Ju-ju
My dictionary defines ju-ju in the following way:
'ju-ju' - A type of magic involving objects with special powers, or one of these objects.
After reading the following account, maybe you will agree that objects can contain special power: to do good, or to do evil. If you are superstitious, I suggest you do not read further.
The happening
December 1999, the end of the millennium, a time of science and rationality, logic and reason. Also a time of great spiritual power and significance. I am in northern Thailand with three travelling companions, about to enter Laos by boat down the mighty Mekong River. We envisage a month of happy wanderings through a land only now awakening after decades of strife. Our guesthouse for the night is on the south bank of the river just outside Chiang Khong - A typical rough and ready border town that links up with the even rougher and readier Ban Houay xai in Laos.
My room is small and has a 'river-view' of sorts. It is clean and serviceable, containing a rickety bed, a fine desk and an old wooden closet. Usually, I don't care to use closets as their particular musty tropical odour seeps into everything: bags, clothes, and books alike. This smell resists many washes and sometimes returns to haunt me when safely back in England. Sitting on the brown-spotted bed-sheets I wonder about the lives of those travellers who have sat in my place, or hung their Thai-fisherman's trousers or fake Diesel T-shirts in the closet as they pass like colourful ants along the invisible chemical trial that all backpackers must follow. The Germans and Swedes, Irish and Israelis, in constant procession, carrying spoils back to their home colonies, briefly interacting, antennae twitching, then ever onward in search of more titbits.
I open the closet, and it is there waiting. It feels so light in my
hand but even now it speaks to me, 'I am yours, you are mine'.
I unthread the thin leather thong from the rail that secures it and
rest my prize gently in my palm. It is free again but I am in its
possession.
On some forgotten distant shore, sun-baked hands crafted its
simple features, a malevolen head, carved from the
flotsam of storm-lashed vessel. Then to be set adrift on its journey of
destruction. Even now, years later, I can feel its presence in the
world. I tell myself that my habit of never wearing any jewellery
matters little and slip the loop over my neck. We are together now,
partners.
After unpacking the necessities of a one-night stay, I wait for my
companions at an orange-tiled concrete table on the
riverbank. It is unseasonably cold, the coldest for forty
years we are told. We hear that some local people died after setting
fire to their own furniture to keep warm. We are only prepared for
tropical temperatures so troop off to the local market to buy jackets
and balaclavas. It is Christmas Eve and we celebrate with our old
friends Beer Chang and Beer Lao. It's freezing, we feel dreadful. On
our journey we enjoy playing cards, 'Shithead' being the current game
of choice. A game whose rules I can never remember while sober, but
which are so obvious when in a haze. I lose tonight - every game. I
don't win another game, for the next seven days. But tonight I have no
idea why my luck has changed. The bickering between us begins to notch
up a level. Between long silences, animosity rules. I think maybe it's
because we are cold and tired, I don't suspect greater forces are at
play.
The crossing into Laos passes without incident, but also without conversation as our group's relationships are in freefall. Random fellow travellers provide some relief but the pressure is building. The end of the Millennium is fast approaching, and it feels that way. All around are signs of nervousness and hope, as people wonder about the significance of the event, both personally and globally. We just glare at each other. When we see the boat that will take us down the Mekong we are not amused. Two days on 15cm wide wooden benches bouncing through the choppy waters and rapids of one of the world's greatest waterways awaits. However, the scenery is stunning and we settle in by chatting to two great Aussie girls. We play cards, I lose every time. If someone gets splashed by river water, it is me. I change my seat, I get splashed.
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_
After two days navigating the rapids, or should I say, sitting with numb behinds while the guy with the rudder navigated the rapids, we arrive in Luang Prabang - World Heritage city and location for our intended Millennium party. Three hours of trudging the streets later, we are standing in the doorway of our home for a few days: a light and airy room with wooden louvred shutters - expensive but comfortable. Maybe things are looking up? I wonder optimistically and as it turns out, prematurely. In a small shop we buy six litres of the local moonshine and ten bottles of the local 'Red-Bull' substitute. As we return to our guesthouse, locals openly point at our purchases - not the moonshine, it's the obviously radioactive stimulant drink that attracts their attention. We must have chosen right then, it looks like a good night beckons. So we get started on the cocktails. Party time.
