Don’t Forget That It’s Prostitution

When I booked my first holiday to Thailand, I will never forget the travel agent telling me how good service was in Thailand. "Don't worry yourself about anything young Stick", she said to me. "If anything at all goes wrong, the Thais
will run around and do everything they can to fix it for you." And she was right. It seemed that everyone was virtually falling over themselves to help me. In most cases, Thais in the tourism industry do everything they can to ensure that
your stay is as enjoyable as possible.

But why is is that my email box fills up with people who are complaining about all sorts of problems that they have personally experienced? 90% of the complaints regard experiences in, you guessed it, prostitution! Every complaint under the sun from "I caught an STD" to "She wanted to leave after 45 minutes" to "I woke up and my wallet had been stolen" have been received at Stickman HQ. Being the victim of bad service, or worse still, a crime is no fun at all, but perhaps some people forget what they are dealing with?

Even in countries where the people are known for their honesty and sincerity and where corruption is very low a bad experience with a prostitute would be put it down to the very fact that what we are dealing with is prostitution – it is known that problems in this industry are inherent! So why should Thailand, a country that most of us really do not understand that well anyway, be any different? At the end of the day, we are talking about prostitution. Where ever you go, anywhere in the world, when you deal with prostitution, you should expect some problems. AIDS, underage girls, poor service, theft, STDs, scams, beatings, indentured slavery, druggings and sometimes even murder – they're all part of prostitution in Thailand, just as they are in virtually every other country.

Sure, it may all be a whole lot better in Thailand than just about anywhere else, but the bottom line remains – we are talking about prostitution. Don't get upset when bad things happen. No, it isn't right – IT'S LIFE! Don't get me wrong. When things go wrong, you most certainly do have my sympathy, but you're presumably a big boy, and you should realise that these things do happen. It's a risk that you chose to take.

Last week's "where is this pic" was taken from the National Stadium BTS station looking east towards Siam Square. The distant building in the centre with the blue neon sign on the roof is the recently painted Novotel Siam Square.

Wham bam, no thank you man!

Overpriced barfines, girls…and now, whisky!

Wanna teach English? Think again! This sort of episode is not that uncommon.

He quit over the holidays after working here for eleven (11) years; He quit because he was being docked 20,000 baht (yes, that's four zeros) for each of two months in a row, because he took off an extra week when his brother was here. Now, he had asked for and received permission from the owner way in advance to take off like this, but when the time actually came, and the owner saw that he was gone, the rest of us saw how upset he was.

We also just found out that one of the Thai staff resigned. She had asked for and received permission to take Saturdays off for two months to attend a training course. After the first month, the owner forgot he gave permission, was shocked and angry that
she was gone, and docked her 1000 baht for each day gone, even though her salary came to 500 baht per day; that's being docked two days for every one day missing, and missing with permission!

A Hong Kong based expat makes comparisons.

Contrary to what others have said, relationships can work.

Heavenly creatures and horrible creatures.

They're all thieves!

The new Dollhouse sign is HUGE!

The Dollhouse in Soi Cowboy is getting very close to opening and just like outside their Pattaya branch, the Dollhouse have erected this huge great sign on Cowboy that really does catch one's attention. There is absolutely no way in the world that yo could go to Cowboy and miss it.

There were co-ordinated efforts at Soi Cowboy on New Year's Eve as all of the bars erected big bunches of balloons and decorations outside the bars. Some even decided to put up Christmas decorations at this late hour, which looked a little odd, but hey, what the hell – it all looked very suay!

In the City Of Sin (or should it be called the City of Dubious Farangs?) the old Sexy A Gogo on Walking Street seems to be after its demolition. Looks like it will return as a bar beer. Sexy A Beer Bar?

Interesting happenings in Vixens Gogo bar, Pattaya, this week. What was until recently one of the more popular gogos suddenly became totally quiet. Seems like the girls and the mamasan didn't exactly see eye to eye, so after pay day, Jan 2, virtually all of the girls left to go and work in other bars. Given that this is the height of the busy season, they can walk into virtually anywhere and start work right away. This left Vixens with zero girls (literally) working / dancing during the peak season – a bar owner's worst nightmare. Naturally the punters stayed away and earnings were minimal. However the situation has since been resolved and the result is that the mamasan is out and the girls are coming back, all of which goes to show the collective bargaining power the girls have, especially in the peak season. Could this be the start of the UBG – Union of Bar Girls?

