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Bangla Road briefly revisited


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Spending a week in Phuket and managed to make a flying visit to Patong the other night, my first time back there in almost 18 years.  We spent most of our time on Bangla Road and some time down on the beach.  
It certainly seemed to be busier than I remember, and like Walking St these days, it took me some time to place where the old familiar venues used to be located.  One thing that struck me was how open the bars were, plenty of girls dancing for the whole street to see.  Alas Soi Crocodile is no more, there is a bar complex on the site, but the famous podium is gone, lord knows when it disappeared.

Still plenty of LBs lining the street, but I think the talent was better back in the day also.  Doubt I’ll ever go back again, a nice bit of nostalgia for a brief time, but I’m a different man today to that younger version who left there in the spring of ‘07 :)

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16 hours ago, bumblebee said:

Spending a week in Phuket and managed to make a flying visit to Patong the other night, my first time back there in almost 18 years.  We spent most of our time on Bangla Road and some time down on the beach.  
It certainly seemed to be busier than I remember, and like Walking St these days, it took me some time to place where the old familiar venues used to be located.  One thing that struck me was how open the bars were, plenty of girls dancing for the whole street to see.  Alas Soi Crocodile is no more, there is a bar complex on the site, but the famous podium is gone, lord knows when it disappeared.

Still plenty of LBs lining the street, but I think the talent was better back in the day also.  Doubt I’ll ever go back again, a nice bit of nostalgia for a brief time, but I’m a different man today to that younger version who left there in the spring of ‘07 :)

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Never a bad idea to take a little journey down memory lane! It's been like >5 years for me since visiting Patong, but from your photos I can tell nothing much changed since.

Enjoy :party0011:

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Thanks Dan, this whole trip has been tinged with nostalgia for me.  Been mulling a lot over how the scene has developed over the years I have been coming here, bars that came and went and good guys no longer around for whatever reason.  Years ago I was always so eager to be out and about at night and in the mix of it all, whereas nowadays I feel quite detached from the bar scene,  almost like a newbie when I go to the various LB venues with friends who are in town. 

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I checked your pics of ladies (GGs and 1 ladyboy) dancing on tables and remember when I was watching pics and videos of ladyboys in Thanon Bangla around 2010. Tey used to make me dream. I had noticed a first decline around 2013 and 2014 before the curfew and had found ladyboys not so sexy but still exciting as they used to be.

Although your pics are excellent, I find ladies dancing on tables unattractive. They make me think of family mothers doing the job to bring money for meat and industrial food back in Issan.
Sorry for the negative comment.

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3 hours ago, Pulci Gorgon said:

Although your pics are excellent, I find ladies dancing on tables unattractive. They make me think of family mothers doing the job to bring money for meat and industrial food back in Issan.
Sorry for the negative comment.

Lol no it’s a fair comment and basically I was capturing how the street is today…if there had been ladyboys dancing on podiums for sure there would have been a shit load of pics, but sadly no.  The photos reflect the reality of this famous street in its current state, warts and all 100% :)

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Went back one afternoon as the missus wanted to see Patong again in daylight.  
 

From what I recall Cocktails n Dreams was somewhere in this area on the left, very different now..

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And the podium and Soi Crocodile were somewhere to the right of this Irish bar 

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I created a map using Google Maps to locate the places you mentioned in your post. After passing the Dublin Irish Pub, on the left-hand side (right when facing the pub), I marked the area I understood you were referring to. Soi Crocodile used to be located a bit further down. When I checked Street View, I concluded that Soi Crocodile was the soi with the large 'Madam Wong' sign overlooking its entrance. Google Maps now shows a main soi named 'Soi Seadragon' and a smaller one with the same name. I followed the smaller soi and, as I walked through it virtually, I became convinced that I recognized many features of the former Soi Crocodile.

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Here’s another photo I took in 2015 showing Soi Crocodile. Once a few blocks have been demolished, it becomes almost impossible to visualize how things used to look.

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A bit further, I marked the area you described as the location of C&D. I also added what I recall as the former site of the C&D bar, either where the black sign or the dark grey one used to be. Unfortunately, I deleted the photos from my PC, but the entire block had been destroyed by excavators. In your photo, you would either turn left near the 'Pizza Company' building visible above the green truck or follow along the edge of the Bangla Market.

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Great detective there PG.  Now that I see your map the location of Soi Croc makes more sense.  From my night time visit I could see any obvious LB venues, a shame if there aren’t any now on Bangla, maybe they are on other nearby Sois.  
 

Interestingly there is a still a Tiger Complex in Patong.  This incarnation is on the Soi behind JungCeylon.  Again if memory serves me well, it was the Tiger Complex on Soi Bangla where the original smaller CnDs was located, this was before Jimbo turned up on the scene and it became the cabaret venue most are familiar with. 

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