Excerpt from
Cows on the Runway: One Couple, Fifteen Countries, One and a Half Years
Wendy Kae Golik

After showers from a trickling facet in a cement enclosure behind the guesthouse, we ate greasy fried eggs, popped a few iodine pills into our water bottles, then walked about three miles to an old cave that was home to villagers during the Vietnam War. On our way, we passed poor people living in leaning shacks that stood on stilts. Measly chickens plucked the earth beneath them. A sobbing boy of about three pointed at us and wailed as he clutched his mother's ragged skirt. Certainly the mother had seen falangs before, but her skeptical son had not. To him, we were big. White. Scary.
        Further along, under a piecemeal tin-roof market, women stood next to rotting wooden tables cutting chunks of meat. One wore a shirt with a Nike emblem misspelled Mike. Flies hovered. A white pig head the size of a soccer ball lay face up on a table, its snout pointing to the sky. On another table, hairy pig body parts rested on green banana leaves. The stench of sour blood and rotting meat hung in the air. We plugged our noses and hurried past the market. Lean fingers pointed and petite voices called out our names, "Falangs, falangs."
  Soon newly planted rice fields opened before us. Men, women, and children in scarves and pointy cone-shaped wicker hats tended the fields. Always bent over, always working, backs horizontal with the ground, the workers didn't look up.
        By the time we reached the cave, it was early afternoon and we were sweaty and sticky. A tall cane ladder with crooked bamboo steps rose forty feet to the cave entrance. Inside, remnants left behind from the Laoations who inhabited it during the war littered the muddy ground. Peering from the entrance, we could see workers with hunched backs planting rice near the base of a giant limestone cliff. No doubt they were relatives of the people who once lived in the cave.
        On the way back to our guesthouse we came to a truck engine lying in pieces on the ground. A Lao mechanic crouched under a truck next to it, pounding on metal. Another, with a perplexed look on his face, hovered over an engine. Tim pointed at the truck and said, "Phonsavan?" The man nodded, "Yes," then pointed at the pieces of engine and said, "No."
        "Phonsavan meu eun?" Tim said, meaning Phonsavan tomorrow.
        "No," the man smiled.
        "No meu eun?"
        "No."
        We continued walking toward the guesthouse. When we got there Tim told the owner in mixed English and Lao that we saw the Phonsavan truck and it's doomed engine. The owner tried to convince us that the truck would eventually run and that if it didn't, a different truck would. We wanted to believe him, but knew our chances for making it to Phonsavan were slim.
        Late that evening, we shared dinner with a giant flying beetle, a lime insect with wings that looked like plant leaves, and two bubbly couples from Holland and Belgium. The couples told gloomy tales of recent travelers they'd met who did not make it from Nong Khiaw to Phonsavan. One couple made it only a few hours past the bridge and down the road to a tiny village where they were dropped off and stuck for three days until a truck finally brought them back to Nong Khiaw. Another had tried unsuccessfully for four days to hitch a ride to Phonsavan, with no luck. The couples from Holland and Belgium had been waiting two days and decided to give up.
        Despite the odds, we were determined to make the trip to Phonsavan even if it meant a long wait. We'd already skipped the Luang Nam Tha province in the north. We weren't about to miss another chance to reach a remote area, especially since we desperately wanted to see the Plain of Jars.
        Early in the morning after icy showers, we ate mustard-colored omelets and sticky rice then waited on the guesthouse porch for a truck, any truck, to stop. While we waited, I asked the owner for a plastic baggie.
        "What are you doing, Wendy?" Tim asked.
        "Taking the sticky rice with us. We can eat it for lunch."
        "Cold sticky rice? We won't eat it," Tim told me.
        "We may need it on the road."
        With a smirk I stuffed the sticky rice inside the baggie and hid it deep inside my backpack.
        By eight, we began to doubt we'd find a ride to Phonsavan. At nine, we felt doomed. When nine thirty rolled around, we heard the faint grinding of a truck engine.
        "Grab your backpack, Wendy, this could be it!" Tim shouted. The grinding grew louder as a beat up 80s vintage Toyota double-cab pickup pulled up to the porch. Inside three unusually nervous Lao men fidgeted. The driver rolled down his window a third of the way. Tim ran up to it. I followed close behind. He uttered a phase from our Lao phrasebook at the driver and within minutes he and the driver agreed on a price, in kip, that would get us within an hour's drive of Phonsavan. We shoved our backpacks into the covered truck bed and hopped into the back seat of the cab. As I closed my door, a foul odor floated inside. Disgusting, I thought, breathing through my mouth. I wondered if someone had passed gas.
        From the moment we climbed inside the truck, an eerie feeling set in. Perhaps it was the way the three men in the front seat shifted nervously. Or maybe it was the way the driver constantly looked to the tall brush on either side of the road.
        The men didn't speak, and neither did we.
