LK Metro, Pattaya – Opinion

Bangkok 112 Pattaya

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LK Metro is a bar area in Pattaya, Thailand. It is an L-shaped street with a dozen or so gogo bars on it, and has regular bars and guesthouses mixed in for good measure.

I like going to LK Metro in Pattaya. The street has cheap booze, hot girls and a large selection of different gogo and regular bars along it.

Notice I said ‘like’ and not ‘love.’ See here’s the problem. I love going to Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy in Bangkok. I love Walking Street and Soi 6 in Pattaya, I only merely like LK Metro.

 

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LK Metro seems to be missing the X factor in my opinion. Whenever I’ve been there the atmosphere feels kind of flat, like there’s is no excitement in the air. Nana Plaza has all the ladyboys you could ever dream of, Soi cowboy is a neon jungle full of pretty coyote girls, Soi 6 is full on and in your face, and Walking Street is a mad house with a full on assault on the senses.

LK Metro is tame in comparison. It is not famous for anything; there is nothing special here. The beers are cheap and the girls are pretty but there is no one bar or place that stands out as the place to go. The gogo bars all feel very clinical and are kind of missing the wow factor. I couldn’t really recommend one bar over another here as they all seem so similar.

 

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The draught beers are dirt cheap with Tiger, Heineken, Asahi and more available all under 80 baht.

 

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The street is too wide, all the gogo girls and staff park their motorbikes in front of the bars so it resembles a car park more than a premier bar area. There’s not much to look at anyway if you sit on the front of some of the bars (if they have seating). This can’t be said for the more well known, iconic places to drink at in Thailand.

 

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The Billabong bar is located on the corner inside LK Metro, and is a popular place especially when there is live sport on. They claim to have 100 hostess girls on their books with 30-40 working daily.

When I was doing a bit of digging about the Billabong Bar about drink prices I found that Singha is 115 baht for 2 bottles (2pm-2am) and 70 baht each normally. As someone who is used to paying Bangkok bar prices I find this unbelievably cheap, almost to the point that Cheap Charlie’s need only apply.

Cheap drink availability might hold back the future of LK metro’s future development, as it could possibly be known as the gogo paradise for the Cheap Charlie brigade. To put the drink prices into perspective, I could drink one draught beer in every gogo bar on the street and my total spend would be under 1000 baht. Unbelievable!

The above video shows a walk around LK Metro in July 2015.

 

 

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Of all the bars the Office has the strongest theme, with the sexy gogo girls inside dressed as scantily clad office workers!

 

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This was another place with very cheap draught beer, the draught Tiger went down a treat on this night.

 

 

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The location of LK metro isn’t the best. For a first time visitor to Pattaya it would be hard to find without a map or solid directions if you weren’t staying nearby. This can’t be said of Soi 6, 7, 8 and Walking Street which are very easy to get to. LK metro is located on Soi 13 Pattayasaisong (Soi Diana) and you have to walk a couple of minutes up the street to get to it.

One annoying thing about the gogo bars on LK Metro is they allow smoking inside. These bars are all relatively small, and mostly have doors and not curtains at the entrance meaning that if a bar is full of smokers then the smoke lingers in the air with nowhere to go. I wanted a draught Asahi in the ‘Paradise’ gogo bar one night, but as the security opened the door I was hit with an almighty waft of thick second hand smoke, I just told them no thanks the bar is far too smokey inside.

What is it with smokers? They always have to smoke ‘inside’ bars if allowed? It’s both selfish and ignorant anyone who smokes inside a bar in this day and age. Come on guys, is it really going to ruin your night to have a 5 minute fag outside a bar before entering.

The negative health aspects of passive smoking are conclusive so please do everyone a favour and refrain from smoking inside bars in Thailand! (RANT OVER)

 

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There are a few guesthouses on LK Metro, and they are pretty cheap with rates starting at around 400 baht a night. This kind of holds back the potential of the bar area in my opinion and stops nightclubs operating here. The Walking Street Nightclubs are open until dawn usually, would you really want all the noise and drunken revelry right on your doorstep? Maybe it’s due to most of the gogo bars closing at 3am, which is pretty late so there seems to be nothing keeping you in the area other than a nearby guesthouse.

The LK Metro bar area has been dubbed the ‘New Walking Street.’ One thing that is noticeable here that is not on Walking street is the lack of Indians, Arabs and general family tourists. They just never end up here due to the location. So it does have an advantage of being a more discreet area for the gogo bar punters taking girls out of the bars.

I personally think it still needs some kind of unique bar or novelty to bring more people to the area to make it a premier bar area. I will still be visiting due to the hot girls and cheap beer, but I’m yet to be blown away and find it hard to recommend going here over Walking Street itself. It will be interesting to take photos and film in the upcoming high season to see the difference from the low season.

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