New Year's Eve in Pattaya was, by and large, a success with bars open until the early hours. However, word on the street is that it was more restrained than say 5 years ago. The usual firecrackers could be heard but the sois were not ankle deep in red paper as in years before. Dollhouse had a great party and was rocking until the early hours. Some bars put up bar fines to 1500 baht – but not all. However the punters didn't seem to care too much and in general the bars did very well out of it. Only time will tell if this will continue as Jan 15 is rumoured to be the big crackdown date. Still, Jan 1 was supposed to be D Day at Panthip Plaza and it remains business as usual there.

One very serious issue arose when reading between the lines in an article about prostitution in the Bangkok Post this week. The age of consent is unclear. It's one big grey area and at the end of the day, prostitution, like so many other things in Thailand, is so uncertain. The pertinent point is that the Interior Minister was quoted as saying that commercial sex transactions where the girl was aged over 20 was ok, but where the lady was aged below that, they were not. This is quite contradictory to what has been understood in the past. Most folks have always believed, rightly or wrongly, that 18 was the lower limit. At the end of the day, there are thousands of girls in the 18 and 19 year old mark. But that there are so many employed at that age, does not necessarily make it right! I've got to admit that if I was in a taxi late at night with a working girl aged 18 or 19 and we got randomly pulled over by the police, I would not be the most confident fellow in Bangkok at that particular moment. Might pay to stick with girls over 20. I do not wish to appear alarmist on this one, and it doesn't help that it is virtually impossible to get clarification on the issue. Dear Mr Purachai, my name is Smelly Farang and I'm coming to your country to be a naughty boy. Could you please tell me the age of consent…..

And to reinforce this, Angels Disco, also known as Nana Disco, is asking most girls for ID. Any girl aged under 20 is not admitted!

A certain ground floor gogo bar in Nana Plaza allowed a couple of their girls to do a sexy dance last night without their tops on. Are things lightening up, or is this bar pushing their luck? Seems like one hell of a risk…

Remember the farangdingdong site that I provided a link to a few months back? It was the site with the legendary Thai girls with enormous breasts. Well, I have fielded several inquiries (yes, really!) about these particular girls, many guys unsure if this site contains genuine photos or if it was a hoax. Well of course it was genuine – why else would I link to it? Anyway, if you are looking for these particular girls, many of them come from a small province near the Cambodian border called Nakon Nomyai.

A friend chose Pattaya as his playground this week and ended up with a lovely lady for a few days. During this time, the girl decided that she should go and get her regular check up at the local clinic. REAL tests were given – a blood test and a vaginal swab. Tests were made and the girl was told that she had an STD – and this is where it starts to get interesting. The doctor gave her a shot of the magic medicine and he then went and stamped her little STD book as CLEAR! No record was made that she had had an STD, even though it was treated immediately. The girl, being an honest young lass, told my friend, who also had a shot…alas, a condom had broken a day or two earlier. This girl works at one of THE gogo bars in Pattaya, one with many girls. No doubt, most of the other girls in that bar go to the same clinic… The bottom line, which I have been saying for so long: those STD books mean nothing! The fact that everything in them is in English is the first sign that they are dodgy!

Rumour has it that one of the capital's best English language schools just gave the DOS his marching orders. It seems that he may have been favouring his friends when making certain decisions. While it was all very well to have got rid of him, is the new guy going to be any better?

Rock Hard Bangkok will be looking for a new general manager to start work on February 1. English Ricky has decided to migrate back to his homeland…what on earth would possess someone to do that?!

Lipstick, a long time gogo joint on Soi Sea dragon, close by off Soi Bangla has been shut and will not reopen. Word is that only Flash – at the end of soi Eric has the proper licences – but they have still been closed twice in the past two months for nude shows. One expat sees this as a case of somnumnar (deserve what you get). The girls there are cute but they want 2000 short time plus 500 bar fine and 500 for a room. One can only deduce that Phuket is attracting a lot of well heeled tourists and one must really spare a thought for the locals who will find prices soaring. A bunch of gogo joints have stopped the girls from dancing but PlaySchool on Soi Sea Dragon is still open – with the girls fully dressed.

Asia Books and Jake Needham, Thailand's best selling author of locally written English language novels, have gone their separate ways. But fans of Jake Needham's very popular Bangkok novels will be pleased to know that a Hong Kong and an Australian publisher have formed a new joint venture specifically for the purpose of publishing, distributing, and promoting his books around the Asia Pacific region. The first book under that deal will be out in early March, and it will constitute a bit of a modest first. It will be the first Asian Pacific published fiction ever to be published initially in hard cover size. The publication schedule calls for each book to come out in hard cover first, to be followed eight to twelve months later by the small, mass market paperback size. The first book under the new arrangement should be available all over the region by Easter or so, but whether Asia Books will sell it here or not, who knows? Whether they do or they don’t, the other bookstores here will have it. LAUNDRY MAN, the first book in the new series, is based on the TEA MONEY plot, but the original manuscript has been heavily rewritten to lay the foundation for a long running series of Jack Shepherd novels. KILLING PLATO will be the second book in the series and will pick Jack’s life in Bangkok up about a year after the end of LAUNDRY MAN.

