The FARANG Speaks 2 Much (tfs2m)

Bachelorhood in Southeast Asia changes a man. I read a screed in the Bayon Pearnik here in Phnom Penh where an American expat back Stateside was trying to explain the scene to one of his Doritos/NFL/girlfriended/steel-belted-radial/regular-guy friends. His pal said, I see, so you’re banging prostitutes.

The BP is an amateurish rag and the writer’s thoughtfulness struck me: he said he considered prostitution to be work an individual found distasteful but would do for compensation (and of course, motivation for compensation can range from neurotic avarice to essential care of self/family, or any shade in between). So, he posited, a lawyer defending a corporate client rightly accused of industrial pollution would be engaging in prostitution, while a lovely young woman enjoying sexual congress resulting in compensation (dinner, flowers, candy, and yes even cold cash) would not. I’m paraphrasing here but I find the concept interesting.

By this reckoning, my day-job is more prostitution than not. I frequently engage in acts which I find boring to mildly distasteful, for compensation. On the other hand, the freelancer I picked up at the Thermae (of all places) enjoyed sex so much that…

I’m getting ahead of myself here. My fellow-traveler Rico and I had met in Bangkok years ago and become friends. Although we now live in different Asian locations, we stay in touch and sought an excuse to meet up in Bangkok. The chance came when those valiant protesters left their plastic-hand-clappers at Bangkok’s Cobra Swamp Errport (it’s called Suwannapoom although there is another official spelling, something like Sublimebarmysalami or similar nonsense, ignore that and just say “Suwannapoom”). I rocked up at the taxi queue to find one other tourist was in line while the taxi DRIVERS, for a change, queued up hoping for a fare. Irony can be as sweet as revenge when served cold.

I was glad to be cruising into Bangkok, because as a whore monger, I find it an agreeable destination. Some who know me would be dismayed to hear me self-describe as a monger, but if I’m honest about myself, it’s accurate. I’ve done the whole long term-relationship thing, with wonderful women from different countries and cultures, and I respect and admire femalekind. I haven’t left any kids behind, I’m middle-aged, and I know what I like.

One thing I don’t much care for is Xmas. I’m not an Xian, and while I have clinical admiration for the early Xians who co-opted a pagan festival of midwinter-light which now means horrid tunes and fun Santa hats, it doesn’t mean I have to cleave to any of the rituals. My idea of a “white Xmas” is clean sheets in a Southeast Asian hotel. My mistletoe and tinsel: soft dusky skin and straight black hair that smells like heaven. Lever my farang nose a centimeter from her neck and inhale sharply: hom maak!, oh yeah, try it, mes amis de mongere.

I’m sympathetic with anyone trying to run a tourist business in Thailand nowadays: the airport-occupation smacking into a global economic meltdown, combined with a baht that remains relatively stable while other currencies tumble, means that visitors are off anywhere from 50-70% as far as I can tell. I’ve never seen sparser crowds.

But you don’t want to hear about that, you want me to tell you my first port-of-call in Mongertown. I’ve written before of my fondness for Lolita’s, and since Rico wanted to gear up, get some dinner and hit some strip-clubs, it seemed a good place to take the edge off. The sun had set and I’d washed the road dust from my body and put on a clean set of boxer shorts. They’ve got a repeating-pattern of a goofy cartoon-red devil bending slightly and poking forward with a pitchfork, on a black background. Perfect.

I selected a lovely large-breasted lass from the lineup,Santa hats and fake-Catholic-schoolgirl uniforms reminding me once again that despite its faults, Thailand is still amusing as hell, and parked my butt on (a towel covering) the sleazo black sofas as she knelt on the round black genuflection mat and got to work.

Who trains these girls anyway? Competent specialization is a fine thing. I blew my load and had to vacate the cubicle relatively quickly as a gal was waiting in the antechamber with her date: yes folks, at that moment Lolita’s was FULL. Seems I’m not the only one who enjoys a pre-prandial skulljob.

Rico and I had dinner at our favorite Middle Eastern joint and headed for NEP, straight upstairs to Mandarin, the UP-upstairs, where things are, shall we say, funner and more au naturel, sort of like…Mandarin a few years back. One cutie caught my eye and vice versa. I bought her a drink and chit-chatted. Fresh and cute is the vibe here, and though cigs were fumed by other patrons, ventilation seems to have improved.

Onward, to Erotica, a formerly amusing bar which now seems to have become semi-deranged. It’s always been a bit more voodoo than other bars, but now they’re burning incense to pictures of Ganesh and whatnot. A coupla lookers in the lineup, music too loud, we split.

