“What's
so great about Thai women?”,
the Pattaya newbie asked
"Because they empower your manhood, " the
Thailand Butterfly replied.
She
didn’t speak any English at all, claiming to have just started working
in the go-go bar two days ago. But she would wind up being the most
incredible girl I can ever remember and it all started
with my fascination with a French poodle. And that started with an
innocent walk down Beach Road to Walking Street with Pete, the
Australian ex Pat who owned the small guest house I was staying at in
Pattaya.
With the Gulf of Thailand to our right we had ambled down the thin strip
of sand and broken sidewalk towards Walking Street, which is known for
its go-go bars. There was construction going on down the center of the
strip providing the main beach for Pattayans, which was reportedly the
beginnings of a new subway. But I doubt that. But whatever it was one
could not take an unbroken course along the beach whether on the sand or
sidewalk. There were enough obstacles along the way, from gaping holes
in the ground to large chunks of concrete debris to remind old timers of
a World War II minefield. On the other side of Beach Road were a
miscellany of shops, sidewalk stalls where vendors were selling
practically everything from sunglasses, fake Rolex watches, statues of
Buddha, beer, and women. Out in the street itself, utter chaos.
The most dangerous activity in Pattaya is crossing the street. Out there
in the danger zone there are cars and motorbikes keeping up an endless
stream of traffic. To cross the street requires lots of patience because
one had to pick the right moment to make his move. Traffic lights and
crosswalks are practically non-existent here so one has to make a break
for it as one darts into a suddenly developing hole in the traffic much
like a half back trying to squeeze by opposing linemen in a football
game.
All of this took a lot out of us, so Pete made a move for a small go-go
bar on Soi Eight, which is one of the most infamous short streets in
Pattaya intersecting Beach Road and Second Road. Here along with Soi
Eight running parallel to it, Soi Eight can easily have at least several
hundred bar girls trying to pick up guys within two blocks. The go-go
bar was just opening. It was only five o’clock and at this early hour
only two or three dancers were visible downstairs. One of the girls
seated us at a small table in front of the stage. No one was dancing
yet. She joined us for a drink. Pete was drinking soft drinks while I
was on my usual Heineken roll.
Over to my left several tables over was a white French poodle sitting on
top of a bar table. Next to the poodle sat a girl who was probably one
of the club’s dancers. To all appearances the pair were having a
conversation. All it would take to complete the image of a Walt Disney
animated cartoon in which the animals all talked was a beer or mixed
drink in front of the poodle.
As I continued to watch the poodle with interest, a man hanging out with
two or three girls just past the poodle and dancer suddenly noticed my
continuing to look in their direction.
“Oh no,” I said to myself. “He’s going to think I want female company
and send one of the girls over.” It was still too early for me to want
to start hanging out with the women. Needed a break from that. After
all, since coming here I had never spent a night alone, and not once had
I woken up without having a woman next to me.
So far I had Nang over for two nights, and then I had met the Princess,
who wound up spending five or six nights with me. One girl who had spent
most of the night with me worked at Living Dolls II. Then there was the
girl who worked in the bar just forty feet from the Guest House Pete
owned. She had spent the previous night with me and one other night
besides that. Then there was the tallish girl I found in a beer bar just
two or three blocks up from the Guest House, and lastly that beautiful
massage girl who had given me “extras” who had wound up making a
terrific impression on me. Of all the girls I had been with so far, she
was the one who seemed to be by far the most experienced while having a
terrific sense of humor which made her definitely one to lust after.
Yes...it was far too early to have to put up with the first bar girl who
decided she wanted a piece of me. Every day if a man goes anywhere in
Pattaya he will have at least fifty women come onto him.
Suddenly a smallish figure stood next to me. She seemed cute enough in
the face, but dark rooms can do numbers on a man. Her figure seemed
slender, which for me is a must. So I let her sidle up next to me. I
immediately found out she spoke even less English than most of the girls
I had been with, none of which spoke much more than a few words. But I
brought her a drink anyway and it was all on account of that poodle.
And that damn poodle came right over to me as well, parking itself at my
feet. But the poodle understood English about as well as the girl who
kept edging up closer and closer to me. After a few minutes I found
myself holding her around her waist while she put her arms around my
chest.
I heard Pete’s voice say: “You idiot. Don’t you know where to put your
hands?”
At first I thought he was talking to me, chiding me for not feeling up
her breasts. But I found out he was speaking to her when he grabbed her
hand and placed it firmly against my groin. The girl didn’t waste any
time catching on. Pete had motivated her into feeling up my penis. I
soon had her in my lap and we started to make out right there in the
club.
