- Cha-am Travel Report Dated Added: Sun Apr 22 2001 Submitted by: Anon
In Cha-am there is a karoake bar/restaurant called The Country Club directly opposite the Long Beach Hotel. AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS!! It will rip you off with all sorts of hidden charges and bills for drinks you did not order or receive. Any attempt to query the bill is met with anger and a flood of staff from the kitchen. Local enquiry revealed that this is a regular occurrence. In particular avoid a singer called Joy who is one of the chief perpetrators. (Review # 3142)
- Haadyai Street Action Dated Added: Wed Dec 06 2000 Submitted by: hidrochronic
Hi guys, just visited Haadyai a couple months ago, and it was a truly memorable experience. The price range for the chicks here are from 1000baht to 5000baht for a full night of exploration..... Anyway, the people here are much more honest than those in Bangkok. Good luck hunting.... (Review # 2825)
- Thailand Go-Go bars of Thailand Dated Added: Mon Oct 02 2000 Submitted by: Anon
The Go-Go bars of Thailand - everybody has seen them, at least on tv. They are located all over the country with concentrated areas in Bangkok, Pattaya, Koh Samui, Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Hua Hin and Phuket.
Bangkok has several locations where entertainment is offered. There is Patpong which the more expensive area, the famous two lanes where the interesting shows are performed. But other places offer similar entertainment, especially Soi Cowboy (Soi 20) at Sukhumvit road and Nana Plaza (Soi 4), both close to each other (two kilometers). Soi Cowboy is the more traditional place, whereas Nana Plaza always has new places opening up with new and different ambientes.
Thailand's Go-Go bars have more or less the same construction: A central stage surrounded by a sill to place your drinks, and stools. By the walls you will find one to three tier rows of seating with a small sill or small tables in front of you. The walls are all mirrors so the girls can watch themselves dancing. The stage has a number of poles which the girls use for artistic activities which can be quite interesting when they are more or less nude. All bars have extensive sound and light equipment and loudspeakers blaring popsongs and rock'n'roll music at a thunderous volume which is quite deafening.
The girls dance partly or entirely naked, with each other or alone, and they sometimes perform sex shows, doing extraordinary things with their body parts. Some of the acts involve public display with a partner or partners, while others use the solo performing body as a set of almost autonomous genitalia capable of effecting, through muscular control, actions usually performed by the mouth, like blowing a whistle, or the hands, like serving a ping-pong ball, and taking apparent risks with delicate parts, like extracting a string of razor blades. Special programs include popping balls out of their vulvas, playing with burning candles and dropping wax all over their body, pulling strings out of their vulvas. And so on. Go to the third floor at Nana Plaza, the Hollywood Strip. These programs usually start at 23 o'clock. There is no extra fee for this performance as in Patpong.
Because it is illegal to show bare breasts the bars on the lower level usually do not offer topless dancing. But before the police reaches the upper level, the alarm system will guarantee that every girl is clothed. The police will typically move slowly enough, the officers know that there is some compensation in for them anyway. But I have seen situations where the police was on every level, and of course every girl was dressed. The programs are then reduced to what can be shown without tits and vulvas. ~~
In the bars you will have various kinds of girls: waitresses, dance girls, "Hello girls" and the Mamasan. The Mamasan is basically the head of the girls - it makes sense for you to get a good relation with her. This could save you some trouble or even get you some advantages. The waitresses will always be dressed, but they accept a lady drink as well. You might even try to invite these girls to your room too. The Hello girls usually sit outside to entice customers to enter the bar. Usually they are quite attractive but clothed and free to negotiate as well. The dance girls of course are the ones with most chances to be invited as they present themselves on stage with all their attributes plainly visible.
Thai girls may claim to see this kind of business as something "bad". But their apparent resentment does not go deep. Actually some of them have this as their choice of profession when they are young ("I want to become a prostitute in a Bangkok bar"). Of course there are cases where girls are confined in the bars or hotels. But this typically does not happen in the tourist bars, but in the bars and massage parlours only visited by the local people. Some prostitutes come from border provinces or even neighbour countries like Cambodia and Laos. The typical age is between 18 and 26. In general they help each other a lot, become friends, so that this business does not hurt them too much. Most of the girls do not have any extensive education, so their language capabilities are very limited. Nevertheless I have heard girls speak Japanese, English and German.
