Seymour Totti’s Foreign Policy

Have a good one and may you all get what you wish for in stockings

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.She flung herself at the pole and, clinging with her right leg and both hands, spun around like a top. The toe of her left boot whizzed within inches of the head of a punter who was sitting at the stage side.

As the spin lost momentum she flipped herself over and landed, heels first, with a loud crash onto the stage floor. This was greeted with whoops and cheers from her colleagues around the bar, and blood curdling scream from Ton who had tucked herself under my right arm.

A second dancer didn’t even have the boots on anymore. Coming out of her spin she also went head over heels on the pole and planted her bare bum squarely on the head of another customer. Ton made a mental note to try that move sometime.

Most go go bars in Bangkok don’t have the space for such antics. It could be argued that the Long Gun doesn’t either but that is part of the attraction. The Long Gun is really quite a small bar so a certain amount of ‘audience participation’ is inevitable.

On an occasion when I was called upon to assist, the lovely Ton turned herself upside down between two poles. Coming out of the move she swung a leg over each of my shoulders and slid, pussy first, into my face. All I had to do was stick out my tongue for a sweet lick. I refrained, of course, for fear that she might lose concentration and crash to the floor breaking my neck along the way.

The Long Gun is one of Soi Cowboy’s oldest bars. According to Ton it currently employs about fifty dancers in total. Not all of them work the poles so spectacularly. Others do themed costume dances in which the themed costumes, such as schoolgirls and Hawaiian beach babes, are gradually removed during the course of three or four songs. There are slow and sexy lesbian routines and a selection of tricks from the infamous pussy shows that have intrigued and amused for donkeys years.

They don’t do a full complement of tricks. The show has been streamlined to fit within the context of a broader presentation. This is a good thing because some of them can get a bit tedious. But whistles, blow darts and banana torpedoes are all in evidence. “Need strong pussy,” says Ton informatively.

The blow darts are fired at balloons which are often held aloft by members of the audience.

The star of the bar is Apple. She’s a striking lady with punky, bleach-blonde hair. Unfortunately she is quite hard to catch. Ton tells me she doesn’t work every night. I went along on three consecutive nights, Thursday to Saturday, in the hope of buying her a drink and having a chat but was unlucky each time.

Even if you are not lucky enough to see Apple it is still a great show. Just remember, if you are bellying up to the stage, that you might be part of it.

See also: A gogo girl at Buffalo Bridge
See also: Paddy’s bar

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Buffalo Bridge is in fact a small bar area known as Saphan (bridge) Kwai (buffalo). It’s a small strip of less than a dozen grass roots level bars that specifically target the local market. It’s an area I don’t go to often because it’s a long hike to get there and is decidedly low key compared to the major bar districts.

Where it does score points is that a good many of the girls come from the far north. These girls boast the fairer skin tones that are favoured by their Thai clientele whereas their sisters on Soi Cowboy, Nana or Patpong are predominantly from Isaan. Me, I’ve always maintained that variety is the spice of life. I don’t believe that any single ethnic grouping is more beautiful than another. Delightfully different yes, but equally delicious.

Another drawback for non-Thai visitors is that very little English is spoken. Most bars can produce one or two girls but unless you have a smattering of Thai your choices are limited.

Having said that, I was sitting in a bar where one young lass was so fluent in English that I couldn’t get a word in edgeways. Within minutes she had my immediate fut… sorry our immediate future mapped out before me. She told me what we were going to do, where we were going to do it, how long it would take and what it was going to cost. Negotiation - impossible, resistance - useless.

Of course I just paid the bill and walked away. I dislike hassle and she sounded like she could become a major hassle.

But she was also a gilt-edged beauty from the Lanna region of northern Thailand. She had a crystal clear complexion with just a hint of Chinese, silky smooth hair tied in a pony tail. Lissom body, fabulous almond-shaped eyes which, standing in her high-heels, could look almost directly into mine. I got an erection without even touching. I wanted to see her naked, I wanted to fuck her … at least once.

A good friend of mine claims that the ones that are ballsy and brassy in the bar often become very demure when you get them out of their familiar surroundings. He was referring to ladyboys, I wondered if the same might not be true of girls.

So few nights later I returned. She skipped over to my table wearing a big smile. “We can go hotel tonight?” she asked. I told her No. “Why?” she demanded. I pointed out that I had no intention of paying good money for an hour in a short-time hotel when I had a lovely apartment with a hot shower, nice bed, well stocked fridge and a TV.

She went on an extended pout that lasted just as long as it took for me to finish my beer and ask for the bill. “OK”, she said, “we go apartment.” Like any good business woman she recognised that losing the sale completely would be more costly than losing only her commission from the hotel. I think the promise of a hour or two watching TV played a part as well.

