Update From Bangkok and Thoughts On the Sex Trade

Well, after 3 months of traveling around varying degrees of the 1st and 2nd world, I am now back in Thailand. I spent nearly 2 weeks in the northern part of the country in Chiang Mai, which is a relatively quiet and peaceful city. In fact, as major cities go, Chiang Mai, of all the cities I've been, best encapsulates the Zen quietude one would expect from a nation of Buddhists. My 2 week reprieve there was a much needed rest before coming back to Bangkok. And oh, Bangkok, what a sordid little world this is. Bangkok is something like a cross between Vegas, a sewage plant, a flea market, and what I sometimes imagine the 2nd or 3rd level of Hell to feel like (though, in this, our 2nd time through, we've come across some pretty temperate weather). But Bangkok is not all bad. In small doses it can be a decent place to spend time when en route to elsewhere. The food, once your stomach learns the right kind of bacterial defense, and once your palette adjusts to the nuclear grade chili sauces, is some of the best I've had. And cheap, like $3.00 will get you a hearty plate of chicken pad-tai, some spring rolls, and an ice-cold 20oz. Beer Chang. Likewise, as a post-prandial treat, you can walk yourself around any street corner in the city and lay down a measly $4.00 for an hour-long massage - with supplemental services offered for just a nominal surcharge (though, of course, I only know this from second-hand sources – excuse the pun). But while we're on the topic, this is as a good a time as any to talk about the whole Bangkok sex scene.

A lot has been made of Thailand's reputation, and from what I've seen here, the stereotypes are pretty accurate; sexual modesty is not a virtue of Thai culture. That is, the kinds of taboos and hush-hush attitudes about strippers and prostitution and pornography and all those kinds of things, that we in the Western World seem very eager to enforce, simply do not exist here. It's not that, let's call it "sex recreation", is ubiquitously flaunted here, but it operates in a very accessible and acceptable way. Going to the strip clubs or a brothel is just something someone chooses to do over a night at the movies or bowling. But be careful once you enter that world; sex recreation is not some leisurely game. It's composed of the same shady elements as the sex trade anywhere else, but of course with it's own local flavor. Take, for example, Patpong or Nana Square, two areas in the heart of Bangkok where the girls attack Western boys like swarms of jungle mosquitoes. To be white and stinking of vacationer's money, in Bangkok, is to be loved. Thai girls most definitely have Western tastes, are enthralled by the light eyes and hairy bodies, and are easily blinded by the assumption of our wealth. And those girls are relentless – clutching at loose limbs, shedding their clothes one enticing bit at a time, whispering unspeakable promises into our drunken ears, and all in all, calling out to the lonesome streetwalker like an oasis to the desert-stricken soul. But beware of the lady-boys, who can be some of the best looking broads out there to be sure, but whose honey jars between their legs are not honey-jars at all, but get snugged tightly under a pair of panties and wrapped around the backside so to be almost imperceptible as viewed in after-midnight swirly-vision. Plus, the lady-boys, for whatever reason, have proven to take a disproportionate liking to me, and I often find myself resorting to old MOL days, dodging and juking at every turn. And they're strong enough that once 2 or 3 of them have a firm hold on your arm, it's all you can do to break free. "You have gilfriend?" "You want girlfiend?" "You want boom-boom?" "Mmmm, kissy, kissy. Me no lady-boy. You feel. No lady-boy. Mmmmm, kissy, kissy." Like some debauched meditative mantra, looped until the dawnlight sends them all back into hiding.

Despite all the grabbing, suggestive petting, and the left-shoulder imp demanding otherwise, sometimes it's probably best just to watch. For a viewing experience you will not soon forget, grab a beer and sidle your way into just about any side-street bar you see. While the choices are seemingly endless, my recommendation would have to be either "Super Pussy" or "Kiss My Middle Face", a pair of go-go bars which each make for the quintessential Patpong experience, and where the subtlety and refinement of the evening's entertainment is matched only by the gaudy neon banners bearing the establishments' names. Once inside, at the cost of 2 beers and any claims to innocence, you'll see strippers doing ordinary stripper things of course, but you'll also see some just flat-out f'd-up exotic shit, like girls playing ping-pong with paddles stuffed inside their honey jars. (I'm really sorry, but there is just no way to do this tastefully.) If anyone tries to hand you a balloon, either refuse it or duck, darts will soon be flying, and those girls are not throwing the darts with their hands. Yes, they are legitimate honey-jar virtuosos; they'll draw face caricatures, uncork wine bottles, not just play ping-pong but swallow the things up whole and spit them back out at happy-to-oblige first-row oglers, remove bottle caps, play the harmonica, and could probably even do some engine repair with the right set of tools. It's a scene, man. No doubt.

