This Is Thailand; a stranger side to Chiang Mai and the north, in photos

"Hold the line please, I'm meditating"

Spirituality meets technology...

"Fancy going a round with me, tiger?"

They say the most beautiful women in Thailand are men, but some of the katoeys are hardly knock-outs...

Maybe "satisfactory workmanship" wasn't the best way of advertising our wares in these quiet times?" [Click for bigger pic to read advertising on shop window]

Some of these little tailor shops do no trade for days on end...

"Of course it's my natural skin tone! What do you mean, you can see the line?!"

Ironic - in the West women spend a fortune on tanning salons and lotions, in Thailand, on whitening creams so as not to look like the brown-skinned 'peasants' of the north-east, Isaan...

"That'll be 100 baht please"

And farangs still complain at the Thais bumping up the price for tourists ...

"Ok we'll take two iPhones, 100 Durex, and a carton of Marlboro. Bless you my son".

At the Mae Sai market, Burmese border...


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4 comments:

Jon said...

Legendary bar near the boxing ring in CM - have been there myself. Missus knows Marina, the katoey bar owner. Interesting place

The Frogblogger said...

Jon - that's the one, in the Chiang Mai Entertainment Centre in Loi Kroh, right opposite the infamous and shady Star Six Go-Go bar, or Star 'Sick' as pronounced by the locals... not sure why, seeing as it is in fact Star XIX... but it seems rather appropriate at times...

A while since I've been there (the Muay Thai), friend of mind ran the bar right next to the katoey place, 'Ray's Bar'... unfortunately he popped his clogs a couple of months back, heart attack :-(

Catherine said...

Pete, you've clearly seen a different side of Chaing Mai than I have :-D

(wonderful photos, as usual)

The Frogblogger said...

Catherine, I hasten to add that my familiarity with the Katoey bar in question seems to be considerably less than Jon's ;-)

As for 'Star Six', let's just say that "I am reliably informed that" it is a rather shady establishment... according to my spies in the farang community, of course...