XXVIII. Adventures in Healing, Part Three

Back in Dharamsala, at the Tibetan Medicine Clinic, I sat in a large, bare room along with two dozen sick Indians and exiled Tibetans, lined up on long wooden benches. I felt deathly ill, yet I was still compelled to try an exotic cure. After a reasonable wait, for India, I saw who I assumed to be the doctor. I saw no reason to ask for his credentials, I wouldn’t have been able to read them if he had them. Like the wizened Chinese healer before him, he examined my tongue, my eyes, and my pulse. He opened a drawer and pulled out a small manila envelope. It better not be Contac again, I thought. The envelope contained greenish-black spheres resembling rabbit pellets of varying sizes. I was told, through an elaborate series of hand to mouth gestures, that I was to take five of the small pills in the morning, three of the large in the afternoon, and again five small ones in the evening. I was reasonably certain that the doctor wanted me to chew them up thoroughly rather swallow them whole.

As I left, I noticed several patients examining the contents of their envelopes. We all had the same medicine. Western, left-brained suspicion raised its ugly head. We couldn’t all have the same disease. Just what were these pills? But I quickly brushed my doubts aside – I wanted to believe. It was an Eastern disease. Surely, the best treatment would be Eastern. Besides, the clinic was only charging me a dollar. I had nothing to lose.

I began my treatment that evening, dutifully chewing up five small orbs. They had a dry, pungent flavor, stirringly redolent of match heads and feces. This is the taste of you getting better, I told myself. I would say they finished well, but they wouldn’t finish. They stuck to my teeth, coating them with greenish-black slime. I spent the better part of the night trying to lick all the slime off. Of course, I could have just brushed my teeth and gotten rid of that horrible, lingering flavor, but that was not the way I was brought up. I always did what the doctor told me (whether I was certain he was a doctor or not, apparently).

After too many days of chewing and licking, the medicine was finished, but my affliction persisted. I felt it best to leave Dharamsala and return to the medicine of my people. I took the VIP bus to the big city. I usually traveled third class, convincing myself that I was a “live like the locals” kind of traveler (read: cheap), but I was sick. The inch of padding in the seats was worth the two extra dollars.

As soon as I stepped into the clean, air-conditioned lobby of the hospital, I felt a bit better. The kindly, English-fluent doctor, with his reassuring diplomas on the wall, gave me a thorough, and thoroughly modern, examination (He had a stethoscope! He took my blood pressure! He asked me my symptoms!). He gave me an injection and prescribed a course of antibiotics. Within a day, maybe two, the vomiting, diarrhea and sulfurous belching had ceased and my appetite returned. I felt alive again, energized. I celebrated with a luxurious and satisfying Indian Thali, at the end of which, I toasted the marvels of modern Western medicine with a cup of Marsala Chai.

I never found out exactly what my illness was or what was in those Tibetan rabbit shit pellets. But to be completely honest, I didn’t know what was in the injection the doctor gave me. Or what antibiotics really are. Or Contac, for that matter. When it comes to my health, my precious, precious health, I take an awful lot on faith.

XXVII. Adventures in Healing, Part Two

My incursions into the world of holistic health maintenance were not restricted to merely visiting apothecaries and clinics. While living in Malaysia, I got heavily into Tai Chi and, to my surprise, became a vegetarian. Living meatlessly came relatively easy. In fact it was basically forced upon me, being that I was staying at the Penang temple/headquarters of The International Society for Krishna Consciousness. No, I hadn’t gone that far. I was there strictly for the free room and board, and for the local Tai Chi master who came to give lessons. There were, however, certain daily obligations I had to fulfill in return: waking up at 4:30 for morning services, working for a couple of hours, usually gardening or chopping vegetables, then joining in evening services. I had no qualms about singing and dancing, I quite enjoyed it, but the sermons – literalist interpretations of the Bhagavad-Gita – proved a tad difficult, particularly when they sought my participation in the inevitable discussion that followed. I was diplomatic; I didn’t want to lose a free bed or the surprisingly tasty meals.

Given the free room and board, a large number of hippie travelers passed through the temple, and virtually every one of them had some kind of advice on Living Clean and Karmically: raw foods, food combining, fruitarianism, fasting, colon cleansing, and on and on and on. Given how skinny and listless they generally were, it was a wonder anyone in their right mind would listen to them. But I did… I was on A Path.

When I got my first boil, the hippies assured me that it was just my body ridding itself of toxins. When a boil on my arm grew large enough to turn heads, a doctor from the local clinic, an Indian woman who occasionally visited the temple for the free feasts, ordered me immediately to her office, where she lanced the beast. The massive crater it left turned even more heads and occasionally elicited gasps. I was prepared to tell anyone who asked that it was a bullet wound.

It had been suggested by one of the travelers that perhaps I needed to go even further with my purification. He shared with me his method for fast, cheap and easy colon cleansing: drink a half-gallon of prune juice all at once. That was all there was to it, he instructed, just do it on a day when I had nowhere I had to be, and to make sure I had quick, all-day access to a toilet. The next morning, after services, instead of eating breakfast, I chugged down the juice. I sat down, not knowing what to expect, and certainly not expecting what was to come.

First, there was a light gurgling, followed by sounds I can only describe as hundreds of tiny souls shrieking, yearning to be set free from my digestive tract. While this persisted for several minutes, I amused myself by imagining a reworking of Horton Hears a Who. Then a low rumble and a pressing sensation began to build deep in my intestines. I felt it best to repair to my designated stall – a seldom used squat toilet in a corrugated tin shack behind the temple. I bolted the door, dropped my shorts, squat down and waited. But not for long.

It came out. I mean it all came out, as if every meal I ever ate in my life gushed out of me, with such speed and force that I was halfway lifted out of my squat. When the surge ebbed, I caught my breath and, once certain it was over, washed myself out with the small water bucket by the side of the toilet. I turned to examine my excretions. It was literally the largest load of crap I had ever produced (save the comments). It was as big as any of the elephant turds I used to pass (by) in the jungle. Upon closer inspection, I spied what I believed to be an undigested bean sprout. That’s odd, I thought, undigested bean sprouts usually don’t wiggle. I poured some water over it to get a better look. It was pale, semi-translucent white and long, maybe eight to ten inches. I fished it out and rinsed it off, along with my fingers. I was rather proud of it. I had to show it to all my hippie advisors. (Look what came out of me!) They were less than interested, one might say a bit squeamish, in fact. They don’t make hippies like they used to, I lamented.

I spent the rest of the day in and out of the toilet. None of the subsequent visits held the same impact, but I was continually surprised that there was still anything left inside of me. The next day, I returned to the doctor and showed her the worm, now safely stored in a baggie. (Naturally, I felt it necessary to bring it for an accurate diagnosis.) She donned a pair of surgical gloves, seized the baggie from my hand and tossed it in with some medical waste. She gave me a shot and enough pills to kill off any eggs that I might be harboring. As I thanked her and left, she merely shook her head in a manner which suggested that I confirmed everything she had long suspected of Westerners. I never saw her at the temple again.

To be continued…

XXVI. Adventures in Healing, Part One

I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. I was hiking in the foothills of the Himalaya and I passed a stream. I knew I shouldn’t. I was usually very careful about this sort of thing, but it looked so cool and clear and clean and I was thirsty. This flowing stream that trickled off the glistening snowcaps of a holy and legendary mountain range, how could it possibly be unclean?

Two days later, I was curled up and moaning on the bathroom floor of my hotel in Dharamsala. My bowel movements had, shall we say, tremendous gusto, and I was vomiting at fairly frequent intervals. My belly felt bloated and I continuously belched sulfur. When I was strong enough to get up off the floor, and eventually out the door, I went searching for medical help. The first place I found was the Tibetan Medicine Clinic. I didn’t want to walk too much farther, and I felt it might be a good idea to try something holistic. After two years in Asia, I was rapidly becoming one of those travelers, the kind who embraced everything and anything Eastern and rejected harmful, left-brained, Western ways.

I had gone native once before, while wandering through China. My nose had become congested. It was really nothing at all, really, but when I passed the weathered, wooden doors of a Traditional Chinese Apothecary, I thought it would be an interesting opportunity. An old man welcomed me from behind a huge, ornately carved desk. He came straight from central casting. He wore an ankle-length black robe with a Mandarin collar and had a mole on his face sprouting two long and wiry hairs. He didn’t speak any English, but it didn’t matter. I merely pointed to my nose and tried to inhale. He came from behind the desk, examined my eyes and my tongue, and then took my pulse, TCM style – three long, bony fingers on my wrist. He wrote something in Chinese with a small calligraphy brush, then rummaged through the hundreds of tiny drawers behind the desk, muttering and humming to himself while I waited, hoping for something cool and exotic like Deer Antler fuzz or dried Tiger Penis.

He found what he was looking for. With a small flourish, he handed me a box of Contac cold capsules.

To be continued…

XXV. Tokyo Decadence, Part Three

Evan was interested. He surprised himself even more than he surprised me. I may have been jumping for joy, I don’t remember. All I know is that he told me to calm down, that nothing was settled yet. He had to run the idea past the club’s owners. Ordinarily, he had the authority to hire anyone as he saw fit, but for something like this, he wasn’t willing to make that decision on his own. And since no description of my act could truly do it justice, he said I’d probably have to do another audition for them.

I lay on top of my cheap dorm bunk bed, dreaming about the job. I never even remotely considered professional male stripping before, but now it was everything I ever wanted. Not only enough money to live on, but money which was shoved into my crotch by bored Japanese housewives. And who knows, I might have a good chance of picking up one or two of the very bored ones.

Late the next morning, I got the call on the payphone in the hallway. Evan set up an audition with the owners. He wanted me there at four o’clock that day.

I sat in Evan’s office, wearing the smoking jacket and jester’s hat, waiting for Evan’s cue. The door opened, Evan stepped in. He looked nervous, “Okay, they’re here. Go. And good luck.”

I strode onto the octagon once again. I could see the owners sitting together on a couch against the wall. I was surprised – they looked like two respectable, professional couples. I was expecting something a little sleazier, a Japanese Bob Guccione, perhaps – open shirt, thinning perm, a couple of giggling bimbos hanging on to him. But these people were well-tailored, conservative even. There had to be more to them than met the eye. When I saw the slits in the women’s skirts, offering glimpses of well-toned thigh, I took it as a good omen.

