Back in the apartment, faced with him and the daily routine, Walter fell into a mental hole that on occasion turned black and morose. Until one day, when all of a sudden he got an idea. He went to a bookstore where he bought a travel guide for the most favorite countries in the Far East, specifically Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. He studied, compared, and prepared, before he decided to leave for a year or more.
Soon, Walter went to a travel agency, booked, and paid for a one-way flight to Bangkok. When he reviewed the ticket voucher of Aeroflot Russian Airlines at home, he noticed that the travel agent had also given him a return ticket valid for one year, for the price of one way. Walter did not mind, but found it peculiar. It had not been his intention to return to Frankfurt from Bangkok.
He arranged with roommate Rudi that he would keep the apartment for a year by himself and notified the health insurance to stop his claim. Margaretha reacted with sadness, but she knew as well as Walter that he needed to do something with himself. One of her admirable qualities had always been to wish the best for the other, to be able to let go of something she might have wanted for herself. At this time, she let go of Walter, wished him a safe trip, and told him that she loved him. That broke his heart.
He boarded the Russian plane to Moscow with sorrow. During the flight, the temperature in the cabin turned so cold that a crust of ice accumulated around the air vents, and the air conditioners kept blowing steaming ice-cold air into the cabin space. Nobody said or did anything. In Moscow, he spent hours in the transit terminal after passing through a chain of security checks. On the second leg of his flight to Bangkok, the same situation happened again with the air-conditioning, and no blankets on board.
When Walter walked through the arrival terminal in Bangkok, it was quite a shock from below-freezing temperatures to the tropical heat inside the building without any air-conditioning. He went through customs and passport control, received a permit for three months, and moved slowly among the masses of people and activities.
From his travel guide, he had some names and references for a first hotel in town. While driving in an air-conditioned bus, it began to rain. A heavy downpour converted dry roads to slow-moving rivers. Since Walter arrived from a place of “I need to get out of here now,” he had skipped the travel guide pages about weather, seasons, and monsoon time of year. From the downtown bus depot, he took a taxi that dropped him off across the street from the hotel. As he crossed the street with his backpack, the warm rainwater drenched him and everything else he possessed. The Nikon camera from Frankfurt he had luckily protected in a waterproof case.
The inexpensive budget hotel had a security gate on the first-floor level. Every guest received a key to get to the elevator behind the gate. After the flight, no sleep, and most of all the extreme temperature changes, Walter felt confined in his room, which offered a bleak view from the window onto backsides of buildings and alleys. He took a shower, changed his clothing, and took the elevator downstairs to walk on the street.
When he stepped outside the building, the early night air of Bangkok smothered his body from scalp to the skin on the bottom of his feet in the leather sandals. He could not breathe freely, and his brain appeared to be elsewhere. As per some fuzzy instructions from the security guard of the hotel, Walter strolled in a general direction. He hoped to find a place for dinner and see what else the neighborhood offered. After a few minutes, he passed by the first establishment that looked like a bar from the outside, but in reality offered contact with women who sat on bar stools and at some tables. One of the women waved at him and tried to induce Walter to enter. She came outside and pulled at his hand, but he needed something to eat and drink at that time.
He continued walking along a stretch of the road where many street vendors served deep-fried menu items, rice, noodles, and vegetables from their mobile carts or in niches between buildings. When he passed the entrance of a larger hotel, a crowd of door attendants pleaded with him to enter the bar area, from where he could hear loud music. The men promised him he would meet beautiful women. After another short distance, the road widened, and he could see rows of tables that had been placed on the median. Walter liked a more quiet area, where he selected a restaurant and sat down. He ordered soup and rice with a chicken dish.
When the waiter returned with his soup and Walter took his first spoonful, he felt the inside of his mouth explode and his tongue burn like it never had before, with the exception of some places in central India. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and sweat trickled along his back and armpits. What have I done? he thought in desperation, but nobody answered. He emptied the bottle of lukewarm Chinese beer and waited for the soup to cool down, hoping it would lessen the assault on his gustatory nerves. After the waiter served another bottle of rather cooler beer and time passed, Walter managed to eat half of the soup bowl contents and some chicken rice.
The idea of going back to his room and staying there alone did not appeal to him. He walked back by the hotel with the loud music and entered. A very large room that featured an endless bar area and many tables. The place was packed with Western male tourists and local women of any age. Deafening pop music from the audio system created a background where conversation could only be done by yelling short, incomplete sentences at each other. Walter had never seen a richer selection of young, pretty women in relation to the number of males present. Only a few of the women looked like professionals, which had an additional thrilling effect.
