The FARANG Speaks 2 Much

All Things Pattaya | The Pattaya Ghost blog

While it almost didn’t happen due to the ongoing shenanigans of Team Commando, the port call from a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier and destroyer has lifted all boats during what is traditionally Pattaya’s slowest month.

The USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Russell made port mid-day Friday and by late afternoon thousands of sailors had launched their assault on Pattaya’s bars. Soi 6 was wall-to-wall swabbies by the dinner hour and even lowly beer bars in the middle of Soi Diamond were crammed with crazed bellringers by 5 p.m. But, oddly, Walking Street was still relatively quiet Friday night, a good thing since some Thai in his infinite wisdom decided to schedule an open-air art exhibition on The Street that took up a third of the usable strolling area.

This was the first extended liberty the carrier’s crew has had since March. It’s also a completely unrestricted liberty, a rare event in which servicemen do not have curfews, have to report in and just need to be back to the ship by departure time on Monday. As such, the discos were busy late, as were many hotel rooms, I’m guessing.

Revolving Doors

New bars continue to open even as others close. The biggest buzz, however, goes to the new Air Port Club go-go at the foot of Walking Street. A smaller copy of the hugely successful What’s Up!, the bar offers a Jacuzzi, playbed and main stage with some of the youngest, bustiest and hottest girls ever found in any of the six go-gos owned by bar baroness Nui.

She’s paying the hands-on showgirls 18,000 baht a month and has lured in a couple Living Dolls Showcase showgirls, plus a number of hardbodied beauties. Too bad they don’t ever seem to work on the same night. To keep with the aviation theme, service girls are decked out in air hostess uniforms and recently drink prices lost some of their ridiculous altitude.

Also opening recently was a stylish new beer bar at the south end of Walking Street and a new “ice bar” called Absolut in the doomed Soho Square area at the far south end. Off The Street, 77 Club, a beer bar with dumpy hostesses in bikini tops, is trying its luck on Soi Yamoto (13/1) and Bad Cat, a single shop house bar on Second Road near Soi 13, is yet another Club Blu wannabe but with a twist. Rather than the usual short-shorts and halter top, many of its dancers are outfitted in vinyl skirts and faux-S&M outfits and masks. Not a place to go out of your way for, but worth a look if you’re in the area.

On Soi 17 in South Pattaya, a new bar called Chicaboom is set to open with jack-of-all-trades concept that merges English breakfasts, hostesses decked out in naughty nurse, flight attendant and other costumes, live music, sports events and a place to lie down. The oddly named bar is adjacent to an equally strange-sounding place called Tigglebittes.

Finally, a month of rumors, Club Blu has been sold to a new Irish owner. No word on whether Craig actually paid the 17.5 million baht talked about for the 7-month-old coyote bar.

Smaller But Better

Now curtained off to a third of its original size, Roxy - an equivocal failure of a showbar - has found new life as an intimate go-go bar. Unlike in its initial epic size, the girls are now dancing close to cocktail tables on both sides of the narrow stage. Of the 15 women on hand this week, 11 would rate a 7 or higher on The Ghostmeter, including all of the showgirls, who did a better job of playing to the crowd. The shows are still surprisingly good. I’d have thought the format change, drop in business and scaled-down size of the bar would result in fewer practice sessions and poor choreography. Not at all.

Beer Bars Continue Getting Squeezed

The complex of beer bars across Second Road from Mike Shopping Mall may have just gotten their last lease on life. Reportedly shopping mall Mike, which owns the land, has granted all the bars only a one-year lease, raised key money 30% and rent by 20%. It’s only a matter of time before all the bars along second road are pushed out.

Soi 6 Machinations

It’s hard to keep track of the short-time brothels on Soi 6 without a scorecard, but he’s the latest that can be determined to be happening there:

Billy’s Bull Dog bar has closed and is for sale. Struggling Mandarin Club closed for a supposed refit, but opened a week later with only a change in sofas and fabric color. The open-air Mandarin Beer Bar next door was restyled to be all-enclosed. Meanwhile, the enclosed Love Club has now been made an open air bar. And an Internet café across from the Queen Victoria Inn will soon open as Quicky Bar.

Hungry Hearts … and Girls

This week’s short report is indicative of the town as a whole. There’s simply not a lot going on in Pattaya in September. Next month will start to see the first of the Russians arrive and after that, hopefully the Western tourists will return. But until then, there are a lot of hungry girls out there.

That was never more evident than in the past week. The Ghost typically does not get a lot of calls from go-go girls seeking help paying their rent. While I collect a few numbers and pass out a few cards, most know me well enough I’m not a very good on-demand ATM. But over the past week the number of calls has surpassed all records. Three in one day, just this week, from girls who tell me “they miss me,” but of course won’t come to see me for free.

Moral of this story: if you’re thinking of a Pattaya trip, now is the time. Top girls - think ex-Living Dolls Showcase hotties - are going 1,000 baht for long-time and popping over for pre-work parties for half that. Once the Navy is gone, things are going to get really silly.