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Published: July 14th 2006
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Entrance to the Land of Sin
The start of 'Walking Street' over 1/2 km on night life I feel that I would be doing my blog an injustice if I decided to self censor out any things I saw during my travels that may offend anyone. As such I shall here-in do a special blog entry dedicated to Pattaya's night life. Nan you will not like some of what I describe in this entry so please look away now. Wait! First let me reassure you that I behaved my whole time in Pattaya. Ok now you can look away....
There would appear to be 2 types of men sampling Pattaya's night life.
First there are the sex tourists, boo! hiss! Then there are the boys out for a beer. The sex tourists take the ladies back to their rooms for the night, while the boys for beers drink away the night while trying out increasingly bad chat up lines on the ladies serving them. Sometimes a sex tourist will go home alone one night and sometimes a boy for beer will be tempted by the mass of willing ladies that smile at them; but generally people seem to be either one or the other.
Pattaya night life has a number of faces.
* There are
Bright Lights of Vice
The main torist area of Walking Street the omni present GoGo bars where ladies wearing very little of anything gyrate around a chrome fireman’s pole until a customer buys them a drink. The lady will then sit with the customer trying to persuade him to take her back to his hotel, for a nominal amount of financial compensation for herself of course. You also have pay a 'bar fine' to compensate the bar for taking the lady away during business hours when she should be 'working'.
* There are the 'freelance' ladies that line the beach front hoping some guy on his way back to his hotel can be tempted by her easy smile. We are not talking 1 or 2 ladies here. The beach front must be approaching 1 km in length and you could not go more than 5 yards without meeting one of these ladies. However they are very discreet and reframed, as is the Thai way, so if you do not approach/make serious eye contact with them they will leave you be, to the extent you could almost be mistaken for thinking they are there just waiting for a friend, if there was not soooo many of them.
* There is the late
Lucifer's
Walking Street's number one dance club night shopping. These are mostly tailor shops hoping some lads will get drunk enough to buy a 3 piece suite in a town where it is too hot to even wear long sleeves! There are also however the ever present street vendors selling fake designer cloths, pirate CDs and the sort.
There are a few clubs, notably the dance club 'Lucifer's' and 'X-zyte'. 'X-zyte' was more of a Thai stage show come cabaret when I went on a Wednesday, with live Thai singers, backing dancers and constant costume changes. From what I saw not really for the dancing type more for the local, richer, Thais to chill out.
* They 'Lady-boy' scene. While not as common as the girly bars there is a rampant gay sex scene in Pattaya. The lady-boy bars are often side by side with the gogo bars and according to rumors it is not uncommon for lads that have had one too many drinks during the night to enter the wrong doorway and get a shock.... or even get the shock in the morning when they wake up and look to see who is lying beside them!!!
* Finally there are the open air bars. All
Open Air Bar Scene
Ladies waiting to get you drunk the bars in Pattaya have an abundance of serving girls in them, usual 2 - 3 times as many as customers. They are a lot like English bar girls with the exception of where English bar girls will chat and share a joke with you in passing, while doing there job, these ladies sole job
is to chat and joke with you! thus keeping you at the bar for as long as possible buying drinks.
These bars work and can afford all these extra staff as they operate the following way. I guy is out for a stroll looking for a place to drink. The ladies not dealing with customers see the guy and provide a great deal of very load verbal encouragement to the guy to come drink with them. The more girls the loader the encouragement, so the more customers are persuaded to come to the bar.
Once you sit down at the bar one or more ladies will dedicate themselves to serving you, providing both conversation and entertainment in the form of drinking games. When you buy a drink for yourself it is considered good manners to also buy drinks for whichever lady(s) are serving you and the girls get commission for every 'lady drink' you buy them. Drinks are about 100 - 150 baht each which is 1 pound fifty to 2 pounds, so even buying 2 drinks only brings the bill up too London prices. These bar girls are effectively professional 'party girls'/friends and know how to have a great laugh while drinking the night away. To my mind drinking with these ladies is the best way to pass a night in Pattaya. Also if you get bored drinking you can even pay a 'bar fine' for them to leave the bar and they will take you to the best clubs and restaurants in town to continue the merriment, all on your wallet of course. However they know some real gems of places, just off the main tourist areas, that are much cheaper than the tourist traps, so you can actually end up spending less money than if you had gone alone and you have great company as well!
You may wonder what is in it for the girls once you leave their bar, as the bar fine is paid and they will not get commission on any more lady drinks. Well the girls work 27 days out of 30, WITHOUT weekends off, so it they want a night out they can only really have it with a customer. Also they have to work 5pm until 4 am, or later if there are still customers drinking, so if you bar fine them they are also guaranteed an early night and if you say good night very early they can always go back to the bar to make more money.
Finally, with the girls being such good company it seams repeat customers often become 'boyfriends' that 'lookout' for the girls, taking them on holidays and buying them presents etc. You can also 'tip' a girl at the end of the night, as a thank you for her company.
Some of the bars in Pattaya have live bands playing and I feel one stood out to my mind so much it merits special attention. It is called the 'Cher Cafe' and is at the midway come southern end of Walking Street. They have 2 bands that play here and the one I loved had a lead guitarist with fingers that could school Lenny Hendrix! This guy was awesome, finishing a 4 hours set with a 10 minute solo playing notes and melodies I did not think a guitar was even capable of reproducing! He also belts out a very respectable 'Teen Spirit' by 'Nirvana' during his rare moments on vocals. In general this band plays every rock anthem under the sun from stuff by the 'Eagles' all the way to 'Ozzy Osborne'. A must visit for boys out for beer!
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