Pattaya Then

From 1994 to 2012 I lived in Pattaya. I came back and forth often to see my family. Now wife, five children, two grandchildren. A different city then. None of these men from suppressed countries fighting in the street just football hooligans, Danish bikers, retired postmen and social workers, criminals on the run, Danish bikers, Interpol and of course rent boys, go-go girls, and kathoeys plus none of these people. The Last Babylon.

The photo is from 2022 Soi 6 during post-Covid. Only farang on the street. Only bar open. Lady boys playing heavy Metal. No farangs. Paradise. Sawan. สวรรค์. I avoid these people and are seen avoiding them.

Spoof on Soi 6 - July 4, 2012

Yesterday I was drinking with my good mate Fabo at the Buffalo Bar. It was empty of farangs. Most Europeans had stayed home to watch Euro Cup 2012 at home. Ireland hadn't qualified due to Thierry Henry's handball and Belgium had stayed home, so neither of us cared a tick about the games. The Belgian owner had refised to air the matches and working girls at the bar wore long faces without any kaks or customers. They huddled around Fabo and me, as if we were millionaires.

Let's get out of here." The thirty-seven year-old Charleroi native suggested after finishing his Heineken Classic.

"Where to?" The sky grew black with monsoon rain.

"Soi 6. We can celebrate your Independence Day with some Brits." The buzzcut Belgian seismic explorer didn't like the English. He didn't like the French either. The Dutch were okay, but only because they made Heineken.

"It's July 3rd."

"Then we must drink more beer to make our time machine go into the future."

We pried ourselves from the Buffalo girls and got on my scooter. I drove the back roads to Soi 6. A few drops of rain dotted the street. The wind blew hard from the Gulf of Siam. There was going to be a deluge. We made it to the short-time haven without getting drenched. I parked the scooter on the street. Girls from the short-time bars called for us to join them. A loud crack of thunder shivered through the electric green air. Fabo and I ran across the street and made it under the awning as three inches of rain fell in one millisecond.

"Bon chance, eh?" Fabo led me inside the bar. Tottenham Nick and four mates were stationed in the Bus Stop Bar. My entrance was greeted with anti-American insults. I told them, “God fuck the Queen.”

The teabags groaned with revulsion.

"Fucking you wish you had a queen."

"There's plenty of ladyboys across the street." Kathoeys were very popular on Soi 6. They were transgender and men like sex more than women.

"I'll stick with good old Queen Bess." Tottenham Nick ordered me a gin-tonic and then asked, “You wanna play ‘Spoof’?”

“Never heard of it.” Fabo was settled with his Heineken.

“Great.” Nick had plenty of drinking games. Most of them consist of getting as much alcohol down his gullet as his brain can handle without his stomach revolting in dismay. “You play ‘Spoof’ with three coins. Everyone put out their hands and you have to guess how many coins are in everyone’s hands.”

“Oh.” It seemed simple enough.

“Whoever loses buys a round.”

“I lost the last game.” An Atlanta Reb declared with a red face from the end of the bar. “We have to get our 4th of July victory.”

“Why not?” I would have stood a round for America’s birthday anyway.

There were eight of us.

We held out our hands.

The count at most could be 18. The least zero.

I tried to guess what everyone was holding and failed miserably, yet managed to get knocked out thanks to a lucky guess and was rewarded with a gin-tonic.

Not too strong, because the bars on Soi 6 never pour full measures.

The girl behind the counter was cute.

Skinny too.

“Watch out.” Nick knew my taste run to thin.

“No worries.” My wallet was also thin.

Down to my last 1000 baht.

At least until after the 4th of July with my ATM card arrived from the States.

Nick called for another game. I couldn’t refuse and lost. Another gin-tonic and my bill was 600 baht. I had 400 left for food and I thanked Nick for the

"Not a problem. Happy Fourth of July."

"It should be." The ATM card had better come.

I tried calling Scoby’s on Sai 3 for a pizza from outside. The rain had let up for a moment.

No answer.

"What happened to Scoby's?" I asked Fabo.

"He went out of business. Now there's a new pizza there. The worst pizza in the world."

"No thanks."

"Then we go back to Buffalo."

"Why not?"

It was July 3 and I had learned something new by ignoring an old lesson.

Never gambled after drinking, unless you want to lose your money, especially at Spoof.

Guilty Single Male On the Planet 2017

This photo of Al Franken mock-groping Leeann Tweeden on a C-4 to Iraq has convicted the Minnesota senator of sexual harassment. A New Yor Tims opinion writer demanded his resignation. Do I think his behavior was off the mark?

