KoninginneNach or QueensNight at Backstage.

29th of April, every year the Dutch start to celebrate their Queens official birthday this evening, culminating in a true people's party on the 30th of April, our Queen official birthday.
Comming from the region in Holand where we have a strong tradition of a real Queensnight, an evening you can easily compare with New Years Eve, only more or less the good weather is guaranteed, one can imagine how we Dutch sometimes can get real crazy celebrating....But happy to say, practically allways in a more then good atmosphere and with lots of fun and joy plus traditions.

Now, being far away from home, we Dutch tend to go on celebrating this typical Dutch national holliday...and so, now being in Thailand, we tried to celebrate at The Backstage as well...in a somewhat Thai way .... with cabaret, but also Dutch snacks (bitterballen en frikandellen) and our national anthem and a toast to the Dutch Queen at midnight...followed by a toast on the King of Thailand and on this special 29th of April, also on the newlyweds WIlliam and Kate (which was much appreciated by our Britisch and commonwealth friends here)!


Above: The Backstage is starting to get ready for its first celebration of Queensnight/KoninginneNach.

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Right: The hosts of Koninginnnach or Queensday, Rob (right) en Kik (left), with our longstanding friend and customer, Egbert otherwise known as Peter in the middle!

By the way, it felt somewhat strange to me, to be wearing my original weddingsuit for the 1st time again since our weddingday in Holland on 08-10-08. But surprisingly it felt better eand less 'tight' to wear hahaha then on that O so special day. The shirt was made by WiWat Wis, the designer here in Patong with a more then excellent repetoir. We can easily recommend all of you who come to Patong to pay him a visit and see if he has made something of your liking. Most likely you will yourself succesfull;-)
But wearing our weddingsuits, though different from our weddingday, also felt good...it somehow felt appropriate for the festive occasion and by wearing ithese pink suits expressing our wish that we sincerily hope that our Queen will have a long and above all healthy live!



Left: Yourstruly together with Chris from The Dutch Inn.

The Dutch Inn is the Dutch bar/cafe off Bangla Road, with whom we have excellent contact. We were pleasantly surprised that he was able to make time to join us to celebrate Koninginnenach with us for at least a part of the evening/night. The next day we found him busy behind the BBQ at his own bar, when we paid him a return visit to celebrate Queensday or Koninginnedag at his location (by the way, that was and is the extra reason to celebrate Queensnight, so everybody who likes to celebrate doesn't have to choose between our places but can simply enjoy both parties!



Left: Kim enjoyed doing a pleasing dance and song number, and for the occasion was dressed up in Orange with even Orange feathers to go with his costume...a picture we wouldn't like you to miss out on.

In dayly life Kim works in the venue next to ours, Superboys.
Thats also the fun of our Backstage Cabaret... we discover more and more that friends of our bar, guests, like to join our cabaret when they have the chance to. And we are allways enthousiastic if they want to do one or more numbers because thats what Backstage is for as well...its a bar for ALL our customers and friends, to enjoy and use...so if we can we try to accomodate and sofar without any regrets! ;-)
O well,



Right: Bil performing a dramatic Thai song.

To the joy of our Thai friends and customers, as well as of us 'farang' or non-Thai, our Bil performed a dramatic Thai song in a most expresive way so that even we could understand and get why our Thai friends were so enthousiastic;-)! We discover that Bil is quite the actor when on stage... when he transforms from the modest/relative quiet guy when working in the Backstage into an outgoing, expressive personality.



Right: Rang also took the opportunity to get more stage experience.

During our 2d try-out he took part for the first time, and we then happily agreed to have him also in our Queensnight performance. His enthousiasm was wonderfull and he had fun to expres himself to all our enjoyement.


All in all our KoninginneNach or QueensNight went more then wonderfull. Not all the performers of the Backstage Cabaret have been mentioned above.... But all of them have been mentioned in earlier reports here on the weblog ;-)
We also discovered that our Schia enjoys to play the thecnician, taking care of the music...which went pretty well... we can expect him to do more of that! ;-)

To all mentioned above and the ones not mentioned, but without whose efforts the evening wouldn't have gone as well as it has been, we like to express our warm felt thanks for having given us a most memorable KoninginneNach/QueensNight!

