People who write about Thai bar girls often make the mistake of assuming they are all cut from the same cloth.
Whilst most Thai bar girls hail from the poorer northeastern region of the country known as Issan, a large minority hail from elsewhere, and the reasons girls find themselves working in a bar are quite diverse.
Some are driven by family debt; some are driven by the chronic illness of a relative and the cost of treating that, many are abandoned mothers. Others however may simply be party animals or lazy girls. Others also may have mental health issues or have been drummed out of their home villages for stealing. Vigilance is always needed when dealing with them.
Then there are the college students. Sex work is tolerated rather than legal in Thailand, and whilst it is not a respectable profession, it does not attract quite the same social stigma as it often does in other parts of the world. ‘Good’ girls will often have friendships with bar girls.
College girls will sometimes do a ‘barfine’ as it is known, going to a bar and letting a man pay the bar a ‘fine’ for taking her to a room for sex, (which he then pays for separately) sometimes as a dare or even as a college rite of passage. Some college girls are starved of funds to go partying by their parents, in the hope that will focus them on their studies, but with unintended consequences as their darling daughter then shags a foreigner or three to get some spending money.
Ultimately, quite a high proportion of the girls who indulge in regular bar work end up settling down with a man they first met as a customer. They almost invariably concoct an alternative narrative as to how they met, which can be quite amusing if you knew the girl in her bar working days. At social events, I often need to keep my mouth shut.
However, bar work has its ups and downs for the girls. Aside from the risk of STDs and the mental trauma that can result from having sex with many men, bar girls can and do, fall in love with their customers from time to time.
Western men who have suffered the anguish of serial female rejection, either as a result of a short straw in the looks department or more often, shyness or social awkwardness; can find the Thai bar scene intoxicating, even before they’ve had a drink.
There they find girls, way better in looks than any they ever thought they could date before, happy to become their wife for the night, and behave, not like a greedy whore, but like a sexy girlfriend.
The following day they return to the bar to be greeted with a big friendly smile, it rarely occurs to them that bar girls also fear rejection and much prefer a customer who is a known quantity.
And so the little romance blooms. He is on cloud nine and she is happy not to have to sit outside the bar saying ‘hellooo wel-cum’ to leering men as they walk past. He’s a nice sort of guy, they start dining together and she buys him the odd little present using some of the money he hands her every morning.
Then it’s time for him to go home, and the tears she holds back (Thais really don’t like being seen to cry) are genuine.
The trouble is, for every ten men who whisper sweet nothings and promise to take care of their newfound little lady; only two or three actually send any money, and most never keep in touch at all.
Bar girls and their bosses, known as ‘mamasans’ know the old principle of riding horses – if you fall off, you must get straight back on again. There is only one remedy for a lovesick bar girl.
Bar girls have a range of names for the foreign tourists they cater to—few of them complimentary.
Best known is the term “Keeneeow” which means a cheapskate, the guys who are looking for sex but at the lowest possible expense.
At the opposite end of the spectrum are the guys they call “ATM” – guys who spend freely on drinks to any girl who asks and pay over the odds for sex. The girls swarm around these guys like flies on a corpse, but there is zero respect.
Then there are the lesser spotted fuckwits – frequently drunken leering guys, often with tattoos and typically wearing a Chang beer singlet, usually un-showered since the morning.
These they call: “Darling”
Actually, they don’t quite call them darling, they call them a Thai phrase that sounds very similar to a halfway house between 'darling' and 'darkling' – there’s a slight nasal sound in the middle, but it takes practice to distinguish the two.
It means: 'Monkey arse'
Bar girls will sometimes use the word jokingly, but one should never take it as a compliment.
Then there are the guys the girls call “Say-dee”
No, although it sounds feminine, a bit like 'Sadie'; they are not calling you a ladyboy. It means 'Good heart' – a guy who is not stupid is kind and gentle and takes the girls he meets on the level.
When a bar has a timid newbie who needs a gentle introduction or a girl who is lovesick and miserable, the mamasan will ask her girls to look out for a say-dee to take care of her.
Girls hold a candle for certain men in their life. They never forget their first sexual experience, even if it was a bad one, and they never forget the last man who fucked them. Bar girls also never forget the first man they fucked as a customer.
Every man in between can be simply parked as a friend, and the pain of lovesickness can be cured in a moment, simply by letting a new man get on board.
Do I feel guilty, obliging a mamasan and shagging another guy’s girl, sometimes before his flight back has even touched down in his home country?
A little bit, but there’s no malevolence on my part, just a practical solution to a common problem. And if I didn’t do it, someone else would.
