Khun_Kong Posted December 13, 2004 Report Share Posted December 13, 2004 See Part I here Being awake did give me the opportunity to see the brightly lit displays, painted in neon colors, supplemented by acres of gold paint, of the King. This highly respected leader (rightly so) is totally beloved by his subjects. It was his 72nd birthday on December 5, the 6th anniversary of his 12-year cycle of life. Between that and Xmess, even small villages had a festive atmosphere During the ride, GF points out that there is not much ?sand? on the bus, unlike in late April. Her code word ?sand? means prostitute. It comes from twisting the well-known phrase ?like bringing sand to the beach?, the beach in question being Pattaya, a city noted for several outstanding features, one of which is the presence of an inordinate amount of bars, go-go?s and prostitutes. ?Sand to the beach? refers to the guys who go down to Pattaya from Bangkok with a rented friend. GF was merely stating a fact, not making any value judgment. It is indeed true that many of Thailand?s women for hire come from the extremely impoverished northeastern agricultural region. April marks the end of high season and many farm girls working the tourist areas return to their villages to work the family farm and to see their children and husbands. As early December is the start of high season, there is not much sand going back up-country. The crops are poor right now- it has not rained since August, more than three months ago. GF uses two other code phrases with me. One is ?have loom?, spoken in a quiet, deep voice and one which she finds hilarious. It comes from a time when she and I were out shopping. She was looking at something several feet away from me, making me appear alone and vulnerable, and she overheard a ladyboy proposition me with the statement ?have loom? (Thai for ?I have a room. Do you want to go with me, hansum man??). She has since expanded that to ?have loom with furniture? and ?have skyscraper?. I?ll leave the meanings of those phrases to your imagination. Ladyboys are ubiquitous in Thai culture, often being virtually indistinguishable from their genetically female counterparts. I?m not sure why, but for many Thai women, it is a bit of a game to ID the ladyboys. My guess is that it comes partly from the infamous Thai jealousy. Since many of the ladyboys are stunning, mostly due to surgery, it is a way for Thai women to emphasize that, while ?she? may be stunning, ?she?s? only a guy and you shouldn?t even think about straying, because you might be easily fooled. The other phrase is ?gin sushi?, Thai for ?eat sushi?, a phrase she heard on the HBO show ?Sex in the City? , where it was used to refer to cunnilingous. She gets a lot of laughs out of this, with sushi being such a heavily advertised product here. Sushi: almost as common as sand. And, to jjsushi: I do my best to not think about you when she uses this term. When she says ?have loom?, I do my best to not think about Old Hippie. Anyway, back to the story? After being dropped at the bus terminal in the city of Loei, we took a tuk-tuk a (propane powered 3-wheel, 4-seat mobile pollution device) to the house of a cousin of GF?s, a recently out-of-the-closet hairdresser (is there such a thing as an in-the-closet male hairdresser?) with a small shop in Loei. As we approached the drawn metal gates at 0600, I asked GF if we would be disturbing him. Mai bpen rai (definition: that?s his problem, not ours). Sure enough, there was a lively party going on, about 8 Thai people, drinking and playing music. Apparently it was his birthday the day before and the party just carried over through the next morning. We donated a couple of small bottles of Chivas that I?d picked up on the plane on the way over. We rented a new 100cc Honda Wave motorbike from him, 300 baht for 2 days, and no paperwork at all- he just handed over the keys and a helmet! It?s ~30 km. to Baan Huay Wai, about a 30 minute ride west from the city into the village, winding and climbing our way up into the mountains. After ten minutes, the sun started to rise behind us. What a welcome relief, as it provided an immediate rise in temperature- and the fall of a dense, damp fog. The village has 162 homes and a population of fewer than 1000 people, according to the local Kamman (village head). It is an agricultural community, with life centered around the local wat (temple). Water comes on once each day, for 2-4 hours in the morning. There are no businesses as we in the West would recognize them, but all of the basics are there. People setup small ?shops? in the front of their homes, where basic necessities and a few