by Al Culler
In the right frame of mind (but not in the early May heat, mate; nor with a nineteen year-old babe to keep happy) I have been known to walk all the way back to the Victory Monument, even Mabookong. Not exactly a shoppers paradise along those pavements - a sort of junk market, plenty of stalls selling fruit and food, a down-at-heel department store and quite a heavy bar zone, albeit aimed at the locals - not worth investigating, you might get bargain sex but it’ll come with some wild strains of AIDS and VD.
Loony Tunes
I wander on in to Dollhouse - a week off from she-who-must-be-obeyed as she has gone on a family visit - on Walking Street in Pattaya and it’s the usual parade of babes, just like you might find in their Soi Cowboy bar or if you could squeeze your mind through the mill and get that far back, in their infamous (now defunct like the whole area) Clinton Plaza dive.
Already bored, I find a stool on the far side of the bar, annoying a couple of serious ancients by blocking their already ruined vision. Play spot the katoey for a few minutes and don’t get anywhere fast but have a bit more luck –if you can call it luck – sussing a few possible AIDS victims. The real viral violence found down on the Beach Road promenade, twenty-four hours a day, farang and Thai alike.
After five minutes, I grab hold of one of the cute little Thai waitresses and demand an ice-cold Chang, in the bottle, please - the more paranoid convinced the bottles are contaminated by rat’s urine in the warehouses but I figure that is nothing compared to what the disgruntled barmen are likely do to the glasses. And the whole point of drinking alcohol is it kills the germs, right? The waitress grimaces and pretends it’s all too much trouble, given the legendary tightness on the part of yours truly.
I figure on draining the bottle in one good pull, ambling out of there pronto when I spot her… eighteen, nineteen year-old babe with a body and face to die for and, get this, dancing in bare feet! Wild hair all over the place and a lack of sinuousness in her moves that suggests she hasn’t been in town for too long. Sign me up, please, but all my foolish grin gets is a scowl of total disdain. Charming! She finishes dancing, flounces off to some fat slob, all over him. I pay for my beer, fast exit, muttering obscenities.
Three days later, an hour before the two o’clock close down I am back in the bar, seated in a cubicle in the far corner… the only spare space left – a bloody US navy ship in port combined with the high season. Honestly, this was the only seat left – right next to the babe! She’s talking with some youth who already has a bar-fine on his arm but buying her a few colas nevertheless. Somewhere along the line, she flashes me a big smile like I am a long lost lover. Given that I don’t have much hair left to tear out I opt for the usual lost drunken leer.
Next thing I know we are locked into conversation, much to the annoyance of the youth and relief of his girl. About five minutes later I find myself paying the bar-fine despite the fact that the stunner comes from Buri-ram – the Africans of Thailand, if you like, and there is nothing worse than an African hooker from a good f..k point of view. But I give her the benefit of the doubt as she reckons she was a virgin a mere two weeks ago.
She doesn’t dress like a Pattaya hooker – thank god – the walking advert ethos makes me want to throw up! She even took the half hour amble back to the hotel in good stead, a test of character if ever there was one due to the coastal humidity and tongue-lolling heat. Even the dogs didn’t fight back when I gave the odd recalcitrant mutt a good kicking.
Hotel room, after staggering up five flights of stairs, she heads for a well earned shower whilst I turn off her mobile phone, an inexpensive Nokia that needs a tiresome two finger shuffle to close down as if it was deliberately designed to foil drunken farang. Mobile phones have basically ruined any chance any farang ever had of keeping a Thai lady in check – and it’s only a matter of time until the ultra-tech phones allow them to directly run their internet scam lives from their handbags.
I dive in the shower and do a little mental jujitsu, helped along by Vaseline and a three finger shuffle, on the old member – f..k Viagra and the like, I zero on in a direct mind-cock link that keeps me hard for exactly as long as I want. The ancient Culler body actually sports an almost flat stomach, these days, the slimness of a long lost youth locked in by a vegetarian diet that helps keep the boner up to the standards demanded by modern young Thai ladies (even if you are paying for it!).
