Ping pong in Patpong

Much of the day is spent buying stuff for my apartment. I say stuff, I mean bedding and coat hangers. That’s it. But this takes some time cos Ian tells me it’s cheaper to buy it all at a department store down the road. He’s right. Pata store is a bit scummier than Central, with prices to match. Most of the designs on the bedding are garish – they like their bright colours here in Thailand – but I find something more suitable to my simpler tastes.

I go back to my room and set up my bed. It makes the room immeasurably more like somewhere I want to spend time sleeping in, which makes me happy.

I meet up with Mengly at the Central store later in the afternoon. She is also looking for bedding, a blanket. We look around Central and, yes, it is bloody expensive, even on UK terms. She gives up, deciding she might by a Thai silk pashmina type thing at a market and use that as a blanket instead.

We go to Sai and Ting’s. I finally get to meet James, another ECC teacher, and Ting. I heard a lot about Ting last night, mostly from Mengly, who kept reiterating how funny he is. She also told me that the first thing he would tell me is that he’s Thai’s Brad Pitt. It’s the second thing he tells me. This is because he’s hungover from the party Mengly and I visited briefly the night before. It seems I missed quite a night by heading home early with Aom and Aor. James and him reveal they polished off a fair bit of Thai whisky and said do last night, which resulted in James performing, not one, but two Robbie Williams songs, after spending most of the evening saying he wouldn’t do the karaoke.

Ting is a tall, handsome fella who looks nothing like Brad Pitt, but I can see the point he’s trying to make. James is a tall, handsome, skinny, blonde fella who also looks nothing like Brad Pitt, but, in his defence, makes no claims to.

I’m filling in for him in a lot of his lessons while he heads off around Thailand for a month. We don’t get to talk much about this as Ting puts on a film – the recent remake of The Poseidon Adventure. But he does give me one bit of advice - “Play lots of games.” The film is pretty bad, but in such a way that you can have fun ripping it apart and guessing which character will die next, which me and James do with aplomb. We have some good banter and get on well; it’s a shame he’s heading off for a month.

Once the film’s over Mengly and I manage to persuade Ting to come out with us. James is still feeling fragile from last night so declines, but he gets my number and tells me he’s going out for some drinks with some friends tomorrow night on Khao San Road if I fancy it. I tell him yes.
Ting takes Mengly and I to a food stall next to the shrine just outside our office building.

He orders us this omelette type thing with clams which comes on a bed of fried beansprouts and a side of sweet chilli sauce. Again, amazing. I don’t think I’ve tried anything I don’t like yet. Ting covers his in an obscene amount of chilli and eats it without blinking. I don’t know how they do it. We pay and I go to leave the change as a tip. Ting grabs it and says, “No!” Bad etiquette, apparently.

We get a cab to Suan Lam Night Bazaar. I have no idea why they have markets at night, but I like it. As we walk in there’s a long bar on the left and seating on the right. Behind us is a massive stage where what looks like various Thai pop stars are performing for a minimal audience. Ting tells me they are students who are performing as part of their projects. Quite a lot of students do this apparently, although the couple of acts we see as we’re passing are of mixed ability and basically just copying Western pop stars.

Up ahead is a Ferris wheel, which I find quite exciting. Ting and Mengly are unimpressed, particularly Ting, who says he doesn’t like heights. But I demand that we go on it at some point. First, though, we hit the stalls, both Mengly and I looking for Thai silk to use as blankets, something to cover us in our respective beds. We discover a stall and Mengly spends ages bartering with the woman there. She’s convinced she’s being ripped off so keeps asking questions and bartering. It takes ages but eventually she buys one, but she’s still not entirely happy, thinking she’s paid more for it than needs be and that she should have shopped around.

I buy one at the next stall we see. It is cheaper, but I buy a single rather than a double. I’ve got a double bed but figure this will be enough to cover me while I sleep. We head to the Ferris wheel. It’s called La Roue De Paris and is apparently touring the world. I’m sure I saw it in Manchester when I was last there and the display next to it seems to confirm this. I didn’t go on it there though, so want to now. Ting is not happy about it, but we drag him on. It’s good fun. We go round three times and get some good views of the city lit up at night. Ting sits there quietly, looking out the window, only mildly distracted by some girls in the next carriage.

When we get off Mengly proves her retail mettle by shopping like a demon. Ting and I start to get fidgety after a while, so we go off for a cigarette. I ask him about his girlfriend. He says he has a few but there is a girlfriend No 1. He shows me a picture – she’s quite pretty but nothing amazing. I ask how he met her and I think he thinks I asked him when he last met her cos he tells me on Saturday, which I’m sure is not right. But anyway, our conversation is interrupted by the chilli he ate earlier making itself known, and he has to rush off to the toilet.

