From an advertisement for Rosie Reizen (Rosie Travel): Thailand is a world full of extremes and the possibilities are unlimited. Anything goes in this exotic country. Especially when it comes to girls. Still it appears to be a problem for visitors to Thailand to find the right places where they can indulge in unknown pleasures. It is frustrating to have to ask the hotel receptionist in broken English where you can pick up pretty girls. Rosie has done something about this. For the first time in history you can book a trip to Thailand with erotic pleasures included in the price...
.... Breakfast in the Royal Hotel, rest of the day free. In the coffee shop there are many girls available. You can take them to your room, of course...
.... After breakfast, possibility to take a private taxi for three hours including the girl of your dreams....
.... Here too the coffee shop is full of willing girls....
The following article appeared in Dutch in Onze Wereld in March 1979. This magazine is available from NOV IB, Amaliastraat 5-7, The Hague, Netherlands. Translation by Isis.
More and more European travel agencies are making good money out of a new activity on the vacation market; sex tours to Thailand. In the travel brochures the male tourist is subtly and sometimes openly advised to indulge his sexual passions inexpensively in Bangkok, the Mecca of eroticism. Charter flights land there daily, loaded down with men with their tongues hanging out on their way to the oriental beauties in an erotic, tropical setting. Marriage partners are also for sale in Bangkok, for a hefty sum. The reality, however, is anything but erotic. Poverty and social disruption guarantee a continuous supply of women. At present Bangkok has about one hundred thousand prostitutes. Onze Wereld editor Albert Stol has investigated this modern form of slavery.
In many European countries the name of the Grace Hotel, and especially the coffee shop next to it, has a familiar and enticing ring. In the 1978 winter guide of the Christoffel travel agency, it is described as "Simple with somewhat old furnishings. Suitable preferably for single men and not for couples or families particularly since the coffee shop is a meeting place for Europeans and Thai girls".
Most of the men on board the charter flights (especially those of the Jordanian airline Alia which leave Schipol airport Amsterdam on Sunday mornings) landing at the airport in Bangkok know very well what is awaiting them: women, women and more women for 25 guilders or so per night or - for day and night - 100 guilders per week (one guilder = US $ .50). The girls, on the other hand, earn not more than about 80 guilders per month - when they can find work. From the stories of other Thailand-goers and the very clear travel descriptions in the various sex magazines, the men often already know that they will live like kings in Bangkok with the most beautiful women of the east at their side. And their future Thai partners are not especially particular, so that no European need fear of going to Bangkok for nothing. The man who has difficulty in establishing relationships here in the Netherlands, in Bangkok can choose among hundreds of young women who, for a tiny amount, will make him feel like a great Don Juan. The coffee shop of the Grace Hotel is the best known meeting spot between east and west and is, in fact, a huge brothel. Every evening it is crowded: in the huge dark place there are hardly any free chairs so that the girls have to nestle in the laps of the westerners. The first impression on entering is overwhelming: in the sultry darkness about 250 or so buxom girls are waiting in inviting jerseys. The number of men is clearly lower and under the influence of heat and drink the more or less exuberant sex tourist quickly finds himself with several jolly chattering Thai girls beside him. The fact that about 70 per cent of the girls at the Grace Hotel suffer from venereal disease does not spoil the fun. The result is that the airplane home has been nicknamed the "gonorrhea express".
"Gorgeous dames"
At the bar I spoke with Anton, a carpenter from Amsterdam: " It's really unbelievable, all the gorgeous dames here. This is the third year I've come here and I swear that in all these times I haven't seen anything else except this bar. They drive you wild and for a few guilders you can pick the most beautiful of the beauties. This is something else, at least, than lying on your back in Spain to get a little tan. You're the king here and all for a few rotten pennies". For the girls themselves the western world of men seems to consist only of "Amelicans" and "Neckelmanns". These Neckelmanns - the common noun for the western sex tourists who are brought here in great numbers by travel agencies such as Neckermann -- are especially visiting Bangkok in greater frequency, spurred on by advertisements and photos suggesting an erotic paradise. In 1977, 1.2 million foreigners visited Thailand and a great part of them came exclusively for sex. Thus the demand for prostitutes is steadily rising. The sex industry is nothing new: prostitution is a phenomenon of the social-economic situation of the country and of the position of women. She is a number, literally in the dozens of massage parlors which Bangkok abounds in. The travel agency Christoffel writes of these parlors: "And there things can happen between you and the masseuse...". The girls sit behind a one-way window. The visitor can thus look them over and judge them before he makes his choice by handing in a number. Each girls wears a number on her breast, which corresponds to her experience. The numbers are noted in advertisements, complete with discount coupons. The prices are so low in the parlors that excesses are no exception. A group of Dutchmen with a lot of money asked the owner of the Macambo parlor for all 45 girls and ordered them all for five hundred dollars to pass the night together so that each man had five or six girls available
Prostitution forbidden
The hypocrisy of the government is remarkable. Prostitution is officially prohibited in Thailand, so no action is taken against it. If anyone speaks to the government about it, the same answer is always given: "You are mistaken, prostitution is prohibited so there is nothing for us to do anything about".
