This is the story of three jackings, numerous near-death experiences and the good fun had by everyone in Southeast Asia but me. I needed to break out of New York a few years ago. I had been trying to dig a hole out of the city for months, but had only gotten grave depth; so the options were drop in or leave town. A friend had just backpacked around the Golden Triangle and returned raving about the magical time she had there: cooking classes in Chiang Mai, oil rubs on the beach, incense stick dipping with locals. It sounded like the opportunity I needed to clear my mind, meditate on the minutia. What’s more, it fit snug into my limited travel budget. A simple Internet search would have spared me the now cirrhotic liver, however. Turns out, S.E.A. is more like S.A.E. than I imagined. You will run into the same English or Australian frat boy while he’s body-surfing an elephant in Thailand, carving his initials into Angkor Wat ruins, posing as tank gunner in Vietnam, or firing old Khmer Rouge rifles at Cambodian chickens. And each time he spots you he’ll scream “Shots!” The entire well-trod tourist loop might as well be paved in Tsingtao labels, debauched as it is. But I neglected to type “bender” into the search engine, and bought the ticket with vague thoughts of better days ahead.

My boyfriend, Michael, decided to travel with me for the first week, and then I would go it alone for the next two months. He is something of a delicate flower when it comes to sunlight. We’ve worked entire travel itineraries around the fact that he’s awfully pale and burns badly. The one time we visited Brazil’s famed Ipanema beach we caused quite the commotion. I lay on the shore while he went for a swim. A few minutes passed before I heard the incredulous calls and laughter. I looked up in time to see a throng of people gathered and pointing at the water. And what emerged from the sea but my boyfriend incandescent—like a mighty florescent office light (he prefers “god”) bobbing to the surface. I flipped over and tried to look local. Needless to say, his pallor would also affect our trip to Thailand in a few significant ways, which I will shortly describe (mainly in an attempt to blame him for the first mugging, though I handled the second and third fine all by myself).

Bangkok is blazing in the dry season, and in a move to exacerbate this situation the temples are embroidered lovingly with gold leaf and pieces of embedded mirror. An ant in the desert under a magnifying glass comes to mind. All told, this made sightseeing a little less full of sights for us. We had to take unorthodox pathways to avoid the bright buildings. We clung to walls under eaves, biked at night, and visited the Patpong district’s seedy nightclubs, where middle-aged white men and Thai sex workers meet over a few ping-pong balls. For those curious, the act is less athletic and acrobatic than you’d think. After puffing some cigs with her precancerous vag, the bored woman in a glowing bikini stands up, shoves the lubed ball in, squats like she’s going to crap, and out it slowly drops into a waiting cup. By the time it’s over, a 45-year-old Australian club patron next to you will have already managed to get his erect dollar-wrapped penis out without your notice, then turn from the performer to you with a “See, you never know what you could do.” “Yes, dreams do come true,” you might tell him, and then go to the filthy bathroom to pad your clothes with baby wipes. This is to say, for all you ladies out there planning a little Bangkok getaway, either prepare to check your righteous indignation at customs, or waste your time arguing with a bunch of throbbing dicks.

Thus, the trip was off to a promising start! After spending a few days in this fashion we left the city for less reflective climes. On a sweaty windowless northbound train we met an English girl who promptly told us her tale of traveler woe. She had only been in Thailand for three days when she’d been bitten by a stray dog. She broke a cardinal rule—never pet a pooch, no matter how innocent his wag. The night before the assault she sat with a local proprietor and his dog. She was assured the animal was friendly and healthy, and pet him without incident. Catastrophe struck when a dog she mistook for the owner’s sidled over the following eve, and she extended a hand to him. He lashed out snapping and drew blood. I gasped. South East Asia accounts for sixty percent of worldwide rabies deaths per year. And now here she was bit by a feral dog in her first week. She had neglected to get the rabies vaccine before traveling, as had we, but given the recent turn of events she decided that she didn’t like that statistic. Thus, she returned to Bangkok for emergency treatment consisting of five long needle injections straight in the stomach. After enduring four she was told by the nurse that they didn’t have the fifth, but that it was probably fine. Probably fine? Rabies has been known to gestate for up to two years, she anxiously told us. She was terrified that at any moment she would manifest the initial symptoms, which like many a plague begin benignly: cough, achy feeling, sniffles, and then bam, within days of developing the common cold you die the most wretched death imaginable, frothing at the chomp. We offered meager assurances, “don’t worry,” “the nurse knows what she’s doing,” etc. But needless to say, we didn’t french her.

After hearing her tale, Michael and I couldn’t help but feel pretty good about our own abilities, nourished by a steady diet of NYC streets smarts and a natural disinclination for canines. Five days into it, so far so good. We parted ways with the English girl, with promises to meet up again if she remained rabies-free. And on we went to Ayutthaya, where everything began to go horribly wrong. At this point, a number of factors conspired to make me lose my passport, $200, some beloved earrings, my credit card, and a bunch of those mesmerizing t-shirts, with mistranslated textual gems like “Enjoy With Profitable Drip” or “Unique Nut Elsewhere.” Had any link in this disastrous chain been different I might be wearing those shirts or flashing that passport. But no, I was trapped in a Rube Goldberg-like robbery of soggy seats, full purses, bike chases, sudden ambush, and foul, foul luck.