Usually wherever you enter a bar in the evening one or more girls will come up to you. In the afternoon (when their working "day" has not really started), she will tend to leave you alone unless you ask them to join you. When you do not explicitly tell her to leave she expects a "lady drink", i.e. a small cola paid by you after a short while. She will actually say: "Cola for me?" even when what she gets is an orange drink or something like that. Around 50 per cent of what you pay for that will be her share. Typically the price for such a drink is 65 Baht at Nana Plaza (60 Baht at Soi Cowboy, 70 Baht in Patpong). The price of drinks vary between 40 and 50 Baht during Happy Hour and 60 to 80 Baht the rest of the night. You can always buy a girl free from her dancing activities, so that she stays with you for the rest of the day/night. This bar fine is typically between 300 and 400 Baht. When the bar offers afternoon dancing, the fine paid is valid only for the afternoon! Once you have chosen a girl you are usually safe from further nuisance from the others, except that every girl has some friends whom she wants to offer a bit of fortune as well, i.e. she asks you if you could pay a lady drink for her friends also.
You will have a glass or box in front of you where all bills will be saved, making it possible to calculate what you will have to pay in the end, which you should actually do from time to time to not run into some nasty surprises. Payment is always in cash, no credit cards are accepted. The waitress expects a tip of 10 to 50 Baht. Whenever you pay a lady drink, one token is torn of that particular bill and your girl will hide it some interesting places on her body.
Some bars even have a small "bedroom" directly on the premises. When you do business there, you will receive applause when you come out again with your girl. In addition lots of boarding houses are available where you can stay for some hours. Some of them have interesting rooms there with mirrors all over the place.
Girls who work in Go-Go bars are allowed to use condoms. Their salary depends on how much exposure they are willing to display. An example - the figures are not standard - is 4,500 baht a month in two-piece bikini, 6,000 baht topless, 7,500 baht in the nude. In time, virtually all opt for the last. A girl who performs in sex-shows may make between around 8000 baht a month. If she does so with a male partner, both may earn 2000 baht a night. The minimum legal age at which bar girls and Go-Go dancers are employed is 18. Still, those producing ID-cards of older friends as proof of age are usually hired. Do not believe any stories of naive girls seduced by evil pimps into the Go-Go bars of Bangkok. The girls know what is expected of them when they opt for the job, and more than a few are leaving babies upcountry.
Thailand, like every nation, is concerned with its image and you can only sympathise when the image perceived abroad is the opposite of the image the country hopes to project. Chagrin aside, it may be worth considering that there is something to be said for the perceived image.
The recently released latest official figure for the number of prostitutes in Thailand - 65,000 - is too low to be taken seriously. Multiply it by five (about one percent of the female population, adding thousands during the recession) and you would come much closer to the mark.
Official Thai attitudes to prostitution are ambiguous and hypocritical. The best example of this is when Thai politicians, especially ministers, raise the question of prostitution in the Land of Smiles. They will soon be condemning "sex slavery" in the "brothels" in the Patpong area. Then they are on about children and pedophiles in Patpong's "brothels". The kindest that can be said for these self-styled social critics is they hopefully mean well. However they have not got a clue, thinking in terms of stereotypes and half-assed TV melodramas which have some relation to the brothels frequented by Thai men - but none to the relatively small enclosure of tourist areas. There isn't a single government expert on prostitution. In their ignorance, they fog the debate by talking at cross purposes. There are no brothels in the Patpong area. Patpong has bars aplenty, but bars are not brothels. Nor are there any slaves in the Patpong bars. Girls apply to work in them and may leave at any time.
Do brothels, containing sex slaves sold to them by their families, exist in Thailand? Certainly yes, but not in the Patpong area or Nana Entertainment Plaza or Soi Cowboy. People talking at cross purposes should be set straight. Otherwise they spread bewilderment and the unlikelihood of making rational judgments.
Terms of employment in the night entertainment field differ from one bar to the next and Thai girls choosing to enter the World's oldest profession do a lot of moving around before settling at the one that best suits them. Initially, they go to the bars offering the highest monthly salary. Then, from talking with their mates and growing experience, they learn what is expected of them and the penalties for not measuring up. It is a business, after all, everybody involved in getting a piece of the action.
Bar owners are not noted for their kind hearts, any more than prostitutes are. Rule one is that they do not give it away. Whatever freebies there are, are calculated to turn to profit a short way down the road. Money is the name of the game. It buys a girl's time, not her love.
Newly opened bars, aware that patrons are drawn to establishments with wall-to-wall hussies, pay high wages to attract quantity and quality bar girls and Go-Go dancers. Which makes the overheads unbearably expensive. Bar owners proceed to cull their stables. This is done by giving the staff quotas. Each girl is informed of the minimum number of times she is expected to be bought out for extra-curricular activities a month, as well as the minimum amount of lady drinks she must extract from customers. If she falls below those figures, her monthly salary is cut. Above those figures, she gets a bonus. Below those figures three months in succession, she will be sacked for not justifying her salary. The figures are arbitrary and rarely the same for any two bars.
