Welcome to Walking Street! This Blog is rated XXX

Where do I begin? To tell the truth or not to tell the truth, that is the question. Well I feel I would be cheating myself and my readers if I sugar coated the evening I had. So before I begin, I must give a warning, this blog will be filled with some interesting, vulgar stories. These stories are not correlated with my life style, please take it with a grain of salt, and don't judge me. This is real life, and learning a new culture is what I came here for. 

Now that thats over with.

Thailand, The land of Smiles, I think I finally realized why this is their motto. Walking Street, is an area of Pattaya Beach that basically turns into a strip of bars filled with naked women, doing crazy things.(I use the term 'crazy' very loosely, but more on that later) It is called walking street, (I assume) because there are no cars on the roads, just people, walking. After being heavily warned about what we were getting ourselves into we decided to dive in head first with a lovely bar creatively named  "The Stairway to Heaven".

Taking pictures inside was not something I was willing to attempt, and was highly prohibited. So I will just have to paint you a very good picture. We were greeted at the door by this sweet little girl, she wanted me to take this, Thai's love seeing themselves in pictures, they get a kick out of it! 

Any way, back to the painting. So we walk up the stairs, open the door and sit down in front of a stage filled with stripper poles, and topless asian women with numbers on their panties. The crowd this place brings in? Fat old men from all over the world. [SICK] So you could imagine the girl's excitement when they saw 4 cute girls walk in. They came over to us like we were the main attraction, sat down, talked to us, some top less some in lingerie. Talked to us like nothing abnormal was going on..."Where are you from?" "Americaaa? Ohhh You Prettty girls" Somewhere between getting aquatinted and ordering my second drink we found ourselves being dragged on stage and dancing (normal club dancing, not stripper dancing) with 8 other naked women. It was so odd. They would giggle and have fun like it was nothing; like there weren't men, watching their every move wondering which one to "order" for the evening. It was almost like a girls night out, everyone was just dancing to the music and having a good time. Showing us some of their moves, which really weren't that sexy... half of them didn't even know how to dance on a stripper pole. I think it was there more for decoration. When one of the girls in our group did a minor spin on it they were so excited, and tried it themselves... hahah ( grain of salt, grain of salt) We were actually having a really good time at this bar, and about 20 minutes in the fact that the women were naked all around us was becoming no big deal. After a couple of drinks we decided it was time to kick it up a notch and head to our next bar. I must inform you that "The Stairway to Heaven" is a mom and pop run bar, everyone was truly friendly. And not in the I want to have all your money friendly, because I only had 2 drinks and it only cost me 4 bucks in American dollars. They were sad to see us go, and said please come back tomorrow. I think it was a nice break from the mundane. All the girls in all of the places we went to had one thing in common, a bored look on their face, like what was going down didn't phase them in the slightest bit. It was just another work day for them.

 On to the next bar, 

I must give another warning, the night progressively gets more X rated.

I can't remember the name of this next bar, but for descriptions sake, I shall call it "The Bathtub Bar". Rings hanging from the ceiling like a circus act was about to be preformed, with girls hanging all over them. Giant tubs filled with flowing water, bubbles and lots of loofas. It was really hard for Nick and I to sit at this place. In the previous bar there wasn't much touching going on other than the occasional butt grabbing. Which compared to this place was like shaking hands. A lot of gross things going on, men (and women) had the freedom to touch these girls where ever, and however they pleased. This bar didn't sit well with most of us, so after politely ordering 1 drink, we decided it was time to go. I gave the girls 20 Baht (about 75 Cents) smiled, and we left. Let your imagination go wild, because if you could think it, it was happening. Lucky for me, Nick was also grossed out, turned off and ready to leave. Unlike some of the gentlemen in our group who were like kids in a candy store. {Men} 

The next couple of bars were all pretty much the same, and by the time we went to the next one we were bored and unimpressed. Boy, was that about to change. 

We had heard stories about what goes down on these streets... and in all honesty our interests were peaked. Stories that involved, goldfish, ping pong balls, and darts....

Well, like I said we dove right in, and after talking the bouncers down from a 10$ cover charge to $5, and 1 free drink.. we were about to witness what all these stories were really about. So true to form, we walk in, sit front row and center, and see 1 female on stage playing with ping pong balls. When I say playing, I basically mean inserting them in her Hooha* and blowing them out into a cup. WTF!? 

The acts progressively got more impressive. The next girl came out with cigarettes, shoved them where the sun don't shine, lit them, and I guess you could say ... smoked them? 

Tough act to follow? Not really, one by one the bartenders started blowing up, and passing out about 5 balloons. What were these for I wondered, and before I knew it, I had one in my hand. [uh oh] 

The next girl waked out with a tube and some darts. I think you know where I am going with this one... With amazing accuracy the girl laid on stage, and literally blew darts across the room and popped each balloon... when it came to my turn, I held the balloon up high, ducked, and before you knew it, it popped! 

The next couple of girls followed suit. Once the bananas came out, we once again decided we had enough. Nick especially, he was actually very bored with all of it. I on the other hand was rather impressed, and taking it for what it was, an experience. One that I will never need to witness again.

The thing about it is, this is a way of life for these women. It isn't frowned upon, quite the contrary, it's respected. I've never been to a strip club in The States. (I love referring to America this way haha) But I assume the women are way more into what they are doing, and in our culture it's more degrading. I tried to sit there and be pissed off at what I was watching, but the girls were smiling and happy to be making the kind of money they were making. It was the creepy men that I couldn't handle; who thought they were badasses when they would throw their money around, when in all reality they probably just spent 9 dollars. Thailand isn't a third world country, but it's not very far from it. For these girls, it truly is just another day of work, and in the midst of it all were the street vendors, restaurants, and a temple literally up the road from all of this. 

It was an experience I wont forget, filled with crazy stories I can share at dinner parties for years to come. 

Sorry Mom and Dad.