CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR
SAND IN MY BRA
EDITED BY JENNIFER L. LEO
“A collection of ridiculous and sublime travel experiences.”
—San Francisco Chronicle Best-Seller List
“These snappy travel stories bursting with candor and crackling humor are sure to leave readers feeling that to not have an adventure to remember is a great loss indeed. Sand in My Bra will light a fire under the behinds of, as the dedication states, ‘all the women who sit at home or behind their desks bitching that they never get to go anywhere.’”
—Publishers Weekly
“Reading about someone else’s troubles can be devastatingly funny. And so we have in this volume exotic settings, language-based miscommunication, and not-always-pleasant surprises as things do not go as planned. Despite it all, our band of female travel writers laughs heartily, with pen, paper, and laptop at the quick.”
—Chicago Tribune
“The writers in Sand in My Bra revel in the absurdities of life away from home. Fk epiphanies; these are the sort of yarns that leave me itching to hit the road.”
—BUST
“Hip chicks with a flair for storytelling share travel tales in Sand in My Bra. From reveling in the ‘freedom to be fat’ in Tahiti to cycling topless at the Burning Man festival in Nevada, the stories celebrate the unexpected joys of travel from a feminine perspective.”
—Orlando Sentinel
“Good-natured women find the funny side of mishaps in places as far flung as the red-light district in Bangkok and a 50-pound sack race in small-town Nevada. There are plenty of laughs and—a side benefit—some handy warnings on what not to do when traveling.”
—Portsmith Herald
“A delightfully entertaining look at atypical travel experiences.”
—South Coast Beacon
“Sand in My Bra supplies laughs as well as a quick fix for the homebound yearning for a quick walk on the wild side.”
—St. Petersburg Times
TRAVELERS’ TALES
HUMOR BOOKS
Sand in My Bra
Whose Panties Are These?
Hyenas Laughed at Me
and Now I Know Why
Not So Funny When It Happened
There’s No Toilet Paper on the Road
Less Traveled
The Fire Never Dies
Last Trout in Venice
TRAVELERS’ TALES
further misadventures from
funny women on the road!
TRAVELERS’ TALES
further misadventures from
funny women on the road!
Edited by
JENNIFER L. LEO
Series Editors
JAMES O’REILLY AND LARRY HABEGGER
TRAVELERS’ TALES
PALO ALTO
Copyright © 2005 Travelers’Tales, Inc. All rights reserved.
Travelers’ Tales and Travelers’ Tales Guides are trademarks of Travelers’ Tales, Inc.
Credits and copyright notices for the individual articles in this collection are given starting on page 219.
We have made every effort to trace the ownership of all copyrighted material and to secure permission from copyright holders. In the event of any question arising as to the ownership of any material, we will be pleased to make the necessary correction in future printings. Contact Travelers’Tales, Inc., 853 Alma Street, Palo Alto, California 94301. www.travelerstales.com
Art Direction: Michele Wetherbee/Stefan Gutermuth
Interior design: Kathryn Heflin and Susan Bailey
Cover concept: Peter Ginelli
Cover Photoshop montage: © Stefan Gutermuth. Jaime McFadden at Montara State Beach, California. (No animals were harmed in the creation of this cover.)
Page layout: Cynthia Lamb using the fonts Bembo and Journal
Distributed by: Publishers Group West, 1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley, California 94710
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The thong also rises : further misadventures from funny women on the road / edited by Jennifer L. Leo.— 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-9323-6182-7
1. Women travelers—Anecdotes. 2. Voyages and travels—Anecdotes. I. Leo, Jennifer. II. Title.
G465. T66 2005
910.4'082—dc22
2005017952
First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to all the women in the world who overpack and then make someone else carry it.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Naked Nightmare
ELLEN SUSSMAN
Caribbean
An American (Drug-Smuggling) Girl
LAURIE NOTARO
Mexico-U.S. Border
Pills, Thrills, and Green Around the Gills
TAMARA SHEWARD
Laos
Cherub
GINA BRIEFS-ELGIN
Italy
And Then I Was Eight…Again
NICOLE DREON
South Dakota
Hot Date with a Yogi
JENNIFER COX
Australia
Riding the Semi-Deluxe
MEGAN LYLES
India
The Princess and the Pee
JULIE EISENBERG
At Sea
Gently You Have to Avoid a Frightening Behavior
MARCY GORDON
Italy
Paris, Third Time Around
AYUN HALLIDAY
Paris
The Dangers of Going Local
OLIVIA EDWARD
China
Opera for Dummies
SHARI CAUDRON
Prague
His and Her Vacations
JILL CONNER BROWNE
The Female Psyche
The Yellow Lady
KATIE McLANE
Mexico
Lifelike
SUSAN ORLEAN
Illinois
My Husband Is Lost Without Me
ANASTASIA M. ASHMAN
New York
Mother and Child (and Disco) Reunion
LAURIE FRANKEL
American Road Trip
The Ravioli Man
ELIZABETH FONSECA
Paris
The Education of a Guinea Pig
COLLEEN FRIESEN
Guatemala
Keys to the Outback
LAURIE McANDISH KING
Australia
Almost Grounded
DEANNA SUKKAR
Laos
The Naked and the Wed
ELIZABETH ASDORIAN
Jamaica
Just Another Malibu Minnie
AMY C. BALFOUR
California
Blinded by Science
MELINDA MISURACA
Thailand
Travel Light, Ride Hard
CHRISTINE MICHAUD-MARTINEZ
Egypt
Size Does Matter
MICHELLE M. LOTT
In the Air
Heave-Ho
JENNIFER COLVIN
France
R-Rated Rescue
JULIA WEILER
Thailand
Mein Gott, I’ve Fried His Underpants
ANN LOMBARDI
Switzerland
Killing Me Softy with Your Stare
LUBNA KABLY
India
Bathtub Blues in the Land of the Rising Buns
LAURA KLINE
Japan
Getting Grandma
BARBARA ROBERTSON
Europe
Index of Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction
I was in the tropical jungle of northern Thailand on a hill tribe trek when I had the opportunity to smoke some opium. And I’m not talking about a handcrafted cigarette in the back of the line while the tour group took a break from the muddy hike…no, this was in a den. An opium den where only the coolest members of the group would be invited in. It was certainly not on the tour description, and that made it all the more appealing.
