‘Twas another week in the redlight for this worn-down barfly, and aside from a few odd moments, went pretty much the same as previous ones. Hello reader, I’m Seven, and this is my blog, and here’s how Patpong and Nana Plaza shook out over the past several days…
On Sunday night, a gang of four drunk farang who were clearly cunts strode past Bada Bing. They were about to enter, when suddenly a group of Indians—three dudes and a chick—came chasing after them, shouting and waving their phones. I had one earbud in and didn’t understand most of what was said but here’s the gist: one of the farang disrespected one of the Indian dudes out on Surawong Road. Then the group veered into Pong with the Indians in hot pursuit, one of whom stopped at the police box to rouse the cops. The offending farang, on seeing the approaching Indians, legged it out to Silom Road and disappeared, leaving his friends to grovel and wai inappropriately at the increasingly hostile Indians, one of whom kept screaming “Who I am! Who I am! You have to pay! You have to pay!” It was pure entertainment for Panom, the somtam lady, who was making salad nearby. The Thai cops arrived and stood watching, without really contributing. Finally, the Indians calmed down and the whole thing ended with both groups shaking hands and hugging, and that was that. An hour later, those same farang climbed onstage in King’s Castle, putting to rest the notion they were anything but cunts.
Some scuttlebutt out o’Pong last week was that one, possibly two gogos are having trouble getting and keeping new dancers because the veterans in the bars keep chasing them off. The old farts don’t want competition from young, ripe chicks, and so they bully the newbies into quitting. This is bad for everybody, including the veterans who, in the kind of stupidity common to this ilk, don’t consider the future consequences, which of course is a gogo devoid of customers. I’m not going to name the bars because I don’t want to piss more people off, but if you go t’Pong and stick your head in the different doors, you’ll easily suss it out.
In last week’s post, I mentioned the uptick in groups and couples in and around Pong. I should’ve said groups, families, and couples. I spy dozens of the latter nightly these days. It’s always a bearded dude with an enormous white whale of a girlfriend waddling at his side or directing him where to go. It’s so common now. White woke couples are a larger pong demographic than punters, both in number and girth.
In Radio City, a smarmy-looking fellow plopped down next to me, refused to buy a drink, and instead tried to barfine a girl straight off the stage. It didn’t work. The first girl he pointed to said no, as did the second and third. When he realized his ploy wouldn’t work, he bailed. I can’t believe dudes still try to do that. Like a gogo stage is Walmart, and you can grab a stranger for sex like a box of Rice-A-Roni.
In sadder news, my friend and brief harem girl, Fook, who worked at Electric Blue, XXX Lounge, and Black Pagoda, died last week after a battle with a mysterious disease. Many gogo dancers attended her funeral. She was a lovely person, and will be missed by those who knew and loved her.
On Monday, I had a nice bite to eat in French Kiss—fromage starter (340b) and duck breast with mash (390), paired with a glass of house red (160). Everything was fantastic, as every meal I’ve had there has been. I wish I could afford to eat in there every night, but this was a lovely self-treat that I realized I should do more often. Every day is a gift, especially with the next pandemic and global thermonuclear war right around the next bend. By the way, speaking of the next pandemic, the organization that made Covid-19 just got funding to continue their work at a lab in—wait for it—Thailand: https://nypost.com/2022/10/03/non-profit-tied-to-wuhan-lab-gets-650k-more-to-study-coronaviruses/
Speaking of gifts, the wicked mamasan who hates me went to Phuket for five days, providing brief blessed relief from loud cursing and trying to blind me with a laser pointer. She was back by Friday, though, to harass me from the door of the gogo as I tried to walk home. For the crime of telling the truth about her in a blog only 10 people read. By the way, thanks to the asshole who told her about my post—a thing she never would’ve read or known about without your help. I realize it’s not your fault—it’s mine for writing it—but you, whoever you are, definitely walked into a party you weren’t invited to, unzipped your fly, and dropped your dick in the punchbowl.
On Tuesday I popped over to Nana again…not sure why I keep ending up there on Tuesdays. Maybe it’s coincidence. I wasn’t in the mood for more buffalo chicken tacos at Hooter’s so I kept walking down Soi 4, looking for a place to chow down. I settled for a joint called Mani (which in Thai translates to “come here”) thinking it was an Italian restaurant, but the menu was all over the place. Kimchi quesadilla, cheese steak sandwich, pasta. I went for the krapow gai burrito and a Thai craft beer. ‘Twas closer to the size of an order of taquitos with chunks of fresh white meat, holy basil, and sea salt wrapped in a flour tortilla plus a raw egg and chilis for dipping. I’d call the flavor clean and straightforward, reminiscent of krapow. It felt very tourist-friendly. Id’ve preferred something closer to the real Thai version (more spicy, more saucy) but I liked it fine as-was. At 195b it was a bargain. Next time, though, I’m getting the cheese steak.
