Phuket sucks – except in the way it's supposed to

It had been 12 years since I had last visited Thailand. Last year's winter, I was hesitating between Thailand and the Philippines. Briefly, the advantages of Thailand are sanuk and safety, the advantages of the Philippines are the girls' beauty and skills. It was a very tough choice, and I would have preferred the Philippines, but unfortunately I learned that there was a particularly nasty anti-prostitution campaign going on in Angeles, and then I got offered an unusually cheap airplane ticket to Phuket, and even though my heart was yearning for Soi Cowboy, I thought I'll check out Phuket. I mean, I had to go there once, just to have the complete picture of everything Thailand has to offer.

First of all, let's clear away some likely misconceptions. You might have the idea that Patong Beach is a street or an area in the city of Phuket. That is not the case. Patong and Phuket City are two separate towns on the island of Phuket, both serviced by the Phuket Airport. There is supposed to be something on offer in Phuket City as well, but the actual location of the sex market is in the town of Patong, more precisely a relatively short street called Bangla Road and its sois. The only go-go bars (less than ten, I think) are in one soi which goes north from Bangla Rd's western end:

(The soi is displayed as a straight dead-end on the maps, but actually it turns left and continues until you end up on Beach Rd = Thawiwong Rd.)

Also, there are a couple of outdoors gogos in the eastern end of Bangla Road. The open-air pole dancers are a spectacular sight – I mean the ones who are actually dancing, which, as we all know, is a rare occurrence in Thailand.

Apart from that, Bangla Road and its surrounding area consists of beer bars.

In the wider neighbourhood, there are dozens of massage parlours which purport to offer non-sexual massage but actually push sexual services quite persistently once you're inside.

Another thing I want to make clear right in the beginning is that whenever I point out things in Phuket that I found surprising, I am not necessarily suggesting that it is because Phuket is different from Bangkok and Pattaya. It can just as well be because Thailand in general has changed, or it can be because I have grown older. I will just describe what I observed.

The people of Patong looked racially quite different from those in Bangkok/Pattaya – I'd say more similar to the people in Northern China. That said, the actual Chinese tourists were still quite recognisably different – but that might have been less due to their racial features than to their lighter skin (meaning, more carefully protected from tanning) and different clothing preferences.

The percentage of attractive women in Patong was far above Bangkok/Pattaya (even though not reaching the level of Angeles, Philippines). Walk around for half an hour and you'll likely to find a massage girl who is really cute. And on Bangla Road itself I saw a few bargirls who were stunningly beautiful. I can't remember seeing anything like that in Bangkok/Pattaya.

Of course, it's clear to me that Thailand is populated by several ethnic groups, so those visible differences shouldn't come as a big surprise. Except that I didn't expect them to get more attractive further south.

One curious thing is that the left hand doesn't seem such a huge no-no in Phuket. I saw repeatedly how Thais gave something with their left hand to other Thais with whom they were visibly on good terms. Nevertheless, I played it safe and always used my right hand.

What was totally new to me was the ethnic composition of the tourists. Patong had an amazing percentage of Chinese and an amazing percentage of Russians. One could see lots of Russian language on shop signs, and Russians tended to address a white face in Russian without even bothering to ask if you speak it. Still, it was not as surprising as the overwhelming presence of the Chinese. I wasn't sure the white tourists even outnumbered yellow ones. And whenever I recognised the latters' language, it was, with very few exceptions, Mandarin Chinese. I have never seen such a concentration of Chinese outside of China itself. And, to think of it, I have rarely seen so few Japanese tourists anywhere.

By the way, in the sex tourist forums there is much talk about the Orientals having fucked up the market for us. A decade ago, there were reportedly separate go-go bars for the Japanese where the white customers weren't even admitted. They had girls with whiter skin, and the sex bars for the white people had girls with darker skin – that is, to each race according to their preference. Now, however, it would seem that "our" go-go bars are being invaded by the Japanese and Koreans who are showering the girls with money, and so the girls are all over them and neglect white customers. That is what they write. From my personal experience, I cannot confirm that. In my few visits to the sleepy go-go bars of Patong, I did not perceive Oriental customers as any nuisance. Neither did I feel in any way neglected.

