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Published: November 29th 2011
On the 05/11/2010, I met 5 men from 3 corners of the Earth in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to form an elite motorcycle gang, ride the length of the country and prove that we were truly kings amongst men. These are the notes of the trip.
04/11/2010 - After a morning spent trying to determine which currency the country that I would spend the next few weeks living in used, I cut the cord and left for London Victoria. Upon arrival, I met my cousin, Robin, who slunk towards me with a mischievous grin on his face and declared that we needed to move towards Heathrow airport with haste, or our pre-flight drinking opportunities may be limited. Without argument, I nodded in acknowledgement and we moved away. Our swift action paid dividends and we arrived in time to check in early and commence what would become a 30 hour alcoholic blitz taking in 3 countries and 2 continents. It wasn’t a typical drinking spree.
05/11/2010 – Thursday became Friday as we soared over Russia and entered Asia, all the way smashing beer. Alcohol gradually loosened my tongue and I confessed to Robin that I
was nervous about the presence of spiders in Vietnam. He warned me solemnly that it was famed for 'Anus Spiders' that ‘get inside you’. It was a revelation that shattered my world. I soon discovered though that he was bluffing and couldn’t help feeling foolish.
We entered Hong Kong, my spiritual home, and made the most of a 2 hour layover by draining a bottle of Sake and enjoying the superb disco themed smoking facilities. When we finally reboarded we were feeling worse for wear and had to have a serious conversation about the fact that after 24 hours of drinking and flying, we would be touching down just in time to commence our first night out. Perhaps it would be wise to use the following few hours to sleep in a bid to preserve ourselves. The idea was almost immediately laughed off and we ploughed through some more beers.
Finally, after an epic shift, we touched down in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The hard part was over, or so we thought. It turned out that I had failed to notice that my Visa was wrong and I wasn't scheduled to arrive in
the country until the following May, I hoped they wouldn't notice. After an hour queuing at the visa on arrival desk, the official behind the glass informed me with a puzzled look on his face that I wasn't supposed to be there yet. I retorted 'I am here though' and knew it was undeniable. After some fervent and furious negotiating, during which I struggled to avoid slurring and giggling, he agreed to let me enter the country on the understanding that I paid him what he claimed was an administrative fee but I suspected was closer to a bribe. It mattered little though because, by hook or by crook, we were in.
We took a taxi to our hostel, a dingy building called the My My Arthouse. Inside the Arthouse, we were greeted by a friendly, young woman who, within moments, mentioned that she thought we were refreshingly handsome men and jokingly asked whether either of us would like to take her on as a girlfriend. Despite her humorous tone, I read in her eyes a tragically masked sincerity to the question, as if she were desperately seeking a way of escaping her grim surroundings. We were
impotent or unwilling to help though, so laughed before politely declining, ditching our bags and heading for a bar.
The others were nowhere to be seen but we felt that if we sat outside the bar long enough, fate would intervene. We ordered drinks and cigarettes and positioned ourselves so that we were easily visible and able to see the entire street. Soon enough I heard a dry Canadian voice call; 'Hey, Robin'. We were in luck and ten minutes later all 6 of us sat there.
We numbered two Englishmen (Robin and I), two Australians (Backhouse and Jack) and two Canadians (Tyson and Phil). We explained to them that we'd spend the past 24 hours drinking and they seemed to understand. After heading to a local bar called Crazy Buffalo, we bonded with one another by officially forming our motorcycle gang, The Tipsy Jokers. To cement this lifelong bond we commissioned a local street artist to sketch portraits of each of us as we sat there drinking into the night, relaxed and content, though slightly unnerved at the quantity of power lines that hung ominously overhead.
06/11/10 – We slept
well and arose late but there was illness in the camp. Phil had already been hospitalized a few days previously with chronic food poisoning and now Backhouse had seemingly come down with it as well. We went to scour the area for motorbikes and left him asleep in our dorm but I returned some time later to find him naked and semi delirious on his bunk. I asked him if he was alright and looked up at me through tired eyes and whispered; 'My armpits stink'. Kings amongst men, kings amongst men.
