In anticipation of a busy high season, the Blue Lagoon A-GoGo has replace a significant amount of bench seating with stools. The benches along the long walls have now gone but rather counter to usual practise there are still stage side benches.

Perhaps the Norwegian owned bar is expecting a few more customers now that Norway have banned paying for sex. Surely this will force their guys to look further a field to places like Pattaya.

Just around the cornet in Soi Pattayaland 1, Betty Boum has sprung into life with a new dancing bar. But as I was reliably informed that this would not be of the girlie kind, I will let somebody else investigate. Betty Boum is located at the old Spicy Girls A-GoGo venue.

The notable Buffalo Bar on 3rd Road is nearing the end of phased improvements and is now refitting its short time rooms. Previously they had been condemned by customers if not Pattaya council hotel inspectors.

Shark Club and Shark A-GoGo have now been merged into one with the name Shark Club A-GoGo. There are still separate teams of girls with mamasang at each end of the enormous bar area, but the dividing walls have been removed.

The Shark A-GoGo end of the bar now seems to have taken on the procedures of Shark Club.

This include the girls being hands on friendly. I surely enjoyed my stay in the bar. Seems a big improvement on the old Shark A-GoGo.

There is now an additional entrance on Soi 15 that should capture a bit of the foot traffic on the way to other popular gogos.

As a related rebranding advertising for Tiger Lounge now emphasises the change from coyote to gogo by referring to the venue as Tiger Lounge A-GoGo.

Counting the two Shark venues as one now drops Pattaya's gogo count to 78.

A new disco has opened up on Walking Street opposite Soi Diamond and next door to Hammer Disco.

I'm not sure that the Republica Disco TK name is quite appropriate to the royalists of Thailand but there you go.

Also interesting to see if there is room in the ever changing market for anther disco. Any reviews welcomed as I very rarely partake in Pattaya's discos.

Popular bars seem to be doing well this week but there also seem to be bars that are not getting their fair share of the peak high season surge.

There are now several stories on the Pattaya forums suggesting that some of the bars that are missing out are trying to make ends meet by extravagant price increases.

Lady drinks have been reported as 150-160 even for unspectacular beer bars.

And of course, prices are not posted anywhere, leaving the final check bin to be something of a shock.

Perhaps good advice at the moment is to ask about lady drink prices before purchase or at the very least, check your bill as the first drinks gets added to the bin.

The fashion for big windowed coyote bars still seems to be a success story of one.

the 2nd Road Bad Cats Club near Tims GoGo and opposite Mike's Mall has now changed into Fall in Love Club. The previous guise had only lasted since August.

A little further north on 2nd Riad, the small group of beer bars between the Apex Hotel and Diana Inn are said to be due for closure to make way for another hotel development.

And on the the theme of bad cats, Kitten's Bar on Soi Post Office has gone dark. Not sure whether this is temporary or not.

The popular U Too Bar on 2nd Road opposite Alcazar is said to have its eye on relocating to the recently vacated Easyriders venue a couple of blocks north. This is due to the existing U Too Bar being in a block marked for redevelopment in the new year

Meanwhile on Walking Street the new development between Air Port Club and Hammer Disco is said to be a another disco.

A new gogo has opened in Naklua just off Naklua Road on Soi 33, not far from Dolphin Island. It is called Loma A-GoGo which is the Thai word for a dolphin.

Its been a couple of years since there was a gogo in Naklua. (19-69 Club closed its doors in summer of 2006).

The new gogo is a square basic looking venue with a central stage and bench seating around the sides.

There were a dozen dancers on duty of which half were dancing. They were dancing in the full range of undress from nude to bikinis. There were a few attractive girls amongst them. The bar was operating two shifts of dancing, each for 6 song stints.

The music is oldie farang friendly rock.

The happy hours draft beer was well cheap at 39 Baht. The lady drinks are cheap but they have the standard/tequila/cocktail scheme at 80/100/120 Baht that is so prone to abuse.

The girls ignored me but the mamasang helpfully pointed out that all the girls were new to Pattaya and did not know what expected of them. No doubt they will have to learn quickly otherwise customers wont stay long.

I'll give them another chance though, the bar seemed a pleasant enough place.

There are now 79 bars with girls dancing in bikinis or less in the Pattaya area

The Pattaya International Mardi Gras is set to take place on 23rd January 2009.

This will be the first ever Mardi Gras Festival here in Pattaya and will be based on Mardi Gras celebrations around the world.

The highlight of the festival will be an Electric Parade which will take place in the evening. It will start at Pattaya City Hall and finish on Pattaya Beach close to the Central Pattaya Road intersection.

Local Schools and Private Companies will be taking part in the parade which will be colorful and full of energy according to the organizers who are Pattaya City Hall and the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

Mandarin recently underwent a refit and re-launched as a GoGo. Unfortunately it didn't seem to spark much interest and the numbers of dancing girls has dwindled ever since.

Lately the bar has been operating with just 3 or 4 girls.

Today it has failed to open. Too soon to know if it is a temporary or a permanent closure, but things certainly don't look too healthy there.

Update: also closed 13th December

Easyriders Pub has closed. It was once a popular bar on Second Road near Big C featuring a pretty decent rock band.

Increased prices and bill hassles seem to have put the bar into decline over the last year or so.

It seems the big windowed coyote bars are drawing the curtains.

The blacking out of the windows at Ice has already being reported along with its conversion to gogo dancing.

Now I have spotted that Bad Cats Bar on 2nd Road has added curtains that it draws at some point in the evening.

It must always be a danger that if you design a bar for everyone to see inside, then when the bar is having a dead patch, then all the potential customers can see it is dead, and so walk on by.

The Zone coyote bar on the soi between Buakhao and The Avenue Mall has recently gone dark. It had only been open a couple of months. Perhaps not really enough padding trade.

Club Blu still seems to be going strong though. Perhaps it is destined to being one of a kind.

There has been no news of any letters sent out by the authorities to close for the King's Birthday yet it seems that some bars decided to close anyway.

Soi 6 was closed for the afternoon.

Some beer bars were open but keeping the music down.

Walking Street was reported as operating normally.

Ice is located on Soi LK Metro in the venue that used to be Gorkle and before that, Memories.

On the 1st December the coyote dancers will take off a few excess clothes and the bar will become a GoGo.

I visited on the last night as a coyote bar and was very impressed. The mamasang was doing a great job in assigning spare dancers to having a chat with customers. In fact it was the friendliest coyote bar I have been to for a while.

Presumably the bar is not doing a total switch of staff so hopefully this bodes well for the re-launch. Maybe the bar could do with a bit of comfy seating though.

Ice will be the 79th bar in town with girls dancing in a bikini or less.

Meanwhile Maximum Club has opened at the corner of 2nd Road and Soi 3. It is a nightclub featuring coyote dancing.

I stopped by early and the welcome staff were inviting people in, but there was absolutely no entertainment on offer, not even a hostess, let alone a dancer. Presumably it will become a later venue than the rest of the bars in the area.