THE WEEK THAT WAS Get thee behind me Covid - Thai nights out in the good old days. Are there more to come?

[rooster59]

 

This week your favorite columnist is shamelessly going after “likes” so please give me a click irrespective of whether the column is any good. I need to present your appreciation to my boss so that I can get a much needed raise (or rise, I’m never sure which) to pay for my healthcare now I’m finally maturing (read falling apart) at the age of 60.

 

On second thoughts ‘rise’ might be more appropriate as I suspect he inwardly sniggers at such requests while demanding harder work to justify what I refer to as my pittance.

 

With "likes" in mind I was wondering what to write about this week especially with everyone bored by Covid (except those half dozen posters on the forum who always “hijack”  the first dozen posts of every lurgy thread to relay the stats and their profound opinions).

 

Then the answer came to me.  Nightlife Thai style in the good old days (well, well prior to 2000). 

 

When you were kinky if you wore a mask. 

 

When the most newsworthy virus before Covid was causing concern and anti-condomers risked their lives more than anti-vaxxers.

 

When a ride in a taxi in Bangkok meant haggling rather than turning on the meter. There wasn’t one, of course.

 

Firstly a disclaimer, of sorts. This is unashamedly about Bangkok whose name is 146 letters long and whose every syllable is as wonderful as the reality. Nothing can compare to Krung Thep - going out in Pattaya was like having to bar-fine your wife’s ugly sister.

 

A change but hardly exciting.

 

Still, it was better than Phuket, Chiang Mai or the islands - going out there meant putting on the hotel slippers and ordering a cocoa from room service.

 

Though, I’ll grant you things did improve “oop country” in the new millennium. Except in Hua Hin - when the Covid malarkey is done you’ll still need a double dose of Prachuap cocoa to see you through the lonely nights bereft of company.

 

The 1980s were a special time for Bangkok, especially the aficionados of the night. The charm of the 70s when Thailand still hadn’t made its mind up about being ultra conservative was replaced in the next decade by Thais who pretended conservatism to the outside world but knew in their hearts that Thailand was changing.

 

The country was finally opening up to mega-scale tourism with the first “Amazing Thailand'' campaign that at the time had more than a ring of truth to it. 

 

My early days as a tourist in ‘82-’84 were mostly spent in a bewildered haze in Patpong and Soi Cowboy and a strange place where you entered via the toilets (more of that later). Cheap Charlie Rooster found the beer quite expensive but by Buddha this WAS the Exotic East I’d got on the plane for.

 

Cue the mid 80s when the fun really started as a steadily increasing command of Thai banter and a fuller wallet aided and abetted your columnist who’d started to think that Thailand would be a lifetime home. 

 

Soi Cowboy was our usual starter.

 

Going out at 11 pm. Nobody in their right mind went out earlier (unless to eat at Old Dutch or the guy who ran a Gyros stall at the other end). The happy hour brigade were not serious players (unless still there at 11 and still going strong!). Tuk-Tuk from Soi 39 was 30 baht, maybe 20 with a “pen khon Thai duay gan” (all Thais together) wisecrack. 

 

Hopping from one bar to another for 40 baht (?) beers. Maybe stay for a couple if the company was good. We went to the opening night of Tilak in this period.

 

But we rarely stayed in Soi Cowboy all night. Patpong was a far better place to be, especially late-night. Years later Cowboy got what Nite Owl Trink called an after hours constellation, a disco of sorts at the end of the road. That sometimes drew us back to Sukhumvit Soi 21-23.

 

Patpong was raunchier; when the interest of the shows waned you could just take tourist friends there to ogle and appear smug when they fancied ladyboys thinking them women. 

 

Other shows were watching tourists being led upstairs to be relieved of 2,000 baht and threatened if they didn’t pay up. 

 

No night market in those days, of course. Trink would later warn about “conflagrations” but one never happened. He denied the AIDS epidemic - something that ultimately led to his demise.

 

The disco above one of the King’s bars was our late night favorite before it was off to the Thermae Coffee Shop - the old one.

 

Entry was through the back door, funnily enough, via the toilets. The staff - many of whom work in it’s newer location to this day, I’m told - brought our Beer Sing or a Lipo if we’d already overdone it. 