Feeling the party spirit rise within us once more, Jack, Robin and I started drinking again in the Allez-Boo bar where we had first met the previous evening. We got talking to an American called Corey and before long were playing pool for drinks. Jack had shown signs of being a drinker who could hold his own but upon introducing him to a Strawpedo, we broke something within him. He recoiled in horror and muttered 'I have to go' before lurching away into the night. Several drinks later we decided to raise the stakes and moved on to a club called Apocalypse. In an echo
of Jack's earlier departure though, we soon broke Corey as well who started muttering in some drunken dialect we couldn't translate before stumbling through the crowded dance floor and out of sight.
Robin and I retired to the outside smoking area and were joined at our table by two Vietnamese rentboys who asked whether we wanted to party with them. They were friendly enough so we chatted to them for a while before sending them on their way when it seemed increasingly like they were misinterpreting our politeness as a commitment to an unwanted business transaction. It was refreshing to know though that should this travelling change our approach in any unforeseen ways, the right people were contactable.
We headed to another bar but realised upon entry that it was full of prostitutes. Two of them immediately propositioned us but we said we were here to shoot pool so they challenged us to a game for 200,000 Dong, the local currency. They beat us soundly and swiftly but we fortunately discovered that the wager was only worth around $10 so happily paid up.
I wish that had been the final prostitute
encounter of the night but, as they say, these things happen in threes. Our hostel was located in an alleyway, halfway down which we were blocked by two more professionals who grabbed our groins and asked again whether we needed girlfriends. I was beginning to suspect that the word ‘girlfriend’ held different connotations in Vietnam. We fought them off and they conceded with surprisingly little reluctance before jumping onto the back of waiting motorbikes and driving away. After a moment’s contemplation, the ease in which they had been convinced to abandon the scene seemed suspicious. My hand darted into my pocket and my heart dropped as I realised the conniving wenches had relieved me of my wallet. I was to be in Rob’s financial pocket for the remainder of the tour, a seismic shift in the balance of power between us that couldn’t be underestimates.
07/11/10 - Morale in the group was low. Those of the group that weren't ill were hungover and we'd made little progress in acquiring bikes for our journey ahead. After an afternoon spent needlessly haggling with the local traders over minute sums of money and then pulling out of the deal when
I’d achieved my price, I gave up and returned to the dorm. The others were watching some bizarre film that seemed closer to porn than Ghostbusters and after a few minutes of it I had the horrors and wanted out, so headed out to the bar and met Corey and some Swedish guys that he was with. I told the Swedes about the the previous night's events and they insisted we all go to Apocalypse to recreate the whole scene, as a self-appointed ambassador for the empire, I didn't feel I had a choice.
Having only popped out for a couple of beers, this was an unexpected tangent for the night to take but I embraced it and allowed the suddenly feverish excitement to consume me. One taxi ride later, we were there but only for twenty minutes before calling it a night and getting in a taxi back, at which point we all went our separate ways. It was an anti-climax to say the least. However, in one of the best decisions I made all holiday, I decided to sit down and have one final beer before returning to the hostel. A few minutes later, Corey
returned and joined me saying that he also felt the night had life remaining.
He went to the bar to started speaking to a couple with familiar accents and upon joining him they introduced themselves as Chris and Lia. Chris was English and Lia Welsh though both resided in Cardiff and we seemed to hit it off. It didn’t take long for the strawpedos to rear their long, ugly heads once more and the three of us were soon behind the bar having our pictures taken with the clearly awed bar staff. They told me that they weren't a couple but were simply good friends which surprised me as I was sure I could smell sexual desire in the air. I spent the next two hours trying to convince them that they were a couple in every sense bar a physical one but they maintained their stance so eventually I decided to take their word for it.
