Saturday,Jan 21 2006, 08:55:42 PMsame same but different

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

So I really can't get enough of this one bar, The Apache Bar, so when my travel partners decide to go there for "a drink" I am all for it. We head out and are amazed at how packed the bar appears from a distance- a crowd spills into the street and everyone is cheering at something. We squeeze inside only to witness the chaos of the island- the most spectacular show ever done: The Ladyboy Cabaret!!

All you American folk may not know what a Ladyboy is- so I'll tell you, its a transvestite. Some of them are just crossdressers, but most of them have had the full operation. They are beautiful bitchy gay boys in a man-made womans boyd. They are everywhere and they speak with a lisp and paint their nails, flick their hands, act bitchy- they're the real fucking thing....

So the Ladyboys are doing a Cabaret show, and they are out of control! The girls are wearing diamond studded bikinis with fabric flowing behind them, they have glitter all over their faces and huge heels on. Their eyes brows are arched and they grin in the most cocksure way while reciting everything from Beyonce to show tunes to old rock music- lip-synch perfection and fake breasts bouncing all over the place. One extremely large woman comes out to sing Havanagila (I can't spell it, but its the Jewish song) - three minutes of hilarity- the womans insides were hanging out everywhere- she only made it worse by throwing her fat in the faces of tourists as she sang- caressing her stomach all the while. Everyone goes nuts and she ends with a roaring applause from the crowd.

The show goes on and the women continue to strut their shit, up and down the catwalk stairs that descend through the entire bar, swinging from the strippers pole that's dead center on the dance floor, grabbing random guys and forcing themselves on top of them....it is madness. Pure madness. When the show ends a raging dance party takes over- fit with buckets of drink (six shots per bucket, six straws- five dollars to absolute happiness- and one free bucket with each purchase) and a menacing hardness in dance moves. We are all pounding ourselves to the beat of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Gorillaz, Blondie, Grease....it doesn't even matter.

For some reason, once drunk, I decide I need to learn how to pole dance. I ask one of the ladyboys to show me how she does it. Now I'm not talking about stripping, I'm talking about real pole dancing, where you swing around upside-down, holding on by your theighs. The crazy stuff. The circus act. She attempts to show me and I mock her, badly, but with slight improvement each time around. Finally I get to where I can climb the pole to the ceiling, hang from the rafters, wrap my theighs around the pole and let go, hanging horizontal by my theighs until I swing around to the side, arms arched back like a beautiful swan, and then I loosen my grip and float to the ground while upside-down. It was awesome. The crowd cheered when I finally got it- I felt like a circus performer, hanging above a huge beating mob that is freaking out about Jay-Z and Ladyboys on Parade.

Finally all the ladyboys come to join the party and we are throwing ourselves around the crowd. Random shirtless Thai guys with long curly hair, sun-kissed eyes, and bamboo tattoos of Oriental beach scenes and Buddha art comb through the crowd to dance with us. We push them away, content with our own party. I ask my favorite Ladyboy- who wore a gold chain bikini for the Cabaret, and stares with a permanent smile and broken glass eyes- if I can wear her costume. Now this is one mean bitch, but I like her. Somehow in the translation things got a little confused because next thing I know two Ladyboys pull me into the bathroom and pull their tits out. They start to undo their skirts but I am freaking out and trying to bring sanity to the situation- they obviously think I wanted sex. "No No Mai Kah" I wail and shout until finally they understand what I was getting at. We all laugh, me the hardest, and go back out to dance.

Finally I am done with the dance revolution and I head outside for air. All the Ladyboys are sitting by the curb, trying to pick up stray drunken men with promises of sex on the beach - they coo after the men " Sa wa dii kaaaaaa.....Me love you long time...." and most of the men look back at least four times- trying to place gender on the soft whispers of these women. A young ladyboy sits on my lap since the chairs are all full; she looks fifteen years old and Chinese- I ask her age and she tells me shes 20, "SAME SAME!! OH SAME SAME!" We are so excited to be the same age. I ask if their tits are real and they all pull them out simultaneously. They try to get me to feel them but I decline. Then they want to see mine- I try to side step the situation by motioning to my chest and saying "No, small small" but then the Chinese girl is excited, "OH SAME SAME! ME SMALL SMALL, YEAH!!" (There is lots of word repetition here, everyone says same same, and happy happy...) I end up showing them my breasts for a brief second and they are ecstatic "Ohhhhh.....vely bootiful" I hang out with them for about an hour, talking about their ages, dancing, how much gender changing surgery costs. Its pretty cheap here- breasts are 30,000 baht, and getting a penis reworked into a vagina is 10,000 baht (Divide by 40 to get American pricing- whatever it is its cheap).

Ladyboys are really common and full of gay pride- they own every road they strut down, every bar they go into- its quite marvelous, they are ripe with moxy and sass- they are meticulous about their make-up and always wear tall heels with flashy clothes. They have about an ounce of fat on them, combined, and grow their hair really long....they are quite beautiful. Thai genetics work in their favor, with the adrogony and all, its hard to tell Ladyboys apart from straight prostitutes sometimes. And many men pay the price for it.

I mean, they're same same, but different.

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