History of Soi Twilight

[Brad the Impala]

Thank you for this thorough and detailed report, which is all accurate, as far as I am aware, as far as memory allows . It should be stored safely somewhere.

On a minor note, for such a factual report gathered from various sources, a couple of the strongly held personal opinions did seem a little out of place!

moronically-named Sweet Banana on Patpong 1.

I thought that was a rather good name, given amongst all the varieties there is indeed a sweet banana. I was once offered such a thing by a boatman in Luxor!

fabulously-named BadaBing.

The fabulousness of this name escapes me.

the much-loathed and loved Air Asia

Were feelings really so strongly held about Air Asia?


As I say just minor comments that jarred while reading your otherwise excellent history.

[JayToff]

Hi Brad,

I am almost certain that you could have written a much better history of Soi Twilight than the stub that I did, given that you were actually there before almost anyone else was. With regard to your earlier question, "Is it just the history of Soi Twilight bars that is of interest? The busiest street for Gay bars was in Soi Four Silom before Soi Twilight become known for more than the Twilight Bar", the answer is that facts and stories about the early bar scene are certainly welcome, given that all that has come before played its part in bringing us to where we are now, i.e. post-Soi Twilight and now into the Twilight Zone.

I would particularly welcome tales of your first visit to the Twilight Bar or the other early bars and of the bars that went into the making of Soi Twilight. That picture of your birthday at Lonely Boy, really is a glimpse into an era long before most of us showed-up. Fab if you can share more. Quite a few members have shared tales of the past, including yourself, but they have always appeared as vignettes. The new or casual reader would never quite have known how those bars relate to the way things developed. What was lacking was a framework in which to view the changes in the bar scene. That was the purpose of my trying to put together a chronological history. Obviously, however, Soi Twilight was only one small part of that and you and the handful of genuine veterans of that era are much better-placed to do that.

On BadaBing, I shall just say, as someone who enjoyed playing on both sides of Suriwong, BadaBing is fabulous from start to finish =) Not only can the girls there actually dance, but they actually smile. There are lessons that the managers of the boy bars could learn from a visit to that place.

On AirAsia, it is the airline that everyone loves to hate. It was lauded for bring prices down, but hated for just about everything else. There are enough "I hate Air Asia" pages on the net for me not to recount the issues here; there is even one on TripAdvisor.

On "Sweet Banana", that name isn't just scraping the bottom of the barrel, it's gone right through it...

[Brad the Impala]

On "Sweet Banana", that name isn't just scraping the bottom of the barrel, it's gone right through it...

As opposed to say the subtle Golden Cock?!! I'm not sure if it was there or somewhere similar that the guys used to all have 3D underwear representing the head of an elephant, and the cocks were supposed to go into the representation of the elephant trunks. It might have seemed a good idea but the end result, as the elephant trunks on the trunks were quite large in dimension and length was to diminish the outline of the cocks making them seem shrivelled and unattractive. Like deflating balloons.

I don't think that I've explained that very well, but hopefully I have given a sense of it.

I will attach some links below to some entertaining threads that I found about the early days of gay Bangkok and first experiences in Thailand. I'm sure that my memory was better at the time of my posts in these threads than it is now! If there are any subsequent gaps I expect someone here, or possibly me, will be able to step forward to help.

Memories were stimulated recently when I found an old letter addressed to me at my favourite Poste Restante address.

C/o The Lonely Boy Bar, 102 Silom Road, Bangrak, Bangkok. The letter was dated 2/11/73! As you noted I had a birthday party there around that time.

https://sawatdeenetwork.com/v4/showt...ghlight=apollo

https://sawatdeenetwork.com/v4/showt...ghlight=apollo

https://sawatdeenetwork.com/v4/showt...ghlight=apollo

https://sawatdeenetwork.com/v4/showt...ghlight=apollo