Review of Skytop Guesthouse

And now the bar at Skytop Guesthouse and Internet Cafe has 300,000 views on its You Tube Video. What gives?

by Jack Corbett

I considered reviewing the Skytop Guesthouse here in Pattaya, Thailand to be a matter of great importance to me personally because although I had spent 11 months of my life staying at Skytop Guesthouse it has recently moved to the old tourist police station right next door to its old location which I had made my home while my new condo was being built.  On one internet board focusing on just about anything and everything about Pattaya certain board members were posting what I felt were some extremely unfair and derogatory comments about Skytop while labeling me as a man who had never stayed at the place and therefore someone who knew nothing about it simply because I had not stayed at its new location.  Truth is I already knew more than practically any man alive about Skytop even though it had moved one doorway down the street.  I just wasn't being given the credibility I deserved.

Is Skytop the number one hotel in the entire Pattaya area?  No, it's not.  But,  if Skytop didn't offer a lot to start with for a Pattaya hotel at a very low price point I wouldn't have stayed there for 11 months would I? So let's just start out with value for the dollar.  Its rooms start at 450 baht while its best and largest rooms go for 700 baht.  This means that Skytop's most expensive rooms are only $20.00 U.S.  Consider that a Motel Six or Super Eight room in the U.S. will cost at least $50.00 and you will get the full sense here of what I mean by value.  And a motel Six room isn't nearly as large as the fifty square meter room I just put through a test spin here at the new Skytop.  Nor does it offer a refrigerator, a microwave and other kitchen facilities, a ward robe into which one can store lots of clothes, a desk one can use for an office, or a balcony overlooking one of the most interesting streets in the world.  Let me make one thing very clear here.  One can live here quite comfortably for extended periods of time.  I know.  I did in a slightly smaller room at the old Skytop for 11 months.

And just how interesting is this fabled street I've just proclaimed as one of the most interesting in the world?  There's a large number of beer bar complexes just North of Skytop just off 2nd road--ON THE STREET OF WHICH I SPEAK.  But first, let's talk about a few things you won't want to do without, such as Big C which can handle a lot of your shopping needs, a McDonalds, a couple of Seven Elevens, Sawaidee Massage and Sabailand where you can get all those infamous soapies you've been hearing about.  There's lots of pretty girls walking about and a beer bar complex right next door.  Wait a minute.  There's a beer bar smack right in front of Skytop, the Naree Bar, so you really don't have to go anywhere, and if you wanted to you could probably wear your bathrobe right down to the bar without anyone giving you more than a good natured ribbing. 

But the real key to the superior Skytop location is Soi Six a scant one block away.And there's gotta be at least 500 bar girls working in something like 50 bars all along Soi Six.   Soi Six is the number one place the Pattaya Expat goes to find his women so take it from the expat, the man who lives here full time, who knows his business, Soi Six has every other location beat when it comes to offering real men what they really want, and this includes Walking Street with all its terrific go-go bars.

Now you gotta figure that anyplace that's this close to Soi Six has to have a number one location because the man who doesn't like Soi Six is few and far between.  Soi Six is the Mecca, the pavement of gold for the man who truly enjoys women and who doesn't want to beat around the bush about getting what he wants to get.  Most Soi Six Bars unlike the typical outdoor beer bar are indoor air conditioned bars offering a great amount of privacy.  Some of these bars are some of the wildest bars in the world.  And if you like one of the girls, it's just 300 baht for a room upstairs and 500 baht for the girl.   Soi Six is the short time capital of the world.  Soi Six also happens to garner the Looking Glass Magazine's Street of the year.  Soi Six is so good, a man can literally spend a lifetime exploring and sampling its many delights.

A couple of guys in that online forum who don't know what they are talking about were severely criticizing Skytop because the guesthouse locked its front door at night thus forcing its guests to have to use a rear entry door with a key.   I suppose those guys feel scared when they go out at night and expect to have guards around them at all times.  Well, I decided to give the rear door entry a little tryout.  The night I stayed at the New Skytop the Naree Bar was having a party.  For the first several hours some of my buddies were drinking beer with me, but one after the other they started to leave me.  Two of the guys bar fined girls at the Naree Bar and took them upstairs to their rooms.  Well, I'm as much of a deviant as anyone of your out there but this Naree Bar makes me a little nervous.  Now don't get me wrong, I feel right at home there which is exactly my point.  It's must that its pretty mamasan, Joy, and I go way back.  Back as in four or five years because we used to double date, one of my friends going out with Joy while I went out with a girl who lived down the hall from her.  By this time I had gotten good and soused and I was starting to feel a little nostalgic for an old girlfriend of mine, a girl who had lived with me for seven months.  And I had been told that this old girlfriend now worked at a bar just one block down from Skytop at a place called the Jimmy Bar where I used to get drunk at God knows how many times and were I had also bar fined a couple of the girls a few times.

