The next morning we decided to rent bikes before catching the bus to Chiang Mai. Lanes and traffic laws are mere suggestions in small Thai towns; as a cyclist you’re usually risking your life on the regular. We toured the ruins, took endless pictures of Buddhas, and felt ashamed eating at the restaurant full of other white people. We needed chips and salsa.

Later in the week we signed up for a two-day jungle trek in the Chiang Mai wilderness. Most of the time it felt like I was being punished with hard labor. Our guide Wan informed us it was a steep, hour-long climb before reaching the top of the mountain. He chuckled at the sight of everyone doubled-over and wheezing after that hour, announcing we still had 50 minutes to go: “49 minutes, 59 seconds!” Once at the campsite, our lodgings consisted of a small shack on wooden stilts. Inside were eight small pallets draped in mosquito nets—a welcome sight for this bug magnet. We bathed in the icy river before dinner and shared a delectable assortment of curries and soups with our companions, couples from the Czech Republic, Morocco, and France. Rosalind and Guillame, the French couple, humored my embarrassing attempts at French as we pored over their French-English pocket dictionary. We also had an insightful discussion concerning dessert the food and desert the act of fleeing. I discovered that my name in French, the church name, “abbey,” is “abbaye,” which I decided I quite enjoy. 

After dinner we sat around the campfire and sang John Denver songs accompanied by Alex’s (guide #2) out of tune guitar. Without exception, every Thai person I’ve met knows two English songs like the back of their hand: “Take Me Home Country Roads” and “Hotel California.” At approximately 3:00am, I woke up with the urge to pee like never before. I debated with myself as to whether or not I could hold it before concluding that it was impossible. I crawled out from beneath my mosquito net and stumbled down the rickety staircase into the pitch-black night. Another first for me: squatting in the middle of the wilderness in the pale moonlight longing for an actual mattress.

For our last excursion we headed out in the morning to go bamboo rafting down the Wang river. Our captain was a boy of about twelve wearing a Michael Jordan t-shirt who appeared as if he wished to be anywhere else. In broken Thai I attempted to ask his name and was met with stiff silence. I tried not to think about how I was placing my life in a child’s hands as he deftly navigated through rapids, rocks, and fallen trees with a giant stick. Once he turned around and told me to “move back,” but I knew he was trying to say we were kindred spirits.

We made it back to Chiang Mai that evening for some much needed showers, naps, and more Mexican food before ending the night in an Irish pub watching the Tottenham match. Sometimes whiteness can’t be helped.