by Al Culler
My final sight of the night, some ravaged old hooker with her dress up around her waist, squatting on the pavement and dropping a load! The taxi driver found the sight hilarious, almost drove into one of the skytrain’s pillars!
And it wasn’t just one bar that did my mind in. I’ve never seen Patpong so awash with gals; neither have I seen so many with skin lesions. They go all wide-eyed with innocence when I try to probe where they have come from and where they worked before joining the legions in Patpong. Couldn’t get any clear answers.
Alas, lack of lesions doesn’t mean an absence of HIV. If only things were that simple... The very first thing that the HIV virus takes out is the hairline. Thais have fantastical hair normally but hit a gay bar and at least half of the guys are prematurely balding. Same with the gals, though its effect is limited to a slightly receding hairline. A twenty year old Thai girl should have a supreme head of hair, something a model would be proud of; most of them in the bars are already f..ked!
A farfetched and outrageous sentiment? For sure, but one I’m sticking to, especially out in the field! Go upcountry, you find a deeper kind of beauty: the vast majority of parents unwilling to let their kids work in the bars; just where are all the babes in the Bangkok bars coming from? You most probably don’t want to know!
Run a mile? About 5000 seems right!
Pattaya Pains...
Less than a two hour bus ride from Bangkok to Pattaya... it’s not exactly a whole new world; figure Patpong-on-the-Sea! Pattaya beach improved quite a bit, the sea almost looked blue and no dead odour of pollution. Only one farang braved the waters, mind, and he emerged with a shaking fit, snarling at the nearby Thai kids. Does toxic poisoning act that fast or was he just another mad ancient? No way to tell, I certainly wasn’t gonna try to walk on water.
The nearest I got was a stroll down what passed for a pier... and that was frightening enough! I actually like boats. It’s getting in and out of them that proves troublesome; plus the way the Thais turn into complete pirates once the boat is miles from land - divesting you of all your worldly goods and landing you miles from nowhere.
If you must, go with the crowds, much less likely to be ripped off. A couple of floating restaurants were anchored a few hundred yards from shore, busloads of Chinese tourists making the trek on a variety of boats. Didn’t bear thinking about, eating Chinese food on a madly wavering boat...
The pier itself would’ve had a Western safety officer eating his skin. The flimsy wooden decking buckled riotously when a couple of African runners shot down the length of the pier and I almost somersaulted into the sea when the rusted railing at its end gave a good foot after I put my weight against it. Nothing like trying to look cool, my scream probably frightened the fish away - the local fishermen gave me looks that would kill, anyway!
Something wrong with the Thai ecosystem, Pattaya was incredibly hot even in the night, except when walking along the beach’s promenade when a nice cool breeze off the nearby sea dissipated the angst... which you wouldn’t want to do late at night because mad packs of katoeys lay in wait for the innocent, despite the cops arresting them time and time again. Bangkok rejects I’d guess, desperate for easy money before the virus finally takes them out of their misery. Old generation transvestites, easy to spot miles away!
Weird pimps and touts, too. One poor chap gave me the evil eye as he organized a pack of cigarettes and strip of pills in the middle of the street (the walking street part of Beach Road which means that at any given moment there are only about half a dozen motorcycles about to run you down), as if he was on some kind of artistic high. Mind, the lack of snake handlers thrusting huge reptiles into my face was a definite improvement on my last visit.
If a lot of the local men seemed right out to lunch, they had nothing on a couple of farang hookers - Russians? - who were far gone on something, and kept throwing themselves at the male tourists, regardless of whether they were single or in a family pack. Weren’t wearing any underwear, either.
A police officer looked on at their antics, obviously unsure whether it was just normal farang behaviour or something he should act on. In the end, he just gave up and went back to talking to one of local drug merchants. Didn’t see many cops in Pattaya, probably all transferred to inactive posts for past misdeeds.
