International Women’s Day 100307 - 100309

Spent International Women’s Day in a soapy bathtub with sex workers in the square at Tae Pae Gate advocating to stop police raids on sex workers in Thailand.  The installation attracted a lot of attention and was great way to involve the general public in the cause.  

The installation was part of the “street for change” where different women's and transgender organizations had set up booths with art work information etc.  There was also a band and speeches both of which were multilingual and surprisingly good.

We also had a rally to the “street for change” which was attended by about 250 women where we too up space chanting “women’s rights make culture strong, women move the world along” in Burmese, English and Thai.

IWD was an important part of the Women’s Exchange conference - which finished today.  I attend a number of number of workshops and met great women who work from around the globe for women’s rights in Burma.

I’m off to the Thai/Myanmar border at Mae Sai tomorrow and am traveling light, so won’t be taking my laptop.  Will report back when I get back on 12 March.

Women’s Exchange - 100305 and 100306

Didn’t do much on the 4th, just goofed off, had a massage and went to bed early and am I glad I did because the last couple of days have been hectic.  I have been attending the 9th Annual Women’s Exchange, a conference of migrant women (mainly migrant Burmese women) which is set every year to coincide with International Women’s day.  The theme this year is the status of women.

The conference is organized by the NGO MAP, Migrant’s Assistance Program which has been renamed something very long in Thai as no one is meant to assist migrants here.  

MAP set up women’s exchange in 1989.  It began as a meeting of women once a month to  exchange ideas, discuss issues and to create a space for women.  The monthly meetings have spread to places as far as India, Bangladesh and London and MAP supports groups of women’s exchange in Thailand.  These are mainly on the Thai/Burma border with groups in Pa Nga, Sakalaburi, Mahachai and with 2 in Mae Sot, Mesaraeing, Mae Hong Son and Chaing-Mai.  Empower works closely with MAP and was represented at the conference.

The first morning was introductions and report backs.  When Empower’s representative spoke the first question she fielded was from a woman who asked “does Empower want all women to be sex workers?”  The conference is about solidarity but also about (rather frankly) asking difficult questions and making connections across groups.

Burma is not homogeneous and the many ethnic groups who are represented at the conference may not speak the same language, may not have met anyone from the other’s ethnic group or indeed know much about each other.  The conference is an opportunity to break down these barriers and build unity.  The plenaries are bilingual (in English and Burmese) with Thai translators.  The workshops are held in the language of the facilitator with up to 3 simultaneous translations.  

Many of the women come from refugee camps.  Prior to the conference opening the women were offered an orientation of the hotel as many women would not live with electricity, plumbing etc.  It is not uncommon for women to get stuck in the lifts, not knowing which buttons to press.

The main issues coming out of the conference revolve around “security”.  When the issue was first mentioned I had to seek clarification as I didn’t understand if it meant personal security for example against violence, financial security etc.  “Security” here is a short cut for saying some form of papers that give a person identity and therefore access to all other things including health, education, labour rights, the police and everything else that I have always taken for granted.  I had been aware that not everyone has the same access to services but I hadn’t realized that there are systematic ways which are currently being employed to exclude millions of people, in relatively politically stable countries, from being recognized.  

Call me naive or uninformed or maybe its just the first time that I have had any first hand exposure that I have chosen to process.  Of course I have met refugees before and of course I was aware that there are millions of people worldwide waiting for resettlement, waiting to go home, waiting for something to change sometimes for generations and hoping like hell that it is a good change.

In the afternoon workshop on sex that Empower runs a very simple question was asked.  “How many of you have seen yourselves naked in a mirror?”   I thought it would lead somewhere about body image and to the status of women but the response the question elicited was so unexpected for me.  I was the only person in the workshop of 20 to 30 participants who raised my hand.  None of the women had ever seen themselves naked in a mirror.

Most of the household that they live in don’t have a mirror, if they do have one it is very small and even if they wanted to use that small mirror to check out their bodies they live in such cramped conditions that they would never have space to do so.

It was a very good question.  Because how do you fight for your own space as a woman, as a migrant (when I use the term migrant here it is not like Australia - there is no permanent residency or possibility of citizenship - at best migrants have access to a series of permits and verifications that are like a Temporary Protection Visa (TPA)) as a worker, as  a human being when you haven’t been allowed to view yourself taking up space?  I’m not saying that these women do not have a sense of themselves (far from it) but that I am absolutely blown away by the difference in experience.

The other workshop that I found very moving was the workshop about migration and development.  The workshop was structured through a number of scenarios set in 5 hypothetical villages which we had to solve in 5 village groups.  

The first scenario the groups were asked to imagine that there was an earthquake and our village was flattened.  We were asked to chose 5 resources out of a list of 22 including cows, pigs, tractors, tools, money, doctors, solders, police, artists, entertainers etc The groups could not double up on resources so we had to share the ones available. Interestingly solders was the last resource chosen and the police were not chosen at all as a resource by any group.  

We then did group work on how we would use those resources to rebuild our village and had discussions around how to make the village sustainable, how to negotiate with other villages and the world bank which held more resources. No one wanted to negotiate with the world bank. 

The second scenario built on the first, it was five years down the track, the villages were affected by drought and each village had to chose 2 people to migrate for survival.  One of the migrants would be going across the border, the other far away (like Australia) maybe to work in a factory or in agriculture or as a domestic servant.  As a group we had to chose who would go and what we wanted them to do to help us back in the village.

I wasn’t surprised that no one wanted to go, including myself - well we had just spent all this time rebuilding our village after the earthquake.  Eventually people put themselves forward and then we discussed what we would want them to do and what we would want from them.  No one wanted to be a factory worker etc.  Most people wanted to be in some form of trade with the village of origin so that they could capitalize on their contacts.

But, no one wanted money to be sent home.  Not one person in the 5 groups.  They wanted the migrants to make contact with outside people, to trade with the outside world, to learn skills and bring back knowledge.

Governments always talk about remittances that migrants make and pay lip service to up-skilling but here it didn’t figure.  Indeed the villagers were making plans on how to pool resources , to send money with the migrants, to allow the migrants to travel so that they would have a better opportunity to learn new things.

And at this point I went aha!  I always felt like my family in India wanted something from me.  Something unnamed but something they felt that they had claim to.  It wasn’t money, I don’t believe that we ever sent money back home and then suddenly I understood that the overwhelming sense of duty I felt.  The village or in this case my extended family (from a village) felt that they had some claim in me migrating - our family migrating; and they wanted to share in the experience.

And then those experiences that I though to be tacky (at best) and gratuitous like taking back electronics when India was still a closed economy and those good were difficult to procure or large parts of the extended family holidaying together (in what for me were expensive and uncomfortable circumstances) suddenly made sense.

