Holidays, Hippies and Indiana Jones
Why the hell can’t people just go on holiday any more! Seriously, holidays used to be fun. You went away, sat by pool or on the beach drank a few cocktails, tried not to think about the mountain of inane emails that would be waiting for you when you got back… and hopefully you got laid too. Well that was the kind of holiday I liked anyway.
These days everything has to be a goddamn adventure, has to involve ‘white water this’ or ‘indigenous tribe that’. Or even worse ‘backpacking lodge this’ and ‘non flushing toilet that’! Why is it that people look down on you if you haven’t used 90 percent of your annual leave, sat in a mosquito infested hut, staving off malaria, hoping a some passing beast doesn’t make you it’s lunch!
The other week a mate from uni, was telling me about his experiences with leopards in the Indian jungle. He was in raptures as he explained that there were two kinds of leopards and you could tell the difference by counting their spots or something! What? Count their spots!! b*llocks more like! if I ever encounter a leopard (of any kind) on holiday, I’m only gonna do the one kind of running…. the fast kind!
Honestly it’s like you have to be bloody Indiana Jones to go anywhere these days. I’m almost embarrassed to say that I was considering a nice relaxing trip to a Greek Island, where I could happily get a tan and look at girls in bikinis. I may lie to people, and say I’m going Elk wrestling in Canada, then photoshop up some pictures of me in a lumberjack shirt, locked in battle with some big thing with antlers.
The worst thing is that even when I think about doing something a bit adventurous, apparently it’s not adventurous enough, and worse still I get accused of destroying local cultures! A year ago, a mate and I were planning a holiday, and decided we might give Vietnam a look… but not in some stinky hippie, mud hut, hostel. No way. Vietnam has some damn nice hotels and resorts these days, so we thought we’d give on of those a shot.
We decided to ask a mate who’d been to Vietnam a few years before, for advice. Imagine our shock when he reacted as if we’d just told him we were planning to carpet bomb Hanoi! Apparently tourists like us were ruining Vietnam, nay the world. And if we were going to go we should back pack like he did, and explore the spiritual side….
Not bloody likely, a holiday to me doesn’t involve trooping around like a pack mule, and the only spirits I’m interested in exploring, are served in a glass over ice. Not to mention the fact, that I’m sure the locals would rather have us stay for two weeks and spend some cash, than some hippie stay for two months, spent 10p a day, and generally stink up the place!
So what’s all this got to do with anything? Well if noticed that quite a few profiles mention travel. Both in what they’ve done, and what they’re looking for. Now see I’m worried, does that mean that as long as I have a few stamps in the passport I’m ok? Or does it mean that unless I’ve herded cattle on the Serengeti, I’m just an unenlightened oaf, fit for nothing more than mockery?
The other thing about a lot of people who do these worthy, adventurous holidays is…… well they’re plonklers. I swear to god they go on holiday, not for fun, but to impress their chino wearing mates. It’s like a game of one-up-man-ship. If you go to Vietnam, we’ll go to North Korea… If you go to Alaska, we’ll go to the Antarctic…. where does it end? “Well next year we’re backpacking to Baghdad” … “yes that’s nice but I’m going pony treking in an Afghan minefield”…. “Oh yeah, we’ll we’re going caravaning in the Sun’s corona… beat that”…. sheesh!
Well stuff it all, I’m not doing anything adventurous, I’m going to Miami.. Moijitos, air-con and drunk American girls all the way…. the most adventurous thing I’ll have to do is get through US customs, and I cant wait.
By Dan
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