What’s up, reader? How’s life? Are you living the dream in Thailand? I hope so. I hope you escaped the hellscape of the West and found this paradise on Earth called The Land of Smiles. This tired-out poon hound is slowing down, after over a decade in the redlight. In August I managed to stay out of the RLDs from Sunday to Thursday, giving my liver a much-needed break and padding my savings account. But last week I relapsed, hitting the Pong 6 times, thanks to a series of fiascos. Sunday I went to G’s again, chasing the Oktoberfest on tap again, and the shipment was delayed again (as of posting, it has arrived). So to ease the pain I ponged.
Monday I was out of food and water and so schlepped to Derby King and a tour of the 3 Kings. Tuesday I stayed in. Wednesday my wifi was out, so I smoked a Romeo Y Julieta outside Pink Panther with a double brandy on the rocks (because it’s 90 degrees at night here in Bangkok) and watched the only female sport I can tolerate—volleyball. Thailand v China. It combined my two favorite kinds of chick: lithe and Asian. The fact that they play at 1/3 the speed of men actually makes it more fun to watch.
In all 3 King’s, it’s like someone is turning a hotness crank. They really are an ecosystem all their own. They’re akin to the Rainbows in Nana in that they are Thai-owned, and a certain kind of gogo dancer will only work for Thais. I suppose this is why the Kings have such a large contingent of uniquely hot girls.
In K2 I ran into another longtime punter and Patpong fan. He told me an almost cautionary tale about a recent barfine in Nana where the bar made him pay everything up front, and then when they walked around to the short-time hotel, there was a queue of nine finers all waiting with their chick for an open room. Luckily, he said, he knew the girl well and they were able wile away the time. But if a bumpkin on his first sex tour paid everything up front and then got to the hotel only to find there were no rooms, you’d be kind stuck-and-not-fucked, waiting for a bed to bang in.
On Thursday, my harem girl canceled due to early menstruation. “Are you angry me?” she asked. I didn’t know how to tell her that every time she gets her period, I’m ecstatic at the news she’s not carrying my spawn. My broken plans led me to hit the Pong again, but for the life of me I can’t remember anything about it, except a vague vision of vodka and heartburn. At one point I was sitting stageside at Bada Bing, listening to that Cardi B song…you know the one. It has a tick-ticking high hat, two chords, nursery-rhyme lyrics. Huh. I guess that describes every current hip-hop song. And it’s the perfect soundtrack to my present redlighting: vapid, monotonous, and mildly entertaining. Like a horny hamster on a redlight wheel am I.
Friday began with the smoothest mo’taxi ride ever t’Nana and into Hooter’s where every single server was over in a corner doing a dance routine with pom-poms for a group of Japanese diners. I walked straight out. No way I was waiting through a Village People anthem to order food. Instead I popped over to Stumble Inn—my first time being there at night. Usually I stop in for breakfast or lunch. It’s a more peaceful environment. I skipped the pub fare and ordered krapow moo sap, hoping it would take less time to make and it did—10 minutes. A hostanion (hostess companion) tried to sidle over. I explained in Thai that I’m not a tourist and she beat it. The place was crowded and loud, with customers from all walks. Even Thai women in street clothes like they just clocked out of work at the bank. A couple more hostesses tried to dance their way into my personal space. I ignored all comers. Sure, I look like the other old, haggard punters in there but I ain’t. I keep a harem of PYTs. I don’t have time for the typical aging expat nonsense. But the food was cheapelicious and set me up right for the night. Little did I know how mediocre things would turn.
Stop 1 was Twister, where Jane was shuffling lazily onstage, looking bored and hungry for the contents of my wallet. Sure enough, she raced to me after her rotation, freed by Oil’s absence to call dibs on me, and hit me up for a drink. If she wasn’t striped like a zebra with post-pregnancy stretch marks I’d probably hit it again. She’s in great shape, otherwise. None of my other pals were on hand, so I bailed after one beer.
