Phen started writing to me a couple of weeks after I arrived in Chiang Mai. He was going to be visiting from his small village in Thailand and was very curious about my traveling life. He was in his mid forties and a little heavier than a typical Thai male but the same average height. I agreed to meet him while he would be nearby. I was going to be there for another two weeks and had lots of free time.
As it turned out, the reason he was coming to Chiang Mai was that he was coaching a group of his students in a Scrabble contest that would be done in English. The contest would be on the other side of town from my place in Nimman which was a busy tourist area. We could meet for lunch while the students were having theirs.
I decided to walk the distance since it wasn’t too hot, but the two mile walk left my shirt wet with sweat by the time I arrived at Airport Plaza. The mall was large and modern with a number of standard Western mall businesses. Phen had not picked a specific place to meet, so I wandered until I saw where the children were having their gaming contest and I waited in that area. He recognized me before I recognized him since there weren’t many Caucasians near the contest hall. We did the standard Thai greeting and he encouraged me to follow him into the mall where the food options were. Neither of us had eaten so it was decided to get some lunch from the inexpensive vendors on the lowest level.
In the large food court, there were twenty locations providing various Asian food options for under two dollars. We split up to locate what each of us wanted. I found a noodle stand and added vegetables and a fried egg on top with some hot sauce to complement. Phen had already obtained his food and a table for us. He had also purchased two bottles of water, which was very thoughtful and kind of him. Fortunately, the table was only slightly smaller than a Western size and I had no trouble fitting myself on the small stool. He had obtained some type of red curry with rice. My food was as delicious as I had hoped it would be.
I asked questions about the contest and he explained that he had two different age groups competing and that it was an initiative that he had started at his school. He also took on the expenses of the trip and entry fee from his own salary. This was most impressive since teachers didn’t get paid well in Thailand. His two teams had won their morning matches and he was proud of their accomplishments.
His small village of about three hundred people was a five hour drive to the East up in the hills. The village subsisted on farming tea and rice. Vegetables were grown for local use as were chickens and pigs. Meat was a once a day luxury for most families who had been there for generations. There were lots of cousins and perhaps some intermarrying. The more that I noted his facial and body features, he struck me as belonging to the Hmong people. He also had very straight dark hair worn in an old style. In Chiang Mai all of the men under fifty had very trimmed hair done regularly by the local barbers for two or three dollars.
After our meal, I suggested that we go to a quieter place for conversation where I could ask questions that he would not answer in that public setting. He had a damaged ear drum on one side and it was not possible to have a quiet conversation with the other diners nearby. Earlier I had noted an area which had unoccupied tables and chairs just outside one of the mall entrances and I led him to that location.
We took two contiguous seats at the table for four and looked out at the busy street sixty feet away. I asked him if he had a partner and he explained that he was completely closeted. No one in his village had any idea that he was gay, but he had known since he was a boy that he always looked at older men. There were no hidden secrets in the small village life. He only played when he traveled and that was limited to Thailand.
He had studied English in college and determined that he would take his new skills back to his village to help educate the young children into being prepared for a non-farming life. He was very passionate about his teaching and his face lit up when talking about his pride in his students. As part of the modern era, the girls went to school as well although some families thought that it was a waste of time since they were only going to get married.
A couple of times he commented on how attractive I was to him as he looked directly at me with a wide, warm smile. His white teeth glistened in contrast to his dark skin. He hoped that we could have some private time without clothes. He really enjoyed sucking on cock and wanted to come to my place. I agreed that he could come to my place where I was staying alone. He thought that he could get away in an hour once the second round had started in the afternoon. Coaches were not allowed to watch any of the matches, so he would not be missed for a couple of hours until the scoring started.
He could take a red songthaew for a dollar and be to me quickly. A songthaew was a group taxi that was a red pickup truck with covered bench seating in the rear where the passenger entrance was. A standard 30 Baht fee got you most places in the city but other passengers might get taken to their location first so it wasn’t as direct as a regular taxi. I provided him with the address information and we agreed to target 3 PM. He was pleased and excited that he would get to have some sexual time. We exchanged Thai greetings and I took the walk back to my place while he returned to his students.
The appointed time arrived and I hadn’t received a message from Phen until fifteen minutes afterward. He declared that he would be there soon. Thirty minutes later I received another message from Phen that he was working on getting free and would be to me soon. When four thirty arrived and I had not heard from him again, I knew that the afternoon rendezvous was not going to happen.
Instead, I went for a walk to the nearby street market and obtained some food for my dinner. There was an old woman there who made the most delicious strips of fried chicken and she provided a pleasant sweet pepper sauce in a little baggie. I had already been to her a few times during my stay and each time I returned, she recalled me and what I liked and provided a big smile displaying some of her missing teeth. I always liked supporting local vendors who had been making something for years.
Phen left me a message that he could come in the evening after the children were settled into their rooms after dinner. This didn’t sound like a safe or very viable plan, but I knew that he was desperate to have a man on man experience and so I accepted his offer.
By 10 PM I had not heard from Phen, so I decided that it was late and that I would not spend more time waiting for him to become available. I sent a polite but clear email that he had declared “soon” too many times for me and I was going to call it a night. I knew that he was leaving the next day with his students to return to the village. He sent me an apologetic email two days later and I accepted his apology and wished him well in his search to find a friend.
While I had waited for Phen, my mind wondered about his village life. The reasonable statistics about sexuality suggested that five percent of any population was not heterosexual. But even if I were to use the lowest extreme of one percent, then in Phen’s village of three hundred people there were two other non-heterosexual people hiding just as fiercely as he was. In some cultures, the aberrant members of the tribe were singled out as special and revered for their unique abilities. In other tribes, they were stoned to death or exiled as a public example. Perhaps Phen belonged to the latter tribe.