As we barrelled along the highway getting further away from the bar she became more and more pensive. By the time we walked across the lobby of my apartment building she had become as soft-spoken and gentle as a lamb, wincing at the click of her own high heels.

The first session between the sheets she reverted to her old self, taking the lead and riding cowgirl until we were both exhausted. After an hour or so of TV and snacks we went back for round two which, drenched in essential oils, was slow, gentle and affectionate. I rewarded her generously and she rewarded me with her telephone number

She had to get back to her bar before closing time so I walked her down to the taxi. Again she was the perfect model of a respectable young Thai Lady. Unfortunately the security guard and the taxi drivers at my apartment block all know me better than that.

More about Saphan Kwai

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I first encountered Yadong some years ago in Bangkok since then I’ve been very careful to avoid it. But the other evening I met a compatriot of mine who was tucking into a bottle with all the enthusiasm of someone who has never tried it before. The bottle didn’t say Yadong, it had the label of a well known energy drink. Not a big bottle but big enough.

He offered me a shot. I asked the barman, a man who I’ve known for sometime, what he thought was in it. “Lao kao and some Chinese herbs and medicine.” he replied.

“It’s got snakes and scorpions and bat’s dick!” Interjected the girl who was working alongside him.

“No it hasn’t,” he laughed, “they only say that to farang (foreigners)”

“You don’t know for sure.” she insisted. It was true he didn’t.

Lao kao is a locally and probably illegally made rice whiskey. Commercial variants would include Mekhong and Sang Som but what the locals call lao kao is produced at village level.

It starts off as a milky white rice wine called satoh. This is cheap and plentiful around the villages of north-east of Thailand. It’s also very easy to make. Cooked rice is mixed with a mold called pang satoh and left to ferment in an urn called a hai. The finished brew is sweet and pleasant tasting. Traditionally the family would drink directly from the hai by means of a bamboo straw.

Lao kao is distilled satoh. It doesn’t taste so good to an untrained palette. Thais get around this by mixing it with flagons of Coke or soda.

Another alternative is Yadong. This involves dunking a cheesecloth containing additional ingredients into it and leaving it to soak for a few days. The result is not just another liqueur it is medicine! Yadong is frequently billed as possessing rare magical properties that can deal with almost any distemper you happen to be afflicted with.

What those additional ingredients might include no one seemed to know. A tour pharmacies around Bangkok’s Chinatown revealed only that there are probably as many recipes as there are problems in the world. They are all trade secrets but if you drink enough of it your problems will magically disappear. For a while at least.

Yadong is served in a shot glass and a popular accompaniment is sour green mango slices dipped in a mix of sugar and dried chilli. The mango is really quite good.

As for snakes and scorpions and bat’s dicks, well, why not?. Just down the road from the bar a stall was selling deep fried grasshoppers, maggots and beetles. In parts of Cambodia tarantula is a delicacy. The Chinese believe that the blood and gall bladder of snakes, preferably cobra, is a powerful aphrodisiac. I saw this up close in Taipei’s notorious snake alley before it was cleaned up (I think the adjacent red light district is still there).

I accepted the shot. It tastes good but I refuse the second. “Go on,” he says “this stuff costs next to nothing.” Aye, I think, say that in the morning when you are suffering the mother of all hangovers.

See also: Bar snacks in Bangkok

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Paddy’s in Jalan Legian was the site of one of the 2002 Bali bombings. In defiance the bar, and its customers, moved a few doors up the road and carried on rocking. Today it is the probably the most happening place in all of Kuta.

Its also about the only place where you can pick up local girls despite the recently updated Lonely Planet guide’s assurances that most of the more raucous places attracted girls who were “looking for for a friend”. In my experience that was not the case. Maybe there had been a crackdown recently, who knows, prostitution is illegal after all. But if there had been nobody told the girls at Paddy’s.

There is certainly no shortage of raucous bars and discos but it seemed to me that in most places the girls were European and Australian and were looking to pick up bronzed and muscle-bound surfer dudes.

Good for them I say but in the past I’ve enjoyed some very happy times over in the nation’s capital, Jakarta and I was keen to renew my acquaintances with one of Asia’s best kept secrets, Indonesian Girls. And Paddy’s was clearly the place to do it.

From the street it looks pretty uninteresting but the place has a certain tardis like quality. The first thing you see when you arrive is a large long bar but as you pass through the entrance way a huge expanse of dance floor opens up to the right.

Bali’s nightlife starts late and if you go much before midnight there won’t be very many people around.

After midnight the first thing you see when you enter is a flock of those ladies looking for friends. Some of them are career hookers, some are just out for a good time, while others still are trying to earn enough cash to pay their way through college. They are all friendly. Buy one a drink, have a dance and who knows you may find one, as I did, to while away a few balmy days up in Ubud. The islands cultural heart.

See also: She supersized me
See also: A song and dance