by Al Culler
At least the Aussies knew how to drink and we swapped stories about that most peculiar form of warfare, between the sexes, until the early hours. I managed to stagger on to the bus back to Bangkok and promptly passed out!
The Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly!
Some readers might, by now, be panicked out of their minds by the thought of their first visit to Bangkok going very wrong, I should explain that the likelihood of being set upon by a pack of mad transvestites, electric-stun-gunned into oblivion, male-raped and robbed is very low, only likely to happen if you totter out of a bar at three o’clock in the morning, totally drunk out of your head and decide to hike it home rather than risk a taxi. So don’t panic - overall, Bangkok is one of the safest cities in the Orient, which means in the world! Just keep your wits about you and don’t flash large bankrolls or expensive jewellery!
It isn’t only safe, it’s absolutely packed out with beautiful young women. One of my favourite pastimes is sitting downstairs in Mabookong shopping centre, watching the babes parade past. We’re not talking the odd good looker, but masses and masses of stunning women - imagine Kate Moss in her prime at sixteen with dark skin and Oriental features, and you get an idea of where we’re at. It’s enough to drive a man right out of his head...
Especially as none of these wonderful babes will either have anything to do with me, nor turn up in the bars, not that I’d want to put them on that road to ruin. Used to be that loads of up-country girls would come down to Bangkok, use the bar scene to find the farang of their dreams (be it dreams of easy money, good heart or handsome looks - even all three in some cases). That still happens occasionally but it’s usually some old dear (as in over 25!) who’s dropped a couple of kids and got shot of some idiot of a local husband (if you’re lucky!).
By the time they’re eighteen, the girls who do turn up seem too far gone to take at all seriously. Some of the Thai run bars actually pay their parents, so they have to work off the loan (ever increasing with the interest rates demanded) before they can escape the scene (a ploy long used in the brothels) and by then they are too into the easy money, dependent on drink or drugs, or have some pimp to support.
Other young girls turn up free of such burdens but have huge families and/or Thai boyfriends to support - believe me, it’s depressing to hang around outside Nana Plaza at two-thirty in the morning and clock all the more attractive young girls being picked up by their pimps - ugly little runts for the most part - on motorcycles two sizes too big for them.
Other girls, and Patpong bars are infamous for this, are recruited from the Chinese brothels (more likely sold!) and although they are young have had so many men that it takes a while for them to bloom under the more benevolent air of Patpong; some of the girls transformed in half a dozen months into real stunners. These ladies are far beyond post traumatic stress, though, having worked in dreadful places since thirteen, maybe had more than 10,000 men before they make it to Patpong.
The recession has seen a plague of older women come out of retirement, huge extended families to support as well as some young Thai man who has nothing better to do all day than perfect his sexual techniques. Even girls who have gotten lucky and married some rich farang often like to keep a Thai man on the side - the farang for the money and Thai for the sex! One vague acquaintance, who had married some Thai girl, couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t have sex with him once he blew all his money two million baht - on an upcountry house for her parents (actually for the Thai guy!) and was complaining about his food tasting odd!
The latest little bit of nightlife horror is the trickle of girls turning up from Hat Yai. These babes are bad news as they spent their youth servicing Malaysian men who crossed the border in huge numbers in search of cheap sex. Figure ten guys, and more, a day, for five years - you do the maths, it’s too depressing for me! The Thais consider them ideal for foreigners who don’t know any better and view the whole mess of Patpong, Cowboy and Nana bars as a great joke. Only a trickle of girls at the moment, but if they get ahead of the game then they will be coming in by the bus-load!
There are two types of girls with Thai boyfriends working the bars. One just does the dancing, drinks the Cokes and runs home to sonnyboy a few hundred baht richer. The other’s gone completely hardcore, will f..k anything on two legs with a wallet, tries to make at least five thousand baht a night doing the short-time blues. Both can be so beautiful and sexy they will make you weak at the knees, but the latter is so hardcore inside there’s no hope for her.
