When the Buffalo Bar opened eleven years ago, Pattaya’s 3rd Road was dirt and the surrounding acreage mostly coconut plantations. My French friends and I called the new establishment ‘le campagne’ or the country. The out of the way location was discreet and the girls were loose as Catholic schoolgirls on Qualludes.

Whereas in the west a man’s chances with a woman in a bar were about 1%, at the Buffalo your success ratio was inverted to 99%.

Short-time, long-time, sex, romance or any variable of the eternal quation of man-woman and maybe another woman. Menage-a-trois et menage-a-quarte.

And you felt like Brad Pitt too.

Over the years the city encroached on the greenery and the bar expanded down the soi. The Buffalo was a pleasant alternative to Walking Street’s go-go bars and Cheap Charley haunts of Soi Buahkhao, although the beds in the short-time rooms were built for speed not comfort. In and out. Next customer and the owners, a Belgian midget and Eddi the mama-san made a fortune for years.

Being only 3 minutes away from my present house, the Buffalo has been my locale for the past 3 years. I’ve had a lot of good laughs there. A few close encounters too. Tuk, Gam, Bee, JJ, Nook, Jenny, and Anna to name a few.

But now that’s all come to an end.

The bar had been bleeding girls like they were entering a convent and at first I thought these desertions were the result of farangs offing the girls as long-time friends through the high season, except I discovered the girls were leaving because of being unhappy.

Gam told me Eddi had strangled her.

Pah said she had been accused of stealing.

Gai was tired of being the #1 girl.

Throughout the years Thursday night the Buffalo held a parade throughout the bar. Last year over 80 girls danced by a horde of awe-struck farangs. This past Thursday the conga line barely could muster 20 to amuse me and another western male.

“Is this the end?” my friend Nick asked as we recounted the participants, mostly really fat and old although still more beautiful than any shag you could find in Bournemouth on a Saturday night.

“Could be.” But I’ll drink there to the bitter end.

As I said it’s only three minutes from my house and now that there’s no temptation my wife won’t be so worried about losing me to one of the girls, then  again there never was much worry, since after three beers I’m only going home with a hang-over.

Unless of course I’m weak.