Gay fishing and party

7/6/11

We returned to the massage shop at 9am prompt and met up with Frank, Long and Egor for a day of fishing. Fortunately it was cloudy so our day on the boat was superbly cool and pleasant. Not expecting to be kept occupied by fishing and expecting to catch one or two fish all day we were all pleasantly surprised to be catching fish and a huge rate of notes. Admittedly they were are similar but buy the end of the day we had 10kg of fish plus a barracuda that we bought from the fishermen- although it would pretend all the way to frank and Longs on the back of the moped that I had caught this huge fish!

Long cooked us al and about 10 of his friends a lovely meal with the fish that he had caught along with a number of other local Thai dishes. Joining us at the party were a whole host of other local or Expats and we had a right royal time chatting. We discovered that Thailand appears to be unlike many other Asian countries as sexuality and sex is fine. There appear to be few social taboos about being gay or transgender. Local newspapers happily advertise gay nights out and the Bangkok post even carries adverts for sex changes. There are no ex British colony hangovers here because Thailand was never a colony. As long as you respect the king and turn a blind eye towards politics life appears quite good. There is lots of employment with a living wage and the food, lifestyle and culture is quite pleasant.

This is the polar opposite of Russia as Egor who is 22 and lives in Moscow told us. Russia sounds like a truly horrid place to be gay or different in anyway. Homosexuality is a taboo, gay prides are savagely attached whilst the police do nothing and whilst there are gay clubs these are underground. In short it sounds like the UK in the 1950 but possibly with more brutality. As my mum said to me a number of years ago I am glad that I am gay now and in the UK . That said Egor has had a boyfriend and is the sweetest lad we have met on our travels and he blushes so easily. Not quite the typical Russian.

After many discussions the night began to ware on and the drink flowed more freely. People started to leave and in time it was just frank, long James and I left. Our hosts had agreed to let us stay in the spare bedroom but as any sensible group of guys do when living 1 minute from a warm sea... we went for a midnight dip.