Nightmarch

[MM 6,562]

A Not-So-Secret Afternoon Delight: The Secrets lounge lizard libation room (Soi 14, off Walking Street) held what must surely have been a first for Pattaya: an afternoon in-house dance contest with 17,000 baht in prize money up for grabs. Apparently, the idea was mooted by a member of the Secrets forum who stumped up the prize money.

Although slated to get underway at 2:00PM the first of 29 contestants didn’t take the stage until about 4:00PM. Nonetheless, the place was probably one of the busiest in Fun Town for that time of the day and the atmosphere was enjoyable.

The contest was divided into just two sections: a series of five heats and then a final. Three of the five heats were reserved for coyote dancers, one heat was for hostesses, and another heat was restricted to service girls and/or mamasans. This was probably the most fun with a couple of the four contenders clearly the types of girls who enjoy their victuals, on large plates.

The winner of each heat, reached by a consensus of the judges, went through to the five-girl final. All entrants received a prize of 200 baht for entering while first prize money totalled 5,000 baht, second 3,000, third 2,500, fourth 1,500 and fifth 1,000 baht.

Judging for the final round was based on two criteria. The first was the ability of the finalists to consume a B-52 shooter topped with whipped cream in as erotic a manner as possible without the use of their hands. I’m led to believe the eventual winner, a damsel all the judges picked on top, prefers to use her tongue for minge burrowing, yet her skills in extracting the cream and the contents of the shooter suggest a quite learned talent with objects tumescent. The second criteria, of course, was dancing ability, and right from the start there were really only three or four genuine contenders for the top prize.

The contest was all over by 6:30PM, not too long winded and pretty good for a first effort. I would think Secrets management would be well pleased with the overall turnout and result of the afternoon’s activities.

 

A Few Good Jockeys: The Carousel chrome pole palace (Soi Diamond) will be celebrating an amazing 17 years of operations later this year. After being at the forefront of dens in Pattaya for much of that time it lost its way through most of 2006 and especially 2007. I’m happy to say that following a bit of redecoration Carousel is now back on the worth visiting list. Draught amber fluid is 75 baht all night and there is a very good happy hour between 8:00 and 10:00PM with all house liver wasters, lolly water, amber draught, and Thai rotgut at just 75 baht. What makes it, of course, are the numbers and overall quality of the dancing damsels.

 

Animism or Spiritualism? The Baby Dolls gogo (Soi 15, off Walking Street) is doing good business each night. Even so the damsels in most centres of the chrome pole are always keen to attract more business. I have seen the following ritual performed many times, sometimes in different forms, in dens over the years and witnessed it again just recently in Baby Dolls. A lady of easy virtue will parade in her birthday suit with a glass of alcoholic liquid or (holy?) water in her hand, circumnavigating the centre stage three or four times, sprinkling some of the liquid as she goes. While this is happening the other dancing maidens and bar staff clatter ashtrays and glasses in a rhythmical time on the tables. Eventually, the circumnavigating damsel will make her way to the front door, turn her back to the outside, bend over and, as the door is quickly opened, cast the remaining contents of the glass into the street. You don’t want to be walking into the den just as this happens.

 

Need to go Back to School: I’ll start this by saying it was the Monday evening just after Songkran so presumably a lot of damsels had gone home and many others probably were not bothered coming to work. My young nephew was visiting from Australia and since he was staying in a sleeping palace just down the road we decided to start our night out in the Classroom 2000 gogo (Soi 2). To say it wasn’t worth a cracker is almost an understatement. First, the music was loud and distorted and the standard brain-dead DJ was playing ©rap, followed by more ©rap, followed by more ©rap. Second, they can’t seem to work out their happy hour price for draught amber fluid: a stencilled sign on the outside window claims happy hour is 8:00-10:00PM and 1:00AM until closing with the draught amber froth at 49 baht. The bored-looking outside barkers were desultorily clutching signs claiming the draught fluid was 45 baht. I don’t drink the stuff anyway, but you’d think management might at least get the prices in sync. The standard price for a libation in the den is a reasonable 95 baht. Third, there were no more than 18-20 dancing damsels in the joint (see my opening sentence to at least be fair to them), and while maybe four or five were reasonably attractive the closest my nephew came to a pussy was when a friendly four-legged feline nestled beside him on the bench seat. While attractive, if you happen to like cats, my nephew’s between-the-sheets tastes do not run to paw-licking moggies, and this specimen was not going to be much of a drawcard, except in a petting zoo.

