Final thoughts on CM now that I am back in
the city of traffic [ooops....the city of angels!]

Chiang Mai is a cool city and nice to visit, but not much of a hunting ground for Ladyboys. the Thapea gate area has a few stragglers hanging around between about 10PM and 2AM, but some of them looked pretty scary and some were downright children, no older than 15 or 16. I found one there that I knew from a previous trip and bedded her down [Yoh, 19] but besides her the pickings in that area were pretty slim.

There is a gay area near the Simon Cabaret which has about 5 bars but most of these were just boy bars. The Simon itself is a gold mine; I met about 25 there and they were all very nice and I made a lot of new friends, but all in all this is a tough place to shop. The girls speak limited english, and some are not really 'hookers' per se; they are just cabaret girls, plain and simple, and will not screw for cash and may even be offended at the suggestion. (I have also found this to be true in Pattaya, although we all know that most of them will take the cash if presented with the opportunity!). The 'Simon' girls are amazingly beautiful, but some are cut and some are just plain hard to get close to; try and pick one up and you will have 20 others swarming you for pics so they can get the 100 baht tip.

Sorry to say, there are NO dedicated ladyboy go-go bars in CM, and NO beer bars that are just for ladyboys. That's just the way it is, although you may be able to find some mixed in with the regular girls like on Soi 7 in Pattaya. There are also 2 discos that are apparantly big with ladyboys, Bubbles and Hot Shot, both in the Porn Ping hotel, but I never got to either one. I also have a local farang friend there who tells me that there are a few Thai discos where young ladyboys frequent, but I never made it there either; I was pretty wiped out most nights and just got a massage and called one of my local friends for sex.

As for living there , this place is as cheap as hell. You can live here much cheaper than in BKK or probably even pattaya, with decent studios starting at 4000 and a 1-bedroom for 7 or 8,000. The associated costs of living here are also very cheap, but I would feel way too out of the loop if I ever lived in Chiang Mai and I feel as though the language barriers would be too much to overcome. Nice place to visit, but not sure if it could be my home; Pattaya, BKK and Phuket are probably better options.

Once strange footnote to all this;

One night I was in a gay bar near the Simon. The owner was a farang from California and we were chatting and I told him my preferences for ladyboys. He said they rarely came into his bar, but that one of his gay boys there would take me to a place nearby where some hung out. OK... I am adventurous, so why not? I got on the back of his bike and we went to this place about a mile up the road. This was like a short time hotel for the locals, with a patio out front and about 10 ladyboys sitting around looking bored and wearing jackets and kinda plain -looking, most not even wearing make-up. Not ONE person spoke even one word of english, not even the gay boy that took me there, and I felt very out of place; I am sure they never see farangs here and it seemed to be the kind of place where local Thai men get serviced while cheating on their wives. I looked around uncomfortably; the oldest ladyboy here was about 18 and the others were all between 14 and 18 and it showed; basically kids just starting their transormation into ladyhood. I lasted about 5 minutes on this patio while we all looked at each other in a nervous fashion and then I got the hell out of there. I am not ending up in Bang Kwang just for the sake of blowing a load.

Final thoughts; cool place, and the 'Simon' has a real gold mine of ladyboy talent and I made some friends for life from this place, all nice girls with hearts of gold. But, sad to say, if you are going somewhere just to hunt ladyboys, stick with Phuket, Pattaya, or the greatest city in the world.

Jon