Three Bored Yetis

Chitwan Jungle, Nepal 

The three of us sit in the dining room looking at our phones. We had finished eating. Dinner was a buffet. Our median age is thirty. The younger two scroll through Instagram; I scroll through Facebook. The dining room is empty so we quietly play a Queen Spotify station since we all watched Bohemian Rhapsody on the plane.

“Kat, you bring cards?”

“Like a deck of playing cards? Nah…”

Three hours prior, we were all doing different things. Chirag was walking by the river taking pictures when he’d spotted alligators sunning themselves on the bank. He made sure to maintain a healthy distance while he took photos with his iPhone 10, which was the newest model at the time. He’d forward these to us as a sort of pittance for his presence on what was supposed to be a girls trip.

Kat was wandering through the village looking for postcards and souvenirs to buy. With a local tea in one hand, her other was free to feel the trinkets, pick them up to inspect, and then set them back down again. She found a funny figurine of two rhinos copulating to buy for a friend as an inside joke. She didn’t find any postcards to her liking. 

I was on the phone with my boyfriend back home. He listened to my accounts of Nepal’s natural beauty, which was a real contrast to the garbage everywhere. He tried not to imagine the gag inducing smell of the bathrooms in the developing country which smelled faintly of sewage in most places. Thousands of miles away, we both pace their respective rooms. In Nepal, I pace the wooden floors in my socks. 

That was earlier. Now, Kat and Chirag, and I are seated around the dinner table.

“You guys wanna play that game where you name a celebrity and guess if they’re good in bed?”

“I’ll start; I love this game. Ed Sheeran.”

“Good. He’s probably really giving in bed since he’s not super attractive.”

None of us are ready for bed so Chirag orders a local beer, and we continue to listen to Spotify which helps us pick celebrities to judge. Later, Chirag will get up to get more rice pudding from the buffet, and I will step outside to call my boyfriend again. I’ll sit next to a tourist from mainland China who is smoking. I’ll be half tempted to ask for a cigarette but at my age I can’t risk the wrinkles. Cigarettes make me nostalgic for my youth. A dirty martini and a cigarette was my favorite meal in those days. I sit a little closer to the Chinese tourist to get a better whiff. But this is later. Meanwhile, the three of us sit around checking our phones. 

“Anybody have a pen and paper? We could play Pictionary.”

“We’re not that bored yet.”

“Nobody wants to share my beer?”

“Give me just a taste.”

Kat and I are friends. Kat is English and I’m American, but we met at orientation in Hong Kong for our jobs and became fast friends. We booked this trip together. I had told my boyfriend that he couldn’t come, but when Kat asked if she could bring a platonic male friend, Chirag, I extended an invitation to my boyfriend. It was too late for my boyfriend to take the time off work, but Chirag had already booked his tickets.  

“Those pictures came through.”

“They are beautiful. You’re really earning your place here.”

“I can’t believe you got that close to those alligators.”

“Me neither. They better get a lot of likes. More beer?”

The pictures did get a lot of likes. Mostly for myself, who gave Chirag no credit. Kat didn’t credit Chirag either. Chirag got the least amount of likes for his own photos. He took pictures of more than just alligators. There were pictures of rhinos and black bears; all the major jungle animals except the Bengal tiger. Guides who had worked in the jungle their entire careers were lucky enough to spot a Bengal once, maybe twice.

The pictures of Kathmandu got the most likes but it was our least favorite place. We only spent one full day there and that was enough. This gorgeous jungle has been our favorite so far.

Kat was the first to meet Chirag. She met him through a Meetup group for expats. They’d known each other almost a year. The friendship won’t last and Kat will later be mortified she invited him on what was supposed to be a girls vacation. Her friendship with Chirag began to unravel even before the trip. It won’t last even a second year. 

Ed Sheeran’s voice sings over Spotify. Chirag changes the channel. Chirag and Kat are surprised by the poverty in Nepal. I have seen worse.     

Our hotel doesn’t have heat. We were going to hike all day to it, but were rained out so we spent the same amount of time in the car driving to it instead because of the horrendous traffic. Kat and I also came down with fits of diarrhea so the car had to pull over often and fast. We are both feeling better, for now. I will have diarrhea for a week after leaving the country and will need antibiotics. Kat’s digestion will never be the same. 

“Remember when you were young and bored and you’d play that game MASH?”

“Right? I never thought to put down as options no husband, no kids, no house.”

“And a job that makes me enough money to travel.”

Chirag finishes his beer and is about to go back to his room to watch a football tournament. Kat turns off Spotify and puts on her beanie. Her finger joints ache from the cold.

We push back our chairs which echo a little so someone from the kitchen hears us and pops out to say goodnight. All of us are desperate for the heat of the blankets in our rooms. Chirag is in one room, Kat and I next door. I had double checked the sleeping arrangements. It’s just past 9pm but there is no sign of life anywhere in the courtyard of the hotel. Has everyone gone to sleep already? The outline of the Himalayas are lit by the stars.

“See you in the morning,” Chirag almost whispers. I echo his statement. Kat nods. Kat and I shut our door and talk about what we’ll do with the rest of their night as if we have options.