بار رام

Major padding of my bill. Had 2 drinks got a bill for 4. The manager said I had 4.

Arrived here around 11pm on a Saturday night. The place was mostly full (but it's a small bar in the first place). Drinks were reasonably priced, and there was already show going on that ended around midnight. There wasn't much dancing or any interaction going on, mostly the show. The crowd was almost all tourists and foreigners (many Asian foreigners, however). A decent place for a night.

Visited the bar on a Wednesday evening before Songkran. The place had a few clients when we arrived at around 9pm and was starting to pick up. The staff were friendly and drinks moderately priced. They told us the show would start at 10pm but we've had a long day so we headed out before the show started though it was starting to pick up as we were leaving, with mostly tourists as the bar were quite close to a few hotels and the Night Bazaar. The playing was like the most randomest you can imagine.

I was on a 5-day visit to Chiang Mai and making a round of the various bars. Ram is ok but nothing special. Bar looks good but the cabaret show - if you like that sort of thing - is nothing to shout about and can be found just about anywhere in Thailand.

This is a really lovely place with a large curved bar and really comfortable bar stalls. There is a huge selection of drinks including cocktails available which the staff take great pride in mixing and presenting well. Mr Wat and his staff are attentive, friendly and speak English well. I spent everyone of my 4 nights in Chiang Mai there and enjoyed some good conversation with both staff and other customers.

I guess that most bars in town assume that theirs is the only bar you go into, and never suspect that you have already heard the same tired excuses for no clientele. "It's early" (I stayed at Ram Bar until closing and there were never more than 2 customers at any time)" "It's Sunday" (a day of rest for gay guys, presumably) "We only do shows on special occasions" (when, I assume, there are more than two customers, five perhaps?" Ram Bar is not easy to find and, to be honest, not worth the effort. The staff were friendly enough but preferred, as usual, to chat with each other. The one expat apart from me had dragged in his fairweather Thai boyfriend who, embarrassingly drunk, vomited twice at the bar. There is a massage place (River House) effectively attached to Ram Bar but under different ownership/management, but it did not encourage me when one of the Ram Bar staff furtively recommended that I look for massage elsewhere because all the guys were straight. Yawn. What is the point of a straight guy working in a gay massage? What do they think the customers want? Polite conversation and a card game? The Edge Restaurant which also appears attached in some way to Ram Bar was, I overheard, closed for two months. So an all-round success story...an empty bar complete with vomiting Thai guy, a gaggle of non-recommended massage boys and a closed restaurant. If that's your idea of a great night out, then go for it. I'll stay at home and watch paint dry.