Thread: Local Kareoke Bars

No, not a rip off. But you do need to speak reasonable Thai really.

Take a decent bird with you & they're good fun.

take an indecent bird, and they are more fun

find the indecent girl, buy beer on the way…..home
Fun and less worry about a ripoff

true Moon, and you don't have to put up with the incessant whining known as "singing" in the karaoke bar

There are a lot of these places where I live. Their common decor theme is ' post holocaust dereliction ' with a few tacky fairy lights spoiling the dreary effect. I guess you need to be pissed before entering to best appreciate this indifference to ambient atmosphere. On a more cheary note, there is no need for spittoons as the concrete floors are spacious and multi purpose and are quickly hosed down in the interests of hygene every morning. Most of the furniture seems to have been purchased at firesale prices. That is , sold on account of fire damage.

As to the entertainment, such as it is, I guess I have yet to hear a song in English from their kareoke equipment but as I'm only dining at the seafood restaurant across the street for about an hour, what do I know. What I can say is that in my opinion, many of the girls ( not that many ) working these places are young, nubile and up for more than a sing song. On several occasions I have been enticed to enter these places by plaintif cat calls but the gf always yanks on my choke chain and brings me to heel before I can get a good wag going so I don't know what I'm missing or if the price would be worth it.
I would say that you would need pretty good Thai to give these places a closer inspection and I wouldn't go on a weekend or end of the month after payday as you don't want to be jostling for female attention with a lot of pissed up Thai blokes who might not like a honky muscling in on their turf.
Good luck with it anyhow.

Indeed, why is it that they insist on singing, even though they sound like a cat being disemboweled with a rusty spoon?

There's no pleasure in torture, that's why it's called "torture" and not "a bloody good laugh".

Originally Posted by StrontiumDog

Bt2,250 for 45 bottles of mixer

blimey, lucky they didn't get charged to go pee

Originally Posted by jaiyenyen

Are they a rip off? Have any of you tried them? What was your experience.

You are taking a chance when you frequent one of these places, the first time I tried it I got stung and it was pretty intimidating stuff.
The next time I went I took a Thai guy I knew, he made sure I didn't ripped off or intimidated and acted as my interpreter. No body messed me about because of him, this was his job and he made sure everybody knew it.
Don't take a wimp

^ yeah, this seems to be the best bet.
I think it's the pretty fairy lights outside, making it look like Santa's Grotto, that make me want to go inside. That and the thought of a girlie on my knee, "Now what would you like for Christmas little girl".

Originally Posted by jaiyenyen

^ yeah, this seems to be the best bet.
I think it's the pretty fairy lights outside, making it look like Santa's Grotto, that make me want to go inside. That and the thought of a girlie on my knee, "Now what would you like for Christmas little girl".

Good fun if you do it right, nightmare if you get it wrong.
Make sure your guy is clued up, my guy went in first if he didn't know the place, checked it out and then gave me the nod, or not.

I didn't know that just going to have a few drinks can be THAT COMPLICATED!

with all those emo, signals, encrypted wink wink....etcs

I've never had a problem. If you understand Thai you should be okay. The Mamasan will explain everything for you... there are price structures, you pay for drinks, mixers, songs and time.

Ask before you go in. Prices range quite a bit, but as said, the Mamasan will lay it out for you before you go in.

Went to a couple of those Thai karaoke places with my Thai son in law and my Thai driver. Both middle ranking Chinese Thai army dudes. Never had a problem, but wouldn't consider going there on my own. The places we went to were quite obviously just a front for prostitution with some entertainment thrown in.

Also went to the local tavern up country that was putting on a karaoke night with a touring group from Bangkok. It was pretty tame by comparison. But the thing is that if you offer to buy one of the singers a drink you are also expected to pay for their company while they sit at your table. No doubt extra activities at your place are negotiable.
I think half of them were katoeys anyway. Shocking singers too.

Tricky thing whoring off the beaten track, all sorts of perils to contend with Moony.

a farang got set upon, beaten and stabbed in the arm by 4 thai men as he was walking past a karaoke joint on sukhumvit 31 last week.

he had complained about pavement encroachment by their tables etc.

this was at 7.30 in the evening. the police just up the road guarding the prime ministers house just stood and watched. they eventually took him to hospital though as he was bleeding badly.

i've been in a couple of these places, not in bangkok and always in a group, but have no desire to ever go back.

low rent, dirty, rough and not very friendly, the domesday combination of disgruntled off duty policemen, thai male scumbags, alcohol, weapons and whores means that violent outbursts are an ever present threat.

drinking or socialising in these places, unless taken by thais, cannot really be recommended, even for those who enjoy the thrill of sleaze or gain succour from an occasional walk on the wild side or a crawl in the gutter.

for psychos only.

