The Definitive Guide to Bangkok Massage Parlors

A. MASSAGE PARLORS (or ‘Aap ob nuat’ as they are called in Thailand)- MP’s are mostly a late afternoon activity and much more expensive if you decide to partake in multiple sessions during the day. These places are great if you like short-time romps as the sessions are usually about an hour and a half.

Massage parlours, or ‘Aap ob nuat’ as they are called in Thai, can be found in virtually every city in
Thailand and, although they might differ in luxury, size and cost, they almost always have the same setup. This setup consists of a lobby with a ‘fishbowl’, a room where the girls (anywhere between 10 and 100+) are sitting in several rows like in a stadium. The girls are sometimes divided into different groups (’regular’ and ’super star’ for instance), each group will then usually have a different price as well. The glass is supposed to be one way but by their facial expressions encouraging you to select them, it is highly doubtful that it is.
Besides these girls, more and more massage parlours are starting to provide ’sideline girls’ as well. Instead of sitting inside the fishbowl, these girls sit in a lounge type of setting so you can talk to them before selecting.
In the lobby there are usually one or more ‘papasans’, men in suits that can tell you the specialties of the girls. If you have made your choice or if you have any special wishes tell these guys.
The rest of the setup consists of several rooms with a bathtub and bed. Some of the more lavish ‘entertainment complexes’ can also have restaurants, topless-bars and/or karaoke on the premises.

Some general remarks about massage parlours:

• Don’t tell the cabdriver where you are going (or your cost will go up due to his commission), let him take you to a nearby landmark (a hotel usually works fine, use ‘The Emerald Hotel’ for Ratchadapisek/Huay Kwang) or just tell him the street/soi and get out a little before or after the parlour. And under NO circumstance have a tout take you to a parlour!
• Haggling about the price is acceptable in some of the places. Expect different prices for Thai, Thai speaking farang and non-Thai speaking farang.
• Some parlours do not admit farangs.
• Tip the girl afterwards if the service was good, she only gets a fraction of what you paid.
• Don’t be shy when speaking to the papasan, he has heard everything before.
• If you want 2 girls, talk to the papasan. Have him suggest some girls, pick one, then have the girl pick the second girl.
• Best time to visit a massage parlour is between 6pm and 7pm. At this time most of the girls will have arrived for work (most parlours open at 4pm, 2pm on weekends), but since it is still early in the evening there won’t be too many customers. Another benefit is that most of the girls will not have had any customers that day.

Bangkok has several areas were lots of massage parlours are located. New Petchburi Road contains about 20 or so massage parlours, most of these are small to medium (with a few exceptions). Most of the really lavish parlours can be found on Ratchadapisek, near the Huay Kwang intersection.

If you spend all of your days at massage parlors, expect to increase you budget by about 4,000 baht a day or more. Bangkok has the best massage parlors in the world. Most places require you to pay for the massage which includes sex but there are exceptions.

Here are few suggestions:

1. Baron’s Barber Shop- The only true oily massage and a fun place to go in the morning. It is located off the alley on Soi 24. You can take the sky train to the Emporium Shopping center but take the escalator down to the sidewalk and head towards Soi 24…make a right, then a left in the alley and you are there.

There will be two, large U-shaped seating areas. The one on the left are girls that are not for sex. The girls on the right are available for full service (FS). They dress in the typical massage girl evening dress or cocktail dress. The selection is decent and you will usually find one to your liking. The room is pretty small but the bathrooms are very nice. Take a shower first and then go through the oily massage. The massage costs about 400 Baht for an hour or 800 baht for two hours. Extras are 500 for HJ, 750-1,000 for BJ and 1,500 for full service. Opens at 10 am.

2. Soapies- A unique aspect of Thailand where you go into the establishment, select your girl out of a fishbowl, pay and proceed to your room. She prepares a large tub full of soapy bubbles and water. You get in the tub with her and she proceeds to wash your entire body. After completing her first task, you get out of the tub and lay down on an inflated air mattress.
She soaks you and the mattress with more frothy soapy hot water and proceeds to give you a full body massage using nothing but her body (very little hand usage). It is both an exhilarating and stimulating experience. When she is finished, she will dry you off and lead to the bed for some much anticipated sex.

-Chao Praya 2: Taxis do not get commission for taking you here and they will charge you about 1,600 for the stars and 1,700 for the superstars which includes sex. The rooms are spacious and nice. The fishbowl is huge. The food is great here.

-Catherine:Have your taxi take you to Royal Pacific Hotel. Catherines supposedly does not pay a commission to taxis but one never really knows. Cost is about 1,700 baht for a great session and the lineup is solid.