I had always felt confused by the duty migrants felt to send home money but when I realized it wasn’t money at all I got it.

I don’t think I will be able to fulfill that duty to my extended family now or into the future but I felt quite relived to understand something of the thinking.

Tonight the conference hosted a cultural dinner for participants, partners and supporters. It was a non-stop dance fest with different groups putting on shows for the rest of us to enjoy.  (I got roped into 2 - the one from Empower and a random Indian one!)  What I noticed was the half-half.  Many of the groups wore their traditional garments and shared their traditional dancing and singing and then many of the same people performed western style models.  It was a hoot and in relation to my thoughts about duty and home quite soothing.

Unlocking the locked brothel - 100303

Yesterday I learnt a little about the anti-trafficking successes here in Chaing-Mai (and I believe throughout the rest of Thailand).  The success didn’t come about through the millions of dollars spent on anti-trafficking by international governments or through the “worthy” work of radical feminists who believe that all sex work is a form of slavery and set about to rescue poor Asian women from themselves.  The changes came about by a process of deregulation which reduced the scope for police corruption and hence the leverage for unscrupulous operators to coerce their workers.

In the early 90’s it was common for brothels to be locked.  Workers would work, live, eat and sleep in small rooms on the premises of the brothel with no access to the outside world.  The majority of women who worked at these locked brothels were migrants from Burma and had to pay the brothel owners for their passage into Thailand, a process which on average took 3 years and is commonly referred to as debt bondage.  If workers tried to escape, not pay their debts or ask for better working conditions owners would threaten to report workers to the police which meant a 3 year rehabilitation sentence (akin to jail) for the worker.  Police would also exhort regular sums from brothel owners to allow operations to continue.

In 1996 or there abouts the prostitution law was revamped to increase the age of consent from 15 to 18, create a new category of minors - those who are 15 to 18 and to impose harsher penalties for the abuse of children - those under 15.  For those who were adults and willingly working in the sex industry the penalty was reduced from the 3 year rehabilitation term to 1000 Bhat (about AUD $40) or 10 days in jail.  This not quite legalization of adult prostitution had a major effect on police ability to extort payments as workers and brothel owners would not pay the police more than the maximum fine of 1000 Bhat.

Police then turned to extorting sums for harboring illegal migrants.  Raids on locked brothels became common and owners could no longer afford to keep the women locked into the premises.  Owners turned their workers out into the street or in some instances dropped off bus loads of workers at the Empower offices.

Prostitution still continued but the abuses of locked brothels ceased.  Workers once they began to live off premises got access to each other and moved to work at premises that offered better working conditions.  Owners could also not coerce workers with the threat of  imprisonment any more so workers were able to exercise more agency.

Around this time the HIV epidemic also hit Chiang-Mai and the industry was forced to restructure.

Locked brothels are no longer a feature of the sex industry in Chaing-Mai, though some worthy westerners still pretend that they are.  There are still individual instances of debt-bondage though it is possible to navigate a release particularly given that threats of imprisonment have been removed.  Workers who want to leave brothels can but the structural support to do so has not changed but workers are still finding creative solutions.

I was told that recently one migrant worker from Burma was unhappy with her working conditions.  She did not want to run away and avoid her debt with the owners as she did not want to dishonor her contract and she had concerns about the implications for her and her family’s safety should she do so.  Through access to other sex workers and their support she decided upon a middle path for herself.  She found work at a better establishment and negotiated a settlement with the original brothel.  It is not the Hollywood ending where prince charming rescues the princess but it in this instance the princess doesn’t have to answer to any prince.

Can-Do 100302

I visited Empower in Chaing-Mai yesterday.  It is situated Chaing-Mai Land in one of 2 sectors that allow for “entertainment venues”, in a four storey building with the experimental Can-do bar on the ground floor.  The other floors house offices and facilities that can be accessed by sex workers including computers, a small gym, an English classroom and Thai classroom.  Out the back of the building is an undercover area with cooking facilities and an area where sex workers can get ready for work.

Empower Chaing-Mai feels like a hub of community activity with peers and non-peers working on numerous projects.  When I arrived local art students were helping to afix a large canvas depicting the inside of a hotel room to the Can-Do bars sloped ceiling.  The bar was saturated with the fumes of contact glue and much discussion was happening about if whether the white foam on the wall mounted bath tub was white enough.  It was decided that the sculpture should be repainted from the current cream to white with the playful statement that “everyone thinks sex workers are dirty so we need to foam to be very white.”

I met with Liz an Australian ex-pat that has been working with Empower for 18 years.  Liz helps to translate for Empower and works on everything from acquitting grants to the more creative projects which allow for workers to tell their own stories.  Currently Liz is working on translating 13 stories from Thai to English that were written by sex workers from their experience.

I met one such story teller last night who has performed her story to peers, non-peers and in the prestigious Bangkok Arts Centre.  She told me part of her story and she began by explaining that when she was young she was quite a tom boy and that she spent a lot of time climbing trees.  One such time, her village in Burma (it will never be Myanmar to her) was forcibly relocated and she lost her family and all her community.  The Myanmar authorities then forcibly recruited her to be a child solider on the mistaken premise that she was a boy.   When she finally got out of that situation she knew no one and had no way to support herself.  

Someone she met suggested that she “sell her body” and she was so desperate that she accepted.  She started work at a bar but kept refusing customers.  When asked by the bar owner why she kept refusing, she explained that if she sold her body she would not be able to work anymore and that she would have no means to support herself.  The confusion was finally cleared up when it was explained to her that she wasn’t physically selling her body parts - removal of body parts is a type of torture which is an often practiced by Myanmar authorities.  She was so relieved that all she had to do was have sex!

The Can-do bar is bar owned and operated by Empower, by sex workers for sex workers.  It is experimental in that it provides for good and legal working conditions for sex workers.  It is internationally renowned and attracts both Thai and farang.  It is very friendly but reasonably quiet an outcome of locating the bar in Chaing-Mai Land.  

The more active bars are in areas that are not designated for entertainment venues.  For empale in Loikroh, where my hotel is situated there are over 100 bars in walking distance.  All these bars however are not licensed to be entertainment venues and police exact 20,000 Bhat a month (approximately AUD $800) from each premises to turn a blind eye.

Empower decided that they would trade off higher business opportunities to avoid paying bribes to corrupt officials.  This means that Can-do attracts a high level of scrutiny with officers attending regularly to make sure that Empower are not in breach of their trading license or in breach of anything else including copyright law - a law that is openly flouted in Thailand.

flashing lights - 100227 and 100228

I spent most of the 27th enjoying the hotel facilities and transcribing my interviews.  On stopping by the pool however I was quite surprised to find muscle boy calendar like exhibitions of manhood from a number of young men.  Hardly clad and preening, they were toting accessories including a guitar, incase they weren’t attracting enough attention!  They turned out to be footballers procured from Europe and South America to play for Myanmar.  The men seemed quite bored and complained that there was little to do in Yangon.