Just had to see what was happening in Angelwitch, and while the shows seem much the same as always (the gals must be bored senseless by now), I hadn’t been in years. Saw a couple of old pals and my lap was leapt into more than once, that was fun. But when I saw the show-tartlets trying to coach a bunch of patrons into appearing onstage for an audience-participation number (”come on, you go,” “no no buddy, YOU go”), something went sprroooooIIIIIIIng in my brain.

I am very much NOT an audience-participation guy, but I just thought: these girls do this every night, the place isn’t even full, the mamasan was whingeing to Rico that there were no tourists and these were all local guys, so I stood up and let a ‘Witch lead me onto stage…

…where they lashed me to the mizzenmast, face-up, unbuttoned my shirt and proceeded to abuse me. You’ve seen this show, but if you haven’t been up there, trust me: you are TIED hand and foot. You can’t move, they tweak your nipples, sit on your face, and anytime I tried to say anything I’d have a hand clamped over my mouth and a shout of “PHUT MAAK MAAK!!!. The farang speaks too much! Ah ha ha!

This ends with some dramatic blows from the Head Witch for that skit, who Rico described as exceptionally hot. Saw here in a later skit and concur. Whatever she was hitting me with was loud and not painful, but it gets your attention.

Soon after it was time to call it an evening, I didn’t need Round Two, but had a great time.

Next day we hit Soi Cowboy, starting at Baccara (one thin gal with big tits played Queen Bee in the upstairs-bar, we stayed one drink), then KISS, which was eccentric. Hard rock morphed to twisted disco, gals wore bikinis with Army-surplus utility-belts, gals bombed us with drink-requests. Some odd lookers at KISS: one tiny dark minx with cartoon-character lips, another a half-Eastern Euro dame for you Eurasian fans. At one point a few gals were onstage shuffling while a bunch more sat on the stage’s edge, staring at the (sparse) audience. Dunno what was going on…we paid up for our one drink each and left.

Thermae was suggested. Last time I was there, years ago, it was smoke-choked and I picked up a gal who was so clueless I literally threw her out of my hotel room, something I’ve never done before or since. She was simply not interested in having sex and attempted to micro-manage the process, rendering it pointless. I was patient, until it became pointless. Then I threw her out. She cursed “all European people.” I did not care. I jerked off and went to sleep.

So here I am again and my wingman says check out that one in the red top. I wave her over for a lively chat. She had that sparkle: quick laugh and silly-yet-fun palaver…I liked her. I said let’s go to my hotel. She said OK. Blame it on Rico

Personality counts. Because often when a freelancer gets her kit off there’s a moment of…disappointment. This one took her bra off and a pair of KILLER tits appeared. Large, pendulous, jutting out straight…what I call WWII 250-pound bomb tits. First-class Michelin-guide-four-star jubblies. Narly hooters. Ripper norks. Mind-bending gazongas. The rest of the bod was equally fine.

We had a very, very good time. I got her phone number and filed it in my iPhone.

Then we flew to Krabi and spent a week at an excellent operation on Ko Lanta: comfy bungalows of dark wood and bamboo, good food, lots of relaxing interspersed with scuba, motorbike-rippin’ around, jungle/beachwalking, longtail-boat trips to interesting snorkeling destinations, and more relaxing. But you wanna hear about more mongering so we’ll pick it up again a week later with another flight into Cobra Swamp…

Trip to the Big Mango to hang with SSB and snarf some burgers, then another visit to NEP. Mandarin: the up-upstairs was closed. Not enough mongers.

Into Playskool, which has some fond memories for both Rico and myself, and as AC/DC, Metallica and ZZ Top rumbled, a 167-cm wench grabbed pole and started doing the snake-butt, sliding all the way down the floor with it, then bumping bethonged buns with her pal who was nailing the slut-act. This tall one had a goofy face, but a good one…I can’t describe the look but I know it when I see it. She of course detected my interest and was at my side right after the shift-change.

Bought 167 a drink and got her story: she was visibly shocked when I greeted her in Thai, had worked there three months after working a straight job which she either quit or abandoned for more lucrative pastures. She said she was from Bangkok, which seemed plausible. In-training and far from tempered in the bargirl-forge. She may yet learn how to dissemble, fabricate and juggle guys like zombie-puppies, but right now it’s still Bargirl 101.

I bought her another drink, watched her dance some more, and explored her pierced tongue with my unpierced tongue. She was interesting, but it was getting late and I didn’t feel like exploring this carnally. Especially as, you guessed it: after returning from tropical paradise to grimy concrete Bangkok, I’d strolled into Lolita’s earlier that day to prod the tonsils of another fine technician (I appreciated the one whose hostess tag listed her name as “Cream,” but nope, not her, though Cream was cute). I told 167 I’d come back for her the next night and we called it an evening.

