Sunee Plaza doom n gloom

[Guest Qualityonly]

Sorry to be gloom and doom but returning to Sunee Plaza after a few years away was really sad when I remember it in its heyday.

I counted only 5 bars open and many with only one or two boys if you could call guys in their 30's boys.

 

I know its low season but many shophouses with For Lease signs tell me its more than just closing for low season.

The busiest bar seem to be "All of me" .

 

Many other bars had no customers .

[Guest ryanasia]

Try Jomtien, business moves on.

[Gaybutton]

I would love to see Sunee Plaza make a comeback to a thriving gay bar area.  I don't want to see Sunee Plaza end up only a memory, but now gay farang customers are way down compared to years ago and it's the middle of low season.  Meanwhile most of the bar owners are doing nothing to try to attract more customers. 

 

Beats me as to why, but if they're not going to do anything except open, display a few of boys spending most of their time staring into their mobile phones, and do nothing other than just hoping customers will come, what do they expect?

 

At a time like this I would have thought the bar owners would get together and plan events and activities that would draw in the customers, but they don't.  In my opinion, the bar owners have no one to blame but themselves.

[Travellerdave]

It's probably all over for Sunee. In a year or so I think it will be taken over by Muslem visitors from the Middle East. I pity I suppose. When I first discovered Pattaya it was a very vibrant area with bars, gogo's, hotels and restaurents and I spent a lot time during my visits there and stayed during a number of my trips. In subsequent years bad publicity about under age boys and drugs did damage and the decline in gay tourism added to that.

I was told by a long term Pattaya hand that there was a long term plan to move the sex industry away from Beach Road to make it less visible to main stream tourists. This seems to have happened with the hetro scene in that Soi Buakhow has mushroomed during the last few years. If there was such a plan you could have envisaged the local government encouraging businesses catering for gays to move to Sunee away from BT which is close to the seafront. However I don't think town planning is thriving in Pattaya !.

Access to Sunee is poor from BT and South Pattaya Road. I've often had to asked Motor Bike Taxi guys for directions when I became lost walking there from Tukcom. Getting there can be daunting for first time visitors.

[Guest abang1961]

Seriously, the military junta should graze the entire Sunee Plaza and many parts of derelict buildings in Pattaya.

But no the gay scene - just the buildings.

Perhaps converge the gay area to within Boyztown (?)

 

I was there a couple of months ago and boy, Pattaya was and still is, in very sorry state.  

Most of the paints on external walls are falling badly.

There is this "torrid" feeling whenever I step into this area.

Yes the place has an unknown smell and "fear factor". 

 

About getting directions (anywhere in Thailand, at the very least)

I depend on Google Maps as I have ZERO sense of direction.

[Guest Qualityonly]

I dont think it has anything to do with the once "underage boys or drugs" in the past.

Its Technology, the boys would rather work another job it seems and work sex work part time via their Smartphones.

 

This generation doesnt seem to want to sit in bars waiting for customerrs.

 

I must say and call me paranoid,but I wonder sometimes if its really the boy writing back when I message them on the apps such as GR.

Their writing english is often very good.

Im often paranoid there is some farang writing on behalf of say 15 boys and he just pages them or whatever.

It wont surprise me in the future should there be Apps "answering service" for the boys.(if their isnt one now)

 

Technology is moving on unfortanetely costing a lot of jobs everywhere and the Bars are yet to keep up.

I notice my Local Bank in Farangland now has no staff instead im expected to press a button on the Plasma TV screen they have installed and talk to someone thousands of miles away via Live TV.

 

My local Railway Station has cut ticket selling staff as you now can use your CC or debit cards and even your smartphone to get through the ticket gates.

 

"All of me" has the right ideaa by cncentrating now more on "socialising" Farang rather than offing boys.

[Travellerdave]

Qualityonly - that's an interesting thought about about a farang writing English for the boys but it's a bit far fetched. When I contact a boy on GR I always ask for his phone number so as to avoid the message interchange delay and more accurately assess what he has to offer.

The last time in stayed in Sunee, last Jamuary, I found on several occasions that I had to explain where it was, and even then one boy failed to turn up. This never happens when I stay in BT. Incidentally I stayed at the Colonial Bar which is now another of the closed businesses.

[kokopelli]

I was in Sunee last night and had a good time. First having a drink at All of Me and then off to Eros where lots of hungry lads looking for fun and a tip. Finally a nightcap at Diamond bar with a friendly waiter. Not many farang however. What is needed is for local farang to support the bars in Sunee and elsewhere rather than complain about lack of patrons and boys.

