by Al Culler
Of course, they are much more willing to temporarily settle for a lot less - anyone with a large wallet and good heart (defined as someone willing to blow all his money in short order) - than many a Western broad, though the Russian hookers in Pattaya might give the lie to even that!
Thai babes find it absolutely hilarious when the money finally runs out, they move out and find they have a farang on their hands, crying his head off like a baby deprived of milk. The same reaction from a Thai boyfriend would be maximum violence.
As long as the money rolls in, there’s no problem with marriage and even babies, the latter can always be dumped on the babe’s mother if the money finally runs out. The girls will go out of their way to make their man feel good as long as the dosh rolls in; the vast majority of foreigners not wanting to look beneath the immediate surface of the relationship. Petrified they might find all the myths are true and they are supporting some Thai pimp or gangster. Much better to just enjoy the moment!
Sometimes the farang is so overwhelmed by the apparent passion the babe gives off that he actually gains massive belief in himself, goes off to look for an even more attractive girl! That’s when he gets a reality check, especially if he’s out of dosh. The girls have built in radar, somehow know when a guy’s been through the mill once; the vast majority of guys have one chance to get it right, after that they are worse off than a first time tourist!
There are a couple of ways to fight back. The obvious one is to develop a good sexual technique, make love for an hour or two at a time, twice a day; wear the girl out. This is easier than it sounds insofar as the women are about ten times sexier than Western gals, just their body heat doing wonders for the libido, not to mention sublime bodies and faces that make other girls look pretty mundane.
Combine that with keeping yourself in good shape, not being too old and approaching the gals with total devotion, might just get you ahead of the game. And if you do get an Oriental babe to fall in love with you - not the pathetic illusion most farangs put up with - then you’re in seventh heaven.
The sad thing is that the kind of foreigner who can pull that kind of passion out of an Oriental girl probably isn’t going to stick with her, likes to move on to pastures new after a while. The rejected babe out of her head by the time the next (unlucky) guy comes along.
But, hey, who said it was a fair world?
New Boots And Panties
Wandered into a new bar in Nana Plaza - nope, I’m not going to name it as every time I name a good bar, a day or so later all the decent babes have disappeared ! Not a large place, only about twenty babes... Eight had already been taken out even though it wasn’t yet eleven o’clock - a trick perfected by the ancients is to turn up just as the bars open and make off with the more beautiful babes - though they filtered back in whilst I was there; glowing from the dosh (not the sex, dear) of the short time blues.
Some of the girls were wearing minor bondage gear, though when I asked one if it made her feel sexy she looked at me as if I’d gone off my head. It was a Nana kinda bar, though, the seemingly simple light system took ten years off the girls’ age when they were dancing on the stage.
My first impression, I’d wandered into paradise and that the distillation that all farangs like about Thai girls had somehow been shrink-wrapped into the gals in that bar. And it wasn’t just the way that the bondage gear emphasized various body parts which even in their natural state were pretty mind boggling!
Dark skinned and slender these girls, in the neon a slice of innocence emanating from their Laotian tipped noses; mouths bruised with lust. Squint a little I could almost believe that some of them were first-timers, until I clocked how well they danced on their high-heeled boots. Grind, thrust, gyrate, throw a hopeful smile every which way until it hit home on a farang.
It was weird, though, how an enticing babe across the room dissolved into reality as she got nearer. The bodies so well defined and honed that they could pass for 14, 15, but up close the mouths and eyes were ruined by age and cynicism. I could have gone for 30 on that perspective - average the two out and you won’t be far wrong.
Well trained, though, the first words out of their mouths wasn’t ‘Give-me-Cola’ and one even hung around for 15 minutes in the vain hope that I might offer to buy one. She finally gave an exasperated sigh, went to sit on the lap of some ancient.
Another clue to how long they’d been on the scene, an excellent understanding of English; enough to offer me the choice of various sex acts, anyway! The kind of offer that had me looking for skin lacerations due to AIDS; the girls had been well filtered enough not to be in that perilous state, weren’t even any obvious katoeys - new bar, the bosses trying hard and all that!
