The FARANG Speaks 2 Much

Silly money, yesterday

I was asked to show a friend of a friend round Bangkok recently. I usually tend to turn down these sort of requests (and I get asked a lot), for a variety of reasons. Sometimes I’m just too busy, other times I’m not sure whether I’m going to get along with the person/people in question, and there’s the issue of anonymity and perhaps even morality to consider as well.

But I was reassured by email that the chap in question was a like-minded soul, and that he’d be happy to cover all of my expenses for the couple of days he was going to be in town in return for a quick tour of the highlights.

I figured we’d have a few beers, hit a few bars, and that (if he was good to his word) he’d chuck me ฿3,000 or so for a barfine and a gogo girl. So when we met in his hotel bar, and he asked me whether I thought ฿100,000 would be enough to cover the costs of the evening, I was a little taken aback. Maybe if we were hitting Forte and he wanted to barfine the entire hostess staff. Or have a twenty-five-some in Poseidon. But he just wanted to hit the gogo bars. I told him I didn’t think it was possible to spend that much. He grinned. “We’ll see about that”, he said…

Tequila and Logic, and Never the Twain Shall Meet

After a couple of burgers and beers at The Big Mango, it was time to show my new pal the best gogo bars that Nana Plaza has to offer.

Rainbow 4, recently voted Nana Plaza’s best gogo bar by readers of this website, seemed the obvious place to start. But a couple of white guys sat on their own tend not to attract all that much attention in this place. Not from the cream of the crop anyway.

Well, most problems soon disappear when you throw money at them. Given that Rainbow 4 don’t stock Champagne, my pal ordered a bottle of tequila, and a pile of shot glasses. Arranging them on our table, he figured the girls would soon be flocking to us begging for shots.

But it doesn’t quite work like that. The open bottle as a display of wealth did attract a few girls, but they turned their nose up at the tequlia. They wanted lady-drinks. Seems obvious now, given that they earn commission on lady-drinks, but get no money for drinking from our bottle. But I was surprised that they’d turn down the free booze.

So we had a problem of logic. The girls wanted the kind of drinks that they earn money for drinking. My pal wanted to be surrounded by fun drunk gogo girls full of tequila. The solution, at least in his mind, was to pay the girls ฿100-500 for every shot they downed, depending on how cute they were and what we had in the way of small notes. Fifteen minutes or so later the bottle was empty, and our table was about thirty girls deep.

By this point the cutest girls in the bar had caught up with the situation, and were positively flocking to us. “I go wit choo!”, they chorused, simpering slightly. My pal picked out undoubtably the hottest girl in the bar, and paid her barfine immediately.

I was having to fight her colleagues off with a stick, but just wasn’t feeling it. I figured we’d hit another bar to find my lady for the evening.

Spoiling it for Everbody

My new pal was another Bangkok Virgin, and so didn’t speak a word of Thai. His Rainbow 4 supergirl spoke reasonably good English, but he asked me to tackle the issue of money. He wanted to take her long-time, and wanted to know how much cash she wanted.

I had a quick chat with her in Thai, and she smiled and said that long-time would cost ฿5,000. I was half a second away from telling her to f*ck off, but managed to restrain myself. Turning her away was not an option, so I passed this on.

Flashing your cash around is great fun if you can afford it, but it’s going to raise everybody’s expectations. The price of any girl is however much they think you’re willing to pay - assuming that number is above the minimum that they’ll accept.

I later found out that my pal was so impressed with her performance, that he slipped her ฿10,000 the next day. I apologise on his behalf to the bar-hopping ex-pats of Bangkok.

Magic Mandarin

After paying the bill in Rainbow 4 (just under ฿10,000, excluding tips and barfine), we went over to Mandarin. A few people have been hyping this place recently - I’ve been keeping an eye on it for some time.

The current hype is that upstairs is open once again, with occasionally nude girls. Not a common sight at Nana Plaza. Upstairs was certainly open during our visit, but there was no nudity. That’s my only problem with Mandarin - you never quite know what you’re going to get. There’s just no consistency. Still, when it’s good, it’s very very good.

I picked the cutest of the bunch - a girl who’d been on my to-do list for some time, paid bar, bought drinks for half the service staff, and started to make our way back to my new pal’s posh hotel - stopping off for a slap-up Thai meal on the way.

CCC for BBB

Back to the hotel, and after savouring the looks of utter disgust we received from the hotel staff when we wandered in with a couple of Issan’s finest, it was up to the suite for more booze and bad behaviour.

We were a few items short of a party though. Neither of us had many condoms, I was almost out of cigarettes, and we didn’t have any booze. Cue a most enjoyable telephone call to room service.

“Don’t worry, the Moet & Chandon will be fine. Yes, two bottles. And four glasses. And a packet of cigarettes. Er, Marlboro Red. And some condoms. Big size. Er, four boxes? Thanks”.

While we waited, I began getting to know the Mandarin model - firstly in the shower, then on the living room sofa. My pal retired to the bedroom with the Rainbow 4 supergirl.

So by the time the knock on the door came, I was in flagrante with my totty, who sprang up to answer it. She was wearing a towel. I was sat on the sofa, my own lipstick-smeared towel just about obscuring my engorged todger.

The poor room service guy just didn’t know where to look. From the trolley came two ice buckets with a bottle of Moet in each. Four champagne flutes. A carton of cigarettes, on a silver tray with a hotel-branded box of matches (to a non-smoking room, natch). And four boxes of big-size johnnies. The whole time, he was staring straight ahead at the facing wall.

The condoms were ฿200 a carton. I paid with a ฿1,000 note and told him to keep the change (ie. go away and don’t come back).

And much fun was had by all.