Boo to the Backpackers

Pighead

Pighead would like to make it clear that hes no, stay at home, Ireland forever, old grumpyboots. I've travelled and by golly I've enjoyed my times on foreign isles, but give me hotels and swimming pools over tents and shark infested waters anyday.

Its the bloody stinking backpackers that get Pigheads goat. They head off on their travels and its all "Fcuking hell, can't believe i'm going away for a year, can't wait. Should be a mad laugh. I'll write every 2 weeks Pighead. Miss ya loads buddy"

They arrive back a year later with greasy long matted hair, beads on their ankles neckand wrist and a horrible dose of smug superiority. "Yeah man, you really have to take like a year out and go travelling around South East Asia. You can only truly find myself in Nam, Bodia or a Thai Island.

They then proceed to bore the absolute pants of me and everybody in the pub with their "amusing" anecdotes. Give me strength. If any of Pigheads kids ever go backpacking you can be damn sure I'll be putting a kilo of heroin inside one of their wooly jumpers. Let them explain that one to the Thai authorities.


Backpacking is basically the Show Offs holiday of choice. A chance to rack up a number of coutries in one go and brag about it when you return. Insufferable twats.

Anyway, anybody going anywhere nice this year?

Degsy

I hate backpackers.They think everybody wants to listen to stories about how they lived in filthy squalor in Sidney,got infested with fleas in Thailand and sat down at the side of some filthy road and scabbed a cup of tea off an old crone in India.They want people to think they've really doen something amazing,really saw the world for what it is an lived bythe seat of thier pants,when in reality they just followed the same trail everybody else did for the last forty years,just staying in smelly dormitories instead of hotels.Ther fact is that they're never in any real danger,these "outback wildernesses" have more bloody staff than eurodisney and the filthy mendicants can allways get Daddy to wire them some money if stuff goes wrong.

Unpossible

You can only truly find myself in Nam, Bodia or a Thai Island.

your friend wants you to find him in vietnam, cambodia or Thailand?

One of my friends in austrailia told me I should travel for a while, so I pointed out that I live in Finland and have seen a bunch of countries over the last few years (but you'll be happy to hear pighead that I never backpacked)

sonners

Could somebody also tell these people that:

a) the countries they have visited have been seen by millions of people before them and they subsequently are not the only ones to have done/seen these things.
b) said countries are not dissappearing off the map and I therefore do not need to quite my job IMMEDIATELY and go see them.

and most importantly:

c) If they were that great what the f*ck did you come home for??????

baztard

Yeah I'm doing the whole Australia, South East Asia tour in a few weeks. I'll make sure and PM you everywhere I go, let you know how I'm getting on you know, tell you a few anecdotal stories.

Unpossible

sonners wrote:

c) If they were that great what the f*ck did you come home for??????

to regal us with their stories?

baztard wrote:

I'll make sure and PM you everywhere I go, let you know how I'm getting on you know, tell you a few anecdotal stories.

We should all PM pighead to tell him of our travelling adventures

Pighead

Yeah you tell them sonners. They think they're all brave and masculine for travelling around the world with a bag on their back yet they don't even have the spine to defend their horrible hobby in this here thread. Backpackers are weak(and very stinky)

If Pighead were to pick 3 boardsies who have backpacked in their time I'd have to go with
Grimes
bluewolf
DeVore.
They all smell of backpacker to me.

biko

I'm an old backpacker. Loved every minute of it.
Didn't do any touristy stuff though, didn't go up Eiffel, or Ayers Rock. For me the travelling was about working where I was and making friends. Not so much about riding elephants or diving in the Red Sea, although I'm sure that would have been amazing.

Jonesy3110

Im going to Canada next month, I will make it my business to pm pighead.
My sister went to India like 2 years ago and now for everything I say she pipes up with "Well, when I was in India.. [Insert Boring Story]" It never ends.

Degsy

biko wrote:

Didn't do any touristy stuff though, didn't go up Eiffel, or Ayers Rock. For me the travelling was about working where I was and making friends.

Tyical backpacker self-delusion

Pighead

baztard wrote:

Yeah I'm doing the whole Australia, South East Asia tour in a few weeks. I'll make sure and PM you everywhere I go, let you know how I'm getting on you know, tell you a few anecdotal stories.

Don't do it baztard, you seem like a decent well adjusted chap. If you end up doing this Australia, SE Asia tour Pighead guarantees you will come back a cnut.

