We didn’t expect him to be there. “Todd?” I heard with an accent. 
No one could know me out here.
Moments before we were on a train ride that lasted fourteen hours. Now we were standing near a chaotic mix of taxi drivers yelling for fare. My head turned around much like an owls. I saw a man standing with a sign that read my name. My brain ran through scenarios This was a man I had contacted days before. He is part of a network that accepts travelers to visit. When I hadn’t heard from him I had made other arrangements. There was a hostel in the city center that we were on our way to and we would trek into the jungle from there. We hadn’t figured out the specifics, but we knew of the hostel, and that is where we intended to stay but we didn’t.
You didn’t arrange this?
“Sort of”, I said with a slight hesitation. I guess I did arrange it, but what I wasn’t sure.
“How many bungalows do you want?” We told him how many. Slowly we began to ask the man questions. He ran a place called the Spicy Villa. It was named after his love of hot food. He is Thai. He had paying guests there now. We would soon become paying guests. Although the arrangement was for free accomodation originally. We were invited as traveling “friends”. Guests in his home. When we learned that we could bathe with elephants, ride bamboo rafts down river rapids, and eat no less than four unique Thai dishes per meal we joined the paying crowd.
The villa sits on the side of a mountain. It overlooks a town swallowed by a valley. The bungalows are made of bamboo. The plants, bright and unique, surround
“Todd, this is fantastic!” Omar said leaning into a hammock.
“I didn’t expect any of this!”
I smiled.
Neither did I.
