Redlight Morning to Night: Patpong Redux
Back in 2018, I spent around 17 straight hours in Bangkok’s oldest redlight district, Patpong, and blogged about it on my website. I called it “Redlight Morning to Night” and it turned out to be Part 1 in a series of 3. In the other two, I did the same thing—spending a whole day and into the night—in and around Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy. That first blog can be found here: http://patpongnightlife.com/2018/09/05/red-light-morning-to-night-patpong/
In current year (2022), the urban landscape of Bangkok has changed, thanks mainly to the Covid scamdemic, and those changes got me curious about how a day-to-night sexcursion in the redlights might’ve changed. And so I once again ventured out early one morning and made my way to Patpong for the fodder that is now the 10 minutes’ traffic of this post (shout out to Bill Shakespeare). Here’s how my long day’s journey into mongering went…
Back in 2018, a morning in the Pong was as easy as rolling into Shenanigan’s at 9 am and ordering up a big breakfast. Today, Shagz doesn’t open till 10:30 and doesn’t start serving food till 11:00, so when I strolled onto Soi 1 at 9:00, I had to find a new place to park my chunky ass. At first, I reluctantly went to Tuk Lae Dee, the restaurant inside the Foodland supermarket on Soi 2. It’s a place I’ve happily hit up on a random evening for a salad or a club sandwich, but in truth it ain’t a great place for breakfast. You can get a coupla fried or scrambled eggs and a strip of bacon or small sausage, toast and coffee for a ridiculous 80 baht. Definitely tuk, but I don’t know about how dee it is. Then I remembered that Sunrise Tacos opens early. Preplandemic they were open 24 hours but now, it’s a 7:00 am start for them. I plopped down at 9:15 and was about to order the huevos rancheros when I realized…there’s beans in that. Never will I ever be OK with the concept of beans for breakfast. So I made a lateral move and ordered a bacon and eggs burrito, and it was awesome. Fresh, piping hot, and delicious, it was packed with B&E, cheese, and chunks of potato, along with Sunrise salsa, it hit the spot. It was so good, in fact, that after I wolfed the whole thing down I still hankered for more, but knowing I’d be pigging out consistently throughout the day, I only ordered an iced coffee and popped outside to sit under the fans and watch life pass by on Silom Road. Mornings in Thailand are dreamlike to me. Because so much happens here after sundown, mornings are a kind of limbo, wedged between the salaciousness of the night before and the lasciviousness to come. Like a calm between storms. Also, it’s usually not unbearably hot yet, and some mornings I stare up at the blue sky through green leaves tinged by an orange sun that is still gathering strength, and thank my lucky stars that I’m here.
After finishing the coffee, I wanted to walk off some those calories, so I left Sunrise and used Sala Daeng BTS Station to cross the street to Silom Complex. Mallwalking is a great way to get steps in, plus it’s air-conditioned. Turned out it wasn’t open yet, so I sauntered down the road to Lumpini Park. ‘Twas a busy place, with joggers, walkers, babies in strollers, people sitting and chatting, dogs, kids, an old people doing Tai Chi. The occasional monitor lizard splashed about in the lake. The morning was quickly becoming a balmy, partly-sunny day with intermittent drizzle. I did one lap and that was enough. Drenched in sweat, I took a motorbike taxi back to the mall. The supermarket in the basement was already open so I strolled through the produce section and ogled the sushi. Then I hit Session to pick up a couple of Cuban cigars, followed by Boots, where I got a bottle of L Arginine. For those not in the know, in concert with magnesium it helps a man keep his wang in working order. I popped the pills and the sticks into my man satchel and trawled Soi Thaniya to get a lay of the land. The street was just waking up. Cleaners were cleaning, sweepers sweeping. But nothing of interest had opened yet, so I hooked a left and sauntered down to Patpong Soi 1. Pink Panther’s outside bar was just opening up, as were some of the other beer joints down the length of the soi. The upstairs bars were also in full swing, and as I passed by a mamasan perched outside Around the World Bar beckoned. Now, I’d been there once years before on a drunken night out and the scene was, to say the least, not mine. But I was curious to get a feel for what the vibe is like on a random day as the clock approached noon, so up I went. 90 baht Leos, two middle-aged chunkers, and one sleepy young thing who’d been shaken awake to come and entertain me. She said her name was Nok, 18 years old from Korat, but I got the feeling she was much younger and possibly from Laos. She asked if I’d shag her on a mattress in the back of the bar for a thousand, and I politely declined. I asked for her Line ID but she said she didn’t have one. In fact, she didn’t own a phone and wasn’t allowed out of the bar. I downed my beer and left, awash in a wave of shame and chagrin.
