The Backpacker (16 page)

NINE

By the time we arrived at the train station in Surat Thani I had fallen asleep in the back of the taxi. Our driver had told us that it was the shuttle bus between ferry and train station so we followed it just in case Ning got off halfway. Wishful thinking. Rick nudged me awake and we watched as she got off the bus and headed straight for the north-bound platform of the station.

We paid the driver and crept over to the opposite side of the track, hiding behind the stinking toilet block. ‘Now we are done for,' I said, pinching my nose against the pungent, sour odour of ammonia that was being let off in waves from the urinals. ‘They're not stupid, they know you've got no passport.' Rick looked at me, puzzled, and I added, ‘They've got your passport, d'you see? They don't need to cover the south-bound platform cause it only goes to the border with Malaysia, they know you can't cross. They're expecting us to go north to Bangkok.'

He thought for a moment, hoisting up his baggy Coco the Clown tie-dye trousers. ‘So we go south. Screw 'em.'

‘You've got no passport, how are you going to cross the border? We can get a bus to Bangkok.'

He shook his head. ‘Toomy's half-brother works in the ticket office at the bus depot, he'd tell her straight away.'

I fell back against the wall. ‘Are they so well-connected these people?

‘Believe it, John. Everyone knows everyone else down here. Nothing happens without somebody else knowing about it, or without someone's permission. Even us, living at that house, you can bet that half of the Thais on Koh Samui knew about it.'

I sighed. ‘Christ. It's a pity you didn't tell me all this a year ago, I wouldn't have fucking stayed there. Jesus, it's like a bad dream!'

‘Well there's no use crying about it now,' he said, pulling his damp, sweaty shirt from his body. ‘Anyway, dreams never come true. Let's get out of here, this place stinks.'

We cruised up and down the back streets until we found a suitably inconspicuous café and went in. We were both shocked at the difference in temperature between the islands and the mainland where the sea breezes were blocked out by buildings. Having spent months living right by the sea, the extra five degrees, plus added humidity, made it seem like we had left Thailand already and gone somewhere further south.

Wafting the air under his shirt to dry the sweat, Rick suddenly looked very odd amongst the tablecloths and plate glass windows. The trappings of civilisation were a stark contrast to the soft surroundings of the bamboo, jungle and beaches that we had become accustomed to. Rick's clothing and bleached hair made him stand out a mile.

‘You've got to get some new clothes, Rick.'

He stopped wafting to inspect himself. ‘What's wrong with these?'

‘Too conspicuous, you look like a clown.'

‘Well it's all I've got for now. Anyhow, that's the least of our worries.'

We ordered two coffees from the waitress, who smiled politely and asked if we'd just come from Koh Pha-Ngan. She was probably only being friendly but my paranoia was getting the better of me, so I said we hadn't but were thinking of going there, and immediately left the restaurant and went into another that looked like a karaoke lounge.

The new waiter took our order without asking any questions, and Rick continued where he'd left off. ‘Forget the clothes, what are we going to do to get out of here?'

I'd been racking my brains and I thought I had the solution. ‘The only way is to get a later train south, a night-train if there is one. We can get onboard without being seen, no problem. Then we change further down the line, during the night, and get the first train back up to Bangkok. Even if Empress Ning is still awake by then, I doubt that she's going to board the train and search every bloody compartment.' I took a sip of my drink. ‘In any case, when we get back to this station we can always hide in the train toilet. What d'you think, good idea or not?'

‘Shit idea. But it's all we've got.'

‘Well thanks for your contribution.'

‘Don't mention it.'

While Rick stayed seated in the lounge, I went back out to the station to check the timetable for trains towards the border. Ning was smoking a joint and chatting to a street vendor when I reached the station, so I quickly ran onto the opposite platform and darted into the waiting room where the ticket office was located. The timetable was indecipherable so I went to the window and woke up the clerk who was dozing behind the counter, his head resting on a dog-eared copy of a Thai girlie magazine.

‘Ahem!'

