A future for Soi Pratuchai?

[Jellybean]

What’s in a name, eh?

Before I started reading or posting on this forum, I had never heard or seen the soi referred to as Soi Twilight. It is difficult for me to imagine now, but many years ago when I used to travel up to Bangkok from Hua Hin, to spend a few nights going to the go-go bars, I always seemed to have trouble locating the soi. I therefore asked some of the vendors at, or near, the entrance to the soi to let me know its name. I was told it is called, soi bprà-dtuu chai. I was then able to quote it when getting a taxi directly to the soi, or if I had found myself lost and unable to locate the bars, I could ask someone for help.

So, when I began posting trip reports, go-go bar or massage parlour reviews relating to ‘Soi Twilight’, I have more often than not referred to this soi as the following: "soi bprà-dtuu chai (AKA Soi Twilight)" or shortened to, "‘Soi Twilight’" depending on the context of my report and to indicate this was not its correct name, mainly for the benefit of new readers who had yet to visit the soi.

I even kept a few business cards from some of the bars and massage joints and they refer to it as follows:

Future Boys
soi pratoochai surawong Rd

X Size Club
Soi Pratuchai Surawong Rd

Bonny Massage
Soi Pratuchai (Boytown), Surawong Rd

S go go boys
Soi Pratuchai Surawong Rd.,

The Boys Bangkok
Duangthawee Plaza Bang Rak Bangkok

Dick’s Café Bangkok
Duangthawee Plaza, Soi Pratoochai

[AsDaRa]

So if this soi has a name for many years, if taxi drivers know how to find it, why does google maps not show this soi?

[bobsaigon2]

Never mind. By the time posters complete the interrogation of each other regarding the name of this soi, the soi will have become a hotel or office block and the casual observer will no longer be able to discern where the soi once existed.

[Patanawet]

More resent listings certainly include Pratuchai. So I will now consign Duangthawee to posting history!

Well done fountainhall but why not revert even further and call it Soi Twilight as most locals do?

[fountainhall]

. . . why not revert even further and call it Soi Twilight as most locals do?

Perhaps if you had actually been reading the thread, you would have known that this is precisely what I have done for decades!! It was merely a surprise to hear it mentioned as Pratuchai - hence the recent dialogue. My post #5 on page 1 surely could not have been clearer?

The announcement is interesting because at least two of the Boards have had recent threads re how Soi Twlight (as it is often called after the original Twilight gogo bar) can continue given the substantial reduction of western visitors looking to off boys and the increase in Chinese and other Asians only interested in just one drink and seeing the shows . . . Soi Twilight's decline comes as Silom Soi 4 thrives.

[frequent]

So if this soi has a name for many years, if taxi drivers know how to find it, why does google maps not show this soi?

Indeed. And why does Google Maps show Silom 5 as a dead end when it is not? The Google maps satellite view does show that you can walk from Surawong through to Rama 4 via an unnamed laneway, and it even shows some of the businesses along the way such as Dick's Cafe. Possibly Google has it classified as an alley (trok) rather than a side street (soi). As for taxi drivers knowing the location of brothels - 'nuff said.

[fountainhall]

I assume there must be different versions of google maps. Mine clearly shows the soi and even more establishments - but not Dick's nor Classic Boys and Hotmale. It also calls the soi Decho!!!

Soi_Twlight_Google_Map.jpg

[frequent]

I assume there must be different versions of google maps.

I'm using the Web version https://www.google.co.th/maps?hl=en

[a447]

Fountainhall, that map is obviously well out of date.

[AsDaRa]

The web version and the iOS version of Google Maps doesn't have it. Mr. Fountainhall makes a mistake. He uses Apple maps version.