Tipping the Hourglass

I spend the day reading.
I take breaks to hobble down the beach or
I swim in the enormous sea until it spits me back out onto the sand.
I eat omelets and french fries for breakfast. I eat ice cream for lunch. I have two glasses of white wine before dinner. Dinner is Pad Thai and bananas in coconut milk.
I eavesdrop on conversations about nervous breakdowns and sailing in tsunamis and broken promises.
I watch couples sharing sunblock, holding hands on walks along the white sand and I don't envy them.
I swap travel tales with a couple from Ireland, watch a lascivious french man, burnt leathery sienna from too much sun, ensnare the Thai barmaid, and duck all advances from the gregarious Australian surfer. I don't envy any of them either.
I share my lap with the campground tabby cat who follows me wherever I go, scratching at my door if I disappear into my hut for more than a minute.
I decline an invite to dinner in town and loll instead in the hammock, reading greedily through the last hazy rays of dusk. I don't think, for even a moment, that I'm missing anything.
I read by the dim lights in the empty campground lounge, drinking my wine, and chair dancing to Manu Chao.
I am 20 pages from the end of "The Book Thief" when I lose my struggle with sleep.

R & R

 "Please, trust me. I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's only the A's. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me."

- '"The Book Thief," Markus Zusak

"Whoa, is quiet here," the cab driver declares as he hands me my back pack.

I smile. "That's what I'm counting on," I answer, holding up my overflowing plastic bag of books.

I took public transportation to the northern part of Phuket Island but, when the bus (the shortest word I know for the canvas covered flat bed trucks favoured by the locals) made it's final stop, I was the lone remaining passenger and there were no taxi stands anywhere along the highway.

"Taxi?" Is the only word I can think of to say to the driver.

He smiles and provides me a diligently detailed response of which I understand not a word.

"Taxi?" I try again, pointing this time in the three directions I think a taxi might be.

He nods and patiently repeats himself with a happy smile on his face.

I try again. "Beachside Cottages?"

Still smiling he points to a sign for Ritz Carlton Spa Resort and the Hyatt-Regency Resort. I smile back, shake my head and shrug. I pay him and reach for my bag, but he's obviously decided I paid him enough, gestures for me to sit down and turns onto the winding country road towards the resorts. He chatters happily for most of the twenty minute drive.

Fifteen minutes down the road I finally realize he's trying to tell me something about taxis and where I'm trying to go. From what I gather, there are none. He keeps waiting for me to understand, or so I think, so I nod and say, "Yes," but then he gets upset and starts his whole speech over. This time, when he reaches the end of his speech and pauses, I screw up my face, shake my head and say, "No." This provokes the same unsatisfactory result and, after a sigh and a brief pause, he begins again. This time, when he looks over at me for a response I give him a very long winded explanation of life the universe and everything. He seems pleased.

"Taxi!" I yell excitedly, pointing to a taxi stand outside one of the posh hotels. This precipitates another long winded monologue on the bus driver's part and when he finally stops talking I just look at him with my sweetest smile and say, "Taxi, taxi, taxi," pointing back down the road. He turns around eventually, and when he deposits me at the stand there is much hand folding and head bowing in the parting.

The cab driver charges me an extortionist fee that he refuses to negotiate and proceeds to drive ten minutes in the wrong direction, then gets lost two more times before we finally get to the construction zone town. We follow some faded signs to a dirt road, more of a sandy path really, where he hangs an immediate left into a parking lot.

"No," I say. "I think it's farther down this road."

"Why? Have you been there?"

"No. But the sign said it was straight ahead."

"No, no. Stay here," he says, getting out of the car and walking into the back entrance of a hotel.

When he returns he announces, "It's down the road," in that universal way men have of ignoring what you've already told them that so they can believe they've discovered something on your behalf.

The sun is nearly kissing the horizon beyond the dark shadows of the palm trees when I check in. The white noise of the giant surf coming to shore plays the bottom notes to an orchestra of thrumming insects and trilling birds. I linger at the bookshelf in the lounge, finally selecting a 500 page tome entitled "The Book Thief", before settling into my hut.

