Archive for Street 51

Joker at Walkabout – a Game to Win $$$ Each and Every Friday

This Week's Jackpot

Playing the Joker at Walkabout game is one of the most popular events in the Phnom Penh girly bar scene each Friday night.  Bar girls and foreigners flock to this popular watering hole to try their luck and find the joker win the jackpot.  How much is there to be won?  Well, that all depends on how many rounds have gone by without a winner, but the prize money has been well over $15,000 in the past, and last week’s winner glad he played Joker at Walkabout because he took home about $13,000.  This article will cover two interesting points: how does a dodgy little bar in Phnom Penh manage to pull together this kind of prize money, and, more importantly, what one needs to do to win it.

It is every Cambodian bar girl’s dream to take home the prize, so let’s imagine two girls are heading over there to play.

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SREI NA: I’ve got six bucks for joker tickets tonight.
SUK LIEP: I’ve been saving up all week and I have twenty bucks!  Let’s go!

The girls hop on a moto and zip over to Street 51 to buy their tickets at Walkabout, a bar for freelance girls, where they promply purchase twenty six tickets for a dollar each.

SREI NA: This place is packed today.  Did you get a drink with any of your tickets?
SUK LIEP: Good idea!

Suk Liep hands over three of her tickets at the bar and the barman takes a pen and scribbles on each of them, gives them back, then pours her a cold glass of beer.  If you purchase three tickets, you get a drink.  The girls turn their attention to a class case mounted on the wall with cards pinned up inside it.

SUK LIEP: Which card do you think is the Joker?
SREI NA: The one in the top left.  That is the one I will pick if they draw my ticket.

 

The Cards in The Glass Case

The bar draws one ticket and the winner chooses one card inside the glass case to turn over.  There are 52 cards pinned up, facing down in the case, so finding the Joker is very unlikely, even though most of the cards have been turned over in previous weeks’ games.

SREI NA: Look at this week’s jackpot!  It is $12,137!  The game has been going for weeks now and the prize is $900 more than last week.
SUK LIEP: How many motos are left to win?
SREI NA: Only one.  I would be happy to win a moto too though.
SUK LIEP: They do have some nice consolation prizes here!  I love to play Joker at Walkabout.

The Joker is not the only card worth turning over.  Turning over an ace wins you a new moto.  A king wins you a new flat screen tv.  A queen wins $200 worth of free beer for everyone at the bar, which, surprisingly, can take an hour or so to distribute as there is lots to go around.

SREI NA: Oh my, they are picking the winning ticket now!  Get your tickets!
BARMAN ON LOUR SPEAKER: The winning number is 0142457
SUK LIEP: Oh my Buddha, that’s my ticket!

Suk Liep makes her way to the bar to show her ticket and is ushered toward the glass case, the holy grail of Walkabout’s Joker game that only a privileged few have been inside of to select their card.  The manager unlocks it with his sacred key and Suk Liep stares intently at the card on the top left that her friend Srei Na was confident would be the Joker.  The crowd has at least two hundred people, all craning their necks to see the card.  Suk Liep points to the card in the top left and the manager unpins it and flips it around, high above his head for all to see.

SUK LIEP: Oh no, it’s a nine!
SREI NA: That’s not good…

 

Walkabout on Joker Night

The crowd cheers as the manager pins the card back on the board, face up this time, and locks up the case.  The crowd is happy because they know that next week, there is one less card to choose from, and the jackpot will be a few hundred dollars higher with the proceeds from the ticket sales going into next week’s prize money.

SUK LIEP: The card on the top left, huh?  That’s the last time I take your advice Srei Na, you silly girl!
SREI NA: I was sure that card was the Joker.

SUK LIEP: That was a waste of twenty dollars.  I hate to lose.  C’mon, let’s get some more drinks and go to Sharky Bar.  At least they have their pool tables professionally leveled.

The girls proceed to booze it up and bar hop, disappearing out the door and into the night with dreams of winning next week’s jackpot.

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Walkabout is a 24 hour bar for freelance Cambodian bar girls.  Three pool tables, darts, booze, and lots of company usually have the place pretty full, but the Joker is definitely the biggest crowd of the week.  Cambodian Girls has no affiliation with Walkabout, the Joker is just a nice way to pass an hour or so on a Friday night and therefore worth writing about.  Please feel free to comment by clicking here if anything about the game is unclear.  Cambodian Girls will accept any nominations for a Pulitzer for best Cambodian based script for our work on the Joker at Walkabout script.