Reading those numerous complaints in forums, tough, I began to think. I don't know much about that thing with separate bars for separate races, but the undeniable fact is that the Japanese have been filthy rich for decades. So why is it only now that Thai girls have (reportedly) begun to pay them so much attention? Could it be that the white race is losing its prestige, now that the white countries are in severe economic trouble with no improvement in sight? Just a stray thought.

What surprised me about the Patong hookers was how half-assed they were about their work. The girls sitting in front of the massage parlours were just sitting there and pronouncing a modest "massage kha" when a man walked past. "What's happened to Thailand?", I thought at first, being used to girls standing in the middle of the sidewalk, grabbing my arms, trying to drag me into their bars.

Well, a likely explanation is not difficult to figure out. Phuket seems to be making most of its money out of beach tourism. Sex is only a side-business. The large majority of the male tourists walking on the streets of Patong are regular tourists. So it's only logical that the massage girls have to keep a low profile, in order not to irritate tourists who are either not interested in sexual services or too afraid of their female co-tourists. In Pattaya, the girls can safely assume that you are after sex, in Patong the sheer numbers are to their disadvantage. I mean, even in Bangla Road, there are many more curious (albeit not-too-happy-looking) Farang women than Thai hookers on the street at any point of time.

For that matter, after the massage girls have identified you as a sex tourist (like, they see you checking out the girls one after another and then going inside with one from the parlour next door), some of the sanuk begins to appear. But still, I didn't see the Bangkok-style enthusiasm, not even inside of go-go bars. Maybe it has something to do with the influence of Islam in this region which makes even non-Moslem people less tolerant of the sex trade? Then again, even street vendors in Phuket were much less aggressive than in Bangkok. Go figure.

Anyway, the economic reality is that Phuket is hugely popular with beach tourists. That seems to be making Pattaya-style sex trade unfeasible here. Remember Patpong in Bangkok? A huge marketplace for regular tourists, and a number of rip-off joints for the sex tourists. Patong in Phuket is like that, except that it's not rip-off, it's just infested with dirt-brown-tanned white people of both sexes and in various states of undress. And that is essentially what ruins the place. When I'm choosing a sex partner, I don't fancy having half of my field of vision filled with geriatric German women checking out the "naughty nightlife".

That said, at least good massages with extra services are extremely easy to get in Patong. It is a little more difficult to get just a massage. For some time, I've been on the quest trying to find a massage parlour in Thailand where the masseuse will not be insisting on a handjob afterwards. I'm yet to see one. In Patong, I saw a novelty: some massage parlours (maybe 1 out of 20) have "no sex" written on their door. I thought I would check out one of those places, just out of my sick curiosity. Unfortunately, I never got around to it. (Let's just say I was kept too busy with other things.)

MY VERDICT:

Phuket Island is definitely not a place for a sex tourist to go. Not because it's particularly expensive (as many people are whining) but because the sex market is shamefully small, which means your choices are very limited, and the place is drowning in non-sex tourists, which means there is nothing like the fun and easy-going atmosphere you'll find in Bangkok and Pattaya. Feel free to check Phuket out if the curiosity is killing you, but seriously, if you'll never go there, you haven't missed anything.

P.S. Almost forgot about that sucking thing. In the olden days I always wished that they would be offering a blowjob instead of that stupid handjob after a massage. Well, they do now. Except that it's very expensive and very miserable. Emphatically not recommended.

Another little tip, one that is more cheerful – when a girl asks after a massage (with or without extras) if you would like some water, say yes. It's free, and it's really fun to walk slowly past other massage parlours sipping that water. The girls will know precisely where you got it from, and act accordingly. Priceless.