I’m a big fan of massages, though I rarely get them. I think I like them as much as 50 Cent thinks fat kids like cake. So when I went to Thailand, a place that is known for said pleasure for a fraction of the cost, I was thrilled. And after lugging myself around Bangkok for a few days with the extreme heat and crowding that makes New York City look like uncharted territory, I was ready for a rubdown.

The thing was, I didn’t need all my muscles to be attended to. So my two friends and I began our mission to find an authentic Thai massage, free of happy endings. We were told if the place was legit, it wouldn’t be down a back alley. It ended up taking us three frustrating hours to find somewhere that would not leave us with the parting gift of an STD. Finally we were all led to a clean, good-sized room and told to strip down and put on our robes.

We lay down on our mats and three miniature Thai women entered, chatting away with each other. With little more then a smile in our direction, they got to work molding our backs to their whim, never stopping their chatter. And it was a good thing they kept talking because they drowned out our moans of happiness. When I was turned over on my back and the woman started walking to the very top of my inner thigh, I learned I was tense in places I hadn’t even thought about. It was intimate enough that I felt like we should share an after-massage cigarette and take a nap together.

By the time the women were done, the three of us were puddles of relaxation. It literally took everything we had to get dressed. And while the experience was a bit odd, it wasn’t nearly as strange as an Indian ayurvedic massage a friend told me about. Apparently for that experience you’re completely naked, they lube you up with so much baby oil that the person giving the massage hangs from a rope, and then they massage you with their feet. When the masseuse started massaging her breasts with her well-worn hooves, the girl slid right off the table and out the door faster then you can say Kamasutra.

I guess there’s something to be said for an authentic, foreign massage, but the cost of getting out there without being emotionally scarred, well, that’s priceless.

- by Emily Epstein of b’scuse me? fame.

The NY Times spends 36 hours in once-sleepy Chiang Mai, Thailand, this week. Formerly a backpacker's gateway city, Chiang Mai has recently gained a reputation for its artists' communities and sleek storefronts. "The area around Nimanhaemin Road now looks like South Beach" — tourists can traipse around the old city before visiting a few contemporary art galleries "run by young Thais with purple hair and nose rings." [NY Times]

Thailand has a well-deserved reputation as a haven for ladyboys and the men who love them. The large number of transsexuals, also known as "katoeys," in Thailand has fueled a boom in cheap quickie sex-change surgery clinics offering castrations in twenty minutes — or less — for around $125. The Thai government sees these speedy gender reassignment procedures as a public health hazard, since they don't require the extensive psychological evaluations that come with more formal sex-change therapy. To fight these sex-change chop shops the Thai government recently announced a temporary ban on castration surgeries. Experts doubt that the new restrictions will have a major effect on the Thai tranny surgery industry: it's easy to perform quickie castrations in secret. Even if the castration ban is effective, there remain a large number of clinics that offer more formal sex-change surgery packages to aspiring ladyboys. After the jump, see why Thailand remains a great destination for medical tourists looking to remove their manhood.

A quick web search shows that there are tons of Thai medical practices geared towards providing tourists with all-inclusive sex-change services. These clinics, often affiliated with local hospitals, offer everything from breast implants to "penile inversion," "facial feminizing surgery," and "Adam's Apple shaving." In contrast to the illegal castration outfits, these clinics have higher prices and require proof that patients have undergone counseling prior to surgery. In general, it seems that a complete sex change can be had at a Thai clinic for between $1,000—$2,000. This may not be as cheap as one of the newly illegal castration procedures, but it's still a bargain compared to its cost in most Western countries.

Dr. Sanguan Kunaporn, runs Phuket Plastic Surgery, a ten-year-old clinic that exemplifies the Thai sex-change trend. The clinic's web site says that Dr. Kunaporn has given "hundreds of transsexuals the most beautiful female genitalia in the world — transforming them from freaky she-males into gorgeous real women." The Phuket Plastic Surgery site also notes that Dr. Kunaporn is a "remarkably handsome," "lean six-foot man," and "one can not help but notice [that] his fine delicate hands which look both nimble and adroit." He definitely sounds like the kind of guy you can trust with your genitals! If reading about Dr. Kunaporn's good looks and remarkable ability to "take an ugly male penis and transform it into the most beautiful labia and vagina imaginable... only outdone by God himself" hasn't convinced you to get your work done at Phuket Plastic Surgery, check out this directory to find some of the many similar clinics in Thailand.

The temples of Chiang Mai are coming apart, and more than half of its historic buildings “have come under the wrecking ball,” according to a story in the International Herald Tribune. Preservationists are taking steps to save structures dating back to the Lanna kingdom, but precisely what they can accomplish—and how they can accomplish it—remains to be seen. 

