Patong is dead.

[hansgruber]

This thread has taken off so I went down Patong today to check out some rooftop mini golf on beach road in Banana walk complex with my son. It was so dead. Everything is closed down and only two businesses remain, coffee club and rip curl. I remember villa supermarket was their crowning glory but that didn't last a year. It's horrible to see it so dead.

Even the Banana disco is closed and under renovation once again. It was only open a short period after the last renovation.

Bangla road bars are a sad sight. All bars have signs saying local beers 80 baht and buckets 250 and very few day punters.

yes, crazy how banana walk died but the businesses in the back were too hidden so nobody was going inside there.

Only wine connection is doing ok and the pizza place, well located in the front.

Even fuji closed, sad, was nice inside.

I was there around midday and wine connection wasn't serving one table. They are on the 2nd floor and I think its not seen by anyone.

Coffee club was doing good, very busy and rip curl behind it was sucking a few in.

The complex has really fallen into disrepair too, look at the steel structure and the rust that's formed on the beams already. Scary stuff but that's what you get for building that on the beach.

[phuketlive]

This thread has taken off so I went down Patong today to check out some rooftop mini golf on beach road in Banana walk complex with my son. It was so dead. Everything is closed down and only two businesses remain, coffee club and rip curl. I remember villa supermarket was their crowning glory but that didn't last a year. It's horrible to see it so dead.

Even the Banana disco is closed and under renovation once again. It was only open a short period after the last renovation.

Bangla road bars are a sad sight. All bars have signs saying local beers 80 baht and buckets 250 and very few day punters.

yes, crazy how banana walk died but the businesses in the back were too hidden so nobody was going inside there.

Only wine connection is doing ok and the pizza place, well located in the front.

Even fuji closed, sad, was nice inside.

I was there around midday and wine connection wasn't serving one table. They are on the 2nd floor and I think its not seen by anyone.

Coffee club was doing good, very busy and rip curl behind it was sucking a few in.

The complex has really fallen into disrepair too, look at the steel structure and the rust that's formed on the beams already. Scary stuff but that's what you get for building that on the beach.

wine connection does better at night, awful during the day, too hot there to eat, a mistake they did, no air conditioning...

During the day it's a pizza oven.

[phuketlive]

This thread has taken off so I went down Patong today to check out some rooftop mini golf on beach road in Banana walk complex with my son. It was so dead. Everything is closed down and only two businesses remain, coffee club and rip curl. I remember villa supermarket was their crowning glory but that didn't last a year. It's horrible to see it so dead.

Even the Banana disco is closed and under renovation once again. It was only open a short period after the last renovation.

Bangla road bars are a sad sight. All bars have signs saying local beers 80 baht and buckets 250 and very few day punters.

yes, crazy how banana walk died but the businesses in the back were too hidden so nobody was going inside there.

Only wine connection is doing ok and the pizza place, well located in the front.

Even fuji closed, sad, was nice inside.

For one im tryin to figure out how even wine connection can be turning a profit in that location with what must be sky high rent and reasonable pricing on the menu.

yes, true, they hardly make money there, the manager told me one day, not easy there...

Surprised they are still open but they are busy a little bit, maybe enough to survive...

[The Big Mango]

This thread has taken off so I went down Patong today to check out some rooftop mini golf on beach road in Banana walk complex with my son. It was so dead. Everything is closed down and only two businesses remain, coffee club and rip curl. I remember villa supermarket was their crowning glory but that didn't last a year. It's horrible to see it so dead.

Even the Banana disco is closed and under renovation once again. It was only open a short period after the last renovation.

Bangla road bars are a sad sight. All bars have signs saying local beers 80 baht and buckets 250 and very few day punters.

yes, crazy how banana walk died but the businesses in the back were too hidden so nobody was going inside there.

Only wine connection is doing ok and the pizza place, well located in the front.

Even fuji closed, sad, was nice inside.

For one im tryin to figure out how even wine connection can be turning a profit in that location with what must be sky high rent and reasonable pricing on the menu.

yes, true, they hardly make money there, the manager told me one day, not easy there...

