In this instalment, Dan & Andy venture from the bowels of Siam Square to the heights of Sukhumvit to bring you, the reader, all the excitement the night can bring, without the hangover and liver damage. Words by Daniel Cooper and Andrew Morgan, photos by Dan too.
CM2, Novotel Siam Square, 10:20pm
Andy: An old Bangkok favourite of mine and the place I never seem to leave without being completely hammered. It’s a great place to witness a bizarre international mélange of tourists, locals and businessmen all getting drunk and randy. Dan is too much of a lowlife for hotel discos but I find them superb entertainment. What more could one ask for from a night out than flashing lights, chrome and a cheesy cover band. We arrived early to ensure quick service of alcohol and swiftly sank a few cold ones to warm up. Something I’ve always liked about the Thai take on nightclubs is the abundance of tables and service. Definitely more fitting for a man of my calibre than queuing up at a crowded bar with the riff-raff like Dan. Full marks for effort go to the band Too Close for their supersonic dance performance.
Dan: I’m always a fan of any club with a mathematical name. We arrived too early and the place was empty so Andy and I went for a wander around Siam Square to find a quiet drink. Has anyone ever noticed there is not a single bar in Siam Square other than the Hard Rock? I smell a rat. Giving up and wandering back 15 minutes later we found CM2 filling up nicely and the band getting underway. The club itself is large, including a karaoke lounge (Sensations), a restaurant (Foccacia) and a trance-pit (The Boom Room) and is decked out with more flashing lights than Bangkok International Airport. Andy was obviously in his element and had dressed up in his newest hi-so clothes, looking kind of like a hairy James Bond. Glancing around I noticed all the women were Thai and all the men were Farang. A coincidence? To begin with most of the guys in there were the graying, gutted types who stopped following fashion in the 80s, which was OK because the club has an overall 80s feel, though not quite retro. BYO coke and leather tie. By the time we left the younger crowd had arrived, so I wasn’t the only one with my shirt untucked. The Viper Room it ain’t but everyone seemed to be having a good time downing beers and winking at the girls. But being shallower and pretentious chaps, Andy and I decided to go somewhere where we could plant our noses firmly in the air along with the beautiful people of Bangkok.
Q Bar – 4th Birthday Party, Sukhumvit Soi 11, 11:45
Dan: It was an invite-only gig, you see. Being a high-powered journalist may mean long hours, low pay and humiliating assignments but it does have the odd perk, such as being invited to ultra-exclusive events. Apparently this wasn’t that exclusive because the place was absolutely packed, must have had something to do with the free drinks. There were more glam people than you could shake a rhythm stick at, men wearing lab-coat-like linen jackets, women with feather boas and one fellow who looked like he was on his way to a snooker game, so obviously my first instinct was to start a fight. My only excuse is that the stresses caused by feelings of social discomfort or envy make me violent. Plus, there’s nothing like breaking a barstool across the back of another man to really get the night going. But that was just an idle, drunken fantasy. Then the tune, “I got the Power! duh, duh, duh, duh, duh,” thundered from the speakers. SNAP had come back from their early 90’s grave to haunt me again. Then it was “Walk This Way,” not what I expected from the people who brought out DJ Tat Money to play for us earlier in the year. Thankfully, the mix-tape was replaced by an MC (MC Mischa of Montreal) rapping birthday songs. Finding the madding crowds somewhat maddening, I slipped onto the balcony to make friends with a clown (the red-nosed variety, but I guess we were all a little flushed by that stage) and some film types and that was me for the evening. Just another night in wacky old Bangkok.
Andy: Never ones to miss a VIP party, especially one with the promise of free booze, we fought our way through the writhing throng to the bar. My fears of being accompanied to one of the town’s more sophisticated venues by Dan were quickly realised, and it was all I could do to stop him smashing a bar stool over some jerk’s back. Despite a savagery akin to bare-knuckle boxing around the bar, the happy vibe thankfully suffused the rest of the club and the place was almost splitting at the seams. I always seem to have strange chance meetings in the queue for the toilets at Q Bar and tonight was no exception. One of the strangest altercations with a Thai woman I’ve ever had, she began by winking at me, insisted she was from Vietnam, kept saying, “I understand” with a knowing nod of the head, put my hand on her hip and then told me to go away. I gave her Dan’s phone number.