mardhi

Don't you go to work Ciobha? Or do you keep LB hours and paint by street light these days??????

I have not been there for a while and when I did go in - she was not there. However others may have more up to date info.

Yes for sure - about the only two remaining who have that ability - but if they are not there, its almost a wasted trip. Unless your really into playing pool late - other bars have much more talent now. I spoke to one guy who was in there at 1am the other night. 4 girls, 3 sleeping. No management. He walked to Check In Bar where he found more than a dozen. Punters follow the talent - always have done and always will. These two just appeared on one of the girls pages. Its not the top tier talent that bars need to survive let alone prosper in Bangkok - but I am sure they are nice girls.

You might find it a wasted trip - speaking to 2 guys last night at the Sensations party, they both commented its hit rock bottom - very few girls and just a bad attitude now as the bar spirals south through lack of customers and subsequently the top tier girls leave to go to other bars. However the Thai management seem unable/incapable of doing anything about it. In all honesty, your better off going to Darkside if your looking for something similar to what Guess was. If you want to see many of the Guess girls, you could also look at Check in bar which is an alco cart that sets up on the street every night around 10pm - there are 5 ex Guess girls there at the moment.

Bangkok can be cheap or expensive - plenty of choice ranging from 100b drinks/300b barfines at somewhere like the new Check In alco cart all the way up to 150b drinks/600b barfines. However the real expense tends to be more on the girl herself and the quantity of Lady drinks you buy. This is where your budget can get seriously blown away. I'd suggest looking for a hotel around 1000b night. Look at the Agoda link, and click on hotels around Soi4 as a starting point. I was playing about with it last night and found the Parkway Inn for 1000b - Its the hardly known hotel bang next door to the majestic suites and that is cheap for that location. Equally you will hardly spend anything on transport - your in the middle of everything. 2000b is then not a huge amount per day, if that covers everything else. If you drink a lot your best to avoid the gogo's and stick with regular bars such as Darkside where a drink is about 100b a time versus the 150b in gogo's. The gogo's are worth a visit but if your worried, you might be better off, finding a girl from another bar and asking her to go with you, albeit she will be expecting renumeration so you might as well get your wicked way with her - will all cost the same. Good choices IMHO would be either of Luk Tan or Gow (see Check In Bar thread for pics) for that kind of thing - they are happy to go other places, not time pressured and good fun without unrealistic pricing - if its fun for them, they tend to be very good value. They also won't rip you off or steal anything. As a result, you get get much less pressure and if you like what you see in the gogo's (and you will), there is always tomorrow on your own. Edit: the downside of this approach is that you may well fall for either of those girls I suggested - they are that nice and fun. In reality though, you might be better off, working on spending less elsewhere (easily doable) and have an enjoyable time with say a 5000b day budget - BKK is much more fun when your not worried about the last dime. Keep to a cheap hotel and have fun. But beware its very easy to get off track and end up spending a fortune - keep your wits about you and take it slowly hence my suggestion above.

Everything would depend on your budget. Gives us an idea and more info will flow to get the best bang for your buck.

I forgot to mention that - hate to see the electric bill for that kids clothes shop. poor owner probably has no idea he is cooling much of lower sukhumvit. It is however a major benefit of that bar as at times it can get very hot even late on into the evening. That shop is also the toilet facility - 5b and toilets are excellent (again, he probably has no idea he is the communal toilet for much of lower Suk either. Presumably the store assistant keeps the 5b.....)

I'd wondered about this purely from the fact that Thai's do not need a visa to visit SA. Good info from the man on the ground.

One thing I always found mildly amusing is that even in scams, the infamous double pricing applies. Thai's streetwalking = 500b. Foreigners = 1000b. However you can hardly 'blame' the police - they are actually just upholding the laws of the country. The difference here is if you can pay, nothing comes of it - unlike for example Singapore or Hong Kong. .

Never noticed a kebab place on Sukhumvit Road where the bar is - you maybe thinking just as you walk into Soi 5 itself, but the bar is on the main road - directly opposite the landmark Hotel and in an area that used to house a Starbucks before it got demolished & re-built.

