In Lampang, a white fan turns in a slow circle around the ceiling, fluttering the saffron curtains of my room. The walls, a shade of brown so dark they're almost black, so shiny they look plastic, let in skinny slants of light that cut across the floor and lay there isolated against the uneven wooden boards. Outside the door, a coil of incense, used to keep mosquitos out, uncoils in a line of bone white smoke which hovers in the air, pale clouds in the corners of the hallway. I am lying on my bed. Through the curtains, the day outside becomes the day inside, an orange and gentle glow. Thailand. Down on the deck, my companions are drinking instant coffee and eating breakfast. From there, they can see the river, a thick and fluid murk the color of bruised fruit which has swallowed nearly everything. On a different day, in a different part of the year, the men, women, and children of Lampang would be sitting on the other side across from us, transfixed by water on the broken concrete steps that lead steeply down the banks and to the shore. I like to imagine they'd be fishing, pulling snakeheads from the filthy deep, but they’re not. Today, at the end of the rainy season with water pouring steady from the north and more to come, the shore is hardly even visible. Every now and then a tree branch, green with leaves, floats by on the dirty surface and turns into a tiny spot downstream. The river is alone.
For the most part, the beginning of the trip is over. In a day, Kelli and I fly back to Bangkok, Riley hops a bus to Chiang Rai, Josh and Daow drive east to Isaan. The last few weeks have happened fast, a blur of days and nights and mornings. The four of us, for better and for worse, have lived, eaten, stayed up, slept in, talked, and drank together in various bars, beaches, restaurants, and guest houses littered from the south of Thailand to the north. Recently, though, we’ve all been slowing down. In anticipation of the months to come, each of us, in our own ways, are preparing to be alone. Riley’s showers have gotten longer, though he still sings in there, and he’s been smoking more, a habit which brings him out onto the sidewalks where he likes to stand with a bottle of Coke beneath the awnings and look around. The last few days I’ve gotten up as early as I can, hoping for an hour to myself in which to read, drink coffee, write, though it isn’t easy to leave the comfort of an air conditioned guesthouse in this humidity. And Kelli, Kelli’s been pretty quiet lately, though I’m not sure why. She may be getting sick.
Yesterday on Josh’s houseboat we floated for a long time down a narrow lake where he hopes someday to open a resort. We stopped at the abandoned caves of former forest dwellers where we sent Kelli squealing through the bat infested dark, a game we dubbed "Squigs goes first," which she didn’t like. Also, big limestone cliffs which lined the shore where Riley jumped off into the water. We sat out on the deck a lot, in the sun and in the shade. We took turns taking naps, eating BBQ fish, chicken wings, and pork ribs, drinking vodka tonics, Singha on the rocks. On the big stereo at the back of the boat, we listened to the Weeknd, Bob Marley, Dengue Fever, and Sade. In a lot of ways, it was a typical day for us, slow and steady and a little drunk, but it was also our last day, which made it a little sad.
When it started getting late, Kelli and I sat out at the front of the boat together and let out feet hang down into the water. Soon it would be dark out, the whole boat lit by lantern light, and it would get hard to tell the jungle and the mountains from the sky.
“Look,” she said, pointing to a space in the clouds.
“I know,” I said, “finally.”
Strangely, for the last three weeks, perhaps because the rain's been so persistent, the night sky has remained entirely and stubbornly full of clouds, starless, but last night they really came alive up there, thousands of them, little silver pins, and for as far as the mountains would let me see, they shimmered tiny in the distance. Around my feet, the water of the lake was black and warm, barley moving. Every now and then a twig would stick between my toes and I’d have to reach down and take it out. I'm not sure how we ever made it home, but we did. I remember we turned a bend in the lake, slowly--it is hard to know where one is truly going--and then we turned another.
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