When he approached the bar to order a drink, a spot became available where three women sat next to each other. All of them turned around more or less inconspicuously to inspect the new arrival. While Walter waited for the drink, one of the women began to yell at him. He moved his ear to her mouth and could only imagine she wanted to know where he came from. During the next thirty minutes or less, a rudimentary exchange of information allowed Walter to go back to his room with a pretty and to some extent motherly Thai woman. The security guard let them enter behind the gate, and up they went to his room, where he naturally wanted to know how much she wanted. She only smiled and indicated she would leave it up to him.
Walter was prepared for a situation like that. He asked to see her health certificate, and she produced one, which appeared to be OK. From previous exchanges, he assumed she came from a village where she had a child back with her family. It did not really matter at this point. He undressed himself, placed a condom on the bed stand, and waited for her to return from the shower. When she came out, she had a bed sheet wrapped around her and asked him whether he wanted a massage. Walter said yes. The woman climbed on top of the bed and started slowly moving up and down his spine while standing on him with her full weight. When he decided it was enough, he indicated it to the woman. She laid herself down next to him, still wrapped tightly in the bed sheet, and said or did nothing.
Walter’s brain had not had any rest for thirty hours. He began to doubt that he had selected the right person for the job. Slowly, he unpacked her, hugged and kissed her. When he felt his member was ready, he protected it with a condom. The act itself did not last long, as neither of them enjoyed it. He turned the light back on, which the woman had previously turned off, and asked her to leave. She did not want to leave for some reason he did not understand, but he could not take her presence in the room any longer. Walter did not like it, but through misunderstanding the arrangements and procedure and most of all, the language barrier, distrust settled in. Walter did not want to share the night with her. With a lot of resistance, she finally left. He immediately made sure nothing of value, including all the traveler’s checks, had been touched.
After he turned off the air-conditioning, which had reduced the temperature to Russian Aeroflot standards, he passed out for a good stretch.
Abruptly, he woke up and for moments could not figure out what had happened to him. Why did he lay on a bed inside a shabby, steamy room where a dim light source penetrated the curtains from the outside? Walter got up, turned on the air-conditioning, and parted the drapes a bit. He eyeballed a dark-gray sky covered with clouds that moved rapidly. Humid, moldy air seeped through the discolored windowpanes. Walter quickly took a shower to clean off the residues of the night’s activities and sweat, then dressed and went downstairs in the elevator.
Inside a nearby coffee shop, he studied the travel guide again while sipping on instant coffee and eating a piece of peculiar pastry. In his mind, he had no intention of lingering in the city for an extended stay, but he needed time to arrive mentally and physically before deciding what to do next.
Hoping to breathe some fresh air, he took a bus to the Chao Phraya River area and walked around to observe the bustles. A wise idea was to board one of the hundreds of water taxis with their long drive shafts sticking out from the engines. When he noticed the golden roofs of Wat Phra Kaew Complex from the middle of the river, he got off the taxi at its next stop. The quantity of Buddha statues, including the Emerald Buddha, and the richness of their decorations in gold could be seen on the outside of Ubosot. Walter felt comfortable being around so many monks of all ages in their orange and red clothing and was happy to visit the temple. It gave meaning to the sightseeing trip of the day.
As he walked back aimlessly in the general direction of where he came from, he passed a large bus terminal. Spontaneously, he purchased a ticket for the trip to the city of Chiang Mai. The bus left Bangkok early for the five-hundred-mile trip north, and he had to get up even earlier to make it to the depot. This time Walter appreciated the air-conditioning of the bus very much. The outside temperature throughout the day did not drop from a steady humid 104 degrees.
Chiang Mai sounded mysterious and to some extent more adventurous than another beachfront town or island. Walter had read about the Golden Triangle, a large area that overlaps the mountains of four countries in Southeast Asia: Burma, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. It had been one of the most extensive opium-producing areas of Asia and the world since the 1920s. The road conditions and the traffic around larger and smaller cities and hamlets reminded him of India, where most life happened on the main thoroughfares. Throughout the day, monsoon downpours provided local, temporary flooding and inundated road sections. The bus driver managed to reach Chiang Mai at an acceptable time but in darkness, which became Walter’s first impression: a city without a lot of light.