With the night having risen from the dead like a phoenix from the flames, we decided to move to another bar and continue drinking, though not for incredibly long as by coincidence we were both getting up
early the next morning to tour the war tunnels and fire AK47s. Having swapped phone numbers and agreed to meet again the following day we left the bar. Before parting ways though, under his leadership, Chris and I stole a tuk tuk. As we peddled down the road, the rightful owner ran behind us shouting Vietnamese vulgarities and brandishing weaponry so we let him have it back and then decided that it was definitely the right time to call it a night.
My drama wasn’t over though. Foolishly taking what I believed to be a motorcycle taxi home, I soon suspected I had stumbled into a possible hostage situation. The rider sped straight passed my alleyway with no sign of stopping and I noticed that his friend was riding level to us, staring at me with a look that I felt in my heart was born out of a desire to rape me. Driven by adrenaline, fear and primarily alcohol, I opted to jump off the moving bike the second it slowed down to an acceptable pace and miraculously kept my footing before walking casually in the opposite direction. The taxi rider stopped and started shouting incoherently
about money before pulling out a knife. I had to get up early though and was in no mood for further haggling so ran down an alleyway and away from harm.
08/11/10 – With enemies mounting up, my final day in Saigon hadn’t come a moment too soon. The previous 96 hours of drinking had taken its toll and I was found by the others in a deep sleep coma that they couldn’t break. Eventually they gave up before checking out and going to the tunnels without me. I finally awoke but couldn't get off my bunk because the cleaners were in the room and I was naked. Eventually they left and I found a poorly scribbled note from Robin that loosely described how to find our new residence; ' ... you turn right in the alley, walk for a bit and it's called the Phung Sang or something like that'. This didn't help. I stumbled around carrying my bag for an hour trying to find the place but was so hungover I couldn't continue so returned to the Allez Boo, which was fast becoming my oasis, for a burger and some meditation. My phone was dead,
nobody knew where this hostel was and I was low on funds. Things were looking bleak and my spirit was dwindling but just as I began to abandon all hope, I saw Tyson and Phil coming towards me and I was heroically rescued from my misery. Maybe it was symptomatic of my desperation, maybe it was the DTs or maybe it was something else altogether but I swear, for a brief moment, they took on the form of unicorns.
The others caught up and after some initial banter over my failure to wake up, we went to a restaurant to eat. Sitting on the street, we were continuously harangued by street traders and one had brought her tiny daughter who immediately took a shining to Tyson. This was my first glimpse of Tyson's extraordinary magnetism to children. Some weeks later I concluded that it’s lucky that he’s a good person as, if he ever opted to start luring away children for trafficking purposes, he could be prolific.
The group wanted an early night as the following day we were on the road but I had to bid farewell to the Cardiffians so Jack came
with me to meet them. It turned out that because of the amount of alcohol we had got through the previous night, Chris had been in such a terrible state whilst journeying to the tunnels that he'd vomited in Lia's handbag. I was delighted to hear this and told him he was a great lad, maybe the best of lads. We drank sociably but not ridiculously for a couple of hours and around 10pm I got a text from Robin. Intrigued, I opened it and gasped loudly when I saw its content. I showed it to Jack who gasped even louder. Chris and Lia read it together and gasped in harmony which was unique. It's fair to warn I'm paraphrasing here but it basically said;
"Look Hong Kong, stop drinking and just come back and go to bed. We've got a big day ahead tomorrow and I'm already pretty scared about going on the bikes and the last thing I need is to worry about you getting drunk again. I know I'm a woman but just come back and sleep please."
Needless to say we laughed about it for a while and continued drinking.
Before long I needed the bathroom so went upstairs to the deserted toilet. The urinal was overflowing so I went into the cubicle and through force of habit locked the door behind me. Upon trying to leave though discovered that the lock had jammed. I tried again but it wouldn’t budge. Panic gripped me and instinctively I kicked the door as hard as I could. The Vietnamese hinge work was no match for the might of my toe and I saw door fly across the floor, loudly crashing into the wall. Admittedly it did almost immediately seem like an un-necessarily violent solution to the problem and I felt bad. Though I wasn’t willing to go to the bar and admit that I owed them a door, I did want to do something and unfortunately all I could think of was to prop the door up before leaving.
