One day, I was walking to a food stall near the front of Hua Lamphong (hua5 lum1 pong1, หัวลำโพง) with a friend. Near the station we passed by a bunch of people having a picnic. It’s around 8pm at night, and dozens of Thais are having a picnic (bpig2 nig4, ปิกนิก) literally on the side of a big road on a common footpath area. Yea . . . Well ok, a little strange, but I just kept walking and ignored it. Hey, it’s Thailand, weirdness is normal for me here!

Later, my friend explained to me what I just saw. It was prostitution, she said. Seriously, it looked like a picnic to me . . . What does a picnic have to do with any of this? I had to investigate, so I went to have a closer look.

The Thai girls were dressed like normal, nothing ‘skanky’ or revealing, and they were just chatting with Thai guys while eating food and drink. They were all sitting on straw mats, and there was a basket which had food inside on each mat. Nothing looked even remotely inappropriate. Seriously, it looked like a friendly picnic!

My friend explained that it was the girls’ job to charm the guy through conversation. If she was successful, they’d then go somewhere else to ‘dtee1 maw3’ ตีหม้อ (slang; best translated as ‘hittin it’). If not, she still makes money from selling the food (sell food, ขายอาหาร, kaai5 aa1haan5). I was told these girls don’t make much for what they do because their customer base, blue collar Thai men, don’t have much money to spend.

But not all work for Thai men; there are some that do the same for farang (western men) as well. I’m sure many of you have been to, if not at least heard about, the infamous red-light street called Soi Cowboy (ซอยคาวบอย). If you haven’t, do a google image or youtube search for it (in English). This street has your stereotypical girls and bar girls, and needs no further explaining. But what you probably never paid attention to were the small tallish tables outside of Soi Cowboy where the normal looking people were just sitting down and chatting/drinking. There aren’t many tables, maybe 10 at most, and these tables only appear at night. Guess what was being sold at these tables . . . it’s not just drinks!

to be continued…