 

After 2 or 3 am the action inside was incredible. Only westerners and Thai ladies in those days. The Japanese changed it years later into something else. 

 

My mate called the saddest “demimondaines” “JBC”s - Juke Box Casualties. They would stand by the music machine seemingly their entire lives. 

 

There was no telling who you might meet in the Thermae, a place owned by the police and consequently open to 6 am when even the ladies who tidied up the glasses went home. 

 

(Monday or Tuesday for many was spent in the clinic of a certain Dr Dickson. Around 1987 the British physician bought a yacht and my so-called mates said I’d paid for most of it). 

 

Sundays would be spent recovering playing the Thai card game Dummy in our Indian owned “slum” in Soi 39.

 

I married the best player I could find, sucked in after she offered to pay 20 baht for a phone call she’d made.

 

Tragically, I discovered Scrabble at the end of the decade and things were never quite the same again. 

 

Though I continued to go to the bars it was because I needed a break from word study. The gyrating ladies thought I was ogling them with an inane grin. 

 

No, I was anagramming and thinking of my next tournament. 

 

Here are a list of some of the stories that caught Rooster’s beady eye this week:

 

The site of the Scala cinema in the Siam Square-ish area has been bought by Central to make a shopping street. I remember taking a date to the Scala to see heart-throb Sinjai Hongtai.

 

Years later she was sitting opposite me with husband Chatchai Plengpanich at a parental consultation talking about their son’s ability at Thai. 

 

It was revealed that Ferrari Joe has a mere 600 million baht in assets and had probably tried to bribe the father of his plastic bag victim with 5 million of that. 

 

Interestingly IB chief Lt-Gen Sompong Chingduang was given the job of investigating the money trail. What with an assistant chief role also given to Big Oud recently, could he be on the move from immigration?

 

It would certainly be a good time to get out especially with the plethora of damaging corruption cases hitting the IB, not least an audio tape from Songkhla this week that resulted in 30 officers having their voices forensically examined.

 

A station chief was transferred after a member of the public video-ed an underling sleeping on the job and clearly plastered.

 

Isn’t that in the job description?

 

A health official blamed the people for not being responsible after lockdown measures were eased. How kind. 

 

Jomtien Beach Road collapsed in the rain. How predictable. 

 

In tourism news officials in Hua Hin suggested domestic tourism might be better than relying on non-existent foreigners, foreign visitors sailed past the 1,000 mark in Samui and hotels everywhere continued to close.

 

Meanwhile the TAT concentrated on attracting Indians. I just hope they stay after their visit and set up some Chicken Tikka stalls in Ratchayothin. 

 

Many on the forum continued their wholesale bashing of Indians and everything Chinese. It’s making many threads virtually unreadable. Please stop.

 

The DES ministry said only 10,000 patients’ data was hacked, not millions. Oh, that’s all right then!

 

The forum’s xenophobic antennae twitched violently in a story about foreigners joining protests being deported. Get a grip - it was one Cambodian.

 

In political news alleged heroin smuggler Thamanat was sacked as deputy agri and co-op minister after he tried to engineer the ouster of Prayut, it was said. 

 

Large numbers of stories told us that foreigners would be arriving in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Pattaya, to name but three, come October. Thais were “flocking” to Hua Hin, continued another.

 

Two hipster monks who have been jive talking online got their saffron knuckles rapped for not taking religion seriously enough.

 

Seemed to me that they were trying to engage with a younger audience. Therein lies the problem. According to the elites, the young must be subjugated at all costs lest they damage the status quo.

 

Finally, a lead story asked “Are expats being tempted by Thailand?”

 

First poster Orinoco replied with a smile “No” and got thirty likes, 5 trophies and 10 smiley emojis.

 

I’m in the wrong job.

 

Rooster. 

 

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[fangless]

12 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

I’m in the wrong job.

Oh no your not!

????

[Misterwhisper]

1 hour ago, rooster59 said:

and a strange place where you entered via the toilets (more of that later).

And indeed how wonderfully strange - surreal, otherworldly, absurd - "it" was! Its reincarnation was a mere shadow of its former self, a poor, shallow, unexciting, uninspired (and uninspiring) copycat.

