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…

II. I Take the Tour, Part One

The Jungle Adventure Tour Company was a low-budget operation run by Tom, a Swedish ex-monk ex-Merchant Marine, and his wife Maow, who was from a long line of Thai hunters. He knew travelers. She knew the jungle. Their basic business strategy was to wait around until at least five travelers strayed into their compound, load them onto a beat-up pickup truck and drive into the jungle, with some bananas and fried rice picnic lunches.

The first stop on the tour was not actually jungle. It was a forest monastery. Our group’s confusion and disappointment quickly evaporated when we saw a large hole in the middle of the grounds. Tom led us crawling into the hole which opened up into a vast underground cave, a prehistoric cathedral. Christmas lights were strung along stalactites, and there were Buddhas everywhere. Off the main chamber were hundreds of pitch-black, deadly-quiet nooks and crannies, perfect for meditating monks.

Those monks probably didn’t notice us crawling around, exploring the cave. The non-meditating monks, on the other hand, sat around the larger chambers, watching us and smoking cigarettes, giving us the thumbs up as we passed.

After the cave, we were piled back onto the truck and driven to the next stop: a small mountain. Most of the travelers were not in good shape and slowed the group down, but Tom kept pushing us to get to our secret destination by sunset. Something special was to happen then. As we got closer, the secret began revealing its odor, a pungent combination of match-heads and shit. The higher we climbed, the stronger it got. What was it we were in such a rush to get to? And why?

It was another cave, but it was no meditation cave. The Buddha himself couldn’t meditate in there. Tom dared us to enter the floor of the cave, covered with a thousand years’ worth of bat droppings. What choice did I have? Living by a credo is not always a bed of roses.

Breathing through my mouth, I entered the cave. I sank into guano up to my ankles, thanking God that I wore my boots. Every step was a struggle, accompanied by a sickening squishing suction sound. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see the cave was not so deep but very high. The ceiling was covered by what looked like soundproofing. A piece of it fell off, then swooped down and shot past my head: a bat. Another fell off, and then another. Soon, a steady stream of bats were whizzing past my head, getting thicker by the second. The air was filled with buzzing, humming, flapping, and high-pitched whistling. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of bats were waking up to the sunset and swarming out into the night, while hawks and owls waited outside, poised to strike. Flying directly into the stream of bats, the birds snatched them one by one, right out of the air. Tom, not one to be shown up by a bird of prey, climbed a rock next to the mouth of the cave, reached his hand in, and plucked out a bat of his own. It squealed, as did the travelers. Tom spread its translucent wings, giggled, and then let it go. In the Tuna Fish Ice Cream game, there is always a faster gun.

The bat flow eventually ebbed and we stumbled our way down the mountain in the dark, following Tom’s lone flashlight. I wondered if I’d ever get the smell out of my clothes. Maybe there was a Laundromat in the jungle.

To be continued...

I. First Stop, Bangkok

Every ten years, I throw away my future. This isn’t necessarily a premeditated life choice; it’s more like a biological cycle. Whenever my age hits a multiple of ten, an overwhelming urge comes over me. I need to quit whatever job I have, rid myself of nonessential possessions, and take off into the world with no plans, but one imperative: taste new Tuna Fish Ice Cream. I never know what form it will take until I find it, but when I find it, I taste it.

When the urge hit me on my thirtieth birthday, after what, in retrospect, seems like very little consideration, I flew into the belly of the beast: Bangkok, the Tuna Fish Ice Cream capital of the world.

After two days sleeping and acclimating to the heat, humidity and pollution, I ventured out of my guesthouse to sample the local culture: the Reclining Buddha, the Standing Buddha, the Emerald Buddha, the Golden Buddha, and the live sex show…


Sinister looking Thai men in sunglasses prowled the darkened room, handing out balloons to select audience members. Being one of the few foreigners at the sex show, I was given one. I held it in front of my face. The girl lying on her back onstage had just finished smoking a cigarette with her vagina. I thought, "it must be like kissing an ashtray." She now inserted a blowgun in the same locale. I quickly put two and two together and held the balloon as far away from my face as possible. The little sniper loaded a dart in the blowgun, contracted her muscles, and “POP!” blew the balloon right out of my hand. She quickly reloaded. “POP! POP! POP!” went every single balloon in the room, no matter the distance or angle. Aside from any moral or political issues such an act might bring up, one had to admire the skill.

The next girl came on pulling a string of razor blades out of her vagina. Things went as smoothly as could be expected until one of the blades got stuck. As she attempted to remove it, a large drop of blood hit the floor. Did she cut her finger or her vagina? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t want to look too closely. I was reaching the edge of my particular envelope with this act, and began questioning my reasons for being there. A young girl was harming herself to satisfy my need for experience. It wasn’t even my experience; it was hers. Watching Tuna Fish Ice Cream was not the same as Tasting Tuna Fish Ice Cream.