100% yes, but I have to reflect on my past.

Nov 18, 2017

Khang Noi, small elephant, and I had been friend for over ten years in Pattaya.

I remembered her being thin.

Noi had a good appetite.

Like most Thais.

And recently I had to ask myself if I had sexual harassed her.

She was still working Soi 6.

I asked her Paypal account.

She was still a working girl.

"Is it busy?"

"Yeah, แน่น."

You mean naaen? No. Not have farang." She ran down the litany of ills of the times.

Basically the rich have money and we are all slaves.

"I have a question."

"Farang have many questions. Not like answers."

"Most men don't, but did I ever guean jai khun."

"You?"

"Yes."

"What Thai people like most?"

It was an easy answer.

"Sanuk."

"And the love of a elephant."

"Not tonight."

Not gra san."

Lust.

"I love you as a friend."

"Phom lak khun samur."

Forever.

I thanked Noi.

I know nothing purer than the clean waters of Samui in 1990.

The purity of life and women are life.

Albeit we are the seed.

ps Elephants are not monogamous, but given the change Noi would be.

But Al Franken is still a shit.

But better him than 45.

Sirens Of Soi 6 # 5

The rainy season had lasted longer than most Thais could remember. Many of Pattaya's roads were inundated by the overflow from the sewers. One polluted pool stretched 100 meters along Soi Buahkhao. No cars or motorcycles were navigating through the floodzone. The black water was knee-deep, but Nai was in a hurry. His girlfriend was waiting for him at Soi 6 and she hated waiting. He drove his Yamaha scooter into stinking lake only to have the motor die halfway from the high ground of the other end.

Shopkeepers laughed at his plight from behind walls of sandbags.

"You think bike jetski?" A motorsai taxi driver shouted from a stand atop a stack of cinderblocks.

Nai's blood boiled to a vapor and his eyes narrowed to murderous slits. One more word and the taxi driver would have a knife in his chest. The bystanders correctly read the twenty-three year-old's vicious mood and everyone said nothing, as Nai pushed the bike to dry land. His struggle to kickstart the bike was futile. The carburetor was soaked beyond rescue. An enterprising repair shop was already servicing the other fools in a hurry. They wanted 300 baht for a new part. 50 baht was the only money in his pocket, but the ten ja-bah pills would give him 3000 baht and his girlfriend on Soi Six said her friends were in desperate need of a boost.

Business was good.

Nai decided to leave the bike before a farang beer bar. It should be safe there and he started walking toward Soi 6, his jeans dripping water with every step. At Pattaya Klang Road the rain fell in clots. His telephone and the speed pills were wrapped in plastic. The phone was vibrating against his chest. It could only be Oom. She was angry all the time now. Angry in the morning. Angry at night. The only time she wasn't angry or moh-hŏh was when she smoked ja-bah. The drug took her someplace other than her here and she needed some ja-bah now.

Nai thought about jumping on a motorsai taxi, but opted to catch a baht bus or songthaew on 2nd Road. He might need the 50 baht in his pocket later and picked up the pace. The traffic light at the busy intersection was red and Nai bit his lip, thinkikng about his life.

His dream to be a pop star seemed set with his job as a singer at a karaoke bar on 3rd Road. Older women flocked to the club to hear the handsome Sakhio native sing Thai love songs. One had even said he sounded like Bird McIntyre, the #1 star in Thailand. That night she gave him a 2000 baht tip. Another night a gold necklace. Three days later the Yamaha scooter. Oom wasn't jealous as long as he wasn't jealous or huung about her customers from the Chic Bar.

"Farang only kak." She used the slang word for customer rather than bor-rí-pôhk to show her disdain for her clientele. "Same old lady only rent you. Not same me. I steal our heart."

Oom was right. He was only in love with her. She only had him. The old lady wanted to pay for a session in a music studio. His friend had written a great song KHITUNG TER SA-MER or I THINK ABOUT YOU ALWAYS. Two musicians were contacted to play as the band. He even had a name for the group. STRANGER. The bright lights of Bangkok were only 150 kilometers away from Pattaya and KHITUNG TER SA-MER was the ticket.

The light changed to 'walk' and Nai stepped into the street only to have someone grab his shirt. He fought to free himself. The hand was too professional to be a street thief after his ja-bah. Nai shut his eyes and surrendered his fate.