Some of these girls famous for the Oriental Double Twitch get some ancient to come in about two minutes then go at it so furiously that he’d keep going for another hour! Either throws them into permanent ecstasy or produces a double hernia! No condoms, the ancients already so near death that a couple more diseases wouldn’t make much difference. Worth a thousand baht tip on top of the normal 2000 baht for short-time. Some of the really hardcore girls aiming to top 250,000 baht in a month - ten times what their family can make up country in a year in the more desperate areas.
That’s the rate for ancients, if the girl actually likes ya it’ll go down to as little as 1000 baht for all night (and even the bar fines in the smaller bars are negotiable if you hold out) which is less than you’d spend on a reasonable meal in the West.
Back to that Nana bar... after about an hour of intense concentration (hard work!) I’d figured that most of the gals had already dropped a kid or two but had so got into the scene that they’d metamorphosed their bodies back into their teen, pre-baby days. Mind over matter, an excess of hard dancing, not to mention the bedroom bump and grind, and a diet that concentrated on a surfeit of Laotian whisky.
In other words, a pretty good distillation of the Nana scene, though I couldn’t work out if they were supporting the usual round of pimps, hustlers and gangsters. Wasn’t thinking that way, was I, after all who wants to think when they’re in paradise...
Those who don’t want to pay Nana prices can always hustle along to the beer bars but most of the girls pretty far gone by the time they end up working there. There are various reasons for their deserting the go-go scene - ranging from raging diseases to problems with the police from past misdeeds. Soi 7 beer bars the most popular amongst financially strapped tourists, though if out of 1000 guys one was foolish enough to pay 2000 baht (rather than the usual 300-500 baht) for short-time the girl will go on and on about being an expensive lady.
That’s all a question of face. Most of the girls live in dismal hovels, spend the money as it comes in, often on drugs and alcohol to keep on going. Easily insulted, they also dance to a tune of their own - mostly centred on a certain amount of insanity. There are, nevertheless, a few attractive women in their midst who might be worth a roll (of the dice!).
Pity the middle-aged American guy who ended up finding out that surface beauty isn’t often reflected in inner loveliness. He agreed to go short-time with some Soi 7 babe, who decided she was insulted by his refusal to have a shower (he probably fearing she would lift his money and do a disappearing act) and after she had had her shower, she accused him of stealing 60 baht out of her purse.
She did a perfect rendition of an enraged, spitting, cornered cat and whacked him about the head a few times. She made so much noise that the hotel security turned up, turfed them out. By the time she reached the street, the theft of 60 baht had escalated to 6000 baht and she had to be physically restrained from tearing the American apart (an unfair fight because if he had hit her the police would’ve done for him). The only thing to do, run for it but he didn’t escape without a few rocks hurled at his head.
Later, the girl was found crying hysterically and lamenting the fact that farang don’t want a nice girl like her but only wanted crazy women. Suggestions that she might’ve spent the money some time in the ne
ar past and forgotten in the drunken haze with which she inured herself were dismissed as ridiculous. Told that it was unlikely anyone would pay for a short-time hotel room and then lift 60 baht, she went into a rant that ended up with the threat of taking the guy apart if he turned up again.
These sudden character changes all too common amongst bar girls, whether down to the alcohol or drugs, or just the conflict between their love of money and simultaneous hatred of the farang source of it. Many of the girls did five, ten, years in local brothels and escaped seemingly unscathed from having sex with 1000’s of Thai men but a few months having to service farang seems to send them right over the edge. And no real way to know what is going to happen until you take a chance on them. But, hey, if you get bored...
That section of Sukhumvit also notorious for packs of loitering katoeys. One or two will try it on, whilst the others lift wallets, money, passports, etc. If the victim turns aggressive they will beat the shit out of him. The street whores find it an hilarious form of free entertainment, so don’t expect any help from them. BTW, if you are drunk enough to think that the katoey is really a gal, take her back to your hotel room and discover the mistake, don’t expect to get out of the encounter easily. Numerous stories of guys having to give them thousands of baht to go away - they act grievously insulted if you refuse to have sex with them! Just some of the perils of Bangkok life, sure you will find plenty more.
