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

by Hoggart, Simon

  Sometimes drink serves to blot out the more displeasing parts of the gap-year experience. This young woman is in India:

  Having slight problems roughing it; stayed in Banglampoo last weekend and spent the whole of Sunday at the Taj Hotel at their brunch – all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink – and lounging by the pool, not exactly budgeting, and then two days ago had a wax / hair / facial / manicure/pedicure thing at the hotel!!!!! But, come on, it’s not that bad, is it? Actually did feel slightly embarrassed when one little man was doing my feet, another my nails, another my hair. Slight low point when they commented that I really should get my arms waxed, and while we’re at it, what about that moustache, and then proceeded to ask if I had a boyfriend. I try not to read into those little comments. Valentine’s Day came and went extremely unmemorably due to cheap, rank vodka, and lack of any form of mixer, resulting in projectile vomit everywhere – silly, silly me. But I try to look at the plus side, and tell everyone that at least I had someone to prop my head out of the sick bowl, even if it was only pale Ginger Jim.

  Alcohol of course can land people in situations they would rather not be in. Take this girl, in Laos.

  Being the absolute lamo that I am I can’t seem to handle drugs and so have had a lot of self-consolidation, while my companions wander, actually probably fly, into Happy Land. Went tubing for the first time a couple of days ago, all great. You stop at these bars on the sides of the river and have ‘Beer Lao’, etc. etc., and then there are these swings which hurt your arms and are petrifying (yup, fell off mine very early in front of huge crowd and sympathetic half-smiles) and the ants that bite you, so you have little red marks all over your chafed, red-burnt skin, but anyway, we took ages getting down the river, having far too much fun, and it suddenly got really dark, so, all the others got out and got a tuk-tuk home, me and Chloe decided to grab on to these two kayaks and get rowed to the end. My rowers were Albion and Joe. Both with dreadlocks, tattoos, permaspliffs lodged in their mouths and bloodshot eyes. I thought, what an adventure! We soon lost Chloe and her men, so I was all alone with my new friends, in the pitch black, on a river, and suddenly flashes of light and rumbling thunder turned my adrenalin-crazed excitement to serious fear. Literally would have cried if I hadn’t been trying to be hardcore in front of Alby and Joe. (Can you believe he was really called Albion?) But, basically, huge thunderstorm, we ran aground millions of times, and got so stuck they nearly had to leave me behind. But I tricked them into thinking I was a vicar’s daughter and did he know what would happen to him at the pearly gates?

  Got home eventually, Chloe waiting for me, all was fine, next morning we woke up and did it all again.

  As the Communist Party loosens its grip on the new China, alcohol appears to be flowing in to take its place in the affections of the masses, as this young man records.

  Thursday night was Da Yun’s birthday, so he had a private party in the bar, and guess who got invited – yes, me and Baz. We had a wicked free supper (tasty grilled chicken and posh herby mashed potatoes, with two tiger prawns on top, yum) and they brought out the huge birthday cake and things started getting messy. I think it began with people playfully dabbing bits of cake on each other’s noses, then Laurent upped the stakes and squished about 1⁄4 of the cake into Da Yun’s face, pretty soon everyone there was spatting cake around and this escalated into beer being thrown, people getting drenched and after not too long everyone was just filling up jugs with water and properly soaking each other, everyone was so wet that clothes started coming off, mainly the ladies! Even I spent most of the night with no top on. Easily the best party I’ve ever been to. I’m going to go so far as to say it was the best day of my life so far.

  A few months later absolutely nothing has changed for our hero.

  Hi Jeff and dad! Thanx for all the birthday dosh, should keep me drunk for the next couple of weeks. Tonight me, Jen, and all the teachers are going to Jimmy’s bar for a meal, which Jimmy is putting on free of charge including loads of free beer. Then we’ll be going to the French bar to drink sangria until we pass out. Last night me and Sean built a beer bong, we bought a length of plastic tube and a funnel. The funnel is attached to the end of the tube, and basically you fill the thing with beer, hold your thumb over the end of the tube and the beer shoots out into your mouth. Drinking this way you can down a whole large bottle of beer in about 12 seconds. We got pretty drunk last night.

