Nana Entertainment Plaza

On my second trip through Bangkok I decided to avoid Khaosan, the tourist carnival, and instead stay in Sukhumvit, which turned out to be right next to Nana Entertainment Plaza, one of Bangkok's centers of sex tourism.

The first thing I noticed about the Atlanta Hotel was its huge sign proclaiming "Sex Tourists Not Welcome."



The Atlanta, established in 1952, long before the sex tourism industry sprung up around it, still retains its original decor.


Note the cat in the lobby.

Two blocks away, Nana Entertainment Plaza offers three floors of go-go bars and sex shows across the street from hotels that rent rooms by the hour.



Walking through the area I noticed that 9 out of 10 westerners on the street were men. The go-go dancers were mostly young women and men from Isan, Thailand's poor agricultural region in the northeast. Khon Kaen, where Allison and I had attended the silk festival two weeks earlier, is in Isan.

Despite its seedy surroundings, the Atlanta Hotel proclaims itself a "bastion of wholesome tourism" and has plentiful signs warning that "sex tourists, junkies and other degenerates" will be expelled from the premises. The signs further explain that those who must engage prostitutes should do so in their own countries, rather than causing emotional damage in developing countries where their only advantage is a favorable exchange rate.

It so happens that Elizabeth Gilbert, author of "Eat, Pray Love," has stayed at the Atlanta, and an autographed copy of her book was on display.





After watching local people do aerobics in a park and then seeing a wholesome traditional Thai puppet show, I decided that, solely for the benefit of my readers, I should check out the goings on in Nana Entertainment Plaza (NEP). At first I hesitated near the entrance, a bit afraid to go inside. A stream of somewhat scruffy-looking white men was going inside and, as it was early in the night, a trickle of white men was crossing the street toward the hourly hotels, each with a young Thai woman in hand.



Many women in shorts and high heels were loitering near the entrance of NEP, presumably trying to pick up work. Not wanting to linger with these freelance women any longer, but wanting to observe more of what was happening at NEP, I decided I had better conquer my fears and go inside. Just then, I noticed a group of eight clean-cut young Americans (including two women) who looked very out of place and I immediately guessed that they were Christian missionaries of some sort. They were having a last minute meeting outside the entrance of NEP, and their leader was saying "look for people who are drunk or lonely."

The missionaries then quickly filed into NEP, and I filed in behind them. We quickly circumnavigated the first level, which consisted of hostess bars where not-so-hot-looking western men were coupled with hot-looking Thai women, having drinks together and looking quite bored, really.

Following the Christians, I climbed the stairs to the second level. There, they convened into another meeting and I continued exploring on my own. Level two of NEP consisted of go-go bars with topless dancers. In one, called Spanky's, the customers were invited to smack the dancers' G-stringed bottoms with a foam "noodle" such as children would use in a swimming pool.



In some of the bars the dancers are "lady boys," as they say in Thailand.

Everything I know about go-go bars I learned from a book I recently read called "Bangkok Boy," an autobiography by a young Thai man who spent many years working as a go-go dancer and prostitute. The bars pay the dancers, but the dancers make their real money when a customer buys them. The customer pays a "fine" to the bar for robbing the bar of a dancer, and then disappears to a nearby hotel with the dancer, and pays the dancer's fee for whatever ensues.

The third floor of NEP seemed to be more of the same, including a bar where customers can ride a mechanical bull with a lady boy, trying to remove her bikini while staying on the bull.

After taking a moment to snap a couple of pictures and then watch the stray cats snatching discarded food and devouring it in the dirty corners of NEP, I exited and went back onto the street.

Among the loitering prostitutes, the missionaries were standing around and I decided to chat with them. They were doing a survey of the Western men who were visiting NEP. I listened in on their surveys, and even interpreted a bit when they interviewed a tourist from Spain, but the surveys didn't turn out to be that interesting as they inevitably resulted in an argument between the missionaries and the tourist about religion or about the morality of prostitution.

A plain-looking but seemingly intelligent and well-spoken American man passionately explained his gnostic beliefs, and then said that he visits NEP because he likes sex. I guess that would pretty well sum it up for most of the men being entertained at NEP that night.

Having glimpsed a world I don't usually see, I went back to my zero-tolerance-for-sex-tourists hotel and packed my backpack for my early morning flight back to Tokyo.

Luang Prabang, Laos

Thai and Lao buses always leave five minutes early! But we caught the eight-hour "VIP bus" from Vientiane to Luang Prabang. A VIP bus is one with air conditioning and free bottled water, but the VIP status ends there! At one point we pulled over on the side of the road and everyone got out and wandered into the bushes. A Lao bathroom stop!