Surprised they are still open but they are busy a little bit, maybe enough to survive...

I know the original owner of wine connection sold out not so long ago ( ? ) For a few million ( well more than a few ) euro , maybe there still under contract perhaps.

Even so would of thought better to cut the loss , unless they some how managed to pull a deal with the land owner as if they closed im guessing its bye bye bannana walk ?

[xylophone]

I just got back from one of my very rare forays into Patong.

I agree that the place was devoid of tourists. Those that I did see were evenly split between 'whiteys', Arabs, Indians and Chinese.

The number of empty shops, restaurants, businesses for rent/sale was quite evident. (A good friend who had a restaurant in Patong for maybe 7 years seems to have closed up shop).

The businesses that were doing well, judging by the number of customers, were fast-food outlets catering to Chinese tourists, with Chinese language signage.

As you, "hansgruber" and a few others have stated there are certainly quite a few establishments closed and/or for sale at the moment and just a couple of days ago I ventured down Soi Nanai 8 and noticed some new shop houses and apartments which were empty, as well as a few shops with the roller blinds down.

What surprised me was that opposite the end of the Soi, where it joins the middle road (at the juncture with Soi Tan) there was a building site with some footings/concrete pillars in place, complete with re-bar poking out of the top, and it looked to have stalled, and it had a for sale sign on it?? I don't know what it was going to be, but it appears that the owner wants it sold whatever it was going to be.

Staying in that area of town at the end of Soi Tan Where it joins the road heading down to the beach, a whole block off buildings has been demolished and something new is going up. However if you follow that road down towards the beach, not far away from where the Andaman Pearl was and where they flattened a whole area of small shops and put new single-storey "shops" in, you will notice that many of these have now closed.

So there you have it, empty buildings, unfinished buildings and new ones being built within a stone's throw of them.

As for the Villa Market store, well it wasn't really in a great place, was too small and more expensive than other shops, so its demise, IMO, was expected.

And getting back to the road in which I live, Nanai, I've noticed there are more small shops closed along the north end heading towards the DD Swiss Resort Hotel as well as a small hotel/guesthouse called Patong Residence, which is almost opposite the Supa Cheap outlet.

In amongst all this doom and gloom, over the past few days Big C has been inundated with swarms of locust like Chinese who are intent on buying as many 15 to 20 baht packets of seaweed, spices and the slightly more expensive dried fruit as they can and packaging them up in cardboard boxes to take home with them.........or if they are really serious, buying cheap suitcases and packing them with the goodies.

I know the GM of the store and he is happy that they are shopping there although they really don't touch the more expensive items like seafood, meat, cheeses etc so his turnover is lower than he would like it to be.

I don't know where this place is heading, however I do know that Bangla Road is just about dead during the daytime and many bar owners are not seeing any farangs at night-time, so there will be pain in that area of businesses, and I have it from firsthand knowledge that this is the case.

What I find the most surprising is that all this is there, so plain to see, yet buildings are still going up whilst others, including apartments, are empty or have stalled.......and it just doesn't seem to make sense.

[GiantFan]

When I first moved to Patong, Sai Kor wasn't there. When they put that road in with all the additional hotels that needed to be filled, that's when things turned pear shaped.

[simon43]

Big C has been inundated with swarms of locust like Chinese who are intent on buying as many 15 to 20 baht packets of seaweed, spices and the slightly more expensive dried fruit as they can and packaging them up in cardboard boxes to take home with them..

Thanks for the market survey

About 50% of my hotel guests are Chinese waiting on their outbound flight that leaves between 2-5am. I will stock up with these types of goods and see if it sells (seriously).

Edited July 21, 2015 by simon43

[phuketlive]

what surprises me is that even now, some are still taking over some shops.

On nanai 8, almost in front of the football field entrance, a farang just took over a place to open a beauty salon and selling beauty products too i think.