Every shape, size, age and nationality of foreigner - from packs of Jap tourists through to whole English families. Plenty of ancient sex tourists, too, but just as many young lads getting drunk out of their heads and staggering around as if they had lost it all. Most travelled in packs, as they needed mutual support to stop themselves falling flat on their faces; the bars open all day in Pattaya and the drinks cheap by Western standards. Wanted to tell them they were taking up too much space but didn’t fancy getting smashed in the mouth for my pains.
Head down the sois off Beach Road 2 for the cheaper hotels, 400 baht a night if you don’t mind the lack of an air-conditioner. Not recommended in the heat of the seaside resort, better to pay 500-700 baht (big discounts for weekly or monthly stays) and pass out to the sound of the manufactured cool. The only problem with the cheap hotels, drunken farang coming back at four in the morning, screaming and hammering on the doors.
Fortunately, the vendors on Beach Road sell a useful array of armaments... from lighters and pens with flick-knifes built-in to stun guns! Not to mention knuckledusters and bloody big machetes. I tested one of the stun guns on a nearby loitering canine - the dog leapt a good yard in the air, eyes out on storks, before collapsing on the pavement.
To be fair to Pattaya, there weren’t that many dogs around, probably all eaten by the Cambodian beggars, a couple of whom gave me wide, grateful smiles and carried off the stunned canine! No coincidence that eating food off the street vendors does my stomach in! Every time I eat the local food in Pattaya I end up with serious food poisoning - the dodgy water not helping - so avoid if you know what’s good for you! Thank God for Burger King!
Plenty of Go-Go bars but an almost total lack of gals who hadn’t already dropped a kid or three; some real hardcore babes who I’d seen working Nana and Patpong. Prices about half that in Bangkok. The one gal I took a fancy to, nineteen and almost perfect, was booked up weeks in advance but she could fit me in for a quick session around noon the next day. I demurred. I wasn’t that desperate. At least I saw no signs of the dreaded virus; maybe they still did proper medical check-ups in the go-go bars, unlike in the Big Mango!
I’d always found Pattaya hard going with regards to picking up women - the beer bars saturated with them, but few I would want to dip my wick in despite the reputation of the resort as being the first stop for many country lasses. Unfortunately, most of the new ‘uns I came across were warned off the Culler Way by the mamasan or whichever friend or relative had recruited them in the first place. One of the perils of being in-country a long time - it shows in the eyes, if not the cynical expression.
Alas, quite a few of gals in the beer bars were sporting signs of AIDS in ruined scabs of skin, another reason to be wary of the relatively easy going nature of such establishments. Also an incurable strain of gonorrhea was doing the rounds, one German youth boring me for over an hour with tales of time and money spent in various VD clinics... didn’t stop him going off with one of the hookers, though! A couple of days in Pattaya usually more than enough for me!
Relatively cheap to hop on to the back of a motorcycle taxi but I preferred to walk around. Lots of markets, reasonable prices if you start by offering a fifth of the opening gambit! The further away from the beach, the cheaper things become. Anything that looks old is invariably a fake, so laugh at silly prices. I saw one old dear sticking bits of wood on to a large carved elephant and another guy with a stack of identical paintings that were actually inkjet printed on to suitable paper. Loads of that kinda silliness.
Ended up in Beach Road 2 bars. One had live music that was passable, though the babes in mini-skirts were more than a distraction. The other had a live cabaret, a mixture
of young men who couldn’t really dance, katoeys who couldn’t sing and a few attractive gals who at least focused the mind. Enough beer, it actually seemed quite good though I couldn’t quite figure the couple of farang men who drank some kind of cocktail out of husked out pineapples! And they kept giving me weird looks!
Some motorcycle taxi driver with a silly beard spent an hour staring at me - gay or a pimp whose babe I’d upset? Haven’t got a clue but he went away eventually. The beard did nothing to hide the ugliness of his face nor the concentration of the hatred. Probably a case of mistaken identity.
I ended up taking a convoluted route home to avoid anyone finding out which hotel I was staying at. Method in my madness, don’t ya know, as there is a minor industry in planting drugs in hotel rooms and demanding 50,000 baht in bribes. And they don’t take no for an answer. Another reason to be armed with a stun gun!
Chiang Mai Chang...
