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I noticed that several of you are passing through Singapore over the next month or so, so I thought an overview of Orchard Towers might be useful.
If I have missed any useful information, let me know. Jon is going to place this in a newly updated tourist section soon, and I will update it as I do more field research.
General Comments
Singapore is VERY different to BKK. Do not expect to see the same type of bars, and definitely do not expect to see the same prices!! It is also much less tolerant of lb€™s and the €œbar scene€ in general.
There are 3 main €œred light districts€ as far as I can tell €“ Orchard Towers, Geylang, and Changi Village. All 3 have lb€™s. My own experience is limited to OT for the moment.
What is Orchard Towers(OT)?
During the day it is a 25 story office block and shopping centre at the West end of Orchard Road, in the heart of Singapore€™s shopping district. Floors 4 to 25 are offices. Basement to 3rd floor are shops and bars. During the day, most of the bars are closed. The shops are a series of small retail outlets like you will see in any shopping mall in the US, Thailand, wherever.
At night ie after about 8pm-ish, the shops are beginning to close and the bars begin to open. There are about a dozen bars from the basement up to the 3rd floor. That means there are actually 5 floors...basement, ground, first, second, third. However, I think they must have added the basement bars later, since OT€™s nickname is €œThe Four Floors of Whores€. There are also a couple of bars across the street at the back entrance to OT on Claymore Drive.
Where is OT?
Downtown central Singapore. As central as Patpong is to Silom business district, and Nana is to Sukhumvit. It is also right beside the Thai embassy! You can find a map here:
http://www.streetdirectory.com.sg:8080/map.jsp....8875%29
The front and main entrance to OT is at the West end of Orchard Road, which is the shopping equivalent of Oxford Street in London. Orchard Road is probably 2 miles long running East West, and is pretty much shopping mall after shopping mall. The East end of Orchard Road is the VERY centre of old colonial Singapore and the financial district. A different scale map here:
http://www.streetdirectory.com.sg:8080/map.jsp....8875%29
Here is a general location search for Singapore. You can type in your hotel name and find out where it is, although not all of them seem to work:
http://www.streetdirectory.com.sg/index.jsp
Opening Hours
All the bars apart from Country Bar close at 2am. Country Bar is 3am.
I have no idea what time the bars start opening....I have never been there too early. But I guess about 7pm. Most girls will start arriving in numbers between 8pm and 9pm. A couple of the bars are open early on a Sunday, 3pm start I believe. I know Ipanema does this.
Bars Overview
There are between 12-15 bars in this complex. These are not go-go bars with semi-naked girls dancing on stage.....no way would that be allowed in Singapore. But they are anything from Country Bar, a fairly normal bar, up to Top10 on the 3rd floor, an out and out club. Most of other bars will either be disco/clubs, or have a band playing. Girls will dress in normal clothes and look like normal customers in a bar, just like the girls who work in Big Dogs, etc, outside Nana Plaza.
Personally, I stick with the same 3 bars. Country Bar to have a quiet beer at the start of the night, Ipanema for gg€™s and live music, and, of course, Crazy Horse for the lb€™s:
Country Bar. First floor on the left at top of escalator. Overlooks Orchard Road, so you can take a seat at the window and watch the Singaporean lb€™s outside. Plays country music, lots of stools around a big central bar, half a dozen TV€™s showing sport, DJ, small dance floor, and a pool table. Music not too loud. Usually 20-30 girls work here. Waitresses are good fun, and there is a €œTequila Lady€ on the prowl as well!
Good starting point for the evening. Also good resting point if you want to get away from the noise of the other bars for a while. As far as I know, this is the only bar in OT outside Crazy Horse that you can take a lb to for a drink.
The girls that work here are not aggressive. They will try to catch your eye across the bar, and will come up and say hello. But you can also quite happily have a quiet beer, observe the girls and watch sport on TV or have a game of pool. There are no €œlady drinks€™ in Country Bar ie the girls do not get commission if you buy them a drink. So, if you spend an hour chatting and buying them a couple of drinks and then decide not to go with them, it is the right thing to do to at least tip them something (in my opinion).
Ipanema. First floor on the right at top of escalator. Pretty large bar with band playing rock stuff like Bon Jovi. Probably busiest of the disco bars, dozens of girls working every night. 2 bars inside, band on stage over to the right and a dance floor in the middle.