His head came up as slowly as treacle, opening one lazy eye, and he pushed himself over to the window on his wheeled office chair. The concrete floor between his desk and the window was dark and smooth where years of five-wheeled vehicles had passed across it. ‘Mm?' His head peered over the top of the ticket counter.

‘Next train tonight, what time?' I prayed for him to understand.

‘Bangko'?'

‘No, Malaysia. But no go to Malaysia. Next station from here.'

Still seated, he pushed off with his feet and whizzed backwards across the floor to the window that faced the platform, coming to a stop exactly where he needed to be. His accuracy on that chair was astounding, and after issuing a ticket to a woman who I hadn't even noticed waiting, he pushed off again and came back to me, his chair never bumping into anything en route. He said something in Thai, I frowned, and he wrote
22.45
on a piece of paper. The five was written backwards so I double-checked the timetable and it corresponded.

‘Two,' I said, making a V sign, quickly handing over the cash and running out with the tickets.

When I got back to the karaoke lounge, Rick was talking to a Thai girl, or, rather, he was speaking to her breasts. She was sitting on his knee, her legs swinging to and fro in a split skirt, her high heel shoes balancing seductively on the end of her toes.

He looked up as I walked over. ‘Did you get them?'

‘Yep, two tickets s–' I glanced at the girl as she twirled the hairs on his chest around her finger, and then back at him, frowning.

‘Now you just go and do your work and let me talk to my friend for five minutes,' Rick said to the girl. ‘I'll see you in a moment.' She reluctantly stood up and went off behind a velvet curtain.

‘Who's she?' I asked, looking back at Rick.

‘She works here.' He pulled me into a seat. ‘You'll never guess what, John, this is a brothel! Honest to God, it's a fooking brothel. Ahem, now what were you saying about the tickets?'

I hesitated, dumbstruck for a moment, and blinked the vision away. ‘Yeah, um, oh yeah, two tickets south, the train leaves tonight at a quarter to eleven.'

‘Fantastic.' He clapped once. ‘Fan-fooking-tastic.'

‘Yeah that's what I–'

‘Quarter to eleven, you say? That leaves us... ' he looked at a clock above the bar, ‘five hours, great! I think we should stay in here, keep well out of sight, it's safer that way.'

By eleven o'clock that night I was so drunk I could hardly stand.

At first I had protested to Rick (somewhat feebly I must admit) that we should spend the time somewhere else because neither of us could afford to throw our money down the drain buying over-priced cans of beer in a knocking shop. He wouldn't budge, however, insisting that we should celebrate our departure from the island, and eventually I caved in and got pissed with him.

From what I could gather, very few foreigners ever visited the bar; no one ever stayed in Surat Thani for longer than it took to change from train to ferry, or vice versa. Consequently, the girls were all over us, and, like the idiots they took us for, we went along for the ride, throwing our money about like there was no tomorrow. It was only the appearance of the ticket clerk in the bar at half-ten, searching out a young girl after a hard day's chair riding, which reminded us of the train. I wouldn't have recognised him with legs if he hadn't tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Here! Now!' he said, stabbing his watch with a finger and pointing at the door. I swayed drunkenly and looked down at his newly acquired bottom half before jumping up.

‘Rick! The train, Rick, quick!' I grabbed my bag and we shot out of the door without settling the bill, only to be called back by the owner. A wad of baht went from us to him, and we ran through the town and onto the platform, boarding the train just as it was pulling out of the station. Both of us immediately ran to the opposite window and blew raspberries at Ning, who was lying asleep on a bench and had a rat chewing at the ragged hem of her dress.

‘That's it, we've done it!' I said, and promptly threw up out of the window onto the track.

After an argument with the ticket inspector, in which he insisted that we only had third-class tickets and therefore had to sit with the sacks of rice, we bribed the guard and settled into a comfortable, reclining aircraft seat in first-class. The previous two days had drained me of any energy I might have had left, and that, combined with the tranquillising effect of the drink and painkillers, had left me almost senseless.