Hardly enough room to swing a cat in the room, no easy escape for the babe. I suspect she was hoping I was going to collapse into a drunken slumber, as she almost leaps out of her skin when she clocks the erection. The main light off but more than enough illumination filters in from the bathroom to illustrate the sweetness of her body once I whip the towel off.
I ignore her reluctance, silly histrionics and the way she squirms all over the bed as I try to get inside her… been in town far too long for any of that nonsense. Turns out she has the sweetest pussy I’ve ever come across –and that is probably saying something - tight and sopping wet doesn’t come into it. An hour or so later, she looks as pissed off as I feel elated but rather than doing a runner, curls up and goes to sleep.
The one place where age gets me, waking up in the morning, bloated by a rare combination of humidity, alcohol and, er, mature skin sag. Fortunately, being a cunning old bugger – amongst other blessings – I usually manage a dash for the bathroom, cold shower and shave, before the babe knows which day of the week it is.
I stagger back into the room, wonder who the f..k the bloke is sleeping in my bed. All the beauty drained out of the face, much more masculine lines. The mirror ill-placed for me to have stepped through so this was harsh old reality. The babe wakes up then, peers around, gives me a startled look and finally a grin – the beautiful lady’s back and my cock is ready for a second session. Same surly attitude despite my almost destroying the bed.
Later, I bung her a thousand baht which gets me a slightly bemused expression – I hurry on in that she can give it back if she wants to give me a freebie. The day I hand over any more will be the day I hit the road for Cambodia. I get a shrug for my efforts and she decides to go off to eat somewhere with me rather than heading home. A few hours of surliness later I tell her I’ll come to the bar at nine o’clock to pay her fine if she wants. A seemingly reluctant yes.
Normally, I wouldn’t have bothered but I was highly energized by the sex so I ignored what I took to be blatant ageism and even the dreadful possibility that she was actually a he – surely Thai gender-bender doctors ain’t that good. I hit Dollhouse dead on time, sit down by the bar and find the babe across the way - who decides to ignore my existence for a good twenty minutes. I was just about to finish my beer, get on out of there, half relieved, when she pops up – a fleeting smile and then a dose of surliness.
Another beer and the obligatory Cola, hardly manage to get a civil word out of her (and I speak enough Thai to get by) but when I ask very politely if she wants me to pay the bar-fine or not I get a big smile and yes please. Bloody women! She goes off to change but rather than hurrying back gets into some vocal gymnastics with the mamasan and the cashier for a good fifteen minutes, pointing at me a few times. Ugh, ugh, what have I done now?
Then she’s very reluctant to leave the bar despite the fact that I am going out of my way to be a good farang by taking her to listen to some live music. I basically have to grab her hand and yank her on out of there. I soon wish I hadn’t bothered, as she spends all her time eyeing the musicians whilst trying to ignore my existence, managing to spoil my enjoyment of what would otherwise have been an excellent night out.
Another great couple of rounds of sex, another 1000 baht and another dose of surliness in the morning; AND the more I look at HER the more convinced I am that she could be a he, although there are absolutely none of the usual signs, just that facial transformation when she’s asleep. Cunning buggers, these Thai’s, not beyond the bounds of possibility that doctors are churning out katoeys to perfectly match farang fantasies.
And
here’s the kicker, when I gave the surly bitch her marching orders in the morning, she’s totally pissed off that I wouldn’t be doing another bar-fine that night! Go figure, it’s sure all beyond moi!
AWOL...
Normally healthy men having heart attacks in their hotel rooms, retiree’s ending up in a pool of blood in their condo’s, tourists being mugged and robbed in the street, and packs of katoeys coming out to play like vampires in the early hours of the morning... just a few of the joys of Pattaya. Not to mention some ex-girlfriend turning up and trying to beat the shit outta me. Being something of a gentleman and a scholar, I ran!
My timing still as bad as normal. One time it was every couple with a kid hitting the resort for Children’s day; next it was half the American navy on rest and recreation and this time around it was the US army coming down to play as part of the Cobra Gold exercise. Which was pretty pointless as a lot of the bars and girls had already relocated to Phisanulok.