Visions of a cozy room with long sofas, big velvety red floor pillows, and sheer curtains that gently graced the floorboards came immediately to mind. And the pipes, they would be antiques. I could already feel the grooves of the intricately carved designs with silver and gold detailing. We’d be smoking a family heirloom that literally got passed from generation to generation. Oh yeah, I couldn’t wait to get in there. This was a story, this was an adventure, this would be something to tell everybody—but my father—back home. Who cared if I didn’t smoke? I’d worry about that technicality later.
The Doctor, a Virginia medical student I’d befriended, motioned for me to follow him. It was time. The anticipation mounted with the same excitement as getting on a fast rollercoaster ride. I was about to set foot in a world of such exotic intoxication that my life and my writing would be forever changed. My hand was already squeezing the cash in my pocket in hopes it would be enough for just one try. We walked up to the straw hut and followed the Thai guide inside. I saw that it was just one room. In the back corner of the hut two Thai men were lying across from each other on thin mats that one might roll up and take to the beach. In front of the smoker’s head was a contraption that didn’t look anything like a family heirloom or ancient Thai artifact. It was a cut-up Coke can with a candle underneath it. I gasped. This wasn’t an opium den, this was a crack house!
See, that’s the thing about us eager travelers. The mere whisper of a far-off destination seeps into our heads and swirls around like a cotton candy machine until we have a romantic notion of a trip all big and puffy and sweet. As we book our ticket and pack our bags, we’re smiling and humming and most likely flapping our lips about how this is going to be the best trip ever. We’ve saved our money, we’ve done all our research, this trip is just what we need.
And sometimes it is. Sometimes our dreams come true. Other times, our fantasies turn into miserable itchy unwanted events that are so far removed from a brag-worthy story we feel like we can’t come home until we turn it around. Well, we can. Why? Because here at Travelers’ Tales we’ve taken these uncomfortable trips and given them a home. Sand in My Bra and Whose Panties Are These?—the two previous women’s travel humor books in our series—delivered the kinds of stories you were glad didn’t happen to you. You laughed, you cried, and you told me that surely there were more types of undies than just our tops and bottoms. Yes, ladies, there are.
At your request, we present The Thong Also Rises. The laughs within range from short snickers to laugh-out-loud gut-busters from women who didn’t quite get the travel experience they bargained for. Feel free to scream “Eeeewwww!” when Julie Eisenberg gets splashed with urine in a tight cruise ship bathroom in “Princess and the Pee,” sympathize with Nicole Dreon in “And Then I was Eight…Again” as she relives being eight, year after year, because her parents are cheapskates, ask Christine Michaud what’s best to wear when you’re riding a camel in “Travel Light, Ride Hard,” navigate the attention of men while traveling solo with Elizabeth Fonseca in “Ravioli Man,” and giggle like school girls with Ayun Halliday and her mom as they endure the sounds of Parisian romance in a hotel with thin walls in “Paris, the Third Time Around.”
While you’re reading these Ms.-Adventures, it is perfectly O.K. to call your friend and tell her you just read something worse than her last disaster. Suggest our series to your book group when you have a busy month and need a break from a heady novel. And especially give our books to someone you know who’s hitting the road for the first time. She needs to know that a perfect trip doesn’t always make for the best storytelling. In fact, just the opposite. The most important thing is to have fun while enduring the fruits of your folly. And if for any reason you can’t laugh in the middle of your misadventure, you’ll find that it always becomes funnier as soon as you’re back home. For these women whose stories you’re about to read, it definitely took a wee bit longer….
—JENNIFER L. LEO
ELLEN SUSSMAN
Naked Nightmare
It’s all in your mind. Well, maybe.