Soi 4 is back to pre-Covid normal. It’s teeming with people. The freelancers are back in force. Certain religious/ethnic clusters that overwhelmed the area in the past are also back. Per usual, my first stop in the Plaza was Billboard. There were 10 dancers on the carousel—none I’d barfine. There was one very bangable girl over in the bath tub. Then I swung through Spanky’s, and imagine my surprise to find 12 girls onstage and one in the shower—4 of them hot! They were a feast for the eyes, topless and lovely, dancing for 10 minutes at a stretch with intermittent special shows. When I left, it was a couple gals dressed as prison inmates, dancing to Elvis’ “Jailhouse Rock.” 180b SMLs and worth every satang.
Then it was on to Twister, which had an astonishing 30 girls onstage. My friend Best was there, along with Luktal, aka Catgirl, who moved over from Bada Bing, and Nat, formerly of Glamour. At the moment, Twister is leaching some of the best girls from Patpong. Nuchy, Pui, Som, Bum, Pla, and several others have made Twister their new gogo home. On Tuesday, at least, Twister was busier than Billboard. Looking back, I wish I’d gone to Butterflies, just to check the crowd. But I had to swing through Pong, so instead I bailed and went and hung out with Little Nan in XXX Lounge before heading to bed.
Wednesday and Thursday were carbon copies. Harem girl followed by a Ponging. The only thing that made the days different was dinner. On Wednesday I treated Ice to Derby King. We had it delivered to the gogo. On Thursday I had G’s German sent to my seat in XXX Lounge.
Patpong needs at least…two more gogos. Thanks to Covid, we lost Kiss, Thigh, Superstar, and Glamour. We’re down to eight, and thanks to the angry mamasan in one, and a harem girl who literally rubbed me the wrong way in another, my choices have dwindled to six. And of those six, only three are home to girls I enjoy hanging out with. Three is a magic number, but in the case of a redlight, it’s also an insufficient one. That, along with hordes of Pong girls relocating to Twister, has me heading to Nana more frequently.
From the time marijuana was decriminalized in June, despite its sale in half a dozen places onPong, it took until Wednesday for brave tourists to spark up in King’s Castle. Since it went off without a hitch, I expect that to become the norm in short order. Speaking of King’s, their Halloween decor is up and looking awesome. Before Covid, they turned King’s 2 into a quasi-haunted house. Fingers crossed they do it again this year.
Bob’s Big Boy—a Southern California burger chain—has opened a location in MBK. Their Classic Burger is a pretty good imitation of the real thing, with a few minor differences. For instance, they put pickle slices on it instead of relish. An Asian customer didn’t know how to eat a burger. He grabbed the wooden stick that’s meant to keep the bun from sliding off, and gnawed at it starting with the bottom first. It was bizarre to watch, as you can see from the photo. The fellow with the green shirt ate normally, but then washed out his mouth in the sink. With Bangkok tap water. People are so fucking weird.
On Friday I swept through Nana Plaza again, partially out of Pong boredom and partially to visit my friends who moved to Twister—none of whom were there, by the way. The Plaza was an absolute madhouse by half 8—evidence that tourism is back and a portent of a humongous upcoming low season. Like Soi 4, the Plaza is rife with—how should I put this—the ethnic diversity that has characterized that neighborhood for years. It’s quite a fiery baptism of Middle Eastern/Central Asian culture. This time around I didn’t head straight to Billboard first. Instead, I checked in at Twister to see which of my galpals were working. The answer was none, but I did see the Twister version of the Pong version of me—a monger regular who sits in the same seat every night, drinks liquor wholly unique to himself, and melds into the architecture like he’s part of it. I can’t imagine the nightly amount of coin he must drop. It must be exorbitant. Speaking of architecture, Twister’s stage is really, really long. If you sit at one end, it’s impossible to see the girls at the opposite end. I wonder if there’s a hierarchy of dancers, eg the highest earners get the part of the stage closest to the door. I pondered suggesting to the manager that the girls rotate every couple of minutes so customers can get a look at everybody, but speaking up has really bitten me in the ass lately, so I opted to keep my mouth shut.
Billboard was in weekend form, meaning compared to Tuesday was more crowded with customers, hotties on the carousel, and topless kitties in the bath tub. I counted half a dozen 9s distributed throughout the bar. Billboard on a Friday reminded me of what it was like to be a tourist on the prowl for a short-time girl. The 9s were onstage an average of 90 seconds before being called out by a customer for a drink and possible barfine. I don’t miss the days when it was a competition of urgency to find a girl, snag said girl, and lock her in before the hordes of other horndogs snapped up all the good ones. As a passive observer, it was akin to watching fish getting yanked out of a barrel.
Meanwhile, three fat blonde American chicks were perched in a back booth, pointing, yapping, and nodding amongst themselves in some kind of judgmental real-time critique of the gogo dancers. A couple minutes later, two bald beta cucks in their late-30s joined them. Apparently they had to hit the toilet together like a pair of bitches. Within moments, one of the baldies was in an argument with the fattest one who screamed in his face, and a few beats later, everyone left in a huff. Later, I saw them all arguing in a huddle on the 3rd floor. Yet more proof that couples—especially ones where the girl is unattractive—should not come to Thailand together, or at least, should not visit a redlight together.
