Patpong

Patpong is Bangkok's oldest red-light district and today the most touristy of the three. A night market runs through the middle of it selling the usual fake goods — you'll be dodging shoppers as much as bar touts. The GoGo bars are still there, still running, but the energy is lower than Cowboy or Nana and the overall feel is more casual.

That's not entirely a bad thing. Patpong is the right choice for a first night when you're jet-lagged and want to ease in, or if you're with someone who wants to see the scene without being in the middle of it. The bars on the ground floor are relaxed. The upstairs venues — the ones touts push aggressively with laminated menus of "ping pong shows" — are well-known tourist traps. The shows exist but the pricing is a scam: what starts as a 100 THB cover ends up as a 3,000 THB bill for drinks you didn't order. Don't go upstairs with anyone who approached you on the street.

Patpong is walking distance from BTS Sala Daeng and MRT Silom. It's the easiest of the three to reach from the Silom hotel belt, which makes it popular with package tourists. Peak hours are 8pm to midnight.

Patpong is two parallel sois — Patpong 1 and 2 — running between Silom and Surawong, and a covered night market jammed down the middle of Patpong 1 selling counterfeit watches, bags and t-shirts. You navigate the bar scene by weaving through shoppers and tout patter. The ground-floor GoGo bars are straightforward: a-go-go dancing, beer, lady drinks, barfines. The trap is the upstairs "special show" venues — the ping-pong show scam that Patpong is infamous for, where a "free" show ends in a padded bill and a doorman who won't let you leave until you pay. Stay downstairs and the prices are posted and normal.

Patpong 2 is quieter and a touch more local. The whole area is the most tourist-saturated of Bangkok's three red-light zones and the tamest — coachloads of curious sightseers pass through alongside the punters, which gives it a more open, less serious feel than Cowboy or Nana.

The women working Patpong are Thai, predominantly from Isaan, on the standard Bangkok GoGo and beer-bar model. The scene skews a little older and more worn-in than Soi Cowboy's — Patpong has been running since the Vietnam-war R&R era and trades partly on that history. The manner is relaxed and used to tourists who are there to gawk as much as to drink.

Because Patpong doubles as a night-market thoroughfare, plenty of the women you pass are market vendors and shoppers, not bar staff — it's a more mixed, public street than the enclosed Cowboy or Nana. English on the bar floor is functional and tuned to short tourist exchanges. As everywhere in Bangkok, the genuine non-bar women are friendly but conservative; Patpong itself is a working strip, not a place to meet them.