Only real backpacking hippie types need apply

[DJ Pat]

ITV are commisioning a Big Brother style documentary about backpackers who are travelling around Thailand and Malaysia, and of over 10,000 applicants, this process has been weeded down to just 100. And it's now that that the real hippies get separated from the banana pancake cocktail bucket mob.

The criteria was that applicants must have undertaken backpacking or recognised hippie-dom for at least a month at some point in their life, or must prove themselves to be considered ''hip'' enough to join this potential three week on-the-road bore-fest.

Applicant 22 is Josh, a surfer from Devon, England. 30 years old, he wears his blonde hair in a typical ponytail and goatee, with the Reclining Buddha tattooed across his back. Do these qualify him? Not just yet, he has to positively answer at least three verbal tasks.

''So Josh, have you ever taken acid whilst adrift on a raft off Goa?''

''Erm, almost, but I had a cell phone for emergencies, turned out I was only stranded for 2 minutes''

''Wrong answer, Josh, goodbye'' A red Graham Norton style ejector chair then spills him down a shaft to the floor below. He's out.

Next is Tatsu, an english-Japanese guy of 44. Long hair, goatee, skinny and wearing a jesters hat patterned robe, he's the most authentic looking so far. But that's where the positives end. He packed his finance lawyers job in a year earlier to explore Iraq as a volunteer with the Red Cross, and his life changed. However, he learned nothing of any hippie lifestyle.

''Tatsu, you look right on, dude...high five my brother'' The replying high-five doesn't materialise. Just a puzzled look.

''High on what?''

''Forget it, just tell me why you should join this hippie version of coach trip''

''I was at Glastonbury''

''Oh really? That's a plus point''

''I had my face painted like a panther''...(shows look of enthusiasm..until...)..''Whilst watching Beyonce on the main stage''

''Oh fuck off'' His chair is flipped, and his robe gets caught in the mechanism. The next hopeful is thus delayed, and she is in a hurry.

''Excuse me, I've got to get to like...Starbucks... to meet my boyfriend, I'm like, so late now, and it's like so random that I'm being held up when I got this meeting, which is so like...epic''

''You can fuck off on foot then..who's next?''

In the end the show was scrapped. They couldn't find the hippies, simple as that. My own father hippie-ed his way through India, Burma, Laos, Thailand and Indonesia in the late 1960s. He didn't have a backpack but a shoulder bag. He slept rough some nights, drank himself stupid and spent a month at an opium den. I'm not saying these are stiff guidelines, but it beats getting excited over yet another fire juggling display on a beach strewn with bottletops and cigarette butts.

These days lines between real and faux-hippieism are seriously blurred, what does it take? If anything, so-called backpacker hotspots have destroyed the original hippie scene and the days of tripping for a week whilst naked with like minded others seem to be extinct.

Nowadays all you need to qualify as a hippie is the backpack itself. You're there. Added extras like tattoos on your ankle or neck are mere bonus points, much like the Lonely Planet App on your cellphone. In the old days hippies would walk through fire to get their faces painted, or crawl on hot coals for a sip of snakes blood.

These days the corporates have closed the net over the whole backpack-hippie scene. In fact, technically it doesn't exist any more. Starbucks and Subways battle for as many stalls as possible in the so-called hippie 'communes'. Only the backpack companies are still coining it in. The sales of genuine jesters hats and patchwork fishermans trousers have been replaced by designer sportswear, padded bras and professional walking boots. Lonely Planet health guidelines banned flip flops.

Hippies nowadays aren't vegetarians either, oh no. The days of peace and love to all fellow creatures is narrowed down to just fellow humans. These kids nowadays don't even eat vegatables. Hippie vocabulary has also been modernised, the days of saying ''Right on'' ''Cool man'' and ''That's trippy dude'' have been replaced by phrases such as ''Epic'' ''Random'' and ''LOL''

Applicant 37 is Leila 'the meditator' Swanley-Bowles, who takes her name from the number of times she's meditated.

''So, Leila, tell us about your meditating, what form does this take?''

''All sorts, my karma is well balanced, I'm also a militant vegan''

''You do all this and you're only 21 and at University?''

''Yeah, like.....I do it all on Facebook...''

[steevee]

If you're not over 55 (60??) you have no idea. My mother is 84 and she meditates daily and teaches yoga for eff's sake.

[Cujo]

News flash Pat, The times they have a changed, it's not the 60s anymore.
Hippies are gone, just like teddy boys and rockers.

[Kwang]

You don't miss a trick Koojo. Do your friends refer to you as "Lightning"

[Rural Surin]

[DJ Pat]

You don't miss a trick Koojo. Do your friends refer to you as "Lightning"

No, just 'greased'

[terry57]

I've been a hard core Backpacker all my life and only in the last few years have I gravitated towards nice hotels and comfortable digs.

The difference I have found is that the punters are short time tourists with there families and I learn nothing from them but I do love the nice room, air con and Sat TV.

