February 25 - Mountain Pass - Part I

The jungle mountain road from Mae Sot, Thailand to Sukhothai was clearly designed by a crack team of incorrigible sadists from a Thai prison for the criminally insane. It makes the most vomit inducing roller coaster you can imagine seem like a farming road through central Kansas by comparison. It pitches and dives and winds around blind corners. It screams through hairpin turns and double backs, and changes course as unpredictably as a 5-year-old Tourette's syndrome kid jacked full of Pixie Stix and set loose in FAO Schwartz. It's like some cruel son of a bitch of an engineer pulled a clump of hair out of Edward Scissorhands' hairbrush, gave it to the most addle brained interns he could find, and said, "Here is your blueprint. Make this into a road."
And they did.
I am on this road now. Although it is less than 150 kilometers long and the driver is attacking it like he's got a truckload of bleeding patients he needs to get to the emergency room, the trip is taking hours. Days.
Or maybe that's just my imagination. My sense of time is not to be trusted. The terror and carsickness I'm feeling as a result of being driven by a lunatic with a chip on his shoulder has left me exhausted, but I don't dare close my eyes. Every speck of concentration I can muster is locked on focusing on the road and keeping my breakfast down.
I'm sweaty and dizzy. My mouth is watering and I keep swallowing it back down and burping. The driver can see me in the rear view and it's clear that he'd enjoying it: another foreigner moments away from doing the big spit all over the back of the truck.
I can't take it anymore.
I have to get out of this truck.
I motion for him to pull over, and he does. Stumbling out of the truck, weak-kneed and trembling, I come inches from careening into a motorcycle passing by and it doesn't phase me. I stagger over to the grassy side of the road, put my hands on my knees, and brace myself for the inevitable torrent of sick, but instead I just collapse. And even splayed out on the ground, I'm so dizzy that I have to clutch desperately to exposed tree roots to stop myself from flying off the face of the earth.
After a few minutes, I dare a look back at the truck. The driver is on his cell laughing, and the other passengers are outside stretching their legs. They've taken this road before. I haven't.
"How you doing over there?" asks someone from the truck, sounding less like a concerned soul and more like an upperclassman laughing at a puking freshman who's had too much to drink.
"How much further?" is my answer.
There is some consultation.
"We're a little more than halfway there."
"I'll walk."
They laugh, but it's not a joke. I can't get back in that truck. I really can't. It takes them a while before they accept this. There are offers to slow down, offers to wait, offers of seasickness pills. But there's no way.
And eventually they agree.
They give me a cell phone, two bottles of water, and a map. I clutch it all, still curled up on the ground, hours away from having my equilibrium restored.
They offer me a few more last chances and then they leave me and I fall asleep.
When I wake up, it is still daylight, but I am no longer on the side of the road. I am high above the ground and it takes me more than a few panicked seconds to realize that I am on the back of an elephant.
The elephant is being guided by a leathery Asian woman who could be anywhere from 45 to 115 years old. Noticing that I'm awake, she flashes a toothless grin at me, strikes a match against her cheek, and lights a cigar.


Part II - Coming tomorrow!