“I also brought a treat!” Granny said, as she revealed the ingredients for s’mores hidden within her suitcase.December 21–January 2
Thailand
One day the Human Genome Project will discover the mutation that causes people, such as my dear wife, to ignore Mother Nature’s self-preservation impulse and do things like cross police lines during WTO riots. I knew September had inherited it from her mother, with whom we were now rendezvousing, for Christmas in Thailand. Marie, aka Granny, would apply her own special blend of nurture to our group dynamic. Adding a counter to the eccentricity was September’s law-abiding cousin, Melissa, who needed a break from her high-stress job.
We hadn’t been in Bangkok an hour when Granny and Melissa showed up at our hotel. The kids spent the next several hours telling Granny everything we had done in the last six months, in one long run-on sentence without breathing once. Luckily, Granny had been able to score a power cable for my e.brain before she came and I had to endure Jordan’s taunts that I was “brain dead” no longer. No sooner than I could charge my e.brain than we were on our way to the island of Ko Tao, in the Bay of Thailand.
Katrina’s Journal, December 23
… after we got off the ferry to Ko Tao, we rode in the back of a truck to our beach bungalow. Actually, all the taxis are like that here—you just hop into the back of the truck. There are no seat belts or anything. It’s a little bit dangerous, but I like it a lot. Our bungalow is right on the beach and has big boulders by it. We climbed the boulders with Granny.
It was Christmas Eve and we bought a potted palm tree and decorated it and our rooms with tinsel and garlands that Granny had brought. “I also brought a treat!” Granny said, as she revealed the ingredients for s’mores hidden within her suitcase.
As the sun was setting over our beach bungalow we made a bonfire, burned piles of marshmallows, and started singing Christmas carols as loudly as we could with mouths stuffed. “Would you like to join us?” I asked some Australians who happened by. They curled their noses at the sight of chocolate mixed with marshmallows.
“We could get some Vegemite for these marshmallows, if you’d like,” I offered.
But they declined in a very Australian sort of way, which consisted of a graceful taunt and a put down about our country, which we interpreted as “We would be happy to join you if you had beer and sang different songs.” They kept moving along the beach to be with the rest of the young backpacker types who pretended they were too cool to notice that it was Christmas Eve.
• • •
Ko Tao was to be a relaxing vacation from our travels, meaning no structured activities. We sort of failed on that, chartering a boat to take the six of us snorkeling one day. The captain brought his wife and two-year-old son as well as a bunch of squished, overripe bananas. “I hope that’s not lunch,” Jordan whispered to me, pointing at the bananas.
At our first stop, I quickly donned my fins and mask and jumped in while the rest of the group were still on the boat sorting out equipment. The water seemed to boil over with a kaleidoscope of colorful fish. I could clearly see the bottom, about 20 to 30 feet down. We were in a city of huge sea urchins and I went down to get a closer look at them.
When I surfaced for air everyone on the boat was squealing with delight. Only then did I notice why the water was roiling with fish; the captain was tossing the overripe bananas into the water, driving the fish crazy.
These were the varieties of fish you might see in an average saltwater aquarium, about four to six inches long and brilliantly colored with all shades of the rainbow, and utterly harmless. Fish are pretty stupid, yes? I thought so, too. It turns out that fish are stupid, but not as stupid as I am.
I decided to lure the fish over to me by pretending I had food. It worked. Soon I was surrounded by hundreds of eager mouths, each about the diameter of a soda straw, looking for a handout. It was about this time that I noted the captain was feeding the fish from inside the boat; whereas I was pretending to feed them while in the water. All the little fishies were very cute when viewed from far away, but less so when they were brushing against me with their mouths working furiously to find something to fill them.
A little voice in my head told me it was time to stop pretending I had food and to get the heck out of there. No sooner had I decided to obey the voice when one of the little fishies found something to munch on. Not to be too graphic, but the water was a bit cold for a warm-blooded mammal such that my, er, “headlights” were on high beam. So this fish took a mouthful of the one thing that was poking out—my right nipple.
