To Hellholes and Back Read online

  Praise for Smile When You’re Lying

  “Impassioned, funny, and uniquely honest.”

  —Esquire

  “A rare victim’s-eye view into the world of travel marketing and the nervous, unmoored corporate weenies who populate it…fascinating reading.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Thompson is the real thing, a travel writer in the sense that Mark Twain or Hunter S. Thompson was, and Redmond O’Hanlon is. He’s a travel writer like Anthony Bourdain is a food writer. He’s a travel writer for people who don’t much like travel writing.”

  —The Oregonian

  “Smile When You’re Lying could do for the travel industry what The Tipping Point did for the tipping point industry.”

  —Joe Queenan

  “(Thompson’s) prose is quick and witty; it’s like sitting down over a beer with the most experienced traveler you’ll ever meet.”

  —Aspen Times Weekly

  “My three favorite travel writers of all time are Robert Louis Stevenson, Graham Greene, and Chuck Thompson. Smile When You’re Lying not only tells the truth about the travel-writing racket, it gets to the heart of some of the travel industry’s best-kept secrets.”

  —Kinky Friedman

  “More than confessions of a veteran gallivanter…an indictment of those who would prettify the world…full of trenchant truisms.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “An aggressively funny account of the world from an acerbic, energetic professional traveler who tells it like he sees it and has no reservations about sharing his stockpile of outrageous (mis)adventures and advice…. At his best, this Thompson will remind readers of Hunter S.—provocative and thoroughly engaging, with a manic liveliness.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Thompson’s weapons are wit, a well-oiled subversive reflex and a defiantly unbuttoned prose style.”

  —The New York Observer

  “Vivid and ribald…. If all Thompson was aiming for had been caustic observations about the industry he knows from the inside out, the book would have been an amusing but limited experience. But Thompson weaves his take on the travel racket and the damage it does into an engagingly personal narrative about his own nomadic life.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Thought-provoking…laughing at [Thompson’s] stories caused pain.”

  —Salt Lake Tribune

  “Bitingly funny…as much as Thompson loves to play the curmudgeon, a reader can tell that through it all, he still loves to travel, despite, or perhaps because of, all the challenges.”

  —The Columbus Dispatch

  “A great storyteller with an unusual tolerance level for adventure.”

  —The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin)

  “Witty prose entertains as it educates…the perfect read for a long plane ride.”

  —Seattle Magazine

  “Highly recommended.”

  —Calgary Herald

  “Fascinating and frequently hilarious, thanks to Thompson’s wicked sense of humor.”

  —Portland Mercury

  “Reading Thompson is like listening to a buddy who shoots from the hip. Although readers may not always agree with Thompson’s conclusions…they will recognize an authentic voice on the subject of travel when they encounter it.”

  —Booklist

  “Thought-provoking political commentary…will keep you entertained even as it makes you think.”

  —ramblingtraveler.com

  Contents

  Introduction: The Four Horsemen of My Apocalypse

  I. Continent: Africa

  1. The Funniest Joke in Africa

  2. In This Way Children Are Fed and Girlfriends Kept Happy

  3. The Most Beautiful City in the Congo

  4. We Have a Winner

  II. Country: India

  5. Heretics in the Temple

  6. The Unyielding Indian Workforce

  7. Sex, Rain, and 100 Percent Cotton

  III. City: Mexico City

  8. Red Fighters, White Tequila, and Cruz Azul

  9. The Electric Shanghai Bob Margarita Acid Test

  IV. Calamity: Walt Disney World

  10. To Sneer or Not to Sneer?

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction: The Four Horsemen of My Apocalypse

  I thought Americans were supposed to be stupid about these things. Ignorant of foreign cultures. Disinterested in international affairs. This, I’ve always figured, was particularly true of Africa—Americans presumably have trouble distinguishing between the Kalahari, Sahara, and Luxor on Las Vegas Boulevard. Jay Leno hits the streets to prove what a bunch of insular jackasses we are, and even someone like me, who’s never once laughed at that condescending bit, has to admit he’s got a pretty deep reservoir of stars-and-stripes stupidity to trawl.