We took a tuk-tuk into town. It’s a popular mode of transportation—essentially a tin-roofed motorized rickshaw. I decided to sip from my full beverage knowing full well how bumpy the ride. I predictably spilled all contents, thoroughly soaking my crotch, and the under-pant money belt I wore for storing valuables. When we arrived at the guesthouse, I made the fateful decision to dry out both belt and jeans. I changed and left the room carrying my passport, expecting to hand it over to the guesthouse owner as is the somewhat alarming custom. While registering, though, I was told it would not be necessary. I slipped the passport into a purse I hadn’t so much as touched for the first five days. But I suppose the jack-free journey thus far had emboldened me and I no longer viewed it an egregious target. I threw my wallet in the purse for good measure. Michael and I planned to rent a motorbike for the afternoon. We went to an ATM machine where I could take out the $200 necessary—barely enough for the deposit on a motorbike for two days, more than enough for two weeks of my travels, but just enough for the jackers. However as fate would have it the lot was closed. We leased bicycles instead, leaving me with all that cash stashed in my very visible purse. We biked by an outdoor market where I purchased the fabulous tees. As we pressed on, my earrings flailed my neck in feeble warning. But I stuffed them too into the enticingly pregnant purse.

It was getting late in the day, and I was ready to call it one. But Michael was in pursuit of ruins rumored lit at night, and as established he prefers to bike in the dark. It was about this time that we passed the point of no return: a pack of mangy dogs lying on the sidewalk. I could make out the stretched teats and scuffed balls, and thought these are no housebroken mutts. And sure enough, the whole pack perked up at the sight of us, falling into fast pursuit. I conjured the English girl, the meter long needles, and screamed “RABIES!” We biked furiously into the night, but the dogs were right there with us, tearing along and at times within inches. We were pretty lost by the time we ditched them, far from the old town and tourist fare. We biked through desolate streets, noting sealed doors and shuttered windows. I suddenly had the uneasy feeling. I’ve never believed the claim, but my sixth sense was (finally!) alive, and something was definitely foul in Ayutthaya. Afterwards, I would remember two guys by the side of the road, motorbike-tinkering in front of boarded up shops. They watched us pedal crazed from the dogs, and I can almost see one gesturing with his wrench toward us in my mind’s hazy eye.

We’d ridden to the outskirts of town, or perhaps even to the edge of the planet. The road T’d, exposing a huge expanse of blackness into which Michael peered. He pointed at it, and said, “I think the ruins are over there. Let’s go.” “Aren’t they supposed to be lit?” I asked. I wanted to turn back and find our place. I told him about my intuition, and that more importantly I was not about to bike off into that lonely morass. We were still negotiating terms when I heard something behind us. A motorbike approached along the route we’d just traveled. It was the only vehicle on the road with us, and while there was plenty of room all around, the motorbike was drawn inexorably to me. Closer and closer it advanced, and I could make out two riders. I began to worry that we didn’t understand some rule of traffic (which I found out later is always get out of the way of the largest vehicle or die; the totem pole carved bottom to top: pedestrian—bike—motorbike—tuk-tuk—van—truck—tank). I started to shimmy over for them, dragging the bike between my legs to the curb, when they lurched at me. I had my purse in my bike basket (I know, I know), but to my later relief the slightest shred of a preservation instinct returned to me in the moment of crisis and I tried to shield it when they drew too near. Too late! The driver deftly dodged my bike, while his backseat buddy ripped the purse right out of my hand in a clearly practiced, admittedly graceful, maneuver.

I called out to Michael in strangled soprano, “My purse!” A potent mix of shock and hopeful confusion swept over me. I thought surely they must be joking. They will most certainly toss my purse with passport, money and lone credit card back to me; then scold me for being so careless. I will accept the purse chagrined, and thank them for the important lesson. It will be a true multicultural exchange and we will go out for Singhas in the global village. But the rising tide sinks one ship: mine. The purse was not forthcoming. In vain I tried to bike after them. They toyed with me—they slowed, waved the purse in my face just beyond my grasp. When I’d make a grab for it, they’d speed up, I’d lose bearings and balance, they’d slow, I’d bike, repeat, no purse for me. And worse, they were laughing, just throwing their heads up in heaps of the stuff. I finally gave up as they sped off. My bike fell down, as did my pants. I had caved in, and bought those ridiculous linen pants that every backpacker is wearing around Southeast Asia, the kind that wraps around you and fastens with your fingers crossed. Everyone goes on about those pants—so light and airy, so comfortable, you can breathe in them, blah blah. Well, let me tell you something about those pants: you can really breathe in them because they will let you and themselves down in a moment of crisis.