We stopped for lunch and fruit, and a Lao passenger bought a couple of tuber-shaped vegetables for me and Allison, and showed us how to peel and eat them. They tasted like jicama. In Laos we enjoyed many delicious tropical fruits such as mangosteen, lychee and dragon fruit, and others we can't name.


Luang Prabang, a Unesco World Heritage city, is the former royal capital of the Kingdom of Laos, and home to many beautiful Buddhist temples as well as French architecture.



In Luang Prabang we visited a small Lao library, where we bought a couple of books for local children. Surprisingly, in this communist country, the library displayed a framed quote by Milton Friedman about the importance of the private market economy.



The library has two computers with free internet, and an eclectic little selection of books in English, no doubt donated by an NGO. Allison and I, both geeks for information, skipped the books called "Condi," "We Are Americans" and "Thanksgiving" (not sure why anyone would want to read those in Laos), and magazines such as "Seventeen" and "Good Housekeeping" and instead perused the "Socio-Economic Atlas of the Lao PDR."



While as backpackers we considered ourselves budget travelers, we were sobered to realize that on a typical day we spent much more than many Lao citizens earn in a month. That particular day, since we had booked a bicycle tour costing a whopping $32 (including bicycle rental, a full day guided tour, museum entrance fees, a meal, water and snacks), we had spent more than even the richest category of Lao citizens spends in a month.

During our 32 kilometer bicycle tour we visited villages where the local people make paper, silk and whiskey, and then we bicycled to a cave that contains many images of the Buddha.


Above, a woman weaves silk behind two spinning wheels. Below, a woman harvests silk from the silk worm.


Above, a woman makes paper. Below, a girl makes lao lao, or Lao whiskey, distilled from sticky rice until it is nearly 100 percent proof.


I am always happy when I am on a bicycle. But in Laos, we were careful to go with a guide and to stay on the well-traveled road, because of the unexploded ordnance (UXO) which the U.S. placed there during the American Vietnam war.



Per capita Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world. More than 1.3 million tons of ordnance were dropped on Laos between 1964 and 1973, mostly cluster bombs of which 30% did not detonate. Each cluster bomb contained hundreds of bomblets, called "bombies," which are especially attractive to unexpecting children. UXO continues to affect a quarter of all villages.

At least 50,000 people were killed by UXO in Laos between 1964 and mid-2008, and the number continues to rise. UXO contamination also prevents farmers from using land, causing poverty and limiting long-term development. More information is available at http://www.maginternational.org/laopdr/.

Ten of the 18 Lao provinces are severely contaminated with land mines and many other types of UXOs. The U.S., responsible for this contamination, has still not signed the Ottawa Treaty, which bans landmines.

Allison and I took a Lao cooking class in which, together with five Australians, we learned to cook some delicious Lao food.




Here, our teacher steams sticky rice, also known as glutinous rice. Sticky rice is the staple food in Laos, but the Lao also eat long grain rice.




Essential ingredients in Lao cuisine include greens from the local mountains, ginger, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, lime, cilantro, lemon grass, tamarind, basil, oyster sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce, padak, shrimp paste, chillies and large chilli peppers, coconut milk, rice noodles, vermicelli noodles, rice, bamboo shoots, woodear fungus and choko. Traditionally the Lao eat with their hands, and they only use chopsticks when eating noodles, which were imported from China.

The class included a trip to the local market, where we saw local food. There is no supermarket in Luang Prabang, and people do their daily shopping here.






We even saw the infamous durian fruit.



The durian is called the king of fruits, but is said to have a disagreeable stench which will stay with you long after you eat it. People have described the durian's stench as like a bathroom, or rotten mushy onions, pig feces, stale vomit or "turpentine and onions garnished with a gym sock." Due to the stench, the consumption of durian is prohibited in most public places, and I have not yet had an opportunity to taste it. Maybe next time.

On my last morning in Luang Prabang I got up at 5:30 a.m. to see 300 monks and novices receiving their alms. The monastic men who reside in the temples are not allowed to grow or prepare their own food, so every morning they walk the alms route through Luang Prabang.

For 45 minutes before dawn groups of orange-clad monks walked silently through Luang Prabang carrying metal bowls and receiving handfuls of sticky rice and other foods from kneeling townspeople who give alms in order to accrue merit for themselves, their ancestors and their families. As I watched, all I could hear was the swishing of the monks' bare feet on the street.

