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Patpong is just one of three main areas where there is a concentration of Go-Go bars. The other two are Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza, but Patpong is certainly the more famous of the three.
Patpong during the day is just a normal road that joins Silom road and Suriwongse road. Very few cars use this road and so walking down the street during the day is not a problem, but there's not much point as it's fairly dead and bereft of life. There are a few restaurants that are worth a visit if you fancy some Thai food or French food, but for the most part, Patpong looks dead during the day and dodgey looking men hang out in the doorways, sometimes shouting "hey you, you..sexy girl..massage", but it's half hearted and they quickly get back to chatting with their friends, smoking or eating.
During the day, Patpong in Bangkok, Thailand looks quite wide and you can make out the names of the bars, but they all look run down and old. However, Patpong at night is a completely different scane as the road becomes a market area and all the bars light up with neon signs and music blares from every doorway. As mentioned earlier, the Bangkok Patpong of old has disappeared due to Prime Minister Taksin Shinawat clamping down hard on almost all forms of entertainment that involve alcohol, music and ..well..fun in general really.
Patpong was famous for its sex shows, naked dancing and the "anything goes" attitiude whereby the bars closed when they felt like it and many many bars stayed open all night, but now, all venues have to close at 1.00am with the very occasional bar staying opn until 2am. What this really means is that things wind down at about 12.30am and once the bars have closed, that's it, off home to bed unless you know some expats who can show you some small bars that stay open late. These small bars are generally owned by the police and so get to stay open but playing music is not allowed and so you just sit there nursing a beer with some pretty ugly and old looking women.
In the photos above, you can see that there are many people either sitting around or standing around waiting for tourists so they can hassle them to either buy something or go to see a poor go-go / sex show and pay too much money for the privilege. When we were taking these pictures, we saw some poor young tourist being hit repeatedly on the arm by some female stall owner because he had bargained for a good price, she agreed but he decided to look around first. Instead of being a bit peeved and getting on with it, she started to hit the guy's arm harder and harder and even when he tried to walk away, she followed him and kept hitting him. Their attitude is getting bad and so we suggest ignoring this place and heading down to the Lumpini Night Bazaar unless you want to walk past ( or enter ) the go-go bars.
It's been like this for a while now. The new rules for buying and drinking alcohol came into effect in about May of 2005 the rules are: No purchase of alcohol is allowed between 12am and 11am ( in shops )
Patpong used to be fun. A little dodgey maybe but it was fun. Now, the bars are fewer, the people seem rougher and the girls far less attractive. Those girls that work in the bars almost immediately ask you for a drink and if you say "no" they make no effort to be nice or kind or friendly, they just disappear. So, to double this "fun", Patpong consists of two roads, Patpong I with the market stalls and Patpong II with more beer bars where you can sit on a bar stool in an outdoor bar and either watch TV or watch others. You can enter either Patpong I or II from Silom or Suriwongse roads and the two are joined together by a central joining street or one or two other smaller, narrow alley ways.
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