The day after our flippant ascent of Doi Chiang Dao, Hope and I woke up dark and early. The day's mission: go ride up a mountain and bird down. We'd tried valiantly to delay this adventure and take a rest day. Turns out it's good we couldn't, because this way the lactic acid buildup had yet to reach its full potential. Our taxi driver was ready before we were; to his bewilderment, we bypassed the cushy interior and hopped right into the bed of his super sexy pickup.
Two of America's great shortcomings are that (1) we can't have Toyota Hiluxes and (2) we do have pickups but you're supposed to ride in the cab. Where's the fun in that?! Therefore, when I visit Asia, I capitalize on my opportunities to travel via Hilux bed. It's a good way to start the morning, laying down and watching the dizzying star ceiling, feeling the rush of clammy morning air, smelling cooking fires in the small villages. Occasionally a shooting star would streak over, and I'd wish for Giant Nuthatches and Hume's Pheasants. After jostling around for an hour and a half, we spilled out at Den Ya Kat substation. The trees, etched against the graying sky like disappearing ink, were just beginning to gain structure.
We set out to do just that: find Giant Nuts and Hume's Pheasants. After birding the pine glade around our dropoff, we settled with a White-crowned Forktail and a Hoopoe, and started trudging down down down. Weariness from the prior day's craziness manifested itself with every step on the hard dirt road. Although it was early, time was of concern, so we adopted a policy of "no flock no stop". Fortunately, nice mixed flocks (containing more than just bulbuls and phylloscoshits) broke the monotonous journey.
Punishing hikes are one of my favorite things. To test your body's limit--to command your exhausted core to keep you upright on narrow, uneven switchbacks, to feel the twinge as your hamstrings groan for a respite from steep uphill, to marvel at the flutter of your lungs as you pause to settle your pulse. Attached to this comes clarity of mind, a massive endorphins dump, and, more times than not, devastating scenery. These are all reasons why I hike.
A demanding hike is accompanied by predictable thought pattern. The first stage--happiness. You're at the beginning, feeling good. Air crisp, wrought with dewy promise. Around every corner discovery--in fact, for every 5 birds that are new, you celebrate by eating. You celebrate often. The world is pretty much your oyster. Even if you don't see Giant Nuthatches, fairy bluebirds are still breathtaking; piculets are still adorable. Besides...that next grove of pines will have a nuthatch, surely.
The second stage--quiet. Although you're still content, you don't feel particularly moved to express your happiness. The sun has risen, the air warm and dustier, hope for Giant Nuts is fading, the flocks are more predictable. You lift your binoculars, another Maroon Oriole. You shrug, turn to your companion--cool, she sees it too. Keep working the flock, hoping for something new. It's been a few minutes. The bird book is really fucking annoying. Who'd start off with cuckoos--and why on earth are herons in the middle of the guide? Just aso the silence begins to feel somewhat ominous, the appearance of the next stage--philosophical--breaks the quiet.
By now, it's really hot. You've repealed the 5 birds for food principle. A baker's dozen of cows with unclear pedigrees and unclear ownership appear next to the road. Hope doesn't like cows. I like to eat them, but aside from that am generally ambivalent. This herd didn't wow me with their intelligence; they trotted down the road, bells tinkling. Occasionally they'd pause, look at us concernedly, and evacuate their bowels. This went on for several kilometers.
"I feel kinda bad. You realize we're chasing them down the mountain..."
"We're not chasing them. They're choosing to be chased."
"Wow. I want to think about that one for awhile."
We did; predictably, the conversation turned to boys. Hope shared a hilarious tale of one who'd gotten away--one who'd gotten away DESPITE her attempts at wooing with the bequeathing of a prized insect specimen.
I don't remember when we lost the cows; by then, we were engrossed in my favorite stage--delirium. Since it tails philosophy, delirium generally results in heartfelt discussions over absurd situations. One must take caution, however, to avoid misidentifying delirium as happiness. This is crucial, for delirium is followed by despondency, and this transition is unsettling when one moment the world is your oyster and the next, you're in the depths of despair.
"Ooh. I've got a good question."
"Yeah?"
"Would you rather. If you were going to have a magnum bar, would you want an Asian Paradise Flycatcher or a frogmouth to deliver it?"
Magnum bars may well be the discovery of the trip. They're an ice cream bar and also perfection. A skillful crafting of silken ice cream that caresses your tongue encased in a sinfully good chocolate and nut coating. Most notably, much thought was apparently behind their design, for they seem engineered to resist melting under tropical heat -- an important factor indeed. I'm a little chagrined it took me more than a year wandering southeast Asia to find these treasures, for they're not particularly hard to come by. So, I've attempted to rectify this impasse by consuming at least one each day. I pondered Hope's question, giving it the thought it deserved.
"A frogmouth." Hope nodded emphatically.
"It could just carry the magnum bar in its mouth and regurgitate it for us and when it did that its eyes would pop out even bigger and it would be ADORABLE and I can't even..."
We pondered the overwhelming cuteness of this scenario and decided, for good measure, that our frogmouth ice cream courier should be accompanied by a team of Kalij Pheasants pulling a sled of curry puffs.
Instead, we ate stale garlic bread and a medley of MSG variations. You see--hunger is an additional stage that can be inserted anywhere, anytime, limitlessly. Hunger is fickle. Ignore it, and the current stage is exacerbated, the next ushered prematurely. Acknowledge hunger, and you'll almost certainly enjoy a brief regression to happiness.
The final stage is despondency. The journey is painful. The destination is unreachable. Even Great Barbets do little to bring cheer. One of the most vivid episodes of despondency occurred earlier this fall, when my sister and I got schooled by the Manistee River Trail.
"Every step feels like someone is injecting my feet with thousands of needles full of fire ants. I just want to take my shoes off and throw them in the woods."
"Yeah? Well I'd like to take my legs off and throw THEM in the woods. My hips are killing me. And you know what else? I've had Raffi songs stuck in my head for the last 3 miles." That's despondency for you.
Although fate had failed to deliver us Giant Nuthatches, our luck changed before we entered serious despondency. A Hilux stopped, and it's driver offered us a ride to the checkpoint. This shaved 10 kilometers and resuscitated our spirits. A short walk through the village--now dusty, hot, full of chickens and sacked-out dogs--brought us to the main road. Just as we set foot on it, a songthaew heading away from us pulled over; the driver crossed 4 lanes of traffic to see if we wanted a lift. We collapsed into the back exhausted, reveling in the smallest thngs, like the breeze from a passing truck. Life was good--good until we knew better.
When the songthaew ejected us at Chiang Dao hut, we limped past the older French couple sharing the guesthouse.
"They're drunk," observed Hope.
"They're French," I retorted.
We didn't know. Soon though, we did. There was an awful situation in Paris, the work of evil people--people too weak to use anything but violence in their attempt to prove a point.
"Do you think they know?"
"They know," I said. "Let's go back."
We cried with them over our broken world, hugged them. The day was now a confusing fog of exhaustion, anger, sorrow, happiness--and a potent guilt for feeling happy in the face of such pain. How can life be good?