Evan came out of his office to stand beside the owners. One of the men spoke to him in Japanese. Evan told me to begin. It was the same routine as the day before. I took off my jacket slowly and shimmied, but I couldn’t quite lose myself in the fantasy like before. I was trying to gauge the reactions of the owners. The men sat motionless, stone-faced. The women merely crossed their legs occasionally. I didn’t what it meant, if it meant anything at all. When I twirled the jacket over my head and let it fly, my aim this time was better: it landed at their feet. One of the women picked it up, brushed it off and carefully draped it over a chair. Not exactly tearing it to shreds in rabid devotion, but it was nice of her.

I lost my nerve when it came time to finger my bellybutton (Evan seemed relieved). I felt it best to proceed directly to the balloon penis act, which garnered a few covered-mouth giggles from the ladies and polite applause from the men. When I revealed the big finish – my ejaculation, there were gasps. They weren’t exactly sexually aroused gasps, more like scandalized gasps, followed by Japanese murmuring. Evan brought me my jacket and escorted me offstage. The owners again applauded politely, stood up, and walked single file into the office. Before closing the door behind him, one of the men called Evan over and said something while gesturing towards me.

“What did he say? I asked.

“You should put your pants on,” Evan translated.

We waited for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes outside the office. I asked if this was a bad sign. And what about that gasp? And the murmuring? What did those mean? Evan didn’t know. He said he’d been living in Tokyo for close to nine years and still couldn’t figure the Japanese out. The office door opened. They called Evan inside and shut the door again. After a few more tense minutes, Evan emerged, shaking his head. The vote was three to one. Three in favor, one against.

“Why are you shaking your head? I’m in, right?”

“No, not in this club. The vote has to be unanimous. If one has doubts, they all have doubts.”

“That’s not fair! I want a recount. Who voted against me? It was one of the men, wasn’t it? It couldn’t been the women – they giggled! One folded my jacket! They loved me, didn’t they? Just give me a minute with them, I could convince them…”

“Look, it’s over, forget it. Let me buy you a beer,” Evan walked me over to the bar.

The owners filed out of the office and passed me as they exited the club, each bowing in turn. The woman who picked up my jacket flashed me a quick thumbs up before she left. Again, not my fantasized reaction, but it was nice of her. Evan opened up a couple of large Sapporos and sat down on the stool next to me.

“It was one of the men, wasn’t it?” I couldn’t let it go.

“Yeah.”

“Did he say why?”

“You were just too hairy,” Evan said, “Maybe if you were black…”

XXIV. Tokyo Decadence, Part Two

“You can begin whenever you’re ready,” Evan said.

“What, no music?” I asked.

“Hey, I’m giving you a break as it is.”

It was a difficult to just begin a striptease, especially with no musical intro. Evan suggested imagining the club as it was at night, full of giggling Japanese women, housewives mostly, looking for a little excitement. (Has anyone ever actually used this kind of advice? Aside from sexual fantasies, I could never sustain a visualization for more than thirty seconds. Well, a sexual fantasy would be appropriate, if I could overcome the shame…)

I closed my eyes and imagined a bevy of stunning Japanese women in their thirties and forties, all properly and conservatively attired. The slits along the sides of their skirts offering tantalizing glimpses of well-toned thigh, however, told me their propriety would not last long.

I slowly unbuttoned my smoking jacket, slipped it off one shoulder, then the other. I shimmied it halfway down my back like Marilyn Monroe with a feathered boa, making the most of my small, yet jiggly, man-boobs. Whipping the jacket up over my head, I twirled it around a few times and let it fly. I meant for it to land into the audience, where the women would fight over it, and subsequently tear it to shreds, but my timing was off. The jacket flew off, up and behind me. Unintentional, but effective: Evan chuckled. The act was working. It was time to get really shameless.

Standing naked save for a leopard print g-string, another borrowed garment, I proceeded to erotically massage my loose belly while I moaned, licked my lips, and rolled my eyes to the back of my head (facial expressions of a sort seldom seen outside of an old-timey Prince video). I sucked on my finger, stuck it into my belly button, and, well… fingered myself.

“Alright, you’re kind of creeping me out now,” Evan said.

Feeling it was best to move into the big finale, I finished masturbating my navel. I reached into my amply stuffed g-string, rummaged around a bit, and pulled out a long, thin balloon. I stretched and pulled at it as sexily as one could stretch and pull on a balloon and blew it up. A twist, a twist, a fold, and a twist, et voila – a three foot long phallus, complete with head, scrotum, and a small handle behind the scrotum, which allowed me to carry the phallus between my legs while I strutted about the stage displaying my inflated manhood.

I turned my back on the screaming, nearly naked throng, their hair teased to a frenzy. Reaching again into my bag of tricks, I pulled out a white balloon. I blew in a small bubble of air, worked it to the end of the balloon, and inserted the thin end into my “urethra,” all the while miming masturbation. Just before climaxing, I spun back around to unveil my finest creation – The Ejaculating Penis Balloon Trick. (I developed this one working adult parties in San Francisco. Always got big tips.) The audience let out a collective gasp; some fainted. Just as the remaining conscious, panting, practically rabid women crawled over their fallen friends to rush the stage, Evan brought me back to reality.

“Okay, I get the idea. Get dressed.”

To be continued…

XXIII. Tokyo Decadence, Part One

Help Wanted: Foreign Men Needed for Strip Club

My English teaching plan was not working out. The days were long since past when some guy without a degree could waltz right into Tokyo and land a high-paying gig just by being a native speaker. I landed a few private lessons here and there, but they weren’t nearly enough to afford four dollar bowls of noodle soup and seventeen dollar movie tickets. And with the US dollar dropping every day against the yen, I was losing money just getting out of bed. I needed a job fast. Male stripping… why not?

There were actually quite a few reasons why not. I was an unlikely candidate for the job: short, bald(ing, at the time), less than classically handsome and somewhat overweight. (I had recently lost a fair bit of weight, but it left my skin a little… loose – when I moved, it brought a whole new meaning to the term “rippling abs.”) And, I was hairy. Very hairy. Entire body covered with hair hairy. All together, not the standard male stripper package, even in Tokyo, where tastes did not always run mainstream.

But I had a plan. I phoned the number in the ad and spoke to an American, Evan, who managed the club. I managed to steer the conversation away from any description of myself, deftly focusing on my charming personality and stage experience. It seemed to work. We arranged to meet at Shinjuku station. I asked him what he looked like – beating him to the punch – in order to spot him at the busy subway stop. He told me he was tough to miss.

As I made my way through the sea of Japanese commuters, I saw what he meant. Evan was unmistakable: tall, black, and built like a linebacker. He towered above everybody else. I waved to him as I approached. He looked behind him as though I was waving to someone else, then turned back to me. We made eye contact. His eyes widened just a little as he realized who I was. His lips pursed and drew to one side of his face. I stepped up before they could form the words, “I think there’s been some mistake.”

“Before you say anything,” I said, “let me just say two words – Novelty Act.”

I took up where I left off on the phone, pleading my case point by point. He had his doubts, but, God bless him, he also had an open mind. His club had a lot of competition in the area; he was looking for something to make his stand out. And maybe, just maybe, this short, bald, flabby, hairy man would be the ticket. “It would help if you were black,” he said, “Japanese women love the black man. (He later confided that this was the main reason he stayed on in Tokyo after he left the service.) Well, you made the trip. I might as well let you audition. But you’ve got a lot of convincing to do.”

The club was empty for the afternoon. Evan turned one spotlight on the small octagonal stage rising a few inches above the floor. It was surrounded by tiny octagonal tables, built for holding only drinks. Evan told me to get ready and went into his office. I unpacked my costume. First, the brown, Hefneresque smoking jacket which I borrowed from a friend with Rat Pack aspirations. Then my prized possession – the one thing I owned that I would run into a burning building to save – my felt jester’s hat. This was not just any jester’s hat, no, my friends, not one of those limp, floppy jobs with the tiny bells. This was a king among jesters, the horns full, stuffed, upright, proud, erect, with big, puffy, yellow balls bursting forth from the tips. You didn’t have to be funny when you put this hat on, the hat alone would make you funny. I had been travelling throughout Southeast Asia for over a year with the hat in my backpack, never knowing exactly why, but perhaps waiting, however unconsciously, for this very moment. I tied it on as Evan walked in. He stared at the hat and shook his head, chuckling. He fell back into the narrow naugahyde couch that lined the wall.

It was showtime.

To be continued…

XXII. The End of the Trail, Part Three

What with Jim here and all, the Jungle Adventure Tour Company really didn’t need me anymore. I started thinking maybe it was time to move on. As impossible as it seemed, I had grown tired of the jungle. It wasn’t much of an adventure anymore. I jumped off enough waterfalls, hiked enough trails, and been charged by enough elephants. It had become a job. We’d drive past the bush, we’d hear the crunching and stop, elephants would come out, we’d watch them, always stay too long, the elephants would get sick of us, they’d chase us off, then we’d go look for more animals. Anything after a while can become drudgery.

Maybe I would go to Vietnam. It was just opening up to tourism at the time.* Travelers occasionally came through and told all kinds of exciting stories. It sounded exotic, maybe even dangerous. It was Vietnam, after all. Or I might go to one of those silent meditation retreats down south. It would be different, a challenge, to say the least – not speaking for ten days, only meditating, sleeping on stone beds. Then I could pop on over to Koh Phan-gnan in time for the Full Moon Party, cover myself in Day-Glo paint trip the night away.

I got excited just thinking about it. The decision was made. The where would work itself out.

I told Tom and Maow over breakfast. I was getting a little sentimental over my rice porridge, “I want you both to know that I’m very grateful and I appreciate how you’ve taken me in like family, but it’s just time to move on, you know?”

“Sure,” Tom wiped the last remaining porridge out of his bowl with his finger, “that’s no problem.”

“It doesn’t have to be right away. If you get busy, I can stay on another week or two…”

“No, that’s okay, we have Jim” Maow said as she cleared the table and went into the kitchen.

