From ladies to ladyboys

Feb 14: Happy V-Day everyone. Usually I’m grumpy on Valentine’s Day, but not this year! This year I had a great time. Tanya and I went to a women’s only Ladies Lunch Brunch. It was all ex-pats, German, Irish, English, Australian, American, etc and almost all women aged late 50s to 70s. They seemed to be a well-educated pretty liberal bunch and the food was incredible.

The event was held at a small bistro off the beaten path, known pretty much only by word of mouth. It is run by an Australian woman, Audrey, who has a staff of Thai women who help her cook her meals. Each month she has a big themed brunch and every so often a special event like this one. Each event requires reservations. Tanya made them for us last week. It seems most of the ladies know each other rather well. Most have come to Chiang Mai to retire – one woman, Carol, a Smithie (class of 58 I think) comes for four months of the year to write books about art. It was really a pleasant lunch, the atmosphere was beautiful (Audrey suggested everyone wear red or pink for Valentine's Day), the company stimulating, and the food and drink were spectacular. The cool orange beverage pictured was some sort of tropical juiced fruit (guava? Papaya?) with apples, melon balls and mint floating within. The lunch consisted of a huge buffet with several lasagnas, salads, potato, pumpkin, veggies and other yummy delights. Dessert, which everyone was too stuffed to eat but ate anyway, was a very light cheesecake on a very dense buttery almond crust and an angel cake with strawberry and crème filling. To die for. I ate until I thought I was going to explode.

After stuffing ourselves to oblivion and talking for a while under the pink umbrellas we went to an ancient temple nearby. This temple was built in the 13th century and modified for a few centuries thereafter. It’s mostly underground, like catacombs, with nooks in which to worship. There is a large Chedi – a tower of sorts – on a courtyard top of this gorgeous staircase (a Naga staircase – Naga being the mythical creatures on the staircase) and after climbing up to it I found an old beautiful bell and a young monk talking with two young women with a temple dog laying at his feet. It was incredibly peaceful, ancient, and we lingered on temple grounds for a while, taking pictures, enjoying the fishpond (which was more like a lake than a pond) and nearby buildings like a library, bookstore and got to peek at the monk’s laundry hanging to dry.I took cool pictures but can't post them all here - stay tuned for my snapfish albums, coming soon!

Still incredibly full, we waddled to a nearby massage place where we got Thai foot massages for 99 bht (less than $3) and rested and digested before piling onto another songtaew and heading back home.

In the evening we head to Night Bazaar with Aum and Gig. Out purpose of going was to see a drag competition but we marched through the numerous stalls and vendor areas to get there. It was tourist headquarters. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been avoiding tourists so far until last night. They were everywhere. And the vendor would harass me as I walked by. It was pretty claustrophobic as there was barely enough room to pass by single file and I realized how much mass numbers of tourists makes me uncomfortable. After an endless march past accosted farang, listening to tourists try to bargain in their own language, we arrived at the site for the show. It was held under a massive rock-climbing wall in a courtyard surround by farang bars playing American music and filled with trans Thai (ladyboys) being pawed by old white men. We stayed long enough to see a fabulously lip-synced version of Whitney’s “Greatest Love” and a Dreamgirls song, both performed as opening acts for the “Drag Fashion Show”. And then we left, walking past red neon lit contestants, young boys some of them, in drag all wearing similar little tanks and shorts and numbers and some also getting attention from much older farang.

Feb 15: Today I leave for Australia. I fly first to Bangkok then after a layover there, I fly nonstop to Melbourne! I’m looking forward to the next leg of my travels and am so excited to see my Aussie friends again!