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Cambodian Bar Girls – Hostess Bars

Hostess Bar

The easiest place to meet Cambodian bar girls is, without a doubt, in Phnom Penh’s delightful glut of hostess bars. Hostess bars employ girls to keep customers entertained with conversation and games. The number of girls working at any one hostess bar varies depending on the size of the bar and the budget of the bar owner, but for the average bar there are perhaps ten to twenty girls in the bar on any given evening waiting to meet you.

Cambodian Girl

Cambodian hostess bars are slightly different than those in Thailand because the girls employed there are not allowed to do any performance dancing, but other than that, the bars operate pretty much the same way. The bar girls are paid a salary but they can earn much more from tips. The average salary for Cambodian bar girls in hostess bars is $60 – $70 a month. Their salary is not very much by western standards, but it pays more than the most accessible alternative – working in the local garment factories. The bar girls do work hard though, usually getting only two days off each month. Their job entails making conversation and playing whatever games the bar has with the customers. Pool, connect four, and foosball are some of the most popular options. The girls will ask customers to buy them lady drinks, which cost the customer about $3 and earns the bar girls a $1 commission. Lots of girls supplement their income by freelancing at Heart of Darkness, or another disco, once the hostess bar they work at closes around 2am. Learn more about Cambodian bar girls in discos.

It is easy to meet these girls, after all, it is their job to talk with people and some foreign guys living Phnom Penh develop relationships with Cambodian bar girls working in hostess bars. These girls are usually very nice and will happily join you for a game of pool, sit and chat, or even teach you their language. Of course, they’d appreciate a tip for doing so! Some of the girls who work at these bars are very new to the job and have been recruited from garment factories or some other low paying jobs with the promise of higher income. Others have been working in hostess bars for years and are seasoned professionals. No matter how seasoned they are, they don’t get the sort of experience that girls in Thailand or Philippines get and are generally much more innocent as a result. Tourism in Cambodia has not taken off like it has in other parts of South East Asia. A lot of Cambodian bar girls, like their counterparts in other countries, dream of meeting a foreign man and having a happy marriage.

Hostess Bar

If a customer fancies a Cambodian bar girl and wishes to become better acquainted with her, it is possible to take her out of the bar. For this privilege, one must pay a “bar fine” to the owner of the bar. The standard bar fine in Cambodia is $5, much less than in other South East Asian countries. Some bars are raising their price to $10, so expect prices to vary depending on the quality of the bar and the virtues of the hostesses. Once you take a girl out of her bar, you can take her out for some food, to go dancing, for a drink, or straight to a guesthouse for a few hours.

Depending on your relationship with the girl, it is most likely that she would prefer to do whatever will get her paid fastest. This concept is strange to some foreign men who are used to girls who love to be wined and dined with romance in the air. Remember that for Cambodian bar girls from hostess bars, this is their job and that when they are finished with one customer they can go back to the bar, or head out to a disco to find another customer and make more money. Expect to pay $20 or more if you take a girl to a guest house for a short time. Some girls expect far more than this.  Negotiation in advance can avoid problems later on.  From the girls point of view, she is indignant if she doesn’t get the same amount her friends are getting from customers.  Contrary, she will brag to them if she gets more.  Be sensitive of this issue when negotiating.

If you are looking for some western style quality time with a hostess bar girl, be prepared to put in some time to develop a relationship with her by returning to the bar often.  Remember that as long as she works for the bar, the bar owner will ensure that the bar’s interests come first and that customers pay for the time they spend with their employees (the bar girls). In order to spend a normal amount of time with a male customer, Cambodian bar girls will have to quit their jobs. If you ask a bar girl to quit her job so she can be with you, be prepared to compensate her financially as she will likely not have any other source of income.

Hostess

There are three main areas in Phnom Penh where hostess bars are clustered together. They are on Street 104 (Seng Though Street) between the post office and the riverside, Street 136 (Oknha In Street) just off the riverside, and along Street 51 (Pasteur Street) between Street 154 (Dekcho Damdin) and Street 174 (Oknha Ket). Each of these areas has at least a dozen or so bars and one can easily bar hop from bar to bar searching for the perfect hostess. All three areas are a short moto ride from one another. At the time of this writing $1 is a fair price for travel from any one to any other by moto. Travel by tuk-tuk will cost $2. With all the locations so close together, and a plethora of drivers at each location waiting to ferry customers to their next venue, it is very convenient and easy to make your way around town to have some fun with Cambodian bar girls in Phnom Penh’s hostess bars.

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