-Cupidy: The touts love this place. Have your taxi take you to Prince Hotel. This was advised on the www.Nanapong.com website. Don’t let the touts see you leave. Cost is about 1,800 and 2,000 there for some fairly attractive girls.

-Darlings:Located off of Soi 12. A bit pricy at 2,500 but the selection is solid.

-Mona Lisa: This place is hit or miss. Pretty small place with a medium-sized fishbowl. Girls to the right for 3,000 baht and girls to the left 2,500. The rooms are pretty nice (very similar to CP2). Have taxi take you to Siam Hotel and walk.

-New Cleopatra: Some stunning girls here. Location: Asoke-Din Deang road, about 300 yards from the intersection with Asoke Road where the Fortune Wave Hotel is, the large gaudy neon sign cannot be missed.
Phone #: 246-668

An upscale massage parlor, with some of the most expensive girls (supposed models) working in any of the Bangkok parlors. The fishbowl at Cleopatra’s is on the left when you walk in; it is quite large with some quite attractive girls. The cost of the fishbowl girls is 1,900 Baht. If you turn right at the entrance instead, you will see a sign saying ‘members lounge’, you don’t need to be a member to enter this area. In the members lounge, you will find the sideline girls and ‘models’ the cost varies from 2,700 Baht (sideline), 3,500, 4,500 and 5,500 for the VIP models. The girls sit in a lounge area and can be summoned over for a drink, talk, etc. The attendants here are very personable in helping you make a choice. At the bar they also have photo albums with pictures of ‘models’ that are also available, the attendant highlighted a picture of one supposed Thai Penthouse magazine model that was available for 5,500 Baht. Russian girls were also available for 3,500 Baht.

-Atami: Have taxi take you to Prince Hotel. Go past Soi 41 and make a left down some driveway with a gate. Beware of taxi drivers and motorbikes trying to follow you to get commission. The girls here are cute and go for 2,000 baht and more for the light-skinned superstars.

? Champs Elysee
Location: Asoke-Din Deang road, at the corner with Rachadapisek road or that is the Rama IX junction. It is located directly across the road from the Fortune Hotel and shopping complex.
Phone #: 642-0300
An upscale massage parlor/entertainment complex targeted at the hi-end market. There is no fishbowl at the Champs Elysee just a lounge with sideline girls like Delia’s member club at Plaza Entertainment, or the lounges/members club that can be found at New Cleopatra and Poseidon. A live band is also a feature of the lounge bar at the Champs Elysee. The cost of the sideline girls varies from 2,900 to 5,400 Baht. ? Honolulu
Location: 555 Soi Soon Vijai, Rama IX road. Honolulu is close to the Rama IX hospital (follow the signs) and is right next door to the Radison Hotel. So if coming here by taxi, tell the driver to go to the Radison Hotel at Rama IX.
Phone #: 641-5757
Another upscale massage parlor, the building is quite distinctive as part of the front is shaped like a boat. Honolulu has a large fishbowl with about 40-50 girls, the girls in the bowl cost 1,800 Baht. Also you will find here a fairly lavish restaurant, a karaoke club and a lounge bar with sideline girls costing between 2,500 to 3,500 Baht. Note that the original Royal City Avenue (RCA) is just around the corner, for those who may be interested in checking out the bars and restaurants in this much hyped local entertainment area.

? Juliana’s
Location: Rama IX road, next to the Royal Pacific hotel. It is approximately 1 mile from the beginning of Rama IX starting from the Rachadapisek intersection where the Fortune hotel is located.
Phone #: 319-4645
A semi-lavish place with a Japanese restaurant, karaoke lounge and health center. The massage section has a mid-size bowl with about 50 girls. Cost is 1,800 Baht. Sideline girls seated in the lounge area are 2,400 Baht.

We had our final breakfast at the hotel and Simone came by to join us. The pancakes with honey were actually very tasty. After breakfast,  I got a nice foot massage. Shortly after my foot massage, Oi, one of the girls that flaked on going to Phi Phi came by so we went up to the room to take care of business.

Later that evening, I went to check out some Thai boxing. This is one of the largest establishment in Patong. You will find it behind the Grand Plaza Hotel, just continue south down Rat-U-Thit. You should go there without a tuk-tuk unless you don’t mind paying a commission for the driver. During primetime there will be about 50 to 80 girls in the fish bowl. The left group waits for body massage and “extras” while the girls on the right side offer just extras. The body massage girls are usually not as attractive as the “extras-only”.

I went out and hit the streets. We ran into a some ladyboys and a gang of girls. The scene was pretty awesome.

We took good advantage of our last night in Phuket.

