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Published: December 11th 2011
13/11/10– After a significant period of unconsciousness, my eyes eventually prised themselves open and the familiar feelings of a morning after anarchy flooded through me. I was dehydrated, my head pounded and every molecule on my abused body seemed to reek of stale smoke. Something else felt wrong though. I couldn’t identify it at first but after finally emerging from my pit I realised I was intensely nauseous. This was extremely uncommon for me but my time to think about it had elapsed and I ran to the bathroom.
After an unpleasant few minutes, the sensation eased and, after drinking some water, I realised the adrenaline that was coursing through me had masked the rest of my hangover. I got dressed and joined the others for breakfast but after a few bites I realised I was still feeling delicate and gave up. We went to the beach to sunbathe but fairly soon the feelings of nausea returned so I told Robin that I was going back to the room and hurried back. Without moments of my return my head was back down the toilet and I realised this was no hangover. The details of the next few hours
are too disgusting and graphic to put into words but it was like a horror film.
Later that day, Robin came back to find me pathetically curled up on my bed, moaning softly to myself as my stomach rumbled and gurgled. As somebody who is infrequently ill, I’ll admit that when my immune system does falter, I am fairly pathetic at dealing with it and this was definitely one of those occasions. Robin mocked me briefly before realising that I was being genuine and concerns over my ability to ride the following day set in. In a bid to fix me, his motherly instincts took over. He provided me with water and told me to relax in order to maximise my chances of recovery.
There was a brief illumination in my day when I received a visitor. It was Backhouse and as he entered the room I sensed there was something different about him. I couldn’t fathom it at first but then it hit me, he was entirely naked except for a tactically positioned sombrero. He told me it was a gift and placed it on my weary head before disappearing, fully naked, out
of the door and into the hotel corridor. To this day I’m not sure whether or not his naked visit was a sickness induced hallucination, all I know is that the thought of his hairy, bare arse roaming around the hotel terrified me to my core. The sickness combined with this nightmarish reality was just too much and I lapsed into unconsciousness, not stirring until the following morning.
14/11/10 - Anybody who has travelled alone in a strange, foreign land will know the feeling of terror that briefly grips you the moment that it suddenly clicks that you’re totally alone and that moment was imminent.
Upon waking up it soon became graphically apparent that I was still unfit to ride and this left us with a problem as we only had a week until we were flying home. We already faced an obscene amount of driving every day if we were to reach Ha Long Bay and this meant that we couldn’t afford a wasted day. Therefore the others had no choice but to leave me behind and I was faced with quickly seeking out an alternative method of transporting myself and my bike
to our next stop, Hoi-an, the unconvincingly dubbed ‘fashion capital of Vietnam’.
Considering that I was still relying on Robin to fund me, this shambolic nature of these developments was playing on my mind and I was concerned, though the worry was frequently interrupted with intermittent bouts of vomiting. He gave me enough cash to tie me over and told me that they had located a man who could arrange for my travel and, after bidding them a reluctant farewell, I set off to track him down.
When I found the man, he told me his name was Nguyen and that for a modest fee he could book coach tickets for me and the bike to leave that evening. Too weary to negotiate, I submitted to his demands. He told me that we’d need to go to the station and suggested that we share his bike. I’d been naïve enough to believe that I’d engaged in my final all male straddle at high speed but it’s something you can never truly outrun. Of course I eventually learnt to appreciate the subtle beauty of travelling in this manner but at the time my mind was
still relatively closed to such experiences. An internal voice told me said to trust him and I was soon shooting through the streets and red lights at ungodly speeds as he angrily shouted out ‘The fuckers, the fuckers’ at anybody who didn’t get out of his way.
When we arrived, he approached the ticket desk and started aggressively haggling in Vietnamese before beckoning me away. With a look of sadness in his eyes he told me ‘The fuckers are difficult, it’s going to be more money’ before nodding and handing me my helmet. It seemed reasonable so I handed him another 50,000 dong and we left. I spent the rest of the day resting in unsettled anticipation of what I had been told was going to be a 14 hour journey.
Hours later I strapped my bag to my bike, checked out and met Nguyen so that he could guide me back to the coach station and give me my ticket. Upon arrival at his office, he greeted me warmly before sitting me down and telling me he had incurred further unforeseen costs and needed to implement a final fee hike. Not wanting to
leave the man out of pocket after his outstanding efforts, I passed him a final 30,000 and, beaming, he handed me the tickets before vigorously shaking my hand.
