HTML5
![]()
Archives
![]() Bangkok's Night Scene In Review ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Does Soi Nana Measure Up ? - SUKHUMVIT's SOI 4 IN FOCUS |
![]() |
Bangkok, 01 September 2003 William R. Morledge |
 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
*CLICK*
![]() to PRINT This Page CLICK- ![]() For More Bangkok Nightlife! |
"Does Soi Nana measure up to what?" - you might ask. In this, the second installment on Sukhumvit Road's night entertainment scene, MIDNITE HOUR will provide an in-depth review of Soi 4, or Soi Nana Tai. Due to several requests, mostly from readers that believe the entire Soi Nana should be considered a single Night Entertainment Area, we will have a look at all the Entertainment Venues on the soi and then put it to the test: let's see whether it is a stand-alone Night Entertainment Area, or whether it comes up lacking. In quick review, MIDNITE HOUR's Night Entertainment Area criteria are that 1. the venues within are oriented to adult expat night entertainment, 2. that they be in a contiguous area (any one venue can be easily accessed from another by walking), and 3. it has reached a 'critical mass' - large enough to independently draw a nighttime crowd and keep them there for the evening. While we concede that these evaluation criteria can be at least partly subjective, they have held up surprisingly well under the test of time for defining Night Entertainment Areas, past and present. While Soi 4's Nana Plaza has qualified as a Night Entertainment Area for almost twenty years, below are several Night Entertainment Venues within a minute's walk of it, and the number of such venues is growing year by year. Listed below are several other Night Venues, which are a little deeper into Soi 4. Several of them worth a visit, for either a meal, or a drink, or both. The Rajah Hotel, along with the Nana Hotel, has been catering to Expat accommodation since the '60's. Inside the Rajah Hotel compound, there are several Night Venues worthy of mention (see immediately below). It needs be said that there has been a slow-but-steady growth of Night Entertainment Venues over the years within the Rajah Hotel compound itself. The Rahah has a lot of unused real estate, and could not only become a Night Entertainment Area on its own, it has the potential to be developed into a super-large Night Entertainment Area, --provided the economics and politics were favorable...
At the shortcut soi running over to Sukhumvit Soi 6, there are a cluster of small Night Venues that seem to be surviving, in spite of being located relatively deep in Soi Nana:
Deeper yet into Soi Nana (about 350 meters), The Brunswick Poolbar and restaurant sits just across the street from Hunters. While Brunswick is the larger of the two, it is geared more for pool than the food, whereas Hunters is a bar-restaurant. Both are well worth the walk or drive down the soi. Other Night Venues are listed below for record purposes.
In concluding our review of Soi 4 - Nana Tai, the MIDNITE HOUR does not see sufficient conformance to our Night Entertainment criteria to warrant the inclusion of the entire soi into a single Night Entertainment Area. Even though Soi 4 was "Where It All Began" - the catalyst - for expat entertainment on Sukhumvit Road (see our
Genesis: Sukhumvit's Night Scene column ), and even though there are a sufficient number of Night Venues on Soi 4, and even though there are many resident expats who have a preference for entertainment on Soi 4, the bars, lounges, pubs and discos are not in a convenient, 'contiguous' area - the farthest lounge from Sukhumvit Rd is over 700 meters inside. As mentioned above, it is more likely that the Rajah Hotel could develop into its own separate Night Entertainment Area than to be included in another area. Nevertheless, should the current trends prevail, it is conceivable that the venue density in and around Nana Plaza and the Nana Hotel could be such that it would be practical, and convenient to include those immediately adjacent venues along with Nana Plaza's as an extension of that Night Entertainment Area.
