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First timer’s look at Chiang Mai
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A month ago, I had never been to the north of Thailand. Three weeks ago I had never been to Chiang Mai. That changed in June; I have now spent 4 weeks in Northern Thailand and 4 ½ days in the city of Chiang Mai.
People like me who visit Bangkok for the first time tend to stay in a few small areas like Nana, Patpong and Soi Cowboy. Based on information from the internet I’ve done much the same in Chiang Mai… I’ve stayed where the farangs stay and I’ve gone to the places where farang (tourists) go.
So this isn’t the “Users Guide to Chiang Mai” but the “First Timer’s Look at Chiang Mai”. It’s the impression of the uninformed. On with the blog.
Chiang Mai is in the mountains. The entire area is more beautiful than central Thailand (ie. Bangkok and surrounds). That’s a fact.
Northern Girls
Let’s piss everyone off royally by starting with the myth-busting part of the blog. For three years I’ve been hearing stories from Thais and farang alike about the fact that in northern Thailand the girls are taller, lighter skinned and more beautiful. Basically I had the impression that I was traveling to a land of gorgeous Amazons… in my imagination I pictured Sirens of such beauty and grace that I would never return to the real world.
The truth?
In Chiang Rai the girls are no different from any other place I’ve been in Thailand (and I’ve been around a bit). In fact, I’d say they were in the bottom 50%.
In Chiang Mai, at first I thought the myth was still a total fantasy, but then I went to the Sunday night market (bazaar) near Tha Pae Gate. There are thousands and thousands of people at the bazaar, so I had a huge sample of the population. It’s difficult to describe in just a few words how big the bazaar is and how popular, but I would have passed ten thousand people in the two hours I spent walking around the market.
I was looking intently at the girls of Chiang Mai.
Are they taller?
On the whole, they are. Take a hundred girls from Chiang Mai and line them up next to a hundred Thai girls from a different part of the country, and I suspect that on average they may be as much as 5 cm taller. Mythbusters report: plausible.
Are they lighter skinned?
Okay, first of all, to me lighter skinned doesn’t equal more beautiful… in fact he opposite is true. But, there’s a factual question on the table. My conclusion, based on observation is that there may be a GENETIC difference in skin color here, but there may also be an actual difference because we’re in the mountains. ‘Cold’ isn’t the right word, but it’s cooler here. People walk around with jackets on at night. Girls may be lighter skinned, but it looks to me like the issue is mountain girls who don’t get a lot of sun. Could I be wrong? Sure. But I think the white-skinned thing may just a living-in-the-mountains thing,.
Are they more lovely?
Okay, I have a large sample size here. I’ve been to markets, shopping centers, bars, go gos, and offices over the past four weeks. I feel pretty confident about this.
My answer is completely, emphatically: NO. The girls up here are NOT more beautiful or lovely. They are a pretty average bunch.
I can hear the howls of protest even while I’m typing. Here’s what I have to say to you. If you live in Chiang Mai, you know more than I do… howl away. If you live in Bangkok, then I want to share the newly formulated Werewolf’s theory of gravitation.
The Werewolf Theory on Bangkok
I believe that Bangkok is like other big cities in the world, but let’s use LA in California as the most obvious prototype.
Girls all over America who are pretty or have a little bit of talent head to LA. It has a certain gravitational pull that attracts most of the most beautiful girls in the country, who all dream of being models, singers, actresses.. whatever.
Bangkok is the same kind of girl magnet. Every pretty girl spends her teenage years hearing the refrain: “you’re so beautiful… you should go to Bangkok and work. You could make a fortune or get a rich farang husband”
Whether they are from Udon Thani, Chiang Mai or Burriram, the most appealing girls head off to the big city to follow their dreams.
So if you live in Bangkok, and you want to tell me about Chiang Mai girls, here’s what I’ll tell you. Yep… you’re girl is probably taller that most other girls. You may know several beautiful girls from Chiang Mai, but I think it’s the Bangkok effect #2 (I’ll explain Bangkok Effect #1 later)… in other words, you’re seeing the beautiful gils who have been drawn to Bangkok by the same gravitational force that draws all the beautiful girls to LA. But here in Chiang Mai & Chiang Rai the girls are generally not so beautiful, and girl for girl, don’t come close to the beauty seen daily on the streets, trains and offices of Bangkok.
Enough of that. Let’s change tack.
