We decided to walk downtown and should have probably paid a little more attention to the twists and turns of the alleyways leading from our "guesthouse" (slang for "slightly better than a hostel, but not quite as nice as a hotel"). We walked around the moat which surrounds the city center of Chiang Mai...gives it a very royal feel. The pictures of the king and his wife at every street corner, in every store, every hotel, etc also contributes to this vibe...
We walked and talked and eventually arrived at the bar that Rambo led us to...which was nothing more than literally a bar in the middle of the street! It had lights all strung up and they were serving the Thai beers (Chang and Singha...which I cannot tell the difference between) as well as a full list of cocktails and mixed drinks. We were crowding around this tiny bar, halfway on the pavement, halfway in the street. We were surrounded by little children selling floral necklaces made of jasmine and carnations. One little girl in particular was just too cute to resist. We all succumbed and bought out her entire supply at 20B each. She ran out before all the girls had their floral necklaces, disappeared shortly and returned with another armfull...
Everyone was having a great time; Darcy passed around these little buttons from the school she works at back home in Oregon...which quickly became our "gang symbol" :) After a little while we grew restless standing in the middle of the street. Rambo suggested we head down the street to the Thai boxing arena...apparently there were more bars there. After about 20 minutes we finally got it together and headed down the street...
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you see it) we didn't find a karaoke bar. We did find the area Rambo directed us too though...the best way to describe it was an open air mall of bars with the center being a Thai boxing arena, instead of the traditional fountain full of pennies. It was pretty slow, probably because it was a Monday. Bar owners at "Same same but different" tried to entice us to come to theirs by shoving menus in our faces, but we eventually decided on the Irish bar. Which was anything but Irish.
Apparently the Irish bar was a popular spot for "Lady Boys", a new term for me which I was told refers to transvestites or transgendered people. Thailand is a popular place for this and one of the first countries to specialize in what has become known as "sex change operations". The surge in medical tourism fueled by expensive insurance rates throughout the rest of the world, combined with top-notch Western influenced medical centers and the privacy of going to a foreign country has probably all contributed to Thailand's popularity in this area. According to statistics from 2004, more than 30,000 men sought sex change operations in that year to go from male to female. Whereas far less females choose to be male...only 1 out of 100,000.
But I digress. We settled in at an outdoor table with 4 benches. After everyone had gotten their drinks, the little flower girl found us. She apparently walked allt he way down the road by herself to find us. Poor girl seemed like she was only 5-6 years old and it was pushing 10 o'clock. She instantly came over to me and leaned against me...seeming as if she didn't want to completely sit on my bench. Each table at this place had a connect 4 game in the center so we started playing...Of course I let her win every time :) She was really sweet...I have a few pictures of us which I'll post later. At one point she accidentally knocked over someone's beer right into the connect 4 game. Poor girl was really upset about it, but it was really no big deal. We continued playing and she smelled her hands and made a face at the bitter smell of the now sticky, dried beer on her fingers. I pulled out some instant hand sanitizer for her and held her flowers while I showed her how to use it. It was really cute...she wouldn't stop smelling her hands after using it!
We all just had a great time, hanging out, making conversation. It was great to have such a cohesive group. There was a couple from Oregon, a couple from Ireland, another couple from Australia and Brazil, a single girl from Netherlands as well as a couple of brother/sister duos. People were traveling from one month up to a full year and it was really interesting hearing all their stories and also sharing travel stories of my own. A few people were headed up to Cambodia and Vietnam which is where we had just come from so it was nice to give them some (hopefully) helpful travel advice.
The music bled from all the other bars...we tried to play pool but I'm terrible and the more people drank the less interest they had in the game. The music at our particular bar was an interesting mix. Push it and gin and juice were some of the better songs played :) Aside from our group I really didn't see too many groups of tourists. The place had a scandalous feel to it...with several groups of young Thai women sitting around all dressed up, and a few creepy looking single male travelers...
Our large group slowly dwindled down to a small group of only 6 or so...around midnight Hadas and I decided to head back, as we had to get up early for our flight to Krabi. We said goodbye to everyone and began the walk back to our place...which we remembered as being only 15-20 mins. We walked by several Thai massage places and passed up numerous offers from tuk-tuk drivers to take us home...
We walked around the moat and that's when it got a bit tricky..."was it this street or that one?", "do you remember this store?"...
Against my better judgement we did so, but we weren't very far from our place. On the short ride she asked us where we were from and if we were enjoying Chiang Mai. She tried to ask us more but I had no idea what she was trying to say...she dropped us off at our place and refused to let us pay her...
The hotel owner pulled up the enormous metal gate and let us in...Off to bed after another full, and exhausting day...
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