It’s probably quite apparent that I love travelling; that
feeling of butterflies in your stomach when you arrive at a new destination
with wide eyes and a beaming smile ready to sink your teeth into a new time
zone, culture or even city, for me personally the feeling is incomparable,
Though
I must admit, sometimes the struggle of getting to the destination can be
somewhat of a hassle with surprises at every turn; for example just the other
week I was taking the boat, bus then train to Bangkok from Koh Phangan, firstly
the boat resembled something from ‘The Perfect Storm’ with people puking at
every wave, my bus then decided to break down in the middle of a highway
leaving us sitting in the dirt for 2 hours, and finally my train which left on
time ended up arriving in Bangkok 4 hours late…..typical ‘Thai Time’ where
nothing really runs to its precise time. That
journey though was something of a dream compared to past events.
Back in 2009 when I first began my travels I recall being on
a bus from Vientiane in Laos bound for Hanoi in Vietnam, this epic journey
ended up taking us 36 hours on a rickety bus along dirt roads through the
beautiful mountainous scenery of Laos.
About 20 hours in and after some questionable stops in urine
drenched ‘toilets’ (if they could be called that) we pulled over at a small
stall in front of a building, our driver exited the bus without saying a word
to the 30/40 or so travellers seated in his vehicle, about 45 minutes past when
everyone started getting impatient.
We’d
previously watched our driver walk into the building behind the stall and not
return, following this we saw numerous other cars coming and going, their
middle aged male drivers going inside and coming out after a short while;
though not only did we see these gentlemen we saw a large number of girls
exiting for a brief period having a smoke and walking back in……this wasn’t any
normal building behind a stall, this was a brothel in the middle of nowhere
where long distance drivers stopped to ‘relieve the stress’ of long haul
journeys, so there we all sat for about 1 and a half hours while Mr Bus Driver
got himself laid!
Though of course it’s not always the driver who prolongs the
journey, I’ve also seen all out brawls take place in the walkway of a bus due
to someone sitting in the incorrect seat, this occasion the gentleman who
instigated the brawl was swiftly ejected from the bus face first into the dirt
bloodied and bruised.
And of
course the most damning of all is when you completely fuck up your own journey
due to just the smallest of stupid decisions.
Early 2010 I was rounding off my 4 months in S.E Asia and
travelling from Koh Phangan to Singapore, to then catch a flight to the land
down under, it was an long journey consisting of a boat to the mainland, a bus
to the border of Malaysia, then changing buses to travel down to Kuala Lumpur
and then one last stretch to my final destination of Singapore where I’d rest
my head for the night…..sounds simple enough right?...Wrong.
Everything
started to go wrong once I’d got off the boat, firstly our minibus broke down
in the city of ‘Hat Yai’ a few hours from the Malaysian border, a back-up bus
then turned up 3 hours later to take us across to Malaysia, after dropping
myself and other frustrated backpackers off at the border we were then stranded
in no man’s land without a hope in hell of making it down to KL, a few us put
our heads together and pulled together some cash to pay ANOTHER minibus driver
to take us to KL…..it was at this point I made the wrong decision.
After
the journey from hell to the border which should only take around 5 hours,
which ended up taking about 12 I could safely say I had had enough and wanted
to knock myself out for the rest of the journey to KL, so I necked a couple of
Valium to doze off (Valium being an anti-anxiety drug and overall
relaxant….fantastic stuff!)
I
thought to myself that 2 10mg pills just wouldn’t cut the mustard so I decided
to dose myself up with another 3 just to ensure I’d be thoroughly in the land
of nod.
I came round from a long blissful sleep to the sound of the
driver talking through the speakers announcing;
“45 MINUTE, KUALA LUMPUR, 45 MINUTE”
My plan had worked! I had successfully knocked myself out
for that leg of the journey, without waking once, I smiled an accomplished
smile when I slowly came round to the realisation that I was sitting in
something damp……if you are reading this thinking I had pissed myself, then you
my friend would be wrong.
The
Valium apparently had worked better than I’d planned, not only was my mind in a
complete state relaxation but also every muscle in my body, ultimately making
me eject the entirety of my bowels into my £30 tailor made yoga pants from Hoi
An in Vietnam.
Coming round to the realisation that I had completely shit
myself at some point on the journey didn’t fill me with happiness I’m not going
to lie, but the worse realisation was the fact I still had to sit there for 45
minutes in a puddle of my own faeces……the one and only word which came to mind
was, shit!
So there I sat wallowing in my own self-pity and excrement
for the rest of the journey to KL, once we’d stopped I swiftly wrapped a spare
t-shirt around my waist to hide my shame and pelted for the toilet at the bus
station where I ditched my clothes and cleaned myself up with wet wipes, now
half ready for the next bus to Singapore.
I suppose the moral of the story is that; whilst travelling,
shit happens……oh and maybe also don’t take 50mg of Valium at once.
