Nana Plaza (officially Nana Entertainment Plaza; shortened NEP) is a 3 storey red-light district in Bangkok, which is rumoured to be the largest sex complex in the world. It is located on Sukhumvit Road Soi 4[1] across from the Nana Hotel, within walking distance of the BTS Skytrain's "Nana Station". The name originates from the Nana family (with Lek Nana the most prominent member) who owns many properties in the area and has much influence in Thailand.
Along with Soi Cowboy and Patpong, Nana Plaza is one of the Bangkok red-light districts which serve primarily European and American customers. However, in recent years more Japanese men have found their way here due to the extremely high prices in the Japanese-oriented nightclubs in Bangkok.
The Plaza is in the shape of a square, with a single opening on the western side, and consists of a ground floor and two additional floors. It started out as a restaurant area in the late 1970s. During the early 1980s go-go bars began to appear and gradually replaced the restaurants. The composition of those bars has changed over the past few years; the last non-go-go bar in the enclosed area, the Woodstock Pub was sold in 2005 to the Rainbow Group and reopened as "Rainbow 4." A few bars have offered a more pub-like or beer bar format without dancing; as of late-2009 only the Cathouse remained. Three short-time hotels operate on the top floor. Short-time hotels are hotels which rent out rooms by the hour or more for the benefit of NEP patrons to go with their chosen bar-girl (or kathoey) for commercial sex.
Most bargirls working at bars in Nana Plaza are willing to leave with customers upon payment of a bar fine. While many bars in Nana Plaza do not employ kathoeys at all, a few do so exclusively. As of early-2010 these venues are Obsession (ground floor), Casanova, Temptations (middle floor), Carnival and Cascades (top floor). The female staff at these bars are almost all pre-operative, as opposed to the kathoey bars in Patpong.
A number of post-operative kathoeys can be found at other bars in Nana, largely at the bars managed by the Crown Group, namely Lollipop, Voodoo, Hollywood Rock, Fantasia, and G-Spot as well as the independently run Erotica.
Nana Plaza is a common setting of the crime novels by John Burdett.
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