Like every tourist destination in Thailand, Samui has a flourishing scene of bar girls, with gangs of young ladies standing around in skimpy outfits calling out to male passers by in an attempt to bring in trade for their bar.

These Samui bar girls are generally from the poor northeast of Thailand and send much of the money they earn back to their families. It’s therefore worth remembering that whether or not you agree with the concept, the girls themselves do not deserve to be blamed or looked down upon. This is work in Thailand, and should be understood from this perspective.

All the same, there are plenty of bar girls on Samui and sex tourism is a relatively obvious part of the Samui nightlife scene. Many visitors are surprised by the number of foreign men they see with a Thai girl on their arm. But sex on Samui is still not sold in the same way as it is in places like Pattaya, which promotes the sex trade on a much larger scale. The bars on Samui tend to be low-key affairs, there are no big brothels and even the beer-bar complexes in Chaweng and Lamai adopt a more personal approach and therefore avoid the kind of hard sell tactics that make places like Pat Pong in Bangkok notorious. Recently, slightly more sophisticated venues have set up such as Dream Girls and Club 69 in Soi Green Mango. dreamgirls69.com

Temporary girlfriends’ are a much more common sight on Samui, with most foreign guys spending much of their holiday with the same girl, buying her presents and perhaps even providing a lump sum payment at the end of the ‘romance’ to help the family. There are also quite a few long-term Thai / foreigner couples living on the island, so it’s best to be careful before making swift judgments. Bars girls on Samui, like in Phuket and Pattaya, are part of the many aspects of the island.

On the other side of the coin, men should always be mindful when visiting clubs and bars on Samui that appear not to be selling sex at all. Plenty of young foreign guys find themselves in difficult situations because they think they got lucky with a lovely Thai girl in a club, only to find that she requires payment for her services the next day. Thai girls do not generally approach foreign men they have never met unless they have an economic need. Don’t be flattered into thinking otherwise. For the uninitiated, apart from the obvious, one sure sign that you are at a girly bar is when the barmaid challenges you to a game of Connect Four.

Sex tourism is an exploitative business on many levels: customers exploit the currency difference to buy cheap comany, bar owners exploit the girls to boost business and yes, some of the girls exploit their clients’ lack of savvy to make a much-needed buck.

Whatever your opinion, the only time it is worth either passing judgment, or becoming involved as a non-paying customer, is when violence or discrimination are obviously taking place. Even then, bear in mind that in a commercial transaction, you may not be thanked for your help or interference.

Which ever way you look at it, the bar girl scene on Samui, like other in tourist places in Thailand, is considered an attraction for some and tolerated by the authorities who take a different ‘moral view’. Some enjoy it, others ignore, and for some it’s a job which they’ve chosen over working in a factory or rice field. By and large, the bar girls of Thailand’s tourist industry aren’t subjected to unpleasant or harsh conditions.

If you get really drunk
you could wake up with this!!!