Soi Cowboy: more of what you come to Bangkok for

 

It’s been a tough week so far.  I’ve been working hard to meet a challenging deadline on a work contract, and rather stupidly drank margaritas, whiskey & soda and beer on Monday night, waking up late and hungover on Tuesday.  I’ve averaged about 3 hours’ sleep per night since Friday.

I finished the project on Wednesday afternoon, and decided to go out and relax.  Walking out of my apartment my plan was to go to Patpong, but by the time I walked out of my building and hit Sukhumvit Road I knew that I didn’t have the energy to schlep my way across town, so I ended up walking to Soi Cowboy.

I made a decision early to go alcohol-free and head home early.  I was only drinking orange juice, and I hit the following go go bars:

• Baccarra
• Midnite Bar
• Sheba’s
• Cowboy 2
• Long Gun
• Rawhide
• Joy
• Our Place Showcase

When I first came to Bangkok in early 2005 I was surprised to find that the bars closed at 1 a.m. and that, with very few exceptions, the girls were not naked, but dancing in bikinis.

Both of these things have changed in the past couple of years.  The bars are mostly closing later, and when they do, there are more after-hours joints than ever before.  And, at least on Soi Cowboy, its actually getting difficult to find bars that don’t have topless or naked dancing girls now (not that I’m trying to find them).

Most of the bars in Soi Cowboy have been re-modeled in the past two years.  Many of them have added outdoor verandas where you can sit and enjoy the sights of the evening.  On holidays the soi is decorated with ribbons, balloons and girls in special costumes.

Unlike Nana, there are not hundreds of lady-boys polluting the place.  If it’s not 100% real Thai girls, it’s way over 99%.  And the variety of girls and service styles means there’s something for everyone.  Bars like Baccarra seem to specialize in small girls; Rawhide seems to aim for girls between 160 cm and 170 cm tall.  In Cactus they’re fat and naked, and in Our Place Showcase the girls are all very middle-of-the road (not fat or skinny, not beautiful or ugly).

Some bars like Joy, Afterschool and others are very ‘hands-on’ with girls grabbing your tackle and rubbing hands all over your body.  Others are much more relaxed, allowing you to enjoy your drinks and the view in relative peace.

Here’s a quick rundown of my Wednesday night tour.

Baccarra was voted Best Go Go in Bangkok by the readers of the Bangkok Bad Boy website just before he signed off the air for good last month.  I’ve never really enjoyed Baccarra that much.  The first time I went in there in June 2005 I barfined a tiny 38 kg dancer and spent the next 12 hours sodomizing her.  She looked like she wanted to marry me.  I’ve never had a good night there since.  It’s always too crowded and the girls are usually aloof.  Tonight I arrived at 7:30… there were three girls onstage barely moving.  Over the course of 15 minutes the numbers swelled to about 8 dancers listlessly doing the Bangkok shuffle.  None of them looked particularly good so I shuffled on out of there and on to Midnite Bar.

At Midnite I had one drink and chatted up a waitress for a few minutes.  There were two cute little dancers (#7 & #9) but not much else happening.  I moved again to Sheba’s where a dozen dancers were doing their thing with gold-colored star pasties.  Dance naked or in bikinis but, please, lose the pasties.  One cute one with a tatoo on her back (#7), but nothing really exciting.  By now I was starting to fill up on orange juice.

Cowboy 2 was the first place with any energy on the night.  Eight girls onstage, mostly cute, wiggling their asses and laughing.  No Bangkok shuffle here.  I’ve never barfined a girl from this bar but I’ve seen plenty of cuties over the years.  I actually like Cowboy 2… the service staff has always done a good job and the girls always look like thay actually want to be dancing.  My server was number 6; she looked like she was about fifteen years old… really cute.

The next stop was Long Gun, where I’ve spent a lot of time lately.  On New Year’s Eve I barfined the Isaan Princess and had really nice GFE sex.  The bar is very old and getting a bit grungy, but it continues to have a good atmosphere.  The Princess spotted me in the bar and came over to sit with me.  She was drinking tequila tonight, so I bought her #3 and #4 for the night.  She was feeling no pain, sitting next to me with her legs hanging open like she didn’t have the energy to close them.

