The FARANG Speaks 2 Much

After postponements due to The Ghost’s romp through Bangkok and the Big Mango boys’ road trip to Pattaya, I’m back with the promised second half of the Mid-Low Season Report. In Part 1 I covered Walking Street, sois 15, 16 and Marina Plaza. This week we’ll look at Soi Diamond, Soi Happy, sois 7 and 8 and the Soi LK Metro area.

While it’s technically not the middle of low season anymore - high season officially begins in seven weeks - the ongoing conflict between Team Commando and Team Lunatic have made the city feel like it’s again the dead of summer. The head of the local Tourism Authority of Thailand office said Wednesday that, due to the unrest and travel advisories stemming from it, “official figures for Pattaya indicate a drop in tourism by approximately 20 percent from this time last year.” The same official also sounded the first alarm about the upcoming high season, suggesting that Pattaya “will see a significant reduction of tourists regardless of whether a solution to the problems in Bangkok are found or not.”

None of that is good news for the go-go bars on Soi Diamond, perhaps second only to Covent Garden for the number of struggling bars. Here’s the rundown, starting on the ground level from the main strip:

• New Star - I wrote about this tiny go-go in my second Afternoon Delight column and, as I noted there, the fact it has to open at 3 p.m. to survive is notable. One of six go-gos owned by bar baroness Nui, New Star has only gotten uglier since the end of high season. At that time, the afternoon offered a smattering of well-endowed young girls and cameras were welcome. Neither is the case now.
• Paris - A go-go that has had more ups and downs than a Soi 6 veteran, Paris is currently in a down mode. The bar hired on a grizzled witch of a mamasan who previously had done well at Electric Blue and Hooty’s, but her magic spells apparently don’t translate into French.
• The Sea - The biggest surprise of the low season, The Sea has stocked up on young, very petite girls, redone the lighting and added some decent shows. There are still a few plumpers and hags, but if you come early enough - and don’t mind A-cup girls - then The Sea is worth sailing into.
• Carousel Club - As was first noted here and detailed extensively here, 17-year-old Carousel is for sale. Age and illness are the primary factors behind 69-year-old boss Enrico looking for a “successor.” But the fact is Carousel has steadily declined in popularity and quality in the past four years. The mamasan says she has had a difficult time recruiting new talent and observers say what the bar needs most is a good farang “meet and greet” manager, but after going through four managers in one year, Enrico now refuses to hire any more.
• Naughty Girls - During the start of high season last year, Naughty Girls was looking up. Two new, motivated farang managers had revamped the format a bit, moving to more farang friendly music early in the evening, with an idea it would be a happy hour place to start. Things didn’t quite work at that way and now at least one owner is gone and the place has returned to less-than mediocrity.
• Super Girl / Super Baby - There is very little I can add to what pmmp wrote in the Aug. 28 Weekly: “Super Girl on Soi Diamond. Super Girl had quite a lineup and also a hot tub where two girls just stand there naked. Super Baby across the soi is very similar to this place minus the hot tub. Like Super Baby, they have girls with the most beautiful breasts you can imagine. They could feature this place on the Nature channel. I would love to be a fly on the interview room wall for these bars”
• Insomnia Gentlemen’s Cub - Previously a unique, two-storey bar, Insomnia has halved in size during the low season and dropped the sexy gowns that made for a unique atmosphere. The club continues to play great house music, offer a 20% discount card and keep a stable of fun, sexy women that are a grade above most other bars. It tanked in early low season, but now is roaring. Definitely worth a visit.
• Diamond - It’s a mystery to me why hot girls continue to work here. The place is a shell of its former self from two years ago. But Thai boss Tee, who also owns Casino Club, is very popular with his staff and the girls can bounce back and forth between the go-go and coyote club. Small drinks, relatively high prices and snotty showgirls make three strikes and Diamond’s out for me.
• The Windmill Club - Having its best season (high or low) ever, Windmill is “smut central” for Soi Diamond. Touchy-feely action complete with showers, bananas and lots of geriatric gynecologists. The bar has been renovated and looks great, the girls are average, but extremely friendly and the place has a great vibe. If you’re into hands-on action, take Windmill for a spin.