A blood-curdling scream ripped through the air. Or it would have, had I not been under two feet of water at the time. My scream just sort of gurgled out pathetically, unheard. It was now clear why September had refused to breastfeed after the kids had sprouted both upper and lower incisors.
While making my getaway from the nipple-nibbling fish, all I could think of was how in some future scenario I would be lying in a morgue while someone was trying to identify my remains:
“Scar on knee—check. Scar from appendectomy—check. Right nipple missing—check. Yup—that’s him all right.”
It’s funny how your brain works when flooded with adrenaline.
I spent the remainder of the day snorkeling with my arms folded resolutely across my chest, hands tucked under my armpits. Everyone else in the group spent the day snickering conspiratorially, sneaking bits of food into the water wherever I happened to be.
Jordan’s Journal, December 27
Today I ordered lemonade from a restaurant. It tasted horrible! Mom said they must have accidentally put salt in it instead of sugar. We sent it back and the new one tasted the same. We sent that one back, too and told them it was salty. The new one had even more salt! Apparently, they like salty lemonade in Thailand. When we asked them to make one with sugar, they looked at us like we were from Jupiter.
Before we knew it, we had spent a week accomplishing nothing. September’s cousin Melissa had that thing called a “job” where she did something called “work.” This all sounded vaguely familiar, but we tried to talk her out of returning anyway. Initially she considered ignoring this “job,” but something called “guilt” came into play and she was off to Bangkok to catch a flight back home. Granny was going to travel with us for a while longer.
After we bid Melissa adieu, September announced, “I’m bored here.”
“Boring can be good,” I said. “I’m boring, and I’m good.”
“Yes, be that as it may, I have something else in mind.”
“Don’t tell me. You want to find a nice police line and cross it to keep ourselves entertained.”
“Sort of. It’s just that the line I want to cross is the border into Cambodia. I want to go see Angkor Wat.”
I didn’t know much about Angkor Wat, just that it’s a huge temple complex, known to be one of the world’s premier archaeological sites and considered a “must-see” on the Southeast Asia circuit. I was happy just to watch the sunset from our beach bungalow and work on retaining my one remaining nipple. I lobbied against going to Cambodia (the ruins of Angkor Wat being our sole reason to go there) because we had seen countless ruins and temples.
“If I have to put one toe inside another temple, I’ll explode!” Jordan cried when I leaked the information about his mother’s plans at lunch.
That’s my boy! I was completely willing to let Jordan take the blame for us not going to Cambodia.
Unfortunately, September has the exasperating trait of being one step ahead of me, and she really wanted to go. “Jordan,” September casually commented, “I’m not sure children are allowed to go to Angkor Wat.”
Jordan, Katrina, and I all sat up straight in our seats. I knew darn well kids could go to Angkor Wat. What was September playing at?
“Why, Mom?” Katrina asked, bewildered. “Why aren’t kids allowed to go to Angkor Wat?”
“It’s too dangerous. Cambodia still has thousands of buried land mines left over from the war. Plus, it has poisonous snakes, including king cobras. If you go to Angkor Wat, you have to be really careful not to stray off the marked paths.”
“Really, Mom?”
“Why can grown-ups go?”
“We can stay on the path!”
“How old do you have to be?”
“What kind of snakes are there? How poisonous are they, really?”
“How big are the explosions from land mines if you step on one?”
“Can you look it up in the guidebook? When will we know if we can go?”
In one stroke of genius, September had sold Jordan and Katrina on the idea of going, warned them of the small, but real, dangers, obtained their promise not to wander off as they are prone to do, and scuttled my plans for hanging out on the beach in Thailand for another week.
In short, we were going to Cambodia.
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The Saga of the Exxon Valdez. If you are ever tempted to replace the engine in your car with one from “overseas” have a peek here.