Hey reader, how was your week? Mine started with what I call a “Thailand problem.” Thailand problems are problems that are only problems in Thailand. Compared to First World problems, Thailand problems are a trifle. On Sunday, I had one. Namely, I wanted to get my swerve on, but none of my nine harem girls were available. In LA, my problem would be something like…I haven’t been laid in years and every woman I see is either a blue-haired feminazi, a stupid, entitled Karen, or a fat, gross pig.
After trying and failing to get a girl over, I found myself bored and restless at 18.00. And since I decided last month to stop hitting the redlight from Sunday to Wednesday, it was a real quandary. I already checked out Khaosan the previous week and it was as shitty as I knew it would be. And to add to my problems, the fridge was empty and so was my rotund belly. So I ventured out to G’s for Thai-German fusion and a Karlsbrau Urpils (available for a limited time only). Walking up Silom Road, I spotted a farang in sandals and a pair of fisherman pants. He likely spent a week in Phi Phi and then returned to civilization transformed into a self-imagined Thaizan (Thai Tarzan) or Krabi Crocofuckindile Dundee. Dispshits like that are common in these parts. They make me throw up in my mouth.
Once my gut was properly filled, I had no choice but to Pong. Of course, before I could even get to my first stop, three harem girls messaged me asking to come over. It’s always the way. But it was too late for hanky panky. I had gogos to hit.
These days when I Pong, I hit King’s Corner first because I’ve got more friends in there now than the Castle, although I’ve heard Ice and Praew will return soon. Praew put on several pounds doing a 6-month stint at a 9to5 job in Cambodia for some odd reason. When I first met her in K1 in 2016 she was a sexual dynamo. Here’s hoping she gets back to a proper fucking weight. The Corner had three new skinnies, and K1 had some fetching fresh faces as well.
The Pong is packed with shitnillas (shitty vanilla tourists) lately—moms and dads with kids (clearly the ‘Night Market’ was dad’s idea), girl teams who aren’t sure why they’re there, Muslim women in full burkas. Patpong is a redlight district with hats and snacks.
In Pink Panther, three farang dudes all went to the toilet at the same time. Either drugs were taken, or some weird shenanigans I don’t want to think about. As the staff cleared out the middle seats and prepped for the Muay Thai exhibition, a family of four blonde-haired, blue-eyed farang grabbed seats. One was clearly under 18 and his eyes bugged out at the sight of the girls. A gang of Japanese tourists hot-boxed the whole joint in a haze of ganja smoke. ‘Twas enough to give the muchies, so I decided to finally try a bowl of pork noodles from the food truck outside Radio City. 60b for a hot, delicious meal is a steal. Speaking of RC, a knot of former Strip girls have taken up the stage there, restoring a small sense of comfort for this old Pongmonger.
In short, every gogo in the Pong was a zoo, and while I know that’s not saying a lot, because there are only five left, the parties they put on remain epic. The likes of Mandarin, Random, and most of Cowboy’s bars can’t hold a candle to the little redlight that could. In fact, if these bars can do this well in the Pong’s current crippled state, God help the other redlights if the shut bars ever reopen.
Here’s some good news for Patpong: the Foodland market on Soi 2 will not close despite the opening of a new location in Park Silom. That’s a nail pried from the Pong’s coffin, for sure. Speaking of the new Foodland, I moseyed over there to have a gander. It’s more than 4 times the size of the one onPong and nothing short of awesome (see photos in this week’s YouTube slideshow, link below).
In an effort to branch out beyond the Pong, I hit Rolling Ribs on Surawong for 200g brisket and a glass of Wolf Blass cab. The cab was horrifically bad, but the only other by-the-glass on the menu was a pinot. WTF? Why not a primitivo/zinfandel? or a Shiraz? At any rate, the beef came with coleslaw two ways (red and white) and the world’s smallest slice (albeit delicious) of cornbread. The brisket was excellent. So tender, a knife wasn’t necessary, with charred crispy edges and rich marbled decadence in the center. 600b for the food plus 300b for the wine. Not bad.
