Don't Tell Mum: Hair-raising Messages Home from Gap-year Travellers

by Hoggart, Simon

  A hundred rupees is only around £1.20, so it’s not so awful. But the experience might have been bearable were the food worth eating. After all, most of us can work through a grisly day if we know there will be some pleasant browsing and sluicing at the end. Not in Bangalore, it appears.

  A miracle did occur yesterday evening when we were actually given something else apart from rice, dal and chapatti, some noodle things and some potato stuff, because I think if I see another lentil in my life I might well vomit, or more likely turn into one.

  Others learn to cope with India. This is from a young man.

  Several things have changed since I arrived. I think I’ve lost about a stone, and I’ve learned to be a veggie. What else? I can sleep through all imaginable nightly disturbances and contort myself into a ball whenever I need a quick nap, sitting up in a public place. I am able to move between extremes of wealth and poverty without shock, and I can wind up a window when there is a child begging for money outside my taxi. I can fix a broken rickshaw, cross a deadly intersection, and keep from gasping when the driver hits the brakes to prevent us from hitting a cow. I am oblivious to the sound of car horns. When a street vendor takes my money and doesn’t give me change, I can yell until he does. The same goes for people who take my train or bus seat. I have learned how to squat over a hole and simultaneously puke on my feet. I now know how to eat with my hands just after I wiped my ass with them. I have learned that you can get bored with Indian food …

  Some people just can’t hack it. This poor lass found West Africa especially hard to cope with.

  Dear Mummy and Daddy,

  The streets of Cape Coast are littered by night with the bodies of children and entire families trying to sleep under the street lights with the background noise of bars and drunken brawls. I have never seen anything like it. Even at my hotel there are people sleeping on the steps because they have nowhere else to go. Bodies inhabit every edge of pavement. It is truly harrowing and terrible. Miss you all lots, sorry this is so depressing.

  Likewise, this is from Thailand.

  Having seen The Beach I thought Phuket was the place called ‘paradise’. However, when we docked, we were literally horrified. It is the most commercialized, touristy, noisy, smelly, busy, tacky place ever. The locals have surrendered their island to tourism, but I guess they have little choice. It is so depressing.

  Sometimes the most famous backpacker novel can paint a more beguiling picture than reality, sometimes not. Either way you have to admire the pluck shown by this girl and her friend.

  Two Swedish girls told us they knew of a hostel that was ‘basic but really cheap’, so feeling grateful for any help, we followed them to El Carretero, which is the rank below Hospadaje, which is the rank below Hostel. Basically it was exactly like The Beach, filled with weed-smoking wannabe Rastas and words of wisdom (e.g. ‘Dung Beetles Must Argue A Lot’) and skeletons scrawled on the walls. We were rather gleefully informed that the dark stains in the corner were blood. Determined to look like we were used to this kind of hardcore-shit-man, we smiled dazedly and signed in. We’ll see how it goes, Debs

  Crime is a constant nagging worry for gappers, and for those they have left behind. This email would not have brought much comfort to the writer’s parents.

  Well, I got mugged again, trying to get across eight lines of traffic from Cinelandia to the Modern Art Museum in the pouring rain. He did have a knife, but he wasn’t particularly threatening, and he let me open my wallet and give him the notes, rather than taking everything, which would have been a pain. It’s okay. I’m used to it now.

  Gappers can even laugh in the face of crime.

  Having defeated a bizarre, orange-outfitted local at a dance-off on the Vietnam clubbing scene and celebrated with a couple of kebabs, I got a moto taxi home where, having felt extremely smug with my curls blowing in the wind, when I opened my wallet to pay him he snitched 200,000 dong (the equivalent to what a teacher gets paid in a month) from my wallet. Although this seems a lot of money, it’s only 7 quid, so I found myself giggling at his boldness!

  Or maintain a stiff upper lip, as in this missive from Ecuador.

