are you lady-boy?
Thailand:Chang Mai:random internet place
just saw some amatuer thai kick boxing at the night markets, it was pretty lame though as they were really just teenage kids fighting. last night was the night back from the hill trek was really wiped out but our whole group went out and managed to get hammered anyway, we all ended up losing each other in the thai whiskey and sam song rum induced madness and me and some american dude ended up gyrating fools at some disco with mainly thais, although there were some farangs (westerners), this being such a big tourist city. needless to say i slept late and missed the bus to chang khong so i just slept all day.
hill trek was pretty gruelling for non hiking types but all made it fine. it was somewhere north of the city pai. the group of people turned out to be pretty righteous, not the 20ish crowd of bozos i was expecting. there were 5 brits, 1 irish, 3 usa, 1 australia, 1 dutch, and Hod, our guide, who wore shower flip flops the whole way and made funny bird calls and hats out of giant tree leaves and never seemed winded. the other guide was this thai guy about 45 yrs who could climb trees like a monkey and whittle flutes out of bamboo in about 5 minutes. the tribe visited was the lahu, they are in tibet, thailand and china. first village was laid back smaller communities of 2 or 3 familes and many children who loved our watches and other electronics. they cooked us good food and we had a fire and played cards. that day wasn’t so bad a hike, only 3hrs or so. the next was the real bitch, many hills and all day of hiking. we arrived pretty beat as i don’t think anyone slept really well. especially the english blokes who were up all night drinking whiskey anyway. they were a hilarious duo that kept everyone laughing the whole time. that village was bigger and it was fun, the girls came out in their tribal gear and sang christian folk songs, kindof strange, while the boys ran about battling with big pieces of bamboo. i noticed Hod paying all of the dancing singing girls afterwords and they just split. pretty lame, but i don’t know what i was expecting. again, its a tourist thing and these tribes make money for letting trekkers stay and putting on “traditional” tribe show and festivities. just gives it a slightly non-authentic feel. some woman who came out to watch us talk late at night was carrying a little baby and wearing a “Y2K” tshirt…guess we weren’t THAT remote…the children were really cool though and were infatuated with our western features big noses and especially the chest hair, they couldn’t get over that.
the last day was great with elephant riding and bamboo rafting. i got to drive the elephant by sitting on its neck and putting my hands on its head. goddamn thing kept sneezing and getting me all wet, thais would laugh and say “elephant shower”. they are strange beasts. will occasionally stop and pull branches off trees, big branches, and eat them. they also take giant turds while they walk, but they are smart enough not to step on them. on the rafting adventure, one of them halfway sunk and we had to tow it the rest of the way down the river. they were just bamboo pieces tied together and you made your way down the river by pushing the river bed with big bamboo poles.
we had great laughs over the “lady-boys” of thailand and how completely everywhere they are. apparently its commmon for guys to get sex changes to become lady-boy and work in the go-go bars. that is possibly the funniest word i have ever heard and has become a standard in my vocabulary…