The Thai government sees mass tourism as an important source of income and is quite prepared to throw large scale prostitution into the bargain. Moreover, in this corrupt society, officials, politicians and police are all too often themselves closely involved in the drug trade and organized prostitution. Prostitution is a source of extra currency which is badly needed on account of the declining agricultural production.
At the end of 1978 a new law was passed in Thailand whereby the tourist can stay longer in the country: tourists can renew their visas locally. The tourist industry is a high priority since it is the third highest source of currency (220 million dollars) after the export of rice (290 million dollars) and sugar (260 million dollars) in Thailand and, considering the declining agricultural production, the most promising for the future. The government has also laid stress on closer cooperation between Thai International Airlines and the Tourist Organization of Thailand. In 1976 a good one million tourists visited Thailand and the estimated number for 1981 is double that. A number of domestic airports have been adapted for larger planes and to be used as international airports with their own customs and immigration facilities.
It follows that girls and women must earn money with their bodies because of the social-economic situation of the rural areas: no land reforms have been carried out and the peasants live in miserable conditions.
According to the Neckermann travel brochure, the Park Hotel is suitable for "enterprising bachelors". It is situated on a side street where a small cafe offers bratwurst and the massage parlor is appropriately named Bump. Through the travel agency ERO-tours in Amsterdam, Dutchmen who have applied through a well-known sex magazine end up there too. While I was waiting for a group from ERO-tours by the lift, Germans were coming and going with their picked up friends
Suddenly a roaring argument broke out between a fat middle aged German and the slim Thai girl beside him. It seems that they were married during his vacation but that now, somewhat sobered up, he had little desire to bring his bride to Germany with him. Who knows, his wife and children back home might look askance. The Thai woman had picked up a limited German vocabulary from her work, consisting mainly of swear words. She kept yelling sharply: "scheisse". The German was laughing sheepishly. It had probably just been a big game for him. But for her it was a serious business: life in well-off Europe is enticing.
Marriage seekers
Not only Germans get married in Thailand. The Dutch embassy too is dealing increasingly with marriage seeking Dutchmen whose eyes have fallen on an exotic beauty whom they would like to install in a little flat in the Netherlands. Together with the Ministry of Justice in The Hague, the Dutch embassy is trying to keep a check on things.
Misery is almost always the result: such marriages do not last once the fun is over after a few months. The embassy practices the greatest reserve and advises the Dutch not to sign a marriage contract in the first burst of enthusiasm.
In doubtful cases, as for example if it is suspected that the man is going to exploit his wife as a prostitute in the Netherlands, the Ministry in The Hague is allowed to decide on the residence permit of the Thai. In some cases the Ministry cannot refuse such a permit on formal grounds, but can deport the woman involved after some months.
The marriage market in Bangkok raises all kinds of legal perils which may not be so pleasant for those who have signed a marriage contract in a holiday spirit. It sometimes happens to a man after a girl takes him to a party where he gets drunk.
From an advertisement for Chick's All-in Trips: For those who want more than just bed and breakfast. We are offering you with this All-in trip a carefully planned vacation, varied from day to day. A trip in which we offer you the opportunity to get acquainted with the other sex, through our organized cocktail parties and visits to exclusive nightclubs, tropical beaches....
Sobered up at the end of the vacation, he may want to divorce, which is quite easy in Thailand. However, the Dutch law requires a court proceeding before a divorce. The Dutchman may not know this, but more and more Thai women are aware of it and try to get alimony out of it. The Thai divorce is not valid for Dutch law and thus the Dutchman is in fact still married, with all the problems which may result. Finally there are those Dutch who get married in Thailand while they are already married in the Netherlands. The embassy can then sometimes help the Thai with legal aid, divorce and possible claims. These adventures can turn out to be rather expensive.
Catalogues
Advertisements in which men are stimulated to find an easy way to marry a beautiful Thai women appear not only in * West Germany but in the Netherlands as well. Originally these seemed to be a matter of penpals, but, as for example in a publication of the FSA bureau in Raalte, it now seems that marriage is the aim. Various bureaus exist in Hong Kong and Singapore as well as Germany for those who would like to pick out a Thai wife from a catalogue in the comfort of their home.
Interpart Company in the Federal Republic of Germany is one of the large organizations in the business in Thailand and is spreading its wings to other developing countries as well to bring women to men - for a large fee, of course. Once the client has made his choice from the photographs in the catalogue, he pays almost nine thousand guilders for his round trip ticket and stay in Bangkok with his future spouse. Should he decide to marry, it then costs him another three thousand guilders in charges by the Interpart Company.
