No Rip Off Here

I get bored of reading ‘bargirl ripped me off’ stories from farangs in Thailand.

To redress the balance I want to tell a story about a bargirl who didn’t try to rip me off, but who I ended up leaving in the shit. I’d hate anyone to think all these girls are bad because a lot of them are decent people. First here is a little about me. I’m in my early 30s, from England and I decided to try working in Thailand after a few enjoyable holidays in SE Asia.

I only knew bargirls from previous times on holiday and when I came out here for good I had one bag of clothes and a couple of numbers to call to get going.

I caned the nightlife at first and was bar fining girls every night. Also, most of these girls would telephone in the day and come around for a session too. A lot of the days involved a morning, daytime and evening girl and I was in heaven.

I was also taking so-called good girls to the movies etc (who I met in malls / shops / restaurants etc), often having to sit through the same film two or three times with different girls. It didn’t take me long to find out some of these ‘good girls’ weren’t quite as pure as the driven snow as they might like to make out.

For instance, I courted one girl who worked at the big department store in MBK for four months without sleeping with her. When the moment of truth finally happened she asked me five seconds after I had finished ‘give me money for telephone and family’. I booted her straight out the room and didn’t speak to her again. I started to realize the lines were more blurred than I had thought.

While that ‘courtship’ was going on I met a bargirl called Bon at the now demolished Asoke corner. She was great fun to be around and we got on well. I really liked her but I had heard so many stories about bargirls lying to farangs that I took everything she said with a pinch of salt.

Naturally she had only worked in the bar a few months (this one always makes me laugh when a girl says it) but could speak English better than most of the Thai upper class. She was in her late 20s, no kids, never married and her mother had brought her and her sister up single-handedly in Isaan after her father had run off to Laos when she was born. Her sister had married a Thai man from the village and fell pregnant but he shacked up with a karaoke girl before their son was born. Her sister was also working in Bangkok, in a restaurant, and got about 5,000 baht a month. Bon had worked at Pratunam market but was working long hours for low pay and decided to try the bars to meet a saviour.

It was the kind of hard luck story that you can hear every night in any bar in Bangkok if you want.

As time went on I had chance to check out her story and it was all true. I went to the market, met her sister and even went to Isaan to meet the elderly mother.

I was genuinely shocked at how poor the people were in her village and the whole bar scene suddenly started making a lot more sense.

I met a Thai family whose bargirl daughter had married a Swiss man and moved there with him. Part of the deal was he would send money to the family in Isaan to build a house for mum and dad, which dad would build himself. However, all dad seemed to have built was a large pile of empty Chang bottles and a wall that I could have put up in a week (it had taken him a year).

The Swiss man was constantly urged to send more cash and was dutifully doing so while dad drank it away.

After we returned to Bangkok, Bon started staying a lot of nights in my apartment. She asked if I would help her family financially and said 2,000 baht a month would be enough. I had heard some farangs were paying 20,000 baht a month and more and couldn’t help but think these guys were insane. If you saw Isaan life you wouldn’t dream of paying that much.

I rationalized that I had been paying a lot of girls for sex and now I could pay 2,000 a month and get a guaranteed shag.

Obviously I paid for the rent, meals and entertainment but it was a good deal. Bon still worked as a cashier at a bar, which I wasn’t happy about, but every time I dropped in unannounced she was there. Every time I tried to catch her out I couldn’t. She really was just a cashier, but I kept screwing other girls just in case I was being lied to.

I was basically freewheeling along and enjoying the ride until everything changed when I went away with my job to Chiang Rai.

There I met an office girl with the company I had to deal with. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and I fell in love as soon as I met her. She was a university graduate, came from a good middle class family, had been educated at a protestant school and had the most amazing personality.

We spent time together talking and exchanged numbers before I returned to Bangkok.

All I could think about was Yem when I was in Bangkok. When my phone lit up with a message my heart skipped a beat (yeah I know it sounds gay but that is the truth).

About a month later I flew up there for one day just so I could see her. I would have done anything to see her. I was a little worried that if I got to know her than my illusion would be shattered but the more I got to know her the more I felt. I was in love and I hadn’t felt like this in 10 years. It was for real.

Bon was still in my apartment in Bangkok while Yem was working in Chiang Rai but that didn’t seem too much of a problem. Bon would always talk of the future but I knew mine lay elsewhere. Bon was a good woman and I didn’t just want to chuck her out. She had been through enough shit and hadn’t done anything wrong to me.

I decided to enroll her on a hairdressing course so that she would have some skills when I finally dumped her. It was a three month course and I thought it would give her options. It all went wrong when Bon fell pregnant. We hadn’t been using protection but, without going into graphic detail, I made sure she wouldn’t get up the spout. She was desperate though and would often stick her legs up on the wall afterwards etc to try and force the issue.

Now I really had a problem and didn’t know what to do.

Yem then told me she had managed to get a transfer to her office in Bangkok and that we could get to know each other more.

I had a pregnant bargirl in my room and my dream woman was about to come to Bangkok, it was a mess.

Things deteriorated with Bon because as soon as she completed her hairdressing course she went back to the bar as a cashier!! Her friend called and asked if she could work there again and she went straight back.

She couldn’t understand why this made me angry and I knew then I could never make a go of it with her, even for the sake of a child.

I decided to act while she could do something about it. I told her it was over and that I was moving out, but didn’t mention Yem. I said I would pay for the room she was staying in and give her an allowance every month, which would increase when the baby was born.

She went crazy, and I’d never seen anyone go crazy like that before. It was frightening. She asked me if I wanted the baby and I said yes and that I would provide for her financially.

But Bon wasn’t stupid. She had seen the hard lives her mother and sister had been forced to lead because men had cut them adrift. She told me she would have an abortion, which then made me get very upset. I know morally I didn’t have a leg to stand on but it was wrong to me.

One morning soon after, I was shopping in Tescos for stuff for my new room when she telephoned me to tell me she had the abortion and the baby was gone. I cried down a deserted isle surrounded by plastic washing baskets. I was ultimately responsible and it felt terrible.

For a long time Bon called me most days and we went to the movies as friends. She told me she still loved me but I just wanted to help her get back on her feet again. I wasn’t just going to cut her off and she was in a bad way emotionally.

I know bad people exist in the bar industry but the girls I met were decent. When Bon was a cashier I got to know most of the girls and they were good people trying to make the most of a bad hand. These were all beer bar girls, I never really took to gogo girls in the same way. They always seemed different to me.

As for me and Yem – well I was lucky enough to marry her and our first child is on the way. I’m very happy but I’ll never forget the sadness of the end of things with Bon. She is back in the bar and working, looking for someone to make her life better. That’s all she wants, she is just a poor farm girl looking for a way out.

I really hope someone can give that to her.

Stickman's thoughts:

Nice to see a happy ending.