What’s it like to leave Lonely Planet at home and travel to Thailand guided only by resources on the Internet? It’s an interesting question, but the resulting Slate story by Tim Wu, unfortunately, poses more questions than it answers. “The Internet has long been terrible for travelers—full of sham sites designed to lure visitors to selected hotels, or, in Thailand’s case, go-go bars,” he writes. The Internet has long been terrible for travelers? Huh? 

Traveling equals palate-cleansing in this weekend’s headlines.

Foodie Travel
– “A Culinary Odyssey, on a Path Blazed by Orwell” (Myanmar) (NYT)
– “Copenhagen Dining: Beyond Danishes” (Washington Post)
– “A pizza tour of New York” (Times of London)
– “Four classic food adventures” (Times of London)
– “Cookery courses around the world” (Times of London)
– “Paris on a plate” (Times of London)
– “Helsinki’s bounty” (Times of London)

Also:
BC’s Revamped Ski Town
– “Refreshing Fernie” (Globe and Mail)

Camping California’s Coast
– “California Coasting” (NYT)

Chiang Mai
– “Dazzling, dizzying Chiang Mai” (LA Times)

Disney World in One Day
– “It’s A Ginormous World After All” (SF Chronicle)

Gujarat’s Beach Island
– “Love me Diu” (Sydney Morning Herald)

San Francisco
– “Lombard Street, San Francisco, Begins to Shine” (NYT)

Utah Skiing
– “Utah’s Epic Ride” (NYT)

Something new this week, Travelistic viewers: your most watched videos, showing lots of love for The Map and The Experience, and a lunar theme, with Kelly Loudenberg’s “Moon Collector” clip picking up an item Liza mentioned in last week’s “Moon Madness” show.

– The Map: Moon Madness
– The Consumer Electronics Show
– The Experience: Cockfight Madness
– FOUND: Moon Collector
– Focus on Amsterdam:


And here’s where you currently dreaming about going:
– India
– New York
– Thailand
– Paris
– Hawaii:

Perhaps it was all too good to be true. Bangkok’s $4 billion “Golden Land” international airport opened in September to great fanfare. Monks and Brahmin priests even went so far as to apologize to the spirits for any harm done in the airport’s planning and construction. But several months later, all’s not well. Problems ranging from “cracked taxiways to leaky roofs to inadequate bathrooms to luggage snafus” plague the airport, reports the San Francisco Chronicle’s Travelers’ Checks column. It gets worse: “The national airport authority has found some 61 issues at Suvarnabhumi needing repair or redesign that will cost an estimated $45 million and six months to fix.” Meanwhile, the airport can continue operating. Great.

What is on the mind of the Travelistic viewer today? Your top five most popular tags and searches tell all…
Among the tags, some obvious choices:
– Beaches
– Shopping
– Nightlife
and some less so:
– Street Vendors
– Pak Klong Talat



Your searches span the globe, and hint at francophilic tendencies:
– Paris
– Lady Liberty
– Greektown Chicago
– Philippines
– Pyramid Lake

Now that even adventurous, independent travel is a proper industry, it sometimes feels like there’s little in the world that hasn’t been done before, whole trips predigested as a list of “destinations” before you even set out. That is, until you meet someone who has tossed out any idea of the “right” way to travel, and gone to a different part of the world to work, or just to roll around and see what happens. “Where Have You Been?” is a monthly NYC event for travelers with a different slant on the business of going elsewhere, and a good story to back it up. Every edition features one adventure story, one activism story, and one wild-card entry – told by the travelers, and accompanied by photos or video. Jeff Stark presides; he’s the man behind the Nonsense NYC list of “independent art, weird events, strange happenings, and senseless culture.” I hit up Wednesday night’s event at Bluestockings bookstore on the Lower East Side, which was packed to the door with the biggest crowd Stark says they’ve had yet. Traveling as part of a spectacle, instead of as an “invisible” pseudo-anthropologist, was the unofficial theme of the night: First up, members of NYC’s Black Label Bike Club told stories from a two-month tour they took on tall bikes through rural Thailand, without a plan, or even a good map. Try blending in when you’re riding one of these. Selena McMahan of Clowns without Borders was next, and shared some of her experiences performing for children in impoverished areas of South Africa hard-hit by the AIDS crisis. You can find out about the organization here, or check out Selena’s blog here. Stark closed the night with a hilarious story about an art piece gone, horribly, horribly wrong at Robodock, a festival that’s Europe’s answer to Burning Man. Next month’s installment sounds very promising, with potential tales including a visit to communities living in the shadow of Manila’s trash dumps, and a brush with death-by-wild-boar in France. Just make sure to get there early.

(Image via Selena McMahan’s’s photobucket)