Little (Big) Yellow Truck
In a previous blog, I mentioned the multi-colored, 10-seat trucks that ply the outskirts of towns, at least in Chiang Mai and Pai.
It’s the yellow bus that takes one to the monastery and back. There’re only two a day.
It pulls up, and notably, seems pretty full already with 6 Thai men and women and two drivers. We are 9. And did I mention the two 50# bags of rice? (Actually, one made a pretty good seat on the back bumper; according to a monastery friend from the Canary Islands, it was “a rather comfy seat.” But I’m getting ahead of myself…)
So, there are 17 of us. Suffice to say, yours truly was sitting on the floor, facing out the back, two feet planted very firmly on the back bumper, holding onto the 5” wide metal ladders on either side that climb to the roof.
Two other brave 20-something men, fellow monasterians, one from Germany, who had been in Iran when the protests broke out and had to flee because all Westerners were suspected of being spies, and the other from the Canary Islands, are actually standing outside on the bumper, each holding onto the same ladder. (Holding on for dear life, that is.)
We rode like this for an hour; it was hilly, but luckily a good smooth roadway. We then stopped briefly so the co-driver, (riding on top with the luggage since his front seat had been confiscated by two of the women traveling back to Pai from the monastery with us) could get down, whereby he joined the two other men standing on the back bumper, and off we went again.
I was not only puzzled, but my face was essentially inches from the crotch of his pants. But we pay it no mind - 😌. I’d been meditating 6 hours a day for 6 days, and it seemed to be serving me well.
As to the 6 Thais, who have “comfortable” seats after all, they seemed good-natured and quite entertained us yogis in various contorted positions with smiles on our faces (though hardly laughing).
Turned out we were soon to approach a checkpoint, and no one was allowed to ride on top. Two guards made their way, reaching through windows to rather informally check our passports. They didn’t seem so concerned by the fact of our overcrowding, three guys standing outside on the back bumper (lest we forget with my feet in-between).
A mile down the road, we stop again, and the two guys want a turn riding on top.
Finally, more stops and we drop off a couple, then a woman. The rice we had already delivered.
We stretched out, glowing in all the room (though still over-crowded). We gloried in stretching our legs into a different configuration.
And forthwith, we made it to Pai in a little over 90 minutes, all safe and sound, and ready for the night market, which is where I’m about go for dinner and, hopefully, run into some of my compatriot travelers in more ways than one: first, the monastery, then the big ride in the little yellow truck that could.
PS - Last night at the street market, many of us did indeed meet up. I mentioned I’d written about our adventure back to Pai, 17 people in a truck with room for 12. One man spoke up: “No, there were 20, I counted two times.” I stand corrected, and all the more amazed and grateful to be alive to tell the tale.
