Clubbing in South East Asia

I know I haven’t updated this blog in the longest period of time, never got the time to sit down & write something good enough. Guess I’m not the real blogging type of a person but this one i couldn’t resist. Just got back from a couple of weeks of holiday in Malaysia, Singapore & Thailand and the clubbing experience was truly awesome. It took us a lot of time to read reviews online & find good places, that too from Mobile Phones on slow GPRS connections, before we continuously found luck day after day by ending up at some of the best pubs & clubs in the region. To make things easier for those of you who plan to pay a visit to South East Asia, here we go >>

1) Zouk Club - Singapore

This was the first place we went to in Singapore after landing post midnight & just having checked into our hotel. The place was suggested to us by one of our friends from India even before the whole holiday was finalized. Zouk, as I now learn from Wikipedia, is 3 old warehouses renovated, albeit completely! Trust me you won’t feel that it was ever been a warehouse, when you are there. It’s 3 interconnected clubs in one building - Zouk, Velvet Underground & Phuture. The club was fortunately very near to our Hotel on the Havlock Road, adjacent to the Singapore River. The entry fee is below 30 SD though Phuture is more of a member’s area. Zouk is the most happening of the 3 whereas Velvet is a ‘bit’ more elite types. You can obviously read the finer details & type of music etc from wiki & elsewhere.

Fair reviews here, the official site here & their twitter account here. There is a Zouk in Kuala Lumpur also, though i haven’t been there, am pretty sure it would live up to expectations.

2) Attica - Singapore

This one, also in Singapore, is at the Clarke Quay area. We were here for the Christmas Countdown cos our friends living in Singapore forced us here. We badly wanted to go to Zouk for a second time. After much persuasion we decided to check out Attica not realizing that it would turn out to be an equally wonderful experience. Party was on till around 5 in the morning & the place was jam-packed. Again, wonderful music, crowd, tons of beautiful girls, amazing sound systems, fabulous DJ’s, great drinks which are all traits of all the places I’m listing down here. There is a second club, again connected, upstairs called Attica Too. I was among the lucky few who got some Attica T-Shirts, thrown into the amazing crowd by the DJ I personally liked Attica Too over the one downstairs primarily cos of the crowd & the music. They had 6 DJ’s in total, one of whom was extraordinarily amazing with his beats. Truly out of the world experience.

Review is here & official site here. They are on twitter too.

3) Bed Supper Club - Bangkok

This one will take you for a surprise cos you will find beds here instead of seats. So the board outside says ‘No Drugs, No weapons, No Sex’! The ambience is very different from the usual pubs & clubs one would frequent in most parts of the world.  Again, has 2 clubs both having upper decks too. The most striking difference apart from the music obviously, is that the beds are white in one & black in the other. I liked the white one more, the crowd is more fun & mingling especially on top of the central bed which evolves into a mini dance floor over a period of time. The other one has a bigger regular dance floor & often live drums to go with the music. As the name of the club suggests, they have a restaurant area too, on the outside on ground. Food is really good though a bit expensive. You can guess that seeing the Lamborghini’s & Ferrari’s parked outside. Entry into the club is 700 Baht per person out of which 600 is drink coupons. The tip is, buy a bottle instead of ordering drink after drink if you are more than 3 people.

The official site is here & review here. Twitter page here.

4) 808 - Bangkok

This one is a personal favorite. Though a bit away from the heart of the city, which is the Sukhumvit area, this is located in the RCA (short for Royal City Avenue) entertainment complex off Rama IX road. For a change, this is not a 2 in 1 like Bed Supper Club / Attica nor a 3 in 1 like Zouk. This just has an upper deck & is happily single. But the OMG statement is that it is an Open Bar, which means that once you pay the entry fee of 700 Baht, everything is on the house. The downside is they have only a limited set of items on the Open bar menu but that is fair enough as they essentially cover atleast a couple of decent brands of all types of drinks be it whiskey, rum, vodka, tequila, liqueurs or whatever. The sound system is superb, the woofer-speaker sets positioned right in front of the DJ booth will have atleast half a dozen people dancing on top of it once things start to spice up.

Official Site here.

5) Route 66 - Bangkok

Take a step out of 808, look left & you see Route 66. Entry is 380 Baht & they seem to promote Smirnoff Ginger Ale often given as the first free drink. Again a 3 in one Club with 3 different kinds of music & the whole club is open on one side to the huge outdoor area with tables. This is probably the club in Bangkok you will find maximum number of people. In fact it’s a bit too crowded at times.  But it’s a fun place to be in. The seats outside are good for an occasional rest after all the shaking you can do in one stretch.

Official Site here & review here.

6) Beach Club Cafe - Kuala Lumpur

The board outside says ‘Don’t feed the Sharks’ & I giggled, going in to realize that they actually have small sharks in an aquarium just next to the dance floor. The club is very close to Petronas Towers & has great music. Thatched roof, the tropical feel, the small bridge at the entrance is all good & different in it’s own way. The only & very noticeable downside is that it is kind of a major pick up joint these days, so not a family place at all. KL, though a bit more expensive than Thailand is considerably cheaper in comparison to Singapore. Maybe because Malaysia being a Muslim country with a bit of regulations here & there, they close down at around 3 am.

Exact location here.

7) Insomnia - Pattaya

This one is pretty much mid way on the Walking Street right in the middle of zillions of infamous Go-Go bars of Pattaya. Fantastic sound system, you will feel your heart thump throughout if you stand close to one of the speakers & there is no running away from speakers as there are lots of them. You won’t get to see many people at 12 am but it’s all happening by around 2. Drinks are moderately expensive & i hate it when they charge for water, same case with most of the clubs these days. Entry is just 140 Bahts for the upper floor i-Club, the ground floor sister club charges 100 baht but is not worth the time.

8 - MiXX - Pattaya

The best club probably in Pattaya, this one is at the Bali Hai Pier end of Walking Street. This is a 2 in 1 club one named Crystal Palace & the other Rouge Club, both situated on the third floor of the Bali Hai plaza & is connected by a small passage. Great ambience & good dance floors, great crowd and good music. This one is in a different league from the rest of the clubs in Pattaya. A bit expensive but you wouldn’t probably mind because the place is that good. And there is no entrance charge though there are a lot of waiters looking out to see if you are ordering something or just wasting their space!

BTW, by ‘expensive’,  wherever I’ve used the term, I mean when you think in India Rupees or some unfortunately week native currency of yours. If you are lucky soul earning/thinking in Dollars or Euros, none of these 8 places are expensive. In fact they are really cheap for the quality clubbing experience they offer.

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Tags: apac, asia, bangkok, club, clubbing, dance, disco, hip hop, house, kuala lumpur, malaysia, music, nightlife, party, partying, pattaya, progressive, pub, SEA, singapore, sound, south east asia, speakers, thailand, trance