Nightmarch - Nov 3, 2008

[MM]

A Year Old Already: On Saturday night 1 November the Sakura Club ogling den (Soi 15, off Walking Street) will be holding a party to celebrate its first anniversary. This place has been a relatively quiet operation since it started, usually drawing punters through the portals who have already spent a few baht in the very popular Baby Dolls (next door) and What’s Up (across the soi) dens. While it has never enjoyed the same popularity as the aforementioned, it has had its moments and is usually worth at least one drink. Management are apparently intending to introduce an expats discount card where punters will be able to pick up a 20 percent discount on drinks, obviously outside of happy hours and not including ladies libations. Good idea and it’s nice to see people at least trying to expand their regular trade when business is a little slow instead of resorting to price gouging and scams.

 

The Call of the Card: In the last issue I mentioned the Boxing Roo beer boozer and occasional punting paradise (Third Road, opposite Soi Lengkee) will be showing Australia’s premier horse race, the Melbourne Cup, at around 9:30AM on Tuesday 4 November. The night before there will be a small party where interested persons can come along and, should they wish, hand over either 100 baht or 1,000 baht and go into a sweep for a runner in the big race. If you draw the eventual winner, runner-up, or third placegetter there’s a nice return on investment: definitely better than bank interest or owning shares in Lehmann Brothers.

I’M WILLING TO BE CLUBBED BY ANY OR ALL: The Club Boesche ogling den (Soi 16, off Walking Street) has been battling through this low season just like many other places, but can usually be relied upon to have a few shining examples of the art of chrome pol

 

 

On Hold for Now: The Coyotee’s ogling den (Soi Marina Plaza) had intended to hold one of its popular dance contests on Sunday night 26 October, but a couple of the participating bars apparently asked if the event could be delayed to coincide with the start of the high season. So, mark down Sunday night 30 November in your diary because that’s the intended new date for the contest and it will be well worth attending.

 

Popped its Clogs; Blowing its Bubbles: Over the years I’ve written of places that, for some strange reason, appear to be black holes when it comes to the number of businesses failing on the site. One of these used to be the building housing the Coyotee’s ogling den, but three years of success has changed the ‘fortunes’ of that site. Another building that has failed to be much of a success over the years is in Pattayaland Soi 2. It’s a narrow shophouse at the Beach Road end of the soi and has been tried as a den of the chrome pole for years, the last incarnation going under the name Popcorn. After struggling for almost a year I notice the shutters have come down and there’s a sign on the door offering the joint for a bargain 800,000 baht.

 

Prior to becoming Popcorn it was operated for years under the name All Girls, although in unkind moments I used to refer to the place as All Ghouls. Of the six dens then run by the same group in Pattayaland Soi 2 it was always the worst in terms of the quality of dancing damsels and general ambience. During the heyday of Pattayaland Soi 2 I imagine it still made a decent monthly profit, but short of most other dens in the street. It was no real surprise to see it sold off to the first person with a wallet-load of personality willing to attempt a revival. Equally, it was no surprise to see the new owners made hardly any changes to the inside of the den and, this being the case, it wasn’t much of a shock when it failed to attract enough custom to stay open longer than a year. Indeed, that it lasted a year was almost amazing.

 

On the other side of the coin, the former Crystal balls-r-us pink palace, situated right next door to the long-established Cheers beer boozer, has apparently been leased out to the management of the Rodeo Girls ogling den (also in the same soi; like a Tasmanian township, they keep it all in the family). When the group alluded to in the above paragraph was in full flight this joint went under the name Bubbles, and was one of the top three or four dens of the chrome pole in Fun Town for a long time. I’m not sure if the new owners intend to revert to the old cognomen, but we’ll know soon enough.

 

Business, Almost as Usual: In the last column I made mention of a sudden hange in the status of Soi 6, Fun Town’s best-known and most popular hangout for men with only a short time to spend an afternoon. Deadline constraints made it impossible to provide a wealth of detail, but the following is basically my understanding of what happened. After foreign news reports, complete with revealing footage, were broadcast, officials charged with upholding Thailand’s good name and reputation sent the proverbial ‘rocket’ up the clackers of as many people in dun-coloured uniforms as they could find. These suitably chastised pen-pushers then demanded something be seen to be done to make Soi 6 resemble an un-used back-lot on a Warner Brothers studio (‘please supply tumbleweeds and a strong wind, if possible’). Most bar owners recognised the crackdown for what it was: the standard bluff-and-bluster, huff-and-puff of officialdom with the usual nod-and-a-wink to ride it all out and wait for the dust to settle. Although bars were now officially not permitted to open their doors to the paying public until 6:00PM, the majority opened anyway, but did not have any girls on the street, just hanging at the front door and waving punters through the portals. If anybody was old enough it might have reminded them of speakeasies, in the days of Prohibition in the United States.

 

After a series of meetings between bar owners or their representatives and licensing officials the bars are now back to their old opening hours of around 1:00-2:00PM, but they have been warned to keep the outside solicitations well and truly in check. Supposedly, only two girls will be permitted to spruik for custom outside, and these damsels must be dressed in no more than a combination neck-to-knee bathers, long woollen socks, and sensible shoes while their mouths are covered with gaffer tape.

A Walk on the Dark Side: As most expats are well aware, the growth in the number of boozers offering female entertainment of the grab-a-snatch variety in the eastern areas of Pattaya has been phenomenal in the last five years or so. It wasn’t so long ago that there were just three or four places open for business of the afternoon delight variety, most frequented by golfers returning from a hard nine or 18. Now the average through soi has a veritable clutch of places.

 

One of the more prominent and certainly popular of the streets is Soi Khao Noi with the bulk of what are all Sierra Tango boozers situated beyond the railway line, heading east. On a recent lazy afternoon I decided to check out four places all within a short stroll of each other.

 

The first one I went into was the Flintstone. It has only been open two months and is nicely appointed. The joint employs about a dozen ladies of varying degrees of attractiveness. Amber fluid is of the bottled variety only, ly water is 50 baht and there is a pool table with games charged at 20 baht a time.

 

Just a few metres down the road is Paradise. This place has been open since March 2007. Its entrance is unpre-possessing but once inside punters must surely be reminded of a standard Soi 6-like den. It has added a pool table, but games are free for customers. While there were only seven or eight ladies working, they were a typically friendly lot of knob fondlers and, of the four places I was to visit, Paradise was easily the busiest in terms of bums on seats. Lolly water is just 30 baht and lady drinks good value at only 80 baht. Bottled amber goes off at a mere 50 baht during a 6:00 to 7:00PM happy hour.

 

Heading further towards Sukhumvit Road is Noi’s. This has been open longer than the other pair and is a combination open-air seating area at the front and a little more private section inside. The pool table gets plenty of use from both customers and girls and is, like Paradise, free for customers. About 12 ladies, two or three very easy on the eye, were on hand to greet customers with the traditional between-the-legs handshake. Lady drinks at 50 baht and ly water at 30 baht make this good value.

The last place I intended to visit was the Cock Inn. I have no idea how good or bad it is because there was a single lady re-arranging the deck chairs when I wandered past and with no eye candy to draw me into the place I just kept on walking. I’ll have to save it up for another sojourn.

 

All the boozers open early and, due to the zoning regulations, are supposed to be closed by midnight. In all places the standard bar fine for an in-house organ recital is 300 baht, with the lady providing the mattress action asking for 700 baht. For me, the two standouts were Paradise and Noi’s, based not just on their pricing policy, but as much as on the general ambience and attitude of the working wenches in both joints.

 

Piece of Pith: Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.

 

From http://www.pattayatoday.net/index.php?acti...ews&id=3975