The Vagina Epilogue

Jan 17th-18th

Since Josh's and my Thai Visa were about to expire, we thought it would be a good time to head to Cambodia, Thailand's neighbor to the east.

Since getting there in a day would require a very early morning wake-up call, we decided to sleep in and spend one last day in Bangkok.

Our final day was rather low-key: the most eventful moment was when we went to get a haircut.

Silom, where we stayed in Bangkok, is home to Patpong, known for its famous night market, selling everything from counterfeit DVDs to dildos.

It is also the original home to Bangkok's most unique and arguably most depraved sideshow: the Ping Pong show.

 (Photo Credit: www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com)

Josh and I had been to Bangkok on 3 separate occasions and never succumbed to the temptation or curiosity to watch this genital circus.

After too many beers, we had decided that we weren't willing to face the criticism of our guy friends for being in Bangkok for so long and never going to see a ping pong show.

It was now or never. We chose now.

Later that night, Josh chatted with a tout to establish if his offer was legit or a well-executed scam. He told us a reasonable price but said it was free to look.

We walked up the stairs and were relieved to see 15-or-so people, some of them white women, sitting around the bar, making us feel less like sleaze balls.

Although we only stayed for 30-45 minutes of vag-ymnastics, we still saw the ladies do seemingly impossible feats like pulling an endless string of garland out of her, reminiscent of a magician pulling handkerchiefs out of someone's ear; and shooting a dart out of a blow-gun, hitting a balloon across the room with pinpoint accuracy.

At one point, she lubed up 5-6 ping pong balls, inserted them, and then shot them at Josh who had been given a paddle. It will come as no surprise that he deliberately and instinctively deflected them to hit me.

We also got into a bidding war with 2 Irish girls as to who would tip the most to avoid being sprayed by a vagina-opened 'capped' bottle of soda water.

Josh and I couldn't keep up with the wager and could no longer afford to not get sprayed: we would be needing that money to pay for our laundry after!

The final trick we stayed for was when one of the ladies inserted a sharpie pen, knelt down, and wrote Josh the message: Welcome to Bangkok 2013, after a night of generous tipping. He even tipped more to take a picture of her holding the sign. Sadly this picture has been lost. It is extremely pathetic when a woman is able to have better penmanship with her genitals than two grown men combined!

After having experienced a ping pong show firsthand, I can honestly say that while very bizarre, it was still pretty entertaining and quite impressive.

I also hope that the laughing, smiles and joking around by the women on stage was genuine and that they weren't being forced or drugged into this unique Bangkok profession.

Now, after almost 2 months, it was already time to leave Thailand.

Josh and I caught an early morning train to Aranya Prathet, a city bordering Cambodia.

Of course, to enhance our already uncomfortable journey, a smelly homeless man sat across from us for most of the ride. He wouldn't stop yelling, laughing and continually dropping papers on the ground until he was finally kicked off the train by some railway officers.

Once in Aranya Prathet, despite attempts to get us to buy Visas at third party operators, we instead walked through customs and bought them at the border.

Another short walk brought us to Poipet, Cambodia's border town, with its shady casinos and mafia-run transportation system.

We had to wait around an hour to catch a bus headed to our first stop, Battambang; Cambodia's second city.

Although directly attached to Thailand, Cambodia looked like another world with its half-finished roads, huge dust clouds and noticeably destitute countryside. After a 4-hour bus-ride, we finally arrived in Battambang, feeling a million miles away from our metropolitan starting point of Bangkok, just a mere 11 hours away by slow public transport.

Thailand had been a world apart from China: with it's refreshingly heterogeneous population, English proficiency, extremely well-developed foreign tourist industry and its jaw-dropping beaches.

What it lacked in culture was more than made up for with parties, good friends and some sublime R&R.

To be honest, I don't think I would have liked Thailand as much if it weren't for the visits of Bryan, Rich and especially the magical one-month foray with Amina!