To be fair though, as implied above, Thailand's reputation is not just on account of the strip-clubs, and hookers, lady-boys, porn outlets, and "massage" parlors (all that exists of course, and in droves), but what struck me especially in Bangkok, and is true to no less a degree on the islands or up north, is people's self-possessed attitudes about sex in general, regular non-sex-industry people, their lack of hang-ups and neuroses which tend to make the whole enterprise (sex, that is) somewhat confusing and often ridiculous in a different cultural context. From what I have gleaned in my short time here, it's not that sex is held in a simplistic light as some utilitarian undertaking, an animalistic routine devoid of any mystery or of the seductive interplay between two people making eyes across a barroom. Neither is it, obviously, that Thais hold up sex to some pristine light of the divine. Sex is neither glamorous nor purely carnal, but if managed correctly, can at worst be not ugly, and at best is nothing more or less than just fun. How, culturally, Thais have managed to get to this point, to strip sex of all the things that make American men put their heads down in shame when they walk out of the movie store with a bag full of porn (assuming he's even assured enough to make it that far), is a mystery. But whatever the case, I think it is a fine way to approach the whole mess.

TREK: PART II

On that second morning of the trek, as is often the case when waking abruptly in a new place for the first time, it took me a moment to remember where I was and how I had gotten there. But unlike waking in a hotel room or a stranger's bed, where the surroundings may be different but still familiar enough, waking in a village hut, startled from sleep by a chorus-line of rooster caws, with a clay cistern boiling at my toes, the low lying mountain fog threatening to seep through the cracks in the thatched bamboo wall, and 10 or so agog children staring at me in stunned silence, the question of where and how, was supplanted by the question of whether or not I just was, whether these things were merely hypnagogic delusions or in fact based in the reality that I felt and smelled all around me.

As I sat upright from my sleeping bag and lifted my hands to rub the sleep from my eyes, the children, as though I might attack them at any moment, scampered from their position in the doorway and bolted for the outlaying forest. The thought that I might make one of them my breakfast, surely must have crossed their minds. The village chief, in the typical Asian squat (go to Chinatown and observe if you don't know what I mean) smoking a large hand rolled cigarette, and his wife, herself squatted over the cistern in which boiled our day's supply of water, both turned to me and smiled as the children fled. Though, they too, while laughing with me, still retained an element of distrust in their gaze, or if not distrust than uncertainty. To the adults we were as much an oddity as we were to the children. Our guides would explain that the adults from this village knew about white people, several had in fact seen them on trips to the Mekong villages, but only as they passed on boats going to or from Luang Prabang. Sometime in the 1950's a few French soldiers had come through the village to recruit them to fight against invading Vietnamese forces, but even the oldest villager was just an infant then and the story of the Frenchmen exists now in myth as much as in truth. We would learn later, after we had left, that next February this particular tribe, 21 families in all, who had occupied this land for the last 200 years, was abandoning the village to assimilate with the tribes closer to the Mekong. Kong explained that over the last few years the tribe had experienced an epidemic of mysterious deaths and that their land was now being haunted by the ghosts of those who had past. The village chief had informed Gao that our unlikely appearance was just another ominous portent demanding their immediate evacuation. We did not stay long that second morning as we had another long day of hiking before us, but as we packed our things and left we could all sense a general unease, a foreboding that resonated amongst the agape onlookers, something we could not discern until contrasted with our arrival at the next village where we were greeted with smiles, and laughter, and games, and a feast worthy of the day. It was Thanksgiving.