Give me the Backpackers any day as they have the personality, get up and go plus there bitches are much more attractive.

Punters who have never Backpacked are not worthy of sweet fuk all and have no idea of real travel and real people.

More than likely experts on short time bars, katoeys and Soi Cowboy.

Piss poor really as any fuker can do that.

[terry57]

Actually this thread has sparked my interest..

Give me a Backpacker who relocates to Thailand because he has had a awesome experience on his travels up against some tosser who relocates to Thailand because his wife has fucked him off in the real world and he discovers that he can buy a companion in Thailand for fuk all and I'll sit next to the Backpacker thanks very much.

All right punters, Where do you fit. ??

[misskit]

All right punters, Where do you fit. ??

A backpacker who relocated to Thailand because SHE has had a awesome experience on HER travels.

[terry57]

^

Onya Misskit,

Your my sort of person but these sex tourists and fukers that come here for the cheap pussy and have no other interest are simply pathetic oxygen thief's and its not hard to figure out why they are a failure in the real world.

[baldrick]

All right punters, Where do you fit. ??

not next to you the travel guru

what about those who have worked in half a dozen countries in the region and been to some places in them that even the most intrepid backpacker will not get to for at least another 20 years ?

and time their stays in months/years rather than days/weeks ?

and also unlike the traveling gods - enjoy pussy and alcohol

[misskit]

^ Some of us ex-backers found way to do that kind of work, too. I get to some far flung places like Ramanofana. Neener neener neener.

[Cujo]

^^ yep. I hate travel snobs.
Look at me, I'm more an authentic traveller than you.
On my business trips I experience more authentic Thai experiences than you in your backpacker trail holidays Terry.
Don't be a judgemental prick mate.
Everyones experience and purpose is different, not necessarily better or worse.

[DJ Pat]

^^ yep. I hate travel snobs.


Look at me, I'm more an authentic traveller than you.


Everyones experience and purpose is different, not necessarily better or worse.

I'd agree....

[DrAndy]

Hippies are gone, just like teddy

do you miss him?

[DrAndy]

I've been a hard core fudgepacker all my life and only in the last few years have I gravitated towards comfortable digs.

fair enough me old poofta

but you do have a point, people who have been backpackers (or travellers, as they wish to be known) do have a spark of life which seems to be missing from the bourgeois masses, those who just follow

[DrAndy]

what about those who have worked in half a dozen countries in the region and been to some places in them that even the most intrepid backpacker will not get to for at least another 20 years ?

you can do both, then you would be even higher in the "look at me" stakes

[Yasojack]

A lot of so called Backpackers these days seem to of lost the idea of Backpacking.

[Cujo]

A lot of so called Backpackers these days seem to of lost the idea of Backpacking.

Which is what?

[DrAndy]

A lot of so called Backpackers these days seem to of lost the idea of Backpacking.

even in the past that was so

[Yasojack]

backpacking was a low cost way of travelling,using native modes of transport, lost cost accomadation similiar to what locals lived in,it was experiencing the country and the culture.Living it rough

these days hotels are the norm, plane travel from destination to destination basically living the life they live in there own country.

i am referring to most not all.

[VocalNeal]

^^ yep. I hate travel snobs.
Look at me, I'm more an authentic traveller than you.
On my business trips I experience more authentic Thai experiences than you in your backpacker trail holidays Terry.

To get a real Thai experience run a few times with the Hash. They go to places most citified locals don't go. They also have an assortment of smelly clothes carried in a "hash" bag. They meet real Thais, get some great photos, eat dodgy food and stagger around incoherently, high on Chang but agreed do lack the 60's vocabulary.

They have been tubing in a river, agreed Chao Phraya and only one guy :-), fallen in a latrine again only one guy:-), chased by assorted animals, wear rubber footwear, sponge beers from others, slept on the beach, have carnal knowledge of other tourists, the list goes on.

That being said please don't send any Hippies or Backpackers to the Hash there is already one aging one and that is enough.......

[taxexile]

the time when "backpackers" could roam the world on a shoestring has long passed, mainly because of publications like the execrable lonely planet guides which slowly but surely turned almost every naive friendly native into a moneygrabbing capitalist, and which ensured that those who travelled off the beaten track were followed by guide book toting sheep who changed the landscape forever.

glad i did my travelling in the 70's and 80's, before mobile phones and the internet. poste restante and booking overseas phone calls a week in advance was much more fun.

[Seekingasylum]

Frankly, anyone who exclaims " awesome, dude " should be excluded on the grounds they clearly haven't witnessed anything other than the mundane. " Wow, fuck me " is the appropriate response any decent hippie type person might make when impressed.

Similarly, no free thinking person would ever dream of tattooing his body with any religious symbolism lest he be categorised which as we merry pranksters know is definitely " not where it's at ".

[DrAndy]

awesome post, dude