After I collapsed, Michael continued pursuing the snatchers for a few hundred feet, and then I watched him jump off his bicycle and hail a new motorbike making the scene. He hopped on the back, and they sped off together into the night, leaving me standing in the middle of the road with my bike bent, and my pants down shouting, “Stop!” Already I was lost to a favorite pastime, imagining worst-case scenarios. I figured some tears were in order, and I let them loose thinking, I have no ID, no money, no working pants, my boyfriend is going to get killed. Killed. I mean, really what was his plan? To catch up with the robbers and politely inquire after the purse? He had recently confessed that his only fist fight was on the kindergarten playground. He and his rival had pushed each other at the same time, then simultaneously toppled over. As I considered the slim possibility of such future pleasantries, a local hoard poured out of once invisible residences. We were on the fringes of the earth when it mattered, and now, after the heinous act, the entire block was lit up as if on fire. People jockeyed for space around me; some asked what was wrong, some asked if they could practice their English with me, others exhorted me to calm down. The last thing that will calm me down is someone telling me to calm down, and the increasingly claustrophobic calls for peace were driving me to the brink. Another motorbike taxied in, and the driver shouted, “I’m the police!” “My ass! Get away from me!” I countered. Turns out he was a cop. His biker babe looked on me with what I interpreted as concern while I described the robbery and Michael’s ill-advised heroics. I thought, finally someone comprehends how grave the situation is, perhaps once this is over we will be friends. I pictured us all later on tandem bikes, but she interrupted these reveries with a matter-of-fact “Don’t worry, I was robbed once in New York too.” Everyone looked at me and nodded, yup she was. Great, well I guess this is payback time, huh sister? Glad to close the karmic circle for you here. Her comment unleashed an intolerable torrent: Questions turned into reprimands for me and my purse, for biking at night, for Michael, for my pants. It seemed everyone agreed they were useless. And ugly. Why would anyone who had the money to travel to another country insist on wearing those pants? Why do you all wear those pants they wanted to know? “Well, they are lightweight,” I started—whatever, I had no heart to defend the pants. Finally the motorbike with Michael on it returned. The driver had no idea what Michael wanted when he got on so frantically—he basically gave him a tour of the town, believing that the most likely. I’m not sure how he translated Michael’s yelled garbles into “Stop, I must tour your city NOW!” but he did point out the local hotspots. I think Michael even got to see the infamous lit ruins in this fashion.

More motorbiking police arrived on the scene. I was to file a report at the station. All eyes were on me. I would have to pedal there, so I double-knotted those bagging trousers to a chorus of disapproving clucks, and biked off. When we arrived at the station one of the policemen gestured widely, taking in the whole of the waiting room with “Every woman in here was robbed in the same way.” I looked around and the wooden benches were jam-packed with local women and tourists. “Well you are doing a bang-up job,” I told him. I filled out some paperwork, naively pausing to ask if they’d like any descriptive details of my purse or contents. No. But they did want to offer me some unsolicited advice: “Be more careful.” Oh wait, could you repeat that so I could jot it down? Be more careful, ok check. What else you got? “You must take responsibility for your actions.” Yes, I can see how I got what I deserved for my carelessness, but we are in a police station and that does beg the question: What about the thieves? The thieves! Then: “Next time I see you, maybe you make better decisions.” See me again? What, am I the official target in town?

By the time we made the long bike back to our guesthouse, I was resigned to never looking on my purse again. I thrashed about our room loudly hissing uncharitable, unmentionable things. Michael stopped trying to calm me for fear of certain recriminations: “You and your night biking!” I spent the next eight hours alternatively cursing the host country, the robbers, the police, the bystanders, the pants, Michael and myself. Even with so many targets for my rage, coming up with a full night’s worth of slurs was exhausting, and I eventually passed out.

Michael left the country the next day. But I, like the English girl, made the inglorious return to Bangkok. Once there, I spent three days queuing: in the US embassy, in the Thai Immigration office, in the bank on a fruitless mission to have my ATM card replaced (they agreed to issue me an emergency card only in person, only in that branch office, and only three weeks from then. Thanks, Citibank.). I waited in a long line of old white men and young Thai wives at the US embassy. I gave the thumbs up to a few of these ladies—ditch those pervs at Ellis Island gals! But I was making everyone uneasy, like I was catching them all with their pants down (and we know how that goes). So I tried to look supportive there as I lined up with my fellow countrymen, gratuitously congratulating each and every couple in the room until it was utterly silent. I was told at the information window not to feel bad though, that I too was in good, or at least plentiful, company. “I was robbed,” I said to the attendant. He looked me over, while sliding paperwork under the glass, and told me bored, “Well, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last.” Prophetic words, because it turns out I was also next. Before the second jacking could occur however, I had to gain more to lose.