And that was nearly all the mongering I did last week, thanks to a bout of the flu that had me on my back until Saturday, when I was able to hit NanaP. One way I know it’s low season is, the traffic has diminished at the south end of Soi 4. I breezed through on a mo’taxi and got t’Nana early. None of my girls had arrived yet, so I plopped down in the beer garden at 19.45 and ordered up a club sandwich by way of Stumble Inn, who provide food services for the garden (the menu is exactly the same as Oasis Soi Cowboy), and a Tiger pint to wash it down (390b all-in). A barmaid said hello and wai’d and asked why I wasn’t in Patpong. I pretended to recognize her—an all-too-familiar practice these days.
The best part about getting Stumble grub in the Nana garden is, I only have to tolerate the presence of one grumpy old expat (me). Oh, and watching the Twister girls chilling on the terrace makes for nice eye candy…though “chilling” is the wrong word in this July swelter. More like melting. Also, the food was on point. I expected a run-of-the-mill sandwich, but that’s not what Stumble provided. This thing was a monster, with big chunks of grilled chicken, back bacon instead of ham, and thick slices of cheddar. Hat’s off to the chef.
Remember when restaurants in the 80s had smoking sections, and the only difference between them and the non-smoking sections was a sign? Well, the beer garden has a ganja smoking section with no means of blocking the smoke from the non-ganja section—or the rest of the Plaza, for that matter. I got a little high at dinner. I call that a freebie.
From there I went to see Oil. She asked me to get her some kow pad and we sat on the terrace while she ate—in the same spot where I snapped a photo of her eating soup two weeks before—a photo that nearly got her suspended amid Nana’s anti-photo frenzy. As a joke I said I wanted to take her picture again. To my shock, she said “sure.” I was like, what the fuck? She said the Twister folks had calmed down, and a photo of her eating rice would be perfectly acceptable. Bloody hell, what a turnaround. I guess some Nana bosses cooled their jets on the issue.
Or, perhaps, certain cunts on the internet really just make up bullshit and post it as “nightlife news.”
WhiskeyNGogo was again another acid-flashback version of XXX Lounge. Beer and Earn sat with me whilst Ya and Gift shook their moneymakers onstage and pumped me for tips. Those saucy minxes. And for once, the joint was hopping. Probably because they have a trio of NYS (new young skinnies) on top of the XXX goddesses. Maybe the owner will decide not to sell after all.
Then I hopped over to Angelwitch to check in with Joey D, and was surprised to see a couple fit girls in there, too. Plus G’n’R and old Van Halen from the DJ? Fuck yes. Sweet Child of Mine takes me back to the night I was finishing a plate of tacos at the Rainbow on Sunset Blvd just as Axl and Slash walked in. That was the same year Axl’s girlfriend (Sports Illustrated model Stephanie Seymour) rear-ended my 12th grade Chemistry lab partner while driving his (Axl’s) BMW. And David Lee Roth singing “Panama” reminds me of my first primary school crush. Her name was Cynthia, and in 6th grade she moved to Boca Raton and I never saw her again. Following that, a track by The Offspring. They put on one of the best concerts I ever saw at Irvine Meadows in 1996. After that, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” belted out the speakers. On the day Kurt died, I was at The Palace in Hollywood, and Mtv News was there getting people’s reaction to his suicide. They asked to interview me, probably because I had long hair and sported a t-shirt with the word POOP printed across it. My response reflected my youth and stupidity. I said it was Kurt’s fault for being a drug addict. I wish I’d known the full scope and story then. Looking back now, I couldn’t have been more foolish.
At that moment, I had to get out of Angelwitch. It was too much nostalgia for one outing. But goddam, was the place ever packed. I wondered if that was due to Joe’s golden touch.
Thanks to my flu battle, I didn’t get a lot of photos for this week’s YouTube slideshow. I did include some selfies sent to me by current Nana Plaza girls, but if this week’s montage doesn’t slake your thirst for the redlight, at https://bentbox.co/bangkoksevenart you can buy photo albums of closed and current Patpong gogos from the past decade to present, plus recent art I’ve been working on. I’ve got nostalgic throwbacks to Electric Blue, Glamour, Black Pagoda, The Strip, and more. I’m gradually adding my entire back catalogue.
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 a Bangkok monger, and you get sick, stay home until you’re fully recovered. If you head out too early, the chances of a relapse are high. This is because the microbes that lurk in the corners of the redlight are a mutated, stronger, more virulent strain than normal. Beware the gogo funk.
