Sleaze Alley at Chiang Mai’s Night Bazaar seems to be suffering a slow death, at the last count two more bars have thrown in the towel leaving only three left: CU Bar, Secrets Bar and Milky Way. Both Twin Peaks and Jungle Juice have closed up shop.

The good news, from a recent Saturday night visit, is that the bars that are left at least had some customers and people seemed to be having fun. Moreover, there was no sign of the usual young kids and street urchins hanging around. Only a selection of the more professional older guys were evident. The absence of the real crackerjacks makes for a much more relaxed and pleasant environment.

Rumour still has it that the leases are up at the end of the month and won’t be renewed. We can’t confirm this but the assumption is the place won’t be around much longer. Latest story doing the rounds is that Secrets and CU Bar already have advanced plans to move very soon to a new location close by the night bazaar. If they are able to create something a bit more upmarket and escape from the underage sleaze reputation of the current place this would be a positive move. Not least as the shared facilities at the current place, such as the toilets, have now become disgustingly decrepit (but look on the bright side, even the dirtiest of dirty old men wouldn’t engage in toilet sex there now).

CU Bar and Secrets bar at Sleaze Alley

Photos courtesy Nicky’s Gay Chaing Mai

If there are only a couple of bars, properly run, at this new location it could work well. A perennial problem has always been two many bars, chasing too few customers. Also, too many naive and gullible Farangs, happy to cough up cash for their “boyfriends” to open yet another bar in the empty space next door, i.e. where the last one just went bust. We’ll let you know as soon as we know more.

Another rumour to reach us is of strange things going on at the Glass Onion and Cosmos, seems there have been a few management changes coupled with a significant recruitment of new, good looking male staff. Go figure.