Chiang Mai.
I am sat here with a cold bottle of san miguel beer in the heart of manila, the capital of the philippines. When I landed in chiang mai about 10 days ago I had neither thought nor intention of visiting the philippines on this trip, goes to show how things can change so quickly, this is how it happened…
Chiang Mai is the main city in the north of thailand. Its more elevated than the rest of the country so in theory it is alot cooler. Could have fooled me on that first evening, it was unbearably warm and sweaty. The air was really thick and it was pretty tough to breathe. Finding a place to stay was a breeze, the old town which is surrounded by an old defensive moate is awash with accomodation at good prices. For the first day or two I did little but read a book and guzzle a few beers.
On my third day in chiang mai I finally got off my rear end and signed myself up for that thai cooking course I have been threatening to do. The place where I did it was great, there were just two of us students and we had 2 teachers to keep tabs on us. So it was me, two jaw droppingly beautiful thai girls and rather cute japanese chef. Yes, a bloody chef. She had all the complicated, finger tip shaving knife artistry down to a tee. She left me for dead with almost every dish, but I was happy out. No pressure I was free to goof around and basically spent the rest of the day having a laugh with them. I’d highly recommend the course to anyone that visits chiang mai. Baan thai was the name of the company. To begin with they take you to the local market to buy all the stuff you are going to cook with, i love markets so I had a great time. Back to the gaff where we cooked up a storm, for 800 baht you get to eat about 7 meals in the one day. Phil = happy.
Despite the accomplishment of licking 7 plates clean I found myself feeling a little peckish come 7 o’clock at night so I made my way down to the main stretch where the streets are lined with guys throwing together sumptious healthy food that you would collapse over yourself to find if you heard it was available back somewhere in the streets of dublin. I was tucking into a thai green curry when a familiar face walked down the pavement in front of me. The unmistakeable Bobby Mcglynn who I met on the boat to Ko Phan Nang and shared a room with for my first week on the island. I let a roar and we were happily reaquainted. He was booked onto a trekking trip the following day and night so it was 2 days before we properly caught up with each other.
I arranged to meet him in the irish bar in chiang mai, to be honest its the most tenuously linked irish bar in history but it served the purpose nicely. I ordered a bloody awful pint of guinness to mark the occasion and we got chatting. I had been talking to another travel buddy earlier in the day on gmail he was on his way to the philippines having had enough of the circuit here in SEA, so I guess that had planted something in my head. In the course of conversation I suggested that we ditch the tried and trusted laos cambodia vietnam circuit for the meantime and just grab a flight to manilla and seek out hidden treasures around the island of palawan, jaques cousteaux’s favoutite dive spot I have been reliably informed. Within a couple of days we were booked and ready to go.
before we left though we had to give ourselves a proper thai send off. I stayed in my place for the duration while bobby was bobbing from one guest house to another mostly all in the vicinity of Julies guesthouse which is a really nice place to hang out. We really didn’t do a whole lot other than sit around all day, read book and tell stupid stories. Something which we are both adept at, and has won us many friends along the way. At night, oooh at night its a free for all. Initially I was a bit wary of including the next episode in the blogs. Its a little shocking to be honest, but I think that its an inherent part of travelling in this part of the world and that excluding it would only serve to cheapen this account of my travels. what am I talking about? Ladyboys, ladies and gentlemen. Boys who dress up like girls, who augment their bodies to make themselves look like girls yet retain crucial bits that make them boys. Lets cut to the chase, we found ourselves just off chiang mais most famous tourist site, the night market. We had just finished some food and we looking for something to wash it down with. We found ourselves in a big open air space surrounded by lots of bars. In the middle was a thai boxing ring so the attraction of watching some lads pummel the bejaysus out of each other was enough to get us sitting down. The bar we sat at was boring and in our eyeline with the ring we saw a troope of people getting on their feet and performing a laughable version of YMCA. There was no way we were not going to go for a closer look. Twasn’t long before we were getting the welcoming attention of the owner of the bar, Marina. I think she liked me at first but soon swapped her attentions to bobby. We had an absolutely brilliant night, they were hilarious. I know it sounds shocking and is shocking but the key is to not take it too seriously. These are people after all, talking to them you hear tragic stories of how they have augmented their bodies to make money to support their familes back in the remote border villages of north thailand. Some of them refugees from the oppressive sickening regime in neighbouring burma. It should also serve to banish the myth that they try to deceive you into thinking that they are genuine girls, certainly in the ones I have met they were pretty up front as to what they were and you cannot have anything but admiration for that. Before you start worrying we left the bar alone, though bobby is on a promise to marina to return. I think they would have beautiful babies.
That was the undoubted hilight of the week in a bloody brilliant week in chiang mai. We flew to Kualar Lumpur on wednesday where we toured the city with a girl that just fell out of vogue magazine, to say that this girl is beautiful is like saying michaelangelo was handy at painting. At first we thought that she had poor english, but then found out that she used to teach english to kids in thailand, twas just the sheer thickness and speed of our irish accents had the poor girl in a spin. I will return to kualar lumper again so I will talk more about our adventures around there in the next post.
All the best,
Phil
p.s. something tells me its gonna take me a while to live this post down, but people, just think do you want me to write blandly about places being paradise or nice and that everyone is lovely etc etc. I’m afraid the world I am currently having a goo at is just not like that and you know what? thank god for that, cause it makes it a whole lot more interesting….
Tags: chiang mai, ladyboys, thailand
Phil Gill
Not so different from a bad night in the Springs so….
Im with Ger on that one but its more the other way round ive found, theyre pretty rough around crosskeys