An extra trip in a motor rickshaw transported him to budget hotels the travel guide recommended. After the third hotel, they came to a one where the entryway had been closed already. The rickshaw driver used his horn, and Walter knocked against the metallic sliding gate until a night person finally opened a small door in the gate. Once he inspected the facility, a room, and negotiated the price, Walter let the rickshaw leave and surrendered to what lay ahead. The place reminded him of an American motel without the cars. His space, a very basic chamber with single bed, table and chair, toilet, and shower, appeared OK for the moment. Completely exhausted, he undressed and went to bed. Just before he fell asleep, it felt as if something raced over most parts of his body. It was not a rat or mouse; the thing did not make any sound; but next day Walter remembered the whirring sensation as it happened.
When he awakened, all major areas on his back, front, and legs were covered with red, thick rashes, which had a particular pattern in their locations and arrangements. Walter became furious at himself, not because he selected the hotel, but because he did not use the powder in his backpack before he went to bed. He had left Germany well prepared with medications, ointments, and bandages, as well as a specific powder against bed bugs. The recommended application was to dispense it on the mattress below the sheet. For the next two days, Walter stayed isolated in his bed and only occasionally left for food. He had a high temperature, and the infected areas burned and itched at the same time. An antibiotic lotion helped with the symptoms. Eventually, he began to feel better and walked around the neighborhood.
A collection of pictures had been pinned onto the wall in the lounge. They displayed people hiking in single line through a jungle area with light backpacks, sitting at a campfire with natives, eating from metal plates in local structures. When Walter inquired about the pictures, he learned that a group of local guides organized hiking trips of various lengths through the hills and jungle in isolated areas north of the city. Walter became excited about the idea and booked a four-day trip at the hotel desk, which included overnight stays at villages of different tribes.
Two mornings later, a group of seven gathered in the driveway of the hotel. The young, athletic-looking guide greeted them and instructed the hikers in a few basic rules in limited English. He also explained that he would carry food for the entire group. Two couples, one from the USA, and a variety of single Europeans signed up for the trek in the hills of northern Thailand. A truck transported the group about thirty miles outside Chiang Mai and dropped them off near the first ascent into the hill area. It had been raining in the morning, and it rained on and off during the first part of the day. Walter wore a thin poncho to cover his body and the backpack, but the temperature and humidity, combined with the vinyl poncho, caused his skin to bloat. It felt better to walk without protection through the warm rain in a sauna-like environment. The group strolled in stretched-out formation on barely visible footpaths through the green brush. No breeze eased the walk through the thick air. Any luggage felt like a burden. Walter carried his Nikon along and made sure to keep it safe.
After a few hours walking, with one break, they reached the first hill tribe village where the guide announced lunchtime. Located on an incline, the individual bamboo structures stood secured on wooden poles with small verandas. The trekking group rested slightly away from any home, but they still sat on what could be called a village square. In this settlement, the locals provided no food for the visitors. With the help of other people, the guide prepared beef stew with rice on a campfire. While they waited, some attempted to communicate with the villagers. Walter unpacked his camera and attached the large zoom lens. From a distance, he wanted to take portrait pictures of distinct, colorful, and exotic indigenous people discreetly.
Until the trekking guide concluded the meal break, very little interaction transpired between the group members. People tried to become comfortable with their gear, shoe wear, the weight on their backs, the pace, and the weather. Walter envied an American who wore ordinary running sneakers and did not worry about water and mud. His leather boots represented a potential issue if they could not dry out.
Walter tried to determine whether the only available female would be up for something. He had competitors and quickly realized that her being the only woman in his age group meant she had signed up for the hike to experience nature and people, not to start a flirtation. After lunch, the guide kept on pushing the group for almost three hours. When the leader stopped for a brief rest, he announced that they were almost there, perhaps one or two more hours to the next village.
The trekkers quietly infiltrated an area that became only visible when they almost stumbled into it. Various bamboo structures rested between large trees, the last daylight penetrating through the leafy space between jungle floor and blue sky. The hikers gathered around their guide, who placed his large, heavy backpack on the ground. He pointed to one of the larger buildings and explained that two rooms in it were reserved for the group, with mats and blankets available inside. Dinner would be prepared within the hour.
Everybody hurried to select and prepare thin futon mats for the night and freshen up as best they could near a water source that trickled from a split bamboo tube, and then they congregated in and around the indicated dinner spot. Food arrived in two large bowls—one with rice, the other with stir-fried vegetables—which were placed on the floor. Every person took a metal plate, filled it up, and sat down wherever they wanted. Boiled, then cooled water had been prepared to quench the thirst of many tired hikers, who after dinner quickly retired to their sleeping quarters to rest their aching muscles and bones. It was not long before Walter dropped into deep sleep.
