Travel Forum / Destinations / Asia / March 2006

The Soaring Prices of Bangkok's Naughty Nightlife

Just 8 years ago a good night out in the naughty bars of Bangkok could
be had for well under 1,000 baht.  These days that may still be
possible, but it is a lot harder to have such an experience, at such a
reasonable price.  Why is that?

Let's break down the cost of a night out in the past.  In the past, I
would invariably go out to the bars with my partner in crime, the pride
of Canada, Whosyourdaddy.  We were not there to meet girls and taking
girls back to our respective apartments was really the last thing on
our mind.  We just wanted to go out, have a few drinks, and then go
home.  We would usually hang out at Rainbow 1 bar in Nana, and often
stick our heads into one or two other chrome pole venues.

Back then, and I am thinking around '99 or 2000, drinks were about 80
baht.  We would have 5 or 6 beers each.  We may have bought perhaps one
lady drink, but often would not.  (You can call us stingy but we were
happier having a laugh ourselves watching the girls than having them
entertain us.)  We were also several years younger and the girls DID
come and chat with us without the expectation of anything.  We quickly
became known as two guys who would go to the bars, have a few drinks,
and happily go home alone.  So, 6 drinks @ 80 baht was 480 baht.  A 20
baht tip made it 500 baht.  We'd go there by skytrain which was 20
baht and we'd share a cab home as we lived in the same area, which
was about 25 baht each.  We'd invariably get a bit to eat, often a
burger at the entrance to Nana, or a meal at the Offshore.  Total price
of the food was 60 - 90 baht.  So, all up, a night out cost about 650
baht, for food, drinks and transport.  Bear in mind that we were really
poor teachers back then.

These days, the same thing would cost a bit more.  6 drinks would run
you 750 baht alone, and you'd not have ladies chatting to you without
buying them a drink within a couple of minutes.  Food prices have moved
up too, but transportation costs remain the same.

You could hang out at many bars in the past in Cowboy and to a lesser
extent, Nana, chat with the ladies, and buy no more than one, or
possibly two drinks.  Cowboy used to be a relaxing place where the
pressure to buy lady drinks was almost zero.  Oh, how that has changed.
I dropped into one of the really skanky Cowboy bars a couple of weeks
back to make some notes and was immediately approached by a woman old
enough to be my grandma!  The last thing I wanted was someone bothering
me and the thought of having to go through all of the usual silly
questions annoyed me, made worse with me knowing that telling her to
piss off, even if politely, would make her lose face.  So, for once in
my life I was relived when she said immediately, "Hello Handsome man,
I Da, you buy Cola for me", to which I replied, "No" and she was
gone.  Yep, even in these dodgy bars the girls are immediately asking
for a drink.

It was only a few years ago when it was very easy to agree to meet a
girl when she finished work and take her home, so as to avoid paying
the barfine.  This wasn't just an occasional thing done by poor
teachers, but was actually fairly common.  The only drawback for a guy
was that back then the bars usually closed at 2:00 AM and by the time
the bar had closed, the girl had got changed and had met him outside,
it was getting on for 2:30.  There wasn't even a lot of secrecy about
this and you'd often see a girl walk outside and meet her customer
for the night right outside the bar and off they would stroll, hand in
hand.

Nowadays, bars have put in place draconian rules against this sort of
thing.  Any girl who meets a customer outside of the bar will be
"fined" and the fine ranges from the cost of the barfine to 1,000
baht, the money docked from her salary at the end of the month.  And it
isn't just customers from the bar who the girls are prohibited from
meeting.  If a lady meets *any* guy outside the bar, or anywhere in the
vicinity of the bar - can even be a few hundred metres from the bar,
if she happens to be seen going off with a guy, she can be fined!  When
this policy was introduced a few years back - and it is policy in
most bars in Bangkok, many bar owners well and truly crossed the line
from being just a bar owner, to being pimps.