What to do in Chiang Mai
There’s a lot to do in Chiang Mai. It’s not a boring city (unlike Chiang Rai, which is really a small town). I’ve seen just a little bit of what’s on offer, and less than I could have, since I’ve gone to most places twice in the few days I’ve spent in town.
I’ve spent all my time in places frequented by farang, driven primarily by what I’ve read on the internet. My time here has been in two parts. The first time I spent three days here with a girl (a traveling companion from Bangkok). Currently, I’m on the third day of a five day visit, spending time with a friend from California who is here for the first time.
I’ve eaten in a few restaurants, with very little to report except to comment on Mike’s Burger place. Mike’s opened on Silom Road in Bangkok a few months ago and closed very quickly. Don’t know what happened there, but I visited Mike’s here on my first visit and it was great. Hot dogs, hamburger and the like. Very American. Recommended.
Go Go Bars
I’ve found two go go bars in town, Foxy Lady and Spotlight. If there are others I haven’t seen them. They are both small, but decent quality places. Foxy Lady had one beautiful girl and a lot of average ones. The night I was there the beauty had a customer already, and he barfined her. I bought drinks for another girl, but it turned out that I hated her. She got lipstick all over my brand new shirt, she bit me, kept grabbing my cock, playing with my nipples and she tried to dance sexily, but in reality just assaulted me with her ass, pushing my stool backwards several feet as she tried to turn me on with her dance moves.
Spotlight was much the same. There was a service girl at Spotlight that caught my attention. I couldn’t get her to go with me on my first night there. I went back last night and was chatting her up, and was at the point where I was suggesting going out together. She was being a bit coy. I went to the toilet, and when I returned, she apologized because in the two minutes I’d been gone she’d been barfined by the other guy who’d been chatting her up. Now I know why she was being coy… he was a lot better looking than me. Not to worry. You never lose your girl, just your place in line. I’ll go back and get her tonight. (Actually I did go back and get her the next day, and it was a great thing to do… fantastic experience — one of the best ever!)
While I’m talking about Spotlight, let me go back to something I said earlier. I said that I’d explain “The Bangkok Effect”.
The Bangkok Effect
Here’s my theory, built on years of observation, illustrated by a real life example.
On Friday night, my friend and I were in the Spotlight Go Go bar. He pointed to a girl dancing in a bikini and said that she was beautiful. I looked at her and it was true that her face would have qualified her to grace the cover of any magazine in the world. She was absolutely lovely.
I can also say that from her knees down she had lovely and graceful legs, but in the middle, her hips were wide.
This wasn’t a fat girl – no excess kilos at all – she just had a substantial ass, large thighs and wide hips. If that’s your thing, then I know the perfect girl for you, but I like my women tiny and slender, so I answered my buddy flippantly “She’s fat” I said.
She wasn’t fat. I’m fat. She had a big ass.
But this is the Bangkok Effect in action. I went back to Spotlight for a while last night and saw the girl again (Oddly, she was wearing badge number 57 on Friday night but #38 on Saturday). Her face was the same vision of loveliness that I remembered. Watching her dance, she had a special way of moving with a subtle little pelvic thrust that was especially erotic. But I just couldn’t get past that massive ass.
Here’s the thing… if I was in New York or Rome or Melbourne and this girl told me what time it was, I’d probably walk around on cloud 9 all day because such a beautiful woman told me what time it was. But, after living in Bangkok for three years, faced with the possibility of having sex with her, my only response was to complain that her ass was too big.
That’s the Bangkok Effect. You lose perspective on how challenging it is in the rest of the world to have sex with beautiful women. In Bangkok, because it’s set up like a department store for girl-shopping, you can just look around until you find the one that fits your specs precisely, then hire her for an hour or a week. Whatever Bangkok may lack in other areas, the sheer QUANTITY of Thai girls available for short-time hire is astounding.
Chiang Mai has less quantity, but there’s enough selection for the city to be interesting.
Sexy Massage
My buddy from California and I decided to hit the massage shops. We were thinking soapy, but that wasn’t on offer. In Bangkok it seems like the best time to hit the massage places is the afternoon, so we went off yesterday after lunch time to try to get in trouble. Based on what I’d read on the internet it seemed like the best choice would be Chiang Mai Massage next to the Phucome Hotel.
