Good experiences of Pattaya

Eddie from Brooklyn U.S.A.

I have been to Pattaya 8 times and I have never had a bad experience. The Thai people are great, I always had a great time. The night life to me is very safe.

I say that 50% of people in Pattaya are men looking for Thai ladies, and the other 50% are Thai ladies looking for men.

I am one of those men that have met Thai ladies. Let me tell every body on this planet earth that Thai ladies are the best in the world. They are better then your wives. They treat you like a king. I have a lot of respect for these ladies, they are beautiful.

People if you are planning to go to Thailand, you will experience the friendly people of a great culture.

Comment: Be Careful

From David

Glad you had a good time Eddie. You are not the first. Eight times in Pattaya with no complaints or disasters is good sailing. As long as you pay up a lot of USD, are amiable and don't take things to extremes, your Thai lady friends will take good care of you.

They do not see you as a king - that would be sacrilege. You are are a money provider for their families.

They are not the best in the world and can be very avaricious, violent and vindictive if they feel the cash supply to their family is threatened.

Have a good time and be careful.

The Isaan bar shuffle

By jj

Everyone in Pattaya is 'from' somewhere else. Traditionally, the mid-April Songkran holiday is a time when many of the ladies "go home". There, they renew acquaintances with family, children, boy friends and even old husbands. Many decide that Buriram, Khon Kaen or Udon ain't so bad after all. They don't come back.

Others say that they are "going home" but use the opportunity to find work in another bar as a replacement for those who "went home". They don't go back to the first bar.

Third on the list is the chance for the mamasaan to purge the staff. Ladies who do return might be told that their services are no longer needed; they've been replaced by a more 'productive' staffer.

So comes the Songkran purge. If you are a Pattaya regular, you will likely go back to your favorite bar only to find a large turn-over in staff. Alternately, you go to a new bar and find old ladies who have shifted locations. Either way, it's the annual method of breathing new life into old places.

If you treat a lady right, you have made a friend, but failing that you have made "a memory".

By jj

Have you ever noticed that when a customer enters a bar, the entire staff usually fires a glance in the direction of the door to see if it might be one of "their customers"? These ladies might see literally thousands of customers over the course of their working life. Yet, they quickly file them into those they like and all others. If you treat a lady right, you have made a friend, but failing that you have made "a memory".

Have you ever noticed how a customer can enter a bar and sit as close as possible to the ladies and they ignore him? He is likely "a memory".

Have you ever noticed a customer sitting alone sipping a beer, the dancers in the vicinity have their backs to him and all the others are ignoring him? He is likely "a memory".

These ladies have long memories. They especially remember the non-tipping gropers! These are the guys who practically attack the ladies with hands (and tongues). There is nothing wrong with being playful with the ladies, they usually like it and will respond appropriately. But the rule is that you have to pay to play. Ripping off a lady’s costume (on stage or off), groping wildly at every interesting place and then providing a 20 baht tip (if that), will make you "a memory". These ladies do indeed talk among themselves. Every one of them will soon know your modus operandi. So on your next visit, you can expect the cold shoulder.

I speak Thai reasonably well. When I sit with a lady in a bar, I treat her as such – a lady not a play toy. If I return to a bar, I am usually welcomed by one or more of the ladies whose company I have enjoyed. Over the course of the evening, these ladies will often volunteer their recollections on a customer or two. I have commented on the solitude of a customer despite the availability of many potential partners. The lady at my side will often provide the reason for the ladies ignoring him. It usually reduces to he plays but fails to pay. A 20 baht tip after a painful or embarrassing grope or a 200 baht tip after a short time will surely make you "a memory".

Sometimes I get an entire story about how that particular customer’s activities (in or out of the bar) were shared among the ladies thereby leading them to generally ignore him. I often wonder what the customer must think about the lack of attention or solicitation for a drink.

So a bit of advice for punter:

1. Treat the ladies with respect. It is surprising how accommodating and responsive they can be when you do so.
2. If you like what you see, tell her so. All ladies like compliments.
3. Don’t immediately assume she is up for a grope. She very likely is but moving too fast, too soon is likely to reduce her interest.
4. If you play, then pay. If she peaks your interest, buy her a drink. If she has been accommodating and responsive, tip her a red note or two. It is amazing how the sight of a red note early in the encounter can loosen up buttons and bows.
5. If you find yourself getting the cold shoulder, leave. You are "a memory".

Enticing Pattaya Regulars...An Update

See original article: Return Business Enticing Pattaya Regulars

From jj

Re several big name gogo bars which have raised there bar fines to 1000 Baht for the week of Songkran

I can reasonably understand the attempt to take advantage of opportunity but some policies are not necessarily in the best interest of return business. I specifically refer to the policy of raising bar fine rates for holidays. For the one-time tourist, this can be a bit confusing even leading to the suggestion of a scam. This could easily come about in those bars that have their bar fine rates posted on the walls. After a first-timer makes a selection during a holiday period, he is informed of the higher bar fine. If posted at all, it is most likely a sign written in Thai stuck on the bar. Hardly a reasonable notice to the customers. He might rightly question the difference between the posted rate and the one being quoted and whether he is being scammed.

The same applies to regulars. Same girl, same bar, new week: higher price. If return business is of any interest what so ever, then regular customers should not be subject to temporary holiday pricing. Perhaps more bars could issue VIP cards that would permit the mamasang to collect the standard bar fine -- no freebies needed just an agreed upon rate.