        About an hour into the ride the man sitting next to the passenger window took off his grubby baseball cap and passed it to the man sitting next to him. The man next to him handed over his cracked white plastic hardhat to trade for the cap. I looked at Tim and whispered, "That was weird. What's with the hat swapping? And what's the driver looking for? I'm getting nervous."
        "Wendy, calm down. It'll be alright. It's nothing."
        Ten minutes later the man wearing the hardhat took it off, passed it back to the man sitting beside him, and placed his original baseball cap back on his head.
        "What the hell is he doing?" I shrieked as quietly as I could. "Something's wrong. I can sense it."
        Fifteen minutes passed. The truck swerved to the right, just missing a ditch, then abruptly stopped next to a trickle of water that seeped from a jagged cliff. The driver and both men got out.
        "Shit. This is it," I said.
        "Wendy, stay calm."
        "I am calm. Lets get out of the truck. I don't want to wait here like sitting ducks."
        We hurried out of the truck, trying to act nonchalant, yet stumbling over one another. The men walked to the side of the road and rinsed their sweaty faces in the water from the cliff. When they finished, they peed in the ditch then walked to the back of the truck.
        No one said anything.
        I froze, afraid the men were about to pull out guns or knives from the truck bed. Tim stared me down, trying to settle me.
        The driver pulled down the back hatch below the truck bed and revealed a secret compartment. Immediately, the foul odor I smelled earlier permeated the air.
        "Tim," I said with a shaky voice and a racing mind. "That's that smell. What are they doing? What if they've got a gun in there?"
        "Stop it Wendy."
        From the secret compartment the men yanked out a bunch of dark round bundles and threw them onto the ground. Black and scaly with coal claws and bound in black netting, the bundles reeked and quivered. We counted more than forty. They were stinky and they were helpless. It made us sick. They looked like rolls of meat, except for the quivering.
        "What the?" Tim blurted out. "They're smuggling animals."
        "This is not good."
        While the men unloaded the creatures, the driver doused water on their expiring bodies, apparently trying to keep as many alive as possible. While the men worked, Tim and I smiled and acted like it was no big deal-as if we smuggled animals all the time. But we knew it was a big deal and that if the men were caught, they'd be in serious trouble. We were in a bad, bad situation.
        We wanted to abandon the truck, but there were no houses or villages in sight and there was nowhere to go. We also remembered how difficult it was for tourists to make it to Phonsavan. Even if we wanted to get away, we knew we were better off with the smugglers than trying to hitch a different ride-since we hadn't seen a single truck all morning. Plus, we were in guerilla territory.
        After they threw the creatures back into the secret compartment, the men cranked a spare tire down from under the truck bed, exposing yet another secret compartment. They had cut off the top section of the tire and created a holding place for more creatures. Inside, fifteen helpless bundles lay scarcely breathing. The men unloaded them, doused them with water, then tossed them back inside the tire and cranked it back into position.
        Somewhat relieved that the men hadn't killed us, we hopped back into the truck and were soon on our way. If they were going to kill us, we reasoned, they would have done it by now. But when the driver began to fidget and search the brush on the side of the road again, we started worrying.
        Suddenly, a large maroon truck blew past us, honking and swerving, its occupants yelling out the windows. It stopped abruptly in front of us. Our driver pulled along side the passenger window. He looked back at Tim and me. I thought, "Oh shit, this is where we get out-or worse," but instead the driver made a scribble motion on the palm of his hand. He needed a pen. I riffled through my backpack and handed him a pen while one of the men in the front seat searched through the glove compartment for a scrap of paper. The driver scribbled a few words, then handed the paper through the window to a woman decked in gold and jewels inside the other truck. The driver and woman exchanged words. The man with the baseball hat in our truck got out and joined the other truck. Seconds later, both trucks took off down the road.
        "Great," I said. "What now?"
        "Who knows?" Tim answered.
        By mid-afternoon, we were hungry and there was no place to stop for food. I began searching through my backpack.
        "What are you doing, Wendy?"
        "Nothing."
        "You are too. You're looking for something. Do we have anything with us to eat?"
        "Cold sticky rice. We won't eat it," I mocked the words that came from Tim's mouth earlier.
        "You brought it after all?" Tim looked hopeful.
        "What do you think? Someone has to take care of us," I smirked as I lifted the baggie of sticky rice from my pack and gave Tim his share.
        Several long hours later, we came to a village. A big bellied, shoeless man in a blue, short sleeved shirt and baggy brown pants stood in a narrow doorway. He flicked his index finger a couple times at the driver.
        "Did you see that?" I whispered to Tim.
        The truck slowed and rounded a corner. Another man standing on a mud porch signaled our driver by holding his hand low close to his knees and shaking it side to side.
        "Tim, something's up."
        Around another corner, we began to climb a hill. In the middle stood a tall shack. A skinny guard stepped out from it and motioned at our driver to stop. We were at a provincial border checkpoint and although we didn't want to appear involved with the smuggling, felt strangely compelled to protect our driver and act as if nothing was wrong.
