Barfines, Bargirls and Others

I have been in L.O.S. for about 4 years now. I am in my mid 60’s and physically fit. I ride a bicycle at least 4 times every week and am an active scuba diver.

I started off here in Thailand teaching English language in a high school in Bangkok for one term. I loved the teaching and the kids but hated the school system where I was teaching and where students gained a place there depending on the amount of ‘tea money’ paid and where ALL students passed every exam no matter what.

I now live in Pattaya where I now have a lovely Thai wife and only occasionally get out to play in the evenings, but that suits me fine.

Before I ‘married’ my wife in a traditional ceremony in her village, I enjoyed the pleasures of both Bangkok and Pattaya and here are some of the more memorable times I have enjoyed, or not.

I am sure that most of you can remember sitting in a bar buying lady drinks for some cutie and planning to barfine her later that night only to find that while you have been trying to make up your mind about it, some other customer has beaten you to the punch. Bugger. Well it happened to me on occasions when I first came here but not anymore. If I liked one if the girls I paid the barfine immediately.

I was in a bar a few years ago where I was a regular and had a good friendship with one of the girls there and was always telling her I would barfine her one night. That one night came about because I had seen her with a gold kangaroo pin one night and the next night a Koala pin and the following night a new watch, all given by a new customer. I could see that he was new in town and working his way up to barfine her, so, I struck early and paid her barfine and hung around until he made his move only for him to discover that I had her already. He dumped cash in his bin and walked. Welcome to Thailand. He never came back to that bar.

I like to think that I saved him a lot of money because it turned out that she was after cash and had a family to support in Isaan etc.

I had great success with on-line dating as well as freelance girls and some P4P as well.

I met a girl online before I came here and met up with her as soon as I arrived. The first night was great. Probably one of the best nights I have had if only because it was the first, and a new experience. The second night she took me to some bars where I was introduced to her girl friends and I had to pay for drinks all round all night. Next morning she asked me for 30,000 baht so that she could get some silicone tits. I pulled out 2,000 baht and said that was all she was worth and to get out and not come back.

That night I was in Nana Plaza and took a liking to one of the service girls there. She was cute and small and I asked to barfine her then and there. Mamasan was called and we agreed on a price etc. (I didn’t know then that service girls working on the door as ‘gofors’ are generally not for hire). We went to a short time room and were there for more than one hour. She was a true girl friend experience. I should have got her phone number as she was not there when I went back a few nights later.

There was a very attractive bar girl who was working in a Soi 33 bar and I met her on the 2nd night she was working. She appeared very unsure of what she was in for and I told her that if she wanted to talk to somebody about what to expect and who would not condemn her for her choice of occupation she could talk to me and gave her my phone number. Next day she called and we met in a park and talked for a couple of hours. I told her I would bar fine her that night and take her around Cowboy, Nana etc so that she could get an idea of the nightlife in Bangkok but that I would not be paying for her services.

We had a great night and she was good company. She learned lots about what to expect from customers. She was groped by men in Cowboy and Nana and when she complained about it I told her ‘You’re a bar girl. You will get groped all over all the time. Get used to it. Learn to deal with it’. The other best advice I gave her was to never ask customers for a drink. Talk to them as a friend and they will buy you drinks all the time.

At the end of the night I told her that I was going home and she could either sleep at my apartment or go to her own, up to her, but no money. I enjoyed the best night with her that I had had with a girl for a long time. Later she would come to see me whenever she had a night off and occasionally would call me after she finished for the night and come to stay with me. We are still good friends and talk on the phone regularly.

I met a very nice girl one day over a shared lunch table. We chatted for a while and she offered to introduce me to her sister whose photo looked ok. We all met that night and while the sister could not speak much English and my Thai was as good as her English, we managed to get along well and she came back to my apartment that night. She was a teacher up in Isaan and would come to see me on weekends. After a couple of weeks I was taken to meet the parents who lived in Bangkok. Greedy, money-grabbing people who picked up the tip I left for the lunch I bought them as well as the change for the taxi! The final straw was when she arrived one evening with her son who pissed all over the shower floor and walked it through the apartment. She also expected me to shag her while the son was in the bed next to us. I can’t do that.

