Haven't had much to write about these days. The night life is taking its toll of my day life. Friends have been leading me astray. I've been getting home in the 4 a.m. to the, uh, afternoon timeframe. Sleeping till early evening, meeting the dudes, then visiting mostly the street bars around Asok and farther inbound along Sukhumvit.
Bangkok never stops. There's life on the streets, in great contrast to Canada, except maybe Montreal. Yes, some Toronto downtown areas are alive on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, but local laws and regulations put a stop to anything beyond 2 a.m. Unless you know where to go, but then it's only an after hours club.
Of course, it must be noted that absolutely everything going on on the Bangkok streets is illegal. It's just not enforced. One street bar operator pays the police 6000 baht ($215 Cdn) a month, another smaller one at Asok pays 2400 baht ($85 Cdn) a month. Everyone pays.
But if police and other authorities started enforcing the laws, thousands would be out of work or even more destitute. For many people, the night scene is a second job and helps support a family back in the village. By day, a girl might sell shoes in a neighbourhood store, earning something like 5000 to 6000 baht a month. At night, she might waitress from 11 p.m. till 4 a.m. a few nights a week. Take an hour-long bus home, then sleep two or three hours, then take another hour-long bus to work. Then finish at 6 p.m., go home and grab a couple of hours sleep, if she's lucky. Probably not.
She would pay say, 2000 to 4000 for a non-air-con, fan room, with communal shower and toilets on each floor of a concrete apartment building. Maybe two to five people -- girlfriends, brothers, sisters, mama -- would share the 25 square metre room (roughly equivalent to a small studio), some helping out, some not able to. On a 5000 a month salary, working 8-10 hours, six days a week, that doesn't leave much left for food, or sending cash back to the village, never mind medical expenses.
The stretch along Sukhumvit from soi 1 to, oh, soi 33, both sides, is a partially typical city street. You've got photo copy/supply stores, dentists, druggists, banks, liquor shops, TOPS and Villa markets, California Wow fitness centres, open kitchens and fast-food restaurants, furniture shops, small to medium malls and plazas, giant high-end malls, businesses of unknown products or services (it's just not apparent what they do, if anything), superb hospitals, countless hotels (super-cheap guesthouses to outrageously expensive brand name places), "Indian" tailor shops and skin treatment centres (white is "big"), and 7-11s and Family Marts till your eyes bleed.
The big draws are all to be found off Sukhumvit, in the 33-plus soi's that host a big proportion of the Bangkok night life for foreigners. (This street, by no means, is the only one to feature night life, but it is the best known area, partly because the BTS Skytrain makes it easy for even more tourists to get there. Night life areas for the Thais dwarf the ones for foreigners.)
There's probably not a single soi that doesn't have massage shops of every description. You will also find discos, hostess bars, go-go bars, even more massage shops, music bars, beer bars (although these are disappearing with developments), and my favourite, the all-night street bars. The latter open up around 11 p.m. and remain till 5 a.m. or so.
Why? Everyone and everything has to pass by and it's a people watcher's paradise. Also the booze is relatively cheap, compared to go-go's especially. There's also great food, such as noodle soup (chicken or pork or fish), various fried rice combos, grilled kebabs, dried squid, grilled fish, grilled sausages, and the ever popular (among Isaan girls) fried bugs. And last, you can smoke outside.
Near the beginning of Sukhumvit, at soi 4, is Nana plaza, with its three storeys of go-go bars. Farther on, at soi 23, is soi Cowboy, also a go-go bar area. Then soi 33 sets itself out to be a classier bar area, hence higher prices for everything and hostesses wearing dressy gowns. Around soi 15 is the legendary Thermae coffee shop (police owned), where the Japanese men like to go. And where they go, so go higher prices.
(As you go farther east along Sukhumvit, into the 30s, 40s and 50s, you come across Korean- and Japanese-oriented restos, bars and other services.)
Most of these above mentioned bars are on the north-side soi's (odd numbered) of Sukhumvit. The south side (even-numbered soi's) is far less crowded with bars. Down soi 22 are many, many bars, including a beer bar complex.
Bars have to close at 1 a.m., unless your business is in Cowboy or Nana, which seem to have special dispensation and can remain open until 2, as long as they douse the outside light show used to attract visitors.
Soon, I'll be leaving Bangkok night life behind for some country air. I want to travel farther east as well as return to Surin, which I really enjoyed, thanks to the wonderful Isaan people.
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