Moving On

 "With my maps on the table you see

I have lost many things

So many, I won't turn back."

-"I Love, I Love (Traveling II)", Dar Williams

Zack doesn't look at me, just stares off at the distant horizon and says evenly, "I. was. so. worried. about you."

"Really? But you were the one who told me no one's ever not come back." I glance at the sign board behind him that reads: "Zack's Adventure Shack". The motto scrawled beneath it promises, "Getting lost is our specialty." I can't accuse him of false advertising.

He looks at me and shakes his head. "Yes, really. It was so windy the day you left, and the waves... I was just about to close and go hire a boat to go looking for you." He doesn't raise his voice, or change his tone, he is still speaking in that slow, cool way of his, but he manages to convey, clearly, that he is not happy with me for making him worry.

"Oh, Zack, I'm sorry," and I genuinely mean it. "To make you worry, and to lose your hat, and about the paddle." At this I find myself stifling a smile and trying not to laugh. I really am a most ridiculous creature, convincing myself I am fiercely independent when, in truth, my haplessness so often leaves me at the mercy of strangers.

"The hat," he says, seeming to forgive me, "was mine. You don't worry about that. The paddle though," he continues worriedly picking up a catalog and thumbing through it, "is not. I just hope it's not expensive." Of course it is ridiculously expensive, practically doubling the expense of my entire Thailand trip. He catches me eyeing his crudely stitched scalp as I hand him the money.


"Like Frankenstein," he says, pointing to his head.

"What happened?"

"I got drunk and fell down the stairs," he says sheepishly.

"Oooch, that must have been some fall," I say laughing.

"It was. Won't happen again. I've quit drinking."

"Well, that seems a little extreme. You should try giving up stairs first before immediately blaming the drink."

He smiles but says, "Nah. I mean, I might drink a little to celebrate, you know, New Years or something but no more getting drunk."

"Whatever works for you," I shrug then change the subject. "After all the trouble I've caused I really hate to ask, but can I possibly use your washroom? I really need to shower." As much as I love outdoor showers, I simply didn't feel safe using the one at the resort this morning.

"Sure," he says. "But it's messy. It's a boy bathroom, you know," he grins as he says this last part.

I grin back, "I'm sure it'll be fine."

He follows me to the back of the shack and while I rifle through my backpack for clean clothes he talks, pretending to tidy up.

"There's soap in the shower. It was my wife's but you can use it. She left it here after the divorce." And so he begins to unwind the story, an all too familiar story, about the woman he loved but can't be with because all they'd do is fight. It only takes me two minutes to get my things together, but it takes him almost fifteen to finish telling me their story. I can tell he needs to share, he needs an audience, a witness to this tragedy so I take a seat on top of my pack and listen, watching him pace the room, picking up objects, moving them, moving something else then shuffling everything back to their original places.

As I listen, I can't help but think that, possibly, more than he needs to tell it, I need to hear it. To know that love has not been uniquely cruel to me; that I am not the only one who suffers from a heart that wants what it cannot, should not, have; a reminder that in this world, this very second there are a thousand hearts risking everything and a thousand more breaking after the fall.

"So I guess," he finally concludes, turning to look at me now, "I just have to try and move on, find me a new woman to love." He laughs self-consciously.

I smile at him. "Yeah. I guess you do. And, I have no doubt Zack, that you will." I gather up my things and walk through the curtain that serves as the bathroom door. Far from being messy, the bathroom floor is covered in smooth beach stones and shells with petrified fossils and starfish scattered about. The shower hose hangs on a beautiful piece of driftwood under an open sky. The facilities may be humble but all that nature makes it feel luxurious.

"Better?" He asks when I emerge.

"Much." I smile gratefully. "Thank you."

"No problem. So I have to go to the pier to pick up my brother. Wait here okay?"

"Do you? Actually, can I get a ride there with you? I need to catch the ferry."

