The Patpong Ping Pong Show Rip Off

As I was getting ready to be married I was back in my home country and was in a car accident with my brother. No one was hurt but it was a pretty bad crash and so I canceled my stag party that evening. My wife was very fair and because I missed out on my stag party she agreed to let me go to Thailand with my friends who were all married at the time. We also had another couple of guys who came with us who weren’t married but they were both gay but they weren’t a couple.

We had heard about the famous ping pong shows in Bangkok and decided we wanted to go and see one as none of us had seen one before. This was years ago so I can’t remember the exact location but I’m guessing it was probably one of the upstairs bars at Patpong.

We were walking past lots of bars. There were a lot of people outside trying to get us into their bars. They were all wearing different uniforms some dressed up as sexy waitresses and all sorts of other uniforms. One guy was holding up what looked like a menu with all different shows advertised. One of them said ‘Ping Pong Show Jackpot.’

We were led up some stairs to a room with a boxing ring set up in the middle of the room and some seating around the boxing ring. We ordered our drinks and then some ladies showed up and raised their glasses thanking us for their drinks. First sign of trouble as we hadn’t ordered any drinks for these ladies.

At this point in the proceedings we really didn’t know what we had signed up for. I just remember thinking at the time that they have all had drinks they’re thanking us for them but we didn’t order any drinks. Anyway let’s see how this plays out.

So the show begins. ‘Bring it on’ I thought. There was a show where a lady fired darts at balloons. There were some weird dancing shows but the ping pong shows that had been advertised on the guy’s card downstairs were not to be seen.

Inside the Patpong Show

There was an old German couple that showed up late. They seemed very disappointed that they missed a lot of the shows. I could overhear them complaining to each other I knew what they were saying in a roundabout way even though I don’t speak their language.

After a while sitting in my chair and taking it all in it was actually quite shocking to see the environment I was in not the show. For example when we first came up the stairs there was a lady bouncing a baby on her knee at the entrance of the room. Everyone watching the show seemed to be a bit out of place.

The show ended so we were ready to leave. We’d only ordered one drink each when we arrived so you can imagine our shock when the bill came to our table and was 9000 Baht. Dave who is quite a large guy started freaking out and the lady who had brought the bill over to us was clearly terrified. We’re all standing behind Dave he is the biggest out of our group. I was very surprised that the guys at the door didn’t come over to try and smooth things over.

In the end we did a deal and settled on 3000 Baht. Yes we had been ripped off but 3000 Baht was better than 9000 Baht and the bill was shared between several of us. We all laughed it off as just being an experience but Dave was really angry and he took a long time to calm down.

Later on we found a bar which had a Japanese band playing Beatles covers. That band was pretty good and I ended up seeing them again at a bar in Singapore.

The one bit of advice I would give you if you’re in Thailand and you get set up like we did just try and do a deal and walk away. It’s just not worth the hassle.