Today was all work and no play, for me at least. My office was Phi Phi’s D’ Books, a quaint little book store with all sorts of new and second hand books in many languages other than English. They do well decent lattes and excellent frapps, but best of all – they have free wi-fi!

It’s also on one of the main little alleys of Phi Phi, so there’s loads of traffic going past there, mainly people going to and from the beach and all the associated ogle opportunities that come with it. None of which I appreciated, of course, because I had my nose down writing my little heart out.

Anyway, Julia befriended a beagle called Sumo and a lot of coo’ing ensued – so much so that she spent a good portion of her day reading next to me in the hopes of seeing the little dog. The dog, of course, has no short supply of affection and goes where he pleases.

After a long day in the shaded area of the shop, where I’m sure I nevertheless got sunburned, we made our way down to the beach a little too late for the sunset. We rented a kayak anyway and paddled like madmen to the mouth of the lagoon hoping to see the last of the rays dip into the ocean. The catch is that once you get to the mouth of the lagoon, you’re in near-open seas, but you’re still blocked from seeing the sunset by the far point of Phi Phi.

So as the wind picked up speed we turned around, happy for the exercise but not up for the mission of getting back if we went any further. On the paddle back to the beach it was well apparent that Phi Phi had come to life and that tonight it was party payback time on Phi Phi island. Several pubs slash clubs on the beach already had their lights and music going and soon the throngs of party-starved tourists on Phi Phi would be lifting their elbows en force.

The previous three days had been a quiet time to pay respects to the royal family who lost a member some months ago and whose cremation ceremony had taken place. But tonight would be large.

It seemed busier than usual so Julia and I acquired our first drink on the cheap from one of the mini-markets and sipped it as we searched for a place to eat. After yet another long walk along Tonsai beach we finally chose a spot and settled down. We had more beer. I can’t remember much about the seafood dinner now except that the chicken was good.

Earlier on we bumped into the videographer from our dive trip and asked her where was good to party. “Tiger Bar”, she shouted over her shoulder as she peddled off on her bike. So after dinner that’s where we headed and it was located conveniently close to our hotel.

The first thing we got was a vodka bucket. It’s a three-quarter glass of vodka over ice with about 2 small bottles of Red Bull and at THB 200 they were buy one get one free. Turns out they are better friend makers than the friend disc…

At first Julia and I sat on the side watching the throngs of singles do their thing. Mingle, drink, flirt, etc. etc. The vodka budget along with the beers we had earlier on started kicking in and I leaned over to two random guys who had just arrived and said “hey, try this”. They each had a sip and the one said “that’s brilliant, I’m getting some too” and he went off to return with one each for him and his friend.

Rob and Frank, Dutch boys, where the first of many friends the bucket would reel in. We bantered a bit and chatted, they in Dutch, myself in Afrikaans and Julia in ecstasy at hearing all the foreign languages. Frank eventually would keel over after his second bucket.

As the bucket emptied and we acquired more, we met Kirstie and Laura, two fine Scottish lases. Not sure how we befriended the, but I’m pretty sure either Julia or myself offered the some of our buckets. Possibly using the same MO wel ment Israeli called Edan, a Fin called Felton (we think) and a French girl named Emily. We also bumped into the 2 Korean boys Han and Jung again. In one way or another, the vodka bucket was instrumental in meeting them all.

Needless to say that after our third vodka bucket, Julia and my memories start to blur and fade a little bit and we can’t quite agree on all the details. What is clear is that our posse ended up on the beach where Julia and myself acquired a 4th vodka bucket. I cleverly used this friendship tool to acquire more friends, most of who I wouldn’t have remembered if it wasn’t for the fact that I snapped pictures of them all.

Eventually our party petered out and in the wee hours of the morning I once again became aware of my surroundings. Myself, Julia and Jung was trying to get Jung back to the place where he lived, but we where hopelessly lost and Jung had lost his key. We stumbled around the island until we started walking uphill and I realised we were nowhere near where we should be. I asked some random person where we were and she said we were near the look-out point, which is a very far walk from anywhere.