By the way, if you want to piss Thai girls off, ask, Mangda Menai - where’s your pimp? Actually, mangda means cockroach and is also used to describe the police! Just refuse all offers of short-time, making them stay all night gets rid of a lot of the girls with mangda’s.
There’s one Patpong dive with half a dozen Thai men working behind the bar who are all running girls working the other side. As half the dancers were katoeys that just about took care of all the potential in the place. Oh, I lie, there was one babe who claimed to be eighteen but was really 15/16 who was free(ish) but it only took about a month for her to be ruined by a succession of elderly Jap’s. She seemed quite keen on moi, for some reason, but I didn’t fancy adding sex with underage girls to my long list of misdemeanours.
The great pity is that there are plane-loads of farang men - and not just fat ancients, loads of young men as well - who would love to have a serious relationship with a Thai girl but it’s almost impossible to get past all the crap that the Thais like to offer in the bars and the language and cultural barriers make it difficult to wander off up-country - which as far as the heart of darkness goes makes Bangkok look like Bognor!
In the past couple of months I’ve come across two - yes, two! girls who managed to combine beauty with a degree of innocence, working in the bars, both eighteen - but, alas, neither wanted much to do with me. Having whined and complained, it still has to be said that as entertainment, Bangkok bars take some beating and the beer is still relatively cheap. Problem is, get drunk, your judgment’s shot to hell and you end up doing shit you shouldn’t...
Bargirl’s Life
When Tai was ten, eleven, she spent her time prospecting for gems on the Thai and Cambodia border, the Khmer Rouge trigger-happy, out of their heads on the back of their leader’s complete and utter madness. The chances of getting lucky were equal to the chances of being blown away.
Tai eventually got way ahead of the game, found a huge sapphire, worth over 100,000 baht. The incredible heat, the swarms of mosquitoes and plagues of snakes didn’t bother her; she merged into the jungle, senses alive and in tune with the reptilian masses.
Tai was the eldest of six sisters and two brothers, one of the latter already dead. The money went to her parents who blew it all on drink and partying, for a little while enjoying huge face on the back of their sudden and unexpected wealth. Tai and her elder sisters were sent to look for more gems, the remaining brother not allowed to risk his precious neck.
The parents full of visions of further wealth were incensed when no more was forthcoming. The communists closed the border down, the family returning to Pichit with what they had left - nothing! A stony welcome, the father’s elder brother allowing them to build a hovel on his land but not really wanting to know.
Harsh reality for the family was working the land for a 100 baht a day - if they were lucky, and then only when the crops were in season. The old man became immersed in his love affair with Lao whisky, treated like a child by his wife who wouldn’t let him near what little money rolled in.
Tai was about as tough as a 45kg girl can be, could work the land, could survive on the food found there, in the rivers and in the jungle. The only thing she feared, that her future might be as unrelenting as her past...
The odd thing was that, even in a country that revelled in its dismissal of all things foreign, Tai was drawn towards farang, not wanting to know about the Thai men who were after her by the time she was 13/14.
When t
he chance of a job in a small Bangkok restaurant turned up she grabbed it with both hands. Not just the thought of big city life, but removal from the almost unbearable family pressure. The eldest sister supposed to support the whole family.
At this point it could’ve all gone terribly wrong. Some arsehole going upcountry to recruit girls for a brothel but telling them that it was a nice, respectable job in a restaurant. But here, at least, she was lucky, the job was genuine if hard work. A few thousand baht a month but free food and accommodation.
Tai stuck the job out until she was 17, fending off the boss’s son who was half in love with her. Most of her time she was too tired to explore Bangkok, but the brightness and noise stirred something in her soul.
On a visit back to Pichit, she was persuaded to return to Bangkok to work in one of the bars in Washington Square. The old girl who took her under her wing, reckoned she wouldn’t have any problems with the farang, many of whom, being long term residents, spoke some Thai.
