Newlyweds Crushed by Flatulent Elephant

I am constantly on the lookout for situations that will result in my death being reported on Yahoo’s News of the Weird. In moments of possible danger, headlines appear in my brain: American Tourists Brutalized by Charlie Chaplin Impersonator, or, Slasher Monkey Disembowels Students at Taj Mahal. It’s my brain’s way of telling me, “So the Roman mime just hit you in the ass with a riding crop. Best not to retaliate. He looks like he does judo in his spare time.” (Or in the case of the monkey, “Run. Run now.”) But sometimes this warning system kicks in a little too late, when there’s no escape option. And such was the case this week, when these words flashed through my mind: Newlyweds Crushed to Death By Flatulent Elephant.

Thailand is the mothership of weird news. Drugged Owls Found in Man’s Pants. Cache of Pygmy Marmosets Escape from Guitar Case at Bangkok Airport. Smuggler Dies After Cobra in Underwear Bites Buttock. OK, I made up those titles. But Thailand does produce a staggering number of stories in which air travelers alert the authorities because someone’s pants are chirping. As I have zero interest in joining an international crime ring and even less in stashing fruit bats in my skinny jeans, I wasn’t too worried. Which is why my alarm bells didn’t go off when our tour guide suggested we ride an elephant up a mountain.

I did have a bit of trepidation. After all, I’ve been on an elephant before. In India, my traveling companion, whom we shall call Mango in this post (she now has multiple pseudonyms on this blog), and I rode an elephant named Rangmala. Rangmala was the Ferrari of the elephant world. I’m pretty sure we broke the land speed record at one point, as she bolted for the cliff’s edge while trumpeting like a lunatic. Naturally, we interpreted this to mean, “Enough with hauling things up the mountain! Up, down, up, down! Who am I?! Sisyphus?! I’ll jump! I mean it!” In fact, what she really meant was, “Excuse me, please, but I must pee.” It was terrifying, and I truly hope that is the only time in my life I‘ll be glad to be enveloped in wisps of pee steam.

This time our elephant (whom we will call Bang, because in the adrenaline haze I forgot the second syllable of his name) was definitely not built for speed. Bang was built to digest. Two minutes into the ride (when I was already gripping the safety bar like a sailor clinging to the mast of a sinking ship) Bang stopped to eat a thicket, after which he expelled an equal amount of waste products. A short time later, Bang stopped again to eat large quantity of reeds. He then paused to release a gas pocket so powerful I’m pretty sure birds dropped out of the sky behind us due to lack of oxygen.

Eventually we came to a harrowingly steep and narrow part of the path, which had turned entirely to goo thanks to the monsoon rains. It was covered in elephant foot slide marks. It was on the edge of a cliff. It was easy to imagine the elephant tumbling backward, smushing us flat like cartoon characters. That’s when the prospective headline popped into my head: as Bang opted to take his next meal, in the middle of this death slope, us leaning precariously backward in the rickety elephant saddle. He munched away while the mahout tried to urge him onward. Bang’s only response was to make huffing sounds as if to say, “Screw you, I will eat this tree.” We were there for what felt like the better part of a decade, the blood slowly draining out of my head, allowing the next elephant a chance to catch up. Bang waited until the elephant’s head was only a couple of feet away, before releasing The World’s Most Epic Fart. There are operas performed in less time than that fart. It reverberated. It is the sound used in the making of horror movies when some ancient, cursed tomb has been opened, unleashing the beast within. When it was finally over, there was a long silence. Then the stunned reaction of the couple behind us: “Wow.” They didn’t utter a word for the rest of the trip.

Bang’s intestinal pyrotechnics continued up the mountain, prompting the mahout to turn around from his perch and say, “He eats many bananas.” Which at once made me a) never want to eat bananas again, and b) feel very guilty for having fed some to the elephants back at the camp. Eventually we made it to our destination, very much alive and three-dimensional. Which just goes to show that you can face your fears, with the only appreciable reward being a new addition to your mental library of nature sounds. (Seriously, not everything can lead to an epiphany.) But at least it gives me the perfect excuse to avoid future pachyderm riding opportunities. Because I can already see the headline: Blogger Crushed by Elephant Forsees Own Demise.