In recent years the monks' morning alms collection has become a tourist attraction, and some street vendors got into the business of selling rice to tourists who wanted to give alms to the monks. Unfortunately, some of the rice was not fresh, and the monks got food poisoning. So now, tourists are invited to participate only if their heart is really in it.

A local woman who was giving alms saw me and invited me to give some of her rice to the monks, but I communicated through gestures that I would rather take pictures. I did so without a flash, because I had read that flashing cameras are distracting to the monks.




In Thailand and Laos, nearly all boys and men serve a period as monks, many for three months or even more, and all of the men who I asked told me that they had, at some point, been monks.

My experience in Laos was so relaxing, and I met so many laid back and kind people. But it was time to board a plane back to bustling Bangkok.

Vientiane, Laos

Upon arriving in Laos I made an ATM withdrawal and was impressed to see my nine-digit account balance! Nice! Except that it was in Lao kip, and there are more than 8,000 kip to the U.S. dollar. Due to continual inflation, the zeros on the bills are hard to count, and coins are completely obsolete. However, Thai bhat and U.S. dollars are often acceptable.

Our first stop in Laos was Vientiane, a sleepy capital on the Mekong River with only 200,000 inhabitants, some of them monks dressed in bright orange or saffron robes.



Allison and I took an evening walk past the Lao cultural center, where a Japanese taiko drumming performance was letting out. A Lao high school girl, inspired by the performance, was saying in Japanese to her friends "My name is ...." I answered her back in my basic Japanese, but she just giggled shyly. Her friend, not so shy, picked up the conversation with me in English, and I was surprised by the level of English spoken by high school students. But I don't think that kids in rural Laos get such a good education.

During our first day in Laos we brushed up on our Lao vocabulary, which consisted of the Lao for hello, sorry, thank you, how much, yes, no, vegetarian (for Allison), please, good luck, and no ice please.

We took a bicycle tour in Vientiane, riding on a small track along the Mekong River, past shacks and nice houses and tiny local stores.


I exchanged greetings of "sa bai di" with the locals we passed, and everyone was happy to let me take their picture. Some people even ran to gather more family members so that I could take pictures of all of them!

Above is a family in their home, and below is an extension of the same home, built onto the bank of the Mekong. Every meal on this balcony is a picnic over the Mekong.



We saw people grilling bananas and we tried a sweet cassava and rice treat which was wrapped in banana leaves and grilled. Our guide said that when he was a kid everything was wrapped in biodegradable banana leaves, but now, like most everywhere in the world, the country is littered with plastic bags.

We veered from the Mekong and rode next to a very active irrigation ditch, passing rice paddies, lots of people, goats and water buffalo.









Our guide spoke English well because he grew up in Hawaii. His close relative was prime minister of Laos before the communist takeover in 1975. When the government changed, the entire family had to flee the country. Our guide and his parents went to Hawaii. In 1992 they were able to return to Laos, but they remain careful not to get involved in politics.

As far as I can tell, Laos is like Vietnam in that it is a communist country that doesn't feel communist but for the party propaganda in the National Museum in Vientiane, and the ubiquitous communist flags. Here, the main post office displays the communist flag as well as the Lao flag.


Everywhere, people are engaging in small businesses. The internet is available and the Buddhist religion is thriving.



But it seems Laos has abandoned the communist ideals of caring for its people. The state fails to provide basic necessities such as a free education for all children. On the other hand, education was not available in rural Laos when it was a French colony or when it was under the Royal Lao government. And in the cities I visited I didn't see people begging, or homeless people, although I heard that many young Lao migrate to Thailand to work in the sex industry or at other undesirable jobs. The Lao government has tried hard but without success to stop this, and to eliminate prostitution. In fact, it is illegal for a foreigner to have sex with a Lao citizen if they are not married.

It seems that the Communist Party rules Laos in name, but that its leaders have largely abandoned communist ideals, save repression of dissent, which sporadically continues. Some of the Lao and Hmong exiles who fled ethnic cleansing and other horrors during the early days of the communist regime have returned.

According to "A Short History of Laos, the Land in Between," by Grant Evans, there has been an effort to "re-traditionalize" and Laos has in many ways reverted to a situation similar to that which existed under the pre-communist Royal Lao Government. Laos continues to be economically weak and dependent on outside suport. Its people, outside of the few small cities, are largely subsistence farmers, and produce little or no tax base. The minority populations, which together make up more than half the population of Laos, continue to struggle in the face of poverty and discrimination. Foreign forces, now in the form of NGOs, continue to weild influence in Laos.

