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2002 MAY Bargaining
in Thailand
A
man walks into a hotel. He asks at the front desk, "How much
for a room?" The receptionist answers, "600 baht per night".
(Note: the currency in Thailand is the Thai baht, presently equal
to about 42.3 baht per US dollar). The man accepts and takes the
room. I then pose the same question resulting in the same answer,
"600 baht per night". However, I then counter the answer
by saying, "Last time I stayed here, I paid only 500 baht per
night. That's the price I always pay". The receptionist then
says, "Okay", and I get the room for 100 baht cheaper
than the guy ahead of me. How can that be?
After
checking into my hotel and freshening up, I take a blue taxi down
2nd road in South Pattaya Beach. Low and behold, the same guy who
checked into my hotel ahead of me is sitting in the taxi. As he
gets off, he asks the driver, "How much" and then I notice
him handing the driver 20 baht, with no change coming back his way.
As I get out a few moments later, I hand the driver a 5 baht coin
and walk off. How can it be that this guy paid 4 times as much as
I did?
Later
that night, I see the same man who checked into the hotel earlier
with a hot looking Thai hooker. They are sitting at an outdoor beer
bar on Soi 7 and I can't help overhearing the conversation. The
guy has invited this babe to come over to his hotel for an evening
of pleasure. In response, she says to him, "I go hotel...How
much you pay me?" The man looks a bit bewildered at how to
answer and she then says, "Okay, we go short time. You give
me 2,000 baht." The guy nods his head and they are off to his
hotel room. "Hmm. Two thousand baht? That's strange,"
so I think to myself. I recall going with that same girl just a
few days ago and I got her to spend the entire night for 1,000 baht."
So why is this guy paying double the price?
Such
tourists who end up paying two to four times the regular prices
for hotels, transportation, sex, shopping and a host of other services
are among those who have not learned the art of bargaining in Thailand.
Such travelers are unaware that much of the prices for a host of
services and products are not fixed; they are negotiable and it
is your responsibility to haggle with the salesman or whoever is
selling a service or product. If you don't, you will surely end
up like the guy in our illustration, paying sometimes four or even
many times more than the regular rate for many a product and service.
In
principle, the Thai salesman down to the hooker bar girl will offer
a service or product at a very high price. It is understood to all,
except those in ignorance, that this price being quoted is only
the asking price; it can be bargained down. Indeed, most of the
time you can get anywhere from half to even three-quarters off what
a salesman or bar girl may have quoted you. Case in point. Recently,
along Sukhumvit road there were a stack of CD porno's being displayed,
right on the open street. When I asked the salesman who much for
one, he said, "200 baht", double the normal rate. In response,
I told him that was too expensive and said, "100 baht."
He looked around, as if to make sure no other tourists heard, and
then said, "150 baht." Slowly, I walked off and when he
saw he was about to lose a sale, immediately he called out, "Okay,
okay..." I turned back and walked off with a CD for 100 baht.
I'm wondering how many unaware tourists out there would have paid
the 200 baht, not realizing they could have gotten it for half the
price or possibly even less.
This
last illustration serves to prove a crucial point in the art of
bargaining with Thais. When the salesman thinks you are new to the
game and don't know the going rate for his product or service, he
will automatically quote a highly inflated price. The same goes
for bar girls. If they think you are new to the game and don't know
what the going rate for sex is, they will quote two to three times
the going rate, hoping you will fall for it. If you do, you'll most
likely still get great sex or a great product, but you will have
overpaid, to say the least.
Another
trick, especially among bar girls, when discussing the cost of sex
is to put the burden of price on your shoulders. In other words,
most bar girls who are slick will, rather than tell you what it's
going to cost to fuck, ask you, "How much you pay me?"
Why do they do this? Two reasons. First, they want to test you to
see if you know the going rate. They hope you don't and when asked
how much for sex, will come up with a figure that could feed a family
of ten for a year. Second, they want to test you to see if you're
not out to short change them. Some guys are real cheap and underpay
the bar girls. After getting burnt, surely such a hooker will enquire
of all her would be customers how much they are willing to pay.
