In the land of blind redlight districts, the one-eyed district is king. Am I right, reader?
From the late 2000s to the mid 20-Teens, Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza battled for redlight supremacy in BKK. When I first started punting, Cowboy was famous for having the hottest girls and wildest parties. Over the course of a decade or so, Nana clawed its way to the top position as their venues got better while Cowboy bled hot girls until they were left with just the dregs. If you were a newb, a local barfiner, or a sex tourist, NanaP was a no-brainer. Only the most cultured, intelligent, deep-thinking mongers knew that Patpong was the more beauteous clunge-culture niche environment reserved for the coochie connoisseur with real taste. Which was a win-win for everyone. The sweat-hogs had Nana, while refined locals had The Pong. Recent events, however, have wreaked monumentous change. After the scamdemic lockdowns, when Nana reopened, it did so without its short-time hotels. Gone are the days when you could meet a girl, barfine, and short-time all without leaving the Plaza. This is a significant blow to a redlight that, for all its venues, only has 3 gogos worth visiting. Meanwhile, in March the cops stepped into Patpong and shut XXX Lounge, The Strip, BarBar, and Black Pagoda while they prosecute the owner for crimes he didn’t commit. Soon after, The Patpong Museum and Delaney’s were also shuttered. This was a killing blow to Patpong that it inevitably will not survive. And yet, as I reported in early April, the few gogos that remain are reaping huge benefits from the gogo closures in the form of spaces overflowing with chicks and shit-tons of customers all clamoring for booze and babes.
The irony of it all is, despite losing its most popular joints, The Pong is still better than Nana and Cowboy. It sounds crazy, but it’s true.
This worn-out whorrior (whore warrior) just finished an exhausting 2-month stint with little redlight romping to show. The first month was spent in the hellscape of the US, helping my mother remodel the kitchen and bathroom in her California home. The second month was taken up by my little brother, who came back to Thailand with me for a sex romp. I had to play babysitter for that entire time, with precious few moments to my actual self. He finally flew home last Tuesday, so I had three precious nights to hit the gogos before Saturday’s no-booze-election nonsense.
My first move on Wednesday was to hit King’s 1. Most of my galpals weren’t there, but I saw some old familiar faces plus some fresh femmes with fetching features. Earn and Beer were MIA (I learned later that they always waltz into work late), and there was no sign of Ice, Aoffy, or Som so I popped over to K Corner and was surprised to see Kaew—formerly of Electric Blue and then XXX. I’ve known her since she was a teenager. She’s one of those rare chicks who gets fitter as she gets older. Her face doesn’t age, and her huge tits are still quite perky, with a rocking hard body that sports only one flaw—a leg scar, no doubt the result of a motorbike crash. In 10 years of watching her dance, I’ve come to adore that scar. I’ve a soft spot for beautiful but damaged women. In the US, that damage typically manifested as a mental disorder. In Thailand, it’s almost always a motorbike scar.
Like clockwork, after spotting Kaew, Best rounded the corner and grabbed my twig n berries. Turns out they flip-flop back and forth between the Corner and Pink Panther, trying as so many girls do to find a bar that provides a steady stream of punters and lady drinks. On any given night, the team of Kaew, Best, and Bee could take the stage in either PP or K Corner. Saa and Mint don’t move around. They stay in the Panther. Luktal and Lalita bounce between NanaP and Bada Bing. It’s like a game of musical vaginas instead of chairs. You never know where they’ll plop down.
On Thursday, I started out in NanaP—a thing I must do now that half my girls work there. But it’s a tricky game. Many of them work both Pong and Nana, and so it’s a guessing game where they might clock in on a night. My first stop was Twister, of course, and not one of my busty buddies were there. Oil, Nuch, Puy, Luktal, and Lalita were all missing. I did catch up with them the following night but Thursday was a bust. The lesson learned was, confirm which girls are working where before schlepping over to Nana and wasting half the night. I made a quick run through Billboard, Butterflies, Spanky’s and Geisha. All were full to the brim, and I suddenly realized how all the other shitty bars stay in business. After a certain time of night, when nobody can fit in the good gogos, the shitty ones take the customer overflow. For some reason, that formula doesn’t work inPong. Every seat Bada Bing, King’s 1, K Corner, and Pink Panther could be taken, meanwhile Radio City will be empty. It ain’t on account of the girls. There are some lookers in there. Drink prices aren’t unusually high. Yet, punters just don’t go there. It’s a total mystery.