So senseless in fact, so obliterated and almost unconscious, that I was asleep before my bum even landed on the seat. I didn't hear Rick's snoring and I didn't hear the mobile snack bar wheeled past.

I think I heard the train driver's announcement that we had arrived at our station, but that was just a dream, and dreams never come true.

TEN

‘John... John... '

‘Mmm... '

‘John... '

‘Mmm?'

‘John?' (A gentle nudge), ‘John!' (A shake, harder this time so that my head was made to roll against the headrest.)

‘Mmm... '

‘
JOHN!
'

I woke with a start; the sunlight streaming through the train window and forcing me to keep one eye tightly shut.

‘We're at the wrong station!'

The voice gave me the correct direction in which to swivel my head. I turned towards the aisle and looked up at Rick, still blinking through slits. ‘What?'

‘We missed the station, John. We're at the wrong station.'

The words went around in my fogged up mind as it made its journey from slumberland to the world of the awake. ‘We,' I mused, ‘have missed the station?'

‘We've
missed
it,' Rick growled.

My mind cleared a little. ‘Missed it?'

‘Missed it. We've stopped. We're at the fooking border.'

‘Missed it? At the fuck–?' I quickly turned to look out the window and almost head-butted the bearded man who occupied the seat next to me. ‘Yes,' he said in a voice much deeper than Rick's, ‘you are now at the border with our beautiful country, yes.' A mass of facial hair almost hid the man's features, and when I nodded at him the hair nodded back. ‘Yes.'

The train had indeed stopped, and everyone had either got off or was in the process of getting off. From my window I could only see tracks and sidings, but when I leaned forward to look past Rick's legs I could see a queue of people gathering along the platform. ‘What, Malaysia?' I enquired

‘Yes, our beautiful country, yes. Now, if you will excuse me I would like to pass. I think it is time, yes.' One of my legs had gone to sleep and I had to pick it up with both hands to clear a path for the bearded man to pass by. ‘Yes,' he said again, waddled out past Rick and went down the aisle.

Rick frowned. ‘C'mon, John, get your bag and let's get off, before they take the train somewhere else.'

The people outside queued single file beside the train, along the length of the platform, yawning and wiping their puffy faces down while trying to shelter from the sunshine. They stood with their backs pressed up against a wall, petrified, the shade edging towards their toes menacingly as it was forced back by sunlight.

Rick and I stopped at the foot of the train steps and looked down the line to its end, where a group of officials in uniforms were busy stamping passports and checking through the odd backpack. Most of the people in the line were Asian and carried a suitcase, lined up as though ready for the firing squad. It reminded me of pictures I'd seen in history books at school, where a Nazi concentration camp officer had captured the scene with his Box Brownie.

‘What d'you think?' I said to Rick, stepping off the train and blinking against the light.

He sighed angrily. ‘We'll have to get the next train back, I suppose.'

‘We could tell them that you lost your passport, or had it stolen on the train. They might let us through.'

‘Come off it, John. Look at us.' He presented himself, using his hands as the guide, and pinching a fold in each trouser leg, held them out like First World War flying leathers. ‘Malaysia's got the strictest customs in the world and we've just come from Thailand. Think about it.'

I yawned and looked down the line again, wondering if there was another way through a customs check-point without a passport, and said, ‘Let's have a look down there and see what the score is before we decide.'

What we saw at the head of the queue was a surprise to both of us. The line of passengers went into a small concrete shelter, where it passed by one officer who stamped passports, before moving on to the bag-check. Two uniformed women stood behind a knee-high concrete bench, like a fishmonger's gutting slab, and occasionally searched a bag. After that there was nothing.

The main surprise to us, though, was the poor design of the whole checking station. The fishmonger's bench ran down the middle of the hall and was only open at one end, where the passengers, already checked and cleared, did a U-turn and came back down the other side to where the exit door was situated. Not only that but a huge concrete column that held up the roof had its foundation right on top of the slab, so that only the passport stamper could see the exit, and he was much too busy stamping.