  Which is why it surprises me that when I begin e-mailing friends and family about my upcoming trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I receive in reply a storm of dire and frighteningly specific warnings. Americans, at least my Americans, appear to be quite impressively informed.

  From buddy Dave Malley: “The current Atlantic Monthly has a thing about a British biologist who died in the Congo after contracting an illness from monkey feces. Thought you might want to know.”

  From sister Amy: “You’re aware there’s a civil war going on there, right?”

  From Glasser in Japan, a man hardened to life’s inequities first as a foot soldier in Vietnam, then as a jewelry salesman in South Central Los Angeles: “The Congo, and you may quote me, is Hell. Only without the interesting people. Pay for a week at the nearest rifle club. Train on an M16 or AK-47. Takes a monkey about two days on either one to begin shooting like Clint Eastwood. Your M16 tends to jam up if you don’t keep it clean, but AK ammo weighs a ton, something to think about when you’re humping through a croc-infested swamp with your mortally wounded local guide slung over one shoulder. But don’t even think about bringing guns into the country. They’re cheaper at the Kinshasa 7-Elevens.”

  From cousin Michelle, intrepid sufferer of Peace Corps and invasive-parasite abuse: “Do you know about guinea worms? They bore into your skin, then burst and release larvae and infecting cyclops, better known as ‘water fleas.’ If the worm is wrapped around a tendon or so deep that it’s not possible to extract it surgically, you have to wait until ‘normal emergence’ occurs. This means waiting for the worm to burrow out on its own. When I was in Senegal I saw a woman with multiple worms in her leg, breast, and vagina.”

  From Dr. Bahr, a man I’d claim as my personal physician had I not personally witnessed his collegiate heyday. “In lieu of your latest effort to impress I don’t know exactly who with your carefree spirit of misadventure, I’m pasting some information from the State Department’s Web site: ‘The Department of State again warns U.S. citizens against travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Armed groups and demobilized Congolese troops in parts of the country, including Eastern Congo, are known to pillage, carjack, and steal vehicles, kill extra-judicially, rape, kidnap, and carry out military or paramilitary operations. Travelers are frequently detained and questioned by poorly disciplined security forces at numerous roadblocks throughout the country. Public Health concerns also pose a hazard to U.S. citizen travelers for outbreaks of deadly viruses and other diseases which can occur without warning and many times are not rapidly reported by local health authorities. During the months of August–October, lab confirmed cases of Ebola were found in the Luebo area of Kasai Occidental Province.’”

  Perhaps because he wastes more on-the-job Internet time than anyone who doesn’t have an addiction to fantasy football or two girls, one cup, my infamous Asia e
xpat buddy Shanghai Bob began slamming me with daily e-mail warnings featuring links to archived New York Times stories bearing headlines such as “Rape Epidemic Raises Trauma of Congo War” and “African Crucible: Cast as Witches, Then Cast Out.” The latter story dealt with a contagion of Congolese and Angolan children who were being persecuted as witches. One concerned father reportedly injected battery acid into his twelve-year-old son’s stomach in an effort to encourage the boy’s evil spirits to find a new home. Later, Bob would keep me informed of proceedings concerning a roundup of Congolese sorcerers accused of shrinking men’s penises with special curses.

  When I told him I couldn’t possibly keep up with his force-feeding regimen of Dark Continent fearmongering, Shanghai Bob wrote me a note that summed up, if in less urbane terms, the prevailing attitude of everyone from my mother to my dental hygienist. (Even the relentlessly chipper Tete from Togo exclaimed, “Africa, it’s all bribes!” while scraping my plaque.)

  “I’m not trying to scare you, fuck with you, or be a wiseass in any way,” Shanghai Bob declared, drawing upon his complete reservoir of personal empathy. “But I think you may want to be kept informed about these things as your trip nears. As Father O’Flaherty always counseled us, there’s no shame in pulling out, even at the last minute.”

