Trouble in Paradise?

The Pattaya Addicts gang has sent out a heads-up in regards to a meeting they attended which mentions new rules will go into effect; such as close-circuit tv having to be installed inside and outside of bars and gogo clubs, random drug testing for both employees and customers, employees must be 20 years old and the businesses must keep registration forms with photos on file of all of its workers. Sign up and read more. "The crackdown has begun."

Nana Coming to Life

The Bangkok Nana Plaza go-go dancers arrive in their street clothes and street makeup, walk by, eyeing the potential customers (and being eyed by them) and heading for their respective bars. Many stopped to wai the Buddhist and Brahman shrines, some lit incense or bought garlands or fruit from nearby vendors to place on the shrines. Others stood about deeply engrossed in cellphone conversations, no doubt assuring men overseas that, no, they definitely were not working in the bars anymore so please keep those checks and wire transfers coming.
Dean Barrett

Watching Soi Cowboy Wake Up

Watching the soi wake up is an enlightening experience. Many of the girls live above the bars in which they work - so we see them emerging, sober and docile, into the soi to buy lunch from one of the countless food carts. Office workers pop into the soi to buy food, looking warily at the girls and hastily beating a retreat once they’re loaded up with som tam.

Later in the afternoon, some of the girls who’ve managed to acquire their own apartments (or spent the night in someone else’s) begin to arrive - some by foot, some in taxis or on mopeds or motorbikes. Some even arrive on the back of their Thai boyfriends’ motorbikes (which the girls probably paid for).
Bangkok Bad Boy

Dave The Rave Has A New Look

Dave The Rave has updated his website,
complete with some new photos. Some exciting stuff.

Dave writes about Valentine's Day:
Valentine’s Day is a lovely time in Thailand, when the girls and guys can have some fun and offer hearts in the form of gifts and stickers. It is also visually appealing to see the pole performers in the go-go bars all wearing seductive red outfits. Valentine’s Day is a time when the world can celebrate love and romance, but in the nightlife areas in Thailand it is a time for fun and frolics. Being the man with the reflective dome, my head ended up being completely covered with love heart stickers. This is another good reason why I still enjoy my time here, because the Thais will spontaneously party and have fun. The world can be such a serious place, so it is always enjoyable to be able to escape that.

Have a look.
Dave The Rave
Dave also has a new video out. Take a look at Youtube.

Hog's Breath - A Neighborhood Bar

Hog’s Breath is a little different than the other go-go bars in Nana Entertainment Plaza.

It’s a meeting place and hangout for old ex-pats, who often organize fishing trips and golf tournaments for its patrons. I saw the guys catch some 60 pound catfish on one of their sponsored excursions. The men gather about 5 or 6pm to drink beer and talk story, until the music starts at 8pm and then they are driven outside.

The girls spend more time mothering you, greeting the regulars with a cool damp washcloth, a smile, and your usual drink. On Sundays the manager even cooks up a pot of Texas chili for its patrons. One evening at the outside counter some of the girls showed me how to eat roasted crickets and bugs. The girls at Hogs Breath often shared their food with me, allowing me to try many exotic Thai dishes.
Later in the evening the djay plays old Thai pop and traditional songs from Thailand, and the girls will show you some of the old Thai dances. Some of the workers from other bars join in the celebration just before closing.
Its a safe haven for the ex-pats to tell stories, to relax, and to watch the tourists and katoeys walk by.

Its an old neighborhood bar in the middle of all of the excitement.

Randy Magnus

Bangkok Go-Go Clubs

Excerpts and Comments on Bangkok’s Nightlife By Stickman, Bangkok Bad Boy, and Dave the Rave

Bangkok has three main “go-go” nightlife areas - Nana Plaza, Patpong and Soi Cowboy.

Nana Entertainment Plaza (or NEP), located on Sukhumvit Soi 4, is a tourist’s haven of beer bars and go-gos. Possibly Bangkok’s most popular centre of adult entertainment, it consists of three floors of bars.
The ground floor, once you’ve negotiated the narrow entrance (filled with takeaway food stalls, freelance hookers, ladboys and possibly an elephant), has a number of beer bars in the middle, interspersed with commissioned reps who will physically drag you into their bars if you hesitate for too long! Around the sides of this arena are the entrances to several go-go bars - first-time visitors might like to know that Obsession is a ladyboy bar.
The first floor (in the British sense – ie. the floor above the ground floor!) consists of more go-go bars (including two more ladyboy-only bars – Casanova and Temptations), and can be reached by escalator if you’re fortunate enough to visit on an occasion when it’s actually working! The second floor has four more go-go bars (Cascade is the ladyboy one here), as well as a cheeky short-time hotel.
Beer bars offer the cheaper drinks, expect to pay less than ฿100 for a beer in these. The go-go bars all seem to charge about ฿110-฿130 (US $2.95-$3.48), although there are a few slightly cheaper exceptions. Average drink prices are slightly higher than on Soi Cowboy, but there’s more choice here and it’s a far better location. As for the girls themselves, it really does depend on who you are – and when you visit. A handsome twenty-something entering a desolate bar (Fantasia, for example) will probably find a girl willing to go with him for a lot less than the price quoted to a fat drunken pensioner in Angelwitch.

Those two bars probably illustrate opposite ends of the spectrum (very bad and very good, respectively), the general mix is pretty good though with a wide variety of choice.


Temptations:
Sandwiched between Fantasia and Rainbow 4, Temptations is Nana Plaza’s smallest ladyboy bar. The ladyboys are less intimidating than those at Casanova, but they’re still out to get you - even if it means “converting” you!

I was eventually able to convince them that this wouldn’t be happening - at least with me, and kicked back on a comfy couch with a cold Heineken. Long couches line the sides of this bar, with a long stage in between on which the ladyboys shuffle, gyrate and generally show off those surgically enhanced curves.

Two Japanese guys sat across from me looked utterly wasted, and were either incapable or unwilling to resist - both were promptly undressed and, um, “examined” by a couple of the bar’s more assertive ladyboys (and they all are)…

When one of the “girls” who’d been talking to me started to cry as I told “her” that I was leaving, I made my excuses and made a mental note to steer clear of this part of the Plaza for a while. There’s nothing quite like an emotionally unstable ladyboy to ruin your night…
Bangkok Bad Boy