Paying for sex
As we roamed
about Pattaya, Thailand traveling on the narrow benches in the back of
those pickups called baht buses for just 25 cents for both my date and
myself I compared myself to older American and European guys I saw with
their wives, who were not paying for sex.
Here I was sitting in the arms of a beautiful young girl....(for
instance Ntang is 23), oftentimes making out with her on the way back to
my hotel where we would sleep in each others arms all night long. Across
from us is an older guy in his early sixties with a whitish skinned
Caucasian cow-like apparition in her fifties resembling a beached whale
from Moby Dick.
I am thinking...."this guy probably bragged to his friends how he never
paid for sex. Of course it probably cost over $20,000 per year for him
to support the cow and now this fat slug is costing him close to $1,000
air fare to fly her fat ass to Thailand. And of course since she's an
American bred female she wants a nice hotel room costing $50.00 a night
which would be at least $150 for the night in Chicago and other bargain
basement places you can stay in the U.S. And of course she needs at
least two American style meals a day to keep her weight up. Let's see
now....A Thai meal might cost 120 baht but the European, American style
meal costs a premium in Thailand.....say 300 baht.
But I'm taking girls out for an average of one meal a day but oftentimes
the girl isn't eating so say I'm paying a max of 100 baht to feed my
dates. On the other hand, the American cow is costing 600 baht a day
for meals alone. That's 500 baht more. Plus I'm paying just $16.50 a day
for my guest house room. I get it cheaply because it is up on the fourth
floor or whatever which represents good exercise for me walking up those
steps but this is beyond the endurance of the American cow. So it's
$33.50 more for lodging per day to house the cow plus 500 baht more for
food for an additional $12.50 (1000 baht equals $25.00).
Then there's the shopping. American cows love to shop so this other guy
in the baht bus with us is probably paying at least 50 dollars a day to
shop in Pattaya's fancy malls. After all, she needs new jewelry, and new
perfume to cover up the smell of her awful fat body and she needs new
silverware and jade ornaments, and shit for the kids and grand-kids. 50
dollars a day is way low for what the cow costs. So let's see.......the
couple is not spending a month in Thailand. I am—they are not, but say
they did?
Okay.....That's 30 dollars a day for her airfare prorated for thirty
days. 50 dollars a day for her shopping.....$33.50 more per day for a
fancy hotel and $12.50 per day for her additional food needs. This comes
to $126.00 per day just to keep this fat slug around.
And here I've bar fined this chick out for 200 baht which is just five
bucks. But I’m not paying for sex. Prostitution is outlawed here in
Thailand whereas it’s advocated in the U.S. It’s called marriage. I'm
paying $121 less per day for this beautiful young creature beside me
who's blowing in my ear. The old fart next to me is paying $121 more per
day than I am to have this fat hog sitting next to him who I wouldn't
fuck with my dog's dick.
All I can say is I'm damn glad I'm not having to pay for sex. And glad
the money never will run out and I can keep doing it till the day I die.
But I think down the road I'll find one or more Thai girlfriends who
will stay with me for around $300 a month. They will want to send it
home out in the country to their family who is babysitting their kids.
while quitting their jobs as bar girls. I’ll just call it “cheap day
care” with the night thrown in as a freebie. Since I quit smoking-- had
a two pack a day habit and with cigarettes at five dollars a pack, this
is ten dollars a day or three hundred dollars per month. So in effect I
quit smoking so I can keep a gorgeous dream world around as my babe who
most guys would wet their pants just dreaming about. One can look at it
like a rent a wife service which is a much better proposition than
buying a cow.
All I can think about is how much this fart must hate me for having this
luscious young babe with me who's sliding her tongue down my throat
right about now but he of course is paying for sex while I’m not.
First week in Pattaya
It takes thirty hours to get to Paradise if you come all the way over
from St. Louis. Figure it this way—arrive two hours early at the
airport, then a four hour flight to San Francisco, an average layover at
the SF airport for another hour, followed by a fourteen hour flight to
Taipei. Now figure in an average layover of several hours followed by a
four hour flight to Bangkok. Last there’s the 2 to 3 hour taxi ride from
the Bangkok airport to one’s hotel in Pattaya, which costs just $20.00,
which is one of the first incredible bargains awaiting you at this
tropical paradise.
