Ask, confirm or deny a few Pattaya myths right here...

[Butch]

2 hours ago, lazarus said:

I recall hearing this about Chang Beer too.

Could be one of those Bar Beer Bangkok myths tho...

Interesting one that. I was told by a mate that some of the beer (forget the name) I used to drink in India had glycerin in it, and as such it absorbed water so it would dehydrate you alot, give worse hangovers and if you left a sealed bottle for a while, the level inside would drop (never tried this - but the hangover part is right).

Not heard of formaldehyde in beer though, well as an added ingredient at least.

Someone told me Mekhong was partly "synthetic" - although no idea about that, but the one thing I did find with it was that it tasted very very similar to bacardi when mixed with coke.

I don't get on well with blended whiskies anyway, so never really tried it. I've possibly had 3 glasses of it in my entire lifetime. Same same for Sangsom.

 

[Stillearly]

6 minutes ago, Butch said:

 

Someone told me Mekhong was partly "synthetic" - although no idea about that, but the one thing I did find with it was that it tasted very very similar to bacardi when mixed with coke.

I don't get on well with blended whiskies anyway, so never really tried it. I've possibly had 3 glasses of it in my entire lifetime. Same same for Sangsom.

 

both Mekong and Sangsom are rums I believe 

[Bazle]

2 hours ago, lazarus said:

I recall hearing this about Chang Beer too.

I was told the same about Singha, and advised to drink Singha Gold instead.

[Yessongs]

Late to the party here sorry..I looked over a trip report from 2006 in Patts right? 

Girl from one of the go go's after an LT told me" It's Ok if you do not want to pay me this morning, can you come back tomorrow and I just need 500 more baht, it's OK Ka" ? 

True story....that never happened to me anywhere, ever again. 

[Bazle]

Double post

Edited July 28, 2022 by Bazle

[coxyhog]

Slightly off topic but I worked in Sweden for a few years & the local lager always gave me a bad hangover,they reckon the government puts formaldehyde into it to try & curb alcoholism.

I always drank either bottled beer or Guinness.

[Aqualung]

1 hour ago, coxyhog said:

Slightly off topic but I worked in Sweden for a few years & the local lager always gave me a bad hangover,they reckon the government puts formaldehyde into it to try & curb alcoholism.

I always drank either bottled beer or Guinness.

You may be correct Coxy. I prefer to think that at £7 for less than a pint is the real reason for putting folks off buying beer in bars here. 

[coxyhog]

13 minutes ago, Aqualung said:

You may be correct Coxy. I prefer to think that at £7 for less than a pint is the real reason for putting folks off buying beer in bars here. 

I was there 2007-9 & I think Guinness was around a fiver but I could be wrong.I was working 12 hour days so didn't go out that much,working 13 days on 8 off I always took the Sunday off in the middle of that so went on the piss on the Saturday night.

We stayed in the Ibis in Malmo & got a discount on large bottles of Heineken in their bar which is where I was most nights.

[Butch]

3 hours ago, Stillearly said:

both Mekong and Sangsom are rums I believe 

bloody hell!

I honestly thought they were blended Whiskies!. I really didn't like the taste, hence my aversion to them but every day is a schoolday lol 😄😄😄

There's another drink I actively avoid and that's "3 pipers"  - it seems popular with the girls for getting drunk to, but my go to spirits in Thailand are Gin and Bacardi and very rarely Jack Daniels.

 

[lazarus]

3 hours ago, Bazle said:

I was told the same about Singha, and advised to drink Singha Gold instead.

When I lived in Silom (Bangkok) across from Patpong, I heard that about Singha too. Seems that if I drank more than 7 or 8 regular Sings or any Changs I would feel it between the ears the next day.

Consequently, I switched over to Leo (w/ice) and could drink all night with marginal effect except for a few 'beer goggle' decisions unbeknownst to me until the morning.  

After awhile I often just drank club soda and my 'girlfriend' choice immediately improved! 😁

[coxyhog]

4 hours ago, Bazle said:

I was told the same about Singha, and advised to drink Singha Gold instead.

My first couple of trips in 1981 I was on Singha & feeling really rough the next day so I went on to Kloster.

Kloster was shite but I could drink it all day & feel okay in the morning.

The other alternative was Amarit but very few bars sold it.

One thing that is so much better these days & that's the choice & quality of the beer available.