"Nai, what you doing here?" The chubby undercover police officer was not alone. His acne-scarred partner sat on a Yamaha 400cc SR. They had confiscated from a farang marijuana dealer.

"Going to Tops." Nai pointed to the supermarket on the opposite corner.

"For what?" The officer was going through his pockets. It was only a matter of time until he found the ja-bah in his belt. He pulled out Nai's phone and unwrapped the plastic. The telephone rang and the officer handed it to Nai. "Must be Oom. She must be thinking about you."

The fat cop Uan liked Oom. She said he never went with him. Nai believed her about the farangs. Uan was a different story. The tam-luat or police always got what they wanted from women or men.

"Answer it." Uan shoved him hard. The police in the traffic booth watched the confrontation without interest. They were only after motorcycle drivers without helmets. 200 baht from each pôo bàat jèp or prey. Easy money. Uan was after more. "Answer it now."

"Hello."

"Where you?" Oom was furious.

"Not far." Nai lifted his shirt to facilitate Uan's search. "But have to wait nid-noy. Your friend Uan is talking with me."

The tam-luat's name provoke a silence.

"She want to speak with you." Nai held out the phone. Oom would know what to say to get him out of this mess.

"Don't go away." Uan walked around the corner.

Nai thought about dropping the ten ja-bah tabs in the gutter, except Uan's partner was watching him with a greedy vigilance. The older policeman was rumored to have killed three drug dealers during Thaksin's war on drugs. None of them had been big men. Nai closed his eyes and mumbled a prayer to his favored spirit promising to change his life if he escaped the monkey house. The prayer was short, for Uan returned to the curb. His giving back Nai's phone should have been a good sign.

"You're lucky it's the beginning of the month and I like Oom."

"Why?" Nai asked knowing the word was already written on his destiny.

"Because I only want 5000 baht. Not 10,000." Uan smiled with a flash of gold. Two teeth were capped with 22K. "If end month. Maybe 20,000 for ja-bah you have in belt. Not look surprise. I know everything about you. About Oom too. get the money. Tomorrow and tell Oom I'll see her later."

Uan punched Nai in the stomach. Hard. The impact emptied his soul and he dropped to his knees. The two cops drove off toward Beach Road. Someone helped Nai to his feet. A farang man in his 50s. No Thai would have interfered with police business.

"Thank you."

The old man's face was covered in tattoos. A criminal on the run. Oom said many of them came to her bar. They told her stories of gun, robberies, and drugs. Many were hiding from their own police.

"No troubles. Fucking filth."

Nai didn't understand the words, but the tone was unmistakable. He hated the tam-luat too. All they ever did was steal from people in trouble and he was in big trouble now. Not only with Uan but with Oom too. He wai-ed the farang and walked in the direction of Soi 6.

The lights of Bangkok seemed very far away.

A distance not to be measured by kilometers.

But by luck.

He had his looks and ja-bah and Oom.

Between the three of them something good had to come his way.

He could only hope it was the good he wanted and not the good someone else thought he deserved. Only tomorrow could tell what good that was.

Palm Beach Massage

Not many people have my phone number. Friends, family, my wife and mia noi, so I was surprised to see a Thai phone # appear on the LCD. At first I thought it might be the Bangkok cyber-crime police wondering whether I wanted to work for them as a spy, then I recognized the # as belonging to Jamie Parker.

"Where are you?" I asked wishing I was wherever he was rather than Palm Beach.

"Soi 6 and having a good time. Any go-gos where you at?"

"One named Rachel's. $20 for a three minute lap dance." About the price of a short-time visit to the upstairs chambers of any Soi 6 establishment.

"Any skinny girls?" Jamie was privy to my predilection for skin and bones.

"I wouldn't know." I hadn't enough money to visit the West Palm go-go bar and bicycling in that area was potentially offering your possessions and life to the various gangbangers dominating the nightlife of West Palm Beach.

"What are you doing for money?"

Three months ago my faux F1 business was providing my family with more money than the average Thai banker and allowing me to live like a duke in Pattaya. Now I was mansion sitting for $50/day. Main duty consisted of walking an Airedale named Cujo.

"Not much."

"How you like to make some money?

"Love to," I answered cautious since Jamie Parker loved to take risks with other people's freedom, but at this point I really was dying to return to Pattaya and any other city in Thailand as long as they had cold beer. "What you have in mind?"

"How about opening a massage parlor on Palm Beach. One girl, one guy, and a ladyboy for anyone in-between? I know the rents are expensive, but I'm sure you could recoup any expenses within the first week."