We rode to the coach station and found the terminal. The driver looked the bike up and down before glancing at the open hold of the waiting bus. He then produced a screwdriver from his pocket and to my horror, starting dismantling my bike, Daisy, and loading it piece by piece into the hold. Nguyen detected my anguish over the events that were unfolding and reassured me that it would all be ok and the bike would be reassembled. Sensing that he was about to introduce an opportunistic bike dismantling fee, I quickly bid him farewell and boarded.
Vietnamese coaches are different animals than their Western counterparts by virtue of the fact that instead of seats they have bunk beds. I climbed up onto one and nodded in acknowledgement at the old man in the bunk next to me who spat at the floor before turning over. I assumed it was a sign of respect and looked round for the bathroom, having visited one roughly every
20 minutes for the past 36 hours. To my horror, there wasn’t one on board and I immediately envisaged terrible scenes that could lead to my expulsion from the coach, in the middle of nowhere with a dismantled bike.
It was too late though and the bus pulled away. Within minutes the on board entertainment started as a screen at the front commenced the viewing of martial arts movie
Ong Bak 2. Having enjoyed the original, this was an unexpected boost. However, as the old adage goes, be careful what you wish for. It turns out that the film was the only on board entertainment available and was played loudly and repeatedly for the entirety of my 16 hour journey on the coach.
15/11/10 - I finally arrived, without medical incident, in a heavily flooded Hoian, watching in awed relief as the driver quickly reassembled my bike before jumping back on the coach and pulling away. Having overtaken the others with my long overnight shift on the coach, I had been told by Robin which hotel to book into on the group’s behalf and drove round for half an hour before I found it.
It was a nice place and I managed to book the last two available rooms. It appeared that fate was back on my side.
Though I hadn’t been ill for nearly a day, I felt weak and I realised that I hadn’t eaten in nearly three so found a nearby restaurant, wading through a deep puddle in order to reach it. The sensible food order would have been something plain and light to ease my digestive system back into fully operational mode, instead though I ended up ordering pizza, beer, a jug of water and a Sambuca.
My order arrived and as I ate, I noticed a table of three South American girls repeatedly looking over at me. My ego told me that they liked what they saw, however logic counter-argued that they were simply intrigued by a creepy gringo, sitting alone, dispatching pizza and Sambuca at 3 in the afternoon. Nonetheless their gaze followed me as I paid the bill and left the restaurant, cautiously re-entering the puddle which, since I last walked through it, had become a small lake. Not only had it grown in size but it had also developed a
current which seized one of my flip flops and carried it down the street. I chased it for around 15 metres before eventually seizing it and retracing my steps, only to notice my female fans laughing hysterically at me. I blushed a deep shade of crimson and cursed the weather before moodily stomping back to the hotel.
Sometime later, Robin sent me a text informing me that Jack’s bike had developed a puncture and that Plague had broken down as well, having finally submitted to the disease that clearly coursed through it like a cancer. He said he would keep me updated. I performed a quick recap and realised that despite the mocking and animosity directed at her by the group, Daisy was the last bike who hadn’t suffered a breakdown through mechanical error. Having broken down through my injudicious decision to avoid refuelling though, I decided it wasn’t a statistic I was going to brag about.
I then received a message from Lia who, by coincidence, revealed that she and Chris were in town, though only for a few hours before flying up north. I got dressed and went to meet them for
a couple of beers and we swapped anecdote from the time that had elapsed since we’d been together in Saigon. Lia joked that I was a nightmare and that my behaviour was appalling. Despite the humorous nature of the accusation, I knew deep inside that it was based in truth and I felt a sense of pride that I had managed to convey this image of myself in such a short span of time; it had taken far longer with some of my longer established friends.
After we parted ways, I received the bad news that Plague hadn’t been fixed in time for the Jokers to make it to Hoian before nightfall. It didn’t come as a great shock and I was actually more surprised that the repair came under the jurisdiction of a mechanic rather than a priest as the bike didn’t need new parts, it’s demanded an exorcism. Regardless, it meant a second night alone and I retired to my hotel room to spend the evening watching terrible films.