WhiskeyNGogo was still shut, but another local monger mentioned he’d seen some exXXXers temping in Bunny2—the bar that used to be Blondie—so I popped in for a look. There were a couple of familiar faces and shouts of “Seven!” but none of my faves were there. A sad, old Indian dude in a polyester shirt from the 1960s tried and failed to engage a handful of girls and left in disgrace. Four white midwestern-looking hags ranging in age from 30 to 60 were sat across from me, watching the stage with derision. No hypothesis for why they were in Bunny2 came to mind. I had one beer and bailed.
And because I’ve determined to stop saying negative things about bars, I left NanaP then and there, and taxi’d to Cowboy, just as a light rain began to fall. My one and only stop was Rainbow. Bee was MIA, and the place was rammed with mouth-breathers. A girl I’d never seen before waltzed up and sat in my lap. Then she asked for a drink. When I said no, she asked for a tip. I was infuriated. I hate when dudes in the gogos recognize me. I hate it even more when the girls don’t. If they give me the tourist treatment, I want to tear my hair out. That, combined with the raucus crowd (chicks dancing barefoot on seats, dudes spilling out into the aisles, swarthy perverts sitting too close), I squeezed out from betwixt the sweaty fatsoes seated around me and retreated to the terrace, gasping for breath. There, I ran into Jack Nites another local, who said he’d been to Patpong and it wasn’t as fun as before. Ain’t that the truth. There’s a shadow that hangs over the Pong now, like how the cabarets of Berlin must’ve felt after the National Socialist Party took power. But I still prefer it, even in its dilapidated state, because there are better-looking girls and more of my friends there. And just as I was realizing that I only have fun in the redlight when my galpals are working, and seeing the throngs of douchebags from one end of the soi to the other just put me off. No joke, if this is only the start of the high season throng, I might have to forego the redlights from Thanksgiving to Songkran. I decided to head back pongwards, skipping the rest of Cowboy and bailing after one beer.
Patpong is still the best redlight in Bangkok. To a lay person or an idiot, Cowboy and Nana probably look like bright, shiny soirees compared t’Pong. The bars are jammed, the girls are crazy. But a discerning punter would see that 29 of 30 girls on Cowboy are not hot. There are a few in Dollhouse and Rainbow, and some scattered in other bars with extortionate prices, but that it. The ratio is better in NanaP but Patpong still destroys all other ratios. The 3 Kings do, anyway. Bada Bing and Panther have numbers closer to Nana’s.
Back at the Pong, I slipped into Bada Bing for a vodka, flirted with a few dancers, and basked in the sense of relaxation that I can only feel in Patpong. I peeked into King’s 1 but there were no open seats, so I pivoted to K Corner for wai’s and high fives from a dozen hotties. Two dozen partyrocking tourists turned the place into a carnarnival (carnal carnival). By then, I knew the Muay Thai in Pink Panther would be over and so I sauntered in and took my usual seat. Beem hopped off the stage and sat with me for a spell. Four fat Indian chicks in cocktail dresses sat scowling in the corner, each holding a warm bottle of beer. I tried to make them as uncomfortable as possible, grabbing the pussies and tits of half a dozen galpals as they passed by my table, hoping to leave them with a memory they can’t ever unsee. It’s happening more and more—foreign skanks invading the gogos as if they’re trying to rob us of the pleasure of going there. As if they’re saying, “See? Even here, you can’t escape our critical gaze.” The problem is, feminism and wokeness have not taken hold in Thailand, so nobody gives a shit if these ugly twats invade our space. We’re not trapped in here with you, bitches. You’re in here with us. And as if they realized that fact all at once, the four got up in unison, beers in hand, and waddled out.
From Panther, I doubled back to K2 and 1 to ogle the perpetually growing gaggle of hot chicks, and got hit up relentlessly for drinks and tips from dancers I didn’t recognize. “Seven! It’s my birthday, give me 100.” Uh, who the fuck are you again?
The last three nights—Thursday, Friday, and Saturday—Bangkok was doused in light rain. On Saturday, ‘twas enough to deter and detour me away from Nana and Cowboy—the bright redlights—and straight t’Pong. One could call it “The Darkest Redlight” now. It’s not for tourists. Ironically, the Night Market is a first-timer’s fairground befitting faint-of-heart farang, who make side-glances through the doors of the gogos with a mixture of wonder and horror. These seductive, shrouded Shangri-las teeming with temptresses and the stuff of fever dreams require a hardened, dark heart in order to fit in. Vanillas need not try. After a week of soaking up this scene, plus a couple disappointing diversions to the bright redlights, I find myself back where I started—posting this on a Sunday morning and ready to do it all again. Maybe next week I’ll remember to take photos. To compensate for my lack of picture taking, I’ve inserted a few gogo dancer selfies that girls sent me last week into the YouTube slideshow companion for this post (link below).
