Fearing the worst, our white-knuckled fingers are imbedded in the taxi’s upholstery and our feet stomping an imaginary brake pedal. The reason is a mentally anorexic driver spending equal time on both sides of the road in pursuit of anything ahead of us during a breath-holding ride from the airport into Bangkok.
Exacerbating the situation the narcissistic fool demonstrates his proficiency in the science of ‘stupidology’ by abandoning both hands from the steering wheel to preen into a hand held mirror. Sometimes I look at people and think; Really. Of the millions of sperm released, that’s the one that won?
After a few days in Bangkok a 12 hour bus ride takes us 700 km north to Chiang Mai; the laid-back sister and opposite of Bangkok. Securing lodging at Lai Thai Guesthouse in old town, we then visit the Bo Sang ‘umbrella village’ and the Doi Suthep Temple using a three-wheeled ‘beepbeepmobile’ called a tuk-tuk. Named after the sputtering sound it makes, the motorized contraption feels like a pimped out tricycle with a roof, and its open sides allow passengers not to miss ingesting any of the befouling diesel fumes!
Trekking through the backcountry to a Meo hill tribe we encounter a woman lowering a wicker basket of unhatched chickens into a natural boiling hot spring. We’ve worked up an appetite, and knowing that for protein hard-boiled eggs are hard to beat, fork over a few baht to sample her crackable commodity.
Today we boat along the Mekong River to the Golden Triangle where the nebulous borders of Thailand, Burma, and Laos all collide. Before returning to Chiang Mai we stop for a quick wander in Burma and happen to stumble into a black market and are surprised to see tiger skins, bear gall bladders, and other parts of endangered species being sold as fictional aphrodisiacs.
Currently underway in Chiang Mai is the Loy Krathong Festiva,l meant to pay respect to the water spirits and seek forgiveness the water pollution. The festival’s flaw is that the elaborate offerings of flowers, candles, and joss sticks being floated in both the murky waters of the river and the moat enclosing the Old City often contain non-biodegradable materials which only help to aggravate the already polluted water.
As a symbol of letting go of misfortunes and receiving merit Buddhists are busy releasing hundreds of candle-lit ‘sky lanterns’ around town, and the exquisite sight resembles a legion of luminescent jellyfish effortlessly swimming off into the night sky like kites with their lines cut!
An interesting trek takes us to a hill tribe of one of the Thailand’s most impoverished minorities called the Akha. Originally from China, the slash-and-burn farmers wear traditional metal headdresses decorated with beads, and have their teeth stained a reddish-black from chewing their beloved betel nut. Taking a peek inside one of huts we see minimalism taken to a new level, with the only contents being a bamboo sleeping mat on a dirt floor and a vintage rifle worthy of the ‘Antiques Roadshow’.
Another hill tribe capturing our attention is the Padaung, who fled persecution in Burma and now reside in a northern Thai province. A domestic flight takes us to the border town of Mae Hong Son and we locate a guesthouse near Jong Kham Lake as a base. Unable to locate any transport for hire is frustrating, but luckily our guesthouse owner Piya agrees to drive us upcountry to the Padaung village in his 4-wheel drive jeep.
Convulsing over a cruel road resembling a defunct riverbed, half our time is spent mid-air and the other half getting our butts spanked by the seats. At the road’s end we’re quite alright with walking the last stretch to the village!
Women of the Padaung tribe, known as ‘Longnecks’ or ‘Giraffe Women’, are rivetingly adorned with yards of stacked brass coils circling their necks as a symbol of wealth and beauty. Girls start wearing the coils about the age of five and add a new one each year, and as they get older the increasing weight squashes down their collar bone and rib cage to create the elongated neck.
Weighing up to ten pounds each, a set of the brass coils can seemingly stretch a women’s neck to over a foot and produce the surreal appearance! Any adultery committed in the tribe is said to be punished by the removal of the rings, as it’s believed to make the woman ugly and shame her. As one might imagine the adultery rate in the village is infinitesimal, even though there’s some pretty heavy ‘necking’ taking place!
The women deform their bodies even further by placing similar rings around their legs. However, the one accessory that none of Padaung have is a smile, and the tribe vibe has the chipperness of an undertaker’s convention. Even though we find the village fascinating, we leave feeling somewhat despondent, much it seems like the longnecks themselves.