After only a few hours of relatively tranquil, if difficult, hiking, we stopped at a farmer's hut in the middle of a mountainside rice field to catch our breath, cool down in the shade of the hut, and have lunch. We ate some sticky rice and a few slices of melon and within a half hour were up again and trekking. All in all, the 2nd day of hiking went by smoothly and uneventfully; our guides opted to hire someone from the village to guide us to our next destination. The double-backing and general uncertainty that marked the first day's hike was no longer an issue. Around 3pm we descended a steep trail and came upon a pellucid mountain stream that cut a bending path through the otherwise hilly terrain. We walked the shallow banks of the stream for only 20 minutes before seeing a boy of maybe 12 clutching a jerry-rigged harpoon and sporting those old Connery-era James Bond snorkeling goggles. As we approached, the boy quickly dove back into the water and stayed submerged until we were several yards past him. Around the next bend we came upon a few young girls washing some garments. In no position to dive into the water and hide, these girls just watched and giggled as we stumbled past. What a bizarre group we must have looked to them. Within minutes we were stepping over a bamboo fence that gated the village where we would spend the rest of our 2nd day.

It turned out that Gao's now deceased father, a chief in his own day, used to frequent this village, maybe 10 times each year to trade livestock or exchange news or whatever, and as a young boy Gao would often tag along. It had been several years since Gao had been back, and several more since his father's death, but Gao was a well known figure amongst the nearby villages – the boy who had been sent off to the city to be educated, and who might likely never return. So upon seeing our guide, his adolescent features still recognizable to those who had not seen him for many years, a few of the older men anxiously came forward to greet him, whereupon we were all regaled with handshakes and an array of alien gestures that could only be interpreted as warm and welcoming. Certainly, any doubts that may have accompanied our arrival were put squarely to rest with Gao there to vouch for our goodwill. Indeed, it took some rather belabored explaining before the villagers would understand the nature of our visit; that we would hike all this way with no ulterior motive apart from to simply observe, was a concept that did not immediately strike the locals as genuine, and once they did come around to believing in our innocuous interests, our venture to them was seen as merely crazy. It is unlikely that in our time there we were ever able to convince the villagers (or ourselves, for that matter) otherwise.

The original plan had not been to spend the night at that 2nd village, but only to stop there just long enough for a proper meal before moving onward. However, our cheery reception and the very obvious excitement surrounding Gao's arrival, convinced us that this would be as good a place to spend the night as any. Soon after we had placed our bags down and been fed a meal of sticky-rice and boiled chicken (do you see a pattern developing here?), Kong, acting as interpreter, informed us that we were the first foreigners ever to be in this village and that the chief wished us to interact with the people as much as possible, particularly the children, despite the initial reluctance that we were likely to come across. Unsure of what social boundaries might restrict our interaction with the villagers, it was a great relief that the chief was so encouraging of our presence there. And his enthusiasm was palpable – literally – there was hardly a moment that he wasn't clutching one of our shoulders, or reaching out for another handshake, or running his hand through Gao's hair. It was like being in the company of an affectionate grandparent.

Despite the chief's cordiality, and the like of nearly all the villagers over the age of, say, 15, warming up to the children would prove a more gradual process. As in the first village, the youngsters crowded around our hut with the same cautious yet rapt curiosity that one might affect while watching a snake charmer. When I first came out of the hut holding a kataw (a small ball woven from rattan, and as ubiquitous in Laos as a basketball in the States), most of the children turned and ran, only peering back when they felt that they were at a safe distance, the girls appropriating their mother's for a shield, and the boys huddled anxiously under one of the raised huts. One kid was so startled that he turned and ran face first into a fence, which, though bringing the poor thing to tears, sent a wave of laughter through the crowd of adults and had the effect of tempering the youngsters' apprehension. One of the larger boys, taking a cue from the elders, stood courageously in the open yard, hardly flinching at my appearance. I showed him the ball and he tentatively stepped forward. I gave him an underhand toss, and though awkwardly backing up on his heels, clearly not accustomed to using his hands, he managed to clumsily coral the ricochet off of his forearm. To the delighted applause of the onlookers, he returned my throw, and the two of us were soon engaged in an old fashioned game of catch. Slowly, the boys huddled underneath the hut started inching forward. One by one they came close enough to intercept my throws and after several minutes there were 5 or 6 of us throwing the ball around in a circle. Andy and Fergus then emerged from the hut. The children instinctually stepped back and reassumed their defensive posture, but their fears vanished almost instantaneously. The children were much relieved to have Andy and Fergus join our game, two Brits as I mentioned, who quickly did away with all the catching and throwing, and instead started kicking the ball around like a hacky-sack. Suddenly, the same boys who'd been playing catch as gracefully as my sister (that is, not gracefully at all), were now handling the ball so effortlessly it was as though it was attached to their feet by an invisible string. At this unfortunate development (soccer winning out again, ugh) I resigned myself to spectator, not wanting to disrupt their play with my pathetic pedial dexterity.