The next day we were heading for Cambodia.  We were sad to leave Thailand beause it had been a real adventure and a hell of a lot of fun but we knew there was a lot more in store for us as we made our way through South East Asia.  More to come!

We had to scramble to get ready and pick up Gib (Angelos girl) and her friends. I met a girl named “Simone” who was at the internet cafe across from the hotel and she agreed to come along so we hopped in the van and went to the marina. First, we went to a secluded island, but there was thick coral on the ocean floor, so it was painful to even get to the beach from the boat, let alone swim. We stayed here briefly before moving on to Phi Phi. There are two islands that make up Phi Phi. The larger island and the one that provides hotel accommodations is called Koh Phi Phi Don. The smaller island is Koh Phi Phi Leh.We made our first stop at Phi Phi Don, where we walked around briefly and quickly got some food. I was anxious to get to Phi Phi Leh as I had been before and I consider it to be one of the most beautiful and incredible places is the world - true paradise. I knew that as the sun began to set, the brilliant colors of the water would fade, so make sure you go when the sun is directly overhead.

So after hurrying everyone along. We made a beeline for Phi Phi Ley. There are two important bays on Phi Phi Ley. One is Maya Bay, which is where the movie “The Beach” was filmed and it is truly beautiful. But my favorite place is Pileh Bay. This bay has a narrow opening and is nearly surrounded by limestone mountains that come directly out of the water at least a hundred feet high. There is no beach, so the permimeter of the bay are these huge limestone walls.

The water is warm and an incredible aqua-marine green and blue. In places, it is too shallow for boats to pass. All of these features make this place appear to be a natural swimming pool of unbelievable beauty. When I’m there, I never want to leave. It really is awesome. Importantly, remember to arrive when the sun is directly overhead because the geography is such that the huge limestone mountains easily block the sun as early as the late afternoon.

After leaving Ao Pileh (Pileh Bay), we went to Maya Bay, which again is incredibly beautiful. We explored the island a bit before heading back to Phuket.

After exploring the island, we decided to get some pizza from The Pizza Company (located on Bangla Rd across from Tiger Disco). The Pizza here is pretty good, so you may want to check this one out. After that, we hit several bars in search of hotties.

We ended up following a couple of cuties into the Dragon Disco. We invited them on our trip to Phi Phi Island tomorrow. They told us they were going to Tiger as we were leaving and apparently they got too drunk (yeah right) and were no shows for the boat.

After leaving Dragon, I stopped by Soi Eric and saw a cutie that caught my eye. I like a little meat on my women and after partying with a bunch of spinners, she was looking pretty good. I chatted her up for a minute and then we went back to my place.

We took scooters all the way down to the southern tip of Phuket Island and back around up north on the other side. We were scouting for locations to have a nice beach party with some girls. We didn’t find anything secluded enough so we decided to rent a boat the next day.

During our journey, we came across the Ban Karon Hill Phuket Resort. The Ban Karon is located at 8/3 Moo 1, Patak Road, Karon Beach. This is one beach south of Patong Beach, which is where all the action is located, so you will need to have transportation if you decide to stay here. Karon in about 5 miles (8 km) from Patong. This resort overlooks the ocean and is priced at 800-2,500 baht during the low season and 1,500-3,500 during high season. This is a real bargain for the quality of the facilities.

Just a short distance from the Ban Karon Resort is After Beach Bar and Restaurant, which seemed very cool. We were there early, so we were unable to see what they really had to offer.

Since it was our first night in Phuket, we headed straight to where the action is.

This area is known as Patong Beach. The main drag is called Bangla St.

Nearly all of the venues along this strip are beer bars loaded with girls all dancing, playing, flirting and trying to entice you to come to their bar for a few drinks. It’s a blast, just like Pattaya was.

After all the touring of the bars in Patong, I had my eye on a girl from Sharky’s named Nam. She was one of the cutest there and was all smiles the whole night. So I barfined her and we headed back to the hotel without wasting any time.

After an incredible trip in Pattaya we headed to Phuket. JP had been before and said he had a blast back in 2002 so we were expecting to have a good time like we always do.We arrived early and got into town at about 3pm or so.

After checking into our hotel (The C&N Hotel is in an ideal location at 151 Rat-U-Thit, just north of Tai Pan) and grabbing some great Thai food at a local spot near the hotel, we decided to take a walk and soak in the sites. We knew most of the action was going to take place after dark, but we figured we see if there was anything to get into early in the day.

Turns out there wasn’t much to do. The bar owners and staffs were cleaning and getting ready for the night. We walked around a bit and I ended up meeting a couple of Thai girls while we were out. Not a bad way to start in Phuket.