The Ping Pong Show

There were just so many questions.

Like, if lungs are fundamentally necessary to smoke cigarettes, was the upside down naked lady technically 'smoking' that Marlboro Light with her reproductive organ?

Should she be worried about cervical cancer?

And how did she propel those glow-in-the dark ping pong balls so far across the room that one nearly hit my travel mate, a girl I call the Brazilian Princess, on the forehead before she absently batted it away?

'I need to go wash my hands now,' she said, leaving me alone to marvel at the skill required to shoot darts from the confines of one's vaginal cavity. What accuracy!

'The Pussy Show' is indeed disgusting and degrading. And it is also as ubiquitous in Bangkok as fried noodles and corrupt pink cab drivers, with more giggling.

We were in the Thai capitol for 9 days waiting on our visas to Burma to be approved. It was Thai New Year time – Happy 2554! Thais celebrate with a three-day water festival that involves squirt gun fights with local kids and everyone else on the streets, including the good-natured cops.

By the third day, we were looking for something a little less wholesome to do.

We found it.

The Brazilian and I covertly shopped around Patpong, the red light/fake watch district, looking for a show. It was around 8 p.m. when we started getting approached by greeters who presented laminated menus of that night’s special.

Most of the ‘specials’ were the same – darts, horn instruments, painting.

‘Maybe we should just have a look inside and see what looks, you know, the least disturbing,’ Princess suggested.

The Super Pussy had a nice neon sign, but the girls had that depressing 'I've-just-been-trafficked-in-from-Laos' vibe going on, so we left.

Queen's was empty, apart from an old white guy chatting up a chubby go-go dancer in the corner. What really killed it was AC/DC. 'Thunderstruck' is mood music for monster truck shows, not housing goldfish in your reproductive organs.

Finally, on our third try I was sold - the DJ was jamming some Snoop Dogg and the vaginal gymnasts were chirpy and smiling, not all strung out on heroin or oppressed by their station in life.

What a breath of fresh air!

We were the only patrons until a curious couple came in, followed by Creepy Indian Guy, who was alone and not nearly as enthusiastic about the novelty of it all as the rest of us. He didn't even applaud when she squirted a whole hot dog OR played taps on the kazoo. I guess there's no accounting for some people's taste...

We wondered if the girls would come up with something for the New Year festival, but I guess opening a bottle of soda water with your pelvis is anatomically easier than pulling the trigger on squirt gun. Go figure.

The fun ended when the mamasans realized we were giggling more than spending and called the Brazilian over for the bill.

'Three thousand baht each?'

The equivalent of $100, I'm not saying the performance wasn't worth that much - anyone who can write a love letter with a Sharpie in your privates deserves some serious cash - but we didn't have it.

So we went for the door, which was promptly blocked by three Thai mob bosses, all women, all built like linebackers, all effectively annoyed. The negotiations started and in less than 60 seconds, the price dropped to $7, a real bargain in my view. And like that, we'd been kicked out of Club NoPhoto.

Lots of Thais I met are pretty ashamed of this style of Bangkok entertainment, including our cab driver that night who offered to drive us straight to the temple to cleanse our sins.

But be encouraged, people of Thailand! A 4' picture of the king hung over the stage, just above the Vaseline-lined ping pong balls.

If that's not patriotism, I don't know what is.

South Beach (Bum) Diet

The Diplomat always told me I was a special person and have many talents in varying disciplines.

It's true. My skill set looks like this:

Fair: reading maps; identifying constellations; emptying the dishwasher

Good: shuffling cards; navigating airports; walking without purpose

Needs improvement: wanderlust

She recently asked me would that wanderlust ever be satiated and will I ever just settle down in one place, please?

Well, mom, I have good news.

It takes a special person willing to sit in the sunshine on a white Thai beach, watching the hours pass with virtually no thought running through the head besides, 'Where has that fire-dancing cabana boy gone with my caipirinha?'

Great: beach bum

Finally! A marketable skill!

Seriously guys, it's true. When you find something you love, you never work another day in your life.

Around the end of the second week in my new calling, I realized it was my life's work. And I loved my new job, I challenged myself to do nothing on the beach for 30 days, committing by way of new sun cream, new sunnies and a new book for the tough work days ahead. (I can hear some of you arguing that a book is technically 'doing' something, but I can assure you my second-hand Harper 'Modern Classic' is the antithesis of serious thought).

I was happily blobbing along in the azure tropics, when one day clouds rolled in and it didn't stop raining for six days. Maybe you heard about it? Hundreds rescued by the Thai navy, villagers swept away in mudslides, trains cancelled, airports closed...

It was at this exciting time that all the SPF went to my head and i came down with what I self-diagnosed as strep throat. It was just me, the mosquitoes and the amoxicilin in the bungalow watching it pour on paradise.

My hut mate, a fancy lady I will call The Brazilian Princess, would periodically walk in, survey my sickness, announce, 'I don't think it's fatal. But it's too damp in here, that's why you're sick. This isn't what we're paying for, Julie. I'll just let the owner know...'

The owner was not unhappy to see us leave after we changed bungalows three times, The Princess letting Paolo know the drainage inefficiencies of each waterlogged thatched roof. Also, could he do something about the banana leaves that kept falling into our outdoor bathroom? They're clogging the drain. Grazie.

When I met The BP, she was complaining. We were on the same boat in the Galapagos and she was going on to the captain that she'd been promised her own cabin. 'I can't sleep in a room with a snorer... That's not what I paid for,' and she'd look disparagingly at her bespectacled, chubby English roommate who did, in fact, breathe like a chainsaw. Even at breakfast.

It was my single cabin The Princess was after and there was no way I was giving it up to room with old snore-eyes.

A stare-off ensued and in the end I respected her gumption and she found in me a kindred princess, 'though you like to hide it by eating granola, but I know...'

It was easy to convince The BP to join me beachside. Being a lazy bum is a prerequisite to royalty the world over. As my new, esteemed colleague, I believed her reading-in-the-hammock skills were world class.

I don't know if it was the complete lack of exercise or the overdose on mango and sticky rice dishes that kept us going, but we were inspired enough to island hop in the non-flooded isles of Thailand's Andaman Sea for three solid weeks. But in the end I couldn't complete the 30-day beach diet because, well, I got bored.

That's another of my special talents.