16/11/10 - I woke up to a text message, reading;
‘Plague is still dead and a cunt, book into the
hotel for another night’.
Feeling well again, I wanted to explore the town further so was happy to go along with that plan. I rebooked at reception and returned to my room where I planned to wait until they arrived. 4 films and 7 hours later, I gave up waiting decided to go and explore alone. In another example of miraculous coincidence, within 20 seconds of leaving the hotel I heard a roaring engine and Backhouse pulled up to the kerb in front of me.
It had been over 48 hours since I’d last seen him and assumed our reunion would involve a warm greeting. I was wrong. He looked at me and growled ‘Where’s the fucking hotel?’ before driving in the direction I pointed. The other boys followed and were slightly more stoked to see me. I checked them in and we went for a meal to catch up. They had worked out that we were now too far behind schedule to ride all the way to Hanoi in order to be able to visit Ha Long Bay. We would therefore have to cheat and take the train some of the way in
order to catch up. It was disappointing but unavoidable so we bit the bullet and booked train tickets to Hanoi from a nearby city called De Nang, leaving the following day.
On that first night at the Crazy Buffalo, we had decided that the formation of our motorcycle gang at the beginning of Movember was an overwhelming indication that we needed to grow moustaches and since then we had all neglected to shave. In my absence they had decided it was time to execute this plan properly by dispensing of our beards. The only electric razor in the group though belonged to Jack, who insisted on carrying one with him at all time to maintain the tidiness of his pubic hair but said we were free to borrow it. It wasn’t enough to put us off and we set to work.
Afterwards, sporting superbly crafted handlebar moustaches, we hit the town to shop. Hoian is regarded as one of the finest shopping centres for clothes in Asia, purely based on the fact that the town is largely populated by highly skilled tailors whose shops carry catalogues from all the premier designer brands. You go
into the shops and pick the suit you like, they take your measurements and by the next morning you have a flawlessly recreated version of the same suit at a fraction of the price. Robin and Backhouse wanted to exploit the opportunity for when they returned to their professional lives and asked if I wanted to join them. However, having already racked up a sizeable debt to Robin on the holiday and with a few days still remaining I felt cheeky about adding a designer suit to the tab so declined and went for a beer with Jack.
Half an hour later Robin appeared with a grin on his face that I knew from long term experience with him could only mean trouble. He said that they had decided to buy us suits and we needed to follow them. My instincts told me this was too good to be true and proved to be accurate as we walked into a nearby tailor to Backhouse standing over four of the most garishly coloured fabric samples you have ever seen. Each of them managed to uniquely resemble curtains from the 1970s and I knew that resistance was futile and
allowed myself to be measured up.
Afterwards we were joined by Tyson and Phil and returned to the bar for a quiet beer, followed by 11 or 12 incredibly noisy ones as happy hour kicked in. As we got progressively drunker, the behaviour of the group deteriorated. At one point I walked to the bar and heard a loud scream, followed by silence, followed again by wild cheering. Previously one of the boys had ordered a pizza that had been served on a wooden board with an incredibly sharp knife. In the seconds that had passed since I’d walked away, somehow Tyson had convinced Robin that good could come of placing the wooden slab between his parted legs. Robin had obliged and Tyson had proceeded to demonstrate his knife throwing skills, launching the blade in his direction. As I heard the screams I ran back around the corner to see what had happened and saw the knife was lodged in the wood, literally 3 inches from arguably the most amusing circumcision, possibly castration, in history.
We continued the alcoholic onslaught until the bar called time and threw us out. As we walked out the
door, we discovered that since we had entered there had been another monsoon. The river that divided pierced the heart of the town had overflowed and the flood waters were waist high. This created difficulty as we needed to cross a bridge to return to our hotel. Robin, T-Bird and Party Phil decided to keep walking in a bid to find a dry crossing but myself, Jack and Backhouse were drunk enough to brave the flood and wade through.
Before long we concluded that we had misjudged the depth of the stagnant and unsanitary waters we now found ourselves in. We had committed though and pressed on, eventually reaching a group of young Vietnamese teens who were sitting on a raised porch drinking beers. They called out to us and eyeing up the beer and sanctuary, Jack led the way. The scene was innocent and friendly for a while in our drunken states we even loosely agreed to meet them again the following day. However the atmosphere soon soured when a particularly camp and shirtless member of their group, took a strong liking to Backhouse and started trying to grope him. Jack and I initially found this
hilarious but there were more of them than us and once again the possibility of rape seemed to be rearing its ugly head so we grabbed him and extracted him from the situation.
