…The driver still has the joint in his hand!  He is holding it just below the edge of the window, so the cop can’t see it, but the smoke is curling up around his face, and the cab stinks like bong water in carpet.
‘I am going to prison’ I think to myself…

Hitching south from Chiang Mai.
I get a ride in one of the classic old-fashioned Thai trucks. 

Thai truck drivers like to decorate their vehicles with colourful painted designs, flags, lights, mirrors and stuff.  There aren’t too many on the road now, but the old trucks from the sixties and seventies are usually the most colourful, and there are still a few on the northern roads.  They are slow, and belch black smoke, but they look fantastic.

The one slowing down for me now is a beauty.  The side doors and bonnet are covered in psychadelic swirls.  The mirrors are hung with ribbons and tassles, and the steel barriers round the cargo bay are welded in floral patterns like an ornate bird cage.

With a squeel of worn out brakes, the lorrie judders to a standstill.  I jog up and open the cabin door.
‘OK, OK’ the driver calls out cheerfully, gesturing for me to climb in.
‘Where you going?’ I ask.
‘OK.  Going, going to Bangkok’ he says.
I clamber in, and we get under way.
There is a cloud of sweet smelling smoke in the cabin, which is coming from a massive joint in the driver’s hand.
‘Where you from?’ he asks me.
‘I’m Australian.’
‘Oh!  Aussie!  Good day mate!’
‘Yeah’ I say, ‘kangaroo. Jing Jo!’
‘You go to Bangkok?’
I nod.
‘OK mate!  Me too.  I go to Bangkok.  We go to Bangkok together.’
He laughs happily and hands me the joint.  I take a drag and cough.  This is some strong, skunky, sweet shit.  I laugh, and choke, and he laughs, and we laugh together, and he swerves sharply to avoid running over an old man on a bike with a restaurant on the back, and he laughs some more and I choke again.
‘Good?’ he asks me, grinning a gappy grin.
‘Yes.  Good.  Thank you’ I reply and hold the joint out to him.
‘OK, OK, I have more’ he says, gesturing for me to keep the spliff.
He pulls out a plastic bag, chock full of sticky green weed.  He grabs a piece of what looks like dried grass stalk out of his pocket and deftly unravels it, one handed.  A generous pinch of weed goes into the roll of dried grass, and when he releases his grip on it, the stalk springs back into a tightly curled tube.  He pokes the joint into his mouth, flicks his lighter, and sits back.

I am impressed.  I have never seen anyone roll a spliff while driving a truck before.
‘Is that grass?’ I ask him.
The pun doesn’t make it across the language barrier, but he understands the question.  He pulls another neat tube out of his pocket and hands it to me.
‘It river plant’ he informs me.
It’s like a perfect little springy cylinder.  A section of some kind of reed, or bullrush stem.  No rolling or licking required.  Neat.

A few kilometres and puffs later, my head is spinning, but my companion seems unaffected.
‘I drive to Bangkok every day’ he tells me.  ‘I have wife in Bangkok.’
‘Oh, right’ I smile.
‘Have wife in Chiang Mai too’ he grins.
‘Nice one, mate.’
‘Two wives, must work twice as hard’ he says ruefully.  ‘Have…’  He furrows his brow for a minute as if counting in his head.  ‘Have nine childrens’ he says proudly.
‘Wow’ I say. 
He nods happily and takes another drag on his joint.
‘What are you hauling?’ I ask.
He looks at me puzzled.
‘Um.  What is in the truck?’
‘Oh!  What in truck?’ he confirms.
‘Yes.  What are you hauling in the truck?’
‘Ha ha!  Yes!  What is in truck.’  He raises a finger to his lips.  ‘Sshhh!’   
He gives me a look with raised eyebrows, and takes a deep drag on the joint.
‘Sshhh.’

I am in a truck with a stoned driver, hauling a massive load of dope across Thailand, a country with a wicked reputation for persecuting druggies.  At this point I am aware that I should be alarmed, but I am fairly stoned also, so I feel OK. 
My feeling of calm evaporates five minutes later when I see the police road block ahead.

‘Oh.  Police‘ I manage to say, and flick the remainder of my joint out the window.
‘OK, OK’ the driver reassures me.
He slows down and approaches the road block.  My heart is pounding and I am sweating even more than I usually do in Thailand.
The cop is only stopping the odd car.  Maybe one in five.  Maybe he won’t stop us?  But he does.
The cop waves lazily at the driver, and the truck squeals to a standstill.  The driver still has the joint in his hand!  He is holding it just below the edge of the window, so the cop can’t see it, but the smoke is curling up around his face, and the cab stinks like bong water in carpet.

‘I am going to prison’, I think to myself.  The Bangkok Hilton.  Isn’t that what they call it?  I like free accommodation as much as the next hitchhiker, but not this. I’ll be eating rats, and sleeping on a concrete floor with mentally retarded Thai rapists as room mates, and maybe I’ll get out in ten or twenty years and write a book about how I endured the beatings and the rice porridge, but I won’t get the years back, and I’ll probably have nightmares for the rest of my life, and wake up in a cold sweat, with images of cockroaches and leering brown men in brown uniforms and moustaches cracking their knuckles, and I’ll be invited on chat shows with Schapelle Corby and…

The driver reaches in the glove box and pulls out a little baggy of weed.  He wraps it in a 1000 Baht note, and hands it to the cop.  The cop puts the baggy and the money in his pocket, and waves the driver on, nonchalantly.

As the trucks gears grind and we get under way again, the cop’s eyes meet mine and he gives me a tiny, barely perceptible smirk.  He probably never saw such a pale white boy before.

As we drive away, I let my breath out in a long whoosh.
‘OK, OK’ the driver consoles me. 
He pats my leg and hands me his joint.  I gratefully take a long drag.
‘You got girlfriend in Bangkok?’ he asks me.
‘What?  Er, pardon?’ I say.
‘You got girlfriend in Bangkok, mate?  My wife got lots of friends.’

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