The Backpacker

by John Harris

  Each night Dudley sat cross-legged on the bed, beating out a rhythm: boing, bing-boing, that he supposedly copied from the Tabla in A Day songbook that came free with the instrument. It had a picture of its author, Mr J. P. Singh, on the cover, sitting cross-legged with his instrument on his lap. Dudley was inspired, and had even been to a local tailor in Shimla and ordered a mundu.

  It was easy to imagine Dudley sitting on the floor of his university rooms dressed like an Indian, surrounded by his student friends, about to give a rendition. ‘This one’s, like, a northern Indian love song, man.’ He’d shift his position and begin: Boing, bing-boing. His friends would all be so stoned that the music would actually sound good, and they’d all be nodding to the rhythm, saying, ‘Like, far out, Dud man.’ My imagination went further and I saw him drop out of college to become the world’s first white man to be concert-class at tabla. A skinny, blond-haired figure squatting in the first row of the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Last Night of the Proms. ‘Land of hope and glorrr-ry... Boing!’

  Anyway, the point is that Dudley was moving forward and tried not to have any regrets about going home the following week, while I was apprehensive. But then he hadn’t split with his girlfriend like Zed and me, so I shouldn’t make such simplistic judgements really.

  ‘On the left.’ Zed’s voice boomed in the quiet street, snapping me out of the dream.

  ‘Upstairs?’

  He nodded, and the three of us went through the door and up the narrow wooden steps to the first floor bar. It was the same bar we’d been to on our first night in Shimla but had never managed to locate again. Not surprising considering how drunk we had been.

  We ordered some Kingfishers and, even though it was bitterly cold, sat outside on the balcony that overlooked the street. A low, brooding sky full of snow clouds drifted slowly over the rooftops.

  ‘The theatre’s just opposite.’ Dudley sat down and pointed to the building across from where we sat. ‘Like, it was right opposite the theatre after all! Shit, we must have been pissed.’

  The Gaiety Theatre was the only theatre in Shimla. A real theatre, I mean, not a cinema, and it stood out like a sore thumb. Its Doric columns and elegant two-storey façade made it look like a high street bank; the only thing missing was a hole-in-the-wall cash dispenser. We had often walked past it in the evening but had never been inside, and had no idea whether or not performances took place there.

  Zed silently poured out our beers and pushed the glasses across the table to us. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’ I shivered as the cold liquid went down my throat, crossing my arms tightly. It’s freezing,’ I juddered through chattering teeth. ‘Must be below zero, easy.’

  ‘Easy.’

  ‘Like, Himalayas,’ Dudley agreed, waving a hand through the air. ‘Bound to be cold.’

  We sat quietly for a moment watching the gentle flurry of people coming and going from the theatre opposite, before Zed broke the silence. ‘You’re quiet tonight John.’

  I shrugged. ‘Thinking.’

  He nodded. ‘About going home, right?’

  ‘Mmm,’ I picked up my beer. ‘And about that guy, Rick.’

  He ran a hand through his long hair. ‘Wonder what he’s doing now.’

  ‘That’s just what I was thinking, Zed.’ I hesitated, taking a sip of beer and said, ‘I might carry on. You know, go out to Thailand to meet him instead of going home immediately.’

  Zed seemed a little surprised and raised an eyebrow. ‘He might not even be there. You could have a wasted journey.’

  ‘Well I’ll know when I get to Delhi.’ Zed frowned so I continued, ‘Before he left we agreed that if he wasn’t staying in Thailand he’d send me a letter telling me that he’d gone home, or whatever, so that I wouldn’t go out there for nothing.’

  ‘How can he send you a letter, you don’t have an address?’

  ‘Poste Restante. There’s one in every town. We got the address from my girlfriend’s guidebook before she left.’

  He nodded, deep in thought.

  To tell the truth it hadn’t occurred to me before not to go home, but on the other hand I didn’t want to think about life in dreary old England either. I’d had such a good time over the past few weeks that the thought of going back to a ‘normal’ life made me feel depressed. If Zed could spot a change in me when I was only thinking about going home, then the act of actually going would make me even worse. Sitting on the balcony that night, I think, was the first time since leaving England that I realised how much happier and fulfilled I actually was. I wasn’t thinking about work or careers. I wasn’t even thinking about my fiancée, which was a bit worrying.