Tom took the Bangkok Post and went to the bathroom. I sat at the table and convinced myself that long, sentimental goodbyes were probably not the Thai way. Probably a Buddhist non-attachment thing. I didn’t think I would be leaving so fast. I was really leaving. Nothing was stopping me. There was nothing left to do, so I went to my room to pack up. As I left the Jungle Adventure Tour Company compound for the last time, I passed Jim playing hacky-sack.

“See ya.”

Either he knew and didn’t care, or didn’t know and didn’t notice my backpack. I didn’t particularly care either way. “Yup,” I replied, my version of the Thai goodbye.

I walked to the train station in town. I took off my backpack and sat down on a bench by the tracks, waiting for the next taste of Tuna Fish Ice Cream.



* This was 1992. My apologies to any of those readers who thought this story takes place present day.

XXI. The End of the Trail, Part Two

Tom thought it would be a good idea that Jim and I do a tour together, that I might teach him the subtleties of the trail. I let him take the lead on the day hike, hanging back to observe, and, if necessary, lend a hand. But it wasn’t necessary. In fact, he barely had to pay attention to the trail. He walked it backwards like a campus tour guide, regaling prospective freshman with facts about the school, “… and we have over 3000 species of plants, 320 species of birds, and 67 species of animals…”

Where the hell did Jim get this information? On the job all of three days and he’s spouting facts and figures like Ranger Rick. I’d been here for two months and I never heard any of this. Tom never mentioned it. There was no information to be had at the Khao Yai National Park Information Center, nor were there any guidebooks to the park that I knew of, at least not in English. He didn’t read Thai too, did he?

“… two kinds of deer: the Sambar Deer and the Barking Deer, or Muntjac…”

We had two kinds of deer?

He pointed out the Sensitive plants, or Mimosa Pudica and the Dipterocarpus trees (or, as I called them, “the big-ass trees with the huge roots. You know, like in Apocalypse Now? When Chef goes off to look for mangos, and he crawls over those huge roots? That kind of tree. Remember? And the tiger comes out of nowhere, and Chef’s screaming ‘Fucking tiger! Fucking tigerrrr…!’ That kind of tree.”).

I had nothing to teach Jim.

We finished the tour, as we always did, night-spotting for animals. Tom drove the pickup truck down the two-lane jungle road, the travelers all loaded in the back. I stood on the left rear fender, Jim on the right, each of us holding a spot, lighting up the trees on our respective sides. I felt like being somewhat useful, so I explained our spotlighting technique, “… you want to methodically comb each tree up and down and look for…”

Jim banged on the side of the truck, “Hold up! Stop the truck! I see eyes!”

Tom stopped the truck. Jim took a closer look at the twin reflections up in the tree with his (own!) binoculars, “Ooh, it’s an animal alright… What could it be…?”

I knew it was a civet. It was always a civet. After two months, they were about as exotic as pigeons. But I couldn’t tell the travelers right away – part of the fun was building the suspense. Jim picked this up as well, “Hmmm… it looks like… Yes, I do believe it’s a… it’s a civet! Who wants to take a closer look?” he passed around his binoculars and explained what a civet was.

I had to admit, he was pretty good at feigning excitement and working the crowd. Then again, maybe it wasn’t feigning. He was new. Civets were still exotic to him. He hadn’t seen 16,732 civets in the last two months, night after night, doing absolutely nothing but lying in the branches licking themselves, the lazy fucks. Jim was genuinely excited. And I wasn’t.

The night crept on. And on. And on. We must have driven up and down the road half a dozen times. We saw more civets, of course, spotted a few monkeys (Northern Pigtailed Macaques, thank you Jim), both kinds of deer (one has a white patch on the chest, I forgot which), and then, more civets. It was getting late, but Tom wanted the travelers to get their money’s worth. He kept driving, hoping for something big, like elephants. I personally had run into enough elephants. I was starting to feel bad for them. We were always interrupting their dinners, shining our spotlights in their faces, when they only wanted to eat in peace. It was no wonder they got pissed and chased us off – we were the telemarketers of the jungle.

And, to be honest, I just didn’t feel like that kind of excitement right now: the stopping and ogling, the oohing and aahing, the bluff runs and screaming, the close calls and narrow escapes. I was exhausted. Jim was more than happy to keep going, though. He greeted every pair of eyes with the same enthusiasm he had when he started the trek, the same enthusiasm I had only two months before.

It had to have been two in the morning. We weren’t going to see any elephants. Or tigers. Or Guar. Or Dholes. I sprawled out on the floor of the truckbed to try to get a little sleep. Just as I was nodding off, there was another bang on the truck. Jim, again with his binoculars, “Hmmm… What could it be…?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Jim! Just call it a civet and let’s go home!”

Jim lowered the binoculars and glared at me. The travelers just looked confused. I stood up and banged on the side of the truck, “Tom! Let’s go home.”

Everyone took a spot on the small benches. I sat on the end, my legs dangling out the back. Nobody said anything, just stared absently at the passing jungle. When we got back to the compound, the travelers all went to their rooms as Jim and I unloaded the truck in silence. Right before he went to bed, Jim said, “‘Call it a civet and let’s go home?’ Real professional,” then walked off.

Maybe it was time to call it a day.

To be continued…

The End of the Trail, Part One

After a week in Bangkok, I was home. I walked back into the Jungle Adventure Tour Company compound, where I was greeted by some tanned white kid with a ponytail. He was wearing khaki cargo pants and real hiking boots. He said his name was Jim and he was going to be my tour guide.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you here to take the tour?” he asked in that particularly nice Mid-Western way.

“Yeah, well, not exact… I mean, I lead the tours. I’m the guide.”

“Oh, you’re Phil! Tom and Maow told me all about you! I’m Jim. The new guy.”

What was he talking about? I’d only been working here two months – I was the new guy.

“Sooooo, Jim. When did you start?”

“Well, I just came here to take the tour a couple of days ago, and next thing you know, they offer me a job. Incredible, huh.? I still can’t believe it!”

“Yeah… Can you excuse me a minute? Tom? Tom!”

I found Tom on his front porch cutting his toenails with a Swiss Army Knife. “Oh, you met Jim? Great guy, huh? Good guide, too. Already took a group out all by himself. No problems at all.”

I knew he was referring to my getting lost on my first solo trek. I wondered if Buddhists were supposed to give little digs like that. What was the karmic value of a dig?

“So, who is he? What’s his story?”

“I don’t know, he comes from Arizona or something. Some kind of naturalist, too. Knows the names of all the tree and animals.”

Tom slid the plastic toothpick out of the knife handle. He cleaned under and around his toenails. Very thorough. He glanced up at me, “Don’t worry, he’s not your replacement.”

I walked to my room to unpack, kicking rocks out of my way and muttering, “New guy? Coming into my jungle? I’m the Jungle Guide here. No fresh-faced punk in water-wicking wool socks is going to take my place. We’ll just see about this...”

To be continued…

XIX. Thai Water Nymphs

We were forced to stop. The bus was under attack from all sides. Hundreds of Thai Nationals had taken to the streets, armed with high-powered squirt rifles, hoses and buckets, soaking everything in that got in their way. Songkran, the Thai Water Festival, hit and it hit hard. Everybody was drenching and getting drenched. On the sidewalks, in the alleys, taking up the entire main road – nothing could get through. I was heading back to the jungle from a visa run. I took the early morning bus, thinking I might make it home before the waterfight started. The bus hadn’t left early enough and now we were stuck in some small town on the way.

I watched the festivities through sheets of water pouring down my window. I had to get out there. As I ran down the aisle, the driver got in my way. “No, no, is too dangerous!” he cried. (Every Thai in the tourism industry feels compelled to protect foreigners.)

“It’s only water!"

I got off the bus (they’re also very easily swayed). Within seconds I was soaked. I tore off my t-shirt and as soon as they saw my abundantly hairy, white body, every Thai in town stopped shooting each other and screamed what I believe to be, “Get the monkey!”

They hit me with every hose, bucket and rifle, pummeling from every direction. During small pauses in the pummeling, children would run up and squirt me in the groin with their tiny guns, then run away. I ran to a storefront for cover, or at least where I wouldn’t be exposed on all sides. An old laughing shopkeeper handed me a hose. I shot back, but it was no defense against such an onslaught. I dropped the hose and ran next door to a beauty salon, which, as it turns out, happened to be filled with young, dripping wet girls. My half-naked hairy body proved absolutely irresistible to these girls, who probably never got a chance to touch a body quite like mine. These were “nice” Thai girls, after all. But it was Songkran and this was their chance. They surrounded me, some carrying small basins. They bowed politely, asked permission, then gently poured some water over my head. (This is the traditional Songkran way – over the years the festival has evolved from polite, quasi-religious dowsing to full-scale war.) Other girls carried tins of perfumed powder, which they mixed with water, making a thick, sweet-smelling, white paste. They circled in on me and rubbed it all over my body. In seconds, I looked like I’d been covered in plaster; my chest (and back and shoulder) hair formed endless clumps of tiny, pasty dreadlocks. I was the White Aboriginal Rasta Monkey King.

The girls dropped their basins and tins and pressed in tight all around me. We giggled, they massaged. They didn’t even mind getting their fingers caught in my dreads. I died and went to heaven. Then, as if the hand of God had come to let me know I was having too much fun, a small truck drove by with an oil drum full of ice-cold water, which was dumped all over us. It cooled our passion but only temporarily – one of the girls grabbed me with a wild look in her eye.

“You kiss me now!”

Hmmm, I thought, cute Thai girl in cold, clingy, wet clothes wants to kiss me. Hmmm…

As I leaned in, she lifted her hand up to her mouth. She placed her thumb to her lips and extended her pinky towards my mouth. Her friends told me I had to kiss the pinky. Only the pinky. I protested, but they were not easily swayed, not being in the tourism industry. Even in the throes of this sodden bacchanalia, they were nice girls. I kissed her pinky, then all the other girls extended theirs. So I made the rounds.

Before I could finish, the driver managed to get the bus through the crowd. He pulled up in front of the salon and blasted the horn to get my attention. The door slid open and he reached his hand out to me as though he was saving my life.

“You get in! Now!”