We arrived at 1 pm. There were five girls, none appealing. We asked the papasan what the story was. He said that they would have 20 girls on later, but it was very early now. He told me that 7 p.m. would be the best time to come back.
I actually plan on returning, but yesterday we decided to simply move on and try our luck at a different shop. We went to Porn Phayom on Suithep Road. We got there at 2 pm and there were 5 girls on. We sat and had a drink, and by 3 pm there were 20 girls in the fishbowl.
The girls in the middle were the ‘normal’ girls; 1,300 baht.
The girls on the left had an “L” on their badge, and the price was 1,600 baht. When I asked the papasan about the “L” he put his hand over his crotch and said “yai” which I took to be the word for ‘large’ but with Thai being a tonal language, it could have meant anything. I asked if “L” meant ladyboy and he quickly said no. I still don’t know what the L signified.
The girls on the right had an “S” on the badge and cost 2,000 baht. These were the Sideline girls.
I spotted a sideliner that caught my attention (#30) and the papasan was very enthusiastic about her. My buddy was having a hard time finding a girl who interested him, so I suggested we just leave, but I think he knew I was interested in #30 so he wanted to find a girl for my sake. He finally decided on a girl who had some large and natural breasts. The papasan said she was new, and looked a little skeptical, but my buddy simply didn’t find any of the other girls appealing.
Between 2 and 3 pm the girls were coming into work, one at a time, so every few minutes there was a new one in the fish bowl. Just before we finalized arrangements, a girl came in with an “L” tag (#17) who was stunningly beautiful. My buddy and I both agreed that she was magazine-model beautiful. I asked the papasan about her compared to #30. He said she was new, and again recommended #30.
We finalized the deal… I took #30 and my friend took big-boobs, leaving the stunning beauty sitting in the fishbowl.
My girl told me in the room that she was 19 years old, that she was 39 kilos, and that she had been working for 5 months at the massage shop. She said that she used to work in a restaurant as a waitress before. She didn’t speak a word of English, so we chatted in Thai. My friend doesn’t speak any Thai, and his girl didn’t speak English either. My girl said that it wouldn’t be any problem.
My buddy and I compared notes afterwards, and it seems that there is a specific formula for the service.
Overall, I’d say the service from my girl was ‘average’. Given that my pal and I had both paid the premium for sideline girls this is particularly disappointing, but for 2,000 baht it wasn’t tragic for me. I may even go back before my trip is done to see if the stunningly beautiful #17 is worth her 1,600 baht price tag, and I’ll almost certainly go back to try the place near the Phucome hotel, which got much better reports on the internet than this one.
The Beer Bars of Loi Kroh Road
We hit some beer bars last night on Loi Kroh Road. This street feels a lot like Bangkok… sort of a Soi 22 feel to it. We planned on hitting several of the outdoor bars, but in the end we only spent time in one.
I became captivated by a girl with very dark skin and a beautiful smile. It happened that she spoke good English. I was sure she was an Isaan girl, so I asked her what province she was from. It turned out that she was Burmese, but had been in Thailand for about 7 years. She used to have an English boyfriend, which is why her English language was so good.
She sat on a barstool about 3 meters away while we chatted, and she was entertaining and amusing – a cheeky girl who I found to be very interesting. Finally, after about 30 minutes she came to sit with me. I was disappointed when I saw her up close to see that her skin was not really very clear, and that she wasn’t as pretty as I’d thought from a distance. Up to that point I’d been keen to try to take her home. I need to see the optometrist when I get back to Bangkok and update the prescription for my eyeglasses. At closing time, I let her leave with her friends instead of inviting her back to my place.
There was some excitement in the street while we were at this bar. A young white guy with his shirt off had a pool cue in his hand in the street and was taking on a Thai guy who was similarly armed. This was clearly gonna end in tears.
We watched, and it didn’t take long for the Thai guy to crack the farang across the head. The white guy went down, and in typical Thai style, everyone – men and women – rushed in to start kicking and hitting. I was only about three meters away, so my buddy & I, along with one or two other farang stepped in to hold the crowd back. We didn’t fight, just cleared people back and told them not to hurt the guy any more. My buddy managed to stop the Thai guy with the pool cue who was about to smash the farang across the head again. We sat the farang up, and for all his arrogant bluster of three minutes earlier, he was now a sad sight; unconscious with blood running down his face.
