Wednesday, August 24, 2005

What A Laugh.

I was going to write a quite hard hitting and nasty piece about Pattaya. As at first the place made my skin crawl somewhat. The thought of all the fat sweaty "farang" (westerners), sleazing over the poor Thai girls, made me feel bad for being Western. However on reflection, after the night we had, the tone of this piece will be different.

We arrived in Pattaya after a bit of a killer journey. Leaving Koh Maak at 8.00 am, we got the ferry back to the mainland, the a bus to some little one "elephant" town (we saw it in the street), for the connection to Pattaya. We traveled for about 10 hours yesterday, so we were quite tired by the time we hit town. Getting dropped off at Soi 6 of Th Pattaya we wandered down to find a guest house. Already the street was lined with girls outside the bars and clubs, waiting for there fat, sweaty, smelly Western customers. Here is the capital of hedonism, here you can buy a girlfriend for the day, the week, the month. Here you can buy whatever your sick little mind desires, from Thai prostitute through lady-boy to a small child, if that is what your sickness demands. At first the feeling you get is a mixture of amazement and a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach.

Anyway, to move on. We found a guest house just away from the main madness, Sky Top, owned by an Aussie called Pete (450 bhat for an air con with TV and hot shower). It was a good deal for the area we are in so we decided that was for us, paid for the room and got ready for a night out. Taking it slowly at first we found a stall, had some noodles and a Pepsi. Not bad at 70 bhat for both of us, about a quid. Then the night started!

We had a Chang in a quiet bar and then moved onto a beautiful place that was full of wealthy Thai. "J" was our waiter, and he chatted with us as much as he could, while serving others. He explained that he had come down from the north and had worked in Pattaya a few years now, as many of the workers here do. They come from all over Thailand and often end up trapped in these tourist places, not able to go home ever. I witnessed my first toilet massage at this bar. This is when some guy will stand behind you and give you a shoulder massage while you pee. All a bit odd, I probably end up peeing all over my trousers if they tried it on me. We stayed there a while listening to the Thai singers, doing Western songs, Karaoke style. Then we felt brave enough to venture into the darker side of Pattaya.

We found a bar that was empty of Western sleazy, and sat at the bar. The girls were very welcoming to us, as a Western couple, as we are not threatening to them. We make the bar look busy, the boss is happy, but they don't have to deal with the whole sex issue. We chatted, and played games. Jenga and some dice game that I had not seen before, but got into and enjoyed all the same. An old guy approached us at one point and started doing close-up, slight-of-hand, magic. He was really good, first time for me that I have seen such tricks done so well. So we parted with 40 bhat, as part of a trick, and were quite happy with the entertainment on offer.

It is as the night moved on that things got more surreal. We moved to another bar, I had learnt "yai" (meaning large / big) from J. Which became something of great amusement to the girls at the bar when used with "farang" and directed at the over bloated, over the hill and over here Westerners in the bar. Sam chatted with one girl, about her Scottish boyfriend she has not seen for 7 years, a sad story! I meanwhile laughed and joked about the "yai farang" with the other girls. We met some Finnish guy, who bought us some fags, but things start to become a bit hazy around that point.

The time hit 3.15 am, and it looked like we may have been locked out of the guest house. Suddenly we realises the time, and in a flurry of activiety all round we found ourselves both riding pillion on a bike taxi. Through the back streets of Pattaya, trying to find where we were staying. We eventually found where we needed to be, after a bit of a round-about journey. The poor driver didn't know where we wanted to be, and neither did we, so we didn't do too bad to find the place in the end. It was locked! All lights off! What to do? Thai's from nextdoor came to our help, and we were offered someone's bedroom for the night. It cost us 300 bhat, but hell someone got a new dress out of it maybe and we got to get our heads down for the night.

We are now back in out air-can room, suffering with hang-overs, but having had a brilliant night. Just before I came down to write this up, both Sam and I sat and rolled with laughter at the madness of the night before. We had the night of our lives, and get to do it all again tonight. Hurrah! What a life!

2 Comments:

At 1:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

aaaaahhh, you like the sleaze and pleaze end of the market. maybe you want girl, or boy, or donkey? or all? hope yer having a blast avoiding the clever mosquito and pimp!!

 
At 1:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

oops, dat was kenny (above)

 

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