Meanwhile, upstairs on Soi Diamond:

• Rocket - Soi Diamond has more upstairs bars than anywhere on Walking Street and it should be no surprise it has more empty bars than anywhere else. Rocket opened last year in a renovated short-time hotel. It’s a spacious bar and well-appointed, but in my few visits, there have never been more than a handful of girls and none of them worth buying a drink for. Nothing has changed since high season, except that its touts are more aggressive.
• Tiger Lounge - One of three bars owned by the French team behind Soi Cowboy’s Shark and Nana’s Mandarin, Tiger Lounge started out as a coyote bar. It failed. It’s now trying to be a go-go, but prospects are dim when the bar looks better than the girls.
• Shark Go-Go / Shark Club - After a remodel, the two bars, separated only by an internal door, are basically identical table-dancing joints. The Club has a pool table. And the Go-Go has a worrying number of girls who don’t seem to work when the Bangkok or Banglamung cops are around.
• Heaven Above - Now four years old, Heaven Above has some of the The Street’s best looking showgirls and an above-average lineup of dancers. What has changed in low season is that the reliability of the best-looking girls to actually be there has dropped. Heaven doesn’t keep its showgirls on a schedule, paying them for just when they work and they can work when they feel like it. Nice for the girls, not so much for the holiday traveler hoping to nab a lady he saw the night before. The bar also continues to get a bad rep on the attitude of its showgirls, many of whom were cast off in past years from Coyotee’s for stuck-up behavior and laziness.

And, before we leave Walking Street, a note about everyone’s favorite: Happy a Go-Go.

There’s a reason that even this low season Happy continues to be Walking Street’s busiest go-go: lots and lots of quality women. Even at 1 a.m. you can find the bar still SRO with lots of thin, bubbly talent working the stage and a half-dozen or more showgirls in attendance. Happy’s long-time mamasan said she is carrying a low-season payroll of 125 dancers of which 85 regularly show up.

Off Walking Street

There’s more to Pattaya nightlife, of course, than just Walking Street. And one new area - Soi LK Metro - is proving that quality doesn’t drop just because you get off The Street.

The area, which includes parts of Soi Buakhao and Soi Diana in central Pattaya, plays hosts to a number of good pubs, restaurants and hotels, plus a Lolita’s, The Hell Club (Pattaya’s version of Eden Club), two go-gos and two coyote bars. Of the go-gos,

• Club Oasis, at the corner of Soi Diana and Soi Buakhao, is a hands-down knockout. Boasting a staff better than the non-showgirl lineups at most Walking Street bars, Oasis continues to pack in the crowds during low season, although mostly from the ex-pat population. Great looking bar; large, cold and well-priced beers, farang-friendly music and good attitude make for a good business plan.
• Champagne - Now three years old, Champagne has bounced back from a police closure. It’s still not got the lineup of poster-girl showgirls it had, but there’s free pizza three times a week and plenty of staff to watch while eating it.

The two coyote bars in the area are:

• Club Blu - The first and still the best of the blue-tinted, glass-fronted pubs, Club Blu continues to rock amid rumors that it has been sold for 17.5 million baht, after just seven months. There’s no doubt it brings in a ton of money. From 8 p.m. until 1 a.m. nearly every night the bar is 80% or more full. Bottled beer is just 60 baht, top-shelf mixed drinks 90 baht and its wall-to-wall with ex-go-go girls in classic coyote attire. And their barfines are just 600 baht vs. 1,000 baht at Casino Club. Boss John says the bar has not experienced a low season and, having just taken on more girls from the club below, is stronger than ever.
• Ice - Open just a month, Ice is now on the market. Located a block away from Blu, the bar looks like a poor copy (although the minimalist look was intended, owner Eddie said, insisting he didn’t copy his neighbor.) One mamasan was just sacked and several hot girls left. More girls are promised this week, but the bar was closed one day this week and the owner spotted in Blu. So it’s anyone’s guess at this point. But even neighboring business owners are saying the bar sits empty most of the night.

Rethinking Beer Bar Heaven

The enclosed, glass-front bar phenomenon has spread from Soi LK Metro down to Pattaya’s long-time beer bar haven, Soi 8. Three bars now are closed in (keeping the junk hawkers out) and one offering blue lights and coyote dancers.

• Party Bar - From the folks behind Insomnia disco and go-go, Party Bar is the best-looking beer bar you’ll ever visit. Half-open to the street, the bar is decked out like its disco sister and kept cool with air conditioning. The girls are what you’d find in either Insomnia - and carry a 500-baht barfine, which previously was unheard of on Soi 8. House music is the soundtrack and you can use your Insomnia discount card.
• Golden Time Bar - Entirely enclosed, the bar is a glorified beer bar, but a cool one. Good for drinking without sweating and watching the zanies pass by.
• Dream’s Bar – Proving yet again there are few original ideas in Pattaya, another closed-in, air-conditioned beer bar called Dream’s opened last month on Soi 8. Yet another copy of Club Blu, it’s located across from the Silver Star go-go and offers scantily clad dancers on podiums to lure punters into what is, once inside, a simple watering hole.

Soi 7 and 8 also offer a couple of go-go bars, neither one of which is worth mentioning and one of which, in fact, is for sale. If you want to venture off Waking Street, the smart money is in Soi LK Metro or in one of the Soi 8 aircon bars.