  This is the problem with having a lot of educated, liberal friends. Every one of them has an encyclopedic knowledge of injustices and outrages around the world—Congo, East Timor, charter schools—and jump at any chance they get to tell you how bad everything is out there.

  More disconcertingly, my friends seemed to be right. Or at least consistent with expert opinion. A few weeks before going public with my plans for a Congo holiday, I’d sought the advice of a highly regarded BBC documentary filmmaker named Sam Kiley, himself on his way back to the Congo to shoot more footage in the North Kivu region, the place where that aforementioned civil war was raging.

  I had no interest in being an eyewitness to war, but North Kivu had caught my attention for its mountain gorillas and position at the center of Africa’s Great Lakes region. As a friend of a friend, I thought Kiley might be a good guy to tag along with for my first trip to Africa. He immediately rejected my plea to join his expedition, then did his best to discourage me from going it alone. From a twenty-minute phone conversation, here are a few of the more memorable moments:

  “Congo’s not the end of the world, but it’s bloody close. As deep bongo as it can be.”

  “You can get eaten in the Congo.”

  “You mean by animals?”

  “No, by humans. Try to stay off the menu, mate.”

  “You’re kidding, of course.”

  “No, I’m quite fakking serious.”

  “Congo is very advanced fakking horror. Think Marlon Brando in the final scene of Apocalypse Now and then take some acid and you’re close to it. I’m properly not kidding.”1

  “All Eastern Congo is a front line. A full-on war is going on.”

  “It’s not at all rare to come across eight- and ten- and twelve-year-old boys with AK-47s using someone else’s intestines to set up a roadblock.”

  I wanted to go to Africa because I didn’t want to go to Africa. And I didn’t want to go to Africa for many excellent reasons. Malaria. Cholera. Bilharzia. Yellow fever. Genocide. AIDS. War. Famine. Rebel attack. River blindness. Lions, hyenas, and other wild animals that occasionally maul and kill even dedicated pacifists. Eighteen hours in the coach cabin of an airplane. The aforementioned worms that nest in human sex organs. National dishes such as “foufou” that cousin Michelle reported on from her latest posting in western Africa as “gelatinous balls of yam or cassava with a thin sauce on top, often slimy okra.”

  All of which made me want to go. Not counting the eighteen hours.

  Allow me to explain. While I’m admittedly a person who cowers instinctively from tests of individual resolve, I am at the same time strangely attracted to them. Like walking a little too far out onto a ledge or agreeing to speak at Rotary Club luncheons (where my little act goes down about as well as a hair in your throat), I often do things that I absolutely know I shouldn’t. The Thompson coat of arms is, after all, a man being handed a beer while someone else twists his arm.

  But beyond being an admitted contrarian—and, yes, part of the reason I’d chosen the Congo was because almost no one else would—I believe there’s value in doing things the mind cautions against. Two episodes from my adolescent years come to mind. One winter, I agreed to play the part of the little drummer boy in a local Mormon Christmas pageant. (Juneau was small and apparently there were no Mormons in town who could keep 4/4 time.) Several years later, I took mushrooms with my reprobate friend Roger Sinclair and attended a midnight showing of An American Werewolf in London. Trusted advisers had counseled me against becoming involved with either mushrooms or Mormons, and upon making the decision to enter into both of these strange worlds, I was instantly consumed with anxiety and regret. Nevertheless, I plowed through both experiences, found one only slightly more bizarre than the other, and both, once the scarifying events were behind me, at least partially rewarding.

  Challenging one’s assumptions doesn’t necessarily mean refuting them. I became neither a Latter Day Saint nor addicted to psilocybin. Sometimes it’s just as valuable to reaffirm your belief system as it is to disprove it.

