Backpacking Abroad - Travel info for backpacking in Thailand, Laos, China & Vietnam

How can I tell the difference between a lady and a ladyboy?

Rheumy Sven, Jul 17, 2005

It’s actually a little bit tough sometimes to tell the lady boys from the ladies at first, once you’ve been around nothing but Thais for a couple of days you get used to spotting features. Mostly you get used to the slightly different features, and often they still have the visible Adam’s apple. Shoulders are a big tell too, they have manly shoulders.

They’re definitely easy to pick out once they open their mouths though, they have husky voices. I had one sneak up on me from behind and get right in my ear and yell FUCK ME at 2am one morning. After I jumped I about fell down laughing. You’ll be shocked in general how often you are asked in public, loudly, if you want a blow job or would like to fuck someone (using various vernacular of course). It’s pretty bizarre at first.

The primary sources are all lady boys, hookers, bargirls and what not. A lot of the time it’ll be moto drivers (scooter taxi drivers) trying to broker a deal too. There’s no end to who will try to sell you developing world sin over there. It’s actually pretty embarrassing for me personally because it sort of speaks volumes about what Westerners do there. In Cambodia it just gets tragic in some places. I never personally saw child prostitution in public, but according to what I’ve read online and seen on the news here if you go to some of the whorehouse villages outside Phnom Penh like Svay Pok they’ll try to sell you a blow job from a 7 year old kid and things like this. Thankfully our State Department erected laws to prosecute Americans who go abroad to fuck kids, though this is the topic of some controversy among the local expat population for complex reasons.