There were only eight-10 dancers on stage at any one time and one thing very noticeable was the paucity of customers and most who did come in stayed for one drink and left. As my nephew noted of the dancers after we wandered out, “they looked disinterested, doing their nails and talking among themselves”.

 

Out of the Rumour Mill: It appears as though Rambling Ricky is well and truly living up to the nickname I’ve given him. A part-owner and the public face of the Sisterz gogo (Walking Street), he was ousted from the place on Friday 28 March. It’s my understanding that his majority shareholder partners vetoed every idea he had for putting new bums on seats in the den: ranging from a change in the music (which would have been welcomed by at least 90 percent of the current regulars I would have thought) to running dance contests to promoting the place by way of trade advertising. How correct these rumours are I can only guess. Suffice to say, Ricky has always struck me as being a very good bar manager and operator, at least on the surface. What he’s like behind-the-scenes I have no idea, and really it doesn’t matter. The end result for any establishment is whether it can build up a regular clientele, and the foreign face propping up a bar stool and meeting and greeting the punters can sometimes be a key factor in the success of a den. Ricky also appeared to have a generally good rapport with most dancing damsels.

Since leaving Bangkok and making Pattaya his place of operations, Rambling Ricky has indeed been somewhat of a ‘rambler’ having parked his frame on barstools in Diamond, Babewatch (now defunct), Catz, and FLB before taking the helm in Sisterz (which used to be a long-running den called Honey).

 

Official Start: One of the newest ‘kids’ on the block is the Rocket gogo (Soi Diamond). It had its official opening party on Saturday night 29 March even though the place has been up and running for a little while with long-time boozerophile Khun Satit at the helm. Early reports were not encouraging, especially regarding the overall poor quality of dancing damsels and the insult to intelligence they tried to pass off as lady drinks.

 

Another Saturday Night: As a somewhat jaded veteran of the chrome pole circuit I like to get out and about with people who have fresher eyes and maybe different views to mine. This was the case on a recent Saturday night and the results were interesting.

A trio of us kicked off in the X-Zone gogo (Soi 16, off Walking Street) just after 8:00PM. There’s no happy hour so I guess it was no surprise there were just three other customers in this very spacious auditorium. There were about 18 dancers, and some of these were quite attractive, but with liver wasters at 140 baht and lolly water 100 baht, I can see absolutely no value in frequenting the joint when compared with so many other places in Fun Town. There are some people I know who highly recommend the place because of the shows, but since there was nothing resembling a show in the 30-40 minutes we spent in X-Zone I would think it’s a late-night attraction.

We then wandered off to the Peppermint chrome pole palace (Walking Street). This was the best den in town some years ago and it’s never dropped out of the top echelon. One of my partners in drinking, from Finland, had never been in before and it was no surprise when he said, “This is much better than the other place.” Considering it was still happy hour (which extends until 9:30PM) and almost all thirst-quenchers were a mere 50 baht, it represents one of the best value-for-money places in Pattaya. Between the colloquially-known ‘pussy corner’, the table-dancers, the ‘three birthday-suited stooges’ in the back enclosure, and the 10 stage dancers there’s enough to burn out even the strongest optic nerve.

Across the road is the long-established Champion gogo with a happy hour running until 9:30PM where most libations are just 35 baht and even bottled amber fluid is just 50 baht. The place has a distinctive odour; basically, it needs a good repaint or retiling or somesuch, although I doubt the management even notice the ‘pong’. There’s no chance of the local plod catching any under-age dancers in the place, most look about ready to start applying for their pension card. That said, the music is still good and the place has a friendly atmosphere and if you like to look at exposed minge of a certain vintage then Champion is the place to go.

Further down is the Sweethearts gogo (Walking Street) which celebrated their second anniversary in March. This place is more a table-dancing den rather than having a long stage. Two dancers start at the rear of the den and move down table by table towards the front. There’s no showing of any kind but there are some 20-25 ladies of easy virtue in this narrow den and most are quite easy on the eye. The music is alright and with most thirst-quenchers, including lady drinks, at 95 baht it’s well worth a visit.

We ended in the New Living Dolls 1 gogo which had a great vibe and plenty of dancing damsels including some real top-notchers, especially if you like ladies with impressive balconies. Drinks prices are sensible, most at 95 baht and lolly water just 45 baht. The latter is a clear indication the management are well aware the majority of imbibers want to drink booze in preference to lolly water, as long as prices are sensible. Of the five dens we went into this was the best and it’s no surprise it does well night after night.

 

Piece of Pith: Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

[glynbuk 29]

another good read, cheers for posting it

[The Gunslinger 3]

First time in Pattaya in a few weeks and this is exactly the kind of info I`m looking for. Thanks.