It is a known fact that tourists are often treated as fresh meat in just about any country. Taxi drivers will try to charge you more, you pay more at pasar malam, and even some restaurants will have 2 different menus, one for the locals, another for foreigners. This is a story on how we got conned at Patpong, the red light district of Bangkok.

So after a long day chilling around the city, the three of us (including Terence & Dree) decided that a visit to Thailand is never complete without going to Patpong. We boarded the train and headed to the station nearest to the red light district.

all these go-go clubs and ping pong bars

The place has more flashy neons and interesting sign boards than the whole of downtown KL. Thai girl, Thai boy, lady boy, go-go bars, you name it, they have it. There is also a lot of street stores selling “I love Bangkok” T-shirts and imitation Bell & Ross watches. As we were walking along the shops, we were ushered by many pimps asking if we wanted girls, beer, ping pong shows, etc. We kept rejecting them.

look at the 2 guys in black and yellow shirts, dodgy?

And then one particular pimp told us “You wan watch ping pong show? 1 minute no pay, you no like you go, free. If you like, just stay and buy drinks. 200 baht per beer, that’s all!” (10 baht is roughly 1 Malaysian Ringgit)

Wanting to experience everything Bangkok has to offer (sans the STD activities), we reluctantly said yes. The guy then led us to a bar a level on top of the popular shops/restaurants/bars.

We sensed something wrong as we went in, there were no customer in that place. A group of not-so-great looking girls were on the stage, dancing half naked, trying to be seductive but failing miserably.

We ordered our drinks, 2 beers and a coke, and then the show started. A chunky lady stripped and started shooting darts on balloons. It was done in such mechanical precision and ease, dart in hole, squeeze, dart flies, pops balloon. I was as impressed as worried about her aiming as we were only a couple meters away from the stage.

ping pong balls love Terence

Then came the ping pong show, same thing: ping pong in the hole, squeeze, ping pong flying at Terence. Poor guy had to swat away all the incoming missiles lest having them landing on his face. It was a lot more scary than funny, I kid you not.

In between, the girls kept cajoling us to buy them drinks, 100 baht per coke. We kept saying no, but goddamn dree finally agreed to one coke per girl after the shemale kept pestering him, dude is weak. He didn’t even realize that was 100 baht x 10 girls!

Only 10 minutes into the whole thing, we decided to make a move and called for the bill. It was 3,900 baht!!!

We were like WTF, and started arguing with the lady boss (who was as big as Terence) saying the other guy told us it was 200 bath per beer and the show is free. She said she didn’t know who that was, and this is her bar. I put down a 1,000 baht bill and prepared to walk away, but our good friend dree kept saying “dude just pay just pay I’ll pay you guys back” in a very emo and worried voice. We kept arguing for a bit and decided to give them 3,000 baht as there were about 10 of them surrounding us already..

1,000 baht per person for a lesson to be smarter tourists. Lucky I didn’t have to touch any ping pong ball.

Tags:  bangkok,  conned,  patpong,  ping pong show,  Thailand,  tourists

Posted by KY | 40 Comments »

One of my main aim going into the Bangkok trip was to taste some of the weird and wonderful foods the land of smile has to offer, something that is very difficult or impossible to get from Malaysia. This of course, would be the infamous deep fried worms, insects, and alike.

for a few ringgit, we got all these wonderful snacks

I was expecting fried insect stalls to be on every street corners. In actual fact, they are not very common. We weren’t able to locate anyone selling this for the first couple days of our stay. It was only on the 3rd night at Bangkok that Terence managed to buy a plastic bag full these weird and wonderful food from the streets near Pantip Mall (the one that is famous for selling Amulets, not the IT mall with the same name). Myself and Dree were overjoyed!

McBugs, McFrogs, and Worm Fries

Inside the goody bag there were worms, crickets, grasshoppers, dragonflies, praying mantis, and of course, those little fried frogs in whole. Not knowing exactly how to start, we first arranged them into McBugs, McFrogs, and Worm Fries combo meal. A couple minutes staring at these creatures, we decided to bite the bullet bugs and go straight to it to get the maximum taste instead.

having a feast!

I attacked the worms first. I don’t know if they were just worms or some insect larvae, but the slightly yellowish exterior sure looked a lot more inviting than the dark brown insects laying next to them. As it turns out, the worms were actually pretty good, slightly crunchy and tastes a lot better than the bee’s pupae I had in Vietnam. They were seasoned with salt and some spices, I believe.

my god, we were so proud of ourselves!

Next in line were all the different types of bugs. It was a bit weird chewing down grasshoppers, crickets, and so forth, but actually they too tasted quite ok, very crunchy and tasted a bit like having deep fried small prawns with shells on. Again, it was a little salty and slightly spicy. The different bugs basically tasted the same except but with slightly different textures, you can make out the long arms of praying mantis and the grasshopper’s legs in your mouth, neat.

naturally we finished the whole serving

The more difficult part of the snack attack session though, were the frogs. Unlike the familiar big fat frogs served in Malaysia, these are tiny frogs the size of fifty sen coins. They come with everything intact except for innards, so you get the whole head, the eyes staring at you, the legs, spines and all.

We threw it into our mouths and start chewing off, amazingly there were actually pretty tasty! Crunchy with slight taste of meat, it goes well with the seasoning and not too salty like the bugs. Once you get over the fact that you have to chew the entire head, it was all good!

Of course, we finished the entire serving and like little kids we just finished their vegetables, we were proud. If you’re going to Thailand, this is a must-have!

Tags:  bangkok,  bugs,  deep fried,  eats,  fine dining,  frogs,  insects,  street food,  Thailand,  worms

Posted by KY | 59 Comments »