You can’t go to Thailand without watching a ping pong show.  All the way down Bangla Rd in Patong, once it’s night time, you are accosted by touts trying to get you to see one.  Ping pong show? Ping pong show?  Ping pong show?  Apparently they get commission for every customer they deliver.

Now I’ve always been a fan of table tennis.  Anyone who can control the movement of those small light balls should be highly regarded.  So finally the three of us decided we should go and take a look for ourselves and see just how skillful these women really are!

Entry is free, but then you are required to pay outrageous prices for the drinks.  We met one young couple at our hotel who went along to a free show without negotiating.  Then when they ordered their compulsory drink from the menu, the cheapest beer, it cost them $30 for each drink.  So we negotiated half price drinks before agreeing to attend, figuring that was a fair deal for a one hour show.

We followed our female tout along Bangla Rd for a bit and then down a mall full of bars with similar offerings.  Inside the Ping Pong establishment, named ‘Playschool‘ we saw four women doing pole-dancing.  Various scantily clad girls did this intermittently throughout the show, swapping over every few minutes, and then mingled with customers.  They were clearly ‘available‘ for the right price.  After several minutes of shaking, writhing, squatting and arse-wiggling, the two key performers set up only a couple of metres in front of us.

I’ll assume that our readers have some knowledge of these matters and I won’t go into full descriptions.  You will need to join the dots so to speak.  Anyway the two women ‘produced’ the following items from their nether regions at various stages: a ping pong ball, an egg, a series of ping pong balls, a very lengthy trail of streamers, a fish, a few fish (one ‘missed’ the fish bowl and had to be rescued from the floor!), an eel, a turtle (or was it a tortoise, my glasses may have been fogging up!) and a small bird.  How the poor thing didn’t suffocate (or drown?) is anyone’s guess.  Finally, through a bamboo tube, one of the women fired a series of darts several metres to burst a bunch of balloons.

Each ‘delivery’ was met by a round of applause from the spectators, who were arriving and leaving in a steady stream.

I am not sure what London has in mind for their demonstration events at this year’s Olympics, but these two ladies would be a highlight.  Even a Royal Command Performance for the Diamond Jubilee perhaps?  I know the royals have always been fans of alternative entertainment.

We nursed our drinks, gave a small tip (“Have you considered bowling balls?”) and left early, because, as I said to the others, I had seen enough!