odyssey

Welcome to Thailand! Oh, I'm so glad you've decided to visit me at the shelter. You'll love it, I promise. It's an easy trip out from the city, as long as you follow a few simple instructions.

The shelter isn't too far from the city, but the trip can take more or less time depending on the time of day and your mode of transportation. Traffic is relatively light in the late evening, and if you're riding pillion on a motorcycle driven by a complete lunatic, you can easily make the trip in 15 minutes, especially if they're driving "Thai-style" (i.e., ignoring the laws of traffic and human decency).

(And I definitely don't know this from experience, so you can stop clutching your pearls, Mother.)

If you value your life and have some time to kill, you can take a songthaew, a pick-up truck outfitted with benches in the back. They're cheap but slow, and often crowded to the point of uneasy physical contact. (Also known in Thailand as "any physical contact whatsoever, especially between a man and a woman, or with a farang, or if God forbid the head or feet are involved, or if it's hot outside, or on a day that ends in -day.")

If the songthaew is full, you can avoid the crush by hanging onto the little metal ladders on the back of the truck. This can be a fun way to observe the passing scenery, which usually includes buildings, uglier buildings, empty fields, lunatics on motorcyles, an absurdly large hamburger sculpture, and countless drivers with their fingers up their noses. A word of caution, though: if you are weighed down by the standard American Weeble-esque ass, you may wish to thread your arms through the rungs of the ladder so as not to end up on the pavement at the mercy of the lunatic bikers.

Once you've been on the songthaew for about half an hour, you can get off, either by ringing the little bell on the ceiling or by allowing your now-aching feet to slip off the back of the truck. As for when to debark, the trick is to know your landmarks. I tell new volunteers to count the temples and then look for the little sign with our shelter's name, but I personally tend to look for the big purple billboard near the turn-off. The day they change that billboard is the day I can no longer find my way home.

From this point, it's about a 1.5 kilometer walk to the shelter. Though "kilometer" probably doesn't mean much to the Americans reading this, does it? I might as well say, "It's about a banana Klingon to the shelter." To put it in perspective, I will say that the walk is comparable to 2/3 of a Friends rerun on TBS, but with more snakes. (Or fewer snakes, I guess, depending on how you feel about Jennifer Aniston.)

We do have a fair number of serpents out in these parts. One day I was out on the motorbike with Winifred, one of the Vietnamese women, and we barely avoided running over a massive python squirming across this very road. "Was that a bad snake?" I ventured, hoping that I had merely hallucinated its incredible girth and the toddler-shaped lumps along its middle. "Very bad," Winifred said, laughing nervously. Ever since then, I've sworn off walking down this road after dark. Except for that one night. Actually, maybe twice. Four times at most.

(Totally kidding, Mom! Oh, come on, stop writing me out of the will.)

Moving right along... You probably won't see any snakes yourself, but you will pass a few dogs along the way. Most of them will be stretched out on their sides, baking in the sun. The odd alpha dog will offer a token growl, but the majority of these mutts will size you up through one slitted eye, decide you're not worth the energy, and go back to sleep.

Having said that, it's at this point that you should pick up a good-sized rock from the ground. Stick it in your pocket. You might need it later.

You'll notice that the road has changed from pavement to dirt. You could have gotten off the songthaew earlier and taken a different route, on a paved road, but it's a longer walk and the road is busier and less pedestrian-friendly. There are also more people milling around shops and homes along that road, which means you're guaranteed to be laughed at. A volunteer once speculated to me that the Thais were laughing at us because we were walking, while anyone who's anyone has at least a bicycle to transport them from place to place. It's a solid theory, but I don't buy it. I think they laugh because we're farang. That's the only punchline you need.

Anyway, on your left, you'll see some cows. On your right, you'll see more cows. Up ahead, you'll see - well, you get the idea.

The road passes by a number of rice paddies. If you'd walked this way a month ago, you would have seen dry, hard fields that seemed to be producing nothing much besides cow poop. Most of the farmers have irrigated their paddies now, turning them into a patchwork of murky mirrors, interrupted by sprouts of bright, bright green.

You're now passing a chicken factory on your right. I can't lie: it's pretty grim, even for someone who hates chickens. Step lively, now.

Up ahead is the crematorium. I'd guess from the architecture that it's used for Buddhist cremations, but I've never asked. For all I know, it's where they burn dead cattle, or the bodies of farang who ask dumb questions. Then again, there's a soccer field in front, so maybe it's a Maya thing.

We're getting close to the shelter. That's our neighbor's house, just ahead. Oh, look, their dogs have come out to greet you! Why hello there, fellas! Why hello!

That reminds me. Remember the rock in your pocket? You can take it out now. Get a good, firm grip on it, like you're holding a baseball. Or a grenade.

Hey, one of the dogs is coming up to you! Cute little guy. You're an animal lover, right? Me too. So anyway, what I want you to do is to take that rock in your hand and throw it right at that dog's stupid mangy head.

I'm sorry, man, there's no way around it. Cujo over there may look friendly, but he will not hesitate to chase you, and if he catches you, he's going to sink his cute widdle teeth into the meat of your leg. Everyone throws rocks at him to keep him at a safe distance.

But hey, you've made it! You've survived Thai traffic, the midday heat, possible snake attack, demented dogs, and probably a fair amount of laughter by Thai onlookers. Now you're safe in the loving embrace of the shelter, with our giant bathroom spiders, monstrous mosquitoes, displaced cobras, insolent pigs, shrieking jam-covered children, and Vegemite-eating Australians. So now that you're here, what would you like to -

Hey, where are you going?

Come back!

Don't leave me here with the Australians!