Would YOU eat this?

The plump little man handed me a palm-sized, pan-fried tarantula, insisting it would “make strong with girlfriend.” I had no girlfriend with whom to make strong, but I was 21 years old and traveling through Cambodia, so I wasn’t about to turn down free, fried spider.

Most of it wasn’t bad. The legs and thorax were crispy and tasted like fried anything. Just oil and crunch. The big fat abdomen part on the other hand. That was disgusting. It’s full of mushy goo and tastes like a cross between rancid fish, old cat food, and stale body odor. I haven’t actually tasted any of those things, but I’ve smelled them, and I’m pretty comfortable with the accuracy of that discription.

I’ve heard Cambodia has become a staple stop on the South East Asia backpacker’s trail, with neon lights and televisions and fast food, but back in the spring of 2003 the country didn’t have much tourist infrastructure. I had just crossed the border from Vietnam, and caught a bus towards Phnom Penh.

The bus was shitty. Holes rusted through the floor allowed passengers to watch the ruddy, red clay of the unpaved highway stream past, and eclectic seating lent the vehicle a whimsical air. There were wooden benches bolted to the floor, upholstered school bus style seats with stuffing and springs sticking out from every corner, and molded plastic chairs attached to nothing that went tap dancing across the cabin with every bump and turn. It ran horribly and was obviously unsafe, which I enjoyed very much.

I googled ‘shitty bus’ and this was one of the first results. It’s shockingly accurate.

I mean, that’s the whole point of traveling right? To eat something fucked up while utilizing potentially deadly transport? That’s why I travel.

Other than myself and the dude who gifted me the tarantula, the mobile death trap was sparsely populated. Half a dozen Cambodian dudes hung out in the back, and a trio of Scandinavian girls bounced around in the front seats, all tanned with short skirts and tank tops and lots of giggling. I lingered in the bus’s midsection, watching them.

Perhaps it was the effects of the spider, or maybe it was just the fact that I was 21 and hadn’t gotten laid in months, but I wanted to make strong with them very badly. Between the heat, the sweat, and a raging erection that I could no longer control, I began to feel quite uncomfortable. Then the bus broke down. Fuck you, bus.

I looked around, and saw nothing. No tea stalls or restaurants, just rice paddies and occasional waving palms stretching off towards a pool table horizon. We were told it would be a few hours before another vehicle could arrive to collect us, and the local guys left the back of the bus to stand around outside and smoke. One of the girls had a portable radio, and she cranked up some Britney Spears. All three of them began dancing in the aisle, gyrating and bouncing and twitching tanned thighs beneath gently rocking hips, taunting me.

These aren’t the same girls, but I figure Scandinavian women are pretty much interchangeable.

The bus kept getting hotter and hotter, the girls kept sweating and shaking, and I desperately wanted to get off (double entendre!), but I couldn’t stand due to the softly vibrating hunk of engorged manhood jumping around between my legs. I felt as though I could’ve made strong with the entire female population of southeast Asia. In sequence. Unfortunately, at that point in my life I possessed little confidence in my dealings with the fairer sex, and was unable to muster even a simple ‘hello’. Which in retrospect is pretty damn pathetic.

Eventually the girls exited the bus, as it had reached an ambient temperature roughly equivalent to the daytime highs on mercury (798 degrees Fahrenheit, 426 Celsius. Fun fact: one day on mercury is 176 earth days!) and I was relieved to be spared of their gyrations.

Through meditation, and something closely resembling heat stroke, I was able to calm the raging mustang bucking twixt my loins. But as I prepared to leave the bus I glanced out the window. One of those little blonde minxes stood just outside, dropping her panties from beneath her skirt as she prepared to piss in a ditch. Panties. My nethers grew to an irreducible column of jutting stone.

They were like the ones on the lower left. Also: What’s up with this chart?

I needed off the bus before I broiled in my own juices. Using a move I learned in middle school, I reached into my pocket and used my hand to push the monster down, then I made my way off the bus with what I hoped was casual nonchalance. I probably looked like a registered sex offender trying not to attract attention while walking past a playground. In other words, gross.

I walked out into the rice paddies along one of the little land bridges that form their boundaries, and stood behind a lone palm, breathing deeply and trying to calm down. I remember watching myriad tiny frogs hop and swim about the murky water between the stalks of rice. I tried to focus on them, willing my awakened man-dragon into complacency. Because frogs aren’t very sexy.

“Maybe YOU’RE not sexy!”

Eventually I got a hold of myself. I made my way back to the bus, where I had a brief conversation with a one armed boy who arrived by bicycle. He was explaining how he had lost his arm (a heart wrenching story about his brother stepping on a mine left over from the Khmer Rouge days) when I looked over and saw Skirtsy McBlonderson twirling around in place for no fucking reason. The skirt billowed, and I briefly glimpsed the gentle curve of one supple buttock. My anatomy responded.

I felt demented and vile. I had to turn away from the boy on the bicycle and his tale of unfathomable loss. But how to do so gracefully?

“I gotta take a piss,” I stammered, and took off around the side of the bus. I stood out of sight, berating my lack of self control and mopping sweat from my forehead. Through will power and self abasement I regained my composure, then went back to finish the conversation, but the boy was gone.

I felt sick. How does one get a fucking hard on while listening to something like that? He was such a nice kid too – all smiles, very gracious and friendly. And I couldn’t even keep my wood in check while listening to what he had to say. Shame overwhelmed me, but the effects of the spider still lingered and when one of the girls poked her head around the corner of the bus to shout that a new vehicle was approaching, my artillery once more readied itself for battle.

Exactly like this.

That’s all it took. One short sentence and a smile. What kind of witchcraft is this? I thought, silently cursing the man who’d given me the arachnid. I returned my hand to my pocket and made my way onto the newly arrived van, where I sat very close to one of the Scandinavians. She ignored me, and I stared out the window, trying not to think about the small patch of exposed skin where her knee touched mine. I kept my backpack in my lap the whole time.

When we finally arrived in Phnom Penh, I checked into the first available guest house. I threw down my pack, turned off the light, reclined on the bed with my eyes closed, and made strong with myself. Very strong.

I’ve looked into it, and found no evidence of anyone else having such an intense reaction to these spiders. Maybe I’m just a pervert. Crap.