The Dark Side Tour, Part II

Oat wakes up early because of his job as a high stakes sports better—I always associated sports betting with night time, but when you bet on basketball in Asia it’s actually an early morning job. Consequently, we always woke up early when we were staying with Oat to cheer on whichever basketball team he had money on. He had a lot of money riding on the Clippers-Mavericks game and didn't want to leave his apartment so we ordered McDonald's delivery (I’m still not sure how it works, but virtually anywhere in developed Thailand you can dial 1711 and have McDonald's at your door in less than 30 minutes). While eating our Big Macs and drinking our Coca Colas, Pap and Oat both won 10 thousand dollars, thanks to Chauncey Billups taking an unnecessary last minute 3-pointer to meet the spread.

With victory in our clutches, we hopped in Oat’s car to head to Pattaya, the capital of the dark side of Thailand. Phil, an American we met at the hostel came along; it was his birthday, which was the perfect excuse to kill a liter of bourbon before visiting Walking Street, the sex capital of the sex capital—but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Pap contemplating go karts

When first arriving to Pattaya, we did what any 5 guys would do: go karts! We opted for the karts that maxed out at 45 or so, which was still pretty fast. Among the many ‘Masters of Southeast Asia’ (see above post) getting their race on, two stood out. Both of these two old, creepy guys had mullets and wore full racing body suits, Formula 1 style. Their 80 pound dark skinned Thai lovers looked on as they shaved seconds off their go kart laps.

Oat told me his dad was a doctor and that he owned a clinic, and we would stay at this ‘clinic.’ I had images in my head of poor sick people lined up out the door for treatment of herpes, TB, and gunshot wounds (you know, a clinic); I was a little worried, I didn't want to catch anything. Come to find out, a ‘clinic’ in Tinglish is a place for cosmetic surgeries, such as nipple augmentations, face lifts, and sex changes; it was actually a really nice, well lit, and clean place (think a nice dentist’s office with breast posters on the walls instead of teeth). Our accommodations were a former massage parlor on the 3^rd floor of the building. Instead of having five four-foot wide beds, we just had one 20-foot wide bed, with curtains in between.

Our not-so-humble abode for the evening

Making illicit whiskey drinks

We went for seafood on the beach and drank a liter of Jim Beam that I had brought for a special occasion (it was our friend’s birthday and we were in the sex capital of perhaps the world—what the hey). Our waiter was a cold hearted ladyboy who knew we were drinking outside alcohol but couldn’t catch us in the act. We would make ‘ladyboy alerts’ if (s)he was heading our way and someone was pouring. By the end of dinner, we were loud, rowdy, and ready for Walking Street.
DISCLAIMER: I will spare some (read many) of the details of the ensuing events out of good taste (but if you want to know more, contact me, I am more than happy to fill in all the gaps).

First things first: The Ping Pong Show.
Let’s just say these girls have special talents that they have developed through the strengthening and toning the muscles of their reproductive organs, allowing them to propel things with only the ‘breath control’ of their loins (that is about as appropriately as I can describe it). We wanted a solid performance so we asked around about the quality of the entertainers, duration of the entertainment, and show(wo)manship.

Phil (center) taken aback by the splendor of Walking Street

We settled on a 2 hour variety show with a cover charge of about 6 dollars, which included a drink. I want to make it clear and say this show is not very sexy, it’s more like a celebration of an impressive achievement (the said ‘breath control); it was more like going to a boxing match than a strip show. Being that we were sitting front row, we got to take part in the show—I got to light a cigarette for a girl, and hold a balloon which was popped by a blowgun dart; I have faith that my readership can understand what I mean.

The menu at the variety show... email me if you want the legible version

After 2 hours of beer drinking and enjoying some intensely impressive feats of adult entertainment, we moved on to a very classy stage show. The lights were impressive, the sound system was great, the entertainers were lovely, and the choreography was top notch. There were themed dances such as two nurses reviving a third girl, leather and whips, and vampires. These non-explicitly sexual sex shows were actually much preferred by my Thai friends, and based on their generalizations, preferred by most Thai guys. This was where I had my first encounter with a mamasan—a former prostitute turned head madame. Mamasans are notoriously cutthroat; they have seen and done it all, and they don’t put up with shit from anybody. This mamasan mistook my drunkenness for dullness and tried to charge me for 4 drinks when I bought one, and then made me feel bad for bringing it up—she had solid skills of instilling guilt for money.

After that we moved down the strip to a club with a live hip-hop band. They did sweet live covers of Jay-Z, TI, and Solja Boy Tell Em’, as well as Bob Marley songs. Literally for every one local/tourist club goer on this strip, there was a scantily clad Thai girl between 18 and 27. At one club, Pap introduced us to some girls from his hometown (small world!). At 5 or 6 am, after banging out dance remixes to every American pop song imaginable, the clubs all started to close. We decided an after-party was in order (the logical next step from a party, just ask R. Kelly). 

Can't stop, won't stop

We got back to the room and there we were, drunk and joking around. Then the truth came out: they were not friends of Pap; they were prostitutes that happened to be from his hometown (this explained why they were instantly so cool with us I suppose), and they wanted money. We deliberated and let them know that we didn't have interest in playing such a hands on role in the sex trade. They tried to bargain with us for a bit, and after more calculated responses on our parts, they finally left, seemingly not offended. By this time the sun was rising and we were still quite intoxicated; we all slept like one big happy family on our one big happy massage bed.

