The FARANG Speaks 2 Much

Asian ass, yesterday

After a frantic week of alcohol and libido over-use, I decided last night that I’d stay home alone to recuperate.

Bangkok being Bangkok though, this was not to be. I got a phone call at around 1am from a cute girl of my acquaintance who works on Soi Cowboy. She missed me terribly, she said, and wanted to come over when the bar closed. She’d bring food, naturally.

“Bring cigarettes too”, I told her. “And condoms”.

An hour and a half or so later, there was a knock on the door, and we were soon chowing down to the usual entrails and rice that you get if you let a Buriram gogo girl choose your dinner.

A bag of diced melon later, she showered and slipped into bed beside me.

“Tilac”, she said.

“Mmm?”

“Before I have customer he want to boom boom my ass. But I not do for him because I not know how to do. I never do before. Can you teach me?”

“Oh, go on then”.

She left my apartment about half an hour ago, delighted with the ฿100 I gave her for a taxi back to the bar, and was still heroically smiling - despite walking like John Wayne, for some reason…

I love helping out the bargirls of Bangkok. Don’t you?

Finishing off the “revisited” trilogy of farang gogo bar areas comes Patpong. Love it or hate it, everyone seems to have an opinion. The home of Bangkok’s first gogo bars, Patpong has gained international notoriety over the past forty years or so as one of the sleaziest nightlife areas on Earth.

Sadly, it’s now a pitiful shadow of its former self. One year ago, in a decision I now slightly regret, I was put off after just a couple of visits, and vowed not to waste any more time on such an irritating place. I actually didn’t intend to cover it at all on this website. Even now, it only gets a cursory mention. Why?

Touts. And market stalls. And taxi drivers who refuse to use their meters. And tuk-tuks. And pretty much everyone else to be found in the area. Pushy, greedy, rude, irritating arseholes. Thanks to them, a stroll down Patpong is something I approach with a heavy heart indeed, because I know somebody is going to irritate the hell out of me.

Add to this the largest concentration of utterly woeful bars in Bangkok, if not the world, and you end up with a nightlife area whose very mention elicits groans from an alarmingly high number of people.

But, to be fair, it’s not all bad.

The Star of Light on Patpong 2 offers the most skillful, accomodating speciality service providers in Bangkok. For the less exhibitionistic punter, nearby Lolita’s offers a more secluded alternative. Electric Blue has a lot of greedy service staff and some aging girls, but stunners can be found in there if you have the patience.

There are three very similar and pretty decent gogo bars on Patpong 1 - King’s Castle 1, King’s Castle 2 and Camelot Castle. All feature rather more attractive girls than you’re likely to find anywhere else on the soi.

Others prefer the laid-back 1980s time warp of Safari, and whilst I’ve never seen anything I liked the look of, Thigh Bar also has its fans. And if you fancy a pizza, you can’t go wrong in the Madrid bar.

These bars haven’t changed much in the past year, as far as I can see. Madrid bar hasn’t changed in decades. Patpong remains the cheapest of the three main gogo areas to drink, with gogo bars generally offering bottled beer at ฿100, and some at as little as ฿60. But if anything, the hassle merchants have got worse.

No, I do not want a sexy lady, or a massage, or an overpriced t-shirt, or a rolex that’s going to fall apart within a week, or a ฿300 taxi to Nana, or anything else that I can get cheaper elsewhere, thanks. A friend taught me to say “don’t f*cking touch me” in Thai last time I was there. Very useful indeed.

Worth a visit if you can stomach the hassle, and know exactly where you’re going. An exploratory bar-crawl is a very, very bad idea. The bars not mentioned, especially those above the ground floor, are generally amongst the worst hell-holes in Bangkok. Especially Super Queen.