I went on to the Thai immigration office, a bureaucratic snarl if there ever was one. You wait in various lines all day, handed forms in some, handing forms in others. And when you get to the head of the very last line, just seconds away from a new tourist visa stamp in your newly acquired expensive emergency passport, you are asked why you didn’t bring photocopies of the paper you picked up three lines and five hours ago? Heaven forbid you sass fatigued “Well, I didn’t know I needed them, but luckily there is a photocopy machine right there,” and then point at the one sitting behind your new nemesis. Because she will surely rejoin, “No, that is for locals only, not farang” and turn away. Then a bedraggled Brit will look at you and sigh, saying, “Yes, we went through this yesterday,” and direct you to turn around, walk down three flights, fight the crowds, go outside to a copy shop, pay the immigration officer’s friend to make a photocopy there, and then get back into the first line. By this point you will be sapped of the vital energy necessary to argue (which is why they put this roadblock last), and will head down the stairs where you will see a veritable brigade of photocopy machines flanking the stairwell, five to a floor. The ceilings are practically propped up by them. However, lest you think this some fortuitous miracle, beware. If you try to sneak over to one, a guy in military fatigues guarding the machines will shake his AK-47 at you and likewise grumble “not for farang” (AKA whitey). Clearly, they are serious about duplicates in this nation. Kinkos, what are you waiting for!?

Three days of wrangling later, and I had the documents I needed to leave. Everyone else may have had a magical time in Thailand, but it could kiss my baht goodbye as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t be bothered with overland travel. I didn’t want to spend another hour in Thailand. I dipped mightily into my travel fund and thrust over a huge chunk of travelers checks to buy a ticket to Cambodia. I booked the first flight out of there. As I had some drinks on the plane, the last vestiges of violation receded with the Thai landscape. I contemplated my resilience in the face of adversity, patted myself on the back with the hand not clutching the Bloody Mary, even thought it’s all behind me now, what else could happen?

I was jacked within my first hour of landing in Cambodia, that’s what. Making this second jack worse was the sorry realization it wasn’t Michael, it was me. I thought him responsible for the first mugging—thought he was drawing too much attention to us, had to be so pale, wanted to night bike, etc. After all, he had been mugged three times in the US alone, once in Ecuador, once in Venezuela, and now once in Thailand. Evidently nothing says fast buck like my man. But it seemed I too was like catnip to bandits. I got off the plane and walked out into Phnom Penh. Immediately the drivers throng, it’s something of a less regulated JFK tussle. Tuk-tuks, taxi cars, or taxi vans are a bit more expensive, $3-$7 a ride respectively; motorbikes are $1-$2. It’s hard to reach the fringes of my legendary cheapness—I’ll be the first to admit that it nearly knows no bounds. In retrospect, I should have just paid the $7 because then I would still have my diary, my camera, my guidebook, my friends’ Cambodian contacts, their itinerary suggestions, and 12 passport-size photos of myself (obviously I should have been signing these pictures of me, famous as my passport scowl now is—I’m probably found on any number of fake IDs). But I doggedly follow the deal, no matter if the deal also seals my doom. Later, locals and fellow travelers would strengthen my conviction that I was set up by the motorbike driver I eventually settled on. He seemed like a nice enough fellow at the time, and more importantly, he said the magic words “two dollars.” I got on his bike.

Phnom Penh was markedly smaller than Bangkok, and less developed. It almost felt empty. I liked my odds. It was sunny and warm, still tropical, and I was certain that I made the right decision leaving Thailand in that frenzy. We drove down Monivong Boulevard through a traffic circle, in its center a huge metal gun with a knot tied around its barrel. Interesting piece of civic sculpture, I thought. I mentioned it to the driver and he explained in broken English that it was created with confiscated weapons as a monument to peace. But rumor had it that those used in the peace piece didn’t work anyhow, while the seized ones that did were given to the military. Seemed he had some mixed feelings about it.