We arrive at our seven room guest house tired but excited as we eagerly
anticipate what Pattaya’s night life has in store for us. A wiry Thai
girl greets our cab and starts helping the cabby collect our luggage. We
had gone past the guest house and had to double back to find it since it
was small and didn’t stand out among the other business establishments
on the block. An Internet café fills up what passes for the guest house
lobby. There is a small table in front of the female attendant who sits
high up on s stool overlooking several guests who are already on the
establishment’s computers. Behind her are bottles of vodka, rum,
whiskey, and other kinds of alcohol. The attendant is sitting in a
partially enclosed area having an open doorway to her left. Next to it
is a refrigerator with a glass front showing off bottles of purified
water, beer, soft drinks and wine coolers inside it.
There are eight computers in the Internet cafe. PlOne and I will be
trying out its new DSL lines that offer a download time of 256 kps, but
first we must check out our rooms.
The first thing that strikes me about the place I expect to be staying
for the next month is the hardness of the bed. There is a very thin
mattress that is wide enough to sleep two comfortably, but the mattress
seems out of place for an establishment whose clientele consists mostly
of Westerners. Japanese would find themselves right at home on the hard
mattress I expect, but even for me the mattress reminds me too much of
camping on hard ground, and I buy the hardest mattresses I can find. The
second thing that grabs my attention is the bathroom. There is no shower
stall inside or a bath tub. Instead there’s a small electrical box above
a smallish plastic shower head jutting out of the wall. The shower head
is removable so that it can be moved around by hand to spray either
different parts of one’s body or the toilet or wash basin.
“What will my future dates think about this shower?” my thoughts rush
through me of cute little Thai girls thinking: “He’s a cheap bastard to
have a shower which sprays water all over the floor to drain off
eventually by a drain somewhere in the tiled floor.” The window from the
main room looks out on a complex of colorful outdoor beer bars next door
four stories beneath me. There’s no elevator that leads up here. Just a
staircase. So that will help me negate the widening influence of all the
great Thai good I’ll no doubt be consuming in vast quantities for the
coming month.
Other than all that I mentioned, the room looks comfortable enough. It
even has a refrigerator, a small stereo system and a television set
wired to receive cable. PlOne and I head downstairs to plug out laptops
into the Ethernet connection cables that go into two of the Internet
café’s computers. We are both online within seconds. It’s costing 1 baht
per minute to be online here, which is far more expensive than we are
paying back home for unlimited service. Still, that’s just $1.50 per
hour to stay in contact with the rest of the world.
There are two restaurants close by. One is the Sunset Café less than a
half a block away, which is just past the complex of beer bars that
start just forty feet outside our Guest House’s side entrance. Just in
front of the small front door is a booth in which two pretty Thai women
sit and next to them is a pool table. The girls work for Pete, the
Australian ex Pat who owns the guest house. Their job is to give
massages, starting with the ubiquitous foot massage at just 200 baht
(five bucks) per hour. When I think of the Thai foot massages I am
reminded of acupuncture since somehow they do a great job for anyone
with a sore back even though the masseuse never presses down with her
hands on anything higher than the thigh. The girls often play pool as
they wait for customers wanting a massage. Altogether there are three
girls working for Pete who give massages and another four girls who work
for the guest house itself or running the Internet café plus a woman who
cleans the rooms and who also does laundry. It is all an intimate
arrangement in which all the girls working for Pete will know me fairly
well before the month is out. I can only wonder how many of them will
privately think I’m a pretty despicable character for bringing home as
many bar girls who I will be buying out of their beer bars and go go
establishments during the next 30 days.
In two of the PT's clubs I can drink on Tuesday and Wednesdays nights
for two dollars a drink. At Mustang Sallys, now Club 64 I can drink beer
every night for just three bucks a beer and I guarantee you that both
Mustang Sallys and PT's have much more beautiful women than Dollies has
and here I have to pay more than four bucks a beer for.
But as good as my favorite strip clubs are and as much as they blow away
Dollies, nothing compares to Thailand. There are literally thousands of
bars with great atmosphere in Pattaya with an average say of six gals
working in each bar. Beers are around $1.50 a bottle at these places,
and you can take any girl home with you that you like by buying her out
of the bar for five bucks or so. Thailand is like an elite club with the
best smorgasbord on earth placed in front of the man who can afford its
membership fees. The music is far superior here to what one finds in the
U.S. and the girls are incomparable to anything one can find anywhere
else in the world. But one has to be a man of means to join this elite
club....that is, to be able to afford the airfare over to Thailand, but
once one has paid it nearly everything else is half price of less
compared to the U.S.