The height of my visit to Chiang Mai, some Israeli chick screaming abuse at me just as I was about to check out of the guest house. Dirty f..king bastard, her rather shrill rant. Some ex-army babe with steel muscle tone and a wild little body that the previous evening I’d fully explored. She heavily intoxicated on a mixture of the local narcotics, the exact nature of which I hadn’t had the wisdom nor fortitude to learn.
Typical bloody Western woman, she’d been all over me during the night, then disappeared complaining that her head hurt from drug deprivation. End of story, thought I, falling into a deep, contented sleep only to have reality catch up with me in the morning. I went into Zen mode, totally ignoring her existence and speed-walked out of the guest house fast enough to levitate. I didn’t slow down until I hit the other side of town!
The old town, that is, bounded by a moat and what was left of the city wall, took about two hours to walk around its perimeter or thirty minutes to get from one side to the other, Just about big enough to hide out in until passions cooled! The relative lack of heat and sane humidity meant walking was the order of the day.
But only if you were farang. The natives insisted on cars and motorcycles and viewed road crossings as a means of targeting pedestrians. In Bangkok, if you walked into the sea of traffic they would actually make an effort to brake or steer around you; not in Chiang Mai, had to hop, skip and jump through the blind idiots - I doubt if any of them ever took a test. Chiang Mai is small enough to get away with a complete ban on all powered vehicles!
Another guest house, 100-200 baht a night. Best to go for a shared bathroom as it’s an easy way to meet farang gals, wandering around in the night with minimal clothes on. Mostly trekkers and young, their men seemed zonked out and totally disinterested in sex. I had a lot of slack to take up but I wasn’t complaining. The American girls the best bet as they would do absolutely anything - in fact, demanded it!
The lack of sexy Thai women the cause of this regression. I wouldn’t have bothered normally but there were so few attractive gals in the myriad beer bars that I would’ve been eating my flesh in frustration. The local men liked tall, white skinned gals with a bit of meat on them and these babes all thought they were the business, annoyed when I didn’t concur.
Many of the girls weren’t even from the province but had been shipped in from dire places like Korat, which would’ve been okay if they had brought in some decent women rather than the Bangkok rejects that predominated. The only really stunning woman I saw refused to talk to me - typical! You could put all the young women in the beer bars into one of the large Nana bars and it would still seem a bit empty.
I kept having flashbacks to Manila... many of the girls had the same dog jaw as the Filipinas and insisted on emphasizing it with an excess of lipstick. There just wasn’t the density of beautiful women - I counted 35 in five days, about the same number I’d see in thirty minutes in Mabookong. Mind, the gals working in the shops, department stores and restaurants seemed well educated and if you got through the initial reserve quite happy to be chatted up. Some potential there.
If you want to piss the bar girls off just tell them that the passing parade of hilltribe women in native costumes are beautiful - I loved the bone structure on the Akha babes in particular, even the forty year-olds looked kind of cute. They are held in utter contempt by the Chiang Mai women. Had quite a few trying to sell me silver jewellery and they all went into big smiles when I asked them some personal stuff, though their Thai was as minimal as my own. A couple of farang residents had gone up in the hills and bought themselves Akha wives, the legal age of consent meaningless!
There were a few go-go bars on Moon Muang road. In one, a katoey asked which of the beautiful girls on the stage I wanted. The stage was big enough for forty frails but held only four, none of whom were young enough to call girls and so far from beautiful I almost pissed myself with laughter. The bar was plagued with Thai men working as waiters, and they along with everyone else gave me nasty looks at this display of farang audacity. Sensitive creatures.
In another go-go bar there were three times as many women but they had all dropped kids; the most attractive a Chiang Rai lass who was 29 and at least had a slender body. 300 baht for the bar-fine and five hundred for her for an all-nighter her best offer. Beer and lady drinks ran from 60 to 70 baht, so a lot cheaper than the Big Mango. As there were plenty of younger farang gals available I didn’t indulge.