  Not everyone’s experience with booze is quite so agreeable. This young man was in Greece.

  My last night in Crete was easily the most eventful. I went down to the local shop to buy some souvenirs and see my friend Phil. There were two Americans there, also buying stuff, and we started chatting about this Cretan drink called raki. So Phil pulls out some for us and we start drinking this vodka-like drink, which is absolutely potent. Then he brings out apples, cheese, bread and carrots and we have a mini-dinner, extremely nice and enjoyable and the raki goes a long way, hee hee hee. So I finally head on back to the hotel around 8ish as I have an early start to catch the plane tomorrow – once again Americans were helping me by giving me a lift to the airport at 5 in the morning. When I get to the hotel another American, different one again, offers me a beer, so we start chatting and drinking, he’s buying me free beer, what am I supposed to do? Say no??? Then he mentions ouzo, and I’d never tried it, so we start having a few shots of that.

  The result is, perhaps, inevitable.

  Needless to say, next day I slept in, missed the wake-up call, had to run down the huge hill with my pack to catch a bus to the airport that would arrive too late anyway. Luckily a taxi came and he hit 160 mph to get me to the airport on time. I think I left my stomach in Chersonisos.

  But this was a mere inconvenience compared to the experience suffered by a young woman in Australia.

  Am now back at Sydney airport, wait, I’ll rewind. Went and stayed with my and Lizzie’s friend Sophie last night, got smashed beyond belief. Then have blackout till I wake at 6 a.m. this morning and realize I have missed my flight and there is sick all down me, and I have broken a rib, don’t ask how or why or what happened as I have no idea. Walk out of the house and get into a taxi, still wasted. The madness continued when I tried to argue my way on to the flight, it still wasn’t taking off for half an hour. When you’re drunk and have sick stains all over you and smell like a baby’s nappy it doesn’t help. They gave me the option of getting another flight tomorrow and only paying $70 or getting the next one out and paying $400. I get the expensive flight that leaves in a while. Then I stumble through the airport, having been chased for not paying the sodding departure tax and got milked of another $25. Asked if I was ‘all right’ and told to get a move on. Angry. Very angry.

  You will not be surprised to learn that things just get worse.

  Buy four bottles of water and get on the plane, very plush, turns out I’d just paid for bloody business class. People next to me, two wankerish Germans, start holding their noses and laughing at me, to my face, only a blind man would not have realized they were laughing at me, smelling of sick and the white stain on my jeans. I then pass out and wake up for the last 10 minutes of the Harry Potter movie. I love Harry Potter and now I know the ending. Arseholes.

  Am now at Sydney airport, trying to remember where I left the car. I think I will probably die, in which case I love you lots.

  But this young man suffers more than seems fair for one small, drunken escapade.

  Life here in Thailand took an unexpected turn 4 days before Christmas when I got into the festive spirit a little too early, and got a little too drunk, and thought it was a good idea to jump over the wall at the back of my house. I found myself with blood dripping down my arm at 3 in the morning, trapped in someone else’s backyard. I inexplicably knocked on the window leaving a massive smear of blood and understandably terrorising the neighbours. I summoned my last strength and hauled myself over the ten-foot wall and into the safety of my own house. Less than ten minutes later, we heard a kn
ock at the door, to my horror it was a complete platoon of policemen.

  He is hauled off to the police station, along with his two friends and housemates. He is then thrown into a cell with ten other prisoners.

  The next day came and went and I was starting to get extremely worried. When Jack visited the next day he told me that encroaching on someone’s property was considered a very serious offence in Thailand. Disorientated and disillusioned, I stumbled back to the foul, damp, gloomy cell that could be my home for Christmas and the New Year. The blankets were more hole than blanket, and the floor was splintering. In the corner was a communal loo. I hadn’t showered, and was beginning to smell and was desperate for a shit I couldn’t bear to take. I didn’t sleep too well that night.

