Pattaya travel, stay and entertainment made easy

Yes is the simple answer. Sex is what drives Pattaya’s tourist industry in the evenings – even if there are plenty of other things to do. Every night hundreds of punters take girls back to their hotel and the management of many hotels accept this as normal practice. So normal in fact that they usually keep the girls ID card until she leaves, which is your guarantee she isn’t going to rip you off.

However some hotels do not allow this, and the more expensive and prestigious the name the more likely they will have a strict policy. We’ll get to this a little later, but first lets talk about the girls.

Thai Girls

Most Thai bar girls are honest and easy going, so much so that it’s difficult to imagine them as sleazy. They in it for a job rather than because of low-class dishounest backgrounds. In fact many take the risk of going home with complete strangers where there is no guarantee or recourse should they refuse to pay in the morning. None have pimps, or get tough.

A typical situation goes like this; after several drinks with the lady, she will ask you if you want her to ‘go with her’. She’ll tell you ‘you pay bar fine for me, OK’. After this is taken care of, along with the bill, off you go. Sometimes guys like to take their girl to a disco or another bar first. Then you catch a baht bus or taxi to your hotel. She knows the score, and might have even spent a night in your hotel before, so she discretely hands in her ID and goes upstairs with you. The rest is up to your imagination.

Since the girl’s ID is kept on record, and she doesn’t want to jeopardise her job, she is unlikely to knick anything, but you’d be wise to keep money and ‘easily lifted’ items out of sight. Afterall, without proof she can deny everything. We’ve heard very few cases of bad girls.

Thai Ladyboys

One exception is ladyboys, who have a more masculine and ruthless approach to their work, and occassionally do lift things. If you take a ladyboy back (which does happen often), be more alert. Girls that are picked up freelancing (ie along the waterfront or in discos) also need extra attention, since they work in no particular bar and would be difficult to trace by the tourist police.

A couple of years ago, there was nasty case of a hotel colluding with the girls, who would drug men by getting them to suck their nipples – which had a strong sedative pasted on – and then rip them off. The hotel wasn’t much help in catching them, until a number of complaints added up and their ruse was discovered. This is a rare thing though.

Now, about the hotels themselves. While many in Pattaya accept that their clients wish to bring girls back, some discourage this by trying to charge extra for ‘unregistered guests’. If they are a classy establishment they will expect you to understand this, others save the embarrassment but discretely handing you a warning card at check-in, stating that an additional person charge of up to 1000 baht will be charged. This is nonsense.

We’re unable to name exactly which hotels are like this. To be safe, try to avoid hotels that have package tourists. Those right in the beer bar sois are safest. Some try to slap the charge on later when they discover you coming back with someone, if you argue loudly they usually back off to save the embarrassment. This is, afterall, Pattaya.