That was not my experience however as I made friends with some members of the expatriate community ate Italian one night, Thai another and danced till 2 in the morning.  The Yangon club that I visited was quite different to the one from the previous night in that it was full and sans overt sex trade.  It was a good mix of well heeled locals and foreigners with everyone willing to strike up a conversation or dance.  The beer however was warm even with the help of ice-cubes!

The expatriate community seems small but varied and interesting, comprised of business people, restaurantiers, hoteliers, embassy people, aid workers and English teachers.  They were warm and welcoming but a number cautioned me against identifying individuals in Myanmar or identifying myself in relation to Myanmar, particularly in the instance that I want to return to Myanmar (which I do).

On the 28th I spent the day with TOP and visited Bago a town which is an hour and a half from Yangon.  I met TOP peer workers from Bago and spent the day traipsing through Pagodas.  This sounds very pleasant but in fact was physically very uncomfortable.  

The taxi that we hired to take us to Bago was not air-conditioned (few to none of the city’s cabs are) and the large sheet of cardboard that provided structural support for the backseat flapped against my head in the wind.  Most of the main road has tarmac but some parts of the main road and all of the minor roads are either rocky with a fine red dust or just simply fine red dust.  The dust mixes in with the strong smell of exhaust fumes which was in turn punctuated with the fragrance of tar being heated on the side of the road.

The trip there was very jovial with much jesting and sharing of stories with great discussions about life in Myanmar.  On the trip one contact said that they were not political that they were only interested in helping the community - a sentiment which was repeated by international aid workers in other contexts.  

I hypothesis that being adamantly non-political is necessary in Myanmar given that the government will not allow anything that looks like organization or mobilization with local activists having their passports held with no explanation, NGO’s who try to provide services being denied registration despite securing international funding and other organizations, such as the one who used to provide free funerals for those whose families and communities could not afford them, being shut down with no explanation.  International aid workers are also routinely refused visas with no explanation and any individual on a tourist visa who tried to assist after the cyclone a couple of years ago has been black-listed from entering Myanmar.

The political situation requires that anyone who wants to help, in the resource rich but 13th poorest country in the world, needs to be seen to be actively co-operating with the government, a situation which often contradictory and not well comprehended by some international supporters whose activism has at time led to perverse outcomes.  For instance, I was told that an international pro-Burma group had hacked certain servers to disadvantage the government however the impact was that business was affected and people livelihoods put at risk while government just changed servers. 

Visiting the Pagodas was an assault on the senses.  The non-stop loud speaker announcement (or in some unfortunate circumstances multiple un-synced loud speakers) blared requests (what sounded like admonitions) to visitors to donate.  The Pagodas each had some point of interest (the one with the really old big python, the reclining buddha inside, the reclining buddha outside, the 4 sitting buddhas, the pagoda with the nat (woman who channels spirits of dead ancestors in a shaman like trance) but all had a similar lay out.

The entrance ways were gaudy, guarded and loud and had young women dressed in brown loyngis and matching brown blouses with a yellow sash holding bowls for donations.   Kiosks and street stalls around the entrance ways sold food, drink, religious accouterments such as candles, incense, flowers, statues, posters and general plastic nic-nacks for the mantle piece.  

From the entrance way there was usually a covered walkway to the central attraction with illustrations on the eves of the walkway depicting scenes from sutras and modernized fables extolling the virtues of a good life and depicting the (literally) torturous ramifications of not respecting ones elders, intoxicants and women.  

The central attractions were enormous poured concrete sculptures painted in golds and neon pinks and inlaid with glass mosaics.  They were all hemmed with plaques announcing family and business donations with the size of plaque reflective of the size of donation.  And in case you hadn’t had a chance to donate already there were clear plastic donation boxes in prominent places (and sometimes accompanied by more loud speaker).

Seeing the pagodas triggered a similar insight to the one I had in Europe when I visited a number of unknown churches - that there is a very good reason why certain images are repeated in artbooks, advertising and tourist snaps.  I had incorrectly thought at art school that we studied the same old master-pieces because they typified genres of work much of which was lost due to passing of time but on visiting older countries I now realize that we don’t study a variety of images because most of the work is really bad and that the masterpieces are the best of the bunch.

The Pagodas were very busy places none had an entrance fee but all charged 300 Kyat for stills cameras (about 30 cents) and 500 Kyat for videos.  There were no or few foreigners at any of the pagodas but very high usage from the local population that seemed to congregate around in any shade with a picnic lunch.

Many of the Pagodas were adjacent to or near monasteries so there were many monks and nuns there.  The monks and nun were not engaged in austere contemplation and unlike the common depictions of monks in the west were chatting, smoking and slouching about.  Some of the monks looked more like hard core young men replete with tattoos and attitude.  I was advised that it is common for lay people to attend monasteries for retreats and that wealthy people in Myanmar to donate to allow poorer lay people to attend so the lads were really just lads.

By about the third Pagoda in the midday sun, I was had nausea and head aches and having suffered from heat stroke before, I recognized the symptoms immediately.  I however didn’t want to look like a soft westerner and I particularly didn’t want the workers from TOP who were giving up their Sunday to show me around, to think that I was not enjoying myself.  So I pushed through another 4 or 5 pagodas and the return trip.

I am really glad I went and that I got to spend some more time with the people from TOP etc but I must admit that I was quite relieved to go back to the hotel.

Just to let you know there won’t be a post for the 1st of March as I have spent all day traveling from Yangon to Chaing-Mai.  The only thing I’ve noted is that Thailand looks about a hundred times more wealthy than Myanmar and that things that I took to be unsightly just a few days ago in Bangkok (such as the masses of exposed above ground cabling for electricity etc) now look like signs of welcome progress.

I also feel like I am in a bit of theme park after Myanmar as the hotel I am staying in is surrounded by shops, markets, street side vendors, masseurs and tour guides who all cater solely to foreigners.

TOP stuff - 100226

Yesterday I caught up with my contact from TOP (Targeted Outreach Project).  Making contact was a little more difficult than I expected as I had securely stored her contact details on my gmail.  The lack of internet access and the fact that the government blocks most webmail meant that I needed to call Australia and have J access my email to get the contact’s details.

The first phone call to the contact was more of a yelling match than a conversation.  The phone lines here are so bad that between the static, dropping out and echo it was hard to confirm a meeting.  However once we met face to face I felt welcomed and thoroughly excited.