Crazy Horse. The LB bar of OT. Nowhere in Singapore is exclusive LB. I guess Crazy Horse is 50-50. Of the 50% LB€™s, some will be pre-op and others post-op. I have met lb€™s from Thailand, Philippines, China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia here.
This place is straight up 3 escalators from the main entrance and it is right in front of you. Inside you have a pool table, and lots of tables/stools surrounding a dance floor. There is a resident DJ and the music is popular club music, nothing too radical. Loud-ish, but you can still have a conversation.
You can go to the bar and order drinks, but there are some very efficient waitresses running around to save you the hassle. The girls will come up to you and do the €œhi, what€™s your name, where you from€ routine, but take your time. They are not aggressive like BKK, but will wander off if you politely say €œno thanks€.
Watching the world go by?
For those of us who have been to Nana Plaza in Bangkok, can there be a better place in the whole universe than 6pm perched on a balcony seat in Big Dogs watching all the girls coming to work in Nana?
There is no exact equivalent at OT, but the closest is a window seat upstairs at Muddy Murphy€™s Irish Bar on Claymore Street. The taxi rank is just outside, and most of girls will arrive by taxi between 8pm and 9pm.
http://www.muddymurphys.com/mmc_map.htm
Hotels near OT
Many of the big name hotels are within a few minutes walk. The Hilton is less than 100 yards away, almost directly opposite the main OT entrance on Orchard Road. The JW Marriott is 3 minutes walk away on the same side of Orchard Road as OT, and is right beside the Grand Hyatt. Shangri La is also a few minutes walk away.
ATM Machines
There is an ABN Amro machine that takes all international cards just inside the main entrance to OT on Orchard Road. Across Claymore Drive outside the back entrance to OT there is a DBS bank machine (DBS is a large regional bank). Remember, this is right in the centre of the shopping area, so there will be many more ATM€™s very close by.
Drinks Pricing and Tipping
Standard of living in Singapore is probably in the middle between a place like London/NYC, and BKK/Manila. So expect prices to be appropriately positioned. However, alcohol is heavily taxed ie comparable to Paris, and more expensive than London.
The local draught beer is Tiger. In most bars, this will be Sing$10 for a half pint (about US$5.70....currently about 1.75 US$ to Sing$
. Bottled Heineken, Carlsberg, etc, will be Sing$12-14 ie US$7-8 a bottle. Spirits eg G&T, Scotch/coke, etc will be about Sing$12-14 as well.
I€™m not sure about the rules for €œlady drinks€. In Crazy Horse, the girls do get something if you buy them a drink. This does not happen in Country Bar, and I don€™t know about the other bars.
I always tip the waitresses Sing$1 (US$0.60) every time they bring me a drink. Be careful of a little trick some of them (not all) play though. They will bring back your change in a little wallet like you get restaurant bills in. They will leave the notes coins outside the inner pocket, and sometimes €œhide€ a dollar coin INSIDE the pocket. So, you leave a dollar tip, but you don€™t see the second dollar inside the inner pocket and actually give them 2 dollars. Cute!
Girls Pricing (gg€™s and/or lb€™s)
Short time and long time is a universal rule in any city. OT usually has a lot of customers, lots of business people come to Singapore. So, most of the girls will hope to have more than one customer per night. So, if you want LT starting early in evening, they will probably ask Sing$350 (US$200). After midnight, you will probably get Sing$250, maybe Sing$200. VERY occasionally girls have said Sing$150, but that is rare. I am told some of the Phillipina girls go slightly lower.
Singaporean LB€™s
They are NOT allowed in Crazy Horse or any of the other bars. Don€™t know why. The only bar I have been able to take them for a drink in is Country Bar. They work the mall inside OT, and the pavement outside the main entrance on Orchard Road. Turn left outside the main entrance onto Orchard Road, and for the next 200 yards you will see a dozen or so Singaporean lb€™s on the prowl every night. They will normally appear from about 10h30/11pm until 3 or 4am.
Security and Police
There is a security guard desk right beside the ATM machine just inside the main entrance. The Singapore police are also regularly patrolling the pavement and road outside. Singapore is a VERY safe city. If you behave like a drunk, you WILL get arrested....no messing about
I noticed that several of you are passing through Singapore over the next month or so, so I thought an overview of Orchard Towers might be useful.
