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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
Three new friends on the Thailand-Burma border teach a traveler about gaining and losing.
Apr 24, 1999 | "You will come with me, my friend." This is an order -- not an invitation. But I feel that Anwar and I have come far enough together for one day, and timidly I protest.
"Please, I pay for the ride," insists Anwar, the hulking, block-headed Iranian who has been my companion for the past few hours.
Abandoning all hope of leaving a day of hassles behind me, I obligingly climb into the back of the waiting tuk-tuk, to go looking for the floating hotel with Anwar.
He's been talking about this architectural wonder for the last hour, since the change of buses in Chiang Rai. We had both come in on the air-con bus from Chiang Mai, and when all the Thai passengers -- and finally the bus driver -- got off at Chiang Rai, the Iranian and I stayed on, waiting for the ride to continue on to Mae Sai, Thailand's northernmost city on the Burmese border.
"This is the bus to Mae Sai?" he asked me.
"I thought so."
"I bought my ticket in Chiang Mai," he said. "AC bus, all the way to Mae Sai."
"Me too."
"My name's Anwar," he said.
"Well, Anwar, tickets or no tickets, I don't think this bus is going anywhere."
We got off together and walked around the depot until we found a bus going to Mae Sai. A far cry from our former air-con cruiser with soft-drink serving waitresses and video, this little green bus with doors ripped off the hinges coughed into motion as soon as Anwar and I climbed on, the last passengers.
A woman with a money pouch around her waist started walking down the aisle collecting fares. Anwar and I showed her our stubs from the last bus. The woman shook her head, took a 10- and a 20-baht note from her pouch and held the money close to our faces.
Anwar nodded significantly at his ticket stub. The woman shook her head again, turning my way. I shrugged, acting the befuddled foreigner. She turned back to Anwar, who turned his back on her and stared very deliberately out the window.
"You pay," she said.
"Do not pay her," Anwar growled, still not turning my way.
The woman with the money apron began yelling in Thai, first to the other passengers -- all Thai -- then, walking back to the front of the bus, to the driver. What was he going to do? Drop us off on the side of the highway and tell us to find our own ride? Maybe ... An old man in what looked like a military uniform turned around in his seat to scowl at us. I imagined the many ways this could turn ugly. When the woman came back down our way, pointing adamantly to the money in her hand, I paid. If a dollar and a half would keep the peace, so be it.
Anwar, across the aisle, grunted. When the woman tried for her fare once more, Anwar hissed and spat, barely missing her.
And that was the end of it. The woman went on muttering, but back in her spot leaning out the side door, and the driver kept driving, deep into the Golden Triangle.
Anwar settled back, and showing there were no hard feelings between us started telling me about the floating hotel in the middle of the Mekong River between Thailand and Burma. There's no mention of this particular landmark in my Lonely Planet, and I reluctantly pointed this out to Anwar.
"There's a place that's right on the river," I suggested.
"No. This is in the river. It floats in the river," Anwar said. "We shall find it."