Our guide pointed out that many Asian countries have had a one-party system for years, and that this has helped them develop economic strength, so that in some ways having a one-party government is good for a country. Laos, however, still has a long way to go before it builds any kind of economic strength.

In the past it seems that Laos was not very open to tourists. Tourists were only allowed to see certain parts of the country. Now, that has changed, but still my guide book warns me not to take any pictures of government workers, government buildings or even bridges as it could result in confiscation of my camera.

The Mekong River was low, and much of it seemed to be a sand bar. Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos have an agreement about management of the river, but China, which is upstream, is not a party to that agreement and is diverting much of the water.

We stopped for drinks at a hotel on the Mekong funded by Hmong refugees who now live in the U.S. The Hmong like to stay at this hotel when they return to Laos for a visit. Here, Allison enjoys fresh coconut milk.


Although the Hmong live in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and China, the Hmong who have immigrated to the U.S. come primarily from Laos. Tens of thousands of Hmong fled to Thailand and later to the U.S. and other western countries after cooperating with the U.S. to fight a losing battle against the Pathet Lao during the Secret War in Laos. About 8,000 Hmong refugees remain in Thailand.

Finishing up our bicycle tour, we ate lunch at a fabulous vegetarian buffet restaurant. Our waitress was MTF transgender, known in Southeast Asia as a lady boy. She was completely decked out in heels and a dress, fancy hair and lots of make-up in the middle of the day, and nobody seemed to mind at all. Our guide told us that in Laos, as in Thailand, nobody cares if you are gay. There is no problem, no need to hide anything, and families are fine with it. He said it's sad that some countries are not as accepting. We saw several transgender people in Vientiane, and nobody seemed to give them a second glance. Laos and Thailand seem to be the most queer-friendly places I've ever been, and I saw openly queer folks in every city and town I visited there.

In the evening we went to a Lao cultural show. On the way, we got lost and asked directions from a group of foreigners, who turned out to be men from Peru, Panama and the U.S. who were working on an agricultural project involving cassava in Laos. In Spanish and English, they helped us find the hall where we watched a beautiful cultural dance show and ate a Lao vegetarian feast.




(Sorry, I cannot turn this photo right side up for some reason).

Lao food is usually eaten with the hands using sticky rice, which comes in a basket for keeping it warm. Roll the sticky rice into a tightly packed ball and use it like a tortilla chip to scoop up the food.


Also in Vientiane we visited a nursery for rare wild orchids, which Allison, as a botanist, fully appreciated but which I just thought were pretty cool.


Later, I stopped at an internet cafe where I was invited to a behind-the-shop party to down a few Lao-whiskey cokes with some locals and Polish residents of Vientiane. Like everywhere I've been in Southeast Asia, the locals were friendly and generous and not just after my kip.

We were sad to leave Vientiane because the people were so nice there, and the friendly manager of our guesthouse spoiled us by giving us rides to places such as the orchid nursery, providing free purified water and answering all our many questions in excellent English. But we wanted to see Luang Prabang, the ancient capital of Laos.

Northeast Thailand

On the way through northern Thailand toward Laos, we stopped in the provincial city of Khon Kaen, arriving just in time to see the annual silk festival. Other than the festival and the beautiful but impoverished Thai women, there isn't much to attract foreigners to Khon Kaen. Nearly all of the other foreigners I saw in Khon Kaen were middle aged European or American men who went there to marry Thai women, or to meet their Thai mail order brides for the first time. When googling Khon Kaen, I found little information other than a blog by an American man who visited Khon Kaen to meet his "little honey" before bringing her to the U.S.

The northeast is one of the poorest regions of Thailand, and many of the local people must migrate to Bangkok or other areas to find work.

The silk festival parade consisted of marching bands, floats, Thai boxing and lots of people dressed in beautiful silk clothing.





In the evening we feasted on local street food




(well, we passed up that food and instead went for the tiny eggs)


while watching dance performances,


and I paid a few baht to feed an elephant on the street, which in hindsight probably wasn't very responsible in terms of the welfare of elephants.


There was little English spoken on Khon Kaen, and we got by with gestures, the patience of locals and a phrasebook which contained lots of words but didn't tell us how to pronounce them. Thai is a tonal language written in a sanskrit type writing system which is not easily transcribed into the Roman alphabet. And in any case, people in northeast Thailand primarily speak Lao rather than Thai. Despite our linguistic stumbling, people in Khon Kaen went out of their way to help us and make our visit enjoyable.

One of the many things I like about Thailand is that people smile easily. When I flashed someone a smile, they flashed it right back, and many times they were the first to smile. Thailand is, after all, known as the "Land of Smiles." I like it there.