Sweetened Condensed Southeast Asia

Why did I not go right? Sure, there were some logistical issues, such as a closed border crossing, but that’s not really why I took a left and headed for Chang Mai. It was not the promise of trekking in the wet mountains of Pai. It was not the need for deodorant or medicine or any of the other frivolous items available in Thailand but not Laos. Nor was it the ticking clock of a two week visa. No, it was my travel companions that I picked up along the way that influenced my course.

I went through countless unpronounceable places, Mai’s and Xi’s and Chang’s and Aya’s. A mental map has checkmarks along a route of boats and buses and tuk tuk’s and riverside balconies strewn with empty beer bottles in the morning heat. There were wats and waterfalls and markets and riverboats where tracks of my footsteps have been stepped over a thousand times. When was that? I don’t know. Was it a week or a day or some other lifetime altogether? Does it matter? It simply was and all that matters, all that makes a lasting impression, is not the ground upon which I stood but the people who stood next to me. Their words and thoughts and actions reverberate inside my soul and I am a richer man for it. I have been to places of untold wealth and beauty; beautiful and cherished because of the souls who touched my heart in one way or another.

I’ve been tossed in a tube where waterside bars stick out bamboo poles and laugh at frightened and brave farang belly flopping from a wire into the river. I met cocky Americans who elude the question ‘Where are you from?’ because they are tired of hearing the opinions. I recall the color of my knuckles on a bus to Maung Noi as I swallowed hard the urge to yell, ‘Stop!’ – I need the children of this village; their laughter is my drink. I need the old woman of this town crouched over a fire; her experience is my bread. I walked in red clay squishing over the edges of 80 cent flipflops; it reminded me of the clay of childhood in Virginia. I’ve crouched down to smell it, does it smell the same as Fairfax before it was paved over? I thought of a friend from that time ; he health is in trouble now. My tears flood the mud while I pray to an imaginary god and hope I am terribly wrong because he is too young to die and his family is too kind to cry.

And then I made a left to Chang Mai because I could not make a right to Hanoi. For days I made my way, undeterred, sitting on boats and buses; sleeping with bed bugs, scratching my balls. In Pai, I sprayed them (my balls) with Deet which no one should ever do. The itching went away but the shock of the lesson is indelible.

From Chang Mai, I went south back to Bangkok where I got busted by police for making out between the train cars. I stumbled in the street and cut my toes trying to numb my feelings for the girl on the train. I got spit on by a whore and smiled until she went away. Asia can teach the westerner alternatives to rage and finer points of diplomacy.

Drunk or hung over or somewhere in between, I had to get out of Bangkok so I headed east to get away from the tourists and the playskol expeditions and to find a place where Ronald McDonald doesn’t wei, where English is not prolific, where white is unusual. I thought I would make it to Cambodia or Vietnam, but confusing Mukdahhan with Savannaket landed me back in Laos.

A hundred thousand scribbled words, a million laughs and many bottles of Johnny Walker later, I eventually found myself wearing long pants and shoes in the San Francisco airport thrilled with the fact I could speak English to every single person I saw. I chatted with baggage handlers. I chatted with a first time flyer. I chatted with a sandwich lady. I chatted with airport security (they didn’t want to chat at all). I chatted with nearly everyone I could find. Another quick flight and I was soaking in the dry desert heat, hugging my parents and trying not to ramble on too much about my adventures outside the shire.