Events

Every year, Bangkok hosts one of the largest Pride festivals in South East Asia. But it doesn’t have to be Pride Week for there to be a great party going on in Bangkok. Things are hopping all over the city every night of the week with a large variety of choices on offer and someone available for everyone.

The best place to start on a night’s adventure out on Bangkok is Silom soi 4. Bangkok’s Gay street is a wonderland of homosexuality that draws crowds of people from all over the world into its midst every night.Cushions, chairs and patio tables line the street offering plenty of opportunities to sit back and watch the crowds go by, as well as be seen. While the night is young, there is no better place for a cocktail than the Balcony, the establishment with the most number of tables along the soi and the best happy hour prices on the block.When the weather is less conducive to sitting outside, the Telephone Bar and Restauarant is the place to be.

With a telephone connecting every table, its easy to have an intimate conversation, despite the noise, with someone several tables away, even if you’ve never met them before in your life!The earliest of the cabaret-style shows on the soi begin at 21:00 but the shows occur in several establishments throughout the night so don’t worry if it seems as if you just missed one. The best place to check out a drag show is the G.O.D. club. The club’s name stands for ‘guys on display’ and it certainly delivers. The club’s reputation goes back to when it went under the name of the Freeman Dance Arena and the shows are a heady mix of feminine drag queens and unmistakably masculine performers.“G.O.D. club looks great, the music is fantastic and it’s open until at least 04:00. It blows other clubs completely away”, said British tourist Jack Nambert who returns to Bangkok on vacation almost every year. He says that the discos and saunas are great, but it’s the cabaret shows at G.O.D. that really bring him back every year.One reason the drag shows are so great in Bangkok is because the drag queens in Bangkok are like none other in the world. For one thing, men dressing as women occupy a long-standing place in Thai society and can be seen almost anywhere from highly visible Thai sitcoms to the clerk at the local 7-11. Known as kathoey in Thai, and lady boys in English, the drag queens of Silom road are sure to put on a spectacular show and may even go out dancing with you afterwards.One of the best places for dancing, DJ Station, begins the evening with a cabaret show of its own. The entry fee is entirely reasonable and includes the show and two free drinks. The bartenders, when you can fight your way through the press of half-naked bodies to the bar, mix them strong and favor strange colourful cocktails with Thai names.Although Silom is a great place to meet traveling partners and people from exotic places, it may not be the best place to really sample the flavor of nightlife Thai style.There is a decent-sized gay strip around the corner of Ramkhamhaeng and Lamsalee roads.

The bars there all play great music and, unlike many of the bars on Silom street, serve drinks at fairly reasonable prices. ICK, SeaTrue, Crazy and Finalle are some of the better bars on the strip and tend to be packed with Thai guys, especially on the weekend.“I feel so much less repressed here than I do back home. I walk along the street in Bangkok hand in hand with my man and nobody bats an eye. I love it”.Bars and clubs specifically catering to women are less easy to come by and in Bangkok are somewhat of a rarity. Unlike Silom toad, there is no real area where travelers might find a concentration of gay women. The best bet is Sukhumvit road.Two bars are located on Sukhumvit soi 32 and are hot on the weekend. Mambo is a restaurant with a cabaret show and a great place to go if you feel like getting dressed out and splurging a little. Thumbs Up also attracts a good number of lesbians on the weekend.Just down the street is Vega on soi 39. The restaurant is operated by a lesbian couple. It can be a bit dull during the week, but on the weekend there is a live band and a great menu as well as eye candy by the table full. If nothing else, the owners are always happy to chat and give out the scoop on where to find the party in Bangkok.Many Thai lesbians don’t tend to favor one establishment. Because they are welcome in the general public, you can find them anywhere, if you know what you are looking for.Most women who like women in Thailand prefer not to be called lesbians, finding that the word has too many associations with western pornography. Instead they generally refer to themselves as either toms or dees. Toms, like tomboys, generally tend to be more masculine. Dees, like ladies, tend to be more feminine. Toms in public are the more visible of the two.Never the less, finding lesbians, meeting them and penetrating their parties can be difficult. “I lived in Thailand for 6 months and every weekend I would go looking for someone else, anyone else, who was gay. I just could not meet any women”, complained Melissa O’Mara, a teacher from Australia. “Finally”, she said, “I discovered the internet”.