The_B_Man

are we distinguishin backpackers from ppl who go to Oz for a year or wherever? and get a job etc and what not?

either way, if someones been doing something that is quite a change fro mtheiur normal everyday life beforehand, i'd assume they'd talk about it. if u had more interestin backpacker mates, maybe their stories might not be so crap. i have a few mates that were nearly forcibly bumsecksed in some place while travelling, which i found quite interesting.

WindSock

I like travelling. I dislike many backpackers. They are of the same ilk as students. Looking for cheap watered down piss and going on as if they are exploring unknown territories yet they still stay in the security of their little groups and sit in hostels and watch tv. I did that whole thing myself blah blah, but I hate to be tarred with the same brush too, I avoided other Irish people like the plague, It was them I was getting away from. I probably sound pretentious but meh. I go away to see and do and meet different things and people.

sonners

The worst thing is most of them never actually LEAVE HOME. They meet up with Tom from down the road in Thailand, move in with so-and-so in Sydney, get a job from their uncles wifes third cousin. It sickens me.

I know of people who went the whole way to Sydney to live with TWELVE other people who had grown up within a 10 mile radius of eachother in Wexford. I've seen pictures of Paddy's day, Xmas day, etc taken in Sydney but they may alwell have been taken in the local pub at home coz every person in the photos is a yellowbelly.

I have great respect for the people who do actually go and dont look back, no crying to mammy coz your lonely or your broke. Its a big bad world but you chose to go so f*cking deal with it. Ironically its usually the ones who dont say much about their time away that have the best stories and truely had amazing experiences.

Pighead

Pighead wrote:

Yeah you tell them sonners. They think they're all brave and masculine for travelling around the world with a bag on their back yet they don't even have the spine to defend their horrible hobby in this here thread. Backpackers are weak(and very stinky)

If Pighead were to pick 3 boardsies who have backpacked in their time I'd have to go with
Grimes
bluewolf
DeVore.
They all smell of backpacker to me.

lol!
No thanks - I like my creature comforts

would love to travel more though

(and bluewolf isn't masculine =( )

super_furry

Boo to the business world!

Gotta agree with you Pighead. The worst thing is when they come back moaning their pampered arses off because Ireland's like, sooooo dull now man, and because they can't find a job again after leaving their last one on two weeks notice to go look at elephants.

Degsy

The stench of them...

http://www.lancasterbackpackers.co.uk/photos/2005_11_snowdonia/images/Backpackers%20-%20Snowdonia%2011-13th%20Nov%2005%20035.jpg

padi89

Pighead wrote:

They arrive back a year later with greasy long matted hair, beads on their ankles neckand wrist

The beads,oh for fvck sake , whats the story with the beads?????????:rolleyes:

daiixi

Pighead and Degsy need to make new, non-bragging friends. (p.s. if you're going to intentionally misspell "Sydney" it's "Sidonee" as pronounced when we won the Olympics)

00112984

My Niece: I'm thinking of going to Australia for a year once I graduate
Me: Why Australia?
Niece: There's a really great Irish community there.

Ehem- you live in Kerry; I'd imagine there's a fairly substantial Irish community there too!

Archeron

Hmm, I'm not sure if I qualify as a twat or not. I went on holiday IN a backpack, but only because I couldnt afford the boat fare. As soon as I got to the ever so exotic Isle of man, I jumped out, and set the owner on fire for being a smelly tree hugging git and proceeded to get very drunk in the nearest pub.

Man, you should really experience Douglas at this time of year, Ireland is so dull in comparison.........

And as for riding elephants,:eek: my God, have you no morals? I know they say when in Rome and all that, but there are limits to that type of thing. Although if you have dank matted hair and are more beads than flesh, i suppose its to be expected.

John Mason

oh, i loved my year of backpacking - yis are all misery guts, just sitting there feeling sorry for yourself. i would love to do it again but to be honest, i dont think the auld body would be up for that mcuh partying again, i feel knackered even thinking about

its great, you get to be sooooo selfish, do what you want the whole time and then you get bored or the people start to annoy you, you just stick out your thumb and hitch with the next lorry going to where ever damn, if i didnt have a mortgage, i would be gone

zuutroy

irishbird wrote:

i dont think the auld body would be up for that mcuh partying again, i feel knackered even thinking about

irishbird wrote:

if i didnt have a mortgage, i would be gone

Confused much?

John Mason

zuutroy wrote:

Confused much?

yeah, i started thinking about it how you can just up and move to a new town, new people and it made me feel trapped - am just on my way to trailfinders to hell with this country

DeadParrot

Worked in Canada for a few years until I HAD to go home, had a great job with EA sports but no visa to stay . Dont know if you'd call it backpacking I had a bag of clothes but managed to rent apts wherever I ended up working )
What was great about it was for months on end I didnt speak to one Irish person, Not many Irish in Churchill, Manitoba. I bused across america beofrer going home. First night in San Diego was like being in the Canaries. Fecking Irish everywhere. And dont get me started on the beads....

layke

I'm a soon to be Backpacker twat.