Jamie was right about that. Bentleys, Rolls, and Maseratis would be double-parked on Worth Avenue. Sex in Palm Beach was mostly extra-marital with surgical-enhanced blondes. Only one problem.

"I think it would be hard getting the licenses." The Palm Beach cops would be difficult too. "This isn't Thailand."

"Hey, I've been to Florida." He had spent two months in Dade County jail for vagrancy in 1978. The charges stemmed from his falling asleep in a Miami Beach movie theater. "You have to admit you'd clean up if you opened a massage parlor in Palm Beach."

"Better to have an escort service. These rich people like to be discreet."

"The trio are already in New York. You want them to come down. Maybe they could stay with you at that mansion."

"I'll let you know." I hung up before I could think about too much, for while Jamie's plan was a sure-fire way of making money, it was also guaranteed to place me in jail and Florida jails are no fun in the summer time. Still Palm Beach Massage has a nice ring to it.

Especially in florid neon.

Oh so Palm Beach.

CCTV SOI 6

Several years ago I was out with the boys on Soi 6.

Strictly for sociological research.

Nick was drinking vodkas. Sammie was searching for Ms. Perfect, and young Marton was wrestling with an undersized bargirl on the sofa for what seemed to be about an hour. He weighs in at 85 kilos and she couldn't have been more than 42, however he was never able to pin her without coming across with a 200 baht bar fine.

In the end Marton was out of breath.

Noticing a CCTV in the corner I asked the mama-san if she could play the last 30 minutes. She wasn't sure how to accomplish this, however Sammie is an electrician for the Aussie Post Office and within a minute we were viewing Marton's wrestling match..

We wanted to buy a copy to send his wife.

Marton outbid us with a 1000 baht tip to the mama-san.

These CCTVs are meant to survey the bars for any wrong-doings; sex, drugs, and violence.

Mostly the footage is old men drinking beer.

Not a crime anywhere but Saudi Arabia, although later that month an interesting hoax email popped up on teakdoor.com with a farang complaining about being stopped at Cobra Swamp Airport for questioning.

Here's his email:

I had a big problem going home. Via the internet, I discovered a few bars had streaming web cams. I wanted to show off a bit to my mates back home, so I arranged a time for them to view me in the bars getting pissed and frolicking with all the pretty birds. I made sure I “hammed it up” with the ladies right in front of the web cams. That was the biggest mistake I’ve made in my life, and at the time, I had no clue. Here’s what happened.

All went well during my trips to Bangkok and Pattaya, but the problems started at the new airport upon leaving for home. I arrived at the exit visa desk and I was soon escorted by three Thai police to a private and strange room. They kept me in the room for almost an hour asking me all sorts of personal questions about my holiday in Thailand.

They queried me about where I had visited; which bars I had patronized; which girls I had brought back to my hotel room; and more silly questions. I gave all very honest and forthright answers, since I knew I had done absolutely nothing wrong.

Then, the three police took me to some official who took my passport and stamped it with the wording "persona non gratis Thailand” (in Thai) Then, I was taken into some horrible holding cell for several hours. After that I was escorted to my flight and sent home.

Upon arrival back into the UK, customs did a complete search of me, my camera, laptop, everything. This searching took most of the day, and finally I was released. Then it gets much, much worse. Two days later the police arrived at my place of employment with a search warrant and seized my work computer and all my external hard drives. Trying to explain to my employer what this was all about was a major challenge and disaster, and I was soon relieved of my job.

Then, the police arrived at my flat with a search warrant and examined the entire contents of the flat. They seized my computer, and to this day it hasn’t been returned. I was then escorted to the local cop shop for further questioning about my Thailand holiday.

________________________________________________

The consensus on the teakdoor forum was this email was a fake.

But people are watching so wear clean underwear just in case it was the truth.

Pi-Sow Yai is watching.

Finish Line in Thailand

"I finish only with you." These words almost sounds true coming from the lips of a Soi 6 short-timer. She doesn't know your name. Your penis will be forgotten shortly after the apres-sex shower, but farangs inevitably ask, "Really?"

"You #1. Big too." This compliment can earned her a tip for a man, whether he be Thai or Farang, since we like compliments about performance as much as a woman enjoys foreplay.

"Really?"

Saying the right thing could earn another 100 or 200 baht.

"You make me finish. Never finish with man before."

And this is almost the truth. My friend Ort worked Soi 6 and she said, "I never finish. Not one time."

Ort was cute.

She had customers all the time.

