Bangkok’s famous red light district is a major draw for every visitor to the Kingdom. Whether for titillation, tits, or tchokies, every guide book recommends a visit to what once was the sleaziest four acres in SE Asia. Newbie sex touri easily fall prey to the touts who block the passage of any male from the age of sixteen to almost dead, while the more experienced bypass Patpong and head for Nana or Soi Cowboy. Newbie night market shoppers easily fall prey to the vendors, all of whom firmly believe in the old AT&T slogan ‘Reach Out And Touch Someone’, while the more experienced head to any other market in the city. But come they do – in all senses of the word – turning the two streets that make up Bangkok’s most notorious red light entertainment district into a nightly bazaar of the bizarre and exotic, though these days your route through Patpong 1 is just as likely to be blocked by a touri family pushing a stroller as it once was by aggressive vendors and gogo bar barkers flashing cards filled with examples of sexual positions you’d never heard of, or thought of before.

Some use the Patpong designation to include the general area of Silom where the district resides, but technically it is only the two full streets owned by the Patpongpanit Family, Patpong 1 and Patpong 2, and the small soi connecting them. Silom Soi 4, or Soi Jaruwan, sometimes referred to as Patpong 3 and home to a smattering of gay pubs, is not really part of Patpong nor is Soi Thaniya and its expensive bars that cater almost exclusively to Japanese visitors. Nor need they be. Whatever you are looking to buy you can find in Patpong proper. And whatever it is you are buying will be grossly over-priced and not of the best quality.

In fact, you have to wonder what the draw is. There are no decent restaurants in Patpong. Everything available for sale at the night market, both legal and illegal, can be found for half the price a ten minute taxi ride away. And that taxi ride, if it starts along Silom or Suriwong at Patpong will cost you more than it should too. There are no dance clubs or non-naughty nightlife joints to entice the younger crowd. There are better, and cheaper, hostess and gogo bars elsewhere, and the women working at those in Patpong are not the cream of the crop. A stroll down Soi Cowboy is better for people watching, and the barkers there are much less aggressive. Even the All-American fast food places have disappeared. With all the competition offered elsewhere, and just as readily accessible, Patpong should be a ghost town. Instead, it just keeps packing them in.

Some of that can be attributed to touri who don’t know any better. But after a few visits to Bangkok, you should. And yet many, including me, still can’t resist Patpong’s call. Part of my love affair with Patpong is nostalgia. But the Patpong I once knew and loved, the Patpong filled with seedy bars, loose women, and far too many women that weren’t is a thing of the past. The Patpong night market that once offered decent prices on knock-off goods – a different variety of merchandise than you’d find on Sukhumvit – is no longer part of the scene either. There used to be places you could go dancing, there used to be open-air beer bars where you could play pool, lose a game of Connect-4 to one of the working girls, or just sit and drink at prices you’d never see back home. All gone. All no longer the enticement that once called to me nightly. And still, given the option, I’d rather stroll through Patpong than take the far less congested route down Soi Thaniya.

The bustle of the night market hasn’t changed much since it started up in the early 1990s, though there is less selection in the goods offered and every vendor now tries to make their monthly haul off of any touri dumb enough to stop and peruse their merchandise. The nonstop litany of “Hey Mistah,” Watch for you Mistah,” is no longer as prevalent, even the gogo bar barkers are less vocal relying instead on shoving their cards showing all the disgusting things offered just one flight up into passers-by’s faces. But the energy that permeates the soi is the same, and the offer of Super Pussy in neon purple still casts it naughty shadow over the proceedings.

Patpong 2 these days seems dingier and seedier, but not in a good way. More ‘established’ bars have taken over the soi, replacing the wall to wall open air hostess bars that were once that part of Patpong’s claim to fame. On the plus side, you can make your way down Patpong 2 now without being physically attacked by the bevy of not-so- beauties working the beer bars. Screw Boy, the only gay gogo located in Patpong proper, still anchors one end of the soi. And I believe still has some of their original line-up of boys working there.

The one thing that hasn’t changed is the early evening scene when the market is being put together. Watching the workers assemble the night market should remove any prejudices you have that would lead you to believe Thai workers are lazy. With forklifts roaring and a non-stop clattering of steel poles against pavement, it’s a busy scene often highlighted by shirtless young men working up a sweat. Break-down is just as big of a production, but there are many better things for you to be doing at that hour of the morning than watch hot young Thai men at work.

When I first started going to Thailand, regardless of the friend or group of friends I was travelling with, Patpong was where we headed nightly. It is where we drank and partied and bought a clean set of clothes for the next day. Believing the hype of the barkers, it was the first place I experienced Thailand’s gogo bar world, and almost immediately wished the hype hadn’t been as spot on as it was. Ping Pong balls are still a staple of Patpong’s nightlife. The night market was the first place I bought tacky, supposedly handcrafted souvenirs, and I’m sure even back then I over paid for that crap. But then I think your should overpay for worthless trinkets you buy on holiday, it’s part of the balance of the universe. Or maybe it’s just you should be fined for having such lack of taste.

I bought my first pirated DVD in Patpong ( and continued to buy them there until I discovered you could get them for 20 baht less on Sukhumvit.) The first branch of Foodland I shopped at was at the one on Patpong 2, and my introduction to the Thai version of a pizza was in Patpong too. I can’t tell you how many years it’s been since I’ve spent any money in Patpong, over ten I’m sure, but I still can’t resist walking through the market or stopping to peruse a menu at one of the small restaurants than seem to spring up and then close down before my next trip.

Patpong was once home to punters on the prowl for cheap pussy. Now it’s more geared toward touri on the prowl for cheap and worthless goods. I once took first time visitors to Patpong to show them the city’s naughty nightlife. I’m not sure why I take them there now. But their eyes grow just as wide as mine once did, and later during the trip if I ask where they want to go for the night, “Patpong,” is invariably the answer. Patpong is not what it was twenty years ago. And shouldn’t be of any interest to me anymore. But something tells me that twenty years from now I’ll still have an urge to stroll through its streets.

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