I'm doing Thailand/OZ/NZ and possibly Mexico starting Feb this year with the War Office. Unfortunately all of our mates have come back from their trips so it looks like we'll be going it alone.

I can't wait! Pighead, i'll catch you at a boards beer thingy some night and tell you all about it.

zuutroy

layke wrote:

I'm a soon to be Backpacker twat.

I'm doing Thailand/OZ/NZ and possibly Mexico

Do you mean that in a "Debbie DOES Dallas" way?

Pighead

irishbird wrote:

oh, i loved my year of backpacking - yis are all misery guts, just sitting there feeling sorry for yourself. i would love to do it again but to be honest, i dont think the auld body would be up for that mcuh partying again, i feel knackered even thinking about

its great, you get to be sooooo selfish, do what you want the whole time and then you get bored or the people start to annoy you, you just stick out your thumb and hitch with the next lorry going to where ever damn, if i didnt have a mortgage, i would be gone

Oh fantastic. So basicallywhat your saying is, backpacking makes you selfish and teaches you to run away when the going gets tough. Fantastic life training there.

The Hill Billy

My brother in law has been travelling around SE Asia since January. He's now arrived in Oz.

The only news of note that he has sent back was that he got chucked out of a cab in Sydney for farting too much.

This, he must think, is a sufficient smokescreen for the other interesting tidbits that he is holding back. Such as:

• How a Bangkok ladyboy (who had smeared his nipples with anaesthetic) robbed his kidney.
• The tortuous "internal" by the Vietnamese Drug Squad.
• Being hospitalised for 3 weeks in Laos with cholera.

Snickers Man

Pighead wrote:

Pighead would like to make it clear that hes no, stay at home, Ireland forever, old grumpyboots.

Yeah y'are.

If you're not that curmudgeonly old grump David Hanley who once wrote a famously cranky column about how terrible it was that so many noisy Spanish students used to come to Dublin in the summer then you're at least cut from the same begrudging cloth.

My backpacker days are long behind me but they were probably the best in my life.

I worked my way around Europe and the Middle East for a couple of years, no set itinerary, just up and leave when you hear a good report about a place or get a hankering to go somewhere, no responsibilities, no ties, no stress.

Maybe not the best life training, as some impertinent curmudgeon has said but that's the point. It's not "life" in all its humdrum, regimented, repetitive responsibility-laden drudge. It's being free to up sticks and head off where the sun is shinier or the grass is greener or things are just a little more exotic.

Of course you can do this when you're older and have a bit more money and you can stay in branded hotels that are the same the world over and fly in and out of airports that are exactly the same the world over but you don't get the same feel for travelling as you do overlanding in a truck or a ramshackle old train where you can actually see the terrain changing as you movefrom one region to the other.

You also probably won't get as much sex as a carefree young backpacker. Long hair, beard, smelly body and loads of road anecdotes---the girls just love it.

Some besuited twat with a trolley suitcase and a load of frequent flyer miles? Fugeddaboutit!!

Make the most of your youth while you still have it kids. Get on those backpacks and hit the road. Leave pighead to grumble about his mortgage payments and how his superior body hygiene counts for nothing at the end of the day.

ScumLord

What a bunch of misserable go nowhere buffers. :rolleyes:

You'll listen to my travel storeys and like it, We have to listen to your pat kenny and "scumbag spat on the bus storeys".

5starpool

I went away for a year, money only lasted 6 months so I came home. Might have been something to do with the fact that I made sure I rented apartments and stayed in decent accommodation for the most part in order to avoid the hippy stoners that you inevitably see in hostels and so on. The 3 weeks I was in Thailand involved a few 4 star hotels too as opposed to ant infested crapholes which I sadly got to experience also.

It beat the crap out of working, i'll tell you that. Also, beadwearers should be executed at dawn.

scojones

Pighead wrote:

Yeah you tell them sonners. They think they're all brave and masculine for travelling around the world with a bag on their back yet they don't even have the spine to defend their horrible hobby in this here thread. Backpackers are weak(and very stinky)

If Pighead were to pick 3 boardsies who have backpacked in their time I'd have to go with
Grimes
bluewolf
DeVore.
They all smell of backpacker to me.

There's a smell of want off of you Pighead.

Judt

Backpacking ain't the only way to travel when you're young, or old. I've seen plenty of the world without having done the whole backpacking "thing" at any stage.

