Sabang's 'empty' bars

by Steve
(Sydney)

If you are a single Caucasian tourist interested in drinking in bars where there are bar girls you can forget about visiting Sabang's bars. They are completely Korean-ised now. Basically 10 minutes after opening the bars are 'empty'. No girls, no customers, no atmosphere - no drinks being sold!

At 6.30-7pm the bars open to jostling crowds of Korean males who bar fine nearly every girl in the bar. After that the bars are 'dead' and not worth visiting.

I can't understand the business model. The bars don't seem to care about selling drinks. It seems their main function is simply to provide a line up of girls and after 10 minutes of opening the majority of the girls are gone and not one drink sold. The Koreans don't even sit down but just point at a girl, pay the bar fine and leave. And I'm talking about groups of 12!

The Korean guys then go to their own hotels and buy the drinks there. The bar managers are just providing girls for someone else's bar! All the drinks profits have moved to the other bars.

So no profit to be made on drinks. Waitresses sitting around with nothing to do. So bar fines have to go up in price to compensate.

There used to be ten of us visited Sabang often. There are 2 of us here for what is now, sadly our last trip. I used to know all the mama-sans but not now as once they have got all their girls out of the bar they can go home.

Its not the Korean guys fault that the bars are 'killed off' 10 minutes after opening. The bar managers let it happen. We had high hopes when Andy the German guy took over some of the bars that he would bring in some Thailand type rules that work so well but it was not to be.

In bars in Thailand this simply doesn't happen. All customers have to sit down first and buy a drink - after all it is a bar. And they have to buy a drink for the girl that takes their fantasy. In some bars the bar fine is higher before 10pm. Those sorts of things are just an accepted norm - everyone accepts them and the bars make a lot more money as the girls still get bar fined but the bar sells drinks.