When he was awakened by jungle sounds, movements around him, hushed voices, and rattling metal buckets, instant adrenaline pumped through his body and made him aware of his situation. He felt pain everywhere in his body. Familiar-looking bodies began moving around in the room where four of them were staying the night. Walter did not want to advertise his own physical condition. He began to shift his legs up and down and then raise his upper body very slowly. He managed to stand on both feet and gingerly walked outside to put on his leather boots. Thin instant coffee, some oatmeal mixed with milk powder, and purified water had to suffice for breakfast while sitting on the stairs of a veranda.
Walter thought he heard a few muffled exclamations of pain when the trekkers loaded their gear onto backs that did not want to be loaded. After an hour in the jungle, all pains were forgotten, the limbs and joints in working condition to experience the increasing beauty of almost untouched forest. In the afternoon, their route along a ridge close to the narrow, gurgling stream offered a reward for their efforts. About twenty yards down the steep bank was a wide space in the stream where the hikers could spend extended time off and enjoy refreshing baths in the cool, waist-high water. Most of them used the opportunity for a deep cleaning. As Walter paused for a moment to observe the scenery and the people frolicking in the stream, he noticed again how some talked to each other because they had someone to talk to, while most of the singles like him kept to themselves.
It made him think of where he came from—the friends, places, and most of all Margaretha. What was she doing at this moment? He considered moving down the bank and taking a dip with some soap in his hand. The pain he felt in his heart made him linger a little while longer.
I need to call her, he thought. I need to know what she is doing. I miss her. However, within fifteen minutes, because of how clean and refreshed he now felt, Walter forgot about Frankfurt and everything else.
The group reassembled and started the second portion of their day’s trip. They would reach their outermost village north of Bangkok, spend the night there, and then begin the return. Their activities in the stream had opened up the participants a bit and brought individuals together as a group, which enabled frequent conversations.
The team arrived at the village before dusk. They noticed a more simplified architecture with open spaces, but building materials were predominantly of dark-stained hardwood. The structure in which the group spent the night had two levels without walls and just a few steps connecting the spaces. It created a feeling of being in the forest while staying inside a house with roof. The hosts prepared dinner, even used some chicken to enrich the rice base, and presented a large pot of boiled bai toey with cashew nuts and fruits.
After dusk, as the group gathering slowly broke up, individuals took care of personal hygiene, and bedding, people were soon lying on their mats. The moon and some candles provided enough light for the whole space, which ended in the semidarkness of the jungle. When Walter was lying down with his hands crossed beneath his head, to his big surprise, a visitor arrived at his bedstead.
It was the tour guide, who quietly asked, “Would you like some opium?”
Walter nodded without thinking. Another person appeared from nowhere with a long, delicately ornate opium pipe that Walter had seen only in pictures. His opium experiences boiled down to a single gift he received from a friendly Afghan man for medicinal purposes.
The tour guide disappeared, and a serious-looking elderly man with long, gray hair and a beard like Ho Chi Minh, kneeled next to Walter. He signaled Walter to relax and turn onto his side. The pipe had been filled with a ball of poppy tears, and the old man lighted a wooden stick with a candle. He extended the mouthpiece to Walter’s lips, and Walter began to suck on it while the man held the burning wood piece over the pipe.
After Walter took four deep, long drags, the old man left, and his guest retreated into the realm of no issues in mental and physical wellness. Time did not exist in this space. It surprised Walter mildly when he felt a hand on his shoulder and noticed his host with the pipe in his hand kneeling next to him as if he had never left. He gestured with the pipe questioningly, and Walter slowly turned toward him again. His still form rested on his back, and his mind wanted to embrace and monitor every single moment of the unexpected and free experience.
After that, Walter never saw his benefactor again. Even though his eyelids were closed during the subsequent pain-free hours, he did not shut an eye. The almost-full moon illuminated the section of the visible sky from his position, as well as a partial vista of the dark forest. Since Walter did not feel anything that could distract him, he began time travel into the here and now. Fully aware of where his being existed at any moment, he decided when to open his eyes to view more moonshine or when to close them to witness his inner light. All through the real time of Walter’s last night in the hills of northern Thailand, he stayed fully conscious. No dreams, epiphany, or spiritual revelations disrupted the presence. When the first rooster crowed, Walter realized that the dream was starting again.
The group made their return trek at a good pace. A truck picked them up as soon as they reached the first hill station. The drive to the hotel took another hour. Everybody smiled when they dismounted from the vehicle, shook hands, and went their ways. The single woman and another traveler who stayed at the same hotel as Walter arranged to meet for dinner after cleaning up.