Bamboo
The totally messed up traffic in Bangkok almost killed me. No, not the crazed motorcyclists running against the traffic grain or up on the pavement, but trying to get on to a water-taxi to get somewhere reasonably fast. That was how I met Bamboo.
I should’ve known better, the last time I took a boat the guy at the tiller stopped in the middle of the river and demanded all my money! Emphasizing that the request wasn’t optional by flicking a large knife under my throat.
Bangkok canals and rivers are used as open sewers. In the unlikely event that I bested the pirate I would still probably have ended up swimming for it. Water snakes and cat-sized rats in pursuit, not to mention swallowing raw sewage. The mental state of many a bar-girl surely explained by spending a youth ingesting noxious substances in the klongs - the heat was so extreme that the kids playing, swimming, in the canals made like they were in paradise rather than hell.
I had so little money on me that the thief handed back forty baht so I could take a tuk-tuk back to the hotel - he making me get off the boat next to some desolate looking warehouses. All heart, these Thai men. I didn’t even bother reporting it to the cops, more trouble than it was worth.
I figured that getting on a water-taxi with twenty other people aboard would solve all my problems. No chance of a mugging with all the fellow citizens around. The problem was that the boat sped into the dock, slowed marginally, and everyone was expected to do a running jump on to about six inches of deck, and then sort of shuffle inside the boat.
The Thais made it look easy, natural balance and athleticism going a long way. The Culler frame landed with a thud, threatened to fall straight through the canvas awning and then reacting almost fell straight off the side of the boat, whose momentum was moving at a rather different pace to my own. I was threshing about every which way, panicked right out of my mind, until a hand came out of nowhere and pulled me safely inside.
I was a total mess. Gallons of sweat pouring off me, heart beating out of control and twitching in some kind of nervous spasm. Bamboo, who the hand belonged to, looked about as close to melding with the Thais as a farang could get. The same height as myself, but so thin he seemed to disappear into nothingness, helped along by being dressed in black jeans and tee-shirt.
The Thais tend to give each other nicknames, and on that scale of things Bamboo was more complimentary than derogatory. Thai girls with elderly farang boyfriends, who don’t supply their families and friends with loads of dosh, are called the equivalent of pig-f..kers in the local language. Some portly relation of Bamboo’s then current girlfriend couldn’t understand why a farang who drank so much beer and was over forty could be so minimal in mass, thus christening him Bamboo; a nickname that stuck like mud.
Bamboo had been in Bangkok for over a decade but unlike most foreigners seemed to thrive on the back of the beast. He actually looked nearer twenty than the forty he claimed! The bastard.
Exiting the boat was nearly as bad as getting on it! Bamboo and the Thais seemed to flow through the air, land gracefully on the dock and saunter off as if it was all in a day’s work! The pilot took the exact moment before I was going to launch myself off the boat to crack open the throttle of some six cylinder, 3000cc monster engine attached to the back of the boat in an entirely unlikely manner.
Thus the Culler frame did a large flip through the air and I landed heavily on my backside, legs twitching away as if I was in some kind of fit. I didn’t know where I was, almost rolled into the canal. After that I stayed well away from the water.
A week, or so, later I was engrossed in the antics of some Patpong gal. She was on the large side, looked like she’d spent her youth fighting with recalcitrant buffaloes. She had a two handed grip on the chrome pole that grew out of the stage and was fixed in the ceiling. She was jerking the pole so forcefully that it threatened to pop right out of its fixings! Not the kind of babe to take down a dark alley when wearing a few baht’s worth of gold chains (chance would be a fine thing).
I forced my eyes off her, didn’t want to give her the wrong idea, looked to my side to see Bamboo grinning widely at some stunning babe who’d appeared out of nowhere. Wearing a cut-off tee-shirt confirmed that the force and heat out of the hand that had saved me was matched by the kind of lean muscle I could only dream of. The bastard had an angelic smile that made him look about eighteen.