It should be noted that all the while we played, off and on for a few hours, not once did a girl come and join in. Instead, the young girls remained guarded, as they would for the remainder of our stay, and though they did at some point venture out from behind their mothers, they would only point and giggle from a distance, and would very comically take off sprinting any time one of us would walk near them (they were always in small groups), or even look in their direction. But the girls' curiosity was indeed robust, perhaps more so than that of the young boys whose interest in us as people was eventually outdone by their interest in our things – our digital cameras, pocketknives, watches, and other modern effects. The girls though, would not leave us be. Anytime we went down to the water to bath or brush our teeth, we could see their smiling faces gawking at us from behind trees or through the bushes. When we ate, a wallpaper of gleaming eyes and teeth filled the interstices of the thatched hut. Like a team of spies they were. On that first evening, several hours after our arrival, we all noticed one particular group of girls, who from the start had been perhaps our most assiduous admirers, the oldest of whom couldn't have been more than 12, were now wearing all kinds of makeup – bright red lipstick, perhaps blush, the corner of their eyes elongated by a faint whisk of color, and their once barren arms and necks now cluttered with beads. If their dressing up was for our sake, I couldn't say, but to be sure, their coquettish behavior had a kind of beguiling charm, like that of a girlfriend's younger sister stealing innocent glances from across a dinner table and then offering you another scoop of ice-cream before her older sibling has time to act. (If that makes sense.)

Reliving the whole adventure now as I write this, our interactions with the young children, girls and boys alike, was probably the most gratifying of all we experienced. Whereas the children were at all times completely captivated by our presence, the adults, while observing with permanent smiles, were more subdued in their curiosity. But for an eager few, the older villagers would stand apart from our games, whether performing card tricks (a futile enterprise, I would learn, as the very cards themselves were magic enough), kicking around the ball, or the absolutely hilarious episode in which Donnelly assembled and conducted an entire orchestra of children to play various body instruments, of which the making-a-high-pitched-noise-while-banging-your-throat and the flicking-your-distended-cheek-to-make-a-teardrop-sound sections were my personal favorites. In spite of their very adultish reserve, there was one thing for which even the most stoic villager could not restrain his excitement. When we got the okay from Kong to break out our digital cameras we went from being merely sideshow oddities to center-stage magicians. It is probably impossible for anyone reading this to comprehend how those villagers might have understood the concept of digital photography. As far as I could tell, these people didn't even have mirrors (in the 4 villages we were at, and the 20 or so huts we were in, I never saw a single mirror). How then, could they possibly fathom an instrument that by the single click of a button has the capacity to arrest some moment in time, preserve that moment on a viewable screen, then store that image for later viewing, while also having the capacity to capture, display, and store a seemingly infinite number of successive moments? And it is a trivial thing then to even consider their reaction to our cameras' video-and-sound recording feature (if you presented an ancient Roman with an '73 Ford Pinto and a brand new Mustang, would he even know the difference, or care?). Though even from being there I have no greater insight into their thoughts about the cameras than you, what I can provide is a description of their outward reactions. They were at the same time entertained, confused, excited, and even horrified. Some of the villagers, even the older ones, would shrink from the camera lens as it panned the crowd, while others would clamber to be the centerpiece of every picture, while still others would jump in front of the lens for a split-second only to then dart sideways like an elusive matador. But no matter their conduct during the actual picture taking, they were all equally eager to catch a glimpse of the image as it showed on the display screen. As if the image itself wasn't enough, early on we learned that zooming in on each face and allowing them to see themselves and their friends close-up, was quite nearly a revelation, most certainly a cause for elated pleasure. Even after an hour of non-stop picture taking and viewing, even among the adults, the very profound fascination with the cameras did not dissipate one ounce. The entire village was completely absorbed. And it was only by the call of the dinner bell that we were finally able to take our cameras back inside.