Luk Tan & Gow, both ex-Guess bar and not in the pics as they had already been barfined. Here are some older pics when they were at GB. Luk Tan is also the star (or perhaps more accurately her arse is the star), of the Anaconda Gangnam video put together by Snapper. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jptoo7j63fc

More pics.

One of the many hotties

I only managed to get this girls name, NEUY. The others you will need to check out personally.

Many guys won't be familiar with this alco cart that opens around 10pm every night and rocks on until 6am. Owned by a LB called June and its teaming with nice LB's - a marked change from some of the rough & ready girls that previously frequented these kind of alco carts in the wee small hours. Anyhow, I promised June to post some pics so here you are. This bar is the home to Luk Tan & Gow among many others although both had been barfined by the time we got there last night. Its located on Sukhumvit Road on the odd number side of the street (i.e you cross the main road if your walking out of Nana Plaza. The best landmark to look for is the new McDonalds that is just to the side of the bar. Before 10pm, nothing there - by 11pm, fully functioning bar with anywhere from 10-20 girls working. Beers & Bacardi Breezers both 100b each. So here is June the owner - and before anyone asks - I have absolutely no connection with this bar - infact had never even been there until Luk Tan told me about it.

Mcvities biscuits are now selling in Foodland for their Brit fans. Rich tea, chocolate digestives (milk & plain) plus couple others. Now using typical Thai logic - there are TWO brands of Mcvities they are now selling. One pack of Rich tea is 31b and one is 90 odd baht. The 31b pack says its made by Mcvities in some little town in England. good enough for me and no reason to try and understand why another version is 3 times more expensive. The 31b looks and tastes exactly as I remember from home - its the real deal. So probably is the one for 90b - just different packaging and price. By the way, seeing comments about milk. Are you aware that 95% of milk in Thailand that is sold as 'Fresh' is stretching the legitimacy of the claim. 95% of milk in Thailand comes into the country in powder form and is re-constituted locally. there you go another boring fact. You have Nestle to thank or blame for that.

Cabaret club in Patpong !!!!! new one on me - or maybe that's the 'polite' form of address for Kings Corner

The comment about how Thailand will look in the future is well worth another thread. My view is similar to yours by the sound of things. Lots of changes both internal and external will affect Thailand and I am not sure they see the external changes that are already announced and virtually on their doorstep. Two examples spring to mind:- 1. Labour The ASEAN free market opens I believe in 2014/5 which will allow free interchange of labour across the Asean countries. So for example someone from Cambodia can come and work in Thailand with minimal, if any paperwork. The country that will probably benefit the most is Laos because most are fluent or near fluent in Thai due to similarity of language (bit like the English versus US English - same same but different). Who knows what the results will be. In a growing economy, it will be good. If the economy contracts, many tens of thousands could be laid off and odds are they will be the least productive workers - Thai's. Ask any Thai business owner and they will say a Laos worker is much more productive and focussed on their job especially at the lower skill set levels. Look at any garment factory today in Thailand and they are filled with illegal workers from Laos. 2. Consumer purchasing Thailand is importing a lot more than ever before - everybody assumes TH is a substantial nett exporter (thanks to the foreign firms with manufacturing such as Honda, Toyota, etc etc) and it is currently. However some bloated heavyweight Thai companies are coming under big pressure. One simple example being Porcelain tiles for a house. A luxury before and priced around 1000b sq m for a Thai made tile. Price now in Homepro DIY centre is 350b sq m and made in China. The likes of Cotto are losing sales and their share of the market is dropping like a stone. They are losing the 200b sq m customer as they are trading up to the better tiles and they are losing the premium customer as nobody can tell the difference when they laid on the floor, so they buy the cheaper one and save a fortune. What will be especially interesting is how the drink industry handle it. Already Thailand has tried to cheat the free market and made difficulty for Beer Lao in actually getting their product over the border and into Thailand. An easy way around that is for Beer Lao to just open its own factory up near the Mekong. No cross border and no delays/hassle with customs. San Miguel already did just that and is cleaning up in the premium drink market with San Miguel light. As Chang have no such premium offering they are not too concerned but I bet some of the other influential breweries are. However all of this is coming after the Rice debacle which is still being misunderstood by the common voter and they struggle to quantify how much money is being pilfered through the scheme. It makes the usual 'cream off the top' viz a viz building Swampypoom to be miniscule in comparison. What makes this even worse is that the stuff is all sat in warehouses and unable to be sold as nobody wants to pay 30% over the market price.