We arrived at the guesthouse. As I walked off the driver called out to me: “I’ll be your guide for the day. Get your camera—we’ll go to the Killing Fields.” (Exactly what I want a million pictures of, right?) I went in with a “maybe.” I told him not to wait for me as I wasn’t sure how long I would be. But his subtle suggestion was all the brainwashing I’d need. I signed in for a room, deposited my backpack, hid my valuables, and then placed the camera into a plastic bag—figuring who would want a plastic bag? (Ha ha, fooled them all!). I wanted to swing by the Vietnamese embassy, as I needed yet another new tourist visa stamped into my emergency passport, so I put the folder carrying all my documents into the plastic bag. I took a while inside, and I was positive the driver would be gone. No matter, I thought, I’ll find another. But when I walked out he was still there waiting for me. The embassy was closed of course (shades of the first mugging?), but before we started off towards Cheung Ek another motorbike pulled up. My driver and this new fellow had a little chat in Khmer, which I now wish had boned up on because then I might have understood that they were saying through grins, “Let us rob this American girl,” “Yes, let us. She clearly has all of her important documents and camera in that trash bag.” But I could only grin back, more stupidly than maliciously. They finalized the arrangements, the guy biked off, and my driver turned to me. “That’s my friend.” “Oh, that’s nice,” I said. Ten minutes later we entered the same gun wielding traffic circle and my driver slowed down, halting traffic. I asked, “What’s wrong, why are we stopping?” Suddenly a motorbike careened in from the left, another two-person job. The passenger (familiar looking? I couldn’t tell) pushed me, and snagged the plastic bag that I had pressed up against my body in between me and my driver. Again, the shock; this time much less of the hopeful confusion. I called out “Wait, stop!” I meagerly urged my driver to follow them, do something, but he just pulled to the side of the dirt-fringed road as if he had done this a thousand times. It’s extremely dusty in some parts of Cambodia, especially in the dry season, and especially when you’re having a bad day. I got off the bike as the wind coughed up great orange dust devils just for me. I made out a group of Cambodian cops ahead at an intersection, and I walked over to them. I arrived twenty feet later plastered in earth. “I’ve been robbed,” I told them, but even I couldn’t muster much enthusiasm. They screamed, “Passport, passport!” To this day I’m not sure if they were demanding mine or asking if I still had it. Luckily I did this time. I left it back in the room. When I didn’t produce it they all turned away disinterested. I walked back to the driver. He was idling for me there in the orange. I now suspected him the coconspirator, but what could I prove? I got back on his bike a bit tearfully. At least he knew I had nothing left to steal. He tried to console me by saying he felt bad, but as it turned out not bad enough to spot me the fare. I gave him double the fee when I dismounted. Why not? I thought. Take it. Take it all! The sooner I unburden myself of this money the better!

I lay down in my filthy room. There was a bunch of graffiti all over the place, strange drunken traveler scrawl, some bugs on the floor, the sheets and walls stained with what seemed like blood splotches. Earlier I had decided not to spring for the $5 room, which would have afforded me my own private bathroom, not to mention a fourth wall; mine had three and opened into a dorm room. My walls didn’t even reach the ceiling. As I lay there all present in the dorm room got to listen to me run through the full range of human emotions. First I laughed, then I cried, then I raged, then I made resolutions. The first was to fuck this room. I was going to spring for that $5 room across town. I repacked my bag and heaved it down the corrugated steel stairwell with its missing steps. “Screw this!” I shouted. The guesthouse concierge looked up blankly; he had seen me make my bleary second entrance earlier. I told him something had come up, and I had to leave, right then. He said he couldn’t reimburse the room. “I would be disappointed if you did,” I told him. I walked across town to a different hostel. It took me 45 minutes in the sweltering midday sun. But I didn’t mind, for in addition to boasting four walls to a room, the place I was headed was special: the buses left from there in the morning. I wondered if everyone else felt like I did—did they all try to get out of town immediately after arriving in town? Did other people enjoy these towns? I didn’t care, I was crazed. I stopped in an Internet café. Such are Cambodia’s contradictions: No traffic lights, a million motorbikes; wooden shacks, wireless connections; hungry muggers, and me. I was like a giant bulls-eye walking. I thought about the Thai police. Next time you see me indeed.

I tried calling Michael, but I couldn’t get through. When I asked for my change a fight erupted between the cafe owner and a kid using a computer. The kid set me straight, explaining that he just caught her cheating me. He made her sullenly hand over the correct change. Then he asked for a tip for his valor. I see, I said. I see it all. Here you go, nice and easy. I was now in the proper mood to send Michael a deranged email. It read: “I’m going to die here. Die. I was robbed again—your camera’s gone” (of course it was his camera) “taking with it all the fond memories of this trip. And they took my travel guide and my Thai dictionary, my plane ticket home, my maps and my proof of travel insurance, which is really too bad because I’m now counting on Travelex to repatriate my remains. All I have left is that book on the history of Buddhism, which I don’t feel like reading because I am fairly certain I have not met one Buddhist here. Not one. Somehow I’ve been able to live my life in New York without major incident, but I am completely without any survival strategies here. It’s just all gone to shit now. Total shit. Motorbikes, that’s all I can say now, motorbikes will be the death of me. Carry on if you can.” Then I left the room feeling renewed and refreshed, though he told me later this email sent him into a feverish panic.

I met two kids in the foyer of my new guesthouse. They sat there playing some card game. From what I could gather the game was completely ruleless. At some point an ace will be high, then low, two jacks will win a hand, then be worth nothing the next—the only thing consistent is that you will lose, and they will win. The kids tried to induce me to play, with money even, but just then I saw a motorbike drive by the door. It was a sign that I would lose something if I accepted the game. “No, kids,” I told them, “a few hours ago maybe you would have cleaned me out, but I’m no innocent now, little friends.” I told them what happened. Rather I explained through charades, since besides actual cash, we had no common currency. They laughed maniacally as I gestured how my bag was snatched with my camera, how I had cried. It turned out that I had some talent for miming. Laugh it up kids, I thought. One day you too will see the tears of the clown are real. I was glad to bring some joy into their day. They were actually pretty cute as they laughed at me. It even cheered me a bit too. I’d have snapped a photo of the little rascals, but. . . oh right.