"Are you in a hurry? Why do you have to leave? Stay a for a bit."

"I would love to, I really would, but I have a beach shack reserved for tonight on the mainland, and I have to go back to the Old Town to pick up my passport that I forgot at my hostel. That's going to add at least another two hours to my day. I really have to get going."

"You lost your passport too?" He asks incredulous.

"It's not lost," I protest, "it's forgotten. I forgot it that's all. And, more importantly," I continue defensively, more to convince myself than him, "I remembered that I'd forgotten it before I needed to cross any borders, so it could be worse."

Zack just smiles and shakes his head. "Okay. If you have to go, you have to go. I'll be right back."

He returns driving a Honda mini bike with a wooden side car. I toss my pack into the car and perch myself on the metal railing.

"I like to go fast," he warns with a nod to my precarious seat.

"So do I," I answer with an unflinching shrug.

"Canadian girls," he mumbles, before shifting into drive, "awesome." When we reach the edge of the village he lets the throttle out and we practically fly down the winding road. The bike tops out near 180, which I'm impressed by considering the load, and we whoop, holler, yell and laugh our way to the pier.

"Next time I'll take you rock climbing," Zack says, handing me my pack once we've stopped at the end of the pier.

"We'll see," I say but when that pervasive sadness creeps back onto his face I add by way of explanation, "I'm afraid of heights."

I thank him for the ride, and everything, and start to walk away. His brother isn't there and Zack's already climbing back onto the bike when I turn around. "Hey Zack," I call back.

"Yeah?"

"Be careful on the stairs."

"It's the alcohol, not the stairs," he calls back, laughing.

"You just keep telling yourself that," I answer turning and waving as I walk away.

Zen and the Art of Escape

"When everyone recognizes beauty as beautiful,

there is already ugliness;

When everyone recognizes good as good,

there is already evil." 

-Tao Te Ching 

I gather the dishes and start to clear the table but the men stop me.

"But you cooked, I can clean up," I protest.

"No, no, you are our guest," Lahk insists. I look over at the gardener who grins broadly back at me and nods.

"Okay, if you're sure," I shrug. "Thank you."

I dig up the book I've brought with me, "The Way of Zen", take a second cup of tea, and settle my aching bones and throbbing infected foot into the lounge chair in the shade of a giant palm tree to read:

The illusion of significant improvement arises in moments of contrast, as when one turns from left to the right on a hard bed. The position is 'better' so long as the contrast remains, but before long the second position begins to feel like the first. So one acquires a more comfortable bed, and for a while, sleeps in peace. But this solution leaves a strange vacuum...a vacuum soon filled by the sensation of another intolerable contrast because the sensation of comfort can only be maintained in relation to the sensation of discomfort. ... Zen is a liberation from this pattern...to understand the absurdity of choosing, of the whole feeling that life may be significantly improved by a constant selection of the 'good.' ... To succeed is always to fail - in the sense that the more one succeeds at anything, the greater is the need to go on succeeding. To eat is to survive to be hungry. ...

 To sit on a beach in Thailand, breathe in the clean, sea salt air is only to make the return to the polluted stench and oppression of Indonesia all the more painful. I sigh and let my gaze fall on the island rising out across the sea, my plan B. I wonder what happened in the alternate universe where I chose to paddle there instead.

Again, as if reading my mind, Lahk's voice answers from behind me, "Lucky you did not go there. There is guarded by men with machine guns."

"Really? Why?" I ask as he takes a seat on the edge of my chair.

He shrugs. "Corporation. They don't like trespassing."

"What kind of corporation? What are they guarding?"

Instead of answering my question he says, "You are amazing woman. A woman and a friend and a child all. You and your questions. Like a girl. Crazy. I have met many white women here, but they are not like you. I have never met any woman like you."

"So what are these white women like, then?" I laugh.

"Augh," he shakes his head in disgust. "Crazy. Not good crazy like you. They want everything just so and they are always angry. They are not adventurers like us," and he puffs his chest out proudly.