It's an enjoyable piss-up for the kids, but you're right in that once they get back I don't really need to hear about it all day long.

Gaspode

daiixi wrote:

(p.s. if you're going to intentionally misspell "Sydney" it's "Sidonee" as pronounced when we won the Olympics)

You won the olympics?
I thought the United States won that with a goal late into extra time?

Anyway, I'm off to Cavan at the weekend to buy some pearls, ride some elephants (the women are really ugly up there), and find myself. Hopefully I'll find the rest of my family too, cant for the life of me remember where I put them. There will be a backpack in the boot of the car, so technically I will be backpacking.

Gaspode

Oops sorry, double post.

super_furry

ScumLord wrote:

What a bunch of misserable go nowhere buffers. :rolleyes:

You'll listen to my travel storeys and like it, We have to listen to your pat kenny and "scumbag spat on the bus storeys".

There's a difference between travelling and being a crusty backpacker.

L31mr0d

In my experience there are 2 types of backpackers. The ones who delude themselves into thinking they are on a journey of self discovery but, when the going gets really tough, would be on the next flight home to mommy and daddy and who will be rehashing their stories till kingdom come. They will follow the same routes as others, sleep in the same hostels and drink in the same bars and have pictures of themselves with the same lady boys. They delude themselves because they are basically on a package holiday for westerners where they can eat, sleep and live like a vagrant for a year.

Then theres the true backpackers, who dissapear for an unplanned amount of time, without the thought in their head that they'll ever come home. Who don't book themselves into the hippest hostels along the way, because they don't have a way. They never call home regardless of the situation, and are only seen or heard from again once they return, if ever.

My cousin did this on his own, he dissappeared for around 4 years into europe, with only a tin whistle for busking and a few changes of clothes. He has no photos of his trip, no diaries, no amazing stories of beach parties or hanging out with fellow irish people around the world. He will never end a sentence with "this one time on my backpacking holiday.." but by god is he the best person to have around a fire because when asked for a story he has ones that will move you through the full spectrum of emotions, notably his stories when he was in croatia during the war or his time spent sleeping on the streets of berlin.

True backpackers are people you don't envy but admire for their fortitude

Rabies

sonners wrote:

Could somebody also tell these people that:

a) the countries they have visited have been seen by millions of people before them and they subsequently are not the only ones to have done/seen these things.
b) said countries are not dissappearing off the map and I therefore do not need to quite my job IMMEDIATELY and go see them.

and most importantly:

c) If they were that great what the f*ck did you come home for??????

How are your mother's apron strings?

travelling is something most people do. You can do it the cheaply like a backpacker or spend a bit and use hotels. I have tried to mix the two. Enjoy a bit of comfort and still try to go easy on money.

sonners, the world is a big place. Very few people will get to see more than 15-20% of the world. I, like millions more, want to see as much as I can.

Some countries are amazing, but home will always be home. That is why we come back.

cornbb

Its seems to me a lot of backpackers are the sort who have never been west of the shannon, or up north, or in the bogs. I think its a bit hypocritical and short sighted to brag about seeing another tiny corner of the world when many have not ever explored any significant portion of this island. I don't get how it takes a trip to Australia to "discover" onesself.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

NutJob

jeeez You auditiong for a remake of "Grumpy old Men"

On a serious note though what is with the beeds.

sonners

Rabies wrote:

How are your mother's apron strings?

travelling is something most people do. You can do it the cheaply like a backpacker or spend a bit and use hotels. I have tried to mix the two. Enjoy a bit of comfort and still try to go easy on money.

sonners, the world is a big place. Very few people will get to see more than 15-20% of the world. I, like millions more, want to see as much as I can.

Some countries are amazing, but home will always be home. That is why we come back.

I would'nt have a clue how my mothers apron strings are...I left home at 18 and never looked back.

I have no problem with people travelling the world and 'finding themselves'. The ones I have a problem with are the ones who go the Thailand/Oz/NZ route coz all their friends are doing it. They dont think about where THEY want to go, they just follow the crowd. Then they come straight home after a year and go straight back into the same job they had while they were at school and spend the next 5 years talking about their little trip.

As I've already said, I have alot of respect for people who go out and take chances and dont come crying to mammy as soon as things get tough. Again, its the ones who dont feel the need to tell every second person their tall tales that really have experienced something.

