Traveling by smell in the land of smiles

Living in Phuket, in the land of smiles, leaving the flat was always an adventure. Jumping on my Honda Phantom with nothing but some cash and my girlfriend riding backseat in her denim short shorts. Riding in the dark in search of the familiar scents of hot oil, rice, and fish sauce. Expertly weaving in and out of island traffic. Following the lights and navigating by smell. In the distance strings of circus lights draped from streetlights. Drawing closer you can hear the oversized low-quality speakers with the bass cranked to the maximum, blasting high-pitched tones accompanying foot-tapping beats. We have arrived at a classic night food market. Secret smiles and happy faces. Fragrant spicy food is sold in thin translucent sandwich bags which are burdensome to hold. Impossible games in with prizes that you wouldn’t dare gift to people you cared about.

The Dunk Tank

In Thailand, it’s frowned upon to question the life choices of others. In fact, it’s frowned upon to frown, hence the moniker “the land of smiles”. Undeniably this would help to explain why Thailand was once synonymous with transgender women, known locally as “ladyboys”. If it’s rude to publicly judge somebody for their life choices, then you can be whoever you choose to be, free from judgment.

Set up in the centre of this otherwise pleasurable attack on the senses, an attraction that took me by surprise was a ‘Dunk Tank‘. Usually reserved for kids dunking their teachers, this one had three trans women lined up in full preparation for a dunking. I’m unsure if it was my own interpretation of the set-up, or if there was some malice to the idea. But my instincts told me that the women were a target of humiliation, rather than taking part in the fun.

I could pretend to be naive in that all Thai people are loving, accepting, and friendly as the holiday brochure might tell you. But by this time I had heard a Thai woman describe a black person as a “chocolate man” and I’d seen more depressed elephants in chains than I ever planned on seeing. The polished veneer of happy tourist Thailand was slowly rusting away.

I just hope that the women are seldom involved. Rather than using the forces of xenophobia to allow humiliation as a method to make ends meet.