The program is amazing.  Top was set up in mid 2004, funded by PSI (an American program) to deliver HIV health to sex workers in Myanmar.  It started small with a handful of peer educators in Yangoon and has grown over the last 6 years to have centers and peer educators in 15 cities with five more centers in another 5 cities scheduled to open this year.

The director, a worker from Bangladesh was single minded in his vision to ensure that all staff bar technical support such as the doctor and lab staff were peers (current of former sex workers) and that the organization grew as a result of sex worker community engagement.

He said it was difficult in the early stages as sex workers were reluctant to engage with the program as they did not want to be identified by the authorities as sex workers.  It is illegal in Myanmar to be sex worker and it is not uncommon for sex workers to face arrest and imprisonment or to be subject to police harassment including rape and extortion.  Peer educators however were able to build the trust within the community and community need saw the first drop-in centre expand its operating hours from 3 days a week to 5 days a week within 6 months.

The centers provides separate support for MSM (Men who have Sex with Men) and women with each group having a dedicated drop in space with TV, DVDs, karaoke, a sleeping room, community counsellor and doctor.  Facilities are also provided so that sex workers can wash their clothes and shower.  Meals are also provided.  Sex workers come to share their experience with each other (such as where police harassment is currently being targeted) and to access sexual health services including tests, counseling and medication.

The HIV infection rate for members of TOP are 18% for women and 28% for men and of the over 300 staff that TOP employs half are HIV positive.  The centers open for Saturday club, only for HIV positive members so that special attention can be given to this group.

The centre feels welcoming and safe and people are proud of themselves here.  Everyone identifies as a sex worker and they are very straight forward and quick to ascertain if you are family.  When asked if there was a need to target minority communities to ensure adequate access to the centers, the director said “we are all sex workers and we share the same blood regardless of race or class.  People seem to unify very quickly maybe because it is so difficult here.”

One of the difficulties faced by TOP in setting up was that the Police would arrest and imprison TOP workers.  TOP attempted to litigate the cases one by one “but the law is very grey here” and had little success.  They have found that advocating with the authorities to reduce arrest both for members and staff have had better effect with the total arrest rate falling and no TOP staff being arrested in the last two years.

But what about all the staff who were imprisoned?  How could TOP help them?  One of the major concerns for staff who were imprisoned was that their families’ had lost a major breadwinner.  TOP responded by asking staff to continue to organize sex workers within the prisons and continued to pay their families their salaries.

TOP seemed to have a very supportive structure with staff being promoted from within.  One contact I made started as a volunteer in 2004, then was employed as a peer educator, then promoted to be a community organizer and then up through the ranks to be the Manager of TOP.  The motto of TOP really seems to be doing it for ourselves and given that many individuals have been specifically told (outside of TOP) that they can’t do it and will never be able to do it, the sense of achievement in creating one of the most successful programs in the world is palpable.

The methodologies used by TOP are similar in terms of best practice as within the Union movement.  The country has been mapped to identify where and when sex work takes place as the work is often seasonal.  The hot spots are then mapped and each individual establishment is identified and targeted.  The establishments are broken down into street work, brothels, beer stations, KTV (Karaoke TV), nightclubs and hotels where TOP workers approach the owners or management to gain right of entry.  Some owners and managers welcome TOP straight away but for others multiple visits are necessary to gain trust and build rapport.  Generally speaking, most owners and managers where TOP has centers are aware of TOP and their growing reputation means that access is becoming easier.

Once inside however TOP does not use the anger-hope-action model or issues based organizing which is deployed by most unions.  TOP’s approach is more about relational organizing, building capacity through constant and lasting interactions. 

The review methods are quite similar to best practice unions with data collected and analyzed on the number of visits, the number of contacts and the success of the contacts.  For example how many contact translate to workers attending a drop in centre.

Other forms of data collection have been translated to fit local needs.  For instance workers are surveyed through an anonymous and discreet collection box where coupons (different colored disks) are available to indicate the number and type of sex each worker has had that week.  A different color represents safe, unsafe and non-penetrative sex and one disk represents each person.  This form of data collection de-identifies individuals automatically and does not require the participants to be literate.

Staff are given peer support and are supervised.  Training is provided continually with refresher courses being run every three months at the centers.  Constant supervision, mentoring and support mean that staff are eager to learn with many staff becoming fluent in English, improving computer skills and being upskilled in project management and reporting.

The Bangladeshi Director, who speaks some Burmese only communicates with his staff in English as I am told he says that it’s more important for the staff to improve their English than for him to improve his Burmese.  As one staff member said “it is important for all of us to know English because it mean that no one can lie to you about what they are doing.”

While at TOP I met and spoke with members, peer educators and program managers.  Every one asked if I had sex work experience directly and shared their stories frankly and with warmth.

That afternoon I stopped by the Shwedagon Pagoda which was built over 2500 years ago and has been expanded by each successive King.  The Pagoda houses 8 hairs from the historical Buddha’s head.  The pagoda is comprised of 3 terrace areas with multiple pagodas the tallest one being 326 feet. One pagoda is inlaid with 3154 gold bells and 79569 diamonds and other precious stones.  When I visited there was a full moon ritual with a procession, chanting and plenty of locals and dignitaries paying their tributes.  (There don’t seem to be many foreigners here).  

The Pagoda was truly magical and had a carnival like vibrance.  I walked around with a sense of awe but being the bad tourist that I am declined to either read up on the Pagoda before I went (well the internet is down and I didn’t bring a guide book) or hire a guide. I’m kind of cheating because I quoted the above statistics from the back of the entrance ticket but despite my anti-tour cynicism it was pretty cool. It’s just that if you want to know more you will have to google it.

That night a contact invited me to go out with her, a few other TOP workers and partners and a woman from an Embassy/Aid Project.  (I am still trying to work my way through the multiple acronyms and relationships between NGOs, funders and governments.)

We went to a BBQ restaurant and laughed our way through dinner and then went to a nightclub.  The men (all MSM) had dressed up to go out and looked fabulous as did the women and we were definitely the groviest people out.  We attracted quite a lot of attention at dinner but no more than a g*** or non-white person may expect in regional Australia.

The woman for the embassy commented that PDA (Public Displays of Affection) was quite common in Myanmar and that on her morning or evening walks about town, it was not uncommon for her to see score of lovers making out “and I mean really making out!  One time I walked passed a woman readjusting her longyi at the park!”  MSM seems to be quite accepted too - but not too the same extent.