Good luck, so many beauty salons around already... I saw the guy in front the other day, i guess he took it for his darling.

well, if he has the money to pay for it, many girls have businesses here and dont make any money, their 'tilak' pays for the losses.

[xylophone]

Big C has been inundated with swarms of locust like Chinese who are intent on buying as many 15 to 20 baht packets of seaweed, spices and the slightly more expensive dried fruit as they can and packaging them up in cardboard boxes to take home with them..

Thanks for the market survey

About 50% of my hotel guests are Chinese waiting on their outbound flight that leaves between 2-5am. I will stock up with these types of goods and see if it sells (seriously).

If it helps, simon43, then I'm pleased to have been of service.

Certainly the packets of dried seaweed (about the size of an A4 sheet of paper) seem to be popular as are the packets of dried fruit, along with some of the small packets of Thai spices for adding to such things as pork and chicken etc.

I'm not teaching you how to run your business as I know not what you do, however as most of these Chinese seem to be stocking up on these things before going home, perhaps it would be "useful" if you somehow let your Chinese guests know (through a photograph on your website for example) that you do stock such stuff and that they can pack it there to take home with them, rather than having to forage around in the supermarket asking for cardboard boxes and tape??

Just an idea so that you get the business rather than Big C and of course you provide a great service!!

[GiantFan]

Popular in China to bring back small gifts for family, friends, and coworkers.

[DanceAllNight]

All I know is, beer is too expensive now in Thailand. This use to be a selling point for me, but I can get better and cheaper beer at home. Of course, though, beer isn't the only thing I came here for... but still...everything else is getting more expensive as well. Cambodia, Laos, Philippines, Vietnam are better values but I'd rather be in Thailand.

Yes, Patong is dead. I go to Bangla a lot, and compared to years past - dead. Yet, prices are higher! At least they got rid of all the umbrellas!

[DanceAllNight]

It also doesn't help that Thailand cracked down on border runs, the coup, beer prices, and the Russian currency tanking....

But the Chinese sure have arrived! Oh boy! It's like Beijing in Big C!

They're everywhere in CM too

[DrDave]

Big C has been inundated with swarms of locust like Chinese who are intent on buying as many 15 to 20 baht packets of seaweed, spices and the slightly more expensive dried fruit as they can and packaging them up in cardboard boxes to take home with them..

Thanks for the market survey

About 50% of my hotel guests are Chinese waiting on their outbound flight that leaves between 2-5am. I will stock up with these types of goods and see if it sells (seriously).

If it helps, simon43, then I'm pleased to have been of service.

Certainly the packets of dried seaweed (about the size of an A4 sheet of paper) seem to be popular as are the packets of dried fruit, along with some of the small packets of Thai spices for adding to such things as pork and chicken etc.

I'm not teaching you how to run your business as I know not what you do, however as most of these Chinese seem to be stocking up on these things before going home, perhaps it would be "useful" if you somehow let your Chinese guests know (through a photograph on your website for example) that you do stock such stuff and that they can pack it there to take home with them, rather than having to forage around in the supermarket asking for cardboard boxes and tape??

Just an idea so that you get the business rather than Big C and of course you provide a great service!!

I think I mentioned in another post that I saw one Chinese guy in Big C Jungceylon with a shopping cart completely full of the big seaweed sheets (price floats between 45 and 55 baht). I kid you not, he must have had 100 packets.

A couple of months ago, I saw a group of Chinese customers standing at the customer service counter asking for boxes they could use to pack up all the seaweed and dried fruit they had bought, and they were not happy when told "no have". Yesterday, however, I noticed that they have a complete self-service packing area, complete with used boxes and signage just past the checkout counters. I've also seen quite a few buying the overpriced hardsided suitcases, and then stuffing them with their purchases just outside of the store.

[keetoot]

Patong is boring as hell apart from the beautiful available women,cheap booze, night clubs,good cheap food,cheap moto rental,fishing spots, close vacinity to islands and free wifi on every corner.

[keetoot]

It also doesn't help that Thailand cracked down on border runs, the coup, beer prices, and the Russian currency tanking....

