I heart Drive Nacho Drive so very, very much.

This an excerpt from a recent adventure/post in which they unwittingly start an international rescue mission when the S.O.S. button is accidentally pushed on their GPS.



________________________________________________________________________________

When we passed the pineapple man on our way back he was chatting with a tiny dirty man with a backpack. The pineapple man waved at us and then said something to the tiny man and pointed our way. The tiny man grinned a big toothy grin and then trotted over and began walking with us.

“Mugugullubub boggily rai chap moo gulai!” the man said. I noticed that his eyes were a little glazed over.

I spoke clearly and slowly in hopes that it would help the man understand my language, which he clearly didn’t speak. “We do not speak Lao. We speak English. I do not understand what you are saying.”

“Grubai! Ha! Wulai buggarudai cruap gai!” No,language barrier would stand in this man’s way.

“I am sorry,” I continued, even more slowly than the first time, “I do not understand the words that are coming out of your mouth.”

“Ha! Willynu rug moo kwai bloo roomai!” He spoke quickly with grand gestures of hand and body as if retelling a very exciting story. He continued on for what seemed like ages, occasionally glancing my way for a reaction, to which I would respond with droopy eyebrows, or a smile, or with raised eyebrows depending on the reaction that I guessed his story warranted based on his facial expression. Occasionally I interrupted him mid-sentence.

“Sir!” I would interject, “I have no idea what you’re saying!”

The tiny man didn’t care. Whatever he was on prohibited him from realizing that the words coming out of my mouth were of a different language than the words coming from his, so he filled the minutes with nonstop jibber jabber. I decided the man just needed someone to talk to, so I joined the game.

“Kuan ton prai muglai ekkamai loo boo crap-”

“Wait a minute! Did you say airplane? I thought you might have said-”

“Doo da bai kumai-”

“Excuse me, but your airplane story reminded me of a story of my own. Do you know how these bamboo trees came to be here? Well let me tell you sir, and please make yourself comfortable, for my tale is a long one. The length of my story will indeed remind you of times in your life when you wished that things had gone differently. Like the time-”

“Gooba dai prai-”

“Tanning leather? Well why didn’t you just say so! The first step to tanning leather is to obtain a hide. Now this is the tricky part, for animals with suitable hides for tanning are often quite mean and hard to kill…”

The kilometers ticked by in this manner—him speaking in gibberish, and me interrupting him to tell my own meandering made up stories—until we reached the village of the children, at which time the tiny stoned man got distracted and stopped walking long enough for us to make our escape. A half an hour later he passed us by on the back of someone’s motor scooter. As he passed he tried finishing his story.