This is the second part in our series about Backpacker Stereotypes. Chances are you have seen some of them while backpacking Thailand, or as you read further may realise that you are one of them. Have fun and enjoy your holiday in Koh Phangan. Have a laugh and don't take life to seriously.
Doomed - Backpacker in Haad Rin, Koh Phangan, Thailand
Doomed
Doomed - Oh dear! Always a sad story to relate, and this backpacking-type has had her fair share! How she got herself into this state we'll never know! Usually found to be many months, even years, into her travels, and often encountered in cheap bar in South East Asia. The “Doomed” backpacking-type has run of thousands of pounds-worth of debt across three credit cards, has used up her parental “life-lines” and has somehow let her two-month tourist visa expire without renewing it. She has probably even mislaid her passport as well.
Put simply, she is DOOMED!
Doomed to be hounded by creditors if she returns home, and doomed to be hounded by immigration if she goes near an airport.
Her solution? Getting absolutely wasted on charitable donations and the remainder of her credit cards, working on the old adage that if you ignore a problem long enough it might just go away!
Look for: She'll be the one partying like it's 1999, buying drinks for everyone, then turning into a gibbering, depressed wreck at the bar at 3am when she sobers up enough to realize exactly how DOOMED she is!
Guidebook Backpackers Thailand
The Guidebook
The Guidebook - This guy sure as hell knows his stuff! Why seek advice from professional travel agencies and road-tested guidebooks when this backpacking type knows exactly what you want to be doing and how you should do it?
Anything you have done or planned to do; anywhere you have visited or about to travel to, The Guidebook will have been there, done that and got the T-Shirt. Not only that, he will obviously have done it better, cheaper and smarter than anyone else.
Of course, The Guidebook is a self-styled travel guru, at pains to ensure that everyone is aware he has been everywhere and knows more than the Lonely Planet. Consequently he boasts a superior, nonchalant and dismissive attitude to everything, and won't waste time in telling hapless fellow travelers that wherever they are going is rubbish and that they are about to make the biggest mistake of their travel moments before they depart.
Look For: A smug, opinionated and self-congratulatory air. Usually male, he is found at most backpacker destinations and is always on hand to dispense his words of wisdom, whether welcome or not. Face it, this backpacker knows more than you do… if you choose to believe it!
Hippy Backpacking type in Koh Phangan, Thailand
The Hippy
The Hippy - Can be either male or female, this backpacking-type is easily identified by the facial hair, dreadlocks and smell of BO. This backpacker drones on incessantly about how he/she achieved “spiritual enlightenment” in Asia (smoking opium with hill tribes) and how all the problems in the World could be resolved if only the good vibes and peaceful attitudes, like, engulfed the World in a wave of love, man!
Look for: This backpacker spends most of his/her time bumming around the Khao San Road barefoot or wearing mouldy and cheesy flip-flops and playing a badly tuned guitar. Will often interrupt conversations with rhetorical, philosophical and irrelevant Zen-like sayings guaranteed to irritate the hell out of everyone present.
The Couple - Backpackers Thailand, Koh Phangan
The Couple
The Couple - Ahhh, aren't they sweet? The Couple are testing the strength of their relationship by braving the South East Asian backpacker trail together, before living with each other in Australia for a year on a Working Holiday Visa.
They are a vital and ever-present part of the backpacking scene, although most travelers tend to avoid them. This is in part because no-one wants to be “the gooseberry”, but mainly because it is obvious that neither are up for a meaningless shag.
Look for: arguments or lovey-dovey behaviour. Listen out for comments from other travelers along the lines of “GET A ROOM!!!” or “HOW DID HE GET HER??!”
The Domesticated One Backpacker in Koh Phangan
The Domesticated One
The Domesticated One - From about 6pm, the communal kitchens of most youth hostels along the backpacking trail become a hive of activity as weary travelers unenthusiastically attempt to create something edible from the meager contents of their food bags and boxes. Some hastily prepare chicken noodles or cup-a-soup. Others try to make beans on toast more interesting by adding chili powder and cheese. Some poor fools try to make stale bread palatable by microwaving it.
Amongst all this confusion of gastronomic incompetence steps “The Domesticated One”.
Every evening she shamelessly and innocently sets about combining a symphony of sumptuous and appetizing ingredients, creating a mouthwatering and delicious meal before the disbelieving and incredulous eyes of a hungry group of fellow travelers: roast dinners, casseroles, delicate curries, lavish Italian specialties… even meals with vegetables!!
No-one needs reminding that their diet is atrocious while on the road, but to have a fellow traveler taunt them with such wonderful food feels like a betrayal!
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