Column:

Dude, I swear this is true

By Dan Friesen

Published Feb. 13, 2007

I've never been so insulted and hurt in my life. Last week, my editor, Jacob Stokes, affixed a note to my column claiming that my tales of travel and misadventure are fictional, and I am, in fact, still on campus.

He claimed that my stories were merely a part of a joke about the "study abroad" columnists in this paper. I am here to assure you that he is dead wrong. I don't know why he thinks I would make a joke about the very people who inspired me to take on this trip of discovery.

The reason I left in the first place was I felt that I lacked the perspective and worldliness I saw in our foreign correspondents. I sought to grow up, find the world and hopefully, find myself.

I have done just that and then some. I found myself, and I found a lifelong friend in Paramonga. We've learned to look out for each other, and the bonds have grown deep. We've faced bad music, religious persecution and the prospect of certain death together. This week, we faced something even we were not quite prepared for: sobriety.

As you'll recall, last week Paramonga and I stowed away on a freighter due for Japan after witnessing the grisly murder of the British backstabber "MH." Well, the trip from Bangkok to Japan is not a short one, and as castaways, we were not entitled to the booze this freighter probably didn't contain.

Paramonga's supply kept us drunk for the first day and a half or so. After the reserve went dry, we were forced to make frequent recon missions into the chef's quarters and the cafeteria after dark but found nothing but some cooking sherry, which Paramonga drank on day two at sea, leaving us with nothing.

After his buzz wore off that day, I was introduced to a new man, a sullen man, a weathered man. He seemed inconsolable, blathering on about how he had kids he'd left behind, and for what? To be sober in the belly of a ship headed for Japan?

It turns out not. You see, Paramonga's Thai must be a little rusty because the ship we were on was not due for Japan, but was in fact heading for Taiwan.

Neither of us cared where we were when we sullenly snuck off the ship that day. We had lost our wanderlust. We were broke, destitute on the mean Taiwan streets, biding our time until some Taiwan pimp would turn us out and make us his new man-whores.

Just as I was growing anxious that Paramonga's husky, blind ass wouldn't fetch much of a price, and that I might end up having to support him, I spotted a man who made me think that perhaps it wouldn't come to that. I saw a man who had what it took to get us home; a man who possessed the trusting nature of a child, the boundaries of a child and the hipster style of someone who uses their parents' credit card.

It was Bevis of the Travel Channel's "Five Takes" fame. It was definitely him. I could spot that walking gay-and-Asian stereotype a mile away.

I remembered a line from the Austin episode and decided to ask him about it. It was in reference to a boot shop in Austin: "This place is very Texas because they sell a lot of boot." I asked him to relive the experience of being in the shop while following me into the ally. He did so, and as soon as no one was watching, Paramonga introduced him to his fist. We then stole his credit card, which we used to purchase tickets home — Paramonga to Ouagadougou, me to Columbia.

I don't have space here to wax sentimental about the experience of leaving Paramonga, but I hope to do so someday, perhaps in a memoir. We said our goodbyes and took flight. I should be back in Columbia by Thursday. Stokes, I'm penciling you in for Friday.