Sober up fast we made our way back to the centre of the village and miraculously bumped into Han, who gave Jung his key. As we stumbled around near our hotel room, Julia excused herself from the search party and Jung and I continued alone. Eventually he had gathered enough of his senses to locate his room, and with him safely inside I made my way back to mine.

Julia was already in the land of slumber and I joined her shortly after. If it wasn’t for the camera, much of the memories of this night would only have come back to us perhaps weeks from now.

Luckily we had a 3Gb SD Card full of photographic memories from this, possibly one of the biggest party nights ever on Phi Phi.

There are no pictures from the day today, because we missed most of it.

I managed to drag myself out of bed at about 10am for some work and attempted to wake Julia from the dead at about 11am to succeed only briefly. She was feeling rough, but I managed to persuade her to go and have something to eat with me.

We went back to Cosmic and ordered a pizza and two banana milkshakes. Julia sat down, but at the sight and smell of food wanted to vomiting. In her defense, she staved it off for a bit, but when she started to gag I advised her to run for the hills – she did, disappeared into our room and was never seen again.

I was left to finish a pizza and two banana milkshakes by myself, probably saving me from hang-over hell. I went back to the room to check on the passed-out-again Julia and went back to D’ Books for a day of work. Only around 5pm did Julia attempt to surface again, and tenderly so.

We decided she needed a lot of food and once again had the all-you-can-eat BBQ buffet at Matt’s Joint and let it settle with a long walk on the beach. Phi Phi seemed to be back to normal – parties where starting up, but it didn’t have the same air of urgency about it. We settled on a spot on the beach with some chairs and relatively cheap drinks and sipped on beer and Bacardi.

As the crowds gathered and the night warmed up, a few local people appeared on the beach and entertained us with a fire-show. Julia and I realised that we didn’t keep a bucket from the night before, something we (and possibly thousands before us) thought would make a good souvenir. So we decided to order another bucket for the sake of it. We got a nice bucket with a cheap mixer consisting of Sangsom – the local poison, which I believe they call rum.

Tried as we did, sipping it for a while, it didn’t make the hideous drink any more palatable, so after we left the venue we dumped the nearly full bucket down the drain. In light of the stories of major hangovers due to this shit, it was probably the best move ever.

With Julia’s headache warn off and the euphoria from the night before still lingering in our veins, we made a big mistake – we tried to recreate it. We were back at the Tiger Bar and with buckets in hand we quickly made friends. We even bumped into the Scottish girls from the night before and swapped and compared memories and stories. But it was clear from the start that it would never even come near to touching the likes of the night before.

It ended up being quiet late actually, and after a night of sedate conversation and but one bucket o’ vodka, the night wound up for us at the very respectable time of 2.30am. After a late-night bite we headed back home and to bed, but not before taking in copious amounts of water.

We left Phi Phi two days ago and spent 2 more nights in Patong, me working, Julia shopping, eating Tom Yum at almost every conceivable meal and spending our nights at Rock In Dice Bar in Soi Dragon playing games.

For our very first massage in Thailand we also went to a clearly decent place.  Oh how I wished we went for a dirty massage, because our therapists clearly knew nothing about decent massages.  I walked  out feeling worse than when I went in and Julia also noticed a previously unnoticed crick in her back.  We also ventured to Karon and Kata beach last night though, completely different to Patong, to play putt-putt on a course like the set of Jurassic Park. It featured a variety of dinosaurs, a volcano with smoke effects and wicked lighting, water falls and streams, all in a tropical jungle setting.

But it was also speed putt-putt, because the course was exceptionally crammed with punters with no time to lose before the people behind you were breathing down your neck. In the end, we both sucked, but it was a nice little distraction.

Racing back to Phuket International Airport

This morning, with plenty of time to spare, we arranged an airport transfer with one of these guys standing next to the road with the Taxi sign, but after he said, for the umpteenth time, “just two more minutes”, we realised that his brother-in-law or cousin or whoever he phoned, wasn’t going to make it to Patong from his far flung village, so we took our stuff and headed for the main road.

Eventually we found an informal, Natural Gas Vehicle (NGV) taxi which offered to take us to the airport for THB300. The taxis that use petrol refused to go below THB600.

