On a breezy, beautiful Saturday morning I arrived at Ekkamai bus station around half 10 to find the Ptown ticket queue to be 50 people deep, with a 90-minute average wait time for a seat. ‘Twas a stark reminder that the plandemic is over and things are back to tourist-terror-normal. It took all of 10 seconds to pivot, and get a Grab taxi for 1,600 baht. Expensive, yes, but the worst part of any Ptown trip is Ekkamai.
After some horrible traffic in BKK proper, the ride opened up and was a real pleasure. The price tag stung, but getting to the beach without any problems was worth it. I made it to the Beach Road before 13.00, checked in, and took a nap. At 17.00 I headed to the Holiday Inn for their Saturday seafood buffet (1,760b for food and free-flow beer n’ wine). The Beach Road was shut for The Pattaya Music Festival, so there were no baht buses on that day, or any other traffic for that matter.
The buffet was pretty good. Crab, rock lobster, mussels, prawn, clams, sushi, bacon-wrapped mushroom, duck in red curry, pasta bar, salad bar, pizza (pineapple and Parma ham), cheesy meatballs, plus an array of desserts. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though I think it’s a one-off for me. There are so many good places to eat in Ptown, you don’t need to hit the same one twice. And on this day, the shut-down Beach Road had food kiosks for miles. The food there was more or less the same as Patpong’s Night Market stalls, only 10 times bigger.
Soi 6 was a shit show. I took four laps and didn’t see a single good-looking girl. On the upside, if you’re a stoner, there’s a handful of ganja kiosks dotting The 6 so if you can’t get your swerve on you can at least sway. Another new thang on The 6 and various other locations is the live squid-on-a-bike mobile squid seller. A dude on a motorbike with a glass aquarium attached to it and live squid inside trundles up and down the soi selling you pla-muk that ain’t dead yet. You can pick your live squiddy, have it plucked from the water, and grilled and served in minutes right there in the Soi 6 beer bar. Delightful.
I walked to Central where the Road reopened and popped up to the Hilton’s Horizon Rooftop Bar to snap pics of the three concert stages along the beach. ‘Twas happy hour (buy one, get two) so I lingered in the nighttime breeze 23 floors above Ptown for the duration of two Heinekens. In the end, I was charged for both beers (460b). It was the most expensive beach photo I ever took. The other patrons were an odd sight in Thailand. Hiso farang and their fancy Thai girlfriends. I can see the appeal of catching a hot Thai and making her your girlfriend or wife…if you’re into that kind of thing. Personally, I’d never commit to one person but more power to you if you do.
The US Navy was back for its once-a-year joint operation with the Thai military called Cobra Gold. Unlike every previous one, when every US soldier gets shore leave in Ptown and completely takes over the town, they were spread out along the coast from BK to Rayong, and the troops were ordered to be back on the ship before midnight. What a time to be alive. I was grateful to not be surrounded by horny Yanks, but good lord, imagine being a sailor and anticipating some R&R in the most sinful beach town on Earth, and your CO neuters you from the get-go. I’d be despondent.
As in my last Ptown visit, Pin-Up was the easy winner. The girls are just sensational, and the customers know it, because it’s nearly impossible to ever find a seat. There was so much tail to look at, my head was on a swivel. The joint was chock full of Chinese dudes not drinking. They were just there to shop for a piece of ass.
XS (Pin-up’s sister bar) is 60 tits out as once. A plethora of boobies. A cornucopia of dirty pillows. After checking out Peppermint, Fahrenheit, and Taboo, I decided there wasn’t a reason to go anywhere but Pin-Up and XS.
On Sunday I swung into Cigarista for a couple Cuban Partagas, then over to Central for a bottle of shiraz, some caviar, and truffle cheese. That all amounted to a late lunch on my hotel room balcony. Then I fell asleep and woke up after sundown, polished off the rest of the wine whilst musing over Venus and Jupiter (both visible in the western sky), smoked a stogie and then headed to LK Metro. A number of joints were closed, thanks to it being Makha Buccha the following day. I confirmed it with a girl on a stool outside Sugar Sugar, before going inside. I love their Facebook page, but I gotta say, it ain’t the same in real life. 69b drafts was nice but in two rotations, I only saw one looker.