The stage at Geisha was impressive. They’ve hired a gang of gogo dancers who learned a coordinated hip-hop routine. That’s something unique in the BK redlight scene. It’s a watered-down version of the kinds of shows one might see at The Pimp. It sure beat the usual skytrain-shuffle one typically sees in these joints. Plus, they had two tubs full of naked chicks. Those were the high points. One of the dancers was an old pal from The Strip circa 2016. She jumped in my lap. I bought her a drink, but unbeknownst to me she ordered a double, and so I got charged for two lady drinks. It was a 560 baht Geisha visit for this old chunk of wood, and so I won’t be going there again.
Spanky’s was standing room only. 20 topless girls were crammed onto the stage when I arrived. That’s 40 titillating titties for the tickling. There was a throng of farang customers all talking too loud in American English, many of them women. On a recent visit to Spanky’s a girl onstage nailed me in the face with a beachball. This time, they had buckets full of paper airplanes which in short order were flying about the bar by the hundreds. ‘Twas a miracle nobody lost an eye. Three Chinese tourists were sat stageside, and each took turns pulling their shirt backs up to be smacked by the girls with those Styrofoam pipe insulation batons that give the place its moniker. They were positively delighted by the experience. It reminded me that large swaths of the planet’s population rarely get to come to a playground like Thailand and let their hair down. Whereas this old monger lives in a permanent state of hair-let-down.
The Pong was also lousy with Americans on Thursday. I wish I could’ve been there when they showed up Saturday night to find the gogos closed and the booze spigot shut. That would’ve been hillarious. I skirted the food court, which has shrunk to half its pre-police raid size, and hit King’s 1 and Pink Panther. Both were positively rammed with customers. Standing room only after 10 pm. It’s a new rule in these two gogos—if you don’t get in and secure a spot early, you won’t get one. The King’s Group’s customer base has already outgrown its three current venues. They’ll have to lease the old Superstar space pretty soon if they want to keep up with customer demand.
The girls who previously worked at The Strip have moved to King’s 2, or else they took the opportunity to escape that toxic environment and switch to NanaP. Black Pagoda and XXX Lounge dancers continue to reel in turmoil, bouncing back and forth between nana, Pink Panther, and King’s 1 and Corner. Another after-effect (I’m calling them Pongblems—Pong problems) of the crooked cops shutting 3 Patpong gogos is, in the remaining bars there are too many girls and not enough customers. Bee, who’s in Panther by way of XXX, talked my ear off about the lack of customers inPong and her desire to go somewhere else. She asked me about Rainbow on Soi Cowboy. I said I hadn’t checked it out yet but lots of Pong girls went over there. I didn’t tell her that my bud Jack Nites told me he went there last week and was bored out of his mind. I asked why she didn’t go to Twister in Nana, like so many of her cohorts. She said there are already too many girls there, and competition for drinks is high. Jack Nites was also on hand that night, taking pics of the Panther girls. I caught some of the action with my cell phone camera and posted them to this week’s YouTube slideshow (link below).