The nightclub was on the upper floor of a building and looked similar to most clubs other clubs world wide but was less full (mind you I felt sleepy about 11.00pm and left, so perhaps most of the clientele hadn’t arrived).  The difference to other clubs though was that there were rows of young women raunchily clad but standing still on the dance floor.  These women were working and could be procured either by speaking with them directly or motioning to the plentiful bar staff.  You could interact with the women there (some men were asking the women to dance as they sat and watched) but it is not sex on premises so once the price has been agreed you go to a hotel.

The music was loud and the club smokey and I realized I was getting very old when I vauged off into a fantasy about cuddling my loved ones and watching a DVD on the couch.

Yangon - 100225

Felt like I spent most of today in transit.  Even thought the flight from Bangkok to Yangon only takes an hour and 10 minutes, it was delayed by an hour and had to spend another hour circling above Yangon because of the fog.  

On arrival however Yangon is very easy.  The health check (for swine flu), visa and customs takes all of 10 minutes and the airport (unlike the rest of Yangon) is filled with fluent English speaking taxi drivers.  My driver’s English was impeccable and he played 100 questions with me all the way to the hotel.  

I suspect that these taxi drivers also provide information to the authorities to augment their income as my driver’s curiosity has a check list like quality.  How long are you in Myanmar?  What are you doing here?  What do you do back home?  When I said I worked in an office the driver quizzed me further and returned to the topic on a number of occasions to glean more information.  

I responded that I worked in human resources and answered payroll questions for the public sector.  The dullness of my career choice bored even the taxi driver and he eventually switched to talk about the wonders of the Myanmar country side and how he could take me there for a very good price of about USD $100 a day (the average worker in Myanmar earns about USD $100 a month).

Yangon has an untouched quality, but I think I am seeing it through rose colored glasses with a hearty mix of nostalgia and a great deal of privilege.  The evident lack of progress for the majority of the population maybe charming to the visitor but must be a drag to inhabit.

It reminds me of India and particularly Kerala 30 years ago.  The climate is tropical, the functional buildings are colonial in style and people mainly wear longis.   The skyline is low and punctuated with fantastic gold domed Pagodas (Buddhist temples). The roads are wide and not so congested with traffic and there are palm trees every where.  Surprisingly there are no cycles, cycle-rickshaws, tuk-tuks and few motorbikes on the road and I wonder if there is a government decree about that too.

The government seems to make random decrees such as the one that only fresh clean US currency will be accepted.  I initially thought that people were a bit OCD about the US notes until I saw the signs at the hotel.  My current hypothesis is that the decree stops the majority of people in Myanmar using US currency - even if it were given to them - as the undeveloped life of most Burmese means that the local currency is thoroughly bedraggled.

In the evening I visited the town centre.  The street are filed with market stalls selling food, clothes and school books.  The school books look very official (sans the illustrations and color that typify Australian school books) and are printed on unbleached paper.  I’m sure my Indian school books from 30 years ago looked, felt and smelt the same.

The shops are low ceilinged and crammed with merchandise.  There seemed to be a high prevalence of optometrists and chemists with the chemists being incredibly busy.  Twenty or thirty people seemed crammed into spaces not much bigger than a small single bedroom, vying for service at each chemist I passed.

The city smells like pollution, bedhis (a cigarette made form a single rolled tobacco leaf), paan (chewing tobacco) with a constant undertone of sweat and urine.  I used to find this smell in India oppressive but here I don’t seem to notice it.  I think the difference is in India, even as an adult I always felt infantalised and disempowered (probably as the result of some of my neural pathways which will never be reprogrammed), but here I feel like an adult with more agency than most.

Maybe thats why I want to come back.  I’m not sure.  I just know from the moment I saw this city I felt like a certain longing has been answered.

Note: for those of you who have been worried by my lack of daily posts (or any posts) from Myanmar - I’m sorry but the internet is continually out of service.

Everyone’s fine - 100224

So much has happened today that I thought I’d get it down tonight even though I have less than 5 hours before I need to be awake again to fly to Myanmar.

My first meeting today was with Som, the manager of Empower foundation at Patpong.  Som described the services that Empower deliver but looked confused when I asked her if there was ever a disparity between what Empower offered and what workers wanted.  I explained that I was not foreshadowing a criticism but that in my experience we often come up with campaigns or strategies that often get little buy in from the people we purport to represent.  She smiled and said it was easy - “we just ask the workers every day when they come in what they want to do and then we try and do that if we can.” 

Som said initially workers often approach Empower to read them letters from family or e-mails from their sugar daddies.  Volunteers at Empower often help workers to reply and from there workers often express a need for language classes and as they become more engaged they want to do different things. I had imagined targeted campaigning to recruit workers into the different programs and wondered how a more ground up approach would look like back home.

Som described the working conditions in Patpong and she said that even though it varied from business to business workers could expect to be paid by the drink (40 to 70 Bath) if they are beer girls or to be paid a salary of up to 10,000 Bath per month if they dance.  

The catch however is that workers are expected to go with a certain number of customers a month (say 5) and sell a number of drinks per night (say 8) and if they don’t make the quota then the employer fines them (say 1500 Bhat).  Workers also get fined 1 Bhat per minute for being late and 1000 Bhat or 1500 Bhat for missing a shift on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday.  Workers only get 2 or if they are lucky 3 days off a month and they can’t be on the weekend and they must be booked at least a week in advance.  So after working most days every month and all weekends some workers may only make 1500 Bhat per month (approx AUD $60) after fines. 

If workers go with clients, the client must pay the bar a fee (say 500 Bhat) and the workers must negotiate their own fee - usually 1000 or 1500 Bhat.  Som said that it is often the case that days, weeks or months may go by for some workers without a single client buying them a drink or taking them out.  But it is still better than other work that’s available usually with heavy lifting in the humidity, with a market job paying around 150 Bhat per day for days that start at 5am and finish after 10pm.

She said if you are lucky you can work one week in Patpong and meet someone who will look after you and tell you to stop working but for others it may take months or years or it may never happen.  Sugar daddies if you are lucky keep you forever but sometimes they get bored after a few weeks or months.  She said for the unlucky workers they start by dancing and as they get older they become beer girls and if they are still not lucky they end up managing the clubs.  Som herself was lucky meeting someone on the job in 1991.

My second interview was with Julie, the Program Co-ordinator from the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (pronounced GAAT-W).  Julie gave me an overview of GAATW’s  work mainly in policy and advocacy at a UN level. Julie also alerted me to a Nationality Verification program that the government was implementing by 28 February and suggested I attend a debate on the topic at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Thailand (FCCT) at 8pm.

On the way to FCCT I caught the BTS (kind of a sky train) and extemporized (internally) on how the recent Astro-Boy movie was soooo insightful to divide the cities into the haves (metro city which hangs in mid air) and the have-nots (surface dwellers that live with the refuse of metro city).  The BTS was like the key to middle class Bangkok, raised above the grime, air-conditioned, urbane and about 30 Bhat one way - putting it firmly out of the reach of most low income earners.  

