Patong - The Wake

[xylophone]

13 minutes ago, LivinginKata said:

 

That's sad to hear. I only go down that way when I have to pick up undelivered registered post. I had thought it still open. I used it for years before Carrefor came along, also the German Deli on the other side of the road. I thought his prices were OK, for sure cheaper than the now Villa Market (not that it lasted long in Patong). I liked the Thai Chinese owner, always helpful. I stopped going when the one way system started, ,meant I had to drive all round town, only to find no parking space. I knew he had been trying to sell for quite a few years. Just too much BIG competition, now a bad location, no parking area, disaster.

As you quite rightly said, the owner (Loon) realised that business was dropping off for some years and was interested in selling, indeed he tried to resurrect the business by opening up a little restaurant attached to it and also a bakery, but none of those worked unfortunately for him.

 

Once people found that they could buy the "exotic" stuff in Carrefour then his demise was surely set in stone.

 

Quite a few years back I noticed that he had some wine in his shop which really needed to have been sold a few years prior and when he showed me the stock he had out the back, I realised that he was overstocked and really needed to shift some of it. So with his help I devised a, "Big Wine Sale" poster and tasted a few of his older wines to see if they were sellable, marked many of them down and the sale got underway.

 

It was fairly successful and I put together some flyers that he could hand out to customers to see if they wanted to join his wine club and get regular updates on specials. Once they filled in details, it could have been underway, but the staff were reluctant to interact very much with customers and it really didn't go anywhere. Having said that he managed to get rid of some of his surplus stock, for which he was grateful and after that he kept a tighter rein on the wine ordering.

 

However he was realistic enough to know that his days were numbered and he really didn't seem to put much effort into it in the closing stages.

[xylophone]

1 hour ago, madmitch said:

I think the wake should be for the old thread, not Patong itself

Yes I thought that the title, "Patong – the Wake" wasn't perhaps quite the right title for a thread about Patong in its current state, this especially after the old, "Patong is dead" thread was just about exhausted.

 

Patong surely won't die, but it also is unlikely to reach the potential that it had years ago and it will keep changing until such time as it finds its niche, however perhaps sliding down the demographic/socio-economic scale as it does so because it's unlikely to be a playground for the rich and famous which was something mooted years previously.

 

Just as in every village/town/society there will be businesses which are doing well and those which are just surviving, however IMO the lack of a plan for this place and the corruption that goes with it has resulted in more businesses closing than I've ever seen before in my almost 14 years of coming here......... and I'm not just talking about bars, although they were a viable business years ago though I don't suppose anyone in their right mind would buy one these days!

 

Just yesterday I called round to see a Thai lady friend of mine who owns a twenty room hotel and has owned it since it was built some seven years ago or thereabouts, however the place is in a very sad state now because of lack of customers and therefore lack of money for maintenance and upkeep. She was also sad because she had sold it, but looking at the state of the place she would have gotten nowhere near what she wanted for it and quite why anyone would buy it now, I don't know. 

 

This because the four or five similar hotels in close proximity were all showing signs of age and lack of custom, and I know this because I was a fairly frequent visitor to her little restaurant and was able to observe how the other little hotels were faring, and it wasn't well, even a few years back.

 

So it won't die it will just change however in the process of this change there will be a lot of small businesses like those I've quoted above, who will not be around and that's not necessarily because they are poor operators, but because of circumstances outside of their control (economies worldwide) and the lack of planning, greed and corruption that has been endemic in this place (and getting worse) and benefits nobody but those at the top of the pipeline.

[phuketjock]

 

 

" playground for the rich and famous " Patong?            

I met Jimmy White on Bangla once but unfortunately I missed Brad Pitt and Angelina.

You never know Trump might drop in?         

[schlog]

38 minutes ago, phuketjock said:

 

 

" playground for the rich and famous " Patong?            

I met Jimmy White on Bangla once but unfortunately I missed Brad Pitt and Angelina.

You never know Trump might drop in?         

 

This times are long gone. Quick recall i had drinks in Bangla with Axl Rose, Slash and the singer from Bon Jovi(water lol) e.g......

Also will never forget a night in Banana with van Damme, Winni and Carradine.

In the 90' it was nothing special. 

 

The last famous guy i met maybe 8 years ago. He chartered a superyacht for a week from friend for hisself and 15 chicks from bkk. Funny and crazy guy and in the top 10 richest guys of Australia. 

 

You know that guys like Abramovich also came here before?