There was a freelance girl who had a car and drove me home in it for the night. It was a pickup with a smashed windscreen and a broken mirror. She claimed that a truck backed into her but it looked as though someone had attacked her with a lump of wood. I discovered a very large knife attached to the back of the front seat. When asked why she had a knife, she said it was because she did not have a gun.

I dated a lovely government worker for a few weeks until I found out her hobby was shooting and that she was a crack shot with a pistol. An angry Thai girl with a pistol would not be a good combination so that ended before it really got started.

I met a girl in Walking Street one night and it was her first night in town. We were sitting in chairs beside the street and talking when she asked what the men were trying to sell by showing cards to people. I told her that they were inviting people to ping pong shows. She declared that she used to play ping pong. I tried to explain that it was not that type of ping pong and finally barfined her and took her to a show. She was fascinated and applauded every trick. I had to explain to her how they made it happen without injuring themselves.

I took a tall slim girl from a bar one night and she stayed with me for the whole of the next day only returning to the bar after it opened. She spent all the time in my apartment naked. She was great value and such a nice girl but when I went back 2 nights later to get her again she had gone. I later saw her with a weedy old guy and guessed he had made her an offer that she could not refuse. Good luck to her.

I knew one bar girl who had 3 farang men all sending her money each month so that she did not have to work in the bar but she still worked and went with the customers. She was supposed to be marrying one of them later that year and then one time I saw her with another man who she introduced as her ‘husband’ and when I later asked her about the man she was to marry that year she said that it would happen also but this was not an official wedding, so… Again, good luck to her.

I always like to think that I have an in-built ladyboy detector. I think I can spot one reasonably easily and if I have even remotely thought someone was of the third gender, I have steered clear. If by some chance I have been with an undetected ladyboy, then I have not known and so it really does not matter.

Can a relationship with a bar girl work? I know of one case where it is working very well and the young couple are happily married, have a child and live away from the bar scene. I know of another where they met in a bar but she was not working there. They seem to spend most evenings in a bar and she plays pool with all and sundry and seems to flirt quite a lot. I don’t give this relationship much chance. There are a few others and maybe they will work but statistically they will fail in the end.

You can take the girl out of the bar but you can’t take the bar out of the girl.

As for me, I met my wife in a book shop. I am at least twice her age but it never occurred to either of us that there was such an age difference. There is a cultural difference which we have to work at all the time but we are both adjusting and accepting of those differences.

I have survived the visits to the village. Used the squat toilet in the lean-to at the back of the house where only a diminutive Thai person can stand up and washer outside in the back yard using the large tub set there for that purpose.

Mama has suggested early on that I start to build a house at the back of the one that is there now and also that I should buy a car. I have politely declined both saying that there is not enough room there for the house I would like to build and that for the only occasional times I need a car it is much cheaper to rent. I was very surprised to find out that they have at their own expense extended the house to include a proper bathroom and kitchen, replaced the corrugated iron walls with proper cladding and had window shutters installed.

The extended family in the village there are all farmers and appear to be reasonably successful. I have not been approached for money from any of them. Only once since I have known my wife has she asked me for money for the parents and that was only 2,000 baht. In 3 years that seems like she and the family are good people. I think I have been lucky here.

My wife has indicated that she does not want to go and live in my country and that she sees us living on the farm at some time in the future. That fits in with my dream of having a hammock under the trees, helping with the farm work and teaching the local kids English in the afternoons.

I am still in contact with old work colleagues and friends from back home. Some have even visited me here bringing wives with them and some without wives. All agree that I look younger than in years past and that as far as they are concerned, I am ‘living the dream’. Maybe I am, I just hope that the dream doesn’t turn into a nightmare.

Stickman's thoughts:

A very nice set of anecdotes. If life is about the accrual of positive experiences and memories, you've done very well in your three years here!