There is clearly another aspect to this issue: keeping the girls at work. The ladies like to celebrate the holidays too. For most, this entails "going home" and necessarily not working. It is one thing for a bar owner to raise the price of truancy, it is quite another to milk the customers as well.

Some policies just work against the best interest of the owner's (and the ladies') bank account.

Animating the unanimated

From jj

We all talk (complain?) about the Issan shuffle. It's that glassy-eyed trance with a hip sway while barely moving her feet that some of the gals fall into when they "go dance."

But stop for a sec, and put yourself in her place. Whatever style of music a bar chooses to play, it tends not to vary very much. I never actually counted, but I wouldn't be surprised if most bars don't play through the same set of songs in the same order night after night -- especially those that forgo the DJ in favor of a computer-MP3 player. Working seven days a week, she likely knows the exact order of those songs. For certain, even if she can't speak much English, she has actually learned the words to some of them! It's not surprising therefore that when she ascends that stage she enters that trance.

There seems to be only two things that awaken a damsel from her trance. One is the sight of a tip on the offer. The other is first chords of an Issan song.

On that rare occasion, when for some reason, the DJ tosses in an Issan love song, the ladies tend to get truly animated. They sing the lyrics, they dance and wave their arms (raam wong) , they 'interact" with each other! The service staff form a line and circle the bar in step. In short, the bar comes to life. Its like giving them all a jolt of caffeine.

Now I don't advocate tossing out all the 70s rock (although they could lose the techno-crap and rap) and substituting Lao songs, but any savvy mamasaan should toss in an Issan ballad every hour or so, just to keep the gals on stage awake.

Sampling the goods on offer

From jj

Not all punters enter a gogo bar with the intention of bar-fining a lady on every visit. Sometimes it is fun to just sit with friends and the ladies and enjoy the eye-candy and the attention and attributes of those ladies. In some bars, the ladies are completely uninhibited and ‘interact’ with the customers in up-close-and-personal ways. At the other end of the spectrum, I have been in a bar where the bikinied dancers actually dressed in full street clothes before pretending to entertain the customers between sets. Most bars are more middle of the road with topless dancers donning their tops before sipping their Lady Drink.

In many bars, the only way to see more of a dancer is to bar fine her. Might there not be a happy medium? Let’s call it a VIP Room.

The proto-type VIP room was in a bar on Soi Cowboy in Bangkok. In a prior incarnation of this bar, there were a group of nekkid ladies cavorting on a glass floor on the second storey. The only way to get closer to these ladies was to sit in one of two rooms that faced this dance floor. These had sliding glass doors and for the price of a LD, the dancers would step through the door and entertain the residents sans costume until their next set. There were also hostesses who would offer their attentions while your dancer was entertaining others.

The cost of residence was 200 baht. As long as the ladies and customer(s) had drinks on the table, no one bothered you. You could sit and play in private for as long as you wanted. If you wished to close the entry door for additional privacy, you had to bar fine at least one of the ladies.

Second floor couches on Soi 6 aside, I am not aware of any Pattaya bar that has such a room. Perhaps the closest thing was the now-discontinued "curtained area" at a certain Jomtien bar.
 
I’d like to see what I’d call a 3-4-5 special. Three girls for 4 songs for 500 baht. The girls each get 100 and the bar nets 200. What happens during those 4 songs is up to the girls. There is no guarantee beyond that the gals must do them nude. Hence the need for a "private" VIP area separate from the rest of the bar.

Many bars seem to have unused corners that could accommodate a curtain or a wall to provide such a service. It might even be in a different section of the bar off in the direction of the ST rooms.

Such a gimmick would at least allow for an "audition" before the punter decides to BF the lady. If interaction between the ladies is desired, then it would be best to select your lady and have her round out the trio. Service staff might voluntarily join in the fun if they were permitted to limit their activity to topless versus nude.

The possibilities are endless.

Does anyone know of anything in this vein in Pattaya?

The possibility for something a little more discreet

From jj

With the on-again, off-again implementation of old and new laws regarding the operations of Thailand’s bar scene, it would behoove someone to research the legality of "private clubs" in Thailand. It seems to me that some of the Soi 33-39 clubs in Bangkok purport to be "private." How do they do it? What do they gain? Should others be looking at the possible advantages?

In the West, "private clubs" generally operate on the edge of the local laws. Sometimes it is to get around serving alcohol, others times to have nude dancers where the law prohibits such in "public places." For the purposes of this discussion, a "private club" simply requires the customer to have a membership card. Gaining membership usually means no more than passing muster of the guy at the door and paying a nominal fee. That fee is often recouped via discounts on drinks or services once the ‘member’ enters the premises. To keep up appearances, the card-checker will occasionally reject an "applicant" based on some trumped up rules = he looks like a policeman!

There is a parallel practice already in effect in some Thai bars in that for the payment of a nominal fee, a customer can purchase a card for discounts on drinks and services. Some include perks like one free bar fine per month that allow the holder to quickly recoup his outlay. Is there another purpose to this besides trying to encourage return business?

Might the formation of "private clubs" be of advantage in Pattaya? Could a suspected undercover policeman be effectively excluded? Could his entry be delayed long enough for the gals to cover-up? Are there other "undesirables" that bars might want to exclude?

Perhaps the various entertainment areas of Pattaya could have area-wide memberships. All the Walking Street bars could be covered by one membership; the Pattayaland and Soi Post Office area by another; Sois 6-7-8 by a third; etc.

Are there any applicable rules on the books?