The irony of the situation is, a couple more gogos in the Pong would simultaneously relieve some of the girl-overcrowding and also lure in more customers. It’s a catch-22, similar to the formula, “The angle of the dangle is inversely proportional to the heat of one’s meat.” Speaking of new venues, there’s a brand new club-slash-smoke lounge inPong called Kamikaze. Situated above Shenanigan’s, it’s a massive space sporting a ganja-friendly lounge with beaded curtains, private tables, and premium booze. I asked if I could smoke a stogie in there and they said, “Of course.” The main room has plushy sofas, high top tables, darts, billiards, foosball, and a dance floor. There’s also a VIP room for karaoke and, I suppose, whatever else an enterprising monger could think up. It’s a cool joint. I hope they get enough customers to stay in business. Perhaps when the Mary Jane shop opens downstairs, they’ll get the spillover tokers from that place (they also sell their own supply). One thing it’s sorely missing is hot hostesses. There are five fetching fillies sitting downstairs next to the club’s sign, and I think they’ll accompany a punter upstairs, but five ain’t enough. They need a staff of sexy sirens ready to feign interest in the clientele.
On Friday I hoofed it back to NanaP and spent the entire time in Twister, with friends Puy, Nuchy, Lalita, and Oil. Oil’s mom has been ill so she stayed home to take care of her most of the week. I bought her some food and a few tequilas. Whenever I see Puy, she sidles up and whispers that I can sodomize her if I wish, but then when I text her the next day to schedule it, she says she’s busy. What’s a good slang term for an anal cocktease? A rear-retractor. A butt rebutter. A bum backtracker. A booty back-downer. A rectum repudiator. An ass abnegater. A derriere denier. A rump revoker. A heinie hinderer. A sphincter spurner. But I digress.
After that I moto-taxid back t’Pong, first for a hot dog from the Snack Shack and then a black Russian at King’s 1. Hung out a bit with Aoffy (photos of her beautiful backside can be found in this week’s YouTube slideshow) and then afterward hit Radio City. I was their only customer for like an hour, so I passed around a few 20-baht bills for good luck and sat down with Jun, 25 from Surin, whose body is so hot I nearly got a chub in the club. I snapped a few pics of the stage with my shitty mobile. Jun took one look at them and said, “No good.” She then took a few using her iPhone and sent them to me so I could include them in this week’s YouTube photo slideshow. You can clearly see the difference in quality between hers and mine.
The takeaway from this post is, despite being crippled by a 3-bar shutdown at the hands of criminals in power, the Pong is still beating both Cowboy and NanaP in the hot-girl-quotient category and fun factor. Nana might be catching up with venues like Geisha stepping up, but they definitely lose points for ripping off customers. I still haven’t gotten over to check out Rainbow yet, but after these cunty elections I’ll be sure to hit up Cowboy and report back. But I assume it’ll still suck, except for Dollhouse and maybe Rainbow. And so with one tit tied behind its back, with 10 out of 10s for hot girls, cool vibes, and feel-at-home sensibilities, the Pong handily still beats Cowboy and Nana. Now, if you go by the number of customers, Nana will always win. And that suits me fine. The ignorant masses can have the Plaza. Leave Patpong for us professional punters.
In other news, a food truck selling whole raw squid showed up in the Patpong Night Market last week, reminding us again that Thais lack a basic level of business acumen. It was quickly replaced with a ganja truck. Speaking of ganja replacement, the old Bangkok Bank location on Silom Road in between Pong Soi1 and 2 has been converted to yet another weed dispensary, bringing the total number of ganja hawkers in Patpong back to 6, after losing Patpong Sticks, and soon to be 7 once Mary Jane opens.
In what could be the weirdest flex ever, a print shop has opened on Soi 2 next to Pink Panther’s outdoor bar and the stairway to Fresh Boys. I guess their hope is to corner the Patpong nightlife signage market? I can’t figure it out.
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
If you’re in a generous mood, you can donate anytime at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bangkok7
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: It’s always hot in Bangkok, but you can tell when it’s really hot when air conditioners—from taxis to hotel rooms to malls to gogo bars—collectively stop cooling. They’re already pushed to their limit the other 10 months of the year. When it gets hot for-real, they just give up and peter out. Just up n quit. That’s the current state in the capital. Ball-meltingly-hot. So don’t gripe at the pub staff if the air-con’s not keeping you as cool as you’re used to. It ain’t their fault.