At Phuket International checking in for our Air Asia flight was quick and seamless. At the boarding gate however, chaos ruled. There were no lines as such and the Air Asia ground staff didn’t bother creating any kind of order either. Everybody just squeezed in from all directions and we ended up towards the middle-back of the bundle.

Air Asia non-Assigned Seat Air-rage

We made it to plane with two seats left in the emergency exit row and an elderly-looking gent sitting, by himself, on the isle. Julia and I know this tactic well. He’s sitting on the isle hoping nobody will want to squeeze past to sit by the window so that he can save the space for his friend. Unfortunately, or in this instance, fortunately, Air Asia is a free-seating airline.

Pay attention people, this means you’re not allow to block a space for somebody if somebody else wants the seat. Of course, kind gentle souls that most of us travelers are, nobody actually ever argues when somebody blocks a seat, because who wants to risk loosing such an argument in front of an audience (and make an enemy in doing so)?

I do.

So as we walk up to these two, prime, empty seats, I eye it. The gent sees me eyeing it, and he cranks his neck to see behind me in the hope that his friend is somewhere behind us. But I walked fast, dragging Julia almost running behind me, so we’re well ahead of the next wave. I stop at the row and load our carry-ons into the overhead compartment before motioning for Julia to scoot in so that I can sit in the middle.

“Excuse me, sir”, I say politely to the rather elderly gent so that he can move his legs a bit. Without looking up he growls back in a heavy European, already on the defensive, “This seat is reserved for my friend”. The Air Asia stewardess is standing just to my right, so I feel empowered.

“I’m sorry, sir”, I say in a sickly calm, air-steward-like tone of voice, body language indicating that I’m waiting a little while longer for him to move before I climb over him, “Air Asia doesn’t reserve seats, we would like to sit there”.

“But my friend is going to sit there”, he growls again, seriously cranking his neck to see down the isle, willing his friend to appear there so that he can say ha, there he is. But he isn’t. “I’m sorry, sir, but I need the leg space”, which is true.

Julia jabs me in the ribs and says in my ear “just leave it, let’s find another seat”, but the elderly gent is getting up and moves to the side so that we can get in. “From the states are you?”, he hisses through his teeth. This pisses me off, because it’s racist and ignorant. Obviously he’s referring to “rude Americans”, a stereo-type attached to some Americans who don’t know any better. So because he couldn’t place my accent he automatically assumes I’m American.

“I’m not, actually” I say back politely as I let Julia go in first and sit in the middle. The man sits down. He fidgets and remains red in the face for the rest of the flight, clearly uncomfortable. Possibly the longest flight of his life. The rest of the flight is uneventful.

After collecting our bags in Bangkok, we dodged the touts at the arrivals exit and headed upstairs to the departure lounge. Tip: we snagged a taxi dropping somebody off to take us to Bangkok for THB300 including tolls. It’s also an NGV taxi, we notice.

Eventually, in Sukhumvit, about 2 blocks from our hotel, we abandoned the taxi as it was stuck and traffic and had moved all of 50m in 30 minutes. At first Maxim’s Inn looked a bit dodgy as all along Soi 7 there are girlie bars with loads of girlies hanging about outside pestering other men rather aggressively. Luckily Julia, acting as my talisman in this sort of situation, protects me from girlie hell yet again.

The hotel itself isn’t bad, so we settle in, I rig the wireless connection (free with the hotel) and settle down for some work and rest before heading out again later on.

This is an explicit post. Prudes, turn back now.

Like it was in Phuket, beers in Bangkok are cheaper in the mini-markets in Bangkok too. I pick up a large Chang (I know I said I wouldn’t drink it anymore, but I forgot) for THB50 and Julia gets a Smirnoff Ice for something like THB 60.

It’s 11pm already, but after the Subway sandwiches we had shortly after checking in to Maxim’s Inn, we didn’t really feel like dinner.  So obviously now we’re a bit peckish. With beers in hand we walk down the crowded sidewalks around Sukhumvit looking at all the t-shirts, shorts, shoes, watches, bags, you name it and food, packed in so tightly that there’s really only room enough for a single file of people to walk past.  Where do people stop when they actually want to buy something?

Julia walks past something she’s craved ever since we got to Thailand: pigs-in-a-blanket.  These little cholesterol bombs are annoyingly delicious pork sausages wrapped in annoyingly moreish bacon.