When we find Mengly again, we go looking for the pet stores in the market. Mengly and I are expecting crocodiles and weird-looking frogs. We get some cats and a couple of those cute fluffy dogs that look more like rabbits. The pet stores are near a large hall which is apparently holding a concert. I ask Ting who is playing but he doesn’t know. It’s definitely some kind of boyband judging by the high-pitched screams emanating from the building. The concert’s obviously nearly over as it’s nearing 11 and the screams are at fever pitch, so we head off before we get caught up in a stampede of girls.

Coming out of the bazaar about five minutes later we see a coach drive past with said horde of girls running alongside it, screaming and waving banners at a grinning, prettyish Asian lad who is waving back at them. The other band members on the bus seem non-plussed, ignoring the girls, but this guy is loving it. Ting thinks they are a Korean boyband. Whoever they are, their fans look willing to kill us to get close to them so we try and extract ourselves from the crowd as quickly as possible.

We get in a cab. Mengly wants to find a ping pong show and check out the sex bars. Paul and James, she says, refuse to take her out with them. Again, I’m not surprised. She would have seriously hampered their pulling chances, especially with how she looks. I, however, am well up for accompanying her, and we demand Ting find us a ping pong show.

He seems to know where one might be and takes us to a road called Soi Cowboy in an area called Sukhumvit. Named after a black American ex-GI nicknamed ‘Cowboy’, who was one of the first to open a go-go bar here back in the 70s, it’s all unabashed neon signage and looks how certain areas of Soho might look if us English weren’t so reserved. Groups of girls hang out outside each bar, looking bored. Some of them wear skimpy dresses – there’s a group outside one bar all in black dresses that actually make them look quite sophisticated – others where very little at all. Some drunk white boys amble about, none of them aware that anybody might be looking at them, their minds on one thing and one thing only.

I watch one hugging and trying to be intimate with a Thai girl in a barely-there dress. He looks like he’s in love with her. Her disinterest is all too apparent. This would put me off in a second. I’ve never understood how people can pay for sex and have sex with someone who is blatantly not into them. I can’t imagine ever being so desperate that that becomes an attractive proposition. But maybe I’m just lucky.

But these guys aren’t unattractive per se. I’m sure they don’t have so many problems getting sex that this is their only option. They just want to fuck, I guess, and here it’s easy to do. And I totally understand that, of course. But if someone’s not even pretending to be interested, like this girl I’m watching with this drunken white guy, I would lose interest immediately. How can you get turned on by that?

We walk up the street and I ask a couple of girls sat on stools outside a bar if I can take a photo. “400 baht!” one of them cackles in quite the most unattractive way imaginable. I grin at her and walk on.

Then we see an elephant. It’s quite the most unexpected thing and I’m a bit shocked but pleasantly surprised. It’s not a big one; it only comes up to the chest of its owner, who is walking it around the street and charging people to feed it bits of vegetables. We pay 20 baht and feed it. It blows on my hand with its trunk, which is quite a disconcerting experience. I’ve never been this close to an elephant and, weirdly, it’s a surprise that air can come out of its trunk. I know that might sound a strange thing to say but it’s one thing knowing about something and another actually experiencing it. They are strange animals if you think about it, but their strangeness is quite adorable. This one is remarkably tame, following its owner around wherever he guides it, and quite unbothered by the garish neon lighting and people milling around. I pat it on its back – it’s very leathery and feels tough.

We wander round a bit more but don’t go in anywhere. If any of these places does a ping pong show they’re not advertising it.

We get a cab to Patpong, an area full of go-go bars and sex show venues, more spread out than the concentration of them on Soi Cowboy. We wander around for ages and it becomes clear that Ting, at the age of 23, knows this is the right area but has never actually been here himself. For all his boasting of numerous girlfriends I get the feeling he’s actually pretty innocent. He admits this is the first time he’s been here, and after much walking around past numerous doors through which you can see girls dancing around on stages set behind the bars, we finally bite the bullet and head to the nearest one.

As soon as we head towards a bar a Thai guy swoops in from nowhere and says he’ll take us to a ‘better’ bar, making promises of cheap drinks and cheap entry. He’s lying, of course - on all counts. We get taken down a side street to a bar called Casanova. I have to stare hard at the sign to work out its name as they either couldn’t be arsed to turn on the neon light, forgot to pay the leccy bill, or it was broken. Either way, it didn’t bode well. But it sets me up for what’s inside - the place is SCUMMY as hell.

We sit down and are immediately hassled by some women for the 100 baht entry fee. The bar is in a U-shape, with the bar facing seating around the edge. There’s hardly anyone in here, hence the Thai dude’s enthusiasm for getting us to the bar. Behind the bar some topless women are doing some half-arsed dancing – that side to side shuffle your aunt does at weddings – and staring around into space. It’s not very sexy.