  We have also got to cheer up this English bloke we met on the Inca train, and who we met again today in Quito. We were moaning about bus journeys, but he had it much worse on his way to Ecuador from Peru. His bus got held up in the middle of the night. Apparently the bus stopped (nothing unusual about that) and a bloke got on with a police jumper on but also wearing a balaclava and holding a gun. At first he wasn’t sure if it was a passport check but that thought soon went when a couple more blokes with guns got on and started shouting ‘Money, money’ in Spanish. Then everyone was robbed of all their stuff at gunpoint … he didn’t have any money as he’d cunningly hidden it behind the curtain and the banditos didn’t believe he didn’t have any money so they made him drop his trousers and checked his pants. Luckily for Perry he had $25 in his pockets, so they just took that and his watch, although everyone later realized that there were three more bandits outside who emptied the luggage hold. He did have his travellers’ cheques, his passport, ticket home and his camera, which was under the seat, so it could have been slightly worse.

  It’s not just Europeans who meet perils. This message is from Shanghai.

  Getting back to the hostel, I thought it would be fun to try and assemble a new set of drinking buddies, so I got talking to the other lads in our room, an Aussie called Mel, he seemed pretty safe, and a cool Japanese ‘clubbing maniac’ called Norio. It turned out that a couple of nights ago a sly Chinese temptress had drugged poor Norio while he was in a club. ‘I am feeling very dizzy in my head, bitter tastes in my fruit drink, then I wake up in hotel, she take my phone, my money, everything. Be careful of Chinese women, they are very clever.’

  But some gappers can manage to find reasons to get depressed wherever they are in the world.

  Chile is so different to Peru. At first I loved the tackiness and the Western atmosphere. I couldn’t talk for about ten minutes when we discovered a McDonald’s, but after about three hours it all started to pall slightly. It was all so expensive and not even amazing ice cream could make up for the feeling of being in Birmingham.

  Even Australia can be disappointing. This young man is not unhappy so much as gently rueful.

  In all that time I had nurtured an idea of Sydney, where streets overflowed with bikini-clad women, surfers and yuppies, whose bronzed bodies reflected the sun’s golden rays. So when I found it was in fact wet, cold and overcast, I was pretty damn annoyed. ‘But at least there will still be beautiful people,’ I consoled myself. I took a right down into King’s Cross and any life that still existed in my idyll was smothered.

  For those that don’t already know, King’s Cross is Sydney’s red-light district and it is completely delightful. The beautiful people I had imagined were replaced by dirty, fat old men, pimps, the occasional crack whore, and some of the weirdest people I have ever seen. It was not uncommon to see one, two or even three tramps talking, or more commonly shouting, at an imaginary friend. One of them did a fantastic rendition of ‘Roxanne’, with the aid of a bottle of whisky and a busted microphone. He gave the song an individual and, I think, rather special touch.

  So the first four days passed by in a miserable, grey whirl of stifled conversations with boring and pretentious travellers, some as interesting as Newsnight Review, early nights, poor food and shopping. Apparently dirty cargo shorts and shrunken fake designer T-shirts are not as much in vogue in Oz as they are in Asia.

  Rescue comes, as it sometimes does, from family friends, who happen to have one of the most glamorous apartments in Sydney, and life takes a sudden turn for the better.

  If Australia might occasionally be a let-down, less advanced countries can cause something closer to real alarm, as this young woman discovered.

  I will not waste time talking shite, and will tell you some extremely useful and insightful facts about Venezuela:

  1
. the women like to wear tight tops. Even if they are fat.

  2. the Venezuelans appreciate little rat-sized dogs.

  3. there are no Venezuelan cats (to my knowledge).

  4. some taxi drivers enjoy watching (intently) a small portable television taped to their dashboard while driving petrified tourists through dangerous streets at night. This is not fun.

  By now you must feel like you’re here yourselves!

  One of the main problems faced by gappers is needing medical help in a foreign country. This traveller is in Thailand.