I saw one other girl who looked fairly stunning from my seat… she had a falang-looking face and hair bleached almost blond.  She’d probably had a nose job.  Her body is slender and sexy with a great ass. She had as slow and sensual style of dancing.  I was told that her name is Joy-ee or Jaw-ee… something like that.  I didn’t talk to her, but I’ve admired her naked ass on previous trips to Long Gun.

Back to the Princess… I seem to have a hard time talking to this girl; each time I’ve sat with her we’ve had misundestandings.  Nothing serious, but the conversation isn’t relaxed.  I ran my hand over her leg and back a bit, and hoisted her left breast in my hand once or twice, but I wasn’t feeling the excitement I felt on NYE.  Finally I gave her a kiss goodnight and moved on.

I went straight to Rawhide.  I love the three-girl show, and I was lucky enough to catch it just minutes after walking in.  The three girls are named Paa, Ple and Kung.  At the end of the show I had a huge woody from watching the three perfect bodies frolicking about in a high energy, naked, choreographed routine.  I wanted to buy a drink for Kung who is the most perfectly sexy girl I’ve ever seen, but due to a miscommunication on my part I ended up with Paa instead.  She’s beautiful and has a great body, but I was focused on Kung who is more beautiful and even more sexy so I let Paa get back to dancing. 

By the way, this is exactly what the three showgirls look like at Rawhide:

Kung already had a customer, so I tipped her and went out.  The tip was just so she’d remember my face.  I’ll get her next time.

I turned right and headed for home, but on the way I stopped for another orange juice in Joy.  It’s been a long time — probably 18 months — since I’ve been there.  It was always small, dark and bit unpleasant, but I used to know a little girl from Burriram who danced here and could always make me laugh.  Now it’s an ‘attack’ bar, I sat down and in seconds there were fat and ugly (one of each) girls rubbing my tackle and demanding drinks.  One girl, who thought I didn’t understand her insistent drink begging because I said ‘no’ a dozen times, asked a friend to translate the begging.  I broke.  I raised my voice and said, “I already told her ‘no’ twelve fucking times… now you can tell her ‘no’ again!”

JOY belies it’s name.  The bar sucks.  I hate these ‘hands on’ bars.  It’ll be a long time before I return to Joy, and there’s a good chance that I never will.

Finally I dropped into Our Place Showcase.  It used to be called just “Our Place” and when I was there before it was a shit-go go.  It was remodeled and re-named, and this was my first trip in to see the result. 

It’s not bad.  The decor is pretty well done.  I know that a lot of people pour crap on ‘the Arab’ as a hobby, but I don’t have a big problem with the look of his bars. 

Our Place Showcase has vastly improved since my last visit.  Lights, decor and girls are all better.  That said, improving the girls wasn’t a challenge.   They used to be uniformly fat, ugly or both.  Now they’re just very average; a little too tall, a little too skinny or heavy, perhaps just too many stretch marks.  There are no horrible or hideous girls here, but also no stunners.  This is a bar that has the potential to go somewhere… they just need to find four or five truly beautiful girls.  Right now, they have a lot of cute girls who put some energy into things. 

As it was, I watched two ’shows’ with classic Bangkok routines… the first was neon body paint dripped over naked girls under a black light.  The second was an oil and candle-wax show with two girls who looked like sisters. Body paint and candle wax shows might be ‘old school’ but they don’t disappear because of the fact that they are sexy.  I enjoyed my 25 minutes in Our Place Showcase, and I expect that I’ll probably return.

So, whatever you came to Bangkok to see, naked dancing girls, candle wax or body paint shows, high energy choreography, the bangkok shuffle, tall girls, tiny spinners, fat girls, beautiful girls or ugly girls, live music, new music or old music, outdoor seating, restaurants or elephants, Soi Cowboy has it all.   Soi Cowboy has more of what you’re looking for.