It would be a great place to spend a few weeks, but Juliana and I had plans to board the boat for Laos soon. It would be a three-day trip across the Mekong River, one of the largest in the world, and it was great to meet a friend who was willing to live that adventure with me.
I hadn’t spoken to Cristian since I landed in Bangkok. After two nights of touring all the charming little bars with exceptional Thai bands, Ju and I were ready to leave the next day, but my German credit card, yes, the same one I thought I lost in Koh Phangan, was gone.
From then on, Juliana and I began to go through an endless saga trying to leave Pai’s village. Ironically, I discovered a few days later that Pai in Thai means “to go.” It sounded like a bad joke.
98 – THE FALL ON THE SCOOTER
Everything in my bag was intact. The wallet, Thai and Vietnamese money, documents and my credit card from Brazil. I looked around my backpacks more than three times just to be sure I hadn’t lost anything. Believing I would find the card in one of the bars, I asked Juliana to stay one more night. I didn’t know how I would do it this time to apply for another card without being sure of my whereabouts within the next two weeks.
The next day I canceled the card and requested a new one for the address of a hostel in Bangkok. Returning to Thailand was not in my plans, but the German bank did not agree to send the card to any other country. I sent an email to the hostel in Bangkok stating the approximate delivery date of the card and told Juliana I was ready to go. This time, she asked us to postpone the trip because she had met a beautiful Frenchman the night before.
I went out one more night to have fun with my new group of friends. I met Lila and Barcelona, a Brazilian and a Spanish again. We had worked together at the beach bar in Koh Phi Phi. A Chilean and an Argentinian joined us.
In the morning Juliana told me that she got stood up by the French and we decided to leave the next day. We rented a motorcycle to brave Pai’s surroundings together on our last day. I didn’t know how to drive and Juliana was a little insecure, but we still faced the challenge.
Less than 15 minutes after leaving the motorcycle shop, while we were on our way to the gas station, Juliana was confused about driving on the left side of the road when we entered a busy avenue, throwing the scooter to the right as to avoid crashing into a car that came in our direction.
As the motorcycle began to lie to the left, I accepted that the fall was inevitable. I felt my left knee and arms scalping on the boulders and, with my eyes closed, just wished the motorcycle would stop crawling on the floor. We spent a few seconds asking each other if we were okay and reassuring each other that we were.
When we got up, we saw that our clothes were torn at the knees and two girls ran with hydrogen peroxide and gauze to help us. We fell right in front of an emergency medical clinic. My wounds burned, but Juliana’s knee was noticeably worse than mine.
The motorcycle had been on the roadside with the key in the ignition. I pushed it closer to the clinic and discussed with Juliana what to do. Besides feeling a lot of pain, she was not feeling secure to ride the scooter back. We called the owner of the hostel where she was working in exchange for accommodation. Juliana came back on the back of his motorcycle and me on his girlfriend’s, who rode our rented scooters.
The next day, I went with a friend to return the scooter. Thanks to Buddha, no one noticed that it suffered a fall. But Juliana’s wound required care and we delayed our boat adventure to Laos once again. We decided to stay in Pai three more nights.
99 – ONE OR TWO NIGHTS WILL MAKE NO DIFFERENCE. WILL IT?
It was very hot in Pai during the day, but the temperature dropped sharply with the sunset. Juliana’s boss was very generous letting us stay in a small thatched bungalow on the banks of the Pai River for a few more nights without paying. It was a very simple cabin, with room only for the double mattress on the floor, with a mosquito netting attached to the ceiling. Juliana finally managed to find the Frenchman again, and I had to stay out of the cabin every night until later, since with her injured leg she couldn’t wander around the village. But that was a problem I easily solved, drinking cheap beer while listening to the great bands in Pai’s bars.
When we finally decided to set off on our adventure to Laos, I went through the city’s dozens of travel agencies to buy our tickets. The plan was to board the next day, but there were no more seats available on the long boat that made the three-day journey. There were only seats left on the half-price bus, which took only one day, but it was nowhere near the trip we both wanted to make.
I texted Juliana and we decided that two more nights in Pai would make no difference. It was even comical. It had been a week since we repeated the same sentence to each other.
To make sure we were actually leaving Thailand this time, I left with purchased tickets and booked a taxi to pick us up at the hostel. The starting point wasn’t far, but Juliana’s leg was our priority.
100 – HEALING A DEATHLY WOUND
Felipe cried a lot as he put his uniforms in a gray suitcase. The furniture in our house was covered with yellow sheets and a bright light came through the balcony window where the fern had been waiting for water for several days. It was a long time since everything was abandoned inside that house which had been once the home of our dreams.
I wasn’t feeling the same despair inside me as before. I just watched Felipe’s pain and felt helpless that I couldn’t take it from him. One day, he couldn’t take away the pain that plagued me either.
Already inside the car, while a thin, colorless rain wet the windshield, he banged his hands on the steering wheel.
- I fucking love you! You don’t believe me anymore, but I love you.
I watched him silently, wanting to comfort him, who was so important in my life. It was my opportunity to put it all behind us, forget everything, and start over. We have done this so many times before. But I no longer wanted to convince him to stay and that was weird.
I felt a deep emptiness take over my chest. When the car drove off, I wanted to turn back the clock and try to fix things, but it wasn’t out of love, it was out of zeal. Suddenly, I saw my father with a coat in his hands saying goodbye. Someone held me as I begged him to carry me in his arms. I felt tears wetting my cheeks and shrill screams clawing in my throat. It was the first time I saw the pain in my father’s eyes. I was terribly afraid of being abandoned forever and screamed at him not to leave me there.
The pain was so sharp that I woke up from that meaningless dream. Lost in time, I was just trying to figure out where I was. I looked up at the ceiling and saw the white veil covering the bed where I slept. Juliana breathed quietly beside me, but I was breathing harshly. Not to wake her, I concentrated on the noise of the river as I counted my sighs slowly.
- Those who leave also suffer.
That phrase rose up in my thoughts for no reason and I started to cry. I could no longer stay in the cabin. I grabbed one of the three comforters, which we smuggled from the dorms to protect us from the chill that easily penetrated the thatched walls, and sat on the hammock outside.
The sky was beginning to lighten on the horizon and I could hear only the cicadas and the gentle current of the river. I thought of the pain I felt leaving Andrew, Laurent, and Cristián, and finally, I could understand the lesson that dream brought me.