In other news, Taitle—a harem girl who’s coming up on 10 years as part of my roster—refuses to take charity, so when her grandma went to hospital last week, she sold me her old laptop to pay the doctor bills. I took it to MBK to have the language changed from Thai to English and they said, “Cannot do” and that it’d cost 1,000 baht and take two hours to do a factory reset and then reload all the apps. So I got a table on the patio outside Kenzo Suisan to smoke a Cuban and sample their menu of flavored Asahi. I got all four: popcorn, “Time Machine,” lavender, and cherry blossom. Which means I never have to drink them again, unless I go to Hell when I die. Undoubtedly, that’ll be all they drink down there.
During the scamdemic, when the redlights were closed, there was only one open venue in Patpong—a secret location known by only a handful of putters with a bunch of Kiss Bar and Pagoda girls dancing and playing blackjack with the customers. Thanks to a lack of places to burn cash, I had enough saved up (10k) to drop on a new iPod. A month later, it fell off my kitchen counter and the screen went white. I was livid. Not wanting to waste any more money, I downloaded a free Mp3 app from the Google Play store to my phone, put 6,000 songs on it, and hit shuffle. Since then, the goddam thing plays the same 10 songs every fucking day. Ironically, one is “One Night in Bangkok” which I like just fine, and Dramarama, and “Writing to Reach You” by Travis (What’s a wonderwall anyway?). But I can’t hear “Brim Full of Asha” by Cornershop seven days a week. It’s killing me.
Speaking of, some of the most beautiful moments in life are also tragic, and my Mp3 player is a constant reminder. Whilst sitting in Pink Panther last week, a Roxy Music song came through my earbuds. ‘Twas the same one that was playing in 2007 when my last American girlfriend dropped me off at LAX the day I moved to the UK. That was the start of three years of globetrotting, ending in a small town in Krabi. Stepping out of her car at the airport was like stepping off a precipice of time and distance. Two weeks later, she had a new boyfriend and I was on a trajectory that would permanently alter my story.
This charmed Thailand life doesn’t afford much in the way of tragedy. It’s mostly bliss, punctuated by moments of pleasure and ecstasy (the emotion, not the drug) and sometimes both (plecstasy). Nine years ago my dad died suddenly and I had to drop everything and fly back to L.A. If I outlive my mum and brother, it’ll happen twice more. After that, I suppose the next tragedy will be my last. In the meantime, though, there’s the beach, the redlight, and the harem.
One last Pong-related tidbit: As I predicted, a 3rd cannabis shop has opened on Soi 1 in between the two that were already there. Now there are three shops shoulder-to-shoulder all competing for revenue. Why do Thais insist on doing this? Why are there six coffee shops in a row on my street, but no 7-11? It’s baffling.
Somehow I found time to barf out a couple new vodcasts on my YouTube channel last week. It’s an ongoing series I’m calling “MGThai,” in response to the MGTOW movement in the West. If you live in Thailand, you probably don’t know that Western women have become undatable. And I have some shit to say about it, hence the new series.
Currently there are 13 albums consisting of artwork with gogo dancers as models, plus photo retrospectives of XXX Lounge, King’s Castle 1, The Strip, Bada Bing, Black Pagoda, and Electric Blue. All are available for digital download at https://bentbox.co/bangkoksevenart
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/
Photos of everything in this blog can be found in the YouTube slideshow companion for this post 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: If you’re an aging fat punter like yours truly and you want to lose that gut, stop drinking beer and wine. They contain tons of empty calories that cause your liver to produce fat that then gets stored between your other organs. Instead, drink whiskey, vodka, brandy, or gin, all of which have zero carbs but over 60 calories. For calorie counters, switch to Ricard, which has the lowest (50).