Thai bar owners are no nicer to the women than their farang counterparts. Greed has no nationality. More often than not, salaries are cut for nit-picking excuses - arriving minutes late, a tear in the costume, not smiling. I know at least one mamasan who threatens the girls with bodily harm if they move to a competitor's bar.
But of course there are exceptions - bar owners who give no quotas, few if any cuts, money advances when urgently requested (usually to pay gambling debts, though not the reason given), time off to visit a sick mother or to cremate her (this is a good many girls seem to have three to four mothers).
Sometimes I am asked which bars in the Patpong area, Nana Entertainment Plaza and Soi Cowboy have the loveliest girls. Alas, no single taproom can lay claim to this honour. For one, the girls move around a lot. For another, the best lookers are in the Japanese cocktail lounges on Thaniya Road close to Patpong 1 and 2 but they are prohibitively expensive. For still another, your taste in beauty may differ from mine.
When you go to Thailand to experience the bar scene, do remember that you are guest in a foreign country. Please behave as you would expect your guests to behave at your home, and treat the Thais and even more, the girls with respect. Then you will get some quite rewarding experiences.
Even if you believe that this kind of business might not require decent behaviour, Thai people see it differently. You will be treated with much more respect if you wear appropriate clothes (jeans and shirts are OK, shorts are out), and you do not get too drunk. In addition there are some basic rules: never touch anybody on her head. Children might tolerate it, but they feel uneasy about it. Do not wear shoes when you enter a private house - such as a girl's private room. Do not point your soles at anybody. And keep your hands off your girl in public. Affection is usually not shown outside the bars. This is slowly changing, however, especially bar girls now will accept your hand for a walk. Thai girls do not like to be kissed on the mouth, especially not the younger ones.
In general, you are in the country of smiles. So forget your worries and be happy. Smile back and you will have much more success. Being rude does not pay. Even though the Thai people have a high tolerance against violence, once you have crossed that limit, they turn berserk.
When you arrive the first day, take it easy. Walk around the bars, have a drink in a few of them, just look and find out what is available. Do not try to have drink in every bar, there are too many. Do not hurry, the first time here you are likely to be too excited to make your perfect choice - which is impossible anyway. But typically you will end up with a girl that you want to get rid of the very next morning. Girls are abundant, you will always find a nicer or more interesting one later, so you will never find your ultimate choice.
Inside the bar, try to find a dark corner to sit. Avoid sitting by the stage. It is too close, and you will only see the ankles of the dancing girls, or you will get cramps in your neck. The best place to sit is the highest tier by the wall, where the girls object the least against being handled, and secondly, you get the best view. The girls usually do not like to be handled in the open. But in a dark corner she will more likely permit you to check her out without any objections. A few girls do not even dress up again after their performance on the dance floor. They can make you real hot in front of all people. Do not bother, to most of them it is just fun.
You can have a lot more fun when you have something to offer to the girls. You get a lot of attention if you bring even simple things like wrapped sweets. You will be king if you got some cheap jewellery. Actually the girls will ask you whether this is from Thailand or the high quality stuff from your country. And sure, you should lie about the price of that trinket.
Playing games is just as good. You will hardly believe what attention I got when I played around with my laser pointer. As the dancing girls see themselves in the mirrors on the wall they will notice that there is some red dot somewhere on their body. Usually some other girl will ask immediately for that pointer and start her own playing. After 20 minutes you know most of the girls in the bar.
It is generally not allowed to take pictures inside the bars. You can take a photo of your girl outside (of course dressed), or try to do this as innocently as possible. A good relation with Mamasan might help. The girls themselves usually do not object, they even will pose for you. Remember when you use a camcorder in the bar, you should use Manual Focus because it will not focus right in the dim light.
Business at Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy usually starts around 11 AM, the first dancing round starts typically in one of the clubs at Nana Plaza at 14 hours. The clubs vary, depending on rules I do not know. Some other bars have Happy Hour time between 11 AM and 20 o'clock. Girls are already present at this time in the bars but not yet much interested in business. Real business starts between 19 and 20 hours. The program usually means girls dancing on the stage, mostly topless (at Nana Plaza, not that much at Soi Cowboy), some without any clothes (not in the afternoon). Typically the girls dance a suite of three to four songs until they get of the stage again. This way every dance girl will be upstage during the night.
In all these areas (Patpong, Nana, Soi Cowboy) you find at least one bar with "ladyboys" - transsexuals. Do not be surprised, they look like beautiful ladies, their tits are amazing, and they go with just as well for Short or Long Time. Look for the Adam's apple! Otherwise you may be in for some real surprise. In Nana Plaza the ladyboy bar is called Casanova, to be found in the left corner of the second floor.
