The Worst Motorcycle in Laos

by Chris Tharp

  “Yes, a few years ago some German visitors they come and try to clean the river… but no good.”

  Good God, I thought. If the Germans can’t organize a cleanup then we’re all fucked.

  The rain eased as we made our way into the canyon proper. Mr. Coin took off his shoes and performed the multiple fords barefoot. I surrendered mine to the elements and splashed in each time fully shod, with tiny Minhee clutching hard while I carried her piggyback.

  “There, there—look,” said Coin, pointing to some trees at the top of a cliff. “They are migrating north to the big national park. They stop here. You are lucky to come at the right time.”

  I saw them at once, clusters of huge flying foxes hanging upside down from the limbs of the trees.

  Mr. Coin grabbed a large piece of river driftwood and hauled it over to another. He brought it down with all of his strength, banging the wood together repeatedly. The din echoed off the sheer canyon wall. Nothing. He did it again and then, cupping his hands around his mouth, let loose a cry from the bottom of his gut:

  “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  With that, one of the flying foxes, now disturbed, took to the air.

  “Look!” Minhee cried.

  Mr. Coin continued banging the wood, and I joined in with a howl of my own.

  Soon the one flying fox was joined by another, and another, and then another, until, within a few seconds the whole narrow strip of canyon sky was filled with these massive winged creatures, flying to the other side in search of a new resting place. We craned our necks back and looked straight up, the rain stinging our eyes but failing to spoil the strange, magnificent sight.

  We climbed out of the canyon and walked through a village toward the main town. Mr. Coin pointed out the unique architecture of the wooden houses, which mixed the local Minangkabau style (high peaked roofs that look like buffalo horns, intricate carvings) with that of the traditional Dutch (narrow windows, double doors). Dogs barked as we passed most every home, an anomaly in Muslim Indonesia.

  “They keep them to hunt wild pigs,” said Mr. Coin. ”When the pig is killed, the dogs get all the meat.”

  ”Call me next time,” I said. “I’ll give the dogs a hand.”

  It was now twilight and the rain stopped. The low light refracted through the remaining clouds, bathing the village in subdued hues. Minhee lingered behind, snapping close-up photos of the myriad flowers in bloom. Everything was wet. A muezzin suddenly called out from a small mosque just a hundred meters away. Several men shuffled in and removed their shoes. His song was joined by others—from both the village and the neighboring town—one by one, until the melodies of ten prayer calls resounded throughout the rice fields, trees, wooden houses, and into the canyon below. The haunting cries of the multiple muezzins blended together into one narcotic chorale, ushering in the pouring darkness.

  We were now on a cable footbridge, a good fifty meters above the river. The daylight had nearly expired, and Mr. Coin and I sat on the rickety, swaying structure, smoking in silence. Minhee—uneasy at such heights—looked on from the safety of the other side. I sat there, soaked and chilled, and let the smoke warm me inside.

  “A few years ago I went to Jakarta to live with my brother,” said Mr. Coin. ”But I hated it. The city is not for me. Here is my home. This valley and this river. Here I will live and die.”

  I nodded and looked to the sky, where a single flying fox glided on, making its way north.

  *

  There we were, packed into yet another tin can of a van which rattled and screamed down the road away from Bukittinggi, hell-bent for Padang. The driver was up to the usual shenanigans that I’d come to expect from anyone behind the wheel in Indonesia: being a suicidal dick. He honked and passed on corners and tailgated and tore down the way like a cat set aflame, making us all privately come to terms with the fact that we could die at any moment. And guess what? We almost did. Death pounced upon the road that day, just meters ahead, but luckily for all of us, the Reaper’s scythe narrowly missed its target.

  I’ve seen the aftermath of plenty of landslides, both in Southeast Asia and back home in the rain-soaked Pacific Northwest, but never had one come so close to killing me. Just twenty seconds later and our seatbelt-free vehicle would have been crushed under a boulder that nothing short of Superman could have moved. This gigantic rock was accompanied by a deadly a mass of dirt, brush, and smaller stones that, if they hadn’t fallen on us directly, would have at least knocked the van off the narrow road and into the roaring river gorge below.