  I raised my glass. ‘Here’s to freedom.’

  Zed’s mood worsened over the last few days to the point where he seemed to be in a state of perpetual melancholy. Unable to face his flight back to England, he constantly lost his temper with Dudley, and vented his frustration further on the local tailors, haggling needlessly over clothes that were already at rock-bottom prices.

  I was still torn between going home to England on my pre-booked flight or continuing my travels. I’d agonised over the decision for days and felt like someone teetering on the edge, just waiting to be pushed one way or the other. I needed an excuse not to go back but the odds seemed to weigh up so evenly that I just couldn’t make up my mind which way to turn.

  The problem, however, was resolved when I went to check for mail at the Poste Restante and discovered that there was a postcard from Thailand waiting for me. It was compelling:

  Dear John,

  Beaches, girls, parties and much

  much more. It’s unbelievable! Fuck

  India! Get out here right away!!

  P.S. I’ll soon be a millionaire!!!

  And it was signed, Sir William George Garthrick Jenner of Thailand.

  Dudley explained that ‘Rick’ was probably an abbreviation of Garthrick, and when I checked the picture on the front and saw that it showed Hat Rin beach on the island of Koh Pha-Ngan, I agreed that it must have been sent by him.

  I double-checked the handwriting with the note he’d left me in Goa and it was confirmed: I would cancel my flight home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SIR RICK

  ONE

  Paddy-fields, paddy-fields and more bloody paddy-fields: that’s all I could see as I cleared the Bay of Bengal on the way to Bangkok. Flooded land that reflected the early evening sky beautifully; each waterlogged paddy a mirror separated from the next by a thin embankment, so that from the air it looked like one huge stained-glass window.

  When I touched down in Bangkok I pondered the difference between air and land travel. Having seen those paddy-fields from the air and expected a city of bamboo houses built along picturesque canals, I thought I’d stepped out of the airport into some kind of time warp. Concrete, concrete and more bloody concrete.

  After numerous cups of coffee and a packet of cigarettes in the tiny airport café, I plucked up the courage to venture out into the now dark, humid car park, and stood at the bus stop. I closed my eyes and imagined I was waiting for a canal-boat taxi to ferry me into town.

  ‘You going downtown, man?’

  I snapped my eyes open and turned around, for some reason shocked to hear English being spoken. A young man with a backpack and an acoustic guitar strapped on top was standing inches away from me. ‘Yeah,’ I said, stepping back.

  He turned around, gave an ear-splitting whistle, and then cupped both hands around his mouth to shout. ‘Hey, Sooze, over here! It’s this bus stop, babe!’

  A girl came jogging over, finishing in a little two-footed jump to land beside us. The man did one loud clap and turned back to me. ‘This here’s Suzy-Sue. Hey, you British?’

  ‘English,’ I said, wondering why Americans always refer to the nation and not the country, ‘yeah.’

  ‘There you go, Sooze, one o’ your lot. Told you we’d find someone who knew this place.’

  Knew
the place! I’d only just stepped off the plane and they thought I was someone they could trust! Before I could explain, he pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered them to me, along with his hand to shake: cigarettes first, then hand. ‘Dave,’ he said.

  ‘John,’ I took a cigarette. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Hey, John, what’s up? You look a leetle glum.’

  ‘Do I?’ I was genuinely surprised to hear it at first, but then remembered that I wasn’t waiting for a canal taxi. ‘Yeah, I suppose I do really. Just came from India and–’

  ‘India? Whoo-ee!’ He did a three-sixty degree spin and came to a stop, his cigarette poised in one hand, zippo in the other. He lit up and said, ‘India? That’s fuckin’ Wild West country over there. I had a friend once, went to India,’ he moved close to me, shaking his head, ‘never returned!’ He looked over his shoulder quickly as though about to spill a secret. ‘They found him two years later living in a fuckin’ cave! Living off snakes and rats and shit. Man, I tell ya,’ he lit the zippo and held it above his head like the Statue of Liberty, ‘count me outta that crap. Yes siree.’ Suzy was standing behind him making a clap-trap movement with her hand, indicating that he talked too much.