[WhiteBuffaloATM]

first came here in 1981 to get a fake marriage certificate so only briefly exposed to the bangkok and pattaya tourist scenes………thought I’d fallen down the preverbial AIW rabbit hole into an alternate reality….dismissed thailand as “too good to be true,where’s the catch”? so never returned until 2004 with my american resident pal……immediately hooked on Phuket, still knowing nothing, relying on recommendations blindly, etc…….still working overseas but could not live permanently anywhere else since then…….” trapped” in my Phuket Pool Villa for 18 months now with great lady & kid…….loving every minute…….accumulated sufficient protective knowledge & docs. but still having barely “scratched the surface” I feel. 

[George Aylesham]

2 hours ago, fangless said:

Oh no your not!

????

Of course I've given my favourite Sunday read a like - your column has always been one of the main reasons for me to read ASEAN Now/ThaiVisa

[head bender]

2000 baht in the 80s 500 in Patpong and 300 in Soi Cowboy and that was all night bar fine in Patpong was 200 Soi Cowboy 100. I always let people in my bar off as I felt sorry for them going home with these ugly old women!

[Ponlamai]

Me too. Always a good read, and being stuck in Oz, I can only recall with fondness my 15 years of having made Thailand my second home B4 we got shut out of all Overseas travel.

[Bangkok Barry]

You write of a time when a bar fine was 100, ST 500 and LT - and that really did mean all night - was 1000. So I'm told ????

 

[Changoverandout]

I’d happily give more ‘likes’ if you could persuade the editor to get rid of the annoying adverts.

[spidermike007]

I think a significant number of us are completely sick of the plague, the way it has been handled here, the draconian measures put into place, the punishing and highly selective application of restrictions, the economic destruction, the pain inflicted on the poor and lower income Thais, and the extreme level of fear of the Zombie Apocalypse. 

 

Get thee behind me is right! Get out now. Go away. Please. 

[Mark mark]

Yes Rooster !!! …  "Thermae Coffee Shop - the old one" ... Yes I remember that one, with the just Great entrance way, past the Urinals, with the Guys <pissing> ... and the Girls right behind them, doing their hair by the hand basins, in the Mirrors ? … (Or well looking at who ? Or what was the … ? “Status” of the fellows using urinals behind them ??? I guess ? ) .... Then walk on through, … then turn right, Down the stairs, … turn left again, … past the Kitchen with all the cooks Cooking !!! … And then burst out in to the totally, Packed, and smoke filled Underground Coffee shop !!! (A Bit like in the “Good Fellows” Movie)… … “Thermaes Coffee shop” !!!  … (Under the massage Parlor of the same name) … … And with quite obviously very little Ventilation !!! ...

 

Like it reminded me of doing Smoke Diver training for off shore !!!! ... In their fire filled building mockuped Containers !!! ….

 

… So walk around the room on the narrow walk way ! ... The girls all occupying the Booths !!! … So you had to choose one if you wanted to sit down !!! (If you could see them through the smoke !!!) ... The Keener ladies, out in the Narrow Isle, Almost, blocking your way … hoping to make an earlier score !!! ... And well, by 2 am I reckon, back in those old days, there would have been about 250 Girls there ... ALL unattached !!! … And about 10 Blokes, mostly at the bar, of which 1 was high, and 8 were only drunks looking for more booze after closing time !!! (Hence nor really all that much use to the 250 Woman ???) ...

 

Yes R, … and that Doctors Clinic ? … That was that the one just up from Cowboy on the Soi 21 end wasn’t it ? … In an old Thai house … then I am sure is not there now ! ? … ??? Which specialized for the working Girls !!! … And well I always liked it, as it WAS a REAL effort of helping the Poor, and QUITE obviously so .... 10B for a check if you were a working girl ? … And 30 if you were a foreign man ! ? ... Humorously explained to me by the very Good Nurse Secretary there, … with "Well you have More Fun getting it”, (So you can pay more for your check ! Right ?)  ...

