Bangkok's Patpong is the gaudiest and most unrestrained red-light district in Asia, probably the world. It is a by-word for all that is unpermissible, and much that isn't, to seekers-after-pleasures of the flesh. For years tourism officials have tried to play down Patpong's lurid attractions, but it remains one of Bangkok's most visited areas.

Lying between Silom and Suriwongse roads, the four acres of bars and massage parlours that lie within Patpong's two main streets are crowded nightly with seekers after sexual pleasure, as well as curious tourists who come to gaze on the glittering neon and the boy and girl bait set to lure punters into the bars.

Patpong and Vietnam War

The original owners of the site were, and still are, a Thai-Chinese family named Patpong, who have owned the site since 1946 when it was bought as a banana plantation. However, with the Vietnam war in 1960 hotting up, the bars and massage parlours moved into the houses that had been built on the plantation, in order to cater to USA servicemen on R. & R. in Bangkok and Pattaya, at that time a small fishing resort.

Sex Shows and Prostitution in Thailand

Technically what happens in Patpong bars is against the law. Prostitution is illegal in Thailand, but Patpong is a law unto itself.

Activities downstairs are relatively tame. Go-go girls sit in a row waiting to move in on a singleton, movies are screened from wall-mounted giant plasma screens, sex-shows from TVs on one wall, International rugby and football from the other wall.