If the compliment revived the uneasy feeling I had of being a hostage held in paradise, this last pronouncement, like a curious reverse manifestation of Stockholm syndrome, makes me bristle. Sensing this Lahk becomes more subdued and says, "Please, if your boyfriend forgets you, come to me. I will take care of you." He places his hand on my cheek and I remove it patting it affectionately as I do.

"Oh!" He wails in a sudden spasm of despair, then, straightening, he hardens his face into a cynical sneer, "Who am I kidding. I could never have a woman like you."

I hesitate before asking, "Why not?"

"Because," he answers staring out to sea.

"Because what?"

He turns his pained face towards me, "Look at you. If I had wife like you I would never get any work done. We'd starve to death!"

I can't help but laugh. "That's not only one of the best compliments I've been given but a very wise prediction," I answer, recalling that precise scenario with lovers past.

I spend the next hour trying to subtly, and not so subtly, convince him to take me to town. I decide to make one last attempt and if he puts me off again I will just have to start walking. I'm fairly certain he'll follow and, if not, I can hitchhike. Fortunately his phone rings. It's  his boss. The couple from the night before complained about being moved and his boss isn't happy. The maid is also coming by to clean because new guests will be arriving that afternoon. There better not be anymore trouble.

This spurs him into action and within minutes we're on his bike, driving through the rubber tree plantation farmed by Burmese refugees, then past the tidy, thatch roofed shacks and tidier village children turning onto a paved road and towards Zack's Shack.

Ba

A girl needs something she can hold on to

A kayak paddle or a man like you

Either one of them things would do...

-adapted, Ray LaMontagne, "Joelene"

I am woken by the gray light of dawn and Lahk standing beside the bed, cooing. I sit up quickly, comment on the light and say, "I need to get going."

"No, no, you stay, I make breakfast," Lahk insists, out the door before I can protest. I get up, take the Big Knife from under the mattress and return it to my dry sack. Then I pull out my camera and take a stroll around the grounds to stretch my legs. After two pictures, my camera's full; obviously not the 4 GB's I was promised when I bought it. Indonesia wins again. 

I am sitting at the table trying to sort through my pictures so I'll have enough free space for the remainder of my trip, when Lahk arrives carrying a meticulously arrayed teak serving tray laden with tea. 

"I will bring toast soon," he says as he places the tray on the table.

"Thank you, but I can't eat bread," I say, carefully selecting a tea bag from a plush lined tea box. He looks at me like I just fell out of a tree.

"Pancake?" He asks, worriedly. 

"Maybe, what kind of flour?" 

He shakes his head, he doesn't know. I follow him back to the gazebo but the bag of flour is not marked so I take a pass on pancakes as well. He hands me a box of Cornflakes which, fortunately have the ingredients in English as well as Thai and I tell him I can't eat those either.

"Barley," I say as I hand them back to him.

"I can't take care of you!" he practically wails in a fit of genuine distress.

I laugh, I can't help it. "Don't feel bad. I can't eat a lot of grains, allergy, it's not your fault. I'm a nightmare to try and feed. Do you have any fruit?"

At this his face lights up and he produces a pineapple. Pineapple tops the list of my least favourite fruits but I don't dare tell him that for fear it might break him. He sets up a juicer, cuts off the spiky peel and liquifies the sunny innards. He pours it into a tall glass with the flourish of a bartender before handing it to me with so much pride I almost think he invented it. 

"What about eggs?" he asks.

"Eggs are fine," I shrug agreeably, taking a tiny sip of my juice. It's fantastic. I return to the table intending to savour it while watching the tide inch towards shore but I can't resist. In the five minutes it takes for Lahk to fry an egg and serve it to me on a white plate with genuine silverware, I've gulped it down.

When he returns with his own breakfast and settles in beside me he says, "I am sorry about last night, yes?"

"It's okay, you were drunk," I answer distractedly, trying to calculate how much time I have to make it back to Coconut Corner and still catch the ferry back to Phuket.

"You don't like eggs," he says worriedly, watching me force down the last bite of runny yolk.