luxury items are sold. These shops usually consist of several tables on their front porch or in the first room of their house. Local people specialize in all of the necessary trades, such as masonry, woodworking, glazier, basket weaving, etc. Many of the villagers own an Iten, a multipurpose piece of machinery found throughout Southeast Asia. An Iten is like a mechanical buffalo and may be used for plowing, harvesting, transport or just about any purpose where an engine could possibly be used. They go for about 70,000 baht new- 20,000 down and minimal payments forever.You can find some photos of these on my SE Asia photo page at ? oops, forgot the URL, email me for details. We spent half a day in the fields, at GF?s family?s potato farm, which is run by her 21 year old daughter. They also have rice fields, where they grow rice strictly for family consumption, and a rubber tree plantation, which turns a decent profit during rubber harvesting season, seven out of twelve months each year. They showed me the pile of rubber sheets gathered during the past 6 weeks: 225 kg! At 50 baht per kg., that is a nice bit of pocket change for an Isaan farmer. The family of 6 generally survives on about 3000 baht per month. To get to the fields, 15 or so villagers piled into a large, high-sided truck, with food, water and tools. We followed on the motorbike. The potato harvesting is very communal. Rather than paying people for helping on your farm, you give back equal time to anyone who has helped you to harvest your field. At the end of the day, a truck piled to the top with potatoes will gross ~10,000 baht at the wholesale market. Not bad in a country where the minimum wage is 160 baht. Per day! At lunchtime, everyone stops working, a fire is made, and fish soup is prepared, along with som tam, an extremely spicy Thai papaya salad. People ?gin som tam? and ?gin bplaa? (fish), hammocks are tied wherever they can be in the shade and people relax before returning to work. Around midnight, GF?s mom and dad, about 65 and 69 years old respectively, either walk or ride a bicycle to their rubber tree plantation, about 2 miles away from the house. They will work there, tapping the trees, until 0500 or 0600! Makes me laugh when I hear Westerners griping about their long commutes and tough jobs. Before we left Bangkok, GF decided that she would try her hand at selling clothes in the village. We went wholesale shopping at Pratunam, an area near the corner of Petchburi Rd and some other big road whose name I can?t remember, about two blocks from Panthip Plaza. Clothes are remarkably cheap here, with many shirts, dresses, pants, shorts, blouses, sweaters and shoes under $1! GF picks 44 items that she thinks will sell well and we pay 3150 baht for the whole lot. She estimates that her profit will be about 70% of cost. Sounds optimistic to me. Side note: I would be the worst 3rd world capitalist. The people in the village are quite poor and to make any profit from them just seems unfair to me. But, this is GF?s business venture, not mine. We get to the village, unpack and make the appropriate hellos to the family. GF lays out the clothes on a table on our front porch. Within minutes, the villagers descend, like piranha on fresh meat! They are so excited, first of all, to see GF again and secondly, by the new styles! People have been dropping by throughout the day, carefully picking through the pile of folded, bagged clothes, piece by piece, unwrapping them and holding them up against themselves for sizing. They seem to arrive in groups: first the immediate neighbors, then slightly more distant villagers, then the truckloads of farm workers and finally, throughout the day, the large number of people who always appear to spend countless hours doing? nothing! After each group departs, GF carefully refolds and rebags the items, counts her money and then walks down to the little shop down the street to exchange the change and small bills for larger bills. The first items to go were the warm clothing. It is very cold here in the mountains. We are not too far from Pra Khradung, a huge highland forest preserve, very popular with both Thai and Western tourists this time of year. There were actually 5 busses in the convoy that departed Mo Chit for Loei at 2150 alone! Pra Khradung boasts the only deciduous hardwood forest in Thailand. It gets so cold up here in the winter that, by the end of our 30 minute motorbike ride from the city to the village, with no face shield, even my eyeballs were cold! It?s always a minor shock to leave the heat of Bangkok and come up here. Seeing ones frosty breath in the air just doesn?t happen