1st TRY-OUT Backstage Cabaret pretty succesful! ;-)

If I/we have to believe our customers who were present at the first public try-out of the Backstage Cabaret, all of them were enthousiastic with the performances our Backstage staf put on our modest little stage.
Though the setting was simple, our public was truly enjoying the efforts put into the numbers which were brought on with the interpretation by our staf.
Even me, who stimulated the staf to do something like this, was pleasantly surprised... though several times customers and staf had to calm me down that everything would be okay (staf), or was more then okay (customers)!

Most appreciated was the honesty and real enthousiasm for what they were doing...simply it showed so clearly the fun the staf was having doing this!
Something, according to some, is nowadays missing so much in the cabarets of the more renowed cabaret bars here in (Paradise) Patong... even though they are much more elaborate, way bigger, etc. The sincerity and enthousiasm made up for shortcommings, which were there ofcourse...so normal for a first time ever;-)

End conclusion: I was proud, very proud on what the Backstage staf managed to bring on our little stage simply because this crazy Dutch farang thought it was finally time to start experimenting with Backstage's own Cabaret after such a long time talking about it...... simply doing is the best way to find out if we are any good at it....
It seems though, big sigh of relief, we are ;-)!!!

The 1st try-out started ofcourse, as seems to be a Thai tradition, way too late (making me nervous if anything at all would happen) while our Backstage was surprisingly filled with interested customers!
But then it started, in twou little rounds our staf brought in total 8 different numbers on stage and after our/my Kik brought a funny encore for those still present (but then he could only do something 'late' because he had to get down to Backstage from his work for Simon Cabaret first (but you'll miss his picture in here, haha) ;-)
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In the end our little cabaret show was performed by 4 members of our staf: Max, Tom, Mos and Bil.
Though in the first round our Tom (Left: Tom together with Bil) suffered from stagefright and backed out at the last minute...when seeing his friends/co-workers do their numbers, he got over that fright and did his more traditional number with Bil in the second half


Above Right: Bil doing his first number. We can say that we look forward to see what else he has in store for us in the months to come to enjoy!


Left: Max bringing his first song with a well known and strong female number in a version unknown to our friends and customers, namely perfomred and sung by a man!
Like to thank Max because I so much wanted real male numbers included, and he delivered in a clever way!


Right: Mos surprised us all by putting on a wonderfull female number as kick off of the Backstage's Cabaret. Though in general a shy person, he made us all feel proud for his daring and courage by bringing this first number with an disarming charm ;-)



Above: from left to right: Max, Bil, Tom and Mos. Posing for a deserved thank you and applaus by our audiance for bringing our first ever Backstage Cabaret!

I truly hope we will be able to build on the enthousiasm of this first performance. The intention is to grow to a regular show once a week over the next months, with most likely all kinds of little improvements to make everything more easy/natural and most important... more relaxing haha, Will need that myself lol
BUT I'll definitly wil try my utmost to keep to the principal
Nobody has to do something, they are all free to do if they enjoy doing so.....

Uhum, allready one of our staf who didn't want to take part at first, now allready requested if he could do a number in the 2d try-out ..... and for all of you who managed to read this far, til this line here: that 2d try-out will take place, if I can help it, well before the 29th of April...because if possible I would enjoy our staf to become the backbone of our Queensnight celebration on the 29th of April! ;-)
We'll wait and see ;-)

O, and please feel free to place your positive critisism, we'll need all that input in trying to improve on this slipery way in the world of Thai cabaret ;-)

Wud's birthday Party on 15th of March, a modest but most relaxing and fun celebration!

When we started up The Backstage last August/September we had a Thai guy running that small restaurant opposite Backstage & Superboys, we nowadays use for food at our bar.
Some bad luck happened to him and he had to sell his small restaurant and left Patong Phuket to return to his home province in the north east of Thailand.
Before he started that small restaurant he worked at Big Boom Boy and some of the old customers of J&B Bar may remember some of our outings to our present soi when we enjoyed ourselfs at Superboys and Big Boom Boy. By the way, Big Boom Boy in the form we knew and enjoyed, doesn't exsist anymore... this last month it as been converted into a laundry service... but with leaving all the signs etc. of Big Boom Boy on the outsite in tact .... so typicaly Thai;-)

Now this guy, Wud is his name, if you hadn't guessed that allready, enjoyed using Backstage for drinks & karaoke with his friends on a very regular basis. Now Wud came back for a couple of weeks to Patong Phuket and decided that he would like to celebrate his birthday at The Backstage.
Ofcourse we enjoyed organising his birthday party for him! We also had not forgotten how he helped us get known and started in our first months here in our soi (=street) as well.

