Katoeys of Nana Plaza

Video by Randy Magnus, featuring images from the book, The Katoeys of Nana Entertainment Plaza, which is available at blurb.com.
Also, check out the Youtube page of Randy Magnus for a good collection of Thailand nightlife videos.

Guess Bar

Rumor has it that the upscale ladyboys bar, Guess, is closing its doors on November 1st after being open for 1 year. May be worth a stop on Halloween for a feel of the place before it closes, its right down the street from Nana Plaza, located at the end of the first floor (upstairs) corridor in the dreary building known as Sukhumvit 1 Plaza. It has been mentioned as the best katoey bar in Bangkok.

Update:
I read it was closing December 1, then re-opening near Rajak Hotel.
Penfold

Update II:
For those who prefer the third sex, the new Guess Bar and all the staff are now located in the car park area of the Rajah Hotel, the space that used to be the Red Dragon, just two doors away from the Metro Pool Bar.
Stickman

A Katoey Experience

On entering Cascades I was pleasantly surprised how big the place was. We take a seat and order drinks. What surprised me even more was how long it took my Thai wife to realize these were all ladyboys, most of them really do look stunning. Been thai I thought she would click on straight away but she didn't, these Katoeys have come on leaps and bounds over the years.

Pretty soon we are approached by hopefuls and the voices are the big give away, the penny drops and I produce my best expression of total surprise.
Within minutes we are joined by 3 ladyboys and my missus is loving it, chatting, joking and ordering drinks.....shit.
The main subject was breast implants, a topic me and the wife had been recently discussing (for her benefit of course) and it turns out it can be done for 45,000baht, alot cheaper than I had found on the internet.
Over the next 15 minutes I am feeling silicone breasts,with the encouragement of wifey, to decide on which would be the best size.
Bizarre.

Over the next 2 hours I am informed, via my wife, which ladyboy has the biggest cock in the place, who gets the most business...she is actually numbered #1 and has been known to be bar fined up to 4 times in one night.
How many work there...approximately 100 ladyboys and while all this is going on I've got some dude in a bikini sat next to me asking for short time while my missus is busy chatting.
What the wife didn't twig on to was the fact 'why they were been so friendly' was due to the constant rounds of drinks been ordered.

Pattaya Addicts

Photo from the book
"The Katoeys of Nana Plaza"
check it out.

Exodus to Cambodia and Chasing Ladyboys by Stickman

The new visa restrictions have caused a major exodus of foreigners out of Thailand and this is almost certainly the major contributing factor to the swelling of the expat population in Phnom Penh. Reports suggest that the number of Westerners in the Cambodian capital has soared over the last year, particularly the last 6 months - exactly the period since the new visa restrictions appeared. The numbers are upsetting some who have complained that men now outnumber women at weekends in some of the city's popular nightlife venues. These new arrivals are exactly the type that the Thai authorities were hoping to get rid of, and would appear to have succeeded in doing so. It is no coincidence that the attitude of Khmers towards foreigners has started hardening.....

I have to be careful what I say because not a small number of you are fans of cocks in frocks, but for those of you who are not, you'll be pleased to know that there was something of a foot race in the Soi 4 area on Wednesday night involving the boys in brown and the you know whats in frocks. Creeping out of the shadows in the Nana Hotel car park, two boys in brown crept up on a bunch of trans-sexuals who bolted across the road into the plaza where they sought refuge. Unconfirmed rumours have it that Dave The Rave took the tall beauties in.....
Stickman

"The Katoeys of Nana Plaza" stills in video

Excerpts from the 120 page 8x10" book of color photographs, portraits of "The Katoeys of Nana Entertainment Plaza" in Bangkok, Thailand taken by Randy Magnus. A beautiful hardbound book where the ladyboys are prettier than the ladys. Check it out.

"The Katoeys of Nana" Book Available

Now available, a 120 page 8x10 inch book of color portraits of the Katoeys of Nana Entertainment Plaza, by Randy Magnus.
It can be ordered at:
The Katoeys of Nana Entertainment Plaza.




Photographs by Randy Magnus


Katoeys:
This is a land where the boys are often prettier than the girls.
Someone told me that if it looks too good to be real, its a Katoey (Ladyboy.)
These girls are from Nana Plaza clubs Temptation, Cascade, Obsession, and Casanova.

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