 

And how about the Great "Blue" seafood Restaurant, “See Far”? … To the East of Cowboy out on Sukhumvit, just about opposite Soi 22 (Soy Yip Song) … Where they Wacked the bottom of the soda bottles, so the caps all flew off and over the fence ... … and where huge flames would come roaring out of the 3rd floor window, …  where the Kitchen was !!! … As like the whole <Deleted> place was on Fire !!! ... But the best sea food and most reasonable in town !!! Right ! …

 

… And back in Thurmos (Or “The Terminator” as my Swedish Buddies used to call it) ... The "Nice" Daughter, from the local family Thai food shop, in Soi 22 half way along, by Don Tong Larn ! ... Yes quietly and alone, standing down near the door, and the cigarette Machine (There obviously to help create more smoke in the unventilated place Right !!!) ... The Family Daughter, from where I used to eat when back at home there in Don Tong Larn, … Who well I always liked meeting her, as, as soon as she saw me coming, … she would run away … as well ..  She was a “Nice” Girl !!! And was not supposed to be there right ! ? …. !!! … Like THIS sort of Local thing, was just Great Really … as it moved Sex … Out of the Prostitution category, for me … and in to the Just having fun one !!! ...

 

Yes Cowboy, and the terminator in the 80's .... And do you remember Somboon in Thermaes ??? … The very kind Waiter, I knew him there in the 80's … and a very nice man ... AND I still saw him STILL working at the new Place, in about 2015 !!! … Like working every night in Thurmos … For 30 Years !!!  ... And still sane !!! Like How many Cop Owned Underground bars anywhere in the world .... Would have waiters working for them … For 30 Years !!! .. Like this all really was ...."Only in Bangkok" Stuff !!! I thought ? .... (Well he probably was one of the owners of it by then right ??? TIT ??? … NO all, ..TIBKK ... This is Bangkok !!!

 

… Like the second longest Time, that I have known another man in Bangkok … and he was a Waiter from Thermos !!! Har Har …

 

… And also the nicest and best Value food after hours in the whole town also I think … like a real, ..”Well at least the Cops are good for something” Place !!! ..Though yes, now just a line up for the Japanese !!!  … Still Somboon does not seem to be too worried about that … still looking almost the same as in 83 !!! Almost !!!

 

Like it always makes me wonder how physically working nights only !!! In a place like that for 30 Years would do to you !!! But well Somboon looks just, Quite Normal  !!! .. Like yes … Only a Thai !!! And a Bangkok, Bangkok, Bangkok One at that !!! … It makes me think of New York ??? … A little bit I guess …. Though I have never been there ???

[PaDavid]

You got your ‘like’ Rooster. I wish I could have made it 50 to make up for some of the times I skipped past that part to read the comments. 

[sandhurstmolonski]

1 hour ago, spidermike007 said:

I think a significant number of us are completely sick of the plague, the way it has been handled here, the draconian measures put into place, the punishing and highly selective application of restrictions, the economic destruction, the pain inflicted on the poor and lower income Thais, and the extreme level of fear of the Zombie Apocalypse. 

 

Get thee behind me is right! Get out now. Go away. Please. 

Absolutely 100 % ..

 

And here in CKers Hua Hin , some the Farangs attitudes , simply unbelievable , seriously in the wrong country .

Why is this guy or that guy here ?.Look at that car ? Blaa Blaa Blaa , where do these people get off ? 

[Tropicalevo]

Surely, your column and that of Roger Crutchley (and before him, Night Owl) in the BP are the only reason for getting up on a Sunday morning.

[spidermike007]

Anyone remember the illustrious Clinton Plaza? It was torn down many years ago, but used to be a fun, low key assortment of bars, somewhere off of Sukhumvit, if I remember correctly. That was a long time ago. Good column. Thanks.

[Speedhump]

Zzz zzz.... 

 

Obviously one for the old timers to reminisce over. 

 

... at least you avoided: "which was a lot of money in those days"..... ????

[madmitch]

7 hours ago, rooster59 said:

alleged heroin smuggler Thamanat

Surely convicted heroin smuggler is acceptable language without fear of reprisals?

[alex8912]

Loved the part about the 1/2 dozen hijackers! Soo true.  Everyday blah blah doom and gloom and their "profound opinions" LMAO. The rest was good to read too. 