For Thanksgiving dinner we ate boiled chicken and sticky-rice, were treated to several servings of their homemade rice whiskey concoction, and had the special delicacy of boiled eggs and ground chilies (what did you expect?). Though the food wasn't exactly the usual Thanksgiving fare (and by this point the sticky rice and boiled chicken were on the brink of being a loathsome sight), the whole day, as well as the very idea of the meal, managed to honor the spirit of the holiday in its own understated way. Maybe it's something that I've projected onto the occasion for my own sake, but the general theme of the native taking in and feeding the foreign outsider and thereby forging some understanding between the parties, and also providing the foundation for the possibility of some immutable goodwill, did cross my mind as a pretty decent way to make sense of our time there. And still does. It's a high-minded sentiment, and probably out of proportion considering our very brief stay and the unlikely incident that we will ever return, but our visit to that village is not without meaning. The circumstances of our arrival, the chance encounter of two distinctly alien peoples, not marred by political or economic incentive, but borne of a mutual humanity and no other pretense, was an occasion that the 4 of us will always relish, knowing well that our being there was a time of enjoyment and revelation for those villagers as well. To me that spells Thanksgiving as well as anything.

Again on the 3rd day, as on the 2nd, we woke early to our rooster alarm clocks, bid our gracious hosts adieux, blew some mock kisses to our female admirers, and began trekking before the sun could beat down on us in earnest. Though the terrain on the 3rd day was mostly flat and along the cool banks of the water, two of our group were battling some nasty stomach issues and we were all beset by the glum notion that the best of our trek had past, that our time at that last village was the apogee of a still very elevated experience, but that the remainder of our journey was just the long walk home. That would hardly be the case.

Our hike to the 3rd village was indeed a long one. But for a few stops along the way – 20 minutes for lunch (guess what we ate), 10 minutes to watch Donnelly throw up, 30 minutes for some swimming and some cave exploring (it was only after we had entered the cave that Kong casually mentioned that this particular spot was a known breeding ground for cobras, especially this time of year; thanks for the heads up, Kong), 20 minutes while Andy rather loudly and laboriously took refuge in some nearby bushes to spew his entire stomach out of his ass, 10 minutes for more vomiting, and a somewhat brief incident in which Donnelly stubbed his toe and in a boiling rage, exacerbated by his stomach problems, started breaking all kinds of branches and cursing violently at the world (hillllllarious) – the hike was a continuous 8 hour march. We made it to the next village at the onset of dusk. As a function of this village being closer to the Mekong (so we assumed), we were greeted with the same kind of reserved enthusiasm as on the 1st night. The utter fascination of our appearance that marked the 2nd day was lacking here. And as far as we were concerned, so much for the better. We were all exhausted and needed a nap desperately.

Our experience at the 3rd village was not essentially any different from our time in the other villages. The children were reluctant and then eager. The girls were passive but seemingly infatuated by our being there. The food consisted of boiled chicken and sticky rice. The villagers became suddenly animated and enthralled at the spectacle of our digital cameras. The adults were kind, though for the most part reserved...at least at the beginning. What made that 3rd village unique, and what made it worth the time to write about, was what happened after night had fallen, after the children had gone to bed, and the jar of whiskey appeared in the chief's hut.