MY HUSBAND AND I HAD NEVER BEEN TO A NUDE beach before. Someone at our hotel raved about this place: a white sand beach you could walk along for hours. Naked.
We had already spent a couple of days in St. Martin, soaking up the sun, checking our tan marks at the end of the day. Now we would work on a full body tan.
We drove to the beach in our rented Jeep, following the directions our hotelmates had given us. We were nervous, giddy. Can you do it? Sure. Maybe. Do you think everyone will be scoping out everyone else? Yikes. What about those dimples on my butt? We arrived in the mid-afternoon, parked our car, walked to the closest beach area. The reports were correct: the place was gorgeous. The people were naked. Not just topless. Naked.
We pretended not to look at anyone. Everyone else also seemed to be pretending not to look at anyone. We found a spot of sand, spread our blanket, plunked ourselves down. We took off our t-shirts, our shorts. We glanced at each other. We were both still wearing our bathing suits. We looked around. Was everyone watching us? Were we the only newbies? Wait—most of the people were sporting very visible tan lines. Perhaps they had just arrived, too, and were all just as scared. I took off my bikini top and lay down flat on the sand, on my belly.
My husband wiggled out of his trunks. Man, he did it. If he could, I could, and so I scooched out of my bikini bottom.
“Is anyone looking?” I asked.
My husband was still sitting up. Easier for him to hide in that position, I noticed.
He shook his head. “Everyone’s staring out to sea,” he said.
I eased myself into a sitting position. Sure enough, everyone seemed intent on watching the windsurfers, sailors, kayakers, bodysurfers. Then I figured out why—they were all naked! I couldn’t imagine how they could feel so unself-conscious, so free. And then I heard the call. Beer here!
A topless waitress approached with a tray of ice-cold brew.
“Two please!” I shouted.
She served us, we paid, I drank. Fast. And then I started to relax. I stopped hiding my body. I started soaking in the sun. Soon enough, I wanted another beer. But the waitress was long gone and hadn’t returned.
“There must be more beer where that came from,” I said.
“I see something all the way at the end of the beach,” my husband told me. “Maybe that’s the bar.”
“I’m going,” I said.
“Where?”
“To the bar.”
“How?”
“Naked.”
I got up, grabbed some bills which I tucked into my fist, and headed off down the beach. Naked.
At first I was terrified. It is hard to walk and cover yourself at the same time. I walked past people who looked at me. All of me. But then, I discovered, I could look at them. All of them. And soon enough, I was swinging my arms, lengthening my stride, feeling the curl of a smile on my face. I was naked! Walking! With strangers! This must be what Woodstock was like! I’m free!
I walked along the beach, easing into my new sense of self. The exhilaration passed but I kept smiling. The bar was ahead of me, at the far end of the beach. I marched up to it and threw open the door. I stepped inside; the door closed behind me. My eyes adjusted to the dark and I looked around.
Everyone was clothed. Everyone was male. Everyone was watching me.
Haven’t you had dreams where you’re at your job or school or the grocery store and you suddenly realize you’ve forgotten to get dressed? You wake up. You’re like Dorothy, back in Kansas. That was my first thought. This can’t be
real. Wake up. But someone called for another shot of whiskey and someone laughed and they all kept watching me.
I had two choices. Walk out. Walk on.
I walked across the room and stepped up to the bar. The bartender nodded at me. “Two beers,” I said. “And a couple bags of chips.” I was amazed that words came out of my mouth. I couldn’t believe they could be heard over the pounding of my heart.
“Here you go, sweetheart,” he said with a wink.
The bartender took my money. I took the bottles and the bags, turned and walked to the door. In those last few moments I thought: What if I open the door and there is no nude beach. I’ve passed into the twilight zone. I’ll never return. But the door opened, I stepped out, and the door closed behind me. Ahead of me, far ahead of me because I had walked beyond the boundaries of the nude beach, were my compatriots of flesh.
I ran, bottles clanging, breath caught in my throat. I ran all the way back to my husband’s side, dropped to the blanket, and began to laugh, wildly, nakedly, free.
Ellen Sussman is the author of the novel, On a Night Like This, a San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller which has also been published in France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Israel. Ellen has published a dozen short stories in literary and commercial magazines and won a Writers at Work Fellowship. She has published non-fiction in Newsweek and has an essay in Kiss Tomorrow Hello: Tales from the Midlife Underground. She teaches private writing classes in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her website is www.ellensussman.com.
LAURIE NOTARO
An American (Drug-Smuggling) Girl
What’s that in your bulging bag, ma’am?
“I’M…” I PROCLAIMED LOUDLY AND PROUDLY TO THE man who had a gun secured at his hip, “an AMERICAN!!!”
My mouth was dry, my hands were shaking, and I was scared out of my mind, especially now that the border agent was glaring at me and obviously pretty pissed.
Still standing in Mexico, wishing desperately that I could just fly the five feet to the United States, I realized that I was probably the shittiest drug smuggler of all time.
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