"Oh no, I like eggs just fine," I smile.

His eyes grow bigger. "You don't like my egg!" How does he do it? You could vomit on most men's shoes and they wouldn't think to ask if anything was wrong, but him? It's like he can read minds.

"No, no, no," I protest. "Your egg was great. I prefer my eggs scrambled or in an omelet that's all, but this was fine, great, I really enjoyed it. Honest. Don't worry."

But he pushes away from the table, his own eggs barely touched, and stands up saying, "I'll be right back." He crosses the yard, hops on his motorbike and drives away leaving me somewhat bewildered.

The sun has firmly planted itself in the sky now, the air growing thick with heat, so I get up to start loading the kayak. Having delivered my dry sack and bamboo mat beside the boat, I turn back to do a final sweep to make sure I haven't forgotten anything. I am almost to the fire pit when I stop mid limp. Something isn't right. I run through a mental checklist and am about to shake it off when it hits me. Ignoring the searing pain in my inflame foot, I run back to the kayak and curse when I reach it. My paddle is nowhere to be found.

Certain that Lahk hid it the night before I try not to panic but when he returns with more eggs and the gardener, who's carrying a giant box of pastry so fresh they're still steaming, he looks genuinely baffled. He follows me down to the kayak to see for himself.

We both stare at the gear littered ground around the kayak for a moment before we look at each other and say in unison, "The tide." We walk a few more feet to the water's edge and scan the sea but the paddle is gone.

"I will drive you there after breakfast," Lahk says, placing his hand on my elbow and steering me back to the table. 

He makes me a glass of dragon fruit juice which I drink, staring disconsolately out to sea. He soon returns with a giant omelet and we eat a second breakfast. The gardener tells Lahk that he would like me to teach him English but they end up teaching me Thai instead.

"Ba," he says pointing his pastry at me.

"Ba," I repeat dutifully. "What does that mean?"

Lahk translates for me, "This is the Thai word for crazy."

Drinking with the Enemy

"Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves."

-Dorothy Parker

The accommodations are opulent, outdoor luxury; camping for the modern pampered princess set. Among other small luxuries the tent has hardwood floors, a giant, four poster, feather bed veiled in mosquito netting and an outdoor bamboo shower. When I ask how much it usually costs to stay here for a night, Lahk is demur but later on in the evening he tells me around 12,000 baht (about $400 CDN).

"Come," he says, "I have fire going."

"Yeah, I'll join you in a second. I just need to use the bathroom." I pick up my dry sack, open the back door of the tent and cross the bridge to the washroom. When I'm safely locked in the toilet I open my bag and pull out the Big Knife, tucking it into the sarong and under my shirt. On my way back I stop behind the bed, drop my bag and slip the knife under the mattress on the left side, nearest the exits.

When I've limped my way to the fire Lahk hands me another full drink.

"I have never met a woman like you," he says, shaking his head.

"Thank god for that," I answer, lifting my glass for a sip, "I don't think this world could handle two of me."

Despite the many ways Lahk makes me on edgy, he has an obvious appreciation for my self-deprecating humour, which I've rarely found in my life and I don't think I've ever found in someone whose mother tongue isn't English. After he laughs and asks me what I mean by that, I keep him in stitches regaling him with tales of my hapless adventures from the border guard in his underwear crossing into Nepal to the machete fight in Nicaragua. Unfortunately I seem to be too entertaining and he forgets to drink.

 

"You are such an adventurer," he sighs.

"Want another one?" I ask, pointing to his empty glass.

"Let's go lie down in the tent," he answers, placing his head in my lap. I pat him on the head and say, "I don't think my boyfriend would like that."

"You have a boyfriend?!?!" He says, sitting up with a start. "Where is he? Why he not with you?!?"

"He had to work," I shrug. Poor imaginary husband. If he's not sick in the hotel room or at home, he's working. And sometimes I even forget that we're married. Lahk, however, doesn't seem to be buying it.

"No, this is not true. No man would leave woman like you alone."