[xylophone]

47 minutes ago, schlog said:

 

This times are long gone. Quick recall i had drinks in Bangla with Axl Rose, Slash and the singer from Bon Jovi(water lol) e.g......

Also will never forget a night in Banana with van Damme, Winni and Carradine.

In the 90' it was nothing special. 

 

The last famous guy i met maybe 8 years ago. He chartered a superyacht for a week from friend for hisself and 15 chicks from bkk. Funny and crazy guy and in the top 10 richest guys of Australia. 

 

You know that guys like Abramovich also came here before?

The Aussie guy could have been any one of a number of "usual suspects" (Aussie millionaire/billionaires) and the famous (and probably also rich) have been sneaking in here for years as you pointed out Schlog!!

[xylophone]

On 7/20/2017 at 2:09 PM, Old Croc said:

I started coming to Patong regularly around the turn of the century usually over the xmas/new year period. Stayed at many different hotels including Patong Resort, Baan Sukhothai, Safari, Phuket Bungalows, Patong Bay, Swiss Palm and a few others, whose names now escape me.

Carrying on from Old Crocs interesting post and one where he mentioned Baan Sukhothai brought back some memories of my first visit here.

 

My first visit was in March of 2004 with a friend who had pointed out cheap holidays in Phuket so off we went and I had no idea what to expect as I had never heard of the place before.

 

We stayed at the Baan Sukhothai and if it's the same one as I remember, it had a little tea shop in the front of it and it was a great place for an afternoon reviver with a pot of tea and a sticky bun because they did have some nice cakes on display. 

 

My friend got very sweet on one of the girls who worked there and did pursue her a little, however I don't think anything became of it at that particular time because she would insist on being chaperoned whenever they went out.

 

As I said, I had no idea what to expect and the fact that there were girls in every bar willing to accompany you back to your room and being very forthright about it, was quite a surprise. However I had a long time girlfriend back in NZ and really wasn't interested in what was on offer here although I have to say I was very tempted sometimes.

 

Seeing a bit of the island was a priority, and I think we must have visited just about everywhere, including a trip to Phuket Fantasea, as well as an elephant ride/trek, which I found to be extremely boring especially as we had to wait sometimes as the elephant decided to gorge itself on some of the greenery along the way. 

 

Luckily enough we found a good taxi driver and also teamed up with a small gang of guys from Liverpool, so the outings were always good fun and also we weren't ripped off by this taxi driver.

 

The Bier Kutsche was one of the drinking holes as was one of the bars in Soi Seadragon and looking back I was really here for a break as I had been working far too hard for far too long with a great deal of responsibility upon my shoulders, so relaxing was a priority and I partook of the facilities in the spa which was attached to the Baan Sukhothai and although I thought it was expensive, it was most relaxing.

 

It wasn't an overly exciting visit, but it was an eye-opener and my friend who was keen on the girl in the teashop actually came back for Christmas and was here when the tsunami hit and they fled to the hills and stayed there for some considerable time as I recall him telling me.

 

I came back again on my own in March after the tsunami and was amazed at what had been achieved, but there were still signs of the carnage around the place which was only to be expected, however to their credit some of the more resilient Thais had strung up canvas awnings and so on along the remaining shells of some of the shops down at the front and were conducting some business from these places.

 

At the Bier Kutsche the owner pointed out the line on the side of the bar, which was where the water from the tsunami had reached and it was about a couple of foot high, not as high as I had expected, but probably very scary when it was happening.

 

I will go onto my third visit, because a few months later I decided to take a sabbatical from work and came here for two months and it was then that I met a young lady with whom I "fell in love". She worked in the Bier Kutsche morning shift and evening shift weeks about.

 

We went out to dinner a lot and made friends with a couple of friends who had Thai girlfriends and we would visit Rock City, Tiger disco and anywhere else that took our fancy and all seemed rosy at the time. Also I wasn't very aware of the bar girl scene and consequently wasn't paying my girlfriend anything apart from taking her shopping (often now I come to think about it) and buying her meals, and it never occurred to me at the time that whenever we went out for meals, whether it be lunch or dinner, a couple of her friends would always turn up, purely by accident you understand, so I would end up paying for them as well and I never thought anything of it until much later.

 

I was really struck on this girl and I thought things were going well until one day she informed me that she couldn't see me any more because her "boyfriend from America" was coming over to stay with her and was paying her fifty thousand baht for ten days!!!!

