Survey of the urban underbelly

I realize I use the term urban underbelly a little too often, but in the case of Bangkok, the term fits like a glove. A black satin and lace glove to be more exact.

On Tuesday evening a few colleagues and I met up with an acquaintence I know in Bangkok who works for an NGO that advocates for victims of all kinds of human trafficking. As urban planners, we're always interesting in learning about the use of urban space for economic activities, so we figured we'd ask for a tour of some places with adult entertainment venues. She took us to Patpong and Nana, areas of the city known its go-go bars, exhibition shows and related venues where you can see young women of all ages and varieties strutting their stuff for a vulgar, garrish, and aged clientele.

First place we went to was in Patpong, an area with a lot of tourist shops and adult entertainment shops. We learned from our tuk tuk driver and street jockeys that the Prime Minister, Thaksim, (sp?) has cleaned up Patpong to a great extent. But underground shows still thrive. The show we went to was sort of the ping-pong ball, razor blades and cigarettes variety, but it actually started out with a couple on stage having some rather sweat-inducing, acrobatic, athletic sex.

While what was going on on-stage was a sight to see, the crowd was an equally interesting subject to watch. There was a trio of Indian men tourists (wearing their fanny-packs, white socks, golf shirts and khaki shorts), some Chinese couples (women hiding their faces with their hands), and a contingent of Aussie men and their frumpy girlfriends. There were also some nondescript Asian men there, but apparently they weren't Thais. We learned from a few of the performers who were on break sitting next to us that Thais don't come there very often at all.

Later we went to Nana to visit some go-go bars. When we sat down, a nice, petite lady (could have been a man though, in that light) sat next to me and claimed she saw me smiling at her when I came in. I think she was looking for a client and was obviously sort of disappointed I wasn't there to play that game. She told me she was going to get up to "go make another friend."

Bangkok is a bustling, weird, exciting, but kind of sad place all at the same time