Like the female counterparts, Pattaya’s male gay-bar workers count the days until tourists return to Pattaya.
“Chidchai,” who works in a bar in the Super Town Jomtien Complex area off Thappraya Road in Jomtien Beach, said the cluster of nightclubs, restaurants and hotels catering to Pattaya’s gay community used to be busy every night from 8 p.m. Now it’s deathly quiet.
While the city has a sizeable community of gay expats, they’ve not come out enough to support the entertainment zones like Super Town Jomtien Complex and Boyz Town, he said.
When times were good, Chidchai said he made enough money to buy a 250,000-baht gold necklace. He has had to sell it now to survive. He still had gold around his neck Nov. 24, but said he might have to sell that, too.
Gay-bar workers aren’t the only ones struggling. Yupin Marsh, owner of the well-known Yupins Restaurant in Super Town Jomtien Complex, said 90 percent of the customers were foreigners and the restaurant was so popular that reservations were mandatory. Now Yupin gets only a couple of bookings a day.
Yupin said the restaurant cannot carry on without foreign tourists and hopes that the government will loosen entry restrictions. She also hopes that a coronavirus vaccine will be approved and widely deployed soon.
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