After our adventures setting/dodging shit on fire in Chiang Mai, Maya and I headed back to Bangkok for a few days on our way to the island of Ko Chang. Instead of staying in the northwestern tourist center of town, we decided to find a guesthouse in the center of the actual city where we'd have access to more public transportation options, like the skytrain and the subway, instead of having to rely on assholic taxi and tuk-tuk drivers, as we'd had to during our first time in Bangkok. We also decided that maybe one of the reasons we hadn't enjoyed that first visit so much was because we hadn't embraced the city...in all its depravity. Seeking to remedy that this time, we jumped onto the skytrain and headed off to Bangkok's world-famous/infamous Patpong redlight district.
Exiting the Sala Daeng skytrain station, we first had to navigate through a narrow, sweaty, crowded gauntlet of street-vendor stands hawking bootleg clothing, bootleg music, and very real-looking military, police, and martial-arts weaponry. Then we hit the first of the two Patpong streets. Almost immediately, a Thai dude shouted out to us from the front of a dark club, "Sir, come in! bondage show!" Only then did I notice the mannequin in a ball-gag and leather S&M gear hanging above the entrance. Maya and I shook our heads politely, passed another club, where three scantily-clad Thai women were gyrating on the stoop while techno pounded from the venue behind them. And then the first of a seemingly endless line of solicitors approached us with the following totally insane pitch: "Want to see [insert 'Pingpong' or 'Patpong'] show?" He then shoved in our faces what looked like a laminated index card, on it printed a long list of mindblowing acts to be included in this show: "Pussy writing, pussy smoking, pussy horn, pussy bottle-opening, razorblades in pussy, fish in pussy," and so on and on... "You can see first - no pay," he continued. "If you like, then pay. Come, follow me."
These solicitors would then lead us, sometimes physically, with a loose grip on the arm, to the sketchiest-looking of the numerous clubs stacked on top of each other along the streets - dark, dirty doorways up narrow metal staircases on the second floor of whatever building (the one venue name that sticks in my head is "Super Pussy" in big neon lights). First-floor spaces mostly seemed to be your basic go-go and strip clubs, their open doors revealing stages jampacked with fairly attractive young Thai girls in bikinis or topless, rocking back and forth listlessly (it couldn't really be called "dancing" due both to the girls' lack of enthusiasm and the lack of space) to the thumping 4/4 beat. The more outre performances are religated to the upper floors, apparently.
The streets outside, meanwhile, bustled with a strange motley crew, due, in no small part to the fact that Patpong Street Number 1 not only hosts redlight fare but also a market full of stands selling T-shirts, watches, CDs, and souvenirs; so, while there are plenty of the expected types - aged sexpats, drunken fratboys, sleazy Europeans, glamorous kathoeys (on Soi Jaruwan, the gay strip), Japanese salarymen (on Soi Thaniya, the Japanese strip), and fast-talking solicitors - milling about, there are also plenty of everyday tourists and even families brushing uncomfortable shoulders with the rest. As we pushed through the throngs, Maya and I saw a cute little white kid, maybe 3 years old, cradled in her mother's arm; a Thai woman was pinching the child's cheeks: "Pingpong show, pingpong show," the woman was babytalking to the kid till the mom, understandably disturbed, pulled away into the crowd. We also noted a teenage boy, maybe 15, staring at the index card of a solicitor eager to whip him into a nearby den of iniquity; the boy's gray-haired mother tapped him on his shoulder: "I'll be across the street in the internet place," she said, as if sending him off to see the pussies at work and setting up their post-show rendevous.
As for us, after a few false starts (we followed a solicitor into one place, only to run into a white couple on their way out who told us not to go in (("It sucks - the girls just stand around and try to get your money," they said)), then we walked into another club to find that exact scenario being played out), we ended up seeing something of a Pingpong or Patpong show (still not sure which is the correct terminology). Attracted by the fact that no one was trying drag us into the place, by the fact that there were only matronly-looking women working the door, and by the cardboard sign promising that we wouldn't have to pay more than the price of a beer, we ended up sitting on a padded bench in the corner of a dark, dingy stripclub. The white dude next to us had two strippers - one topless; the other, completely naked - draped over him, giggling. In the section to our right, a whole crew of wrinkled, older white men was laughing and drinking with - and fondling - a number of strippers in various levels of undress. And on the stage in the middle of the room, 5 or 6 strippers were gyrating lethargically, with bored and/or pissed-off expressions on their faces. Except for the two girls with both their bras and panties on, the women were not hot at all.
Maya and I sat, sipping our beers, trying to touch as little of the walls, seat, and table around us as possible, and watched, barely keeping our jaws from hitting the floor. During our maybe half-hour there, we saw a woman blow a horn with her pussy, another woman pull a good 8 feet of rainbow streamers out of her pussy, yet another woman pour some clear liquid from a bottle into her pussy and pour it back out whereupon it had mysteriously turned purple, and then a final woman pull maybe 6 feet of thread out of her pussy - the thread had sewing needles hung from it every couple inches, and as she tugged the string out, she pinned paper flowers through alternating needles till she had a garland hanging from between her legs!
Now, I'm not really a stripclub kind of guy - as far as I'm concerned, a stripclub, at its best, is just an exercise in sexual frustration, and one that I'm paying for. That said, there was nothing sexually frustrating about this place because the whole thing was so profoundly un-erotic. And, perhaps, a little bit unsanitary. At some point, a middle-aged Thai woman (strangely, in her clothes) stopped in front of our table, and put out a hand for shaking. Not knowing what else to do, Maya and I reluctantly shook her hand. We all stared at each other for a few moments, then the woman pointed to her own teeth and smiled, then walked away. "Do I have something stuck between my teeth?" Maya asked me, completely confused by the interaction, as was I. (We later observed this woman giving apparently platonic massages to some of the other clientele.) Soon after, two chubby strippers, who had been "dancing" on the stage, came up to us, and put our their hands for shaking; again, not sure what else to do and not wanting to insult them, we shook their hands. They then awkwardly - though sweetly - tried to chat us up with what limited English they had, clearly campaigning for us to buy them drinks. It was definitely time for us to go.
As we dashed back out into the relatively fresh air, the matronly women outside thanked us for attending. And as we walked away up the street, the solicitors swarmed on us again, as they did every foreigner, tried to angle us into their clubs. "Want to see show?" Maya shook her head, proudly telling them, no thanks, that she already had.
When we finally turned the corner off of Patpong and onto the main strip, Maya suggested that we try to find a pharmacy where we could buy some hand sanitizer. Not a bad idea, considering the disturbing number of hands we had ended up shaking. We stopped in a few places, but no luck. Riding the skytrain back to our hotel, resisting the urge to scratch our noses or bite our nails until we'd had a chance to wash, we felt oddly content knowing that while Bangkok may have kicked our collective ass during our first stay, now we'd seen her naked.
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best entry yet?
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