Yellow Fever Cured!

I will admit that after my first 3 trips to LOS I became a walking talking billboard for the delights of Thailand, and anyone unfortunate enough to get caught within earshot would agree.

I raved about the food and madness of riding a scooter there, if in polite company. I went into as much detail as they asked for about the nightlife when talking with the boys, with photos to back up my claims which seemed to be ludicrous even to myself – let alone others. The pics were not graphic, just shots showing the great selection of firm fun delights willing to spend time with an average Joe, for the price of a gourmet burger back home. I talked it up so much a few friends joined me for later trips – and all came back with a grin from ear to ear….we had it bad!

Circumstances changed a bit and work commitments delayed my return trip this year until recently. During the year I had had to keep myself amused with a tall slim Kiwi girl, but in the back of my mind I knew I could do so much better in Thailand that I made the relationship self-destruct through inattention and ambivalence. I booked my ticket the day her toothbrush left my bathroom…I was heading back to the land of smiles!

The new airport was wonderful – efficient clean and quick, though somewhat sterile to be critical. I saw my name on a piece of paper and walked with my driver to my ‘Limo’ (a 10 year old Volvo driven by a housewife). My friends had arrived a few days earlier and I got to the room around midnight fresh and eager. I knew where they would be and a short mototaxi ride later I was in Walking Street…..surrounded by short unattractive skankily dressed streetwalkers who all looked sort of …well worn.

I figured I had just walked down the hundred feet or so in a bad patch and all would be well once back in our local gogo. I strolled through the opened door and pushed aside the black curtain to see two of my friends sitting there with a beer in one hand and a scantily dressed girl in the other. I looked at my mates and back to these very average looking girls and thought – great, they have picked sad looking ones – all the more hotties for me! I scanned the stage and saw a bunch of flat footed dancers shuffling moronically out of time to the damn loud music, a lot with stretch marks and not one with boobs worth a damn. They had nice smiles and cute costumes…but that was it.

WTF was going on here…was this the Pattaya I remembered? Was I drunk the whole month I was here last year? Had they fed me love-drugs with my breakfast by the beach each day last time? Maybe I had cataracts or some eye disease which had cured itself since I had been here? Then I figured it out – the mamasan from last time was not there – she must have taken all the hotties and gone – and these were their sad looking replacements! I will go to another few bars and surely I will find some nice babes there.

I walked fifty feet up and dropped into Lucifer’s and sauntered down the back…into the loudest, crowded happy bunch of revellers I have seen in a year. I watched for a half hour and saw several guys pick up, or get picked up by freelancers. Not one glanced at me, even getting a drink was hard, and the music was so loud my ears felt like they were bleeding, so off I went looking for some of the newer bars that Stick had said were worth a look. I went in a few, which were uniformly way too loud, and will admit that about one girl in a hundred was nice enough to warrant a lady drink and a chat. When I talked with them I was not rude, I was well dressed and polite and when I asked about the barfines and discretely about the rates for other services I was shocked!

Inflation is to be expected, and I was picking the cream of the crop, but crikey – the price being asked was very similar to back home!!! I thought about it for a while, and since I was here figured – what the hell….I’d go for it. Om was the tallest dancer there, with a bit of cleavage in her bikini top that looked inviting, and dancer’s legs in her high heels. I handed her a thousand to pay the barfine and drinks bill and off she scurried to get into street clothes. I was so looking forward to the girlfriend experience, damn the cost – I was finally smiling! She was mine for the whole night!

A short while later Om walked up to me and smiled and off we went outside. In the bright lights outside I saw a nice looking 20 something girl in low cut jeans, nice top and sensible shoes, with lovely hair and a bit too much makeup. She came up to my chin. I was happy to be with her, and we stopped and had the obligatory food along the way, and stocked up on snacks for the five minute journey back to my room. Once in the room I put a music channel on the TV for some background ambiance and relaxed on the couch as Om and I polished off half the snacks and a few beers as we got to know each other a bit better.

A shower seemed in order, and I was pleasantly surprised that Om looked pretty without the makeup she had worn, and I must say she looked ravishing with nothing more than a towel wrapped around her lithe brown body. Then it happened – starfish! I thought maybe we had not had enough fun – but no – nothing I could do got more than mechanically moving from one position to another. Feeling selfish, I made sure I finished before rolling over and channel surfing. Maybe in the morning things would be a bit more fun I thought.

This was not to be – as Om reached into her purse and found her mobile phone – which I had switched off while she was in the shower. Not two minutes after it was back on a series of phone calls made Om want to leave, and we had only been in my room an hour. I had got both a short time price and a long time price before we left the bar – and had said that I wanted her long time, but now she wanted to leave – and expected to be paid for the long time. I calmly explained that she had not stayed long time as arranged – and that I would pay her the short time fee only. You would think it was me that had changed the deal – she threw a bit of a tantrum but finally snatched the baht off the table and stormed out, as I was not giving in to this kind of extortion. This left a sour taste in my mouth – and I did not intend getting a gogo girl again.

I met my friends the next morning for breakfast, and one of them had his new girlfriend in tow. Ok – being realistic – she is younger, prettier and slimmer than any girl he could get back home – but she was not a beauty, and barely spoke English. He declared that they got along great – well duh! How could they argue? I went shopping for some of the essentials later in the day, and was amazed to find exactly the same designs of T shirts and shorts and trousers as my last trip, and all at higher prices. In fact – it was like a week had gone by – not a year. Nothing had improved except the state of the footpaths, amazingly. I also found a slightly agro attitude from some of the vendors, who seemed less likely to strike up a good deal for multiple purchases. Were they sick of tourists?

Is it just me – or has the shine gone off ‘sin city by the sea’ for others too? Sure – you can still get laid (I quite like the fishbowls now – you get exactly what you pay for) the food is nice, it is warm and it can be relaxing. But where is the romance of the GFE? The sheer joy of everything being hilariously cheap, dangerous – and fun! Ok, you can still fire weapons, race fast go karts, ride in and out of traffic like a lunatic – but we used to do all this with a hot scantily clad babe with us as well, and they seemed to enjoy it too! I guess in the end it is all about the Baht now – hmmm, I wonder what Vietnam is like?

Stickman's thoughts:

I do not play around but so many guys have reported the sort of experience you outline here. A lot of guys put up with the crap and pretend it doesn’t exist – or that things are better than they really are – but I think this is a realistic account of how things are going.