Drinking their beers and then running off didn’t go down well and the mood amongst the young men turned hostile very quickly as they started empty beer cans and shouting obscenities at us. We made it across the bridge and were safely out of sight and harm’s way. I said ‘That was lucky’ to which Backhouse replied, with the most amusing confession of the night ‘Not really, I gave the fucker my phone number’. Hoping the core of my being that it wouldn’t be the last contact he had with them, we giggled and made our way back to the hotel.
17/11/10 – Overnight the flood waters rose further and by the time we emerged from the hotel, we found our bikes in serious peril. We had left them on what we believed to be sufficiently high ground but the water level had risen above the exhaust pipes which we assumed meant the engines were swamped. It seemed so cruel that
after everything we had overcome, nature had thwarted us so close to the finishing line.
If our trip had taught us one lesson so far though, it was not to give in until the situation was absolutely irrevocable and with hope in our hearts we waded out into the foul waters and started strapping our luggage on. We did this under the observation of some curious Australian backpackers, real bushwhackers that spoke with an outback drawl. One of them commented smugly; ‘You boys have got naaa faakin’ chaaaance’. Ignoring the negativity, we pushed the bikes up to dry land and held our breath as we tried to kick-start. One by one they spluttered to life and having silenced our doubters we look at one another triumphantly, safe in the knowledge that we were in the possession of aqua-bikes. Robin refused to move until we each donned our newly purchased outrageous suit and five minutes later, a nausea inducing blur of colour and bravado rode out of town.
Tyson and Phil had taken leave earlier in the morning to take a detour and would be meeting us again in Hanoi but the rest of us
had four hours until our train left and only 80km of motorway to cover. We assumed we would arrive with time to spare for tea and cakes but hadn’t factored into our plans the possibility of somehow taking a wrong turn from a motorway and getting lost up another mountain. It just hadn’t seemed a reasonable or logical possibility but somehow we managed it.
As we drove up and down this godforsaken rock, searching for any sort of direction, our situation deteriorated further. Jack ran out of petrol halfway up one slope and, in a heart stopping moment, my brakes failed whilst riding down another. Robin saw his way to tightening my brakes whilst Backhouse refuelled Jack but time was running out. We backtracked and got directions to De Nang from some locals and found that our situation had become a high speed race against time to make the train. Finally we reached the city and with moments to spare tracked down the station. We rushed to a station worker and showed him our tickets but were out of luck, we were too late.
It was a crushing blow to our chances of seeing
Ha Long Bay but we hadn’t come this far without developing savoir faire and we started readjusting the plan. We tracked down a local travel agent who had an idea, he believed he could arrange for us to fly to Hanoi and for the bikes to meet us there. It was a longshot but, as the old adage says, from the smallest acorn grows the mighty oak. A few phone calls later he gave us the good news we were looking for and smiled at us. I knew what was coming next though and we reached for our wallets. With the bikes now out of our hands, we only had ourselves to look after and made our way to the airport via a brief sojourn in a local bar where my food poisoning made one final stand and caused me to vomit in the toilets.
We were still wearing the suits and upon arrival at the airport they caused quite a stir. They drew eyes and laughter towards us wherever we stepped and the staff didn’t know quite how to react. After a few beers we boarded the plane and Robin succumbed to tiredness. He was drifting
off to sleep but was momentarily disturbed by Backhouse’s fingers that were crammed inside his nostrils. The trick is one of Robin’s favourites and I’ve seen him execute it on dozens of occasions. However he was in no mood for it and snapped at Backhouse ‘Fuck off you twat’ before sulking for the remainder of the flight. It was a comedic highlight of a surreal day and as Robin’s eyelids pulled shut once more, I gave Backhouse an approving nod that I hoped would let him know that he had done the right thing.
18/11/10 – Jack and I had roomed together in the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel, where we had checked in after landing in the early hours. We met the others in reception and decided that, with a rare responsibility free day ahead of us, we were due some breakfast beers. After booking ourselves onto a party cruise to Ha Long Bay departing the next morning, we found a bar that overlooked a busy junction and sat there drinking and studying the melee below us. We had learnt that Vietnam doesn’t have a specific set of driving laws and the only real rule is that you
give way to any vehicle that is bigger than you. This relaxed attitude toward motorists had served me well personally as I had been riding this entire time without a driving license and virtually no motoring experience, an imprisonable offence in much of the civilised world.
