Wooden Traveller's Tale

Right now I feel like a cliché with legs and a bum, sitting on a stool in a Bangkok bar.

I have been backpacking for two months, having the time of my life. Discovering the truth behind the clichés. They are for real here. The temples and beaches and Buddha's and lady boys. The beer bottles and whisky buckets clinking together. Links in a never ending chain of debauched ecstacy. It's all you would imagine, and more.

The more is the problem. Why I am not feeling myself. It's quite a predicament. I wish there was someone I could talk to, but all my friends are in on the joke. I'm in on it too. Of course. I am the joke. So its difficult to talk about. Some explanation would be helpful.

Yesterday I got back from Cambodia, where a story was born. About me. It's a funny story. A crazy story. Everyone loves it. Loves to tell it. And retell it.

To maintain my flagging dignity, I must say that it is false. The only problem is, I can't really remember the truth. It's killing me. A good trip has turned into a fantastic one. Some things can get so easily out of hand.

My friend James. It's all his fault. We'd been out partying in Phnom Phen. Our first and last night in that untamed city. He was buying round after round of tequila shots in The Heart of Darkness. Cementing the evening in the best nightclub in town. I loved tequila. He knew it. It rewires my thought patterns, turns me back to front. I guess I have my head where it shouldn't be. It felt good to be the right way up.

My ears were ringing joyously to the booming music. Gorgeous women were dancing and flirting like flies to a golden turd. One handed James a red rose slotted between her teeth. It touched his warm emotional place inside. He nearly cried. “No one has ever given me a red rose before.” His hand was on his heart. At that moment, God seemed to touch us all. We all truly rocked.

The dance floor was there to be hit. So we pummelled it. Curling expensive looking speakers encircled us, blending in the with dark reds and purples of the décor. Leafy plants and low oval glass tables were dotted about tastefully. Hip hop was blaring through. It had never sounded more appropriate. Just like MTV. In a matter of seconds we were surrounded by a coven of miraculous dark beauty's. The ambient lighting heightened their curvy allure. Surely they were models. Or groupies. Or Khmer princesses.

Greg spoke with the purest honesty, pointing to a girl who could hardly be real. “Guys, I have fallen in love.” Her silky black hair, amber brown eyes, and deliciously sexy lips blended like a Belgium chocolate milkshake. She wore the fashionably high class garments of a Parisian evening stroll. For once, there was not a trace of parody in his voice.

Soon I was horribly intoxicated. I could barely walk straight. I made it to the shiny toilets, but slipped over as I tried to zip myself up. I feared for myself, groping for a place to sit and rearrange things. Would I soon resemble those fat sweaty middle aged American men? Those quiet drunkards who forever sat quiet as ghosts in shadowed corners. Restraint dressed as taste, labouring for that special lady of economically corruptible luck.

To shake off this feeling, I danced like a young maniac. I was a dirty, sweaty Western plague.

I can't imagine why the women didn't avoid me. But one young woman smiled with Asian friendliness, just managing to catch me as I inevitably slipped over myself. She helped me to a table and bought me a chaser. Apart from a floor full of revellers, we were alone. The others had disappeared.

We talked. God knows about what. My amazing travels? The buses, Buddhas and beaches? Her English must have been excellent. Either that or my slurs reached a plateau of international understanding. The universally comprehensible lovestruck inebriate. Lovestruck. That was the point. She had a lovely, warm face and the most trusting eyes. She entranced my better nature.

Eventually we were chugging slowly together through the dusty unpaved streets on her little motorcycle. Somehow she knew the way to my motel, a grotty place. A maze of sweaty rooms with chains instead of locks. I collapsed on the bed.

She stayed with me. Later I awoke and we rubbed up together. Things just kind of happened. I still don't understand how or why. I was barely conscious, and I must have smelt like a vomit and cigarette explosion.

Along came the morning and I drizzled back to life alone. The colour of the night was washed away, leaving the day grey and distorted. None of us had had much sleep. I could barely see through my poisened and throbbing mind. And that's when James hit me with his story. Or perhaps I should say allegations.

We were catching an early bus on to Sihanoukville. I was last out, fighting through my barbaric hangover to make it on time. I saw James waiting by the bus, his backpack being loaded by the sweaty driver. He was grinning.

“I saw your girl leaving this morning. My my, she was in a state. What did you do to her?”

I was innocent to his comments. As far as I knew, I'd had a pretty good night. James continued, torturing me with the smug power of knowledge he had over my alcoholic blunders.

“She was throwing up in the toilets. I saw her legging it home. Or trying to. Man you do choose your women, don't you?”

“What?”

“Shit, you didn't notice? Not possible buddy.” A surprised pause. “You really don't remember?”

Then he dropped the bombshell, delivering the punchline that was to become so famous. I swear on my life there was a glint of mischief in his eye.

It left me flabbergasted. A fish slap in the face. It simply couldn't be true. But the fog that surrounded all thought of the previous night prevented me from piecing together any substantial or coherent counter evidence. Doubt crept in. Could I be certain? Did I look her over exhaustively? Was I capable?

During the bus journey, the laughter was uncontrollable.

“Hey man” joked James, “look on the bright side. The women love you here. You've had more Khmer girls than any of us.”

A group of middle aged French women on a respectable post-colonial archaeological tour peered back between the coach seats. They smirked, awoken by our forbidden joys. My head was spinning out of orbit, I barely noticed my emerging superstar status. I laughed along, adamant that it was rubbish. I pleaded again and again. How could it possibly be true?

The story follows me. Days and nights pass, and it is impossible to shake off. It is told every time we share drinks. Every time we meet new friends, it is held back until just the right moment. Correctly heralded by my friends, it brings people together like a magic tonic. A gospel of sin, revealed with reverence, it becomes a travellers rite, passage for joining our drinking table. Despite its seediness, it transcends the sexual divide. Men and women alike delight in it, laughing from true hearts, looking at me with brightest eyes. There is no hint of disgust, only genuine wonder and a natural appreciation of the fantastical. It turns our little trip into the stuff of legend. Bar owners thank us for turning the tides. Average evenings become bonanzas in our golden presences. Even if it is just us, it is told and retold to death over whisky. The deeper we dig, the harder we laugh.

It is so ubiquitous, it becomes a part of me. I can't kill it or surgically remove it without hurting myself in the process. I'd have to disappear in a puff of smoke to get away from it. But I have months left on my trip. Sometimes I try to argue. I even get a little angry.

“James you bastard, why did you have to make up such a story about me? It's bloody terrible. Imagine if my mum was to hear that! It so unbelievable.”

“I'm only telling what I saw. And please do tell your mum, I'd love to know what she thinks.”

“That's not going to happen. Besides, even if you did see it, you don't know it was the same girl I was with. Nobody saw her in the club.”

“Come on! You were so steaming you'd have gone with a one-eyed witch if she'd looked twice at you.”

Greg joins in the conversation, chuckling.

“Look man, chill out. What's your problem? It's a great story. I'd love to have a story like that about me.”

“Sure you would.” I mock. “Just like yours. Used for sex in the sea by a large breasted Danish blond. Waves crashing around you at 4am in the morning. I'm sure you can see the difference. That was cool! You can be proud. My story's great. Yes, of course. Just as long as its not about me!”

We all laugh. James pours me another drink. I sigh in defeat to myself. Who cares if it's true or not? It IS a good story.

“Here's to you!” James raises his glass and drinks. “And here's to your girl with the wooden leg!”

Do you see my predicament? And I've always thought of myself as a legs man.