I barged through the queue with Rick and stood against the slab, within touching distance of the people exiting on the other side. ‘Tightest customs in the world huh?' I said airily.

‘It's a joke.' Rick was stunned too, and said that he wished he'd brought some dope with him from Thailand. ‘Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' I said after a pause.

He looked at me. ‘I don't know, what are you thinking?'

I smiled and waved my passport in his face.

‘Fooking hell, if we get caught!'

I looked over the top of the queue to the passport stamper, then back at Rick. ‘All you've got to do is jump over that bench and go out the door.' Just at that moment an officer came in through the exit door and asked us to move back, away from the slab.

‘Shit.'

‘That's the end of that idea.'

We talked as we walked along the platform to the back of the queue, and I said, ‘No it's not. They never check the photo in a passport, right? Hardly ever anyway. All I've got to do is somehow get in the queue a few people ahead of you, clear customs, tear out the page that they've stamped and then give my passport to you. You then go through with my passport.'

‘Suppose they do look at the photo?'

‘Well for a start off, by the time we get to the front that guy may be gone again and you can just hop over the counter and walk out. If he is there, and we have to resort to Plan B and they do look at my photo, they most probably won't even notice.'

Rick burst out laughing. ‘But I don't look anything like you!'

‘To them you do, there's no difference.'

‘But I've got long hair and you haven't got any, how's that for a fooking difference?' He sighed. ‘Do you know what the penalty is for forgery out here?'

‘No.'

‘Neither do I, but I know they hang you for possession of an ounce of marijuana.'

‘Well we don't possess any so there's no worry there.'

We stood in silence for a moment looking up and down the queue and smoking a cigarette each, occasionally taking a step forward as another person was checked and deemed worthy of treading on Malaysian soil. ‘Why don't we just go back up to Bangkok then,' I said, ‘if you think we're taking too much risk?'

‘Run over it again for me,' he flicked his cigarette butt beneath the train and exhaled, ‘just to make sure I've got it right. You're going to go in first.'

‘I go in first, six or seven people ahead of you, with your shirt in my bag. By the time you get to the front I'll be cleared. They're bound to ask you to put on a shirt, you know what these stamp-happy officials are like with hippies and–'

‘I ain't a hippy.'

‘Well, doesn't matter. Anyway, they ask you to put on a shirt, and you say?'

‘Ahem. Oh dear! My, friend, has, it.'

I sighed. ‘Right, but with more feeling, that was a bit wooden. I'll then come over, unzip my bag and give you my passport.'

‘Wrapped neatly inside my shirt,' he completed. ‘It's a crap plan.'

‘No it's not. Anyway, if it looks too risky when we get to the front, just go to Plan C.'

‘Plan C? You didn't tell me about Plan-fooking-C.'

‘That's because I just made it up. Plan C is when you have a fit on the floor and start foaming at the mouth. They'll take you to hospital and you can get in that way.' He didn't reply. ‘Right,' I checked our progress, ‘we're almost there, give me your shirt.'

‘Don't make it dirty.' He handed me a moth-eaten tie-dye shirt.

‘Phew, it stinks!' I held it up to the light. ‘And I can see daylight through it!' Quickly unzipping my bag I stuffed it inside. ‘OK.'

‘How are you going to get into the queue?'

I stood on tiptoe and looked over the heads of the line of people. ‘Those three
Austrian
girls.' Two of the girls turned their heads and smiled at me, recognising the familiar word.

Rick leaned out, looked at the girls and smiled, then leaned back in and said, ‘How d'you know they're Austrian?'

‘They've all got blonde hair,' I said, still smiling back at them, ‘and the national flag sewn onto their backpacks. Here goes... '

‘Wait!' he held my arm. ‘What happens if it all goes wrong and I get arrested?'

‘We stick together whatever, Rick, you know that. Tell them you're with me. They'll have my passport so I can't go anywhere anyway. I told you, if it's too risky we back out, OK?'

We shook hands and parted.