  Next day five of us were cuffed together and taken to a much bigger cell with 30 other criminals, all wearing luminous uniform and with chains around their legs. I was eventually told that we had been taken to a courthouse and were to be sentenced, probably for 12 days, to stay either in the police station (I dreaded that thought) or pay bail of 50,000 baht, which meant telling my parents and asking them for £750. It didn’t look good on any front.

  He is duly sentenced to twelve days and goes back to the police station. His friends visit less and less often.

  Christmas Day came and I had only the visit from Jack and Rog to look forward to. It never came. Hour after hour dragged on and still nothing. Visiting hours were over and a herd of carol singers reinforced the devastation of the worst Christmas ever. That night I prayed and prayed. I’m no great believer in God, but that night I prayed as though my life depended on it.

  The prayers are answered. He is visited by a Briton called Arthur, a Christian who tells him that the victims of his trespass work for his wife.

  He asked, was I sorry for my actions? Tearfully I answered ‘yes’. He had brought me a KFC and I was overwhelmed by his generosity.

  That is a rare recorded instance of someone being relieved to be handed a box of the Colonel’s special secret recipe chicken. The fairy godfather tells our hero that bail will be £450, and since it’s a Bank Holiday in the UK, and his parents can’t get the money to him, offers to lend it.

  A couple of hours later they released me into the sunlight where Arthur and his wife took me home. It seems I won’t even get a criminal record, all because a stranger who had never met me, stepped in and did everything in his power to help. I am eternally grateful.

  Love, Romance and Just Plain Shagging

  For our gappers, love is almost always in the air. It might be with a fellow student, or with a dark-eyed stranger met in a jungle clearing, or it might involve someone living in a culture totally and exotically different from that of Petersfield or Solihull. There are two reasons why a traveller might wish to describe adventures in the glades of Eros: to boast to friends back home, and – just as important – to wind up unsuspecting and fearful parents. It is in the nature of such matters that one can never be quite sure what is going on: whether the events described actually took place, or are wildly exaggerated, or are simply imagined in the gapper’s mind as he or she sits on the beach, round the campfire, or passes a dull moment in the staff room. Take this email from Africa, which back in the Home Counties must have caused a few cups of Gold Blend to shake in their saucers.

  Hey, mum: met a chief of a neighbouring town on Thursday and so I started babbling away about new rough skirt and drastic haircut, etc. It suddenly dawned on me that he was a ‘talk only when spoken to’ kind of guy. So embarrassing. He’s actually really nice, thirty-five, seven wives, and apparently looking for an eighth … Hope all fab, love Jan.

  Surely this one is a wind-up.

  Dear Mummy and Daddy, how are you? This may come as a shock but I am thinking of eloping with one of my students to Assam coz he is from the Naga tribe, and I want to be a Naga girl and go hunting monkeys with bows and arrows and fishing with spears like they do, and then come back and do tribal dancing all night, coz it’s so much fun, and all the tribal people here are so great and brave and strong. Obviously the political situation in Assam isn’t ideal, but I’ll be OK, love you lots. Only an idea at the moment. X, Me

  With this one it is hard to be certain, but it does echo the theme of our book.

  Those of you who remember my obsession with Boyzone will be pleased to know that I have at last accepted that it was not in fact Love. Yes, there were fireworks, aching heart, longing, scary dreams, posters etc., but Wantoto is SO much more. He is so strong and macho and puts Ronan to shame. Also, he can do far cooler dancing around the fire. Have told him to come back and live with us in England. Not sure how Mum will deal with it – I know she will love him, though. Mike, you are absolutely NOT to tell her yet. I am going to call and discuss next week. Lots of love, Rose.

  Local customs can create confusion.

  Hi Mum, did our concert last night, the press and TV were there, even though it was rubbish! We played cricket for over an hour this morning, without a bat, ball or stumps. It’s really amazing! One Indian boy asked me to escort him and later asked for marriage. Didn’t realize that walking with someone and talking to them for more than a minute is the go-ahead! Must go, lots and lots of love, X

  And courting customs can vary from one continent to another. This is from South America.

