Revealing Ladyboys

Sa-wat dee!

Thailand, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Switzerland…In this way a local cabdriver started to amuse us (or himself more likely) while rallying the busy streets of Bangkok on one hot steaming day. In Thailand using a taxi is both cheap and wise, and cars have nice colors. But change money they don’t have. When I gave the driver 1000 baht he looked at the note like he would have seen a picture of Madonna. He was at the same time shocked and embarrassed. Eventually I paid the trip by giving the man my floorball association card from year 2003, used leather bracelet and a receipt proving that I bought shaving cream from 7-Eleven 13.3 – with my personal signature of course. The driver was happy, but I was sad because they were altogether worth more than 47 baht (1,3 euros). In Bangkok you can also travel by using Tuk-Tuks or SkyTrain. Tuks-Tuks are motorised vehicles with drivers who don't know where to drop you even they have lived in the same city for 45 years taking tourists to areas worth any interest. Then they just circle around and the meter keeps on rolling. Hopefully their close range memory works to some extent better. Otherwise they have trouble to find their way home after work.  

While doing some preliminary research about Thailand and Bangkok I bumped into photos of richly decorated temples and speeding riverboats, stories of friendly and smiling locals, and descriptions of wild nightlife rumbling ending happily or even happily ever after. One of the most memorable pics was nevertheless a pair of drawings illustraing two womenlike figures. Readers were supposedly to find the distinctive features between a ”woman” and a ”man” disguised as a female. Ladyboy, or kathoey is presumably a man pretending to be a woman, like Bruce Wayne is pretending to be a bat, Gaddafi is pretending to be a peace nobelist, Charlie Sheen a funny guy, Tiger Woods a good father, Berlusconi innocent and so forth. Ladyboys are Thailand’s pride and biggest export with natural gas, toys, garments and jewelry. Hopefully they don’t export them in boxes with labels ”From Thailand with Love”.

Most importantly, I dont have anything against Ladyboys. All I want to raise here is the guestion of  credibility. So we need to disguise ourselves well if we want to misguide others and give false impressions to those judging our actions and behavior with sharp perception. In Thailand Ladyboys haven´t always put up their best effort, and so they are relatively easy to spot, even though many have fallen for their bodily charm, have heard. If someone is trying to hit me, (s)he usually turns out to be a Ladyboy. Usually women don´t bother with me u know. And normally you don´t also need a voice regocnition specialist to say that this woman here speaks like she would have been drinking whisky for several decades. The problem with Ladyboys is their obvious transparency of sex. I know that in Eastern-Germany and Ukraine women tend to have beards and hairy legs but to my knowledge they still have only single privates and husbands who call them wives. Of course it can be that Ukraine is the promised land of Ladyboys, but then we have to ask who has delivered all their children if not the ogrish women. It has been the scam of a lifetime if that has happened.

Okay, In Thailand I did also some other things besides spying. Songkran Festival had started when I landed, and this meant a huge war among groups of people armed with waterguns. Now this is what I could say a proper civil war, and how wars should be fought. For four days these vicious fighters tease everyine brave enough to step on the streets. Worst ones are those eguipped with garden hoses, they are true patriots. They lurk in the shadows and open fire when last expecting it. Guns are not only arms allowed. Basket Mud is also used widely. If you would get rubbed shit on your face, how happy would you be? Some get pissed (on the final day at least), can tell you that. But if Thailand would be in war, I would vote for their victory. At least they fight with smile on their faces. And ammunition delivery works like a wet dream.

After the waterwar had ended and peace treaty signed we decided to go and lick our wounds to Bang Saphan, a lovely village 5.5 hours from Bangkok to south. From there we found some romantic bungalows by the seashore. We were like having our honeymoon me and my manager Mikko. We played cards, talked politics, drank Chang-beer and collected colorful shells under the cheering sun. I even got my sexy hair removed from my back. It was perfect. But nothing is everlasting, not even mutual quality time between two Finnish bugbears (and a Finnish girl called Henna, who was also serving us). I left Thailand with tears. Mikko stayed there and started reading James Bond, his favorite and first English novel (now reading already for four months), And I got on a bus and drove away. Aftermath of this journey was that I can peel my burnt skin and think whether to visit this land of sandy beaches, heavyweight turism and girls looking pretty again. Maybe I just order myself a Ladyboy through the Internet.

“Till next time”, said a Thai girl to a happy customer over his fifties equipped with a lard belt, drunken face and a heavy wallet.