I quickly and regretfully kissed the remaining pinkies and hopped on the bus. The driver handed me my wet t-shirt, which I waved like a farewell handkerchief as the bus pulled away.

I spent the rest of the air-conditioned ride soaking wet, sitting in a puddle of my own making. The driver was right, the festival had been dangerous – by the time I got home, I had the sniffles and felt the beginnings of diaper rash. But for days after, my skin was smooth and soft, and smelled just as nice as a nice Thai girl.

XVIII. Trapped in the Spotlight, Part Three

We didn’t notice the rustling behind us – until it got very loud, very quickly. Two more elephants were in the bush fighting, slamming and bashing into each other. One of the great beasts rammed the other hard in the side. He lost his footing and crashed through the trees into the road, stumbling sideways right towards our truck.

“Go go go!” I yelled.

Tom shifted into drive and gunned the engine. We pulled out from under the teetering mammoth just in time. He regained his footing and turned back to his opponent. The first three elephants were still up the road ahead of us and they were getting closer faster, running towards the fight like bloodthirsty kids in a schoolyard. They were boxing us in. Tom tried to back the truck out of their way, but there was nowhere to go.

He drove back and forth in short bursts like a runner caught between bases. Looking for any kind of opening, he edged towards the three in front of us, then tried backing up again, then stopped. We didn’t know which way the fight might move; every direction was a gamble. Soon there would be no room to maneuver at all. Tom saw one slim chance. He stuck his head out the window, pointed to a steep gully by the side of the road and cried, “Hold on!”

He hit the gas hard, heading straight for the three elephants. Everybody screamed. Just as it looked like we were going to hit the elephants, he made a sharp right turn into the gully. The tires screeched. The truck tipped. I was still standing on the back fender gripping onto the rail. The tipping swung me around, my back hit the outside of the truck. Tom accelerated and the truck straightened up, churning up huge chunks of earth as it tried pulling out of the gully. I tried pulling myself back onto the fender. The truck, and I, gained traction and made it back onto the road, safe on the other side of the elephants. I crawled into the bed of the truck and collapsed, flat on my back. Looking at the travelers who staring down at me in various states of shock, I announced, “You can take pictures now.”

I didn’t realize it at the time, but one of the travelers videotaped the whole thing. The next morning, we all sat down to watch over breakfast. There wasn’t all that much to see. The night was dark and the camera was jerking all over the place. There were occasional glimpses of action lit up by the wildly moving spotlight. (Now that I think of it, I probably should have turned the light off.) The screen was dark, then we could see some trees, then a scared traveler, more dark, the back of Tom’s head, an elephant trunk, a foot (human), dark again, then something that might have been the side of the stumbling elephant when it almost fell on us. We rewound that section a couple of times, but we really couldn’t tell.

All in all, not much to see, but more than enough to hear. The whole story was on the soundtrack, the soundtrack that would forever change my image as Jungle Guide. From the moment we encounter the elephants, there was one, and only one, voice clearly heard above all others – mine.

“Be quiet!”

“You’ve got to remain calm!”

“For God’s sake, everybody shut up!”

“QUIET!!!”

Somehow, I don’t think Crocodile Dundee would have reacted the same way. But then, he never had to deal with elephants.

XVII. Trapped in the Spotlight, Part Two

… three Bull Elephants were walking straight towards us.

Tom didn’t stop the truck. He turned off the headlights and drove towards them. When he came to within about fifty feet, he stopped and shifted into reverse. He slowly backed up, keeping pace with the advancing elephants, all the while maintaining what he (not necessarily I) considered to be a safe margin of error. I told everyone to stay calm and quiet, and not to take any photos unless I gave the okay. The travelers had to absolutely wait until the elephants turned their heads away. Elephants had been known to get spooked by flashbulbs. To underscore the gravity of the situation, I told the travelers the story of the Dead Monk Photo. While doing so, I placed the spotlight below my chin. The story was completely true; I just liked to “heighten” the drama.

“Early one morning, about a year ago, in this very jungle, park rangers found a camera lying in the bush. They could see there had been some pictures taken, so they took the film to a local lab to be developed. There was one particular photo from the roll that made front pages all over Thailand. This photo, taken with a flash, showed a monk with his hand resting on the trunk of a wild elephant. The authorities called in elephant experts and Buddhists to piece together the story.

Two men, one monk, the other a layman, were walking through the jungle at night. The experts did not know why – walking through the jungle at night is never a good idea. That was when the larger animals come out to eat. The two men ran into the elephant which, not expecting to see two humans in the middle of the jungle at night, was almost certainly startled. The monk, evidently radiating Buddhist Loving Kindness and Compassion, calmed the elephant down to the point that the he could lay his hand on its trunk. The layman, evidently recognizing a great photo opportunity, took a picture, a flash picture, right in the elephant’s face. The elephant freaked out. The experts knew this because when the park rangers found the camera, it was lying next to their CRUSHED DEAD BODIES!”

My job was done. The travelers stood in the bed of the truck, clutching their cameras against their chests, fear in their eyes. Maybe I “heightened” the story a bit too much, but at least there would be no elephants freaking out. Or so I thought, before I heard the rustling in the brush behind us.

To be continued…

XVI. Trapped in the Spotlight, Part One

When the Thai government declared the jungle a national park, they cut a two-lane road directly across the middle, not taking into account that it might interfere with the animals’ feeding routes. Tom depended on this very oversight to stay in business.

We carried a full load of travelers in the pickup. Tom drove as I stood on the back fender, holding onto a railing with one hand and a spotlight with the other. It was our nightly routine – crawling down the road, spotlighting for animals, and hoping for the best. I explained the fine art for the travelers, “Comb each and every tree. Slowly up… and slowly down… The whole tree, then move on to the next. The rest of you watch for pairs of glowing dots. That’s their eyes reflecting the light. When you see any, pound on the side of the truck and Tom will stop.”

I demonstrated a couple of passes, then somebody spotted eyes high up in a tree. Everyone pounded on the truck. Tom stopped as I shone the light on the animal, figuring it was probably a civet. I’d seen at least half a dozen civets every night for months. The first time, it was exciting.

“Oh! What could it be…?” I wondered to the travelers. I got out the binoculars, “Ohhhhhh! I thiiiink it’s a… Yes, I do believe… it’s a civet! Yup, I’m sure. It’s a civet. Here take a look, it’s a beauty.”

“Ooh, a civet!”

“What’s a civet?”

I explained how a civet was like a jungle cat (“Jungle cat!”) but actually related to the mongoose (“Mongoose!”), as everyone took turns with the binoculars. Everyone except Davide, yet another in a long, long line of disaffected Frenchmen who seemed to be drawn to our tour for reasons of their own. He sat in the truck-bed and just watched me, smiling, his head ever so slightly nodding.

When everyone had enough of the civet lying high up on his branch yawning, I pounded on the truck and Tom drove on. I offered the spotlight to the travelers. Davide immediately volunteered. I sat down and watched for glowing dots with the others. He swung the spotlight beam up to the sky, paused on a low cloud, then swooped down to the ground. What was he doing? The beam then arched over the truck and down to the road on the other side. I got up to correct him.

“Yes, yes, I know. Each tree. Up and down, up and down”

I sat back down. He methodically combed one tree, then started swinging the light around again. Again, I corrected him.

“I understand what you want, but this is better,” he whispered, “Watch their heads.”

Every head on the truck, in unison, followed the beam wherever he aimed it. The heads went up, they went down, they went round and round. I had to admit, it was amusing, but I was the Jungle Guide. I had to be serious. As I snatched the light from his hand, somebody pounded hard on the truck. Everybody stood up and pointed straight ahead. Bull Elephants, three abreast, taking up the entire road, were walking straight towards us.

To be continued…

XV. Thai Lessons

“Khun Philip, kin cow!”

Ah, the call to breakfast. I came running. Yai, tiny, wiry ancient matriarch of the Jungle Adventure Tour family, greeted me at the door with a sweet smile, her gums stained bright, bloody, betel-nut red. She said something to Maow and they both chuckled.

“What did she say?”

“She say you now understand as much Thai as the dog.”

It was true. After seven weeks of living in Thailand, the only Thai I knew was food related.

Yai sniffed at me and pointed to the washing area, an open tank of water with a hand-bucket, surrounded by a chest-high wall for modesty. As I left to bathe, she said something else to Maow and chuckled. I didn’t ask, she might have said that I smelled like him too.

I didn’t think I smelled that bad. I just hadn’t washed the night before. In the eyes of the family, though, if I didn’t wash at least twice a day, I was just another filthy foreigner. Maow once told me that they could always smell farang coming. She thought it was because we used toilet paper instead of water. I thought it absurd at the time, but once I made the switch, I could see what she meant. Toilet paper just didn’t seem as thorough anymore.

I sloshed the cold water from the tank over my body and dried myself off with a sarong. Once properly attired (my clothes had to be fresh and clean as well, even though I’d be wading through jungle muck within the hour), Yai fed me the usual breakfast ─ whatever spicy meat concoction was leftover from the night before, mixed with rice porridge. Occasionally, I craved a western breakfast and would have been happy to make myself some eggs, but Yai wouldn’t let me in her kitchen. She never let anyone, not even Maow, her eldest daughter, into her kitchen without supervision.

One night, the entire family went out to some local Buddhist ceremony. I was invited and ordinarily would have loved to go, but it was a rare opportunity to stay home alone and relish the solitude. I made a little something to eat, some fried rice and, although I had never used a wok before, I had seen it done enough times to figure it out.

After cooking a reasonable approximation of Yai’s fried rice, albeit a tad heavy on the fish sauce, I cleaned up. I made sure to do a thorough job. Although Yai never explicitly said I couldn’t use her kitchen, I knew I was transgressing. I was careful to leave the kitchen looking as though I never set foot in it.

The next morning, I got no breakfast call. Wondering what happened, I tiptoed into the kitchen, where Yai, looking angry and holding a meat cleaver, was discussing something with Maow. Yai saw me and zeroed in. Her head came up to about my chest, but she scared me, talking fast, harsh-sounding Thai, and waving her meat cleaver every which way. Even if I could understand her, my attention was focused solely on the cleaver. I felt her resolve was weakening, she lowered the cleaver and the slightest hint of a smile came creeping in. She must have felt it too; she quickly finished her tirade with a derisive, snorted “Hmph!” and left the kitchen.