It appears Rainbow 3 is a ladyboy bar now. I can’t remember if I noticed that before.
There are two sides to the coin of anonymity. In Nana, I’m not known, so I’m free to sit alone in peace in the gogo, without anyone shouting my name or hitting me up for money. But it also means getting the occasional hungry-eye treatment from an enterprising dancer. This is when a girl chooses you to put on the hard-sell. It begins when she tries and succeeds in making eye contact from the stage. Following that is the little smile that’s mean to say “Hey, I think you’re cute.” It works like a charm on tourists, who never ever get that look from chicks back home. If she can hold your gaze for a long enough time, it’s enough to justify in her mind the right to come sit with you. When it happens to me, it means there’ll be an uncomfortable exchange where I try to balance politeness with the persistent message that I’m not a viable mark. If all else fails, I have to tell her straight up that she’s shit out of luck. I’m the wrong tree up which to bark.
Butterflies has around the same number of dancers as Billboard, but because the space is so much bigger, it feels more sparse. The party was rockin’ though, and everyone—girls and customers—were having a great time. But their girls are definitely more—not run of the mill—how to explain it—more ‘regular gal’ than the staff at Billboard. Billboard’s girls have more of that va-voom factor. They’ve cornered the market on 90s Sports Illustrated-era bikini hottie-looking hotties.
I popped into Spanky’s again and it was just as crazy as on Tuesday. I was surprised to run into an old buddy from Ptown who’s managing the gogo now, after a Covid-induced hiatus from TLOS. They had their Halloween decorations up, which were adorable: big paper mache pumpkins and skull-n-crossbones pirate flags. Because one skeleton is as spooky as another. By the time I got there at half 9 the girls were already spread out among the customers but I counted four hotties. There was a one-week millionaire walking around stuffing 20s in bikini bottoms. I love to see it.
Now that I’m spending more time in Nana, I’ve committed to visiting gogos that aren’t on my regular hit list. This time, it was Erotica. It should be renamed e-NOT-ica (see what I did there?). 160b SML, which is fine, but none of the girls were above a 6 so I paid and took my beer out to the patio to watch the insane circus around the beer garden. Within minutes I had a contact high from all the ganja. It was then that I saw the ultimate example of cuck: a farang chick leading her two male cohorts into Obsession LB bar. How far up your ass do your balls have to be to let a bitch do that?
There must’ve been at least a dozen couples milling around on the ground floor, and small gangs of farang chicks proudly entering gogos like the feminist equivalent of Armstrong landing on the moon. Maybe Covid awoke something in the West—a sexual prevalence in the population that, apart from a confrontation with mortality, would’ve stayed buried. By then, I’d had enough of white people.
Bailing from Nana to Pong was like going from a mob to a monastery. The pace onPong is definitely slower, and that’s how I like my redlight. XXX Lounge had a ‘sexy nurse’ party going (photos available via a YouTube slideshow—link below), and the girls outnumbered the dudes 4 to 1. ‘Twas a fun party, but as I said earlier, the Pong needs more gogos. And it will in time. The problem is gun-shy owners. They don’t want to open while foot traffic is down, but foot traffic will stay low as long as there are less gogos to hit. As Kevin Costner said in Waterworld, if you build it, the flood will come. I may be misremembering that quote.
I’ve a new go-to cocktail in Pong. Having swapped out Banana Backwoods for Cuban cigars, I’ve ceased ordering Black Russians and substituted Revolvers (whiskey, Kahlua, and orange bitters).
In last week’s post, I mentioned my shock at readers not understanding that my “Patpong is Dead” blog was sarcastic. I said I’d always wondered why other BKK bloggers’ posts were so simplistic, boring, and pedestrian. I’d long suspected it was because the bloggers were devoid of writing talent. Then last week I was chatting with one who told me that, when he finishes writing a blog, he goes back and edits out anything that might be misunderstood, misconstrued, or just over the head of the average reader. He purposely dumbs down his writing in order to make it accessible to the widest possible audience. That’s a smart strategy. But let me state right now that I will never, ever do that. In fact, I strive to do the opposite. My posts are for the few, the clever, the above average. If you don’t understand it, then it’s not meant for you. If you get what I’m dishing out, then welcome to our very small club.
And that’s all the monger that’s fit to ponder for now, friends. Check back next Sunday for another summary of red-light events. In the meantime, you can read more about Bangkok life on my Substack: https://bangkokseven.substack.com/
Redlight videos and slide shows, including the companion for this post, can be found at https://www.youtube.com/c/BangkokSeven
Follow me on Twitter @BangkokSeven for daily pics from the redlight, and until next time, keep your balls warm, your beer cold, and cheers to another week above ground in the greatest country on Earth: Thailand.
Pro Tip Post-Script: Don’t pet the animals.
You love animals. You’re practically Dr. Doolittle. You’ve posted videos on your social of you “rescuing” a dog from the shelter. That’s all well and good. But this is Thailand. The cat wandering around Patpong is feral. Do not try to pet it. The soi dogs are one missed meal away from becoming a pack of ravenous killers. This is not your country, and things here are not the same as where you live. Pull your head out.