On LK, I experienced the same old-farang culture shock that always hits me in Ptown. There are way too many old white dudes in Pattaya.
I popped over to check out Tree Town’s status. That place gets bigger by the week. There were shit tons of people pigging out in the open-air eating area, though not too many in the beer bars. As I was heading back toward LK, I saw a drunk Russian dude accosting a hiso Thai couple. He was trying to tell them how much he loved Thailand and Thai people. They were trying to escape without appearing rude. The night was cool and breezy, the kind of weather I want more of in my life. More and more lately, I see myself retiring in Ptown. And by retiring, I mean getting a job as a bar manager close to the beach. Then I’ll have to change my name to Pattaya Seven and start a new website from scratch.
As I made my way back to LK, I wanted to grab a beer and type some of this into my phone, but it wasn’t easy to find an accommodating bar. Everywhere I looked, the joints were either packed to the rafters with foreign cunts or guarded by throngs of thirsty girls looking for a rube to rinse. Finally, I found a quiet bar and after paying two ladies to leave me alone, I got 10 minutes of solitude. An old Aussie who I pegged as the owner kept hovering around, glancing at me sideways, unsure of whether or not to engage. In the end, another customer arrived and drew everyone to him like iron to a magnet.
Back on LK, I swung into Kink where there were zero hotties. One girl who I’d bounced on my lap a few months prior came over and rode my rod again. That was fun. Lady Love had one ST10 (small tits 10). Everyone else was unfuckable. A dude in blue jeans, brown leather loafers, and a black sport coat kept bouncing back and forth to the toilet, wiping his nose and pretending to talk on his phone. I don’t know who he was trying to convince he was somebody–the other customers or himself.
I skipped Dolls because they always gang up and rinse me in there.
All around Tree Town and LK there are weed dispensaries. The entire neighborhood reeks of ganja.
From there I hopped a mototaxi to Walking Street and hit Skyfall. Lots of bawdy action going on but no hot girls. 175b SML. Then it was on to Sapphire, where I didn’t want to go because no matter how much time passes the staff remember me as the guy who reads palms. It was a gimmick I started back in 2012 to engratiate the staff to me. 11 years later, within seconds of sitting down there’s a queue 6 deep of barmaids wanting their fortune read. Shockingly, there were zero lookers in Sapphire. That place used to be the number one gogo in Ptown. Not anymore. 90b Heinekens, though.
Tantra had two rotations: superhot and supernot. And the superhot were only half hot. 170b SML. At half 10, Walking Street was swarmed with people like ants on an anthill, despite Macha Bucha starting in 90 minutes. I didn’t wait to see if the cops shut down the soi. I grabbed some cannabis gummies and headed back to my hotel bed. The next morning I was on a bus, and back in Silom by noon. Not a super eventful trip, but the crowds are definitely back, and there are hotties to be found in a few spots on Walking Street. And that’s something to be happy about.
In Patpong-related news, the cops shut down a handful of bars on Soi 2 last week, for the crime of being owned by the same dude as a couple bars that got shut down in Phuket. Try and track that logic. I mean, I know it was done specifically to punish the owner, but what the fuck did the punters do to deserve a shut-down soi? What did the Patpong dancers do to deserve losing a night of work? What did the bar staff and managers do to deserve that? I mean, I’d call it another cunting brain-dead fucking retarded knee-jerk moronic baseless decision by the fucking retarded police, but I don’t think it’s really necessary.
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: If you have to take the bus to Ptown, buy two seats. It’s 131 per seat, and well worth the extra cash to not have some ass hat sticking his elbow in your ear for three hours.