I was shocked about this because I had considered myself to be her boyfriend and really couldn't get my head around what was going on, this especially as I thought she was the one for me.

 

Well he came and went (quite literally) and despite the fact I said that I would like to get back together, my heart wasn't really in it, even more so when she would get phone calls all hours of the night and early morning and have to go into the toilet to speak with him for fear of me overhearing.

 

I learned my first lesson and got to know a lot more about how the bars and the bar girls worked here at that particular time because I made it my business to find out and luckily enough a little later I was able to meet my very good friend Terry, who had a bar in Soi Eric and I continued my learning experience through him and also by observing and making friends with most of his bar girls and they taught me a lot about what this business was all about, and some I admired, whereas others were just out to take as many farangs for a ride as they could – – but then that's another story for another day. 

[DrDave]

When reading threads such as this, one has to keep in mind the motives of some of the posters.
Some here are business owners, and fully realize that many potential foreign visitors and customers read TVF. Understandably, they really don't want to publicize the deterioration of, and any negative aspects of Patong. If I were a business owner here, I'd probably do the same.

 

On the other hand, there are a couple of local business owners who have been very honest (painfully honest in the case of LiK) in their assessment of the local tourism based economy. They have nothing to gain by painting a less than rosy picture.

 

While I'm sure that there are some very successful western-owned business here, they're likely the exception rather than the rule. Kudos to anyone who is running a successful, profitable business! But, one need only to open their eyes and see the number of bars, restaurants and guesthouses that are constantly turning over. These business owners are likely not selling because they're making money hand over fist. As has mentioned many times before, Patong has a continuous cycle of business purchase and failure. Someone is always at the ready to buy a failed business, which starts the cycle over again.

 

Looking at the larger hotel booking sites, it's not difficult to find guesthouses in Patong going for 400 baht per night, and lower. The last couple of years, many of us thought that 500 baht/night was the bottom, but it seems to have deteriorated beyond that point. I'm very familiar with one full-service boutique hotel that in past years had a rate of about 1,200 baht/night in low season. Now these rooms are listed online at 550 baht. I doubt that they dramatically lowered their rates because they were making money.  This overall rate decline seems to me to be a sure indicator of a tourism-based economy in decline. Will it improve? I certainly hope so, but it's going to require a mindset change on the part of Patong's keepers (or so called "influential persons") to look past their own special interests in order to create a healthy, sustainable local economy.

 

 

[Peterw42]

40 minutes ago, DrDave said:

When reading threads such as this, one has to keep in mind the motives of some of the posters.
Some here are business owners, and fully realize that many potential foreign visitors and customers read TVF. Understandably, they really don't want to publicize the deterioration of, and any negative aspects of Patong. If I were a business owner here, I'd probably do the same.

Yes, that right, some want to talk it up but alternatively there are some with sour grapes, who cant afford a condo or the funds for a long term visa, a car etc. Some will paint the picture that its all doom and gloom because it justifies there circumstances

[LivinginKata]

7 hours ago, KarenBravo said:

He did very, very well for many years. Ripping off all cheese-lovers in Patong because he had a monopoly on foreign cheese.

I won't shed too many tears.

 

I am not going to agree with that. After Carrefour opened I found the the Deli cheese was cheaper than Carrefour. It was only the one way system that stopped me going.

[LivinginKata]

7 hours ago, xylophone said:

<snip>

Quite a few years back I noticed that he had some wine in his shop which really needed to have been sold a few years prior and when he showed me the stock he had out the back, I realised that he was overstocked and really needed to shift some of it. So with his help I devised a, "Big Wine Sale" poster and tasted a few of his older wines to see if they were sellable, marked many of them down and the sale got underway.

 

[LivinginKata]

I'll try again. The Deli had the best wine stock in Patong 20 years ago and the best was keep in an air-con room. Only Don in Rawai had a similar if not better stock in Rawai. These days long gone ... sigh sigh  

[LivinginKata]

9 hours ago, phuketjock said:

Spot on Max but unfortunately you forgot about LIK  who has been in business in Patong

for a very long time and now finds himself in the unfortunate position that all his Patong

businesses are in the Nanai area which has sadly been decimated by the greedy antics of

the tuktuk and taxi mafia. You are also correct about the wake nonsense wakes are for when

something/one dies and Patong is very much alive and kicking. This thread means nothing

to anyone with a brain.  

 

Not really true. All my guests/tenants had their own transport, never used taxis.