The next morning I booked the earliest bus out of Phnom Penh that I could: 5:45 a.m. As it turns out, my luck began to change somewhat. I sat next to an older Chinese man. We sat in silence for a few hours. I was content to watch the karaoke videos on screen. Many of the buses are equipped with karaoke equipment, and you can enjoy hours of amateur singing while the countryside unfolds. The videos gave way to a local sitcom. The action took place in a small village, and the two main characters, a husband and wife, argue. He was drinking moonshine. She’d yell and chase him around the wooden porch with a stick, then they’d switch. I guess some things are universal, I laughed to myself. Joseph turned to me, and said, “Yes, it’s a popular comedy.” I hadn’t expected him to speak English, but once we began talking I let the floodgates open. I told him of my recent misfortunes. And it just so happened that he had also been jacked, on a larger scale. He had apparently lost both his car and $10,000. His car was stolen, and when he reported it to the police they told him that if he gave them $300 they would look for it. But no guarantees. He lost the 10 grand in a deal gone grisly. He was once in the business of selling large kitchen appliances for hotels, giant mixing bowls, fridges, etc. But as Joseph told it, there weren’t small business owner protections here. All the contracts he thought he was signing were forgeries, the factory wasn’t owned by the “partner” with whom he invested the 10 grand, and he lost it all. He spent the last nine years making back his startup capital, and was now selling soft serve ice cream machines. He told me about an ex-wife and a son in Singapore, and a bunch of jokes that can’t bear repeating. It was right around Chinese New Year and he said he missed his family, so when we arrived in Siem Reap he decided to take me under his wing. He selected the hotel he thought I should stay in; he would sleep in the room just across the hall; we had dinner with his friends; he found guides to take me around; he’d wait for me outside the hotel in the morning so we could breakfast together; he’d meet me after I’d return from Angkor Wat in the evenings; he’d insist on paying for my meals. “No,” I’d say. “Don’t insult me,” he’d finish the discussion.

But I was beginning to feel like I couldn’t gracefully shake him. To that end, I started going to business meetings with him. As I mentioned earlier, you would frequently see older white men with the local ladies, not always under the best of circumstances to be sure. You would rarely see the reverse and he asked if he could introduce me to some people he was dealing with as his “American partner.” I agreed. It seemed a small price to pay for his kindness, though I’m not sure how he explained the situation. I could have been his lover, he could have been my father, we were friends, he was my teacher, I was his teacher, he was my pimp, we were business associates. Whatever the case, it produced the desired results. He’d be talking soft serve ice cream machines and potential revenues, when all of the sudden he’d look at me and say, “And this is Nicole, who has just arrived from New York” (albeit in business casual what with my tie-on pants, burnt nose, and all-terrain flip flops). Everyone would appraise me silently, which was a tad worrisome. I couldn’t be certain that I wasn’t being offered to sweeten the sugary deal in more ways than one. But it all worked out in the end. He closed many accounts, and I’d like to think that I’m in part responsible for providing Siem Reap with just a few more of the soft serve ice cream machines that it so sorely needed. So love me or hate me for it.

However, five days is a long time to be hawking ice cream machines in a foreign land when you have lots more getting jacked to do. During a particularly grueling day spent examining etchings at Angkor Wat, I resolved to leave Siem Reap. Sure, under Joseph’s tutelage I had avoided muggings, but it was time to move on, lest I get frozen in time here like the old man on the cover of Lonely Planet’s Cambodia guidebook. I ran into this poor guy when traipsing through the temple complex. A group of young English blokes were staring at him, and then back at their guidebooks, all the while drinking beers and debating whether or not Lonely Planet had some magic camera. Seems the fellow had his picture taken years back while crouched in a temple archway with a broomstick. The photographer obviously did him a great disservice—the man’s now famous for holding that pose. People take pictures of him all day, further cementing his future with each snap. I chatted with the boys as they took turns mugging with the guy, thumbs up, rabbit ears, then they invited me to leave with them the next day. “But I have a three day pass to Angkor Wat,” I explained. Three days!? “We’ve been here for the afternoon and seen enough—it all looks the same after a bit doesn’t it?” I politely declined their offer; I was determined to get my money’s worth. “Suit yourself,” they told me handing over their email addresses in case I changed my mind. “But make sure you comb the ruins—it’d be a shame not to see every last engraving.” They laughed and left me there.

I thought about tagging along with them all afternoon. Then a subsequent chat with some temple monks helped me make up my mind to do so. I ran into the monks in a temple cranny and had what I thought was an agreeable interaction. One told me he was desperate to set up an email address and wanted to know if $20 a month seemed fair. “Whoever told you that is out to get your money,” I explained to him, and then I gave him my email address for the days ahead when he could write freely. I told my driver later, “Jeez, people are even cheating the monks around here.” “You better watch out for those monks,” he said. “They put on jeans at night, go to clubs, steal, sometimes rape, even murder. The next morning they put on their monks robes and don’t get caught. For who would suspect a monk?” It was time to leave.