It was soon time to go but before we did, Jack beckoned over the local squid salesman who had been walking past us repeatedly, eyeing us with his 'come to squid' eyes, trying to tempt us into a sale. It quickly became apparent why he was so desperate to shift his stock though and to say this was bad squid would be an understatement. Its distinctive flavour was closer to pubic hair than calamari and if anything that is unfair on the hair. It soon disappeared and as nobody had eaten it I can only assume it had been launched in any direction.
09/11/10 – After a 6am start, the Tipsy Jokers met in reception to form a battle plan. Robin, Jack and Backhouse had already bought their bikes whereas myself, Tyson and Phil had to get a taxi to meet one of Tyson’s out of town contacts who had allegedly got three machines primed and ready for us to collect. We ordered the cab and went outside to watch the other lads as they got set up. Jack and Backhouse had bought fairly sensible bikes but Robin had taken a separate path, he had managed to track down a dark, ominous, soviet built Minsk. It looked like the mechanical representation of death and I felt a deep sense of unease watching it, like it was going to be trouble.
With directions to Tyson’s contact, they decided to jump a start out of the city whilst we were waiting. Jack and Backhouse turned their keys and their bikes purred out of the alleyway smoothly, Robin turned his key and the gates to hell opened. The first sensory disruption was that of my hearing. At 6:30am in a narrow alleyway which echoed, the noise that emanated can only be compared an iron dinosaur eating a steel girder. If that wasn’t enough disruption, it was spewing a toxic, black cloud of fumes that rapidly expanded and engulfed the early risers in the breakfast bar. For these reasons the bike would soon come to be known as ‘Plague’. Despite the scene he was causing, Robin grinned broadly and I briefly felt conflicting feelings of pride and shame over my association to him. Pride won through and we shared an emotional hug to commemorate the beginning of the epic adventure that lay ahead before he roared off into the already throbbing city streets.
After catching a breath to recover from the excitement, we strolled round the corner to meet our taxi and were met with a bewildering sight; Robin and Plague, stationary, 30 metres down the road. We approached, wondering what could have disrupted such a grand exit and Robin looked at us sheepishly before admitting; ‘I have no fuel’. What a tit.
Without hesitation we left him to his woe and took our taxi to the bike shop where we finally met Tyson’s mystery contact, a middle aged Englishman called Kevin. He seemed a nice enough guy and showed us to our bikes which were being serviced in preparation for the trip by his mechanic. It was going to be a while and we had no idea where any of the other three guys were so we sat on the kerb to wait for them. Kevin introduced us to his girlfriend who looked like she may or may not be old enough to prevent Kevin from being reclassified as a villain. She was relentlessly cheerful and bubbly but had excessively sized gums which I couldn’t help staring at. Unfortunately I never learnt her name but for the sake of consistency I shall refer to her as Lolita.
We waited a couple of hours in the searing heat, chatting to Kevin and Lolita before Backhouse and Robin arrived. Hours later Jack hadn’t appeared which was concerning as the journey only took 40 minutes. We sent him an e-mail and returned to business. Phil’s bike was the first to emerge and displaying the skill of an experienced rider, he zoomed off to test it. A little while later Tyson did the same and I began to feel nervous that I was the member of this particular motorcycle gang that had never touched a motorcycle before.
Perhaps sensing my unease, Kevin talked me through the basics, a duty I suspect he’d once performed with Lolita, though with arguably separate subject matter. It was simple, he said. I had a semi-automatic bike and only needed to twist the right handlebar a little to accelerate, the rest would become obvious. Tyson and I had bought identical bikes so with a few hours of riding ahead, Robin suggested I borrowed his to practise whilst waiting for my own to finish its service. There was no escape now. I donned my helmet and climbed onto the purring bike, my heart racing, before Tyson said ‘Just don’t hurt her dude’. ‘Jesus’, I thought, ‘how hard can it be?’