“What’d she say?” I asked Maow.

“She say, ‘Your fish have no tail.’”

“Huh?”

“It’s old saying. ‘Fish must have head, must have tail.’ She always tell us when we’re kids.”

“What does it mean?”

“It mean I think maybe you don’t cook anymore, okay?”

XIV. Rumble in the Jungle, Part Two

I kept my hand raised, holding the girls in check, as I waited for another sound. I knew there was something out there in the bush. I just didn’t know what it might be.


On a trek earlier in the week, during a lunch break while the travelers were relaxing, I decided to do a little exploring on my own. I went down a trail I had never been before. As a jungle guide, I would warn the travelers from going off into the jungle alone. There were too many opportunities for something to go wrong, for a person to get hurt. To have a buddy with you was just common sense. Being The Jungle Guide, of course, I was immune from such common sense.

One side of the trail dropped off sharply into a deep ravine. I couldn’t tell how deep, the bush was too thick. I looked over the edge, trying to get some sense of it, when I heard a crunch. It was a slight sound and far off. It was probably a falling branch, but it just might have been an animal. I decided to wait around and see.

There was another crunch. This time it was closer. Then another. And then more. It wasn’t falling branches. The sounds multiplied, crunching louder, crunching closer. The air filled with the reek of animal. My heart started racing, blood pounding in my ears. For all I knew, it could have been a herd of elephants. I backed away from the edge and crouched down behind a tree. If it was a herd of elephants, and they suddenly found me in the middle of nowhere, they could startle, and God knows what they might do.

Hundreds of crunches spread throughout the ravine, just below the ridge. I was surrounded by the sounds. Then, up over the rim they came: eighty, ninety, maybe a hundred monkeys ─ macaques ─ chattering, running, jumping, and tumbling. I held my breath and stayed absolutely still. I didn’t want to scare them off. In the midst of all the ruckus, I sensed something next to me. I turned slowly and looked down. It was a fuzzy, wide-eyed, baby macaque, standing stock-still, staring up at me. He didn’t seem frightened or confused. He just seemed curious. I held out my hand like I was offering him food. He came up and sniffed. I opened my hand. He jumped back, and then slowly returned. He poked at my palm for a little while and then he climbed on and crawled up my arm. I slowly stood up. He sat on my shoulder and looked around as if surveying his realm. After he had enough of that, he climbed around the back of my neck to my other shoulder. I extended my arm out and he crawled to my other hand, lounging in my palm.

I heard a growl and it was then that I saw his mother. Macaques are not large animals, but Mom was huge. Her chest was puffed out and her lips were curled back, revealing two very sharp fangs. I slowly backed away, gently lowering her baby to the ground, gibbering sounds that I thought might soothe an angry monkey, but she wasn’t buying it. Once Mom saw he was safe, she came tearing after me. I turned and ran, but she was too fast. She leaped onto my calf and took a bite. I fell to the ground, yelling and kicking wildly, trying to get her off. I managed to shake her loose, then I jumped up and ran away. After about a half a kilometer or so, I looked back for the first time, expecting hundreds of angry macaques coming after me. They were long gone, so I stopped to check my calf. It wasn’t a deep wound really, just a graze. I rinsed it off at a nearby stream and made a mental note to buy some anti-biotic cream. I also thought it a good idea to bring along somebody on my next jaunt, if for nothing else but to remind me not to play with the animals.


Back on the trail with the Danes, my ears listening for any sound, my eyes searching for any movement, my nostrils flared open for any scent, my safari hat cocked at a rakish angle. We waited…

Nothing. We moved on, maybe ten steps, then Tcht! Alright, I thought, there was definitely some animal out there and it could be anything. We would wait as long as we had to. Then, out of nowhere, Hehehe!

What was the hell was that? It seemed to be coming from behind me. Again, Hehehe!

I turned around very slowly to find… the Danish girls. Their hands were over their mouths, barely restraining themselves from giggling. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

“You stop every time we throw away a banana peel, then you sniff around like a… a mouse. Here, look,” one of the girls threw a peel off into the bush, Tcht!

They all burst out laughing. I took off my hat. It just didn’t seem to fit right anymore.

XIII. Rumble in the Jungle, Part One

If my first three weeks in the Thai jungle taught me one thing, it was this: I was not prepared, mentally or emotionally, to be a guide. There was nothing I could really do about that, and while it’s never stopped me from doing anything before (and it certainly wasn’t going to stop me now), I figured the least I could do was be better equipped.

I combed the local markets, piecing together odds and ends for a survival kit: bandages, medicine for sunstroke, salt tablets, anti-biotic cream, anything that might come in handy, at a reasonable price (the Jungle Adventure Tour Company did not share my sense of responsibility, or expenses, in these matters). Once I had the essentials, I shopped for something to complete my Look, something to make up for my utter lack of experience and competence, something that said, “I’m not just another backpacker who’s taking a job away from the locals, I’m a Jungle Guide.”

The first thing I found was a machete, but I couldn’t quite work out how to hang it from my belt and walk without cutting chunks out of my leg. I searched for something a little safer; I wanted to cultivate a certain aura of danger without actually hurting myself. Eventually I found the perfect accessory: a classic Clark Gable Mogambo African Safari hat with the brim snapped up on one side. I tried it on and instantly became the Great White Hunter. The only things missing were the elephant gun and the team of porters, but I couldn’t afford them.

The morning after my purchase, I led a trek out in the jungle, proudly, no, shamelessly wearing my hat, forgetting the survival kit back at the compound. I swaggered down the trail, leading a tour package of Danish girls who put their young, nubile lives into my now oh-so-capable hands.

After about an hour on the trail, I heard a sound Tcht! off in the bush. I stopped dead in my tracks and held up my hand, the signal for the group to stop and be quiet. Then I explained to the girls that raising my hand was the signal to stop and be quiet. I wondered if the noise could be an animal. I looked, I listened, we waited…

Nothing. I lowered my hand. We moved on. A few minutes later, another Tcht! I stopped, my hand raised. What was out there? Again I looked. I listened. I sniffed for the scent of animals. After only a few weeks of being in the jungle, I noticed that all my senses were becoming more acute, alive, sharper than ever before. I could feel the jungle. I was the jungle.

The girls were getting antsy and chattery, but I just knew there was something out there. I whispered back to them, “Whatever you do, stay close and do not, I repeat, do not pick up any babies.”

“Babies? What are you talking about?” one of them asked.

“Ssh!” it wasn’t the time for questions.

To be continued…

XII. Fake Snakes and Elephant Dung, Part Three

Beth glanced over my shoulder, “What’s Pascal got over there?”

Pascal was one of those adventurous young men annoyed by my mothering, always wandering off somewhere without me. He was squatting on a rock about fifty yards downstream. A cigarette dangling from his lips, a stick in his hand, he was poking at something lying next to him. Beth and I went to investigate. When we got close enough to see what it was, Beth froze. Pascal was poking at a cobra.

After never seeing any at all on the trails, we encounter two poisonous snakes on the same trek, the trek with the girl afraid of snakes. This had to be more than mere coincidence. This was practically a Cosmic Joke. Pascal, oblivious to the irony, or perhaps all too aware of it (one can never tell with the French), continued his poking. The cobra seemed to be taking it well, but I was fairly certain its good humor wouldn’t last much longer.

“Pascal,” I whispered, “Stop what you’re doing. Move away from the snake. Slowly.”

He turned to me with a well-practiced dismissive expression, then resumed.

“That’s a Cobra, you idiot!” I hissed, “Get away from there!”

He stood up, “I must have a photo!”

He jogged to his backpack and got a camera. He stepped in for a tight shot of the snake. It was too dangerous for him to be that close. I had to stop him. If he needed a photo, then by golly, it was my responsibility as the Jungle Guide to take it for him (it seemed to make sense at the time). I took his camera. As I focused in on the snake, I noticed one of Pascal’s cigarette butts lying next to it, spoiling the shot. I reached in to remove the butt. My hand was less than an inch away from the snake. At that moment, I looked up and saw the horrified expression on Beth’s face. That was when I fully realized what I was doing.

I always used to scoff when I heard stories about travelers traipsing around the world as though they were in some sort of protective bubble, immune from the environment. There were stories of blissfully ignorant Swiss hikers caught on erupting volcanoes, not believing that they were active, and of naïve Japanese safari tourists mauled by lions, just as they were flashing the peace sign for the camera. (The stories always seemed to involve the Swiss or Japanese.) Oh, how I scoffed. I scoffed and scoffed. Now, here I was, inches from death because of a cigarette butt, because I was a Jungle Guide with a misguided set of priorities, because I was just as idiotic as any Swiss or Japanese tourist.

I dropped the butt, slowly moved my hand out of frame, and backed away from the snake. I shoved the camera into Pascal’s hands, took him firmly by the arm and, ignoring his threats and complaints, escorted him and Beth away.

XI. Fake Snakes and Elephant Dung, Part Two

We all crawled, one after another, through the tight, pitch-black tunnel that connected the chambers of the meditation cave. The air was thick and musty; the only sounds were our breathing and the steady drip-drip-drip from who-knows-where. I held a small flashlight between my teeth, illuminating only a few feet in front of me. The rest of the group was behind me in complete darkness, feeling their way along, occasionally piling into each other.

After several feet, the tunnel opened up a bit; we could stand almost upright and walk, although it was still completely dark. The group crowded in tight; they were disconcerted and claustrophobic. Once more, I had them right where I wanted them. They didn’t know what they were approaching, but I did: a large rock on which a monk had carved a rather realistic-looking snake. I abruptly flashed my light onto the carving.

“Snake!” I shrieked.

Beth, fresh-faced and fresh out of college, absolutely freaked out. She was out of control, to the point of hyperventilating. It was more of a reaction than I expected. I tried calming her down, “Hey, look, it’s just a carving. See? It’s not real. I was just playing.”

“You’ve got a lot of god-damned nerve!” she hit my arm hard, “That wasn’t nice! I’m really afraid of snakes!”

“You do realize we’re going into the jungle tomorrow, don’t you. There are real snakes in there. Are you going to be okay with that?”

