CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Sitting at a round wooden table outside Scoopy Ice, a fancy ice cream bar in this northern Thai city, 24-year-old Eak (not his real name) talks softly of the exodus from neighbouring Burma over the years.

It’s muggy under the tropical sun, yet he wears a tidy grey jacket, apart from clean blue jeans. His young, sculptured face looks more like that of a timid college freshman.

Motorcycles whiz by, spoiling the tranquility of this ancient river town and almost overwhelming Eak’s low, resonant voice. His unworldly calm betrays his eight years as a monk, and yet it is the same manner with which Eak will greet his clients at the nightclub tonight, in one of the numerous back alleys of this popular tourist destination.

Eak, a male escort, still appreciates what he gained inside the monastery. He learned the Thai language and started to read Buddhist scriptures, but most of all, he found shelter and refuge from two more familiar companions: fear and death.

In fact, 10 years ago, before he fled across the border and became a monk, his hill village in the troubled Shan states of north-east Burma had already been forcibly evacuated, reducing his home to a makeshift tent in the jungle.

“Since my childhood, I have little taste of freedom and happiness,” he says, gazing into a swarm of dirty scooters on the sun-bleached boulevard. He can still remember how as a small boy, he saw the killing and rape of his fellow villagers by Burmese soldiers. Local resistance groups in the Shan states were fighting for self-determination.

The Burmese army responded with a mass relocation plan, seeking to drain their civilian support. Tens of thousands of villagers were forced at gunpoint to evacuate their homes and move to sites near main roads and towns. They had no food, medicine or clothing. Many forced migrants ended up as wage labourers or beggars. Many others, approximately 500,000 according to The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO), fled to Thailand.

Eak, his parents, brother and sister, had already fled back into the Burmese jungle when his father urged him to cross the border. A monastery seemed the best survival option for a 14-year-old boy.

The coconut sundae is melting under Chiang Mai’s burning sun as Eak describes his bumpy journey of more than 100 kilometres from the Thai border. He left his first monastery after nine days and landed in a second, where he performed daily chores. Eight years and two more monasteries later, Eak’s daily routine was filled with beating drums and reciting scriptures. Curiosity kept creeping into his soul until one day, Eak decided to leave his safe haven. He took the chance, not knowing where the road would lead him.

Out of the Monkhood

Together with other friends, Eak ended up in the city of Chiang Mai: fields of play for foreign tourists, fields of toil for Shan immigrants like him, also known as Tai Yai in Thailand, meaning ‘elder brother of the Thai’. Many Tai Yai villagers escaped the Burmese military junta only to be denied refugee status by Thai authorities. Without identity cards or work permits, they subsisted on low-paying jobs. Eak tried his hand as a construction worker and building painter for a couple of months before someone told him of a more lucrative employment opportunity.

“In the beginning, I didn’t have a clue what this new job could be, except talking and drinking with customers,” he says. But at least one thing was certain: it could not be any tougher than his previous work.

On his first day at the job, a middle-aged man from the United States asked him to leave the bar and spend the night with him. Eak confesses to being confused at the time -- and the language barrier was the least of his worries. “I had to pretend to use the toilet to check with another colleague, and he told me: ‘Try to satisfy the customer with whatever he wants, and you can just say ‘no’ directly to him if you really feel like doing so.’”

As they entered the hotel room, the American started to take off Eak’s clothes. The shy heterosexual immediately signaled his refusal, waving his hands. “How could two men do stuff like this?” was all he could think at the time, he says.

That first night ended in a friendly chat. But that could not always be the case. Eak realised he must adapt to the rules of a new game, in the same way he had survived the strict discipline of the monastery.

Working as an Escort

That was two years ago. Now Eak’s day starts like this: he gets up around noon, goes to the gym and takes a shower. After lunch, he goes to the supermarket and lends a hand to his girlfriend, who works as a cashier. He gets to the nightclub at about 8 p.m. and stays there till midnight, depending on customer demand.

Any man with cash in his pocket can come and pick up an escort boy like Eak at the club. So far, Eak has entertained men from the United States, Britain, Japan, as well as customers from Thailand.

“Sometimes it’s quite interesting to talk to foreigners, and we don’t need to have sex every time. A chat can be enough,” he says. Eak earns 7,000 baht (about 175 U.S. dollars) up to nearly 20,000 baht (about 500 dollars) a month.

Like many others in the Shan states, Eak’s parents rely on the cash he sends home from Thailand. Eak told them he is working in a restaurant. He last visited them three years ago -- as a shaven-headed monk, reunited with his family for the first and only time in 10 years.

Eak’s girlfriend, also of Tai Yai ethnic origin, knows only too well that he is not waiting on tables. They met in Chiang Mai and, according to Eak, she feels all right about his occupation as long as he protects himself. “I remember to use a condom almost every time I have sex with clients,” he says.

How often is “almost every time”? Nine out of ten, he says, and smiles.

The male sex workers of Chiang Mai have an HIV infection rate of 11.4 percent, according to a 2005 survey. Nearly half are of Tai Yai origin and come from the Shan states. The Shan are in high demand for their unique physical features. Of the more than 30 boys at Eak’s club, about 80 percent, are Tai Yai.

Eak learned about safe sex from newsletters distributed by self-help groups among Tai Yai immigrants in Chiang Mai. His boss is unusually relaxed and allows community-based organisations like Mplus to conduct training workshops at the club outside business hours.

Safer Sex

At these one-hour workshops, Eak and colleagues learn how to protect themselves, how to bargain with clients over condom use, and where to turn to if they have psychological or physical problems. Some have even become volunteers for the organisation. Eak is one of them.

Kasidit Saotongthong first volunteered when he was in college and is now the Mplus outreach manager. Founded in 2004, Mplus serves what it calls the MSM – men who have sex with men – community. Male sex workers are their most important target group. Part of Kasidit’s job is to convince the bosses of nightclubs, massage parlours and bars to open their doors to the awareness training of male sex workers. “Not everyone can be as friendly as Eak’s boss,” he sighs.

Safer sex is not the sole topic that Mplus discusses with young men like Eak. “We’re also concerned about their lives and families,” explains project manager Pongthorn Chanlearn. For many Tai Yai, working without proper documents means they do not have access to medical services or insurance, apart from dealing the daily danger of detention. When they do get arrested, the police fine them, jail them and send them back home. Yet still they return, fleeing the greater horrors of life in Burma.

“That’s why we also offer English language and massage training courses at the venue. Some with ID cards can even try to obtain a formal education,” explains Pongthorn, who, a Thai himself, holds that Thailand should supply more opportunities for these migrants. Mplus also works with other organisations to address the rights of Tai Yai migrants at large.

Eak is lucky and he knows it. His journey to a monastery 10 years ago granted him quasi-legal entry to Thailand. He holds a special identity card that defines his limited rights to travel and other activities. A long-term Chiang Mai resident like Eak must have spent at least six years here with an unblemished criminal record if he wants to qualify for a full-fledged national ID card.

Of course there are times, Eak murmurs, that he regrets having ended up in his line of work. But he enjoys “interesting chats” with foreign clients, assuaging his undiminished curiosity for the broader outside world.

His dark eyes flicker as Eak talks about his plans, which include to learn computing and improve his English. Then, one day, he proclaims, he and his girlfriend will open a small fruit business.

In fact, Eak has already rolled up his sleeves and helps others sell fruit in his spare time, the first step on a new journey that he hopes will not be as bumpy as the road he has already travelled.