  The road was now blocked, and traffic was quickly stacking up on both sides of the slide. We slipped out of the stuffy van for fresh air and a photo op. At this point a posse gathered around the obstruction and attempted to clear what they could. I pitched in for a moment, but when it came time to move one of the huge rocks, it was obvious that no amount of pushing or grunting or heaving-ho was going to make a lick of difference. This boulder was a real hernia-maker and there to stay. The only hope of our van reaching its destination would be to clear a path around the slide; otherwise, we’d have to grab our packs and start walking in hopes of flagging down a ride on the other side. However, the locals were more industrious than I originally thought. After a lot of standing around and smoking and arguing among the four or five self-appointed bosses, the cops showed up. It was then that everyone got down to business, clearing just enough space between the debris pile and the edge of the road to squeak a vehicle by, one at a time.

  Being one of the closest vehicles to the landslide almost got us crushed, but it also guaranteed that we wouldn’t have to wait hours for our turn to drive around the slide. Eventually our chance came, and our driver, properly humbled by this act of God, gingerly skirted the minivan around the dirt and rocks and drove the rest of the way to Padang like a proper, responsible citizen.

  *

  Tin Tin was a bare bones joint sitting between the highway and a rocky scab of a beach near the village of Bungus, just south of city of Padang. The road was dangerous—constantly rumbling with giant trucks carrying petrol from a local refinery. Oil is big business in Sumatra, though like everything else, the local folks taste very little of the pie. A few palm trees shaded the area in front of the guesthouse rooms, and the beach itself was littered with old soda bottles and other rubbish. A few plastic bags floated listlessly in the murky water like half-dead jellyfish. I felt deflated: we had traveled very far to get to the edge of the great and mysterious Indian Ocean—a new destination for both of us—and it kind of sucked.

  Our room at Tin Tin was cheap, and we got what we paid for. The sheet was stained with brown splotches of blood and the bathroom was tiny, containing a spigot, an ancient squatter, and a plastic bucket of water. The walls were splattered with dried shit—which even managed to get itself caked into the recesses of the water bucket’s ladle. It was everywhere. A previous guest had evidently suffered from an atomic bout of diarrhea, and a disgusted Minhee did her best to scrub away the evidence. It’s amazing to witness the aftermath of a truly volcanic bowel explosion; doing so in the tropics gives you a real appreciation as to just how much havoc the local bacteria and food can wreak on a visitor’s digestive system.

  The night we attempted sleep, but we were mercilessly attacked by endless sorties of nasty black mosquitoes. The room was thick with them—the worst I’d encountered anywhere—but the owner saw no need to erect a net. Minhee woke up in a berserker rage at several points during the hellish evening, slapping and stalking and killing as many of the dreadful little beasts as she could, but doing so was like trying to stop the ocean’s tide; the room’s window didn’t properly seal, so one by one the bloodsuckers kept storming in. No amount of clothing or DEET could deter these equatorial skitters, and in the end I just surrendered and allowed myself to get bitten. It was only later that I found out that malaria is alive and well in West Sumatra. We moved to the slightly more upscale guesthouse Carlos the next day, which, along wi
th hot water, had mosquito nets in all the rooms.

  *

  The fishermen worked Bungus beach every day, save Friday afternoon, when they were away for rest and prayers. They stoically clutched ropes and hauled in the massive nets at barely perceptible speeds. These were hard-looking men with coffee skin and deep lines around their eyes. They stared out to sea while pulling in the lines, always with clove cigarettes dangling from chapped lips. Sometimes they talked and joked, but mostly they toiled in silence. Their catches were meager, usually just a few clusters of small silver fish. Often globs of unwanted jellyfish were included in the harvest. One time they brought in a stingray and sliced off its stinger straight away to avoid injury; I’m sure the creature was later eaten.

