Go Go Bars

Tonight I went to meet a sexpat acquaintance I have known since 1999. It has sort of become a ritual to meet him at least once every time I visit Bangkok. I usually just sit in the hotel and chat with him but tonight I met him on his way out to the go go bars, I went with him on his bar tour. This man (he has been living in Bangkok chasing girls on a nightly basis for over 15 years) is a pro sex worker hunter who knows what days to visit what bars to find which girls, he took me through 3 different go go bars.

The bars are such a sad place to visit, the girls are beautiful but the atmosphere is depressing. Old farang men everywhere with grins on their faces or in drunken bored stupors, with girls dressed in bikinis or nude dancing zombie like on raised platforms. I talked to a few girls in Thai and you could feel how much they hated working in the bar, one girl Boh told me she worked 1 year another told me she worked 2 years, both girls looked maybe 19 years old. Some of the younger girls I saw had that dead to the world expression, no smiles, not looking at anything but themselves in the mirrors as they danced. It was a depressing scene, my acquaintance seemed oblivious to this, as he pointed out the girls he had taken, how many times and for how much money, how good they were in bed etc. He talked how this one when he first took her was not horny but how after 2 years in the bars she became very horny. It was like his eyes and my eyes saw 2 different things. He spoke of how some girls were to ugly for him and how this one or that one was not interested in him no matter how much money he paid because he was to old (70).

In one bar he chose a girl for the night, paid the barfine and told the mamason he would come back later to collect the girl. When the girl he chose came over to be introduced to him, she was so shy and uncomfortable, she was 18 and supposedly brand new to the bar life. The mamason brings new girls to this man I know all the time, he has a reputation in that bar for liking the new, young and beautiful girls. I looked at this poor girl as she nervously waied him and sat beside him, the mamason had led the girl to her seat and sat her down next to my acquaintance, then walked away. I wonder how many girls through the years this mamason has handed off to customers and for how many more years she would continue to do this.

The Thai people at the bars are also different than the people I meet in other parts of Thailand, they have become hardened and wary of farang. They do not believe what you tell them and look at you doubtfully no matter what you say or how you say it. I met one ladyboy sex worker who was especially loud and over the top, many ladyboys are like that but this one might have sent a yelling craziness record. I would have liked to photograph her to see here in a quieter moment, I think with her the over the top extreme behaviour is a defence mechanism of sorts.
I did find out one bit of good news tonight. A girl I knew well and photographed back in 1996 (my first time in Bangkok and the second person I met in the bars) has found a good life. I had heard years ago that she married but tonight I found out she married a English man, lives in England and now has 2 children, one boy and one girl. Sometimes the bar life has a happy ending for the girl. It was the best news of a night of sad and suspicious faces, learning that news made this nights trip a success. It was so nice to hear she was now living a happy family life in England, far from the ugliness I knew and saw her in back in 1996.
In my minds eye I can still see the eyes of one young girl in the gogo sitting next to me, she just stared blankly ahead talking to no one, saying nothing, she looked unbelievably sad, I was told her mother was a waitress at the bar. Hopefully one day this young girl will be lucky enough to have a husband and children who love her and be free of the bar world.

Enough of this sad ugly bar crap, I better get to bed now its after midnight. I want to go down to the slum tomorrow and make some photos of the garbage workers, and children near the gym.