Region Description, Phrom Phong (E5)

The Phrom Pong station is directly linked to the luxurious Emporium shopping mall by an elevated walkway, at the corner of soi 24 southside. An extended walkway going west links the station westward to the popular commercial soi 33/1 on the north side and Benjasiri Park on the south side.

The Phrom Pong region is primarily residential, but has some of the last significant tourist concentration spots.

The last tourism spots eastward In describing this region, it's quickest to get the tourist spots out of the way, which leaves most of the rest as residential. The last tourist-targeting establishments going down Sukhumvit heading east (hotels, nightlife, various sorts of massage and spas) come in a few spots here, becoming insignificant once you pass the Phrom Pong skytrain station. The light tourism of this area runs fairly deeply down the south side, but on the north side is confined to only the beginning of soi 33. The heavy tourism areas ended abruptly at soi 21, the region just west of here. Photo left: Infinity swimming pool of highrise condominium, south side of Sukhumvit viewing northeast towards the Emporium Suites Hotel on the left.

First, the north, as viewed from just 100 meters down soi 33 from Sukhumvit Road:

Numerous highrise residential buildings from Sukhumvit 21 (Asoke) in the distance (top left) to Sukhumvit soi 33 at the rightmost.

Some highrise residences on Sukhumvit 31 to 35.

View of lower Sukhumvit 39 (transverse, distance at green building under construction) from soi 33.

Next, the south, as viewed from 350 meters down soi 22:

Southside, the beginning of Sukhumvit sois 16 and 18 have some nice highrise residences. Skytrain highlighted yellow.

Further down sois 16 and 18, the Sukhumvit highrises end, giving way to old Thai neighborhoods and a shanty town.

Sukhumvit 24 and 26 residential highrise region, ending at Rama 4. Looking down soi 22 on the right, where highrises end and old Thai neighborhoods start.

The side north of Sukhumvit Road (odd numbered sois) is almost purely residential extending about 2 km nearly to Petchburi Road. It is mostly highrises, but there are many houses scattered around here. It has many kindergartens but not no international schools except the Singapore school.

The south side (even numbered sois) is a mix of many hotels, commercial establishments tending to tourists and residents, a high concentration of highrise residential buildings, considerable nightlife, and large tracts of old Thai neighborhoods to the southwest.

The northern residential areas are much more spacious, but both sides are sizeable.

The south side has its hotels, restaurants, commercial district and nightlife near the beginnings of sois 20 to 24. While there are a few residential buildings in that predominantly hotel highrise area, the main residential zone is down towards the end of soi 24 near Rama 4 Road. Besides soi 24, the other sois have concentrated old Thai neighborhoods at their ends, without any expat or tourist presence.

On the north side, the only significant hotel is the Novotel near the beginning of soi 33, which is also the only major nightlife soi, all indoors. The rest is residential plus family restaurants and other homey commercial establishments. There are many kindergartens in the area. The northern area is greener and there are many quiet dead end sois along the northernmost strip.

The northern area ends at the klong Saen Saep canal, a major historical waterway which still has passenger boats passing by every few minutes, shuttling Thai people from the central business district to the suburbs out to Bangkapi (but it's not recommended except as an occasional adventure). This waterway serves as a barrier to traffic, as there is only one bridge in this region, at soi 39.

There are some busy, narrow little streets here. The so-called "green route" east-west traffic network (here in parallel to Sukhumvit Rd.) goes thru the center of the northern half of this region. It comes in as 2-way from the west (Asoke) then splits into one-way circulation going clockwise between sois 31 and 39, before continuing eastward again as two-way.

The nightlife of the Asoke area does not spill over into this area despite the green route flow. It pretty much ends at Sukhuvit soi 23 in the Asoke region. What nightlife does exist in the Phrom Phong region is all inside closed doors and inaudible, especially in the northern half.

Soi 33 is the one and only strip of men's entertainment nightlife, a 150 meter strip of pubs and "hostess bars" frequented mainly by western expats, some massage places which are popular with Japanese (such as the Teen Massage chain), and restaurants. Soi 33 is best known for "the artist bars", whereby the first pubs were named after renaissance and other artists such as Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Dali ..., though so many new places have opened that the naming has expanded, e.g., Napolean, Livingstone, Christie's ... and now even Santana ... albeit there are no vulgar or classless names, unlike the other tourist regions. In several bars, the hostesses wear a uniform, usually stylish nightwear, with a few sitting outside as ushers but not pushy like in the tourist zone. Photo on left: Sukhumvit 33 nightlife strip.