I quietly damn my cholesterol gene to hell as we sit down and order a few pigs-in-a-blankets and a selection of other nibbles from the vendor’s colourful cart.  These types of food often go well with beer, and we’re happy that we have some.

Once upon a time in the west…

With our stomachs full and not sleepy at all, we discover that we’re just around the corner from Soi Cowboy. Soi Cowboy is what I imagine Patpong was a long long time ago – it’s a short street full of what they call a go go bars. A go go bars is a meat market – it works much like the little stalls you’ll see on the sidewalk – people exhibit their wares, you choose what you want and pay accordingly. Only the ‘wares’ in Soi Cowboy are female bodies. Having read much about this, we’re a little curious.

There are, of course, many debates, feminist and otherwise, around such practices and supporting it, but we choose to ignore those tonight as we head around the corner to Soi Cowboy. My memories now of Soi Cowboy, for some reason, are in shades of black and white – I’m not sure why this is, because I remember it being a very colourful place with loads of neon signs everywhere, with men and women hanging outside their establishments with an assortment of funny ha ha and funny peculiar signs.

There are no upstairs entrances in Soi Cowboy that I saw, unlike we read Patpong has, so all the bars front the road, which is probably about 100m long. We did some research about what to expect and where to go and after walking the length of the road once and doubling back, we find ourselves in front of Susie Wong’s, one of the safe places we read about. They have a small veranda fronting the road, so we sit down for a drink – Small Chang for THB100 and a Bacardi Orange for THB 150 – quite reasonable.

After people watching for a while Julia gets curious and decides to peek inside. Then she urgently asks the doorman if we can go in with our drinks and after confirming that we can, she hurries over and tells me “come, you have to see this.” I settle our bill (different prices inside) and we go in.

And now for the explicit part

The club is not huge, but it’s a lot bigger than the little broom-cupboard we went to in Patong. Seating, about 3 rows deep, encircles an elongated, oval stage. At present there are 4 rather sexy girls in pairs on stage, all butt naked, with one of each of the pairs on their knees between the spread legs of the other, their tongues playing their parts in this lesbian show.

I’m not sure where to look. The movements are slow and sensual and I think a song by Celine Dion was playing. The room, currently lit by black-light only, is pretty full with a mix of mostly single men with bar girls, a few couples, and a group of foreign girls, all transfixed on stage where one of each of the pairs is lapping up the womanhood of the other.

As the music finishes, so do the show, and nonchalantly the girls pick up the pieces of clothing, which they undoubtedly took of slowly and sensually before we came in, and exit the stage into a dark corner of the club. Some neon lights come on, but the lighting stays dim. Then about 14 girls spill out from some area towards the back of the club and as they make their way onto the stage they whip off their tops.

Some more upbeat music comes on and they start to dance, each holding on to a pole. Some of them look like they’re having fun, but most seem to be staring into space – all of them are young and fairly pretty. Each has a number pinned to the lower part of their skirts, like the top-less segment in a Miss World contest. The idea here being to whisper the number of the desired girl to your hostess, who will then bring them over and have them entertain you in any way you may want to pay for.

Julia and I sip on our drinks and discuss the surreal nature of it all – the venue, the spectators, the girls, us sitting there together. The topless girls stay on stage for about 4 songs and then grab theirs tops, putting it back on as they disappear off the stage back into the back of the club. At the same time another set of girls come on, but after getting into place at their chosen positions next to the poles, they disrobe completely and start dancing nude.

Long Gun – Cocked and ready to shoot

They stay on for 3 songs before being replaced by the only-topless girls again. With our drinks finished Julia and I decide to go check out another club. Back on the Soi Cowboy we head to the end of the road, dodging people selling bags of veggies for THB20 to feed their elephant with and end up in front of Long Gun. This is another of the safe venues we read about and as there’s no outside area to have a drink at, we head straight in.

Long Gun is heaving – the music is loud, the venue, with a very similar layout to the Susie Wong’s is packed and on stage there are 3 good-looking girls, full clothed at this stage, dancing. They’re all wearing black outfits with boots that come up to their thighs. The crowd consists of more group of people – groups of men, mixed groups of men and women and even a few groups of woman only.