“I’ll be fine!” she pushed past me and stormed off ahead in the dark, then stopped, realizing she couldn’t go any further. I could almost hear her cross her arms in defiance.

I wasn’t making it up. There were snakes in the jungle, lots of them: pythons, cobras, green pit vipers and others, all potentially very dangerous. The truth was we rarely ran into them. They tended to stay away from the trails, at least when people were on them. Of course, there was always a possibility. I didn’t think she fully realized this. I tried to broaching the subject the next morning before we set out, but she wouldn’t speak to me. Maybe she had something to prove.

After a few hours of hiking in pretty thick terrain, we arrived at a clearing. There were a couple of fallen trees, probably pushed over by elephants some time ago. Each traveler staked out a seat as I passed out their lunches: cold fried rice and bananas. Beth sat at the far end. She took the Styrofoam container without saying a word or looking at me. I let her be and chatted with the others as we ate. Suddenly, we heard a scream from Beth’s end. We turned to see her as she leaped off her log, “Snake! I sat on a snake!”

A green pit viper, highly poisonous, quickly slithered off the log and into the bushes. She was damned lucky it didn’t bite her. When she sat on it, she probably scared it as much as it scared her.

The one traveler to encounter a snake on the trail, and it had to be her. What if she had been bitten? Could I have gotten her to a doctor in time? I didn't even carry a penknife to cut the bite and suck out the venom. Hell, I wasn't even sure if that was the right thing to do. All my experience again had boiled down to which television shows I watched.

Once Beth calmed down and could even laugh a little about it, we collected our trash and continued on the trail. We ended up, as we so often did, at a waterfall, always a perfect place to relax and wash the grime of the trail off. Beth spent her time there off alone on a rock. After a while she approached me. I began to apologize for the trick, and for not watching out for her, but she cut me off, “No, you were right. I probably shouldn’t have come here.”

“Look, that was just a freak occurrence, a one in a million thing. We never see snakes. You just got… lucky.”

She smiled, “Thanks, but I should have listened. You’re the one with the experience. I mean, I’ve only been out of the States for two weeks. I don’t know anything about jungle.”

I didn’t have the heart, no, strike that, the balls to tell her that I left the States only about a month earlier and didn't know what the fuck I was doing.

X. Fake Snakes and Elephant Dung, Part One

My newfound sense of responsibility as the ever-diligent, ever-helpful Jungle Guide had a two-fold effect on the travelers. For the young men who, not unlike myself, came to Thailand looking for adventure, I was sucking the very life out of the jungle. They couldn’t see that I was doing it for their own good. Nothing bad was going to happen to them, not here, not on my watch.

Everywhere they turned, there I was, holding every branch, testing every step. If they wandered two feet off the path, I’d be an instant one-man search party. I’d be there to assist at even the smallest of river crossings.

“Here, let me help you across,” I’d hold out my hand.

“No, I’m fine. Really.”

“The rocks are very slippery. You’d better give me your hand.”

“Leave me alone already!”


As for the less adventurously inclined, those who perhaps felt a bit apprehensive about venturing into the unknown, my constant exhortations and warnings only served to confirm their fears. It was a dangerous place indeed, the jungle, and only under the watchful eye of a seasoned professional, such as myself, could they possibly make it out alive. With these travelers, the more I fed their fears, the closer they clung to me, and the closer they clung, the more I realized how easy it would be to fuck with them.

I led a group through open grassland, an area resembling what I’d seen (in documentaries) of the African Savannah. I loved this spot. I would imagine that I was leading safaris (as if the jungles of Thailand weren’t adventure enough). We passed a rather large elephant turd, measuring at least six inches in height. I bent down and held my hand over the massive mound of waste, “It’s still warm… no more than an hour old…” then I stood up and surveyed the grasslands with my knowing, inscrutable squint, “The elephant that made this is can’t be too far off. We’d better keep our eyes open. Stay sharp, everybody,” I moved on along the trail, the travelers followed, stopping short every time a twig snapped.

It wasn’t a complete lie. Elephants actually did come through here, the dung was proof of that. It was, however, a pretty dried-out turd, probably days, if not weeks, old. But there was no need of letting the travelers know that. Why spoil their excitement? I was giving them a little more bang for their baht.

At the far end of the grasslands, there was a decomposing tree stump. Deep inside the rotted-out hole at the top, something glowed like two tiny eyes. One week back, when I first saw it, I thought it was a large insect or a small snake, but after watching it for a while, I saw that the eyes never moved or blinked. I was pretty sure it was inanimate, so I reached my hand in and nothing bit. I found a long, skinny stick alongside the stump and placed it inside the hole for later use, specifically one week later.

“Hey, look!” I beckoned the group over, “I think there’s something in here!”

One by one, they cautiously peeked inside and saw the glowing eyes. They argued about what it might be. If anyone got in too close, I’d warn them to back off a bit; they didn’t know what was in there. I had them right where I wanted them. I rolled up my sleeves, “I’m going to find out what it is.”

“Are you crazy?” they protested, “You don’t know what’s in there!”

“Relax. I know what I’m doing,” I reached in and rooted around, “Hold on. I think I got someth-- Oh fuck!” I tore my hand out of the hole, “FUCK… FUCK!!!” I spun around in panic, flailing my arm every which way, trying to shake this “thing” off my hand.

“Oh God! Somebody help him!”

“Wait a minute. What is that? Is that… is that a stick?”

“You asshole!”

They stormed off without me. I let them go while my evil cackling subsided. I knew they wouldn’t get far, the trail forked up ahead. They wouldn’t know which way to go. They needed me.

IX. The Accidental Savior

I was on the far bank of the river, tying my shoelaces, when I heard the cry, “Get Phil!” Pam, the young English girl who was supposed to be in my care, was crossing the river when the current swept her legs out from under her. She was clinging to a tree branch in panic, her legs flailed, searching blindly for something to stand on.

Why was she screaming for me? It wasn’t as dramatic as all that; it wasn’t a treacherous crossing. The rocks were large, flat, and close together. She could have easily put her feet down and walked across the river, using the branch like a railing. Besides, there was a strapping young man right in front of her. If she just stopped and calmed down for one second, she’d see his outstretched hand, only inches away. But she needed the Jungle Guide. She needed The Guy in Charge, The Alpha Male. And that, although I never truly believed it, was me. I suppose I was supposed to be there.

Granted, she was pretty, blonde and vulnerable; I had no problem with being her savior. I made my way down the bank, brushed past the strapping young man and gave her my hand. “I’m here,” I said in dulcet tones.

She looked at me with big, brown, adoring eyes as I took her by the waist and walked her across the rocks, smirking past the rolling eyes of her rejected savior. Yes, I felt heroic. Yes, I felt manly. But something told me that maybe there was more to this job that I had originally thought. This notion didn’t last long.

I took the group ─ leading with a swagger, my damsel closely behind ─ to a pond with a small waterfall. Without a word or looking back, I undressed and jumped right in. I swam across the pond and through the falls, into a crawlspace between the rock wall and the water’s cascade. Alan, a thin, goateed, decidedly non-strapping young man swam up behind me. He reached the wall and clutched at it, his breath heaving. He was having an asthma attack. He should have told me earlier about his condition. Or maybe I should have asked. Not that I could have, or even would have, done anything about it. Either way, it was too late now. He turned to me with a look that practically screamed for help.

Was this some kind of cursed expedition? Three weeks of being a Jungle Guide and nobody had any trouble, and now twice in one day. Well, the first one didn’t really count, but still…

Curse or not, I had to do something. I saw a small log bobbing around behind the falls with us. I got hold of it and brought it over to him. I managed to unclutch his grip, finger by finger, from the wall, and transfer him to the log. We floated safely back to the shore and found an inhaler in his backpack.

When I first took this job, or more accurately, fell ass-backwards into it, I thought, “Wow! I’m gonna be a Jungle Guide!” and that was the extent of my consideration. It never occurred to me that I might be responsible for others’ lives, whether they were in danger or not. Now that it did occur to me, I realized that I really wasn’t prepared for that. I had no jungle experience. I had no jungle training. I had no jungle skills. If there were a real catastrophe, I would be completely useless.

So, as we hiked back home, I made note of every rock that could be tripped over, every wet leaf that could be slipped on, and every low branch that could be walked into; and I made damn sure that everybody knew about every single one of them.

I instantly made the leap from Irresponsible Jungle Guide to Overprotective Jungle Jewish Mother.

VIII. Dharma Talks

On days off, when Maow wasn’t testing my survival skills, Tom sought to enrich my spirit. Tom was a lanky Swede, the most easy-going man I met in Thailand, which is saying a lot. No matter which direction fate took him, Tom went along without much fuss. As a young man, he joined the Merchant Marines to see the world; he didn’t care which country. When he happened to land in Thailand and happened to discover Buddhism, he happened to become a monk. After about a year at the monastery, while on a visa renewal trip to Bangkok, Maow saw him walking down the street and, deciding on the spot that he would make a fine husband, took him home with her. He was okay with that as well. For the past three years, they ran tours together in the jungle.

Tom still had a love for Buddhism and would talk about it to anyone who would listen. I had an on-again, off-again, flirting relationship with the religion for years, but never delved too deeply. Having precious little to read and no television, I accepted Tom’s books and tutorials. He took me to local monasteries and even arranged for an audience with his former abbot, a wizened, smiling, bald man who could have been dipped in gold and placed on an altar. Since I didn’t speak much Thai, the meeting consisted of me smiling uneasily at the foot of the abbot, who seemed to gaze directly into the back of my brain. This went on for several long minutes before the abbot made an obscure hand gesture towards me. This meant, Tom said, that I was to sit and meditate for the next hour with the abbot. I wasn’t exactly prepared for this, but how do you say “no” to the Buddha? I couldn’t even say “no” in Thai. Before we began, Tom taught me the traditional Thai mantra, “Pu-,” with every inhale, and “toh,” with every exhale. Over the course of the hour, my mind stayed with the mantra a total of maybe three minutes. Tom assured me that this would get better with practice, as would the knee and the back pain.

