Bring A City Girl to the Country and This Is What You Get

Friday, 4 February 2005

After a two-hour (60 baht) bus ride to Petchaburi, Ray (Aw’s boyfriend) picked us up at the bus station and away the three of us rode on a bumpy ride on his motorcycle (more later on how to ride a motorcycle with three people plus bags) into the “country”, where he lives. While waiting for his grandma to cook us dinner and watching TV, a teenage neighbor boy came up behind me and kicked me in the butt after he thought I was his sister; then we headed to see the cows at 9:30 pm. Wasn’t quite sure why we were going to see cows at this hour, but realized when we got there that it was an exhibition and competition of some sort. Truckloads of men and cows came from as far as provinces two or three hours away, music blaring, drums pounding, and voices cheering, as they let out cow after cow into the arena ring.

Felt a bit awkward at this meat market (no pun intended), as there were definitely about ten times more men than women, all bearing Thai scarves (and I was almost compelled to buy one – the woman in me) and probably wondering why a girl was stepping into the ring. Although I felt intimidated to bring my camera out, thereby drawing more unwanted attention to myself, I had to capture a closer look and move inside the ring to see the action. Suddenly, one, two, three cows were attached to a rope, with the occasional one getting loose or just a bit perturbed at taking part in this event, whereby several men had to hold the cow back before it got loose. As Aw edged me forward towards the center of the ring, and about 20 cows started running around the ring, I realized within seconds, the scarf fashion phenomenon, as dirt got kicked up all over the place giving me a rude awakening.

A few times, there was an angry cow that jumped into the crowd and, as the spectators suddenly all rushed back, the men would hold it down. I stood in someone’s truck bed to take pictures at a different angle. If you weren’t interested in watching this angle, or during a “commercial break” when they were getting new cows tied up for the race, g-string clad, sequin dressed girls would get on stage and do pole dancing, chair dancing, and the kind of dancing you typically only see behind closed doors (in America) …It was pretty much the only time I saw the men’s eyes divert away from the cows in the ring.

A lot of testosterone in the countryside with cows racing around a track... Now that’s an exciting Friday night for a city girl from America.