Blogging from the road
proves difficult. My brain is constantly overloaded by an influx of stimuli and
I'd rather not hole up in a dingy guest house typing away like GlitchCOM5, but playing
catch-up is also a drag, so I time traveled to the land of pen and paper and
chronicled my journey in a notebook, careful not to miss a beat. So for the
next few posts, I will choose my favorite incidents and memories from the trip
and update a blog daily. (Probably more like every two days, considering I
managed to contract Bubonic Plague on my journey and one of my eyes is swelled
to Asian status. fitting, really.) I guess I'll start two days after Wat-ing
around Chiang Mai rolling down Pai River two deep in a tube made for one,
deflated tube in one hand, beer and lone sandal in the other, legitimately
concerned over the prospect of heading into Burmese territory.
After arriving in the
beautiful hippie haven tucked between soaring hills, we decided to take a
'relaxing' tubing trip down the Pai river. A weasley whiskered Thai man with a
brow ring and wife beater plops us and our tubes onto a random riverbank, takes
our clothing and instructs us that if our tube is to pop, find a
non-english-speaking local and ask to use their cell phone to call him. Mind
you locals on the side of this particularly unpopulated river are fishing and
farming and probably haven’t excelled in understanding the flailing hand
gestures of the Farang.
The warning lodges a seed
of paranoia into my psyche, knowing that with regard to unlikely happenings,
I'm the exception. If it can be popped, broken, shredded, drowned or shattered,
surely my fingers (or elbows, toes, bony knees, etc) will be the culprits. But
I drink my way out of second guesses and elevate. Our tubes putz down the ankle
deep excuse for a river, streaming over rock-shaped speed bumps, winding
between farmland and mountains blanketed in foliage whose branches all seem to
be ominously pointing in the direction we're headed. The lack of current leaves my tube plodding in the wake of the herd and Jamie and I find ourselves reliably
banked on some portion of this inhospitable quarry.
The woodland creature in
the white tank warned us that in some shallow areas incisive masses could
potentially leave our bums scraped and tubes deflated, failing to reveal that
these spots were actually the entire river and because it’s about a foot deep,
they perform as obstacles in a jewel heist, beating the leisure out of our rears,
spines and phalanges. Soon enough, the flow deficit meets swirls of torrents
and I struggle to hold onto two bottles of Chang and my shoes while hip
thrusting to avoid taking a cliff to an area deemed exit only. Jamie and I
continue to pull up the rear and I'm in the middle of bruising my knuckle in a philanthropic
attempt to open a fellow tuber’s beer for her by lighter, when suddenly I'm at
a standstill a large branch and I merge forming one inanimate being, sending
the riverflow curving around us on all sides.
I stand up avoiding razor
sharp cliff rocks and realize that my once-inflated doughnut now hangs around
my neck like a defeated boa constrictor. Suddenly the current wrenches me away
from my branch and I struggle to hold onto the two beers, sacrificing my
sandals and lifeless tube in the process, I'm propelled along in six inches of
water, ricocheting off rubble like a giraffe-shaped gumball. A bewildered Thai
fishermen retrieves my sandal from his net while his friend peels my comatose
rubber tu-tu off a slab of stone.
Between diagramming how to best carry all of the
necessities (beers) without surrendering the soles of my feet to the
callousness of geology, I'm again torn from footing and into the current. I'm
dragged along the rocks, hopping from stone to stone like their own human
boomerang. Jamie attempts to paddle toward me holding out her altruistic,
albeit undersized arm for my rescue. I turn in the direction of safety,
battling against the current and shouting "I JUST WANT TO LIVE."
In retrospect, this exclamation seems a bit
dramatic considering at any point I could've ditched the goods, stood up in the
rocky 2 foot deep water and gracelessly marched my unhappy ass up the bank onto
someone's farm and somehow communicated that I needed a ride back to town.
Rather than risking the awkwardness of that wet, scantily clad conversation, I
opted to doggie paddle through River Bedrock and hoisted my body, my beers and
my encumbering flat floatation device into Jamie’s tube, leaving a two pink
sandals and my dignity to the devices of the river.
We float the rest of the way two-deep in a
historically non-durable tube made for one, hip-thrusting in unison to avoid
creating two holes in our asses. Cutting our losses, we continue sipping our
cheap beers and take each rocky blow in stride, even when we legitimately believed
the group had shored hours ago and we were en route to Burmese territory—also a
warning from our uber helpful guide. An hour later, we spot the faces of our
friends, but not before a group of unnecessarily angry young Thai lads attempt
to flip our tube and drown us with their vicious little talons. Luckily my long
legs and Jamie’s shrill shrieks were enough to fend them off until we reached
safety. Thailand needs to peruse the tourism section of leisure maybe once
more, especially considering I was made to pay 100 baht for deflating my tube.
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