Our last Thai daytrip is to a tribe called the Kayaw or ‘Long-Ears’, where in a kinky perception of beauty, women suspend weights from their ear lobes and stretch them out to lengths worthy of the Ubangi.
This custom seems about as useful as a roll of soaked toilet paper as the ability to trip over an earlobe would not make my top ten beauty tips, but hey, that’s just me! Satisfactorily saturated with stretched body parts, we don’t fancy stretching our stay and head back to Bangkok for another flight to Indonesia’s largest and less developed island of Sumatra.
Trying to swap traveler checks for rupiah in the graceless capital of Medan our expectations of the city are rapidly curdled by the tangle of traffic up each other’s tailpipes, the choking fumes, and a prevalent feeling of indifference. During our hectic hunt to acquire some cash we happen to spot the name of a cafe we think we read about that supposedly serves good lobster. In this spirit-sapping city lobster definitely strikes us as odd, but hope-drunk we might at least salvage a good meal we decide to check it out.
Zero English is spoken in the near empty café, and seeing nothing resembling lobster on the menu, I try to mime our request to the waitress with my best imitation of a pinching lobster; which just for the record, I think easily rates no less than 9.5 out of 10. However my crustacean enactment is obviously misconstrued.
Undeniably horrified, the waitress looks like I just pulled the pin on a live grenade. A gaping hole replaces her mouth and her jaw succumbs to gravity. I’m sure Edvard Munch would be pleased, as the woman is now stuck in a pose that’s a dead ringer for the iconic image in his painting “The Scream”.
Her eyeballs are pools of paranoia and almost falling out of their sockets, but she keeps them glued to me while backing away like we have the Ebola virus. She bumps into another table almost toppling it over and sends the cutlery clattering to the floor. Holy crap, you’d think I asked her if I could take a dump in her pocket! Though unclear of her interpretation of my gesture it undeniably had one hell of an impact; and even though we didn’t score a meal we laughed and laughed, and then we laughed some more.
Since a friendly face in this city seems about as rare as a Saharan salmon, the ‘café terrorists’ mercifully secure a flight to Padang. We are ecstatic about extracting ourselves from this spittoon of a city tomorrow, as we’d rather grab a Samurai sword and disembowel ourselves than squander another day in the detestableness of Medan.
With Padang turning out to be another hapless Sumatran city we bus to the matriarchal society of Bukittinggi where only the women here are permitted to own a business or land. I guess you won’t be astonished to learn whose brainwave this was! However, I have capitulated in the off chance I may accumulate some desperately needed husband points!
A ‘Big Ben’ clock tower is the town’s landmark for a colossal bazaar with perhaps the strangest assemblage of snake oil merchants in all of Indonesia. We’re both attracted and repelled by the bloody horror show in the meat section. ‘Tapeworm Central’ is a carne-copia of animal carnage looking like the work of a demented Jack the Ripper; with a severed head here, chopped off hooves there, and a collection of disembodied tongues, tails, and entrails completing the gruesome crime scene!
At Ngarai Sianok Canyon we respectfully hike a path beside sheer rock walls plunging 120 meters straight down. The canyon is also known as ‘Buffalo Hole’ because every now and then one of the hefty quadrupeds roams too close to the edge, and with what must be a very messy splat, is spared the indignities of old age!
This is the glum rainy season here on visitor-shy Sumatra, and though Christine and I are the only guests in Hotel Fort De Kock we are not alone. To our dismay our room is infiltrated by warmongering mosquitoes large enough that they should be required to file a flight plan!
Assuming the role of military strategists, we try preemptively barricading the bathroom window slots with the bed blankets in an attempt to keep from being consumed in our sleep. However, as a result of cohabitating with the Mozzie Mafia we awake each morning to sheets speckled with blood; and ourselves measled in itchy red welts courtesy of a mean-spirited insect that makes you like flies more!
Moseying about town we spot a Jurassic Park escapee known as ‘Dorcus Titanus’ or Giant Stag Beetle, lying helpless on its back like a capsized tortoise and madly thrashing its wings. A quick flick of my foot uprights the avocado-sized insect and reveals antler-like mandibles, giving it the look of the aftermath of a cockroach copulating with an elk! Happily the bulky brute quickly achieves liftoff and buzzes off into the sky.
