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In Lumpini, where Buddha was born, I was the only white person in town
to witness the highlight of the evening: kids chasing down and beating
street dogs with sticks. In the morning, monkeys were targets.
In Lumpini, there is also a marked example of the difference between
bottom-end sort of run-down places and places where one will likely
contract a rather enduring souvenir, and there is the stark
realization of the cost of health: the higher-end, Chinese-oriented
hotel costs three times as much, but how much is it worth to not sleep
in a cloud of mildew and parasitic hitchikers left behind by who knows
how many previous generations of travelers?

I thought Thailand had trained me pretty well for giving up on control
and expectation, but then I found myself ushered into a bus by a
smiling Chinese man who spoke no English but had a heated exchange
with the bus driver. A few hours later, the driver dumped me in the
middle island of a Bazaar in some city. Maybe one day I'll find its
name on a map.
When surrounded by six lanes of traffic moving in a dozen or so
directions, knowing precisely where one is loses importance.
And somehow I stumbled into a place just opening up, catering to a
Western audience--a bed with sheets, a clean bath towel, and both cold
and hot running water available almost all hours. Swanky, really.
After two nights, the owner--a social climber looking at being among
the forefront of Nepal's business class, who has two joints of a sixth
finger growing like a pinkie toe from the fleshy part of his left
hand--put me onto another bus to another town where I was to get off
and turn right to some travel agent's place where I'd be met by a guy
who would arrange for my jungle safaris.
The little monkey in the brain kept trying to jumpstart the Type A
drive, but no matter how many sparks the wires sent off, the machine
overloaded and clicked off. I think it had something to do with being
in the front of the bus where, instead of enduring the lurching
rolling and screeching through what must be a crazy slalom course of
road hazards accompanied by the sounds of explosive vomiting, one
listens to explosive vomiting while witnessing exactly how many road
hazards are coming exactly how close to the vehicle.

And when things do somehow work out and you find yourself in the back
of a jeep dwarfed by the rhino that was just taunted and goaded from
its afternoon wallow by a group of hooting Turks, the "I Think We Need
A Bigger Boat" sensation is little sated by the guide pulling out a
bamboo stick.