Went on a Soi Cowboy run last night. Pretty slow in all the bars overall. Visited the newly renovated Tilac and the “in desperate need of renovation and attitude transplant” Long Gun amongst others.
Tilac has undergone quite the transformation. Prior to renovation it was a tired old crap GoGo with bored girls and really no reason to visit. Things have changed dramatically and it’s getting more of the DejaVu feel but has in fact leapfrogged Dejavu. The lighting is neon, colorful and strobing. The dancers outfits last night were spandex-like miniskirts with no undies and revealing halter tops. Looks like they’ve brought in some new girls as well because there were some cuties in there. It was lively and had a very unique feel. It was like a GoGo bar on Acid. Not everyone will like the new look and feel but it’s a major improvement imho.
Long Gun on the other hand SUCKED BIG TIME. I know they have some hotties working there but the bar is shite and they have the same “we don’t have to do anything because we pack them in every night anyway” attitude as bars like Angelwitch. This attitude bugs me and reflects in how they treat their customers. I haven’t been to Long Gun in about a year because it’s always too packed to enter but last night there were plenty of seats to be had. However, it was like being in a second floor Patpong GoGo, run down and stinky. We were seated by the stage and when the show started we were told to basically hold our drinks through the duration of the show. The reason is that if you leave your drink in front of you the dancers might knock it over. Okay, I buy that, but c’mon don’t make your customers hold their drinks for 20-30 minutes. What the eff? Build a little drink holder on the side or a guard rail so your precious little dancers can’t wipe them out. I tried to put my drink in an area that the dancers couldn’t reach but was told to pick it up. In between shows I figured it was okay to rest it there for a few minutes and was again told to pick it up. I asked for the check bin at that point.
The shows themselves were horrible. A pudgy and unattractive girl blew a horn and shot darts out of her privates. Welcome to Patpong. Then three girls got up naked and danced around. One was hot but the others were not. It was a lame and unimaginative show. Long Gun is crap.
With all the renovations happening on Cowboy Long Gun continues to live off their old rep. The bar makes money for sure so why not put some back in to improve the customer experience? Lame. Unlike Angelwitch in Nana who can more easily get away with this crap because they don’t have any competition in Nana, Long Gun is being overrun on Cowboy with bars doing it better. I will certainly go to Suzie Wongs or Sheebas lesbian shows before I go to Long Gun. I will go to Deja Vu before I go to Long Gun. In fact, Long Gun is now the last GoGo I would go to on Cowboy. Mind boggling.
Have a different opinion of these bars? Have the same opinion? Whatever, you can tell everyone what you think at Tilac and Long Gun and for any others at guide.2thebigmango.com .
Yup. What he said. I had the Drinks Nazis after me for daring to put my glass down while I angled in for a close-up of the Fake Lesbian action. First they put it on the stool next to me, then tucked it away behind a pillar, where it got deliberately kicked by a “hottie”, and then I had to hold it, and all the time the Nazi was treating me like a nuisance. JUST TELL THE GIRLS TO “DANCE” ON THE DANCEFLOOR, NOT THE BAR. How hard can that be? Fuck all that.
(One time, 3B and I were ringside during the steamy Sappho routine, and an aside of mine made him burst out into laughter, rather spoiling the dreamily erotic ambiance. Maybe they haven’t forgiven me.)
View all comments by Pants Elk
Hey - i like the map dealio - it’s fun to see where people are viewing this website. Looks like Americans are pretty interested in your website.
I also like your map of BKK - I know it is a work in progress but so far so good.
Keep up the good work - I look forward to the opening of the new Big Mango sometime in the future.
View all comments by Calvin
Tell us how you really fell about Long Gun.
View all comments by Jack Dawson
Thanks Calvin. Smitty added the Live Traffic Feed and Popular Pages Today a few days ago. Very cool widgets indeed from FEEDJIT (http://feedjit.com/).