Us with Bang, who is actually very cute. You can see me gripping the handle bars. You can also see the unfortunate couple behind us.

This Traffic Circle Does Not Exist

I am hopeless at navigation. I could get lost in a shoebox. I have gotten lost on the street where I live. I once pulled over at a motel for directions, and discovered, to my surprise, that I had landed in West Virginia. Very often I have no idea where I am.

Some people have told me this is a blessing in disguise. “If you’re wandering around clueless for hours, you’ll encounter all kinds of wonderful and unexpected things” they say. Lies. It’s a great way to find the places where someone will either try to purchase you for the night or assess how much ransom they could demand from your family. I submit as evidence the following quotes:

“Man, there are a lot of hookers on this street.” (My friend Chris, in Berlin, Germany)

“That’s the fifth chop shop we’ve seen on this block. I’m pretty sure the house on the corner is a mafia stronghold. I think we took a wrong turn somewhere.” (Oso (formerly known as Pulpo), in Buenos Aires, Argentina)

But the biggest problem doesn’t come on foot. It’s in the car. Yes, that’s right. The GPS. “Wait,” you may be thinking, “the GPS is supposed to help you!” It’s true, the GPS is capable of finding a route to your destination. It inspires your trust. You just have to follow its instructions. And that is exactly what makes this device so subtly evil. (Well, that and it receives its information from space, which leaves you vulnerable if aliens ever decide to claim your Volvo.)

My first GPS was named Federica. She got her name because her voice sounds like a phone sex operator who moonlights as a professional assassin, and obviously such a person would be named Federica. To her credit, Federica did actually get us to Mount Rushmore. But not before taking us up the wrong mountain, directing us into a picnic area, then taking us back the way we came for twenty miles. It was an early lesson: the GPS will get you there eventually, but it will do its damnedest to make you give up first.

And so it was on Part One of our honeymoon. Pulpo (ugh, I mean Oso) and I rented a GPS-equipped car for a few days in rural France. Now let me tell you something about PulpOso. He is from the country (and very proud of it). His celebrity doppelganger is Paul Bunyan. He is one of those people who can tell you your exact latitude and longitude just by mentally cross-referencing the local bird songs and species of moss. He says that is an exaggeration, but I have seen this rural magic. So when my husband exclaimed halfway through our four-hour trek to the cottage, “Where the hell is this thing taking us? It’s like France by goat path!” I knew we were in for it. The GPS had gone rogue.

Our path across the map looked like a sugar-high kindergartener had drawn it on an Etch-a-Sketch. And as the trip went on, we discovered that sometimes your GPS aspires to be a murderer. Exhibit A: Its suggestion that we drive 90 KPH on gravel mountain switchbacks only wide enough for a large cow. Exhibit B: Its demand that we drive up a claustrophobia-inducing alleyway, straight into a pedestrians-only farmer’s market. And lastly, Exhibit C: The directions that took us up a staggeringly steep cobblestone path, which had been closed off due to deadly rockslides. Oh, and did I mention this path was on the edge of a cliff? If you’d like a visual of the scene inside the car during that ordeal, go find a cat. Then pick it up. Take it to the seaside. Try and throw it in the ocean. Look at the cat. That’s what I was doing in the car.

On the other hand, there is one major benefit to that devious dashboard parasite known as the GPS. You can never have enough ridiculousness in your travels. Maybe it’s just me, but I enjoy whenever life borders on the absurd. Like this scene in our car:

PulpOso: I’m coming up to a traffic circle. Which direction do I go?
Me: There is no traffic circle.
PulpOso: What do you mean? There it is. There’s the traffic circle. It’s huge.
Me: Not on the GPS. It made up its own road.
PulpOso: The traffic circle doesn’t exist. Great. So where do I go?
Me: Maybe go straight? If the road on the GPS existed, it looks like it would go straight.
PulpOso: What?
Me: I don’t know. Just go straight.
PulpOso: Right, cause the traffic circle we’re on right now as we speak doesn’t exist.
Me: Exactly.

I admit, I have to appreciate a machine that pays homage to the work of George Berkeley, Abbot & Costello, and Rand McNally simultaneously. A little bit. Maybe. As long as it stays away from the cliffs.