By Michael Kaplan. Grimy, neon-splashed Walking Street, populated largely by young hookers and pie-eyed Western men, is the main attraction of a Thai beach town called Pattaya. Some people may have been surprised by the outrageousness of it all. Ten years ago I visited Thailand to do a story on the commercial sex trade there. By all accounts, nothing has changed. Small stages inside teem with nude or bikini-clad women who are there for the taking β so much so that they have numbers pinned to their skimpy tops or G-string bottoms.
These numerical designations make it easy for customers to call them and take them out for cheap sex. I remember my Pattaya hotel selling condoms at the front desk and having signs warning that the age of consent is In a Marriott there, a clutch of men loudly strategized about visiting a brothel where you must have two women at a time.
Nobody seems to care. It was a raunchy scene where women were readily available. Most of them came from the poor northern part of Thailand. They moved to Pattaya or Bangkok to earn money to send back home. They grow rice and raise buffalo, but they are very poor. They need money for tools. You can get very hungry in Isan [the northern, rural region from which she comes]. Surely, family members would be horrified to know what comes with making the money they receive.
Or he beats me. He ran toward me, tried to punch me, missed and hit the wall. Then he kicked me. I grabbed my bag and ran. Now I look for farang [Thai slang for Westerners] to support me.
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