But the Chinese sure have arrived! Oh boy! It's like Beijing in Big C!

They're everywhere in CM too

Haha cheapest flight from auckland is via guong zou today lol.

Hey dont knock beer prices buddy thai red horse is still 47 baht a big one hardly 2 dollers

[Old Croc]

Yes, Patong is dead. I go to Bangla a lot, and compared to years past - dead. Yet, prices are higher! At least they got rid of all the umbrellas!

I haven't noticed a decrease in the number of umbrellas in Bangla!

[tolsti]

and now it seems that there will be less cruise ships as well as Star Cruises cuts its regular high season Penang-Krabi-Patong route

http://www.therakyatpost.com/news/2015/07/21/tourism-industry-will-take-a-beating-as-cruise-ships-cease-operating-from-penang-says-cm/

[DrDave]

and now it seems that there will be less cruise ships as well as Star Cruises cuts its regular high season Penang-Krabi-Patong route

http://www.therakyatpost.com/news/2015/07/21/tourism-industry-will-take-a-beating-as-cruise-ships-cease-operating-from-penang-says-cm/

Fortunately, it looks like the Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas will be back in the upcoming high season. About twice the pax capacity of the Star Cruises ship that cancelled.

If I recall correctly, they start sometime in November and finish the season sometime in March. Looking at the schedule, it appears that the Mariner of the Seas will not be mooring overnight when in Patong, so not a lot of help for the bars and restaurants. Good for the contract tour operators and tuk-tuk mafia, though.

[DrDave]

Another bad sign is the "Patong Walk" project on Sai Kor road, near the intersection with 200Pii Soi 2. Basically a big concrete sealed area with spaces rented out to food and other vendors, a seasonal flea market area, and an open area for entertainment (concerts). The developer worked hard to promote it last high season, having several concerts and a couple of traveling talads, but it never really took off.

I would have thought that with having so many new guest houses in the immediate vicinity, the place would be busy (especially the food vendors) every night. Although the road is lined with guesthouses and choked with Chinese tour buses each night, Patong Walk was dead the entire high season, and deader than dead when low season came. It seems that the guesthouses were packed with Chinese package tourists who most likely ate Mama noodles from Big C and 7-Eleven in the evening instead of patronizing the local food vendors. Even when Patong Walk held concerts - it was dead, as in maybe 3 or 4 tables occupied out of a hundred or so. It must of been very demoralizing for all involved (vendors, developer and performers).

So now I see that the last of the vendor tents have been removed, and its now just a big concrete slab and open field.

[LivinginKata]

<snip>

So now I see that the last of the vendor tents have been removed, and its now just a big concrete slab and open field.

Good, the concert music drove my tenants at the end of Nanai 2 crazy. Given that they had to go to work in the morning each day, music until the wee small hours did not sit well with them. Hard enough to keep good tenants without any additional hassle.

[phuketlive]

Another bad sign is the "Patong Walk" project on Sai Kor road, near the intersection with 200Pii Soi 2. Basically a big concrete sealed area with spaces rented out to food and other vendors, a seasonal flea market area, and an open area for entertainment (concerts). The developer worked hard to promote it last high season, having several concerts and a couple of traveling talads, but it never really took off.

I would have thought that with having so many new guest houses in the immediate vicinity, the place would be busy (especially the food vendors) every night. Although the road is lined with guesthouses and choked with Chinese tour buses each night, Patong Walk was dead the entire high season, and deader than dead when low season came. It seems that the guesthouses were packed with Chinese package tourists who most likely ate Mama noodles from Big C and 7-Eleven in the evening instead of patronizing the local food vendors. Even when Patong Walk held concerts - it was dead, as in maybe 3 or 4 tables occupied out of a hundred or so. It must of been very demoralizing for all involved (vendors, developer and performers).

So now I see that the last of the vendor tents have been removed, and its now just a big concrete slab and open field.

One night i went there, wanted to eat a fried rice, it was expensive and it was just a simple food vendor... Like 100 bahts for a fried rice, if it would be a real restaurant, ok but for this...

