Is the Low Season Affecting Bangkok?

[Guest fountainhall]

I have read various comments about Pattaya suffering during this low season. Not a new complaint as it seems to happen almost every year. But this year seems to be a little worse than usual.

 

I haven't been to the usual gay haunts in BKK for quite a few weeks. I am wondering if there is also evidence here of a slowing down of business in the bars.

[TotallyOz]

I was in Bangkok recently and the bars that I went to were dead. I don't mean dead of boys as there seem to be many of them around but dead of clients. I sat in 2 of the soi bars and there were only 2-3 customers the entire time I sat there. It was like a ghost town compared to what I once saw.

 

I didn't really post a great deal about about Bangkok on my last trip as the only thing I found great was the massage places. They were crowded as usual on the weekends and even though the week when I went, they had many customers and tons of guys.

 

I did speak to several guys from the bars on the Soi Twilight and all said it was horrible for them. I spent time at my hotel with 2 of them and they were very happy and said I was the first customer to take them in weeks. I am not sue if I believe this or not but judging from the lack of customers I saw, it was possible.

[Guest Promsak]

Michael, you don't say where or what time you tried the bars in Bangkok, but from what I've seen of Silom Soi 4 ---- it is always busy to very busy mid to late evening. Often, hardly a terrace seat to be had at the main bars of Balcony or Telephone and plenty of action in the rest of the soi.

I would imagine, but in all honesty haven't tried, that soi 2 would be busy late at night.

Hardly a 'ghost town'.

[Guest fountainhall]

I wonder what the situation is like with the go-go and other bars in Soi Twilight.

[TotallyOz]

Sorry, I was talking about the gogo bars and not the other bars. I went to every gogo bar on that Soi at least one time and I hit Dream Boys 2 times and Xboys 3 times. All were a ghost town of customers when I went. I am an early person and usually home by midnight. I am not a late night guy.

[Guest fountainhall]

Met up with friends for dinner at Dick’s Café at 8:30 this evening. A nice new waiter looked after us, and we thought the food was slightly better that on other visits. By 9:30, the outside was virtually full. Yet the owner told us Soi Twilight business has been very bad in this low season.

 

Not many farang in the soi or in the bars, but we did notice two groups, each of more than a dozen young Asians, being led to bars by touts. In Boys Bangkok and Classic, Thais and Asians outnumbered farang. Classic seems to have settled down into its newish mix of different types of bar boys. We invited one handsome young guy from Laos to have a drink with us. He spoke a little English and was very attentive in a kind of romantic way! We watched the start of the shows in each and then left.

 

Drinks in both bars were Bt.250. The waiter in Classic tried to cheat us out of Bt.40 by returning Bt. 210 instead of Bt. 250. When I queried this, he smiled and tapped his pocket – meaning, that was his tip. Normally I’d have been happy to give him the small change, but this time I insisted it be returned! This is now the second bar in that soi to play games with change. Last time I was in one of the upstairs bars, 3 ten Baht coins had been hidden in a flap in the folder!

 

Also had a drink at Scorpion Beer Bar for Bt.100. We learned that the rent for inside bars in that soi is now up to around Bt.140K per month, with another Bt. 40K for the BIB. The outside rentals are a fraction of that, with BIB expenses coming in at Bt. 10K. The BIB therefore continue to make a nice little killing from that soi alone.

[TotallyOz]

Are the bars in that area now owned by the owners themselves? Or, are they all rented out?

 

In Pattaya, Sunnee Plaza is all owned by one lady and you purchase the lease. Is this the same in that Soi?

[Guest fountainhall]

Was in Soi Twilight again last night, but only for a late dinner at Dick's and then a drink at Scorpion Bar. Few customers around. The boys at Scorpion said this week-end has been about the worst of the low season. Scorpion has a cute Lao guy with the most gorgeous smile

[firecat69]

Which Bar is Scorpion??

[Guest fountainhall]

It's a beer bar a little along in the soi from Dick's and on the same side - outside what used to be Future Boys. The mama-san and a couple of the boys are from Solid. There are two beer bars there that appear to be linked, but they are separate. Scorpion is the first you come to.