Ping Pong Shows in Bangkok — Nightmare in Patpong
Exploring the Redlight Districts of Thailand
Let’s be honest about one thing.
If you’re wandering through the streets and alleyways of Patpong, you’re looking for trouble.
Curtis and I had heard about these “ping pong shows” from other backpackers across the southern beaches. A cultural experience, they say, like a peep show in Amsterdam or dancing robots in the underbelly of Tokyo.
I wasn’t particularly determined to see a plastic ball shoot out from a kegeling local Thai woman, but as they said, you do it for the culture.
We take a taxi from Khao Son, escaping the frenzies of backpacker hostels and cheap expat bars. When we arrived, we were surprised to find that the central fixture of Patpong was an innocent-looking night market. Vendors auction off their assortment of counterfeit brand clothes, electronics, and local trinkets while steam rises up from each end of the street from food carts serving skewers and bowls of soup. With that said, if you know what to look for, you don’t need to venture into the surrounding crevices to sense the nearby transgressive sub-culture.
Massive guts of the West are in abundance. Youthful locals in skin-tight silk load up on carbs for the long night ahead. And, of course, the human directionals, holding their laminated signs for the “exclusive” Ping Pong show “happening now!” in the area.
“You like see Ping Pong show! Ping pong! Ping Pong!”
“How much?” I asked the eager hawker.
“200 Baht for Ping Pong show and free beer. Any more drink, you pay extra.”
I looked over to Curtis, and we both shrugged in agreement. Seemed like a fair price.
“Ok, let’s go,” I say.
The local man lights up and jokingly slaps me on the arm in approval. I even consider that he may have thrown in the free beer just for us. We walk back over to the market just off Surawong Road. The man shepherds us through, fending off the vying vendors, and then leads us between a couple of canopies to an ominous black door hidden behind the chaos of the night market.
We enter the building as he graciously opens the steel door. Inside is a narrow stairway, dimly lit by blue lights, with another door at the top of the stairway.
The man slides by us and leads us up, simultaneously messaging someone on his phone. The entry swings open, and we’re welcomed by a seductress with an Adam’s apple sharp enough to cut glass.
“Hello! Welcome, welcome! Follow me, please!”
Now, I don’t know exactly what I was expecting. Perhaps an intimate venue like a comedy club, a circus-themed stage, maybe some red curtains. The point is, I thought a Ping Pong show was a theatrical performance, albeit with an erotic twist.
The truth is, you don’t need to bend your imagination to know what it’s actually like inside.
We turn the corner at the top of the stairs, and all we find is a grungy-looking strip club with a handful of foreign shmucks like us scattered around the premise in complete dismay, like mice caught in a glue trap.
There's a platform in the middle with just one woman dancing against a pole. Small round tables circle the stage on the ground floor, and booths reside on a raised outer layer. The waitress led us to our table, which, fortunately or unfortunately for us, was right in front of the stage.
Curtis and I warily take our seats as she races to get us our free beers. The gentleman who corralled us from the street waves to us from the doorway with that trusting smile that led us here in the first place. I notice how quickly it vanishes as he nods to the bouncer and slams the door shut behind him. Across the stage, four people on what looks like a double date sit uncomfortably at their table, the girls with their arms and legs crossed while the men whisper to each other as they scan the room.
I look around and notice that no one in the entire venue seems to be enjoying themselves.
Something doesn’t feel right.
Our beers arrive, and I can’t help but observe the definition of the waitress’s arms. I suddenly realized that every waitress in the club was a ladyboy. Sure, sometimes you can’t tell — but not here.
“This is not quite what I was expecting,” I shout to Curtis over the obnoxious Thai pop music as I go to clink his beer.
“No shit!” He yells back.
Suddenly, we hear a whistling sound. That sound you hear when the lifeguard calls you out for running alongside the neighborhood pool or when it’s time to run sprints during gym class.
“What is that?” I ask Curtis.
He doesn’t answer. Instead, his eyes are fixated on the stage, widening them to signal me to do the same.
The pole dancer from before — who I’m now convinced is the only woman working in this club — leans back on a chair, legs raised to the ceiling, holding a whistle to her vagina. Her eyes scrunch, and her mouth puckers every time she releases pressure into the instrument.
This was act one.
For the next fifteen minutes, she proceeded to do things I never imagined possible.
The whistle was graduated to a more elegant flute. Then, darts were taken out, stuffed, and expulsed with pinpoint accuracy, popping balloons on a board. Ping Pong balls would fly out of her canal like my little brother's Nerf gun.
Make it stop. Dear god, make it stop.