We are given a pussy show menu. This is a list of tricks they will do with their nether regions. For 300 baht you get a trick from them and a drink. We choose the ping pong trick, obviously. It’s 300 baht EACH, of course. Then when the drinks come the woman wants a tip. I only have a 100 baht note so feign falang (foreigner) ignorance as to what they’re saying for ages, so they hassle Ting and eventually I’m forced to hand it over.

So I’ve paid 500 baht already to sit in this shithole of a bar and look at women that make me glad to be gay. Some of them could be considered sexy in desperate circumstances but we really have ended up in the low-end of sex bars, despite all the choice we had. But in a weird way, it almost makes it more enjoyable. I certainly have no problem distancing myself from it all and just observing.

A birthday cake with candles is brought on to the stage. I get the feeling it’s not actually anyone’s birthday, as a naked chubby woman who looks about 50 inserts a tube between her legs, crouches, and SOMEHOW blows out the candles. I’m impressed, disgusted and fascinated all at once. I’ve never felt more attracted to men than I do at that moment and turn to Mengly and say to her, “Is now a good time to tell you I’m gay?” “What?” she says, turning to stare at me. My timing’s good, eh? I repeat myself. She turns back to the girls. “I did think so actually,” she says. “Really?” I reply. “Well I do work in fashion,” she explains. Fair point.

After about 10 minutes there’s still no sign of any of the women firing a ping pong ball out of her groin. I ask Ting if he can ask them to get a move on. I’m not sure I want to spend too much longer in here. He speaks to a waitress and we move round to the other side of the bar where we can see the full length of the stage.

I ask Mengly what she makes of it all. “I’m not sure I can put it into words right now,” she says. I know how she feels.

We watch a skinny woman lay on her back push her groin into the air, honking a horn that’s between her legs. I’m not impressed with this, I could bloody do it. She comes round with a little basket asking for a tip. I reach for my wallet resignedly, I can’t be arsed with the argument. But Ting stops me – we’ve already paid 300 baht for a show. He has a point.

I notice one of the women has unexpectedly broad shoulders and the thick legs of a rugby player. In fact the only womanly things about her are her long dark hair, thick make-up and the two small breasts sat incongruously on her broad chest. I point out the ladyboy to Mengly, who has been having trouble spotting them since I met her. She’s not convinced at first but eventually realises I’m right. No woman has shoulders like that.

Then it finally happens. Chubby 50-year-old appears at the end of the stage, gets on her back and pushes something round into her. It’s too dark to make out what. She lifts her back into the air and whatever it is comes out, barely making it over the bar. Wow. What an anti-climax. I feel slightly sullied by the experience.

We stay a bit longer. An oldish-looking woman with a hard face sits at the bar, occasionally staring at us. We decide that she’s like the madam of these women and is trying to work out what this Thai guy and white guy are doing here with this young Asian woman. She’s obviously come to a conclusion she doesn’t like cos she’s staring hard at us. She has a pointy nose and her hair is scraped back into a small bun. She reminds me of one of the witches from Roald Dahl’s The Witches and is therefore not someone to mess with, so we studiously ignore her stares.
The rugby-playing ladyboy comes over and chats to Ting. She’s entranced by him, chatting away to him and Thai and being really flirty. I watch, grinning. She, apparently, asks him for a drink after. Ting is really embarrassed and fobs her off, saying he has a girlfriend. She tries a bit more but eventually give sup, getting back up on stage.

And then the lights go up. Before you blink the girls get down from the stage and start getting dressed. They were enjoying it, then. Before my eyes they become ‘normal’ girls, donning t-shirts you might see students wearing. I’m not sure why it’s a shock. But I guess even I was drawn into the fantasy of it all. OF COURSE these girls have normal lives outside of standing on a bar being gawped at by the men who sit silently sipping their beers. Those same men could walk past these women on the street the next day and never recognise them. But then I guess even I spent more time looking at their chests than I did their faces.

The ladyboy can’t take her eyes off Ting as she dresses and she comes and speaks to him again on her way out. Mengly and I are too distracted by a boy jumping up and down on a stool and being flirty with one of the better-looking bar girls. He looks about 12. Then it hits me. He’s a woman. The cropped, gelled hair, the denim jacket, the over-emphasised strut – she’s a lesbian! She and the pretty bar girl seem well into each other, which is quite cute. Mengly tells me they call lesbians tomboys here, Ting was telling her about them earlier.

Ting manages to extricate himself from the ladyboy’s attentions and we head out of there, with me telling Ting that that was my first time in a bar like that as well, and it will be my last. Or so I thought.