A saturday night in the Bangkok Red Light district

Hi all!!
Sorry it's been so long but lots of things have been going on here hence little time to write...

However, we did manage a trip down to Patpong the other day, one of the famous red light districts in Bangkok.
As you all know (or not know) Bangkok is quite famous for it's sex industry. And contradictory to what most people think, it is mainly catering for the Asian population. Only about 10% of the clients come from the West. So we wanted to see with our own eyes what the fuss is all about.
Chris, a friend of mine from Uni, is doing his research on street based sexworkers. Not the people working in massage parlors or bars. We thought he might be the right guy to introduce us to Patpong...
As soon as you arrive in Patpong, you get bombared by people who want you to come into their club to watch 'ping pong shows' or 'banana shows'. I'll leave it up to your imagination what would be on show... Anyway, Chris led us through skillfully and we ended up in a gogo bar. Life on the inside is quite different from life on the outside! First this: more than half of the girls and women are actually transsexuals. An experienced eye (like ours!) can make them out immediatly. However, there are lots of (drunk) men who will never find out they actually slept with a woman who was a man not so long ago. The girls that used to be man, often have much more bony features in their faces (unless they had operations there too). Other than that, there's not much difference! They look as feminine as the 'real' girls and often dance better and are more beautifull.

Once you enter (this is thorough observation and investigation!) someone in a tiny bikini will guide you to the bar, or a stool where you have full view of the bar. Behind the bar, girls are pole dancing in tiny bikini's on the stage. Not for long, maybe 5-7 minutes and then the scene changes. This continues throughout the evening. While the girls are on stage they try to catch your eye (I'm talking from the point of view of a single man - they very decently leave you alone when there's a women within your company) or you try to catch theirs. Once their dance is over, she'll come over and gently starts seducing you. Some just take the empty seat next to you and start talking. After some time (depends on the rush you are in, some guys took over an hour, others were gone in 10 minutes) you'll pay the 'mamasan' the barfine (my experienced eye saw it was 500THB - 12 Euro) and the girl will go and change. You'll then take her upstairs to a room or to your hotelroom. Obviously you'll have to pay the girl for her services on top of that.
Next to the girls on stage, there are hundreds of others parading around in the club trying to chat up men while they're waiting their turn to dance.

The mamasan is the owner/manager of the club, often a woman. 'Our' mamasan seemed very nice and even though we were obviously not in for bussiness she let us stay and watch as long as we wanted. Mamasans offer the girls protection and jobsecurity in exchange for the barfine.
Officially all the girls are 18 years or older, but we did see 1 or 2 that looked younger. Mind you, all asian girls look much younger than they are so she might as well have been 18.

As there is a closure time of 1 am in Thailand, a lot of bars close between 1 and 2. A lot of them have obtained 'licences' though to stay open all night or have hidden entrances for regular customers.

So, glad we could share that with you and when you're coming to Thailand next, we'll be able to guide you in the right direction to find the gogo bars!