The River Kwai: I went down that river once as an adult

Spectra and I spent the first two days of Thai new year (aka Songkran) on the River Kwai in a floating hotel deep in the jungle with no electricity. It was hard not to think many Apocalypse Now “Have you considered any real freedoms, Sawyer…” related thoughts on this trip but I won’t get into all that. This post is about my singular favorite moment on this trip. This is not to be confused with my favorite passage or thing about this trip. It’s just my single favorite moment.

The hotel we stayed in is called The River Kwai Jungle Rafts and what that name lacks in poetry it recaptures, and then some, in reality. The River Kwai Jungle Rafts hotel is literally a flotilla of rafts tethered together, floating in the River Kwai. The whole complex runs, probably, 200 meters. It looks something like this:

This is the downriver half of the hotel.

The leading forms of entertainment are lounging and floating down the river, which they probably would be even with electricity. While “floating” is technically accurate it gives one a false impression because that terms carries the connotation of languidity. In fact one races down the River Kwai because it is in a hurry, dude. That wouldn’t be a big deal but it turns the floating into a minor thrillride because you have to time your own extraction by grabbing onto a deck and hoisting yourself out. If you miss that last dock then you’re racing toward a bend another 100 meters downriver and then out of sight. We asked the guy at the frontdesk what you do if you miss the last dock and the response was, “Don’t miss the last dock.” He may as well have rhetorically replied, “Are our methods unsound?” 

True to her nature, Spectra couldn’t wait to get in that river; true to my nature I was considerably more trepidatious. We float raced down twice the first day, each time scrupulously keeping the docks no more than a body length away. That’s easier said than done because there’s a current that pulls you toward the opposite bank so you have to fight to stay near the flotilla. We hauled ourselves out 3 or 4 docks from the end rather than leaving us a slip from discovering if we’re little more than errand boys sent by grocery clerks. 

I should add that hauling yourself out of a rushing river while wearing a lifejacket isn’t quite like gliding up the stairs in the shallow end of a pool. It’s takes effort and calculated movements: get your knee wedged there, and then a foot there... Granted, 70-year olds and children were doing this too, so it’s not like it took Olympian strength and coordination, but it took some doing.

Anyway, two rounds of “floating” was plenty for me on day one and then I easily slipped into concerted lounging. That looked something like this:

"Leave me. I'm lounging."

The second day Spectra befriended a German couple, Sarah and Andre. I’ve always said my favorite accent is Indian-British, but now I’m not so sure. Perhaps I’ve been downplaying the charm of German accented English, especially when it’s punctuated by brief exchanges in German to find the right word. Might this be because Nazi’s are the Eternal #1 Movie Bad Guys of All Time? We did not discuss this with Sarah and Andre. Instead we made fun of Russia. 

Spectra may have targeted Sarah and Andre for friendship because they were clearly into floating so she’d have more floating company than I was willing to provide. Unwittingly, I presume, by hooking us up with them Spectra activated Social Sawyer. This Sawyer refused to jump into the river, preferring to gently lower himself down the ladder; Social Sawyer saw Andre jump in, took it as a challenge, and jumped further into the river. Even though I know Social Sawyer exists his arrival always catches This Sawyer (Social Sawyer never writes) retroactively off guard. I wonder if he’ll ever go away and never return? 

Sarah and Andre are serious adventurers. They’ve been skydiving and Sarah has run down the side of a skyscraper suspended by ropes like a ninja. When it comes to risking life and limb they’re not messing around. After we’d floated down a few times with them I decided it was time to see what happens if you don’t fight the current to stay closer to the rafts. We were all already floating when I announced, “Let’s just ride the current and see what happens. I think we’ll have time to swim back even if the current takes us all the way to the other side.” I looked back to get their responses assuming they’d be into it, they’d jumped out of airplanes after all, but that’s not what I saw. Here’s what I saw and this, 800-ish words later, is my single favorite moment of his trip: 

Sarah and Andre’s heads and shoulders floating along. They looked at each other, didn’t say a word, made the raised-eyebrows-&-frown face, shrugged their shoulders, and simultaneously brought their hands out of the water with palms up. The beats me expression. Here’s one of its famous demonstrations:

 

The '92 Finals: How I loathed Jordan while wearing his shoes.

That’s it. That was the moment. Sarah and Andre’s little heads bobbing out of the water as they shrugged and uneasily decided to follow me into the unknown, even though they were never in my frakin’ army in the first place. I suppose it’s what the jungle wanted and that's who they really took their orders from anyway.