The Vuckings Of Pattaya

The Vuckings are a barbaric raiding tribe from the far north. Their skin is white, their beards long, their bellies fat. They are all so ugly that you almost feel sorry for them. They take what they want, questions are superfluous. Fickinger drink and bawl, especially after supposed victories. Everything you’ve ever heard about the Fickingers is true. Except for one thing: they don’t have axes. They have hammers. Very, very small ones.

All joking aside. That was serious. The world is so complicated. Nothing is as it seems. No prejudice can be permanently defended. Pattaya is different. You don’t have to defend anything here. Just open your eyes and write down half-truths. Every illusion becomes the sad truth at the next corner.

The foundations for Pattaya were laid in the 60s. The oh-so-stressed GIs from Vietnam had to recover from the strenuous job of holding up dominoes in Vietnam. The Pentagon sent them to Pattaya for this purpose. As Vietnam obviously couldn’t provide enough willing women, the clever Thais recognised their opportunity and quickly carted a few tens of thousands of women to Pattaya in the style of a gender-specific deportation of peoples.

Tradition obliges. The flow continues to this day. I estimate the ratio of Thai women to Thai men in Pattaya today at 10:1. The ratio of tourists is 1:100. The entire city centre is one big brothel. If the Reeperbahn is Schlumpfhausen, then Pattaya is Mexico City.

I move into a dirty room in the middle of a war zone. Beer bar downstairs, GoGo on the right, massage on the left. The mattress smells of sweat and condoms. This is where I want to be, this is where I want to watch. The madam is hoping for more money. Every time I take a little too long to unlock the door to the “hotel”, a girl is sent off to fondle my nipples and bum. It’s all Scrubs, I’m Doctor Cox.

After a day of sleeping, working and recovering, I finally hit the road. There are women sitting on all the benches on the beach, very scantily clad even for 33 degrees. The fuckers are everywhere. They sit bored with their booty in restaurants, stroll bored across the squares, lie bored on the beach. Is there anything apart from fucking that doesn’t bore you?

Of course! In the evening I walk along Walking Street, the lion’s den. The fuckers don’t know retirement, but manhood does wane with age. Too much cattleagra is reflected in almost bovine-like wide-open eyes that stare into every dark bar entrance. Drool. A pusher hits me: “Want Prostitute?” I’m swimming in the middle of the Atlantic and can’t find any water for the life of me. Please, help me!

I see such beautiful, ugly things. I want to take pictures all day like crazy. But it’s quite difficult. Shooting pictures in Pattaya – especially at night – is almost as exciting and fun as tap dancing in a minefield.

Dinner. A large chicken massala along with strong beer and antibiotics make my head feel muddy. I’m the same now, aren’t I? Good, use it! In search of prejudice, I go to a GoGo bar. Drunken Yank fuckers bawl and dance in the corner. Yippee-ya-yeah, pig cheeks! Nothing stirs in me but boredom. Have I ever complained that Thais always smile and say yes when they don’t understand something? Yes. It annoyed me endlessly.

Not anymore from today. The naked girls up there on the stage understand a lot. None of them are smiling, and their faces all say “No, I don’t like what I have to do at all” very sadly. A pathetic techno version of “It’s too late, you’re gonna die” hammers out of the sound system. And suddenly I know what I have to do. Make good use of the time before. Go home and write.