*was part of a story before; shortened/paragraphed now. the tourists in that minivan crash remind me of my recent trip there. may they rest in peace.
I took a minivan up to Pai. it was full of youngsters on gap years. They were bright-eyed and talkative, wet behind the ears. They looked like they’d been cast out of fresh rubber. The minibus had zero suspension, it was a tin can. the driver pushed the tin can through the gears and it crashed over bumps, wheezed around the bends. I worried about my bladder. It was a 4-hour journey up there. I assumed we would stop somewhere on the way. We did.
I was jammed into that minibus between mostly young Americans, Europeans, Canadians, etc. I listened to their eager dreams. Their planned itineraries along the banana pancake trail. They were gerbils nattering away with their cheeks full. Nice kids, but I’d soon heard enough. I put on Cannibal Corpse through my AirPods. Stared out the window at the blurred jungle instead. Saw tired dogs walking up the road. Some water buffalo a bit further up too, slogging their way up the hill. Some of them at the front were standing around a calf that had decided to sit in a puddle. The calf’s tail flicked around a bit. It sat in the puddle taking in the view. It knew not what lay ahead. Nor did any of the kids on my minibus.
We arrived in Pai. I noticed a few older foreigners, residents probably, driving around on vintage motorbikes; their style, easy rider/mad max 60s rebel chic: bandanas, tattoos, dreads, beards, goatees, etc. and it was sweltering out – the air heavy, like a storm was about to break – some of the foreigners had their tops off, with more tattoos.
I found a bench outside 7-11. I sat down on it and drank my Smirnoff Midnight 100 Guarana 7% ice cup. There was a young fellow stood nearby – I assumed local – wearing a purple sarong and sandals. He had long fingernails. They were longer than most women’s fingernails. They may have served a purpose, although I didn’t know what. I drank my Smirnoff. He walked over to me and sat down on the bench with his fingernails. I’d just gotten to Pai and was tired, in no mood for socialising. I had my AirPods on and I drank and listened to Cattle Decapitation. Purple Sarong crossed and re-crossed his legs, maybe trying to get my attention. He got his phone out next – I saw the fingernails, they were a bit grubby but there was something elegant about them too. He started playing Thai pop music off his phone, wiggling to it and bumping his head, all deliberately perhaps, so that I might see out of the corner of my eye. I’d just arrived in Pai though, and any communication was off the menu. This was my breather after the tincan minivan. I finished off the drink, got up to get another one in the 7-11, and when I came out again, he’d disappeared.
I walked up the street and came to a smelly market. It had a toilet in it, but it was 3 baht to enter. I only had red hundred notes. So I found an empty lot of land – red dusty land. I hopped over a low stone wall to get into the lot and peed behind a yellow palm tree. The heavens opened after that. I took shelter under the overhang of an old battery shop. Waited out the squall there. The battery man sat in the dark behind indoors. He was at his wooden table scribbling things down into his accounts book, pencilling it all in, while I stood outside waiting for the world to end. The rain did end. I waved thanks to the battery man. He grinned and my karma was temporarily corrected.
There were long-stayers with dreadlocks and shaved heads out on the street, seasoned westerners in beige/light brown/khaki hemp clothing, and women in bee hats. They were often on motorbikes driving back to their retreats, and some had dogs that rode with them. The hills lay behind us with mist in them like some Led Zepp song. A lady boy in an orange dress with tarantulas on it walked by. Then a Japanese man with dreads. I sensed a mushroom town stained with a colorful past. You smelled it on the metal of their bikes; in the oil in the street-water. The scent clung to the roof tiles like a gibbon, and it was in the trees. Like some loosely guarded secret. I would stick to booze and weed. I wasn’t ready to crack my head open into pai just yet.
The walking wounded limped by – motorbike casualties – shuffling around, scraped up, with their arms in casts, legs in plaster..forlorn and scowling, their aggression kept at bay if just for a moment. They looked English. It felt like the English came off bikes the most but don’t quote me on that.
