Principles of Backpacking According to Kerry
I wrote this years ago on a trip from Nepal to Thailand (just a stopover to get visas) through Cambodia to Vietnam but it’s still relevant today and I use these principles even now I’ve become more of a holidaymaker than a backpacker!
REDUCED EXCTACY LEVELS
That wonderful happy feeling brought on by things we take for granted at home; in countries with less facilities this can be as simple as putting on clean underwear or getting a bucket of warm water to wash with, or that meal at the end of a tough day hiking that’s the same as every meal you’ve had that week but tastes better than any meal in an expensive restaurant, or finding a shop that sells yoghurt, or a beer that’s actually cold; or even a country that serves real coffee – OK so it’s served with sweetened condensed milk but what do you expect!
ALTERED EXPECTATIONS
And who says it shouldn’t be condensed anyway? Or that tea shouldn’t be served with 2 spoons of sugar and loads of milk already in it? And who’s to say a vegetarian burger shouldn’t be two pieces of toast with some fried cabbage and onion in between – with ketchup of course. And it’d be a bit silly to expect that if 6 of you go out for inner and order at the same time that you’ll get served together – especially not if you’ve ordered the same thing… soup after your apple pie.. why not?
CALM AND PATIENCE
This of course also relates back to the altered expectations; if you expect that buying a few travellers cheques will take an hour it’s easy enough to be patient if it takes 2 hours. The ability to switch off brain when your 15 hour bus ride turns into 28 hours is also very important in calm-and-patience management. Failing that, have a good book to hand at all times, even when it means your ratio of clothes to books weight in your pack is extremely unbalanced.
This “bonus time” also gives you the chance to compose the witty diary entry of the day, which would be great if you actually had it with you because then you might actually write in it instead of just standing there with a glazed expression. This is also one of the best times for people watching, nationality spotting, relationship guessing and generally making deep judgements on people based solely on their appearance – which is a bit silly as most travellers seem to “go native” as soon as they get off the plane!
APPEARANCE
This is very important when travelling. If you haven’t gone native then at least you have to look as scruffy as possible and wear a token gesture from each country – drawing the line at collie hats because they even look ridiculous on the natives. (Once I’ve been here for a couple of weeks I’ll probably discover that I desperately need to buy one but I’ll remember to leave it out of the photos!) Anyway, I think my sarong from Indonesia, my shirt from Thailand, my Cambodian scarf and my Nepalese thumb ring, toe ring, ankle chain and 6 chunky rings look great together … or maybe I’ll save the sarong for good and wear my Thai fisherman trousers. (A bargain at about $3 these are supposed to be one size fits all but I’ve taken them in about 3 times and they keep rowing). The great thing with the places I stay at is there are usually no mirrors – so of course I look fine!
BACKPACK POLICY
Buy something, chuck something out – this means you end up with only local clothes so by the time you get back to “civilisation” you have to skulk around feeling stupid till you manage to acquire some Western clothes again – you know when you see a girl wandering around London in a sarong and trying to pretend it’s a skirt when we all know they’re only skirts when you’re on holiday…? (Though, looking back, a few years after my trip the fisherman pants actually came into fashion!)
KEEPING THINGS “FOR GOOD”
This means if you only have two t-shirts you wear one all the time except when it needs a wash, and save the other one so you really feel like you’re dressing up when you go out. Anybody else looking at you may think it’s just another scruffy t-shirt but you know you’re smart!
WEIGHT
Then there’s the whole weight thing – why is it that boys lose weight while girls put it on? And I’ve just finished an 18 day hike! It’s not fair and I want it changed! Especially as a lot of the boys I’ve been travelling with have ordered 3 meals and then finished mine (this of course is the sole value of having girls as travel partners) and still complained of their clothes falling off them. Maybe those fisherman pants were a good idea after all…
TOO MANY TOURISTS SYNDROME
The bets feeling is travelling in a place which isn’t overrun with tourists. You get to feel intrepid and the locals haven’t yet turned into rip-off merchants – we blame this on the rich American and Japanese holidaymakers who don’t bargain so they think they can charge tourist prices all the time – we, the backpackers, are not guilty of that of course!
Which leads me to the distinct “hierarchy” of travellers in these countries…
“Holidaymaker” is a derogatory term directed at those poor people who only have two weeks holiday and are prepared to pay to fly to their destination and to take tours so they can fit in as much as possible. They can also afford beer every night and hotels with running water and of course we’re not jealous!
“Backpacker” refers to people like me who enjoy roughing it but only have a few months to fit in as much as possible while still trying to travel on a tight budget, meet the locals and try out all the local food (except insects, you have to draw the line somewhere) and generally get a feel for what each country is about.
In travelling terms the main difference between the holidaymakers and us is they want to get to the nice places as quickly as possible so they can relax and enjoy their limited time there; for backpackers it’s all about eh experience of getting there. If you have to take a bus, then a tuk tuk, then walk a bit then find a pick up truck an sit in the back being jolted around and covered with dust alongside 12 locals and a few chickens to travel 150km in 7 hours on the worst “road” you’ve ever seen, it’s much more rewarding than hopping onto a plane and getting off an hour later – if you’re into that kind of thing!
And then there’s the “You-should-have-been-here-15-years-ago” group, the ones who try to cross borders before they’re open by bribing officials or dressing up as Buddhist monks and who usually have a couple of narrow-misses-from-jail stories. This lot wouldn’t dream of taking a tourist bus or overnight train, it’s hitching or local buses only. These are the hardened travellers who look down on us regular backpackers for going to places listed in a guide book. (They’re often also the ones too stoned out of their minds to leave the place they got to 15 years ago which may not have been in the guide book then but is now right on route!)
Of course we would have liked to have been there fifteen hears ago too (apart from the fact that I was only 14) but we’re not quite that brave so we travel the relatively well worn routes and tell ourselves “I’m discovering it for the first time for myself” -which of course is the only important person to discover it for!
My theory overall is that if you view the whole thing as an experience every minute is good and it doesn’t matter if you end up having to spend the night sleeping on concrete floor in a bus station – you’re much more likely to meet the locals, you bring in reduced ecstasy levels by hooking up a mozzie net so you feel secure or a rolly mat for comfort, altered expectations means you don’t need a bed anyway, calm and patience gets you through any rough patches, you don’t care what you look like when you get up in the morning and you have a great story to tell at the end!
About the Author
Kerry Latchford has worked in marketing since finishing her studies and has a policy of taking time off to travel every 5 years or so. Having read “The 4 Hour Work Week” she now refers to these as mini retirements and has had one mini retirement travelling around Eastern and Southern Africa, one in Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos plus NZ, one diving in Australia, Egypt and Indonesia plus working in a hikers lodge in the Pyrenees and a shorter one in South America . Kerry is a keen backpacker, hiker, scuba diver and anything else that involves being outside.