4 a day. 5 days a week. 200 men a year.

Not one orgasm and I believed her, since a survey by the condom maker DUREX revealed that 54% of Thai couples failed to reach satisfaction.

"Men only care about men." Ort told me. "Uh uh uh. Finish. Not care about lady."

"I want finish I tok-phet." This was Thai for how a lady masturbate and has something to do with a duck. "Or maybe have other girl help me. Not gay. Not lesbian. Sometimes want finish too lazy to do myself."

"What about with me?"

"You different. I know you long time. We have sex many times. I finish with you because you know what I want."

"I'm a stud." I like hearing the lie, but if you spend 3.9 minutes more on foreplay according to that survey you can be a stud too.

But why bother?

I am a man.

THE AMNESIA OF ME 2012

Five years ago I had been on Pattaya's notorious Soi 6 in the Woo Woo Bar listening to Jefferson’s Airplane’s SOMEBODY TO LOVE. The trio of sub-20 Thai girls had invited me to visit an upstairs short-time room.

“You sexy man. How old you. 40?”

Even through beer goggles my mirror doesn’t lie more than 49.

My wife Mam thought that I’m ancient, however Pattaya was a refuge for men not wanting to face their age and to misquote TS Eliot. “As I get old I shall wear my trousers rolled where the women don’t speak about Michelangelo.”

A lot of us wore shorts, morning, noon, and, night, no one in Pattaya had ever mentioned Michelangelo, unless they were a Ninja Turtle fan.

I’ve been old for a long time, but the old age truck never blows its horn backing up over you.

In 1986 I returned to New York from Paris. I had sublet my East Village apartment to a Swede. Sven moonlighted as a bouncer at Danceteria. He liked black chicks. I had no trouble with the male nurse. He had paid the rent on time and helped the super with the plumbing.

When I informed him that I was coming back, Sven moved out three days before my return. Nothing was missing in my flat. Not one of my books or records or clothing. Even the old lady next door, Mrs. Adorno, said good for Sven.

“He good man. He like chocolate ladies.” The old witch was in love with the young Swede. She was only 4-10 with chronic pains from a spinal injury. “He help me with my back. I miss him already.”

“What about me?” I had been gone six years.

“Not miss you long time.” The bruja waved a hex sign. “You old man.”

“Old man.” I was 34.

“I old. I know old. You old.” Senora Adorno slammed shut the door.

I had never thought of myself as old and I asked my friends about this. They were slightly younger and suffered from the Peter Pan syndrome of never wanting to grow up.

"We'll never get old." Richie Boy told me at the Milk Bar, which was my new place of employ.

He was right. In my heart I was 25. In my head I was 15. I planned to be young forever, despite the old bruja’s curse.

My college friends were employed as lawyers, realtors, bankers, and doctors.

Real jobs weren’t me.

Arthur Weinstein got me a spot at the door of the Milk Bar. The club on lower 7th Avenue was decorated like the Malchek Bar in CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Scottie Taylor the owner hid in an egg chair. His manager ran the bar and hired the help. Malinda had good taste in funny people and in late-September she hired a new bargirl. Cheyne came from the UK. Her ambition was to be a pop singer. She wore dreads and had a cute body. I never hit on her and she asked if I had anything against black girls.

“You’re more high yellah than black.” More Chinese than African too.

“So why don’t you take me home?” Cheyne was forward and I couldn’t think of a single reason for not taking up her offer. I was single. She was over 18. We rode on my Yamaha 650 to East 10th Street. As I parked my motorcycle on the sidewalk Cheyne looked up at the building.

“What?”

“I’ve been here before.” The declaration wasn’t based on deja vu.

“Let me guess.” There was only one explanation. “With Sven.”

“Yes.” She followed me upstairs without any danger of her disappearing like Orpheus’ dead wife. I had a joint and she liked smoking weed. All Rasta girls from Nottinghill do. Once inside the apartment Cheyne picked up an LP. The Jefferson Airplane's SURREALISTIC PILLOW. I put it on the stereo.

Hearing COMING BACK TO ME Shane laughed.

“I was here more than once. I looked at the records and wondered who lived here.”

“Who did you think it was?” My apartment a hippie homage to the 1960s. Wood covered the walls like a rural shack. Bathtub was in the kitchen and the water closet was in the back.

“Seeing these LPs I thought it was some old hippie.”

“Hippie?” I had hitchhiked to San Francisco in 1971 three years too late for the Summer of Love.

