I don’t know what you were expecting, but my night went pretty much as I’d figured it would, almost disappointing even. Maybe it’s because of Amsterdam; I mean, after everything one sees in Amsterdam… well you don’t exactly walk around with the gafas del sol of naivt anymore.

Look! It’s like a mini-smut-Vegas! Qu guay!Indeed I hit Soi Cowboy (not until after wasting an hour or two in my hotel room watching Uncle Buck: such a classic!). It’s kind of an alleyway or lane where they suck up 90% of the electricity and 95% of the x chromosomes in a half-mile radius with bar after bar of debauchery and tomfoolery. Actually I don’t know what tomfoolery is exactly, but I’ve never used the word before and it seemed appropriate. I digress.

The bars themselves are rather tiny little things, not much more than 25 feet wide and maybe double that in length stretching from the street, kinda something like Port Olympico in Barcelona. I spent most of my time watching football (Man U cooked Newcastle 2-0) outside one of the bars on the street while I worked up the liquid courage to select one of the bars for my first foray into this, well, rather intimidating world of tease-ery. Each bar has at least a few of their older ladies (?) outside with signs in English saying things like (and I wish I’d grabbed pics of these):
“You will do not forget these beautiful girls!” (sic)
or my favourite:
“50 ugly girls.
2 pretty girls.” (seriously)

Note the entry “Lady Drinks”. The bar gives a commission to the girls for drinking these (likely) non-alcoholic drinks. Note the prices too by dividing the price in baht by 3 to get the CDN $ equivalent. Yes, those are $3 Heineken. I think that’s a rip-off.These girls try to hook you in (pun intended) with cat calls, pouting faces and other ego clutching techniques which, at least in my case, makes it difficult to choose who to patron and who will be rejected (I don’t like rejecting anyone). One of the guys I was talking to at the bar gave me a good tip: as you walk in just say “just have a look” which ensures that they don’t smother you with girls on your lap trying to get you to buy them “Lady drinks”. So, with a “I just have look” (break it down for them), I went into a place called Cowboy 2 which appeared to be the biggest of the bars on Soi Cowboy.

Foreground: beer. Background: pretty lights… and stuff.They sat me down front row, right beneath the stage. Before too long there was dirty old guy who got sat next to my table complaining that they had wanted to put him in one of the seats near the back and wanted to know why. I could only guess. Anyway, on stage were about 8 Thai girls in red bikinis looking awfully self-conscious, shuffling away to remixed dance songs from the late 90s. I ordered a beer and tried to keep a smile on my face after certain prompting from the waitress staff. I sat so that there wasn’t more than half a foot between me and the edge of the bench seat, ensuring no sneaky girls would sit down and surprise me when I wasn’t looking. It worked.

I finished my beer, but not before seeing three different shows. Surprisingly there was no technical nudity, which was probably a good thing for multiple reasons. The girls didn’t look like they could handle being any more exposed and I was already trying my best to maintain a polite western gaze on their faces… Honestly though, it’s not the most attractive show, and I was glad to be done my beer and sitting at the bar watching football again.

I’d make a bad spy, I don’t think even Photoshop would help make out this guy’s identity. For his sake that’s probably a good thing.So anyway, that was that. My first experience with the Bangkok go-go scene. Oh, I should also mention the dirty old guys. This is probably the most surprising part of the whole Thai girl scene; these men look like yours and my uncle, like any father or even grandfather. They aren’t overtly sleazy looking by any means and to talk to them you’d never assume that they were masterful patrons of the Thai sex trade. International, world-savvy businessmen by day, whoring slime balls by night (no offense). I overheard a couple guys in their 60s next to me talking about a girl they’d picked up the night before, enthusiastically recounting how natural she was, how nice she was, how easy it was to talk to her… not twenty minutes later she came into the pub and sat down with them ("Ah! And here she is now, Bob, I want you to meet..."). Given, she laughed at all the right times, but her English wasn’t that great. I couldn’t help but wonder how much of it was this act, and, upon further listening and consideration, I wasn’t sure who to feel more sorry for.

Maybe I should just be minding my own business.

Ps. Note how I got through this entire post without resorting to calling anyone a “ho”

Pss. A note to Andy (I seem to meet a lot of people named Andy these days, it’s weird): I forgot to pass by the bar you mentioned, “Eden”. After seeing your note this morning I’m glad.