With neurosis in overdrive, I laid out the contents of my daypack and my backpack on the bed, touching and accounting for every single item except the one that really mattered. I knew I had it last night at the bar with Miles, but I was too hung-over to bother with it on the drive that day, so there was only one place it could have been. “I left it in Luang Prabang. It must be in the room.”
Tears streamed down my face. I had no way of contacting the guesthouse. It had no name and no number. Perhaps I could leave on the next bus back to Luang Prabang in the morning and see if I could track it down? And then meet the girls back up the day after. Then a realistic and depressing realization struck: someone would have taken it by now.
“We can get you a new one in Hanoi,” Jade said, rubbing my back.
I sobbed and nodded my head. Rationally I knew it was just a camera, a thing, and object, but it was the last gift Audrey had given me. How could I have been so careless?
The girls decided that food would do me good, so I pulled myself together and followed them through the field, across the bridge and back into town. The street lamps flickered as we wandered around wondering if we should go to the restaurant with the hung-over backpackers splayed out watching reruns of The Simpsons, or the restaurant with the hungover backpackers splayed out watching reruns of Family Guy when someone called out, “Hey, Canada!”
Turning back towards the river, we saw three guys who were part of our musical uprising on the bus from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong. Lana called back, “Hawaii!”
Chad, Kelly and Felix were fresh off a bus from Luang Prabang and also in search of sustenance. As we stood debating food options, Chad’s brown eyes raked over Lana, who had taken the time to brush her hair and slap a bit of makeup on. “Lana, are you Lana Brooks, the TV weathergirl?”
“Former weathergirl,” she said, batting her thick eyelashes.
“I thought it was you!” he said, stepping closer. “Guys, remember when I showed you that Chive article of the world’s hottest weather girls? This is the one from Canada.”
I smiled as Lana basked in the attention the guys were giving her. Some people collected souvenirs along their travels, but Lana collected admirers. Felix’s green cat-like eyes glittered as he realized he was standing in the presence of a Chive-worthy hottie.
“Dude,” Kelly said, smoothing his shaggy, dirty-blond hair before shaking her hand. “It is a privilege and an honour to make your acquaintance.”
“Alright, alright, can we please choose somewhere to eat, please?” Jade huffed crossing her arms.
And, with that the boys led us to a restaurant perched over the waters of the river that featured neither animated sitcoms nor hung-over backpackers and began our first night out in Vang Vieng.
***
I rifled through my things twice more the following morning in the vain hope that my camera would magically appear. After giving up, I let the girls pull me from wallowing in my misery and we set off to do the one thing we had come to Laos for: tubing. In town we followed the swarm of swimsuit-clad westerners to a small storefront where we had been dropped off the day before. It was a scene of organized chaos spilling into the street. Tiny Laotian women darted about writing guesthouse names in notebooks and writing identification numbers on arms while others handed out black inner-tubes and collected money. After we were branded with a black sharpie and received an inner tube, the women herded us into jumbo tuk tuks and we were whisked up river.
Ten minutes later, the tuk tuk dumped us in a dusty patch of land where we were accosted by a flurry of westerners working as bar promoters. By the time we made it to the river’s edge, each of our wrists were wrapped with an assortment of brightly coloured string bracelets, each representing a free booze bucket at each of the bars scrawled in permanent marker on our arms. We froze as we took our first glance at the madness that was Laos tubing.
“This isn’t what I expected,” Jade said, “What have they done to this beautiful Buddhist community? I thought it would be more of a lazy river ride.”
Laos tubing had obviously evolved over time. Ramshackle wooden bars built on platforms balancing on bamboo stilts lined the river’s banks. Revelers were flinging themselves off zip-lines, high dives, rope-swings, and trapeze swings into the green water, narrowly missing rocks, tubers, kayakers, longboats and each other (we heard last night that there were already eight deaths on the river that year). The tubes served merely as transport between the bars.
“This is so much better!” Lana squealed as she pushed past us towards the bar at the starting point.
With beers condensing in hand, we hopped into our tubes and floated towards the next bar. Laotian boys no older than thirteen stood on the bar’s lower platform that hovered at water level and tossed out empty water bottles tied to ropes. I grabbed one and was pulled from the water’s current to the bar with Jade and Lana hanging onto my tube. Stashing our tubes under the upper platform with countless others, we climbed the ladder and joined the party.