 

Poor imaginary husband also gets accused, often, of not being a very good man, letting me loose all alone in the world.

"Oh, he is a good man, a very, very good man" I reply in his defense. "Perfect for me, in fact." And he is. He doesn't complain if I forget to mention him entirely when I decide it's convenient, we never argue about where to go or what to do when we get there and, best of all, he flies for free.

Lahk begins the requisite interrogation but he quickly loses steam and finally passes out. I gimp my way back to the tent and crawl into the divine embraces of the fluffy, feathered bed. A tropical breeze drifts through the screened tent walls and I am lulled into a tentative sleep by the sound of the sea slapping the shore. 

I have just climbed onto the shoulders of a pacing albino tiger, about to finally go home, when the sound of the metal teeth of tent zipper being wrenched apart drags me back to the jungle. I don't move, and I consciously slow my breath, but I ready myself for a struggle. The footsteps stop on the other side of the bed and I see the mosquito netting twitch as Lahk climbs into bed. I feel the mattress sink under his added weight but still I don't move. I wait and when his arm reaches across and a hand lands on my waist I spring to action.

I am lying on my right side so I do a left oblique sit up and, in a single motion, land my left elbow under his chin. I throw back the netting and leap out of bed.

 

"Geezus! You scared the sh*t out of me! What are you doing?!" Having dealt a warning blow, I feel the need now, stranded alone in this resort with Mr. Helps Himself to try and make diplomatic amends or risk having to resort, eventually, to the Big Knife.

"Ohhh," he whines, "it's just so cold outside."

This sounds utterly ridiculous by my Canadian standards and I try not to snort my disdain. "Oh," I mumble instead, trying to sound sleepy, "okay, I'll go sleep outside." I move towards the door but as I bend to unzip the tent he grabs me, pinning my arms to my sides as he locks his own around me from behind.

"Let go of me!" I scream. "I love my boyfriend and he will come find you if he hears you touched me!"

 

"Okay, okay," he says letting go. "But stay here. Just stay. We just sleep."

"Bullshit. You can sleep here, I'll sleep outside."

"NO!" He yells after me, but I've already limped halfway back to the fire. He follows me outside saying angrily, "Fine, I will sleep out here too."

I turn and face him. "No. One of us is sleeping in that bed. If you don't want to I will, but I'm not sleeping with you. So you choose. Where do you want to sleep?"

He argues for a while before finally, pouting, says he'll sleep outside. I go back to the bed but can't fall back asleep. Lahk does come back inside but this time he goes to sleep on the futon across the room.

Flotsam and Jetsam

 "Out on the blue sea I sailed a blue ship.
I had a first mate, always had blue lips.
His name was Bluebeard.
He had a weird twitch.
We flew a blue flag on a big stick.
And we ate bluegill and we ate blue chips.
Oh, I felt real blue eating that blue fish.
Because there ain't much that I won't do,
unless it keeps me from being true blue."

- "True Blue", Bright Eyes

The fire is just beginning to die out when a truck pulls up on the far side of the lot. I am ecstatic but wary. The truck flashes it's high beams, blinding me. The driver doesn't turn them off and I can't see what's happening. I hear vehicle doors slamming shut. I stand up.

"Hello?" I call out, hoping for a friendly reply but none comes. I know I look like a swamp creature. My hair is matted with salt water, sand clings to my wet clothes which in turn cling to my body while ever in peril of slipping right off me. I can only hope this will improve my chances of eliciting compassion rather than a gunshot to the head for trespassing.

"Hello?" I call again. Still no answer. I see four bodies move away from the truck and towards the tent.

I wait while two shadows are escorted into the tent-the womenfolk I presume- then I gimp forward, tentatively, to meet the two Thai men standing in the porch light.

"I'm sorry," I begin, "so sorry to disturb you. I'm a little bit lost you see, and I'm hoping you might tell me where I am," I hold out my map.

The small one looks at me with squinted eyes. "Where you going?" he asks, taking the map from my hands and crouching down on the ground under the light of a paper lantern. I crouch down beside him.