He’d been a prick, and deserved what he got from what I could see, so I didn’t feel bad for him, I simply didn’t want the Thais to hurt him too badly while he was down. My buddy was holding him up and asked what he thought we should do. The guy was in the middle of the street, so I suggested we put him on the sidewalk and leave him alone.
Just at that moment a cop showed up, so we left it to him to sort out. Ten minutes later the farang was up and moving, looking not much worse for the wear and tear, and walked away under his own power.
My Burmese girl said she’d known the beaten farang for five years, and that he was a constant troublemaker. She said that he got in fights all the time. She didn’t use the word ‘dickhead’ but it was clear what she thought of him.
After Hours
We’d heard from a few people that the after-hours scene was a club called ‘Spicy’ so we went there at 2 a.m. after the bars closed. It was packed elbow to asshole, with loud dance music playing. The drink service was pretty good. Even after just a couple of days in town I recognized a lot of the girls in the club from the bars I’d been in for two nights. The scene in this bar was high energy and fun. It was a meat market to rival any I’ve seen.
I took a run at a couple of girls but got shut down. I was getting tired and the alcohol was starting to wear me down, so I finally called it a night as the clock approached 4 a.m. and went back to my hotel.
The City of Chiang Mai
When I was here on my first trip two weeks ago I went to the night bazaar near Tha Pae gate on Sunday night. It was very very big and quite interesting – and this is coming from a man who hates markets – night, day or weekend variety. Today is Sunday again so I may go again. Chiang Mai has a regular night bazaar open every day, but it isn’t much different from the stalls that pop up on Sukhumvit Road every night. The Sunday Market is different and interesting… great for people watching, and lots of stuff to buy.
The ‘center city’ of Chiang Mai is interesting because it seems to be based on the original fortified city from several hundred years ago. There is a square moat – yes, and actual moat – and in many places you can still see portions of the original wall that protected the city inside the moat. I actually find it fascinating, and it’s attractive as well. At Tha Pae Road, the Tha Pae gate is (I think) the original entrance to the old city. The walls on each side of the gate are intact and run for 30 or 40 meters on each side.
Chiang Mai is a fairly compact city and easy to navigate. Fifteen minutes in a tuk tuk or sawn taew gets you across the city. I wrote a comment the other day saying that Chiang Mai isn’t Bangkok, and someone wrote in reply ‘vive la difference!’.
To quote Leonardo di Caprio: “I concur”.
Chiang Mai is a city that is much smaller than Bangkok, but there’s a lot happening here. In my opinion, Bangkok – like LA and other special cities – is a magnet for the most beautiful girls from around the country so it’s not as easy to find a beauty queen here, where Bangkok has a dozen in every train car every morning and evening Chiang Mai’s reputation as a Nirvana of tall, lovely light-skinned beauties seems to be unjustified, but it’s a nice city with plenty to do and enough girls that anyone can find the one they are looking for if you make the effort.
After four and a half days in the city I’m no expert on Chiang Mai, but I can report that I like it. I have two more days here, and I actually wish it was longer.
If you have a week to spare and you’re wondering how to spend it, one good option would be to come to Chiang Mai and get to know the city.
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2 responses so far
June 29th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Being from LA, I can say that the LA effect is oh so true. People were actually shocked to hear I was born and raised in LA. In LA everybody is from someplace else.
June 30th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I READ YOUR ARTICLE AFTER DRINKING 3 LITRES (LITERS) OF LEO AND FONDLING A RARE BEAUTY FROM SAKON NAKHON IN NORTH EASTERN THAILAND. PITY SHE PREFERS WOMEN.
I WENT TO CHIANG MAI MANY YEARS AGO AND THE WOMEN WERE MORE BEAUTIFUL THEN BUT WERE PROBABLY LADYBOYS….DID YOU EVER GO OUTSIDE THE MOAT TO THE BROTHELS AND NUDE ONLY SWIMMING POOLS AT CERTAIN HOTELS??? YOU DID NOT SEE MANY FARANGS THERE AND THE LOCALS DO NOT WANT YOU THERE ANYWAY.
SO DO NOT CRITICISE CHIANG MAI UNTIL YOU HAVE SEEN EVERYTHING. MY ADVICE TO YOU IS TO PAY A LADYBOY TO TAKE YOU OUTSIDE THE MOAT AREAS BUT PAY HIM WELL OTHERWISE YOU MAY HAVE A SORE ARSE.