Babes In The Wood

It was in April 1990 that I bounded out of Don Muang my first step into a tropical climate, never forget to the day I die! It nearly was the day I died, the heat rush swept over me and my backpack like a Tora Tora massage. The ways away from the airport back then were pretty limited, no skytrain, no airport bus, no air-con public bus, but allegedly a tourist train. I crossed the road to the train station through the shanty town that used to surround it (back in the days before cosmetic surgery, the Thais liked to greet new arrivals with some world class poverty), saw the gleaming new tourist train sat there abandoned. I wandered around the platform for a few minutes do my best to look like a clueless tourist until I spotted a ticket window. I tried to buy a ticket for it (B25). The ticket seller told me I would be wasting my money, it didn't leave for another hour and a half and all the trains coming through were heading to Hualompong anyway, he sold me a ticket for one (B2). So I guess I got to meet the guy who sent the tourist train company bust.

I got to Hualompong about midday and headed out in search of a bus stop. In those days there really wasn't a lot of blue signs about. You know what they say about mad dogs and Englishmen, well it's true. Thirty minutes later I was map in hand walking to Khao San through the markets of Chinatown. I arrived at Khao San a to make my second mistake, I believed the Lonely Planet (yes, gentle reader I really am that dumb, as my mother used to say I may not look stupid, but I am). Yes I found the lousiest room on Khao San, ten years later and speaking Thai I've never even come close to finding that kind of squalor again. You've seen that toilet in Trainspotting, well I slept in it.

Mummy would be proud of me. My first night I went to bed at nine. At nine thirty I and tossed and turned to sleep off the jet lag. At nine thirty one the burglar came to rob my room. I don't know who got the bigger shock, him or me, but after he left I finally managed to get some shut eye.

The next day was quite uneventful. My neighbour was an East German on his final day in BKK and he took me to Vimanmek. On the way back he refused to pay his full fare on the bus because going we paid 50 satang less, with Prussian austerity he refused to pay the addition sum, I meekly endured the extra cost. One hour later I was on my way to the New World shopping centre to partake of some air-con when a group of young Thais stopped me, asked me where I was going, said they were going there too and offered to walk with me. The one who spoke good English was about eighteen and kept insisting he was a school teacher. Ten minutes later we were quite lost and they were asking all around for directions. I thought this would be a good time to take my leave. As I did the one who spoke English reasoned with me that 'if somebody helps someone else they should be rewarded, shouldn't they?' I loved the subtle approach. He left penniless but a wiser man.

That evening I went to the No Name Bar on Khao San, the in-place at that time. Met a girl and ended up with the Thai girl, an Israeli girl and an American guy in Hello Bar at 4 AM, sorry mum! The police were doing the local pro round-up, a guy in plain clothes came to our table spoke to the Thai girl and she left with him without a word to us leaving her wallet on the table. After five bemused minutes the American guy went outside to look for her and saw her speeding away with thirty other girls in one of those cage trucks. We arrived at the police station five minutes later and headed upstairs to proclaim her innocence but were not taken too seriously and put on hold.

After an hour all the girls but ours had been processed and released, but she was still in the downstairs room. The Israeli girl led us and she thumped on the door demanding an end to her captivity. The bemused plain clothes policeman opened the door to a barrage from the Israeli girl, looked quite shocked and tried to close it. But the Israeli girl had her shoulder on the door and pushed. She won and the door flew open, we gestured to the girl to make a run for it.

In short the reason we didn't spend the night in prison was because the girl was a Thammasat student with her parent reasonably high up in the government. She was one of the first generation of middle class Thais heading for the fashionable bars of Khao San. They numbered in the tens back then compared to the thousands now. The policeman apparently knew she wasn't a prostitute but wasn't aware her father was second in charge of a government department and this threw him a bit. He brought her there to make a pass at her. He hadn't expect to find out he kidnapped an heiress with a foreign legion at her beckon call.

When I got back to the guesthouse I noticed a small boy outside bout 14 years old. It seemed it was his job to sit in the doorway of the guesthouse from dusk to dawn, a measure taken after last nights attempted burglary.

I arose in the afternoon of my second day and went for a shower and as I did the shower door opened and a nude woman appeared. About mid twenties with dark skin. Unaware there was anyone in the guesthouse this late she was a little shocked to see me and hurried down the corridor into her room, no trace of a towel in sight. Now I heard Thai girls were a bit prudish so found this even more strange. Later I was to find out she was the guesthouse cleaner.

The day I spent at the Grand Palace with a nice Belgium girl I met. As we were wandering to the river a well dressed Thai man in his early twenties sstopped us and in near perfect English engaged us in conversation. He told us he worked for Lufthansa and the whole of BKK was closed today because HM The King was on the river. Well all was closed but the government store which he'd take us too wasn't.

