Taxidermongolia
by Roger Norum
When you’re driving through the middle of nowhere-i.e., Mongolia-the last thing you expect to come upon is a karaoke bar. Especially not one teeming with taxidermy.

In addition to cheap, comfortable beds, the Bulgan Hotel offers refuge to your inner performer, not to mention your inner biological anthropologist. As you sing along to Sting, Britney Spears, and the Doors, marmots, eagles, gazelles, ibex, and other stuffed steppe-dwellers listen patiently from their perches around the room. It’s just like Disney’s Snow White, except the animals are dead. (Don’t worry, they were caught and preserved before laws protecting them went into effect.) The animals sit, stand, and hang about, seeming ready to pounce on their prey-i.e., you-as the television screens flash song lyrics and those painfully low-budget music videos that accompany most karaoke choices. Norman Bates, where are you?

If you happen to pass through Tsetserleg-it’s actually a common stop on many jeep trips to the national parks-stop at the Bulgan for a beer, a croon, or both. But remember what the zookeeper said: Please don't feed the animals.

Located on one of only two roads in the village of Tsteserleg, 400 kilometers from the Mongolian capital of Ulaan Baatar, the Bulgan Hotel sits across from the town plaza. The bar claims to have opening and closing hours, but the staff is usually willing to open and turn on the microphones when asked nicely; they know they’re in for a good laugh. The bar serves bottles of Mongolian beer for 30p and karaoke songs cost 50p apiece. Petting is free.

Going Wild West Style in Beirut
by Mike Elkin
The last thing I expected to find in the tiny Beirut bar would be a portal into a Wild West-style whorehouse with midgets.

As usual, this ordeal began in a harmless way. Jerome, Kristian, and I were enjoying a few Almaza beers at the brightly lit PUB DANY, one of the cheapest dives around, when Jerome asked to use the telephone to call home.

We followed the barman up a steep flight of stairs. Near the top, a hidden door to the right opened and a massive woman in an aqua-blue dress stepped out-along with, of course, a midget. We froze as she mumbled in Arabic and started cackling. The midget remained silent. Still intent on making his phone call, Jerome kept climbing and disappeared through the door. When I followed, crossing the threshold, 100 eyes focused on me. The bordello-slash-casino was packed with customers. An old, toothless man in the corner with oversized glasses and a large wooden cane grinned. Two girls in cheap lingerie giggled on the sofa. A table of four Lebanese soldiers with pistols shoved down the fronts of their pants let their card hands fall to the table. The fat madame reappeared in the back with her dwarf friend and cackled something else to the giggling girls.

Murmurs traveled around the room like the wisps of Marlboro smoke that undulated through the air, driven by the electric fans. I shot a glance at Jerome, who was attempting to make a call on Alexander Graham Bell’s high-school science project. The size of a turntable and sprouting numerous copper tubes and valves, this “phone” had more chance of spitting out coffee than connecting with an AT&T operator.

The natives grew more restless, and the whispering grew louder. I grabbed Jerome by the collar (he was speaking into the percolator at the time), and, with Kristian in tow, we raced down the stairs and into the night air. Good place for a beer, but brush up on your saloon skills-ace-pocketing aces, madame-handling, and pistol-packing- before going upstairs.

Pub Dany is off of Hamra Street in Beirut, Lebanon’s shopping district.

Diplomats and Cambodian Dancefloors
by Gordon Candelin
Nothing can prepare you for the sheer sweaty mayhem of THE HEART OF DARKNESS, where you mix expats desperate for fun, the spoiled children of the Cambodian elite, a gay youth scene, slumming diplomats, and scores of taxi girls who regularly squeeze into a space not much bigger than a few pool tables.

The Heart wouldn’t be out of place in any major metropolis-it’s small, dim, and has just enough attitude to make you wonder how you got in-but it happens to be in Phnom Penh, capital of one of the world’s poorest and most traumatized countries. In other words, it fits in scarily perfectly.

The music ranges from surprisingly good to surprisingly bad, but the dance floor is always packed. A gun or two has been flashed, in spite of the heavy security presence at the door, and brawls are common, but since they are usually only of the seriously drunken kind, the damage tends to be minimal.

Go early (the Heart opens at 7 p.m.) to hang out and play pool with the cool bartenders and security guards. The latter, however, have the disconcerting habit of waving you in the door without checking you-and who knows who else-for weapons.

The Heart is located on Street 57, or Boulevard Pasteur, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.