Feeling flustered, I finally left Kanchanaburi aboard an old, rusting bus. What I’d thought would be five minutes of shelter from the rain, had turned into more than three hours of being taken hostage. The weapon of choice used by my captor was relentless hospitality. If ever there was a time when I thought I might have died through one man’s own sense of philanthropy, this had been it.

I had arrived at Kanchanaburi bus station two days earlier with only my thoughts as company. I consulted a map and memorized a route to a nearby guesthouse so that I would not draw attention to myself by looking like a lost tourist. From the bus station it was only a short walk to a long road that wound its way down to the river. While I was walking, I passed a small house. There was a man, who looked to be in his early thirties, sitting outside the house on a concrete bench, underneath a makeshift verandah. He greeted me with enthusiasm. I waved back and carried on walking.

The guesthouse was not far. I was given a room no bigger than the single bed that was contained within. For 100 baht a night I was more than happy.

Two days of walking, river-crossing, and reading passed and it was time to leave. My next destination was Suphanburi, where an old friend was waiting for me. I overslept and didn’t leave the guesthouse until gone 3 p.m.

I said my farewell to the owner and began to walk up the road back to the bus station. Almost immediately the heavens opened and I felt like the river man; I prayed for the sky to blow away, but it was unforgiving. The walk up the road was arduous. It was one of those downpours that come from nowhere, persisting as if it might rain for all eternity. Newspapers were blowing across the road and the sun seemed to sink down to earth, in spite of it being only mid-afternoon.

I was halfway along my sodden journey when I came to the house of the man who had greeted me with unusual fervor two days earlier. He waved and began screaming, beckoning me over as if I were an old friend. I was grateful for the shelter; he was grateful to make my acquaintance.

I sat down at a small picnic table underneath the verandah. There were other people present: an old man with a haggard face, his long white hair tied back in a ponytail, and four children sat nearby on the floor, wide-eyed at the intrusion of a foreigner. Almost immediately I was offered a glass of rice whiskey.

“My name Kong,” said my savior from the rain, gesturing to make sure I understood to whom he was referring. We shook hands and he told me that it was too wet to walk to the bus station. He had a point, but I had only really taken him up on his offer of shelter because of how emphatically he had herded me in. The bus station was only a five-minute walk away.

I picked up my glass and drank the potent intoxicant. If you’ve ever drunk rice whiskey, then you will know of the burning sensation that comes alive in your body as the liquid passes through your mouth and down your throat. It is certainly not a pleasant experience, but it serves its purpose. Almost immediately I felt my head untangle, as if my worries, and common sense, had been eradicated by the coarseness of the whiskey. The drinks flowed, and the conversation seemed to center around how Kong and I had become great friends.

Close to two hours had trundled by when Kong showed me his prized possession: an enormous fish, perhaps a foot-and-a-half in length, swimming in a concrete basin of water, perhaps a foot-and-eight-inches in length. Neither Kong nor I could explain what the fish was for, though I suspected he may have wanted to eat it at some point.

The old man sitting with us, whose name I could never distinguish, looked to have been drinking incessantly for most of his life. He smiled to himself, amused at the things only he could see, that only he could understand. Most of his teeth were missing, and he relished each glass of rice whiskey as a child relishes sugarcoated candy. Occasionally he would mutter something to Kong that would create a slight fracas, usually resulting in Kong hitting him over the head.

Kong told me that I could stay with him and teach English to the children. I wasn’t quite sure whose children they were. Each was not more than six or seven years old, wearing slightly worn, dirty clothes, and an expression of mild excitement that often transcended into hysterical laughter, or shouting, or singing.

I admired Kong’s zeal for conversation, and really I was having a wonderful time, but with a sudden wave of panic I realized that I needed to go. I broached the subject of me leaving and was sternly reprimanded: “You cannot leave! It is raining!” he said, almost shouting. I assured Kong that we were now good friends, and we exchanged telephone numbers. He asked me if I wanted to stay the night. I thanked him for the offer, but said I had a friend waiting for me in Suphanburi. As a goodbye offering, he first presented me with a miniature wooden penis that he said would help me find a good wife, and then with a slingshot that he said was fun to play with. v

I got the impression I was really upsetting him by leaving. Kong reluctantly agreed that I could go, but on the condition that he would drive me on his motorcycle the few hundred meters to the bus station. I had little faith in surviving such a journey, given that we were all blind drunk. I stood up to underline my intention to leave. Kong had run out of ways to make me stay. He slowly joined me in standing and walked over to his motorcycle. The old man, clearly confused at all the commotion, also got up. Kong started up the motorcycle and hailed me over. I sat behind him and, to my shock, the old man sat behind me. I thought perhaps I was being kidnapped.

We wobbled along a few meters, straightened up, and were soon hurtling along at a terrifying pace, going in what I soon discerned was the wrong direction. It turned out we were transporting the old man home (which in reality meant dropping him off in the middle of the road). He hugged me goodbye with a passionate embrace, and before I had chance to catch my breath we screeched off again.

The bus station was full of people. It was gone 6 p.m.. Kong stopped the bike and we both dismounted. I began to say goodbye, but he quickly countered my actions by saying that he thought the last bus to Suphanburi had already left. We walked over to consult one of bus drivers who raised his finger to a large tin can.

My carriage out of this bewildering man’s life stood in front of us, yet Kong persisted in telling me that the last bus had departed. I said that I had to go, to be met with the exasperated facial contortions that a Thai man makes when he has come to his wit’s end. Kong made several noises that were somewhere between a loud hiss, a cough, and a growl. This was not an easy goodbye. I assured him that I would return next week. “Why don’t you stay with me tonight?” he kept repeating.

He was pulling at my heart strings, but my heart belonged to a girl in Suphanburi. Kong tried to get me back onto his motorcycle, but I decided enough was enough: I needed to get on that bus. I said another final goodbye and left Kong with the saddest look I have ever seen on another human being. I walked onto the bus, pairs of eyes looking at me in disbelief, for we had made quite a scene. I sat down on the back seat and breathed a premature sigh of relief as Kong boarded the bus and headed my way.

He sat beside me and pleaded with me to stay. He was still trying to convince me that there was no bus; that I would have to stay the night; that I was his guest and, it emerged, his best friend, his brother, his son, and his companion.

Kong left with a promise that I would call him when I got to Suphanburi and return to Kanchanaburi the following weekend. “We are friends forever now,” I assured him. Reluctantly, he returned home, dejected, drunk, and exhausted.

I have not returned to Kanchanaburi since the time I met Kong.

Techno’ tags: Travel, Kanchanaburi, Bangkok, Thailand