Forty-five minutes later and one of our party is in tears, two more hate each other, the forth decides it's a good time to go for a walk. Unfortunately, I'm not the one off for a spot of sightseeing. The descent was rapid but understandable in hindsight, we were all dog tired; tired of travelling and tired of each other. Still, tomorrow night is the last night of the 1999 and I'm convinced it'll all come good. Somehow, we pull ourselves into something resembling friends and head off into the bright lights for dinner. It's mid-evening and that means time for the moped promenade, everyone circling the centre of town belching thick clouds of sickly-sweet fumes. Strangely, I love the smell as it never fails to ignite memories of sticky nights in fluorescent cafes watching 'Grabzoids' on the TV and wondering why Kevin Bacon chose a) the name Kevin, and b) the name Bacon. Tonight we enjoy real pizza from a real pizza oven after picking off the bits of meat while watching an over-energetic kung fu extravaganza with the volume considerately set on max. At least we don't have to talk to each other.
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It's December 31st and after the obligatory visit to temples with particularly decorative murals we stock up on six more plastic bags of moonshine and the aforesaid stimulant drink. 'Live and learn' is not on our list of 'to do's' before 2000 rolls in. News reaches us that their is a party on a Mekong riverboat that looks like the best bet for a knees-up. We arrive and the party begins. The Laotians are dour during the day, really contrasting with their Thai cousins across the border, but at night and after a few drinks they are in a great party mood. NIck, a slightly enormous English guy, is repeatedly pushed off his 20cm stool and rolled around the floor by a group of locals. We on the other hand are arguing about everything we can, I storm off. I storm back to be consoled by Keith, I storm off and sit by the river a way upstream, listening to the music bouncing around the riverbanks and watching the slow passage of small boats. I feel a long way from home, and a very long way from myself. I rub my wooden charm between my fingers and head back to the fun. The hour approaches and eerily in the sky are a series of orange lights, that seem to be coming into alignment. Maybe eight or ten lights coming into a straight line just as the shout goes out for the new Millennium. Amazing - I think it's the end of the world, or the beginning of the world, or some alien invasion. We kiss, we hug, but inside I feel cold, I am now a long way from myself and slipping further downstream into the dark. The dancing continues, the drinking continues, the night doesn't end until it is morning.
It's
pleasantly warm . The
first day of the next one thousand years. What has changed? Everything
or nothing at all? The baguettes from the French cafe seem the same,
the two-stroke 'putter-putter' mopeds sound the same, but something has
shifted, something feels darker, further away. He is dead at our feet.
One rider swerved and sent his moped head-first into the bike with the
woman with the eggs. She slid across her trays of eggs and seems
shocked but uninjured, but he is motionless at our feet. I turn my
friend away, she is about to freak out. I help the egg-woman to her
feet as a crowd watches blood ooze from the hole in his head onto the
dusty road. A happy new year to his family. We walk back to the
guesthouse in silence. I tell my friend that I am sure he'll be all
right, just unconscious, no problem, not dead, definitely not dead. I
feel like I'm John Cleese in the 'Dead Parrot' sketch. She definitely
doesn't believe me. I wouldn't. Let's head South.
Should we take this bus, or wait for the next? It's over-crowded, but so might be the next one, and it's a one hour wait and, and. And so we board the bus. I think the scenery looks like Wales, I have no idea why, I just do. I think everywhere looks like Wales. It's lovely though, winding roads up and down hills and mountains. Fantastic vistas, fresh air. The small villages so basic, kids playing, women sitting on the wooden steps of the spotless shacks they live out their lives in. It happens in slow motion. First of all I think we've gone off the side of a cliff and I brace myself, then I think we just ran into trees but it's another bus, crashing into ours, ripping the side off and back like a tin of sardines. Each window exploding and showering the sixty occupants with glass. Silence, then screaming and panic. I stand and shout loudly "Don't scream, don't panic, just walk slowly off the bus". Everyone screams and panics, and scrambles off the bus. Four people remain, an injured Dutch woman is unconscious, her leg had fallen between the buses, her ribs are open front and back, a gash through to her skull, trickling blood. I check her spine, it's okay. I lean out the window and ask for assistance. I am worried in case a car ploughs into the crash and sets us ablaze. I worry without reason, as ninety minutes pass until a German Embassy pick-up happens upon us. By this time most people have been attended to. Sixty foreigners have sixty first aid kits! There are perhaps a total of fifty injured. The other bus was a converted truck containing Laotian workers who look perplexed and fatalistic about the entire episode but genuinely appreciative of our first aid efforts. Our bus driver, who owned his own bus, is beyond consolation, his livelihood and future gone.