So the Backstage went in party-mode and we decorated the place according the occasion: a simple birthday party ;-) (picture below)


Now, the flowerladies seem allways able to smell where an occasion takes place which might be in need of celebration flowers, so they turn up and try to sell them.
In a way not bed, because they often smell most wonderfull and attractive...and when you buy the flowers for hanging around your neck then those smells accompany you the whole remainder of that evening/night ;-)
By the way its a popular flower gift to give to persons on the even of their departure, or, as in our situation, for someones birthday.... and as you can see on the pic below, Wud got his! Next to Wud, one of Wud's farang friends, Egebert, also known among Thai as Peter...Thai seem to have a hard time with saying Egbert and made it into Peter ;-)





Picture above: When the clock has hit midnight, its the custom around here to bring out the birthday cake, when their is one of course ;-)
Ofcourse we at Backstage arranged for one, and Wud was very happy to receive his cake with a symbolic number of candles on top of it, from me and blew them out in one go...this time our candles were normal and so easy to blow them out .... by the way, it made them much more harder to keep burning while bringing the cake out to Wud haha.


But whats a Thai birthday party without karaoke?
Wud managed to get all of the farang guests, us westerners, to sing songs, or at least give it a serious try...and this turned our birthday party in one fun affair of singing, laughing...simple real enjoyment and celebration.
Picture below: Some of our farang joining Wud singing and look to thow truly they enjoy!

Orange Gay Cruise, with a fun but windy, somewhat stormy end, part 4 !

Above: Sun is setting over Chalong Harbour, which due to a very unusual strong, stormy wind, was unusually restless. But the sunset looked wonderfull ;-)

Below: Due to this stormy weather the Captain decided that it was not safe for our boat Sai Mai to land in dock and instead he decided to let the Sai Mai stay ofshore and bring us all to shore in the dingy of the boat in which we allso landed on Nui Beach earlier that day .... wwhen all together on land again we heard that the benjamin of our group, Rin, got seasick while ferrying back to land... though we al felt sorry for his plight we also had to smile because of it


Below: As it should be, the organiser(s) responsible for this succesfull cruise, though with a somewhat stormy but fun carnaval like ending, left the ship last .... here we arrive, al feeling pretty dandy and excited near the spot were we all went on steady land again ;-)


Above: The complete Orange Gay Cruise group together for the closing group picture:
from left to right: Egbert (known to our Thai friends as Peter, Alberto, Teacher (nickname), Tu, Somchai, Neet, also known as Oei, sandy, Andreas, Kik, Rin, yours truly Rob, ... and Zhou!

After the cruise we were all brought back to the Backstage were we arrived safe and sound around 7 pm, 11 hours after we left The Backstage..... were we closed of with The Orange Party and, ofcourse a very good meal with, ofocurse some big friend fish ;-)
But well, thats the next report!

When you like to see more or al the pictures made during this cruise, visit our facebook-page!

Orange Gay Cruis, fashionable & jummy, part 3 !

Left: Kik, as a true Orange Queen, with yours truly, in indeed in orange speedo ;-) posing in the pleasant sun making fun while waiting for lunch to be served.


Below: The cook, who prepared all the food on board fresh from her kitchen, or "kombuis" as we say in Dutch, is also busy laying the table so we can finally sit down to enjoy her more then excellent cooking.



Left: Egbert looks very pleased at the food layed out for him...but then we have to say, it also smelled wonderfull, so we were more then happy that once started we all had to agree that the food tasted at least as good as it smelled and tasted. Our lunch exsisted of fried shrimp and chicken, seafood-vegetable soup, stirfried vegetables with pineapple and shrimp, friend rice with seafood, fruits, cucumber and steamed white rice plus ofcourse whatever we wanted to drink with it.


Left (again): If not enough, after lunch, and some more sailing the waters on the west coast of Phuket but same time also slowly on the way back to Chalong Harbour, snacks were served to go with, again all the drinks we liked...by the way, once we were on board all those drinks were at available to us, like beer, gin, vodka, red & white wine, whiskey..whatever we liked but also coffee & tea ofcourse as well as plain water ;-) All in all we could not complain about anything, and to know that complaining is a favorite hobby of the Dutch .... joking ;-)

Orange Gay Cruis, a jummy affair part 2 !

Right: While leaving the harboour of Chalong in the moring, we were, as told in "part 1" served an elaborate breakfast. Here Kik (on the right) and me ready for enjoying this first meal of the day.