From there, I went and did the most sensible thing I could think of, plopping down on the terrace at Shenanigan’s with a Cuban H Upmann and a glass of Leffe brun. Thankfully there was a lovely breeze, and as the tobacco did its work, settling into my sinews and grey matter, flattening me into the chair like melting butter, I descended into the familiar hazy self-reflection that only Bangkok can induce. It’s a mixture of memory, possibility, and the present, the latter punctuated by the din of traffic, the oppressive heat, the occasional panhandler, and the emptying and refilling of the pint glass. After an interminable stretch of time where I deliberately didn’t look at the clock, I finished my stogie, drained the glass a final time, and popped back to Soi Thaniya for a foot massage. Massages aren’t something I go for these days, and I confess I did it only so I could insert it in this post. The lady was short, middle-aged, and very skilled. As Jules from Pulp Fiction would say, “She don’t be ticklin’ or nothin’.” From there, I wandered back to the Pong and had two slow pints of Guinness at Paddy Field. It’s a perfect place to sit back and watch daytime redlight weirdos do their thing.
Finally I’d killed enough time that G’s German Restaurant on Silom Soi 4 would be opening. It’s the perfect place for a late lunch, especially if you like authentic German fare and excellent beer. Guido—the owner—has procured one of Bangkok’s best collections of the premier Belgian and German brands. For any beer snobs who want proof, here’s a tiny sample: Westmalle, Orval, La Chouffe, Duvel, Paix Dieu, Weihenstephaner/Erdinger/Paulaner, Kasteel, Kwak, La Corne, Triporteur, Delirium. That about scratches the surface. I swung in for a plate of jaeger schnitzel and in succession, St Louis Kriek, Triporteur Heavenly Blonde, a pint of Gouden Carolus, a pint of Flensburger, and a Weihensteph Hefe Weissbier. Somewhere in the midst of that alcoholic haze, my buddy Lucky showed up and we chatted about life, the sad state of the world, our respective beer budgets, and the simplicity of a relationship with a Thai woman compared to the ball-busting nightmare of dating a white chick. On a side note, I’ve heard tell of difficult Thai girlfriends/wives, but I’ve personally never experienced it. I suppose it comes with the trap of monogamy, or a marriage license, or any other thing that gives the woman the notion that the man can’t pick up and leave at any moment. That’s when the power shifts, and the woman becomes what all women secretly are—slave-driving succubi with inaccessible clunge. Thus far I’ve always been in a position to kick any girl to the curb who even looks at me wrong. That said, I have a well-known heart of gold and would never mistreat one of these brown sugar-skinned darlings. But the power dynamic remains, and as such so does my consistent happiness. But I digress.
As the sun set and darkness descended on Silom, the lights, music, and human busy-ness filled the air with expectation, I bade farewell to Lucky and swayed back to Patpong.
