Before moving to Southeast Asia, I’d pretty much given up on bars. Although they seemed to promise a good time, they rarely delivered on that promise. Particularly American bars, with their selections of 97 different IPAs, the option to either enjoy sports on one of the 47 TVs or to watch yourself in the mirror sadly, and the same food as you find in every other bar with minor variations that by no means make one stand out over the others because all American bar food is pretty mediocre. All. If I wanted to go to a bar, it was worth the flight to England where they still have proper pubs—although these are dying out as well.
There are, of course, bars in Hanoi, and these are enjoyable. But what really got me excited in Hanoi were the bia hoi places. I think the appeal of the bia hoi spots is that you don’t have to wait until nighttime to enjoy them. They offer the same level of enjoyment no matter what time of day you go: the light and refreshing low-alcohol lager, which comes either cold or with a cooler of ice cubes to put in your glass, the tasty bar snacks that are totally unlike what you’ll find anywhere in the States, and the tiny stools on the sidewalk from which you watch the Hanoi street life go by, which is as entertaining as can be. Bia hoi places are not really bars, of course. But if you’re inclined to like bars and you’re in Hanoi, bia hoi places have something unique and enjoyable to offer. They also have the benefit of being cheap, cheap, cheap. And since they don’t serve the hard stuff, you’re unlikely to find yourself in the sort of financial or physical or emotional trouble you might find yourself getting into in a real bar. No one ever ever cried into their bia hoi, ever.
Then, Thailand. At first, I missed the bia hoi spots. Still do, actually. But like I said, bia hoi places are not bars. And if you’re looking for real-deal Holyfield bars that deliver on the promise of a good time that it seems like you maybe can find in a good bar, Thailand’s got ’em. Especially if American dive bars ring your cherries. The beer’s cold and cheap, the bar food is literally the same Thai food you get anywhere, which means it’s totally fresh and delicious and tongue-in-your-beer spicy, and there are bar girls to ensure that everyone has a good time. (If you’ve missed some of my other writing about bar girls, just imagine Hooter’s waitresses if Hooter’s waitresses were actually fun and amazing and not all sizzle and no steak.) I don’t think you’ll ever find a proper jukebox in a Thai bar, but that’s okay. There’s YouTube instead, which is even better because when that totally annoying 4 Non Blondes tune “What’s Up?” from their 1992 debut album Bigger, Better, Faster, More!, comes on, which happens kind of a lot in Thailand, you can just walk over to the computer and change it to something tolerable. No problem.
Having enjoyed the bars in Thailand so much for the first month we were here, the first thing I asked our native Balinese informant, Christian, about when we arrived in Bali was where the good bars are in Ubud. Turns out, there aren’t any good bars in Ubud. Not really. And there certainly aren’t any bars that reach the level of bar perfection they’ve achieved in Thailand. There are a lot of reasons we left Bali two weeks earlier than we’d planned, and the bar situation wasn’t the least of them.
When we got back to Thailand this afternoon, we were, as you can imagine, hungry and thirsty. Like the wolf. We needed extremely spicy food and cold beer to combat the extreme spiciness of the food. We needed . . . a bar. Which good news because Thailand has ’em, thank god.
We’re spending one night in Bangkok before heading back to Kanchanaburi. If you know anything about Bangkok, you know that finding a good bar will not be difficult, particularly if your cheap-yet-seedy hotel is in one of the soi off of Sukhumvit Road. You just have to exit the hotel and walk down the alley a bit until you see a place that looks promising in terms of the cold beer and spicy food and premium bar girl situation. No problem. Except that I’m a researcher. And although I’ve become more relaxed since moving to Southeast Asia about just sort of winging it when finding places to go, my first impulse is always to look up the local spots on Google when we arrive someplace new.
Googling “Bars and Pubs Nearby” when you’re staying at the cheap-yet-seedy Arawana Regency Park Sukhumvit will return a number of promising results. The most promising of which was a place called, no joke, Funny Girl Bar. Here’s a Google review for Funny Girl Bar from G. Berthel: “This is a good people watching bar staffed with funny girls. What more can you say? Cold beer, good music and great servers.” Who could resist? Not me, that’s who. So we dropped off the one suitcase we travel with these days and hit the pavement to get our Thai bar fix.
Funny Girl Bar is literally steps from our cheap-yet-seedy hotel. Or is it? Google Maps says it is. It should be right there next to the massage parlor and across from the restaurant where the guys are setting new concrete in front of the front door while the place is open for business so that the customers have to jump over the wet concrete to go in, which they do, no problem. But it’s not right there. So we walk around. Investigate. But no joy. This is, of course, not a serious problem because we are in Thailand and there are plenty of other bars and we could easily abort mission and go to any one of those and be assured cold beer and spicy food and premium bar girls to maybe have a dance party with, except, and this is important: Would the girls be funny?
Lucky for us, Nicha spotted us in the alley looking dismayed at not finding the very promising-sounding Funny Girl Bar and so she came out from the Honey House Bar to ask us if we needed help. This sort of thing is not at all uncommon in Thailand. Thai people are, in my experience, super kind and helpful and generous.
“We’re looking for a place called Funny Girl Bar,” I explained.
“Oh, that’s here,” she said, helpfully pointing to the Honey House Bar.
I thought this was great, so I said, “Great!”
And when I asked what makes her so funny, she said, “Not funny. Too early for funny.”
“This lady,” I thought, “is hysterical.”
Turns out Funny Girl Bar hasn’t been Funny Girl Bar for a number of years. Not since it became Honey House Bar. And that’s okay: The beer’s cold, the food’s spicy, the bar girls are premium, and, once I changed that annoying 4 Non Blondes song to something tolerable, the music was good.
What more could you want from a bar?
Easy: Selfie taking, a dance party, a cool expat from Australia named Frank who’s super keen to share with us his knowledge of the best motorcycle routes in northern Thailand. And the good news is that Honey House Bar (formerly Funny Girl Bar) has all of that in spades. In spades. And one of the bar girls, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia (like in the Brady Bunch), is actually really funny. The other girls are definitely fun, which works too. And if it’s a dance party you’re after, the, frankly stunning Lily has the best moves. The best.
Good lord, I love Thailand.