The next night was our last for this trip, so we started at Rainbow 4 to see what our Japanese-monger-chums find so fascinating. Plenty of empty seats at R4. One barstool however was occupied by a Japanese dork in suspenders who enjoyed pulling out banknotes and giving them to girls onstage, or making the girls run over to get them. He was clearly enjoying his superior beta-male status. I wasn’t there long enough to see his reception once his bankroll ran short.

As for the girls, all I could discern was that they are: 1) paler than the norm, 2) often have more elaborate hairstyles, the dominant theme being a 60s-vibe, 3) attitude that rots. Had one sitting next to me guzzling drinks bought by some dingbat-salaryman, she bumped my knee while returning with more yen-denominated alcohol and gave me this half-smile/smirk that was about as Thai as a blizzard. When we left I brushed past her, making contact, turned around, gave her a big smile and a polite khaw tohd na khrap, whirled around and split. Nothing’s ruder as deliberate politeness, if the timing’s right.

Back to Playskool, where I’d spotted Miss-167 outside smoking a cig as we headed to R4. But when we returned, where was she? Corollary 239 of Murphy’s Law: if you go a certain bar looking for a certain girl, she will be anywhere-but-there. How often has this happened to you? Asked one of the other minxes, she said, oh she went off. So it goes.

I wasn’t too interested in any of the other Playskoolers, so I texted the Thermae girl, who responded immediately that she was on the bus, on the way to the T. Isn’t mobile communication a great thing? We prepped to check bin.

Then here comes 167, strolling into the club in civvies. Changes into regulation-bikini and gloms onto me, “oh I go eat food, I hungry.” Hmmm. I’ve seen bargirls eat (I’ve brought them snacks, if u wanna get specific). They don’t change costumes. I was glad she’d gotten a short-time in early as times are tough and I hope she’s successful in her career path. But Plan A was now to the Thermae to meet Miss T and I wasn’t going to explore 167’s long lean lithe body, as firm and intriguing as it might be. Off we went.

Miss T was delighted to see me and we goofed around in the Thermae for a bit before I took her back to my hotel room and fucked her brains out. Or maybe she fucked my brains out. Anyway, brains were fucked out and lying all over the floor by the time we were done. And as during the first encounter, nargling was involved, and enjoyed by both parties.

And that’s it for this tale. All I can say is that if you want to visit Bangkok this high season (or anywhere in Thailand or Southeast Asia for that matter), you will find a lot of space and friendlier hosts. For years it’s been “Thai rak Thai” with farangs appreciated for their funds and often, little else. Thailand is a different culture, and IMHO overly fond of its xenophobia and admiration of traits like corruption (yes, I said admiration). It’s true that the behavior of a few farangs has not endeared us to Thais in general, and in a country with widespread poverty and, shall we say…less than duly diligent legal enforcement, leveraging advantage through influence is inevitable. For all its faults, Thailand’s not as screwed up as most ASEAN countries, not to mention some of the world’s hellholes.

Then again, shutting down the main international airport over an internal political struggle is monumentally moronic. I have seen/heard of an awful lot of idiocy in Thailand over the two decades I’ve been visiting or living there, but this ices the biscuit. If visitor-levels only fall by 50%, they’ll be fortunate. If you do visit, bargain hard and politely yet firmly request good service. It’s a buyer’s market, and while the monger-market will not soften…er, is more bullish…shitfire, girls know what guys like, some things are more recession-proof than others, you should do your bit to help keep the market balanced. A working girl who’s competent will take care of business, you do the same, and if you’re stable and jai dii and don’t let your little-head do your big-head thinking, you’ll be up to your ears in it, which is where you want to be (up to yer neck or over-yer-head is where you DON’T want to be).

So now we have Team Yellow versus Team Red in the interminable cage-match. Who’s funding who, who’s right/wrong…it’s a bunch of nine-year-olds arguing in a sandbox over who broke the plastic shovel, and I could give a flying fuck. Naturally, when I was ripping on a motorbike over the idyllic roads of Ko Lanta or holding onto those fantastic tits for dear life while waves of black hair lashed me in the face, plunging onward toward another shuddering “little death,” it was amazing-Thailand once again, as ever, one hell of a holiday-destination, all squabbles forgiven and forgotten. I’ll be back again. If they let me.

So if you made it through the last three rant-paragraphs, you’re up for the comment-kicker: what precisely does the verb “to nargle” mean?