Travelling tuk-tuk

The tuk-tuk resembled a suspenseful game of Jenga. If one item were to be removed or if any passenger were to rearrange a butt-cheek, it was bound to fall to pieces. 

The roof was strategically stacked with a mound of goods; from bags and boxes to fishing rods and chicken cages. Men sat on top of the mound like scouts on a hill looking for more passengers to trap inside. I peered into a cave of faces; men, women, children, and chickens cuddled up like bats.

My middle-aged, non-english speaking friend who I had known for about four hours, hiked his way to the top. I threw our motorbike helmets up to him as he gestured viciously through the dust and his snake of cigarette smoke for me to climb in with the others.

I positioned a slice of my white thigh on the only available twenty centimeter's of bright blue, rusty railing. I hugged my knees as four men picked up my friend's motorbike and tied it to the back of the tuk-tuk with the leather belts they had just slid out from the loops in their jeans.

I had an armpit in my face, someone's hair in my mouth, and an unknown knee close to my crotch. All of which jumped closer with each bump in the dirt road and clunk of the exhaust. Just I was wiggling myself in between the soup of sweat and the suffocating stares, I noticed the young girl sitting opposite me. From beneath her black bangs the sweat slithered down her pale cheeks.

"Are you OK?" I asked the girl, smiling at her mother beside her clutching a tiny baby. Just then her mother and the rest of the men, women, children and chickens began to shout and flap their arms. I thought that perhaps I had ended up on the tuk-tuk of a traveling charades troupe. But before I could guess "movie?" "four syllables?" "first syllable?" - the young girl was dangling over my shoulder, puking. Puking half down my back and half over the bright blue, rusty railing.

I rubbed her back as the white, car-sick-mish-mash pummeled to the pavement. She sat back down and wiped the tears and spit from her face with her sleeve. She stared at me. I stared back at her. The entire tuk-tuk stared at us. I placed my jersey under her head as she lay down to sleep, while the rest of us bumped up and down in unison as if nothing had happened and as if my tangy new backpack of bile couldn't be smelt.

Her mother nodded in thanks as she re-arranged the gurgling baby between her breasts. But I believe her nod said more than just "thank you." I believe it said: "welcome aboard miss."