I wanted to sneak down to the Jimmy Bar to look up my old girlfriend, and I didn't even want anyone seeing me go down there.  Joy and all her bar girls would see me leave the Naree Bar and then head into the Jimmy Bar.  And if I found my old girlfriend at the bar who knows what would happen then.   I might end up bar fining her and taking her back to my Skytop room.  And Joy would see it all happen and first thing she'd tell her sister Wan who would be sure to tell the Skytop owner, Pete since Wan was Pete's wife now.  And I'd never hear the end of it.  Pete would rib me about my taking my ex girlfriend back for as long as both of us lived, and take it from me, you DO NOT WANT TO GIVE SKYTOP'S OWNER ANY AMMUNITION TO GET YOU ON.

And even if the old girlfriend were not there, chances are I'd get even drunker and bar fine someone else.  And then she'd probably turn out to be pretty ugly and Joy would tell everyone about it, and who knows, maybe the girl working in Skytop in the Internet cafe downstairs might still be working when I brought a girl back to my room.

So here's what I did.   While the party was still raging on in front of Skytop I used the front entrance to get access to the place, and then I sneaked around the corner to the back entrance and used my key to lock the door behind me as I walked out to the parking area behind Skytop and the other businesses near it.  I then walked down the alley past Dr. Beleen's office and out onto the street that doubled back towards Second Road where it went between the Jimmy Bar and the Bangkok Bank.  No one saw me go to the Jimmy Bar and probably assumed I had just had enough to drink and gone up to my room upstairs.

My old girlfriend was not there.  But everyone knew her alright.  In fact, she got the word right away that I had come in there asking questions about her and when I came back to Skytop when they had a second party at the Naree Bar a few day later my old girlfriend came in with a date who she sent back to his hotel when the old man got tired and then hung around the Naree Bar hoping I'd start buying her drinks.  And I probably would have against my better judgment but at this second party I had not only Joy to contend with but Pete and Wan as well.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.   I'm back in the Jimmy Bar so I order a Heineken and then I ask the girls there about my old girlfriend.  She's not there but two of the girls are starting to look pretty good to me and I wind up buying a couple of beers for the better looking of the two.  Then the inevitable happens.  I bar fine her and take her back up the street that goes to the rear of Skytop, and Greg's Kitchen along with Dr. Beleen's Office and several other businesses.  No one sees us go into Skytop through the rear entrance.  I use my key to open the rear door and then I lock it behind us.  We manage to get to the stairs which we take up to my room.  The girl stays with me for a couple of hours and then I pay her 500 baht for the short time and take her downstairs to the rear entry door which I once again open with my key.

The next day when I see Pete, Wan, and Joy no one has a clue to where I went or that  brought a girl up to my room.  I wind up telling Pete I had bar fined someone from the Jimmy Bar and that the only evidence I had left behind me was the spent condom I had thrown in the waste bucket.

Well each to his own.  Some people might like having  hotel staff employee greet him every time he comes in or out of his room.  Some people might enjoy parading around the 19th girl he's bar fined in his latest two week stay in Pattaya that he's so proud of.   And some people might not even mind if he picked up a beautiful woman after he had too many beers to drink only to find out once he got her back to his room that the prettiest woman back in the bar wasn't a woman at all but a lady man instead.  But some people would have a hard time facing the staff members the next day who knew all along that he had brought a guy up to his room.   At Skytop provided a guest brings the latest pickup later in the evening, there is no cause for concern because chances are no one will see him use that rear entrance.

Did I mention that Internet Cafe yet?   Well, not many hotels or guest houses have their own internet cafes but Skytop's got one right downstairs.  And Skytop Guesthouse guests have free internet access while staying here.  Besides the obvious advantages of having internet service so close by, here's something a lot of you guys have never thought about.  First off I met a man who eventually became one of my best friends in the old Skytop Internet Cafe.  But here's the kicker.  Imagine all those good looking Thai girls who must come here to use Skytop's computers.  Most of them come in to email their Western sponsors-- those idiots who keep sending their bar girl sweet hearts money each month "not to have sex" with either them or anyone else.  But the girls take the money while banging anyone else who will give them even more money.  If you stay at Skytop and hang around its internet cafe often enough you are going to meet some of these girls emailing or chatting with their sponsors and thus have the chance at being the first one in line.

Sorry guys, there's no swimming pool here.  And Lek Villa the Looking Glass's number one rated hotel has one of the best pools around.  But its rooms are about four or five hundred baht more than Skytop's largest and best appointed rooms.  It has an excellent free buffet and it's much quieter. But there's no Soi Six right next door.  There's no Big C right up the street either. It just all depends on what you want.  But take it from me, Soi Six is the place to be.  The longer I live here the more I realize this fundamental truth about Pattaya.