Unlike the navy, there were no army police wandering around making sure things didn’t get completely out of hand. They more or less took over two soi’s of go-go bars, hiring out one bar for the evening and doing god knows what (I wandered into the bar, and they had the video cameras running with the gals sauntering around fully clothed but didn’t get any further before being turfed out - so much for investigative journalism)..
The Rasputin beard means I’ve contravened all known regulations on appearance, so couldn’t pass myself off as a grunt and ended up getting some severe glares from various Orangutan types. They obviously didn’t want any civilian witnesses. Gals, and katoeys, willing to take on three guys at a time were doing a roaring trade. Prices for the gals had more or less doubled, ladies drinks up to 120 baht and beer 99 baht.
I like a drink myself - you may have noticed - but these army types couldn’t hold their liquor and the barely restrained the violence in which they were inured... the Thai police had sensibly taken the night off, didn’t see one of the buggers loitering with intent. The only good thing, they didn’t venture far from the Pattayaland soi’s and a brisk walk along Beach Road got the army guys out of my life.
The beer bars were packed out with girls but it was hard going to find anyone relatively new to the scene. The hostesses were pretty insistent, almost getting into a rugby tackle to convince me of the rightness of stopping by. The incredible heat had dissipated since my last visit, a pretty cool breeze keeping my body temperature down. Didn’t rain, though it threatened it a few times.
Like Manila, it’s not the kind of place where you want to wander around with an excess of gold chains or a wedge of hard currency... most farang in Pattaya travel in packs but I prefer not to have any witnesses! The further you wander away from the main strip the more interesting the girls become - makes sense as newcomers don’t know where all the action is unlike the hardcore babes.
One bar, back amongst the GI’s, saw a really mind bending frail (eyeballs not the only thing that wanted to pop right out!), about eighteen and sublimely Lao until she claimed Buriram... she was one of the sexy dancers, near naked, but looked with total disdain on the hippy disguised Culler form, poking her tongue out in disgust when she thought I wasn’t looking. Turned out she was the mamasan, or the girlfriend of the boss, but not above going short-time with the more rich, ancient farang when the boss was out of the bar. Hardcore and so f..king beautiful at eighteen; what a waste.
Short-time rooms abound in the Pattayaland sois, many of the girls hardly bothered with an hello, just pointed upstairs and shouted short-time at me. Farang seen as walking ATM’s. I pretended to mishear, looked at my watch and told ‘em the time of the day. Cracked a few smiles, anyway. Pattaya bars one place where pensioners don’t get any kind of discount but it didn’t stop the walking dead ambling on in!
Another mind bending gal seemed off her head - drugs or multiple shots of Tequila (an import from Manila, a few of the bars named after old Ermita watering holes, the actual connection unclear as my gentle enquiries were rebuffed) - simulating sex with her cohorts and dancing maniacally... she mellowed out long enough to give the Culler form the look-over and a heart stopping smile but I’d already bought some other girl a cola (weird f..king neon in these bars, the gal turning from sexy to somewhat pudgy not to mention pissed off when I fended off her demands for a bar fine) and didn’t really want to end up a referee to an impromptu fight. Whisky and/or speed making the gals finely fierce!
Ended up on the other side of town, down by the Sunshine hotel (the Pattaya Mail reporting a recent mugging outside just to keep me on my toes). Only a couple of go-go bars but the one I ended up in had some sublime Buriram (yet again) gals outside who couldn’t have been much more than sixteen and I ended up talking to a Klong Toey slum girl who claimed eighteen but I suspected fifteen. Bought her a Cola, anyway, as she wasn’t far off movie star status. The boss a corpulent Thai, so I don’t know how genuine things were (the gal said he wasn’t very good-hearted)... I wasn’t going to take a chance with some underage babe, not with Pattaya’s reputation for OTT retribution.
BTW, if you are willing to walk a little way from the beach the going rate for an air-conditioned hotel room is 500-600 baht, which is pretty amazing value - all a question of supply and demand and as the high season dissipates prices get lower, even with mad army types coming out of the jungle wired up for some serious fun.
