First Impressions
Well, Thailand, what to say about Thailand, the land of smiles?
Yes, the people are friendly, but I have not figured out whether they are so friendly when you are not spending, but then my experience is based mostly on Pattaya till now.
And what to say of Pattaya, this sprawling metropolis of a resort town, once a quaint fishing village, now a massive brothel! Where fat, old, ugly men, with pounds and dollars, who probably couldn’t get laid in a cheap brothel back home, parade the streets with 20 year old nubiles, locked arm in arm, for the price of a pub lunch and an ale in Yorkshire. She welcomes the chance to send a few thousand baht back home, mainly in the north and north east of Thailand. If lucky, she can become his long term girlfriend, maybe live in his air conditioned apartment for a month or two, cook for him, satisfy him and hey, maybe one day go back home with him.
The competition is fierce, some Soi's (streets) are three or four hundred metres long, like Soi 6, which is lined on either side by beer bars. That is all there is on this Soi, beer bars, one on top of the next, where the girls are employed to firstly entice patrons to the bar to spend money on booze and then get the men to take them home for the night. This entails paying the bar owner a “bar fine” for each day she won’t be at “work”, to release the gai (gai is the Thai word for chicken or chic) from her otherwise money generating duties in the bar (for the owner of course). Thereafter she will do her best to get the fellow to spend as much money in the bar buying booze before they depart on their romp. Strangely enough, and this is where the “work” part of this is evident, is that the gais don’t generally drink or smoke. They prefer a soda or juice and then money instead of drinks for each round, which they pocket instead of supporting the bar owner. So it is a job and one which they will smile and do, probably coz they have to.
Then there are the shopping spots, big air conditioned malls, with original, designer label stuff and or knock offs. I don’t think you ever really know whether a higher price is a guarantee of an original, but who wants an original anyway, when some of the knock offs are dirt cheap and the quality is great.
You can shop in flee market style plaza’s, where you could get sworn at, which happened, I think, because I was asked what I was looking for. It seems that if once you tell them and they have the item, you are obliged to buy! When you don’t, you get attitude and an oddly pronounced fuck-off (once your back is turned of course) sounding something like “flaa ore” or “fla u” to which one responds with shock and wonder whether if you retort, some mai thai ninja boxer fellow, with an energiser bunny attitude, will appear from nowhere and proceed to flatten your nose and crack your ribs with one deft clip….. What fun……no! it really is, because it is a wonderland of goodies and clothes and jewellery and all things Asian and Western and, of course American. So many colours and textures and fashions, crammed into markets and malls, on motorbikes and being hawked on the pavements….
So many choices, what to buy?!
(Note on the bad attitude stall lady: it is the only time I ever experienced anything but courteousness and enthusiasm)
Yes, the people are friendly, but I have not figured out whether they are so friendly when you are not spending, but then my experience is based mostly on Pattaya till now.
And what to say of Pattaya, this sprawling metropolis of a resort town, once a quaint fishing village, now a massive brothel! Where fat, old, ugly men, with pounds and dollars, who probably couldn’t get laid in a cheap brothel back home, parade the streets with 20 year old nubiles, locked arm in arm, for the price of a pub lunch and an ale in Yorkshire. She welcomes the chance to send a few thousand baht back home, mainly in the north and north east of Thailand. If lucky, she can become his long term girlfriend, maybe live in his air conditioned apartment for a month or two, cook for him, satisfy him and hey, maybe one day go back home with him.
The competition is fierce, some Soi's (streets) are three or four hundred metres long, like Soi 6, which is lined on either side by beer bars. That is all there is on this Soi, beer bars, one on top of the next, where the girls are employed to firstly entice patrons to the bar to spend money on booze and then get the men to take them home for the night. This entails paying the bar owner a “bar fine” for each day she won’t be at “work”, to release the gai (gai is the Thai word for chicken or chic) from her otherwise money generating duties in the bar (for the owner of course). Thereafter she will do her best to get the fellow to spend as much money in the bar buying booze before they depart on their romp. Strangely enough, and this is where the “work” part of this is evident, is that the gais don’t generally drink or smoke. They prefer a soda or juice and then money instead of drinks for each round, which they pocket instead of supporting the bar owner. So it is a job and one which they will smile and do, probably coz they have to.
Then there are the shopping spots, big air conditioned malls, with original, designer label stuff and or knock offs. I don’t think you ever really know whether a higher price is a guarantee of an original, but who wants an original anyway, when some of the knock offs are dirt cheap and the quality is great.
You can shop in flee market style plaza’s, where you could get sworn at, which happened, I think, because I was asked what I was looking for. It seems that if once you tell them and they have the item, you are obliged to buy! When you don’t, you get attitude and an oddly pronounced fuck-off (once your back is turned of course) sounding something like “flaa ore” or “fla u” to which one responds with shock and wonder whether if you retort, some mai thai ninja boxer fellow, with an energiser bunny attitude, will appear from nowhere and proceed to flatten your nose and crack your ribs with one deft clip….. What fun……no! it really is, because it is a wonderland of goodies and clothes and jewellery and all things Asian and Western and, of course American. So many colours and textures and fashions, crammed into markets and malls, on motorbikes and being hawked on the pavements….
So many choices, what to buy?!
(Note on the bad attitude stall lady: it is the only time I ever experienced anything but courteousness and enthusiasm)