Amsterdam is one of those things in life that you can’t comprehend until you’ve actually been there yourself. You can get an idea of what its like from hearing about it and seeing it on TV, but you really need to go there to really get a sense of what its actually like.

I visited Amsterdam on a solo jaunt two weeks ago. It was an awesome trip (and I did not even eat the mushrooms!). I was mesmerised by the place. I have not been anywhere else like it. Even though I sort of knew what to expect in Amsterdam, it still caught me off guard.

Weed cafès and magic mushroom shops are everywhere, and all the sex things are a spectacle. There really is no place like it.

I went walking around the Red Light District, and I also looked at a peep show, and then a live sex show. It was an experience.

There’s a place in town with loads of sex shops, sex museums and sex stuff on display. I went into this little Peep Show place. Inside this place there’s about a dozen private booths. These booths are sort of like the size and shape of those kiosks that used to do passport photos.

The hilarious thing about these private booths is that they feature a seat and a roll of toilet paper! They’re sort of like public toilet cubicles but for a very different purpose. The toilet paper is obviously there for punters that wank off.

Inside some booths one can shut the door, insert a few coins and watch an old porn movie on a screen. Other booths offer a real interactive experience.

Other booths have no TV screen, but instead a window 6 foot high by 3 foot wide, and for €22 one can select a model who then appears on the other side of the window and performs a live sex show. I did not purchase the €22 peep show service, but I assumed it would feature a woman jumping out in front of you, then stripping off and masturbating with a range of sex toys.

The amazing thing about these little peep show booths is that there is nothing but a thin pane of glass separating the performers from the punters. Punters are literally inches away from the performers. One would be able to touch the performers if it weren’t for the glass between them.

At this peep show place I opted for the most popular €2 service.

In the middle of this place there’s a little dome encircled by private booths. You step into a booth, close the door, and pop €2 into a receptacle. Once you pop €2 in, a blank screen lights up and there you are watching a real life naked woman dancing around on a rotating bed. You can also see all the other punters looking through their windows. Its like people looking into a monkey’s cage at the zoo while this nude woman spins round and round in her cage, and this is what she does all day long. She is inches away from the spectator’s eyes. Sometimes she stands up and walks right up to the window, bending over and flexing in all sorts of different positions. You can almost see the sun shining out of her. Its a spectacle that I have only ever seen in Amsterdam. Thousands of people walk by this place every day, and all day every day people pop in for a moment to throw €2 into the peep show while they casually stroll through that part of town.

The Red Light District is an experience in itself. Properly known as De Wallen it is actually also home to ordinary residents. Although you sort of know what to expect with sex workers standing in windows and what not, it still hijacks your amazement when you see it in real life. In between vibrant bars and smokey cafès there are women standing in windows, mostly dressed in knickers and lingerie, and they are very certainly selling sex. Prospective clients can literally just stand there in the middle of a busy street and ask a scantily clad woman how much for a blowjob or a shag.

The prostitutes made me think of mannequins in a lingerie store only for they are actually real women; smoking, standing up, sitting down and talking to people that invite them to conversation as they pass by. Real life mannequins selling sex in a sex shop on the High Street! You can’t help but marvel at it.

There’s a little passageway joining two streets together. You walk down a little set of steps and on through this narrow little passageway and as you’re walking through there are windows on your side with sexy prostitutes selling sex. Its almost surreal, and although it might seem seedy, something about it is quite spectacular. It honestly feels like you’re walking around some sort of fairytale land that you’ve only ever heard of in books or movies.

Then there are the live sex shows. There’s loads of them. Lots of people have heard of the (famous) black couple that perform at Cassa Rossa. I personally went to Moulon Rouge. As a first timer I thought it was ineffable.

For €40 Moulon Rouge presents shows every hour. I went to a 10 o’clock show. I popped inside and the seating arrangement is like a cross between a small theatre and a strip club. There’s a small stage with a strippers pole and a few rows of seats, behind that there is a little bar with 2 girls selling drinks.

Music starts playing and the show starts. I took a ringside seat. I would guess that the venue seats about 50 – 100 people per show. There are 5 acts at every show.