Robin and I decided to break away for a while to go shopping as we were running out of time to buy gifts for our girlfriends and families. Additionally it was Backhouse’s birthday two days later and we needed to be appropriately prepared. If I’m being brutally honest, buying presents for our loved ones only remained the primary focus for around 15 minutes and soon our priorities shifted as we set to work buying marker pens, tinsel, balloons and various other novelty items before returning back to the hostel.
The others had been discussing going for a massage and I wasn’t convinced so returned to the room to contemplate what I should do. All of a sudden Jack burst into the room and boomed; ‘Get the fuck up, we gotta go kill some fucking snakes and eat their hearts’. I didn’t need to know any more. The confidence
and authority in my voice told me that it was something I needed to do. ‘The other two dickheads don’t wanna come so get dressed and meet me outside, we’re leaving in 20 minutes and I have three beers to drink’.
Ten minutes later I stood in an alleyway drinking a bottle of Saigon beer, with Jack detailing the plan. We were going to a place called Snake Village where, apparently, they slaughtered snakes in front of you and made you drink their blood and eat their hearts. They weren’t the dinner plans that I had anticipated.
A minibus ride later, we arrived and therein commenced a truly bizarre passage of time. Around 40 of us sat on padded floors and witnessed some terrible sights. A man emerged from an ambiguous room clutching a big bag of live snakes. One by one, the snakes were pulled from the bag and sliced lengthways with a sharp knife. At this stage their blood was drained from them into a receptacle and distributed into shot glasses. Whilst this was occurring though, the still beating hearts were ripped from their bodies and distributed to the group to eat.
There weren’t enough to go around so I graciously opted out. However, sensing my disappointment the residents of snake village had generously arranged a substitute for those of us that had been left out. They apparently were stockpiling a number of frozen snake hearts which they had thawed for the occasion. Moments later I had in front of me a shot of snake bile with a half defrosted heart floating at the surface. It got worse. What followed was a seemingly endless procession of the foulest shots mankind has ever seen. Blood and bile shots alternated before we were ordered to drink around fifteen shots of a fiercely alcoholic local spirit that had been fermented in large bottles containing dead snakes and scorpions which gave them the taste and odour of rotting flesh. Finally, drunk, nauseous and confused, we were shepherded back to the minibuses and sent home. Jack, by this point, was in a bullish mood and kept muttering about witchetty grubs and how he felt we should go clubbing. I didn’t want to think about witchetty grubs but agreed to go for a few normal drinks to wash the horrors away.
19/11/10 – Since I
first encountered devil alcohol at the tender age of 14, I have experienced some pretty intense hangovers. I’ve woken up suffering physically and mentally to varying degrees through massive abuse of alcohol, tobacco and, occasionally, the legal system. However, never before had I known the precise intensity of a snake blood hangover and as I lay in bed staring vacantly at the ceiling above me, I cursed Snake Village and its inhabitants. To make matters worse I hadn’t packed for Ha Long Bay and we only had 20 minutes to check out meaning a frantic rush ensued before we finally congregated outside and walked to the waiting minibus.
The journey to the docks took three hours but we stopped en route at a place called pottery village which was essentially two buildings selling pots. Robin went to the bathroom and a couple of minutes later, Backhouse and I followed him but upon entering found it empty, other than of the cubicles which was shut. At this stage, two separate visual aspects of the scene struck me. Firstly I saw Robin’s outward facing feet poking through the gap at the bottom of the cubicle. I then noticed that
the cubicle itself was unusually short, possibly only around 5 feet high and less than half the height of room. Backhouse and I exchanged glances before moving stealthily closer and flanking Robin by entering the cubicles either side of him. Climbing up onto the toilet seats, we peered over the top to find him sitting there with his trousers around his ankles and twiddling his thumbs. ‘Alright ya prick?’ Backhouse asked. Robin jumped and looked up. ‘For fucks sake’, he retorted, ‘go away’. We stayed there laughing and abusing him for a few minutes. However there were concerns that the intentions of two moustached men peering over the top of a cubicle in the gents could be misconstrued in some cultured so we returned to the bus.
