A Brief Sojourn in Pattaya - January 2018

[RonanTheBarbarian]

I was in Pattaya for six days in mid-January. Thought I better get my thoughts down before I forget them!

I also spent a few days in Hua Hin and Bangkok, will do a bit about those experience later.

I stayed in the Ambience Hotel for three nights, then I moved to the Venue in Jomtien.


The Ambience hotel
For the first three days I stayed in the Ambience hotel. Like others have said it is getting a bit decrepit. My room was definitely in need of a refurbishment (just a lick of paint on the walls would have done a lot). Also, I found the wifi to be a bit unreliable.However as I paid 1100 Baht I felt I can’t really complain - if you want somewhere cheap and central it’s fine. Just be aware that you wouldn’t want to be trying to get to sleep before the bar downstairs closes. However after it did so around 2 am I found there wasn’t too much noise from the street,and I had no problem getting to sleep.


Meeting Board Regulars
I met up with Joe and colmx during my stay. Joe mainly stuck to Sunee Plaza while he was in a Pattaya but one night colmx and me tempted him out to Panorama for a drink. I already posted about that meeting at the time on one of Joe’s threads.

Afterwards we went to a Mor Lam concert which was Joe’s first time at that particular type of entertainment and I think he really enjoyed it. Anyone visiting Pattaya who gets a chance should try it, but you really need to bring a few Thai guys with you.


The present state of Boyztown
In my opinion, Boyztown definitely seems to have declined since my last visit in January 2015. I don’t remember the bars ever being as quiet as they were, also the selection of staff is definitely smaller and there seemed, IMHO, definitely fewer attractive guys.

I paid a visit to Toy Boys, X Boys, Cupidol, Kawaii Boys, Prisma and BBB.

In both X Boys and Kawaii Boys I had the experience of being on my own as the only customer in a bar. This happened to me before but never in Boyztown. I think I was in X Boys are around 9.30 and Kawaii boys around 10.30 and both times there was no one else there. Considering January is supposed to be in the high season, it doesn’t really augur well for the health of Boyztown especially when the Cafe Royale was dark also while I was there. Ironically the best attended the bar in the area was BBB despite giving, in my opinion, probably the worst experience for a customer. As has been said here before, the guys now are is mostly standing in the stage fully clothed.They dont even shuffle, which means you never get to see the guys in the back, Admittedly it does have some cute guys, mainly leaning towards the masculine and straight acting,which is presumably why it attracts it’s mainly Asian clientele. I took a guy down for a drink and definitely wasn’t impressed when, after about three or four minutes he said “I go eat” and disappeared before he gave me a chance to say whether I wanted to wait for him or not. I had been about to leave as the chemistry between us have not been great but he didn’t even give me a chance to give him some money. As the show was on I decided to wait for him to come back just to give him 100 baht as I thought he probably had not meant to snub me. When he came back and I asked the check bin, he just walked away, After paying the bin, I waited for 10 seconds to see would he come back. When he didnt I just walked out without giving him any money.

His loss I suppose.

Looking back on it he presumably didnt want an off with me, and perhaps he was hoping I would sling my hook while he was gone. He must not have told the mamasan though, as she came over about three times in the 15 minutes he was gone to tell me “He go eat, he come back in a minute”.


My experience with Massage
I used the massage service in the attached to the Ambience hotel – I can’t remember if it has a separate name or not. Got a good massage from one of the older, more experienced guys - nice afters too, cannot complain about it. Bit of awkwardness regarding the tip afterwards. At the start I had paid 400 for the massage and 500 as minimum tip. At first I was just going to give the cashier 400 and thought the minimum tip was a reminder, but the cashier told me to give him the 500 minimum tip too, with the massage fee.

At the end of the massage I gave the masseur 700 baht. I reckoned with the 500 it was a total tip of 1200, which was fair. But when he saw the 700 baht in my hand, he said “could you give me 1000 baht please -good massage”. I said: “Well this gives you 1200 in total, as I paid 500 already”. But he just said “Please - a thousand tip for me”. Wondered do the guys get all the minimum tip the cashiers collect? So I gave him a 1000 note instead. Left a rather poor taste in my mouth at the end. Also felt that given the 500 at a start made me look a bit stingy at the end, just handing over 700 in cash. I felt that if there was no minimum tip and I had handed him 1200 Baht in cash it would have felt better on both sides. Or maybe 1500 is a standard tip and now it is for a massage in Boyztown? I don’t know. If i was doing it again I would have asked the cashier to give the massage guy the 500 baht in front of me, before the massage started.

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