Getting into the queue further down was the easy part, all I had to do was launch into a familiar chat-up routine with the three girls and I was in. At first we spoke about why they had sewn their national flag onto their packs for all to see; a good starting point as all Europeans are obsessed with national boundaries, especially northern Europeans. All I had to do was appear indifferent to their patriotism.

‘But you're just born on a piece of land that happens to have been named by someone,' I pleaded with the girls, ‘it's just lines on a map.'

‘Oh surely not,' one countered, ‘surely it is more. Is it not culture and... oh, so many other things that make us all different?'

I put my bag down, thus staking my claim in the line. ‘You're just another person born on this planet of ours,' I said with contrived free spirit. ‘Imagine, if you had been born five miles to the left you would be wearing a German flag. Isn't that a bit silly?'

‘German!' she gasped. ‘Oh I think not. We can
never
be
German
.'

The queue moved along and I pushed the bag up with my feet. ‘Personally,' I said, entering the shade offered by the hall roof, ‘I'm from earth.'

The girl started to argue her point again while her two mute friends listened, expressionless. I didn't catch what she was saying because I was too busy calculating: summing up the distance between Rick and me versus the time it took for a person to clear the customs and go out through the door. Assuming I got searched, which was pretty likely considering my dress, I seemed to have judged it just right. Nine people were between the two of us, which left enough bodies in the line not only to allow me clearance in time, but also to keep Rick on the column-side of the queue when I handed over his shirt.

The queue shuffled forwards and the first Austrian girl crossed the yellow line to get stamped. My hands were beginning to shake and the sweat was pouring in rivers down my back, but when I checked behind me Rick seemed as cool as can be. He stood smoking a cigarette at the edge of the hall, huge puffs of sunlit smoke rising up into the roof space like escaped gas. I looked back, more nervous than ever.

The second girl went up and plonked her passport on the desk while the one who had just been cleared opened her pack for the two women to search. They gave only a cursory look inside before waving her on and beckoning the next one to step up, allowing the chain to move forward one more person.

The officer who had been standing by the exit door suddenly went out again. ‘Great,' I whispered to myself, and Rick and I nodded at each other, gently acknowledging the perfect timing. I'll never forget his calmness at that point. Far from being nervous he appeared to be enjoying the whole thing. I knew from my activities as a schoolboy that breaking the law provided an adrenalin rush, but this was way beyond that. I was almost fainting from the exertion.

‘Hey!'

I spun around and pointed to myself. Me?

The rubber stamper stared, too tired and too bored with his job to do anything else. He had those customs officer eyes – the ones that look right into your soul and say, ‘You're guilty, just admit it and save us all the trouble of checking.' I stepped forward and presented my sodden passport, wet from the sweat that ran from my palms, and the customs officer held it by the corners to avoid touching its glossy surface. The edges were crinkled like corrugated cardboard.

‘First time Malaysia?' he enquired with monotone efficiency.

‘Y-yes.'

Flick-flick. Dhoom
. Stamped.

The two bag-checking women called me over with their eyes but I was stuck to the spot. ‘
Go!
' I said to myself, and looked down at my passport lying on the table, its pages slowly closing by themselves, the corrugation softy falling back into place seated crest-to-groove. There was a loud sigh in my right ear as the stamper lost his patience at the hold up.

‘I think you are clear,' someone behind me said, and peeped around my arm. ‘You can move along now.'

‘Um, oh yeah, thanks.' I snapped out of the stare, snatched the passport and moved on. I was given only a token bag search before moving along to the end of the slab, doing a U-turn and walking back towards the column and the exit door. The officer had finished his cigarette and was now back inside the hall, standing, hands behind his back, looking bored.

The next part went like a dream. As I approached the column, the officer snapped his fingers at someone in the queue and held the lapel of his jacket. Quickening my pace and at the same time pretending to unzip my bag, I said, ‘Oh, I've got it!' and took out Rick's shirt. The officer looked me in the eye and held out his hand, but so that he wouldn't get a chance to handle it, I immediately slid the shirt over the counter to Rick, trying to clear up any confusion by saying, ‘It's his shirt. Him.'