Stories Vol 13: The Road to Pai

The Road to Pair, One of the many windy turns

 

 

Hangovers, there a bitch. Hangovers while in a car and on road trip are an even bigger bitch. Hangovers while in the back of a mini-van hurling through a winding mountain pass are a Mother Fucking Bitch. Hangovers while in the back of a mini van hurling through a winding mountain pass for two hours at a constant zig sag are a sign from a greater power that you freaking suck at life choices.

 

I should no better by now, I am that person on the tour bus that at about an hour in, everyone looks at and thinks…" weakling, man up." Yes, I get motion sickness. What is weird though is that it only happens in buses and cars where the AC does not work efficiently enough to keep it cold and there is no fresh air. I keep retearching myself this crucial piece about me but I never learn.

 

So there we were the morning after our night out with Vanessa, Fleur and the rest of the hostel. Sherry had told us that she arranged for us to be picked up between 9 and 9:30am by the bus company that was taking us to Pai. As Becky, Tom and myself were all in the same hostel we had assumed that sherry would already be in the same van that picked us up since she had been the one to arrange for the four of us to go together.

 

After getting into the back of a truck that stopped and hostel after hostel picking up hoards of Chinese tourists we started to worry that we had gotten in the wrong vehicle. "Had we snagged someone else's ride while sitting in the hostel lobby?" We thought to ourselves. After all, the only thing that was said to us was, "you go to pai, you take truck." Figuring we'd go with the flow we just went with it.

 

20 minutes into the ride through the sitting, and one crammed pack truck later, it was clear that we were not stopping at Sherry's hostel.

 

"Maybe she'll be on a different truck and we all get dropped off at the same location and then take the same bus up to Pai." Becky chimes in.

 

The three of us exchange glances and it becomes crystal clear that we all have no fucking clue what's going on. There are three things wrong with the situation.

1. We do not know what company Sherry Arranged the bus through
2. We do not know if she paid for it
3. We do not know where Sherry is and have no way to contact her

 

Upon arriving at the bus pick up point in Chiang Mai, we look around and do not see Sherry. The drop off location is actually more like the side of a road than an actual terminal. As we exit the truck, the driver ushers us into a minivan with the rest of our group.

 

"What about Sherry you guys…" I say to the group.

 

"Maybe she caught a different one." Tom answers back.

 

"What do we do?" Becky asks.

 

We look at each other with same look we've been exchanging through out the our ride. It is a look of sheer confusion. Like children, lost with out there mom, we let ourselves be ushered into a mini van with 10 strangers with out even a fight. Most of the time, you would question the fact that our friend was not with us but Thai Travel services had been so disorganized and chaotic that you begin to become desensitized to everything and rather than fight it, you give in and hope that you'll get from point A to point B safely.

 

Karma is a bitch. That is all I can say about it. Both Tom and I knew better than to leave with out knowing exactly where Sherry was. As a result, the universe punished us. With in the first 15 minutes, Tom's stomach went from bad to "Real" Bad. As chance would have it we had to stop at a gas station and Tom lucked out. With in seconds of stopping, he threw himself out and ran for the bathroom.

 

After about 10 minutes of waiting on him, a look of concern crossed our drivers face. They know all too well the signs of Travelers sickness. You could see the calculations go through his head on how many rest stops and how far apart they were from each other. 

 

As Tom, walked back from the toilets you could see a look of immense terror on his face. Red from embarrassment and anger at himself for having consumed something the night before that gave him the bug. We would later find out, that Tom had already suffered a bout of stomach issues after eating undercooked chicken from a street vendor in Bali.

Seeing how distressed Tom was, I decided to offer up the solo window seat I had secured at the beginning of the ride. I figured, he was in rougher condition than I was and motion sickness was the last thing he needed.

 

After 45 minutes pass, all is well and I start to get excited. Normally at this point the motion sickness starts to kick in for me. It all has to do with air flow and temperature, as long as those are controlled I am completely fine. For the first time I actually think that I'm going to be ok!

 

….and then it hits. First comes the slight headache. It's not an unbearable one, just a bit of discomfort. Its like if something were to put pressure around your head at a steady pressure for an extended amount of time. Then comes the dizziness and light headed feeling.

 

"FUCK!!!" I think to myself. I try to hold it together. All we need is another sick individual in this mini van. Sitting there next to Becky in the way back of the bus, I find myself regretting the drinking the night before and secretly wanting to punch Becky for not having any bit of sickness at all. I watch her as her chipper self peers out the window at the beautiful mountain vistas. She's loving every moment of it.

