Tourists are pouring into Chiang Mai in advance of
Loi Krathong, the big Thai festival that occurs on the evening of the full moon of the 12th month in the Thai lunar calendar -- this year, November 28. More about
Loi Krathong later.
Lian is super-busy and a call to work can happen at any moment. So when we're out and about, we travel separately -- she on her motor-bike, I on foot -- in case she needs to leave in a hurry. Which is exactly what happens after a late supper at Sunday Walking Market. So I hoof it home via my shortest route, running the bar-girl gauntlet at the seedy end of Loi Kroh Road. It is 9:30, way after dark, and the carnivores are lurking in the doorways of the go-go bars, waiting for
farang man-meat to come stumbling along.
"Hello, meester! Want massage?" they sing-song. One porcine creature in a too-tight cocktail dress even takes me by the waist and tries to pull me inside, but I slip away with a polite "
mai ao, khrep" (no, thanks) and continue on. The idea is to stride purposefully, smile confidently and make only fleeting eye contact -- acknowledging without engaging.
And truth be told, I wish these ladies good hunting. Life in Thailand offers them few opportunities and so they're making the best of their one god-given asset while they've still got it. If a hard-working bar girl can pluck a few thousand baht (or much more) off some drunken white whoremonger who can afford to fly here for the express purpose of diving snout-first into debauchery ... well, who am I to question divine justice?
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When Thai property owners say "keep out," they mean it. Where in America do you ever see a barbed-wire fence flush up against a pedestrian walkway?
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Most days around mid-morning, the local police set up a traffic checkpoint in the exact same place on Thapae Road at the east end of the Narawat Bridge. Motor-bike riders who are not wearing helmets are stopped and ticketed. This is not a sporadic enforcement; whenever I walk that way to Warorot Market, eight times out of ten I will see the helmet patrol in action. Half of Chiang Mai knows that the police will be there, and yet amazingly they catch a great number of repeat offenders, usually women who are willing to risk getting busted (or brained against a curb) because -- well, let's ask one:
"Lady have a hair make beautiful, don't want helmet," explains Lian. I ask her how many 400 baht tickets she has accrued at that one checkpoint, which every local knows about. She holds up three fingers.
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Do I really want to spend the equivalent of $1.32 (plus the cost of milk and butter) for this little taste of home? I'm thinking no.
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Lian and I have a lazy, free afternoon. I want to work a crossword and goof around online. This is what she wants to do.
Wants to do. We are vastly different people.
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