Unfortunately for underachieving males such as the stalkers in our Lost
Angels chat room, the membership fees
to this elite club are out of reach since neither one of these guys has
worked hard enough in life to be able to afford the ticket of admission
nor has either one of them been astute enough to acquire marketable job
skills that commands for them high enough wages to be able to afford to
go to Thailand. If you remember the grasshopper and the ant story, the
grasshopper is the spendthrift who is always playing around while the
ant saves and saves for the rainy day he knows will one day arrive. The
grasshopper is shit out of luck when the days comes when he must anty
up. But the ant which has worked hard to save and save is in great
shape. And this is the case with PlOne and myself. Plone has much wanted
marketable computer skills that command for him the highest dollar wages
along with a PHD while I have an MBA...Masters in Business which has
helped enable me to increase the size of the family farm by over a third
due to hard work and astute business planning. Of course the stalkers
here will portray a different story claiming I was kicked off the farm,
am living off my Dad, etc. But one can understand their petty jealousy
which makes them lie. Bottom line is we've got it, and they don't and
this will never change.
I nearly forgot about the other restaurant close by. This is Greg’s. And
it’s just a few doors down in the opposite direction of the Sunset Café.
Both Greg’s and the Sunset Café have outdoor seating, resembling
somewhat those French cafes in Paris. The larger of the two, Greg’s, has
air conditioning inside. It is here where we will be watching the
results of the American Presidential election on CNN. One can order from
a selection of over seventy Continental and Thai dishes at Greg’s.
Both restaurants have on their menus huge American style breakfasts for
120 which is just three dollars. Thai dishes start at even less, going
from around $2.50 and up. In either place one could sit in the outdoor
areas and relax with a book or magazine and just watch the world go by.
Which it does since both Greg’s and the Sunset Café are on 2nd Road,
which is one of two streets off of which most of the real action takes
place. The other street is Beach Road, which runs a couple of blocks
down from and parallel to 2nd Road. On one side of Beach Road is the
Gulf of Thailand which is bordered by a narrow sandy beach lined with Palm
trees. On the other side is a two mile line of hotels, restaurants,
shopping centers, small shops, along with a long array of beer bars each
with its own sound system baring out loud music. Intersecting 2nd Road
and Beach Road are the Sois, named Soi 1 and II, Soi VI, Soi VII and
VIII and so on. The Sois are short streets, typically overpopulated with
beer bars, restaurants and an occasional go-go night club.
Soi VI is less than 2 blocks north of our guest house. If I want to walk
down to Beach Road this is one of the routes I take the most. One cannot
possibly walk down Soi Six any time past noon without being accosted at
least a half dozen times by one of the many beer bar girls working here,
who will number well into the hundreds by night fall. The same thing is
true about Soi Seven and Eight which are a few blocks South of our Guest
House in the opposite direction although I find the girls along these
two Sois to be far more attractive than the ones along Soi Six. Once
again, one only has to walk just two blocks down any of the Sois I have
just mentioned to encounter at least four hundred girls, all of whom are
devoted to picking up a Farang (foreigner or non-Thai) for the night or
at least an hour or two.
Six months ago, PlOne had met a girl who worked at a beer bar on Soi
Eight and had wound up spending three days in a row with her. I wanted
to check out Foxy Lady just one block over on Soi Eight since I had met
Som here six months ago. I wound up going out with Som three times,
which is a lot since our group had only spent a few days at Pattaya
having to share the 12 tour days with Bangkok and Cambodia. Som had been
just too cool, a bright girl who was easy to be with, who once asked me
to pick up another girl in a go-go bar she had brought me to while
remarking: “I am just an old lady of 31.” That night I had been dead
tired and after starting out the evening with Som in my hotel room right
after meeting her at Foxy Lady, picking up another girl was the last
thing on my mind.
I had spent my last night in Pattaya at Foxy Lady with Som over a few
drinks while watching the busy Soi in motion with tourists walking
around, motorbikes rushing through, and the occasional car picking its
way through the meNtang carefully to avoid hitting one of the pedestrians.
That night everything seemed right with the world–or at least this world
in Thailand and I seemed right at home there–my date attentive and
cheerful looking small and sexy on her barstool.
I still had Som’s phone number although it was likely it was already out
of date, so I wanted to check out Foxy Lady either to find her or get
news of her. But when we got there I recognized no one. Not even the
woman who had owned the place and when I mentioned Som no one seemed to
know anything about her. Foxy Lady was just one of more than a dozen
small narrow bars lying next to each other just off the street sharing
the same roof and open sided to the front. Each bar although very small,
perhaps just ten feet wide by twenty-five feet along, had an average of
five or six girls working as bartenders.
