Thailand's Ugly Side

This past weekend I caught glimpse of the ugly side of Thailand... and I'm not just talking about the woman's backside in the picture above. On Saturday morning I hopped on a bus headed for Pattaya, a tourist hot spot known for its balance of family-friendly beach activities and the super-scandalous sex trade. I wasn't expecting to run into much of the indecent proposals... thinking that sort of underground operation happened in a dark alley setting. How wrong I was! As soon as the sun went down, girls (young, YOUNG girls) and men moonlighting as members of the opposite sex took their posts on the street, beckoning passers-by into their skeevy establishments. I scampered away from the scamps and tramps as fast as I could, but was no less scarred. I hid in my hotel room, ready to take the first bus back in the morning. At 2am I awoke to a man banging at my door saying something in Thai about the police and my 'friend' and something else I couldn't understand. Since I stupidly came to Pattaya alone, I informed him that I didn't have any friends, I didn't know what he's talking about, and I just wanted to go back to sleep. SCARY! Thankfully, I made it back to my little town in one piece and will never return to Pattaya again. Sheesh.