An hour later we had reached the dock and boarded a pretty cool looking tugboat that carried our group, around 60 of us, out to an even larger boat that was waiting offshore. The boats were attached together and moved on in tandem. After leaving our bags in a designated area, we were escorted upstairs for lunch during which we were allocated our rooms. Afterwards I returned only to find
my bag had disappeared. Having already been the victim of two separate incidents of thieving this holiday, I couldn’t believe my bad luck. However, in this instance there was no land around us so the bag and the culprit had to be around somewhere. With this in mind an investigation commenced and I set to work eliminating suspects. In reality it could only ever be between five and thus I went to interrogate the Tipsy Jokers. As I approached them, I saw five smirks which confirmed their guilt but each of them denied knowledge. After an extended search effort, it transpired that a nameless Tipsy Joker had actually boarding the sister ship whilst we were moving and relocated my bag to a hidden corner. I was just relieved they hadn’t sent it to Davy Jones Locker. Though I eventually retrieved it, I realised then that we were in international waters and outside the protection of the law. It was every man for himself.
We sat on deck in glorious sunshine, drinking beer and looking in awe as the boat gradually approached several increasingly distinctive dots in the distance that soon became identifiable as small islands, reaching out
of the ocean and pointing towards the sky. Soon we were amongst them and it was a vision of paradise. There are 775 white limestone islets in the core of Ha Long Bay, most of which are covered in green moss which provides colour contrast to the perfectly blue sea and sky. The two merge into one another to such an extent that there is no clear horizon line, other than where the reflection of the sun on the water ends at vanishing point. To this day I maintain that it is the most beautiful place I have seen and, after a draining holiday, seeing and experiencing it felt like a reward for triumphing over distance and danger.
The boats anchored to allow us a swim and a challenge was laid down before us. The boat was roughly 20 foot high and the reps said that they would give free drinks to whoever shouted ‘deliberacy’ before performing the most painful looking entry into the water after jumping from it. There were several decent attempts, most of which involved belly flops and then it was Robin’s turn. Never one to resist a challenge or the opportunity to show
off, he stepped towards the edge and made the call; ‘DELIBERACY’. Everybody stopped and looked at him as he took a breath and leaped from the edge. His body remained in an upright standing position as he jumped and in the split second I had to consider it, I felt inside it was going to be anti-climactic. However, before the instinct had time to settle something wonderful happened. Rob widened his legs so that his bottom half was in the star jump position and suddenly an area I hadn’t previously considered to be in jeopardy was exposed. As I heard the slap of water against testicle, I winced and there was an audible collective groan from the group. Moments later he broke through the surface of the water with a face so contorted with agony it resembled Munch’s
The Scream. However, the group liked what they had seen and respected his reckless disregard for his own genitals in order to possibly win a couple of drinks. We had a winner
With the sun slowly sinking in the sky, we clambered into two berth canoes to explore the islands, instinctively dividing ourselves into our respective nationalities. Though the
casual racism was subliminal, it soon manifested itself physically when Jack and Backhouse shunted us. This instantly triggered a farcical game of Battle Canoe as the three pairs. chased one another around the islets attempting to sink one another and frequently being disciplined by the reps for safety breaches
With advanced age poor lifestyles, though, comes decreased stamina levels and we soon craved a cigarette break. We had brought cigarettes with us but they had been rendered unusable by ocean splash and replacing them seemed improbable considering we were in the middle of the South China Sea. It was improbable, though not impossible. We spied a floating fishing village and approached cautiously, hoping the locals were friendly. As we drew close, the residents eyed us suspiciously before sending one of the village elders to communicate as an ambassador. We showed him our soggy Marlboro and he walked away to confer with the council of wise men. One of them placed an anonymous trinket in his hand and as he returned to us, visions of the wise elder entrusting us with a great Vietnamese hidden treasure raced through my mind. We used our limited knowledge of sign language
to portray our desire to smoke and he walked away. Moments later he returned with a cigarette for each of us. It was overwhelming generosity and he thanked him before returning to paddling. Two Canadian girls, who had been witnessing the entire Battle Canoe spectacle from afar, asked us to take a photo of them and introduced themselves as Kristen and Leah. We chatted to them for a while before returning to the boat.
