“You sure its safe Dhay?”
“I’m telling you James, if you are not sleeping warmly in a
warm bed in Laos Sunday, I’ll personally arrange your funeral , and I’ll hold
it in Laos.”
“The chances are that good eh?”
“Either way, you’ll be resting in Laos on Sunday.”
“Well I don’t like, I don’t like it one bit, but I guess
that doesn’t matter much.”
“It sure doesn’t, you better learn to like it. These
documents are not getting to Laos any other way. And you know, what that
means.”
“Yes, Dhay, I do, and I shudder to think about it. I don’t
even want to mention the atrocities that will ensue, because, who knows I may
jinx the whole endeavor.”
“That you would James, so I better not hear a word of it. Be
ready. Tomorrow morning, 5 a.m. You will meet Klo in front of the dormitory. He
will guide you to the river. From there you will meet the covered truck on the
road which will take you to Mae Sot. After that, it is up to you.”
It was 6 p.m. and darkness already covered the camp. Thick
clouds threatened rain at any moment. Inside the bamboo-walled house with the
metal roof, one light bulb lit the solitary man in the solitary bedroom. He
sat, gathering and organizing his things, deciding what of everything would be
most important, and what he could leave behind.
“Matches?” he said to himself. “Yes, yes of course you
idiot. You never know when you might need to light an emergency fire, or cook a
wild squirrel. This small box could be a life saver. And who knows, a bloke
might need a light for his smoke.” He
chuckled to himself at the thought, because there was no one else to chuckle
to.
“Knife? Of course James, what do you think this is, girl
scout camp? A tourists excursion? Ha!” He smiled once more coyly. Just then, a
gad fly landed right on his lips. “Phew!” he spit towards the wall. “Darn these
flies, if they do not kill me from giving me some lung-eating disease, they
will be the death of me through shear annoyance. Darn them!”
With those words the first drip of rain hit the metal roof.
James turned toward the open air of the two foot gap between the top of the
bamboo wall and the metal roof. Through it he could see the tree outside, and
the towering mountain behind, and in front of it appeared a sheet of rain. The
pounding on the metal roof drowned out all other sounds. The croaking of the
jungle frogs, the hum of the crickets were suddenly no more. Nothing could make
a sound above the howling of rain.
With the rain hundreds and thousands of bugs, decided to
take up residence inside as well, swarming around the solitary light bulb.
“Blast” I can’t open my eyes without one of these buzzards
trying to take up space in it!” Swatting and trying to move away from the
swarm. He quickly stuffed whatever else he thought necessary into the bag and
then jumped under his mosquito night, where he huddled for protection.
“Five a.m. always comes quicker than you think. That is what
my uncle used to say. Or maybe I have just said it. Who knows?” And indeed it
seems to be the truth, it always does come quicker than you think. And this
morning was no exception. At 4:45, what he felt was all to soon, he heard the
ringing of his alarm.
“I must have done the time wrong, there must be an hour or
two more.” He grabbed his phone, and checked the time. “Dang” He had in fact
been right, which also, unfortunately made him wrong. It was mere moments until
go time. “5 minutes, he said to himself, 5 more minutes of rest, I’ll wake up.”
He didn’t, Not on time at least. Suddenly he found himself
shaking himself and reaching for his phone. “4:56” Blast, I nearly fell
completely asleep! He jumped up, ran to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and hurriedly
prepared his room. He stuffed the last few things into his bag, then left
locking his door, and hiding the key. “No need to carry this with me. One more
thing to lose.” He said as he slid it under the brick.
The night was dark and not as cool as he had hoped. It had
rained all night, and was still drizzling, but there was a humid warmth in the
air. The trail was filled with mud and puddles, making the going trickier than
the treacherous journey already was.
“Klo! Klo!” Are you up? Klo?”
“Good morning Thara.”
“Have you seen Klo? Can you go wake him up and tell him it
is time to go.”
The young man nodded his head. And disappeared into the dorm
room.
James looked around into the darkness. A few distant lights,
but that was it. It was near total darkness, until moments later Klo stumbled
out of the dorm room.
“Okay, let’s go. “
“Oh, is he coming with?”
“Yes, we both go. One in front, one behind.”
James looked at both questioningly, and then said, “Okay.”
The questioning look would have had more of the desired effect had it not been
pitch black outside, and couldn’t see his face.
The path was dark and filled with puddles and mud, dogs were
stumbled upon unsuspectingly, and chickens scampered out of the way. Most the
homes were as silent, as they themselves were silent and dark. Except a few
which were filled with early morning Buddhist chanting.
The group of three walked by inconspicuously in the night,
Klo in front, James in the middle, and the friend behind, lighting James’s
feet. There were a few people they
crossed, at which times the lights went off and they kept walking. They were
never suspected.
They came to the final turn. A large building, the lights
were on, shining light into the courtyard they had to cross. Klo walked to the
edge and looked. There was no one. Quickly they ran across the empty courtyard
and hopped over the fence, where they met the river.
“It seems louder than normal.”
“Yes, there is the white bridge.”
“It is very high. I don’t think we can cross.”
“Dang it Klo! We can’t cross? This package has important documents;
I need go get to Laos! This is not game of Pick-Up-Sticks!”
“I know, that is why we can’t cross. Everything would get
wet, we would probably get washed down!
This is serious! There are men over there with guns! Real life guns, if
they find us, who knows what could happen!”
“Get out of the way, I’ll be the judge of that.” James
pushed Klo to the side, nearly knocking him down, and stepped toward the river.
He looked at the raging stream. He had crossed it before when most of it was
hardly even ankle deep, now the bottom was not visible anywhere. The deepest
parts were likely to be above his chest. He breathed heavily, took a final look
and gritted his teeth. He then turned back to Klo.