in Central/Southern Thailand, any time of year, even in the frostiest air conditioning. I was a bit more prepared this year, with warm clothing, sweaters, a coat, a hat, socks- things that I was sorely missing last year. No gloves, however- big mistake. Even sitting here now, at night, in the cold, just before Xmess, I still can?t get my head around the idea of having to wear gloves for warmth in Thailand. Anyway, as I said, the warm clothing was the first thing to go, at least for the adults. The kids were more interested in the new T-shirts, as these had colorful logos and strings of English words. Although these village kids cannot read English, English language items are always prized. This sometimes results in one seeing the most inappropriate shirts. I once saw a Thai person wearing a shirt that proudly proclaimed, ?I?ve Just Been Humped?. Actually, considering s/he was a katoey, maybe it wasn?t an accident. The last item to go were the fancy pants. These were Capri style, with a wide, elastic waistband and a short slit at the bottom and 2 cloth straps to tie around one?s calves. The women would hold these up to themselves and immediately receive cat calls and wolf whistles from their neighbors. The pants were pronounced to be too avant-garde to be worn by anybody but the youngsters, although, in Bangkok, they are deemed fit to be worn only by older women. The women would always return them to the clothing pile, with a slightly sheepish grin on their face. After sunset, the older women came back to our house, one by one, to each purchase a pair of the pants! So why the title? After the TBRFromH, I was finally starting to doze off around 0430 in the morning. Suddenly, I was blasted out of my seat by a new twist on an old theme: Morlum, played by a hip-hop DJ mixmaster, complete with scratch ?n shuffle. Grandmaster Flash-awathra was not only testing the volume capacity of the bus? sound system, but was also doing some scratch. Turns out it wasn?t scratch, just a bad CD player, which would ?stick? at various points and do the digitally repeating thing, with noises like ??Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh? being repeated ad infinitum in that nasal, Morlum tone. Confusing at first, because the phrase ??Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh? is part of many actual Morlum tunes. The final journey across the River Styx was accomplished when I asked the stewardess why they were playing music now. Her classic response? ?Bus stop soon. Not want somebody sleeping now?. Believe me, dear: that was never a problem on this ride. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilli13 Posted December 13, 2004 Report Share Posted December 13, 2004 so mr capitalist did you make the 70% on the clothing venture? thanks for sharing your upcountry trip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thai3 Posted December 13, 2004 Report Share Posted December 13, 2004 Interesting report, bit disappointing when it got to the subject of the title though. :(peter o-o-o-o-o-oy-oy-oy-oy-oy- lan nor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khun_Kong Posted December 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2004 ib13 said:so mr capitalist did you make the 70% on the clothing venture? thanks for sharing your upcountry trip I made nothing. She made about 700 baht profit- sold 32 of 44 articles of clothing. I suggested that GF leave the rest with her mom to sell, getting whatever money she could- and letting her mom keep all the money! I think a compromise to make everybody happy. That's what she did. Thanks for reading and replying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilli13 Posted December 13, 2004 Report Share Posted December 13, 2004 I know I should read part 1 also, but due to my lazyness I'll ask anyway if there's any pointers to the relationship you had/have with this apparently nice gal? The few times I've followed an upcountry girl back to her village I always loved the insights it gave, but after a few days I simply just had to get back to the city for various reasons... How do you feel about that assuming you stayed at her family house & not in a nearby hotel with her? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BelgianBoy Posted December 14, 2004 Report Share Posted December 14, 2004 KK, Thanks for the read ! BB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiery Jack Posted December 14, 2004 Report Share Posted December 14, 2004 Your reports are the bees knees, boss. You have changed my life by your writing...