Below: But ofcourse we all did and so here a picture of our cruise-group, while a picture is being taken, with the coastline of Phuket gliding by ;-)




Left: Ofocurse a boat continues while one eats..but afterwards some of us wanted to stand in the wind, here you see Somchai, Rin and yours truly.








Below: After we rounded the corner of the outcrop of the iland as seen in the pic above, we bumped into a very nice spot, which we managed to identify as Nui Beach...and as you can see, we were the only ones, at least approaching from the sea. When we landen we discovered a couple of people, but not more then that, which gave Nui Beach a very attractive and nostalgic atmosphere we all enjoyed , maybe too much ;-)

Orange Gay Cruise a wonderfull succes! Part 1 !

The Sai Mai, our ship for this little private and exclusive Orange Gay Cruise we organised on the 31st as part of celebrating the birthday of Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands.... as is the custom of yours truly due to the allways excellent weather here on Phuket ;-)

Same time we used it also to say thanks to people who helped us with moving and with a serious emergency to help a dear friend of ours, Zhou.
The whole combination turned this day in a wonderfull experience which energized all who took part!

Though we say it ourselfs, it was truly an exclusive experience, a real private cruise with all the fascilities and relaxation one could wish for!

We started the cruise around 9 am in the morning when the Sai Mai left the port of Chalong.... while doing so all of us were served a fresh made American Breakfast with all the trimmings .. and O, I enjoyed the crispy warm bacon. All prepared by the cook which was available to us the whole day :-)

After breakfast ofocurse followed lunch, which was above expectations, so specially our Thai friends were very happy with that!
(Thai are very critical about their food)

By the Way, from departure to debarking around 6.30 pm (!) we could use all fascilities on board, including the 3 cabins with private showers/bathrooms/toilets. But also the very well equiped bar which served all the drinks we liked, alcoholic as well as non alcoholic, including nice South African wines ;-)

Left:: Here we bring a toast on HM the Queen on her good health and a happy birthday!






Ofcourse we did much more then just cruise and drink and eat!



Right: Kik and me, on Nui Beach!

This beach is very difficult to get to and is very privatly located on main iland Phuket.. we were one of the very few people there and the only ship in the bay.. it gave us a feeling not only of exclusivity but also how the beached of the iland must have looked like between 20 and 40 years ago ;-)


Soon we publish more about the cruise and the Orange party following it BUT if you can not wait, then we recoomend to surve to
www.facebook.com/BackstageVIP were you can find all the pics of the cruise as well as the party ;-)

Exclusive Orange (Gay) Cruise & Party on the 31st of January!

This day The Backstage wants to celebrate the birthday of the Dutch Queen and we start doing that with giving YOU the chance to take part in an exclusive day cruise on the Andaman Sea!
The cruise will be an all inclusive outing. There's a cook on board to prepare our lunch, and plenty to drink.

Fascilities for snorkling and, most comfi, an excellent easy way to get of and on board the boat while at sea when you like a swim!
When you might like a rest, their are 3 cabins on board.

If you like to join on this exclusive Orange Gay Cruise, just let us know ASAP.

We will also ask if you have any wishes of places or things you would like to see, because we intend to try to fit as much wishes in our day program as possible.

We will end the cruise program on the 31st with a 'modest' Thai buffet, some cabaret performances and drinks during The Orange Party at The Backstage

Ofcourse theirs a pricetag to this exclusive all inclusive daycruise with all the fascilities (excluding though the drinks during the Orange Party!) of 3000 baht per person.

Estimated time of start of cruise program: 09.00 hours
Estimated end of day-cruise program : 18.00 hours
Estimated end of evening cruise program : ?? hours (= up to you!)

Those of you who know us from The Backstage, knows, we only like to offer sincere good deals to our friends and customers and though 3000 baht sounds like a lot, it is, we promiss you, a good deal and it will hopefully prove to be a lot of fun and a highlight of your stay here on Phuket!

You can let us know of your principal interest to participate and same time let us know which elements you would like us to try to include in this exclusive cruise, by simply writing us a message here, giving us a call (Rob: +66(0)80 14 18 180), message us on our facebook or simply walk by The Backstage here in Patong on Phuket!

You have to let us know before the 28th of January when seriously interested to participate.
And be aware:
Limited number of places available !

BTW when succesfull, we intend to repeat the day cruise program during the Gay (Pride?) Festival which takes place between the 23d and 26th of February

Xmas Gift Party comming up on the 25th of December!!