PlOne wanted to head over to Soi Seven to look up his love from his
visit from six months ago, so off we went without getting a single beer
or drink from Foxy Lady. When we got to “Heaven’s Door” PlONe
immediately started asking several girls standing close to the street
where he could find Pa. Meanwhile one of the girls, who was tall and
more curvaceous than most of those around her, started getting close and
personal with me . Showing no shyness whatsoever, she immediately
started brushing her hands up against my crouch. Her name was Nang.
It turned out
that Nang was Pa’s roommate. Although PlOne had met Pa at Heaven’s Door,
Pa had recently been barred from Heaven’s Door for either unreliability
or not working her shift often enough or at least that’s the way we got
it from Nang. Just a few feet outside of Foxy Lady, Nang called Pa up on
her cell phone.
We found Pa within easy walking distance from Heaven’s Door. She was
slender and around average height for Thai girls at about five foot one.
We would spend the next two days with Nang and Pa. It all is becoming a
blur to me now. For one thing I would eventually be going out with a
dozen Thai girls including Nang. I would also be going out every night
but one in the next thirty days so it’s hard to say what I did and with
whom for each of those nights. The four of us wound up shooting some
video in my room. By this time I had made Pa understand what a Tapeworm
was which I had started calling her because of her slender appearance in
spite of my not being able to speak one word of Thai and her English
being rudimentary. I’m sure most American women would not appreciate
being called a Tapeworm. Not Pa however. The more I kidded her and
especially the more I called her Tapeworm the more she liked it.
During the day the four of us headed South on Beach Road to Jomtien
Beach. I had seen an ad for some promising condominiums in the Pattaya
Mail and PlOne and I wanted to take a look at them just to get an idea
of what some of the more upscale establishments could offer us if we’d
ever decide to move to Pattaya.
We took what would become our primary means of transportation, the baht
bus to Jomtien Beach which took over twenty minutes. Halfway there, Nang
started to gently massage my leg. Here I hardly knew her and she was
already giving me more loving close and personal attention than most
U.S. women would be giving me or anyone else they had known and liked
for years. I would find out more and more as my trip got well into the
thirty days I’d remain in Pattaya that this was more the rule than the
exception.
We found the condos to be much more striking than we anticipated
starting with the 25 meter length outdoor pool close to the ocean and
with the other outdoor amenities most of which was surrounded by lush
but well kept vegetation. I was particularly struck by the three bedroom
penthouse condos with their overly large outdoor balconies costing
$125,000. Such a place, I reasoned, was large and comfortable enough to
invite a number of overnight guests to stay all at the same time. When I
returned to the States I returned with a brochure on this condo
development whose units started at around $80,000. Now that I’m
seriously contemplating moving to Pattaya it’s one of my top prospects
since not only are its individual units striking but because of its
superlative natural surrounds beautiful views from its spacious decks
and because it is twenty minutes from the main hub of Pattaya’s night
life activity which might mean my getting a lot more sNtangp at night. The
rest of the month would prove that I would desperately need some form of
buffer or restraint from the hectic hedonistic pace I would continuously
seek without some form of moderating influences.
The Princess
The girl in
Living Dolls Showcase Go-Go bar was giving me lots of attention by
massaging my arms or upper thighs as I bought myself and her several
beers. After more than an hour had passed the Mama San was pretty fed up
since I had not barfined the girl yet. I had been going non stop for the
past several nights and had not caught up on my sNtangp after being awake
for nearly forty-eight hours since flying to Thailand from San
Francisco. So I promised the girl I’d come back for her the next night
which I tried to explain to the Mama San who finally let me alone.
Unlike most guys I keep my promises so the next night I came back for
the girl. After all, I had wasted nearly two hours of her time the
previous night during which she might have been able to convince some
other farang (foreigner) to bar fine her and take her home with him.
Hopefully she had gotten lucky after I had left her.
It had been dark in the go-go bar and difficult to really get a good
look at the girl next to you. But a promise is a promise. I bar fined
the girl who had sat with me the night before, while PlOne bar fined
another girl. A few short minutes later we were close to our guest house
with the two girls.
Just forty feet away from the small guest house I’d call home for a
month was a complex of brightly lit up outdoor bars. We chose the
nearest one, ordered a round of drinks, then I went up to my room to get
my laptop and Nikon D-1 X after leaving PlOne with the two girls at a
table in front of the bar.
