Night One
E, J and myself boarded a night flight to Thailand, Bangkok and landed around 8pm. We took the airport rail link to the hotel, placed our bags and set off to Patpong because the boys wanted to watch the ping pong show.
Started our Bangkok trip by hailing a cab at the hotel's entrance and the taxi driver quoted us 200 baht for the trip to Patpong. I have always taken the cabs charging by meter in Bangkok. While we were hesitating, he lowered the price to 150 baht, and quoted "bad traffic" for the high price. Well, the boys thought the amount was acceptable so off we went.
In the cab, the driver asked us if we wanted to go to "Patpong One or Patpong Two". I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, when asked further, he said Patpong One is the ping pong show and Patpong Two is the night market. We settled for "Patpong One".
He drove into a lowly lit alley and parked the cab in front of a small dark entrance of a building. A few men were standing around the entrance and one proceed to open the door of the cab. The taxi driver said, tiger show, ping pong show! We asked how much is it to watch, 500 baht he said. The man at the door also urged us to watch the show. But it isn't what I had seen on the internet!
To avoid being cheated, I told the driver it was the wrong place and told him to go to Patpong Two, the night market. He gave a "stupid tourists" face and drove off.
The sign I recognised from my research.
The night market sold fake watches and sunglasses, t-shirts and other items. Prices are said to be overpriced. Bargain crazily if you fancy anything there. On two sides of the night market, there are shops where men holding a menu-like paper will approach tourists saying "ping pong show / tiger show".
We finally settled for one, where the man said it only costs us 100 baht, and if we aren't happy, we can leave. We walked up a narrow stairwell, which led to a tiny club-like environment with a podium in the centre and a few poles. We ordered beers and some girls came to us, each holding a drink, asking us to buy them colas. We rejected all successfully. One of the scantily dressed girls started "seducing" J. I shall not go into details, it's enough to know that he said it was a terrifying experience.
After 20 minutes, we decided to leave as the girls weren't appealing plus the show was very slow-moving. All we saw were pulling out a never-ending string from the vjj, shooting bananas, and blowing pins to burst balloons. They will always aim for the men.
We walked to the counter near the entrance and there sat a lady.
Here comes the exciting part.
She wrote an amount on a paper, and said we had to pay 1,500 baht per person, therefore the total bill for 3 was 4,500 baht! Imagine how shocked we were! We tried to argue that the man promised us 100 baht per person! She said there is no such man and continued demanding for 4,500 baht. E took out 1,000 baht, (because that was all in his wallet, the rest was with me) and tried to settle it. He even showed her that his wallet is empty. She then started to demand money from J, whose wallet was full of cash. She never once targeted me. We argued for 5 minutes and finally gave in for 1,000 baht per person as there were more of their men gathering around us.
One word.
Horrifying.
After the horrifying experience, we took a cab back to the hotel, this time the fare going by the meter. The fare totalled to less than 100 baht for the journey.
We were cheated right from the beginning.
Tips for surviving Patpong Night Market:
1. Ask the price clearly before you sit/order drinks, however, it does not always help.
2. Do not bring too much cash, else stash them in different parts of your body.
3. Firmly say NO to everything they ask from you.
4. Bargain as hard as you can.
5. Bring fierce looking or muscular men along.
