Fitting in on Soi Buakhow
by Chiang Mai Kelly
Six weeks went by and I had found a wholesale distributor to deliver Red Horse and a Belgian restaurant close by for breakfast everything was going well.
I thought I knew Pattaya but the reality of living here is a hard hot slap in the face.
5,000 bars and 50,000 bar employees. I knew all of the places on Walking street, Beach road and 2nd road but now I lived on a quiet little street that I thought was away from all of the action. Soon I discovered I was only one block away from 12 Thai nightlife venues, even one Isaan karaoke bar.
Walking down Soi Buakhow early in the evening a small bar erupts in shouts and I get a little worried until I realize they are trying to attract our attention. I know a few people in Pattaya and I avoided the areas where I know they hang out. Princess is dragging me toward the shouting. I scan the faces of the ladies jumping up and down and relax because I don’t know any of them. I have since come to refer to them as the gypsum gypsies. In America they call it drywall, in Australia it is called gypsum. As the story comes across with my limited understanding of Thai, apparently Princess was the leader of a high rise dry wall crew and these ladies were her apprentices about 10 years ago.
In the bar these poor women with Gucci purses and 30,000 baht cell phones were being taken advantage of by palsied old men who could not walk without assistance and whose hands shook so much that they could not even light their own Cuban cigars. Normally the bargirls chant hello handsome man as the Farang walk by but in this location the ladies yell, “Wait, wait I come get you and help you cross street.”
Pup was 44 and loose as a goose with wrinkles and stretch marks to boot and one of the drywall crew of old. We paid Pup’s 200 baht barfine so the Princess and her could talk about old times and set out to paint the town.
I asked her where she wanted to go and she confided in me that she wanted to see some young dick. Of course we all know that Thai bar ladies do not really like sex but I took her anyway. The audience was mainly composed of middle-aged Farang women who I am sure are the same Western women who post on Thai forums about the disgusting old men in Pattaya. After an hour I had seen enough white jockey shorts to last me a lifetime and I moved the party to Sharks on Walking street.
Princess had to go to the bathroom and Pup her lifelong friend was on her knees in a flash under our table trying to unzip my fly. I jerked in surprise and she, startled, jumped up and bumped her head on the table and knocked over our drinks. This caused the woman who was dancing on top the next table to convulse in laughter and she lost her footing and landed upon the face of fat guy sitting next to us (I realized with sorrow that this poor young lady dancer could not even afford panties to wear to work).
The guy she landed on thought she was holding on to his head and forcing it into her crotch on purpose instead of for balance and grabbed her butt to assist. She screamed, he tipped her a 100 baht. The other table dancers seeing her success all screamed and jumped on the faces of the men they were dancing for.
Princess came back from the toilet. I asked her directions to the men‘s room (I always ask so she knows I have never been to the club before). On my way to the restroom one of the dancers slithered off of her table and wrapping her legs around my waist rode me to the WC.
The club was getting out of control. We went home.
We weren’t in the house five minutes and Pup our gypsum gypsy asked if she could move in with her son who is a very nice boy, so she informed me and has never been in any kind of trouble and is very quiet. She offered to pay us 4,000 baht per month for our extra bedroom. She suggested the son sleep in our spare bedroom and she would share a king-sized bed with myself and princess.
Since I have a real soft spot in my heart for exploited women I thought this was a good idea. Princess had a different take on the situation and was making gagging noises in the bathroom as her friend showed me her nice brown nipples that had suckled four children.
Sensing my concern for exploited bargirls she suggested we travel to a club where the bargirls went to unwind after a hard night's work. Coincidentally her son also worked at this club. I pointed out to her that it was 3 AM and no clubs were supposed to be open. She told me to accommodate the hours of the hard working bargirls the boys in brown allowed some clubs to stay open till 8 AM. This was news to me. The latest I had ever stayed at a club was 6 AM.
We arrived at the location to find an upscale karaoke bar with drinks starting at 100 baht for the customers and 150 baht for the bar boys. The customers? Mostly bargirls and dancers who were not barfined long time and a few young Farang women. It was difficult for me to view these poor young women who were paying young Thai men for sex as exploited but I am sure someone who is more familiar with Thai women will be able to explain this for me.
From my conversations with the staff and customers I have come to the conclusion there are twenty of these clubs in Pattaya, all big, expensive and packed with bargirls every night in case you wondered what poor Ping and Pong do at night after work.
The next day princess told me she wanted to go a bar that that her friend had told her about. Princess has been a lot of things and seen a lot of things and been a lot of places but she had never been to Soi Six in Pattaya.
When I first visited Pattaya I tried wearing disguises. But the wig and phony mustache were very hot and two gentleman described me as, “look, there goes Groucho Marx in drag again.” I tried different hats but that did not confuse them enough. Finally I settled on a name change for different areas. On Soi 6 and Beach road I tell people my name is DayNa. On Soi 7, 8 I am Mi Kun.
As the Princess and I strolled down Soi 6 I kept hearing calls of hello DayNa. This confused the Princess but it was a lot better than hello Kelly. I can’t be the only one doing this because I have walked in a few places where the manager bought me my first drink after I introduced myself.
I am a very polite person. I try and say and do the right thing at the right time. Suffice it to say that after four hours princess was very angry with me.
We ended up in a restaurant without bar ladies. A relatively sedate place with a couple of tables of Japanese guys. Princess, of course, is sharing the details of our night with a total stranger, the female bartender who is tut tutting at appropriate intervals.
The bartender is an attractive woman in her late twenties, she informs me she has a husband in Europe who she is completely faithful to and that she is a good Thai girl. She gives me the lecture about Thai women. I think I have heard this particular lecture about seven times. You know, the Thai lady not butterfly lecture.
I was being quiet. Not responding to the digs and the moralizing. Actually I was quite proud of myself for keeping my mouth shut. They were both pressing me to respond to her comments. I furrowed my brows and did my best impression of thinking. I looked at Princess and her new friend the faithful bartender and at last said, “OK, 1,500 baht, short time.” The bartender said, “OK, but I have to be back in two hours.” Princess frowned and the three of hopped on a baht bus.
I still think I would have been OK if the bartender lady had not been a screamer also slapping her butt and yelling one more time cowboy did not go over real well.
Princess slept on the couch and did not speak to me for a day.
I don’t know how you all resolve conflicts with Thai women but I don’t speak about the problem and try to change the subject.
My subject of the day turned out to be how our house in Pattaya cost twice as much as our home in Chiang Mai. I stomped around for an hour or so muttering how I did not really like the place and it cost too much money. I don’t need two bedrooms or two living rooms and the kitchen has no ventilation and her cousin won’t give me back the washing machine I gave him a year ago so why do we need a laundry room and so on.
Princess was sitting on the couch absorbing all of this for an hour until she said in her tender, shy, submissive way, “YOU SHUT UP, I TAKE CARE OF TOMORROW, NOW SHUT UP.”
I was feeling proud of myself. I had heard nothing of the previous night's events and was interested to see how she was going to reduce my rent by one half on the next day.
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