"Here," I say pointing to the big black dot on the map.

"What?!?" His face changes from annoyance to bewilderment. "Are you taking the long way?"

I laugh, then, biting my lip in a melodramatic display of what I hope he will construe as cute, despite my age and dishevelment, answer "That wasn't my goal but I take it I am?"

"You've paddled past the south of island."

Now it's my turn to exclaim, "What?!?!"

He eyes me for a second, rolls up the map and stands, extending his hand to help me up. He and his friend exchange some words in Thai, but soon fall silent. I wait for what feels like an eternity before finally asking, "So, what is this place anyway? Where am I? Is it okay if I just pitch my tent on that far corner of the beach over there? I promise I'll be quiet and be gone first thing in the morning. You won't even know I'm here, I swear."

I try to convince myself that they can't send me back out on the sea in the dark. That they won't send me back out on the sea. There's an island about an hour's paddle from here. If they do, it's my only option, other than abandoning the kayak and hiking out.

"This is private resort," is his curt reply.

"Oh," I say, "well do you have any spare rooms?"

"Private resort," he says again, "only one room." He nods his head towards the occupied tent with the hardwood floors.

"Oh," is all I say, my fingers playing nervously with my bottom lip.

He converses with his friend again before his friend disappears inside the tent.

"Get your things,"  he says, "you come to my place for shower."

"Thank you," I try to sound relieved but realistically, the situation is getting dodgier by the second. "By the way, where exactly is your place?"

"I live in corner cabin. I take care here. I take care of guests. I take care of you. Now get your things."

I limp back to the kayak, grab the dry sack with my belongings and follow him back to the cabin.

"Thanks," I say again, "I'm so sorry to cause you trouble..."

"Crazy," he says.

"Pardon?" I say.

"Crazy. You are crazy. This is crazy. I have worked here eleven years and never this has happened."

"Oh, now, c'mon," I tease, "You're telling me in eleven years you've never had anyone wash up on your beach?"

"Never." He shakes his head adamantly and without humour. "And certainly never a woman all alone."

"Huh," I say, peering into the darkness trying to map the grounds as we walk, just in case. "Well, I guess that's probably why then. I mean after eleven years you're long overdue for something crazy to happen, don't you think?"

This time he laughs as he unlocks the door to his spacious one room cabin. He flicks a switch and the room is illuminated by a bare bulb dangling from an electrical cord. There are piles of clothes strewn about in typical bachelor fashion, a small cot against one of the plank board walls with Bryan Adams emanating from a small transistor radio on a box beside it. I follow him across the room, past a beaten up bureau with an alarm clock and some yellowing family photographs sitting on top of it. He opens the other door and gestures for me to go inside. There are six cement steps, each about a foot high, leading down into a large, moldy smelling cement room. There's something very "Silence of the Lambs" about it, but a quick double check of the doorknob confirms the lock is on my side of the door, so I descend the stairs.

"There's soap by the shower," he says, flicking on the light and closing the door behind him. I think, "It rubs the lotion on it's skin or else it gets the hose again..." then, laughing to myself I begin to undress. There's a knock on the door.

"Uh, yeah?"

"I have towel for you."

"Oh, uh, it's okay, I have one."

"I no look, lady. You use mine. Fresh wash."

It's not worth arguing. I wrap my quick dry travel towel around me and open the door. A small dark hand shoots through the crack with an old terry cloth towel.

"Thank you."

The shower is abrasively cold, but it feels good to wash off the salt and sand. I don't have any pants to change into but I do have a clean, dry shirt and by the time I walk out of the cabin I feel almost human again.

"Your pants are wet!" my host exclaims when I emerge.

I shrug, "It's all I have."

"You wear my sarong."

I follow him back into the cabin where he hands me his plaid cotton sarong. His is sewn together on both sides, like my sarong from the Baduy, but I've yet to master the art of securing these tubular garments. I fasten it the best I can and go back outside.

