Ping Pong

Ping pong (table tennis) is a relevently popular sport all over the world, not so much in a professional sense but in a recreational sense.
Dotted around the streets of Bangkok are many entrepreneurs shouting the words ping pong show. I would like to say that I followed one of these gentlemen out of niavety, but the truth is I knew what to expect.
I'd heard about the shows through friends and thought that they sounded like caberet rather than a sleaze fest. So we got in the man's tuk tuk and looked at the set list for the show.

• Smoking
• Razor blades
• Writing a letter
• Pop a balloon
• Ping pong
• Put out fire
• etc......

We were convinced, so we let him take us on his whimsical journey. After driving for about 20 minutes we pulled in to this dingey alley way and I already thought this is not what i expected. Stopping outside a boarded up club we were confronted by 6 huge men sitting outside. We walked passed them trying to not to make eye contacted and entered to a bar decorated in merky white paint and damp stains. We payed our 150 bath and went through the door at the back of the room, at our peril.

We walked in to a dark room full of rows of empty chairs. There was a stage and 2 thai ladies dancing on it. At the back of the room were about 10 thai ladies scantaly dressed getting ready to perform. We were the only "clients" in the room apart from a couple sat in front of the stage. We sat in the middle of the room because it is where we felt the safest. As soon as we sat down I was given a balloon and told to hold it in the air. The lady who gave it to me then ran on to the stage, bent over, put a straw inbetween her legs and shot a pea at the balloon popping it to smithereens. Other tricks were pulled through out the show like projecting ping pong balls from the ladies nether regions, throwing and catching a weird peice of metal from the ladies nether regions, smoking from the ladies nether regions and pulling a long peice of ribbon from the ladies nether regions. There was not one entertaining or impressive trick performed by these ladies, the fact that we were the only people sat watching created a macabre atmosphere. The only entertainment was taken sadistically from the piercing silence that occured after each trick was done.

We left quite soon after we entered, we didnt want to be part of this...

The after thought was much darker, the fact that 4 of us paid 150 bath each. We were the only people in that room apart from another couple. This equals 900 (18 pounds) bath which must have been split between the owners of the club, the people on the street that drew us in, the bar workers, the men on the door, the dj, the rent for the building, paying off the police for not shutting it down (because porn and the sex trade is illegal in thailand). I couldnt imagine the girls in the show getting any money at all.

All around a very depressing experience....

Khao san road

OK, so i have never written a blog before and i now realise i should be more brief or else i will spend more time writing about what i have done than actually doing what i have done.

SO!!!!

Day two in Bangkok we hit the Khao san road, this is the travellers stretch of Bangkok it is

• 70% western travellers
• 10% indian tailors
• 20% Tuk tuk drivers trying to rip off new arrivals

I fitted in to the western traveller bracket. and being a western traveller i bought a copy of Alex Garland's 'The Beach' so i can literate my thoughts of Bangkok. "Khao san road is like a decompression chamber for those about to leave to enter Thailand, a halfway house between the east and west".

Wasnt really my cup of chai, bit to busy and manly revolved around drinking, buying funky t-shirts and drinking. There are some weird and wonderful sights to be seen, my favourite is the fish massage. Bassically its a paddling pool full of hungry baby fish, you put your feet in and all the little fish nibble at your toes. Its tickles and its pretty cute if you dont put the reality of starving fish biteing at your dirty feet in to the image.

In Bangkok and that!!!

Yeah yeah yeah, so we were like in Bangkok and that, we woke up and the mood was good. We had managed to syncronise with the time diffrence and woke up at 11am, which isnt that bad for me.
We sat down stairs from the guest house and I order'd a pancake and some liquidized fruit with ice. We sat eating and drinking when the thought shot across our minds "were in Bangkok, lets do something". So we decided to check out a temple or something, we looked on the map and realised "HOLY MOLY, lets check out the flipping grand palace, it looked flipping amazing from the picture". So we trotted off towards the palace (walking is the only way to explore a new city).
We got to the palace and went passed the guards and all and they were charging 350 batt, that is like 7 squid. I was like "I'm not paying that for no mojo palace". So we stood out side the palace looking confused and wondering what to do, when a man comes up to me who apparently "worked at the university". We told him "were tourists, its our first day in bangkok and were waiting to be ripped off". So he sent us off in two tuk tuks (that were conveniently parked in front of him) to sight some local um... sights.
So we got showed a flipping huge standing Buddah made out of gold, then he took us to a travel agent, we thought this isnt one of the sights of Bangkok. We went in all dazed and confused and luckally didnt buy anything because little did we know, the rates were terrible. So we got out the travel agent and back on the tuk tuk, then he took us to another travel agent. We went in, didnt buy anything and they werent to happy about this. We got back in the tuk tuks and said "NO MORE TRAVEL AGENTS". So the tuk tuk drivers bassically dropped us at a street corner telling us to walk a hundred metres ahead to find china town.
We managed to find our way back to the appartments and were bummed that these guys had ripped us, but at least we aint lost any money out of it. We got very pissed that night, drinking cocktails of a street stall, and then when that shut we met a canadian guy and a thai girl and bought some thai whisky and sat on street getting moved on by the police every half hour.

Travelling

My travelling started with travelling

• 1 1/2 hours by car
• 16 hours by plane
• 10 hours waiting for plane
• 4o minutes by crazy taxi man

Systematically placed between all this travelling occured 2 stops in foreign countries. First was DUBAI "future city" a city situated in the United Arab Emerates. This was a 20 minute stop, so i was unable to sample the cuisine or banter with the locals. Instead i was cattled along esculated floorways and through metal detecting machines.

Our second stop was BANDAR!!!! the capital of a small but wealthy country called Brunei, which is situated on the island Borneo. During our 7 HOUR!!! stop in Bandar we were taken on a tour to sight the local delights and learn some interesting facts about the country.

FACTS ABOUT BRUNEI THAT I LEARNT

1. There is no tax in Brunei
2. It costs 1 Brunei dollar (exchange rate about 50 pence) for full medical insurance (one payment)
3. Each family owns an average of 3 cars in Brunei
4. THERE IS NO ALCOHOL IN BRUNEI (NOT EVEN THE AIRPORT!!!!!)

On the tour we passed many grand mosques with 25 carate gold all over them!!!!! and all of this was witnessed from the back of a minibus. BUT the tour did finally crescendo with a visit to a real life living Brunei shopping mall!!!! TRUELY AMAZING!!!

After half an hour in the shopping mall we got in the bus, to the airport, on the airplane, off the airplane and in Bangkok