Official closing time is two o'clock in the morning. Depending on the presence of police some bars may continue till three, or even switch of all external lights and serve drinks till four. When you still did not find your girl till then go to the 24 hours coffee shops such as Thermae or the one at Malaysia Hotel.
Money exchange booths are abundant in these areas. They are open seven days a week usually until 22 o'clock. Typically traveller's cheques get a better rate than cash. The exchange fee is small, so you will get nearly the current bank rate for your money. So you walk around the bars, see who are there, have a few drinks, and finally select the one with whom you can imagine to spend the days till your departure. It is better to not choose any girl before 21 hours, then everybody is there and you get the widest selection. Usually you have limited choice as the girl chooses you. But when she notices that you are not interested she typically leaves. Then you are free to look around. When you find the girl you like just try to get into visual contact with her. Smiling to her will usually be sufficient to get her over. Otherwise beckon her to come over (and do it the Thai way: with the palm down and the fingers hanging downwards making light motions towards yourself - it is offensive to beckon the way Westerners are used to!) Or ask her via one of the waitresses or the Mamasan. As the dancers usually have a number attached to their body you can easily point them out. Typically you start the relation by buying the girl her lady drink. By her behavior she will let you know if she is open to further business. Her hand on your thigh is a sure come-on. Her light "incidental" touch of your genitals is also a "yes". This does not mean that you will be fixed on this particular girl. You can easily say a friendly "goodbye" to her, go to the next bar and spend a lady drink on another girl. Once you have decided to pay the bar fine, though, you are stuck with your girl.
My advice is, try to look for older girls. They have more experience and understanding. They are not as tight. Of course it is an interesting experience to have a girl of 18 in bed with you, but actually you will have more fun with the older and more experienced ones. Remember that "older" is a relative concept. To us Westerners, Thai women appear to be about 7 years younger than they actually are. If you see a girl that you think is 21, she probably is around 28! Mothers typically have a lot of experience but got belly stripes.
Try to find a girl that speaks English. It is more fun when you can talk with her. Body language, as nice as this can be, is not sufficient. Ask for her name - they all have three letter "nicknames", like Lai, Sow, Dau, Kuk, her age and number of babies. She will ask for your name as well but do not expect her to remember it.
When you have established a relation the girl expects that you will keep coming back to her during you stay. She considers it her legal income, the money she gets from you, and even in this business jumping from girl to girl is not appreciated. It is called "to butterfly". But do remember that you might find "your" girl in the arms of somebody else when you come the next day. It is her trade and livelihood, so do not complain. As most of the customers will move on after a short while, you will get her later again.
If you want to get rid of a girl because you found a better one, try to avoid the bar where the first girl is working. But be not too sure that she still may find you. Remember that in addition the afternoon dancing girls may come from different bars in the vicinity. So in the evening you may find the girl in another place again. And they do walk around to have a look at the other bars. This implies that you should not change girls from the same bar. The first girl will take this as a "loss of face", that you consider her not good enough to you and this will cause her a lot of embarrassment. In some cases make the girl try to commit suicide. I have seen quite a few girls with cut marks on their wrists. Thailand is the country with the highest suicide rate in the world.
Do not expect to find "your" girl if you come back to the same bar, say, in six months. These girls change bars quite often. If you do not have her picture, you would not be able to recognize her again anyway - different hair style, clothes etcetera.
After successful flirtation, you will typically pay a bar fine of 100-400 baht. Once you have paid the bar fine, you are free to negotiate with the girl the further activities, including her fee, 100% of which goes to the herself. You have the options between "Short Time"(between 500 and 1500 Baht) and "Long Time" (between 1000 and 2000 Baht) which is typically twice as expensive. Short Time means just one visit to your room (or the upstairs room in the bar), and then the girl leaves. Long Time means the girl will stay with you the whole night and leave early in the morning. You should let her go, you will meet her again at the bar in the night again anyway. Keeping her for the day will result in expensive shopping trips.
Some hotels do not object against you having overnight female visitors. Some, like The Landmark of Bangkok, wants her out of your room before 23 hours. These girls expect you to shower before business. They do this themselves as well. They like it clean. Actually when you do this together it starts the fun already. Always use a condom! 50 percent of the girls do have the hiv virus. Do not play with your life.
