Josh J. Holinaty

KARMA SOUP

We hired a boat to take us up the Mekong River to a newly opened border crossing between Luang Prabang, Laos and Thailand. My fellow travellers included my girlfriend, a Brit named Julian, a Danish couple and three Frenchmen. The “slowboat” moved glacially up the river, collecting people and produce along the way.

Patience turned out to be as important as packing enough food for the two-day trip. Unfortunately, it was sorely lacking in the Frenchmen. Led by Mr. Squirrel Eyes, they needed to be back in Bangkok in a hurry. They somehow convinced the slowboat driver that his services were no longer needed, as we would all be hiring pricier speedboats for the rest of our journey. We tried to explain to Squirrel Eyes that the cost of the speedboat would put most of us in a precarious position, leaving us no cash for border guard bribes or food. “Not my problem, friends. We are to be in Bangkok by tomorrow afternoon.” He smirked and sped away, leaving us at the mercy of luck and goodwill until we reached Thailand.

Exhausting all our cash, we managed to negotiate an affordable speedboat. We caught up to the French group as we docked for our final border check. Our group sat down in the riverside restaurant built into the downstream end of the dock. I headed for its crude “facilities” on the upstream end. The dark-brown Mekong River flowed beneath the hole in its floor. I shared my confined space with several menu items — vegetables, chickens and a pig that kept trying to bite my bum. As I finished my business, I could hear a strange swishing noise nearby. Just as I tossed the last of my tissue through the hole, I noticed that my “business” was floating downstream towards the swishing noise — a woman washing a kettle pot at the restaurant kitchen. Helplessly, I watched my turd and tissue enter the pot. The cook continued to swish, only slowing her pace for a moment to scoop the debris from the scrub brush back into the Mekong.

I ran across the dock to warn everyone about what had just happened. The Danes shook their heads and ate the last of their bananas. Julian was silent only for a moment. “You shit in the pot? I just need to know that you didn’t do it on purpose. Did you?”

The Frenchmen, however, would not heed my warning pleas. Squirrel Eyes moved past me without a word. “Seriously!” I shouted. “You can’t eat there.” Clearing customs, I returned to the dock to find the three eating from the same pot that I just shat in. The three Frenchmen just sat there lapping up soup from the kettle pot. They were clearly flaunting the fact they had food, and we did not.

“I tried to tell them, really I did. They came down the hill, and I warned them.” Julian waved for me to be quiet. “Karma soup,” he said. “Sometimes you never know when it’s going to be on the menu.”

CHAD SAUNDERS

QUEERLY PARIS

A friend of a friend and fellow Canadian, Dana was the only person I almost knew in Paris. We met for drinks in Le Marais, a part-gay-part-Jewish-all-cool district near Hotel de Ville. I don’t know what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t a cafe full of lesbians looking me up and down in bored disgust. Clearly, by queer Parisian standards, I wasn’t hot. Maybe it was the Gortex.

Notwithstanding that she used to sell ecstasy out of the back of an ice cream truck, Dana was pretty down-to-earth. Her friends, though, were a different matter. Lessa, one such friend, was a burlesque dancer and part-time dominatrix from Kentucky. She was so pretty she made my eyes hurt, sweeping into the bar after I’d had three too many glasses of Bordeaux. Which meant that my kiss-kiss was more of a head-butt.

“Easy on the bises,” she shrieked at me, holding her face. “You almost took my head off!” I looked at my drink while Dana told her about my boyfriend. “Lessa only dates non-biological men,” Dana said to me, adding “baffled” to the laundry list of things I was feeling. I had no idea what that meant, but it sure as hell wasn’t me.

Melanie Jones

Crossing the Bolivian border, Bolivian-style

The bus wasn’t going any further. Stumbling off, my friend and I surveyed the heavy clouds overhead, uphill dirt road ahead, and the surrounding gaggle of wiry taxi drivers bidding for our patronage to the Bolivian border. But where were the taxis? According to the gaggle, there were no cars. Their rickety bicycle-taxis were the only way to the frontera. Small, leathery Peruvians are usually much tougher than they look, right? And our packs were heavy.