If I have missed any useful information, let me know. Jon is going to place this in a newly updated tourist section soon, and I will update it as I do more field research.
General Comments
Singapore is VERY different to BKK. Do not expect to see the same type of bars, and definitely do not expect to see the same prices!! It is also much less tolerant of lb€™s and the €œbar scene€ in general.
There are 3 main €œred light districts€ as far as I can tell €“ Orchard Towers, Geylang, and Changi Village. All 3 have lb€™s. My own experience is limited to OT for the moment.
What is Orchard Towers(OT)?
During the day it is a 25 story office block and shopping centre at the West end of Orchard Road, in the heart of Singapore€™s shopping district. Floors 4 to 25 are offices. Basement to 3rd floor are shops and bars. During the day, most of the bars are closed. The shops are a series of small retail outlets like you will see in any shopping mall in the US, Thailand, wherever.
At night ie after about 8pm-ish, the shops are beginning to close and the bars begin to open. There are about a dozen bars from the basement up to the 3rd floor. That means there are actually 5 floors...basement, ground, first, second, third. However, I think they must have added the basement bars later, since OT€™s nickname is €œThe Four Floors of Whores€. There are also a couple of bars across the street at the back entrance to OT on Claymore Drive.
Where is OT?
Downtown central Singapore. As central as Patpong is to Silom business district, and Nana is to Sukhumvit. It is also right beside the Thai embassy! You can find a map here:
http://www.streetdirectory.com.sg:8080/map.jsp....8875%29
The front and main entrance to OT is at the West end of Orchard Road, which is the shopping equivalent of Oxford Street in London. Orchard Road is probably 2 miles long running East West, and is pretty much shopping mall after shopping mall. The East end of Orchard Road is the VERY centre of old colonial Singapore and the financial district. A different scale map here:
http://www.streetdirectory.com.sg:8080/map.jsp....8875%29
Here is a general location search for Singapore. You can type in your hotel name and find out where it is, although not all of them seem to work:
http://www.streetdirectory.com.sg/index.jsp
Opening Hours
All the bars apart from Country Bar close at 2am. Country Bar is 3am.
I have no idea what time the bars start opening....I have never been there too early. But I guess about 7pm. Most girls will start arriving in numbers between 8pm and 9pm. A couple of the bars are open early on a Sunday, 3pm start I believe. I know Ipanema does this.
Bars Overview
There are between 12-15 bars in this complex. These are not go-go bars with semi-naked girls dancing on stage.....no way would that be allowed in Singapore. But they are anything from Country Bar, a fairly normal bar, up to Top10 on the 3rd floor, an out and out club. Most of other bars will either be disco/clubs, or have a band playing. Girls will dress in normal clothes and look like normal customers in a bar, just like the girls who work in Big Dogs, etc, outside Nana Plaza.
Personally, I stick with the same 3 bars. Country Bar to have a quiet beer at the start of the night, Ipanema for gg€™s and live music, and, of course, Crazy Horse for the lb€™s:
Country Bar. First floor on the left at top of escalator. Overlooks Orchard Road, so you can take a seat at the window and watch the Singaporean lb€™s outside. Plays country music, lots of stools around a big central bar, half a dozen TV€™s showing sport, DJ, small dance floor, and a pool table. Music not too loud. Usually 20-30 girls work here. Waitresses are good fun, and there is a €œTequila Lady€ on the prowl as well!
Good starting point for the evening. Also good resting point if you want to get away from the noise of the other bars for a while. As far as I know, this is the only bar in OT outside Crazy Horse that you can take a lb to for a drink.
The girls that work here are not aggressive. They will try to catch your eye across the bar, and will come up and say hello. But you can also quite happily have a quiet beer, observe the girls and watch sport on TV or have a game of pool. There are no €œlady drinks€™ in Country Bar ie the girls do not get commission if you buy them a drink. So, if you spend an hour chatting and buying them a couple of drinks and then decide not to go with them, it is the right thing to do to at least tip them something (in my opinion).
Ipanema. First floor on the right at top of escalator. Pretty large bar with band playing rock stuff like Bon Jovi. Probably busiest of the disco bars, dozens of girls working every night. 2 bars inside, band on stage over to the right and a dance floor in the middle.