I twisted the handle slightly and the bike lurched forward, faster than I expected so I released it and it slowed to a halt. Then the same happened again. This cycle continued for a couple of hundred metres until I neared a crossroad, still struggling to achieve a slow and constant momentum. It seemed prudent to turn around at this stage so I released the throttle and started walking the bike round to face the opposite direction. Ninety degrees through the manoeuvre though, everything in my world went wrong. My right arm experienced what can only be described as a spasm and I accidentally twisted the accelerator. The next few seconds seemd to occur in slow motion and I felt like I could see myself and Tyson’s bike, ramping up the kerb and crashing into a metal security gate. I lay on the pavement, taking in the scene around me. Aside from some grazes I wasn’t hurt and the bike, at first sight, looked ok which was a relief. Within seconds I noticed Backhouse sprinting towards me down the road. ‘Dude, you alright?’ he asked. I told him I was and he picked up the bike, straightening the handlebars. Despite my limited experience of motorbikes, I recognised that the wheel was pointing out at an unnatural angle. ‘Is it… ok?’ I asked. It was a longshot. ‘Nah mate, it’s fucked’ he replied, brutally. ‘So’s the gate by the look of things’ he added, nodding to the gate which had developed some imperfections. He said ‘Right, we better go mate, the security guards coming and looks pissed’ and wheeled the bike away, laughing. Having stood over him at his lowest ebb previously as suffered with food poisoning, it seemed a remarkable reversal of fortunes. My main worry though was the reaction of Tyson who had formed a close bond with his bike already and had warned me not to break his bike only five minutes earlier. He was cool about it though and I promised him I would pay for the repairs which eventually came to a quarter of a million of the local currency, around £40.
It was going to take a while to fix and unfortunately meant that we were going to be left short of time to reach our target destination for the day. Jack had e-mailed as well stating that he had failed to find us and had ridden to the next town where we were to meet him the following day. Kevin recommended that we stay in the hotel just up the road. His principle reason for this appeared to be that you could ring through to reception for ‘a massage with a happy ending’. His enthusiasm that we exploited this facility was unsettling and somebody mumbled that we would see happened. Apparently unsatisfied, he insisted that, if not, the group took Lolita out for dinner and he would meet us afterwards. It seemed like strange behaviour and had shaded of a honey trap about it. A voice in my head screamed ‘This is how they got Glitter’. However, he had treated us fairly on the biked and we didn’t wish to be rude so accepted.
As it turned out, the paranoia was in my head and Lolita proved to be good times. The meal was enjoyable, especially viewing Robin order bizarre Vietnamese fajitas. Afterwards we walked to the shopping centre and Backhouse attempted to buy a human skull sized lollipop from the supermarket, only to have it temporarily confiscated from him until he could prove his intentions with the bastard.
10/11/10 - With the bikes finally raring to go and Kevin having given me a crash course (literally) in riding, all we needed was to locate Jack. We had a fair distance to cover so set off early to find him and managed it without further complication. The plan seemed to be coming together and finally every member was present and with bike, there was officially nothing left to hold us back. With the sun beating down upon our backs a call went out ‘Tipsy Jokers… let’s ride’ and we were away.
Considering that the previous day I had poleaxed a gate with Tyson’s bike, the day’s riding went pretty well. I had the odd moment of amateurish death seeking such as nearly going under a lorry, veering off the road onto the gravel covered side, and repeatedly driving off with my stand down but nothing major.
We rode for around 8 hours with only one real hitch, Backhouse’s bike broke down about 2 hours from our scheduled destination. We watched as the mechanic attempted several unsuccessful weld jobs before eventually deciding that it would require a brand new fuel tank that would cost about 800,000 bucks.
The group got split up in the final stages of the ride but eventually all arrived at the hotel with Robin and T-Bird the last two arrive after T-Birds bike had required some medical attention. It had been a long day and we wanted to eat and sleep so asked the bellboy whether the restaurant was still open. He said they would re-open it for us and ushered us to a table. Warning signs should have rung when we saw that same bellboy walk into the kitchen whilst rolling up his sleeves but we were listening only to our stomachs.