[eastlight]

2 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Anyone remember the illustrious Clinton Plaza? It was torn down many years ago, but used to be a fun, low key assortment of bars, somewhere off of Sukhumvit, if I remember correctly. That was a long time ago. Good column. Thanks.

How about Buckskin Joe Village? 

[StevieAus]

The column is good, my only comment is that if you feel that you are falling apart at 60 wait another ten years and see how you feel !!!

[BostonRob2]

1 hour ago, madmitch said:

Surely convicted heroin smuggler is acceptable language without fear of reprisals?

You're assuming that Thailand's defamation laws and courts care about the truth.

[Rookiescot]

5 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

I think a significant number of us are completely sick of the plague, the way it has been handled here, the draconian measures put into place, the punishing and highly selective application of restrictions, the economic destruction, the pain inflicted on the poor and lower income Thais, and the extreme level of fear of the Zombie Apocalypse. 

 

Get thee behind me is right! Get out now. Go away. Please. 

Selective is right.

The only area of Udon which is shut down is the soi with the ferang bars on it.

Make of that what you will.

[BostonRob2]

25 minutes ago, eastlight said:

How about Buckskin Joe Village? 

BJV (soi zero?) Clinton plaza (later) and Washington square did not really feature on Rooster's Radar, all division two. 

[BostonRob2]

2 hours ago, Speedhump said:

Zzz zzz.... 

 

Obviously one for the old timers to reminisce over. 

 

... at least you avoided: "which was a lot of money in those days"..... ????

Awww, did we miss out on Bangkok. Better luck next time....if there is a next time. Try not to be too jealous "luuk ranaat". 

[Artisi]

39 minutes ago, StevieAus said:

The column is good, my only comment is that if you feel that you are falling apart at 60 wait another ten years and see how you feel !!!

Or 20. 

[Ray Ban]

Declared interest… I’m a Rooster fan. No way I can begin to equal his time spent here and his knowledge of a Thai language and culture.

The only sense in which I might steal a march

on him is that my first visit to Thailand was in late 1970 as a stage on the hippie trail from

UK to Oz. I knew zero about Thailand ( as I had about Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India).but I think my destiny to end up in Thailand was sealed the first time I sat on a semi-circular couch with a MamaSan offering me the choice of half a dozen adoring, touchy feely girls. I

stayed at the Atlanta at a

low point in its history when there was an inch of water through the foyer, met an American guy and ended up being whisked of by a couple of girls to their “village” Pattaya !

I’ve returned at various times over the last

20 years, so

have seen the evolution of Sin City, most latterly in 2015 for a

month post retirement. Now happily married in

Isan , I consider myself lucky to have witnessed the rise and fall ( I fear) of a Thailand institution.

Ray Ban

[Speedhump]

18 minutes ago, BostonRob2 said:

Awww, did we miss out on Bangkok. Better luck next time....if there is a next time. Try not to be too jealous "luuk ranaat". 

I had 14 riotous years in Dubai. Not a third world city! Knock yourself out... ????

[jdrags]

I regularly read your column as well.  I'll probably get flamed by someone but I've been in Thailand since the 70's and knew Trink and Cowboy (the person who gave the soi its name.  I first came to Thailand in 1978 and married a Thai in 1980.  We are still married nearly 41 years later.  Our grandkids are in Udon.

[GarryP]

3 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Anyone remember the illustrious Clinton Plaza? It was torn down many years ago, but used to be a fun, low key assortment of bars, somewhere off of Sukhumvit, if I remember correctly. That was a long time ago. Good column. Thanks.

The Grace Hotel was in competition with the Thermae for a while in the early 80's until it started catering more to the middle eastern market. A glass of iced tea could last an hour there as you window shopped. Didn't want to get drunk too soon, and earning a pittance at a language school meant you had to budget your nights out. ????  I have nowhere near the experience of Rooster though as I pretty much stopped going to those places when I got married at the ancient age of 25. I can't believe that is 33 years ago.    

[GarryP]

1 hour ago, StevieAus said:

The column is good, my only comment is that if you feel that you are falling apart at 60 wait another ten years and see how you feel !!!

I'm only 58 going on 59 and it has already started. Eat well and exercise, but there are some things I just cannot avoid.