[Gaybutton]

 What is needed is for local farang to support the bars in Sunee and elsewhere rather than complain about lack of patrons and boys.

 

As one of those locals I think you have it backwards.  I, for one, used to be in Sunee Plaza regularly.  Now I rarely go at all - maybe 2 or 3 times a month, if even that often.  For a long time I've been trying to get the bar owners to do things to bring back the 'fun factor' in their bars.  That's what they need to do.  I'm not here to support businesses doing virtually nothing to attract me as a customer and I'm not here to be spending my money as part of saving their businesses for them. 

 

Why do you think many of the locals stopped going?  The way I see it, those businesses need to attract us if they want high numbers of locals to start returning.  If and when they start doing that, I'll be right back in Sunee regularly.  I have a feeling many other locals see it as I do.  Don't forget, the locals don't need the bars to find all the boys they want.

 

If Sunee Plaza really does eventually go under, I won't like it any more than everyone else.  I will be very disappointed if that happens and will feel that all of us have lost something special.  But don't blame the locals.  If the bar owners would finally wake up and listen, I see no reason why Sunee Plaza couldn't be thriving again, just like only a few years ago when you were lucky to even get a seat in many of the bars. 

 

In my opinion, it's the bar owners who need to make the effort, not the locals.

[kokopelli]

Sunee was a fun place at one time but the do-gooders and police raids took their toll and along with the obligatory tea money most likely the bars and clubs simply can't turn a decent profit to remain open. Not sure what the bar owners can do to make it "fun" and interesting again that hasn't been tried. Still it is a nice place to socialize with friends plus enjoy the go-go clubs. I suppose free drinks and free offs and free food might entice some people back into town or maybe not? But if patrons are not going to put their money where their mouth is then Sunee will likely die off.

[Gaybutton]

The only bar in Sunee Plaza I see making a real effort to at least try is All of Me.  Even bars that had been hosting events seem to have stopped.

 

I had planned to go to All of Me's event this evening, but unfortunately the weather is not cooperating. 

 

Here's what's going on at All of Me this month:

[firecat69]

I also remember when Sunee was fun but it has been a long long time.

 

Some of it is the fact that many Gay visitors don't even know about Sunee and if they do can't bother finding it.

 

Big part is the owners who have bought Bars with no experience and quickly ran them into the ground because they bought the Bar as a Hobby and had absolutely no idea how to run it.

 

Biggest  part is the Apps which have made it much easier for boys to stay in their room and wait for a customer.

[Guest]

The police raids and tea money must have taken a toll on Sunee.   

Then add the internet on top. Although, last time I was in Pattaya, I did my bit by paying an off fee every single day, since all of the lads I found on the apps were in bars & I would rather show up, check him out & pay the off fee, rather than wait until 1:00 am.

 

I'm more of a gogo bar person, so the loss of several gogo bars has hurt Sunee.  Whilst Eros has a pleasing erotic side to it, the best selection of gogo boys are in and around Boystown now, not Sunee.

 

Sunnee is now mostly beer bars, which are much less effective for offing the boy of your dreams than a gogo.   In the gogo, they are lined up facing the customers & we choose. I like that.  

 

In the beer bar,  well, if your preferred lad is already half way though a bottle of whiskey with a group of lads & a couple of farang on another table, he's ready to continue partying rather than earn a few baht with an off.  

I suppose this works well if you live in Thailand all year & don't expect to off a lad every day. 

For those looking to indulge every day, before flying back to Farangland, gogo bars are a better bet.   

 

If they resurrected Euro Boys gogo, or managed to combine the naughty element of Eros with an improved selection of lads,  I would spend more time in Sunee.  

[Guest Qualityonly]

Great post z909,I found I did get bored in the Sunee Bar last evening.

Even after receiving my drink the two boys the Bar had showed no interest in me and were on their Smartphones so I sat there alone drinking for the 10 minutes and left.

 

Ironically the Mamasan if you could call him that sarcastically made a comment about my tip "only 20 baht?

 

I dont see a need to go back to Sunee at this time and sit in a bar staring out on to a empty street.

If I was socialising with other Farang then it would be a different story.

 

However I did enjoy one bar that was open and its name was Sky Bar,its name was Sky Bar,all the surrounding bars around it were closed so it was the only bar open in the Soi actually.