All the seats away from the stage is full, so we’re ushered to sit right next to the stage, cranking our necks up to see. The strip show is spectacular, the women using the poles with acrobatic agility, hoisting themselves up, flipping over and ‘walking’ on the roof. The heels of their boots are heavy, and as they fall down from the roof and land, doing the splits, the heels slams loudly on the stage floor. The crowd is captivated.

After a while of dancing they slowly start to disrobe, with each item of clothing doing more tricks, people sticking money into their underwear and boots. Eventually, apart from the boots, they are naked and continue doing the somersaults and the splits. At one point one woman holds on to the poles, does a somersault with her booted legs stretched out and lands with one heel each on Julia and my shoulders. She drags her legs off slowly as she hoist herself back up the poles, forcing us forward.

After they’re done, to huge applause from the crowd, they exit the stage and are replaced by 3 or 4 other girls who proceed to dance. The club cleared a little bit so we move towards the back, just in time to see the girls pull unbelievably long cords of coloured flowers from their nether regions. A Tiger Show, we think as we look at each other, but with much better looking people than Patong. The show continues with shooting darts to pop balloons and a smoking cigarettes, before they too are replaced with dancing girls.

Having experienced what we wanted we head out back into the relatively cool air of Soi Cowboy and make our way home. The merchandise stalls that littered the sidewalks before has now been replaced by food stalls and informal bars. They are packed with people drinking for relatively cheaper and eating delicious looking food. Julia convinces me to stop for a meat-ball soup and a Thai salad.

The soup was great, flavoursome, fresh and spicy. The salad was decent too, although it was the hottest thing I would eat this holiday – the first thing to literally burn straight through me. There was also a crab claw in the salad, which we didn’t eat, but I’m always suspicious of seafood – so the ‘burning straight through’ might have had something to do with that.

Having learned our lesson from Phi Phi, our night ended with loads of water.

Sometimes we benefit from lessons we learned from previous bad experiences. Even if it is only at the end of experiencing the same thing again.

Let me take you back 10 years. I was in London on my working holiday when a friend and I were feeling naughty.  Somewhere in the back alleys of Soho in London’s West End we walked into what a sign said was supposed to be a ‘free’ peepshow.

We were barely in the door when two Eastern European girls took us to a table each and sat us down in an otherwise empty venue. We ordered hideously overpriced drinks – so did the ladies – before we were asked to pay for our drinks, their drinks and the non-existent show. It was something like 300 quid.

We got up to leave, but were prevented from doing so by a big, menacing bloke blocking the door. I refused to pay, so first they threatened to call the cops, but when I said there were cops just outside the door on the road, they threatened to call some thugs instead. I kept on arguing that it was supposed to be a free show and no other prices, drinks included, were stated.  I think my friend pissed his pants in fear.

Then the con-woman behind the counter, likely exasperated by all my arguing, ordered the con-man in front of the door to fetch the con-menu to show me where their con-prices were stated. Doing so he left the door unguarded. I wasted no time and grabbed my friend.

The last the peep-show con saw of us was their curtain flapping in the breeze as we ran out into the cold London night and all the way to Trafalgar square where, after we made sure no thugs had followed us, we had a good laugh about it.

Ten years later and 10,000km to the east

Today, this con is alive and well and living in Bangkok.

Following the outstanding trampling the Boks gave the Roses, Joo and I was up for a bit of a night out. We thought we’d start by checking out Patpong to see how the original compares to Soi Cowboy. We were well prepared with heavy research – which bars to avoid, which ones are more trusted and what to do when you get in trouble (which b.t.w. is don’t argue, get the receipt, find the tourist police). Based on our Soi Cowboy experience, we were feeling confident we’d be able avoid trouble.

While watching the game we inevitably met another South African. Against my better judgment we befriended him. He obviously fancied himself a bit of a bad-boy, so when we said good-bye and that we’re off to Patpong, he asked to join saying he knows the area well (apparently he lives here – in Bangkok – so he claimed to have street-cred).

I told him that the last guy who claimed to have street-cred based on the fact that he was resident in the city, gave us 100% crap advice. He assured me he was the man. The very inebriated man. The man who, in this tale of Deja Vu, would reprise the roll of my pants-wetting, friend from 10 years earlier.

