Several months ago I announced that I had finally reviewed all of the blowjob bars in Bangkok. It turns out that I was wrong of course. That was partly by the course of events. Dr BJ’s Salon temporarily closed before reopening almost immediately under the new name of Wood Bar. Another bar called Linda’s or Kob’s depending on who you ask also escaped my radar. I knew the place existed but lost track of it over the years. I recently rediscovered Linda’s and so I will report on it soon. Today I write about the new Wood Bar.
As stated Wood Bar sits on the same location of the infamous Dr BJ’s. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that Dr BJ’s was the best known blowjob bar in Thailand and probably even the world. The place operated openly with a name that left little to the imagination. Unlike most similar establishments it also kept a big bright website complete with photographs of the women on staff.
This led to the bar gaining a lot of notoriety and even coverage in somewhat mainstream media sources. An article about the place on the Vice website racked up countless hits and after a few years started a sort of firestorm on Thai websites and social media. Not long after that the bar had closed its door with many believing that this had something to do with the uproar.
The bar was quickly gutted then reopened with new colors and a new name. An email soon went out to a lot of people purporting to be from some people involved in the business. According to the email the change in name and colors was due to a shareholder shake up and nothing more. The email said everything was the same.
Indeed that seems to be for the most part true though there are some noticeable changes. It is enough in my view to warrant a totally new review to go along with the new name and the years that have passed since I first wrote about Dr BJ’s way back in 2013.
For those who don’t know and still don’t understanding after reading this far perhaps I should explain that Dr BJ’s Salon was a place where customers went to receive oral sex for a set fee. It is as simple as that.
Many years ago Dr BJ’s was big and bright. There were always a lot of women on staff. Some claim there were more than thirty at times. That seems believable to me. When customers would enter and sit down on the bench to the right women would pile in and sit along the wall on the other side. Still more would pop up from the loft upstairs and look over the banister. Those days are long gone. After a while the staff at Dr BJ’s dwindled to a dozen or so. In its present state the new bar may have even fewer than that.
Customers still enter Wood Bar on Sukhumvit Soi 7/1 and sit down on the bench to the right. The walls are no longer white. They have been painted a sort of yellow color. The same old no nonsense mamasan still works the bar and explains the place to any customers who are visiting for the first time. The available women still line up along the opposite wall but their numbers are only a small percentage of what they used to be.
There are probably six to ten women at Wood Bar even during prime evening times. They wear tight dresses. Many worked at Dr BJ’s when it was open. Most of the star players seem to be gone. A gal named Gigi with legendary skills may be the only one of the real standouts left. There are also a few new faces. There may be some stellar service providers in this mix. I do not know.
When the women on staff line up for customers they wear two different outfits. One set charges 800 Baht ($23 USD) for their time. The women in the the other outfits charge 1000 Baht ($29 USD) for sessions. While 800 Baht has become pretty standard in Bangkok I don’t know of any other bar that charges 1000 Baht except for Magic Table which is located on the same street.
The small bar inside of Wood has been eliminated. This was never really a place for people to sit for hours and drink anyway so I doubt it’s any great loss to the business. It is probably related to other changes that have taken place.
Service at Wood Bar is still provided in small wooden booths upstairs just as it was at Dr BJ’s. In the past these booths were black. Now they have been painted the same off yellow shade as the lobby. The sinks and dentist style chairs are still located in each room though there are now some massage implements like creams and oils added too. The word is that the presence of these massage related bits allows the place to operate under the veneer of a massage parlor. I am not privy to the ins and outs of the behind the scenes so I cannot neither confirm or deny this though it does sound like a reasonable explanation to me.
Service is for the most part straightforward and sufficient as it was in the previous incarnation of the bar. With a number of women on staff and all sorts of different customers coming in at all hours there will always be variation. Most people seem to leave satisfied though the bar doesn’t seem to have the same draw it did when it was operating under the old name.
In my original review of Dr BJ’s Salon I gave the place four stars. Later I would have lowered the score somewhat. Today I think Wood Bar deserves an average score of two-and-a-half stars.
Wood Bar, Sukhumvit Soi 7/1, Bangkok, Thailand. Click here for map. Website: http://bjbarbangkok.com/ Open seven days a week, 11:00 am to 1:00 am.