In Which Our Hero Ends Up Drunk and Penniless, Passed out on a Park Bench in Laos

He has gazed upon the slopes of Chomolungma without fear! Crossed the Sahara by camelback! He has danced with cobras in Marrakesh! The señoritas of Andalucia sign psalms of his stamina! Here, our hero is undone --- by the duplicity of a shirtless Chinaman! Read on!!

PART ONE
Where our hero tames the tigers of Kanchanaburi, and bridges the river Kwai.

His heart pounded but our hero's hand was steady. The beast yawned archly, fangs glistening in the afternoon sun. Its yellow eyes shone with homicidal malice and canyon walls stretched dizzyingly upwards. Our hero inched along the dusty floor, as sure of foot as that this monster wielded death itself in those enormous paws.

He stretched out his hand. The tiger's sides rose and fell with its breathing, and our hero softly placed there his hand. For a moment, he and the beast were one. Its flaxen fur, painted vibrant in disorienting oranges and blacks, passed through our hero's fingers as he felt along the muscular lines of its shanks.

The tiger turned. Their eyes met. "Yes," he seemed to say, this Sherakan, "yes, you are a formiddable ape indeed." We are both of the wild, you and I. Go forth, son of Adam! I mean you no harm."

It was in this moment that the tour guide took our hero's picture, led him away from the shackled cat, and reminded him that T-shirts for the Kanchanaburi Tiger Temple could be bought for 300 Baht back at the park entrance.

Our hero did not want a T-shirt.

Their remaining time in the jungles of Siam, our hero and his faithful wench Carah-Beth toured the countryside by motorbike, passing endless fields of melons, grain and lemongrass, heads of sullen buffalo and clucks of confused hens with their dedicated chicks.

They found the river Kwai, which had been bridged, and our hero approved mightily of this structure, and the peasants rejoiced at his condescension. The whores fed him and his wench tequila until they could not see, and they stumbled happily back to their bungalow perched delicately over the Kwai, where they passed immediately into the dark of dream and shadow.

Part Two
Where our hero undertakes a perilous quest and a duplicitous Chinaman, envious of our hero's mightiness, proves to be his undoing.

The first sunrise of July found our hero on an island in the emerald waters of the Andaman sea. Not content to enjoy the warm waves, golden sand, bounty of fruit and cuttlefish, and awe of the local savage women at his bronzed and Adonisian body, he spend six hours of each day training with professional Muay Thai fighters.

And valiantly did our hero comport himself in the ring! The sweat poured off him in sheets. Over and over was he struck by the insolent heathens with their lightning fists and flashing kicks. Yet though our hero fall he always rises again!

His training over, our hero's directives were simple. He had only to make port in the ancient capital of Bangkok, where an aeroplane would take him thence to the protectorate known as Hong Kong.

But our hero -- intrepid beyond all reason -- had plans of his own.

He would cast off the yoke of common sense! He would throw aside the bonds of responsibility and set forth on a quest which shone like the naked bravery of his youth!

He would cross by land into Bangkok, and there into the crumbling kingdom of Laos, tracing the banks of the mighty Mekong ever northward through to Yunnan, into the vast empire of China. From there (tales told) a locomotive might ensure his passage as far as Hong Kong.

He would do this in eight days.

But every hero has a villain. And it would be in the very exercise of his overflowing bravery that our hero would gaze at last into the Abyss. He would confront the evil of the East! Would he confound it?! Or would it cast him aside like a broken opium pipe on the ashes of Confucius?! Read on, dear reader! Onward marches our hero!!

The first three days, the heavy head of our increasinly hirstute hero saw neither pillow nor bed. There was only the blur of constant motion, trudging sweaty and beleaguered through stations, his bags growing damp and heavy. He opened his eyes, he was now in some strange and ominous corner of Phuket, now Siam, now Laos. He ate of locusts and pigeon eggs, for which the locals charged him pennies. He drank of endless beers. His head lolled, his eyes closed. His eyes opened. He stank like an itinerant, his beard grew long and unkempt. His eyes opened. Had they closed? He splashed tepid water on his face, felt the droplets drip down his eyelashes and splash noiselessly in the dusty street below.

Everywhere he was met with effortless luck and the unceasing kindness of strangers. They lubricated the gears of the engine at which he was the proud conductor. He navigated streets with grace and panache; drivers gasped at his wit and aplomb in negotiations.

In Vientiane, he bargained with such flourish a tuk-tuk actually paid him, simply for the honor of carrying him 20 kilometers. When our hero bought a bus ticket, it was not mere commerce: it was a work of art, dear reader: fine, fine art.

And then he arrived in Luang Prabang.

Here, a den of the most vicious Chinamen had infiltrated the transport lines. All onward travel to the great empire of China was by sanction of their yellow mafia.

By day they smoked opium and filed their long fingernails! By night they dined gleefully on the weak and the noble-hearted!

But our hero, a kind and gentle soul, had no suspicion of this poisonous cabal.

