It has always been known as Nana Entertainment Plaza (leastaways as long as I can remember)

Bernard Trink always referred to it (in his weekly page in the Bangkok Post) as Nana Entertainment Plaza or NEP (and whether you liked him or hated him, he did know his way around town)

Michael's photographs confirm the above beyond any possible doubt.

So where this "complex" came from search me

This post has been edited by john b good: 2006-11-27 08:11:54

Never knew that until recently and I had maybe a 1000 drinks in there.

That's why I asked in the first place. In a book about BKK it was called "Nana Plaza", though.

I believe that is a reference to the mental state and not a location.

It all depends how "complex" you want it to be. Just call it "Nana" and most Thais and farangs alike will usually guess you are not heading for the boat jetty at the klong on Soi 3 (unless you are already on the boat, that is).
I once asked a Thai girl what "Nana" meant and she told me it meant "In to" which seemed appropriate. I think it in fact it is the Thai word for "inter" as in international etc. Any confirmation on that?

A case for the Thai language board.

I was under the impression that it was the name of the family who own the land it's built on.

My teacher told me is meant 'various'/'mixed', similar to 'inter' I guess??

Think that's Patpong you're thinking of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nana_Plaza

"Nana Plaza (officially Nana Entertainment Plaza; shortened NEP) is a red-light district in Bangkok. It lies on Sukhumvit Road Soi 4 across from the Nana hotel (13°44′28.4″N, 100°33′12.4″E) and allegedly takes its name from an Indian family that owns the land."

One the second Michael's photographs (the vertical sign) it's written Nana Plaza in thaï characters.
Easier to pronounce for a thaï people. Let them try to pronounce the word "entertainement".

Nana is also the original home of the 135 baht beer. I prefer to ogle elsewhere.

Nana plaza serves a purpose. cool to see it in the wikipedia. anyone do a search on the thermae?

Some history



Let's start with the end: Thermae Coffee Shop closed on July 13, 1996. A new Thermae Coffee House opened two days after, two blocks ahead.



Thermae Coffee Shop, or better, the Coffeeshop of Thermae, was a bar settled on the basement of Thermae massage parlour, located on Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok, between Soi 13 and Soi 15. Thermae massage parlour was a massage parlour like many others in Bangkok, organized as a day-use hotel where the girl(s) were provided together with the room. One entered the lobby, chose the girl through a windows and go upstairs, in a room, for a massage or anything similar. Like all the places of this kind, Thermae had a Coffee Shop, that become more famous than the massage parlour and is the object of this web site.



Thermae opened in the '60s, and the coffee shop soon become an institution between Bangkok "farangs" (=foreigners, mainly westerns). In the beginning main customers used to be US soldiers, using Bangkok as main cross-roads between US and the troubled surroundings of Siam.



Probably in the beginning Thermae became famous for low prices of drinks (especially beers: Singha and Koster among the most requested) and being a good place to stop after or before a full-service treatment in the upstairs Thermae massage parlour. Rumors about Thermae closure begun early 1995. Thermae massage parlour shut down beginning ’96.



Even if Thermae Coffee Shop was a stand-alone bar, maybe thanks to the fact that it was officially considered as the coffee shop of the Thermae massage parlour, it was not subject to the official bar working time, allowed to stay open all night long. Others say that the unrestricted working time was due to the protection of the police, whose high officer was the landlord of the place. Usual working time of Thermae was 9:00 p.m. to 7:00 am (but someone reports that Thermae Coffeeshop used to open also in the afternoon, in the old times). This was another reason to attract people after 2:00 am, that is the official closing time of almost all the Bangkok bars. Thanks to the high presence of lonely males, soon Thermae become a hangout place and riots of farangs and Thai woman used to converge to the place, especially after 2:00 am.



Thermae has never been a go-go bar, neither a place where prostitution was openly organized. No bar fine, no dancers with numbers, no shows, no cover charges, no organization at all, but in the same time an intriguing place, a place pervaded with magnetic attraction, underground, wild, where man and woman were both hunters and preys, turning the place as probably the biggest hang-out and pick-up location in the world. At certain hours the place used to be so crowded that it was not possible to handle the flow of people through the main entrance: it was necessary to move the entrance in the back yard, accessible through a dark and smelly alley. Passed a door on the right, past the unisex toilets, down the stairs and through the narrow hallway. Many people going in and out, waiters carrying trays of steaming food, your five senses solicited with smells, heat, bumps, noise and, in the confusion, view of different people and wonderful girls.



Some people compare Thermae Coffee Shop with the Star Wars bar, where Luke went to look for a space vessel driver, finding Hans Solo. This impression is for sure given mainly from the heterogeneous crowd of people used to be found at Thermae: old and young, male, female, transgenders, every kind. ?

So there you have it.....

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I was under the impression that it was the name of the family who own the land it's built on.
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bkkbaz is right. The word may well have the meanings mentioned, but the two sois nana were named after the indian family that owned the land.
khwai

Thanks for the Thermae Bio, interesting stuff. One thing though is now ladyboys are not allowed inside

If you go in Zombie, whatever you do keep away from Joy and Park...

Nana Plaza...... Sleep sounder in whose bed?........