I think it was Mark Twain who said that Bangkok is the Venice of the East. Well I'd say that Bangkok is the New Orleans of the East, and Patpong is the Bourbon St.
The main difference, less T-shirt stores and the entire street is covered with booths selling bootleg CDs, bootleg clothing, Leatherman knock-offs, Zippo knock-offs, and the standard line of chop-sticks and Buddha figures. Oh yeah, on the side walk every 3m there are two or three people trying to show you the small laminated card they're holding that looks like a menu. On closer inspection it turns out to be list of all the acts (with simple illustrations) you can see inside the club behind them, notably the ping-pong show, the banana show, and most intriguing the balloon show.
Everything here seems to run on the basis of whoever brings in the tourist a cut, be it restaurant, shop, tour, or is this case strip club. Later I was struck by the fact that they're using the same business plan as many websites but these gentlemen (and the occasional lady) are making money with it. I suppose credit should be given to their aggressive sales techniques, banner ads just don't have the same effect.
In the interest of being an objective tourist we decided to visit one of these clubs. I'll only say this, the beer and cover cost 600 baht (~$15) and we stayed there less than 30 minutes. I've heard you can get a massage and sex for $30.
Posted by drewish at January 30, 2001 03:08 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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