What to do in Thailand: Ping Pong Show in Bangkok

Have you ever heard of the Ping Pong show? I didn’t particularly know it, although I was quite used to seeing scenes from the Red District Light in Bangkok in the movies and on TV. Naturally we end up associating with this city: Beverages, Ladyboys and a very strong sexual trade.

Like any normal person, I was curious about this sex appeal that Bangkok has and wanted to see such ladyboys. Thailand is one of the countries with the most advanced technology for sex change surgeries.

One night we then decided to go on the two most famous streets that make up the Red Light District in Bangkok.

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Soi Cowboy

We were first on Soi Cowboy Street. This is the famous street that appears in the movie “Hangover 2”. The street is very small and it was early night when we got there.  So we could see several women coming to their work shift. Beverages are much more expensive than in other places and people attend you very rudely.

The shows always start later in the evening, so we didn’t get to see anything!

We sat in a bar and drank a glass of beer each. I couldn’t feel very comfortable, so we decided to pay the bill and go to the next destination.

Patpong

We then headed for the busy Patpong. It took us about 40 minutes to walk between one street and another. The street looks like a big outdoor market. Many tents selling all kinds of products. Lots of kids walking in the streets too. And there in the middle of it all, all the bars with indicative names of what was going on in there!

The famous ping pong show can be seen also in the Soi Cowboy, but we didn’t see anyone offering us there. But arriving at Patpong, it was the first thing we saw: many people offering the Ping Pong show.

Well, until I got there I was kind of determined to come in and watch the show, simply because I was curious. But we decided to take precautions and study how the whole thing worked and what risks might be involved and we ended up giving up on the show. I’ll explain the reasons soon.

What is the “Ping Pong Show”:

For those who do not know or have heard about this show, it is like a game of ping pong with just a woman “pulling” a ball of ping pong with the pelvic muscles. It´s actually a series of shows and ping pong is only the first one. The series continues with women making things very difficult to believe with their “muscles”, like throwing a dart in a balloon, opening a bottle and even taking a series of razors stuck on a wire. The thought of it already gave me agony, imagine actually seeing it all happening.

Risks of the “Ping Pong Show”

I didn’t get to go, so the information I put here was obtained from some research. I’ve also read cases of people who did not have any problems. But for the readers that might, I will report the risk situations I’ve read.

Well, the point is, like pretty much everything in Bangkok, people will try to take advantage of tourists. As soon as you arrive in Patpong there will be people offering you the show. They take you to the venue of the show and you must pay a value at the entrance, which usually includes a beer (by my research was about 200 BAHT, which is relatively ok). In the meantime, you’re supposed to tip at the end of each show. They ask for around 100 BAHT, but the truth is that you can give as much as you want.

It turns out that in the end, when you try to leave, they will tell you that you must pay such 200 BAHT for each individual show or try to charge you more drinks than you actually took or even say they had said in dollars not in BAHT, some excuse will be used for Try to make you pay more.

The approach is usually quite rude and poorly educated to try to intimidate. So if you go to any of these shows, combine everything very clearly at the entrance, confirming how much is the value and that you will not pay for each show individually, still say you’ve been there and know how the scheme works. Besides, don’t give in, they know they’re doing it wrong, and they don’t insist.

Why didn’t I go to the Ping Pong Show?

After reading a lot about the risk to be extorted and thinking about all the discomfort it could cause us, that’s actually not the reason that we decided not to go.

The truth is that by reading all this and thinking about it, I realized how exploratory this sort of thing is. How much those women are probably not there because they like their work but because they need it and how little they really should earn.All these information made me think that I didn’t want to be another person to give money to this sexual exploitation. I was still tempted to get into some bar and watch the Pole dance show, but in the end we decided not to.

I love living experiences when I travel. I like to experience everything and know whether or not I like something through living it.  And I usually go for almost everything! But that was a situation I chose not to experience.

I felt very bad in the day and with a huge dilemma. But I think I would have felt a lot worse if I’d come in!

Do any of you know the red light districts in Bangkok and go to the ping pong show? Do you have any experience to tell? Any problems? Did you like it?

Posted by Liany Garves

Liany is a pharmacist that worked for years in a big company. She left her safe job and comfortable life in Brazil to live an adventure in the remote Kingdom of Bhutan and, nowadays, lives in Thailand. The passion for traveling runs to her veins and she loves spending time in the travel blog, helping other travelers with her experiences or planning her next trip.