I am probably one of the few guys who did not choose to come to Thailand. My job was switched from being based in Singapore to Bangkok. After four years I left that job and setup my own business here. Ironically, if I had my time over again, I would not have moved from Singapore. Dealing with business matters here is not easy and becomes very tedious. Unless you can read Thai and speak it very well you are always at risk for one thing or another. As one friend said to me "In Thailand, your better off working for someone, rather than setting up your own business". I think he is right.

She maybe spinning you a yarn. last time i looked into Guinness it was being exclusively distributed by Diethelm in Thailand, which is nothing to do with the Heineken guys. However, things may have changed and hence why you can't seem to get any British beer anymore, apparently down to those guys at Heineken who now own them all and tore up the previous distributor agreements. They then assigned them to the Heineken folk in each country who have said "no demand" (from the Thai places). Thus no more John Smiths, Tetleys etc etc. The guy who used to do all this importing was based in Sukhumvit Soi 2 and its where a ex-Guess girl worked from long ago. However I have little idea of what the current status is of beer importing - it seemed to be doing well and then just dried up overnight, with the exception of English & Irish cider. One can only imagine that the Thai brewers do not consider that as competition.......

In all the years I have been living here - I have yet to step foot inside of Finnegans. Based on your assessment its something I need to remedy. My venue of choice for a decent pint of beer has invariably been Bully's where they serve draught Kilkenny. Believe they have Guinness as well. I also remember an old wife's tale that Guinness opened a brewery in Malaysia which is where this and probably the Kilkenny come from. No idea if its true or not, but I am sure google would be my friend if i were bothered to look it up.

Imagine having twins who both turned out to be ladyboys !!!! Those two and many will know who they are, went through hell from their father especially. macho army guys don't have lb's let alone two of them. a lot of other nasty stuff also took place in this kind loving country that would put Jimmy Saville in a (relatively) good light. Many won't hear about or understand that it could happen in this day & age, but it does. what is even more incredible is that the children still are under pressure to support that same extended family whom often have inflicted such bad crap when they are younger.

Agree on Rosie's but for me maybe different reasons. I just find it convenient and quite OK when in that part of town. It used to be one of my regular stops and often was when Anaconda was open but for dinner. Before that was Simple Simons in Jomtien soi 5. Now parking has become more difficult, so i tend to go where its easier. Certainly nothing wrong with most of the western operated joints. At the end of the day - its mostly splitting hairs as the overall standard is (relatively, given we are talking English breakfasts in Thailand) so high as to be hard to find a crap breakfast. They exist but often have redeeming factors - some of the dishes masquerading as American breakfast are truly appalling. However in some of those places you get great coffee or great freshly squeezed juice. Good thread by the way - I had never heard of the place near Papagogo for example.

My personal Fav. is Greg's Kitchen purely because its good and consistent for the last 10 or so years I have been going. greg still whines away about how bad things are etc etc but he is a good sort. Located now in Drinking Street top end of 2nd Rd by the Miss Tiffany show. Big complex of bar beers just bit further up and Greg's is on the right in one of the shophouses which face the bar beer complex. The usual fare consisting of Sausages, Bacon, fried potato, eggs, beans, toast, marmalade, OJ, Tea or coffee. All perfectly good - about 170b from memory. By the way, nobody uses Heinz baked beans - they are WAY too expensive as an import item. There are some local brands better than others but its deffo not Heinz. The ketchup maybe real but the beans are not.

Foreigner murdered in Bangkok After Hours Nightclub (Spicey) http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2013/05/29/libyan-man-dies-two-wounded-bangkok-bar-shootout