If you want to date and get serious with a nice Thai lady, a bar is a terrible place to go looking. Unless you are willing to delay your flight home, take her under your wing, go see her family and get her safely installed in digs, far from any bar; digs you can recognise in the background when you talk to her on Skype.. But even then, it’s really doing things the hard way.
Most bar girls who settle with customers are either shipped back home with them, or the guy moves to Thailand. Relationships with bar girls managed from afar have a terrible success rate.
Men who want to find a good Thai girl can use dating apps, but they are risky as many bar girls use them too and don’t broadcast the fact.
Good places to look for love are massage shops located away from nightlife areas. You can test the establishment by having an oil massage and seeing if the masseuse offers you ‘extras’. If she doesn’t, it’s a respectable establishment and you can size up the staff; most massage girls are single and on the lookout.
However, I digress..
Hua Hin is often dismissed as having a quiet nightlife, but I much prefer it to the other Thai towns and cities. It’s a royal town, so there’s a little more decorum, and the more embarrassing idiot tourists tend to give it a miss.
There are plenty of bars and plenty of nice young ladies, but they don’t take their clothes off. Nor are they expected to wear numbers, a practice I find very dehumanising in other places.
When I mention that bar girls in Hua Hin are not subject to bar rules that obligate them to indulge any customer who chooses them, and are at liberty to say “no thanks” if they don’t feel inclined; it brings back, for some men, the horrors of past female rejection, something that deeply scars the psyche of many guys.
Yet the token amount of courtship needed, coupled with the high probability that the girl will say yes, is a huge confidence builder for men. The bar scene in Hua Hin may be prostitution, but it’s prostitution with its happiest face on, and a light year away from the stereotype of the oldest profession.
My daily routine is fairly regular when I’m staying in Hua Hin. If there’s a girl in my bed when I wake up, sex will be the first thing on the agenda, then to dispatch her on her way and take a shower.
I take a fairly long stroll to breakfast at the same small café every day, picking up a copy of the Bangkok Post along the way. A leisurely breakfast done, along with the Sudoku and Crossword, I leave the paper in the café for others and wander back to my guest house. They are very good at spotting me head out in the morning and usually have the room done by the time I return.
I spend a few hours on my computer and snoozing before wandering out for a sundowner. That done and a light meal for supper (I never bother with lunch in the tropics) it’s back to my room to shower again, shave and put a fresh shirt on for the evening.
There are a few things that Thai women associate with respectability that we tend to never think about. One of those is the type of shirt a man wears. T-shirts are for the poor, but a shirt with a collar wins approval. Don’t go the extra mile and try wearing a tie, however; it’s just far too warm for that.
Presenting yourself fresh and clean is paramount when hitting the town in the evening.
It was the spring of 2019 and I was wandering round the nightlife quadrant of Hua Hin known as the Bintablock. I got the usual siren calls from the girls, the lazy drawn out ‘hell-ooo wel-cum’ although the many who know me tend to just give a smile and a small upward nod of acknowledgement.
Then as I was passing the Elephant bar a more urgent cry caught my attention “Tom Tom - can come in? – boss want you”
I’ve known Rosa, the mamasan, for several years; her bar is a bit dilapidated with a pool table that is way out of true, but I obliged the call and sat at the small bar.
Rosa was nowhere to be seen at that moment so I scanned the room for the reason for the call. Towards the rear a girl sat alone, hunched over a cushion on her lap, her long dark hair tumbling over her face, aimlessly flicking the screen on her phone. She sighed and looked at the floor.
Rosa appeared and was pleased to see me. I looked at the girl and looked at Rosa, Rosa nodded “her boyfriend go home today” she said.
“She like me buy her drink,” I asked. It was what Rosa wanted me to say.
Rosa went over to the girl and spoke to her. I watched carefully, I wasn’t going to play along if Rosa tried to bully her. However, her words were quiet and appeared friendly. The girl sat up, pushed back her hair, and looked fleetingly at me.
Then her shoulders slumped and she stared into space for a few seconds before dragging herself up and coming over. For her drink, she gave me a rather formal little ‘wai’, the palms together greeting Thais use as a thank you, and with the briefest of smiles sat down on the stool next to me.
This was going to be hard work, I thought.
“Like play game?” I asked. The game known as Connect 4 is so ubiquitous in Thai bars it is simply known as ‘Game’ Many bar girls are very proficient at it.
Practice makes perfect, however, and I’m a pretty dab hand – when sober.