When I visited a woman came out on stage, did a strip tease around the pole then stuffed a candle into her vagina. She lit the candle and wriggled around the stage with a lit candle popping out of her vagina. The bar staff clapped and cheered and prompted everyone else to clap and cheer. This is when you realise that clapping between acts is acceptable, as if you’re watching magicians doing tricks then bowing out on the stage.

Next up another woman came out and did a sexy dance and a strip. Then a man in his underpants walks up on stage and it sends a nervous shiver through the audience. You know what might be about to happen, but you realise there’s no way to prepare yourself for what you’re about to see. You start to question your own morals for actually coming to this place. Then you look around you and notice that people in the audience are watching on perplexed, many of them wondering what is actually going on, some of them visibly distressed, nervous and totally uncomfortable with what they’re actually witnessing.

You can see that the man in his underpants is at least semi erect as a bulge protrudes from his underpants. As a couple they start kissing on stage, then fondling around with each other, wanking off and eventually then she’s on her knees sucking him off. This chap also kept wanking at himself, you could see he was struggling to stay fully hard which isn’t surprising because it seems like a totally unnatural thing to stand before a crowd of civilised people while you wank, suck and fuck your partner against the backdrop of a Beyoncè song. Even watching one of these shows feels totally unnatural.

This couple perform on stage, but to make the experience that little bit more interactive, they also walk up and down beside viewers in the audience, crouching down beside viewers to give each other a little suck. There is only so many words you can use to describe the experience of being sat within an inch of a naked penis on the receiving end of a blowjob. They pop back up on stage then and do a few vanilla sex positions. Its just like, “wow! What the hell am I watching!”

This act is followed then by a woman who pulls glow in the dark strings out of her fanny. She gets an audience member to get up on stage and pull the strings out of her fanny. They keep coming and coming. An endless string of glow in the dark colours. Its captivating and hilarious. About 50 metres of string comes out of her as she giggles away to herself. Its like a female version of X-rated David Blaine. You’re left wondering how on earth did she fit that much string up there. Is it magic? Or is it Moulon Rouge in Amsterdam? You have to check yourself.

Then there’s a woman that puts a sharpie marker inside herself, and she gets an audience member to pop up on stage. Using her vagina she writes “sexy” across the participant’s chest via the sharpie marker. Its a talent you just won’t see anywhere else.

Then there’s another couple. A black man and a skinny white woman. They suck and fuck each other on stage. She gets down on the ground, sticks her ass in the air and he gives her a good hard seeing to. They walk up and down through the audience, leaning on audience members as they shag each others brains out. You just can’t believe what you’re seeing.

When I left Moulon Rouge the following quote popped into my head “what has been seen cannot be unseen.”

If you go to one of these sex shows in Amsterdam you will scar your poor innocent mind forever. Your eyesight will be deflowered. Part of you will be less wholesome than it was before. You’ll remember seeing other people in the audience reacting like deer frozen in the headlights at the shock of their inner purity turning to mud.

I couldn’t help but wonder how those live sex performers do what they do for a living. I can’t understand how one could totally dissociate themselves from that behaviour. It was the grandest display of gross public indecency that I’ve ever seen. I went through the motions of shock, laughter, bewilderment, curiosity and mild arousal all at the same time, and I felt guilty for it, yet I also felt grateful for it. I’m kind of glad I saw such an unsettling disgusting presentation. It enlightened me.

As I left Moulon Rouge I bade farewell to Amsterdam. Leaving the streets at midnight on a Monday night I recall the strong smell of weed as people sat outside cafès getting totally stoned. I witnessed one man pull a whitey as his friends supported him in a weed cafè. Bars were serving drinks. There was tourists around. The place was booming. I can’t imagine it having a recession. I don’t know why but I thought it seemed like a “recession proof” economy, it was just so vibrant.

Amsterdam offers a lot for the senses. Aspects of it may not be for the faint hearted. Yet its an awesome place with so much to offer. It has much much more than just sex shows and weed, although it is amusing to think that you can experience all it has to offer while munching on space cakes, cannibas cookies and magic mushrooms. You have to go there to see it for yourself. Its like a playground for adults.