Business as usual in Bangkok's red light
district
BANGKOK - When troops seized power in the middle of the
night,
Bangkok's infamous Patpong red light district did not blink.
And
hours later it was business as usual at Spanky's Bar and the
Electric
Showgirls.
"I was up to 3:00 am looking for lots of fornication with women and
I
didn't see any soldiers," said English tourist Barney Humble,
recalling that images of the coup had flashed up television
screens
in the bars.
"It was exaggerated on the telly," he added, sipping a beer under
the
watchful eye of two scantily-clad bar girls the following
evening.
Patpong is a notorious strip of go-go bars at the heart of one of
the
most famous red light districts in the world catering mainly
to
foreigners attracted by Thailand's huge sex industry.
The day after the military seized power market vendors could be
seen
unpacking stalls loaded with fake Polo shirts, blackmarket DVDs
and
illegal pornography.
Bar staff slowly trickled back to work readying for the usual
influx
of sex tourists, curious holidaymakers and expatriate
regulars.
Joe Morrow, a 39-year-old tourist from England, was out
enjoying
Bangkok's nightlife when news of the coup broke Tuesday night, but
he
said it had not affected his holiday at all.
Plans for the following night included "night market, beer,
drinks,
women for the ugly ones," he said, gesturing to his friends,
and
then "back to the hotel."
"Seriously, we're not doing anything different, just normal," he
told
AFP.
Business owners and bar workers appeared to share the
tourists'
nonchalance about the coup, which unfolded Tuesday night when
tanks
and armed soldiers surrounded key government buildings in
central
Bangkok.
"Everything is open, we don't have concerns about this. It is
the
same as before," said Noon, a waiter at Patty's Fiesta
Mexican
restaurant.
Naiyana Nongnuch, 32, a cashier at a Patpong bar, said that
her
customers carried on drinking Tuesday night as if nothing had
happened.
"They stayed until the bar closed," she said. "I don't think
there
will be less customers as many are Bangkok-based foreigners and
they
know the situation well."
But Noi, a hostess in a beer bar, said she thought the coup
would
leave people reluctant to venture outside. "I think there will
be
less customers," she said. "They may want to stay home and watch
the
news."
Sak, a 32-year-old waiter at Dick's Cafe, said the coup may have
some
effect on tourism in Thailand, but was confident that his bar
would
be spared.
"We have regular customers and our location is far from the
centre
where there was a lot of troops," he said.
Thailand was until last year the world's leading destination for
sex
tourists, according to Interpol. It was bumped off the top spot
by
Brazil, but Patpong still maintains a reputation for sleazy
nightlife
and lurid live sex shows.
Although prostitution is officially illegal in Thailand,
estimates
for the number of sex workers range from 80,000 to two million
women
and men.