Such as cafes (where pretty singers are presented with wreaths from the audience with banknotes attached, i.e. I don't recall seeing a single sign that actually said "gogo" and passers by could be mistaken for thinking they were the more common Thai style nightspots The gogo bars of Saphan Kwai are spread out over a small area of perhaps 100 or 150 metres.įrom outside it is not entirely clear that these are in fact chrome pole palaces. Neighbourhood businesses from small restaurants and food vendors to beauty salons, video rental outlets and 7 Elevens. The bars are surrounded by shophouses with the usual Thai
While most venues have a single stage, at least one venue featured two dance floors with girls on each. There are perhaps 8 or 9 venues, only a small number really, and they range in size from smallish venues with a small stage, perhaps the size of Spanky's in Nana, to large venues, much bigger thanĪny farang gogo bar including Pattaya's Peppermint or Nana's Rainbow 4. Popular farang nightlife areas are used to. The bars are small street front operations making the whole environment feel completely different to what regulars of the Saphan Kwai might be known for its gogo bars but don't go thinking it is anything like Patpong, Nana or Cowboy. But to chronicle nightlife and entertainment in the city and not visit a nightlife areaįor so long was something of an oversight so this week myself and a friend decided a visit to Saphan Kwai was in order. A pal and I were not that impressed and until this week that had been my one and only visit. I visited Saphan Kwai once many, many years ago, perhaps 1999 or 2000. But just a short stroll from the Saphan Kwai skytrain station is a collection of gogo bars, not for Westerners, but for Thai men! You could be mistaken for thinking that it was just another drab, lower middle-class suburb that the skytrain powers The Saphan Kwai area is located roughly half way between Victory Monument and Morchit and is a residential area home to lower middle class.
Up until the 1960s the area known as Saphan Kwai was very much on the outskirts of Bangkok and home to rice fieldsĪnd thus, many buffaloes, hence the name. Saphan is Thai for bridge and kwai is Thai for buffalo so Saphan Kwai means "Buffalo Bridge" in English. Other than Patpong, the other farang gogo bar areas are not that well known amongst Thais.Īsk a local where the gogo bars are in Bangkok and they are likely to say Patpong…or they may say Saphan Kwai. Bangkok has three gogo bar areas, right? Patpong, the original farang gogo bar area dating back to the Vietnam era, Soi Cowboy which started up a little later and the newest entrant on the block which was converted from a once Middle Eastern-dominatedīangkok does indeed have three major gogo bar areas, but the three areas mentioned are those which directly target Western, and to a lesser extent, Japanese men.
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