red light

***yesterday***

bangkok is pretty infamous for it’s redlight district (patpong). it’s a section of town filled w/ sex shows, prostitutes, and god knows what else. it took me a while to decide whether or not i was going to go there. at first i was, but then when faced with having to go there all by myself, i decided against it. well, curiosity got the best of me, and i ended up going after all. although i had already heard numerous stories about the crazy stuff that can go on there, i kind of didn’t know exactly what to expect… so i just grabbed a cab, and started randomly wandering the streets.

the first street i walked down was lined w/ tons of girls just hanging out wearing nice dresses. i’m assuming they were escorts or some thing kind of upscale like that. the next street was kind of different. there were a bunch of clubs, and all these guys would run up to you trying to usher you in the club they worked for by promising all kinds of crazy outlandish activities within. there wasn’t anything i wanted to see in particular, so i just followed the second guy i saw. there was no cover for the club, but the beers here cost 100B (i know, i know, it’s only $2.50, but in thailand that’s a lot) so that was how they made their money. after sitting down at a table and buying a beer, i was informed that all beers were 100B, *except* for the first beer you bought, which was 300B. ahem. so much for “no cover charge”.

so, the show was pretty damn insane. it’s really fucking amazing what these girls can do with their privates. the way it worked was that there were always 5 or 6 different bikini clad or topless chicks dancing on stage, and every few minutes a girl would get on stage and perform a trick. these tricks varied from: opening bottles, using chopsticks, blowing out birthday candles, playing a small trumpet, shooting ping pong balls, shooting darts, and of course being used as storage for all sorts of random objects. the whole experience was totally nuts! i’ve seen a lot of weird things in my life, but this definitely was one of the weirdest. that’s when things got dangerous. the girls passed out balloons to pretty much everyone out there watching… and a girl proceeded to pop the balloons by shooting them with darts from her you know what. now, somehow she managed to pop most of them on the first try, but it took her like 15 shots to pop the balloon i was holding, and as dart after dart stuck into the wall behind me, i was seriously expecting to accidentally get a dart in my hand… or worse yet, my face. luckily, no one was injured.

unlike jamie’s experience where most of the girls were super ugly, pretty much all the girls here were very attractive. i started feeling so bad for them though. what can be more embarrassing than blowing out birthday candles w/ your privates? but then again, who knows… all these girls must have chosen that job for a reason. i’m sure that reason was high pay and minimal amount of work compared to the other shitty options offered in thailand. and who am i to say that blowing out birthday candles is more embarrassing than say being a janitor and crawling around cleaning people’s crap, or collecting garbage, or what not. dignity is really just a state of mind, and i’m sure this job was much much easier than being a rocket scientist, brain surgeon, or even doing construction work.

at this point, one of the random bikini girls sits down next to me and puts here arm around me. errrrr. so i have no clue what i’m supposed to do. talk to her? hand her money? tell her to go away? pretend she doesn’t exist? so i opt for the last choice and just sit there watching the show go on. soon this same girl sits down next to me each and every time she’s not up there dancing… and that’s when all the other girls come flocking in. soon, i have like 3 different girls sitting next to me grabbing at me, talking to me, and trying to get money out of me(by getting me to buy them drinks). now this is way more than i bargained for. i came here just to see some crazy shit… not to be felt up. so i spent some time fending off people’s advances, pushing hands away from where they shouldnt be, but still buying them drinks cause i felt bad for them. now everyone felt like they should join in the “lets make money” mayhem, and i had bartenders asking for tips, girls asking for drinks, and even the manager asking for baht. sheez! actually, the only one who wasnt asking for hella drinks or trying to get the grope on was that first chick who had initially sat next to me (who i later found out was named nund). by this time i was starting to feel pretty flustered and awkward.

crap… i gotta catch my flight. i’ll have to post the rest later.

-v