Hey y’all,
Thailand is trippy.
On one hand, this is a profoundly spiritual culture. There are temples and Buddha statues everywhere. Almost every home and business has a spirit house for their dead and any other spirits to live in, and people feed them often with food and sodas. (Spirits really love sugar.)
What I see in all this is a deep relationship with faith and the unseen, which is entrenched in people’s daily lives, the kind of relationship that is not typical in North America.
Thais are gentle people, and there’s delicacy and ritual to their manners that is definitely atypical in North America. Even the classiest, most polite American does not express reverence in their courtesy.
The Thais do. People put their hands together in the prayer position and bow every time they greet and thank you.
If you’re a regular person, the prayer hands are under the chin or at the chest. If one is of higher status, they bring their hands up to their foreheads.
Thailand has strong feminine energy.
On the way here, I noticed my Thai flight attendant had on makeup, but I also sensed he was gay. Yet many of the straight men wear foundation as well in an attempt to make their skin look flawless.
The women are ladylike, soft-spoken, and demure. They’re not as modest as Laos women, but that country is conservative and communist. So…
And on the other hand, Thailand is well…decadent. Although it’s illegal, prostitution is accepted and it’s everywhere.
“A lot of tourists come here to boink,” said Dean. “Sex tourism is huge here.”
Prostitution is not only confined to the cities. All the villages have at least one brothel.
I first heard about this from Robert’s first wife, Lisa.
In the 90’s, she had been in the Peace Corps for 4 years as an English teacher in a small village. But another of her duty calls was to go around the brothels and educate – or try to - the prostitutes about condoms because HIV and AIDS was spreading fast.
“It’s as normal for a Thai man to stop at the brothel and get laid after work as it is for us to stop at a bar to get a beer,” Lisa said. “Problem is, although everybody has sex, nobody talks about it. So it was difficult to teach these girls about using condoms because they got so embarrassed.”
Lisa told me that the girls were sold to the brothels by their parents because their families were so poor that their daughters could support them. And they did. Even the most hardened prostitutes in Bangkok send most of their money home.
From this memory, I took that to mean that brothels were common, and that prostitution was contained therein. I didn’t know about the girly bars or the grittier Thai massage parlors.
Prostitutes were not on my mind as I flew to Udon Thani. Why would they be since I learned about the Red Lotus Sea?
I’m happy I went. The Red Lotus Sea of Pink Water Lilies did not disappoint.
What I didn’t know was my hotel was on a street with girly bars and massage parlors, and an arcade with a dozen girly bars was kitty corner to the hotel.
I like to walk around. It helps me feel out the vibe of a place.
All my back and forth forays along my street made me aware that the women here were unusually friendly.
“Hello Madame!”
“You want a massage! It will be wonderful experience for you!”
One evening, I was restless and went back out with the vague intention of trying to find the night market.
There were a lot more girls in the small bars along the street. They were young, and showing some skin in tank tops and short dresses.
Thai women are very beautiful, and these girls were no exception.
The girls looked so odd, sitting alone in these deserted bars while men conversed in the Italian café and the Irish pub.
I did see one girl sitting close to a 60ish white guy. She was 20 at the oldest.
Since day had turned to night, the girls were even friendlier than they had been earlier.
I went to the arcade thinking it was some kind of open-air market with various shops and cafes.
Instead, it was more like running the gauntlet.
The night was slow, the men were absent, and I was the only game in town.
“Hello Madame! Come on in!”
“Want to play pool! Welcome!”
The girls swarmed to the edges and called out. The demure standards of Thai femininity keep them from being too aggressive. But the ladyboys are not hindered with reticence.
An absolutely stunning ladyboy with thick, glossy hair, dressed in tight black jeans, a black bra, and high heels undulated her way to me with a big smile and her arms outstretched.
“Hello! Hello!”
She even gave me a hug, took my hand, and tried to drag me into the bar while the other girls of that bar cheered her on, but still hung back.
I extricated myself, told her she was beautiful, and continued on my way to the end of the arcade.
It was around this time that I finally got a clue as to where I was. But the arcade ended at a dead end with no place to go, so I had to turn around and make my way back.
The ladyboy approached again.
“Hello Madame! Come and have a drink with me!”
I actually wanted to. Thai ladyboys are known for their incredible beauty, eccentricity, and charm. I’m sure I would have had a very unique adventure that would have made an unforgettable story if I had said yes.
But.
I didn’t know enough about where I was or what I was getting into. Sometimes you have to forego a vivid experience to err on the side of caution.
So I shook my head, got out of there, and immediately came back to the hotel where I googled and found lots of information about girly bars and prostitutes and ladyboys.
Apparently, they make a cut off the “lady drinks” that you buy them. There was no mention of spiking drinks with drugs or anything like that.
The next morning, I had my day at the lake.
There was a Thai couple in the boat next to mine. The girl was not demure. She stood and screamed down at her boyfriend/husband hunched over in the bow. My boatman understood what she was shrieking about and chuckled.
Eventually, the boyfriend/husband got riled enough to yell back, but that didn’t shut her up.
I couldn’t understand a word she said, but I was disgusted with the girlfriend/wife. She seemed truly awful.
I urged my boatman to move on from the unpleasantness and the noise.
But all I could think as we made our way through the water lilies was that most of those girls I had seen the night before would have been thrilled if they could have been in a boat on a blooming lake in the company of a man like him.
Even if he was an ass.
Peace,
Mana