This got her out of her shell and she started playing with some skill. A real smile now crossed her countenance, and she accepted a second drink with a much more relaxed “Chok dee”
The girl was in her mid-twenties and had well-defined features that demanded no makeup, a fresh complexion and the most glorious long silky hair. Thailand is a cultural melting pot and this girl had an oval face, slightly darker skin and very dark brown but fine hair that marked her out as being ethnically Lao. There are many such people in Issan.
Rosa came over to watch the game, standing behind the girl and talking to her gently in Isan. Isan is a local language in Issan, a dialect of Lao, which is as alien to Thai as Welsh is to English, I have never mastered a word of it.
However, it was not hard to see that Rosa was trying to gently coax her into bed with me.
Now, I’m very much opposed to sexual coercion, the absence of bullying by mamasans is one of the reasons I like Hua Hin. I, therefore, hatched a plan to take the pressure off the girl.
I had already established that the girl was fairly new on the scene as her English was very weak, so I asked Rosa if she would like to be my lady that night. Rosa duly translated. The girl shrank a bit, looked down, and after a moment nodded. Rosa gave her a friendly pat.
It was a yes, but not a wholehearted yes. I paid the barfine, which ‘reserves’ the girl and arranged to return later after seeing friends. I didn’t actually have anyone I specifically wanted to see that evening, but I wanted to give the girl, whose name was Lai, a little breathing space, and time to change her mind.
I returned to the bar at 11 p.m. My plan was to have a couple more drinks there and give her the opportunity to bail out. As I approached she was sitting outside fixated on her phone. The girl next to her spotted me and gave her a nudge. She immediately went inside and by the time I’d reached the steps, she’d grabbed her bag and was heading out.
So, a quick plan B was needed and I took Lai a few yards down to the Bluebell bar. The Bluebell bar has occasional girls hanging around, but is primarily a ‘non-girlie’ establishment. The manager there, a lady in her fifties called Mon, was for many years the cashier in the Paradise bar, a busy bar for girls. Despite a rather prim appearance, she is one of the kindest people I know in the Land of Smiles.
Sitting down at the bar, I told Mon that my little lady was a bit lovesick, and she immediately went into mother hen mode, talking to her and sympathising at length. After a while, Lai needed the loo, and as soon as she was out of earshot Mon gave me a thumbs up and whispered “she’ll be OK”
Settling my ‘bin’ as bills are called in Thailand, after buying Mon a drink, I took Lai the few yards back to my guesthouse.
I have a set routine when taking a girl back to my room. I unlock the door, turn on the light and then invite the girl to enter first. I then give her a towel and gesture to the shower.
Whilst she is in there I hide the cash in my pocket, turn back the duvet on the side I want her to sleep on, tuck a couple of condoms under the pillow, and then undress, putting on a towel before she emerges.
Without exception, girls emerge from the shower wearing a towel. They are almost always shy until you’ve first had sex with them, after which all shyness usually evaporates and they will then wander around naked without a care.
I smiled at Lai as she emerged, gestured to the bed and took a quick shower. When I returned she was sitting up in bed, had found the TV remote, and was flicking through the channels. She was still wearing the towel.
I turned off the light, put my towel on the rack and climbed into the other side of the bed. Lai pulled off her towel and threw it at the rack from the bed. By the light of the TV, I briefly saw the pretty profile of her pert breasts, before she pulled up the duvet and slipped under it.
She was lying to my right, as I prefer, her right leg was straight but she’d pulled up her left leg a little, and the first part of her I encountered as I slipped across the bed was her knee.
I pulled the duvet down a little to reveal her face. She’d swept her long hair to one side, away from me. She looked at me for a moment and then turned her face away. This was going to be the difficult bit for her.
I caressed her body, her firm nipples, her hips, her flat stomach, her trimmed beaver, but for her part she just laid there. To try to provoke a little reaction, I decided to make for a condomless mount, expecting her to protest. I reached over her for some lube on the bedside table and lubed my dick. She shifted sideways slightly and pulled up her other leg, making her sex accessible, but there was no cry of ‘condom!’ even as I rubbed my dick against her pubic mound. Still, she lay with her face turned away from me.
I reasoned that as she was a relative newbie she had probably not had that many dicks inside of her, so took a chance and continued without a rubber. As my knob found its mark and slipped between her pussy lips, she let out a tiny gasp, turned her head even further away and closed her eyes tight shut.
I gently shafted her, missionary style, for two or three minutes, during which time she opened her eyes again, turning her head to look me in the eyes for a moment, while catching her breath each time my meat sank into her, before putting her arms around me and pulling me down on her, holding me as tightly as she could, as if to say ‘enough for now.’
