Bar life a-go-go

The tropical sun beats down on a white sandy beach strewn with colourful deckchairs. Out on the water, jet-skis and speedboats take holidaymakers on white-knuckle rides across the aquamarine sea. This is Pattaya – ‘the Extreme City’ – and a holiday destination for around 5 million tourists every year.
Shops and stalls line Pattaya’s promenade, offering a ‘United Nations’ mix of menus, but here on the upholstered seating of the Oliver Twist pub, with its polished wooden bar and brass fittings, you feel as though you are in the heart of England.

Louise Nealon is the manageress of Oliver Twist, the only female farang (westerner) managing a pub here. She works just yards from Soi 7and Soi 8, the heart of the city’s infamous go-go bar area, where pole-dancing beauties entertain a crowd of drunken tourists. You might expect her to feel intimidated, but she takes it all in her stride.

“I’d been before so I was fully aware of what the girly bars are like. I’ve always found the guys around here really respectful. Silly things, like when if I turn up to work and there’s nowhere to park, they’ll rally around moving bikes. I think it’s really opening up, as well. But it would be even nicer if other western women came out here.”

Thailand is not the first place Louise has worked abroad. She spent many years catering for bands such as the Cranberries and Westlife while they toured around Europe. She called it a day when she looked at how much time she was spending in hotel rooms – and how little time in the house she’d bought in Kent.
But the move back to working full time in England was not ideal. Aside from the cold, there was the financial side.

“By stopping touring and living in my house while working as a restaurant manager, I found that I was struggling every month to pay my mortgage and other bills,” she says.

So she began to look at Thailand, where her brother lived and her parents were planning to retire. She was not sure about the availability of work, so she decided to use the country as a base – working either in Dubai or on a cruise ship.
As luck would have it, her parents met someone while

finalising the purchase of their Thai home who was looking for a manager for his English pub. They suggested he gave her a call. He offered her the job on the phone, and within two weeks she had flown out to start work.
She found herself immediately thrown in at the deep end. A number of staff had either left or were in the process of leaving. Sourcing reliable staff is always difficult in Pattaya, and in this case the problem was made even worse because the former manager had not paid staff properly.
With the added difficulty of the language barrier, the first few weeks were a nightmare. Louise arrived at the start of one of the busiest times of year – Christmas and New Year – and on the second day she found herself without a chef.

“I am a trained chef, so I managed to get by. But there was no menu – I just had to muddle through!”
On the personal side, things were difficult too. Her brother and her parents both had houses in Thailand, but none of them were there during the first few months. Her parents were back in England tying things up before they made the final move and her brother, a professional diver, had to go to Africa to work three days after she arrived. The dream of coming out to live close to her family wasn’t materialising.
Luckily for her she was outgoing enough to find a solution.

“I knew my brother drank in a pub close to where I live called the Fisherman’s Rest. So I took myself down there in the second week,” she smiles.
The Fisherman’s Rest is on Maprachan Lake, in an area populated almost exclusively by expatriates. They welcomed her with open arms. Both owner and manager handed over their contact numbers, with instructions to call anytime, day or night, if she needed anything. She got invites to barbeques and parties, and says that contact with more people came thick and fast. This support network helped her on the learning curve of adapting to life ‘Thai-style’.

Once she came home at two o’clock in the morning to find that she had no electricity. Another time, she had no water for a week. Thai utility companies have a zero tolerance policy: if you don’t pay on time, they cut the power off at the box. Not having received a bill is no excuse, so you just have to remember to keep making regular payments.
Louise found that side of the way of life quite difficult to get used to and relied on the tight-knit expat fraternity for support. “Talking over problems, and learning how things are done here, has really helped,” she explains, “Just knowing that other people have these problems too helps”
But however many friends she has here, she is doubtful about finding a long term partner in Pattaya. The city is known as ‘a man’s paradise’, and Louise is fully aware that most single men on holiday are there for the girly bars.