The BTS was efficient and clean and broadcast upscale advertisements from flat screen TVs on the trains, on the platforms and on large billboards that seemed to hover in mid-air at station height.  Very Blade Runner.  The trains and platforms were very clearly signposted in Thai and in English and there were numerous exits directly into many sky-rises so you never had to descend to the surface.  The FCCT was at the penthouse level of one such skyscraper and the public area (it cost 300 Bhat to get in and a further 300 Bhat to order any food or drink at all if you are not a member) was comprised of a spacious bar and dining area with splendid views.

There were about 80 people there mostly journalists or staffers at NGOs and for the first time on my trip to date English was the written and spoken language.  The clientele varied in age and there was an equal gender balance with the younger men and women looking like graduate-bright-young-things, the older women handsome in a modern day Jane Austin kind of way and the older men looking like philanderers.  I presumed that a couple of decades ago that the bar would have been filled only with the men (except for the wait staff) and that there would have been a thick fug of cigarette smoke.  Being a smoker I did a little pining (but not too much).

The debate was opened by Supak Gukun, the Deputy Director-General of the Department of Employment who described the government’s rationale for the Nationality Verification Program which aims to have all migrant workers from Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar registered by 28 February 2010.  The reasoning behind the program was described using similes about car insurance and wrapped in the rhetoric of protecting migrant workers by ensuring that they have the right to continue work in Thailand.  Once unpacked however it sounded very much like Howard’s “we get to choose who comes here” particularly when Supak Gukun said “if you had a house it would make sense that you get to chose who you invite in.”

This very common sense approach was debunked by the next speaker Andy Hall from the Human Rights and Development Foundation who explained that the analogy of the house was flawed as Thailand has always had open windows currently with approximately 2 million registered (but not nationality verified) migrant workers - 5% of the workforce and who accounted for 5% of GDP.  Andy Hall also stated that he had it on good account that Thailand was brokering a deal with Myanmar to allow “fresh migrant workers” into Thailand - perhaps to replace the ones they planned to deport.

The Nationality Vrification program aims to require all migrant workers to verify their nationality (in addition to their current work permits) through a process of filling forms and providing documentation (and paying a fee of 500 Bhat to Thai officials) and then traveling to the border to have their nationality verified by their country of origin (and paying a fee of 1000 Bhat if they are from Myanmar).  

It sounds simple enough except that many migrant workers cannot read or write, do not have all the documentation required and for some providing their details to their country of origin means that their families in their country of origin may be persecuted by being coerced to pay bribes to corrupt officials, having their land confiscated, having their houses, crops or business burnt or being beaten and tortured.  Migrant workers may themselves also face persecution when they return.

1500 Bhat is also 10 days work for the average migrant worker and wages will also be lost due to the requirement to attend one of the four border registration centers.  Bear in mind that these workers are already registered to work in Thailand.  It is just from 28 February these workers will now need 2 registrations or THEY WILL BE DEPORTED.

This is a problem for Burmese migrant workers in particular due to the military juntas control of the Union of Myanmar.  Laos and Cambodia have sent officials to Thailand to assist migrant workers with the process but it is Myanmar’s position that no official of theirs will work outside their borders and that high level negotiations between Thai and Myanmar officials had led to the “co-operative approach” which means Myanmar would charge 1000 Bhat “for administration purposes” to each migrant worker from Myanmar.

Pornchai Saengaroon the next speaker and Chairman of the Industrial Relations Sub-committee of the Employer’s Confederation of Thailand urged the government to rethink the verification program.  It’s not often that I hear employer groups advocating for labour but as he pointed out many businesses and the Thai economy would collapse without migrant labour.  Mr Saengaroon asked the government to please extend the deadline for registration or reopen it or at least to make the process easier.  

Mr Saengaroon explained that one of the main concerns for employers was that while to government had published an 80 page how-to-fill-in-the-forms guide, the guide was illegible to the majority of Burmese migrant workers as the guide was in Thai and that employers were needing to seek the assistance of NGO’s to translate and that the NGO’s could not cope with the workload.  

The only assistance provided to date in Burmese was a 1 pager from the military junta in Myanmar which in essence pledged that no one would suffer as a consequence of providing their details for nationality verification.  Given the experience of most Burmese, the 1 pager was causing a great deal of distress.  This was leaving the field open to unscrupulous “brokers” who were charging workers 5000 or 6000 Bhat (maybe 40 days work) for assistance with the verification process.  

Mr Saengaroon asked if the government could provide officials to help fill out the forms like a bank teller might assist when you go to the bank so as to minimize the use of unregulated brokers.

Mr Saengaroon said that after 28 February that his members would continue to employ unverified workers (as it was a business necessity, even though everyone wants to do the right thing) but that he could foresee lesser conditions being provided to unverified workers. (A third tier of underprivileged?)

Mr Htoo Chit the director of a migrant workers NGO, the Foundation for Education and Development in Phang Nga, the last speaker gave accounts of the difficulties with the program.  He stressed that they were daily discovering hundreds of workers and employers just in their province who had not even heard about the requirement to verify their nationality.  He described others who were frightened of deportation and of the potential ramifications to their families in their country of origin who had falsified their forms to meet the requirements.  Mr Htoo Chit recounted stories of corruption and gave evidence from his experience about the use of brokers and stressed that workers were suffering.

The floor was then opened to questions and during this time I realized that migrant workers were as a group being asked to pay a fine.  Collectively the fine amounts to 10 million Bhat for the Thai government and 13 million Bhat to the Union of Myanmar’s military junta.  The process of paying the fine is so complicated that workers will lose even more - through lost days for travel to the border stations, the use of brokers, impacts in family and possibly even less job security.

To avoid a human catastrophe NGOs are devoting their resources to help people stay legal but in essence are being required to be unpaid government officials.  Resources are being diverted away from the provision of health, education and other services so that people don’t suffer even more as a consequence of government regulation.

For those who aren’t verified (because they don’t have the documentation or money or even know they have to be verified) they face deportation or continuing to work in a situation where their employer will know that they cannot have any of their rights enforced for fear of deportation.

Supak Gukun, the Deputy Director-General of the Department of Employment at one point stated that the program was uncovering unexpected challenges - such as the numerous Thai born migrants who did not know where their parents had fled from and were making guesses about their nationality. 

Currently there are approximately 1.5 million workers who have not had their nationality verified.  Approximately 1 million of them are from Myanmar.  They have 4 days to register.