45kgs of fearless Thai womanhood, who figured she had absolutely nothing to lose, entered the bar scene a virgin at 18 and held out for over six months. The go-go dancing she could handle, and there was enough fierceness in her expression to persuade the foreigners to go no further than buy her drinks.
Luckily, unlike many of the small bars, the boss was already married and not inclined to ruin every girl who crossed his path (believe me, a rarity in Bangkok bars). Tai, though beautiful in the eyes of farang, found in her dark skin and concave, Laotian, nose nothing in which to revel; the lack of arrogance only acting to increase her attractiveness.
Tai reckoned she gave up her virginity out of boredom, tired of being left behind in the bar every night as her friends went off with the customers. There was the money, as well. The young guy who took her virginity was never seen again... had she hoped he would look after her? Who knows?
In the next six months Tai went on an odyssey of sex. At least once a night she would be bought out. Hard to say how much money she made, it all went on partying with her friends and shopping sprees. Tai had her choice of men, only limited by Washington Square being away from the easy tourist hordes.
She built up a few regular customers, one an ex-Vietnam vet far gone on her but she was warned off by her friends - not just that he was old and fat, but that he couldn’t keep his pecker in his pants and had a history of violence. Besides, he only had a very small pension.
By the time she was 19, she began to tire of the scene - the same old initial enthusiasm, the same indifference after the sex and the way the money flowed through her fingers like water; the need to be drunk all the time to deaden the reality of her life. There were some young guys who she liked but didn’t trust, too long in town...
Enter Tony. Fresh from the UK he’d somehow made his way up to Washington Square. 30, but slim and younger looking, he wandered into the bar expecting the usual round of elderly whores who dominated the area. At that time the bar had half a dozen young babes in their prime - hell suddenly blooming into paradise. (Note, the bar went out of business many years ago, so don’t rush down to Washington Square full of hope...)
Tony took one look at Tai, didn’t want to know about the other girls. Offered to buy Tai a Cola, she by then able to understand a little English; Tony knowing only hello and thank you at that point. The Vietnam vet sat scowling in the corner, fearing the worst; the attraction palpable. Not surprisingly, Tony bought her out and fell madly in love with her.
Tai wasn’t exactly overjoyed; neither were the bar’s regulars as Tony monopolised her time. She was losing money and regular customers but on the other hand, here was that rarest of creatures in Bangkok - a good man! Who wouldn’t pay her for sex after the first night, telling her she was too good for the bars, buying her what she wanted, but not willing to treat her as a whore. Her choice!
By then Tai had realised there was little future blowing her youth on the round of residents and no-hopers who liked her body but didn’t want to know about the rest of her. Tony had no such hesitation, demanding she give up the bar and move in with him. Her friends were annoyed, the Vietnam vet going out of his mind and the boss giving her hard looks. Her choice.
She decided to move in with Tony. She brought with her a certain sullenness that was as intense as her sexual proficiency. Rages and silences made up most of the relationship; a weird kind of freedom to rant in Lao knowing that the farang would only understand the expression and not the words.
A kind of madness ensued. Tony threatening to walk out when things went too far. She not caring until she saw his bags packed and she had a vision of her future back in the bar. Then the tears came; reunited. And the cycle went on.
Partly out of stubbornness, partly for the money, she continued servicing some of her regular customers, including the Vietnam vet. Tony found out, somehow, walked out. Depression was an understatement for what he felt - he seemed totally hollowed out without Tai - we’re talking about losing a girl who would make most models look mundane.
Tai tracked him down, promised him all kinds of things. Reconciled again. The cycle was repeated - fantastic highs, harsh reality, walk out, dreadful lows, reconcile, etc., etc. This went on for two years until he finally caught her in the act with the Vietnam vet! End game.
Tai ended up with the vet, eaten up by the fact that anyone would actually walk away from her. Her anger was vented on the vet, a tirade kept up for a year until he finally broke - coming back late one night and beating the shit out of her. To cut a long story short, she ended up in hospital for six months and he did four years in a Thai jail!