I returned to the hotel that evening, and told Joseph I would be departing the next afternoon with the posse of young English frat boys. He warily approved of my decision, though he did slip his cell phone under my door that night with a note indicating that I should return it to him in Phnom Penh. It seemed I would be seeing more of Joseph. Until then though, I had my new barely legal (very legal in S.E.A) brood to care for. I found them drinking in town that evening, and told them I’d seen my last sunset over other people’s shoulders at the temples, so crowded is the tourist attraction. We left the next day together, and they proved brazen. They’d carry their cameras on the most gossamer of shoulder straps, wear their money belts outside their pants, wallets bursting with local currency. I kept warning them, but they all assumed I was just a grumpy old grandma. I was pretty much the oldest person any of them had ever seen—how this didn’t translate into the wisest, I couldn’t understand. But what they couldn’t understand was how I wasn’t hooked up to an IV or in a wheelchair at my age, how I wasn’t married, or how at the very least I wasn’t hobbled by a baby’s sudden crowning. At a bar one night, the youngest of the four found out he’d been hitting on a woman my age and was horrified. “But she’s only six years older than you for Christ’s sake, she’s 26.” “I know. Ew.” He shuddered.

Thus the tenor of the trip had changed. Instead of fearing for my life, I began fearing for my liver. We drank toxic amounts of alcohol together. They knew all the drinking holes and clubs. In fact, the trip is quite different for boys. According to my young companions, each time they’d hop in a tuk-tuk they would be offered massive marijuana bags, pounds of opium, and be taken to the nearest brothel whether they’d want in or not. One huge Brit showed me an arm covered in bruises. He’d been out partying in southern Thailand, then chased home that night by an aggressive lady boy. When polite extrication failed to fluster his suitor, the Brit decided to leave the bar. But when he glanced over his shoulder the lady boy was there. She waved. Fast walking turned into speed walking turned into sprinting. He ran as hard as he could through narrow streets, cutting through alleys, overturning fruit carts in his path, but the lady boy was his equal in strength and speed and stayed with him. He opened the door just as the lady boy grabbed his arm yanking him back. A short scuffle ensued. The details after that point remain a bit unclear. All the same I went clubbing with the lads.

We ended up at the Heart of Darkness one night, a Phnom Penh hangout. While the boys hit on young Westerners, I stood at the bar waiting for a drink. A Belgian guy in his thirties looked me over. He had a skimpily clad local teen on his lap. “What are you here for?” He asked me. “To travel, see some sights,” I answered vaguely. “Yah right.” He said, and looked at the smiling girl. Oh right, I’m here for the prostitutes, you busted me. I turned my head and tried his neighbor, a guy from Prague. We started chatting about his time in Southeast Asia; I told him about getting robbed. “Why didn’t you just do the junkie roll?” He asked me. He had come out of this very same bar a few weeks ago, and was followed by a woman. There was some close talk and then he noticed his wallet was missing. “I was rolling.” The junkie one, you mean? “No, I was on ecstasy, stupid,” he explained. “But I told her to give me the wallet back.” She wouldn’t, and then her support team arrived, some men on motorbike.

“Oh no, say no more” I interrupted, but his was a happy tale. Even when faced with the threat of death by motorbike, my new friend was adamant. “Give me back my wallet!” he yelled. Then he started spinning around, lolled on the ground, flipped over and flapped, still demanding the wallet. Apparently he looked suitably crazed, and the group just tossed it back to him as he lay there. Voila, the junkie roll. He raised his glass, I clinked it. Somehow I didn’t think this strategy was going to work for me.

There I was, wasting away in Margaritaville, and Joseph was still calling. He had taken to phoning his own number multiple times a day. I felt bad not answering it, since he had ostensibly given it to me for security reasons, to use if I was in trouble, etc. But it was more burden than boon. He never seemed to call at the right moment. I would have welcomed the interruption while chatting up the Belgian and his underage hooker, but Joseph had an uncanny ability to phone while I was in quiet, contemplative settings—The Genocide Museum for one. I’d be walking with a somber crowd through horrible hall after horrible hall, and the phone would ring. “Hi Joseph,” I’d whisper. “Nicole!” he’d shout into the receiver, “What did you eat for dinner?” Really not the time for chitchat right now, Joseph. I managed to meet him my last night in Phnom Penh though, and return the albatross with promises to repay the favor one day in the States. I offered to loan a phone, or take him out to dinner sometime. “On Park Avenue,” he requested. I agreed. I’m still waiting, Joseph. . . .