You know that feeling you get sometimes, usually around 5pm on a Thursday or Saturday night, that certain itch, that premonition that it will not just be another night out, for some reason that bottle of J.D. starts to beckon like a siren on a rock-ridden shore, and though you won't admit it out loud you feel like dancing, or singing karaoke, or just losing it in whatever way shape or form presents itself? Well, apparently remote villages in the north of Laos are not impervious to that feeling either. As soon as we finished eating and that jar of whiskey was brought out from wherever it comes from, the impish urge to get drunk descended on that hut like a blitzkrieg. Fergus and I were the first to take to the straws. Between us we put down 10 cups with relative ease and were then immediately retained for 10 more. Stepping from the jar with a thorough 1st quarter buzz, we were each handed a huge Marley-esque spliff, the likes of which, we suddenly noticed, the majority of the hut's occupants were voraciously puffing away on. Even Donnelly and Andy, both infirmed by a stomach bug, could not resist the evening's infectious vibe. They, too, took to the whiskey in their turn, and though stopping short of where Mr. Donnelly is so capable of going, they both immediately perked up and joined the festivities. We, of course, were not the only ones drinking. For every 10 cups that Fergus and I drank, each of the diminutive men seemed to drink 10 on their own. The mood was ethereal and gregarious, and before long we were all talking loudly back and forth to each other in our own respective native tongues, which, in our drunken state, was totally immaterial. Who knows how these things get started but at some point the village chief started a sort of rhythmic clap, to which a few of the other men chimed in, and he then pointed at Donnelly, who was then informed by Kong that the chief wanted Ryan to sing some kind of song in rhythm with the clapping. Clearly at a loss, Ryan dug deep, and from some place in his psyche with a taste for the absurd, D busted out the full 2 minute version of Young M.C.'s Fastest Rhyme. Without time to properly digest what had just transpired, the chief next points at Andy, who is just utterly flummoxed at this point, and from sheer impulse he starts singing YMCA – the hand motions and everything. Good god, the comedy. Again, before there is time to think, the chief's finger is now on me, and after Fergus and I stumble through a few verses of Lodi Dodi, we both decide to just start dancing. And dance we did. Oh baby. We even gave them a little Robot for dessert (as if they have any clue what a robot is). The whole time this absolutely ludicrous talent show is taking place, the villagers are in a state of sheer amusement. They're all clapping and laughing and actually giving off the impression that they are genuinely impressed with our skills (actually, after listening to traditional Laotian music, I understand perfectly why they considered our offerings good). Eventually, after several more trips to the whiskey jar, a few more of those banana leaf spliffs, and a much-needed trigger-pull outside behind a tree, the long day of hiking caught up with me. Around 1am, the 4 of us called it a night and retired to our sleeping quarters while the villagers continued drinking and singing.

On the 4th day we beat the roosters to wake. We had to be back to the Mekong by 1pm to catch our boat to Luang Prabang. We had been warned repeatedly from our guides about this last day of hiking, that for the villagers it was 3 hours of severe uphill climbing and then 3 more going back down. The 4 of us could hope to do it in maybe 8 hours. We set off at 6am hoping to steal an hour by getting up the hill before it got too hot. Our guides' plan, for once, worked out. As it happened, the hiking on that last day was probably the easiest we had done. Though slightly hungover, the grueling haul that our guides made the day out to be simply never came to pass, and our hike was mostly carefree and light. We passed the time by playing trivia games and reflecting fondly on the highlights of the previous 3 days. With the exception of the sticky rice and boiled chicken, there was not a single bad thing to be said about our time.

We made it to the shore of the Mekong just in time to catch the boat. We were loaded on to the vessel which carried maybe 20 or so people, 4 goats on the roof, a very loud pig, some water buffalo, and about 500 pounds of various produce. This boat put the onion bus to shame. Crammed between a family and a smelly old man and sitting on top of a bag of sticks (really), I did my best to close my eyes and sleep. I couldn't. Along the way we slowed near the Phakoum caves, a very popular tourist spot for people staying in Luang Prabang, and as we did so, several tourists turned from the shore to watch our boat drift by. Nearly all of them simultaneously reached for their cameras and started pointing and taking pictures (I'm sure I would have too, those goats on the roof must have been something). I watched them as they laughed and snapped their photos and then I turned to look at the other people on our boat, their faces attentively turned forward and their once jovial expressions now stern. None of the Laotian people on our boat, I noticed, would face the cameras head on, but remained staring straight ahead, as if those onlookers didn't exist at all (and maybe they don't), until we were well out of eyesight. My disdain for tourists had never been stronger. This boat was just life, a thing so within the normal state of affairs, that if someone else on that boat, someone other than the 4 of us, that is, were writing this story it would hardly merit mentioning. And yet there we were, the center of a flurry of attention, the amusement of a set of outsiders who would never bother to consider who might feel the brunt of their laughter. I could see the ornate French architecture that characterizes Luang Prabang up ahead around the next turn. We were back.

Jungle Trekking Through Laos

As my first post indicates, I've spent a good part of the last 6 months in search of something that is at the same time authentic and exclusively local. And as my first post also indicates, this desire has gone largely unfulfilled, as experiences that on paper promised to be awe-inspiring or better, have inevitably left me wanting.