The other, large man has joined us now, with food. He dishes out rice and some sort of chicken vegetable curry for me while the caretaker pours me a glass of whiskey with coke. I raise my glass and toast my hosts, "Here's to the kindness of strangers."

"Here's to crazy woman washing up on beach," my little host replies and we raise our glasses for a second swallow.

While we eat, he tells me his name is Lahk. When he was nineteen he met a Belgian man who fell in love with this side of the island and asked him, "Lahk, do you think we could build a hotel here?" And Lahk said yes, sure, we can do anything. So with the Belgians money he set about building this resort and two years later they opened for business. He's been running this place ever since.

"Wow, tough life you have, living here in the jungle with your ocean view," I say admiringly.

"Yeah," he laughs, "when there are no guests it's all mine. Like today I just slept and drank whiskey," he raises his glass again. "Always, I sleep when I drink. It makes me very tired," he laughs as he swallows.

"You are crazy woman you know? Why do you do this?"

"Do what?"

"Kayak on the sea alone. Travel alone. Why do you go to a strange country alone?"

"Why not?"

"Because, you will get in trouble. Like today."

I laugh. "True. But what's the other option? Sit at home and watch TV? I wouldn't meet interesting people like you."

"Yes, well today you are lucky," he says, eying me meaningfully. "Not everyone in the world is good, you know."

"Oh I know," I answer staring back at him with equal entendre before smiling sweetly. "Still, I often get along just as well with the not good people as the good one's." Then I add with a shrug, "Sometimes better."

"What will you do," he says, still staring me down through inquisitor's eyes, "when one day you meet bad people who want to hurt you?"

"I guess one of us will win," I answer, meeting his gaze with unwavering eyes, "and the other one will lose."

He takes another swig of whiskey, then reaches for the bottle, refilling both our glasses.

"And what," he continues, settling back into his chair and fixing me in his sight again, "if you're the one who loses?"

"Well, then, at least I had a good time while it lasted. But," I add by way of warning, "I don't think my luck is going to run out any time soon." I drain my glass dramatically.

He quickly tosses his back as well before slamming his glass down on the mahogany platform I'm sitting on that's also serving as a table and laughs. He reaches for the whiskey bottle again and refills them both.

"Okay," I say, "one more but then I really must go down to the beach and get my tent."

"No," he says, locking eyes with me again as he hands me my drink, "you will drink with me. You can sleep in the guest house."

"What?! I thought you said there was only one?"

"I sent the couple away."

My glass falters in it's trajectory towards my lips. This changes everything. Lahk is small, but muscled and wiry. Still, I'm fairly certain I could knock him out if I had too. But his quiet friend, who it turns out is the gardener and whom Lahk has been teasing all night about his love of food, has an easy 150 pounds on me. He seems harmless enough but I'm don't like this situation one bit.

"You really shouldn't have done that," I say before taking my next sip. My stupored brain continues to try to formulate a plan. I will have to use the alcohol to my advantage.

"Where would you sleep?" Lahk demands. He's already told me alcohol makes him sleepy. I just need to outdrink him.

"I told you I would sleep in my tent," I retort watching him lift his glass and take another gulp.

The Gardener, who has eaten every last morsel of food, gets up from the mahogany platform, climbs onto his motorcycle and drives away.

Lahk seems to leer at me for a moment, like a wolf at a piece of tenderized meat, before saying quietly, "No. You cannot sleep outside. It's cold and the mosquitoes will eat you." I am about to protest that I slept just fine outside under the stars the night before when he gets up from his chair, gathers up the bottle and glasses and says, "Let's go, crazy woman."

But when I stand up the sarong falls down.

Lahk watches me struggle to retie it, then places his cargo back on the table. "Here," he says, walking behind me. He reaches around and grabs the cloth on both sides. I raise my arms like a helpless child while he folds, flips and rolls the fabric into a waistband.

 "Huh, just like that?" He nods, reloads his arms and wanders into the darkness. I grab my dry sack and hobble after him, back towards the sea.