

 

Tickle Me with a Feather: Funny how rumours and unsubstantiated gossip spreads like wildfire through the boozers of Fun Town, very often propelled into cyberspace by the multitude of web forums and blogs. I’m amazed at the number of emails I receive from people here and overseas asking about the truth, or otherwise, of a variety of rumours. In most cases I’m not completely privy to the facts, even if I know the people being referred to. Therefore, my standard response has been to simply note my own experiences and that of others in the boozer under question. In the vast majority of cases the rumour mill gets it partially right, but substantially wrong.

 

The preamble above was brought about by persistent rumours of the impending sale, closure, financial failure of the Catz ogling den in Soi 16, Covent Garden Complex. I have no idea of the behind-the-scenes activities in Catz, so judging on simple observation alone I would say the rumours are wide of the mark. It may be true that a couple of months ago the den was short of delectable dancing maidens, but on my most recent visit the place had a good crowd in and there were a number of chrome pole molesters who made quite decent eye candy. I saw one show involving a brace of dancers almost dressed in maid’s outfits and armed with a number of feather dusters. I can only say if these damsels should ever wish to seek employment in domestic service, I would imagine the queue for the employers would stretch around the block.

 

Cannot be Stuffed: My apologies to all those readers who may have taken up my suggestion to try the enchiladas at the Sunset Cantina Mexican beans-means-farts noshery (Soi BJ, off Walking Street). A friend went in one evening and was told they didn’t have a key ingredient to make the enchilada and when we returned just a couple of nights later the story was the same. No wonder the place was empty and it’s now on my not-to-be-bothered-with-again list.

 

None So Blind: Are you sending a monthly stipend to the girl who is the subject of your nocturnal emissions? Are you deluded into thinking she’s staying faithful, and not moonlighting in a den of the chrome pole, or a beer boozer? Anyone reading this who happens to be sending any amount of money to a girl they originally found earning her living as a horizontal sounding board and who thinks she is remaining faithful while you are no longer in the country is being completely delusional, in about 98 percent of cases. In Fun Town you get a whole relationship in 24-hours, or less. This leads to feelings of mutual warmth: yours in the heart, hers in the purse.

 

And I know what you’re thinking: your special girl, the one who was only in the bar against her will -was only there to help the cashier (a family friend); had only arrived in Pattaya eight minutes and forty-three seconds before you rode in astride your shining white charger- she is patiently waiting your return. This is the same girl who, so you’ve been telling all who’ll listen, wakes you up with her laughing gear wrapped lovingly around your middle stump; has a wonderful way with plastic phallic-shaped toys; whose wardrobe is so skimpy you’ll fear she’d freeze to death if the temperature ever dipped below 25 Celsius; and was the proud owner of the latest Nokia 374MHz mobile phone with built-in 3.4 zillion Mega Pixel camera and audio system, which she purchased brand new for the equivalent of half the GNP of a small Pacific island nation, when you first met. But, she’s different I hear you say.

 

What amazes me most in these times of nightlife columns (such as this), web forums, and chat rooms, are the incredible number of men out there whose over-inflated testicles have truly addled their thinking processes to the extent they are prepared to shell out substantial sums on a regular basis to women many have only known for not much longer than a short time. This is while they are back home working their butts off and don’t expect to be back in the Land of Stretched Truth for four, five, six months or more. The most pathetic case I’ve ever personally come across was the English guy who was sending an over-30-year-old Thai woman an average of 15,000 baht per week, and he admitted he had never managed to run the slim length of his natural slide rule over the more intimate parts of her anatomy.

 

One interesting situation we’ve found when wandering about some chrome pole palaces to take happy snaps for Pattaya By Night, are the number of ladies of questionable virtue who don’t want their photo taken. This is not because of false modesty but very often, as many bar owners readily admit, the damsel not only has a Thai boyfriend but also one or more foreign puppets on an ATM string. The foreigners are all under the impression she is staying at home knitting tea cosies, learning the fine art of origami, or going to bed early with a cup of hot cocoa. Of course this is not to say there aren’t girls who gladly give up molesting a chrome pole for the surety of a monthly stipend, but I can assure you these are the exceptions that prove the rule.

 

Piece of Pith: What’s wrong with this statement: “I met her in a gay bar in Udon Thani”? It may sound like the opening refrain of a bad country music record, but it’s actually a true statement uttered by a man of North American extraction to me one late night in a Pattaya ogling den.