Nightmarch 1 April 2004

[PattayaPete 530]

Cue the Mexican Standoff: For anyone who has wandered into the depths of Soi 8 in recent weeks the saga surrounding the closure and boarding up of the majority of beer boozers fronting the Prince Hotel is the stuff of thriller novels.

 

Trying to unravel the intricate truth from the shame-faced fiction and the usual plethora of rumours is no easy task. So what follows may not be entirely correct.

It’s my understanding that the Prince Hotel had been in the hands of a Thai bank for quite some time and they recently off-loaded this little piece of Pattaya black hole to a very prominent and wealthy local business identity at a knockdown impost.

 

Included in the sale, of course, was control of the beer boozers both inside and alongside the premises. The new owner dispatched his minions to chat with the lessees of these boozers, showed them the documents proving the sale of the building and stated all monthly rentals should now be handed over to him and no one else. So far, so good.

 

However, for the past few years the Prince Hotel has been occupied- allegedly illegally- by a somewhat shadowy figure whose favourite bedtime reading might well have been the trilogy written by Mario Puzo, later made into a series of movies starring a rotund Marlon Brando.

 

This latter-day Don Vito Corleone has managed to operate and profit with impunity, selling leases and organising business associated with the Prince Hotel. So, after hearing about the sale of his squatter’s residence, far from being nonplussed, he determined to flex his muscle and demanded the booze bar owners continue to fork out their monthly rental to his lackeys. Those who stated they had already paid their rent- to the legal landlord- were forced out of their boozers (allegedly at gunpoint) and the entire area boarded up.

 

The whole murky tale is a long way from its end, and although there are notices claiming the boozers are under renovation, all that looks to be happening at present is a lot of concrete is being knocked around. The bars do not look likely to be re-opened in the foreseeable future. Of course, the real losers in this sorry fable are the booze bar operators who have been caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Yet one more example of how to lose your shirt in Fun Town.

 

*Note: Since the above was written, the bars (as of Tuesday 30 March) have re-opened for business after the owners, so I’m told, coughed up 150,000 baht each to have the boards taken down.

 

Somebody call Greenpeace: If anybody wants to see a prime example of the gap between the haves and the have-nots in the ogling den caper, then a wander down a so like Post Office any night after 7:00PM should suffice. It’s no secret the majority of chrome pole palaces on and around Walking Street, since its resurgence in the last two to three years, have snaffled up the best talent in town.

 

Therefore, it is unfair to compare the dens located outside the area with their Walking Street cousins. Nevertheless, it’s not unfair to compare what you are likely to receive for your ogling baht in the establishments located away from the heart of Fun Town.

 

One example is the Far East Rock ogling den (Soi Post Office), which has one of the best-designed signs of the genre in Pattaya and offers libations from a reasonable 55 baht. It started life as Porky’s and judging by the damsels who were molesting the chrome poles when I wandered in a few Sunday’s past, it should perhaps return to its original cognomen.

 

I am well aware there are persons of the male gender living and visiting Pattaya who don’t mind if a dancing maiden is carrying a few extra hundred kilos around the girth or is old enough to remember the day US President John Kennedy was assassinated. However, when these damsels insist on divesting themselves of the little apparel with which they are attired I for one find it difficult to keep thoughts of being French-kissed by an octogenarian nursing home resident out of my tiny mind. I’m certain they’re not all suffering from some glandular or thyroid malfunction.

 

I know the ogling dens away from Walking Street find it difficult to recruit dancers and management tends to adopt a ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ stance, but staring at the pubic regions of a matronly woman with stretch marks resembling a piece of used sandpaper is not my idea of entertainment.

 

Another den, this time All Girls (Pattayaland Soi 2), might offer draught amber at a reasonable 59 baht all night but it too had a clutch of dancers who looked as though they’d been mentioned in more than a few despatches, although thankfully they kept their upper and nether regions covered. Admittedly there were a couple of damsels who were easy on the eye but with lady drinks at a ridiculous 119 baht (compared to say a 95 baht lady drink for chrome pole molesters in a place like Super Baby) allied with cajoling waitresses, I wasn’t interested in discussing the problems of rice paddy irrigation and subsistence farming in Nakhon Noname. A change of name to All Ghouls and a theme associated with such a cognomen might just interest the average wandering tourist and local ex-pat.

 

Whereas the music in Far East Rock wasn’t too bad, the noise emanating from the speakers in All Girls merely confirmed the commonly held belief that Thai DJ’s are completely tone deaf.

 

No offence to the management or ownership of Far East Rock or All Girls, I’m merely using them as an example. If I may be so bold as to suggest to a number of off-Walking Street dens that they think about attiring their dancers in costumes more suitable to the age and size of their chrome pole molesting employee and therefore perhaps more alluring to the potential imbiber. And I don’t mean those awful wrap-around skirts that look as though they were last used as kitchen curtains. The only people who find them attractive think wearing white socks and sandals are the height of summer fashion.

 

Just short of a ton: Big Andy, the operator of the Club Electric Blue ogling den (Walking Street) has announced that all libations in his establishment will be 99 baht for the foreseeable future. Heineken draught amber will be on special at two for 99 baht, lady drinks will be 99 baht. Happy hour will run from 8:00PM until 9:00PM with all drinks at 35 baht, including draught.

 

Good Thai grub: One of the longest running Thai nosheries in Fun Town was Panya’s Kitchen in Soi 6/1. When all the boozers and buildings were knocked down in that soi last year, Panya was forced to relocate. She has resurfaced on the corner of Soi 19 and Third Road and is still serving what I consider to be the best chicken and cashew nuts dish in town, at 80 baht. Her nosh house is open from 11:00AM until 1:00AM (although her menu mistakenly reads ‘1:00PM’) and western food is also available.

 

Tales from the Crib: A Thai lady friend of mine who has lived in Australia for many years told me about a friend of hers who resides in Bangkok. This damsel is very much a kept woman. She is the mia noi of a wealthy Bangkok businessman, receiving 200,000 baht a month from him as her stipend. She is also seeing a doctor who coughs up another 70,000 baht a month. I suppose it’s no surprise that she has purchased a number of properties in Bangkok and in her home province.

 

My e-mail address is: nightmarch@hotmail.com

Author of Pattaya "Patpong on steroids"

No reproduction without specific reference to: nightmarch@hotmail.com

[Ready 2]

Pete:

 

Given the incredible investment made by a certain antipodean Government in your education this report is as well written (and amusingly so) as your old school mates would expect!

 

However given your corporate investment in a specific part of the Pattaya bar scene you sure seem (in this report at least) to be a little cycloptic.

 

Great reading - Much enjoyed and pleased to know that you can still detect a geriatric pole dancer when you see one!

 

Goodonyermate!

 

David

[Emil 0]

Ready,

 

Pete doesn't write these, he just posts them for us. I believe the author is Duncan Stearn.

 

Pete, why is this most recent Nightmarch burried on the 2nd page?

 

Emil

[Ready 2]

And I was so impressed with Pete's journalistic fervour!

 

Hope I don't draw a warning!!