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Patong - The Wake


Patong2

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Last night I got to Bangla just as you were leaving! The later you can visit there, the better.

 

I tend to use three bars in the centre of the main drag and all of them had front row seats available when I got there and so I started at Black Horse and saw that there was some sort of fracas at the entrance to Bar Funk - although I made no effort to rubber-neck (so undignified, particularly trying to film it as well) it was clearly the usual pattern of a dozen or so Thai "guards" appearing out of nowhere and dispensing their instant justice. No ambulance was called and so it must have been quite tame, but the bar girls get so excited when these (rare) punch-ups liven up their boring evenings and desperately try to get a good look.

 

On the subject of Bar Funk - that place really is a free show for the typical cheap charlie tourists who just want to block Bangla and ogle the dancers without spending any money. I seem to remember that, during the Sandbox time after Covid, they put plastic drapes across the front so that it effectively became an indoor venue.

 

I probably got home to Kamala quicker than Xylophone got to his place in Patong! A lovely relaxing ride in the warm night air.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Pleased to say I have not even been in Patong for almost 6 weeks. As for the Bistrot, you talking about that place just about all bike rentals. As I recall open about 5 years ago, never had any customers. Lot of dark skinned young 'French' guys hang out there.

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On 1/28/2024 at 2:04 AM, schlog said:

Guess this is my third and last time that i move away from patong but who knows lol.

 

Whenever I come back to Phuket, it is strictly holiday only. It is fun for a week, but then it just starts to press on my nerves.

 

Maybe I am older, maybe it really is a lot less fun than a decade++ ago.

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12 hours ago, LivinginKata said:

Pleased to say I have not even been in Patong for almost 6 weeks. As for the Bistrot, you talking about that place just about all bike rentals. As I recall open about 5 years ago, never had any customers. Lot of dark skinned young 'French' guys hang out there.

Well LiK you have not missed much by staying away from Patong, other than traffic jams and crazy drivers!

 

I think I know the place you mean, but it's not the one which has the "dark skinned young French guys" hanging out, I believe the place you mean is a little bit further north on the brow of the hill, almost near the spa place?

 

If you were to go south about a hundred metres or so, past the massage place on the right and then a bar of some description, then you have the restaurant "Le Bistrot", and it is just about opposite the entrance to Patong Bay Hill resort. Before that, over the past couple of years it has been a bar, then a small restaurant/café bar and then a bar with a massage place attached, all of which folded after a short period of time – – along with some poor suspecting farangs and their dreams!

 

Haven't heard from you in a while, so I hope you are well.

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On 3/4/2024 at 12:57 PM, xylophone said:

restaurant in Soi Banzaan which opened a few years ago and which had a good but limited menu and a good bar area, which sported a sign of what looked like a moustachioed English gentleman with a monocle, on it (and I can't remember it's name) which has been empty now for a long time is now being worked on/demolished to make way for something else? I hope it is not another restaurant because the location is poor, with no foot traffic or parking area.

The restaurant name was "Le Drinkeria"...........now being converted into????

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Posted (edited)
On 3/5/2024 at 9:38 AM, xylophone said:

 

 

If you were to go south about a hundred metres or so, past the massage place on the right and then a bar of some description, then you have the restaurant "Le Bistrot", and it is just about opposite the entrance to Patong Bay Hill resort. Before that, over the past couple of years it has been a bar, then a small restaurant/café bar and then a bar with a massage place attached, all of which folded after a short period of time – – along with some poor suspecting farangs and their dreams!

 

 

On a whim after you after you mentioned it, we tried Le Bistrot last night. Impressed with the food,

Very generous portions of very nicely cooked food. Will go back.

Edited by Patong2
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19 minutes ago, Patong2 said:

On a whim after you after you mentioned it, we tried Le Bistrot last night. Impressed with the food,

Very generous portions of very nicely cooked food. Will go back.

Thanks Patong2, I will have to give that a try shortly!