  I have spent today in hospital, as three of us have abscesses on our feet from getting 3cm of glass stuck. I kid you not when I say they just shoved the needle straight in, and then proceeded to pick out every grain of sand from the seven cuts. This is when I realized how hardcore everyone is here, as apparently people rarely complain. Errrr, whatever. It was, quite simply, the worst hour (yes, it took a whole hour) of my life. I seem to be saying that a lot, but don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love this place, bar the glass, and the police who have busted lots of my friends with various substances, the heartless / ruthless / satanic nurses – obviously the people who stole my other friends’ cameras, money, the losers who stole my clothes when I went for a swim in the early hours of this morning, and of course those pill-heads who I met one night, and one is now stalking me, but other than that, all is well.

  Drugs of a medical nature can also be a constant source of confusion.

  We are now west of Delhi. Anxiety very much rose during our trip to the desert, as of course risk of malaria and rabies was greater. Lucky – they were the two menaces I was least protected against, the rabies jab I didn’t have enough money for, and malaria tablets I had to skimp on by getting the cheapest ones. Rabies was not an issue in the end, because the dogs were moth-eaten specimens of filth with about as much charm as Gary Glitter. Rabies aside, I was reassured by the presence of malaria tablets in my bag – that is, until I read the usage guidelines. I do not know if anyone else is using Doxycycline but (and I promise you) there is no mention of malaria prevention on the box. It simply reads: ‘antibiotics for the fast and effective relief of gonorrhoea and other fungal-based STDs.’ Lesson learned – never skimp on necessities. I’m buggered. However, looking on the bright side, they might come in handy after a romantic evening …

  But things could be quite a lot worse, as this young woman discovered in Peru.

  Just a quick note that will hopefully act as a deterrent to anyone planning on getting ill, particularly if you are in South America. Went to the hospital yesterday, and following a physical examination by the doctor, which involved getting topless in front of two highly over-excited midgets who were repairing the wall of the surgery, I was then told I had to have an injection. All well and good. However, this part of the operation took place in a small shed overlooking the main road, and it is apparently against medical practice to close the door. I stood for five long minutes with half the human and animal population of Urubamba looking on, as a doctor filled the syringe, pulled my trousers down and leisurely injected about a gallon of fluid into my lily-white arse … hope this has put you off, lots of love, xxxx

  The Third World is not always kind to skin. Away from the soft rain of England and the moisturising creams of Estée Lauder it can quickly come to resemble a half-prepared building site.

  We have managed to discover a secluded beach on a very dodgy island. Some very nice Thai fishermen took us here. We are not convinced of their intentions, however, or indeed how likely malaria and dengue fever are. I’m not exaggerating when I say I look like I have acne and my body feels like I’m the victim of a very serious burns incident. I really hate bugs actually. Eurgh. Also I really hate the torrential rain that is hindering (to put it very mildly) our sleep. Secluded beaches aren’t quite as exciting as I thought. But they do have internet and no loos … bizarre.

  It must be terrifying when you, or one of your friends, find yourself in urgent need of a hospital in a Third World country. Especially when you have very little money. This young woman, travelling in India with two friends, spent a horrifying few days.

  On Friday M started getting ill again. She stayed in bed the whole of Saturday, just sleeping the whole day, wholly unconsciously. On Sunday morning she started being violently sick, even though she hadn’t been able to eat anything the day before. She couldn’t even keep water down, so we decided we needed a doctor …

  So begins an experience that might have brought a wry smile to the face of Franz Kafka. She goes to a phone box to call the insurance company, who ask her to fax them the policy, then runs back to the hotel which has undertaken to find a hospital, but the ‘moron’ manning reception claims to be too busy and disappears upstairs. After ninety minutes she finds a hospital which will send the bills direct to the insurance company, but she hasn’t got a taxi. They try to phone for one but nobody will send one, so she goes into the street to look, finds a cab, asks the driver to come in twenty minutes, somehow gets her friend downstairs to wait – and they wait, and wait, and wait. She walks to the taxi stand ten minutes away.