Do not be surprised if the girl who danced naked for you in the bar suddenly is to shy to let you see her naked in your room. Many girls - especially newcomers to the sex trade - wrap themselves in the bathing towel and remove it only under the blanket. They actually believe their nakedness is ugly. So you will have to do some convincing that she is beautiful even when naked. She may offer to accompany you to the airport when you leave Thailand. This is nice, and you should pay an extra 500 Baht for this. But actually whether the girl stays with you another 60 minutes will not make any difference.
If you take a liking to a friend of your girl you might consider to ask her along as well. This does not give you any "butterfly" problems, but you yourself might have some problems keeping up with two girls.
When you do not plan to spend the day with sightseeing activities, stay up till the bar closes (2 o'clock in the morning, some now stay open up to three or four), and sleep long. So you can cut down the time until the bar opens again. Again and again you will be stopped on the street with somebody showing pictures of beautiful naked girls and ask you if you would like some "massage". Others will ask if you want watches, showing pictures of Rolex and other high value watches, jewelry and tailors. I never accepted an offer of these people to get a girl from them. It is much more fun to choose yourself, and actually these guys will get them from the bars anyway, but more expensive. Nothing is for free, and they also need some money.
Likewise taxi drivers always will ask whether you have "hotel room already?" Even if you don't have a room waiting for you, lie and tell him you have a reservation, otherwise the hotel is forced to pay them their commission, which you will have to pay afterwards. But when you want some special services you can basically ask anybody, tourist guides, taxi drivers, hotel personnel. Nothing is impossible. They will help you, but you will pay for that of course.
As usual in such an environment there will always be some guys or girls who take advantage of people who are drunk or uncautious and steal their property. The police tries to control that as much as possible, but it always happens like in other cities. It is however a relatively rare occurrence. I have met two persons in seven years who have had that experience. Never carry anything you really do need, especially no credit cards as they are not accepted anyways, and always protect your wallet, even when a beautiful lady or boy embraces you or grabs your balls. I know one story from a man who was still savoring the sensation when he finally realized that his money was gone. And by the way, these people do have knifes in their pockets. The best way to protect yourself is to stay as sober as possible, not carry any valuables not required, never keep your wallet in the back pocket and simply avoid potentially dangerous situations. ~~ (Review # 2497)
- Khon Kaen Travel Report Dated Added: Wed Jul 26 2000 Submitted by: Ozzy
Khon Kaen is one of the "Esarn" (Northeast) Thai cities where a lot of the ladies/girls you see in Bangkok and Pattaya come from. Most of the Thai women who service foreign men come from Northeast Thailand.~~I myself have become completely jaded by the Bangkok scene (not to mention the traffic and pollution and prices of the hotel rooms) and these days I by and large choose to go directly to Esarn (Northeast Thailand). ~~A lot of the time you really don't need to go to massage parlor or any place like that. Esarn people are VERY friendly, especially the women. These are small town country girls we're talking about. If you DO choose to go to the massage parlors, the place to go in KhonKaen is the Cesar Massage. All the tuk-tuk drivers in town know where it is. WHEREEVER you go in Northeast Thailand: ~~(1) It is Safe. No safety problems, and MUCH safer than BKK ~~(2) Cheap. A night at a nice hotel costs about 500 baht, compared to 1000 and up in BKK. Budget about 200 baht for dinner.~~(3) Far less pollution and traffic.~~(4) Nicer people. Especially the normal girls. ~~(5) Just tell the tuk-tuk or cyclo drivers "Want BOOM BOOM Want lady!" and they will take you to where the action is. ~~I HIGHLY recommend a trip to Northeast Thailand such as Khon Kaen, Udon Thani, Korat, etc. etc. etc. WHAT A COUNTRY!!! Long live The Kingdom and King of THAILAND>>>>>!!!!!!~~ (Review # 2023)
- Ko Samui Street Action Dated Added: Tue Jan 19 1999 Submitted by: Peach
I spent 9 glorious days on Ko Samui Thailand. You have to fly into Bangkok and then catch a flight to Ko Samui. It's about a 1 hour flight, kind of expensive. If your a budget traveler take the overnight train south and catch a boat to the Island. Stay at Chewang Beach. All of the best clubs, beaches, food and especially girls are there. The nightlife picks up around 9:00 p.m.. Go clubbing until late and when you are walking back drunk pick up a girl or two or three. They only charge about $20 U.S. for the whole night whatever you want. They are so beautiful. If you are looking for marriage it's a good place. They will do whatever you want. I had the best 9 days in my life I highly recommend it I will go back shortly. Stay away from the Bangkok whores, they are expensive and will try to suck you dry, spend the time checking out the temples while your there. Once you get to the beach everything is so cheap, it offsets the cost to get there. I slept with 15 women in 9 days all of them were 7-10's. Talk to ya later. (Review # 684)
|
