Nightmarch

[PattayaPete 530]

A Night of Surprises: It’s very rare for me to venture out into the mean streets of Fun Town and go into four night entertainment venues and be impressed with all four. Yet this is precisely what happened a couple of weeks back when I made a foray into Walking Street.

 

The first place on the agenda was the newly-opened Insomnia Club in Soi Diamond. Situated on the site of the failed Super Models ogling den, the place is billed as a ‘Gentleman’s Club’ and so I figured this being Pattaya the place should just about be empty. It turned out that the evening happened to coincide with some sort of official opening party or someone’s birthday and so there was a reasonable crowd in to inspect the facilities. The place is owned and operated by the same people who run the quite successful Club Insomnia late-night boozatorium in Soi Marina Plaza.

 

The new place has been extensively remodelled and is very tastefully appointed. There are laminated drinks menu cards on all the tables, the seating is comfortable and relaxing and, as with the old Super Models, there is a section upstairs which has been given the name ‘Mile High Lounge’.

 

The dancing maidens are of the coyote variety, that is, dressed in skirts, dresses or shorts with not a lot of flesh on show. As a friend remarked, many of the dancers looked like they were formally employed around the chrome poles of ogling dens and seemed to be just itching to take off as much apparel as possible. There were plenty of quite attractive young ladies of the wallet-emptying persuasion and although were only two dancers on stage at any one time, they only gyrated for the length of one song each and so the turnover on the raised platforms was high. The employed talent was very friendly, making an effort to talk to customers, and this is one key factor that will probably ensure the continued success of the joint.

 

The price of libations is quite high in some cases, although draught amber fluid is 70 baht and lolly water 95 baht, the same impost for lady drinks. As an encouragement to repeat business in both the ‘gentleman’s club’ and the head-bangers auditorium as well as their outdoor Party beer boozer in Soi 8, the management give out laminated VIP cards offering a 20 percent discount on drinks. This brings the libations more into line with most other similar style establishments. Definitely worth having a drink or two in this place.

 

From Insomnia we wandered further down into the garish bowels of Walking Street to check out the new Ocean 10 late-night freelancers boozer. This is on the site of what used to be the Cheerleaders ogling den (closed 1995) and later became the failed Drop-In and Folies Pigalle chrome pole palaces.

 

The new incarnation looks terrific. Personally I have very little interest in spending time in crowded head-banging joints with live bands belting out tunes at aircraft-takeoff decibel level (yes, just shows I’m getting old), but the ambience of this place is worth a libation or six if you like this kind of entertainment. A live band kicks into electric guitar action at around 10:00PM each night and then the techno/house/trance/dance/dangle or whatever it’s called takes over in the later hours.

 

For my money the real attraction of Ocean 10 is to walk through to the rear of the joint and sit outside and have a drink while looking out into Pattaya Bay. The aural delights of the sound system are muffled by the doors leading into the back area. The lights of the Pattaya City sign and the multitude of boats on the bay are worth stopping in for a drink. There’s also a street-watching area at the entrance to Ocean 10 for those who can’t bear the thought of missing the perambulating action on Walking Street. The only negative is that the toilets are still, as they were with the old dens, upstairs.

 

Almost next door to Ocean 10 is the recently remodelled and upgraded Hooty’s ogling den. The place is under new management and re-opened at the beginning of November and can arguably lay claim to having the best selection of music of any den on Walking Street. Some real thought has gone into the aural ambience of the place as well as the rather alluring visual sights you will be subjected to as you wander down the long tunnel (think: return to the womb) at the entrance to the den. The music ranges from well-known 1970s, 1980s and 1990s songs through to good quality modern material. Of course, the DJ, mamasan and the damsels claim they just can’t gyrate to anything other than dance/trance/prance, which is a complete load of bovine excretion: so just what were their mothers, elder sisters, and aunts dancing to back in the early era of chrome pole molesting from 1969 onwards? And, what play palace really has many

girls who do much more than hang onto a chrome pole anyway, no matter what music is being churned out?

 

The dancing damsels in Hooty’s were a mixed bag ranging from quite attractive to fairly average, but there were plenty of them. Lady drinks are above the average at 110 baht, but as most of the chrome pole molesters appeared friendly with customers this factor alone should consistently draw punters back into the den. Another place to put on the definitely-to-be-visited list.

 

Finally, an old favourite, Club Boesche (Soi 16, off Walking Street) was celebrating its second anniversary so this was the final port of call. In contrast to Hooty’s, I’m not a fan of the garage/grunge/grange/gangrene kind of aural devastation emanating from the speakers in Club Boesche, but it wins me over in other ways. As of the second birthday party it could lay claim to having more than its fair share of prize pulchritude. Admittedly, some of them could be classified as ‘hard-core’ veterans when it comes to the mining of monetary reward from Map-of-Tasmania-struck punters, but for a good optic nerve Club Boesche

is deserving of its high ranking in Fun Town.

 

Hiding a Packed Lunch: Late October witnessed the opening of two more dens of the meat-and-two-veg-in-a-dress brigade with Minou in Sunee Plaza and Cat in Soi Day-Night One.

 

The latter was formerly the resting station for the damsels from the far busier Gletcherkuss boozer in Soi Diamond. It spent a brief period of time being a pink palace, but that failed miserably and it returned to hawking members of the distaff side of the chromosome pool. Now, I’m led to believe it is under new management and has been turned into a ‘I have pussy, I have room’ joint.

 

All I know about Minou is that it is located in Soi Sunee Plaza, it is extremely well-appointed, and apparently employs non-hardcore Jake-the-Peg types. How well it will do in this predominantly pink area is hard to tell, but it’s first major party, held in mid-November was, according to my spies, a raging success.

 

There seems to be somewhat of an underground market for overtly katoey-only boozers, witness the success of Stringfellows in pseudo-macho Soi Yamato and its sister (is that the right word?) den Goldfingers in Soi 7. Many beer boozers down in Soi 7 and 8 as well as Soi 6 employ boys-who-would-be-girls and there are some whose original gender is difficult to ascertain, especially after a few libations of an alcoholic nature.

 

The Best Licks: Many years ago a den of the chrome pole named Lovely existed in Naklua. The girls from the lickem’ where the sun don’t shine brigade did their impersonation of Lesbos natives to the strains of a wonderful song entitled ‘An Angel’ from an album by a group called the Kelly Family. The song had just the right sound and tempo for a girls-will-be-a-little-too-friendly-with-girls song and I’ve been surprised that no other den ever used the tune either before or since. It’s certainly better, and different, than most of the songs used for these kinds of shows.

 

You Keep Asking For It: With three well-spaced out editions so far, I am being asked more and more when the fourth version of the glossy magazine Pattaya By Night will be coming out. The plan with the magazine was always to keep faith with advertisers by selling out of each edition and with the numbers printed the time frame is always going to be something of the order of six-eight months. Based on this the fourth edition should be close to coming out about February next year. In the meantime, the third edition is still for sale in places such as DK Bookshop, Tops Supermarket, and Pattaya Beach Books (all on Central Pattaya Road), as well as Foodmart, Jomtien, DK Bookshop and TK Bookshop (both in Soi Post Office) and some participating bars. If you prefer the internet, try www.dcothai.com

 

Wee Willie Winkie: The following item appeared in the British Sporting Life newspaper: ‘Willie Carson, riding his 180th winner of the season, spent the last two furlongs looking over one shoulder, then another between his legs, but there was nothing there to worry him.’ I can empathise completely with him.

 

Piece of Pith: I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.