[Evil Penevil]

On 7/25/2022 at 4:20 PM, Butch said:

"The Permanent Barfine"

Was it a myth? ...

Does it still exist? - Did it ever exist? - would it work today?.

@Evil Penevil - your thoughts on this would be appreciated 🙂

@Butch  Permanent bar fines did exist, but in my opinion, they were not a major factor in the grand scheme of P4P in Thailand.  Perhaps they occurred more frequently in the 1960s through 1990s, but they never affected more than very few customers.  I don't believe any bar would have a chance of collecting a permanent bar fine today unless the customer was extremely naive and the girl was in on the scam.

Supposedly the purpose of the permanent bar fine was to ensure the girl left the bar on good terms and could return to work there in the future if she wished to.  Twenty to  60 years ago, bar owners had a lot more power over the girls than today, especially in Bangkok. 

The names of girls who were fired or quit abruptly were said to have been put on a blacklist so they could never again work in a bar.  That was more legend than fact, but a lot of TGs believed it and wanted the permanent BF paid.  It wasn't permanent, though. 

A friend of mine took a girl out of a BKK bar for six weeks in the late 1990s and paid 7,000 baht for the permanent BF.  On his next trip, he wanted to take her for a month and they asked for another 7,000 baht.  It was in reality a long-term BF he didn't mind paying since he was earning a lot of money from a series of jobs in the Middle East.  He got along well with the girl and arranged for her to stay with him two years while he was on a major construction project.  The bar wanted 20,000 baht that time, but he refused, more because he thought they were playing him for a sucker.

There  was a darker side to permanent bar fines having to do with debt bondage.  Thai bar owners would lend a sum of money to a girl's family and the girl would have to remain working in the bar until the loan was repaid. If a farang wanted to take a girl with a debt out of the bar, he'd have to pay off the debt as a permanent bar fine.  Debt bondage is now considered a form of trafficking.

Evil

 

[Evil Penevil]

4 hours ago, Bazle said:

I was told the same about Singha, and advised to drink Singha Gold instead.

Yes, there were a lot of rumors about formaldehyde in beer brewed in Asia.  They go back as far as the Viet Nam War,  but had a resurgence due to the Internet.  From an article that busts these myths back in 2003 (Beer Myths: Formaldehyde😞

"Of course there is no formaldehyde in Singha -- any more than there is formaldehyde in Chang, the other popular Thai beer, or the Philippines beer San Miguel, or the Vietnamese 33, or Singapore’s Tiger beer, all of which have also been rumored to contain formaldehyde. Think about that for a minute while we solidly dispose of the Singha rumor."

There's a grain of truth about trace amounts formaldehyde in Chinese beers in the past, but those beers were never exported.  They contained barely measurably amount of formaldehyde below levels the WHO considers safe for consumption.  

In the U.S., rumors about urine in Corona beer from Mexico have been repeatedly busted, but still crop up:  Urine in Corona Beer.

Evil

 

 

 

[Stillearly]

Think the debt thing applied more to Soapies than to beer bars and GoGos ... I know of a friend who paid it at Christin in Phuket , but as you say some of those girls were trafficked and had little freedom 

[Evil Penevil]

3 minutes ago, Stillearly said:

Think the debt thing applied more to Soapies than to beer bars and GoGos ... I know of a friend who paid it at Christin in Phuket , but as you say some of those girls were trafficked and had little freedom 

If you go back 40-50 years, debt bondage could be found in Thai-owned bars of all types, but mostly soapies and brothels. It even occurred in small shops and restaurants.  Thailand's economic boom since the mid-1980s and tougher enforcement  has gradually done away with debt bondage.  I've always heard it was never a factor in farang-owned bars.

Evil

[tommy dee]

30 minutes ago, Evil Penevil said:

If you go back 40-50 years, debt bondage could be found in Thai-owned bars of all types, but mostly soapies and brothels. It even occurred in small shops and restaurants.  Thailand's economic boom since the mid-1980s and tougher enforcement  has gradually done away with debt bondage.  I've always heard it was never a factor in farang-owned bars.

