Partying With The Bar Girls In Bangkok And Thailand

Nightlife Blogger Gets A First-Hand Look At What Sexpats Have Known For Years

When you mention the word “Thailand” to a certain group of American men, their faces light up as if a spotlight were being shined upon them, they toss their heads back, start laughing and can manage to say but two words: “Oh (brief pause) MAN!”

What they are referring to are their experiences with the bar girls, the ladies who sit with you when you go into a certain type of bar in a certain type of area. Some diehard Thai lovers and ex-pats refer to these people as “sexpats,” but that’s a discussion for another day, another blog post.

Naturally, as an intrepid reporter in Thailand for the first time, I wanted to get a look at this first hand to see what all the fuss was about, and to form my own opinion(s).

Well, I sure did and got bombed in the process.  Here’s my story.

Nana Plaza, ‘The World’s Largest Adult Playground’

I headed off to the very heart of it right off the bat in Bangkok, Nana Plaza, a place so bold it has a lighted, arched neon sign proudly proclaiming it as “The World’s Largest Adult Playground,”  framed by girls on stripper poles.

I arrived there at “transition time” between late afternoon and early evening, but not being one to waste any time, I went head first into it. It should be mentioned I was fresh off the plane and while I had overnighted in Taipei, Thailand after a 13-hour flight from the USA, I was still lagging a bit due to a lack of sleep and the time adjustment.

The place was pumping. Music was blaring out of a row of small bars, lined up right next to each other. “It’s like Spring Break here!,” I shouted to no one in particular.

I charged into a bar called the Stumble In and somehow that seemed like an appropriate name to begin my bar girls adventure. Plus, it had a live band so if the girls proved to be disappointing, I could at least enjoy the music.

Not sure what to expect – after all, while I love having girls come up to me in bars, I’m not the type that hangs out in strip bars back home and certainly am not accustomed to paying for companionship or sex – I took a seat. The tables were small and the chairs were barstools.

I was kind of expecting to be immediately swarmed but wanted to warm up to the concept. So I politely waved off a couple of quick inquiries. Plus, I wanted to observe other, more experienced patrons.

And they were easy to spot, mostly gray-haired men in Hawaiian shirts. They were as comfortable here as I am in a beach bar, and soon two of them had half a dozen girls around them. In front of me was a rather “normal” looking guy who seemed a bit like me. He was at first cautious, then seemed to throw caution to the wind.

He had two girls sit with him and what’s funny is that it’s up to you to buy the girls drinks. The guy was having a good time but when the girls walked away for a moment he took a look at his tab. No doubt he was expecting to fall out of his chair at the bill but instead gave a big smile and a “gee, that’s no problem” nod.

In the name of research, I kind of wanted to play this game too, but quite frankly most of the girls in this place were 5s and 6s, with a pair of tall 7s sitting with the “normal” guy. Perhaps it’s like Hooters in the States where the “B” crew works the earlier shifts. I had already made up my mind that if I was going to buy a girl drinks to sit with me, she was going to be at least an 8, preferably a 9.

And if I were to even consider forking over 2000 baht for her to spend the night, she was going to be what I termed an “unattainable,” That is, someone so good looking that she would be “unattainable” to me in my normal life back home.

I was enjoying observing others and loving the band; it was playing awesome rock ‘n roll covers: Clapton, the Stones, Zeppelin, Dylan. But I wanted to find some 8s and 9s (oh, and I’m not really attracted to Asian girls; I’m a lover of blondes) plus the band packed up and left.

The Girl In The White Dress

So I finished my beer (I had been drinking them as if they would quit making them and was pretty buzzed by this point) and stumbled out into the street. I made a lap of the sex and strip bars, but I wasn’t in the mood for that, so I wandered around until I heard more live music.

I walked into that bar – a small one, with maybe a dozen tables – and guess what: the same band from the other bar was playing. Perfect! They waved at me as if I were an old friend. I was then seated at a table, ordered a beer from an older lady and quickly ordered another one. I was happy and loved the music.

Frankly, I had forgotten all about the bar girls – this place seemed to be void of them for there were not any girls really hanging around in it – when suddenly a blonde-ish girl in a white dress walked by and caught my eye.

She went to hang out on the patio and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Now THIS is a girl that I could definitely sit with for a while; I even peered into my walled to see if I had 2000 baht on me. Although I would assume this girl would be more than that, if 2000 baht was the going rate for the 5s and 6s then surely she would be 4000 baht, maybe 5000. After all, a bottle of French Bourdeaux costs a lot more than a bottle of Two Buck Chuck.

Obviously seeing my interest in her, the girl came over, asked to sit down and asked if I would buy her a beer (they are very polite, I must say, and ask rather than being pushy and demanding). She was classy, beautiful and fashionably attired in that stylish white dress. This both caught me off guard and impressed me; she did not look at all like my perception of a bar girl.

We chatted a bit but mostly we drank beers and rocked out to the band. After a while, three more girls came over and joined us. One was her sister and the girl asked if I would buy her sister a beer, which I did, of course. My beer was just 150 baht (about $4 USD) and the girls’ was 200. So this whole bar tab, I quickly calculated, would be costing me maybe $40.

Now I ask you, when you offer to buy a girl a drink in the States, how often do you get out of it for 40 bucks? One or two rounds maybe, but not for a couple of hours!

I was having a blast and the girls were laughing and singing, too, and before long, fatigue and the many beers had taken control of my mind.

The girl in the white dress would occasionally rub my neck, back and legs and would reach over and give me a few light kisses on the cheek. Now I had heard about he/shes – and no I did not see The Hangover Part 2, for I did not find Part 1 all that funny – and this girl was about 5-foot-4 so I held our hands together and she had normal girl-sized hands.

I also looked at her neck very closely – no Adam’s apple.

And if there was any doubt whatsoever about her not being a girl, it went away when I gently rubbed her legs. No guy has skin that smooth and soft; heck, most girls don’t even have skin that smooth and soft!

Eventually, in the name of research, I asked her what it would cost to have her come over for the night; 2000 bhat, she replied. It was at this time I realized that at least at Nana Plaza in Bangkok, you can obviously get a Ferrari for the price of a Chevy Volt!

In the end, I was too buzzed to act upon it, even if I could have pulled the mental trigger of paying for sex. But she certainly fit my criteria of falling into that “unattainable” category.

We did become Facebook friends and I had one more night in Bangkok. I didn’t contact her or even go back out to those bars the next night, tho, because I figured it might be hard to recapture the lively moments of the previous night (plus I was moving pretty slowly all day!).

I also wanted that first night to be my memory and story to tell on my experience about the bar girls in Bangkok. Why risk tainting it, I reasoned at the time.

A few days later when I was well rested and in Patong Beach along its row of bar girls places on Walking Street, I wanted to be hanging out with that girl in the white dress. I looked and looked for a similar-looking girl but could not find one.

And then I began to think that maybe I should have pulled that trigger while in Bangkok.