The affable fellow running the hotel is named Amin, and oddly enough likes to be called ‘Idi’! He entertains us by explaining some of the interesting customs of his Minangkabau people. Apparently they don’t like to say exactly what’s on their mind, and instead use a code of actions to convey their message.
For example; when a son’s father is really angry at him, rather than try and defend himself the son simply pulls on a pair of his father’s pants. When the father sees this he backs off and nobody loses face. Likewise, if a guest is over for dinner and there’s no more food left, rather than say so, the wife goes into the kitchen and stirs a pot loud enough for all to hear. When a son wants to get married, instead of discussing it with his parents, he hangs his clothes in the kitchen to relay the message! Idi is good fun, and during our discussions his favorite expression is ‘different field – different grasshopper’!
With passengers far outnumbering seats on the bus back to Padang, the driver’s helper, who appears to have the intellectual depth of yoghurt, shoehorns dozens more bodies into the isle by using splintery wooden boxes as seats. We cuss the bus not only for the splinters, but also for a migraine-inducing music that necessitates fashioning earplugs from wads of saliva-moistened ass-wipe, taken from a bus toilet with a stench worse than a sack of threatened skunks!
From Sumatra we fly to the familiar island of Bali and head straight for the quietness of Suji Bungalows. The hidden haven shields us from Kuta’s main streets where aggressive hawkers are as annoying as wasps at a picnic. Within a five minute span they hound us to buy perfume, pot, transport, puppet ducks, yo-yos, pineapples, watches, and an elephant! These Balinese sellers simply do not know ‘NO’ and could likely talk a Tequila worm back to life! To them, a no is simply a rest stop on the road to yes.
Bumping into a Swiss couple we met in Sumatra, we catch up on our travels and decide to head north together to the village of Ubud. Staying at Artini 2 Bungalows, we are amazed to see the grounds keeper meticulously cutting the grass with a pair of scissors, and when I ask him tongue-in-cheek if he does haircuts with a lawnmower, he looks at me with the puzzlement of a frog suddenly relocated to the desert.
Our happy hour go-to is a kick-ass local moonshine called ‘Arak’, distilled from palm flowers, and as the potion keeps evaporating from our glasses we are joined by amusing little sticky-toed wall geckos making little “chuck chuck chuck” calls while feasting on mosquitos, the real jerks of the insect world.
Occasionally a giant ‘Tokay’ gecko joins in, barking out its loud and repetitive “Ech-Oh” sound. This unfailingly brings a chuckle, because the call diminishes in volume until the lyrical lizard’s lungs finally leak out the last of their air on or about the seventh repetition, leaving us with only an abbreviated ‘ech’!
Renting a van with our friends we further explore the island with stops in Candidasa, Kintamani, Bedugal, Lake Batur, Singaraja, and the wee village of Bug Bug. Finally ending our time back in Ubud, the four of us indulge ourselves with the island’s most famous dish of ‘Bebek-Tutu’ which we ordered yesterday. While it may sound like a fancy ballet skirt, the mouth-watering meal is actually a Balinese smoked duck smothered in spices, wrapped in banana leaves, and tendered by slowly cooking over a wood fire for twelve hours.
Waiting for this dinner to arrive we keep the restaurant’s bar staff as busy as a centipede with athlete’s foot, and getting slightly buzzed we somehow arrive at the absurd conclusion that tonight’s tasty quacker shall henceforth be named Desmond, in honor of the dude in Africa!
Finally Desmond’s cooked corpse puts in its long awaited appearance, escorted by the rest of a lavish feast blanketing the table. Then just as we’re all about to grub down our dinner vanishes. Ubud has succumbed to one of the village’s not infrequent power failures and plunged us into darkness.
But this is no biggie. The lovely staff quickly scurries off to round up some candles, and with the situation remedied, the famished foursome attack and devour delectable Desmond like piranha coming off of a fast! The romantic candle-lit dinner under an indigo sky cluttered with brilliant stars is the perfect conclusion to our gratifying days in beautiful Bali; our all-time favorite Indonesian island.
Mark H. Colegrave 1993