thailand 1/22: the third miracle

As we approached the dispatch depot, I expected to see a small metropolis peppered with pilot cases and gleaming eateries. What I saw more closely resembled a post-apocalyptic ghost town. A few errant buses and stray curs littered an otherwise empty lot, while their drivers suckled cigarettes or loitered about a filling station. The smell of gasoline was nauseating. Where were the beachgoers? Where was the Starbucks? The sole commercial presence was a dilapidated 7-11 with dirty windows. I was concerned, but only mildly. Some gratifying cocktail of sunstroke and dehydration had diluted the intensity fear as an instinct. I bought two liters of water, and drank them mercilessly. I sat down. I considered playing fetch with a three-legged mongrel, but decided against it. A few of the drivers eyed me (and my pumpkin pants?) with suspicion.
After about half an hour, I began to feel quite faint. I pondered the ethanol inhalation and water poisoning, and wondered if non-fatal dosages of both, in combination, could be fatal.
Then:
Enter: woman -who was only a gnarled torso- in a shopping cart.
Enter: smiling, dark-skinned man on a motorbike.
Armless/legless woman charades (bear with me) that chartered buses depart from a second depot, 5 kilometers down the road. As she gasps for breath, Motorbike man offers a ride for 100b. I’ve just finished indicating that I much prefer to walk, when,
Enter: man in polo shirt.
Minutes later, I’m aboard a luxury coach with Polo Shirt and three other alleged bus drivers, en route to the legendary second depot. Polo Shirt and I made stilted, polite conversations, during which I tried not to make it too obvious that I was glancing obsessively at his watch
(which was telling me that we'd been on the highway for over fifteen minutes), and then mentally mapping out an escape route, should any of my (ethanol-laced) fantasies of being sold into sexual slavery begin to play out. Just as I was wondering whether or not I could survive a tumble from a high-speed bus, we pulled into the bus depot, which was an oasis of activity, alive with pilot cases, and coffee stops, and, most gratifyingly, white people, all headed to surf and tan and adventure on the southern seas. I felt like I was going to weep with relief. My new friend in the polo shirt even walked me into the depot, where he ensured that I purchased the correct ticket to Krabi. He left me at the food court, where I bought a side of fries and waited for their magic to work itself on my wearied soul. By 9PM, I was dozing aboard a plush two-story coach headed south.