It was the my third evening in BKK. After I resisted the temptation long enough, I finally got the bus to Patpong. I'd studied Lonely Planet's nightlife section long enough, in fact you could describe those pages as well fingered. Patpong frightened me about hidden charges and Soi Cowboy tempted me the most. The plan was simple I would walk Patpong sneaking a peak at the upstairs show but not actually staying, then head for Soi Cowboy.

Patpong was very different to what it is now, along Patpong I seem to remember a lot more establishments than there are now, also there was no night market. What there was was touts in their legion. Mostly all men dressed in the white shirt and black trouser uniforms they where holding the menu cards. As you walked past a bar typically two or three would grab you and try to pull you into a bar, but they wouldn't leave it there. They followed you 20 metres up the street shouting. As you pass more bars you picked up more followers. By mid road I was being grabbed by the staff of one bar and followed by the staff of three or four more. It was pretty much a nightmare and I didn't get to see anything.

Soi Cowboy was more dismal back then than it is now, so I headed for plan 'B', the Nana Plaza. In reading it had seemed the least interesting. Nana was only two storeys and only half the second floor had bars. The escalator was working however and I got to ride it (how many people can claim that?). The downstairs I remember (maybe faulty) to be a lot less crowded with beer bars but otherwise pretty much the same. The downstairs bars were big and crowded so I decided to give them a miss.

The upstairs was much quieter all small bars and only half a dozen of them. The first bar at the top of the escalator was Asian Intrigue as I was later to discover a forerunner to the better bars of the future. Good service values and an intelligent floor show even with the earliest version of the candle show set it apart from the rest, but that was to be a later discovery. I headed past it and around to the other side. The very last bar before the stairs and guesthouse is of very little interest today and has been that way for ten years, but twelve years ago it's the first GoGo bar I ever entered.

In those days the bars in that part of the Plaza were the raunchiest. I came to after walking around the Plaza and discovering this bar and it's neighbour to be the only bars where the girls were dancing nude. You could even see from outside being as the bar had a round window to the dance floor passers-by could sample the delights awaiting them inside. I entered and move to the back of the bar, it was deep and narrow. Two oblong dance floors surrounded by stools harboured 3 – 4 dancers each. A few more stalls hugged the walls.

The bar was quiet with only 8-9 punters and 15 girls. The girls didn't show a lot of interest and had to be approached. In those days the girls were much younger and prettier than they are now. My theory is they're still the same girls now. One girl dancing on stage was getting really angry with every man who stared at her pussy shouting out and admonishing them. Screaming 'you not pay for me, you not look at my pussy, he pay for me, he look at my pussy.' she gestures to a German guy who bought her a drink. I inadvertently looked at her pussy. She screams at me 'you not look at my pussy, you look at her pussy' and she points to the neighbouring girl's pussy. I oblige.

I had been in the bar for about an hour and had overcome all my doubts about taking a girl out, where I would go and how I would ask her. I had no plan, I just had decided not to let these problems bother me. Two girls were sitting in the back of the bar, looking rather shy. They danced with their bikinis on and then always sat together away from all the customers. They were by far the most delectable girls in the place. I started staring at them maybe too much, Mamasan saw me and ushered them towards me, both spoke no English but one understood every word spoken. She was shy, demure and had a cheeky smile. We sat together for a while and gradually her confidence built that she started to try to test her English.

She asked me if I wanted her, I said yes but didn't have a clue what to do. Mamasan came to the rescue again and explained to me I must pay (B300) to the bar for her. A long anxious wait for her to dress and we left the Plaza together. I asked her where we should go, she didn't know so we jumped into a Tuk Tuk to my slum guesthouse.

The Tuk Tuk driver gave me a knowing smile as I left him. The little boy guarding the steps of the guesthouse gave one too. The girl just gave an exclamation in surprise when she saw the state of my room. Down to business, I asked for a blow job, she refused, she took her clothes off, I took mine off, she went starfish, and I shot off way too quickly, she snuggled up beside me, it seemed for the night.

But I couldn't sleep. All the warnings, all the worries about girls robbing you in the night I'd read and all my money was in my backpack. Ten minutes later I turned the lights on and asked the girl if she wanted to go. Happily she did and dressed while I planned how much to pay her. I had expected on a thousand baht total at the bar but I had only been charged 300, so I decided to tip the girl. I took the remaining 700 baht out from my wallet. The girl seeing she was going to be tipped looked really happy. I slammed the first hundred into her hand and she looked happy, the second hundred ecstatic, the third hundred shocked and after the fourth she said 'No, no.' and pulled her hand away and tried to give m two hundred back. I refused and an incredibly happy girl departed my room.