Mrs. Adorno was right. I was old. It was the first time anyone had said that about me. Maybe it had been long overdue. I didn't make love with Shane. No newly old man could even to resurrect his youth in a young woman’s flesh. I didn’t have such a problem later in life, because old can get very old without the young.

But that afternoon on Soi 6 the fountain of youth flowed with the unabashed compliments of working girls. “You very sexy.”

No one in America has called me sexy since high society interior designer Tony Ingrao bought a 20-carat Burmese blue sapphire from me. At our celebratory dinner he cooed, “You’re very sexy.”

Tony only wanted sex.

Not much different from the Soi 6 girls, who were strictly after money.

As opposed to my wife who wants my heart and soul, despite my age, but during my money-making sojourns to New York I have learned the hard way that “As you get old you forget. As you get older you are forgotten.”

The other day a woman sent a query to my Facebook page.

“Are you who I think you are?”

It was Cheyne. I remembered her well. I wrote back that I had worked at the Milk Bar as the doorman. Her reply came as a surprise.

“I’m sorry. I worked at the Milk Bar too, but I don’t think you’re the person I was thinking…It was all such a long time ago…Take care.”

Not who I thought you were?

Cheyne must have wiped her memory.

‘Old hippie’.

Those two words castrated my pride, then again we never had sex, still her epistle on Facebook revealed she has forgotten about me 100% and the words 'old hippie' too.

She was wrong, for while I might not have long hair, I still listen to Jefferson Airplane and I will never forget SOMEONE TO LOVE even with my life halfway around the world.

Beautification of Pattaya

On March 31, 1995 Mayor Guiliani closed the last porno parlor on 42nd Street. Patrons of the peep shows cried on the sidewalk. Drug dealers, hustlers, and whores were evicted from their territory by policemen. Even panhandlers were forcibly advised to find another spot to milk the city's human kindness.

Times Square was exorcising its demons.

Soon Disney opened a store for tourists and McDonalds came to feed them. The Doo-Wop as pimps called 42nd Street had been transformed into another American shopping mall, although you could still buy porno DVDs and magazines at the Virgin Megastore.

Pattaya city leaders have long discussed how to transform Babylon by the Sea into a family destination and every night fathers drag their sons down to Walking Street, while married couples trawl the go-go bars to spice up their relationship. The town fathers would much more prefer wealthy visitors shopping at upscale malls and if the do-gooders have their way with the venerable Costa del Sleaze, Pattaya will join Times Square as a pale shadow of Sodom.

The TOT head wants to bring in another million, but only if they are Platinum AMEX card holders.

Is the end of Soi Six close at hand?

Not likely.

A reputation like Pattaya is hard to live down. The murky sea is unswimmable. The beach is a bikini strip of sand. Traffic clouds the air with black diesel smog. The apartment boom has eradicated the greenery and overtaxed the infrastructure. A hard rain floods the streets. Last month I spoke with the manager of the Sheraton, who said that his clientele likes Pattaya, but finds the smell a little hard to take.

"What smell?" I asked him in the Sheraton's seaside gardens.

"The smell of the sewers."

I must have been here too long.

I smell nothing.

Several NGOs complain about the sex trade.

A Thai government survey announced the findings that all his inspectors saw were 'young people having a good time'.

So the go-go bars, beer halls, and massage parlors aren't going anywhere soon, because not everywhere in the world has to be like Iowa, where the only fun is watching corn grow.

Plus Pattaya will never revert to that quiet fishing village of the 1960s. No matter how much a rai of land costs, because nothing sells better than sex.

Ask any man in Pattaya.

We like this version of Disneyworld just the way it is.

Sleazy.

Sorry, but the good can go to heaven if they want a good time.

And I don't mean Heaven A Go-Go.

THE END OF BABYLON by Peter Nolan Smith

Pattaya had long been recognized as the world's leading destination for sex addicts and lowlifes attracted to the sordid city on the Gulf of Siam by the countless bars, the easy women, lax enforcement of law, crooked police, rampant drug use, stunning ladyboys, and young boys. My ten years in the Last Babylon furthered my research into the darker side of life without any desire to reform a single sinner. Pattaya became home, then again everywhere is home once you buy you're first roll of toilet paper.

My friends remained men on the run from the banality of western life. Our pasts were forgotten as long as our pockets were filled with baht. We were rich men in the Orient and I thought that this anti-Eden would last forever.

