Christmas week is here and, with it, the high of high season crowds, parties and barfines.
The last two weeks have been anything but good for Bangkok and Pattaya’s redlight bars. That’s not unusual. Business in the first week of December always jumps, only fall on its face for the next 14 days. Who wants to travel one or two weeks before Christmas? No one.
Has High Season Hit?
The difference this year is in Pattaya, where high season still has not set in. Redlight Report was in Sin City Dec. 10-15 and asked a good number of go-go owners and managers one question: Has high season started yet?
All but one answered “no”. Sure, it was busier than when Redlight Report was in Pattaya Nov. 19-23, but still not normal high-season busy.
In Bangkok, Nana Plaza has been bedlam for weeks. There’s no longer any doubt about which is Bangkok’s No. 1 nightlife area. Tourists and expats have voted with their feet and have marched out of the piss-contaminated water of Sewer Cowboy straight to Soi 4.
Yes, despite efforts by Hot Lips to pave over Soi Cowboy’s sewage problems, it’s still a problem. As Dave Rave News noted a day after the new concrete went down outisde Hot Lips, merely blocking it from flowing from under your own porch doesn’t solve the problem. It has to go somewhere, and now the wastewater is squirting out through every nook and cranny of the Neon Alley’s ancient plumbing network.
The result has been a ghostly quiet Soi Cowboy on many nights. On Tuesday there was exactly two customers in Bad Beach from 10 through 10:40 p.m., and Redlight Report was one of them. Shark was a third full after that, Crazy House had only one floor open and there were still plenty of seats. And even tourist magnet Long Gun was desolate.
It was much the same Wednesday night when Redlight Report dropped in on Cowboy after escaping the manic crowds of Nana.
Is The Hangover Tour back?
It should be remembered that Soi Cowboy, for most of its history, was a redlight spot mostly popular with expats. It’s must-see status among tourists only started after it was the backdrop for a memorable scene in the movie “The Hangover Part II”. After that blockbuster, every “normal” tourist who came to Bangkok had to see Tilac and Cowboy in real life.
The movie’s popular spurred the creation of The Hangover Tour, which guided newbie tourists around Bangkok’s redlight districts shielded from the naughtiest bits by a family-friendly chaperone. The tour was very well done and very popular, but came to an end with the pandemic and the movie’s fading popularity.
But could the tour be back? Wednesday saw a herd of white tourists – 60% of them women – clogging up Cowboy before 10 p.m. The bovine-brained herd just stood shoulder to shoulder blocking the entire soi, oblivious to people who actually wanted to pass them.
Finally, their chaperone got the herd moving and traffic flow was restored as the lookie-loo visits made their way out the Asok Montri Road end of Cowboy.
Holiday Prices & Parties
If past is precedent, the tourists will back for high season as you read this. Typically, full flights start arriving the weekend before Christmas. When they get to the redlight, they’ll find a few good parties and a lot of higher prices.
A couple weeks ago Redlight Report told you about the sky-high barfines being put in place for Christmas Eve and Night, and New Year’s Eve. If you decide to hire a date for the holidays, be prepared to shell out 1,500-3,000 baht to spring your chick from the coop.
Then there are the drink prices. Many bars revise their menus for high season and Shark, recently remodeled, reopened with a sneaky price increase on lady drinks from 220 to 240 baht. Keep in mind if you want to have a dancer come down from the stage for a drink, or stay without instead of going back to the state, that will cost you two drinks. (480 baht)
Real Parties, Fake Parties
There are real go-go parties and then there are “parties in name only”. The latter type of party is one where balloons are inflated and maybe a poster made, but, otherwise, there’s nothing unusual happening and no special reason to visit.
Most go-go bar Christmas and New Year’s parties are of this type, Everyone celebrates Christmas. Everyone celebrates New Year’s Eve. In most bars, it’s no big deal. The same as every other night.
The folks at Tycoon a-GoGo in Nana Plaza smartly recognized that this year and are not bothering with the pretense of a party this high season. Sure, it will be good fun at Tycoon and Lace Lounge, but they’re not going to pretend it’s anything more than that.
On the other hand, a couple of bars are making a real effort that is more than a poster and some balloons this high season.
On Soi Cowboy, Vicky’s Secret is throwing a Christmas Eve bash from 9 p.m. “until Santa drops”. It’s unclear if they mean Santa drops dead drunk or through the roof. At Vicky’s, parties are never in name only and Christmas Eve there will be free pizza and free shots. There’s two good reasons to show up.
In Pattaya, The Hive (formerly Tantra) is hosting real Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties this high season. In both cases, guests will receive a free gift (while supplies last). And, for New Year’s, the Japanese owner is putting the ladies in Oiran-style robes with PR staff in special yukatas.
For those unfamiliar with Japanese history, the Oiran were kind of like geishas, but a lot naughtier. Look it up.
Hard to Party Without Girls
One obvious impediment to throwing a good Christmas or New Year’s party is a lack of girls. (It was a major reason for Tycoon deciding not to do parties).
Despite how much bars may cut their girls’ salaries by taking off work during the holidays – some bars are docking their ladies 5,000 baht for missing New Year’s Eve – Thai girls will do what Thai girls do. And that’s mostly go home.
Buses from Bangkok to the Northeast are full for high season with go-go, beer bar and massage girls determined to spend the holidays with children and parents (and husbands and boyfriends and tomboys), barfines be damned.
That leaves many bars in a precarious position. You cant really advertise a Christmas party when there are only 11 girls on the roster that day. It also explains why bars charge customers such exorbitant holiday barfines: They have to keep the few girls they do have on stage so the place isn’t empty by midnight.
Sled it to the North Pole
That’s it for Redlight Report for 2025. To us, these next two weeks of high season are better called “Silly Season” so we’ve jumped on a plane and are headed back to Farangland until January. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