The price and cost of
'respectability' -Corruption and Entertainment get a face-lift Among all the recent "crackdowns" imposed by the incumbent P.M,, the crackdown that affects the Night Entertainment business most seriously is the 'Morality' Crackdown, where the Government's form-over-substance approach to saving face and restoring national dignity is running at odds with their desire to restore tourism and the economy. Examples flourish, and in fact are on the rise -- there is an increase in incidents where tourists, students and expat residents alike are forced to submit to drug testing -to urinate in cups- simply because they happen to be a customer at a given Night Entertainment Venue. On the increase are incidents where bars are closed down for having under-18-yr-olds working within, even though the legal age of employment -and consent- is less than 18. There is an increase in incidents where bars are closed down for excessive nudity, even though the Government cannot agree on what is and what is not pornography, or even the censorable limit on nudity. There are an increase in crackdowns on Night Entertainment Venues that do not have the legally registered name of the bar as their 'main sign', although no one can define the same way twice in a row what 'main sign' means, or even what language it must be written in, All this gives rise to whether or not these face-saving crackdowns are of the usual Bangkok "pendulum-swing" type, or if the current regime fully intends to change the 'face' of the Night Entertainment industry and run the risk of forever tuning tourism on its head, and into the red once and for all - as was done in Manila in the Philippines just over ten years ago. Likewise, the parallel Government crackdown on corruption - particularly corruption within the National Police Department - is impacting the Night Entertainment industry in interesting ways. As mentioned in last month's MIDNITE HOUR, the original Government goal was to clean up all corruption within the country within 3 months. Quickly realizing the ludicrous position they found themselves in, the P.M. made a hasty 'mid-course correction', saying that in the case of the National Police, it would take five years to kill corruption. Since that announcement, we have had two other 'explanations' as to "what the Government meant by that" by prominent Government officials -- both stating that the Thai policeman can't live on his salary alone, and this is why he is forced into a life of bribe-taking. If we take the gloss off of that, what they are saying is since every policeman is underpaid, all policemen are corrupt (save the 0.1% who have another, more lucrative source of income). A third announcement, the coup-de-grace, this time from a senior police officer, is that "even honest police take bribes" because in the course of carrying out their duties, they often need funds to lubricate the wheels of justice during the course of an investigation. Ho ho ho. Status-quo-ante. The current Government couldn't have done a better job of weaseling out of its commitment on corruption if they'd hired a team of New York lawyers. Even though the Government has said these things, the P.M. is still on course to change out a large percentage of ranking police officers. Notice he didn't say, "fire"? That's because he really meant "change out" - but you probably know the term "inactive post" already so we won't elaborate. As a result, Bangkok's Finest are playing it cautiously when it comes to taking bribes (now that the Government says, in so many words, it's OK again) because there is, after all, the above mentioned possibility of an inconvenient transfer to the border. To insure an uninterrupted money stream, Bangkok's Finest are coming up with resourceful 'new' ways to extort money - ways that are not 'traditional', or widely known by their superiors, and their superiors. Some of the more interesting bribery efforts by Our Men In Brown are starting to come out - at least to those who have an ear to the wall for such things. One innovative way is the "Early Pre-closing Visit", where the Upholder Of The Public Trust announces to the bar management that they will have to close early. No reason given - which is the unspoken signal; they want money. The reason they now come earlier than in times past is because it can be any time, and therefore harder to monitor. (You will recall, in the bad-old-days they would come only a few minutes before 02:00 hours and hang around the bars that still had a lot of customers, waiting for their 'facilitating payment' from any of the bar owners that wanted to stay open later than 2 A.M.) This new Pre-closing Visit system is used en-masse at the Cowboy Annex, where the bars are now all closing at 1 A.M instead of the legal 2 A.M. - because (and we love this...) the bar owners told the police where they could shove their 'facilitating payment'. (Remember, these bars will all be closed down by December, anyway.) Another interesting 'new' way to hit the Night Entertainment industry with bribes is for a policeman to come into a bar at 2 A.M. and order a drink. He, of course, is served, and at 02:01 hours, or after he finishes his drink, he announces that the bar must be 'fined' for staying open after the 'lawful' time. The variation-on-theme is when a well-known plainclothes Upholder Of Justice comes in with a girl and orders drinks. As he is a policeman, no questions are asked. On receiving the drinks, the policeman announces that, as the girl is only 17 years old, they are going to have to pay a 'fine', or be closed down for two weeks. Those of you who own bars in the odd numbered sois of Sukhumvit know who we mean... Can someone please tell me why Bangkok's Finest see the need to go through all these elaborate charades to extract money from bar owners? Why can't they come in to a bar like respectable bandits, pull their guns and demand the money from the cash register? Nevertheless, we can expect, at the very least, to see continuing innovation in the ever-expanding Bangkok extortion market. ![]() ![]()
![]() ![]()
September Follies
begin here
• PATPONG I •
![]() ![]() ![]() • PATPONG I •
• PATPONG II •
![]() ![]() • PATPONG II •
• NANA PLAZA •
![]() ![]() • NANA PLAZA •
• COWBOY ANNEX •
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() • COWBOY ANNEX •
• SOI DEAD ARTISTS •
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() • SOI DEAD ARTISTS •
• QUEEN'S PARK PLAZA •
![]() • QUEEN'S PARK PLAZA •
• WASHINGTON SQUARE •
![]() • WASHINGTON SQUARE •
• SOI KATOEY •
![]() • SOI KATOEY •
• 13 NIGHT MARKET •
![]() ![]() ![]() • 13 NIGHT MARKET •
• The No-News-Is-Good-News Dept. •
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
|