The meals came out and everybody was satisfied apart from Backhouse who had flamboyantly ordered a deluxe steak, by a distance the most individually expensive item on the menu. The bellboy steak looked as if it was genetically modified and the look of disappointment on his face as it was placed before him was heartbreaking. It was the first proper meal he’d eaten in days due to his sickness and he said that it tasted like cardboard. We couldn’t help but laugh.
11/11/10 - We raced on in a bid to reach first lengthy stop, Nha Trang. There were two routes forward; a mountainous road that was apparently unfit for public use. It was full of potholes, lacking in the means to communicate with the outside world if any problems occurred and didn’t guarantee the continuation of our lives. Alternatively, there was another highway that was relatively safe and recently built which suggested it was a good surface. Sometimes in life, the easiest path isn’t the right path. In this instance it almost certainly was but we headed into the mountains anyway.
The roads were truly diabolical covered in literally thousands of deep potholes that we were continuously swerving to avoid. To make matters worse, as we climbed higher up the mountain and into the unforgiving wilderness, the heavens suddenly opened and we were caught in the middle of a tropical storm. It rained so hard that we could barely see which was inconvenient on hazardous, winding roads that were surrounded by steep cliffs. We had to push on and eventually, miraculously, stumbled across a shack, around which sat several locals, clearly surprised to see us. They served us noodle soup and stared at us with cannibalistic intrigue as we ate it. We waited the storm out with beers and cigarettes for over two hours and then drove away before the knives appeared and the filleting started.
Finally we escaped the mountain and reached sensible roads. Night had fallen but feeling euphoric that we had outrun the grim reaper, we pushed on to reach the town. Throughout most of the trip, we had opted to ride in formation with me, the least experienced rider in the middle of the group. I couldn’t see the others through the darkness and was convinced that I had fallen behind. With only T-Bird following me, I attempted to make the time up and as such sped up as fast as I could. He later confided that it was the fastest he saw me drive all trip.
There was still no sign of the others. Road signs indicated that we had only a few kilometres to go though so we started climbing the final hurdle, a steep and winding road through a mountainous forest with overhanging trees blocking all moonlight. As we climbed higher my bike began to stutter and backfire. T-Bird overtook me and raced out of sight. Its performance was becoming progressively worse the higher we climbed before finally giving up and whimpering to a pathetic halt in the darkness on the blind side of an s-bend. Panic set in and the possibility of being hit by a vehicle or carried away into the jungle by invisible beasts began to tug at my nerves.
To make the situation even more desperate, I was down to 2 cigarettes. I lit one up, cursing my bad luck and praying for resolution. As if by magic, after ten minutes of waiting in the darkness, my prayers were answered and the entire road lit up under the glorious, orange glow of previously invisible streetlights.
I texted Robin, suspecting it was futile as he was probably still riding, but then a second miracle occurred. Within moments my phone illuminated and he was ringing me. It was like I had a guardian angel watching over me. I answered and he explained how Jack had broken down 3 miles back and they were all sat at a garage. I told him my predicament and co-ordinates and he vowed to send a rescue party. Ten minutes later he arrived with a mechanic.
The mechanic looked the bike up and down before confirming the news that nobody with a smug bastard cousin within earshot wants to hear ‘The bike has no gas.’ One can of petrol later we returned to Jack whose own bike was nearing rejuvenation. Eventually we made our way to the hotel to meet a relieved T-Bird who was worried that I’d faced my demise. I was red faced and knew it would be joining my crash the previous day in Robin’s immortal pantheon of stories to embarrass me at inopportune moments.