On the ride back home, we passed a Traditional Thai Massage parlor. I convinced Tom that he owed my aching back that much, so we stopped in. As our buttocks were being dabbed with hot sacks of herbs by chattering masseuses, Tom told me about his time in the monastery, “When you first get there, you think it’s great, but after a few months, the novelty wears off. It’s not that glamorous, sleeping on a stone bed with a wooden pillow, waking up every single morning at 4:30. It’s just a job after a while, a sixteen hour, seven day a week job.”

I asked him if it was worth it. He said it was for the occasional glimpses, moments when his mind would “pop open like a cork,” and then everything would be clear. But these moments were fleeting; he knew the process took a lifetime. His long-term strategy was to return to the monastery when he was sixty and finish out his life as a monk.

As our respective masseuses kneeled on top of us and bent us into a variety of shapes, Tom told me, between groans, about some of the older monks who, having been regularly meditating for decades, developed telepathic abilities. Once, when Tom was thinking of quitting, one of these elders convinced him to stay, referring to an incident in Tom’s past which he never told anyone about. “I don’t know how else he could have known. I think maybe (Christ!) when you meditate for a long time, it clears out the noise in your mind and you (Fuck!) can access some kind of shared consciousness (oh, that’s better).”

He wanted to develop that in himself, but was warned that chasing after those powers was considered “off the path.” If certain abilities developed, he was to note them, but let them go. “Go back to the breathing, always go back to the breathing,” they told him. The only time he should use these abilities was if it would help somebody. Anything else was considered a dangerous ego feed.

While my masseuse made me painfully aware of my body’s limitations, I realized that my ideas of Buddhism were just as limited, especially after Tom told me the story of the young monk who was stuck in a state of bliss. The monk thought he had reached Nirvana and he had stopped progressing. The abbot brought in a specialist monk from another monastery, a “fixer” (I pictured Harvey Keitel with a shaved head and saffron robes). He came to shock the young monk out of his blissful state. It all happened in private over many days. Tom didn’t see the procedure; he thought maybe it was like cult deprogramming, or maybe like the eye-clamp scene in A Clockwork Orange. I probably would have been as content with the blissful state as the young monk. I always thought that bliss and Nirvana were the same thing.

We drove home in silence, our bodies relieved, relaxed, stretched out, and smelling like Tom Yam with lemongrass, each lost in our own thoughts. I had no idea what enlightenment, or Buddhism, was really all about. I had a lot to learn and over the next few months, in between tours, Tom was happy to oblige me.

VII. Fire Ants and Jungle Rot

No travelers arrived, but instead of a day off, Maow, boss of the Thai Jungle Adventure Tour company, decided to test me to see if I could keep up with her. Maow was the perfect name for her, everything about her suggested a cat; the way she moved, the way she seemed ready to pounce when she didn’t move, the way she smiled whenever I finally realized that she was messing with me.

The test began at the river, which Maow quickly crossed, hopping from rock to rock. I’ve never been any good at rock-hopping, so after falling in a few times, I gave up and waded across. My feet got soaked, but it was a hot day, so it seemed logical to let my boots dry on me.

There were no paths on the other side of the river, as far as I could see, but that didn’t stop Maow. Her family hunted in this jungle for generations. This was a walk in the park for her. After about an hour of chasing her, I finally caught up at the top of a cliff.

“Now what?” I asked, catching my breath, but she was already gone.

I peeked over the cliff. Maow was climbing down a lattice of gnarled roots.

“Are these strong enough?” I called down.

She looked up, shrugged, and kept going. Being worse with heights than I am with rock-hopping, I crawled over butt-first and tested the top root. Once I decided it could hold my weight, I felt around for the next one, and tested that. I wasn’t taking any chances. The song from Santa Claus is Coming to Town kept playing in my head, “Put one foot in front of the other, and soon you’ll be walkin’ ‘cross the floor-or-or…” although it didn’t technically apply.

When I finally made it down, Maow was already scrambling away. I ran after her, over fallen trees, through ditches, and up a steep hillside. I edged my way around the corner of a narrow ledge, blindly feeling for something to hold on to, when I put my hand into a nest of something; a burning, biting nest of something. My hand was covered with tiny red ants ─ Fire Ants! I don’t know if that’s what they’re really called, but I liked the sound of it.

I tried shaking them off, but they stayed on. I tried picking and blowing them off, but they stayed on. I tried wiping them off on my pants, but they stayed on. In the process, they managed to make it to my other hand as well, burrowing between fingers. My hands were burning and blistering but there was nothing I could do about them; I was losing track of Maow. I ran down the hill after her, waving my hands in the air like a cartoon housewife being chased by a mouse. Fortunately, there was a river at the bottom of the hill. I plunged my hands in the soothing water. Had I actually been a cartoon housewife, there would have been a hissing sound and rising steam.

“Hey! Whatch’you waiting for?” Maow yelled from atop a huge boulder above me. She was hanging onto a vine, “Come on!” She jumped off the boulder and swung right across the river.

By this point, my enthusiasm had dampened somewhat. Aside from my blistered hands, I was sticky, sweaty, encrusted in mud, and my feet were starting to itch. Still, I’ve always been a sucker for a Tarzan vine. I climbed up and Maow flung the vine to me. In a literal leap of faith, I swung across the river, forgetting all my pain, my irritation and self-pity.

God, I loved the jungle!

The next morning, my feet were purple and swollen to twice their normal size ─ Jungle Rot! I don’t know if that’s what it’s really called either, but, again, I liked the sound of it. I should have taken my shoes and socks off to dry when I first got them wet. Now my feet belonged to the Elephant Man.

I pried open my toes and wedged in my flip-flops; not that it mattered, I couldn’t walk anyway. Maow dragged me to the back of the pickup truck and threw me in. She drove me to the local clinic where a doctor plunged a long needle right into the bottom of my very sensitive foot. “If the shot really needed to be in the foot, why only one foot?” I thought. But I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful; the treatment only cost a dollar.

The doctor gave me some cream and a baggie full of pills (Thai clinics always give you a baggie full of pills; no matter what you go in for). Three days later, my feet were back to normal. I was walking again and jumping and skipping around. I think it was the pills. I don’t know what they were, I never asked. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

VI. Jew of the Jungle, Part Two

I was lost in the jungle in Thailand.

And I was responsible for three other lives, armed with nothing but a map that might as well be drawn on a cocktail napkin. How the hell did I get here? One week ago I was in the States, sitting on a couch, watching Star Trek reruns and now…

I don’t know how long I was standing there retracing my life steps, no doubt with some dopey look on my face, but the group sensed that something was amiss. Maybe their Mighty Jungle Guide didn’t know what he was doing. Maybe he was just a guy like them who happened to fall into the job with nothing but a cocktail napkin to guide him. What would they do? Would they panic? Would they mutiny? Would they take my napkin?

“What’s that in your hand?” Cost finally took off his headphones. Now he’s aware… great.

“This? Nothing…”

“Here, let me see that,” Adolph snatched it from my hand and inspected it, “It’s a piece of crap drawing! What’s going on here?!”

“Oh my God!” Frannie hyperventilated, “We’re lost!”

“We’re not lost,” I assured them.

I slowly surveyed their faces; Panicked Frannie to Bemused Cost to Seething Adolph, who I just knew was thinking, “Jew Bastard!” But they weren’t circling in on me, not yet. I stalled for time, trying to figure out my next move. Should I brass it out, pretend I knew what I was doing? They would probably see right through me. I decided to come clean, in a way.

“We’re not lost. We’re just slightly off-trail.”

“What does that mean?” Frannie demanded.

“It means we’re going to back-track. We’ll find where we came in and retrace our steps until we get back to the main trail, okay?”

After a bit of grumbling and what-choice-do-we-haves, everyone took a section of the clearing’s perimeter, searching for a small trail, footprints, broken rattan, anything that might suggest we came from there.

“I found something,” the Dutchman yelled, his headphones back on.

It seemed right, so we went, back through the rattan, back through the deer trail, and finally to the elephant trail. Amid great relief there was still a problem. We couldn’t follow it all the way back, we would end up where we started. Our only option: continue backtracking and hope that the right way to the waterfall would present itself. We carried on, arriving again at the wrong way red arrow.

“Here it is. Here’s where you went wrong,” Adolph proclaimed.

… filthy Jew! Come on, say it, you know you want to.

“No, I told you before. This arrow is wrong.”

“You also said to trust you and we got lost.”

I glanced up ahead at the alternate path. It was clear, wide, easy to follow. I began to doubt Tom myself. After all, what did I really know about him? I just met him the other day. He could be wrong. Worse yet, he just might have a warped sense of humor. I didn’t know what to do. I waited for some kind of divine guidance, and maybe that’s what it was: I heard the sound of rushing water. Was it there all along?

“Do you hear that?”

“What?”

“The river!”

“So?”

“We’re going to the waterfall, right? That’s where the river has to be heading! Everybody stay right here! I’ll be right back!”

I ran, following the sound of the river, hurtling through rattan and, after several yards, there it was; whitewater, gloriously rushing downhill and, thank God, in only one direction. If we kept the sound of the river close and to our right, it would have to lead us to the waterfall. That would show the German. I turned to strut back, then stopped. I couldn’t see where I came from. I was lost again.

“Hellooooo…” my deflated cry.

“Helloooo…” I heard back in German and English accents.

“Keep yelling so I can find you!”

I followed their sounds, most of it curses. On the way, I don’t know how I missed it before; I stumbled across a clear path, complete with a red marking. An elephant path, and it followed along the river.

“I found the right trail!”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive! Let’s go! Follow my voice!”

In my excitement, I ran down the trail, the group behind me, shouting at me to slow down.

At the end of the trail, Tom was waiting for us on a large flat boulder with our picnic. Behind him, a lake with a misting, thundering thirty-foot high waterfall. Overjoyed, we stripped to our underwear, jumped in, splashed around, and then ate the best cold fried rice in the world.

After lunch, sitting alone on the boulder, I worried that Tom would be informed of my mishap -- no, incompetence. Adolph and Frannie walked by, stopped, and discussed something, glancing in my direction. Here it comes, I thought, the big showdown. Adolph climbed the rock and sat next to me.

