Pattaya bars - a review

[poshglasgow]

Just returned from a few days in Pattaya, my 30th trip since 1993 and still I return, whilst claiming at the end of each visit that I shall venture further afield in South East Asia and give Pattaya a rest. However, there is some magnetic charm about ‘Patts’ that entices you back year after year, despite being hellishly irritated by the usual things which have always, eh, hellishly irritated us: trying to cross Beach and Second Roads, bloody annoying mamasams (don't you just hate them?)and being levered by drivers' wives into the back of their husbands' baht buses outside smart school 8, bound for Jomtien.
"Christ, woman, there's sixty four of us aboard already, can we get going now?"
"Move up, move up, only eight more. Go soon, no problem. Hey, why that poom-poo-ee farang stop breathing?"

I recall how, from the old wooden pier adjacent to the infamous Siren Bar, above which was a memorable neon Marilyn Monroe with her skirt up around her eyes, I would cast a few coins into the sea and wish to return - which I did, and then wish I hadn't, feeling that I had wasted money with which I could have visited Siem Reap or Saigon. Every bloody year it's the same mantra: “Right, I've done the Pattaya thing, that's it; from now on it's Skegness or Loch Ness." And then, after a few moments madness, I book a flight to Thailand!

Oh, incidentally, many thanks for the nudge about the Pattaya Beer Bar. It was jumping every night and it is indeed a fine place for a sundowner.

In the earlier years I would stay at Dudley's Penthouse - now some kind of 'cattery', for it advertises kittens (I’ve seen the notice outside): a veritable hunting ground these days for the straight clientele destined to treat their dish of the day to an array of toys and apparatus in rooms adorned with mirrors, poles (not from Poland), swings and dance podiums. Do these people ever make it to bed or do they eventually fall asleep on their swings, drop off and fracture an arm? Incidentally, Dudley is a great guy: very inclusive, very old-school English and gay-friendly, but I could not bring myself to use the Penthouse after about the year 2000, as it had become so straight-orientated with an array of heavily tattooed Neanderthals bearing clubs carrying Thai kittens to the playrooms: probably seriously homophobic with few exceptions. Imagine wading through that spectacle of humanity with a young chap on your arm straight from Kawaii Boys?
“This ain’t a place for poofters so best you sling yer ‘ook and head for the hills.”
Maybe they’d be quite unlike that and rather more the welcoming sort.
“Me and my kitten, Yupin, yeah, would like to invite you both to share a little nightcap, and a push on our bedroom swing.”

Okay, enough reminiscing.

Sunee Plaza. Oh my God, it's depressing; year-on-year it gets worse. I don't know about you, but as I wander the Plaza and Boyztown (in the old days of Ian and Robbie at Cafe Royale, and Jim and Gordon at the Ambiance it was "Boystown" and not "Boyztown"), I am accompanied by a hundred whispering ghosts reminding me of when Sunee was vibrant with bars and clubs a-plenty. Memories reach out and claw at you as you pass former venues, now closed, that were so much fun to visit in its heyday. Now, I hear only rumours of its imminent demise and some plans for its development. It’s like walking through the tragedy that is East Aleppo: there are some comparisons.
The Corner Bar changes not one bit, with Mama Pai picking away at chicken behind the bar while her son, Joy, runs around delivering drinks. Okay, strolls around delivering the occasional drink.

And speaking of the Cafe Royale, what on earth have they done to the place? I loved it the way it was. One would enter the bar to find the rotund Ian screaming, "FISH! FISH! FISH!" because a woman had dared to enter the bar to sit and ogle at the young male pianist at the grand piano.
"Come on, darling, what colour are they?" he would ask in a voice not unlike that of Phil Mitchell in Eastenders, as a lithesome waiter wandered past him delivering drinks in his pink shirt and tight white shorts.
"Blue," came the obedient, hushed reply.
Ian would sit up on his bar stool and take interest. "Well come them, darling, let's have look."
And the inspection would take place amid the madding crowd.

Oh, and don't get me started on mamasams. The ultimate she-bitch from hell lurks in the dark recesses of Cupidol. One would hang a photo of her above the open fire in a pub to deter children from going to close to it. I had encountered this ladyboy/woman (not sure - 'up to you') on both my visits last year. Jesus, she is the most irritating creature I have ever encountered in my many years visiting Pattaya bars. She takes the crown. BUT...now she has given birth or self-mutated, or a part of her has fallen off in the dark and has lain unnoticed growing into another mamasam, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the shorter queen of annoyance. There are now two bloody mamasams in Cupidol.
The bitch herself hits on you as soon as you enter Twinky Palace. She slides herself over to you and buries herself into your waist, taking your arm and stroking your hand.
"What number?"
"I've only just arrived, can I order a drink?"
"Number twenty, he smoke you good. Number four, he do everything."
Then her bloody annoying offshoot arrives and she spins around with her right arm outstretched like a magician's assistant, as she 'presents' the goods on stage. She smiles broadly but doesn't speak. Indeed, there's something of the mad house about her; locked for years in a short-time room in the old premises, she has suddenly been released into the community.

I must take a break here. I will return tomorrow to continue the report.

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