 

For 30 more minutes, I hold myself together. The driver tells us we will be stopping shortly for a bathroom and coffee break. "Thank god!" I think to myself. All I want to do is breath in a waft of fresh air and lie down on the ground. My head is spinning, I'm overheated and my back is drenched in sweat. My body mistaking the motion sickness for a bug, over heats itself to kill off what ever intruder is making a muck of my system. Ihavet was tricked, there was nothing to kill off. I am left now with a slight fever and a need for air.

 

As we pull into the rest stop, I look at Tom. He's in rough shape and had asked when we were stopping 20 minutes earlier. It was clear now that he needed a bathroom. I rummage in my bag and hand him some toilet paper and seat covers (thanks Kelly for those!). He thanks me and bolts out the door.

 

15 minutes pass and Tom is still not back, the driver is now very concerned. It's clear that this was the last stop before Pai and we have an hour and a half left in our journey. I buy some mint mentos from a stand at the bathroom. Peppermint is supposed to be a natural reliever of sickness caused by motion. To my disappointment the mentos version does not work. Chalked full of sugar it just makes me nauseous.

 

I take one last big inhale of fresh air and enter the van. I know my fate looks bleak at this point. I have succumbed that the next hour and a half is going to be painful. The driver turns the ignition, and I slouch up against the stacked luggage to my right in defeat. As we round the corner of the first of many new turns, it is clear that something has changed in our driver's tactics.

 

He no longer is slowing down and gracefully taking each bend. Instead he has begun to drive like a fucking maniac. It is as if he is the bandit of a bank robbery and he has entered a car chase through the mountains with the law enforcement. Each turn is an opportunity to gain space on the tail following him.

 

As Becky and I thrash into each other with each turn, I start to realize that I need to do something or I'm going to hurl all over. While it would wipe that euphoric grin off her face, it would not be the best scenario. Ok so I should probably explain, that in any other situation I would be so excited by how child like Becky's smile was and how enamored she was with the mountain vistas but in this instance I fell victim to envy and Becky was to be my collateral damage.

 

I decide to move to the floor in between the seats in front of me. IF anything, by curling up into a ball, knees to my chest with arms wrapped around them, my hope is I can prevent my body from being thrown around during each turn. I grab for my iPod and turn on Dave Matthews, figuring that the soothing music will relax and distract me.

 

With a loud clamper we hit a pot hole, the luggage stacked chaotically behind and to the right comes falling down on me. Something hits my shoulder but I ignore it, focusing only on my breathing. After about 10 minutes I decide to look and realize I have the jam from Tom's breakfast takeaway box all down my shoulder.

 

"Son of a bitch." I think to myself. I quickly remember that its not his fault and that I'm just annoyed at how my body is feeling.  I tap Tom on the leg, smile and ask for a napkin, explaining in the process about the Jam. He apologizes and I laugh and say it's not your fault.

 

Cleaned up and even more light headed/dizzy, I decide to lay down in the minivans aisle. Sitting on the floor didn't work but maybe lying down will. As I lay there listening to Dave Matthews, I start to feel faint. The movement of van zig zagging through the mountains is taking its toll. My eyes start to become heavy and then it all goes dark.

 

What I'm told is an hour or so later, I am woken up by my hostel mates. They inform me that we are at Pai and need to get out. I quickly sit up and go white at the stark realization that my shorts are wet and I'm sitting in a puddle.

"FUCK!! FUCK! Did I pee myself?" Is the first thought that crosses my mind. I am now frantically trying to figure out what the mysterious liquid is and whether or not my motion sickness made me pee myself while passed out by sickness. My throat is dry and I grab for my water.

 

The cap is missing. Ok so I'm not sitting in pee. I'm sitting in about a quarter of a liter of water that spilled from my bottle in the midst of all of the turns. I feel stupid at jumping to my initial conclusion. I get up pack up my day bag and get off the bus.

We had arrived in Pai; wrecked and in shambles. I call this a Karmic bitch slap. All three of us had known better by this point. We've traveled in and out of multiple countries and cities. Many unfamiliar and others not so much. In this instance, we had agreed to travel as a group and help each other along. However, in a moment of confusion, rather than take the difficult path and try to converse with non English speakers to figure out what happened, we took the easy way out. As a result, we left one of our members behind. We should have questioned more and sought out clarity to where our friend was.