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…
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