Another Sunee Bar Closes

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Undaunted
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Another Sunee Bar Closes

Post by Undaunted »

I do not know its name. It is owned by a Frenchman called Alan. It is a 3 unit bar next to Double Shot on the same side as was Krazy Dragon.
"In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king"
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Re: Another Sunee Bar Closes

Post by ilz »

Sky Bar ... very bad news indeed. Good Boys will look darker than ever.
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Re: Another Sunee Bar Closes

Post by Gaybutton »

I'm sorry yet another bar has closed, but I'm not surprised. The only thing that surprises me about Sunee Plaza these days is the number of bars still able to remain open. The customer numbers simply are not there. Very few bars are still getting customer numbers enough to sustain themselves - and that means many of the boys are not making enough money to motivate them to continue working in the bars. A bar boy you may have met and liked during your last holiday in Pattaya might very well have disappeared by the time you return for your next holiday.

In Sunee Plaza's most prolific years you were lucky to even get a seat in most of the bars - both go-go and beer bars. You had to arrive early if you wanted to be sure to get the boy of your choice before someone else took him off. Those days are long gone.

I used to go to Sunee Plaza nearly every night, to the point that on some boards a few sarcastic posters labeled me "Mayor of Sunee Plaza." If I ever occupied that position, I abdicated long ago. Now I hardly ever go to Sunee Plaza at all, maybe 2 or 3 times a month. And even then I rarely stay longer than about a half hour.

I can only hope Sunee Plaza can somehow resurrect itself before the only thing left for anyone to do is to remember it.

When I do go, I see only a few farang. Now that high season is kicking in, there are more, but still not very many - certainly nothing similar to the numbers years ago. The boys sit outside of the beer bars hoping to draw in customers, but most end up chatting among themselves and staring into their mobile phones.

Think about the reason the boys work in the bars at all. They are there hoping to "have farang." Most come from very poor backgrounds. I've never seen a boy from a wealthy family working in a bar as a go-go boy. For most, their dream is to find a farang boyfriend who will "take care me," meaning financially support them. A few get lucky, but most don't. Sooner or later most end up back on the rice farm, doomed to a life of struggling to stay one step above abject poverty.

I believe much of Pattaya's gay scene now consists of farang and boys finding each other on the apps. Giving credit where it is due, Undaunted predicted the present situation years ago. I didn't believe it would happen this way and I vehemently disputed him. I have to admit I was the one who turned out to be wrong.

In Pattaya the gay beach scene is mostly gone. The gay bar scene continues to dwindle and now it is rare to see a new bar open. But the use of apps has surged.

We'll see what develops, but I don't think we really need a crystal ball to predict how things are going to eventually play out. I hope I'm wrong about that too and I hope Sunee Plaza somehow makes a comeback.

However, none of that means Pattaya is no longer a gay paradise for those looking for willing young gents. There are still plenty to go around - just as many boys as ever - and I believe there always will be. But you may need to work on developing an expertise in working with the apps to find them.
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Re: Another Sunee Bar Closes

Post by Undaunted »

The way it was:

"In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king"
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Re: Another Sunee Bar Closes

Post by Gaybutton »

Undaunted wrote:The way it was:
That video is around 9 or 10 years old by now. Those boys have long since disappeared. If you want to find any of them, better start traveling to the rice farms . . .
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Re: Another Sunee Bar Closes

Post by gerefan »

That video is so depressing.
Every bar,with a sign in that video has closed!
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Re: Another Sunee Bar Closes

Post by Dodger »

Watching the lights get turned off one-by-one in Sunee is definitely sad to say the least.

I would never have selected Bang Saray as the place to hang my hat after retirement if Sunee plaza had even a glimpse of life left in it - as this is where I spent 2 decades of my life and loved every minute of it. But, unfortunately, we all saw this coming years ago and I knew by the time I retired Sunee, as well as the entire gay scene in Pattaya, would have changed dramatically.

I have visited Sunee once in the past 2 months and have mixed emotions about my night out on-the-town. On one hand I had a good time chugging down a few Leo's at Green Chairs followed by visits to Winner Bar, Eros and Nice Boys, but on the other hand I found myself consumed by images the ghosts of the past. I sat at Green Chairs staring across the soi at where Euro Boy Gogo used to operate seeing the images of Mamasan Jack pulling the punters inside with one hand while grabbing some boys cock with the other, and a very young new comer named Mo (Thep) who sat on the chair next to the door greeting customers with that irresistible show-stopper smile of his. Then I glanced across the opposite side of the soi at Double Shot which is nothing more than a well-decorated mask of what Corner Bar used to be. I saw the image of the dozens of regular free lancers who used to hang around Corner with Michael sitting at the bar nursing his fish bowl sized wine glass while "A" the waiter refilled the popcorn machine. I blinked my eyes twice at where Mama Lek was sitting and envisioned Sundance Gogo in its hayday and of course the one-and-only KAOS. These ghosts of the past are etched in my memory and when I visit Sunee now it has more to do with dancing with the ghosts than it does any other motivating factor.
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Re: Another Sunee Bar Closes

Post by James the First »

I would think that rather than in rice fields a number of these boys in the short film are quite dead. The kids have to get past the gauntlets of AIDS, drug addiction, self destruction and booze. (I have personally cared for three who have died of our plague.) They were under equipped to survive when they arrive. The lucky ones get to the rice fields with a little money. Why are these boys looking at their phones when they are at the bar? Obviously, they don't have to waste time standing around a bar any more to service their clients.

As to "no place being the same" neither are we. We are not fifty pretending to be thirty any more either. You do not see any 25 year old tourist gay guys coming here for fun for a reason. They don't need to so clubbing is out. Also, ageism exists within the "gay community" as well. Lots of young cool guys don't want to hang out with older guys even in a bar situation where neither has to even speak to one another. "This bar is not my scene" or it's gay equivalent: "I don't want to hang in a wrinkle room. People will think I am a hooker." The only "younger" gay tourists I have seen have been Russian because of the relative nearness of Russia and the wide open freedom here compared to Russia.

The good news: "We won." The bad news: "We don't have a reason for bars any more."
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Re: Another Sunee Bar Closes

Post by aussie »

I was at Skybar for Alain's birthday on the last night before he closed the bar. Not an advertised party but he had organized a huge birthday cake for those present. I hope Alain opens another business in a good location. He is an excellent chef and knows how to welcome and look after his customers. Very sad that he renovated Skybar just before the fast decline of Sunee. If the bar was in Jomtien Complex it would have been a winner and still open.

I believe Nice Boys will survive on Soi VC but i can see the bulldozers going through the other sois in the near future. All the empty buildings and no rent must be tempting for a sale to the developers.
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Re: Another Sunee Bar Closes

Post by Gaybutton »

aussie wrote:I was at Skybar for Alain's birthday on the last night before he closed the bar.
I wonder why, after keeping the bar open so long without many customers, he chose to close the bar now, just as high season is getting underway.
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