Chapter 3

We continued until about noon. The cart only made three or four miles an hour where the road was in good condition, which wasn't always the case. There were a few places where it was so bad that we had to get out, and push the cart from the back while Ute encouraged the buffalo from the front. Thankfully those places were few, but less bad spots than that were frequent.

Around noon, Ute pulled the cart off the road, and under the shade provided by some tall trees and stopped.

"We stop here for a time. The buffalo are tired, and need to eat and drink," he told us as he got down from the cart and began unhitching the water buffalo.

"Can I help?" I asked him, as I got off the cart and moved toward the front of it. The buffaloes heads came up instantly, and they began to snort and paw the ground, as I neared them.

"Do not come closer!" Ute warned me in a rising voice.

"The buffalo do not like your foreign smell," Chanthra told me, as I returned to the rear of the cart. "Your diet is different from ours. You eat a lot more meat than we do, and less fruit and vegetables. The buffalo can smell the difference and do not like it," she finished with a smile.

"If you say so," I told her. I had of course noticed previously that water buffalo were sometimes uneasy when non-Thai westerners passed near them, but I had never seen such a strong reaction.

"Let's eat while we are stopped and then rest a little," Chanthra suggested. I removed my poncho from the side of the pack and placed it on the ground for us to sit on. Chanthra opened her bundle and removed the fruit and Kao sum. We had water from my canteen to drink.

Ute joined us after a time. The buffalo were munching on the grass on the other side of the road. Ute had his lunch of rice and some vegetables wrapped in banana leaves along with a spoon. We all ate before lying back to rest for a time. Chanthra lay very close to me, and I saw that Ute had noticed that, and also that I had touched her a number of times. He had gone pale the first time that he saw us touching, but seemed better about it now.

I was sure that the other two drifted off to sleep while we rested. I know that Chanthra had from her soft even breathing. I was too alert for trouble to do more than lay back and rest for a time. After an hour or so, Ute got up.

"I go get buffalo," he told me on seeing that I was awake, as he headed across the road to retrieve the buffalo and then hitch them to the cart again. I gently reached over and nudged Chanthra to wake her. She came awake with a start.

"What's wrong?" she asked in fright.

"It's time to get back on the road," I told her, as I stood, and then helped her up. I retrieved the poncho, shook it out, and re-rolled it in the back of the cart before returning it to its place on the pack.

We were soon back on the road in the afternoon heat, and traveled until reaching another small village, late that afternoon.

"This is Sap Sanun," Ute told us, as he turned off of the main road (if you could call it that) which we had been traveling on, and turned into the village.

"You can eat here and find a place to sleep at the Wat. I will be sleeping under the cart so I can watch the buffalo and to keep my rice from being stolen," he informed us.

"Could you not park the cart at the Wat?" Chanthra asked him on hearing this.

"It is a very small and poor Wat. They would expect a donation for staying there and parking the cart," he told us.

"I will give a gift to the Wat for you if you wish to stay there," I told him. He seemed quite surprised by this, but I was just protecting our ride. I didn't want him to leave in the morning without us.

"You are very generous, Champion," Ute told me, as he considered the offer. "I will accept if there is a place to safely leave my buffalo," he said after a time.

"Good!" Chanthra said, and followed that with, "let's find a restaurant and have our evening meal."

"An excellent idea," Ute seconded, and used the switch to hasten the tired buffalo to a little faster pace.

The restaurant that we found was very similar to the one in the first village. The food was also pretty much the same. Ute was interested in sampling my Sweet Chili Sauce when I got it out to put on my food. He was all smiles once he tried it, and he was also intrigued by the brightly printed label on the bottle.

"What does the paper say?" he asked Chanthra, as we ate our meal. She read the name of the maker and the name of the product and then also the ingredients that were printed on the label.

"That doesn't seem difficult to make," he remarked when she was finished.

"You have to have the correct amount of each ingredient as well as the right peppers for it to taste the same," she reminded him.

"Still, it shouldn't be that hard to make," he told her with a thoughtful look on his face. It wasn't quite as late today when we finished our meal and headed toward the Wat at the far end of the village, but Ute was correct. This Wat was both smaller and poorer than the one that we had stayed at last night. We were met by an elderly monk, as we approached the Wat.

"Pee (elder) is there a place for travelers to stay here?" Ute asked the monk.

"There is a small guest room, but it would not be sufficient for all three of you," the monk told us. "However, there is a Kuti room open, as one of our monks is on a pilgrimage to Korat at this time. One of you males could stay there."

"I would stay there if I could find a place to keep my buffalo and cart," Ute told him before adding, "These others will stay in the guest quarters."

"Are you all traveling together then?" the monk asked.

"I am on the way to Muak Lek, Pee, but these others are going further," Ute told the monk.

