Miss Hua Pok 2008

So the other night, D and I were wandering about Chiang Mai and a young man handed us a flyer. Normally, we disregard them because they are generally advertising Muay Thai boxing which neither of us understand nor really want to watch. However, we had been discussing the fact that these guys just need to hand out all their fliers so we recently started taking them just to help out. I read the flyer and it talked about the Miss Hua Pok 2008 beauty contest. This is a Thai ladyboy beauty contest with a cabaret show. We both thought it would be fun and as the entrance was only 50 baht ($1.45 USD) it sounded like a great way to spend our Saturday night.

What is a ladyboy you may ask. Well, since I'm not an expert and can't definitively explain the meaning, here's the Wikipedia definition. From my experience, a ladyboy is a socially accepted transgendered person in Thailand and it is not at all uncommon to find a ladyboy working, socializing, living etc. with no noticeable discrimination from others around them.

The show was fun and the cabaret was very flashy and well choreographed. We were both unable to swear that there weren't biological females amongst the contestants because for the most part they were all so beautiful.

One of the more interesting parts of the pageant was when the finalists were instructed to remove their wigs and display their beauty with their own hair. Most of them looked just as pretty without the wigs and some even prettier.

Our favorites didn't win the contest but they did make runners-up. After the contest was completed, we joined the contestants backstage so we could have pictures with some of the most beautiful beauty pageant contestants I've seen, no matter what biological gender they may have been.


Soy Mak Mak! (Very beautiful!)

You can see more pictures from the show here.

Peace.

Merry Christmas 2008!

Well, it's now the evening of Christmas here in Chiang Mai, Thailand for the year 2008.

It's bizarre and somewhat of a relief having Christmas in Buddhist country. There is very little hoopla about the whole holiday. We have some people wishing us Merry Christmas but for the most part things are just business as usual.

Christmas eve we went to dinner at a lovely restaurant and then walked back to our hotel. While people were enjoying Midnight Mass, I went and had a Midnight Mass-age. Absolutely fantastic! Tong-ma at Moonlight Massage in Chiang Mai is incredible and the massage is only 150 baht (approx. $4.29). It's very hard to do any better than that!

We then slept in until about 10 AM. We walked into town to our favourite vegetarian breakfast restaurant. Not very vegetarian since we have eggs quite often and they offer dishes with fish and meat ... but the fresh baked bread is great and the fruit and muesli along with cinnamon toast is to die for!

After breakfast, we headed to the Royal Lanna to help one friend who had damaged his computer system and then meet-up with Linda and Mike who we had made plans to have Christmas Supper with at "The Garden" (the place we stayed at when we first arrived in Chiang Mai a few months ago).

The meal was a nice buffet of both Thai dishes and a few English/Christmas favourites. We had Northern Thai green curry and prawns over noodles, as well as roast turkey and mashed potatoes. The owners of "The Garden" had also hired a Ponglan (Eastern Thai) musical group to play during the afternoon and they were very, very good!

After supper, we waved goodbye to Linda and Mike as they were off to hand out gifts at a local orphanage and we then had a nice cup of coffee and slice of chocolate cake. Afterwards, we went to Lila massage and both of us had a fantastic hour long Thai foot reflexology session! (same price as the massage the night before).

Now, evening has come upon us and we're going to go have a little bite to eat and then join some friends at a bar near the night bazaar. I hope you all have a very, very Merry Christmas!!!

Visa Run

Every day we learn something new if we're open to the education!

I learned that my tourist visa expired today! If I had done a little more research, I would have found that the 90 day visa that Americans have for free in Thailand is only available if you pick it up at the consulate office from the USA. Now, we're stuck having to make a visa run to the border to renew our tourist visas and then determine what we will do in the coming months of this trip.

If you don't hear from us over the course of the next few days ... don't worry ... we're just jetting around Asia trying to make our passports valid once again! ( No, seriously, don't worry. This happens to travelers in Thailand all the time. )

Peace