When I arrived in Luang Prabang, the old capital city in the north of Laos, and was invited by two British acquaintances on a 4 day trek to the country's northwestern highlands, where, they beamed, we would be the first white people to visit a handful of minority villages, I was immediately skeptical. 'How credulous,' I thought, 'could these guys possibly be?' And anyway, the first white people to see these villages? even if it was true, what would that mean? Should I be thrilled about the prospect, or utterly horrified? Without committing to anything, I told them I might be interested in tagging along and to get back to me once the details had been settled. A few hours later Donnelly came to see me in the internet shop and with the same glowing enthusiasm as the Brits before him, pronounced that the Trek was officially a go; $80 a head for 4 days of backpacking through uncharted mountain range and the promise of being the first white-folk to step foot in any of several regional villages. Now, for those who don't know Mr. Donnelly, Ryan is a seasoned skeptic, a stone of a man, someone I have been lucky to stand behind in the grueling battle against the army of scammers, schemers, manipulators, and the battalions of smooth-talking tour guides that takes arms in this part of the world. So, if D was convinced, I was convinced. Convinced, at least, that the details of the trip were true. Our boat would leave the following morning at 8:30am. Pack your sneakers, a towel, a few extra shirts, and bring your game face.

I'd be lying though, if I didn't say that all along, until the moment actually arrived, I still had my doubts.

Day 1: The first day was just supposed to be one of acclimation, warming our muscles up to the long hikes, getting our shoulders used to the extra weight on our backs, getting a small taste of typical village life to whet our pallets for the more remote areas of the days ahead, sampling the scenery, getting to know the two guides, etc., all of it kicked off with a leisurely 5 hour boat ride west up the Mekong. Except for that last part, and a pleasant boat ride it was, there would be no time for acclimation. The 6 of us – Ryan, myself, the 2 Brits, Andy and Fergus, and the 2 guides, Kong and Gao – would be in the thick of it from the word go.


Stepping off the boat onto a sandbar-qua-village, we were greeted with some token hellos, a handful of odd-stares, and then rather briskly ushered by our guides to a footpath running adjacent to a small, bending creek and leading to god knows where. We walked heel-to-toe for several hours, the flat creek bed eventually giving way to steep and then very steep hills. The buffalo, the lone sling-shot toting child, the makeshift bamboo huts, the discarded wash rag, and all other outward signs of human life were soon far behind us. Laos northern wilderness is not the tropical jungle that blankets the south, but it's composed of the same steamy, verdant brushstrokes, and can be every bit as claustrophobic and threatening as the most uninviting terrain – cobras, wild cats, scorpions, leeches, and all. It was only a 4 day trek, and I knew as much going in, but once out there in the thick, I found it hard not to imagine myself in the shoes of some bygone notion of an adventurer, some intrepid 19th century French explorer donning a pith helmet, hacking at the brush with a machete, and traveling for the pure motive of discovery, of what or where as a distant afterthought.

After several hours of some intense hiking we came upon an abandoned hut with no godly reason for being where it stood. We were all tired by now, our neck muscles strung like taught wire, the two smokers among us wheezing to catch our breath, and our legs wobbling under our unnatural weight. It was just after 3pm. From our perch on the flatland of a dried out rice paddy, we watched the sun dip below the western ridgeline. The scene had a temporary analgesic effect, and we assumed that with darkness just an hour or so away that we couldn't be far from the first village and that we'd be sipping whiskey and grinding on some sticky-rice in no time. Our guides talked amongst themselves while we irreverently speculated on why any rational human-being would choose this place for a farm. We were happy for the rest and paid little mind to our guides' dialogue. But as their voices grew louder and their hand waving and head-shaking more confrontational, it soon became obvious that our guides had come upon a major disagreement in regards to our current location. It was getting darker. This was the 3rd time in our first day of trekking that we'd been forced to double-back on our initial route. The 4 travelers, though tired and more than a bit perturbed at our guides' latest fuckup, were still buoyed by the excitement of the idea of our adventure, and as the guides turned us around and informed us that we'd taken the completely wrong path and would have to return to the first village, we all puckered up and continued without caution.

