8 hour bus ride from Bangkok to Trat, which is near the border of Cambodia in the South East of Thailand. We cannot afford the hotels in Phuket, so we opted for the low budget Hippie haven called Koh Chang. The bus is the Bird Flu express. No other farangs on board like me. Many of the passengers are wearing SARS masks, whether to keep something in, or keep something out is anyone's guess. The Thai version of the twin girls from the Shinning movie sit in front of me, starring over the seat. No emotion in their eyes. Just the look of disturbed children of the corn....or children of the rice for that matter. I am reading Ammianus Marcelinus "The later Roman Empire". I am just getting to the part of the Gothic wars and invasion of the Huns, when the bus stops and 6 or 7 people get on the bus offering to sell cold chicken on a stick, bags of soda, and mango slices. My girl buys all of it. I don't know where it all goes but I have never seen a person eat as much as her. She proffers me a cold Salmonella laden chicken skewer and I eat it anyway.
Not 30 minutes after of which, the bubble guts start churning inside of me. I am balancing in the buses "hong nam" or rest room, as it sways back and forth, as I try to aim the jet of liquid shit from my ass in the general direction of the toilet. I am supposedly supposed to use a provided tub of water to clean myself with but opt for a combination of napkins and using a bottle of water with a sport top on it as a sort of field improvised bidet. After 15 minutes of this cleansing process, I emerge from the rest room. The Driver of the bus looks in the rear view mirror and sees me coming out and slams on the brakes. Our bus pulls to the side of the road and the driver jumps up from his seat, yelling at me in Thai. He is speaking too fast for me to understand, but I can make out the words "Key" meaning shit, "Kwai" meaning buffalo (a euphemism for a dumb person). My girl begins yelling back at him in the Issan dialect, and then I am totally lost. She turns and explains to me that the driver is saying that the toilet is broken and couldn't I read the "out of order" sign written in Thai on the rest room door?
The Driver walks down the aisle and stands before the restroom door. He carefully opens it to examine the crime scene. He gasps and begins yelling again "Ma nii ! Ma Nii !" or come here, come here. I am beckoned over to him and made to examine the carnage I have unleashed. My lava flow, had gone down into the toilet and flooded the floor through a broken fixture. Now the Shinning Twins appear below each of my arms and are marveling at my creation. My girl is readily at my defense, asking the driver why he didn't tell the Farang (me) that the toilet was broken. He should have known that I didn't read Thai. While all this is happening, I can feel the second wave percolating inside of me. I tell the driver "Tawnii, Phom dtong gon bpai hong nam!" or I have to go to the rest room NOW. Our bus is in the middle of nowhere, and the driver points outside. I look out the window of the bus. It is a landscape of flat rice fields with no trees nearby. I look further down the road and can see some higher plants that appear to be sugar cane. I tell my girl to tell him to drive further down the road, to tell him that I am sorry but I am sick from the chicken that I ate earlier. How bacteria ridden something has to be in order for it to have such an immediate onset is scarring the shit out of me....literally.
After some cajoling on my girls part, the driver goes further down the road, and stops the bus. He opens the door and yells for me to "Bpai! Bpai!" or Go! Go!. My girl digs into her bag and hands me a roll of tissue. I am utterly defeated but beyond caring. I get off the bus with my Tissue and water bottle in hand and walk into the sugar cane field. I turn around and look at the bus. Every passenger is starring at me...of course, along with the Shinning twins, who now look like conjoined twins (ah! Siamese twins) because of the way their heads are tilting and resting on each other temples.
I do my business and return to the bus. The Thai's are gentle and considerate people. A culture of Buddhism has left them for compassion for the pasty white farang with no intestinal fortitude and they graciously spare me their ridicule. I return to my seat and begin to read my book. My girl acts as though nothing has happened. To lighten the mood the driver starts playing Thai Karaoke music on the TV set. The volume is way too loud and I can't concentrate on my book. I ask my girl to tell the driver to turn it down and she says she wont. Why? I ask her. "Because you already make poo poo on his floor, and I don't want to ask him for anything." I try for 30 minutes to deal with the brain piercing vocals of Thai pop music but I can't handle it anymore. I walk up to the driver and ask him in Thai to turn down the music. He looks at me with hatred in his eyes. Then I look at him with hatred in my eyes. He reaches for the volume knob and turns it down one notch. I then reach for the knob and turn it down 3 more. The driver just shakes his head.
I have won.
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