Christopher Moore's latest book, MIA NOI, has been delayed. It was to have been released before Xmas, but late January is the revised release date.

My bickering over Bangkok bars failing to make any real effort to entice customers failed to mention that some of the Washington Square bars DO offer free food – and have been doing so for quite some time. The problem with some of these bars is that unless you are a former American GI, an oilman or US embassy staff, one very much gets the feeling that drinking, or even sticking one's head into one of the Washington Square bars, is like crashing a private party. The girls are friendly in the bars down there, but the atmosphere, it must be said, just isn't that warm…

For me, it's a place to get a burger at the end of the night, and reflect with WhosYourDaddy about the evening's entertainment. For others, its a place to go and use a clean public toilet. And for others still, its a place to check out, under better light than you get in a gogo bar, if your teeruk really is a girl – there are a lot of katoeys running around Patpong you know… Where I am I talking about? KFC Patpong branch, of course. KFC have just opened a new branch near the Ploenchit BTS station, about a 3 or 4 minute walk from Nana. The location, it must be said, is a little odd. It's just far enough away from where most people in that area walk and play, that you would actually have to make an effort to go there. I wonder if the investors may start to get a little nervous when the profit sheets start coming in. Why is it that McDonalds almost always gets the best locations and KFC erects new branches in no man's land? Oh, and if you pick up anyone in Casanova Bar, take them to KFC before you take them elsewhere…

I trust that you enjoyed the New Year's Eve celebrations but I hope that you didn't find yourself amongst the crush of people near the World Trade Centre. Sitting in a taxi that was driving through central Bangkok at 1:30 AM in the early hours of New Year's Day, I was flabbergasted by the number of people walking the streets trying to find a bus or taxi. The roads were packed with tens of thousands of people, and the traffic was stuffed. Tempers started fraying a bit as some folks realised that they might be there for hours, as there were enough people at every bus stop to fill not one, but a whole fleet of buses. If you thought Thais were somewhat rude when they fight to get on to a bus under normal circumstances, you haven't seen anything. After the New Year's Eve party at WTC, it was war at the bus stops as people literally fought their way on to the few buses that came along. It all resembled a rugby match!

Thailand is the land of endless curiosity and as I have said so many times, don't try and analyse things too much, as difficult as that may be. But one thing that I still wonder about is the control that so many supermarkets and large stores employ with their cashiers and other staff who handle cash. The cashiers must stamp all 1,000 baht banknotes that they receive with the store's logo. This acts as a control to prevent them from pilfering the takings. Watch staff as they leave large stores in the evening. In many cases they form a queue and walk past the manager and some staff are chosen at random to have their handbag and even their person, checked! But the question that must be asked is: With an image of HM The King on the banknote, is it not some sort of crime to stamp the banknote?

Why is the expiry date on milk, and some other products available in the Kingdom, printed in the Christian year system – and not the Buddhist? Milk, fruit juices and cans of fruit are amongst the products that sell in far greater numbers to Thais than farangs… If it was an imported product or a product that was predominantly purchased by farangs, it would be understandable, but most of the items I refer to are in fact locally produced product that is unlikely to be exported. Just another curiosity.

Unlimited internet is getting cheaper and cheaper. Ji-Net unlimited internet packages can be found in Panthip for 270 baht for one month or 750 baht for three months. Can't say I have tried this provider – or know anyone that has, but it is cheap. So, I'm gonna pick up a pack this week and I'll let you know how I find it.

Did you know that long movies, usually those of 2.5 hours+ duration, attract a surcharge of 20 baht in Bangkok? An outrage prevented the surcharge being added to Harry Potter, but Lord Of The Rings has it.

Too many bars that have websites have really crappy websites. They have pics of the girls that are either really unclear, or they go totally over the top and have the girls sitting there with nothing on. I was impressed by the website of Jigsaw Bar in Pattaya. Well laid out and the photos of the girls are actually pretty good. In fact, I like it so much that next visit, I'll be popping in for a look. However, is it me, or do some of this pics look like they have been pilfered from another website? Check it out for yourself. Why are the shots taken at the bar fairly average, and the shots taken indoors fairly good? This bar wouldn't be using unauthorised photos would they? No, never! No bar would ever do that! Jigsaw Bar

Your Bangkok commentator,

Stick