The Write Way Around: Traveling Tales

King Kong and her little sister in the ‘shower’.

Just returned from trekking through Northern Thailand in the jungle for three days, where I spent my first night in a Burmese long neck village playing (and failing at) card games by candle light with some friends (recent Yale law school grad who just passed the bar, a first year uni couple from the UK and a kid from the UK who just taught in China and plans to move to Switzerland) villagers looked on. Our trek the next morning was led by a 14-year-old villager with tattoos from bamboo and who wore sandals through the dirtiest, muddiest roads but managed to keep his feet clean as a whistle, where as my Nikes are now various shades of mud.

We went on another elephant trek, for which he was one of the mahouts, then went on a bamboo raft rie (sounds cooler than it really was), for which he was one of the drivers and would periodically take breaks to do backflips off the raft and into the river.
We headed out again, and this time our trek through Northern Thailand was led by a 12-year-old girl who called herself King Kong and was one of the most memorable people I’ll ever meet. I sang some Justin Bieber for her (she had no idea who he was), and we kept up a march: sai, hhwa, sai, hhwa – left, right, left right. We arrived at the second village some time in the early evening on Saturday, and we were all smelly, sweaty and dirty beyond comprehension from a few spills along the way. We finally settled into our accommodations, which was another bamboo hut but this time had a “hallway” that ran the whole way through the middle without doors on either end – a safe, secure and utterly luxurious lifestyle for backpackers.
King Kong said, “Alex, shower?” and pointed the river which her house was situated on. It had a small waterfall at one point of it that probably went a bit higher than my shoulders, and it ran probably about 10 feet I’d say. The seven of us looked at one another, got into our underwear and headed into the river for our bath. King Kong and her 6-year-old sister, Sang, were jumping every which way into this water, which was shallow and filled with rocks, without any fear. The little sister amazed me. She had her ears pierced with weeds and was climbing this waterfall to the top of it and just jumping off it or jumping back from one of us to the other. King Kong gave me some shampoo and a scrubber to clean off my feet, and as I stood at the top of the rock beside her, watching all of my friends playing around with this little Thai jungle girl who never hesitated in her steps or jumps or had the littlest bit of fear, I had one of those, “This is the best night of my life” moments. It sounds so simple, but that half hour we all spent ‘taking a shower’ in the will be one of my favorite memories of all trips – past and future.
I am heading on a 2 day boat ride to Laos in a couple of hours. Don’t worry. This time I’m not penniless, and food was included with our package.
If I don’t get to write again, be sure to watch my older brother Michael’s first World Cup game on September 11th, live from New Zealand, for which he will vice captain the USA team against Ireland. GO MIKEY!