One Night In Bangkok

I wanted to save a title as deliciously cliche as this one for the right post. I'll tell you right now, this is the right post. Actually, this post is very PG-13 rated, so you know, put the kids to bed or whatever.

You might as well click the play button

One night in Bangkok, Eve and I were thinking of what to do. She brought up Patpong, known infamously to travelers and residents as the dirty spot of Bangkok. Since Bangkok is known somewhat as a dirty city, you can only image what the dirty spot would be like. One of the claims to fame in Patpong is the "ping pong ball trick." Let's just say that ping pong balls are fired out of an orifice. I went ahead and said "OK, I don't see why not." I had read about this area and was curious.

We got there after the cab ride to see all of the bright lights and people. The main street seemed to be all bars with bright neon lights and then market stands in the center.

A real creative name

You can get about anything you want

As soon as we exited the cab, a man came and said something like "blah blah blah, ping pong ball trick." We were like "OK," and we followed the guy to this shady looking upstairs go go bar.

Upstairs was just a club, with a bar to the left and a stage to the right and tables along the wall. Eve and I sat down, ordered some drinks, and were on our way to enjoying the show. Now, by enjoying the show I mean barely being able to look because these are women who had seen much better days and nobody would pay to see them. They danced for a while, a few girls came to us and asked for me to buy them drinks. I said OK a couple of times.

Anyway, they finally get to the ping pong ball trick. We are sitting there, and this lady lays on her side on the stage. I could hear a distinct "pop" and bam, a ping pong ball comes flying at me. I literally had to use an empty cup from the table to deflect these balls away like a lightsaber reflecting the laser blasts. Many were headed toward my face. I caught one in the cup.

Finally, this whole ordeal was over, and another woman came to the table and slapped this bill down on the table. It read:

Drinks: 1600 baht

Looking fee: 2000 baht

And there we were, stuck with a 3600 baht bill. Now I literally started to panic. I rifled through my pockets looking for money, knowing I only had about 2000 baht and some change. I thought I was going to spend some time in Bangkok prison. They said "just get out what you have" and I did. Eve started yelling at them, and the second she mentioned calling the police on them (this was all in Thai) they stuffed the bill into their pocket, grabbed the money, and shuffled us out of the bar. That was that. What they were doing was illegal and the mention of the police frightened them pretty badly, so they were very happy for what money they got out of me.

So basically I learned a nice expensive lesson. Never go to the ping pong ball trick in Bangkok. Or at least go to one with a cover charge so you know what you have to pay up front.

Just to break the seriousness, here's a nice mascot I saw in Patpong:

"I'm a pretty little octopus, aren't I?"