Ladyboys on Thong Naay Paan Yai beach

Hello again! I bet you didn't expect to hear from me again so soon! We've decided to spend a final day in Krabe, before moving onto Kho Pi Pi tomorrow, so I have a final chance to do some cheap internetting before we go back to an island, where it tends to be about three times as expensive.

When we get to Pi Pi we're going to do some more diving. Since we left the Pehrentians we have been very lazy. There are a couple of factors which have made it turn out that way. Firstly, a month into our travels and post full moon party, we are dog tired. I'm tired in a way that I've never experienced before: the kind of tiredness that comes with the heat and the mozzies and the dodgy food. I reckon it takes about three times as long to properly recover from a big night like we had last week at Haad Rin. Secondly, I got some thai stick on Kho Pha-ngan.

Now it's gone and, as I said, we head for Pi Pi tomorrow, and some diving. An activity to focus on at last! I plan to start my advanced open water course - which consists of five 'adventure' dives, including a compulsory navigation dive and a deep dive to thirty metres, where you are tested for nitrogen narcosis. When I was halfway through my basic open water course, the idea of diving to thirty metres just did not seem possible to me. Once I had mastered my fear and my ear pressure equalisation problems, I just wanted to go deeper and deeper.

Sitting there on the ocean floor, looking up at a cliff of coral, a thousand different fish swimming around you, and not being able to see the surface: that is one of the most amazing experiences it is possible to have, I think. You really are inhabiting an alien world, and for a moment you have lost contact with your own.

I'm very much looking forward to doing it some more, and apparently in the ocean around Pi Pi there are sharks aplenty. Rock 'n' roll!

So, from an amazing experience to a fascinating one. Let me take you back to the dim and drunken past once again, to the morning after the full moon party, to the moment I climbed aboard the taxi boat to Thong Naay Paan Yai beach...

Amongst my fellow passengers were some local ladies, or to be more exact, one local lady and two local ladyboys. I was sat right at the front of the boat, on the prow(?), and they were sat directly in front of me. Behind them sat an Irish couple and an Englishman. Whilst maintaining a frank an open interest in the three in front of me, I chatted inconsequentially to the three sat behind them. We shared a spliff. It was pleasant.

After a seemingly interminable period of time, the boat set off. A minute later, as the boat sped from the bay, the girl (flanked by her two ladyboyfriends) started laughing and complaining that she was cold. I mean, it was all said in Thai, but I guessed from her tone of voice and her gesticulations what the issue was. So the three of them all had a little cuddle. Then the girl in the middle gave me a little cuddle, which was charming.

[I must stress at this juncture that at no point in this episode did I cuddle, or contemplate cuddling a ladyboy. Some reassurance for the boys back home. Ed]

It was a beautiful morning. The sun felt good on my shoulders. I was tired but that was okay because I was heading home. I let my eyes wander to the sea, the cliffs, the tiny islands and the beaches that we passed, to the guys driving the long thin boat that we sat in. Often they wandered back to the three sat in front of me, who were deep in some kind discussion. I observed them with fascination. Enventually I plucked up the courage to engage them in conversation. Only one of them spoke any English, the ladyboy sat to my right, who was wearing a t-shirt bearing the legend 'The happiest girl in the world'.

I reckon this would be a good opportunity to describe these three ladies to you. The girl in the middle was very pretty in the classical oriental mould (my goodness, I hope she was really a girl!). Her friends were definitely more boy than lady, I guess they had been on the hormones but not had any kind of 'op'. There was no doubt that they were indeed fellas, but I still found myself scrutinising their necks, looking for the tell-tale adam's apples, because the way they held themselves - their demeanor - was so feminine. They were fascinating, just normal people who were not 'normal'. What does 'normal' mean anyway? Who cares? Normality is relative. Relatively boring, I mean.

So we held a stilted conversation. The girl in the middle seemed to have taken a shine to me (I knew this because she had her hand on my knee. In fact, I remember now - at one point they all had their hands on my knees - squeezing my legs, appraising them, discussing their merits or their weaknesses), and she asked questions in Thai while her friend translated. The questions were on the general theme; 'Do you have money?', 'Do you have house in England?'. That sort of thing.

Eventually, the crunch question came: 'Which one you want?' the ladyboy asked, pointing at herself (himself) and then at her two friends. I must have hesitated [Of course I bloody hesitated! Ed] because I was them asked, 'You want all three?'

Right. Shit, I thought, how to answer and be clearly understood? I couldn't very well say that under the circumstances it was probably better that I didn't have any of them. Also, a part of me (let's call it the social anthropologist in me, for the sake of argument) was interested to see what the outcome of all this would be. So, I pointed to the girl in the middle and said, very bluntly, 'I want her.'

This was duly translated and the girl in the middle giggled and grasped my knee more tightly. I wonder if I've landed myself in a bit of trouble here, I thought. I used the lull in the 'conversation' to reflect on the moment, take some photographs, and plan a strategy to extricate myself from the situation should I ultimately need to.

There must have been some kind of 'Western guy, Eastern girl' protocol which I had failed to follow because I was asked again, 'Which one you want? You want all three?'. You should be so lucky darling, I thought, and said nothing. This must happen all the time, and according to the law of the jungle I suppose I was meant to take ownership of the girl in some way. Well, I've never been very good at 'taking ownership of the girl' so to speak, and I had no intention of doing it this situation for a whole host of reasons. Namely, it would be against my ethics. The girl spoke no English. Could our relationship transcend language? I didn't think so. Also, and understandably I think, I didn't want to inadvertently end up in a menage a trois with two ladyboys, neither did I intend to do a 'Nimmo'. Last, but by no means least, my heart belongs to someone else, and my body too, I guess.

Anyway, I chose to ignore the repeated question, grin and continue to scrutinise them in the hope that they would realise my interest in them was purely scientific [but not biological Ed]. Presently, the girl in the middle removed her hand from my knee. Still, when I jumped off the boat and waved goodbye, I wandered whether I would be paid a little visit at some point, that some kind of 'courting' might ensue. But there was no visit. I didn't see them again, I was supposed to take the initiative. When I didn't, the matter was dropped. It was either that or the fact that my knees did not meet with their approval.