the fifth story

Another story: Traveling with my mother in northern Thailand, we went on a five day walk. I honestly do not remember the purpose. What I do remember is that I had brand new, non-broken in hiking boots. I was young and stupid, and had not realized how bad an idea this was. In the first four hours, I developed a blister on my left heel with a diameter of almost two inches. This made it impossible to keep walking, not only in those boots, but in any shoes at all. I did the rest of the trip barefoot, which won me more young Thai friends than anything else I could have done as a 19 year old tourist. I got to play barefoot soccer at the top of a mountain (I was NOT the person who kicked the ball off the court, nor was I the person who managed to catch up to it, but I did go careening down the hill after it with the rest of the boys), and at the one point where I couldn't easily walk barefoot- there were very sharp burs on the path- I shared a pair of flipflops with a local young fellow. He would walk about 10 yards, clear a spot to stand on, and throw them to me, I would walk about 10 yards past him, clear a spot to stand on, and throw them back to him, etc. We had a grand time, and I was very happy to be free of boots in that weather, anyway.