Before he went to the neighborhood restaurant, Walter quickly walked to a rental place for motorbikes and rented one. He felt he needed to be mobile to see more of the country.
At the restaurant, he noticed the woman sitting alone at a table and after he took a seat himself, they ordered dinner and began talking. She said she had been in Australia before and thought about continuing to Malaysia. As the two exchanged further detailed information, Walter tried to ascertain whether there might be a gap in her story, an opportunity for him to fit in. He did not find this option in the brief encounter and decided to move on alone.
Walter said good-bye to the woman, cranked the bike’s engine, and drove down a road he had never been on until he reached a large space with a park on one side. In the light of a few electric street-lamps, he noticed small booths and some people standing around the park entrance. He stopped his bike, walked toward the scene of action, and sat down on a bench overlooking the place. Walter did not have to wait long before a beautiful, petite young girl in jeans walked to his bench and sat down next to him. They attempted to begin a conversation, but language issues minimized the talk to very few short exchanges. He understood that the girl wanted to accompany him to his hotel, and he did not mind this interruption of loneliness.
In his modest room, Walter undressed and laid his sore body on the bed while the pretty Thai girl left all her clothes on. He found that odd but did not further think about it because she might have wanted to get undressed. She did not waste time and went down to him. Like a pro, she took him into her mouth. This had not been his intention; he wanted to feel her from the inside. She continued with such finesse to work his part that he temporarily let go of the thought of making love to her and enjoyed the initiative. Walter came explosively into her mouth; she then looked up at him smiling. The woman lay down next to him and cuddled up. He caressed her and tried to open her jeans belt, but she circumvented all attempts with her hand.
When Walter tried again and she repeated the defense mechanism, he asked, “What is the matter?”
She shyly smiled at him and replied, “Me, not woman.”
His skin rash had slowly healed, with remaining boils occasionally itching madly. His body ached from the external muscles to the synovial joints. Walter felt betrayed, disappointed, very lonely, and somewhat nauseated after the boy-woman left his hotel chamber. He had asked him to leave after discovering the truth of his gender. The transvestite left with little resistance. Walter could not fall asleep. He felt as shitty as he had throughout the cruel abortion incident in Frankfurt.
He knew that the public telephone company maintained a phone exchange in downtown Chiang Mai. It operated twenty-four hours a day, connecting long-distance and international calls. No other option existed; his hotel did not have a phone at all.
Strong feelings of homesickness provoked Walter to call Margaretha. He needed to hear her voice and find out whether everything was OK with her. The night guard let him out of the gate. Walter drove through the big city’s dark and empty streets. Eventually, he located the phone exchange on the second floor of a nondescript building. He placed the call order with a receptionist and then waited with other people in a room. The phone call had to be relayed manually by several operators in different cities. The receptionist finally summoned him.
Walter stepped into the booth where the black wall phone rang. When he picked up the receiver, he heard it ringing and then a muted voice on the other end said, “Hello, who is this?”
“Antje, this is Walter. Can I speak to Margaretha please?”
“She is sleeping. Can you call back tomorrow? And it is very late here.”
Deflated and sad, he gave up and returned to his room. After a few hours of restless sleep, he woke to a bright, hot day and decided to use it for a trip on the bike to the countryside. The main road from his neighborhood turned into a major highway, which Walter took, passing by miles and miles of paddy fields. About half of them had been flooded with water to promote growth of the new rice plants. In the distance, Walter saw the mountains and paddies, which were incorporated as terraces. The still water in nearby paddies reflected white clouds and the sun. He accelerated the bike as fast as he dared without losing the cap on his head. Whenever he stopped to rest or to take a picture of the wide plain, he felt the heat and humidity swamp his body; his perspiration increased instantly.
In the course of the day’s excursion, he made up his mind. He thought to himself, what am I doing here? Taking pictures of sick people and walking through warm rain in the jungle. It is so hot I can hardly breathe. I do not like it when my body feels wet permanently - covered by a sweaty film at all times. I want to go home.
When he arrived back in town that day, he returned the bike, then walked downtown and placed another call. Again, he could not speak with his girlfriend because she had not arrived home yet. He told Antje he was booking a flight back home and would be back in Frankfurt within days.
Aeroflot Bangkok accepted the free return ticket without any problem. Walter made a reservation for a flight leaving in two days.
Early in the morning, he took a taxi to the bus depot and from there, the bus to Bangkok International Airport. After ten hours of flight time with a layover in Moscow, he was back in Frankfurt.