“Welcome, ladies, come to Bucket Bar tonight and get a free bucket at nine,” said a short guy who seemed far too old to be working in a bar on his gap year. He delivered his invitation in a coarse English accent as he wrapped yet another string bracelet around our wrists. “The name’s Kush, and I’ll be happy to serve you free buckets all night.”
Pulling my hands from his lingering grip, I followed the girls across the splintered wooden platform. We made our way past dozens of westerners sitting with their feet dangling above the water, watching daredevils attempting backflips off the trapeze swing. Next we navigated through more westerners writhing to house beats before we found our Hawaiian friends gathered around tables strewn with red plastic cups and drenched in stale beer. Though thirteen thousand miles away from Toronto I felt comfortingly at home.
“What up, Canada?” Chad said, enveloping Lana in his bronzed arms before greeting us with a wave.
Felix and Kelly both had red cups tilted back, Adam’s apples bobbing furiously, engaged in a one-on-one chug off. Slamming their cups on the table at the same time Kelly burped and Felix turned and said, “You girls want to get on our team for flip cup?”
“Sure,” Lana said, twirling a strand of hair in her finger.
Jade looked at the ground. “I think I’m going to sit this one out.”
Before we could stop her, she turned and nestled herself in the crowd sunning themselves at the platform edge. I watched her bum a cigarette off a random guy and waited for her to look back our way. When she glanced back, I mouthed, “You okay?”
She shot me the “OK” sign with her fingers, blew out a long stream of smoke, and folded her legs into lotus pose, watching the water.
With beer bloat setting in after four rounds of flip cup (three wins, one loss), the boys suggested beer pong. As we arranged ten cups per side, the boys hurried to the bar for more beers.
“Hello, Petal,” Kush, A.K.A. Baldy McCreepy, was back. “If you’re playing beer pong, you’re going to need balls. Fortunately, I have two just for you.”
With my eyes on the little white spheres suspended on the tips of his stubby fingers I forced an unconvincing polite smile on my face. “Thank you,” I said, reaching for them.
“Need a partner?” he asked pulling them away from me playing that stupid sandbox game.
I shook my head and stared in his beady blue eyes, one hand on hip, the other hand outstretched. With a wink that made my skin crawl, he dropped the balls in my hand.
“Hey dude, thanks for the balls,” Kelly said placing one hand on Kush’s shoulder and placing an oversized can of Lao beer on the table with the other.
Saved by the Kell.
Instead of crawling back under whatever rock he came from, Kush crossed his arms and hung around to watch the game. With Lana and Chad on the other side of the tables, backs to the water, Lana began the game by maintaining eye contact as we threw a ball at the same time. Her ball hit the table, mine hit the cup at the top of the triangle.
And thus began our domination of beer pong on the Nam Song River. After countless games against unworthy opponents, we faced our toughest challengers yet, Kush and some guy who made it to quarterfinals of the World Beer Pong Championships. Apparently it’s a thing.
During this game, much shit was talked and beer was drunk. Assisted by Lana’s distracting assets spilling from her string bikini, a crowd gathered and we whittled down cups to one cup each.
“You’re going down,” I said, pointing at Kush across the beer-puddled table.
Kush’s lips curled into a smile. “Is that a threat or a promise, Petal?”
And with those words, I had to win. I refused to let Baldy McCreepy wear a shit-eating grin on his face from beating me. But he made the cup. The infuriating grin would remain firmly in place. If his partner made this cup, it was all over. No chance for rebuttal. Keeping my eye on the little white sphere, I watched it sail through the air and bounce on the rim of the cup. I swatted the ball into a bystander’s face with the fierceness of Serena Williams in a Wimbledon final.
As he handed the ball to Kelly, I prayed for him to make the cup. He threw, but it missed the table by nearly a foot. It was all up to me. I knew I could make it. I was in my groove. I had barely missed a cup all day. As I drew my hand back, a tall, lean body topped with a head of sandy blond hair stepped to the table. It was like stepping back in time. My breath caught in my throat as he turned his head.