Crazy Horse. The LB bar of OT. Nowhere in Singapore is exclusive LB. I guess Crazy Horse is 50-50. Of the 50% LB€™s, some will be pre-op and others post-op. I have met lb€™s from Thailand, Philippines, China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia here.
This place is straight up 3 escalators from the main entrance and it is right in front of you. Inside you have a pool table, and lots of tables/stools surrounding a dance floor. There is a resident DJ and the music is popular club music, nothing too radical. Loud-ish, but you can still have a conversation.
You can go to the bar and order drinks, but there are some very efficient waitresses running around to save you the hassle. The girls will come up to you and do the €œhi, what€™s your name, where you from€ routine, but take your time. They are not aggressive like BKK, but will wander off if you politely say €œno thanks€.
Watching the world go by?
For those of us who have been to Nana Plaza in Bangkok, can there be a better place in the whole universe than 6pm perched on a balcony seat in Big Dogs watching all the girls coming to work in Nana?
There is no exact equivalent at OT, but the closest is a window seat upstairs at Muddy Murphy€™s Irish Bar on Claymore Street. The taxi rank is just outside, and most of girls will arrive by taxi between 8pm and 9pm.
http://www.muddymurphys.com/mmc_map.htm
Hotels near OT
Many of the big name hotels are within a few minutes walk. The Hilton is less than 100 yards away, almost directly opposite the main OT entrance on Orchard Road. The JW Marriott is 3 minutes walk away on the same side of Orchard Road as OT, and is right beside the Grand Hyatt. Shangri La is also a few minutes walk away.
ATM Machines
There is an ABN Amro machine that takes all international cards just inside the main entrance to OT on Orchard Road. Across Claymore Drive outside the back entrance to OT there is a DBS bank machine (DBS is a large regional bank). Remember, this is right in the centre of the shopping area, so there will be many more ATM€™s very close by.
Drinks Pricing and Tipping
Standard of living in Singapore is probably in the middle between a place like London/NYC, and BKK/Manila. So expect prices to be appropriately positioned. However, alcohol is heavily taxed ie comparable to Paris, and more expensive than London.
The local draught beer is Tiger. In most bars, this will be Sing$10 for a half pint (about US$5.70....currently about 1.75 US$ to Sing$
. Bottled Heineken, Carlsberg, etc, will be Sing$12-14 ie US$7-8 a bottle. Spirits eg G&T, Scotch/coke, etc will be about Sing$12-14 as well.I€™m not sure about the rules for €œlady drinks€. In Crazy Horse, the girls do get something if you buy them a drink. This does not happen in Country Bar, and I don€™t know about the other bars.
I always tip the waitresses Sing$1 (US$0.60) every time they bring me a drink. Be careful of a little trick some of them (not all) play though. They will bring back your change in a little wallet like you get restaurant bills in. They will leave the notes coins outside the inner pocket, and sometimes €œhide€ a dollar coin INSIDE the pocket. So, you leave a dollar tip, but you don€™t see the second dollar inside the inner pocket and actually give them 2 dollars. Cute!
Girls Pricing (gg€™s and/or lb€™s)
Short time and long time is a universal rule in any city. OT usually has a lot of customers, lots of business people come to Singapore. So, most of the girls will hope to have more than one customer per night. So, if you want LT starting early in evening, they will probably ask Sing$350 (US$200). After midnight, you will probably get Sing$250, maybe Sing$200. VERY occasionally girls have said Sing$150, but that is rare. I am told some of the Phillipina girls go slightly lower.
Singaporean LB€™s
They are NOT allowed in Crazy Horse or any of the other bars. Don€™t know why. The only bar I have been able to take them for a drink in is Country Bar. They work the mall inside OT, and the pavement outside the main entrance on Orchard Road. Turn left outside the main entrance onto Orchard Road, and for the next 200 yards you will see a dozen or so Singaporean lb€™s on the prowl every night. They will normally appear from about 10h30/11pm until 3 or 4am.
Security and Police
There is a security guard desk right beside the ATM machine just inside the main entrance. The Singapore police are also regularly patrolling the pavement and road outside. Singapore is a VERY safe city. If you behave like a drunk, you WILL get arrested....no messing about
Hi Stewart, thanks for the above info and the emails you sent me a few weeks back.
customers a night, any wonder the place was full of oversaeas ladies, rich pickings indeed. 
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