  The larger point is that one should never let one’s own moral compass go unchecked for long. The world changes too fast. The worst thing is to become stagnant. Comfort is the enemy of creativity. Or, if you prefer your searching personal philosophy from Saul Bellow (who will appear again shortly in the unexpected role of traveler’s aid in Africa), “Trouble, like physical pain, makes us actively aware that we are living.”

  We’ve done a lot to eliminate trouble and physical pain in this country. Like yours, my life is and largely has been too easy. I wouldn’t have said or believed this at twenty-five, an age at which I believed high school geometry, female rejection, mean bosses, Ronald Raygun, and the inexplicable hot-rotation popularity of Duran Duran counted as legit personal traumas. In retrospect, I see that I’ve had far too little to complain about. Aside from the fourteen thousand exposures to “New Moon on Monday” and “The Reflex.”

  We’ve become soft. Like Jell-O. You. Me. Everyone. America. Americans. Too fragile to breath in someone else’s cigarette smoke, ride a bike without a helmet, or play Texas hold ’em without a pair of wraparound sunglasses. We’re turning into a nation of fearful twats, obsessed with supposedly tragic childhoods, lousy parents, career disappointments, social outrages, political grudges, and long lists of personal grievances that until recently were collectively known as the human fucking condition.

  Our edges have been beaten away by trophies handed out just for showing up; schools that no longer make kids memorize multiplication tables; doctors who pass out brain meds like Skittles; and therapists who indulge the public’s every impulse to whine and wallow in self-obsession. The pussification of America, promoted by corporate empires with an interest in keeping the nation locked in a state of suspended me-me-me childhood, is especially insulting to anyone with a memory that stretches back to a time when comic books and superheroes were cultural mainstays only for those under twelve years old and our national leaders didn’t use words like “bad guys” to describe criminals, misfits, and every third unlikable foreigner.

  Years ago in the Philippines, I hired a small catamaran to take me a few miles offshore to Hundred Islands National Park. The first mate was the captain’s son. Eight years old. The kid ran around hauling jugs of fuel, dragging anchor chains, rigging fishing gear, and tying half hitches and bowlines like Vasco da Gama. I have no doubt that boy is running his own charter operation today; and that if his apprenticeship had taken place in the United States, social workers would have seized him from the abusive father before he’d had time to learn port from starboard.

  If I sound angry it’s because I’m no less culturally flabby than anyon
e else. My problem is that I can’t afford to be. For travel writers, maintaining an intrepid reputation is vital in the never-ending quest for more work, and my biggest professional secret is an ugly one: much of the world scares me. Or worries me. Or, at the very least, repels me for no better reason than the extreme physical and social discomfort I’m certain a visit will require. There aren’t supposed to be limits on “adventure travel,” but until now I’ve privately kept a list of not-for-me destinations where beyond disease, crime, filth, intestinal viruses, and the possibility of rectal bleeding, I’m equally turned off by prejudices against pushy locals, monstrously bad food, paralyzing constipation, and hotel beds with only one pillow (I require two, minimum).

  For several years I’ve been appearing periodically on a Canadian radio program hosted by an amiable iconoclast named Andrew Krystal. Like many others, Krystal reads my dispatches from places like Saipan and Kursk and assumes the best/worst of me. This has led him on occasion to introduce me to the “Krystal Nation” as “Indiana Jones’s long-lost son.” My limp protests to these pronouncements are meant to project an appealing, boyish humility—“Heh-heh, not really, Andy, but I’ll admit that brush with the locals in Pago Pago was a close one.” In fact, they mask the stuttering false modesty of a semifraud.

  International competence is the stock in trade I’ve sold to editors and publishers for years, but like anyone else I’m given to wondering how one does manage to traverse the Congo, one of the largest countries in Africa, when it barely has a functioning government or infrastructure? More worrisome than my own wherewithal is the competence of others. Don’t stories of airplanes crashing in remote jungles, tourist-laden buses plunging down ravines, and overloaded ferries sinking to the bottom of oceans come all too frequently from the more “exotic” parts of the world? Is it really wise to travel overland in places where car horns double as brake pedals?