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together."
    "What?" I asked.
    "A surprise, but in the meantime, no worries."
    We continued down toward customs, where there was another little problem. I didn't have a visa to enter Thailand. [[strike out]]My father Josh took my passport and disappeared into a room with a couple customs officers and came back out ten minutes later.
    "We're in the clear," he said, hurrying through the airport toward the terminal, bypassing baggage claim.
    "What about your gear?"
    "We'll get it tomorrow. No worries."
    Outside we climbed into the back of a cab.
    "We're not going to Chiang Mai?"
    "Not yet. We'll get there eventually."
    It was well after midnight, but Bangkok was wide awake. The cabbie crazily swerved between bicycles, motorcycles, and cars for twenty minutes, finally coming to a stop in front of a hotel.
    Josh paid the driver and we walked into the lobby, where the concierge beamed at us.
    "Mr. Wood, I have your rooms all ready."
    He handed each of us a key.
    "Okay," Josh said as we got into the elevator, "I have some more errands to do tomorrow. In the morning I'll have a driver waiting for you in the lobby. Nine o'clock. He'll take you to the clinic for a physical."
    "Physical?"
    "Yeah ... Uh ... an immigration formality, and I want them to check your face and ear." He took my hands and looked at my damaged fingers. "We'll need to get those fixed, too. Anyway, I'll come by the clinic and pick you up when you're finished, and we'll be on our way. If I'm late, just wait for me there. Try to get some sleep. I don't want you to flunk the physical because you're tired."
     
     
    WHEN I WOKE UP I didn't even know what day it was. Couldn't remember if you lost a day or gained a day in Thailand. I ate breakfast, went for a walk, and got back to the hotel and waited for my driver.
    The clinic turned out to be a huge hospital and it took a while for me and the driver to find Dr. Woo's office. He was expecting me. In fact, it turned out I was the only patient he had that day.
    I'd had physicals before, but nothing like this. Dr. Woo and his nurse didn't speak English, so they had to pantomime me through the battery of tests. I was X-rayed, CAT-scanned, and jabbed with countless needles. They put me on treadmills and stationary bicycles with so many leads attached to my body and tubes jammed in my mouth, I wouldn't have been able to ask them what they were doing even if I spoke Thai. They must have drawn a quart of blood over the course of the day. They checked my eyes, ears, mouth, and other holes I don't even want to think about. They took the stitches out of my ear. Another doctor came in and looked at my feet, knees, shoulders, hips, elbows, wrists, and finally my fingers, which he put some salve on and bandaged, then gave me instructions on how to do it myself, which I barely understood. By the time they finished with me, it was late afternoon, and I was so exhausted I wanted to check myself into the hospital as a patient.
    The nurse led me to the waiting room and I promptly fell asleep on an uncomfortable chair. And that's where Josh woke me sometime after dark. Apparently, he had been there for a while talking to Dr. Woo because he had a thick file in his hand, which I assumed were Dr. Woo's findings.
    "Am I going to live?" I asked groggily.
    "No worries," Josh said. "I'm not surprised you're in such great shape with my and your mother's genes. Let's go; we have an airplane to catch."
    I was looking forward to Chiang Mai, where I could finally get some rest.
    His gear was waiting for him outside the airport, guarded by a porter the size of a sumo wrestler. He paid the porter, wheeled the cart to the counter, and said, "We're booked on the flight to Kathmandu."
    I wasn't sure I had heard him right.
    "Did you say Kathmandu?"
    "Right."
    "I thought we were going to Chiang Mai."
    "We will," he said as he transferred gear to the conveyor belt. "But we have a stop to make first."
    He must have bought the gear for someone in