The performance is carried out with such an impassiveness that it twists your heart. She conducts each act like a DMV clerk on a Tuesday. Her flower — if you can still call it that — is a utility for a sexual novelty that sorry fucks(like myself) seek out for a story to tell.
But let’s be very clear. There’s nothing alluring about this.
I was made aware prior that the final act for a Ping Pong show typically comprises an erect man coming up on stage and tying a ribbon on the whole thing. After seeing what we’ve seen thus far, I was determined to leave before this occurred.
However, before I could nudge Curtis to suggest we leave, the waitress brought the performer an unopened glass beer bottle. Both of us were perplexed as to what would happen next.
The woman spreads her legs once more while sitting in the chair, though this time, she locks in her ankles to the chair legs to brace herself. Then, she takes the beer bottle with both hands and pins the top end of the beer to her pelvis. With one strong act of leverage, she pops open the bottle, which sprays out like champagne.
Curtis and I, sitting closest to the stage and in her line of sight, take on direct fire from the horrid act. I feel a string of beer splatter on the side of my cheek and the corner of my right eye.
In disbelief, I wipe the beer off with my hand and look at Curtis.
“Let’s get the fuck, out of here. NOW.”
No argument from him, eyes still wide in complete dismay.
We b-line it to the corner of the strip club, where there’s a register on a high-top counter with a couple of waitresses recording the orders of the entire club. We approach the waitresses and ask to pay our tab.
The head waitress obliged and began totaling up our bill. She is almost my height, albeit with heels, but still more intimidating than the usual figure I typically encounter in a neon green dress.
She then takes out a calculator, which I find odd.
Two hundred Baht times two, what’s the problem here? I think to myself.
Yet she keeps adding in figures and looking at her register as if referencing a complicated pricing matric.
Finally, she presses the equal sign on the calculator and copies our price onto the bill.
5000 Baht
I immediately tense up.
Curtis blurts out, “What the fuck!”
I try to remain calm.
I try to reason with the waitress, enunciating every syllable sternly.
“The man that brought us in told us 200 baht for show and free beer. We should only pay 400 Baht,” I say.
The waitress's face makes a hostile shift, and her original deep voice erupts.
“No, you see pussy, that extra! You see pussy, you pay!”
Curtis and I are shaken. I now respond with equal hostility, insisting that I wouldn't pay anything more than 400 Baht.
The commotion causes the rest of the wait staff to surround us. Now, there are at least five or six staff members around us; even the performer on the stage pauses her act to see what’s going on.
I look to the exit door and see the bouncer adjust something on the doorknob. He then makes his way over to us as well.
We’re fucked.
“I’m not paying a goddamn thing!” I insist.
“You see pussy! You pay! Pay now! Pay now!”
The other waitresses join in. “Pay now! Give money!”
Now they’re grabbing at our pants, searching for our wallets.
“Get the fuck off me!” Yells Curtis.
“Pay money! Pay money! You see pussy! You see Ping Pong!”
The doorway is in sight. We can make a break for it, but it may be locked. Either way, it’s now or never.
“Curtis, let’s gun for the door!”
“Are you serious?”
“Now!”
I break open the surrounding mob of ladyboys and slip past the bouncer. Curtis instantly follows my trail.
We sprint to the door, which is about ten yards away, enough time to get some spacing from the staff. When I get there, the door’s locked, but it’s from the inside, and I try to adjust the knob. It spins, but the door remains locked.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I panic.
“Open the door!” Yells Curtis.
“I’m trying, but it’s locked!” I scream back.
The bouncer has caught up to us now, and Curtis has to fend him off while I keep working the door.
I continue to spin the nob. Nothing.
I lift up and shake the handle around. Nothing.
Finally, I plant my right foot on the wall and pull on the handle as hard as possible.
CRACK!
The strike plate breaks free from the door frame, and it’s open!
We shove away from the bouncer, the ladyboys just behind him. We leaped down the stairwell with just two strides and busted through the bottom door, which, thankfully, was unlocked this time.
A handful of tourists see the commotion and watch curiously. The bouncer is still chasing after us in the stairwell, followed by the ladyboys, tip-toeing down in their high heels.
Curtis and I sprint through the market, ducking under canopies and switching across the aisles to get out of sight. We get to the end of the market and take a hard turn onto Surawong Road. After about a hundred yards, I look back to see if they’re still after us, and it appears we’re in the clear. We check our pockets for our things and scan our bodies for any injuries.
Remarkably, we’re ok.
Everything we just witnessed. The foolish risk we took to avoid losing a hundred bucks —it all starts to settle in.
We walk in silence, too embarrassed to even look each other in the eyes.
Fully knowing that we got what we deserved.
Meanwhile, it’s not even 9 pm.
The night is still young.
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