12/11/10 – Contrasting the previous day, the roads we rode on in our final push for Nha Trang were the best of the trip. They were newly surfaced, empty and set in stunning countryside and towering mountain passes, it was motorbike heaven. It was a backdrop so impressive that it needed to be savoured and enjoyed, not wasted with hell for leather driving. Unfortunately this approach meant that the others consistently left me for dead on and I spent most of the day playing catch up, only to be called a woman for driving slowly when I finally did. As we neared Nha Trang we pushed through another pretty impressive monsoon but the elements couldn’t stop us, except for Phil who broke down half a click from the finishing line.
We’d allocated two nights of our trip to Nha Trang as it was known as a party town and to be an authentic motorbike gang we needed drunken hooliganism. We checked into a decent but affordable hotel, except for Tyson and Phil who opted to seek out a cheaper hostel as they were on extended travels and therefore on a budget. They eventually found a place and it saved them $10 each per night, however they spent the best part of an hour riding round searching and as Robin as I walked around, naked but warm, in our luxurious hotel room I preferred our choice.
After going through a cleansing process we headed out to find a bar. Backhouse, referencing Police Academy, suggested that we try to locate The Blue Oyster. He seemed to be joking but there were certainly raised eyebrows, nonetheless we ignored him and went to a beach bar called The Sailing Club instead.
We sat down to eat and studied the menu. Robin had begun to develop a sort of culinary arrogance after his punt on the Vietnamese fajitas had paid off whilst the rest of us had made some contentious eating decisions, most notably Backhouse and his bellboy steak. He began attacking everyone for ordering pizzas rather than something more adventurous and experimental. To remind us that this approach had worked for him, he ordered the Viet-fajitas again. Fate has a sense of humour though and our pizzas were divine whereas his fajitas were foul. The look of crushing disappointment on his face as he bit into the first one was the same one worn over a steak a couple of days previously. Stubbornly he forced himself through a couple of them but ultimately the task was too draining and he was forced to accept pizza contributions. I suspected that having to receive this aid so soon after mocking us left the worst taste in his mouth.
With a lack of serious group drinking throughout the trip to this point, we decided that tonight was the night that we would break out and thus set about introducing the name game rule. Essentially we were forced to refer to one another only by previously designated nicknames and any failure to do this resulted in heavy drinking fines. We started strongly but Backhouse soon faced a couple of forfeits and grew progressively worse at the game as the alcohol took hold. Robin soon followed the same path and the rest of us sat back in amusement as the pair of them drank themselves into serious trouble.
After a while we developed a collective longing to sing karaoke badly and ordered two taxis to take us somewhere that could meet our needs. Asian karaoke isn’t quite the same as it is in the west and upon arrival at a questionable building, we were frogmarched through a dingy corridor and pushed into a small room. Inside were several confused Dutch people and a karaoke machine. A waiter arrived and took our drinks order; we sent him to get beers, orange juice and a bottle of vodka and the night began to escalate.
The Dutch bravely tried to rise to the scene that was unfolding before them but they were simply outnumbered. Furthermore they weren’t expecting to have to sing over casually racist Goldmember impressions and contend with increasingly unruly behaviour that rose at the same rate as the vodka level declined.
Generally everybody was around the same vocal standard, except for two that stood out. Tyson, out of nowhere, sang ‘Livin On A Prayer’ with the vocal accuracy, range and professionalism rarely seen outside a mediocre Bon Jovi tribute act. He was, suffice to say, the best of the group. At the other end of the scale though was Backhouse, whose drunken slurring and inability to read the words on the screen led to him overcompensating with some outrageous showmanship. His dancing warmed our hearts to their cores and will live long in the memory.
Eventually the night reached a true nadir when an impromptu food fight broke out, involving a bowl of complimentary fruit that we had been provided with. The room was covered in fruit juice and orange peels and the remains of my boxer shorts which had been violently ripped from my body by Robin after I foolishly dropped my trousers for a dare. This appeared to be the final straw for the proprietors who asked us to settle the bill and vacate the premises. The events after this became such a drunken blur that it would be irresponsible to even try and reconstruct them in any logical or causal manner.
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Welcome :)
On behalf of the moderators here at TravelBlog, I'd like to welcome you to the site. Loved the blog by the way. Nick