  The bus pulled up a few minutes later, sparing me from further lectures, and when we boarded it was so crowded that we were unable to sit near each other. Throughout the whole journey, however, I could still hear Dave’s American ‘whoops’ and ‘damns’ like he was riding a horse in a rodeo. Suzy seemed to have nodded off but he just kept talking all the same, going from one subject to another without any common thread to join them together, or any real point to what he was saying.

  ‘Hey, John!

  I flicked my head to him and his hand shot up as if I needed visual help to locate his position on an otherwise silent bus.

  ‘Where you headed? Suzy an’ me, we’re going to–’ he ducked down, apparently checking something, and after a second his head reappeared, ‘Khao San Road. How about yourself?’

  I checked a piece of paper I’d scribbled an address on and looked up. ‘Banglamphu.’

  Dave’s neck extended above the headrest in surprise before it shot back down to check the name I’d given him. A moment later he raised a hand, giving an OK sign.

  The bus journey took hours. What I’d taken to be a thirty-minute ride was turning into an epic, and after an hour and a half of traffic snarl-ups the bus broke down. It seemed like India all over again. For some reason the radiator cap on Bangkok buses is on the inside so when they overheat, as ours did, and the driver unscrewed it, Mount Vesuvius erupted sending a cloud of steam down the aisle. Panic-stricken, the entire occupants of the bus bolted for the door causing a bottleneck of frantic, writhing bodies that eventually spilled out onto the pavement.

  ‘Not a good start, huh?’ I said, sitting on my bag at the side of the road.

  Suzy put her bag down and sat on the kerb next to me. ‘What a night,’ she huffed, and offered me a stick of chewing gum. ‘What time is it, Dave?’

  Dave was dancing around the bus catching raindrops in his upturned palms and rubbing them into his face. He looked at his watch. ‘Midnight – BKT. Woo-hoo!’

  I frowned at Suzy. ‘BKT?’

  ‘Big Kok Time. Calls Bangkok the Big Kok,’ and added by way of an explanation, ‘He’s from New York.’

  I paused, unwrapping the gum, and said, ‘You two together?’

  ‘Um, not really, just happened to get talking on the plane that’s all. You’re alone, right?’

  ‘Yep, just me and my bag.’

  ‘Cool.’ She fiddled with the strap of her boots before continuing. ‘Not going to Khao San Road with the rest of the hoards then? What’s the name of that place you said earlier, Bang–?’

  ‘Banglamphu. I don’t know anything about it, just a tip-off.’

  ‘Don’t you have a guidebook?’

  I shook my head and smiled.

  After a two-hour wait in which we got drenched to the bone sitting at the roadside discussing our travel plans, Dave catching rain on his tongue, another bus finally pulled up and we boarded. ‘Listen John,’ Suzy whispered to me as I turned up the aisle towards the only empty seat, ‘I’m only staying here a couple of days and then heading south to the islands. We can go together.’

  I shrugged. ‘All right. We’re bound to bump into each other over the next few days, so I’ll speak to you then.’ I walked away and she went down to join Dave at the front of the bus.

  Had I known that Banglamphu was at one end of Khao San Road I wouldn’t have said that we would bump into each other. I wanted to see Bangkok and go south alone. So when the driver stopped the bus an hour later and said that we were at Khao San Road and Banglamphu, I pretended that I knew where I was and told him to go on. Dave and Suzy got off and I stayed, alighting at the following stop.

  The bus pulled away in a cloud of black smoke and I stood, taking in the scene around me for a minute, before slinging the bag over my shoulder and moving off to find a guest house. The rain that had soaked me earlier had turned into a light drizzle, not too much to make me wet through but steady enough to cool the tropical night. Everything was reflected in the puddles and glistening pavements: the shop windows, neon signs, even the car headlights that flashed intermittently in the pot holes like a giant blinking cat’s eyes.

  After walking the length of two streets and being turned away from at least a dozen guest houses, I began to feel exhausted. A wave of tiredness suddenly hit me along with the fear that I was going to have to spend a night walking the streets, so I decided to sit on a shop window sill to consider my next move. A growling noise caused me to jump up. The shabby looking dog didn’t like me sitting in his spot so I moved wearily on, turned the next corner and stopped.