So
what do you answer when a bar girl asks you, "How much you
pay me?" There are several approaches. I used to just avoid
the question altogether, sometimes tickling the girl, getting off
on another subject, anything to avoid the question. If the girl
persisted, unless she was just so hot I couldn't resist her, I would
dump her at that point and move on to someone else. My attitude
was if she was so concerned about money enough to peg me down in
the bar, she was not the type I was looking for. That still tends
to be my position, but I understand that may not work for you. So
how do you answer her?
The
best way to answer a bar girl who asks how much you will be paying
her is to turn the question around on her. In Thai, I would now
answer, "Laow tae", meaning, "It depends." Depends
on what? Well, first of all, before I can know how much I'm going
to pay anyone for sex, I want to know a)How long will she be staying
with me?, b)What type of services does she offer, and c)What type
of body does she have?
Obviously,
I will pay a girl more if she's going to spend the entire night,
rather than just an hour or so. Or to put it another way, I'm going
to pay a hooker less if she's going to take off after being with
me for only an hour. So the price for sex depends on how much time
she will spend with me. This usually translates into "short
time" (i.e., an hour or so of sex) or "long time"
(the entire night, which may or may not result in sex in the morning).
So
before I can answer how much I will pay her, I must know how much
of her time she is going to give me.
Secondly,
and most importantly, before I can tell her what I will pay her,
I need to know what type of sexual services she performs. Not all
bar girls are equal in this department, that’s for sure. Granted,
just about any hooker you take back to your room will let you screw
her (provided you use a condom). I would estimate 50% of the bar
girls will not give head and only about 10% will let you squirt
it in their mouth. Recently I had one that opened her mouth wide,
with her tongue sticking out to gobble the whole load. That was
nice! Such a girl certainly deserves more than those who use their
hand to block you from squirting on their face.
By
the way, I have one steady hooker now who deep throats and takes
it all the way up the ass. Such a girl certainly deserves a larger
tip than most. Or to put it another way, those who refuse to suck
and spread their ass don't deserve a larger tip.
There
are probably a list of other credentials a hooker must have before
determining exactly what she is worth, but one must is her looks.
At the start of my travels to Asia, I once asked an expert on the
subject, "How do you choose your girl?" He answered, "If
you're paying for it, you might as well take the best looking one."
So how do you know who has the hottest body? While you may answer,
"Well, you just look at her", the fact is looks can be
very deceiving. Why is that?
Most
of the time you will be meeting women either in the Go Go bars,
where the fluorescent lighting tends to make one's skin look fantastic
or in the beer bars where the women are dressed to cover up all
faults. The fact is even a girl who dances topless or naked on a
stage may have scars or stretch marks you just didn't take note
of in the bar. The worst of them all are the stretch marks one gets
from having a child. While not all Thai women suffer from this,
enough of them do and when you get one who is really thrashed, well,
your hard-on will drop to the floor and you will wish you had asked
this one question I recommend all ask before taking any bar girl:
"Do you have a baby?" If she answers, "Yes",
it's time to move on to the next gal (unless you don't care if her
body is thrashed or not). If she answers, "No," then this
could be your lucky night.
Now,
once you have determined how much time a bar girl will be spending
with you (i.e., short time or all night), what type of services
she performs (screwing, sucking, anal, etc.), and what type of body
she has (does she have any kids), then you are in a position to
answer the question, "How much you pay me?" As a general
rule, most bar girls will be happy with 700 baht for short time
(pay only 500 baht if she stayed with you less than an hour and
did not give head; pay 1,000 if she gave great head and let you
fuck her in the ass) and 1,000 for all night (pay only 700 if she
did not let you screw her in the morning). This applies to South
Pattaya beer bar girls. Add 500-1,000 baht more for Go Go girls
and Bangkok girls.
With
Thai salesmen outside the sex industry, especially those who sell
items you may not have a clue on what you should pay, the best procedure
is to ask the salesman what the rate is. Then, you should ask for
half of what he is asking. As in the case of the porno CD I bought,
when the guy quoted 200 baht, I told him I pay only 100 baht. If
they accept, you've learned the art of bargaining. If they refuse,
then you slowly walk away, only to have them call you back to accept
your offer, you have mastered the art of bargaining in Thailand.
Eric Dexter
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