The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad (18 page)

The next day we headed over to Bangkok. I was to meet some local lady boys. This was the side of Thailand I was worried about. Suzanne told me they have some proper dodgy stuff
going on here and to avoid the seedy areas. I’d heard of lady boys, but didn’t really know much about them. I thought of them as transvestites, just blokes who like wearing lipstick and
knickers, but aren’t kidding anyone. They don’t even try and be women. They still go to the local and play darts and drink pints, so on meeting Vivian, a local lady boy, I was blown
away. If I hadn’t known, I wouldn’t have known. He had his hair pinned back, had leggings on with high heels and not that much make-up. Even the way he held himself and the way he
walked you’d have put money on it being a woman. I shook his hand. Not just ’cos I knew he was a bloke, but ’cos I’d only just met him. I’d do the same if it was a
woman.

Viv took me to a nail parlour where we met his mates Jip and Nam. They were also lady boys. I sat and got me nails done on me feet while we chatted. I didn’t ask the person doing me toes
if they were a man or a woman ’cos it might have offended her/him, but after seeing Viv I now have me doubts about everyone here in Thailand. The work they can have done is like modern day
Frankenstein stuff.

Viv’s mate Jip told me he has breasts, but isn’t planning on removing the knob and bollocks. Now that I don’t understand. Even now I’m back home and have had time to
think about it, it still makes no sense. Who is looking for that? That’s like moving your bathroom downstairs, when it comes to selling your house – it puts people off.

But Jip just said, ‘It’s like this because lady boys are not girls. Everybody loves me in this way. So. I am what I am. Love me, love my dong.’

Viv told me she talks to men and goes on many dates. He will tell his dates he has had the operation only if they ask. Made me wonder how many blokes are married to blokes without knowing.
Suzanne could be a bloke for all I know. It’s odd that this can happen in a world where we are told everything. A label saying ‘May contain nuts’ has never been more required. At
this point Viv showed me a photo on his phone of his boyfriend. He looked a bit like a cross between John Barrowman and Peter Andre. Jip told me he has a straight partner.

We had to agree to disagree. Years ago it wouldn’t have been possible. But now people say ‘I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body’ and they can make it happen. Science
means someone one day will wake up and decide they want to be a gerbil and it’ll be possible.

Ricky asked me once what would I be if I could be anything in the world, and I decided I would be a sloth. At least if I didn’t like it they tend to sleep a lot, so I could just dream
about being something else.

Viv and his mates then took me to the theatre where they perform their nightly show to around 800 people. There was a running order of songs on the wall including ‘I Am What I Am’,
Mariah Carey’s ‘Hero’ and Madonna’s ‘Papa Don’t Preach’. It wasn’t long before they had me sat in one of their chairs applying make-up. While Viv
piled on the foundation I was still looking for any signs of man-ness but couldn’t see any. Maybe if I spent more time with her, there would be certain things she couldn’t help. Being
practical, for instance. Men are more practical. Suzanne is always asking for a dog, but she doesn’t think about the other problems that come with it. The pain in the arse it causes when you
want to go away, taking it for walks at all hours . . . Maybe lady boys still have that bit of man-ness to them. That’s when Viv’s friend whipped her dog out. It wasn’t a manly
dog either. It was one of them small pug dogs you can stick in a handbag.

They finished transforming me. I don’t think I’d be kidding anyone. It did make me wonder what I would do though if Suzanne turned out to be a bloke. After sixteen years together you
can’t just end it. I came to the conclusion that I’d still let her live with me, but I would get her to do more around the house. No longer would I be the one carrying all the heavy
bags from the supermarket on me own. She could also clean the windows.

I asked for a couple of breasts, from KFC I mean, ate them and left.

I had the afternoon free to roam, so I went to the Siriraj Medical Museum. It was not your bog standard museum. It was full of weird things and nicknamed the ‘Museum of Death’, and
to make it weirder, it was on the second floor of a hospital. There were plastic boxes containing arms, a sliced head suspended in a clear plastic box like a novelty ice cube.
‘Bollocks!’ you say. Yeah, they had them, as well. There was a 75-cm-diameter scrotum resulting from contact with the Mansonia mosquito. When I was in the jungle in Peru last year, no
one told me to rub Deet there.

Everywhere you look, box after box of births gone wrong, tiny bodies in formaldehyde, conjoined twins, swollen skulls and cyclopia – all of which were real. I turned a corner, and there
was the body of a man called Si Ouey Sae Urng, mummified. He was the first serial killer in the modern history of Thailand who was convicted, executed, mummified and then put on display as a type
of deterrent to anyone who may have been having similar ideas. He was displayed in what looked like a telephone box. He was leaning against the glass like a pissed-up Clark Kent.

It’s quite a good idea having a museum in a hospital. It’s annoying when you visit someone but arrive early before visiting hours with nothing to do. Or if you’re waiting for
your girlfriend to give birth but you don’t like the idea of seeing it pop out, go and look at half a head instead.

It’s weird how quickly you can get used to looking at pretty gruesome stuff. When I first looked at the head that had been split in two I was thinking, ‘Oh, that’s pretty
brutal’, but after a few minutes I was wondering what tool they used to get such a perfect cut. Suzanne has a go at me ’cos of the state I leave the bread in after cutting meself a
slice, so I’d like to see how they made such a perfect cut. I even thought about how I’d quite like the two bits of head in my house to be used as bookends. Let’s face it (no pun
intended) it’s no worse than having someone’s ashes sat on your fireplace, is it?

After seeing the baby with two heads I wondered if this is the way we are meant to evolve. Maybe they’ve got it right, and it’s us one-headed people who have got it wrong. People
aren’t as sociable as they once were. If you have two heads you’re never alone. More stress in our lives, two heads are better than one. 2 for 1 offers in supermarkets. Crossing busy
roads and being able to look both ways. It all makes sense. We always interfere with nature. I think if tennis players continue to wear headbands they will end up killing off eyebrows, as
they’re there to catch sweat. No headband needed.