When we woke up the next afternoon, we were a little more hardened and a little more battle ready; we were men with a little more experience and a little less soul. I can only speak for myself when I say that Pattaya definitely took something out of me, but at least it wasn't money—this entire evening of drinking and world-class entertainment ending up costing about 25 bucks, god bless the power of the dollar.  

The Dark Side Tour, Part I

Bryan and I were having a long overdue bro-reunion, and we were curious about the seedier side of Thailand; we have both visited Thailand but never seen the side that unfortunately dominates many people’s perception of the country (there’s a lifetime of things to see and do here that don’t involve sex, and the culture is quite agreeable, as long as you’re not a dick).

We, however, put red-lighting on the back burner to meet up with some contacts we had in Bangkok. We spent our first night with Joe. We had a big Thai dinner and toast for dessert—this isn’t any old toast though, it’s 3-inch thick, buttery white bread that you can dip or cover with pretty much anything you want, and it is as decadent and sinful as any dessert I’ve had. Joe was tired from being overworked and when we asked him about the red light district he quickly passed. Eventually we parted ways to go get some sleep.

The next day we were to meet up with Pap, and we assumed it would be a similar scenario to the night before; but God, were we wrong. Oat and Pap are a classic duo—Pap is tall, charismatic, and very unrestrained by Thai standards; Oat is shorter and has distinctly Chinese features, and is much more calculated and mild mannered on first impression. Bryan and I rode in the back of Pap's pick-up, slowly crawling through the never-ending Bangkok traffic

After lunch they told us the truck had no plates and was in dire need of maintenance, so we needed to drop it off before the Police pulled us over. We went to Oat’s house, which was under reconstruction from the floods that hit Thailand recently; the walls that weren’t repaired showed water damage over 3 feet high. We met Oat’s grandma, a first generation Chinese-Thai immigrant, who Bryan and I got to speak some Chinese with.

Bryan rode in the pick-up and I rode with Oat in his immaculate 2007 Mazda, one of the cleaner cars on the road and tastefully modded with a sports package. About 25 minutes later, we were maybe a mile closer to our destination (Bangkok’s traffic is a nightmare, people will always tell you it’s rush hour, even at 3 in the morning; sitting in a nearly-parked car is an ongoing theme in this town). Oat was in the middle of telling me he works as a day-trader and high stakes sports gambler when his phone rang. He said hello, listened 3 seconds, laughed maniacally, and hung up. Then he told me that he and Pap were going to take us on a tour of the dark side of Thailand, he said it would be a multiple day affair and that we needed to go check out of our hostel. We did as we were told. (A note to prospective Thailand travelers: ditch the travel book ASAP and make friends with some Thai folks at a college bar and let them show you around, they pretty much all speak enough English and Lonely Planet writers know nothing compared to the locals.)

After what seemed like hours of crawling traffic we had dropped off Pap’s truck and were at Oat’s high rise apartment. His floor was equipped with a pool on a terrace, a full gym, and other amenities one would expect at a top notch condo, all paid for by calculated sports betting. We dropped our stuff off and hopped back into the car to face more traffic, and ‘The Dark Side Tour’ commenced.

Pap gave us a briefing on the itinerary, he was going to show us all the sex Bangkok had to offer (that was for sale at least), starting with the cheapest at a few hundred baht (3 to 9 bucks), to the classy stuff at 5000+ baht (170 dollars or more). The first stop was a seedy underpass near a railroad; the streets are lined with aggressive ladies of the night that only get a second before the customer’s drive onto the next prospect, so they really display their wit and charm as best as possible. Old train cars with beds serve as their offices, so to speak. Next stop was the ‘massage parlors’ which were big, casino-esque structures with neon signs spelled out in Thai, English, and Chinese—the difference between these and real massage parlors are the neon lights and the staff, Pap pointed out (‘If the girls are beautiful, they are prostitute. If they are old, it is a real massage spa’). We went to a local favorite, Nataree, which may have been intended to be called ‘Natalie’ but due to the lack of an ‘r’ and ‘l’ distinction in Thai someone opted to go with the ‘r’ accidently.

Inside there was a window booth displaying the veterans, a table with the older ladies to the left, and a bench with the younger ones to the right. The younger ones were mostly dainty, light skinned, and inexperienced looking; most were thumbing through their smart phones with an air of indifference, all of which are apparently wildly hot characteristics to a Thai guy. Conversely, the older ladies hunted for eye contact and smiles with potential clients. We saw many different types of clients, one duo were two Thai kids who couldn’t have been more than 20, and they purchased a ladies’ company to share between them (balling on a budget, or bonding?).

While leaving Nataree, we were pulled over for a broken headlight, and after extensive bargaining Pap and Oat were to pay a 200 baht toll (whether it was a fine or bribe, the world may never know). The caveat was they had to go pay it to a higher ranking official at the station, so they left us with the cops next to the parked car, which was in a u-turn zone. Not 2 minutes after they had left did a giant tour bus full of Koreans pull up and they needed to make this said u-turn. The bus driver did a 56-point turn to try and get around our car that was blocking half the zone, to no avail. All the while, traffic was backing up more and more down the busy street of Bangkok because the bus was blocking 2 and a half of the 3 lanes of traffic. The police started shouting at us in Thai (presumably to move the car), once again to no avail.

Once things were straightened out we headed to the high class brothel, which looked like the white house tucked in between two skyscrapers. Unfortunately, they were hosting a private party and we couldn’t get in. Pap and Oat then told us they would take us to Pattaya the next day, which is the capital of darkness in Thailand, and that we needed to rest up. Once again we did as we were told, totally unaware of just how crazy the next day would be…