We seemed to turn up at the same bars at the same time, both favouring the hours when the girls were warming up and maybe wondering if it was their lucky night, and avoiding the weekends when all kinds of white trash came out of the woodwork - you wouldn’t believe some of the wrecks that appear, nor the kind of girls they can score by waving a fistful of purple notes under their noses - the gals with expensive Thai boyfriends to keep in gold and large motorcycles plus families that extended to infinity.
One favourite ploy’s to pass off the boyfriend or husband as a brother, the only way the farang finds out is if he catches them in the act or through the grapevine, though the things that the girls say about each other to their foreign amours are often actually allusions to what they are doing themselves; all so confusing that you never really know what’s going down: most farangs just enjoy the cheap sex. The boyfriend’s massive loss of face by his girlfriend going with a farang compensated by all the dosh he can blow on his own friends.
Bamboo had a disturbing tendency to give me a life history of the girl I was eyeing up, some of the gals on the scene for so long that it was frightening to even think about it, especially as many started out in the brothels. By the time I’d finished calculating the number of men they’d had I was pondering a life in a monastery!
In one Nana bar, this barrel-chested American swaggered up to Bamboo swearing his head off and making with a block-buster of a right-hand punch. Obviously some kind of spat about the women! There was an explosion of energy expended, the American ending up on the floor with half his arm at an impossible angle. He didn’t look very happy.
Neither was I. I looked up from the fallen barbarian to find that Bamboo had dematerialised; a whole coterie of waiters and B-girls screaming abuse and shaking their fists at me, figuring I was to blame for the incident. I threw a fistful of purple notes towards the back of the room and got out of there whilst the Thais scrambled in the opposite direction. The idea of easy money had them all going completely insane.
You have to be careful what you do to Thai money as it has a portrait of the revered monarch on it - rip that up and they put you in jail! Nor should you keep Thai money in your boots as that is very disrespectful as well, altho
ugh it’s about the safest place to keep farang dosh. This is not a joke, mate, but a profound warning - bear it in mind!!
The next time I saw Bamboo I gave him an earful of abuse which he just laughed off and promptly fixed me up with the most beautiful babe in the place. By the time she’d finished with me I was weak-kneed and out of my head with joy and happiness - some of these women are incredible. Turned out the bastard had told her I’d pay 5000 baht and she wouldn’t leave until she got it. And I’m still half in love with her. Shit
Bamboo was so cool he could get away with murder and I didn’t even bother trying to remonstrate with him. Beware!
Beached Whales
This Russian gangster had a bigger beer belly than me - and I’d just celebrated breaking through the 120kg barrier by shaving what little hair I had left off my head, producing gales of laughter from Thais and farangs alike - and kept trying to pour raw Vodka into my bottle of Chang.
I was spread out on a blanket, minding my own business on Jomtien beach, when the herd of Mafia types descended on my patch. He kept gurgling Russian at me as if I was a fellow compatriot, despite the fact that the only item of clothing I was wearing was a pair of Union Jack shorts.
Thai beaches are a bit different to those in England. There’s the scorching heat, masseurs, vendors, snakes, mad dogs, palm trees, raw sewage floating in the sea, speedboats, jet-ski’s, motorcycles, paragliding, svelte Asians to excess... an endless stream of ice-cold Chang the only saving grace!
The Russian kept plunging his hand inside some pubescent Thai babe’s bikini bottom; talk about the beauty and the beast! Seeing me eying them, he finally pulled her pants right down. I hurriedly turned the other way, just in time to catch some Teutonic farang female whipping her bikini top off - hopelessly ruined, elongated breasts flapped down to her waist. More contrasts in ecstasy and horror. She caught sight of my stare, screamed at the top of her voice that I was a disgusting pervert. I muttered something about her being outrageously optimistic but didn’t fancy my chances in a bout of fisticuffs!