Upon our return we decided that to fully embrace the spirit of the party boat, we needed to don our suits. After returning to our bunks to put them on, we moved to the deck and a silence fell over the group as our brightly coloured presence filtered into wider consciousness. The silence was broken by the sound of something clicking into place and one of the Canadian girls said; ‘YOU’RE the crazy guys from the airport!’ With great suits comes great responsibility and to live up to the billing this acknowledgement had given us, we set to work drinking.
The reps organised a mass drinking game that was effectively Ring of Fire, though with adapted rules that included public
confessions and a God card that allowed you to order your fellow competitors to do as you pleased. As unbelievable quantities of alcohol flowed, some pretty disturbing confessions were revealed, most notably from one confused reveller who entrusted the entire boat with the knowledge that he had once come close to engaging in a drunk and passionate clinch with his own sister. Fortunately I wasn’t forced to communicate anything from my vault of past horrors but was made God for an extended period of time. However, I abused my powers to the extent that my successor, Kristen, ordered me to strip to my boxers and hide under the table, pretending to be a troll and begging the surface dwellers for drinks.
Fortunately the nakedness became contagious throughout the Tipsy Jokers and before long they had all discarded their garments as well. Suddenly there was a fuss outside and it transpired that there were skinny dippers swimming in the water, an action we had been told was strictly prohibited in the dark. I did a head count and realised that Phil was nowhere to be seen, it was clear that he had taken the nakedness to the next
level. We rushed outside and watched in awe as he and an anonymous female were lifted from the water back onto the boat. Giggling, we left them to get dressed and returned to the party. However, five minutes later a still naked Phil drunkenly stumbled through the dance floor towards me and said ‘You tell your cousin Robin that I’m going to punch him square in the face’. I asked why and he responded ‘My clothes are gone and he hid them. He even hid her clothes as well which is really harsh’. It did seem like classic Robin so I tracked him to the bar and relayed the message. ‘What?’ asked a bemused Robin, ‘I didn’t touch his clothes, tell him to get a fucking grip’ I tried to find Phil again but he had vanished, though I was later informed me that the captain had confiscated his clothes and had summoned him to his quarters for a debriefing over the whole sordid affair.
Midnight arrived and with it came Backhouse’s birthday. We had prepared for this moment by informing one of the reps, a dead ringer for the mediocre Hollywood hits actor Matthew McConaughey. At
the stroke of midnight the music stopped and everybody was silenced. The announcement was made that there was a birthday boy on bored and for the next ten minutes, Backhouse had to stand there as he received a kiss on the face from everybody on the boat. For herpes sake I made sure I was towards the front of that cue and in retrospect it was a wise decision.
As we reached the early hours the numbers thinned and eventually Robin and I made our way back towards the cabin, en route though we encountered a huge, unmanned powerboat that was securely tied to the side of ours. Without hesitation we boarded it, looking to explore, and made our way to the ignition. The key was missing so I started pushing button which proved to be an error when a terrible horn started sounding. A couple of crew appeared and we were soon strong-armed from the boat and escorted back to our cabin.
Once inside, Robin began brandishing a pair of Jolly Roger briefs that he had bought me earlier in the trip and motioned that I try them on by waving them at me. I did as he asked and he said that before I was allowed to sleep I had to parade them in front of whoever was still awake so I returned to the deck and drunkenly stumbled past a number of confused patrons who stared in disgust at my impromptu pirate pants parade before as I lapped the room. ‘Satisfied?’ I asked upon my return. ‘Nope’ he replied and, for the second time that trip, proceeded to rip my underwear from my body.
20/11/10 – The unfortunate nature of hangovers is that they tend to snowball if achieved on consecutive days. The mouth becomes dryer, the head sorer, the co-ordination declines and the person regresses in general with the ability to perform most of the basic neurological functions becoming increasingly inhibited until eventually, presumably, death occurs when the system can take no more. I’ve never taken it quite that far but knew, as I stared vacantly at the roof of my bunk, that I was pushing my limits with this latest sequence of alcohol soaked evenings. I wondered whether I had actually managed to achieve an even more diabolical hangover than the day before. Desperately needing the toilet, I wondered whether I possessed the fortitude to rise from my bed or whether I should just succumb to nature and try to learn from the experience.