In another go-go bar, off Loi Kroh, there were about fifty gals... and two hundred local men! The gals were all on the fat side, dancing in elaborate nighties that looked absurd. The beer was a hundred baht a bottle and there were some kind of shows promised but I didn’t stick around for long - would you?
Outside, a square of beer bars with both a boxing ring and cock-fighting pit! The former was populated by a couple of local men who took turns hitting each other until one of them got angry when they played it for real for a short time. The cockerels didn’t fight to the death, either, so I gave that one a miss. The gals were all dismal, not even very friendly.
The back lanes off of Singarat had many a small bar but all seemed so horrible to me that I didn’t stay around for long - the pimps and touts outside looked like they were both far gone on drugs and the effects of the dreaded virus whilst the gals inside had all the hallmarks of blowing their youth (some recruited as young as twelve) in the ghost brothels.
There was one relatively up-market joint that ran to a snake show, one of touts reckoning the gal infamous the world over for her beauty and sexuality. Yeah sure. Not the kind of area to hang around alone in the early hours of the morning but it was only a five minute speed-walk back to the relative safety of the old town. Didn’t bother with the tuk-tuks as they are infamous for taking male tourists on a brothel tour whether they want to go or not.
On first glance, though, Chiang Mai shows little sign of such nastiness. The climate’s vastly superior to Bangkok’s with little of the body destroying humidity; in the December night some serious clothing needed. Wandering anywhere in the old city in the day, even down the narrow back alleys, reveals an incredible excess of ornate temples and a wild architectural diversity.
On the face of it, the city lacks any of the immediate sense of evil of somewhere like Udon Thani, evinces a feeling of safety way ahead of even the Big Mango - despite the police’s reputation for bribe-taking. But it’s not the kind of place to go in search of women unless you have the time to romance one of the locals rather than play around with the bar girls.
There’s an excess of bars with live music, huge markets ( farang prices are three times what the locals pay, as opposed to ten in Patpong, but hard bargaining will attain the local price) where there are actually craftsmen (and women) making things (as opposed to the plethora of Chinese imports in Bangkok, though there are plenty of those, too), an excellent climate and a nice feeling running through the city. Great place to hide out with that dream gal you’ve extracted from some Bangkok bar!
Down and Dirty...
The most frightening sight in Bangkok’s usually a pack of Kat
oeys, half eaten away by the dreaded virus... few places evince immediate fear and loathing in the Big Mango. Surprising then to be thrown into a panic attack when wandering down Sukhumvit Soi 3 (Nana).
Hadn’t been down that particular soi for a long time, the Grace Hotel coffee shop used to be a hangout for some farang, but the soi mostly watering holes for Arabs. The only reason for the excursion, the new girlfriend (don’t ask!) had lost her sister, feared the worst (that she’d become a street-walker) and there was a chance she was in Soi 3.
Plenty of lost souls, anyway. After a while in Thailand, you tend to forget how terrible farang hookers usually are - likely as not, drugged, ruined by disease and run to destruction by awful pimps; the vast majority of the women nowhere near beautiful nor sexy.
Soi 3 a good reminder of how bad things could get in the West, a huge number of Eastern European hookers. They barely restrained themselves from grabbing hold of me - if I’d been alone I would’ve been a goner! The ugliness ran deep, surpassed only by the aura of intensely ingrained violence.
Things went from bad to worse a few yards into the soi. A couple of African louts decided to take over the pavement, throwing us into the chaos of the traffic. They gave me a baleful glare before cheering up when an ancient, wrecked Arab guy tried to pick them up. God knows what sexual permutations the three men were going to cook up.
There were a lot of other African guys hanging out in the soi some turned out to be pimping for the Eastern European whores - you have to admire the intelligence of these women, coming all the way from Poland or Romania to let Nigerian or Ugandan guys take control of their lives!
The girl I was with spent a few minutes talking to some fat Thai woman, a sufficient distraction for one of the more far gone hookers to grab my arm, shout to the world that I could have any hole I liked for 500 baht. She looked like she was about to fall apart from multiple diseases and snarled alarmingly when I hot-footed tit he half yard to the side of the Thai gal. And I was supposed to be protecting her!