Only five days remained until he had to be in Hong Kong. A Laotian woman promised him passage to Kunming for the fearsome sum of 400,000 Kip and he -- trusting her like a son trusts the mother at whose bosom he has nursed -- assented.

At eight that still evening, our hero stepped slowly into the dining hall of CHINA FRIEND HOTEL, and a hundred crooked eyes turned towards him.

Out of the back, into the burning flourescence of the hall, rose a sallow specter of a man, naked to the waist, craven, stinking of hate and mendacity. On his chin protruded a black and bulbous mole the size of a fattened wasp. From it sprang five wiry hairs, each a meter long, one for every head of the Hydra.

He grinned like a hyena psychotic from the scent of blood, and burst into noisy locutions with our hero's meek translator. From mimesis and the intensity of the exchange, our hero was given to understand that the bus was full.

This was unacceptable.

Our hero interceded and made his position abundantly clear. 400,000 Kip had been paid, and promises had been made. He was -- in short -- going to China. Tonight.

In steadfastness and in timbre, our hero's declaration was majestic, terrifying. It would have inspired fear and obedience in the armies of Xerxes or Alexander. It would have rent the plains of Persia -- ! parted the rivers of Mubai -- !

Here, it got cell phones out. Calls were made. Shouts were exchanged. Our hero stood resolute, his feet parted, his chest pushed out like the heaving breast of a champion steed, his head held high like a wolf surrounded by bitches in heat. Within minutes, his passage again was guaranteed.

Our hero, on the departure of the translater, walked up to this Beelzebub of the bus, this motorcar Mephistopheles, and waved his ticket in his face.

"I am going to Kunming. Tonight. Yes?"

The man turned, his sunken eyes glowering out like rotten souls cast out of eternity and assured him that it was so. This was the first lie.

The hours passed. The ticket claimed departure at 10:30, but nothing seemed certain. It was our hero's custom to drink before bus rides. This enabled him to sleep where otherwise it might be impossible. So he began to drink. Heavily. Our hero understands many things, but moderation is not among them.

He played several games of billiards, dispatching the hate-filled eunuchs who surrounded the shirtless Chinaman with finesse born of geometrical sagacity. Their pointed fingernails tapped metronomically against the table's fraudulent teak edges.

At last, two fellow travelers appeared. Mark and Ebely -- English and French, respectively. Our hero would later acknowledge that if they had not arrived, he might never have borne the night at all. Doubts and uncertainties were transforming like spider eggs into suspicions and fears. Our hero needed to get to China desparately, but with three of them in the same stressful situation, they could laugh about how patently absurd it was. They laughed until they cried, then; they ordered beer after beer, and our hero's final stash of money -- saved only for the few hours of bus ride left in Laos -- began to disappear.

But in their hearts, they still believed the bus would come.

When it was an hour late, our hero was sent as envoy to demand answers from the shirtless Chinaman. He pushed past the skinny thugs to where the yellow devil was seated like some conspiratorial succubus playing dominos.

Our hero shook his watch in the man's face --- "What time is our bus coming, you dog!?" cried he.

With the air of polished villainy, that dog stuck out one bony claw and carved a "12" into the table with his fingernail. This was the second lie.

But just as Judas thrice denied Christ, so would this contemptible Canton again spout his duplicities before the cock crowed. And so when midnight arrived and our hero again demanded satisfaction, he was assured he would be on his bus by 1 AM.

That hour too went. Another half-hour followed it in turn. And then -- just around 1:30, what should come to pass, dear reader ---
but a bus?

That's right, in a burst of flashing headlights, honking horn, and whooshing metal, it flew directly towards,
and directly past,
the CHINA FRIEND HOTEL.

The jars of our hero and his compatriots hit the proverbial deck.

Our hero, dear reader, was by this time heroically drunk.

He flew at the Chinaman in a fury, seizing his dominoes from his hand, strewing them across the table, and screaming invective at his face.

The Chinaman would not meet his eyes. A minion informed them that the bus had passed because it was full.

A drunkard's cowardly offer to take them back to Luang Prabang for thirty US dollars (thirty US!) was met with much high-pitched wailing and altercative waving of arms by our normally austere hero. The bastard was lucky to have escaped with his life.

Eventually, passage was arranged for the extortionist fee of 60,000 Kip, in which our hero's last pennies were included.

Back in the city, the three star-crossed Westerners wandered forlon, in a light rain, for hours. Guesthouse after guesthouse turned them away.

"Full -- " was their constant and faithless greeting.

At around 4:30 AM, our hero took his weary leave.

He climbed a hill to a park. Here, by day, the natives sold songbirds trapped in tiny cages for a few baht.

He lay down on a bench in his clothes and fell asleep.



Is this the end for our hero?! Shall he wonder this fair globe nevermore?! Or will he rise from poverty and besottedness to triumph over the villainy of the East?! Stay tuned, dear reader --!

Chinaman

Stay tuned! Our hero's swollen pride depends upon it!!

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