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As I was writing my hastily constructed diatribe on Snowtown on the night of last months deadline, three things occurred to me. Firstly, the best writing you ever do is unlikely to coincide with the shortest amount of time you’ve ever given yourself to finish it. Secondly, writing about travelly type stuff is quite fun, and the Tribune has never really had a regular column on the subject. Thirdly, there are an increasing number of possums taking up residence on my balcony. It was then and there that I resolved to address at least 66.67% of those issues with the very next piece I penned for this beloved rag.

Therefore it is with some excitement that I launch into, what is basically another travel blog/program/guide. A monthly gloat about the cool places I have been to while you were probably at work. I am, however, unlikely to include a thinly veiled excuse to offer large breasted presenters in bikinis flouncing about pool. For this I apologise, and commend to you Channel Nine’s Getaway, or, if you haven’t eaten recently, Coxy’s Big Break.

As a first, albeit second, attempt at a regular column, I thought I would start with some housekeeping. That is, tackle a few of the broad high level issues that underpin travel in the wider sense. That way we’ll all be singing from the same hymn sheet and our thoughts will be synergised and bench-marked. Sorry, am writing this while attending a very long meeting at work.

So, yes, high level issues. I think it’s probably fair to say that of all the horrible things that may befall you whilst you’re away from your comfort zone (muggings, chronic dysentery, language barriers or Jetstar) none are as horrible as travellers themselves.

This foul creature has sprung recently from the ashes of that lovable, if slightly annoying bogan that was the backpacker. Once upon a time travelling was a euphemism for “fucking off to work a shit job in London and then getting pissed in Thailand for a few weeks on the way home”. Now however, airports seem to be full of smelly, tanned, lanky fuckers who scowl at anyone with the audacity to board a plane wearing shoes. Travelling overseas is no longer about looking at cool stuff you don’t have back home and getting pissed in bars made of sticks and mud. Noooo. Now travelling is a spiritual quest. You don’t go and see the Great Wall of China, or the Taj Mahal; you spend weeks on end pretending to ‘connect’ with the locals in a Godforsaken shit hole in Outer Mongolia, or Uzbekistan just so you can laud it over those who “wouldn’t understand what a beautiful people they are.”

Your modern traveller is an easy beast to spot. Always very deeply tanned/dirty from their latest “moving experience” shitting their brains out in Goa or Ran-dang-aflang-istan. The girls will wear Birkenstocksw, a big flowing multicoloured skirt and a crocheted woollen top over a bikini. The blokes will be wearing those strange sandal things that seem to cover more of their foot than actual shoes would, with long cargo pants if he’s in the tropics, or cargo shorts if it’s snowing outside. His top will a cross between a business shirt and a pirate shirt that looks like it hasn’t been washed since it was nicked from Ghandi himself. Both of them will have dreds, things on leather strings around their necks and weeks of dirt. Despite the fact that it was their uniform only a few years ago, they will give filthy stares at anyone wearing a Bintang singlet or with a Henna tattoo.

If you happen to be at a Youth Hostel somewhere and can’t see one, go and check the complementary Internet lounge. They’ll be the ones ignoring the 15 minute rule while they facebook everyone they’ve ever known, every day, until dawn. If your Youth Hostel doesn’t have free Internet, then there aren’t any travellers staying at your hostel.

So how does a ‘traveller’ differ from your old school tourist/backpacker? The main difference is they seem to want everyone else to think that they are actually part of the local culture or community. You’ll notice this when, as part of the nightly entertainment at the bar or hostel you lob into for the night, instead of being treated to Thai dancing or African drumming, you are subjected to a steady stream of the most Caucasian people imaginable swinging two fucking tennis balls on the end of a string while they hop from one foot to the other. Others will be serving you the drinks from the bar, all the while scowling at you like you’re some kind of foreigner.

Occasionally your traveller will find themselves out of their comfort zone and forced to share a long bus trip with a bunch of fellow tourists. It is here where you will hear them trying to convince a bunch of people who just want to sleep how the time they spent in India shitting themselves thin and washing their dreds in the Ganges is “the only really authentic travelling experience you can have”, and that they’ve been there four times and every time they travel they just have to start and finish their trip with a stay in India. You could be sharing a bus ride up through the middle of the Amazon basin with the cabin full of chickens, ducks, snakes and bare footed, toothless, local schoolkids, but if you haven’t been as crook as fuck in India, then you’re not really that much of a traveller are you?

Not that they’re content to leave their exotic illnesses in India. Rest assured that any prolonged contact with these insufferable twats will result in some sort of unanticipated third world medical adventure. Given hostels remain steadfast in their refusal to burn any of the linen or bedding that these creatures have been in contact with, you’ll often find yourself the host to the large family of the lice and bedbugs that used to reside in their filthy dreds. Not only that, they’ll happily wave their stinking, festering feet around the hostel distributing skin cells, dirt and whatever coral infection they picked up last time they were in ‘some secluded beach you’ve never heard of.’ And should you get all drunk one night and fail to not shag one. Well, then you’re proper fucked.

So here are some tips for dealing with this bane of all who walk the earth looking to find cool stuff to see and drink. If you get bailed up by one trying to bang on about their “amazing experience” try a bit of, “Yeah, but have you ever been to Bali? Kuta beach is unreal!” With any luck, they’ll grunt their utter contempt at you and float off. If you’re unlucky enough to sit next to one on a long haul flight, try to drop a bit of gravy from your in-flight meal on them. With a bit of luck their vegan arse will either dissolve, or they’ll be so incensed that they’ll skulk off to the back of the plane and try to sleep on the floor next to the shitter.

If all else fails and you get a loud one on your minibus to Machu Pitchu, try hitting them with logic, ask what such a culturally aware, off-the-beaten-track, genuine non-tourist traveller type is doing on a bus to a tourist mecca, isn’t their a mob of Japanese schoolkiddies somewhere they could be teaching English to?

Travelling to new and exotic lands is an incredible thing to do. So don’t let it be ruined by these smelly, hemp wearing nose looking down international gypsies.

Besides there’s really not that much difference between us. We’re all middle-class ignorant white folk, traipsing through ancient cultures being ripped off and scorned by the poor, long suffering local population.

 

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