Boomer Baggers Abroad
It was after midnight when our plane touched down and the airport was in chaos. “Taxi mister? You want taxi madam? Special price for you.” One driver waved a hand-lettered sign with our name on it at the arrival gate. On the internet, I had booked a few days lodging and a ride from the airport, confirming our choice of hotel in the backpacker’s bible, The Lonely Planet. We were staying just one block from the famous Khao San Road; the gathering place for young people beginning their Asian adventures.
A grinning driver waved a hand-lettered sign bearing our name. We got into the ancient cab and he began a narrative about the virtues of his beloved country, demonstrating why Thailand is called ”the land of smiles.” As we stared out the window, the city lights beckoned in the sultry smog.
4:00 a.m. It was impossible to sleep. The street below pulsated with a cacophony of sound. Stereo speakers blasted the electronic sonic booms of pirated CD’s. Akkha women, in traditional black garments decorated with beads and silver, hawked embroidered sashes and opium pipes. “You buy this mister? Good price Papa.” Down the alley past the used books stall, pamphleteers shoved leaflets at us, advertising nightclubs and Thai massage. In marked contrast, a few beggars sat silently on the broken pavement hoping for coins.
The air, itself, was redolent; the pungent odours of sweat, barbecued food and raw sewage assailed the nostrils. Multihued kiosks selling everything from tie-dyed hammocks to fake Rolex watches lined the street in front of a myriad of travel agencies advertising treks and cheap fares. Balloon sellers and backpackers milled about. The bars were filled with young people wearing Red Bull tank tops, drinking large bottles of Singha or Chang beer and conversing in a dozen different languages. The sense of excitement was palpable.
My two grown children had spent years traveling the globe. I envied them and determined upon my retirement from teaching this past June, to follow in their footsteps. I even dragged my wife along.
We were older and wiser than our backpacking children. We would make better, more informed choices. We were the precursors of a new generation of travelers. Born in 1944, we were in the first wave of the post-war population explosion. I call us the “Boomer Baggers.”
While sweat-stained youth could be found at all hours lugging two backpacks, the second in front like a baby’s snuggley, we toted ours as little as possible. We left them at hotel storage while we searched for accommodations or, whenever possible, arranged lodgings and transport in advance. We would do almost anything to avoid carrying the monsters that got heavier with souvenirs at every stop of our journey.
We wanted to live in small guesthouses but we could spend more than our younger counterparts, insisting at least on a private western toilet. Hot showers were also welcomed. We didn’t require air-conditioning but we wouldn’t disdain it. We would forego twelve-hour bus and train rides. Plane tickets were cheap within Thailand. Yes, we would emulate our children.... with some minor modifications.
Every day brought a new experience. We took a Thai cooking course and learned how to prepare a sumptuous seven-course feast … providing, of course, that we could find the exotic ingredients at home. We hired a colourful long-tail boat to take us down the khlongs (canals) of Bangkok and purchased gifts for our friends at the nearby Floating Market of Damnoen Saduak. On inexpensive tours to the countryside, we met a like-minded, multi-national community of travelers; the essential ingredient to any enriching journey. With our new companions, we rode on lumbering elephants, went bamboo rafting on the Mae Wong River and trekked up mountain paths in the north to visit the Hill Tribe villages near Chiang Mai. We whistled Colonel Bogie as we marched our way across the infamous bridge on the river Kwai. At the Golden Triangle, we took a small boat on the Mekong River entering Laos. There, on a dare, I joined a young man from London and bravely drank whisky from a bottle that held an inebriated dead cobra. We visited a thousand magnificent Wats (temples) that glinted golden in the bright sunlight and prayed to an abundance of benevolent buddhas.
From Thailand, we flew to Hanoi. Two peaceniks from the sixties arrived in ‘Nam, where communism seemed benign and Asia’s architecture and cuisine combined superbly with that of France accentuating the best of both worlds.
From the balcony of our elegant room in the old quarter, we ate warm baguettes, purchased from stoic women wearing conical hats and carrying upon their shoulders, bamboo poles with balanced wicker-baskets. On narrow streets, we learned how to wend our way slowly while a thousand motor scooters, bicycles, vans and cyclos (rickshaws) came at us.
We booked a three-day boat tour to the mystical limestone islands and caves of Halong Bay and feasted on fresh red snapper at a seaside café in a quaint fishing village on Catba Island.
Back in the city, we watched with wonder, the famous water puppets of Hoan Kien Lake and bargained nearby for treasures one-third the cost of those in Thailand. For the upcoming wedding of our son, my wife had a made-to-measure silk dress whipped up in twenty-four hours. We marched in formation past the preserved body of Ho Chi Minh in its glass sarcophagus. Revered Uncle Ho, who had won what the Vietnamese call, “The American War.”
For our final few weeks, we indulged ourselves on the beautiful island beaches of southern Thailand. Not the well-known tourist destinations of Phuket or Ko (Island) Phi Phi. We were now in the know. We could take the road less traveled.
Backpackers love to dole out valuable information to those they consider their peers and it is neither age nor nationality that determines this but philosophy and style. We felt privileged to have been accepted.
Whereas previously, we had adopted the Buddhist approach, following “the way of the middle path,” now, after five weeks on the road, we were ready for anything. We had learned to do without hot showers, air-conditioning, shelving or furniture. We still wanted private toilets but they didn’t have to flush. And as for sinks, who needs those? A bed with mosquito netting and a hammock swinging on the porch of a tiny bamboo-hut, was all we required.
A long-tail boat laden with goods and furniture, leaving from Hat Maenam on the more popular Ko Samui, brought us to the picture perfect paradise of Thong Nai Pan at the northern tip of Ko Pha-Ngan. There, we found our simple bamboo-hut, dined on fresh barracuda and crab and watched the Thai and Farangs (foreigners) play pick-up volleyball from the comfort of our rose coloured hammock.
On Ko Lanta in Krabi province, we reveled in the sun, silver sand and turquoise waters, ate Muslim food and drank Lassi’s (Yoghurt shakes) in the beachfront restaurant, shaded by the twisted branches of an ancient Evergreen.
We booked a Thai massage for our final day on Eden. An older couple, nearly our vintage, gently twisted our limbs into pretzels on a mattress placed on an open bamboo canopy facing the sea. Under a darkening sky, we sipped a last glass of Singha and feasted on Indian cuisine, while our masseur raked the dappled sand and his wife danced to the blood red sunset.