A few minutes later I was shooting pictures of everyone in sight. This
included the female owner of the bar who was from Bangkok and most of
the girls working the bar. I dodged traffic to get across the street to
take pictures of the bar from a distance and I gathered the girls around
the owner behind the bar for group shots. I took pictures of several bar
girls dancing in front of the place, hopefully to attract passers by
into dropping in for drinks. And I took pictures of PlOne and the two
girls with us.
His girl was uncommonly attractive, if not a stunner, the closest thing
to one. The girl I had bar fined by contrast was very ordinary. Even
worse, my camera loved his girl. She knew she was cute, and after she
saw a few of her pictures roll before her eyes in the slide shows I
started showing right after taking a batch of pictures, she wanted to do
more. And the more she enjoyed herself and reveled in seeing herself on
the computer, the more she wanted to do which had the opposite effect on
the girl I was with. She turned pale and became very quiet.
Up in the room after we separated from the other pair, she continued to
be very quiet. And it turned out to be a bad night with her leaving me
in the early a.m. Afterwards PlOne observed that she must have felt
overshadowed by the other girl, then gotten more and more miffed as
everyone’s attention continued to rotate around her.
I resolved from that point on to only bar fine those girls who I
consciously wanted to take back to my room and whose bodies I desired
even if it was only for the moment. To bar fine someone out of a sense
of obligation I decided was to do an injustice not only to myself but to
the girl as well.
Our next adventure was to be at the Thai boxing matches that took place
just a hundred feet from where one first enters Walking Street. Walking
Street was called Walking Street because after 7 p.m. no cars or
motorbikes were allowed there. Just pedestrians. This was the only
street in Pattaya where only walking was allowed, which made strolling
down the street so much more relaxing here than everywhere else where
one had to dodge motorbikes and cars which seemed to come out of
everywhere–particularly the motorbikes whose drivers didn’t care which
way they were driving, even on the one way streets. Walking Street was
well over a quarter mile long and much wider than all the Sois. On both
sides were go-go bars, discotheques, beer bars, restaurants, and shops.
There was plenty of action here.
It was the first Thai boxing area we went into. Down Walking Street a
few hundred yards from it was still another boxing ring, but we never
went there. Six months ago we had gone here several times. PlOne was
hoping we’d find the girl who had waited on us from behind our favorite
bar just to see if any sparks would fly between us.
I had a date lined up for the next afternoon with Pukki from the
Soapie Massage place. But the girl who was waiting on us from inside the
small bar had told me she wanted to see my hotel room. I told her I had
early plans for the next day and felt I could not bar fine her that
night. But the girl persisted. After repeatedly asking me to take her
home with me, she told me I would not be able to see her there the next
night, or the night after that. It just had to be tonight, she said. I
told her that I would probably see her on the nights she said she
wouldn’t be there.
Nevertheless, I had taken her at her word and had gone in the next night
where I took a seat at one of the stools at her bar. PlOne was with me
and so was Pukki. Pukki had been a very good looker, and between this
and her being there in the first place the girl who had said she would
not be working tonight became very visibly upset.
PlOne never forgot her, bringing her up in the chat room every so often
for the six months between that trip and the one we were now on. But the
girl was nowhere in sight. Gone to other places was our verdict. But
there was one girl behind the bar I found who was cuter than the rest.
And there must have been over a dozen bars there, each one no wider than
ten or fifteen feet and not much longer than that with all of them under
the same roof. Close to our new bar, which was just one bar away from
the one we had been going to months earlier, was the boxing ring.
Each night a number of fights took place at this ring. Each contestant
could use either his feet or his hands. Once in awhile two small boys
would pair off against each other in the ring. For two little boys, the
violence that each showed was more than what one could expect. But the
older guys would beat the living snot out of each other. It had always
amazed me how they could take some of the kicks to the head they kept
getting and remain standing. It also amazed me to see one of them fall
down for the ten count, seemingly unable to go on after receiving a kick
that didn’t seem hard enough to even knock down a cocker spaniel let
alone a full grown man. I had decided even six months ago that the whole
thing had been rigged on account of all the bets that were secretly
going on. Later I would learn as I suspected that the fights were little
more than exhibitions no matter how heavy some of the blows seemed.
The girl in front of me seemed a little more innocent looking than most
of the other girls. She was slender with an intriguing flare around the
seat of the denim cutoffs that gave a little hint of a very nice butt.
She was soon devoting all of her attention on me. She ensconced herself
on a barstool behind the bar as she leaned over in my direction. There
were other girls behind the bar with her waiting on customers or just
clowning around, which I’ve found Thai girls have developed to an art
form superior to what any other country can or could ever produce. It
soon became obvious to everyone that we had come together in a unique
kind of relationship of private bartender–private customer. She was
attentive to whenever my beer started to run low, replacing each empty
Heineken bottle with a fresh one. And now that I’ve been away from the
place for so long and so much else has happened my mind grows fuzzy yet
I dimly recall her leaning way into me as she took my hands in hers.
