You Can Do [i]What[/i] With Your Vagina?!?!

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Sihinoukville was a nice place, a nice place indeed. It was I think the best overall experience in Cambodia looking back, and it was a hard one to leave as well. I don't know what it is though about Thailand, but I get so excited when I am going to be heading back in that direction. This time I applied for a tourist visa. This way I could stay in the country for 2 months with the possibility of a one month extension without the hassle of those pesky visa runs that are all too common with those expats who have made Thailand their home, (il)legally?!?! I did not know what I was going to do this time around and did not want to have to worry about crossing the boarder right in the middle of any activity just to get another 30 days.

I was heading back to Bangkok for the 3rd time again. People despise BKK, I love it. I was going to be meeting up with some Brits, Tom-o and Sam, that I had met back in Laos. It was going to be a nice little "downy" reunion. They hadn't seen much of the city, I know a lot about it, but there are those few places that are best enjoyed with a posse of people rather than going alone. On top of that, Khao San Rd. is a pretty difficult place as a solo traveller to get all up into the mix, unless you feel like going over to Gulliver's Travels to dance and then some with some pseudo hookers. I'm pretty over that scene now. There are loads of bars/restaurants serving drinks, but it's not a very inviting atmosphere, and after doing it so many times, I'm kind of over it. Bangkok itself, however, I'm far from over.

I got back together with my friend's parents, and got invited to an Indian dinner with a bunch of their current/former expat friends. They are all in petroleum and at one point all lived in Indonesia. I guess what makes the city different for me is that I have somewhat established Thai/Expat contacts so when I feel like doing something local or something different, I give them a call and see what's up. The dinner was great, it had been awhile since I had a good, full-menu meal. After the meal, we all headed over to the Pelican, a roughneck bar (expat oil-worker establishment), played a few darts and shuffleboard. The bar (like most places in the Sukumvit) was in an area that some go-go bars were located (See: "The Sex Trade") and I was told to go check out the "petting zoo" next door, which I did. Although I never partake, these places always interest me so I'm never one to turn down an opportunity to kick it with a ho and learn their powers of seduction. It is actually quite funny sometimes.

One guy in particular, Larry, knew a lot about the city. By the end of the night, I had a list of swanky clubs, elite prostitution and circus freak establishments, cheap "hole in the wall" watering holes, and some good places to play pool as well as live music venues. This being Friday night, I now had the complete weekend to start the exploration.

With people I knew and people they knew, we had a group of about 11 people to go to town with. Numbers are nice but a bitch at the same time. There is always that one person who isn't done with their drink, or the one who does not want to go to that place, and you have to take more than one taxi which means everybody gets lost most of the time and you have to spend 30 minutes trying to find everybody, with the aid of local/international text messages. But once everybody is together again, the festivities can start.

There has not been a day in Bangkok when I cannot roll down the street without being offered a Ping Pong show, boom-boom (ATTENTION ALL TUK-TUK DRIVERS: I'm a white guy in Thailand, do you NOT think I do not know where to get boom-boom if I wanted it. Please stop asking!), massage, or a cheap suit. However, this time was different. Okay Tuk-Tuk man, I'm ready, give me your best ping pong show. Over the course of the past few months I have heard many travellers talk about these shows. They are never positive, but you just gotta do it. It's cultural, right?

Definition: A ping pong show is a show in a shady-ass area controlled by the mafia, where extremely ugly girls can do wonders with their pussies, while hookers dance poorly in the back ground. As with anything sex related, you gotta keep your wits about you when you are dealing with this trade. There are loads of rip off schemes and extortion acts that happen. When we got to Patpong, I made a big mistake about opening my mouth and interfering with a man's tout. He was trying to get these three tourist to come to a show, tourist that were clearly not interested nor had any idea that there was such thing as a Ping Pong show and just happened to be in the area for the night market. How could you be so oblivious to this place, where it is so notorious for Lady-Boy and Gay bars by the name of "Balls" and "Dicks". Anyway, I kindly told the guys that if they go to a show, make sure they go to one that you pay upfront, that way you don't have a surprise bill at the end. Well, like I said, you knew the guys weren't interested anyway, and walked away. Mr. Ping Pong man thought that I was telling those guys to go away, and started to threaten me. He told me that I wouldn't make it home that night, and that he would be waiting outside when I left with a bunch of friends. He kept on hitting me in the arm, his friend kept on spitting water on my feet, and some little bitch kept on being a bitch. I seriously knew I had made a mistake and had to kept my 360 vision around me at all time. I was paranoid man, i tell you.

We found a show finally and sat down. These girls are nothing near attractive as visioned. What is on the menu tonight (all going in or out of their vaginal area)?

1. ping pongs (obviously)
2. string of razor blades
3. string of flowers
4. two coke bottles, one empty, one filled with water. insert water to fill up, then insert empty bottle and coke now fills the bottle, magic!
5. cigarettes (somebody please pass a pussy mint)
6. darts shooting balloons
7. shooting bananas at customers (can you say AIDS?)
8. writing messages
9. popping off bottle caps
10. looks of boredom.

There is nothing really sexual with this, it is just so odd. The girls are absolutely hideous. The only thing somewhat nice is the hookers dancing in the background but you definitely have to take double takes every time to make sure they are not a man. It also makes you wonder at what point do these girls realise they have a gift, that their pussy can do more than more than most skilled workers, just short of curing cancer. When (and how) does somebody get into this trade. I wasn't impressed and I think the death threat before this definitely had a hit on my mood because usually i find entertainment in weird stuff such as this. Never again will I ever go.

The next few nights were not as different. The first time I was in BKK, I went to RCA plaza and had been looking again to return. Now there was the perfect group to do it. Halloween is somewhat celebrated here. You would never know but in Khao San and in the more yuppie areas there were parties everywhere. The Thais also have a national holiday on the 31st, although it has nothing to do with Halloween. Thailand is nice in that there are 22 national holidays per year, that's almost a month of days off, and if you think about it, that's a day off every 2 weeks. Not bad I tell you.

One night we checked out one club which I can't remember, it was alright, kind of small but because we had a late start we really couldn't move anywhere else. Plus a few people who were not educated on the scene didn't abide by the dress code. On Halloween Eve we went to Flix, the most blingin' of all the clubs on this street. It's a nice place. I like how there is a room for whatever mood you are in, whether it be live music, hip hop, or dance and techno. It's also nice to buy bottles and have them poured for you, but it does add up and it wasn't a cheap night. That night reminded me of being back home when the bill came, but its part of the experience.

I was kind of apathetic about Halloween. I mean, I wanted to go big, but had no costume and realized it wasn't worth the effort or the expense to get a bunch of stuff which I would never wear around again anyway. In addition, I caught a cold the night before hand, first time in Asia, so I really didn't do too much this night besides going to bed early. I think a lot of it was just due to exhaustion because I had been going hard for a week and a half straight with very poor sleep. I was heading out to Kanchanaburi the next day anyway so I guess it wasn't a bad thing. There were so many Thai's on Khao San this night and everyplace was packed as well. Most Thai's I have ever seen in this location. This ended my week back in BKK, it was an interesting one.

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