A Different Facet of Thailand!

Lady boys, like our guide called them, are everywhere in Thailand. Apparently, it's one of the few things that families in Thailand worry about when their sons are growing up; the other important thing being the boys agreeing to spend some weeks in a monastery, living the simple lives of Buddhist monks. These lady boys, when you look at them, will give you no indication that they were men for some period of their lives! We attended this show in Pattaya, called Tiffany's Alcazar show, a gala feast of lights, sounds, costumes, humour, songs, revelry and most importantly, dance! The costumes and sets were like out of a fantasy land; so brilliant and colourful that they could have put any Indian movie or festival celebration to shame! The performers, all lady boys! Every single one of them! Yes, not one is a girl by birth, claimed our guide vehemently! A glance, not followed up with a hard look, couldn't have confirmed that! The show was spectacular. All of us enjoyed every bit of it! The grandiose sets and costumes kept us spellbound till the very last minute. Of course, we weren't allowed to click pictures inside the auditorium, but we did click some outside, of the participants and some other sundry stuff.

Walking street in Pattaya has no comparison. I'm certain of that! It's a one-of-a-kind amalgamation and co-existence of curio shops, massage parlours and night clubs and bars! Although the night market that we visited in Bangkok also had shops and these bars, the shops/stalls took the main road, whereas the alleyways paid host to the eerily lit bars, leaving no iota of doubt as to what they had to offer! People of all ages and walks of life mill around in both places, and more so, on Walking Street, of course! Children, women, old folks, all saunter past, taking in the amazing energy of the place! Pimps and their kind approach the pedestrians with promises of "shows" and the like, but refuse, and they bother you no more! In fact, the whole of Pattaya is littered with these bars, some having really funny, sleazy names, and almost all coloured in a pinkish hue, but Walking Street is a whole another experience! We even spotted a girl, dressed in cabaret clothes, dancing in a glass case raised high above the road! What really amazed me is how even kids traipsed along with the elders, with no fear of being accosted by kinds that are usually said to infest such areas! That, for me, was one of the marvels of Thailand!