Where Water Buffalo Roam

I’m searching for a way to transcend the experience... When the bus dropped us off at the junction of the two roads there wasn’t much we could do. I had been riding my bike for 1,115 kilometers through the northern stretches of Thailand and Laos. My visa for Vietnam started in two days, I needed to rest while still covering ground; I didn’t know what to expect and was too tired to care. In retrospect, I think the driver had the mid-way drop off planned before we departed. At 7:30am a mother, her small child, a middle aged man with worn through dress shoes, the Iguana and I loaded the flatbed-turned-bus in the junction town of Vieng Thong. At 7:45am the bus-driver pushed the front seat forward, pulled out a bamboo-bong, walked out to the road, smoked himself some opium, then came back and starred blankly at the front drivers side tire. Five other Laotians trickled over twenty minutes of philophosphorizing followed. Half-hour later the stoned driver was wheeling the tire in...

“The first of November is the end of the rainy season and the beginning of clear skies and cool nights,” Markus said in a promising tone. It had been precipitating in Mae Sot for three unrelenting days. My usual ten minute bike ride to work in the mornings with an occasional rain peppering had turned into something of a ride of doom which inevitably left me showing up to work sopping. For three days it was the same; get soaked in the morning; show up to work pruned and damp; sit a puddle behind my computer underneath water weighted clothes until the end of the day. One of the downsides to traveling with nothing more than a daypack is dampness. Seeing in how it was Halloween night and Markus had completed building yet another playground for migrant schools in Mae Sot, spirits were high and the wet week was becoming a distant memory. Halloween night felt a lot like Washington; dark and moist. It ended up raining so hard that night the golf-ball sized drops sounded like they mig...

I had just reached the five mile mark of my runners high. With ear-buds blaring I was shouting the chorus of a choice Citizen Cope song (in my head), probably looking like people I usually laugh at—oblivious to their surroundings—and loving every breathless track. The gravel road turned back to chuck-holed cement, my indicator to pick-it up, I was less than 10 minutes from a refreshing cold shower. The milliseconds between shuffling songs provided just long enough pause to realize something didn’t feel right; I was being watched. *** Because of the time of day I run the only onlookers are those awake to give the local monks food on their daily alms rounds. I’ve grown quite accustomed to the farang (Westerner) sighting stares and sheepish glances from the children; this unsettled feeling was different. Like starring down the imaginary monster in my closet while waiting for sleep, I could not rest without a feeling of resolve. Last resort; I paused the last song of my ‘Mornin...