Tuesday, July 1, 2008

The City that Sex Built

Back Up.

Jasper and I left Cambodia and went to a city called Pattaya a few hours South of Bangkok. It was sad to leave Cambodia, Seim Reap was really nice, but we wanted to hit a beach before we left.

Pattaya is an interesting place. Little did we know before we decided Pattaya should be the finale of out trip, Pattaya is one of the most prostitute-ridden cities in all of Thailand. Tens of square blocks all along the south beach are lined, door to door, with "Go-Go-Bars" or "Beer Bars". As you walk down the street you will see hundreds of scantily-clad girls sitting on stools or subtly dancing, waiting for someone to buy a drink...or more. Note: scantily-clad in Thailand is anything less than a T-shirt and shorts. Girls in north America out for a night at the clubs would surely be asked "how much?" in Thailand. Little do many of the visiting Bangkokers or traveling Europeans know, (or maybe they do...) a huge portion of these girls are not girls at all. Some are more convincing than others... For example both pictures on the left are of a Thai man. As good as these two are (note the areola in the second picture on the left), there are many that are much more feminine, more convincing. Homosexuality and gender modification is much more widely accepted in Southeast Asia and is, therefore, more popular. Or is it the other way around....?

We went on a snorkeling trip which was fun minus a few downfalls. The first is that it wasn't really a snorkeling trip. We paid 1000 Bhat to tag along with a group of scuba divers and splash around on top at some less than amazing sites while they explored the real goods. Also, our dive sites were filled with tiny, clear organisms that stung the skin with hard contact. Of course these stingers were only in the first meter of water, where the two snorkelers spent most of their time...

We also saw a cabaret show in which all the performers were transvestites (although you wouldn't know if it wasn't advertised as such). It was a touch strange but well done and worth the money.

Aside from the obvious negatives, we had a lot of fun in Pattaya. We touched up our tans then returned to Bangkok to shop. Jasper ended up sick in bed most of the time, but we still ended to get some sweet clothes before getting on the plane.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey ben, i was working away in the hot, and muggy canadian summer yesterday when Testify, by Rage came on our radio... I had a flash back to Renegades rocking out in the Alsi Craig community centre and thought, hey, i havent checked out bens site... Awesome stuff man. Im jealous, i will try to be more regular!!! See you when you get home!

Steve McRae