The only downside to drinking beer (besides the extra layers of blubber around my waist) is I get ravenously hungry. And so despite scarfing down a huge plate of food only a couple of hours before, I had the urge to devour something hot and spicy from Derby King. They saw me coming from 100 yards off and prepped my table. As I approached the door, the Thai guy (who’s grandma is undoubtedly the chef) asked what I wanted. I told him to bring me whatever. I sat down, and a generous pile of krapow gai with a scoop of steamed rice and fried egg on top appeared before me. 150 baht. I polished it off in less than a minute. From there it was a mere 20 meters to King’s Castle, but the girls were only just arriving and the stage was empty. So I swung over to Soi 2 and took up a stool outside The Strip. I knew this is where I would start and end the night, as I do almost every night. The girls greeted me the same way they did every night, by shouting my name, asking if I’d eaten, and asking for beer money. Anna—the mamasan—pumps me for cash every night, ostensibly to buy dinner for the girls. I almost never say no, and so handed her 400 baht. She scampered over to—where else—Derby King and ordered up a big Yentafo hot pot which appeared at the gogo 20 minutes later. Per usual, the rotation not dancing scarfed it all down before the girls onstage could finish up and rush to the bowl, and so half a dozen bikini-clad girls whined at me for the rest of the night about not getting any food. Thus, the only thing my 400 baht bought me was the ire of half the gogo staff. The modus operandi of every Thai you give a handout to is, as you’re putting the money in one hand, to instantly reach out with the other. This isn’t a character flaw, but a misconception. Thais truly believe that every farang has a tree in his house that produces money instead of fruit, and all they do is wake up each morning and pick fresh money off the branches. And though they might not literally believe there’s an actual tree, they believe the sentiment—that foreigners have an endless stream of money that never dries up. I knew they wouldn’t stop wingeing about it so I went to Foodland, came back with a big bag of beers, and that made them happy.
XXX Lounge, Black Pagoda, and The Strip are all owned by the same bloke, who I consider a friend and whose museum also displays a handful of my pictures. This means that in my mind, no matter where I’m drinking, I’m paying this same guy for the beer. So I’m not averse to buying a bottle from The Strip and then walking into XXX with it in hand. It’s not something other punters could do, but neither could other punters rack up a tab in one of these joints and then not bother to pay until the following night. I suppose it’s because—after nearly a straight decade of nearly nightly visits, they know I won’t skip out on them. At any rate, I wandered over to XXX to see who was working. Right now (2022), three original Electric Blue dancers from the early 20teens are back: Momay, Bee, and Kaew—and it’s downright trippy to see them together onstage after years apart. And it harkens this wilting bar flower back to bloomier days—does that metaphor work? Anyway, astride the old-guard trio are their replacements—a gang of younger fillies in their gogo prime. Each quietly approached me at some point in the evening to tell me they would be on my doorstep later that week for some bedroom Olympics. I took mental inventory of the kamagra and Cialis in my bathroom cupboard and agreed to each proposal, making sure they didn’t want to come on the same day. They must’ve worked it out between them beforehand because each the same time on different dates: 18.30. Just enough time to bump uglies and still clock in at work on time. Clever girls.
The later in the evening one hits the gogo, the drunker and randier the girls are. In both The Strip and XXX, no less than 6 girls grabbed my junk and gave it a good, long onceover before asking, “Seven! Seven…Seven…you big? You big cock man?” To which I always reply, “………No.” It’s better to keep their expectations low in the event they do one day end up kneeling before it. I tell them I have a tiny penis and huge balls, which for some reason spurs rather than spurns their fascination.
Similarly, the drunker I get, the more grabby I am with tits and fannies—a thing the girls are very used to by now. Most endure it patiently. Some are too sensitive in their naughty bits and have small, adorable fits and the hands of Seven. And I’d be lying if I said it’s not one of the highlights of my nights. I grabbed crotches in Pink Panther, King’s Castle, Radio City, Black Pagoda, Bada Bing, XXX, and The Strip on this particular night, proving as always that I’m an equal opportunity masher.
And that’s how my Patpong morning-to-night excursion ended—with me massaging the clitori of more than a dozen girls with one hand whilst necking beers with the other. When I began to get tunnel vision, I knew it was time to quit. And for me, quitting the Pong is as easy as stumbling 50 meters to a motorbike taxi on Silom Road followed by a 2-minute ride to my apartment, 30 seconds in a lift, and 15 steps from my door to my bed for instant coma-like sleep.