Evil

years ago "bosses", went ut as agents from bars to remote villages and basicaly bought young girls from poor parents, in other cases LENDING parents money in return for their daughters.  the practice was so old that often they would trade for daughters with mothers who had previously worked "on the game"  the practice was more for the thai knocking shops, which have existed forever, but certainly continued for farang bars until quite recently.  those "farm fresh" girls were popular with many, and even today the younger looking Laos girls appear in thai businesses more often than those we go to.   If the girl fled, or was "saved" by a customer and no money was paid, the "bosses" would recouperate the debt from the parents, usually by virtue of the next daughter in line, hence the "buy out" to settle the debt.    from memory, even today, 97% of body sellers work in the thai only side of the businesses, many of which most would not even know existed unless directed to them  ( pattaya had or has many)

[Chang_Paarp]

1 hour ago, Evil Penevil said:

In the U.S., rumors about urine in Corona beer from Mexico have been repeatedly busted, but still crop up:  Urine in Corona Beer.

Evil

It must have something to do with the taste, or lack thereof. I am surprised that this emerged in the US given the taste and strength of some of their popular beers.

[Evil Penevil]

 

[tko]

11 hours ago, Stillearly said:

both Mekong and Sangsom are rums I believe 

Sangsom is a molasses based rum.  It's pretty good and has done well in some international competitions.

Mekhong is a hybrid, mostly rum (sugar/molasses based) but like whiskey has grain (rice).  Plus herbs and spices. 

[galenkia]

God knows what's in Siam Sato, f**k me that's rough, and I used to drink White Cider all the time.

[bob lt]

3 hours ago, galenkia said:

God knows what's in Siam Sato, f**k me that's rough, and I used to drink White Cider all the time.

A rice wine made from glutinous (sticky?) rice, 8% abv. I'm a southern softy so drink it mixed with sprite and ice, very refreshing.

[Butch]

12 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

@Butch  Permanent bar fines did exist, but in my opinion, they were not a major factor in the grand scheme of P4P in Thailand.  Perhaps they occurred more frequently in the 1960s through 1990s, but they never affected more than very few customers.  I don't believe any bar would have a chance of collecting a permanent bar fine today unless the customer was extremely naive and the girl was in on the scam.

Supposedly the purpose of the permanent bar fine was to ensure the girl left the bar on good terms and could return to work there in the future if she wished to.  Twenty to  60 years ago, bar owners had a lot more power over the girls than today, especially in Bangkok. 

The names of girls who were fired or quit abruptly were said to have been put on a blacklist so they could never again work in a bar.  That was more legend than fact, but a lot of TGs believed it and wanted the permanent BF paid.  It wasn't permanent, though. 

A friend of mine took a girl out of a BKK bar for six weeks in the late 1990s and paid 7,000 baht for the permanent BF.  On his next trip, he wanted to take her for a month and they asked for another 7,000 baht.  It was in reality a long-term BF he didn't mind paying since he was earning a lot of money from a series of jobs in the Middle East.  He got along well with the girl and arranged for her to stay with him two years while he was on a major construction project.  The bar wanted 20,000 baht that time, but he refused, more because he thought they were playing him for a sucker.

There  was a darker side to permanent bar fines having to do with debt bondage.  Thai bar owners would lend a sum of money to a girl's family and the girl would have to remain working in the bar until the loan was repaid. If a farang wanted to take a girl with a debt out of the bar, he'd have to pay off the debt as a permanent bar fine.  Debt bondage is now considered a form of trafficking.

Evil

 

Great info, Thanks @Evil Penevil.

I know several bars had a "long term" barfine strategy, that being taking the girl for a guys entire trip if he liked her, this often could work out financially cheaper for the customer rather than paying the girl the daily BF. Of course many girls just took 2 weeks or 3 weeks holiday to visit mama, but in some circumstances even myself, I've negotiated a weeks BF for a girl at a reduced rate (when we were getting 77 baht to the £)

If memeory serves me when Ben ran FLB he had this "permanent barfine" concept. not sure if it ever was applied or even insisted upon, but it seems to be another one of those "myths" that was arguably spoken about more than it was actually enforced or applied as policy for a bar.

Indentured servitiude exists, but as discussed, possibly less in the "modern" bar scene than elsewhere, if at all. (It's massive business in India though).

Can we put the "permament barfine" to bed? - I think so. Taking out the indentured servitude (which probably comes under the remit of a law somewhere) - the actual idea of a Bar manager / owner demanding thousands of baht to release a girl frm his employment would probably get no traction - not to mention an avalanche of abuse on FB.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Butch