Thursday, December 15, 2005

Party in the Beer Garden

Yesterday I stopped by the beer garden after work for what was intended to be a quick drink and evening meal with one of my work colleagues. By chance a good friend of mine called me just before we left to go home and as I stood up to take the call I realised that she and her party were sat at another table just a few metres away. They had been there already for an hour or so and as it was a birthday celebration a few beer towers had already been consumed but naturally we joined them to start another! The live music that night was really great as some famous Thai singers were on stage and the atmosphere later turned into that of a typical rock concert! Actually the first singer on stage I really like and I was amazed to see someone I know providing the backing vocals for him- it was definitely a night of strange coincidences! The photo below shows the crowd going crazy to an act called Sak Loso:

What is funny about this photo is that guy taking a photo of me at the same time!

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Shows..

Back over to Singapore recently and I hoped to catch the opening of the Moulin Rouge cabaret at the Crazy Horse, usually cabaret's dont appeal to me but this one is world famous and I am told that the Crazy Horse has a great atmosphere. Unfortunately it has yet to open but I am sure I will be back down there soon or in the New Year. Singapore now has very late licenses and a multitude of places to go eat, drink, dance and have fun. This expansion of bar-culture is a fairly recent development to Singapore lifestlye as not that many years ago the only place to go after midnight was the 7-11 on Orchard Road! Now Singapore has a much more accepting society and government legislation is pushing for the country to become a lead destination in the region for tourism, included in this drive is the construction of a huge theme park and a 2 casino complex which provoked strong arguments for and against allowing the mass gambling. As with everything in Singapore the benefits for the economy won out and I understand that by 2009 the project will be complete, it is expected that annual revenue will top $1.5bil from the casino alone and that construction will cost around $5bil.



Having missed out in Singapore i could hardly turn down the offer to see a ladyboy show on my return to Bangkok. The cabaret is called Calypso and is held nightly in a club under the Asia hotel. I was surprised that the show was so expensive but we arranged 1/3 price tickets through a travel agent. It is quite professional and some of the ladyboys are remarkably pretty, not up to the standard you can see elsewhere in Bangkok however but i am not sure if i can recommend the other places to families etc!! At the end of the evening talking to my friend, i realised that although Singapore has the money to try and develop a tourist industry to compete with Bangkok it will never succeed in terms of the innate appeal. In recent years as Singapore has become less restricted Bangkok has had curfews and development in entertainment areas imposed- but i can never imagine a time when 'one night in Bangkok' will become 'one night in Singapore'.