Every year more and more western tourists are enjoying the sun, sea and beaches not only in Thailand but everywhere in the Third World. Thailand is fulfilling for them a role which countries such as South Korea, Taiwan and Japan have had thrust on them by Japanese men. In general, mass tourism is no longer considered a blessing for Third World countries. It brings in less income than expected, and the population is not better off for it. The tourists lay siege to scarce resources and the local culture is often degraded to the level of a show. The financial results of tourism may look impressive on paper but the fact that little of the money ends up in the country itself is conveniently overlooked. In many cases tourism makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. Moreover, tourism brings economic growth without development
Rising prices
The result is usually a sharp rise in prices affecting the poor in particular. The price index for the consumer in Bangkok rose 8.4 percent from 1976 to 1977 to 203.7 percent (1962 = 100). The rise in food prices on this index was 11.5 percent in one year. These rises perhaps say little in themselves but become painful when one remembers that approximately half of the four million inhabitants of Bangkok are below the official poverty line of 1000 baht per month (one baht = ± 10 Dutch cents = ± five US cents). Poverty, the high cost of living, rapid population growth and high unemployment are, according to the police, the main causes of the rising crime rate.
Bangkok is one of the most unsafe cities in the world. In the first half of 1978, 8,678 serious crimes took place. Colonel Somchai, the director of the Tourist Organization of Thailand, stated that these figures threatened to frighten away Japanese and Australian tourists in particular because tourists from their countries are often the victims of these crimes.
The total population growth is three percent per year (Thailand now has a population of 44 million) but the stagnating agricultural production has caused the inhabitants of the slums around Bangkok to Increase by 4.5 percent
Low production
In 1976 an expert from the Bangkok Bank asserted that agriculture in Thailand is characterized by poverty and low productivity. This fact is all the more alarming because 80 percent of the total population lives in rural areas and the economy of the country is based principally on agricultural production.
Thailand is still a large exporter of rice. The growth of this export in recent years, however, is not the result of higher productivity but of the expansion of land under cultivation. The limits of possibility, however, have been reached. The yield per hectare has even declined from 281 kilograms per rai (.16 hectares) in 1964 to 268 kilograms in 1976. Thai agricultural production is thus the lowest in the whole of South East Asia. This low productivity and the resulting poverty is caused by the semi-feudal relationships in the rural areas and the lack of land reform. The largest problem area of Thailand is the north east where 74.7 percent of the families earned less than 6000 baht per year in 1973. This is the poorest and most underdeveloped part of the country and therefore the most politically militant. This area is the source of most of the girls in Bangkok's sex-industry. Many people in this area are supported by what the daughters can scrape together in the brothels and massage parlors of Bangkok.
Some businessmen see good opportunities to further exploit the poverty of the Thai women. The Austrian, Kurt Konrad, for instance, with his experience on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg saw in the Grace Hotel possibilities for income on a large scale. For 2000 Dutch guilders, he began to deliver Thai girls to German, Dutch and Danish clients who had them work as prostitutes. Assistance with papers, visas and such like was given by Charlie's Assistance Office in Bangkok which enjoyed
good relations with the government. This led to the establishment of a slave market in Frankfurt where an "employer" could hire a Thai for prostitution for a monthly fee of 5000 German marks plus a 3000 mark deposit. Earnings reached approximately 50,000 marks per quarter. If the Thai woman turned out to be unsatisfactory, she could be replaced with another.
For rent or sale
According to the Thai embassy in Bonn, two thousand Thai women per year are imported into the Federal Republic of Germany. In addition to renting them, there is the possibility of buying them outright for 20,000 marks per women. A number of slave traders have had to pay for their activities with prison terms in Thailand, but the business is too lucrative for this to discourage others. The Thai women are usually repeatedly resold and rented whenever the police in a certain city become too interested in what is going on. In any case, a changing supply is good for business.
Since the German police have become stricter in regard to admitting Thai women, ways are being sought through Amsterdam and Zurich. Moreover, German homosexuals are being persuaded with payments of 10,000 marks to go to Bangkok, marry a Thai, and to leave her in Germany. So much can be earned with a Thai woman that the expenses are negligible.
A completely different trick involves marriage makers who send bachelors to Bangkok with the name and address of a Thai girl whom they have chosen from the catalogue as the ideal marriage partner. These are mostly prostitutes from the Patpong district who are quite willing to marry for a certain sum. They must "unfortunately" remain behind for a couple of months to organize their things before definitively coming to Germany. In the meantime the man is expected to pay the marriage bureau certain expenses such as for translation of her letters to her husband, sacrifices in the temple, gifts for her family. The girls never show up in Germany and cannot be found anymore. But the German is married according to the German embassy which forwards the certificate to the authorities in Germany. There are countless Germans in Thailand searching for their "wives", in order to get a divorce. This sort of thing happens in the Netherlands as well. There are about forty such marriages a year between Dutch tourists and Thai women. Dutch "business" has also discovered that Thai women are enticing attractions. There was much amusement over the news that a man from The Hague was asking for a divorce when it finally appeared that he had married a man. Less attention was given to the fact that he only discovered this after complaints from the brothel where he put his "wife" to work. Advertisements in Dutch papers testify to the fact that Thai women are working in Dutch brothels. The Third World seems to be more and more becoming a supplier of buxom oriental types who know so well how to delight a man.