Night Life In Bangkok

Bangkok is a steamy metropolis with booming night-life. Thais are a night people and all the young folk on the move in Thailand who wish to make their fortune make a bee-line for Bangkok. When night falls the night-life comes into its own.

Despite all this, the nightlife is not quite legendary, recent years have seen the repressive and intrusive TRT/PPP really clamp down on the night-scene. Now only certain areas of Bangkok are allowed to open into the early hours. The rest have to close by midnight. Which means ordinary bars often stop serving at 2330 hrs!

For all that the city of Bangkok is the best place in Thailand for happy-go-lucky, crazy goings-on and shenanigans. Below is a break-down of the 3 main entertainment zones.

Sukumvit Zone

A road that runs for miles from the heart of Siam Square to distant Pattaya this road is a foreigners ghetto. Shopping, bar-hopping and carousing are all corner-stones of this 'zone' The skytrain hurtles overhead giving a good access to all area here. Which is handy too as the traffic is often at a snails pace with even bikers struggling to weave and wend through the traffic. Up to the western part of Sukumvit is Nana District while away to the east is Soi Cowboy in Asoke. The MRT station joins here, creating a handy hub for getting around Bangkok.

Until 2000 there were few actual street-walkers on Sukumvit, then, came hundreds of them all over the place when a massive bar complex was demolished. They tend to be 'bottom-of-the-barrel' and not employable in bars, they will hassle you if you linger about.

Along Sukumvit are three key areas: Soi Cowboy, Clinton Plaza (closed) and Nana Plaza.

Notable bars along Sukhumvit Road are:

Therma Coffee Bar

Soi Cowboy

A soi full of go-go bars. Often twinned with Nana Plaza (also in the sukumvit zone) it is a bit more tame and (some say more expensive) but still worth a look or two.

Notable Go-Go's include: Suzy Wongs, The Long Gun and others.

Clinton Plaza

Taking inspiration from a certain president this used to be a nice enough island of easy-going bars between Nana and Soi Cowboy. Now it has fully-closed. You wouldn't even know it was there as the market sellers stalls have simply swallowed up the gap on Sukumvit where the bar compex was. The only 'outpost' of it remaining is the (notorious) Therma Bar which has a dodgy reputation for rigged bills and unsafe women in the past. If Free-lancers are your thing, then this is the place you may want to check out.

Nana District

Floor after floor of bars and go-gos. The ground floor tends to be open-air beer-bars and go-gos. Once you get to the 1st and 2nd floor then you just have go-gos all over the place. You are spoilt for choice when it comes to adult-entertainment. This place is old, dating back to the 1960s-70s when the GIs rocked the city. Some say when the lease expires (2010?) Nana will be no more...
Around Nana Plaza there is a spreading out of bars up and down the soi.

Patpong Zone

Once a banana plantation until the 1960s when the area transformed into the raunchy and fast-paced night-scene we all see today.
To be honest the place now has the feel of a tourist curiousity compared with the glamourous sleaze it also offers, with a lot of farang families (often with kids!) going to see what the fuss is all about.

Some say Patpong is more of a market than a sleazy bar and go-go zone, as market vendors now line the two main sois, creating a tunnel effect with breaks here and there for all the go-go bars. Then it's back to cart after cart of vendors once again. Going there by day is recommended too as the place is almost unrecognisible without the neon lights, noise and vendors and the difference is pretty stark...

Patpong by day

Patpong by night

Ratchada Zone

A place of vast massage complexes, mega-discos (RCA) plus late night malls.
Make no mistake, this is an area for the well-heeled and wealthy. The prices here are often on a par with Europe but the facilities and quality are almost without exception, excellent.

Entertainment Venues - Bangkok

Bangkok has a swarm of clubs, super-discoteques and entertainment complexes. All three of the above areas have something for everyone. In Sukumvit there are usually bars galore. For disco's you'll need to check out the large hotels as they are the only ones which can house them.

Bangkok and Beyond...

Of course we could list the other vibrant and racy night-time zones and clubs/bars out in Bangkok, but guess what?
You'll have to find these yourself! Who knows, you might even bump into one of us!

Straight from one of OTRTs observers is one place to help you get started. In a soi off Sukumvit is a 'club' called 'Eden'. It's fairly exclusive (financially close to Ratchada levels) and something of a bachelors paradise (if you've got the cash).