To finish off our month in Thailand we had two destinations left: Phuket and Bangkok (where we had a flight booked to take us to St Petersburg to start our adventure through Russia on the Trans Mongolian train). We only had a very short stay in Phuket and had been told that one thing we had to do whilst there was to go to one of their famous ping pong shows. Steve, an avid table tennis fan, was intrigued to learn more about what makes their ping pong shows so enticing to people outside of the usual table tennis fan base. But before even setting foot inside the venue, we learned from other travellers what ping pong shows entail. For those of you who aren’t aware of this Phuket speciality, it involves a seedy looking venue (not dissimilar to a lap-dancing club, apparently) a number of scantily clad (or entirely unclad) ladies (or what appear to be ladies at least), with well exercised Kegal muscles. The ladies expel a variety of objects from within their person, ranging from table tennis balls (where ping pong show gets its name) to more and more bizarre objects including razor blades, fish and even birds.

It is certainly quite a strange thing for a city to be famous for and on the face of it, not something that many people would want to be witness to, but the message we received from everyone is you simply must go and see it, not because it is nice, not because it is pleasant, but simply because it is so surreal and so unique, it is something you should see once (and then never again). We discussed it with a couple of friends we had made in Koh Lanta, Jen and Emma – we all felt the same – we were not sure if we could bring ourselves to go, but in the end decided that there would be safety in numbers, so we’d meet up in Phuket and all go together. We mentioned it to a couple of friends, Christine and Ryan, who we had met up with in various places during our travels, they were not keen to go, but we convinced them to come along so we could support each other. We had been told that the basic scam they have is they bring punters in for free, and then charge an astronomical amount per drink (often more than £15 for a bottle of beer). So before setting foot inside, you need to agree on prices – after substantial haggling by Jen and Emma, they agreed to let us in if we all bought one beer for £5, so we agreed and went inside.

We were already prepared for something a little bit sleazy, but it turns out not prepared enough for what we were confronted with. Multiple ladies, staring into space like dead china dolls, in a sleepwalk like trance, shuffling their feet on a stage in the front of the room, with a string of razor blades departing them. We took our beers, and selected seats as far away from the stage as possible – the full show lasted an hour, but after 10 minutes none of us felt we could stay much longer. Jen and Emma lasted another five minutes, and the rest of us lasted another ten (determined to make the most of our £5 beers, which we almost managed to finish). It was certainly an experience, like nothing we have seen before, and also like nothing we have ever wanted to see before or wish to see again.

There was not anything else, in particular, that was recommended to do in Phuket except join the pub crawl and see some of the nightlife which Phuket is famous for. So we signed up, had a few drinks, went to a few bars, and found Phuket’s pub crawl, much the same as all the others we had been on.

We didn’t stay out until the end of the night, but the last place we visited, called Illuzion Club, helped us forget about our prior ping pong experience.

With Phuket behind us, we were ready for our last destination in Thailand: Bangkok. For this final Thailand City, we teamed up with Slumber Party, a party hostel chain in Thailand. We’d like to thank them for our stay. Slumber Party advertises itself as a hostel for 18-35-year-olds who want to adventure hard and party harder. We had already got a taste for this style of accommodation from Vietnam Backpackers and Mad Monkeys (in Cambodia). So we knew roughly what to expect. Being at the higher end of the age bracket, we don’t like to spend all our time in these types of hostels, instead, going for a balance of homestays, traditional hostels, hotels and some party hostels scattered in. The first we heard when we walked into the reception area of the hostel was a chorus of “Welcome to Slumber Party!” from about a dozen people (both those who work there, and also travellers joining in the chant). You immediately feel very welcomed. The building itself has a decorated reception area, chillout room (to watch films etc.) and newly appointed, clean dorm rooms with thick comfortable mattresses.

Some of the party hostels we have stayed in have felt like they are really designed for the 18-21 age bracket, basically, young adults who are going on their first big adventure away from their parents, with a hedonistic attitude of wanting to rebel, to live life in the moment. They have lots of forced fun games to encourage everyone to get as drunk as possible, be as promiscuous as possible and generally go wild. However, Slumber Party Bangkok had a perfect balance – they have activities on every night (from games to beer pong to pub crawls), and allow everyone to socialise in a slightly more grown-up way. Please don’t misinterpret us, if you want to get naked, stand on the bar, and drink a yard of ale through a funnel they have you covered, however, if you are happy to have a few drinks, chat with other travellers and play cards you will also have an amazing time. It had been suggested to us that we’d only want a night or two in Bangkok, however, in retrospect, we disagree, as our two nights there didn’t feel enough. In fairness, this was partly caused by the fact we had to get our Mongolian VISAs from the Mongolian Embassy in Bangkok. We had expected this to take an hour or two but ended up taking the better part of a day. We were disappointed to miss out on the hostels walking tour, which would have taken us to a many of the famous tourist sites in the area. We also missed their official bar crawl which goes to the famous Khao San road – had we have been staying longer we would have gone to both, but we all know it is good to leave at least one thing to visit next time.

We had seen beer pong being played at various hostels during our travels but had never played it ourselves. It is practically a religion in Canada and America as they play it extensively at college and at parties, so it was almost intimidating to join in, with us trying to learn the rules whilst they explain some advanced strategies they have in place. However, Slumber Party’s staff were happy to show us, and a bunch of other travellers how to play the game – the basics aren’t too complicated, you arrange 12 cups at either end of a long table, 6 at each end, in a triangle shape. You team up with someone, then each side takes it, in turn, to throw two table tennis balls at the other team’s cups. If you get it into the cup the other team has to drink the beer. Whichever team has their cups eliminated first is out and the other team progresses through the knockout competition to the grand final and ultimately to be crowned beer pong champion.

Gemma and I teamed up together, Gemma isn’t a big fan of beer, so Steve had to deal with drinking any cups the other team scored in (each cup has about 100ml of beer in) – the better the other team is, the quicker in succession Steve had to drink beer, which obviously didn’t help his ability to throw little table tennis balls into small targets at the other end of the table. Whether it was beginners luck or not (it definitely was) we managed to progress through to the second round, although we met our match there. We weren’t disgruntled though, we were elated to have got through the first round, and we ended up losing to the team who went on to win the whole tournament, so you could say we came second (although if you said that, you’d be wrong).

After the beer pong, the staff at Slumber Party took us out to a bunch of bars in town, in a non-official pub crawl. We really enjoyed this outing as it had a nice balance of exploring some of the streets, going to bars to dance, listening to live music, sitting and chatting and even having a tattoo artist in the group using his artistic skills to paint someone else’s arm with washable body paint.

It doesn’t matter where you go, you can always find someone singing Bon Jovi somewhere.

As our month in Thailand came to a close, we reflected back on everything we had seen, from beautiful islands to full moon parties, from snorkelling with tropical fish to ping pong shows, from temples to deserted beaches under the sun. We were not just coming to the end of our time in Thailand, but the end of our time going around the party-circuit of South East Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand). We have had many days and nights of fun, made loads of new friends, and seen some amazing wonders of the world. Whilst we would be sad to be saying goodbye to these things, we were very excited by what we had to look forward to next: a journey by train from St Petersburg in Russia, through Mongolia and onto Beijing in China, on the infamous Trans Mongolian train, covering 6,000 miles and taking almost a weeks worth of travel in total.

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