* jack * ... in so much that I will, genuinely, not be able to hear the word "sand" for a very long time, perhaps forever, without allowing myself a wee private chuckle. :hubba: Thanks for that, KK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiery Jack Posted December 14, 2004 Report Share Posted December 14, 2004 I know I should read ib13's post, but due to my lazyness I'll ask anyway if there's any pointers to locating the apparently nice gal with the corking arse-end on her in his avatar? The few times I've followed such amply-"rear-ended" good-Thai-girls round the MBK pretending to be shopping I've always loved the insights it gave, but after a few hours staring at the virgin rumps on display I simply just have to get back to Star of Light blowjob emporium or Eden for obvious reasons... :hubba: How do you feel about that assuming you gaze at strangers' backsides at shopping malls & not in a nearby soapy massage salon with cash changing hands? jack -------------------- Wish I was sober right now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiery Jack Posted December 14, 2004 Report Share Posted December 14, 2004 Khun_Kong said:...GF uses two other code phrases with me. One is ?have loom?, spoken in a quiet, deep voice and one which she finds hilarious. It comes from a time when she and I were out shopping. She was looking at something several feet away from me, making me appear alone and vulnerable, and she overheard a ladyboy proposition me with the statement ?have loom?... That's interesting. I was walking down Sukhumvit one afternoon following a hectic morning's heavy drinking at Soi 7 Beergarden, when a large lady approached me and whispered "Have loom. 600 bahts. Back door OK!" feeling rather jet-lagged and dehydrated at the time I chose to accompany my new friend to the suggested destination. Only to find myself taken to a textile garment mill where the lady in question did indeed operate a weaving and stitching machine, along with a few dozen similarly occupied employees. I was offered a position on the shop floor there for 600 baht per month cash in hand plus two fag breaks per 18-hour shift. I left hastily through the aforementioned tradesman's exit, telling her I'd think about it but with, in fact, little intention of doing so. jack PS. Bare bones of that gag copyright Sileakhunt on this very board a year or two back, or so I seem to recall. PPS. Khun_Kong said:...making me appear alone and vulnerable... she overheard a ladyboy proposition me with the statement ?have loom? (Thai for ?I have a room. Do you want to go with me, hansum man??)... Ladyboys are ubiquitous in Thai culture, often being virtually indistinguishable from their genetically female counterparts... many of the ladyboys are stunning... you might be easily fooled... I do my best to not think about Old Hippie... a cousin of GF?s, a recently out-of-the-closet hairdresser (is there such a thing as an in-the-closet male hairdresser?)... basket weaving, etc... pile of rubber sheets... a shirt that proudly proclaimed, ?I?ve Just Been Humped?... s/he was a katoey, maybe it wasn?t an accident...cat calls and wolf whistles...a pair of the pants...with noises like ??Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh? being repeated ad infinitum...never a problem on this ride. KK ? Methinks you doth protest too much. Something you want to tell us? :: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khun_Kong Posted December 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2004 Fiery Jack said:<snip> PPS. Khun_Kong said:...making me appear alone and vulnerable... she overheard a ladyboy proposition me with the statement ?have loom? (Thai for ?I have a room. Do you want to go with me, hansum man??)... Ladyboys are ubiquitous in Thai culture, often being virtually indistinguishable from their genetically female counterparts... many of the ladyboys are stunning... you might be easily fooled... I do my best to not think about Old Hippie... a cousin of GF?s, a recently out-of-the-closet hairdresser (is there such a thing as an in-the-closet male hairdresser?)... basket weaving, etc... pile of rubber sheets... a shirt that proudly proclaimed, ?I?ve Just Been Humped?... s/he was a katoey, maybe it wasn?t an accident...cat calls and wolf whistles...a pair of the pants...with noises like ??Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh?Eh? being repeated ad infinitum...never a problem on this ride. KK ? Methinks you doth protest too much. Something you want to tell us? :: Dammit! Busted, for sure. And, I know what really gave it away... ...I knew I shouldn't have mentioned Old Hippie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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