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/7/2024 at 1:35 PM, Patong2 said:

On a whim after you after you mentioned it, we tried Le Bistrot last night. Impressed with the food,

Very generous portions of very nicely cooked food. Will go back.

After your recommendation P2, I stopped by Le Bistrot to have a look at the menu and it's not huge by any standards, but has a nice range of options on it. I then looked at the wine list and their house wine is, unfortunately, a fruit wine, which I'm not partial to, so I may ask the owner if I can pay a corkage and take my own wine along??

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Now back onto Patong activities in general, or should I say, nightlife activities........ 

 

Went out to have dinner with friends on Friday night, and unfortunately made a pig of myself and ate too much, which left me very bloated for the walk up Bangla to the Blue Lotus bar, in which we had one drink and moved on.

 

Bangla, as has been the case in the past few visits, was still very crowded and I wondered if this was trickling through to the Thai folk working here, and that "question" was answered when we walked past a Tuk Tuk driver stationed at the beach end of Bangla, who was being asked by a couple and their young daughter, "how much to go to Jungceylon?"

 

Of course he obviously didn't know that Jungceylon was just a very short walk up Bangla, however that being the case, the Tuk Tuk driver quoted 500 baht!!!!! Which of course astounded us – – so rip-offs still abound in Patong and I found the same experience with my motorbike taxi driver this time, because my main one was not available, and whereas I used to pay 140/160 baht for a trip from Soi Nanai six, the new motorbike taxi driver whom I hailed, charged me 200 baht. I wasn't about to argue with him because he was an old bugger who probably needed the money, but in future I will ensure that I book my regular motorbike taxi driver.

 

Back to Bangla – – the bar on the corner of Bangla and Soi Sea Dragon was very crowded, and I'm not surprised because there were quite a few attractive young women in the place, obviously attracting the punters, so that ploy is working, as it always has done here!

 

Jumping around a bit and on the subject of attractive young women, an attractive woman I know who manages a massage shop here, and who I've known for years, has got her boyfriend over Europe, and when I asked after her, one of the other women in the shop said that she and her boyfriend had gone home to the north of Thailand to get married!!

 

I was astounded at this because whenever I had spoken to this particular woman, she had said that she and her boyfriend often had rows and I know she had a couple of other boyfriends in tow, so the thought of her getting married to this particular one was one hell of a surprise.

 

This other woman in the shop who knows me and who speaks pretty good English, gave me a lesson in Thai logic......she said that it might be difficult for me as a farang to understand, but a Thai woman does not confuse love on the one hand with money on the other, saying they are not the same, basically telling me that her friend (the manager) was getting married for money, whereas the boyfriend thought it was love, but based on that "misunderstanding" they could both be happy!

 

We had a little discussion on this and I told her how surprised I was when I first arrived here to see how many really old farangs were walking around with much younger women/wives, and her response was, well that really goes to prove what she had just said: – for "love" and care from the Thai person, the older farang gives financial support to the Thai woman and her family, and thinking about it it's probably been that way forever here. As an addendum to that, I am sure that there are farangs and Thai women who are in love with one another, but IMO a Thai woman's "love" can be a movable feast!

 

Unfortunately the shop/building in which this massage parlour sits has been repossessed by the bank and so the shop and the one next to it will have to close this coming month, which is a shame because it gets a lot of foot traffic and there is parking outside of it. It made me wonder why the bank wouldn't keep the occupants of the shops in place, and sell it as a going concern, and if the buyer doesn't like that, then ask them to move out?

 

Just to end on a positive note; a couple of weeks ago I and a couple of friends had ventured down Soi Freedom to have a drink with a birthday bar owner, and something I'd forgotten all about was happening in that Soi, because the ladyboys were putting on a stage show, and I have to say they were professional not only in their stage gear, but in the routines and the lip syncing of course, only this time it was a little different to the one I remember a few years back, because the "female" singers were often accompanied by a couple of gay boys prancing around either side of them.

 

Either way a whole lot of them seemed pleased with their performance and there were a few onlookers, so perhaps things really are back on track here.

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