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…