Last night I chatted with my Mema on her birthday, and she asked all the typical grandmotherly questions...

"So are you having fun, baby?"

Yup, a blast.

"Do you miss Nate?"

Yea, a lot.

"Weellllllll. Are there lots of cute boys in Thailand?"

Haha, so many. There's that Lithuanian guy who speaks the most broken English ever and won't stop trying to hold my hand no matter how much I yank it away. And the Kiwis who want to meet up at the Full Moon Party this weekend for a night swim in the ocean. And the eighteen-year-old British boys on their gap year (after high school) who follow us around like puppy dogs and insist on calling me "Elizabeth."

But the ones that stand out to me the most (and not because they're cute) are the ladyboys. I'm not kidding, they're everywhere in Thailand. Working in the travel shops or for the airlines, hanging out outside of the bars at night, and of course, dancing in cabaret shows. The other night, Kelsey and I went on the Koh Tao pub crawl - it took a bunch of backpackers around to some of the best bars on the island and fed us free shots and buckets, and we ended the night at a Ladyboys Cabaret Show.

This might sound a little weird, but the ladyboys are actually pretty stunning. They have perfect figures and faces and they move in a way that is so feminine. But then you start to look more closely and you see that they're a little too tall, their bodies a little too plastic, their voices a little too husky, and the hint of a mustache and Adam's apple are appearing through the layers of makeup. I watched them dance at the show the other night and was confused and horrified and fascinated all at the same time, and I couldn't help but wonder how they hide their junk so well...