On a personal note one of the NGO staffers strongly recommended that I do not take any human rights material into Myanmar.  So J if a large parcel arrives its not a board game :)

English Class - 100223

Yesterday I visited Empower in Patpong.  The office is situated on the main drag on the third floor of the building which boasts “Super Pussy” in neon but the office itself has no signage at street level so you have to know it’s there to find it.  Once you get to the third floor however its a celebration.

The entry area is a wide corridor decorated with board mounted Empower posters and calendars with images of saucy defiant women demanding their rights.  This area leads to a large functional open area which houses open plan staff offices, open access computers, and a large table and chairs and white boards where English language classes are run.  

Above the white boards texta illustrated papers display the alphabet.  Below and around the white board papers illustrate useful English language phrases many of which are demonstrated by Honey Bee, the Empower persona who knows her rights.  The phrases displayed are vocationally focused and include ways to get the job done like “Please pay at the bar” and ways to keep yourself safe like “I don’t like it when you do that.  Stop!”

Opposite the English language area the wall is choc-a-block with 10’x8’s of the many volunteers that have worked with Empower over the years.  The photographs reflect Empower’s 25 year history and showcases volunteers from across the world, sporting fashions of the time, engaging in intervention theatre, class room work and rallies.

Off the main area there are a couple of enclosed offices, a Japanese language area, a couple of other rooms configured for small to medium conference/workshops and a museum which is currently being established.  So far the museum houses board mounted press clippings and historical photographs of Empower’s works, a cabinet with tools of the sex trade and a raised pink and spangly platform with dancing poles. 

I got to sit in on an English language class while I was there.  It was informal in nature and attend by 5 workers and facilitated by Melanie, an exchange student from Canada who had been working with Empower for 5 months.  The workers had different levels of confidence in English and supported each other to participate in the class.  The women were all in their late 30’s or 40’s and I got to share some of their life experience even in the short time I was there.

We were practicing answering the question “Where do you come from?”, “I come from...” and “I came by...” when one worker explained that she came from a village about a km from the Meekong River on the Loas border and that she remembered hearing big guns and many Loas trying to swim across the river to the safety of Thailand.  “You come by swim” was discussed and we learnt to say “they swam across the river” but I also learnt that many Loas were forced to swim back by authorities who refused people entry.

The workers asked me where I was from and when I said “Sydney, Australia”, one volunteered that they have many Indians in Thailand too.  Though I told myself that I was privileged to be a guest I could not ignore my ire and I have to admit that my internal dialogue distracted me from engaging fully after that but I am going back today and I hope to learn some more.

Adventuring to the suburbs - 100222

Yesterday I adventured away to Nonthaburi in search of Empower's head office.  I had tried to make contact before arriving in Bangkok but had received no response so I thought I would just turn up and hope for the best.  This was a good in theory however I underestimated how hard it would be to navigate without the language (or a map).

I got the express boat to Nonthaburi and it took about an hour.  Nonthaburi is the end of the line and 30 stops from Central Pier where I am located.  So I suppose it is the equivalent of traveling to Campbeltown and in fact the changes in landscape are equivalent.  The city's skyscrapers diminish in number and some green space emerges between the shanty towns where jungle like growth consumes anything untended.  Bangkok is very flat anyway but without skyscrapers the landscape looks even flatter.

Nontahaburi caters for tourists for about a 100 meters around the pier and then exhibits no signs of farang thereafter.  None of the signs are in English including street names and everyone I asked could not identify Tivanond street -  probably because of my mispronunciation.  Everyone wants to be helpful however and agreed with me that the main street was Tivanond street even though it wasn't.  

So I mistakenly set off down the main drag and then discovered my next stumbling block which was that the buildings are not numbered as they are in Australia, America, Europe or India.  I was looking for 57/60 Tivanond street and incorrectly assumed that it would be unit 57 of building 60 on the street.  I soon discovered that I could make no sense of the numbering and I wished like hell that I had asked the concierge to translate the address into Thai before I left the hotel (but then again given the last set of directions from the concierge which saw me missing the pier by 5km, it might have been much the same).

After walking a few km and hoping for the best I decided to give up.  I had Empowers phone number with me so I thought what the hell and rang even though I didn't expect that the answer would be in English.  I was wrong.  The woman answered in English but was very wary of giving me directions.  She gave me the mobile number of Noi instead - Noi is the CEO of Empower.

I rather tentatively rang Noi - tentative because I had heard that Noi ate stupid-curious-meddling-westerners for breakfast.  And she hadn't returned my emails.  Again I was wrong.  Noi would be happy to see me and yes she could give me directions - and no I didn't understand them but gathered it had something to do with catching a bus to the big C and 2 pedestrian bridges and/or flyovers.  Even though I didn't know where I was going I felt buoyed that Noi would talk to me (if I found her) and I kept going.

I kept walking and looking for anything that said big C and wishing that I had worn sun screen.  I passed quite a few pedestrian bridges and one flyover so I presumed something would become evident at the next flyover.  

In reasonable spirits I stopped at a cafe for a drink.  I chose that cafe because it had a table and 3 seats outside and an ashtray and it was in the shade.  There really aren't cafe's here, more street stalls with plastic stools on the footpath and I really didn't want to eat just sit down and rest so I thought the cafe find was double excellent.

The man at the cafe seemed very surprised that I had stopped but motioned me inside nonetheless.  I signaled that I wanted to sit outside so that I could smoke and ordered a cola.  

A young girl dressed in a very short (say 20cm or less) tartan skirt brought me the drink and after some gesturing about wanting no ice,  I  finally got to rest.  This is when I noticed that a middle aged women was sitting inside with the man manicuring her finger nails and that there seemed to be no customers.  There are lots of people here so a vacant cafe seemed odd.  The woman was also very made up and so I hypothesized that there was a brothel around and that she was on her break.  I gladly took this as a sign that I would find Empower soon.

When I finished my drink and went into pay I noticed about 4 or 5 girls sitting in the back of the cafe all aged around 12 or 13 and all scantily clad.  I finally understood that I was drinking at the brothel and probably had been sitting where the girls show themselves to prospective customers.  My aha moment was infused with a great deal of discomfort as I distinguished a shiner under the right eye of the girl who had originally served me.  I didn't know what to do and tried to review my response internally to see if it was fed by the stupid-curious-meddling-westerner who on the one hand wants to rescue the poor Asian girls and on the other hand quite likes the titillation.  I didn't gain any startling insight - just felt uncomfortable and out of my depth.

I kept going and finally found the big C which was a department store.  Very American layout with acres of parking and cavernous mall aesthetics.  Form there I found Empower headquarters two and a half hours after I’d arrived in Nonthaburi.  

