Home » Thailand » Thailand 2004: Day Three

Thailand 2004

Thailand 2004: Day Three

Barry Price
2006-02-22 12:48:16

Displayed times (last time: )

Nana district – home of the go-go bars.

We start with a Singha beer in Gullivers bar - a very westernised sports bar, there were plenty of pool tables, and we could watch football on the TVs. There are girls here if you want them, but if you just want a quiet drink, a game of pool, and to watch your team on TV, they will happily leave you alone. A totally chilled experience, and looking back probably my favourite bar in Bangkok.

The evening got rather less chilled from there on, and in between being groped in the street, and practically dragged into go-go bars by the girls who skulk like vultures outside, we somehow manage to have a relatively undisturbed beer.

Not for long. Martin and I are joined by two of the dancers. I’m ready to leave - I’ve almost finished my drink, but Martin has barely touched his. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was enjoying my very English embarrassment at it all…

“My” girl moves over and sits on my knee. She wants me to buy her a drink. I tell her I’m not interested. She takes her bra off. I back off as far as I can without falling over, looking imploringly to Martin for help.

She points to me, and says “Gay”. I try to explain that no, actually I’m straight - I just don’t find her attractive, and I’m not looking to pick anyone up anyway, and that I really want to leave and am just waiting for my friend to finish his drink… I look over to Martin, who is apparently having some sort of convulsion. No, actually he’s laughing at me. Turns out that the girl was just introducing herself - her name is Gay. Oops.

Eventually the girls realise that they’re not getting anywhere, and leave us alone. I down Martin’s beer for him, pay for the drinks, and practically run out of the bar.
We recover in a Starbucks over a coffee, and I patiently wait for Martin to finish laughing at my “Gay” faux pas. This could take days.

We go to grab a taxi home - it’s gone midnight now. The first taxi refuses to take us. The second taxi refuses too. This seems odd. After the third and fourth refusals, I become concerned. Martin thinks that the taxi drivers end their shifts around now, and they probably don’t have time to take us to the village and get back to the cab office in time. We assume we’ll have to wait for the drivers to change before we can get a lift. Great - stranded in the red light district.

But no, Martin finds a taxi driver who seems confident that he can get us to the village and back in plenty of time. In retrospect, this should have set off alarm bells!

Our driver is obviously the kind of suicidal maniac who would make even the tuk-tuk drivers look like responsible road users. He weaves in and out of traffic, into spaces barely big enough to accommodate the car, at well over 100km/h. Remember, there are no seat belts in taxis here. I can’t decide whether to feel safe in the hands of such a confident driver, or whether we are in fact about to die. Martin suspects the latter, and decides that now is perfect time to tell me that many taxi drivers take “yabba” - amphetamines by any other name - so that they can work long shifts without sleep.

After much teeth-clenching and silent prayers to a variety of gods, none of which either of us even slightly believe in, we somehow arrive in one piece back in Martin’s village. We do not tip the driver.