Our first warning bells went off when he directed the taxi to Nana Plaza – nowhere near Patpong. More bells went off as we walked down the road and he was extremely rude, almost violently so, to the touts. Bad karma.

A bar on Patpong called Tattoo

We arrived at the bar, saw the touts advertising “free shows” and went upstairs. Inside there were a few other tourists, which put us at ease somewhat, but the girl writing something on the floor with a pen sticking out of her vagina was fat and her backup dancers were fully clothed, so we should have turned around and run from Tattoo that very instant.

Instead, erroneously secure in our companion’s supposed local knowledge, our guard was down.  We sat down for a drink right next to the stage. A menu was shown to us with every single item, from beer to coke, at THB100. Bargain, thought our dulled minds before we ordered a beer each, only a dull bell ringing somewhere far in the background.

A girl came up with a glass of what was probably Fanta Orange and asked us to buy her a drink. We said no, but she put the glass down anyway. On the stage the fat girl had started popping plastic caps off glass bottles, which were flying in our direction, so we moved back and sat away from the stage. A big ladyboy appeared and moved the Fanta Orange to our table.

A bar girl came up to the lone South African (because I’m with Joo they stay away from me) and offered him an array of services involving what would probably be her naked body. He declined and she disappeared. The big ladyboy came back with a bill and demanded that we pay – I saw “lady drink” for THB300 on the menu before anything else and declined to pay for it – so she scratched it out with the pen she had ready, obviously expecting to use it.  She tallied up the new total holding the bill back to me.

The Tiger Show in Tattoo turns ugly

It said something like THB 3,000. Three beers at THB100 each and THB900 for “the show”. To the dread of the other South African, Joo and the ladyboy, I laughed out loud purely because of the similarity of this con. I leaned forward in a taunting way, which, in retrospect I realise probably made things more difficult, and said “you know I’m going to go and call the tourist police”.

“Go call”, said the burly ladyboy angrily and defiantly, “I pay them much money, what I say they do”. Ignoring the good advice from Joo”s research I retorted in an over-confident way “we’ll finish our beers, I will pay you the THB300 for it, and we’re going to leave”. Her demeanor didn’t change, but she became visibly more menacing and said as she turned away “You speak to the manager over here”.

I might as well have been back in that Peep Show place in London 10 years earlier. We headed for the door, but it was blocked by somebody heavy and mean-looking. But in the Bangkok version of this story, the heavy was a woman.

The manager, aggressive and rude in an obvious attempt to maintain his intimidating edge, was outdoing my upset with his own. He was apparently outraged by my mere suggestion that his quality show could ever be free – this is after I said we came in because his touts told us it was free, nowhere did it say anything about paying for the show – certainly not THB900 each. The argument went in circles for several rounds.

The man wasn’t listening – this was an aggressive con and intimidation was how they achieved their goal. He threatened to make a call and, holding up his mobile phone, said “if I call, there will be many, many men here”.  This was likely true.  I’ve read how that if you get into a fight with a local, friends will appear seemingly from the cracks of the walls.  But he didn’t call, much like the woman in London didn’t call her thugs either.

Reprieve

So becoming very calm and apologetic for my earlier arrogance,  and being very polite and respectful even, I kept on stating my case.  Eventually, after much more discussion, explanation and general stubbornness, it surfaced that I was South African.

By this time many suckers customers not only left silently, but none had come in – his con was costing him more money than he was going to make. So it all ended with him annoyed and screaming “just go, you don’t have money anyway!” (one South African Rand can buy only THB2). The door opened. We scurried down the stairs, adrenaline pumping, heart beating.

Unlike 10 years earlier we hurried not into the cold London air, but into the hot Bangkok night, into a taxi the hell away from Patpong. And I wasn’t laughing. At least not until the next day.

Tattoo, upstairs somewhere in Patpong, like I can imagine most of the upstairs ping-pong / tiger bars in Patpong, is best avoided, because, did I discover after I Googled “patpong ping-pong scam”, you can find this kind of adventure in most of the upstairs bars in Patpong.

Stick to Soi Cowboy.