But beneath the sandy blond crop was a face I had never seen before.
“Show me what you’ve got, Petal.” That grating voice pulled me back to the little red cup.
After shaking off the nervous tingles radiating through me, I took a deep breath, angled my body, cocked my wrist, and released the ball. It floated over the table, began its descent, and landed in an empty cup on the corner of the table. I folded forward in defeat.
“Sorry, man.” I turned to Kelly.
He grabbed my hand and shook it. “Dude, that was an awesome game.”
“Good game, Petal,” Kush said walking over before taking my hand and kissing it.
Once all hands were shook and sportsmanlike expectations were upheld, I suggested to Lana that we check in with Jade. The Hawaiians joined us as we waded through the bodies to sit next to her.
“Do you guys want to get in the tubes and float down the river?” She rolled an unlit cigarette in her fingers. “I mean, unless you want to keep partying.”
I knew she was over the party scene, and I didn’t mind getting away from Kush’s beady stare. Lana agreed, doing a terrible job at masking her disappointment at leaving a party early, but with the Hawaiians in tow, we grabbed tubes from under the bar, dropped them into the water, climbed in and pushed off from the platform.
We surrendered to the current, floating past bar after bar, each less busy than the last, until they became nothing more than wooden carcasses. The sun had passed its zenith, lazily making its way west toward the forested limestone karst cliffs. The towering cliffs ran north to south as far as the eye could see. Their immensity reminded me of the mountain from Pushkar. I scanned them, hoping that perhaps, one of them might call to me. Hoping that I might hear her voice. Hoping to know that she still existed. Hoping that I didn’t have to live without her.
But the cliffs were silent.
As I leaned back, dipping my overheating scalp in the cool water, a familiar voice called my name. I turned to see Miles paddling towards me in the middle of a flock of bright yellow kayaks. My stomach tightened with surprise.
Gliding alongside me, he said, “Hey, I have your camera.”
I shot up as my heart thumped against my chest. “But how?”
“You left it in the bar in Luang Prabang.” He glanced ahead at his tour leaving him behind. “I’ll give it to you tonight, after dinner sometime.”
I could have sworn I had put it in my bag when I had finished showing him the pictures, but in that moment I was too happy to care about how I lost it.
“Meet me in Bucket Bar tonight at nine,” I said. “It’s the first bar down river on the island.”
He nodded and paddled ahead to join his group. But as he faded from sight I threw my head back against the warm rubber and watched the clouds sail across the skies, thanking whoever was listening for the return of my camera.
***
Just before nine o’clock, Lana and I kissed a meditating Jade goodnight and followed the pulsating house music across a small bridge onto an island in the river and down a dirt path through the jungle to Bucket Bar. We had passed through the night before but only stayed about half an hour before nearly passing out from exhaustion. It was a crudely built structure of wooden columns no more than fifty feet in diameter, with no ceiling, no walls, and a packed dirt floor. One large elevated wooden platform stood in the center, and four more lined the perimeter. Bartenders slid buckets and shots across the bar to the right of the entrance. A dozen or so partygoers danced under multi-coloured strobe lights on the middle platform and two dozen more lazed about on oversized cushions on the elevated perimeter lounges. As we stepped over the threshold, we ran into our Hawaiian friends and made the way to the bar for our free buckets.
Southeast Asia took drinking to a whole new level — serving mixed drinks in buckets. Actual buckets with handles and everything. Perfect for sharing or getting smashed all on your own.
“Hello, Petal,” Kush greeted me with a Cheshire cat grin. “Come to see me or your free bucket?”
“Bucket,” I snapped with a terse flash of a smile.
“Now now, don’t be mad because I beat you,” he said, taking a bottle from beneath the counter. It contained amber liquid and a pickled snake curled up inside. I grimaced as he poured it into two buckets and then emptied a can of cola in both. “You were rather impressive earlier.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, dropped my gaze, and found the bar menu.
This menu, however, didn’t have drinks on it. Weed garlic bread, opium joints, mushroom tea. And then I thought, maybe one of these could open the portal back up, and I could speak to Audrey again. I nudged Lana, who stood with her back to the bar, no doubt keeping an eye on the Hawaiians. She took the laminated sheet in her manicured hands, and after giving it a once over, she turned her eyes to me with a mischievous smile.