The host was Alan and he was very very nice.

 

Come in Bar was open,saw no boys and no customers

 

 

All the other bars around it were closed or had For Lease signs

 

The area is in parts in complete darkness,I may try Boyztown now or go out to Jomtien but I see no reason to go back to Sunee this trip.

But please dont laugh, but it maybe getting to the stage of sitting in my Hotel Room ordering boys from the apps.

 

Ironically I logged onto Grindr to receive messages from younger travelling farangs looking for free fun, there was even some fit Korean guy messaging me but I am too shy and im no oil paintng so if Im receiving these other travelling farang must be getting free offers too from the younger non Thais,so even free sex has taken over.

[Gaybutton]

Ironically the Mamasan if you could call him that sarcastically made a comment about my tip "only 20 baht?

 

That depends on what the tip was for.  If it was a tip for having your drink served to you and nothing more, I too would have tipped 20 baht.

 

However, if you called a boy over to sit with you, I think the tip should have been at least 100 baht.

 

If a boy plops himself down next to me uninvited, and it's a boy I didn't want sitting with me, he gets no tip and no drink.  What he does get is shooed away or ignored.

[Travellerdave]

Reading this thread I was trying to remember the names of gogo's in Sunnee that I visited 10+ years ago and which have been long time defunct. Z909 mentions Euro Boys and I recall the boys wearing lace up briefs which were often of a size too small to cover their assets. But the one that stirred my memory was when I remembered Kaos which then became Villa Rouge I think. The place was always packed for the mass chuck wow. I offed quite a few boys from these two during the glory days of Sunee.

[vinapu]

 

Some of it is the fact that many Gay visitors........if they do can't bother finding it.

 

 

this I can confirm from my personal experience. When first time there  I was circling around  without any luck  until finally jumped on a motorsai who drove me there charging 100 for what was as it turned out very short trip.

So Sunee is definitely place relaying on the people in the know, not for  a chance visitors like Boyztown 

[vinapu]

 i'm no oil paintng

hey, but frame may be nice , no?

[Moses]

So Sunee is definitely place relaying on the people in the know, not for  a chance visitors like Boyztown 

 

And I like that: no straight Japanese and Chinese groups watching "zoo".

[Guest Qualityonly]

I guess im starting to miss the old Corner Bar with Crabby, miss the Old Colonial with Mike,miss the old Monty's .

Its just not the same anymore.

I guess its what you make of it yourself,but when your sitting in a pratically empty bar staring out onto a darkened empty street you tend to wonder why you bothered.

 

I could just sit anywhere and order boys from the apps instead.

[vinapu]

I could just sit anywhere and order boys from the apps instead.

or sit in the Boyztown and watch Chinese groups watching 'zoo' like Moses said and then go to one of bars and here you go

[Travellerdave]

I suppose that's one advantage of Sunee in that there you don't feel like a zoo exhibit for the Chinese tour groups following their flag waving guides. I was sat at Oscars a month ago with a boy and I'm sure I was pointed out by a guide as a typical old gay Western man with his young Thai boyfriend when the group paused there.

Mind you these days there is not much for them to ogle at in Sunee.

[kokopelli]

I love sitting at Oscars in Boyztown as the Chinese tour groups parade by. When I spot a cute Chinese guy I wave to them and gesture for them to come sit with me. They never do but they do seem to enjoy the interplay judging by their facial expressions and hand gestures (no not the finger)!  Try it sometime and see their reactions.

[kokopelli]

Sunee was more alive tonight in part thanks to Rodney who had a birthday bash at All of Me and generously provided a drinks to his friends which included everybody. All of Me also provided free food which was  a nice bonus. In addition some of the other beer bars were doing a decent business.  Diamond Bar, next to All of Me, sponsored Quiz Night which was well attended. So good to see the local gay community out to support businesses rather than whining and complaining.

[steveboy]

I suppose that's one advantage of Sunee in that there you don't feel like a zoo exhibit for the Chinese tour groups following their flag waving guides. I was sat at Oscars a month ago with a boy and I'm sure I was pointed out by a guide as a typical old gay Western man with his young Thai boyfriend when the group paused there.

 

First, you should never see yourself as "a typical old gay western man". 

Instead, you are an experienced person in full control of your life, with the freedom and means to travel around the world to get something you fancy.   After all, YOU have the young Thai boyfriend, not those Chinese sheep that have to follow their guide. If this guide is smart he should point you out...  as a role model.