"I and my Champion are on the way to Korat, where I will be holding classes on the Amulets of Power for the women there, Reverend Monk," Chanthra told him. A few children had come out to look at us while we were talking. Actually, they had come to stare at me, as they had never seen anyone as large as I am before.

The old monk called one of the young boys, who could have been no more than seven or eight, over to speak to him.

"Can you watch this man's buffalo tonight?" he asked the child who smiled.

"Yes Pee. For sorng salung (two quarter Baht or one-half a Baht)," he told him. Ute looked outraged at this.

"That is acceptable," I told the child and the monk before Ute could say anything, and held up a small brass half Baht coin.

"I will pay you in the morning when I see that the buffalo are in good condition, have eaten plenty of grass, and have had a good drink of water," I told them. The boy looked up at me in shock. He had to tilt his head far back to see my face, as he wasn't more than three feet or so tall.

"Yes Pee!" the boy whispered in shock and fell silent.

"You may park the cart in the Wat," the old monk told Ute following that.

"Yes Pee! Thank you," Ute told the monk with a bow and a very respectful Wai. He then led the buffalo into the Wat and parked the cart where the monk indicated before unhitching the two buffalo.

The boy was there with a young girl, possibly his sister, and each of them took charge of one of the thousand pound water buffalo, and I saw one of the most amazing scenes anywhere in Southeast Asia, as the two of them led the two water buffalo off by a rope attached to the ring in each animal's nose. I had seen this scene repeated many times during my time here, and I never failed to be amazed at the difference in size between the small child being obediently followed by the huge water buffalo.

By this time the elderly monk had called over a novice, a boy of about ten years of age or so, to show us to the guest quarters and to show Ute to his room also. The guest quarters here were, if anything, a little smaller than the ones last night. It was still a little earlier than when we arrived last night, and we managed to get everything done tonight before it was totally dark.

Because of that, we had time to talk before turning in tonight. Chanthra had again washed the clothes that we had worn today. They weren't as sweat soaked as those yesterday, but we had still sweat just riding in the sun and the heat this afternoon.

"What will we do when we reach Muak Lek?" she asked, as we sat under the mosquito net with the lamp burning to provide light.

"We need to locate a faster means of transportation," I told her. "I'm not sure what that will entail."

"I'm not sure either. Perhaps a wagon pulled by horses instead of water buffalo," she observed.

"Yes, something like that, or something even faster," I told her.

"Faster!?" she asked.

"Don't they have coaches here?" I asked.

"I'm not sure, but the road isn't very good, and I don't know how a coach would do on it," she told me.

"There is that," I admitted before she blew out the lamp, placed it on the floor outside the mosquito net, and then moved closer to me.

"Will you hold me again tonight, my Champion? I felt much more secure when you held me last night," she cooed, as she moved into my arms.

"You can call me Mike instead of my Champion," I told her, as I wrapped my arms around her. She was soft and warm, but to my surprise I found that she was trembling.

"Are you all right?" I asked, surprised by this.

"I know that it is a silly childish thing, but I am afraid of the dark. At the Wat, we were taught that there is nothing to fear in the dark, and that our amulets would protect us, but many girls were still afraid at night," she said, as she hugged herself to me.

"Oh there are things that go bump in the night alright, but they aren't ghosts or spirits. They are thieves and robbers, rapists and murderers, as well as other disreputable people. Do not worry, I will keep you safe," I assured her, and leaned in to kiss her cheek. She turned her face just as I reached her, and I kissed her lips instead.

Chanthra hungrily returned my kiss, and when her lips parted, my tongue slipped in to her mouth. I tasted her for the first time then, and we continued for a long, long time. We finally had to come up for air. Chanthra was shaking badly, as she drew in deep breaths of air. She took in several more and had calmed down some before she spoke.

"We still cannot do anything!" she whispered, as she laid her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. It was well that she did for at that moment I was as hard as steel, and she would have been frightened by my size if she had seen or felt it.

"Yes, I know!" I assured her, but was anything but calm. This sweet girl had stirred me as few had in a long time. Don't get me wrong. I'm no saint and have had my share, and some would say more than my share, of sweet little brown sisters, or LBFMs (Little Brown Fuck Machines), but few had affected me the way that Chanthra had. They had been a night of pleasure and nothing more. I was now thinking of Chanthra in a much more permanent way than I had the others.

We lay there, and she cuddled up against me with her head on my shoulder, and my arm around her. We just enjoyed each other's company for a time, and eventually, we fell asleep.

We were again awakened before dawn by the sound of the bell in the bell tower calling the monks to a new day. Chanthra had turned onto her other side during the night and wasn't lying on my arm this morning. She awoke at the sound of the bell as I had.

"Oh dear! I'm all stiff this morning.," she complained as she sat up and stretched - pushing the mosquito net out away from that side of the platform.