People thought it would be ok but no, and the owner was really not nice, we asked the waiter a question, a birma guy, the owner told him in thai not to waste his time talking to customers...

But she did not know i speak thai.... so i left, she did not understand why, i did. Phuket friendliness and politeness, maybe she was a tuk tuk driver in the past.

And good the music is gone too, was loud for people around like nanai 2 and further away...

It's like the Malin Market, almost in front of the honda shop and near da mario restaurant, prices are twice the prices in Ban Zaan....

100 bahts for a pad thai, 50 bahts at ban zaan market.

But, well, if they have customers who are ok to pay that price, up to you like they like to say here.

Edited July 22, 2015 by phuketlive

[simon43]

... with Chinese package tourists who most likely ate Mama noodles from Big C and 7-Eleven in the evening instead of patronizing the local food vendors

Perhaps someone should tell those local food vendors that Chinese tourists.. do not like to eat Thai food!.

Most of my Chinese guests, when offered Thai food, refuse and ask for Chinese food or Western - that explains why my visit to Patong last week saw empty restaurants everywhere EXCEPT those serving Chinese fast food.....

[The Big Mango]

Just before Bangla on the same side theres couple restaurants that look essential the same from the outside , one nearly always empty the one right next door swarmed with Chinese spilling out onto the street standing around waiting to eat.

Now I wonder which is Thai owned and which has Chinese backers.

[NamKangMan]

I just got back from one of my very rare forays into Patong.

I agree that the place was devoid of tourists. Those that I did see were evenly split between 'whiteys', Arabs, Indians and Chinese.

The number of empty shops, restaurants, businesses for rent/sale was quite evident. (A good friend who had a restaurant in Patong for maybe 7 years seems to have closed up shop).

The businesses that were doing well, judging by the number of customers, were fast-food outlets catering to Chinese tourists, with Chinese language signage.

As you, "hansgruber" and a few others have stated there are certainly quite a few establishments closed and/or for sale at the moment and just a couple of days ago I ventured down Soi Nanai 8 and noticed some new shop houses and apartments which were empty, as well as a few shops with the roller blinds down.

What surprised me was that opposite the end of the Soi, where it joins the middle road (at the juncture with Soi Tan) there was a building site with some footings/concrete pillars in place, complete with re-bar poking out of the top, and it looked to have stalled, and it had a for sale sign on it?? I don't know what it was going to be, but it appears that the owner wants it sold whatever it was going to be.

Staying in that area of town at the end of Soi Tan Where it joins the road heading down to the beach, a whole block off buildings has been demolished and something new is going up. However if you follow that road down towards the beach, not far away from where the Andaman Pearl was and where they flattened a whole area of small shops and put new single-storey "shops" in, you will notice that many of these have now closed.

So there you have it, empty buildings, unfinished buildings and new ones being built within a stone's throw of them.

As for the Villa Market store, well it wasn't really in a great place, was too small and more expensive than other shops, so its demise, IMO, was expected.

And getting back to the road in which I live, Nanai, I've noticed there are more small shops closed along the north end heading towards the DD Swiss Resort Hotel as well as a small hotel/guesthouse called Patong Residence, which is almost opposite the Supa Cheap outlet.

In amongst all this doom and gloom, over the past few days Big C has been inundated with swarms of locust like Chinese who are intent on buying as many 15 to 20 baht packets of seaweed, spices and the slightly more expensive dried fruit as they can and packaging them up in cardboard boxes to take home with them.........or if they are really serious, buying cheap suitcases and packing them with the goodies.

I know the GM of the store and he is happy that they are shopping there although they really don't touch the more expensive items like seafood, meat, cheeses etc so his turnover is lower than he would like it to be.

I don't know where this place is heading, however I do know that Bangla Road is just about dead during the daytime and many bar owners are not seeing any farangs at night-time, so there will be pain in that area of businesses, and I have it from firsthand knowledge that this is the case.