“I see you’ve found our happy menu,” Kush said, sliding the blue buckets across the bar.
Lana took her bucket and stepped away from the bar.
As I placed my hand on the rim of the bucket, he took the other side, his eyes lingering on my neckline. “You know Petal, you really have a beautiful tan. And you know what they say, tan lines are like chicken, the white bits are the best bits.”
Ew.
Before I could think of an appropriate response for his inappropriate comment, a voice thundered from behind me. “Harper, you really must be cautious of the company you keep.”
Miles.
I turned to see his blazing eyes fixated on Kush.
“It was just a joke, mate,” he said, folding his arms.
Miles stepped forward between the counter and me. “Jokes are funny, that was not. I think you should apologize to her.”
Kush glared at Miles before looking at me. “Sorry, Petal, I didn’t mean to offend you.”
I pressed my lips together in a faint smile, grateful for the apology and for Miles defending my honour.
“Miles,” I said placing my hand on his forearm hoping to get away from the bar before a pissing contest could ensue. “Why don’t you get a bucket and we’ll find somewhere to sit?”
He nodded, and his face softened as he looked down at me. “Fine. I’ll have whatever she has.”
“Forgot your manners, mate?” Kush said puffing out his chest.
Miles clenched his jaw, and through a fake smile he hissed, “Please.”
“Sorry, mate, fresh out of free buckets.”
Miles splayed his large hands on the bar and looked down at Kush. “How much for one then?”
&
nbsp; “Fifteen thousand kip,” Kush said, slamming a bucket on the bar, its amber contents splashing onto Miles’s formerly spotless white button-down.
“That’s what, less than two bucks?” he said, pulling out a white and beige Louis Vuitton wallet before throwing his money on the bar. “What’s your salary like working in a place like this?”
“Miles!” Though I had little sympathy for Kush, his vulgar humour was no excuse for Miles being plain disrespectful. He was only bringing himself down to Kush’s level. “That’s enough. Let’s take buckets over there.”
He hooked his arm around my neck, and I led him away. I scanned the scene and caught sight of Lana’s strawberry-blond locks. She was lounging on a purple cushion on the elevated platform on the other side of the dance-floor with the Hawaiians. Stepping onto the wooden platform I lowered onto a cushion and introduced Miles to the boys. Chad couldn’t stop staring in the same way Lana stared at Ryan Gosling when he sat next to us in Starbucks years ago. It was the only time she was too afraid to talk to a guy.
“So Felix,” Lana said, “I forgot to ask, how did things go with the Swedish girls last night?”
I turned to Miles and whispered, “Last night we came here, and Felix disappeared with two very friendly Scandinavian girls.”
Felix pressed his hand against his chest and looked into the distance with nostalgia glistening in his eyes. “It was the best night of my life. If I died tonight, I would die a happy man.”
Kelly raised his hand to his forehead. “I salute you, sir.”
As we lay out in the cool night breeze, we watched the stars and swapped stories of interesting eats, disgusting accommodations, and quirky characters we had met along the way. Miles didn’t have much to add, his luxury tour consisted of weeks of scheduled “fun” with snobby middle-aged couples.
After staying silent for much of the conversation, he finally spoke. “Do you want to come get your camera? I thought it was best to keep it locked away in my safe.”
“Yes, please,” I said, jumping to my feet. Once it was in my hands, I could breathe easily again.
Bidding the crew farewell, Miles and I walked side by side back across the bridge. We followed the road down river, past the street vendors ladling pancake batter onto griddles, and away from crowds of rowdy revelers with buckets in hand. In silence, we strode down a neat brick path lined with tall bushes and fire-lit lamps. My heart drummed as he led me through a cherry wood hotel foyer adorned with orchids. After passing two women who greeted us by bowing with their hands in prayer position, we followed the same brick path to a dark wood bungalow triple the size of mine. As he fished the keys out of his pocket, I contemplated waiting outside. But as he turned the key in the golden door handle and swung it open, my mouth dropped as I peeked inside. I had to see more.
Runaways Page 16