I first came to soi 33 in 1995 with coworkers on happy hour. Back then, it was almost purely a working expat and retiree hangout, and many lived down the sois in the area and further outbound eastwards, whereby this was the last small strip of expat watering holes. The calibre of expats was usually managing director, investor, consultant and upper management types. This attracted a certain kind of "hostess" and bar style. The pubs were called "clubs" but there has never been any membership requirement as far as I know, and this is certainly the case today as anyone is welcome (except in the newer Japanese places where non-Japanese are generally not allowed). Each time I have occasion to visit, I'm struck by the steady growth, including new kinds of places, and expansion in the kinds of clientele. The hostesses have gotten a little racier, and it has greatly expanded but has not lost too much of its original ambiance.

Don't miss some of the side sois, especially The Office and MoJo's which are two of the most popular restaurants and pubs now, and fairly different from the hostess ambiance of the places along the main road. However, other side sois seem to be skewed in other directions, less sophisticated.

Soi 33 has the Novotel Hotel near the beginning, but the nightlife places are still frequented more by expats than tourists, albeit a mix.

On the south side, the pubs are scattered, but the most popular are near the beginning of sois 20 and 22.

The Queens Park Plaza on soi 22 has rows of beer bars, many with pool tables, with one large good restaurant inside. Pool is popular here, and the female staff offer friendly companionship.

Queens Park Plaza on Sukhumvit 22 has numerous pool halls and bars, and a couple of restaurants within

Queens Park Plaza, Sukhumvit soi 22, comes alive at night

Queens Park Plaza, one of the alleys lined with bars

Across the street is the easy-to-miss entrance to the legendary old Washington Square block which has American expat origins. This behind-the-facade square is an old shophouse row with an old movie theater converted into a transvestite cabaret show frequented by buses of Asian tourists. It's easy to ignore the theater. The famous Bourbon Street restaurant serves a menu of New Orleans cajun food as well as other international dishes, and is a sizeable place, the converted ground level of a few shophouses. There are several other bars and massage places mixed in with odd Thai shophouses of a non-entertainment purpose and often idle-looking appearance. The Hare and Hound offers free WiFi, and is a small but popular meeting place. Around the least accessed part are the Silver Dollar Tex-Mex restaurant and bar, and the Texas Lone Star Saloon, both of which serve up authentic Texas food. The window of the Texas Lone Star Saloon has the slogan Food, Women and Liquor albeit the last two words purposely misspelled Wimmen and Likker. The loyal clientele tends to be older expats, and the female employees of these two places a bit more mature but still rancorous. A few upstart bars of a more mercenary ambiance cropped up in this region before the 2008 recession, and some are holding on.

Washington Square inside, converted old shophouses. Bourbon Street is at the back left of this photo.

Washington Plaza can also be accessed by the first alley off Sukhumvit Road near the Benjasiri Park, but there's no sign there. The Dubliner Irish pub is on the corner, which is a very nice upscale expat restaurant and pub. Above the Dubliner is painted in Olde English "We cheat tourists and drunks" (neither The Dubliner nor its sign are pictured here; see our Directory for that).

Washington Square entrance off Sukhumvit 22, has two open air bars on its corners.

The south side is not well known as a residential area. There have long been some highrise apartments and condominiums a short way down the sois from Sukhumvit Road. These sois tend to be fairly busy, especially sois 22 and 24 which serve as a link between Rama 4 Road and Sukhumvit Road. The highrises taper off as you go down the soi, then explode again where sois 16, 22 and 24 converge and interconnect near Rama 4 Road. At this interconnecting point, shopping centers have cropped up, resulting in another boom of highrise construction in 2008-2010. It's a bit insane. It's a recession, and right next to a few newly completed highrises which have still not been fully occupied, are a row of three recently completed highrises just being painted and fit out in late 2009, yet there are still more highrises with foundations being completed and starting to rise up adjacent to these.

Elsewhere, nearly smack in the middle, is a set of 4 gigantic highrise condominium buildings which stand out in the region, with a big phone number going down the side, and additional buildings under construction around the area. It reminds me of what Bangkok looked like shortly before the 1997 crash, though fortunately only in this subregion, Phrom Pong south.

On the south side, all the main sois interconnect with lots of shortcuts, though you must be careful about going down sois with names and not numbers. Avoid the Thai slummy areas, the roads become alleys.

On the north side, many of the numbered sois coming off Sukhumvit Road are dead end sois, with a lot of variation on what's down there, where it can get relatively quiet quickly. The thru sois also have many offshoots which are quiet, but you won't run into many ultratight slums down here, so it's OK to explore. The north side is much more diverse than the south side.