I made my next escape in Southern Vietnam. I couldn’t keep up with young carousers, my blood liquor ratio dangerously skewed. And, I was finding it difficult to ponder life’s unfathomables over beer breakfasts. We arrived in a small beach town just north of Ho Chi Minh City. The boys surveyed the landscape for discotheques, found some, and said, “Quite nice, right-o.” I noticed the bus about to pull away for the North, so I shouted some parting words of wisdom and dove for it. I consulted my guidebook for a quiet place, perhaps even a retirement home. I found just the resort costing $15 a night. I was sure the hefty price would scare off the whippersnappers, and I desperately needed to dry out. The main way to get there was chartered car, but who needs comfort or seatbelts when a bungee cord and a gnatwich will do? I got off the bus and found a man willing to strap me to his motorbike for the three-hour trek to the resort. It took this murderous ride over a guardrailless mountain range to finally sear the same lesson about motorbikes into my psyche. Stay away from them. Just stay away. As we descended a steep slope at impossible speeds, carving between two cars in the oncoming traffic lane, my driver reached back and yanked the papier maché helmet he loaned me back down over my face. Don’t want to lose that helmet, do we? It is certainly more valuable than our lives. And, what better time to do a little tour-guiding then when you’re overtaking an 18-wheeler on a gravelly shoulder precipice? I can’t really think of a more opportune moment for a driver to turn around and point to a rice field a thousand foot drop to the right and shout its name into the wind. By the time he starting naming townships I had had enough. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what that village is called, just get your goddamn gloves back on the handlebars!” I screamed into the hundred-mile-per-hour howl.

An hour into this new torture he pulled over. I spit out a mouthful of bugs: “Are we here? What are we doing?” But he decided to take a piss and all he said was, “Take a picture.” Of what? You urinating? But then I realized it was precisely the right thing to do. No one knew where I was, no one knew that I had decided to get on this bike, with this man, on this day, and that this field could very well turn out to be my burial ground. I rued the fact that I couldn’t communicate with friends back in DC; I wanted to tell them to just carve my name into the Vietnam memorial, as I was certainly the next senseless American death in this land. So I took the picture, thinking that it might turn out to be the last on my roll. And that, perhaps with this clue, an intrepid friend or family member could piece together the evidence and find my remains nearby. He zipped his pants, and asked if I wanted a cigarette. He held out one, and I took the rest of the pack. I wanted to puff them all at once, I was so shaken. I began pacing the field as I smoked and explained in English that I would not get back on the bike. True, I got myself into this mess, but too bad, he was a crazy driver and I didn’t notice the bike was held together with elastic bands before the ride. He said some stuff in Vietnamese meant to reassure me (or rattled on about the weather, who really knows?), but when I shouted, “We will die today!” he calmly responded “No, safe.” Right, no safe. NO. I told him. He just laughed, then pointed at the sun now dangerously close to the horizon. I had to acknowledge it was late in the day and, well, we did make it a third of the way. I’m either going to die on this bike, or be killed on the side of this highway by passing truck or from exposure. At least if I get on that bike I will get to see a few more sights before I am splattered across the vista. Needless to say, the rest of the ride was just as terrifying. We finally made it to this place, where I hollered in the entrance for all who would hear (a group which thankfully included three American psychiatrists) that I would never get on another motorbike again. “The only way out is motorbike,” I was told, eliciting more vows: “I would rather build a car, build a car from scratch with my bare hands before I do that!”

I spent the next six days there unwilling to leave, nor was there much scratch around from which to build my car. I lounged on the beach finally able to crack open that beach read I brought, Gravity’s Rainbow, which believe or not, is really not a beach read. The psychiatrists at least got their jollies out of my choice of reading material. I restarted that book like 500 times on that blanket. I’d stubbornly pick up the sand-covered copy each day with a beer in hand, and have to remember if I was in the mind of a dog at the moment or what. Though they couldn’t get me to swap my book, the psychiatrists did finally convince me of one thing: I could not stay at the resort forever. One way or another I would be forced to leave: The money would dry up, I’d forfeit my nonrefundable return ticket, I’d finally finish Gravity’s Rainbow by the seaside and need to go get a new book (don’t flatter me fellas). I would have to face my fear of motorbikes or risk staying in Vietnam forever, where I’d be surrounded by them for the rest of my life. It was a losing proposition all around. They eventually wore me down, and somehow even convinced me to take a motorbike out of there at night, just to up the ante, to face my fears head on! I was handed a bug-slathered helmet. All I could see through the jumble of tiny wings was a kaleidoscope of swirling, blurring headlamps. Going into the light would be all the easier, I surmised. I took the bike for a 45
-minute jaunt. My driver dropped me off on the main road where I caught a night bus, which for a variety of reasons—including broken seats, blasting Vietnamese punk music, frigid temperatures, and the inevitable blown tire—I advise you never ride.

And then it happened. I figured I’d be jacked in each country I visited, and my destiny would not be denied. I was finally ripe for Vietnam’s picking. I got off the bus. I put my water bottle down as I reached into the undercarriage for my bag. When I looked back my water bottle was gone—possibly even stolen by a fellow tourist. I was overcome with joy. I thought, if that is all you want from me Vietnam, drink it down, drink it down!! It turned out that the water bottle was indeed all that Vietnam wanted from me. I wasn’t jacked again in Vietnam or Laos, or even on my return to Thailand. And in the end, I can’t really begrudge the muggers too much. I came out fairly unscathed. Besides they were such perfect gentlemen about it all.