Nightmarch - Nov 17, 2008

[MM 6,562]

Not Just Beer and Skittles: You have to admire a bar owner who manages to overcome adversity to turn his joint into a popular attraction, be it a beer boozer or a den of the chrome pole. Down in Soi LK Metro, off Soi Diana Inn, the Champagne ogling den has been a prominent feature since it kicked into life just over three years ago. It proved quite popular, although I have to admit to not being much of a fan. Then came a crunch when a partnership dispute erupted and the place was closed for a period of time. When the dispute was resolved, Champagne struggled to return to life, but the owner has persisted and since undergoing a major renovation it is now well worth a visit.

 

Puke green is the predominant colour in the den, and while it isn’t exactly a flattering hue, it doesn’t detract either. The music is quite good, draught amber nectar is available all night for 55 baht a glass, and happy hours run from 7:00-9:00PM.

[Night-March]

COYOTE HARDLY UGLY: Here are two good reasons for at least giving the Coyotee’s den (Soi Marina Plaza, off Walking Street) a whirl on almost any night of the week. (Photo by DAK)

The overall numbers, quality, and friendliness of the dancing damsels is what makes Champagne worth visiting. Most are a friendly bunch, and there are plenty of them, both of the wardrobe malfunctioning g-string types and the more overdressed coyote style. Looks vary from attractive to plain, but this statement could be addressed to the vast majority of dens and beer boozers in Fun Town.

The self-administering body painting show is one of the best I’ve ever witnessed. Four or five ladies of lithe proportions spend a number of minutes applying multi-coloured streaks of paint to their bodies and the end result is like witnessing exploding kaleidoscope. The damsels then repair to the shower to wash it all off. I think someone should point out to the management the shower glass should be opaque; although doing that would spoil the optic nerve moment for those imbibers for whom a clutch of women engaged in ablutions is a turn-on.

New Chips are Down: The Pratamnak road end of Soi Diamond has become a hive of bar building and renovating activity in recent weeks with the opening of one new four-storey nightclub/coyote den called B4, and the remodelling of two existing places: namely Shooters (which has been turned into a hip-hop lounge and had its official opening on 20 November), and the Casino Club. The latter has been gutted inside and expanded in the hope of making it more customer friendly in terms of room to move. When Casino first opened in August 2005 and for much of the next couple of years it was always busy from late at night until the early hours. With rival places springing up it seems the owners

have decided they need to apply a makeover to keep the drinkers coming back.

I’m told the Diamond ogling den, further down the narrow part of the lane, is due to be renovated and remodelled in coming weeks. They held what will be their final dance contest for the year on Loy Krathong night. As usual, the contest was well attended and proved the den can still attract customers when it has something special to offer. Sadly, in-between these events it is a shadow of its former self; hence the desire to make some much-needed changes.

Ten Years After: The FLB lounge-lizard libation room (Walking Street) will be celebrating an amazing 10 years of operations in December. During that time it has had only one change of ownership, although there have been a few managers and the interior has undergone a couple of minor facelifts. FLB has one of the most popular websites around town: www.pattayatalk.com, so to find out more about planned events in the joint just add it to your favourites list.

Taking up the contest cudgels: The Sisterz ogling den (Walking Street) will be holding another of its increasingly popular dance contests, this one on Thursday night 11 December. If past contests are anything to go by then this should be well worth marking in the diary. They are usually reasonably tight-run affairs that kick into life around 9:30-10:00PM and don’t drag on interminably. Given their amazingly cheap libations, with standard thirst-quenchers just 59 baht after happy hour, I would think the joint will be bursting at the seams for most of the night.

Not a Coyote or even a Dingo in Sight: It appears as though the experiment of trying to be a noshery during the day and early into the night and then turning into a coyote dance den later in the evening has failed for the Ingo’s establishment on Third Road, opposite the Buffalo beer boozer.

A few months back the management of Ingo’s thought they had hit upon a great idea to utilise their available space more effectively by adding a couple of chrome poles and a small dance stage and hiring a couple of ladies to cavort about said poles in short shorts and crop tops. The aim was to attract the drinking classes after the noshites had taken their fill of fine food and wandered into the evening. After not being able to attract much in the way of chrome pole molesting talent it seems the owners have sensibly ditched the idea and are now getting more sleep at nights.

A Real Regular’s Hangout: That popular afternoon den Far East Rock (Soi Post Office) appears to have carved a solid niche for itself among a core group of men with nothing better to do than pour alcohol down their throats from the early hours of the afternoon while inspecting the various shades of skin tones on damsels whose dress sense tends towards the minimalist. Certainly beats watching afternoon television and is far more entertaining and refreshing than being perched on an outside bar stool looking at the passing parade.

Draught beer at about 50 baht a glass is the preferred libation while ly water is only 60 baht for those who would like to remain in the world of sobriety during the daylight hours. On a recent visit to the den I think it would be fair to say there were at least a half-dozen ladies who had svelte figures and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a more prominent den of the chrome pole. I was told at least one of the wallet emptiers was indeed employed in a top-class joint in the evenings, using Far East as a place to play in the afternoons.

The music is quite good, 70s and 80s-style rock and pop, and the majority of the customers were clearly regulars. Just before I arrived a new face had been in the den and decided to pay the bar for six of the very best dancers. Probably needed to field a Rugby Sevens team.

The negative as far as attracting new faces through the door might well be the jocks-in-frocks at the front door. While pleasant enough I wonder how many potential customers just keep walking because they think the den is full of the gender-confused? If you’ve never been in and happen to be passing just offer a polite, “How’re they hangin’ Bruce?” as you open the curtain and step inside for a quiet drink or six.

No Longer a Pensioners Paradise: While chatting to a long-term Thailand visitor who has been residing in Pattaya since the days when places like the Pattayaland sois were just open ground, he reminded me of the exponential rise in quality of the wallet emptiers who make Fun Town their primary hunting ground. Back in the 1980s and certainly when I first started coming regularly to Pattaya in the early 1990s, the ladies of nocturnal habits and questionable morals were generally considered to be the least attractive in terms of looks and age compared to their Bangkok counterparts. In those days the genuine head-turners plied their trade from the Patpong dens, with Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy taking the dregs. Pattaya was viewed as a bargirl’s retirement village. Of course there were always lovely ladies here: anyone who had a camera and collected his own happy snaps in those times would be able to provide visual evidence of that. As with anything involving a broad range of bar types and styles and a period of time, my comments have to be generalisations. Nonetheless, since the late 1990s the growth of Pattaya has seen a lot of younger and attractive (to Western eyes anyway) women starting their careers in chrome pole molesting and wallet emptying here in Fun Town, rather than kicking off in the bright lights of Bangkok and then slowly sliding down the age and looks scale before coming to Pattaya for their final fling. As my friend noted, in his opinion the girls in Pattaya are a lot better looking and younger than they were a decade or more ago. I know for certain they gained a far better sense of sensual dressing than was the case in the mid-1990s. Back then girls would say the only women who dressed alluringly were the ladyboys, and they didn’t want potential walking wallets to confuse a genuine distaff operator from a wannabe.

Piece of Pith: It is said that if you line up all the cars in the world end-to-end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them.

 

From http://www.pattayatoday.net/index.php?acti...ews&id=4146