The Germans ferry away the most injured four people, including Scott who is covered in blood and had a metal spike tear through his face, a twenty centimetre gash to his left forearm. He is worried about his looks. Considering he is covered in tattoos and piercings, and has thick glasses to match his thick dreadlocks, I have to laugh. We later discover that after one hour they reached a hospital. The hospital consisted off a) a whitewashed room, b) a wooden table. No doctor, no nurse, no medicine, travel insurance being meaningless when there is no treatment. After a further long drive the wounded were brought to another village with a hospital. This one had a) a table, b) there was no 'b'. So they were to be driven to Vientiane, the capital city where medical help would be available. We hear the Dutch woman and an American woman were airlifted back to Thailand - obviously they had comprehensive insurance policies. Scott waited for us to arrive the slow way.
Those of us remaining
at the
crash site had cuts and bruises, but no
need of emergency treatment. I had bruised ribs, nothing more. After an
hour another bus arrives. It is the bus we were considering taking. The
twenty or so occupants are so excited as they get to see and take
photos of a mini-disaster. Ugly words are exchanged, this is not a zoo,
show some respect. There are now eighty crammed onto the new bus as far
as the first village. The industrious and helpful locals arrange a
fleet of pick-ups to help us on our way - no charge. Wonderful people.
We end up down the road in Vang Vieng, a hip new backpackers haunt in
an area of formidable limestone pinnacles. We decide to stay for some
R&R and are rewarded when the following day is glorious. After
a trip to a beautiful limestone cave we decide to go tubing down the
Nam Song river, but first we must try the local bang-lassi. On the way
up to the point where we hurl ourselves into the river on our truck
inner-tubes, we hear that two people have drowned in the last week. Now
they tell us! By this point my bang-lassi has kicked in and I am
feeling decidedly happy and decidedly nauseous. I rub my wooden charm
for luck - I am that out of it. We all survive, although I manage to
puke into the water several times, my head spinning, my body shivering.
After our crash we enjoy ourselves immensely and that night is such fun
as we celebrate our close shave. However, Scott isn't with us and we
don't know where he is or if he's okay.
We
are in the capital,
Vientiane, and not impressed. We meet our friend, who has stitches
everywhere, his face a mess. He wants to fly home. We persuade him to
travel back into Thailand instead, get some quality medical care, have
a laugh. Just don't go home now, don't go home after a bad trip, it's
only January 3rd 2000, give it a couple of weeks, you'll be right as
rain. He is persuaded and the beer Lao settles his stomach. The
following day we are in Nong Khai, Thailand, just across the
'Friendship bridge'. It feels like Europe, feels like civilization,
feels like home. We book in to the Mut Mee guesthouse on the bank of
the Mekong. My room is small and has a 'river-view' of sorts. It is
clean and serviceable, containing a rickety bed, a fine desk and an old
wooden closet. Usually, I don't care to use closets as their particular
musty tropical odour seeps into everything: bags, clothes, and books
alike. This smell resists many washes and sometimes returns to haunt me
when safely back in England.
It feels so light in my hand but even now it speaks to me, 'I am yours,
you are mine'.
I thread the thin leather thong onto the rail to secure it and slip my
prize gently from my palm. I close the door. It is secure
again but I am still in its possession.
On some forgotten distant shore, sun-baked hands crafted its
simple features, a malevolent head, carved from the
flotsam of storm-lashed vessel. Then to be set adrift on its journey of
destruction. Even now, years later, I can feel its presence in the
world.