“You know, in Germany, I am a schoolteacher. Young children. One thing I have learned is that if you don’t know the answer, the children can always tell, and if you pretend or lie, they will lose faith in you. What you did back there was the right thing,” he slapped me on the back, jumped off the boulder, and returned to his wife, who forced a smile. I wondered if there was a word in German for feeling relief, pride, and shame at the same time

Behind me, Cost was dancing, waist-deep in the water. He saw me and waved. I asked him his real name, but he couldn’t hear me.

V. Jew of the Jungle, Part One

“There are no maps to the park!?”

Tom chuckled, “What, you think you’re in Yellowstone or something? This is Thailand.”

We sat in the cab of the company pickup truck, parked at the trailhead, Tom was behind the wheel. He reached past me to grab a tattered notebook off the dashboard and tore off a piece of paper. He drew a map: a line, a couple of circles, a square for the final destination.

“There are red trail marks on some of the trees, but don’t trust them,” he said.

Twenty years ago, park rangers marked the elephant’s feeding routes, making instant hiking trails, but in the years since, many of the trees were knocked over or the bark chewed off.

“Here there is a large tree with huge roots, taller than you. You can’t miss it. After about kilometer or so, you’ll come to a fork in the path. There’s a tree in between with a red arrow, but it’s pointing in the wrong direction. Go the other way.”

“Tom, I don’t think I’m ready to take a group by myself.”

“It’s no big deal. You’ve been on this trail before.”

I had been on the trail once, two days before; my one day of Jungle Guide training. Tom took me along on a group trek so I could get a feel for the job. Unfortunately, the surroundings still overwhelmed me; the Tarzan vines, the gibbons whooping in the trees, the great hornbills winging overhead. I gawked the entire trek, playing and kibitzing with the travelers, paying no attention to the trail itself. I should have been up at the front with Tom, learning the way, instead of pulling up the rear. But it was too late now. Tom handed me the map and I got out of the truck.

I officially met my charges as they piled out the back. First was the German with the closely trimmed moustache, “My name is Adolph, you know, like…” he redundantly placed two fingers under his nose and heiled, “… but of course, that was along time ago.”

“Of course,” I wondered if he always said that to Jews to put us at ease. If so, it wasn’t entirely successful.

Next, his wife Frannie, a brittle Englishwoman, who made it quite clear that jungle trekking was her husband’s idea. Finally, the Dutchman, Cost. I think it was Cost. It sounded like Cost. I never got a correction; he had his headphones on all the time. I could say just about anything to him and get the same nod in return.

Tom called to me from his seat and said to meet him at the waterfall (the square on the map) in an hour and a half; the trek shouldn’t take longer than that. He would be waiting there with fried rice and bananas. I wanted to ask him to lead the trek just once more, but I knew it wouldn’t happen.

“See you later,” he chimed, speeding off with a backhanded wave.

I drew myself up, assumed the posture of the confident, seen-it-all Jungle Guide, and forged ahead onto the trail. Everything seemed fine; the trail was wide and easy to follow. We passed the occasional red mark, which, although I was told not to trust them, bolstered my confidence. We eventually came to the aforementioned tree, its huge roots like flying buttresses seven or eight feet tall where they connected to the trunk. We took photos, played on the roots, and then moved on. The next mark, after about a kilometer, was the “wrong” arrow. I followed Tom’s instructions and went the other way.

“Hey, the arrow says that way!” Adolph observed.

“The arrow’s wrong. Trust me,” but I saw doubt in his eyes.

The trail was still wide for another half kilometer, then narrowed. I didn’t think much of it, it was still clear enough to follow. Then it narrowed even more. The elephant trail had become a deer trail. I consulted my scrap of paper without letting the others see. There was nothing to suggest this development, just the crooked line that represented the whole trail. I pressed on, hoping for the best. The deer trail became a rodent trail, sharp rattan leaves drooped over it from both sides. Frannie and Adolph complained that the rattan was cutting their legs, but there was a hint of trail, so still I pressed on, making poor attempts at good humor; jokes about getting the “Full Jungle Experience.”

I lucked out, or thought I did. The rodent trail opened up ahead. I rushed the group through the cutting leaves to a clearing.

“See? No problem at all!”

“My legs are bleeding!” Frannie pointed out to me.

Wiping blood off of my own legs, “I guess we should have worn long pants, heh heh…”

“You should have told us!”

I couldn’t tell her that I hadn’t expected it either. Adolph glared at me, then tended to his wife’s scratches with first-aid from his fanny pack. I left them to their wounds and resentments and searched for the rest of the trail.

I walked around the whole clearing, but there was no obvious path to be found. It seemed like a good time to start worrying. Maybe there was something on the map… of course not. By now I had turned around so often that I couldn’t tell where we had come in. Every direction looked the same, like jungle. The full import of the situation was slowly dawning on me.

I was lost.

In the jungle.

In Thailand.

To be continued…

IV. I Become a Jungle Guide

As night fell we were herded into the tour company pickup truck and went off searching for animals. Driving along a narrow road cut through the heart of the jungle, we were given two portable spotlights and taught to methodically comb the bush with the beams, seeking the reflected glow of animal eyes. As I sat in the back of the truck’s open bed, it occurred to me that if we did run into elephants or tigers, this vehicle would offer no protection whatsoever.

We drove for a couple of hours, stopping every time we saw a glow. We would wait, training both beams onto the area until we could spot the animal. Most of the time it turned out to be small monkeys, deer, or civets (a cat-like creature related to the mongoose). One time we spotted a chicken near the road. Tom said it was a Jungle Chicken, but I couldn’t see the difference. I was beginning to think the flyer was all hype, when we heard a large rustling in the bush. Tom stopped the truck. He turned off the ignition and told us to turn off the spotlights. Whatever it was, we didn’t want to scare it off. We waited; hearts pounding, wondering what it could be. The rustling got louder and closer, becoming more distinct. The ground thudded from some great weight. Branches were twisting, tearing, cracking, and crunching. Then, bursting through the bush: an elephant! A real elephant in real life, not on the Discovery channel, not in the zoo, but a full grown wild elephant eating dinner.

Actually, “eating” is putting it mildly. It would wrap its trunk around a bunch of bamboo, tear it off, and shove it all into its mouth; twigs, leaves and branches. Although the elephant was making a lot of noise, we were told to be quiet; not to spook him.

Nobody could stay quiet, of course. We were all too excited. The elephant got annoyed, and after it had had enough, turned towards us and charged. Tom jumped into the cab of the truck and turned the ignition but it wouldn’t start. Of course, it wouldn’t start. The elephant was rapidly approaching, travelers were screaming, the engine droning and straining. It finally started, but instead of taking off, we rolled backwards, right into the elephant. Everything happened in slow motion as the elephant and I came to within inches of each other, face to face. My entire field of vision was filled with elephant.

An odd stillness came over me. I turned to the travelers and with a calm yet commanding “SSSSHHHH,” they quieted. The elephant just stopped. We just sort of looked at each other as Tom got the truck got into gear and pulled away.

We watched behind us as the elephant made a derisive snort and turn back to its dinner. Apparently it was a bluff. He just wanted to eat in peace. Later I learned that the elephants here make bluff runs all the time. You can tell by the position of their ears. Nobody mentioned that before either.

The next morning, the tour being over, I threw on my backpack, ready to move on to the next adventure. I had no plans other than for Fate to take me by the hand. I said my goodbyes to Tom and Maow and they offered me a job. This took me by surprise. I told them I’d have to think about it.

I took off my pack and sat down on a bench. They turned to leave, to give me time to think, making it maybe two steps before I said, “Yes.”

I like to think I was offered the job because of the way I dealt with the elephant or perhaps my nonchalance over the leeches. But the truth is that I was traveling on my own, with no plans or attachments, and spoke halfway decent English. Anyone with those qualifications might have been offered the job. It just happened to be me. The Hand of Fate reached out to me quicker than I expected. How could I say no? There was no money in it. 100 baht for a full day tour, 50 baht for a half day. With the exchange rate of the time, it worked out to $4.00 and $2.00, respectively. They would, however, cover room and board, and there would be enough Tuna Fish Ice Cream to last a lifetime. Plus, it made for a great first postcard to the folks back home:

Dear _______,
Well, I’ve been in Asia for less than a week. I’ve had a balloon popped out of my hand by a blow-dart wielding vagina. I’ve been sucked by leeches, swarmed by bats, and charged by an elephant. Oh, by the way, I’m working as a Jungle Guide.
Love,
Phil

Even my father was impressed.

III. I Take The Tour, Part Two

The next morning the tour headed out into the jungle as advertised. I wore my blue jeans because they didn’t stink of bat guano. This was not a good idea; jeans have no flexibility or freedom of movement, and they get very heavy when wet, like, say, oh… just for example, when you fall into a river.

During a river crossing early in the trek, I slipped on a mossy rock and fell in, soaking my jeans. I trudged to the bank and took them off, uncovering several thick, happy, blood-engorged leeches on my legs, trailing streams of blood. My blood.

When people think of leeches they usually think of the scene in The African Queen, when Bogie comes out of the water covered with them looking like huge slabs of raw liver. That may be true of African or Hollywood leeches, but Thai leeches are a bit smaller. In fact, when they aren’t blood-engorged, they’re kind of cute. They look like tapered black inchworms, sitting upright on the ground or on leaves, their little heads moving around as though they’re watching the travelers go by, kind of like the cave monks (see previous posting).

We took lots of pictures: me with my leech covered legs, my leech covered legs with the other travelers, close-ups, and a shot by shot re-creation of my fall off the rock. When we had enough pictures, I lit a cigarette to burn them off. One quick jab and off they come. Maow told me not to pull them off. They are far too slimy to get a good grip, and they end up leaving a piece of themselves in you, a little sticker device that secretes anti-coagulant, so you continue bleeding long after the rest of the leech is gone.

She showed me an old Thai hunter trick to prevent leech attack in the first place: take a wad of wet bulk tobacco and smear the juice all over your legs, then place the tobacco itself inside the rims of your socks and shoes. The leeches won’t go near you, they can’t stand the stuff. If you are barefoot or wearing flip-flops, which is usually the case with Thai hunters, smear the juice on your feet and stick the tobacco between your toes. Repeat after each time you fall into a river.

Funny how Maow hadn’t mentioned this earlier.

To be continued…