The wrong craic is now the attraction.

It is now over twenty years since I first came to Asia - I visited both Bangkok and Phuket in 1989 and then came back for a longer stay in 1990 when I added Pattaya and Chaing Mai to the list of places I knew. I visited regularly after that until I effectively moved here in 1999. And needless to say I know many people who have been around considerable longer than me. I now live in Angeles City with only the occasional forays to LOS and that throws a slightly different perspective on my thinking. AC started because of the US base, a base that was here for almost a century before it closed in 1991. You can blame it all on the Yanks because it was the Viet Nam war and the droves of Americans posted nearby that is credited with starting Pattaya on the doubtful road to Sin City, as well as turning Bangkok’s nightlife from discreet dance clubs to neon advertised gogos.
The topic of conversation that inevitable dominates when a few ‘old hands’ get to together is what has changed, and why? The usual suspects are the internet, which has suddenly made information, which was only know to a few, known to the masses, and then cheap airfares which have meant all and sundry can afford to get here. I am sure those two suspects are guilty as suggested - certainly the internet has made life so much easier not only in terms of information but communications as well. When I first came here I scanned the Bangkok Post for any news from Europe, and the UK in particular, and I was normally rewarded with a small ‘short’ of less than a fifty words. That was it - landing back in Heathrow I was pleasantly surprised it was still there. Arriving in Bangkok the first time I had been told to go to Patpong, so at the airport I booked a hotel as near to there as I could - it turned out to be not that close and it was the wet season! Think how much easier my life would have been these days.
Now in AC we get plenty of British tourists - a comparatively new phenomenon and most of the guys moving here permanently come from Aus or Europe in general - it is no longer a US enclave. A change I have little doubt brought about by the internet be it only from promises made by ladies on DIA
But to get to what has really changed you need to read the web boards. They are full of comments like she left before I got a second go, or she did not want to be bar fined. Some people post pictures and graphic posts about what went on behind closed doors! You may say why not? Maybe I am a little old fashioned in that way - there are good reasons you close the door. But it rather sums up my conclusion about the main change in the scene from early nineties to now - overt sex tourism.
Yes of course in some sense we were sex tourists in 1990 but that was an attraction but that was not the main attraction. Asia held a mystique and bars were fun raunchy places. Bangkok was a party town and THE party happened in those days in Patpong, a Patpong that was very different to now – for then it was fun. The bars were as much about drinking as anything else and yes we all knew that when the party was over - or we had had enough - we could find a willing girl to go home with us. The cost of that lady was not excessive - no more than we had spent on booze. Bangkok has always been known for the party, and talking to the old timers so was AC, and Pattaya certainly started as a party town and in some ways still is.
So the early tourists came for the craic, came for the fun, certainly the US troops came for that - relief from a nasty war. The girls were fun as they knew that is what we were there for.
Fast forward to today and what have we got - too many tourists intent upon one thing only - Asian pussy and lots of it. That attitude has changed everything - it has made the girls much harder, it has made the bar owners realise they are no longer running a bar where customers spent money freely on having a party - now customers are parsimonious and have single drink as they research the talent.
And the bar owners quote mobile phones as the source of all their problems - girls can deal easily with punters outside the bars but too an extent that confirms my views - they are not here for the party but the boom boom.
This maybe because the travellers are poorer and the price higher. But I did some research on that and consulted Peter Street then manager of Bobby’s Arms (Patpong 2)and now manager of the Queen Victoria (Sukhumvit Soi 23 by Soi Cowboy). In the late 80’s a beer was about 50 Baht ($= 25 Baht Ł= 40 Baht), bar fines were 300 Baht and purple in the morning was very acceptable. That is quite interesting to compare to today - Soi Cowboy is now the party place of choice and a 150 Baht beer ($=30 Ł=48) equates to $5 beer as opposed to $2 beer - so taking into account inflation the drink prices now are no different but bar fines and the girls’ expectations have escalated out of recognition.
In ’97 the Asian bubble bust saw the US$ go from 25 to about 48 and the other currencies did the same. Suddenly Thailand got very cheap and the massive boost in Tourism that followed in the early noughties was in part driven by that. So suddenly Thailand was not only known as a party town but it was a cheap party town, full of cheap pussy; over night Essex and the Essen emptied and we have a totally different kind of tourist in town - no longer driven by a desire to party but a wish to convert Patpong et al to a replica of Saturday night in Romford. What was a place for discreet gentleman to get their end away has become bonking town for the tattooed. And now AC is cheap and Thailand is expensive we are getting the overflow still looking for that cheap Asian pussy.
That is what has really changed!