I returned to bed to sleep. Ten minutes later there was a knock on my door. Bemused I answered and there stood the cleaning lady later making a blow job motion, pointing at me and saying '100 baht'. Obviously they had interviewed the girl on the way out. I got rid of her and finally got some sleep.

I will always remember my first time with a bargirl, I believe she will always remember her first time with a paying customer, possibly for less romantic and more financial reasons than me. But I think two innocents crossing each other's paths must be such a rarity in Nana.

+++++++++

Five years ago I went into my favourite bar. The first at the top of the escalator on the left. It used to be called Asian Intrigue and was at one time the best bar in the Plaza, but those days have long gone. The trouble was the bar has to this day never attracted customers and gone through a succession of owners each taking it more down hill than the last, to the doldrums of the present. Five years ago it was in it's swan song as the last decent owner had just put it on the market. The bar usually had about thirty girls inside of mixed looks and experience but just occasionally attracted a stunner or new girl to the scene. And this was the attraction, new girls seemed to start here. They didn't stay for long until they moved to Playskool or G-Spot but they started here first. Also the bar seem to specialise in non-Isaan girls, only about half being from there, others being Chinese lookers from Bangkok and Chiang Mai, the bar had a topless policy too, for the girls as they sat with you.

I entered the bar around ten, I was only going in for a drink and perve after work. Midweek it was pretty empty, fifteen girls and six or seven customers. I sat down and began to scan the room. Immediately my attention turned to a girl sitting with two of the customers. She was sitting on a guy's lap wearing only bikini bottoms, laughing and joking and seemingly full of playfulness. He had his hands on her breasts and was in bargirl slang, an octopus. She was white skinned and very Chinese looking. I was instantly besotted but she had a guy buying her drinks so I prepared for a miserably unrequited night.

Two minutes later the two guys said their goodbyes and left. The girl after waving them goodbye, started to walk to the back of the bar, past me. She had a beaming smile across her face, was quite short and had quite large breasts. Her hair to wasn't in typical bar girl style, medium length but well styled. I smiled at her as she passed, she shook my hand and sat down, on my lap, grabbed my hands and placed them on her breasts and asked me to start playing.

We talked and I fondled for about an hour, I bought her a couple of drinks and had a couple too. She was from Bangkok, her parents and grandparents too. Her family was poor but not of Isaan proportions I gathered. She had a full Bangkok schooling and spoke good English, learnt at school. She was an intelligent pleasure to talk with. But my money ran out. The five hundred baht I'd deliberately only came in with so I couldn't get tempted by a girl had backfired.

Cursing my keeneow I left the girl and the bar and head hung I departed the plaza. Normally now I would get a bus home, I lived far away, but a single bus ride. But the girl would not leave my mind, I don't very often go with girls and only then Chinese looking ones or newbies and opportunity was knocking.

I jumped into the nearest taxi, arrived home twenty minutes later, ran up to my apartment, grabbed my ATM card, ran to the ATM machine down the main road and jumped into another taxi. The second taxi ride was torture, all that was in my mind was I hoped when I got back she wasn't with another guy. The more and more I thought the more unlikely this was I realised with her looks. Just before twelve I got back to the Plaza and headed up the escalator, charged into the bar and saw her bouncing up and down on another guys lap, his hands on her breasts.

Mentally I went through the pantheon of swear words and dejectedly sat down. As I did the guy stood up. She said her goodbyes and he left, her bounding over to me. Plopping herself on my lap and placing my hands on her breasts. We talked some more and eventually I asked if I could barfine her. She agreed and Mamasan came over with the book.

Mamasan explained to me this was her first time and only available for short time. I agreed. She then asked for five hundred bar fine and fifteen hundred for the girl. The girl pleasantly surprised asked Mamasan what the fifteen hundred was for. Mamasan explained it was for 'the act'. The girl looked confused and asked what she meant by 'the act'. Mamasan explained the function of the bar and the notion of barfining. The looked shocked and exclaimed 'you mean you want me to have sex for money.' Mamasan cottoned on to what was going on and just stood there dumbfounded. The girl explained she doesn't do sex. I gradually started sliding along the seat further and further away from the conversation as Mamasan went into a lengthy explanation to the girl of the functions of the Nana Plaza with the girl going 'my god' at that revelation.

I left the bar shortly afterwards and the girl never returned to the bar again after that night. I'll never forget the look on Mamasans face and she probably the look on mine. But it's the way the girl was enjoying herself with the customers that sticks in my mind. We know these girls are great actresses, but it sees this one was genuine. The mind boggles at the thought of what she is going to do with her life.

Stickman says:

Hahaha. I can't say I have ever met a girl like the one on the second part of the story. And in the first part, what that Israeli girl did was downright mad!