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Trying to ignore the nasty threats issued by my sphincter muscle, I distracted myself by watching the every move of a tiny lady seated in the boat a few feet away from me. A lampshade hat kept her face from the sun, and she took out a wooden box, ritualistically removing several ingredients from its compartments -- a green leaf, a nut, some paste. She folded them up and stuffed the whole package into her mouth. I was mesmerized as her jaws mechanically downsized the bundle into a manageable wad.

She felt me watching, and after expertly projecting a quantity of blood-red spittle that shot six feet past the side of the boat, gestured that I ought to try some. I politely declined. I knew that betel nut chewing was a very respectable pastime among older Thai ladies, but I didn't feel I had quite come of age.

I was 26, and had a good case of Thailand on the Brain. Upon my arrival, the smog and the clamor of Bangkok could not blot out the sparkly phenomenal world that crooked its finger, beckoning me irrevocably inward. The jeweled Buddhas in the temples slurped me up into their ears, where I swore I heard the quotidian chants of the monks in their faded robes. I bought fruit from street merchants who kept tables in the shadows of gargantuan billboards that pictured ice-cold Coca-Colas pouring into thirsty Thai mouths, Ouzi-laden movie scenes of people getting blown to oblivion or the Marlboro Man riding off into an American sunset.

The merchants arranged their wares into the divine shapes of stupas -- dome-shaped Buddhist shrines -- and I felt slightly profane trying to delicately dislodge a mangosteen without sending Nirvana rolling to the dirt. Children dodged cars, radios blared and people smiled so provocative I felt myself falling blissfully backward from the force of them. The Bangkok air was scented with the fragrance of diesel and flower-bedecked shrines, and I became convinced that invisible Buddhas and dragons dwelt there and I, like the adored betel nut, was alternately chewed, savored and spat out by each.

By the time I had reached that apex in my journey where my bladder and I had become one, I had burned my taste buds off with a plate of green curry. (The proprietor had inquired whether I wanted it "White-Boy hot" or "Thai-Boy hot.") I had bought a lotus flower at the floating market and, as I bent to smell its fragrance, found it to be inhabited by a scorpion who menacingly brandished his stinger at me. When I almost blew my finger off with a firecracker I had bought at a street festival -- where the various gunpowder-filled concoctions had names like "Hen-Laying-Eggs" and "Bright-Minded Balls" -- I figured it was time to meander south.

The worst time to have to pee is when one is surrounded by water. The gentle lapping of waves against the side of a boat is like a radio ditty for a Palm Springs Resort: Relax! Enjoy life! Let go of your troubles, and anything else you are urgently holding on to! I did not relax. I double-crossed my legs, using about 12 different muscles in an effort to barricade my bladder. How I would later stand up and exit the boat was a bridge I would slosh across when the time came. I made a decision -- that if I had to choose between having the sensation of needing to take a pee for the rest of my life, or being dead, I'd rather be dead.

We were nearing the Phranang shore. The Thai lady in the hat took a tea kettle out of a basket and poured some tea into a glass. She held it out to me. That does it, I thought, shaking my head, and I stood up, managing to hold it in for a few more seconds while I asked a woman who had a German flag sewn to her backpack if she would keep an eye on my stuff. I didn't wait to hear her response before I dived into the sea, relief spreading through my body like a drug before I even hit the water.

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