        Before the guard reached the driver's window, the driver began to shake.
        "Shit," Tim said to the driver and me, "Everyone remain calm."
        Words flew. The driver's shaking turned violent, almost convulsive. The guard reached through the window and tried to grab the keys. The driver, shaking uncontrollably, tried to push the guard's hand away but wasn't fast enough. The guard turned off the engine and pulled the driver from the truck. The man in the front seat with the hardhat leaped outside and grabbed a grapefruit-sized boulder from the side of the road. In a matter of seconds everything turned to chaos. We jumped out of the truck just as the man with the hardhat started running back toward it. Two guards with well-used rifles sprang out from nowhere and were on his tail. We took a look at the boulder, the rifles, and each other. Tim grabbed my arm and said, "Lets get away from the truck."  He quickly pulled me across the road. From a distance, we watched the man with the hardhat drop the boulder in defeat while the guards heaved the netted creatures from the truck's secret compartment and tossed them to the ground. A group of villagers had gathered around the truck. We remembered that our mobile abodes, our shells, our dwellings, were inside the truck bed.
        "Shit," Tim said, "Our backpacks are in the truck. If they drive off we're screwed."
        Realizing we couldn't leave the truck, we slowly moved closer, but not too close. We watched the guards search inside the cab, deep inside the secret compartment, and under the hood. They didn't find the hidden tire.
        During the commotion a young, American Peace Corp worker noticed us standing in the middle of the disturbance and asked if we were alright.
        "We're fine. We hitched a ride with these guys from Nong Khiaw. We had no idea they were smuggling whatever these animals are," Tim said.
        "Pangolins. They're pangolins, a type of endangered scaly anteater," the Peace Corp worker rattled at us. "They're a big no-no."
        "Where do you suppose they're taking them?" Tim asked.
        "China, via Vietnam. They are a delicacy in China and they are worth more if they are delivered alive."
        "So, what happens? The driver pays off the guards and gets his hands slapped? Or, is he thrown in jail?"
        "Probably a payoff."
        We spoke with the Peace Corp worker for about fifteen minutes, and then he left. Soon the guards motioned for us to get into the truck with the driver and accomplice. We were reluctant and shook our heads at them to say no, but they insisted.  They led us five minutes down the road to a small cement building. We thought for sure we'd have to go inside and pay someone a bribe to get out of the mess.
        When we stopped, the guards made everyone get out of the truck.
        "Khawy paak phaasaa lao baw dai," Tim said to the guards, telling them he couldn't speak Lao.
        They didn't care. They hauled the driver into the building, leaving us at the truck with the accomplice. The accomplice tried to communicate with hand gestures that the driver would be back shortly, but we weren't convinced.
        We grabbed our packs from the truck, and hurried off across a muddy field to a local market. We figured that we'd have to find a place to stay-of which we knew they're probably were none-or, we'd have to find another ride. We sat down and watched women labor over boiling pots of soup. One woman slit the throats of two scrawny chickens, draining their blood onto a mound of earth and then plucking off the feathers. We sat there and watched her and other women just like her make soup. In three hour's time, no vehicles of any kind drove by.
        When we were about to give up on finding a ride, we heard a truck engine. Our driver and the accomplice were heading toward us. They pulled up and motioned to get inside. With little choice-it was late, we had no place to stay, and the men hadn't killed us-we got back into the truck. It was seven thirty and the sun had set. The atmosphere inside the truck had dramatically changed. The driver and accomplice were less tense, smiled, talked, and even chuckled at one another. Tim and I decided that they made out alright even with the loss of the confiscated pangolins. They would have made a great deal more money if the guards hadn't confiscated most of the pangolins, but they still had fifteen inside the spare tire and they weren't in jail-not that we'd seen a jail in Laos.
        We wondered about the fate of the confiscated pangolins. Would the guards free them or would they take the half-dead creatures to China via Vietnam themselves?
        The truck sped too fast along a twisty road, now enveloped in fog, and we were sure we'd end up in a ditch, but we were no longer concerned that the men would harm us.
        From a petite basket in the front seat, the accomplice grabbed a handful of sticky rice, then grabbed some meat from a banana leaf, and offered it to us.
        "No khawp jai," Tim shook his head.
        "That was sweet of him," I said. "They barely have enough food for themselves, yet they offer food to us. I know they're smugglers, but maybe they do it because they have families to feed."
        "Maybe, but they know it's wrong," Tim exclaimed.
        Finally, at eleven thirty, we arrived at a village about an hour's drive from Phonsavan and had the driver drop us off at a guesthouse. Tim handed the driver the amount of kip they'd agreed upon. The driver carefully counted the money. When he smiled, we knew we were home free. No arguing for more kip. No yelling. The driver, who happened to have a nasty pangolin smuggling habit, didn't try to swindle us after all.