  Every day I watched them bring in their hauls, took a few photos, and shared smiles and a few smokes. These were poor fisherman getting anything they could from the sea, and I was a comparatively rich tourist in their world, but there was no real separation between us and them. There were no walls to keep anyone out, and no locals hawking goods that none of us wanted or needed; no one was in your pocket. Bungus was a real place where real people went about their business. It was a working beach. A few visitors came and went and spent some money in the local economy, but folks didn’t change it all just to cater to us. No one got shut out. There was something exceedingly honest about the place, and despite its shortcomings, I grew to like it for that.

  *

  “Hey girl! You come in!” A passenger door opened. ”Come in car!”

  Minhee ignored their request and quickened her pace. They continued their lines.

  “You China girl? Ni-hao? Japan? Konichiwa? Come on girl! Get in car!”

  At this point she broke into a full sprint with the black sedan keeping pace. When she came upon the dirt alley leading to our guesthouse, she ducked down it and made a go, quickly reaching the bungalow and locking herself inside. Just when she thought she was safe, she heard the three men approach outside.

  “Hello… Hello girl… You come out.”

  They walked to the door and jiggled the handle. Minhee heard them rustling outside and caught the shadow of one them trying to peer in the window. She crouched on the floor, breathing as little as possible, attempting invisibility.

  They stayed outside for fifteen minutes, smoking, lingering, and periodically calling out to her, before they finally gave up and took off.

  I got back an hour and a half later—warm and buzzing—full of beer. Minhee had barricaded the door the best she could, with a chest of drawers and a chair. After clearing away the furniture and letting me in, she sat on the bed, silent, shaken, and dark. I had stayed behind at the Bungus Café with a fat Englishman and his Thai girlfriend, laughing, swapping travelers’ tales, and downing bottle after bottle of Bintang, Indonesia’s crappy national beer. I’d let her walk home alone, well after dark in a country where scores of men eye-raped her on a daily basis. I’d failed both my wife and myself, and vowed to never let that happen again.

  *

  We climbed away from the river, up through a small rubber plantation before eventually entering the park. But we weren’t the only ones. We were joined by many other groups. For the first time, I felt like we were firmly on the tourist trail. We were doing the one thing than anyone who comes to Sumatra must do: we going to see the orangutans.

  In front of us was a pack of forty Indonesian college students who shrieked and screamed with each step they took into the forest. Most of them were young women who squealed and laughed as they snapped pictures of each other; they were oblivious to the fact that they were frightening away any wildlife in the area. I rolled my eyes and sighed and briefly dreamed of owning a machine gun.

  “Don’t worry,” our Swiss companion, Christine, said. She’d lived here before. ”They’re just a day group. They’ll be gone soon enough.”

  And she was right. We followed our guide, Kinu, and a few of the others (along with their groups) down a barely perceptible path, and soon the students were out of both sight and earshot. My muscles loosened as the clamor of human voices disappeared. We were now surrounded by the true sounds of the jungle.

  We pressed on into the forest, usually within sight of another group. It was a Saturday, and a lot of folks were out. It seemed that everyone got the same trek. I don’t think there were too many variations in the itineraries. The sheer number of other human beings was disconcerting. Constant crowds are my least favorite thing about living in Korea: whatever you want to do, at least ten thousand other people want to do it too. While there were no more than a hundred of us in the jungle that day, it was enough for me to question whether coming out had been a good idea.

  Despite the slightly crowded conditions, things began to look up, animal-wise. We soon heard the doleful cries of a howler gibbon, and followed its lament until we could spot its white form atop a palm tree. Nearby was also a troupe of mustachioed Thomas Leaf Monkeys, who paid little mind to our presence. Our guides—having seen it all before—lay back on the damp ground and puffed on clove cigarettes while their clients shot away in an orgy of photography.

  Less than an hour later we came upon the first orangutan, crouching on the muddy path as one of the guides pointed him out. He was a large male, nesting just above the trail, and paid little heed to the pack of wildlife paparazzi snapping away underneath. After capturing our fill of images, we moved on and soon came across a mother and her baby, hanging from a vine high above. I took off my pack and stepped away to get a good shot. The orangutan suddenly dropped down the vine with startling power and speed and tried to make a grab for the bag, but the one of the guides picked up a stick, yelled, and chased her back up before she could reach her booty.