 

Our business has been 'decimated' by over development in the middle road, much cheaper prices by desperate operators (not even owners), offering very low room rates just to cover their immediate monthy bills. I have no idea how this pricing can be sustained given new build and land costs, and greedy builder owners. Oh well ... 

[rhodie]

4 hours ago, phuketjock said:

Well happy trails but this is 2017 and your 20+ year old post has zero relevance to the thread.

If you want to take a stroll down memory lane start another thread, then you and your cronies

can reminisce together and leave the thread to get on with it's op's intention.

 

You may be in business as your mate Madmax says, but by the tone of your posts, clearly not in the hospitality business.

[Patong2]

6 hours ago, phuketjock said:

Well happy trails but this is 2017 and your 20+ year old post has zero relevance to the thread.

If you want to take a stroll down memory lane start another thread, then you and your cronies

can reminisce together and leave the thread to get on with it's op's intention.

 

I think you are on the wrong thread.

Xylophones's comments are exactly what the thread is about

 

I started this thread and to refresh your failing memory

"Having visited Patong for increasing lengths of time over 20 years I can say with confidence that the old Patong as we knew it is definitely dead and the new Patong seems to need some life blown into it. This is the lowest numbers of tourists we have ever seen here at this time of the year.

 

What were your favourite sights in the old Patong? We really miss the pain in the ass (literally for some) of Soi Crocodile. It was always flamboyant and vibrant, many times annoying, but the dancers were always an interesting focal point for tourists new and old."

[KarenBravo]

8 hours ago, LivinginKata said:

 

I am not going to agree with that. After Carrefour opened I found the the Deli cheese was cheaper than Carrefour. It was only the one way system that stopped me going.

Throughout most of the 90's he had no competition and his prices reflected that.

[schlog]

14 hours ago, phuketjock said:

The 90s was 20 years ago schlog and call me crazy but I doubt very much if anyone is likely

to come across much in the way of rich and famous on Bangla in 2017, but who knows?

Yupp same i wrote. Long gone but who knows like the arab guys always also sitting next in C-class.

 

Some weeks ago while running at the beach saw UFC Jon Jones. Not exactly famous but what a beast in live. 

Learned quickly that i have plenty of room to grow lol.

[KarenBravo]

17 hours ago, schlog said:

 

This times are long gone. Quick recall i had drinks in Bangla with Axl Rose, Slash and the singer from Bon Jovi(water lol) e.g......

Also will never forget a night in Banana with van Damme, Winni and Carradine.

In the 90' it was nothing special. 

 

The last famous guy i met maybe 8 years ago. He chartered a superyacht for a week from friend for hisself and 15 chicks from bkk. Funny and crazy guy and in the top 10 richest guys of Australia. 

 

You know that guys like Abramovich also came here before?

Oliver Stone was a regular visitor to Patong. He could be found in Soi Gonzo, or Soi Ko Yoi when they were the only two entertainment sois.

[geriatrickid]

Well I too used to be a regular in Patong, but no more.   Perhaps this is why the town deteriorated. If the August reduction of tuk tuk parking occurs, maybe it will be easier for people to visit during the day.  All I know is that the cost is 25% more than elsewhere  and the quality just isn't there. Poor restaurants, poor service and really poor quality of tourists.

[madmitch]

One of my favourite Patong haunts used to be the Reggae Bar at the back of Seadragon, now sadly disappeared into a concrete development. No reason other than it was a pleasant, chilled-out place to go to get away from the girlie bars and the Bangla masses, sit in a comfortable chair for an hour and listen to some Jamaican vibes with a cool beer. There's nowhere like that on Bangla these days, or if there is I haven't found it, though as I only visit about twice a year these days that's no surprise.

[steelepulse]

The musician Yanni used to be a regular at Rock Hard in the low season.  I remember one time he had a bunch of the dancers around him and a friend of mine bar fined "his girl" which Yanni hadn't bar fined.  He and his bodyguards weren't happy about it, but that's the way it goes.

[CharlieH]

A number of off topic posts removed.

 

Discuss/debate the topic but dont get personal in your remarks please.

 

7) You will respect fellow members and post in a civil manner. No personal attacks, hateful or insulting towards other members, (flaming) Stalking of members on either the forum or via PM will not be allowed.
 

[phuketjock]

13 hours ago, LivinginKata said:

 

Not really true. All my guests/tenants had their own transport, never used taxis.