RuggieBear

L31mr0d wrote:

In my experience there are 2 types of backpackers. The ones who delude themselves into thinking they are on a journey of self discovery but, when the going gets really tough, would be on the next flight home to mommy and daddy and who will be rehashing their stories till kingdom come. They will follow the same routes as others, sleep in the same hostels and drink in the same bars and have pictures of themselves with the same lady boys. They delude themselves because they are basically on a package holiday for westerners where they can eat, sleep and live like a vagrant for a year.

Then theres the true backpackers, who dissapear for an unplanned amount of time, without the thought in their head that they'll ever come home. Who don't book themselves into the hippest hostels along the way, because they don't have a way. They never call home regardless of the situation, and are only seen or heard from again once they return, if ever.

My cousin did this on his own, he dissappeared for around 4 years into europe, with only a tin whistle for busking and a few changes of clothes. He has no photos of his trip, no diaries, no amazing stories of beach parties or hanging out with fellow irish people around the world. He will never end a sentence with "this one time on my backpacking holiday.." but by god is he the best person to have around a fire because when asked for a story he has ones that will move you through the full spectrum of emotions, notably his stories when he was in croatia during the war or his time spent sleeping on the streets of berlin.

True backpackers are people you don't envy but admire for their fortitude

so he ****ed off to europe to be a homeless person....

L31mr0d

RuggieBear wrote:

so he ****ed off to europe to be a homeless person....

surprisingly no, a very small portion of his trip was spent on the streets. He only ended up homeless in Berlin because a fellow busker he traveled with for a spell stole his tin whistle. What surprised him the most was that the further east you go in europe the more appreciative and receptive the people are to buskers. He says nearly every night of his trip he was either invited to sleep at the house of a fellow musician or he would have made enough money to sleep in an inn somewhere.

Mossy Monk

RuggieBear wrote:

so he ****ed off to europe to be a homeless person....

That's how I saw it too.

L31mr0d

Mossy Monk wrote:

That's how I saw it too.

sorry if this is too existential but isn't the essence of all backpacking to be homeless people?

Mossy Monk

If so then your point was put across. Have a pat on the back.

Degsy

Put them in prison..they just want to get drunk and not have to pay for aything.

Pighead

Snickers Man wrote:

Yeah y'are.

If you're not that curmudgeonly old grump David Hanley who once wrote a famously cranky column about how terrible it was that so many noisy Spanish students used to come to Dublin in the summer then you're at least cut from the same begrudging cloth.

My backpacker days are long behind me but they were probably the best in my life.

I worked my way around Europe and the Middle East for a couple of years, no set itinerary, just up and leave when you hear a good report about a place or get a hankering to go somewhere, no responsibilities, no ties, no stress.

Maybe not the best life training, as some impertinent curmudgeon has said but that's the point. It's not "life" in all its humdrum, regimented, repetitive responsibility-laden drudge. It's being free to up sticks and head off where the sun is shinier or the grass is greener or things are just a little more exotic.

Of course you can do this when you're older and have a bit more money and you can stay in branded hotels that are the same the world over and fly in and out of airports that are exactly the same the world over but you don't get the same feel for travelling as you do overlanding in a truck or a ramshackle old train where you can actually see the terrain changing as you movefrom one region to the other.

You also probably won't get as much sex as a carefree young backpacker. Long hair, beard, smelly body and loads of road anecdotes---the girls just love it.

Some besuited twat with a trolley suitcase and a load of frequent flyer miles? Fugeddaboutit!!

Make the most of your youth while you still have it kids. Get on those backpacks and hit the road. Leave pighead to grumble about his mortgage payments and how his superior body hygiene counts for nothing at the end of the day.

Jesus, theres a horrid stink of smugness of this one. "Oh look at me, I'm much better than you Pighead, I've travelled here there and everywhere".

It seems to Pighead you do a lot of travelling. Unfortunately the journey you're taking seems to be up your own arse. I bet you manage to let people know about your travels at every given opportunity.

Snickers Man's buddy: Hey ya Snickers Man, you got the time on you?

Snickers Man: 5.23. Speaking of time, did I ever tell you about the time I was in Laos. Oh my God, fcuking 79 degrees in the shade and me there in my long sleeved t-shirt. Amateur backpackers were strippe dto the waist but me being the expert traveller cleverly left my t shirt on, thus avoiding the hideous sting of the twat twat stingy Fly.

Snickers Man's buddy: You're a spanner. I'm going home.

pred racer

Pighead wrote:

Snickers Man: 5.23. Speaking of time, did I ever tell you about the time I was in Laos. Oh my God, fcuking 79 degrees in the shade and me there in my long sleeved t-shirt. Amateur backpackers were strippe dto the waist but me being the expert traveller cleverly left my t shirt on, thus avoiding the hideous sting of the twat twat stingy Fly.