Our last night in Bangkok was a memorable one for nearly terrible reasons. As mentioned in the prior post, we went to the Vertigo skyscraper bar for it to be shut due to poor weather conditions. Then we set sail for the Patpong district. It was still catting it down so we had dinner in a bar with a generous canopy above us and waited till the rain abated.
With a fresh feeling in the air, we headed into the now touristified but still seedy underbelly of the red light district. There were plenty of bars either with live music on stage, bikini clad girls onstage or a combination of the two. In amongst all this we could also tell that Spurs were beating Stoke City one nil at half time. We'd debated whether we wanted to go to one of their famed shows and decided to go for it. We had been hailed be various guys pimping out their shows in the street and one guy seemed nice enough so we took him up on his offer of free entry and reasonable beer prices.
I've been to some dingy clubs and bars in my time but this was not nice. There was only us in there at the time not including the half dozen of so girls on the circular stage in the middle of the round room. A couple of guys came in shortly after and a mixed group of about seven or eight followed them in. Felt bit a happier to see other folk in there with clothes on. Little did I know that I'd be using them as leverage later.
We watched a couple of shows with a beer and then one of the girls and a older women came over with drinks saluted us, took a swig and then put them on the table next to us. I knew it was stitch up and we readied our money to leave. I got waved over to the bar to pay and instead of a receipt for 200 Baht, it measured in the thousands. She held up a card that listed all kinds of charges that up until now were absent. I told her in now uncertain terms that this was not what we told by the guy and she should take it up him. She then rattled something else off about her having to pay the girls blah blah blah but I was furious as it felt everyone in Bangkok was trying to rip me off. I said I was paying 200 Baht and no more. She refused. I then said I'd go and tell everyone else what was happening. I got up, turned towards the big group and she started shouting at me and her mate. I turned back to her and she said I pay 200 Baht and leave now. Which what we did. I'm hoping that the furore alerted the other groups to the scam but lord knows whether they came out financially unscathed.
Our trip has been amazing and this slight misadventure just adds to the much more upbeat and somewhat appropriate tales we can tell. Don't get me wrong, we were lucky to not get stung for a chunk of cash but it seems a firm voice and a foot in height can work in your favour. It goes without saying I checked for bouncers before putting my foot down but also had Jo as a trump card.
In terms of lessons learned, Jo doesn't like ping pong shows even though we didn't specifically see one of them being popped.
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