Pattaya update for August 2009
just completed a se asia trip that included 10 days or so in pattaya. didn't break any major new ground on the mongering front compared to some of the pros here, but in gratitude for the information on this site i thought i'd dish out all the tidbits from the trip that might be of some use/value in a rep001tershot list. so here goes:
* going rate on beach is still b500, with some taking b400. tourist police sweeps (riding bikes, scooters, etc.) are still common, whether motivated by some event like an international conference (even if it's in bangkok) or, some say, by complaints from the bars about the competition. sweeps i saw were harassment ones, i.e. the girls would go to the other side of the street and then resume as usual when the bikes passed.
* soi 6 still same as it ever was, with most places wanting b300 for st room and b700 (or close, if "up to you") for girl. also saw some of the same faces.
* low season appears to mean a sharper dip in business this year vs. more-recent years. bars are having to offer more and better happy-hour specials, including even some former holdouts to the "b55 draft beer all night" game. walking street fills up later (11-ish), and many who are there are gawkers who don't go in the bars.
* traffic gets progressively worse, as farangs try to bring in their western ways and think it'd be great to have a car or residence "where there's more room or it's less hectic." those who bought any distance from the baht-bus loop (e.g. east of sukhumvit, or too far north or south) are facing increasingly long trips to get to the central part of pattaya as traffic deteriorates all over town (some of the worst knots occur at intersections well outside the central baht-bus loop). it's looking more and more like an urban commute.
* catz has one of the better happy hour deals at b65 for call brands (like a southern comfort-coke) and even bacardi breezer up to 9:30. they'd include cocktails in that as well if you mentioned stickman. i'd bet that deal won't be around in high season.
* a number of go-gos have a maddening 3- or 4-tier barfine system where ordinary dancers are b600, "showgirls" b700, service b700, featured performers b1000, etc. and of course your girl will be priced the highest for some reason. on the other end of the ledger, some bars will do b300 barfine after a certain hour, and i even saw a sign at far east on soi post office that they have that for 8:30 and after. as always, girls in the go-gos will want quite a bit more than ones in beer bars or on the streets as their part of the deal, and may even want bangkok-level prices.
* bars with "groping stages" and/or a high raunch factor include windmill club on soi diamond, baby dolls across from what's up, and x-zone (same building as club boesche) late at night, as well as a reformatted blue lagoon at the back of best friend beer bars. all are wilder than anything allowed in bangkok, phuket, chiang mai, etc. windmill is probably the most popular. but managements have stopped having cashiers give b20 change for gropers/tippers and are prodding the girls toward pushing for lady drinks instead. i guess they don't like people like moi who'll do a finger double penetration and then tip b20. :))
(btw, i'll tip only for a good level of contact that'd get me thrown out of most u.s. clubs. no tips just for looking.)
* * *
at first glance soi 6 looks like a last redoubt for the over-the-hill, but i've come to appreciate it more with successive trips. having a known good performer or two that you can go to during the day is enormously empowering for males. shoot the cannon and you can be totally blase about it that night ("well, maybe if i'm smitten i'll take something back, but i don't have to, etc.")
i learned this the "hard" way over many trips, after which time i finally decided that you can hunt in the beer bars at night or eat dinner with friends, check out the go-gos and other ogling places, but not both. especially in high season, you can't just cruise the beer bars at 10 or 11 and expect to land something good. odds are somewhat better in low season, but it's still a surprising amount of work.
you can't "sit down please" without a specific target, but your efforts to scan-and-identify are greatly hampered by instantly being the center of attention and with everyone at all bars doing the "sit down please" bit. worst of all are places like a few on soi 7 that aren't above using "bait girls" to bring you in but that don't stay with you.
if you do talk to the girl you want, she might fail the interview or do the wrong-time-of-month bit. then you're back to square one. it can take a surprising amount of time & effort if you're the least bit picky.
(resident expats have a huge advantage; they give out cell numbers to girls who performed well, and then become the girls' backup choices to call on slow nights. no need to go to the bars.)
as for soi 6, lek at chili bar (or ruby club once renovation there is complete) is the best oral specialist i've ever seen and probably the most popular girl at the bar for years running now. she's 30-something and not the first to pick based on looks (though i'd still give her a 6.5 or so), but she gets lots of repeat customers and still does the service part impeccably. ruby club also had some of the best rooms on the street and still hopefully will after renovation.
i also like red point, and it's one of those rare cases where the cutest girl in the bar doesn't disappoint. again, the secret is finding a niche, doing it very well, and getting repeat customers. some girls on soi 6 do well for years this way.