  The girls I am working with all have internet buddies. One of them is called Fabrizio and has one of those rough rat’s tail things at the back of his head, and as if that wasn’t gross enough, he tried to get me to plait it for him, at which point I no longer had any understanding of the Spanish language and ran for the hills. He also plays piano and insisted on playing every Beatles song under the sun and singing at the same time. Well, I have tried to avoid using any Spanish words in here – always find that a bit gay.

  ‘Gay’, of course, being used in its new sense of ‘not good, embarrassing, misguided’.

  It has to be said that wistful regret is the principal tone of many romantic emails, combined with a wish to reassure anxious parents that nothing has transpired that might require expensive medical attention. The following email is also from Latin America.

  To all concerned: I should tell you of my recent loss – ‘fit Dan’ has parted from us for pastures Bolivian and I feel deserted and empty. Jo is doubtful of our connection. Just to clarify, over two weeks the ‘relationship’ proceeded as far as: a single conversation, a blown kiss after my birthday and a comment on my ‘funky’ trousers. But there was a whole load of bubbling eroticism and sparks, and now I don’t know how to cope …

  Some relationships do seem to have been doomed from the start. This is from a young woman working in Malawi.

  I am in love!!!! His name is Patrick, however unfortunately he has a girlfriend, and he flew to Australia yesterday. (He is also a little bit on the short side for me, but you can’t be that picky!!!)

  And there is a world of mild sadness in this message from Laos.

  Life is pretty swell, everyone we meet is doing the same trail as us, so we keep bumping into our fellow travellers at each new place, which is quite fun. Although it does make the long bus journeys ever so slightly embarrassing, when you end up sitting next to someone who has photos of you from the night before, table dancing in our bikinis, and playing ‘truth or dare’ – typical dare – ‘go up to that person in the red T-shirt and tell him you’ve been watching him all night and that you think it’s love, blah blah blah’. It invariably has negative consequences, as you (a) get stuck with them all night and miss everyone else’s dares, or (b) they laugh in your face and you go bright red – thanks for that, by the way, Mum, the redness – or (c) they say, ‘well that’s all very nice, but you’re not really my type,’ which is rubbish, coz it’s crap not being someone else’s type, however little you like them.

  This is from West Africa, where work for the poor of the developing world is interspersed with more pressing concerns.

  My exciting news in a nutshell. (1) On my birthday (w
ell remembered, some of you, and for those who didn’t, I thought that mentioning it in 3 emails would be enough), two people snogged and the girl was sick in mid-kiss, all over the guy. (2) Two girls are having a massive bitch fight over this other guy. Little do they know that he doesn’t like either of them. Petsy is fit, so I’m not sure why he is not keen, but Leah, her rival, is ever so slightly annoying. (3) Everybody keeps telling this Irish guy I really fancy him, which I don’t by the way, so now he blushes every time I talk to him, and I’m like ‘why?’ so now I don’t talk to him. Shame, cos he’s quite funny.

  This email from the beaches of Sydney was probably not meant for parental eyes.

  No action yet, but I’m working on it, problem is that there is rather a lot of hot crumpet around to compete with, and they can surf and I can’t, and they are skinny and I’m not.

  Even when they do get some ‘action’, it doesn’t seem to extend very far. Or at least the writers don’t admit it. This is from a young man just back from Greece, writing to a friend who is in Malaysia.

  Well, I got back from sunny Kos to wet Scotland. With a dyed blond mop! Mum was not impressed and I had to shave most of it off!! So now I have short blond hair and ginger eyebrows, and look like a poof. So there’s not much difference! Bagged myself two girls out in Kos, don’t actually know what they looked like, but we had some good tonsil tennis before parting ways.

  This leads him to some homespun philosophizing.

  Love is like an egg, it can be hard and difficult to overcome, or it can be soft and easily broken!!!

  Or, to extend the metaphor, never comes out of the shell. This student is doing a professional cookery course for her gap year.