Tai came out of hospital almost totally ruined, the beauty gone, the body bloated from the hospital stay. Her mother went as far as to suggest she became a Buddhist nun! Then Tony turned up again, took her in hand! She bloomed again, though she would still turn sullen on a whim.
The happiness lasted for four years and two kids. By the time Tai got her beauty back, willed her body into sublimeness again and extracted the security of a few rai of land and a house from Tony, she was once again possessed of her fearless nature - what was the worst that could happen to her; her ‘good’ man would walk out on her. Compared to the rest of her life, what was that?
The same shit went down again, she doing farang on the side not just for the money but because she needed the reaffirmation that she was still an attractive babe. Tony found out, walked out. Didn’t speak to her for two years; tried again, the same shit followed. Finally gave up, broken-hearted again but hardly surprised.
Ten years after that first meeting Tai lives upcountry on a few million baht’s worth of land, young Thai men in attendance and the love and devotion of her kids. She makes sporadic trips to the Bangkok bars, if anything, even more attractive than before, always aware that she might strike it lucky, find a deep vein of richness and lust-driven devotion, but she is mostly bored by farang. She revels in her freedom! Tough and fearless, she also still likes to cut the rice on her land, the rhythm and rhyme of the countryside deep in her blood.
The Vietnam vet still does the rounds of the bars, now only able to afford the more desperate katoey! Of Tony? He disappeared for a while, drowned the angst in work, but has recently re-emerged with a beatific smile, an extremely large bank account and reckons he’s so far ahead of the game that he doesn’t have to worry about anything any more.
Of Thai women he doesn’t want to know, locked in a battle of wits with a 16 year old Cambodian babe of extreme beauty. A few times he’s seen Tai in the bars but he turned his back and walked out. Like a addict, he knows that if he gets too close again the same old sorry cycle will repeat itself!
Who won? Who lost? Who cares?
Out to Lunch
It’s all gotten pretty boring. The endless nights of neon dives, nearly naked ladies and line after line of bullshit. Have to stand aside from it all, step back and take stock. The only safe sex left, by the way, is with virgins, preferably under 20...
Frightening sights, wander
ing into bars where girls who have being doing the dance for half a decade, a decade, or even more, suddenly turn to skin and bones, shoulder blades standing out like the victim of an African famine. Not HIV, but AIDS running rampant.
Don’t see it so much in Manila bars - they largely still do proper medical checks! - but in Bangkok and Pattaya the medicals are cursory at best, the babes keep on dancing (and f..king) until their frail legs can’t support them any more.
Go up country in Thailand, 20-30 year old girls going home to their families to die but the death certificate claiming cancer or pneumonia as the cause of death rather than as a mere byproduct of the virus going dominant. A small town where I was staying, they were averaging three deaths a week of people under 40. Unprecedented. And just the tip of the iceberg.
Back in Bangkok, bright lights did in my mind, alcohol popped what was left of my brain cells and I tried to avoid playing my own dance of death; ending up on my knees muttering prayers whilst clutching a Buddhist amulet, hoping against hope that paranoia was just that and not harsh reality intruding.
The next thing I knew, I was absolutely convinced that someone had planted heroin in the hotel room’s air conditioner and had soon reduced it to its component parts. Finding nothing, I collapsed in a nervous heap, drank a whole bottle of raw Laotian whisky! Paint stripper has nothing on this.
The next morning, I bunged all the bits of air conditioner inside the carcass, not having a clue how they went back together, and did a rapid exit. God knows what they thought had gone down when they found out.
Bangkok becoming too much, as it usually does, I hustled out of town for the charms of Manila, courtesy of Thai airways. Sat nearby, some OAP with a Cambodian youth in tow, the two guys spent more time in the toilet than in their seats, confusing one of the evidently innocent Thai hostesses!