My friend Arthur and I decided to take a break from Soi Cowboy and decided to spend a night in Nana Plaza visiting bars we have never gone in before, which is not hard to do as their must be 30 bars in the Plaza.
We started off in Mandarin on the second floor and discovered that it is a three level bar and is a fair size with friendly girls, but quite young which some punters may like but they often have the intellect of a table. Not their fault, but a Thai girl of 20 years recently arrived from the village to seek her fortune in the bars just does not have much in the ways of the world to offer up in conversation. What they do have to offer is a keenness to please and an opportunistic outlook life. Arthur and I chatted up a couple, bought a few lady drinks and moved on to Twisters.
Now Twisters in not a new bar to us but we always enjoyed it so we stopped in and bought a lady drink for one of my waitress friends and then moved on to Rainbow 4 which is a huge GoGo bar featuring at least 50 dancers. They dance in 2 shifts, One shift features topless girls in g strings and other shift is bras and panties. We bought a few lady drinks and inquired why the two shifts. It seems the second shift features the modest girls whereas the first shift are chosen for their breast assortment and sizes, many with silicone enhancements. Definitely the best boo show in Bangkok. It seems the topless girls get paid more, which indeed they need, as the price of silicone enhancement is up to 70,000 baht for under arm insertion.
Rainbow 4 was packed with Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese. The Asian invasion is taking over the red light districts in the Big Mango. It appears they have lots of money to spend as price of short term (2 hours, one shot) is now 3,000 baht and long term (all night, 2 or more shots) is now 6,000 baht. When I first arrived in Bangkok in 2010, the rates were 1,500 and 3,000, so they have doubled in 8 years. I believe the internet and the Asian invasion are responsible for the inflation. The internet and smart phones have made the girls much more savvy and they know what they are worth, and the Asians have much shorter flights to get to Thailand, and can come (no pun intended) more often and they stay a shorter period of time and therefore have more money to send on entertainment.
I am also noticing that the GoGo girls are much younger, mostly in their early 20's, often without babies back in the village to support. They are in the business to make lots of money and some of them are getting bar fined 3 times a night, making 10,000 baht a night which probably gives them an income of well over 100,000 baht a month compared to a university graduate making 20,000 baht a month.
This means the older ladies can't compete in the GoGo's and are moving into the beer bars of which there are no shortages along Soi 4. Beer bars have a bar fine but the usual rates are 2,000 and 4,000 but that can be negotiated. You will also find free lancers on the street and in music bars such as Hillary 2. No bar fines and prices are negotiable.
After Rainbow 4 we moved onto Angel Witch which has awesome shows and many pretty girls. The shows are a welcome change from the pole shuffle in Rainbow 4. Unfortunately, there was an idiot farang playing the big time spender, throwing crumpled up 20 baht notes (about 70 cents) at the girls. They were diving for them which I felt was demeaning. I have come across this behavior a couple of times and it is just bad! However, he eventually ran out of bills and Angel Witch has a nice vibe as well as some older girls with real personalities and fun personalities. It I open a GoGo bar, I would populate it with 25 - 35 year ladies who can make you laugh and speak enough English to carry on a conversation.
Speaking of conversation, the second question you get after 'what is your name' is, 'where are you from'? Arthur and I bounce back and forth between coming clean and stating we live in Bangkok, to saying Canada or the US and stating that we are in BKK for a week's holiday. It is always fun to play the player as you get treated very differently depending on how you answer.
It was a good night and we each spent about $100 for a night's entertainment. We called it quits about 1 am as we had imbibed enough alcohol to start thinking about bad decisions. Time to head home.
TTYL
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