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| Oun on left |
One plus, and minus of Otres Beach, as with most touristy places in Asia, is the beach hawkers. While it was annoying to have to constantly say “no, thank you”, we developed relationships with, and fondness for, many of the beach hawkers.
Oun (pronounced Ahn) age 18, was a beautiful girl who carried a large, flat, woven palm basket, on her head, filled with fruit (10 pineapples, several bunches of bananas, several papayas, several mango, and a couple of dragon fruit). One day I placed this basket on my head, and could barel hold my neck erect as it weighted about 40 pounds!!!!!
P- She probably started practicing as soon as she started walking.
G- Oun, this is very heavy.
Oun - Yes, it is, but now, no problem.
Oun, weighed about 100 pounds, and walked up and down the beach, all day long, carrying this basket on her head. She could stand, from a seated position, on the sand, without batting an eye. She had a krama on her head (a cloth circle) upon which she placed the flat basket. Her posture was perfect! She was very sweet and would stop, sit and chat with us on each pass up and down the beach. She was studying English, for an hour each day, in an English school. Sometimes we would buy fruit from her, which she would peel in front of us, just to help her out, then we'd give it to the “can children” (I'll explain later) because we knew they were hungry.
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| Jenny |
Jenny (she insisted that this was her real name), age 21, was clearly below Oun on the socio-economic beach food chain. She did not attend English school, and her English was not as good as Oun's, but she was a serious scrapper and worked the crowd with a technique that made her quite busy everyday. Jenny was married and was 5 months pregnant. We took a motherly liking to Jenny and hired her for many services she provided such as: hair removal, massage, and pedicure. Jenny was a very sweet girl!
G- I'd like to send her some things for the baby.
P- That's a good idea, but what would we send?
G- I'm not sure, maybe some cotton clothes?
P- Only tops, they don't wear bottoms.
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| cutie selling bracelets |
P- We'll think of something or we can send her some money.
Jenny gave us several hour long massages (2 for $10.00) and half hour foot massages (2 for $3.00) on our beach chairs. When being massaged on the beach you actually receive 2 techniques for the price of one because the grains of sand that get under the masseuses' hands provide a skin exfoliation. Jenny insisted that we should allow her to perform her string hair removal (called threading in the US) on our various body parts, but we continued to resist expecting it to be extremely painful. Ultimately, Victoria talked us into it.
G- I think you should have your moustache removed.
P- I think you should have yours removed.
G- Mine is not black yet. I am in peri-menopause and my moustache is still blonde.
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| Sweet Jesus! This HURTS!! |
P- But when it does turn black, you are going to look like Groucho Marx.
G- Bitch! I know that I'm going to have more hair on my lip than my dad or brother when I hit menopause, but right now I'm good. You're the only one needing moustache removal.
P- It's going to hurt.
G- Yes, it will, but it'll last longer than cutting it.
P- Whah!
G- Suck it up, Gladys, and have them yanked out. Besides, they do this in the States and it costs a fortune. Jenny will do it for $2.00 and I'll watch and learn how she does it, then I can do it for you for free.
P- I'm sure you'd love to yank out my hairs. Especially when you're pissed off at me.
G- Shut up! I'm only thinking of you when I help you to not look like a goonie-goo-goo woman.
G- Hell no, we'll open our own spa where women pay us big bucks to yank out their moustaches.
P- Agnes, I like the way you think!
Phyl finally gave into Jenny's prodding, and my and Victoria's encouragement, and the hair yanking began! Jenny shook some baby powder on Phyl's lip to make the hairs more visible, and began yanking. Poor Phyl! It hurt so badly that her eyes were watering. I uttered words of encouragement, but she responded with curses and evil stares. I couldn't help but laugh, but that made matters worse. It didn't seem like a very long process to me, but Phyl thought it had taken an hour.
Jenny then turned her attention to me.
Jenny – I do your legs.
G- No thanks, Jenny. It would take too long and hurt too much.
Jenny – Not hurt too much.
G- Easy for you to say.
P- Oh, I see. You thought it was funny when she was doing it to me, but now you're afraid.
G- My legs have 500 times the amount of hair that your little lip had.
Jenny – It last long time.
G- Victoria, I've been shaving my legs for longer than you've been alive. Those hairs probably have roots that reach to my bones. Jenny, I just shaved last night, so if I decide to let you torture me, shouldn't I wait until the hair grows out a little?
Jenny – Yes. We do in 3 days.
G- Ok, you can do it in 3 days and I won't shave until then.
Every day Jenny would stop at our beach chairs and inspect my legs. In fact, we were beginning to feel like pieces of meat because every beach hawker would stop at our beach chairs and say hello while they looked us over from head to toe, and told us that we should avail ourselves of their hair extraction services or pedicures or manicures. I would tell them all that Jenny was already booked to yank out my hair.
G- I wish they'd stop looking at us like that.
P- It's very rude.
P- I do feel like a piece of meat at the butcher shop. It's hard to just ignore them.
When the day finally arrived, it took an hour and a half for Jenny & an assistant to rip the hairs out of my legs. It was quite painful and the few beers that I pounded before the torture began did little to numb my follicles. Phyl took a sick satisfaction in watching me squirm and insisted that leg hair removal was still not as painful as lip hair removal. She was probably right, and I apparently didn't squirm or cry enough because she soon lost interest and went into the hut to shower. Because my tattoo was less than a week old, Jenny was very careful yanking out the hairs under the tattoo. When it was finally over, I paid Jenny $8.00, regained my breath, and went into the botulism bathroom to shower.
I was so happy with the results of the leg hair removal that several days later I also had my armpits done. The armpits were much more painful then the legs, but still worth it.
We ate a very delicious dinner, at Mien Mien, with Vic & Tom. They ate curry dishes and we had a stir fried dish of squid, eggplant, garlic & shallots.
P- OMG! This is slap yo momma good!
G- Yes it is. I know we always share a dish, but we should've each gotten our own.
P- Order another.
P- (to Vic & Tom) Are you wine drinkers?
Vic - Yes, we like wine.
Tom - Australia has good wines.
G- Yes, we know, but we're partial to Italians. You want to taste it?
Tom & Vic - Oh, it's very good.
P- Sorry we're not sharing with you, but there was only this one bottle and we may not have good wine again until we get to Italy.
Tom & Vic - Oh, we totally understand. If we had a nice bottle of wine, we wouldn't share it either. They sell a decent bottle of an Australian here. We'll get that.