Sadly my booming fake F-1 enterprise was shut down by the Thai cyber-police, who treated my crime as a misdemeanor to the annoyance of the Ferrari representatives. The cops suggested that shutting down my business was in my best interests and I complied with their wishes.

Without this income I was forced to return to the USA.

New York to be exact.

I resumed selling diamonds on 47th Street and traveled frequently to Thailand to see my children.

Both families had decamped from Pattaya. My time was split between Chai-nat and Sri racha. The allure of a go-go bar could compete with my love for Angie and Fenway, plus Mam, my son' mom, was the only woman in the world for me and she swore my fidelity wasn't the result of a magic love potion or sa-neh-haa.

"I am cute. I not need magic to make you love me."

She has that straight and I spent most of this last sojourn in Thailand with her along the Cambodian border visiting her two other children. My step-kids; Fluke and Noy call me 'papa' and I call them 'luk'. Saying they aren't my kids are fighting words and I have a short temper.

We returned to Sri Racha is a little less than four hours flat. I dropped Mam and Fenway and a cousin at our small house west of the town and headed to drop off the rental car in Pattaya.

I was six hours late and called from Sukhumvit to ask how much extra I should pay. The Thai mechanic said, "Up to you, but a small pack of beer would be nice."

400 baht and 4-pack of Leo beer was a bargain.

Pisan's repair shop abutted a shrinking swamp off Soi Bongkot. The wetland remained a haven for birds and mosquitoes. I parked the car under the makeshift awning of corrugated plastic. Pisan and his son were burning old tires. A toxic black smoke floated over the marsh. I handed the beers to Pisan and we drank talking about the old times, as his 18 year-old son tended to the mad blaze at the water's edge.

Pisan regarded the encroachment on the wasteland.

Pattaya's coconut groves had been razed to provide retirees over-seized bungalows. The corner restaurants serving spicy Isaan food had been replaced by KFCs and 7/11s. Condos shadowed the Beach Road and huge shopping malls dominated the tourist market. Babylon was falling under the onslaught of globalization, but a few places remained true to the tradition of a-tham-ma or lawlessness.

"Nothing same. Puying old now. Not beautiful. Only have farang old too or fucking Russian and dirty Arab. No fun." Pisan shook his head, thinking as much about the loss of Babylon as his youth.

Neither of us could pretend to be young anymore except with a younger woman.

"You want to meet at the Buffalo for a beer later?" We didn't drink in the bar. The stools were reserved for farangs. A warped bamboo bench along Sai Sahm was our spot.

"Sorry, I stay here. Live here. Go nowhere. For what?" He was paying 8000 baht for an elevated patch of land. His shop had no fences to protect against thieves. This was home. He even had some chickens in the back.

"Enjoy the beers." I thanked him for the rental and headed off to my tailor on Sai Song, calling several friends from the back of a baht bus.

Sam Royalle was busy with his kids up at his house on the reservoir, but Big Al and Ulf were available.

"Meet me at the Buffalo around 6."

My suit was ready.

I had an hour and a half to kill and took another baht bus to Soi 3, which was a short walk to the Welkom Inn. I had been a faithful afternoon customer for years. None of the girls in the front courtyard recognized me, although the service girls in the garden asked for my dog. I never left home without Champoo.

"She's good." Champoo was up country with my ex-wife. "How's business?"

"You look. You see what?" She pointed to the new hotels rising over the trees. "Pattaya change. Now city want family. Not want men like you."

"We're a dying breed." The tired farangs at the bar were nursing their beers like they were the last beers in the world. No one was sitting at the tables and I asked, "Has it been like this long?"

"All year." The bargirl put ice in my beer. It kept it cold. "You want lady?"

"No." Not that she believed any man could be 100% faithful in the long run. I couldn't believe it either considering the playboy nature of my younger years. Mam was running me on a long lease. She hadn't called once. I tip the bargirl and said, "Thanks for offering."

After finishing my beer I walked along the Beach Road to Soi 6, the wickedest street in town. The bars were fronted by packs of short-time girls. Not one of them caught my eye and they were more interested in stuffing food in their mouths than a single older male. I was no longer 'sexy man', but neither was anyone else. The street was dead.

A motorsai taxi driver drove me to the Buffalo.

This bar had been in business for over 20 years. It was around the corner from my old house. The girls behind the bar greeted me my name. I was not a forgotten man here. I bought a round of drinks for my old favorites; two lesbians no longer in love. I was the only farang at the bar.

Big Al showed up first and commented on my weight.

"Better watch out for your gut." Big Al tipped the scales over 300.