“Dang it Klo, you are right. We can wait one more day, and
only one more day. We will have to come again tomorrow. We leave at 5 a.m.
We took the 20 minute walk back, just as we had come. It was
lighter by then, more trafficked and we were more depressed. One day of waiting
in the heat.
The day creaked by like ice sliding down sandpaper on no
greater than a 5 degree incline. The temperature rose to nearly humanly
unbearable temperatures. This was lucky, because if the ice did not melt, there
is absolutely no way that ice would slide down that small of an incline!
The evening mirrored the one the previous night, except
there was no rain. There were clouds, and even some lightening that threatened,
but no rain.
“We couldn’t cross, Dhay, the river was to deep.”
“To deep James? You know this is not a game of
pick-up-sticks!”
“I know.”
“Well, it looks like there won’t be rain today, with luck
the river should be down tomorrow.”
James went back to his room, just in time for the
electricity to go out.
“I guess it will be a dark night.” James said to himself
using his phone to light his final actions. Before jumping under his mosquito
net for the night, Once more setting his alarm for 4:45.
“James!” Klo walked into the room, his music playing.
“Klo, I’m almost ready.” The same routine of waking up at
4:45, deciding to “rest” for five more minutes, and then waking up 4 minutes to
5 had happened again. This time Klo had beat him.
They walked together past the dorm, Klo ran inside.
James waited anxiously outside, but as the seconds turned
into minutes, he became antsy. He wanted to call out, “Hurry Klo, this isn’t a
game of Crochet!” But as he had been the first reason for delay, he felt he
wasn’t justified, yet.
Klo eventually walked out, carrying only his flashlight and
his phone and accompanied by no one.
“Anyone else coming?”
“No, just us.” No further explanation was given.
The two walked on in silence, just as they had the previous
morning. Except it wasn’t silent. Klo kept music blaring from his phone.
“Shouldn’t we maybe turn the music off, it kind of ruins the
whole being inconspicuous thing?”
Klo ignored him. This could be because he could not hear
James over his music, because he was angry at having to get up at 5 a.m. two
mornings in a row, or because he was not particularly fluent in English and was
not really sure what “inconspicuous” meant.
Whatever the reason, they carried on with the Thai version of the song More than Words following them every
step.
They were a bit later than the previous morning, as such
there were many more people on the path. Even the soccer field was filled with
young men passing the ball around. This was pretty amazing considering it was
still dark. They continued on with more people to avoid, but with no serious
problems. Most the people were out preparing for market and getting ready for
the day; people that did not care or take interest in the passing of a tall
white American.
And so, without gathering too much attention, the couple made
it to the river. Klo turned off the music. There was no more messing around.
Both looked silently at the flowing stream which was still higher than it had
been when James had arrived weeks ago, but lower than the previous day,
together they stepped into the water.
The first part was the deepest, and it only went up to
James’ knees. Holding each other on the shoulder, they crossed to the opposite
shore. There was a light at the nearby house as they followed the path up to
the road.
“Get down!” James said while he fell to the ground, laying on
the grass hill, out of sight of the road. A few more cars went by. James waited
for it to be silent before he stood up.
“Where do I go? Over the bridge? Or just there on the other
side of the street?”
“You wait there.” Klo pointed to the small dirt place across
the street. “The bus will go that way.”
“Are you sure, Klo? This is no game of pick-up sticks!”
Klo simply nodded his head.
“Thanks friend.” They shook hands, and James jumped on the
empty road and walked across, where he stood conspicuously waiting.
It did not take long for the dogs of the area to take
notice. Several approached him. He stepped back, pulled out his belt and held
his ground. They did not get any closer.
The wait went tediously slow. Cars drove by, James turned
and pretended to be looking at his phone.
“I’m a tourist” he would say to himself, reviewing his plan if
approached. He rehearsed the words in his mind several times. There was no incident.
One minute before six the truck arrived. It had seats in the
back so it was used like a bus.
“70 bhat?”
The man did not understand. James made the symbol for 7. The
man nodded.
There was one man already in the truck. James bowed, but
they remained silent. The next stop was in front of the main gate. There were
lots of cars and people. Friday morning there is a market, and venders were
there to sell their goods. The truck stopped for several minutes. James looked
around at the various vendors, all Thai, then he turned towards the gate, Thai
police. One was looking at him.
James turned straight forward. The truck had a roof over the
bed where the clients sat, if he sat straight, his head was completely hidden
in the ceiling. The only thing visible from the gate was his brown shirt.
Finally they drove on, there was no incident.
They drove past several other gated entrances, most were not
manned. Several people entered, and some got out. Before getting to the next
town, the police stopped the truck. James knew they were only there to check
for contraband, they cared nothing about people. The policeman greeted him, “good
morning.”
“Good morning.” James replied smiling. Soon they were going
on. The two police officers, not realizing at all what had just slipped past
them. James felt under his shirt. Still there, still safe.
It was a forty minute drive in the best of circumstances to
the next town where he would catch the bus. The best that could happen is that
no one would stop them. It seemed he was good. But at one stop, policemen were
there. The truck stopped and he walked up to the bus.
“How is it going officer!” James began, trying to put him
off by becoming a friend. “Did you watch the Thai-China soccer game last night?
Wow, Thailand certainly did a number on them.”
Did the ruse work? Well considering the officer didn’t speak
English, James could have been saying, “I am drug-trafficker” and it would not
have mattered. However, as the officer did not know English, not even enough to
ask for anything, he just decided to not bother, and James was soon at the bus
station getting a taxi to take him to his Mae Sot connection.
As he jumped on the back of the motorcycle and took off down
the road with the wind brushing through his hair, he reached with one hand to
check for the small bag. Still there, he smiled contently to himself. Feeling
that no one could stop him from his mission…
To be continued
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