This is the second half of my write up on Pattaya. Part one covered the resort town aspect of the city and where Russians are spending their vacation time. This section will look at a much darker side of this coastal paradise; one that local officials are trying to do away with, or at the very least, minimize.
This part starts where the last part finished; shortly before sundown on the beach.
Thailand has a mixed international reputation. It's one the most stable and developed countries in the region. The Thais were never subject to European colonization and for the past 250 years, have been able to assert their independence and strength through monarchy-led national unity, avoiding ethnic and political conflicts that have plagued its neighbors. It also helps that they weren't a target of America's cold war communist containment policy.
As such, Thailand has a unique opportunity to grow as a tourist destination; one that is by all accounts unique in the world. The stability and security of the state allows visitors to move freely and appreciate everything the country has to offer: world-class food, rich culture and some of the most beautiful Buddhist temples on the planet.
On the other hand, Thailand is also well known for its sex-tourism industry: lady-boys, ping-pong shows (Google it, but it's not my fault if you're traumatized afterward, also: NSFW!), a strong tolerance towards LGBT culture and maybe the most notorious: prostitution.
Nathalie and I both knew about this seedier side going into the country. While most of this trip is being made on the fly, we did take some time to do basic prep work before going in. We also live in Belgium, which is just as sexually liberal as the Netherlands, but without the tourism, so from our end, we weren't really shocked about the more nebulous aspects of Thailand.
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An alley full of comfort bars in Pattaya during the day.
Out of respect for privacy, I did not take a picture at night.
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Pattaya, as it turns out, is the sex tourism capital of Thailand. While we knew this from the start, but as we're on an impromptu adventure, we figured that our visit there was just to experience the city and not judge a place before going. In that sense, we were ready for the spectacle. On the other hand, though, we completely weren't.
In between the main boulevards are alleyways filled with open-air bars and pool halls. At first glance, these seem innocent enough; after all, it's right on the coast, and the weather here is fantastic. Why not sit outside and enjoy a beer while beaver-shooting the beach goers?
But on closer inspection, we noticed something was a bit different from an ordinary bar. Most of the male patrons were of European descent and with an average age around 55. That's nothing too out of the ordinary. What was out of place compared to every other tavern between Athens and Aberdeen was that the ones here were filled with women. And these weren't just the 50-something-year-old wives of the male patrons, rather they were young, east Asian girls, nominally women, who were hanging out with these old, haggard-looking fellows as if they owned the moon and held a lease on the earth.
After about ten seconds of observing this, it became evident that these women were there to provide 'entertainment' to the men in the bar. It probably wouldn't have been so shocking if it wasn't for the sheer number of bars that populated each street.
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| An outdoor 'comfort bar' before business picked up |
One after another, they were packed with older gentlemen looking for an easy game and a good time. As we walked by them, Nathalie and I conducted a little experiment where she and I would put some distance between ourselves and see what would happen. Almost immediately, I was getting offers to come in and grab a drink and relax. While flattered (Nathalie says I shouldn't be), I politely refused and we continued on our way, regrouping shortly thereafter.
After ten minutes or so of this, we decided that we had gotten a large enough sample for the evening and decided to head back to the hotel, grab something to eat and then go from there. Along the way, we ran into a little taste of home right in the middle of the 'red light district:'
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| Klein Vlaanderen or 'Little Flanders;' a Belgian/Flemish bar in the middle of the red light |
After a good laugh at the irony of finding the only place serving carbonade Flamande in Pattaya smack in the middle of the comfort bars, we accelerated our return trajectory and made it back to our hotel.
We settled on going out to the appropriately-named Jameson's Irish bar next to the hotel for dinner. Afterwards, we felt like getting a smoothie from the same bar as earlier and headed back to the main drag.
Boy were we in for a treat. The Russian families that had mostly populated the streets during the day had been replaced by creepy looking old men. Some of them were just out walking around, others were courting women 30-40 years their junior. As one of the only same-age, same-race couples out and about, Nathalie and I felt entirely out of place. In the market where we got the smoothies, we felt alone in being perhaps the only married couple from the west in the whole pavilion. We were surrounded by old men looking for companionship, young women looking for sugar daddies, and the socially awkward 20 to 30-something men desperately searching for that elusive wife that they've felt life cheated them out of.
On that note, there is an abundance of bureaus and agencies offering visa assistance to those who have found love (or a mutually beneficial arrangement) and need to sort of out the necessary but complicated affair of naturalization. The TV in our hotel room had a local channel that broadcasts in English and kept playing this gem of a commercial, which for me, could be straight out of a Tarantino flick or found in the excellent GTA video game series:
With that said, if people find happiness, or at least what they're looking for, who am I, or anyone else, for that matter, to judge? As long as two consenting adults agree to be with each other, then nothing should stop them.
However, this in itself raises some serious questions. After looking closer at the women, many of them didn't seem to be Thai. When I would listen to them talk, they weren't speaking what I thought was Thai nor were they speaking English with a Thai accent. It would make sense then, that they had come a long way from home, perhaps from Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines or other neighboring countries in search of work or a one-way ticket to housewife-dom.
But how many of these women are there working against their will? How many were trafficked and are paying off a ridiculous debt that will never amortize? In this case, how can the bars, local authorities, and patronizing men do to ensure that all parties are in consent? I don't have an answer to these questions, but I'm sincerely hoping that the officials in Pattaya do as they can only benefit from greater regulation and control.
After we finished our smoothies, Nathalie and I made our way back to the hotel for the last time that evening. We stopped to grab something to drink along the way and had a long, drawn-out discussion about what we had witnessed. It left an unpleasant mark on us as every time we saw a middle-to-old age man in the street we could only think that he was there for the sex, which wasn't a fair judgement for us to make. Additionally, local women would look at me with contempt at night if they didn't see that I was with my wife. It's all too evident that locals know what's up and have also formed their opinions of one of the local tourism industry's primary drivers.
Confident that we had collected a fair sample of everything the city had to offer, we decided that 48 hours was enough, and it was time to part ways with Pattaya. In the end, the stay was worth it. We saw a vital but seedy side of Thai tourism and were thankful for the learning experience.
The next morning, we transited up to Ayutthaya, the former capital of Renaissance-era Thailand. I'll post something on that tomorrow, but rest assured it was a much more relaxing experience than the two days spent at 'the beach.'
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