"I can still see my feet." My BMI was a little over the edge and I sucked in my gut. I hated looking fat to someone as big as Big Al.

"As long as you can still touch your dick, it's okay." The ex-extreme fighter had left the USA for good, although all his businesses had failed in the past two years. "Even worse my wife found out that I went short-time with someone her family knew."

"That's not good." Thais hated losing face or nah sia.

"I should have known better." He explained that his wife was more pissed at his spending money on another woman than his butterflying on her. "I calm her down, but I got to get something together."

He told me about a film project about a detective in Thailand.

"It's a long shot." Making movies require money. Big Al had none. He wasn't even drinking beer.

Ulf showed up at the bar. The German bank robber had traded Pattaya for the Philippines, but his bar had failed in Angeles City. He had returned to my old business; selling first-class motor-sport gear.

"Working bad almost killed me. Trinken, trinken, trinken." Ulf enjoyed a good time, but drinking six nights a week was a deadly pace for men like us. He had been with me the day that I met Mam. We had been toasting a fallen comrade after the temple service. Mam had smiled my way. I had been her prisoner since and happy about it too.

"A friend of mine had offered me a job running a bar here."

"And?"

"I turned him down." I wanted to reach 60. Go-go girls and drink would lead to drugs, which was a fatal combo for anyone with my vices. "For health reasons."

I excused myself from the two men to go to the bathroom. The two ex-convicts were a little alike and now reformed in their ways. I returned to the bar. Big, Rolf, and I talked about robbing banks. They used guns. Mine were only in thought.

A girl grabbed my arm.

"Where you go?" She was about 23, long-legged and beautiful.

"Home to my wife." I didn't have a watch, but I knew the clock was ticking back in Srirahca. I bid farewell to my friends.

"I'll see you in the new year."

I got back to Mam's house before 7.

She looked surprised to see me. Fenway was happy with the toy I brought him. I kissed Mam on the cheek.

"You go short-time?" She had to ask.

"Not one second." And it was the truth.

Happy to say it, but the Last Babylon is gone for me.

Same as 42nd Street, which is now a shopping mall for fat people, but it doesn't really matter, because as the Wicked Witch of the West rued as she melted at the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ.

"Who ever thought a little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? Ughhhh!!! What a world. What a world!"

What a world indeed.

The All Seeing Eye Of Pattaya

In 1960 my parents moved from Maine to Boston. My mother was a devout Catholic. My father was a convert. They had six children. Public school was banned by my mother and we attended Our Lady of the Foothills for our primary school education and the salvation of our young souls. Sister Mary Goretti was my 7th Grade teacher, but nun had a strict curriculum about the mystical wonders of God. On the first day of class she told the class, "On Judgment Day everyone who ever was will be assembled before God to watch your transgressions, so be good and wear clean underwear." The last directive was for the boys. We were constructed from snails and pig tails. Later that day my best friend asked Sister Mary Goretti, "Why would God make good people watch bad things at the End of Times? Is it to see what they had been missing."

"So they can see why you're going to Hell." Sister Mary Goretti's belief in a fiery pit was unshakable, until she left the sisterhood to join a lesbian farming commune. I had shaken the fear of burning much earlier than 7th Grade, however the possibility of everyone watching your every move became a reality in the 1980s as the UK police installed CCTV throughout England to combat terrorism, football hooliganism, and the scourge of public urination.

This voyeuristic police innovation has spread to Thailand in 2007, when the Pattaya police installed CCTV systems in all the bars on Soi 6 at the expense of the owners.  The purpose of their installation is to record any wrong-doings such as drugs or illegal sex or fights.

No more blow jobs on the sofas.

Everything sexual has to happen upstairs in the shabby rooms and that covers a lot of ground.

Men thought that it was only a question of time before the 'tam-luat' televise the chambers of lust. "They want to watch."

"Why?" It was a stupid question.

"Because all men like to watch." An attractive girl at Dirty Den's replied with a smile. "You want to see me with other girl?"

"No." She and I didn't have that kind of relationship.

"Another man?"

"Definitely not."

"Good." The only reason that liked going with two women was because it cut down on the work 50%. The equation was changed when two men were in the menage a trois. No girl on Soi 6 liked to sweat that hard. Personally I've never had the slightest interest of a menage a trois with two men and one woman. especially if there's a chance of anyone else seeing a 60 year-old man naked on video.

I suppose some freak would watch it.

Not me.

Not even in the mirror.

And Sister Mary Goretti probably feels the same way too.