Soi Cowboy

Soi Cowboy is a red-light district in Bangkok, Thailand. A short street with some 40 bars, it is similar to Nana Plaza and Patpong and caters mainly to tourists and expatriates.

It is located near Sukhumvit Road, between Sukhumvit Soi 21 (also called Soi Asoke) and Soi 23, within walking distance from the SkyTrain's "Asok Station" and the Bangkok Metro's "Sukhumvit Station". The Grand Millennium Hotel is nearby.

The go go bars follow the pattern common in Thailand: alcoholic drinks are served and women in bikinis dance on a stage. Topless or even nude dancing occasionally occurs in some bars, but remains technically illegal. Most of the dancers are also prostitutes and will join a customer if he pays a "bar fine" to the bar and a separate fee to the woman. Sexual services usually take place in the tourist's hotel room. Thai customers are normally not admitted to these bars unless accompanied by foreigners. Author John Burdett did research for his crime novels in Soi Cowboy and claims that all the women working here come from Isaan, [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/books/25burd.html At Home Amid the Red Lights] , "The New York Times", 25 October 2007] a poor agricultural region in the northeast of Thailand.

There are also a number of restaurants at Soi Cowboy, including what is perhaps Bangkok's best known fish and chips shop.

The area is named after T. G. "Cowboy" Edwards, a retired American airman who opened one of the first bars there in 1977. A tall African-American, Edwards got his nickname because he invariably wore a cowboy hat.

One staple of the Soi Cowboy nightlife are elephants frequently marched up and down the street by their handlers who are in the business of selling elephant food to tourists.

When Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was elected in 2001, his government instituted a "social order" campaign. As part of this campaign, all bars and nightclubs had to close by 2 am, later changed to 1 am for all areas not officially designated as "entertainment zones". (Unlike Patpong, Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza were not so designated). A mandatory midnight closing time was even discussed. As of 2006, the Soi Cowboy bars switch off their outside neon lights by 1 am and usually close at 2 am.

Soi Cowboy's reputation suffered a temporary blow when, as part of the same social order campaign, the area was closed off by police one Friday night in November 2003 and all workers and patrons were required to submit to urine testing for drugs.

Near their entrances, all go go bars carry government-mandated signs in Thai and English; the unintentionally ambiguous text reads,

NO-ONE INSIDE
UNDER 20 YEARS
DRUG-FREE

During the 2004 International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, a bead sculpture made in Soi Cowboy was displayed as part of the cultural program.

Films and songs

In 2000, the Norwegian group Getaway People released a song called "Soi Cowboy" about this area.The American rock band Sun City Girls also have a song called Soi Cowboy on their 1996 album "330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda."

Actor Hugh Grant and his entourage visited Soi Cowboy in December 2003, while shooting the movie "". The "Tilac Bar" and several Soi Cowboy bar girls are seen in the film. A London tabloid, "The Sun", wrote on 23 December 2003 that Grant was chased by bar girls and had to flee, but that appears to be false. [ [http://www.mangosauce.com/archives/000133.html Hugh Grant story] ]

Two 1-hour episodes of the British comedy/drama "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" were shot in the Summer of 2004 in Bangkok, partly in Soi Cowboy.

The bars "Moonshine Joint" and "Dollhouse" appear in Jordan Clark's 2005 documentary "Falang: Behind Bangkok's Smile" (known as "Bangkok Girl" in the US) which takes a rather critical view of sex tourism.

In August 2006, scenes for the film "Bangkok Dangerous" were shot in Soi Cowboy. [August 20, 2006. [http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/Weekly2006/weekly276.htm Stickman Weekly 20/8/2006] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.bangkokbob.net/cowboy.htm Map and description of the bars]
* [http://www.cityphotoguide.com/image/tid/15 Soi Cowboy Bars Photo Guide]
* Videos of Soi Cowboy: [http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=soi+cowboy Google Video] , [http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Soi+Cowboy&search=Search YouTube]