BAR GIRLS OF BANGKOK

The night started innocently. I took the receptionist by the hand and brought her to what looked like an expensive restaurant and told her, “Let’s call this date,” and I think she grinned and said, “Okay,” making me grin too.

The restaurant was in the Silom Village Trade Center, which was only a few minutes’ walk from our hotel. Although it was awfully quiet, the small “village” did have a peaceful charm, especially in the evening. Restaurants and bars and boutique stores littered the place and as it became darker, the hovering lamps came to life, making it all seem so safe.

I loved the fact that I was on a date with the receptionist. I loved the fact that I was having a date in an actual restaurant for once, and not in a car or in someone’s room or in a bar or on some patch of grass. The receptionist stroked some of her hair behind her ear, partially watching some kind of musical performance at the centre stage of the restaurant. “I love Thailand. Aren’t you glad we’re here?”

“Yes but we haven’t tried enough of the local beer.”

She giggled. “We haven’t tried enough of anything.”

“I think you’re growing on me,” I told her. “I’m beginning to like you a lot.”

“You know what?” She leant into me, taking her focus off the stage. “I heard there were bars here where girls shoot ping pong balls out of their vaginas.”

We finished eating and asked a cab driver to take us to such a place where women shot ping pong balls out of their vaginas. According to the cab driver, they were called tiger shows, and the tiger show he ended up taking us to was in a small club full of foreigners and bartenders and hostesses. All of the seats in the club faced a small stage in the centre, where, as the receptionist guessed, girls shot ping pong balls out of their private parts. But they didn’t just settle with shooting ping pong balls out of their private parts: they attached dart-shooting pipes to them to pop balloons, they pulled ribbons out of them to add colour to the stage, they smoked cigarettes with them, they blew cake candles with them, they pulled small animals out of them, they pulled razor blades out of them and at the end of their performance, a girl with a pen poking out of her vagina wrote what I believe was a rather sarcastic message that said, “Welcome to Thailand,” followed by a cute little drawing of a balding Caucasian male wearing glasses.

All the women who performed had blank looks on their faces and all the people watching had blank looks on their faces. The room smelt of beer and sex and everything was dark. We spent a bit of money to get into the bar – I wonder how much the dancers made. To conclude, a giant, depressed looking naked man walked on stage to meet one of the dancers who were left behind: she was an older woman, maybe in her fifties; a large scar splattered down her stomach and she was completely naked. The giant man mechanically picked her up and flipped her around. The receptionist, crossing her head, pulled me out of the club before I could see what was about to happen.

“That’s depressing,” the receptionist hissed. “I thought it’d be much funnier than that.”

We caught another cab and left. We found a bar and we found another bar and we found even more bars. We ate mango sticky rice. We watched live music. We danced to live music. We watched people. We met people. There was a German guy who confessed that he was there illegally. There was a woman who was looking for the love of her life. There was a transvestite who asked the receptionist and I if we wanted to share a boy, and when we said no she angrily offered us acid.

A lot of money was given. A lot of money was happily taken. The receptionist and I ended up in a bar along Sukhumwit Road and by then everything had become shaky. There were girls in tiny shorts and tiny tops, all with distracted eyes and warm, welcoming smiles. One of the girls was in a school girl outfit, complete with tie and fake glasses. The receptionist pushed me towards her.

“Dance with her,” the receptionist demanded.

“I don’t want to,” I slurred. “I only want to dance with you.” I turned and looked at the receptionist. She was in a polka dot dress and she was beautiful, more beautiful than any fire I’d ever been in.

But she ignored me. She pushed me towards the girl and linked our hands together. A song by Rihanna wobbled the room and we swayed. I stepped on what felt like vomit. Putting money in her hand, the receptionist whispered something in the girl’s ear. The girl giggled and moved closer to me.

“How are you, baby?” the girl asked. She had perfect teeth.