The rules for our little Xmas Gift Party are as follows:

The gift you bring, and you can bring as many as you like, but a minimum of one is required, has to cost a minimum of 100 baht and should not exceed 200 baht.
Per person, ergo not per gift, one receives the free housecocktail ;-)

Everybody comming to our Xmas gift party with a gift will leave with a gift... but we will start handing out the gifts from 10 pm onwards.
O, and when due to circumstances you are unable to be at our place around or after 10 pm: we will keep your gift here at The backstage for you max 3 days, after which we will put all not collected gifts in a lucky draw ;-)

We chose the time, so everybody can enjoy whatever else might be on offer in (gay) Patong!

Little report & pictures Max Quarter Century Party

The birthdayboy, presenting himself in the outfit of his choosing ;-)
Max celebrated his 25th or quarter century at our bar with a small but real fun party!


On birthdays its very common for Thai's to give money, though we also see that happen a lot in , what we call, the west, Thai though like to show what they received and or gave (and honestly just as happy with a smal gift as well as big ones!) and so when somebody celebrates ones birthday and brings money with him as a gift, one will most of the time find himself clipping it around the birthday boys neck as a necklace of money.
Like many Peter (some of the pics on this weblog entry are his) did the traditional thing and here he poses just after the fact with Max;-)


Max likes to sing, karaoke or otherwise, and here we see him doing just that! Singing for al his friends at Backstage!
Our karaoke installation functions excellently and one can even sing on the street (as, actually, customers seem to enjoy.
(The fun of our Backstage seems, for one, to be that in one part people can enjoy karaoke, etc. while other customers can still enjoy some quiete time with talk etc. but when having a special occasion we happily mix)


We all got really surprised, and enjoyed a big laugh, when one of our regular customers, Frederick, knowing about this tradition of giving money and hanging it around the birthdayboy, brought a T-shirt made of 20 baht notes. Now that's a cool idear!!


Ofcourse, at midnight, we also had the traditional birthdaycake ceremony. On this occasion sponsored by Uli, who also presented the cake to Max while we all sang "happy birthday" ofcourse!
Poor Max then had to try to blow out the candles, which proved to be way less easy then he anticipated ;-)


The table with all the regulars of The Backstage at the present moment, assembled around it.
Though Uli left for Germany allready while we write this and Frederick is of to Bali for a coupleof days (3d of the left).

Surprised though not unexpected: Joel is back in town!
We were very happy to receive Joel back among us on, of all days, Maxs birthday. Joel is dear and loyal friend from our former J&B-Bar and he is allready making our Backstage his homebase while in Patong!
(Third from the left!)


After a whole evening of happiness for Max, a last picture with him, while saying thank you and goodbye, hoping his new year will undoubtly be better then the year past!
Also, he is now wearing a crown, made out of twenty baht notes, made by the lady who cookes the (seriously wonderfull) food we serve at The Backstage ( from her own little restaurant opposite our Backstage)

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Birthdays & Weddings Party 7th of October, rough outline of set-up now known.

Roughly the set-up of the upcomming party at The Backstage is getting shape, though nothing is definite yet, but enough to start sharing the information ;-)

We'll start the 7th at 7 pm with Celebration of Life (= Birthdays).
If all goes to plan we'll happily celebrate the birthdays of Jeroen, who will be here for holiday from Holland, and Rob, yours truly and 'owner' of The Backstage!
Between 9.15 and 10 pm we'll have a first show, which will be about celebating life!

At midnight, when 7 turns into an 8th, we will start celebrating weddings, or, as one can also say: long lasting relationships, love, commitment, the union of people based on love!

Right: Rob & Kik on their way to Cityhall of Delft to get married, in company of friends and family, 8th of October 2008.

We celebrate the 2d weddinganniversary of Rob (yes, me again) & Kik and the upcomming wedding on the 10th of Ton & Bow here on Phuket! (Ton is from Holland, while Bow is from North East Thailand)
Between 00.30 en 01.30 am we'll plan to have a second show, concentrated around long lasting relationships, love, etc.

We expect this special party will end between 2 and 4 am.

Ofcourse The Backstage provides, as is tradition here in Patong, a buffet, hopefully to everybody's liking and ofocurse the traditional welcomming drink!

O, not unimportant, all promotions The Backstage runs right now, will NOT be valid during this special event at The Backstage!!