We stumbled back near the initial riverside village and without any evident consideration of the waning daylight, started back up again along a new path, this one even heavier with undergrowth than the one we had come from and as steep as one could climb without crawling on all fours. It was nearly 5pm. The fireflies and night creatures were emerging from their daytime hideouts. Fergus was beginning to cramp and it was soon discovered that I was the only one with a flashlight, and it would be a few hours still until we learned that our guides had no better idea of where we were than we did. When it got dark at 6:30pm, dark enough that the guides could no longer hide the fact that they weren't entirely sure where we were going or how long it would take to get there, it was decided that I, with my flashlight, and Gao, 20 years old and on his first guided expedition since he'd left his village more than 2 years prior ("information that would've been helpful yesterday!"), would continue up the mountain and send help when and if we found the village we were looking for. All of a sudden the mood turned from jovial to somber. The thought that we might be resigned to spending the night huddled together on a mountainside in northern Laos, was sort of, well, unappealing. Kong, the older and more experienced of the two guides, who at the beginning of the trip was a stalwart of optimism, admitted that he had never done this trek before, that he was as lost as the rest of us, and that if it was up to him we would turn around once again and return to the Mekong where things were safe and familiar. So much for inauthentic.

Gao and I soldiered upward. Poor Gao. On the first day of his first professional guide he had fucked up 3 times in broad daylight and now had us all scrambling in the pitch dark. Surely in an attempt to prove himself worthy to his new boss, Gao had insisted on carrying all the group's extra supplies, but after 6 hours of traversing the unforgiving mountainside, Gao's tiny frame was finally giving way to this heavy burden. After roughly 40 minutes of Gao and I hiking together, the guy collapsed to the ground. "I am not a man," he kept saying. "You all think I am just a boy because I am so small and I make mistake." As he tried to catch his breath, I fed Gao some crackers and let him vent, trying not to laugh. "They will be so angry. It is my fault. Do not be angry, Mr. Jo. I am sorry." I tried to offer Gao words of encouragement. "It's cool, Gao. No problem. Once we all get to the village, no one will even remember all this." After Gao promised to have me for dinner and to meet his family (one of those, 'if we ever make it outta here alive' things, that is now quite hilarious, but at the time was sort of moving), we switched packs and kept climbing. It would be another hour of the steepest hiking we had endured to date, and several more stops in which Gao reiterated his failure to be a man, until the path would flatten out and the sweet stench of buffalo shit would indicate that we had finally reached the village.

Meanwhile, down at the rest point where Gao and I had left the the group hours earlier, things were getting desperate. Kong was completely flustered and couldn't decide whether to stay put, turn around, or marshal his boys up the mountain and just hope that they would find the village. Fergus was a mess, cramping up every few meters they attempted to hike. Andy, a Scotsman, and Donnelly, an Irishman, would have been totally fine just building a fire and spending the night where they lay, but to their near horror they realized that all the whiskey was in Gao's supply pack. Motivated by the booze as much as anything, the 4 of them crawled slowly upward, guided by a torch fashioned from Kong's rubber flip-flop and around 8:45pm they were intercepted by a search party Gao had sent down from the village.

By 9:30pm the 6 of us were reunited in the village elder's hut, laughing at what had just transpired. Already full from my supper of rat soup (seriously, I wish I was joking), I just grazed on some sticky rice as the others devoured their feast of boiled chicken. We were all much too tired and wrapped up in our own day's odyssey to notice that at some point the whole village had congregated outside of the hut and were taking turns peering into the doorway at the large, loud, laughing "farangs". After eating, a few of the village's young men offered us some of their rice-wine, a kind of semi-sweet whiskey made from fermented rice and cantaloupe-ish melon, a drink we would become all to familiar with over the next few days. The concoction is served from a huge communal clay jar, over which drinkers, 2 or 3 at a time, kneel and imbibe from very long, thin bamboo straws. Each serving consist of anywhere from 3-10 cups per drinker and once the drinking commences there is no rest, just continuous sucking. It's something like taking a keg-stand with sake. These guys are serious about their booze. We drank for a while, some of us longer than others, but we were all soon bedded on the bamboo floor, and despite the discomfort, all fast asleep. The next morning we would wake early to find throngs of children climbing over each other in the doorway, trying to get a peak at the hairy, white, giants that lay sleeping before them. We had finally arrived.