Ladyboy Go-Go Bars in Nana Plaza, 2014

Some of the more interesting photos lately to come out of Nana Plaza

in Bangkok has been the promo shots from some of the Ladyboy bars

like Cascade and Obsessions.  Katoey anyone?

(Please note that Cascade is now called Charades and
Obsessions is now called True Obsession due to some legal thing.)

Dean Barrett Guide to Soi Cowboy

Writer Dean Barrett walks thru Soi Cowboy, describing the scene.

  " I was innocently walking down Soi Cowboy and Jimmy Corr 
saw me while he was photographing them and had me pose with them. 
Nothing happened. I swear!"
- Dean Barrett

Thunder and Lightning above Bangkok

Thunder and Lightning above Bangkok, originally uploaded by Bēn,

taken from a taxi.

Click on the photo. It looks great larger.

Following the Dragon at Chinese New Year

Last year me and my assistant, a girl I bar-fined from G-Spot, were fortunate enough to stumble upon some dragon dancers who walked right in front of us in Chinatown.
The first day they led us to a small Buddhist temple in an alley where they performed just for us and the resident monks. They would bow to the Buddha statues in each of the four walls.

The next morning another (and more skilled) dragon dancing troupe passed right in front of our taxi and led us to the central stage for the national media and government big shots. The cultural commissioner's wife was happy to see the Hawaiian media present (although I had no media passes, only my Art TV Hawaii business card) and told us about visiting Hawaii for a formal tea ceremony earlier in the year.

All the media would run up upon the stage to shoot the commentary by the bigshots and retreat for the dancing. I could see what was happening and was able to place myself in ideal spots to shoot the entertainment, all the time thinking the network TV crew was going to bump me from my vantage spots.
It opened with some beautiful Thai dancers, whom I was able to get backstage before their performances and shot portraits of them putting their makeup on. Then the dragon dancers would jump rope with the dragon body, roll on the stage with the dragon body above them, and even get on each others' shoulders for a rotating spiral effect with the head held up high in the center. And the lion dancers then danced and pranced on top of poles above the audience.

After the formal presentation was over, we followed the dragon across the street where they performed for the masses of spectators of common people. My assistant was very impressed with how I was able to get in among all the big-time media and government officials inside the ropes, right to where the action was. And the cultural commissioner's wife invited us back the following evening to see the queen who was suppose to attend, but I had enough of the crowds, all wearing red shirts for the occasion, and just wanted to get laid by my assistant.

So the motto of the story is to "Follow the Dragon," it'll take you to where the action is.
Art TV
(bottom photo by Dean Barrett at this year's event.)

Drugged in Bangkok......

Don't Accept Food From Strangers
by Randy Magnus

I was photographing the people leaving Nana Entertainment Plaza at closing time, and this kid said she was hungry and wanted soup. I told her I’d get her some. She looked 12, but said she was 19. What was strange was she wanted soup on Sukhumvit - not on Soi 4, where Nana Plaza is.

I’d been documenting the street food and their vendors all week long in the Nana area, and I knew there were a lot of them on the other side of Sukhumvit who set up for the closing Nana crowd. We walked down Sukhumvit to the pedestrian crossing just before the Nana skytrain stop, crossed over the road, and right there was a seafood soup place - the kind they put the charcoal right on the table, a clay pot of heated water on top of the charcoal and you cook the food right at your table [This is called Jim Jum - Bangkok Badboy].

I was taking photos of her and her friend preparing the soup, drinking only water because I’d just had a hamburger at the entrance to Nana Plaza. When the soup was ready, she prepared a small bowl for me, which I refused. I should have left then and taken photos of the other vendors on the way back to Nana. But I finally agreed to eat the bowl of soup - which she had drugged.

I woke up 12 hours later in my room at White Orchid Inn, a little boutique hotel in the alley across from the 7-11 on Soi 4 (two alleys away from Nana Plaza). She and her friend had assisted me to my hotel - only she was allowed in with me, the friend left and waited outside. Nattaya was her name on her ID, from Pattaya.

Nattaya went through all of my stuff in my room, took the cash and my two digital still cameras. She couldnt slip my video camera in her purse and get it by the receptionist, so it was saved.

The receptionist got the information from her ID card, and I went to the police, filled out a form, and talked to another policeman, who send me to a small hospital for a urine test to verify that I had been drugged.
The receptionist at White Orchid Inn said that the police don’t do much unless you slip them some money.

I sent a letter to her and her parents to the address in Pattaya (assuming it was a valid ID), and had the receptionist at White Orchid translate the letter to Thai, asking them to return my cameras and telling them that what she did was wrong.

We’ll see what happens, if anything. She probably sold the cameras down Sukhumvit at the night market…

Footnote: Got word from my hotel that the ID was stolen from a university girl.