Another contributing factor to the cost of a night out in Bangkok is
SLUT.  SLUT is the Sexy Ladies Union of Thailand.  It would seem that
the ladies in many bars and many areas have got together and agreed on
minimum prices for their services.  This first happened (at least
during my time in Thailand) in Patpong in the late '90s when the
mamasan would walk around with a piece of cardboard clearly stating the
cost of a girl, which was 4,000 - the short time fee.  While the most
attractive girls often managed to secure such a pay out, that sort of
went by the wayside with many guys simply refusing to pay such lofty
amounts.

These days it is not just the girls in the bars who have organized
themselves and effectively fixed the prices.  Freelancers are in on the
game too and are also seeking much higher prices for services, and in
such salubrious hang outs as the Thermae and the Nana Hotel Car Park,
many girls refuse to go for less than 1,500 baht for short time!  Some
are dragons and I cannot understand how any guy would actually pay
them.

In the past many ladies never bothered you as much as they do now for
lady drinks.  Many bars only introduced minimum numbers of lady drinks
that the staff had to get a few years back.  But that is not the only
problem with lady drinks.  In the past, a lady drink was generally
about the same price as a standard drink, meaning around 90 baht pre
mid-2001, and around 75 baht, pre-1999.  But these days, lady drinks
seem to run about the same price as a standard drink, which in Bangkok
means 110 - 130 baht.  But the story doesn't really end there.  In
many bars there are now three levels of lady drinks - a standard Cola
at around 100 - 130 baht, a Cola with local whisky which is usually
30 - 40 baht more, and the top tier, a Cola with imported whisky
which can be around 60 baht more.  Offer a girl a lady drink and you
could get a bill for that one drink that is much closer to 200 baht
than you think!  In the past, if a girl was offered a lady drink and
wanted something other than a standard Coke, she would ask permission,
but that seems to have gone by the wayside, and now the average bargirl
will order the most expensive drink they can.

Even in Sukhumvit Soi 33 where policy in many bars dictates that the
girls may not ask, or worse harass, punters for drinks, the girls still
continue to ask for drinks.  I am friendly with a couple of bar owners
in Soi 33, and they always tell me how the girls are prohibited from
asking customers from drinks.  These are straight guys, not someone
just giving me lip service.  Little do they know that customers are
truly being harassed for drinks.

But perhaps the biggest factor of all is the number of girls receiving
money from boyfriends, husbands - guys in love with them.  My feeling
is that more than 50% of gogo girls who have been working 6 months or
more have guys sending them money.  And often it is more than one guy.
Let's say these girls have 50,000 baht + per month coming in from
multiple sponsors, they really cannot be assed being nice to guys
unless there is something in it for them, such as a number of lady
drinks, or if for services rendered, a significant amount.  Sending
money to girls and spoiling them, while nice for the girls, has spoiled
the industry for other guys.  And guys who are based locally are really
suffering as the girls aim for tourists, knowing there is a chance of
making a lot of money over a period of time, as opposed to a local guy
who knows the deal and will only pay a small amount - with little hope
of future earnings.

Bar owners have long signalled that they want the high paying
customers.  One high profile bar owner once said to me that he liked
nothing better than seeing a "sea of yellow" in his bars - as those
guys spend the most.  His words, not mine.

On a personal note, I have not been affected by the drinks prices.  I
don't go to the bars so often these days and when I do, I'm not in
the habit of buying drinks for girls.  I most certainly do not pay
barfines or take girls anywhere with me.  But I do resent paying more
than I think I should be paying, and getting poor value - when you
consider what other venues charge.  But that doesn't get away from
the fact that I think the naughty bars of Thailand, while cheap in
comparison with what's available in the West, have reached a pricing
level at which many people are starting to question things.

Truthfully, I think most of the gogo bars have a cheek charging 125 -
130 baht.  Perhaps the one exception is Angelwitch in Pattaya where you
get good shows, in a nice environment (great bar with the best sound
system) with reasonably good service.  Few bars can boast this.  But
I'm digressing.  This article was supposed to be about Bangkok, and
once again I find myself looking south, looking at Pattaya.

For anyone fed up with things in Bangkok, there is always Pattaya.
Prices down there have crept up, but only crept up, not soared.  The
levels of service down there are generally superior to what is offered
in Bangkok, the number of venues far greater and the prices tend to be
quite a bit lower, across the board.