The kids never cease to surprise me. This Thursday, chief droog Bubbles (not his real name) decided that he liked the English learnin’ game. I ended up with three of them playing that while two did their own thing, and for the third week in a row I wasn’t exhausted at the end of class. Maybe I’m onto something with this whole freedom of choice approach.

That night Stu and I went down Soi 33 to see if a friend of his was at a pub there. Soi 33 is also known as Soi Dead Artist. First a bar called the Renoir Club opened, then a bunch of copycats followed - the Degas Club, the Goya Club, the Monet, the Gaugin, and Dali Pool (as well as establishments with classy names like Love Teen Massage). The street also hosts Demonia, a bondage club. The girls outside smile and say ‘Welcome’ just like the girls at the other places. As Stu said, shouldn’t they be snarling ‘Get inside, slave!’?

One place had a sign up advertising for a receptionist at 10,000 baht ($US284) a month. Some receptionists in black cocktail dresses were standing outside attracting customers. They probably work 7pm-2am for their 10,000 bt, which isn’t a great amount to live on, but it’s more than a police constable’s salary, and the uniforms are prettier. The girls in Soi Dead Artist are well groomed and tastefully begowned, but the street seems (somehow appropriately) dead and they all look bored. Stu’s friend isn’t at the pub, which is full of old white gents. Stu introduces me to one, an affable American named Alan.
“Hi. You’re pretty,” he says to me, and to Stu, “Is she your niece?”
“Sister,” I say. “Brother, sister.”
Stu and I have been taken for brother and sister before and I see an opportunity to start a rumour that we’re cohabiting in incestuous bliss, but Stu soon introduces me as his wife. As he points out later, he didn’t say I wasn’t his sister too.

We ended up at Livingstone’s, an African-themed bar/restaurant hotel complex. I hadn’t been there before, and I liked the outdoor seating under a thatched cloister around an aquamarine pool with a view across to a multilevel carpark - and, appropriately again, the Rembrandt Hotel.