A quick trip (with creatures).

This is not a snake, but it is a creature!

I got back a couple nights ago from a mini writing retreat of my own making. I needed to go to the nearby big city for routine tasks at immigration and thought, well, while I’m there, why don’t I stay an extra day, huddle in a hotel room, and write. So I did. It’s a luxury of living here, since hotel rooms only cost $10 if you know how to scavenge for the deals. They cost less if you don’t mind cockroaches or sharing bathrooms, things I have worked into my hotel-staying life countless times in the past, but I find I’m pickier these days. I think there are actually guesthouses in the big city for less that are squeaky clean, but I haven’t found them yet. 

Now that I’m back from that cheapskate rabbit trail, you probably want to know how the writing went. It went swimmingly, with a near blackout on social media thrown in to boot. My upcoming book, “A Traveler’s Guide to Belonging,” is with my lovely editor, but I’m working on the second draft of another book, the fantasy I was telling you about. I own my word count. It trembles at my touch. Sometimes. 

Back when I decided to go to the big city, I hadn’t taken into account the fact that it was Sunday on a long weekend, and there were no seats available on any of the buses that day. “No problem,” I thought. “I can drive!” And by drive I meant ride a motorbike in the rain on switchbacks for five hours, which I proceeded to do. It was… challenging. And cheap! I’m always looking for ways to justify my choices, unlike just say, making them, like normal people. What positive category could I put this motorbike experience into? Pleasure? Not at all. Beauty? A little, but the world was transformed by rain and gray and I couldn’t see much of it as I focused on the very wet road. Adventure? It was a little too adventurous, the kind where adventure tips into trial. Frugality? Yes! I had a winner and as I collapsed in my hotel room that night, I felt the happy tingle of justifying a hard experience by penny pinching. In my defense, there was no other way to make an impromptu visit to the city, and if it exhausted me a little more than I had been expecting, so be it.

The way back was nicer, with drier roads. However, I stopped to answer my phone on the side of the road when I was nearly back in Pai, and when I pulled away from the shoulder, I saw a little snake wriggling quickly away from my foot. “Awww,” I thought, “a little snake.” But then the sound of my bike startled it and it reared up to strike. It was a tiny cobra! A cobra! I shrieked and drove away quickly. Riding in the rain with cobras. Even when I try to do nothing exciting, excitement finds me.