 

Our business has been 'decimated' by over development in the middle road, much cheaper prices by desperate operators (not even owners), offering very low room rates just to cover their immediate monthy bills. I have no idea how this pricing can be sustained given new build and land costs, and greedy builder owners. Oh well ... 

OK LIK but the people who don't have transport who used you before are not using you now, I venture,

which suggests that the the tuktuk/taxi mafia may have in fact affected your business to a degree.

 Or don't you agree with that?

[LivinginKata]

1 hour ago, phuketjock said:

OK LIK but the people who don't have transport who used you before are not using you now, I venture,

which suggests that the the tuktuk/taxi mafia may have in fact affected your business to a degree.

 Or don't you agree with that?

 

No I do not agree. Folks left for a variety of reasons. The majority due to visa restrictions. They all just left Thailand. Some had a business here that failed and had go back home and get a real job. The strong baht in recent years has made pensioners look for lower cost areas in Thailand. These days we have very few enquiries. At best 2 per week. All looking for a very low rent cost that has no interest to us.

[xylophone]

16 hours ago, LivinginKata said:

I'll try again. The Deli had the best wine stock in Patong 20 years ago and the best was keep in an air-con room. Only Don in Rawai had a similar if not better stock in Rawai. These days long gone ... sigh sigh  

A little story around the wine at the Deli, Lik...............

 

As I said in a previous post I was helping out with his wine and the fact that some of it really needed shifting and we tasted a couple of bottles of one particular wine (can't remember what it was now) and it was at the end of its life, slightly marginal you might say, so we agreed that he shouldn't buy anymore and that we would discount this wine big time, to shift it. As I recall he never got any complaints about it....!!

 

Anyway a few weeks later I was ferreting through his stocks out the back and found some more of it and I asked him why he had bought some more when we agreed it was marginal and he replied that he hadn't ordered any.

 

Got to the bottom of the story and it turns out that the distributor in Bangkok realised that Loon was not too hot on his inventory/stocktaking process and would box up some of the old (and marginal) wine and ship it down to him, and because he wasn't on top of the stocktaking process, his girls used to sign for the delivery and store it out the back and he was none the wiser – – that is until we found this and he put a stop to it.

 

I suspect he lost some interest in that shop way before it eventually closed.

[metisdead]

3 hours ago, CharlieH said:

A number of off topic posts removed.

 

Discuss/debate the topic but dont get personal in your remarks please.

 

7) You will respect fellow members and post in a civil manner. No personal attacks, hateful or insulting towards other members, (flaming) Stalking of members on either the forum or via PM will not be allowed.
 

 

 

Some more troll posts and replies have been removed. 

[LivinginKata]

9 minutes ago, xylophone said:

<snip>

I suspect he lost some interest in that shop way before it eventually closed.

 

He never struck me as much of a business man, far too nice to his staff who just played him. Mayhe his young daughter who worked the cash point should have taken control, but she was not so bright.

 

Much the same happened to Don out at Rawai, he gave his staff ever sort of benifit, health, education ... yet they all s..t on him. I think he left Phuket quite disgruntled. Moved to Chiang Rai where he always had his Don's Foods produce business.

 

[metisdead]

A post in which the content of the quoted post had been altered has been removed.  Continue to troll and a suspension will be forthcoming. You've been warned. 

[KarenBravo]

On 7/12/2017 at 9:08 AM, KarenBravo said:

The huge tamarind tree in Soi Bangla that was beside the Expat Bar and stretched over the road to the Kangaroo Bar.

Sorry, a friend reminded me that it was actually a Banyan tree. Must have been between two and three hundred years old.

Had all the ribbons around it's massive girth and was prayed to by many people.

When it became "inconvenient", a holy man came, made the tree not holy anymore and it was unceremoniously cut down.

[happyas]

I used to spend a lot of time relaxing on the beach in front of  Ches Bernards ? and eating good food right on the beach served from his place..great relaxed atmosphere.

 

Often wonder what happened to him as his restaurant must have been totally demolished in 2004.

 

Did he rebuild or just move on?

[xylophone]

26 minutes ago, happyas said:

I used to spend a lot of time relaxing on the beach in front of  Ches Bernards ? and eating good food right on the beach served from his place..great relaxed atmosphere.

 

Often wonder what happened to him as his restaurant must have been totally demolished in 2004.

 

Did he rebuild or just move on?

If we are thinking about the same guy, I believe you'll find he still has a beachside bar/restaurant just opposite and beachside of the end of Sawatdirak road??