Donde No ir en Soi Cowboy

Kiss is one of the Arab's bars. (Yes, I know he's Iranian but his nickname is "the Arab.") His bars on Soi Cowboy are usually bad news and some are really BAD news. Dean Barrett has warned about them here. The bars are Kiss, Sahara, Spice Girls, Deja Vu, Midnight and Rio. The Arab has recently acquired Rawhide but I don't know how much he has changed it.

Stickman has also written about the Arab's operations. But I have a hard time putting myself behind recommendations to boycott a business if I haven't had personal experience with it. So in July I went into Kiss on Soi Cowboy expecting a bad situation and that's what I got.

A San Miguel Light cost 180 baht, which is the most I can recall ever paying for a bottled beer in any go go or coyotee bar in LOS. From the second I stepped in, there was extreme pressure to buy LDs, which went at a whopping 270 baht. Since I knew this would happen, I simply steeled myself and said "no" to the steady stream of dancers that asked for drinks.

Far worse were the two old hag mama-sans who also demanded (they didn't just ask, they demanded) drinks. I swear one minute didn't go by without someone asking or telling me to buy drinks.

At Kiss, there were two groups of dancers: coyotees and ordinary dancers, distinguished by different costumes. Apparently the dancers (at least some of them) can be barfined, the coyotees can't. The dancers (in bikinis) didn't look better or worse than the line-up in any other bar on Cowboy or Nana or in Pattaya, but the coyotee line-up did indeed have a couple of beautiful girls. One of them started playing to me personally. That wasn't hard to do, since there was a total of three customers in the bar at the time. 

The young lady danced very well and had a seductive come-one from the stage. In any other bar, that would have been enough for me to buy her a drink. I know she's acting - that's her job - but she was acting well enough to get a drink. However, I didn't want to put one extra baht in the pocket of the Arab, so I called "chek bin." One of the mama-sans immediately began berating me with, "Why you no buy lady drink?," but I kept my cool and just smiled. No point in arguing with her and I was out only 180 baht (I didn't leave a tip).

However, I thought the coyotee dancer deserved some reward, at least a token in recognition of her sexy demeanor, so I tossed her a miniature teddy bear as I walked out. That's when an already bad situation took a turn for the worse. The two old hags demanded I also give them bears. I was tempted to answer, "I wouldn't give you the sweat off my balls if you were dying of thirst," but again I smiled and just said I didn't have any more (which was true). 

This final encounter with the wicked witch of Soi Cowboy took place while I was walking out of Kiss and I kept moving the whole time. But just outside of Kiss, the mama-san blocked my forward progress. Immediately the door staff closed ranks behind her. She demanded very forcibly that I give her something. Push had come to shove, at least verbally.

I knew I couldn't get past the mama-san and the slightest sign of aggression would have been met with a beat-down from the bouncers. I maintained my smile and answered that I nothing to give her. She didn't step aside and I wondered how long she intended to hold me hostage. Some intensive conversation took place between the bouncers and the mama-san and I imagined they were asking her what I had done and if I should get a clobbering. Perhaps they thought a stalemate just outside the entrance was a pretty silly situation.

I then decided to get creative. A group of farang were passing by in the middle of the soi. I waved and called out to them, "Wait for me, I'll be with you in a second." They didn't know me from Adam, but they responded to the shout-out and wave by stopping. The mama-san and door staff turned to see what was happening and at that point, I slipped past them into the soi. I was praying to all gods known and unknown that I wouldn't get a punch to the back of my head. Even as I moved into the flow of the pedestrian traffic, I half expected to hear running feet behind me.

But nothing happened. The friendly but startled farangs to which I had called didn't speak much English and were even more confused when I told them, "Sorry, I mistook you for a cavalry detachment." I was very lucky they passed by at just that second.

So if you're considering a visit to one of the Arab's bars, remember you're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. A house isn't going to drop on one of the Arab's wicked witches and I doubt even a bucket of carbolic acid would have an effect on their reptile hides.

Bottom line: avoid the Arab's bars. Nothing good can happen in them.

Evil