Hit or miss, or hot and cold

[Pattaya One]

There’s a certain perverse allure about really bad go-go bars. Of the 70-plus dens of the chrome pole stretched across Fun Town, there are a few which have survived for some length of time despite looking as though they could, or should, be closing down at any tick of the clock.

A perfect bar...I guess you can't be sued for wishful advertising

One of these dens is Hot & Cold (Soi Post Office). The joint kicks into a kind of life (oxygen might help) at about 3:30pm seven days a week and bats through until about 2:00am. On a recent visit I wandered into the place about half an hour after opening to see two girls on stage. Both were past their use-by date, but since I was feeling masochistic, as well as thirsty, I decided to stay. Drinks prices start at around 60 baht and the management of the den understand their demographic because lady drinks are set at a realistic 90 baht.

One of the dancers decided I must have been on my first visit to Pattaya and had wandered in by mistake, because she came over and attempted to impress upon me the wonders that could be revealed if only I would agree to go upstairs with her for a short period of cavity inspection, both hers and mine. The fee for this exercise she stated would ‘only’ be 1,300 baht, including the room. She took my refusal as shyness and persisted, eventually discounting the proposal to a grand sum of 1,000 baht, all in. Not to put too fine a point on it, but she simply wasn’t ‘my type’, so no amount of promotional pricing was going to get me to take the stairway to a dubious heaven.

By the time I left the bar, a few more dancers had wandered through the doors and I have to say a couple looked far better than I would have expected. Despite this, I happen to think Hot & Cold definitely sits in the bottom 10 percent of the go-go pile of Fun Town.

©Duncan Stearn

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