Afterward we went to a club called Titanium. It has an Ice Bar, and not just some cheesy slab of ice with a vodka luge in it. This is Bangkok and they are not playing. At Titanium you are greeted by bar girls in stylized chong sams of various colors and degrees of translucency. You are assigned a herd of them -- exactly how many depends upon how many men are in your party.
They escort you upstairs to a big heavy metal door. A tall and unsmiling man in long sleeves opens the door -- ka-CHUNK -- and cold mist comes wafting out. You can almost hear it sigh. They hustle you inside and close the door behind you. Now you and your party are in the care of the bartender. He feels free to smile and explain the flavors of vodka available -- besides the usual citron and pomegranate you can choose things like mint, chocolate, bubble gum, and tutti frutti.
The glasses are chilling on the Ice Bar -- which is a bar made entirely of ice. There are no seats -- it's too cold in there to stay long. We came in out of a 90 degree night and as soon as we got into the Ice Bar I started shivering -- it is SERIOUSLY COLD in that room. I had my shot of mint vodka and made for the door, feeling like I'd just swilled half a bottle of Scope jello.
The bar girls were waiting when we came out -- customers don't range freely in this joint -- not the men, anyway! They took us down to the main floor and gave us a big corner cocktail table with about a million pillows on the sofas. You had to sort of burrow into them to get a purchase on the seat. It felt pretty good at first, since I was half frozen from the Ice Bar experience.
We had come to see the house band -- famous because it is made up of six tiny Thai girls. Who RAWK, as they say. This being Bangkok, they are a cover band, but they are very good at what they do and it's entertaining to watch their tiny little arms and legs flailing away around instruments as big as they are.
It's also very entertaining to watch the men get hooked and reeled in and landed by the bar girls. First they talk politely, then she leans into him, then he puts his hand on her back, then they dance a little shoulder to shoulder. Then she starts humping his leg and soon they are making their arrangements for the evening, which usually entail Mr. Casanova paying some sort of fee so she can "leave work early." Interesting system.
From Titanium we took a stroll -- always exciting in 4" heels, absolutely thrilling on the treacherous sidewalks in this town. Fortunately, I'm not new here -- to tall shoe-ville, I mean -- so I didn't break a heel OR an ankle, and we made it to Mojo's without incident.
Mojo's is famous for their "coyote girls." Coyote girls, as far as I can tell, are teenagers in spangled underwear and white boots dancing on the bar. It is HILARIOUS. You haven't laughed until you've laughed at a Thai girl trying to be "sexy" in a soft porn kinda way. I'm afraid the coyote girls received extra helpings of gawky and not nearly enough sultry. It made me cringe, and you KNOW how I hate that.
The coyote girls dance to live music provided by the house band. Apparently Barry has been to Mojo's before, because when I came out of the loo I found that the band had invited him and Mike up to play -- and there they were, smacking the drunken hell out of "Hey, Joe" while coyote girls spastically and arrhythmically flung themselves about. This called for more alcohol, so I had some.
Aaaand SCENE!
No comments:
Post a Comment