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36

It was raining, so the statues of Buddha did not offer much solace. I asked a worker at an Indian restaurant if he could give me some leftovers for my dog. Every day he gave me a black plastic bag full of bones and half-eaten bread, which I took to a quiet corner to eat. I spent my days looking for that invisible dog. Daytime meant filling my belly, nighttime meant hiding my body from mosquitoes and the police. The more it rained, the less Buddha provided. I wandered the streets, sat under trees, looked at walls, went to the market—time passed without purpose.

After a few days of sleeping in deserted corners, I found myself once again on Khao San Road. This was good. The more Western tourists there were, the fewer the spot checks by police.

My experience at the Malaysian border reminded me, to my surprise, how much power Europe had.

In the hope of understanding this power, I spoke with many Western tourists, but discovered that most of them were traveling “to find themselves,” as one of them put it. That sounded strange. A person who has to find himself? Had he misplaced that self somewhere? And if he was traveling to find himself, why did everyone have so much respect for Westerners, while all I wanted was to protect my body from Saddam Hussein and got no respect from anyone? It turns out that most of the Western people I met were not that worldly at all. They confused Iraq and Iran, Khomeini and Saddam, Baghdad and Tehran. That’s just as uninformed as saying Hitler was the leader of the Soviet Union and Stalin was the Führer of the Third Reich.

The other thing that surprised me about Western travelers was how dirty they were. There was one young woman with a European passport and a whole assortment of plastic cards from insurance companies, banks, and I don’t know what else—and there she was walking around barefoot, with three and a half inches of armpit hair, scratching her scalp, and smelling disgusting because she hadn’t showered in ages. She told me she was traveling for a few weeks to do exactly what she felt like, something she did not dare to do in her own country. She wanted to be herself.

If I wanted to discuss literature with one of them, it could only be about books that had been turned into Hollywood films. Everybody knew Bob Marley and how many hairs he had on his ass, but no one knew how many CDs he’d recorded. I know I shouldn’t generalize about Europeans, but this was my first impression.

I remember one of those travelers, who I’ll call Oscar. He was about thirty and would sit at an outdoor café drinking beer and pondering which restaurant he would choose for his next meal. He was often in the company of two German girls and a blond Danish guy. I would join them occasionally to take a break from my fear of the police, because even if they were on patrol, the policemen would just walk past our table without taking any notice. Oscar held that all people were equal and that borders, visas, passports, and money should be abolished, so that the world would belong to everyone. I once asked him where he came from. He got angry and gave me a half-hour lecture about how he was a citizen of Earth, and that where he came from was irrelevant, because his birth country was not his choice.

“But a few days ago you asked me where I came from,” I said.

“Did I?” he said, surprised. “Then I sincerely apologize.”

Time and again I listened to Oscar’s lecture about how everyone was equal. “You and me, too,” he said.

“Sorry, but you and I are not equal, and we never will be,” I replied once.

“Oh, but we are!” he exclaimed. “You’re a person, I’m a person.”

“Well put,” one of the Germans chimed in.

“You don’t believe in borders, nationalities, money or passports, right? Then give me your passport, your bank card, and your traveler’s checks. I believe more in them than in myself,” I said, and I meant every word. I would have accepted the whole lot, too, but he was never going to give them to me.

This is how I spent hours listening to the unique philosophies of Western travelers to avoid being checked by the police.

Because Thailand was one of the few countries that issued visas to Iraqis, there were a lot of my countrymen in Bangkok, all of them trying to get themselves smuggled to countries that offered asylum. Many of them lived in hostels on Khao San Road. A strange mix. All ages, all religions, all colors and dialects. The common denominator was the fear of Saddam Hussein and the hope of getting asylum somewhere. For some, the smuggling option had failed and they had no more money to try it again. Others were in the process of organizing a smuggler or were waiting for friends or family to send money.

If you had a false passport, getting onto an airplane to a European country that offered asylum required a smuggler. In Bangkok there were more smugglers than there are kinds of cheese in Holland. Four of them were considered the most reliable: an Iranian, a Pakistani, a Palestinian, and a Jordanian.

I got to know the Palestinian, who we called Galileo. I had heard of him, and met him, through Shakir. Shakir was a tall Iraqi guy, about twenty-five but on the inside still a child, and was so naïve that he had lost all his money to shady smugglers and ended up on the street when his family in Iraq ran out of things to sell. He was my guide in Bangkok. Having been there for so long, he knew exactly where to find edible refuse and knew the places with fewer mosquitoes. He told me about the four reliable smugglers and said that if, by some miracle, he should ever have enough money, he would want to be smuggled by Galileo. Galileo’s waiting list was long, because his policy was to accept money only once, and keep trying until he succeeded, no matter how many times the person was captured. He would get them out of jail by bribing the police.

One day Shakir came up to me with a broad smile. That smile was not for himself, but for me.

“Your big chance!” he said, hugging me tight. “Just like that! And it won’t cost you a cent!” I didn’t realize he was serious.