The head quarters were not what I expected.  I had imagined a student activist style accommodation with impassioned frenetic activity but instead I found a 5 storey building with patios on 3 floors including the rooftop. The building was undergoing a major refurbishment which was due to be completed very soon - in 15 to 18 months.  The first floor which was functioning housed a few spacious light filled air conditioned offices and a board room where I found Noi and some other staff in planning.  The white board was filled with English and Thai notation that looked like a very comprehensive strategic plan encapsulating many projects from funding to delivery and review.  It was very evident that the grass roots organization I had imagined was in fact very well established.

I interviewed both Noi and her partner Jumpom who have been working with Empower since they conceived it 1985. Both were in their late 40s or early 50s welcoming and polished.  

Noi was a short woman, with formidable force who talked to me about the arc of organizing sex workers over 30 years.  She explained that the focus had never changed and that Empower's aim continues to be to have sex work recognized but that Empower had responded to a changing society over the years.  

They had originally started speaking about prostitution and the entertainment industry that served a militarized Thailand and had then moved to talk about sex tourism which was indirectly promoted by the government to create employment for the many tens of thousands who had previously serviced American GIs during the Vietnam war.  

The discourse then changed dramatically with the advent of HIV AIDS and relationships were formed with Gay, Lesbian and other non-normative communities who were blamed for the "dirty" disease.  

Having sex work recognized as real work and working with unions in the informal sector has also been part of the strategy.  Now Empower is responding to migrant sex worker issues which have gained notoriety with such tags as child prostitution and trafficking.  

When the recorder had stopped Noi told me "we never talk about rights, human rights, sex worker rights - its too political, we talk about all these other things but our goal is the same."

Jupom was very warm and charming and talked to me about the different  projects that engaged local sex workers and told me that the High Heel Human Rights Workshops that Empower run is currently the most popular educational program with at least 50 sex workers enrolling each time the course is offered.  

He talked to me about the different art projects that Empower was involved in and we had a good yarn about undocumented workers.  I explained to him that in Australia while there was broad support from the left for political refugees that the left including unions saw economic refugees as a threat to our livelihood and publicly supported deportation of illegal workers - Jupom cut me off and said that migration of labour was the key issue of class politics in our times and that many people had a lot to learn from how sex workers organized on the issue.  

He said that maybe it is easier for some people to understand why women from Burma with their oppressive military regime come to Thailand to work than why women from Loas come to work.  He said the answer is just the same, people just want a better life and that creating a distinction between types of migrants was just an excuse to deny some people rights.

Jupom also talked about Thai workers traveling internationally to work to Germany, to London, to Australia, to Japan to anywhere in the first world and he said it was a real change that he had experienced - to see Thai sex workers become fluent in many different languages, to travel the world and to feel comfortable with Europeans.  He said when Empower first started providing English classes to sex workers many people asked why?  "In every other profession you can learn and become more professional so why not in this one?"

On leaving Noi invited me to see Empowers work on the ground in Patpong and strongly encouraged me to attend.  I was wondering why she was so encouraging given that I’m here to learn when she said “a lot of people come to talk to us but they do not actually want to meet the sex workers”.

Second Day In Bangkok - 100221

Girl 2 didn't show yesterday so I set off in search of the Grand Palace by myself.  I followed the broken instructions of the concierge and missed the ferry stop by what I estimate to be 4 or 5 km.  Eventually I gave up and caught a cab which allowed me to experience the Bangkok traffic first hand.  I think it took over half an hour to travel 9km but I suppose that's better than commuting in Sydney at times.  The detour did allow me to find a street vendor that sold jack fruit which I wolfed down sitting in the gutter.

There is very little public space in Bangkok.  My travel guide says it has the least green space per capita in the world.  So it is very hard to find some place to sit and relax.  There are a lot of street vendors who have plastic stools on the foot path but space is limited so they want you to vacate the space for the next customer almost before your first mouthful is chewed.

At any rate I got to the Palace which was thronging with tourists both locals and farang and it was much as I expected.  The buildings were gaudy but much closer together than the photos depict.  The Palace is made up of the outer, middle and inner Palace with only the outer Palace being open to visitors.  The middle Palace houses administration and the inner Palace is only open to the women of the Palace continuing with tradition.  The outer Palace is filled with temples of varying sizes in the Sri Lankan, Thai, Cambodian and Chinese traditions reflecting the trade, religious and cultural connections that Thailand has with these countries.  There are also small monuments honoring each King and a scale model of Angor Wat.  It seems that Rama 4 on seeing Angor Wat felt such a connection that he built a miniature for his people.  The outer Place is enclosed by an inward looking veranda with the walls depicting the Hindu epic, the Ramayana.

Yesterday was a Buddhist day so some temples within the Palace were open to Thai people for prayer.  There was some chanting and meditation but mainly it looked like a lot of hot middle aged women seeking the shelter of any shady eve.  The scene was the antithesis of the straight backed and purposeful monks that characterize depictions of Buddhism in the west.

Within close proximity of the Palace are a number of must see Temples (Wat) however I felt the beginnings of heat stroke (thanks to my earlier detour) and decided to head back to the hotel.  I felt like a bad tourist and tried to reassure myself that I would not be judged by the number of tourist attractions I'd missed.

I caught a tuk-tuk to the nearest wharf (to ensure that I found it) and navigated the Thai only signs and caught the correct ferry to take me back to the hotel.  I was very proud of myself.

In the evening I headed back to Patpong with my camera.  I snapped some market shots, street shots and some inviting signage.  I explored the back streets and found some g*** go-go bars and some brothels.  Even the back streets are thronging with people (at least at 8pm) so I felt quite safe.  Having my camera with me marked me as a tourist so I was approached by many touts selling sex shows (on the first night without my camera no one approached me for ping pong and the tuk tuks charged me a cheaper rate).

I couldn't bring myself to go see a sex show but gathered that they were 300 Bath (about AUD$12).  The touts were varied, many were short Thai women with dykey hair cuts or muscle boy in tight jeans but many just looked like someones parents.  The touts worked constantly and seemed to have very resilient approach as most of the sales pitches were ignored.

I also saw the stereotypical old-white-man-with-very-young-Thai-woman couplings (well not in the Biblical sense but the traces were evident).  I didn't gain any insights form gawking.  Early days yet, but I haven't been able to talk to any of the clients.  They seem very fixed in their outlook and don't even make eye contact so getting into a conversation is very difficult.

Actually conversation is very hard to come by.  I haven't talked to anyone except for Girl 1 and 2 since I left Sydney.  I feel a bit lonely and I have a heat rash - yes the embarrassing my thighs are rubbing together rash!  Luckily there are no mosquitoes but I feel like a whale in comparison to the Thai women.  One of the touts even asked me if I was pregnant!