| Muller | Hitchhiking Vietnam
Page 98 |
The six-bunk sleepers had shrunk enormously since my last encounter with them at Lao Cai. Four cages, backpacks and two days of food for nine hungry mouths filled almost every available space. A passing conductor bent over to peer through our torn curtain and came roaring through the door, spoiling for a fight. I froze and scanned our gear. The cages were well camouflaged but emitting the curious scratching sounds I had come to associate with leopards in need of entertainment. If the eagle let rip one of his shrill whistles then the entire train from end to end would know what we were carrying. Despite the permission papers I'd had made up, complete with fake official stamps, we were still smuggling illegal contraband. If the conductor discovered our animals, he would either confiscate the lot or simply dump them out the window.
We talked loudly. Jochen hummed the German anthem under his breath. I crumpled and uncrumpled a letter I had been writing. The conductor inadvertently helped our cause by shouting and pacing back and forth in front of us. Why were there three people in the compartment with only two tickets? he demanded. The odd man out, unfortunately, was Jochen. He was quickly made to disappear.
Could we, I asked cautiously, switch Jochen's bunk for Jay's for the duration of the journey?
Absolutely not.
Could Jochen return to visit us from time to time if the other bunks remained unfilled?
Completely out of the question. And further, where were we planning to sleep ourselves? The top two wooden slats, our assigned bunks, were lined with gear.
The other four bunks were empty, I pointed out, perhaps we could make use of -
"Forbidden," the conductor snapped.
The floor, I suggested quickly, we could spread a blanket -
"Forbidden."
If necessary, I lied, we could share a single bunk -
It would most certainly break under so much weight, the conductor insisted with painful candor. He left us with orders to condense our yards of gear into a few square feet and store it in the alcove over the door. I spent the next hour experimenting with new iterations of the ancient corn-fox-duck game, trying to fit a gibbon, eagle and leopards into a tiny space without allowing a razor beak to make contact with a careless tail or curious fingers to pluck feathers from an already balding crown.