(I found out much later how the trick was done, easing my conscience, at least a little. Here’s how: thread together several razor blades and stack them inside a matchbox, then insert the matchbox just inside your vagina. With a little practice you can pull the string of blades out smoothly without showing the matchbox. For the piece de resistance, place a small baggie filled with goat’s blood alongside the matchbox. At the appropriate moment, pop the baggie. The rest is all in how you sell it.)

I was just about to leave, but it was time for the actual sex portion of the live sex show. There hadn’t been any sex so far, just tricks involving various body parts, a low-budget sexual Cirque du Soleil. A young girl shuffled out onto the stage and lie down on her back. A bored young man followed and dropped to his knees. He eased himself in, and began pumping away; staying in the same position, with the same motion and the same rhythm, for a long, long, long time, maintaining both his erection and bored expression. He looked around the room for something to interest him; the girl seemed just as involved. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she started filing her nails.

I looked around the room myself: fat Chinese businessmen chomping on cigars, laughing at the couple while snuggling their prostitutes, and a couple of jaded Euro-trash tourists, possibly looking for a threesome after the show. Perhaps I was projecting, but it got me thinking. Was this what I wanted? Was this what tasting Tuna Fish Ice Cream ultimately led to? Or could it be for something purer and nobler in spirit? Say, expanding one’s horizons or even personal growth, for lack of a less saccharine term.

I left the live sex show. I needed to cleanse my palate.

I set out the next day to do some normal sightseeing, my only plan, to wander around Bangkok, stay open and wait for the Gods of Tuna Fish to take me by the hand. As it turned out, this was the best way to go, for only three days later, there it was, across my breakfast table: the filthy, folded flyer that forever changed my life:

Jungle Adventure Tour!
Real Jungle Trekking!
See Elephants!

Tigers! Snakes!

I hopped the next bus out of Bangkok.

To be continued...

Prologue

It was a beautiful weekday morning, much too beautiful to go to work, so my roommate Dan and I both decided to call in sick. We lit up a joint, fell on the couch and watched an old Star Trek rerun, promising ourselves that we would go out as soon as the episode was over. But this was not to be.

“They’re gonna show the Space Hippies episode,” Dan announced, “we can’t leave now,” so we watched and giggled and sang along with the big-head hippy with the space-age guitar, “Headin’ out to Eden, yea brother. Headin’ out to Eden, yea brother. Yea.”

Before long, we broke out the Ben and Jerry’s and in between bites, became embroiled in a deep, philosophical debate of the strangest ice cream flavors we had ever encountered. It started out small and not too strange. Dan opened with green tea ice cream. I countered with red bean. He shot back immediately with jalapeno pepper, but then I let him have it: cucumber. “Yes, cucumber ice cream,” I told him, “Surprisingly refreshing.”

I thought I had him beat, but he held the winning hand all along. “I once went to a Baskin-Robbins in St. Louis, Missouri,” he began, “In this palace of 31 flavors, the unlisted, yet available, 32nd flavor was… tuna fish ice cream,” then he leaned back, clasped his hands behind his head, and smiled like the Buddha.

Tuna Fish Ice Cream. It blew my mind. I had to know what it was like.

“I don’t know,” he said, “I didn’t try it.”

“Didn’t try it? How could you not try it? Not even a little taste? On one of those little spoons. Just to see.”

“I wasn’t gonna try it. That’s disgusting.”

“But that’s the point!” I screamed. I screamed for ice cream. For the life of me I couldn’t understand why someone wouldn’t be curious enough to try. I knew I would have tried it, would had to have tried it. I needed to know everything about it. How fishy was it? What kind of tuna was it? Was it Chunk Light? Was it Albacore? Was it a smooth blend or were there chunks of tuna in it? What kind of mix-ins would go with it? And how about toppings? I imagined perhaps a melted cheddar cheese.

He didn’t want to discuss it any further so he went out for a walk. But I couldn’t let it go. I stayed on the couch all morning, fixated on the idea. The more I thought about it, the more I knew it wasn’t only about tuna fish ice cream; it wasn’t even about food anymore. It became something infinitely greater.

It became my call to arms, my credo. I could see it emblazoned in gold and dripping fire:

Taste the Tuna Fish Ice Cream!

In whatever form it may take. Anything out of the ordinary, bizarre, improbable, implausible, unthinkable, or undeniably downright disgusting, I am compelled to try; and, on occasion, actively seek out. Stir-fried Locusts? Sure, I’ll try it. Jump out of an airplane? Why not? Sex with a Thai transvestite? Gimme two!

For better or worse, in one way or another, this credo has been responsible for most of my life and career choices since that morning twenty years ago. Was it worth it? Today, Dan’s got a respectable career teaching college English. Me? Once a prospective employer sees my resume, I never get hired, but they always invite me to lunch, so they can hear my stories. So now, if I’m feeling hungry, I just apply for a job.