  *

  “Jackie was pet before,” Kinu filled us in. “She just wants to hug people. She is spoiled.”

  Minhee joined a group of young European trekkers who aimed their cameras for the best shot.

  Jackie was the star of our jungle camp. She was a semi-wild orangutan whose fuzzy-headed baby clung to her as she clung to tree limbs, looking down at us with huge, pitiful eyes.

  “I want to hug her,” Minhee said.

  “Do not,” Kinu warned. “She will hold you for more than one hour and she is too strong to break the hug.”

  After a bone-cleansing swim in the cool, clean waters, the late-afternoon rain came, and we all ducked under the shelter, watching Jackie as she improvised a rain hat from the numerous jungle leaves nearby. She took the opportunity to come down out of the tree and attempt to join us under our tarps, but was quickly chased off by a stick-wielding guide.

  “We cannot let her get used to people,” Kinu said. “Even though she was a pet before, we must treat her as a wild orangutan.”

  She hung around camp until just before sunset, when she finally slunk off into the dark of the forest to sleep.

  Jackie was back in the morning, and joined us as we took our coffee on the boulders alongside the rushing water. She ambled among the rocks, baby clinging to her side, while she hammed it up for more of our photographs. This ape loved people and soaked up the attention with gusto. Each attempt to chase her away only resulted with the needy orangutan slowly making her way back to the encampment, where she could bask within camera range at the awe she instilled in the cluster of Westerners compulsively snapping away. Jackie had grown up in captivity, and despite living for over ten years in the wild, it was clear that she identified more with humans than her own kind. She just couldn’t help herself, and surely was hoping to be once again led out of the huge, lonely jungle.

  *

  “Tsunami.” I said. “I want to see tsunami.”

  Syahrul nodded his head, kick-started his dented-up bike, and headed into town.

  As we putted along the open streets of Banda Aceh, I could plainly see just how much of a sitting duck the city is when it comes to ocean-borne catastrophes. The ridge of highlands that makes up the spine of Sumatra ends abruptly many miles before the sea, a
nd Banda Aceh sits on a wide, flat plain. There is little high ground to speak of—almost nothing to mitigate a sudden, catastrophic ocean swell. A tsunami would blast into the city unchecked, and that’s exactly what happened on the morning of December 26th, 2004.

  Banda Aceh was obliterated by the tsunami. Over 170,000 were killed—many of them women and children—since many of the men were out to sea, fishing at the time. To give it some perspective, only about 150,000 people live in Banda Aceh today. And it shows. In contrast to the other cities in Sumatra—which are positively writhing with human activity—Banda Aceh seems much more sparsely populated. The streets are wide and largely free of traffic. The air is clear and the whole place lacks the stifling yoke of exhaust present in other Indonesian population centers. Banda Aceh was easily the nicest town we visited. After the tsunami, international aid money poured in and the city was well rebuilt. It was spiffy, modern, and clean—the very opposite of Medan or Padang.

  Syahrul slowed down in front of a side street.

  “Ship! Ship!” He shouted, pointing.

  We pulled off and before long I could see it: a huge metal ship, deposited there, more than a mile from the harbor, by the wave. A park of sorts, complete with wooden walkways affording the best views, had recently been constructed around the boat. Because it was early in the morning, the “park” had not yet opened, but a rudimentary memorial sat right next door. Minhee and I climbed out of the sidecar and looked at the massive wall of photographs, all of which documented the disaster in grisly detail. We saw the mud and destruction and photo after photo of bodies. Some were laid out and covered up, but most were caught up in the debris, twisted and crushed, swollen black and blue and putrid yellow. Almost no shot was without at least one corpse. It was only then that the scale of the catastrophe hit me true. I could smell the rotting flesh through the pictures and knew at once that Hell itself can manifest itself right here on earth.

  I impotently put ten bucks in the donation jar and got back into Syahrul’s sidecar with Minhee. Syahrul pointed to the ship and, with his best charades, acted out his part in the tsunami.