I use them but normally take my on booze along. I've never used the ones in Bangkok though only up country always seem friendly places.

We've got a couple out here in the sticks.

I went, with a mate on one drunken night. The words fail me......

boring, expensive, tacky, perverse, annoying, dirty, waste of time, inane.......

OK the words don't fail me but what really pissed me off, and got us evicted from the premises, was me complaining about the trucky with the 8 year old Laos kid. The reaction from the lardy assed trucky was " fuck off falang it's none of your business".

Fair comment maybe, but my Thai mate also thought it was out of order. He was told the same.

It tended towards the unpleasant.

Really unpleasant scenario. Anyway we left. I'd never go back.

My mate reported it to the BIB but I don't think anything happened.

In Banchang there are a few down the road from the Falang bars. I've had a few good nights there, but they're used to the Falang and don't take the piss quite so much.

When I was younger and stupid about throwing money about I took a membership in the Pegusus Club just off Soi 23 in Bangkok.

This place is basically a high class brothel with an assortment of generally beautiful girls whereby you pick the girls you want and then take them off too private Karaoke rooms where anything was possible (apart from singing).

This period of my life kind of cured me of everything to do with Karaoke bars and I have not been in one for over 10 years.

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

When I was younger and stupid about throwing money about I took a membership in the Pegusus Club just off Soi 23 in Bangkok.

This place is basically a high class brothel with an assortment of generally beautiful girls whereby you pick the girls you want and then take them off too private Karaoke rooms where anything was possible (apart from singing).

This period of my life kind of cured me of everything to do with Karaoke bars and I have not been in one for over 10 years.

Yes indeed, sometimes you really need to "live the dream" to get this out of your system...I too have never been back to a Karaoke bar since!

Originally Posted by Missismiggins

It is like entering the Twilight Zone, especially if, like myself your command of the local dialect leaves something to be desired.

I ended up (I was pissed when i went in to one of the local ones up here in Chiang Mai- not a good idea)

I ended up with a few Mae Hong Song girls who spoke no English, nor Thai by the sound of it, who were friendly enough, but managed to order platefuls of food at my expense (it wasn't a lot - maybe 500 baht for the food and a few beers)

However, the real expense came later in the evening when a bunch of twats from Chom thong arrived and were taking the piss about the farang - normally, i can put up with quite a bit, but that night (it's 5 years ago) I lost it, I remember taking the monkey wrench out of the car, and sitting down at their table- it was like "enough is enough!)

Next thing, I woke up in a ditch, the car wrecked, shouting "fuck off" to two cops trying to pull me from the wreck, by the way they did just that - yes, they fucked off!

The truck was fucked, as was I, but was eventually scooped out of the upturned wreck by those kindly boys that drive the red pick ups that cart off the dead.

Anyway, turns out, (from the account of the Mamasan) the twats from chom thong had decided not to kill the drunken Farang, but spiked my drinks, I had gotten about 2KM from the bar when whatever it was took effect - the car ended up in the ditch.

The guys in the red pickup were great - took me home - how the hell they knew where I was from still amazes me - about another 5 KM into the sticks.

The wife then got them to take me another 15K to the local hospital where I got stitched up, and then they brought me back home.

I don't know what this little jolly cost in total, I never bring it up in polite conversation, but I certainly had no more than 2K baht on me at the time, and I saw the head X ray and stitch up job receipt, it was 800 baht alone...sadly, the repairs to the car were a considerably higher price....don't go into Santas' Grotto unless you know what you are doing...I was an arsehole!

Looking back, i was a complete idiot - I was lucky I wasn't

1: Beaten to death.
2: Poisened / Drugged
3: Killed in the crash
4 Arrested.

The cops did nothing - as I say - they fucked off!

Never got the monkey wrench back!

At least they decided to drug you and rob you rather than beating you to a pulp first. Farangs in Thai places have a lot of things going against them from the start, especially if they are pissed up and cheeky. All of these places involved in prostitution are going to be on the payroll to the local cops. So no point expecting the BIB to help you out. But I guess you already know that.

Unfortunately the mrs is not a K fan but before I got married I used to go a lot. Don't let people tell you that you need to speak more than basic thai. I did not and never had a problem in K bars all over Bangkok and up country. One of the best was in the basement of the sofitel hotel in KK. Also, you do not have to select songs from the book to sing, tell them you want to listen and they change the sound track over, nobody minds, just tell them what singers you like if you cannot read. I used to photocopy CD covers to show the staff and point out the songs. I would give the posh ones around Rachada a miss, expensive and pretty boring, best are the cheap fairy light ones. They are a lot of fun and are cheap, they all have menus from what I remember.