What I find the most surprising is that all this is there, so plain to see, yet buildings are still going up whilst others, including apartments, are empty or have stalled.......and it just doesn't seem to make sense.

In true Phuket style, they need to start the "Phuket Dried Seaweed Association" with them all colluding to charge 10 times more for each packet of dried seaweed, thus starting to turn away the Chinese market as well.

[SooKee]

Was out in Bangla last night, first time in months. It wasn’t dead but it sure wasn’t the same as years back. Overall I’d say that now it really IS the pits!!!!

Some things were very noticeable. Most of the side sois were totally dead. Tiger 1, only Bar Funk was busy, Tiger 2, the usual front bars busy, but quite a few crammed with Chinese and from talking to the manager it was of the ‘table for 10 and 3 beer’ (the omission of ‘please' being deliberate) type. You too can drink here for 160-180 baht a bottle and listen to crap music that’s so loud you can’t even speak. The air-flow there has always been a problem but last night it was like a sauna.

Walk around as much as you like but EVERYTHING is the same. Bars look the same, sound the same, selling the same drinks, with the same (very) average girls who don’t even have the personality / entertainment abilities of their counterparts of even 5 years ago and whose opening line these days is “buy me drink” (accompanied by sulky looks from their friends and pig ugly bar tendee when you decline the invite to buy for them as well at 200-240 baht per time). The trend in anorexic girls who look barely 15 is disturbing too, likely caused by the sheer numbers of bars competing for bar girls who are facing massive customer decline. Hardly surprising though, with bars in Tiger 1 charging 1,500 and 2,000 baht bar fines, before your ‘night of fun’ even starts!! Are you serious?? The most telling for me with this aspect of Patong is that it just isn’t any fun at all now. It really is get as much money as you can, as quick as you can.

The clubs are trying even more price slashing to get people in. Hollywood Zero as the re-modelled Hollywood is now called is trying the 100 baht beers and 350 baht shisha. The zero also however aptly describes the numbers of customers. Illuzion is quite packed, doubtless helped by the now 500 baht open bar from 10pm with all house (read crap) liquor included (I guess you just need 2 days to get over the hangover from the rubbish quality liqour). Seduction and Blow seem to do quite well and for me have the nicest style of the clubs here (and I stress HERE).

You can of course chose the gogo bars. Of all of them Suzy Wongs still tops the list IMO with the girls MOSTLY still providing some fun and even some good value drink promotions. Even in these places you need to watch for the sharks though, ever on the prowl for the quick hits for (now) thimble sized shots of tequila at 200-220. The other gogos, other than maybe SW2 (Devils) all a bit of muchness though. Plus, for how long and how often can you do a gogo.

And then there’s the live band bars. Most pretty crap In my opinion and ALL playing the same god-damn catalogue of music. Jeez, how do these people choose their songs? Do they Google “top 20 rock tracks” and just play them? I think you could listen to ’Smoke on the Water” and “Living on a Prayer” as many times in a night as there are bars with bands.

For me Patong by night has absolutely nothing to offer. A plastic, over-priced, overly loud, same-old same-old experience with nothing different about any of the bars at all and absolutely nothing of any class / quality at all if you want to go anywhere that doesn’t have a high %age chance of being graced with the presence of the latest bunch of walk-in drunken trash. Maybe it’s tolerable for a tourist who only has to endure it for two weeks, especially those who have never been before. But to live it’s a definite no no for me. And I wonder how many of the tourists will come back.

Couple the nightlife with the situation with the beaches, sunbeds ("sure you can come visit Phuket, but first stop remember to buy your beach mat, towel, umbrella and trawl it around with you for the next 10 days" - whoopee doo), oh and if you want to eat, go grab a sandwich from a 7 and eat it while it sweats in the sun. Add in the rip-off tuk-tuks, jet-ski and all the problems that were going to be dealt with that weren’t. And lets not forget the taxing road-blocks and significantly increasing incidents of violence. I mean wow. What’s not to like??