  I eventually get a taxi, it drives me back, we pick up M, after 10 minutes into the journey I realize I’ve forgotten her passport. We eventually get to the hospital 20 minutes later and they rush us into Emergency. They say they’ll admit her, but nothing about the insurance guarantee. I rush around the corner to use the phone to ring the insurance company, they say they’ll ring the hospital again, except the hotel I’m ringing from won’t give me a number for them to ring, and the receptionist won’t talk to the woman on the phone, so I ring back in 10 minutes, they say the hospital should be all prepared and I rush back to the hospital, find M in tears because her emergency kit doesn’t include the right needles … she is put on a drip, the bloke still wants us to pay, says he doesn’t know anything about this insurance guarantee. Anyway you can probably guess what’s coming, the idiot of a taxi driver had taken us to the wrong place. I run back to the phone to ring the insurance company who are still ringing the other hospital who are very confused about these white girls they’re supposed to be treating.

  It goes on, and gets worse. The hospital treats her for food poisoning even though her symptoms started before she ate anything. The ward is on the 8th floor, the lift is always full, the food is terrible and M’s drip keeps emptying so her friend is terrified that air will get into her veins. But miraculously she recovers, and after a few days’ bureaucracy she is released. After around 2,000 words of horror and near-death experiences, the email ends:

  Hope things are going okay at home. Oh yeah, I just sent 4.2 kg of saris home, guess how much it cost – £11 – and it’s going to take three months to arrive!

  Medical disasters can follow a gapper almost anywhere. Australia seems particularly dangerous, as this young man discovered.

  Right, feel free to laugh if you want (as everyone over here has). I have been in agony the last couple of days as some bloody thing decided to bite me on the ass. The bite has now become infected and hurts more than anything should. Sympathy is hard to come by when you’ve got such a comical injury, so laugh away if you want.

  Got to go now, as I’ve got to meet everyone else for them to carry on laughing at my injury.

  Some have much closer encounters with death, as this email from Peru reminds us. The girl and her friends go white-water rafting down a river that flows through a sacred valley.

  We were all kitted out in our wetsuits, waterproofs, helmets and life jackets, and had just started out on the river when our instructor started shouting instructions to us to turn the boat and back it up … I turned around to see the body of a young woman not much older than us floating in the water face-up, our instructor asked us to grab the body and attach it to the raft, of course the 6 of us on this boat were all in shock, as it was for all of us the first dead body we had ever seen, so dumbstruck, the only thing we could do was to keep paddling. Our instructor, Eduardo, tied the body
on to the boat and we had to paddle for 10 minutes till we reached a safe shore, those 10 minutes felt like an eternity, my paddle kept banging on to her body. We got her to the side and we all jumped out of the boat. No one could speak, the other 2 boats with the rest of the group hardly saw anything so were not so shaken up. We all stood in a circle and said a prayer for her.

  But, of course, even a brush with the Grim Reaper will not depress our travellers for long.

  We carried on rafting, and luckily all was not ruined, as champagne was brought to celebrate my birthday and we stayed in a lovely campsite with an excellent view of the mountains.

  Other birthdays are perhaps – with or without a corpse – not so festive. This young man celebrated his in China.

  First of all we found that Rhys’s bank card didn’t work and we had no money, but got our hotel to give us some. Then we went to a completely empty restaurant where my lavish birthday dinner cost 28 yuan (around £2) and Rhys had the shits, so didn’t eat anything or drink much. Then we went to a totally empty karaoke bar, where I sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to myself, and went to bed by 12. Wey-hey! Anyway, could have been worse, could have had the shits myself.

  Another young man came close to meeting his maker prematurely in China.

  We woke up to freezing weather and fucking rain. We had been preparing to do the really good mountain trail that day, so since we had nothing else to do, we climbed it anyway. The cable car was out of action, so we had to spend about 2 hours walking all the way to the top of the mountain just to reach the start of the trail. As we got higher, the weather conditions started to get really worrying, after a while we realized we were actually inside a rain cloud and our clothes were soaked through, then as we got higher the snow moved in, and an interesting survival element was added to the day. The path that we spent 2 hours climbing to get to is carved into the side of the mountain, and at times is about 4ft wide, with rock on one side, and death on the other.