  ‘Grrr!’

  I looked behind. Shit, it was following me. Slowly and calmly I walked on, afraid to look back, but whenever I did I noticed that the dog was still there, about ten paces behind me. Every time I stopped he stopped and bared his teeth menacingly, growling. When I crossed the road he crossed, every street I walked down he followed, and every time I stood still he did exactly the same thing, stopping ten paces behind and sneering. The dog was so fierce-looking that I didn’t even have the guts to shoo it away.

  I went into numerous guest houses, some of which I’d already tried, and every time I came out the dog was still there, waiting and growling. All of the accommodation was full, so eventually, to get away from the dog, I jumped into a tuk-tuk to the other end of the street; a 500-yard journey that the driver ripped me off fiercely for, but it was worth it just to be out of biting range.

  I was so tired by this time that I couldn’t be bothered to get my watch out of my bag to check the time, and had to ask a passerby. The traveller with tattooed arms told me to fuck off. I sank. Any more of this, I thought, and I’ll get on the next train south and give Bangkok a miss altogether. What had I done to him? I watched as he walked down the road to see if he had the excuse of being drunk, but he wasn’t. Perhaps he’d had a bad night and got ripped off in Patpong.

  Having run out of places to stay, and unable to stand any longer, I threw my bag down in a shop doorway and lay down, using my only jumper as a pillow. I think I must have blinked twice before the weight of my eyelids, too great to lift, pulled shut and I drifted off.

  I wasn’t sure if I had woken up or not. My head rolled from side to side and I jumped a lot – sleep jumps; the ones where you’re not quite asleep but you can’t wake up – and something was tugging at my foot. Again I rolled my head from side to side, my neck sticking to my shoulder with sweat, and opened my heavy, baggy eyes just as a sharp pain shot up my toes and into my foot. I quickly withdrew my leg and blinked the mist from my eyes before screaming. A tie-dye pig! My foot! I pulled both feet up to my buttocks but the pig came nearer, so I quickly stood up, going dizzy with the sudden draining of blood from my head.

  The pig snorted around for a second or two before a Westerner, also dressed i
n tie-dye, grabbed the piece of string that was tied around the animal’s neck and led it away like a pet dog.

  I crouched and put my head in my hands. ‘Oh God, this can’t be happening.’ My eyes felt like they were burning and I rubbed them hard before looking up to see whether I was dreaming or not. I wasn’t. There was a crowd of revellers on the opposite side of the road trying to feed a joint to the painted pig. It sniffed and then bit it in half, causing everyone to laugh and whoop, dancing crazily in a circle like Red Indians.

  Coming out of the shop doorway I looked up at the sky, the clouds just about discernible in the early morning light. As I turned to pick up my bag and jumper I noticed the posters in the window: brightly coloured pictures of tropical beaches; blue skies, blue seas, white sand and lush jungle backdrops of the deepest green. Koh Samui, read one, Phi Phi Island, another. Two bikini-clad models were lying on a gleaming white yacht in one poster, and underneath the operator of the travel agency had written, KOH PHA-NGAN DAILY BUS / TRAIN.

  My soul lifted like a rocket, my eyes cleared and I took a step back to focus on the door sign. Opening hours: 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. it read, and, for the first time since my fiancée had left, I took out my wristwatch to check the time.

  TWO

  After India, train travel in Thailand was a breeze: the train was clean, each person had a separate coffin-like box to sleep in with a curtain for privacy, the carriage was air conditioned, they served beer and, above all, they ran on time. My train south was due to leave at half past six and it did, to the minute. The only drawback was the price, which was ten times the cost of an equivalent journey in India. In fact I was rapidly learning that everything was ten times more than I’d been paying the day before.

  Although I wasn’t running out of money yet, the cost of the flight from Calcutta to Bangkok was an unexpected burden on my budget. I had expected to have to fly but, contrary to the advice I’d received from other travellers, there were no cheap flights to be had in Calcutta, and it had cost the same for that one-way, two-hour flight as a cheap return ticket from London to New York. The cost of that ticket alone could have kept me on the road in India, all food and lodging included, for two months at least.