Short Skirts and High Heels
I decided that I had to find what Bangkok is most famous for – sleaze – for my last night in the city. I did some research and discovered that there are three areas, one being Patpong which I had visited earlier in the week and seemed more about vendors selling clothes than sex joints. Apparently, Patpong was the place way back in the Vietnam War days. So last night I went to Nana where they have a three story plaza of go-go bars (how 60’s is this “go-go” name!). I also learned that the Bangkok police have changed things over the last few years and it seems the effect is that there is no nudity. The go-go dancers wear bikinis – small bikinis albeit, but I suppose they would be somewhat legally dressed in public. My couple of hours in Nana was interesting, but it appears Bangkok has rid itself of its bad reputation producer.
One thing that has intrigued me all week is that all of the students wear school uniforms and girls around 16-18 wear uniforms that are nothing short of absolutely sexy. It’s more than a bit creepy seeing them in very short skirts well above the knee, white blouses and four-inch heels. What on earth are high schoolers running around the city in those get-ups? I was not surprised to find a bar last night where all the waitresses were wearing school uniforms. Oddly, though, they were wearing what the younger students wear – skirts to the knees and flat heels. In fact, just about all of the women working in the go-go bars are not as pretty or nicely dressed as the average Bangkok women.
The typical go-go bar consists of a bar, a center stage with poles and girls “dancing” on that stage. I did not see anyone really dancing. The girls want you to buy them drinks and it appears that the girls include the dancers, waitresses and anyone else working in the bar. They smile a lot, but I felt no pressure from anyone so I was able to just drink a beer in peace. I believe all of them are there to go home with you as well, but I really did not see prostitution inside the bars. Outside the streets in that area are lined with young women of which 90% must be working. Well, 100% are working, but 10% are doing normal work like selling curries and satays.
Just about the only visitors to this area are white tourists. It would appear that Asian and Thai men go somewhere else. There were a lot of women and couples visitors as well as the men. Most of them just seemed to be there for the same reason I was there – to see the infamous sleaze of Bangkok and drink a beer. There were two things that I saw last night that did make it interesting. The first being an elephant that walks around on the street and sidewalk. Many people were having their picture taken with the little elephant and he seemed to entertain and behave well.
The second sighting of interest was the ladyboys. Thailand is famous for men that are dressed up as women. I saw a lot of very effeminate guys throughout the city, but they are a whole lot different when they work as go-go dancers. In some ways they are more female than the women dancers with totally exaggerated makeup and clothing. One giveaway about who is male is that they wear a lot more clothes than the girls which is good considering the girls run around in G strings! I steered clear of their bars, but maybe Pamela and I will go see if they can dance better than the girls.
Bangkok’s new international airport was a real treat to be in this morning. I am now at Kuala Lumpur’s airport which is not half as nice although the entry was the easiest of any country with no visas, no paperwork at all and a passport control officer who liked hearing that I was going to see Borneo and the orangutans. The police here do have large guns – something I did not miss in Thailand. Actually, I appreciated the Thai police very much because they were so friendly, unarmed and well-dressed – such a difference from Kenya’s big-gun-carrying, money-grubbing slovenly SOBs.
Tags: Asia, thailand
vagabondrick
Interesting – I had read somewhere that Bankok catered to pediphiles and eagerly supplies very young girls – some still children – to people with that taste. Do you think the school girl uniforms (both on the school girls as well as the waitresses reflects that availibility?)