As soon as I mentioned that I wanted to take her home with me, she said
something about a toothbrush. Did this mean she wouldn’t go to my
guesthouse room because she had forgotten her toothbrush? Oh well, I’d
just buy her one. Problem solved.
There was a Seven Eleven only a block down from her bar. No kidding.
They have Seven Elevens here and they look just like they do in the U.S.
I bought her a toothbrush at the Seven Eleven but she also wanted to
charge her phone card. That set me back 100 baht or $2.50. I agreed to
doing this even though it brought a bad taste to my mouth simply because
it was her request and not my idea. But there would be advantages to
having her have an operating cell phone. I had already bought a cell
phone for myself at Big C, a department store down the street from my
guest house and had gotten a Thai number which I kept active by keeping
my minutes up with bi-weekly visits to a Seven Eleven.
Here they’d give you a little card. I normally got one at a time for
just 50 baht. One would then use a sharp object or even a finger nail to
wipe a coating off the cardboard card which would reveal an activation
code. One would then simply get on the cell phone, choose the right menu
option and punch in the activation code. Ah–technology. Just the thing
to stay in contact with PlOne or Big Daddy who’d be arriving in a week
or to call this girl or that girl to get her to meet me at a bar or my
hotel. And just go to the Big C Department Store. There’s a number of
vendors there each with his own shop all selling cell phones. Trust me,
cell phones are as big a deal in Thailand as they are in the U.S.
Princess was a reader. Whenever she was lying around the bedroom she was
always looking for something to read–a magazine, newspaper, or
something. I wonder if she was into books. She got a lot of stuff from
downstairs in the guesthouse lobby where the internet café was. To be
sure, one would not have to always be in charge of keeping this one
entertained.
Another thing I liked about her is the nice contrast her hair made
against her skin. I noticed that with single strands. And she was
slender with nice legs. But it was right from the beginning of our
relationship that she kept telling me, “I don’t want to work. I want to
stay with you all month.”
One night PlOne and his girl AE were with the Princess and me at a bar–I
think it was the House of Living Dolls Show Club where AE worked because
PlOne had to go down there every night to pay her bar fine. Suddenly
PlOne started talking about taking AE to Phuket. Princess already had
been asking me every night to take her to Bangkok or Phukett. Bangkok is
that I could have timed the trip to coincide with Big Daddy, Hawkeye and
the others arriving with the rest of the guys from the Man Tour. But I
already knew Hawkeye and Big Daddy were staying in Bangkok for just one
day after which they would get a taxi to Pattaya with the rest of the
guys staying an extra day.
But with the Princess with me I sure in the hell couldn’t chase women,
and I had already seen the Royal Palace and done the canal cruise just
six months earlier so there was no sense taking the Princess on those
just to be with the other guys.
Sure, the Princess had never seen these things so I could be the guy
introducing her to new things and places which was worth something, but
Phukett was somewhere I had never been.
Known for its beaches, scuba diving and other water sports, Phuket was
definitely worth taking in. The next day I had the Princess meet me at
the guest house which was just several doors down from a travel agency.
PlOne, Princess and I spent a few minutes inside where we all got lined
out with plane tickets from Bangkok to Phuket with a return flight to
an airport that was just a half hour from Pattaya.
Princess, like most of the girls, I would later meet, proved to be
pretty reliable and on time, far more so than most American women,
although I’ve heard from Pete and others that this isn’t necessarily the
case. Still, I didn’t want to take any chances so I had her spend the
night with me prior to the day of our plane departure. Once again she
kept on me about how she wanted to stay with me all month. I had
confided in PlOne that this wouldn’t be so bad. I could later on write
about what it was like having a Thai girlfriend. But PlOne said it would
be better for me to experience a number of Thai women, just so I could
draw on more experiences for my writing.
I am pretty sure neither of the girls had ever been in an airport
before. They acted interested, like they were having a good time, but
they didn’t appear to be particularly awed by the whole experience. We
reached Phuket's airport in about an hour, and from there we still had
over an hour’s taxi ride to the resort we were staying in at Phuket. I
had never imagined Phuket to cover so vast an area.
