After several days of living in the Wild Wild Wet, I was ready to ditch the crowds and find peace in the quiet mountain town of Chiang Dao. The internet says it’s “stupid easy” to get to by bus, but I am *really* stupid sometimes and I’m anxious to take a bus. I’m always afraid that I’ll miss my stop and have to just ride around on the bus all day until the driver parks it for the night and finds me crying in the fetal position on the last bench and shakes his head at me, The Girl Who Was Too Stupid to Get Off The Bus. Well, there’s no better way to get over a fear than to face it. When you face your fear and see that something Much worse can happen on a bus, you won’t be afraid of missing your stop anymore. *taps forehead*
My bus leaves in 3 hours and all I have to do is get to the bus station, a ten minute drive from Gap’s House. I’m allowing plenty of time because it’s Songkran. I try to book a Grab car. They keep cancelling. I start writing messages to drivers like “please come get me, big tip for you xoxo”. 6 or 7 cancelled rides and I start to panic. I run down to the office and ask the concierge for advice. (Could I walk? Absolutely not, she tells me). She goes out to the front with me and helps me flag down a tuktuk, one of the open sided three-wheeled cart things that Thailand is famous for. The tuktuk drivers are stressed as hell, can you imagine the busiest work week of your life while also getting constantly drenched with water? I know there’s no way a driver is going to stop for me and my two gigantic bags under these conditions, but the concierge spots a driver that she knows and flags her down. The driver has her white war paint on and she reminds me of Rosario Dawson. She’s stressed, but like in a mom way, and I know immediately that I’ll be safe with her. The concierge tells her I need to get to the bus stop and Rosario Dawson cries “pii, mai dai!” (Sis, I can’t!). The streets are all blocked. The concierge furrows her brow thoughtfully and suggests a different road to take. Once again the driver responds “pii, mai dai!” After ten or fifteen minutes of deliberation, the two women come up with a route that will get us to the bus stop. “But” the concierge tells me “It’s going to take about an hour to get there.” So be it.
You know that DisneyLand attraction, “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride”? This was Mr. Toad’s Wet & Wild TukTuk Ride. To be clear, this car has no sides. It’s like a go-cart. I’ve got my ridiculous 50 pound suitcase, my giant backpack and me all trying not to fall out of this vehicle as it careens wildly around corners and swerves to avoid the children that are constantly running across the road. In order to go anywhere on Songkran and not arrive completely drenched, I’ve learned you have to keep a low profile, avoid the crowded areas, stay out of the roads. Well today, on the busiest day of Songkran, I was being paraded through the streets with my giant bougie luggage in front of thousands of people lined up on the sidewalks with buckets and waterguns just waiting for a car to pass by, especially one of those American tourists with more money than sense. (TukTuks are widely considered to be an offensively frivolous means of transportation, suitable only for the type of old-money tourists whose favorite movie is “Gone with the Wind.”). As bucket after bucket of ice water WAPS me across the face I think “That’s fair. I deserve that. If I had to deal with Ronald Reagan enthusiasts every day who use words like “colored” and “exotic” to describe people, I would also want to fuck up a TukTuk.” At some point, young man with a bright career in the military ahead of him aims his watergunfire very admirably and hits me Precisely in the eye. The force of the water is so strong that it irrigates my contact lens right out of my eye and splootches onto my cheek. So picture me, sliding around on a wet vinyl seat, holding onto a suitcase and a backpack, trying not to fall out of this swerving TukTuk (which once again, has no sides!) while also trying to put my contact lens back in. Did I get it back in? Of course I did. I’ve been embarrassed to wear my glasses since I was 6 years old, literally nothing will stop me from getting that lens back in, I don’t care if it falls into a swamp I will lick it and stick it. Oh, you can’t touch your eye? “Sucks to suck, Jenny!” I will say, holding my finger on my eyeball like some kind of deranged masochist.