Every time I walk along Beach Road Two there seems yet more bars, and the third road isn’t far behind. Can probably spend weeks investigating the whole lot thoroughly but I just ambled along giving the babes the look-over; already sated with an excess of sex from the nineteen year-old. Unlike in the Pattayaland soi’s, where the gals looked totally sated (with both sex and money), the further away from the main drag the more desperate the gals became. Luckily, I can still do a hundred metres, or so, at a pretty fair clip - especially when inspired by a bit of the old fear and loathing.
All Change, No Change!
Happens sometimes, don’t know if it is a sign of a greater malaise, but last time I spent a night doing the Nana bars it was completely deserted of beautiful girls. My immediate thought was of a police crackdown - all the gals who claimed to be 18, 19, 20 were really 15, 16, 17 and the law had cleared them out of the scene. Makes as much sense as anything. Unlikely they had all simultaneously failed the AIDS test, though there were plenty of wild rumours doing the rounds - more than my life is worth to repeat them!
There weren’t very many farang around Nana, either, a bus load of Chinese or Taiwanese or Singaporeans had taken over a couple of bars, mostly in the Rainbow dives. Looks likely to go the way of Patpong! The recent beer price rise coupled with the hardcore nature of the majority of the babes has generally pissed off the farang. Too much greed.
One of the girls looked about sixteen, turned out to be 24 and claimed to have worked in a department store. Hot, hot, hot... until she said she had to send 10,000 baht a month back to Buriram to keep her brothers in whisky. Like most of the younger generation of Thais, only interested in farang for the money on offer.
The disco under the Nana hotel gets pretty wild from ten o’clock onwards, packed out with women - a total mix, from old timers holding out for some luck to newbies not quite sure if they are in heaven or hell. Give the DJ his due, the bass wasn’t turned up so high that the floor rumbled. Friendly gals who aren’t in the least bit shy about showing their interest, though you have to work the pack to find the really cute women.
Beer is expensive, most of the gals drink some bottled cocktail or alcohol/fruit juice shit that is about twice as strong as the beer and tastes like it’s eighty percent sugar. No bar fines, no commission on the drinks (the gals get hustled if they don’t buy drinks if they are on their own)... just about anything can happen. Much better place than it used to be.
A lot of the small Soi Cowboy bars in a bad way, only one or two gals dancing on the stage - and this was nine o’clock in the evening! Not so long ago the small bars were rocking, m
ore interesting than the big dives but now the latter are staging a bit of a comeback with plenty of new, or at least newish, gals in them; didn’t seem like ex-brothel gals to me and they seemed nice enough on first impression.
Worth an amble on over, or it would have been if there weren’t so many mangda’s hanging out in the bars - you have to laugh, one lot of the lads were drinking beer out of a carafe, had to be warm – they haven’t got a clue. A few of the larger bars have changed owners, some serious money invested.
Don’t exit Soi 23 (after midnight) into Sukhumvit by turning left... I had one monster katoey coming at me from behind and another two to my left, one pointing at the gold around my neck and asking me what’s that? Armed with a lead pipe and stun gun, might’ve taken two of ‘em out but I ran like the hounds of hell were after me and shot up the pedestrian bridge. They didn’t come after me, must’ve decided there was easier fare.
Patpong a mixed bag. One of the Kings Castle bars absolutely awash with newish babes - the woollen bikinis rather cute - the others the same old stuff. All the young gals in Safari Bar had done a disappearing act, only old dears (anyone over 25!). A couple of katoeys in Kings Castle 3 who were so well turned out it was impossible to suss their gender (except that they were working in KC3) - big feet the only remaining clue, according to some, but I reckon the smile gives the game away if you know what to look for.
Lots of monster katoeys, too, who have enough muscle power to break most farang into little pieces - the female hormone equivalent of steroid rage. Weird shit, they didn’t even bother pretending to be gals to me - been here too long! One asked me if I was gay and offered that he still had a cock. Cheeky blighter! Not the kinda place to venture without the nearest and dearest in tow!