(whether they do well or struggle, though, even when the career winds down they definitely don't tend to want to go back upcountry.)
soi 6 also was helpful because of staying some of the time at the amari orchid, which is a wonderful place but supposedly charges a b1000 "joiner fee" to be deliberately not girl-friendly.
(another amari property, the nova platinum at the intersection of 2 road and thappraya (i.e. the turn off downtown to head toward jomtien) is pretty good, relatively cheap and doesn't charge a joiner fee.). sunshine hotel on soi 8 is still a great monger hotel and often available via expedia very reasonably, and the new citin loft near pattayaklang and about 2 blocks inland from 2 road looks to be good value in the b1000 range.
hope some of this helps.
It really sucks to be one at times...
[QUOTE=Mr Enternational]I scooped up a Beach Road honey as well performing damage control after some Indian guys had come through. I asked the girl what was the problem. She said that they never want to pay market price. She said everyone knows ST is 500 but they only want to pay 300. I do not understand this seeing that every time I was sitting in a soapie and a gang of Indian men came in they ALL immediately took a girl without even having a seat or getting a drink first.
[/QUOTE]As an Indian, its really depressing to read stories like these :( 500 Baht is really not a lot of money for an Indian who has enough money to travel abroad. The typical ST rates in India are the equivalent of 1000 Bahts and above and that too for the more undesirable ones (those rates are what I've read on the Indian sub forums on ISG.)
It makes be wonder if anyone actually bothered to check if they were really Indians or they just assumed them to be Indians because they "look" like Indians? Several times I have mistaken people from neighboring countries to be Indians, sometimes even people from the middle east.
The worst part of all this is that, because of these people, the rest of us are denied a chance for a good fuck :( because its easy to get stereotyped.
I've never been to Pattaya but, I'm sure gonna punch a few punters if I ever see this happening myself.
Paying 300 still not uncommon
[QUOTE=Mr Enternational]...Indian guys ... I asked the girl what was the problem. She said that they never want to pay market price. She said everyone knows ST is 500 but they only want to pay 300. I do not understand this seeing that every time I was sitting in a soapie and a gang of Indian men came in they ALL immediately took a girl without even having a seat or getting a drink first.[/QUOTE]
The reason for the confusion here, Mr. Enternational, is that she was misrepresenting the situation to you. Everyone most certainly does not know that 500 is the price for short time because just a year or two ago it was 300, and it is still 300 in many, many occurrences.
Basically if the girl is fat or old, 300 is a lot closer to what she can expect as a rule than 500. If she is young or good looking, of course 300 is not going to be on offer - though it has been sometimes for me with girls who knew me, just because the police were on their way or it was about to rain, and she wanted to just go, immediately.
You have to keep in mind this is low season, and low season in a terrible economy. 300 is very doable with the kind of girl the Departed describes (plump). If the girl you observed being low-balled was cute and thin, however, then those Subcontinental gentlemen were probably hoping for too much.
WSG Free Beer Soi 6 Special at Lisa Bar
I went back to Soi 6 today for one of my usual afternoon entertainment sessions. I made a special point of remembering the name of the new bar I like so much, it is called the "Lisa Bar," after the owner I think. Who knows really?
I like this bar because it is new and has the best air conditioner on the street. I travel from Jomtien which takes about 20 minutes and Thailand is hot, so the first thing I want to do when I get there in the afternoon is to cool down. The beer in this bar is also the coldest on the street; it is so cold it is great.
I started talking to the owner and told her I would mention her bar on the internet and maybe she would get a few customers. So I cut a deal with her for any members of WSG.
When you first sit down and tell her "Internet Special" and "Buy one Beer get one Free" you will get two beers for the price of one. Although this might not seem that unusual for most places, in Thailand it is. It is only good for one free beer though, you can't sit there all day and drink.
After two beers you will have made up your mind weather you want to take any of her girls anyway. She does not have the largest selection, only 7 or 8, but a few are real cuties and all are pretty high quality.
Another thing I like about this bar is that all the rooms are brand new and the best on the street. It is right next door to Red Point Bar, which has been there for ever and is one of the best bars on the street, in addition to having some of the best looking girls on the street.