While I’m not normally vindictive in nature Patong is one of those few places that I would happily see crash and burns. Teach them a lesson that’s been all too long in coming. Patong is poor value, low quality, over-priced, dangerous and scam ridden place that has rested on its laurels ripping people off for years, and getting away with it because “they’ll always come back”. But, it looks like they won’t and Patong’s failure to interpret and adapt to a situation that’s been changing for years will I’m sure be the cause of it’s demise. Have to say I won’t be one of those mourning when it does collapse. What goes around comes around - and yes even to Patong!!

Edited July 24, 2015 by Rimmer
Fonts

[phuketlive]

"with the same (very) average girls who don’t even have the personality / entertainment abilities of their counterparts of even 5 years ago and whose opening line these days is “buy me drink” (accompanied by sulky looks from their friends and pig ugly bar tendee when you decline the invite to buy for them as well at 200-240 baht per time)"

Exactly...

But what good alternatives to patong then?

[VIPinthailand]

phuket, Pattaya, ... all down.

Edited July 24, 2015 by VIPinthailand

[KarenBravo]

"with the same (very) average girls who don’t even have the personality / entertainment abilities of their counterparts of even 5 years ago and whose opening line these days is “buy me drink” (accompanied by sulky looks from their friends and pig ugly bar tendee when you decline the invite to buy for them as well at 200-240 baht per time)"

Exactly...

But what good alternatives to patong then?

Chalong and Rawai?

Much more friendly, but, most are still ugly with the occasional rare diamond......

[SooKee]

"with the same (very) average girls who don’t even have the personality / entertainment abilities of their counterparts of even 5 years ago and whose opening line these days is “buy me drink” (accompanied by sulky looks from their friends and pig ugly bar tendee when you decline the invite to buy for them as well at 200-240 baht per time)"

Exactly...

But what good alternatives to patong then?

I guess if folks want the bar-girl scene it gets difficult. Personally, these days, the 'plastic' experience of the bar-girl night out does nothing for me, totally fake and superficial by and large. There are a few I've known in Patong for a few years who I quite like and who are still around but they are vastly outnumbered by the newbie characterless drones who must get their personality bypass done at the same place I think. Even just chatting to a few (and I can speak Thai OK so it's not just a language thing) after calling in to say hi to some old-timers, the theme was all the same. Every one, every bar. And a seemingly growing number of girls peddling the "Oh I don't go with customer" BS (yeah, right) , followed up immediately with the hard-luck stories "I have many things to take care, my phone is broke, my budgie needs a lung transplant". And we're talking within minutes. Forget the entertainment and interaction - just trot out the monetary needs and can I have another drink 'cause I seem to have finished that one in 2 minutes. What seems to get forgotten is that for customers to bother with them at all there are two sides to the equation - her need to earn money PLUS the often much-ripped off customer needing to have a good, and dare I say enjoyable, time. Many these days seem to think that the role of the customer is merely to provide them with salary support, regardless. I guess the whole attitude is changing, making the whole bar girl scene even more superficial and poorer value for money than ever.

As has been said, Rawai, Chalong even Kamala or Karon might be better more out of it options. Even Pattaya, which I don't like, I still think offers better value than the over-inflated Patong that expects people to pay for quality while offering no quality at all. Not rich in pickings but less hard core IMO but then I'd rather not bother at all. I'd sooner go to the non-scene places and chat to more regular folk so I'm not that sure where would be better if looking for the Patong type scene as I'm not. Even places like 'The Pint Factory' in Phuket Town would be better, though I actually prefer bars that look like bars that sell food, rather than places that look (and smell) like restaurants that sell beer.

Edited July 24, 2015 by Pick of Penang

[magnacarta]

"with the same (very) average girls who don’t even have the personality / entertainment abilities of their counterparts of even 5 years ago and whose opening line these days is “buy me drink” (accompanied by sulky looks from their friends and pig ugly bar tendee when you decline the invite to buy for them as well at 200-240 baht per time)"

Exactly...

But what good alternatives to patong then?

None inside Thailand.