Wow, that was a tangent. I learned something about myself. Um, anyway, back to the TukTuk. We finally get there and she anxiously asks “600 baht, is okay?” 600 baht is a lot of money in Thailand, and I think she thought I was going to yell at her. I hand her a thousand baht and she grasped my hand in gratitude and pressed it to her forehead in a deep bow for several seconds. She seemed so genuinely happy and grateful and honestly all I want to do with the rest of my life is make people that happy as much as possible. It’s the most wonderful feeling. I wish I didn’t have to spoil it by telling the world about it on my blog, but really, I would encourage everybody to do random acts of generosity whenever you can, because it’s the best feeling in the world. Next to Ceili dancing, but that’s a story for another post.
Anyway, I get to the bus station and very proudly and confidently used my Chapter 3 Thai vocabulary to order bus tickets. I was actually a bit disappointed that I didn’t have to say more Transportation Words, because for some reason I only remember stupid stuff that I don’t need on a daily basis, like the word for “van”, so I get really excited when the specific context comes up and I can use my word that has weirdly lodged itself in my brain for some reason. I get on the bus and I’m like “wow. I did it. See, taking the bus wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, it was pretty easy!” And I guess I was so busy congratulating myself about it like “Huh huh boarded the bus, no sweat, look at me so cool taking the bus like it’s no big deal” for the next 40 minutes while the rest of the passengers boarded, that I didn’t really think to use the bathroom. See, this is why I think power is bad for me. A little bit of testosterone is released and suddenly I’m like “Using the bathroom is for the weak!! I don’t need a bathroom, YOU need a bathroom!” Genuinely though, I do get pretty good mileage out of this bladder and yes I am weirdly proud of that. Genetically, the dice did not favor me, so I’ll take what I can get. Tough bladder. Tough eyeballs. Everything else? Literally falling apart at the connective tissue. I’ll be dead by my fiftieswhoopsie! Tangent again! Back to the bus!
I’m sitting here on this bus and I am in Actual pain. We aren’t even out of the city yet. I am CLAMPING my PC muscles. I am Reminding myself that I am strong. I am Digging my Fingernails into my palms as hard as I can. And, like something out of nightmare, I’m surrounded by the worst possible imagery for someone in my situation. Constantly the sound of Whoosh! Splash! “Psss” Constantly the sight of water streaming, guzzling, trickling, flowing, pooling (it’s okay if you have to get up go use the bathroom now, I literally feel the call just writing this). Finally, I can feel my PC muscle start to shudder. I’m like “fuck, this is it. I’m gonna pee myself.” I did debate whether I could just pee my pants on this bus because everyone is already sopping wet from Songkran, but I couldn’t stand the thought of someone calling me out for peeing myself and pretending I didn’t like Fergie did at that Black Eyed Peas show. So I ran to the front of the bus with my carefully prepared Thai sentence to politely convey my need to the driver and plead for his favor. Absolutely garbled it. I think I said something like “I no wait” instead of “I can’t wait”. But the driver was a literal angel who didn’t even look angry, just mildly concerned, and promptly pulled over. I ran with the speed of a racehorse to relieve myself like one. Burst into the nearest gas station and said my most practiced Thai sentence, “Where is the bathroom!?” “Outside!” the staff yelled back. Ran to the back of the gas station, this all just looks like buildings. A bathroom in a gas station in Thailand could be anything. It could be a standalone shack, it could be a sliding barndoor off the main building. I’ve literally seen one inside a giant barrel. Nothing is marked, especially if they don’t really want you to use it. So I do what any desperate person who’s already been humiliated beyond the point of having any dignity would do, I pull down my pants and pee on the ground. People may have seen me. But you know what? I got the feeling that they wouldn’t judge me. I think they would just be like “Well there’s a person in a tough spot.” When I got back on the bus, I tried to give the driver some money for helping me and he waved me off. I’m forever grateful to this man. I hope he and his family win the lottery twice.