View all comments by pmmp
Back in the day Long Gun was certainly the place to go in Cowboy. When they first had the crackdown on night life in Bangkok, and bars started closing at midnight to 1am, Long Gun was the only place to still see naked dancers anywhere in Bangkok. But that was still after its heyday, which was really about 7-8 years ago. Back then Sa, who is now the mamasan at Raw Hide, was one of the hottest dancers there. The shows were creative with cool uniforms and the works and there were some steamy dark skinned girls there who would all go for 1,000 Baht. There were those 2 tall, big-titted, thin looking sister. There was a touch of attitude, but it was more like playful confidence and I had many good shags out of there. In fact, about 13-14 years ago Long Gun was still a single shop house bar and at the time was next door to Shadow Jacks, which I believe now is a lady boy bar. Raw Hide (same owner) used to be were Long Gun got rid of all its uglies, and they still do a bit, but Raw Hide has come a long way. Comfortable seats, friendly attitude, and you can still catch the occasional 1,000 Baht girl in there. And if you want to reminisce about the good old days of Long Gun, go ahead and buy Khun Sa at Raw Hide a drink…
View all comments by CheapoLay
“f eedjit” - is that an Irish website?
View all comments by tripper
Hey pmmp, just found this blog commentary about the Thai word for “pimp”, “Maeng daa”:
And just for fun, the Thai slang term for “gigolo,” or “pimp” (or perhaps any man who lives off of women) is แมงดา - “maeng daa”
It’s the name of a large water beetle which is a delicacy for those who like to eat bugs; the vernacular reference comes from the fact that after mating, that male remains atop the female (sleeping it off?) while she goes on with the task of finding the proper place to lay her eggs: the female is working; the male is just letting her carry him along.
A perfect description of “gigolo/pimp” derived from the natural world.
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=141908
View all comments by Phoenix
c - thanks. if you hover over the arrived from link in the live traffic feed you will see what people typed into the search engine. U will see some funny shit that way.
cl - 4-5 years ago long gun was the bomb but too me it has only gone downhill. more attitude, less hotties and the place needs a refit so bad. I do not think there are any ladyboy bars on cowboy. fyi.
View all comments by smitty
phoenix: The “sleeping it off” part fits me to a tee but the TG usually sleeps it off more than I do. I think this may fit the TG’s Thai boyfriend stereotype more.
View all comments by pmmp
I agree on what you wrote about Long Gun. However, it is one of the very few places with 100% naked (well, let them keep their shoes on) go-go girls. Call me weird but that’s how I like to see them!
See-thru thingies of other bars just don’t do it for me and the nip-stars are a complete turn-off. I guess I’m not the only pervert here since, as you said, Long Gun is usually packed!
BTW, My first post here, thanks for a great site!
View all comments by Lightfast
lf - thanks for reading the blog.
toss in a rating and review for long gun on the guide.
http://guide.2thebigmango.com/?p=92
thanks!
View all comments by smitty
smitty: would it be possible to be able to see ‘other reviews’ by a certain reviewer on the guide. (ideally a link next to their name saying something like “other reviews by this reviewer”). over time, there are some opinions i trust more than others and it would be great to know other places reviewed/recommended by the same person instead of having to click through all the reviews. reason i bring this up now is that with not many reviews up it’s not too hard to click through them all but at some point past critical mass i’m sure it will be a real slog to go through them all to find the same reviewer.
the other thing concerns the rss feed which i use to track any new additions to the site. thank you for adding this but would it be possible for a header on each entry to distinguish between say “added venue, added review, updated venue etc”. maybe something short like “ADDED” “REVIEWED” “UPDATED”.
other than that, kudos on the guide. i think this is a big step forward to aggregating all info into one place with user reviews.
View all comments by bkkunderground
bkk - great feedback. thanks. these are on the list but require some hacking. The RSS thing I have not looked into and will check into it. There are 2 feeds. one for venues and one for reviews. I am not sure how to manage the changes to venues which given I don’t think there will be many I probably won’t work on that one.
The blog was always an extension of the bar business for us. Then it got bigger than the bar so to speak. But we see the importance of keep it gong. The guide is using a subset of some stuff we have been working on. Problem with the stuff related to the naughty nightlife is there is no real money in it. With google pulling ads - the easy money is gone. Using other ad systems is doable but pays very little. I have messed with some adult ad systems but they are so bad and do popovers, popunders and so on.
So what am i trying to say here? There seems to be very little money in this game once u have adult focused content. So right now we are exploring some options and will keep things going and will prioritize tech requests as we go.
Right now as more comments get fed into the system it will tell you who is a frequent commenter or not.
thanks for using the guide though and taking time to comment.
View all comments by smitty
i will like to buy new gun
View all comments by tony hill
Click on “view all comments by tony hill” for a chilling glimpse into his twisted world.
View all comments by Pants Elk
In the near future, we might see Tony on YouTube.
View all comments by hanuman