Relenting, we paid the fare for two separate taxis and were off to a good start. The light rain was refreshing, the gentle puffing of our pedalling chauffeurs was reassuring, and the border was not too far ahead. And then the hill got a little steeper. Gradually, the industrious puffing became a scratchy wheeze. I turned my head to see death written all over my driver’s face. “Asthma,” he confessed. Realizing we were going nowhere, I climbed off and motioned for my driver to take the passenger seat next to my hulking pack, wondering if I could ask for my money back. His threatening asthma attack got the better of his confusion and he climbed on. Right. Should just have ridden a bike.

Moments later, exhausted, soaked and struggling to pedal my asthmatic driver up the hill, I had to laugh as a real taxi sped past, tooting through the rain at our reversed roles: the icing on the cake. We did eventually make it to the border, in surprisingly good spirits, laughing off our “drivers’” requests for more money and a little wiser to the unexpected awaiting us on the Bolivian side. Hasta luego,

DANA KWAK

SOUTH KOREA’S UNBELIEVABLE HIKING

On hiking the short trail with the long name of Eoseunsaengak, which juts out the back of Eorimok trail on Halla-san in Jeju-do, Korea’s largest island, my friends and I discover a blocked-off pathway leading down through some high grasses. Ignoring the caution sign, we trek down to find a beautiful sheltered crater where deer hoofprints form patterns in the mud. Very peaceful — until we go back up. Waiting at the top of the slope are several busloads of Korean schoolgirls on a field trip. They’re flabbergasted to see four foreigners emerge from the thickets of dwarf bamboo. The shrieking begins before we’ve fully ascended: “Hello!” “Oh my God!” “I love you!” As we wade into the fray, our sense of serenity is completely frazzled. A huge, snaking line of girls leads all the way down to the parking lot more than a kilometre below. They unleash more English phrases. “You're so handsome!” says one. “What time is it?” chirps another, apparently ecstatic at the prospect of knowing the hour. Finally, one girl nails it, confirming how they feel about the clandestine ascent they’ve all just witnessed. Grabbing my sleeve, she looks me deeply in the eye and wails, “THAT’S UNBELIEVABLE!”

JOEL MCCONVEY

Kayaking Nuchatlitz

About two hours north of Campbell River and 40 kilometres down a gravel road, you’ll find Zeballos, a remote village on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Here you’ll find roughly 200 unpretentious residents, two neighbouring Native reserves, some seriously overpriced and limited amenities, rugged forests and mountains wounded with several clearcuts, and an increasingly popular launch point for multi-day sea kayak journeys through Nuchatlitz Park — an approximate 18-kilometre paddle southwest of Zeballos. Geographically, culturally and commercially, this place is a long way from tourist hotspots like Banff.

Paddling Nuchatlitz is suited for both the novice and experienced kayaker. Small islands offer protected waters, serene coves and caves, waterfalls, lagoons and plenty of beaches. There is also some exposed coastline with its attendant dangers — high winds, jutting rocks and tidal currents. An understanding of ocean charts, tide and current tables, navigation and rescue techniques is a prerequisite for making your way through these waters.

The ocean swells as the Pacific rolls in straight from Japan, creating an abundance of intertidal life including many species of anemones, barnacles, crabs, mussels, sea stars, algaes and molluscs. Groupings of brilliant purple, orange and burgundy sea stars are striking against the black pebbles and seashells. A waterproof camera is a must for this trip.

Black bears and deer hop (or more accurately, swim) from island to island lazily feeding along the shoreline. One of the largest populations of sea otters can be found in Nuchatlitz Park, and you’ll find them floating in large rafts aboard forests of bull kelp. For a good look at these sea creatures, you’ll need a pair of binoculars. Humpback and grey whales, sea lions, seals, wolves, eagles and many other varieties of birds frequent the area.

The beauty of nature prevails here, and self-sufficiency is required for its exploration. Sure, it’s not Mount Everest, but there are no flush toilets (if any at all), no running water, no electricity, no real shelter from the frequent rain, no phones and no means of contacting the outside world.

Adrienne Beattie