Our hotel cost
just $50 a night which although a far cry from the $16.50 a night we
were paying for our guest house rooms back in Pattaya was still a
bargain considering their opulence, the beautiful grounds outside, the
wonderful view of the ocean and the fact that anything comparable in the
States would have been two or three times as much. There was an Internet
Café here with DSL service and a Scuba shop. I had Princess join me at
the Scuba shop where I discussed prices and equipment with the guy in
charge. I had just gotten certified as a Padi open diver with Big Daddy
and Hawkeye and was itching to dive underwater with the tanks, but I
knew there was no way Princess was certified so I resigned myself to
keeping her company snorkeling. I wound up renting her snorkeling gear.
I had my own back at the room, a snorkel, a pair of high performance
fins, a well fitting mask, and a light 2 millimeter thick wet suit.
We took a taxi
downtown which was down the hill from the resort. The girls wanted to go
shopping while PlOne and I wanted to have a look around. And we had
decided to have dinner downtown instead of back at the resort where
prices were bound to be much higher. Princess had not brought along a
bathing suit so I felt I had to get her one. We didn’t come all the way
here, after all, not to go swimming and to at least snorkel. That set me
back twenty-five bucks or half or less than half what it would have run
in the U.S.
Princess then told me she wanted a camera. “What next?” I muttered to
myself. “I don’t even allow American women to demand that I buy them
things.” So I discussed the situation with PlOne who suggested a cheap
disposable camera.
I took Princess to the nearest little camera shop and pointed out a
disposable camera to her. Suddenly she started talking to the sales
girl. The two of them tried to explain that Princess could put new film
in the more expensive camera which was reusable. The sales girl started
to explain this to me also. I understood. Brother did I understand.
Today I had just flown Princess to a resort, paying hers and my airfare,
then I had paid for a nice room. Then it was a bathing suit, and now she
was machine gunning me into buying her a camera. Well, it might be the
first and last time she’s ever in Phukett so I reluctantly agreed to
getting her a camera. But first I told her: “You want more expensive
camera? Okay. But you buy film.”
The next day we were picked up early at the resort by a van which was
also picking up others at neighboring resorts. We spent about an hour
riding around in this van as it picked up new passengers at other
hotels. Finally we arrived at a boat dock. A blonde haired young man had
a list from which he started reading off names. Around us were a hundred
people milling around. When my name was called he told me I was with his
group and told me what boat to get on.
I was the only
one to snorkel that day. Princess decided for some strange reason that
she was not going and that was all there was to it. Everyone else but
one or two individuals were going scuba diving.
One of the few not to get in the water was a blonde headed girl. When I
was not snorkeling I asked her to take several pictures of Princess and
me with my Nikon D-1 X. She was from one of the Provinces from the
former U.S.S.R. She then told me her husband was Russian and that they
had barely been allowed to get married a short time before. She was very
personable until he came up to the top deck to join her when she
suddenly clammed up, deciding I think that she didn’t want him to think
she was being too friendly to me. “She’s got an abusive one,” I thought
to myself. He didn’t speak English and when I tried to talk to him
that’s all he said to me; “I do not speak English” which ended the
conversation right then and there.
Princess went around the boat taking pictures with her new camera. A
number of times she had me take pictures of her–without me in them that
is. I figured that she’d be showing these off, perhaps for years and by
then I’d be nothing but a distant memory so I didn’t mind.
Later she’d tell me she was on her period. I believe this, but still, I
don’t think it was reason enough not for her to try snorkeling. It isn’t
everyday that a girl gets to try it in Phukett, I reasoned.
But it was later on, that evening, when we got back from our boat ride
which had taken us a few miles off to an island that I really blew
through the roof. She actually asked me to buy her a watch. “What is
this girl doing, testing me?” I asked myself. “Or is she just trying to
rip into me for everything she could get?”
We hardly said a word to each other the next day. I hadn’t bought her a
watch and had already decided that I would start looking for someone
new, which shouldn’t be too hard in Pattaya. But by the time our flight
got us back into the airport and the cab got us back to the Guest House
it was getting close to five p.m. Princess had told me before that she
had to be at work at 4. Not knowing what the rules were, I decided that
I couldn’t have her getting to work late, then actually leave her to
work her shift. I’d bar fine her one last time and have her sNtangp over
for the entire night.
I had decided to be a butterfly. There would be a lot more girls. And
when the month was over and I had returned home, PlOne would tell me he
had talked to AE on the phone who had run into Princess. Princess had
told her, “Jack never come see me again at Thai boxing ring. Jack have
bad heart.” I was a bad guy in her mind, but not really because what I
believe she really meant was “He bad man since he pull the money train
out from under me.”
