![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dec. 13th, 2007
All on my own..
Dec. 13th, 2007 06:42 pmHave struck loose from the backpacker brigade , predictably (more on this later perhaps) and am now having extra day poking round upmarket end of Koh Samui, Bo Put, and have booked flight to Phuket tomorrow (50 quid!) : no more rickety buses, ferries and trucks for me, yay! Eco friendly tourism is all very well but may all be a bit real for 40 somethings :) Although am prepared to make an exception for Elephants.
So relying on You Lot for social contact for a few days. How goes Old Blighty? What news on Rialto etc? yes I know about Terry Pratchett - sad :(
Strange paradoxical thought of the day: you find out far more about a country NOT being a backpacker. Since they spend 80 percent of time getting drunk and 20 percent attempting to shag people of same race, colour and nationality, who in fact they could have (and probably did) meet at school. These important pursuits leave no time for fripperies like learning any local language, trying food other than cheese toasties, understanding what Buddhism is, etc. And the people I was with were not all 20 somethings - some were as old as 30, and one was preparing to do a PhD. Scarey. It's what I've observed before on trips like this: the herd mentality results in a race to the bottom. You start off with 12 reasonably intelligent students and professionals and one footie mad drunken welder, and by a week in everyone is drooling from one side of their mouth and imitating Bill and Ted. Whereas I get sarkier and sarkier. Why? Why can't I just be stupid and part of a group?
OTOH go slightly upmarket, contrary to all Rough Guide dictats, and you find expats (and expat newspapers) who will discourse happily on how much a taxi to Chaowung REALLY ought to cost, the fact that there are no plus size clothes to be had in Bangkok, the fact that electricity for a month costs c 14 pounds (good grief, when you think that that includes aircon) and the state of the upcoming Thai elections. All of which the 20 somethings entirely bypass in favour of complaining about the absence of VB beer. Sorry do I sound ever so slightly embittered? :)
I got most my local gen yesterday from talking to a retired English couple spending 3 months here - they were great - are daring the suicidal Asian traffic in own car to discover off the beat beaches and their son is responsible for introducing Tescos to Thailand. well, *I* was impressed :)
Was anyone here a gap year or post univesity backpacker? Did you learn anything from travel about culture, lifestyles, even food, or was it all booze and shagging? I'm of the Scottish generation for whom a gap year was a long time between school buses... the only backpacker I've ever known well was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
catabolism and I don't think she was quite typical!
Anyway I've just trie a different massage (foot and head, v nice though not as good as thethai one I had in bangkok) and am off to try the restaurant I sheltered in earlier I think. Bye!
So relying on You Lot for social contact for a few days. How goes Old Blighty? What news on Rialto etc? yes I know about Terry Pratchett - sad :(
Strange paradoxical thought of the day: you find out far more about a country NOT being a backpacker. Since they spend 80 percent of time getting drunk and 20 percent attempting to shag people of same race, colour and nationality, who in fact they could have (and probably did) meet at school. These important pursuits leave no time for fripperies like learning any local language, trying food other than cheese toasties, understanding what Buddhism is, etc. And the people I was with were not all 20 somethings - some were as old as 30, and one was preparing to do a PhD. Scarey. It's what I've observed before on trips like this: the herd mentality results in a race to the bottom. You start off with 12 reasonably intelligent students and professionals and one footie mad drunken welder, and by a week in everyone is drooling from one side of their mouth and imitating Bill and Ted. Whereas I get sarkier and sarkier. Why? Why can't I just be stupid and part of a group?
OTOH go slightly upmarket, contrary to all Rough Guide dictats, and you find expats (and expat newspapers) who will discourse happily on how much a taxi to Chaowung REALLY ought to cost, the fact that there are no plus size clothes to be had in Bangkok, the fact that electricity for a month costs c 14 pounds (good grief, when you think that that includes aircon) and the state of the upcoming Thai elections. All of which the 20 somethings entirely bypass in favour of complaining about the absence of VB beer. Sorry do I sound ever so slightly embittered? :)
I got most my local gen yesterday from talking to a retired English couple spending 3 months here - they were great - are daring the suicidal Asian traffic in own car to discover off the beat beaches and their son is responsible for introducing Tescos to Thailand. well, *I* was impressed :)
Was anyone here a gap year or post univesity backpacker? Did you learn anything from travel about culture, lifestyles, even food, or was it all booze and shagging? I'm of the Scottish generation for whom a gap year was a long time between school buses... the only backpacker I've ever known well was
catabolism and I don't think she was quite typical!Anyway I've just trie a different massage (foot and head, v nice though not as good as thethai one I had in bangkok) and am off to try the restaurant I sheltered in earlier I think. Bye!