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Freelancer Cafes/Bars

BabyDoc

Wayfaring Stranger

Since Stupid_Jerkoff_Guy apparently isn’t here to ruin this thread with his stupidity and since we don’t really have articles anymore, I’ll just post this here. Chime in if you’d like to just comment or better yet to share your knowledge/experiences of other like venues.


When I say Freelancer Cafes/Bars I’m not talking about a few prostitutes hanging out in the lounge at a business hotel. What I’m talking about is a place specifically for women in large numbers to gather and display themselves for rent. This differs from streetwalkers on the stroll or Amsterdam’s red light district or Thailand’s Fishbowls with girls wearing numbers behind a glass window. The difference being that you mingle, socialize and drink with the women in an establishment that exists for that very purpose as you shop for someone to go home with. Further the women are not employees in any sense of the word but are true freelancers and seemingly too numerous to count.

My first experience with such a place was in the late 1980’s when I stumbled upon Thermae’s Café in the tourist ghetto section of Bangkok. It was near Soi Cowboy right on Sukhumvit Road. I understand the cafe goes back to the days of the Vietnam War and I don’t know what it was like then but when I found it it was like an afterhours underground place. The word “underground” was pretty much literal as it was in a basement. I remember always being drunk and going through a parking garage to get to the stairs that led down past a kitchen and toilet on an intermediate level then down and opening into the large nightclub type room. There was a bar and music and wall to wall women. Some of the women were bar girls coming off shift who hadn’t gotten lucky but many were just your regular non-club affiliated girls with real life jobs.

They all dressed in nice sexy street clothes and came to socialize. They also hoped to get lucky and go home with one of the charming, handsome and debonair gentleman (like myself) who happened to be there. The ratio of young women to men was something you could only dream about and there were so many girls that you couldn’t move without rubbing bodies together. The first time I visited I saw a girl across the crowded room who was simply stunning. I approached her and though we never spoke, we walked out hand in hand off to never-never land. She and that night are among of my fondest memories.

The last I had heard the Thai authorities had long ago shut Thermae’s down but with this amazing thing called the internet I have recently discovered that it is open again - maybe. The pictures posted on line don’t look at all like what I remember. Perhaps someone just opened it up using the name but I am curious if anyone is familiar with the modern incarnation. I intended to go and see for myself but…CoVid-19.


Next up, a favorite spot of mine that reminds me a lot of the Thermae’s of old is Habano’s Café in Panama City, Panama. This one may be of more useful interest to those living in the States as an alternative to TJ if things ever get back to normal. It is a short, inexpensive flight from ATL, MIA, IAH or a number of other airports east of Dallas. Immigration is a breeze and Panama is not a third world shit hole but I get ahead of myself.

To set the stage you should know that prostitution in Panama is legal country wide. In fact they have a special prostitution visa that women from such places as Colombia, Venezuela and Cuba can obtain to come work as prostitutes and come they do. The law requires that these visa holders register and get tested for STDs which is good but many women don’t want a prostitute visa in their passport so they come on a tourist visa and don’t get tested. What isn’t legal in Panama are pimping or street walking. The law keeps the girls off of street corners and indoors. Many hotels keep them out of the lobbies or at least manage who they let in to work. The Casinos seem to have a love/hate relationship with working girls, sometimes letting them work the floor in large numbers and sometimes running them off if they are cutting into business too much by taking losing gamblers away from the tables.

Hence there is a niche market for a place like Habano’s Café. Located directly across a narrow street (you can spit across it with the wind to your back) from the Panama City Marriott, Habano’s is an open air café/bar whose sole purpose is to provide that off street venue for women to ply their trade. With tables, chairs, a toilet, two bars, three walls and a roof they do a profitable business. There are probably only about 8 employees bartending or waiting tables so the overhead is low and they are open 363 days a year with beer prices at 6 USD for a bottle of Balboa (my preference) and 7 USD for a bottle of Corona the preferred drink of most girls though they do have a full bar if you’re interested.

Where the Cafe makes their real money is by charging women to come and stand in the confines of the café and off the street. Each girl pays the café 10 USD a night for this privilege and once they pay they are given a color coded wrist band good for that night. Beginning at about dark the women show up and their numbers increase late into the night. On a slow night there will be 100 or more while a busy night can see numbers of 200 or more. Just like Thermae’s you can’t walk through the café without rubbing against many female bodies. I love drinking here and people watching. It can be very much like a freak show just so you know but damn, there are some fine women here too.

Just FYI, don’t be worried about the normally present police car or cars with their overhead lights on parked out front. They are tourist police doing crowd and traffic control as there are those who choose to do drive through business. They also chase away the women trying to work on the periphery without paying Habano’s.


Though not common, kind of similar type places can be found around the world such as Brix in Singapore or the private foreigners only bars in Dubai. I’d like to hear about whatever experiences others have and would especially like to hear if anyone has any current knowledge of Thermae’s.