good lord. just typing that subject line makes me laugh. except it's so real.

ok, so here's the deal. I'm here at patong beach with a pal... our first time to Thailand, but not out first time traveling at gay bars around the world... we're savvy travelers but this situation is really a weird one.

the bars here are full of little "host boys" (who are over 18 as best we can tell), and last night we had a bunch of them all over us as they served us beer and (I assume, and was told) tried to get us to buy more "services" from them. we knew that's how things work here, it's fine, whatever.

one guy inparticular caught my friend's eye; my friend wasn't looking for anything (and wasn't planning on hiring anyone for "special services") but the guy (henceforth NTF, his New Thai Friend) wanted to get a drink at a club down the street and kept saying "let me show you the club!" so my friend paid the "bar fee" for NTF to leave and he joined us at the bar down the street.

the three of us hung out, drank, etc. my friend and NTF ended up going back to his room, where it turns out NTF stayed the night,.

interestingly, I had someone come on to me at the bar and it was clearly all business with this guy (just as my friend assumed it was with himself and NTF)... my guy sort of followed me back to my room when the four of us left the bar but in my room, the conversation quickly turned to money for services (EXACTLY as I expected) and I asked him to leave. all of that is fine.

here's where it gets weird: my friend tells me that when he got back to his room with NTF, he tried to have the conversation abqout money but NTF ignored it, changed the subject, possibly didn't understand what was going on (despite my friend's repeated attempts to ask/be sure he was understood).

my friend has NO illusions about what's going on: NTF is way, way too "friendly" to be not doing business here. (incidentally, NTF is 20 years old; just to put that out there and clear any possible misconceptions...)

it gets weirder. today my friend and I come back from our day tour and NTF sees us returning and comes over and is all over my friend, says he wants to stay the night again with my friend, etc. my friend pulls him aside, and tries again to have the conversation about money. apparently my friend was VERY black-and-white with NTF about the whole thing: "should I be paying you?" and "the other thai guy we met last night at the bar had a conversaion with my friend about money and services, why are we not having that conversation?" --and every time he asked this plainly, NTF would giggle, act like he didn't understand (despite my friend laying it right out there) and try to play with his nipples. great!

so that leaves me posting here, which is kind of silly, but consider this: if you've been to Patong you know how this block of sleazy gay bars are all packed next to each other. my friend isn't comfortable asking any locals (incl the guy working at our hotel front desk, across the street from where we met NTF) because everyone seems to be connected and talking to everyone else. we haven;'t met any foreigners to ask and, well, you know, it's just not an easy thing to ask someone. ("hey, when should I expect to be billed for this hooker I seem to have hired?!") ;-) we don't want to ask the bar owner for the same reason.

I suggested flyertalk as a savvy community of folks, and hopefuly the place where SOMEONE will know what the heck is going on here :-)

ummmm, HELP! how does the situation work? why is it that the guy I met went right to the money conversation exactly as and when expected, yet NTF can't seem to broach the subject with my friend? it's clearly business yet my friend doesn't know what he's hired, how much he's in for or (most of all) when/how he's expected to pay!

p.s. come on, the subject line alone makes this a "best of flyertalk" thread, no?! :-)