The question was soon taken from my hands though as Robin, with his continued desire to unbalance my delicate, hungover equilibria, threw water over me. Knowing that any other reaction was futile I sighed ‘I’m up’ and performed my new daily routine of packing my bags and donning my mask of sobriety before rejoining humanity. He reminded me that it was a very special day for Backhouse and that we had plans to execute. Knowing he was correct, I withdrew our props from my bag.
We stalked the hallways until we found the groggy looking Australian trying not to make eye contact. ‘What are you wearing?’ Rob asked. ‘Doesn’t look like a birthday costume to me.’ With the same sigh of futility that I had uttered not so long previously, he glanced at the bag we were holding and came and sat in front of us.
As we neared the island where we would spend the night, our efforts were placed squarely on making Backhouse look his ridiculous birthday best. His comedy suit made him look like Bozo the Clown and though this was a different look, it was still colourful and entertaining. After writing and drawing all over him in permanent marker, we attached balloons to every possible part of his body and gave him a long tinsel tail that trailed behind him as he walked.
Upon docking at the island, we made our way ashore and were shown to our sleeping quarters, outdoor beach bunks that filled me horribly arachnophobic thoughts. As we approached the beds, two indigenous beach mongrels ran past and, apparently seeing Backhouse and his tail as a significant threat, decided to attack. Trapped within the mire of his hangover, he tried to ignore them but I could tell he was rapidly losing patience. The rest of us though, tried to stifle our laughter at the sight of him, moody faced, covered in balloons and attempting the overcome these two snarling beasts pulling him in the opposite direction as he tried in vain to trawl along the sand.
When we finally reached the beds I opted for a powernap, however, I had underestimated both my levels of tiredness and the comfort that could be derived from lying on a bed in these perfect surroundings. I slept for over 4 hours and missed the bulk of the activities, meeting comments of derision when I finally did resurface. However, with one final hard night of drinking ahead, I had given myself the best possible of coping and therefore felt my actions were justified if unplanned.
The evening began slowly, we ate a meal and played a few hands of shithead before grabbing some beers and heading towards the table tennis table for a game of doubles; Robin and I against Backhouse and Tyson. By this point of the evening the light was dimming and the ball was hard to see, most notably by our team were soundly thrashed. As the game slipped away from us, Robin began to absolve himself of blame by singling me out as the cause of our defeat. I strongly disputed this and challenged him to a one on one game to prove who the family’s senior table tennis player was. After a hard fought encounter where the lead was traded several times, I emerged triumphant and celebrated with excessive vigour. This was largely spurred on by the look he now wore on his face that did a poor job masking the extent he was the taste of defeat.
We returned to the communal tables having against all odds managed to drink enough beer to push through our hangovers and settled down to drink some more. Matthew McConaughey reappeared and told everybody to buy enough drinks to last a while as we were again going to play some drinking games.
When you’re isolated on a desert island with a rowdy group playing a drinking game that allows, possibly promotes, the victimisation of an individual, it’s a poor time to have a birthday and Backhouse soon learnt this lesson the hard way. There were around 30 of us playing and he was the unfortunate recipient of probably every second finger of alcohol allocated by the group, which soon saw him heavily drunk and increasingly furious at the groups refusal to leave him alone.
In Hanoi I had bought a giant novelty lighter and over the course of the previous two days the group repeatedly found new ways to jack up the flame until it reached over a foot in height. In fact, the flame had reached such an impressive height that there had been speculation about its safety and the extent of a threat it posed to the safety of the vessel. With this in mind we had dubbed the lighter ‘The Widow Maker’ and I was proud to have such a fascinatingly unpredictable and discussed artefact in my possession
With this alcohol fuelled anger reaching a crescendo, Backhouse lashed out and I was unfortunately sat next to him. The red mist descended and he lifted The Widow Maker from the table and battered me across the head with it. Despite having had the potential for terrible evil, like a lighter incarnation of The Plague, The Widow Maker was only made from cheap plastic and shattered as it met my skull. It was no more.
Now wary of his unpredictable temperament, we decided err on the side of caution and leave Backhouse alone for a while so switched our focus to Matthew McConaughey. It started with a few sly jokes but escalated quickly and soon chants of ‘McConaughey you prick’ and ‘Fuck off back to EdTV’ were ringing out. He smiled and ignored us but we knew that he knew.
After achieving victory in a game of Beer Pong I decided to celebrate. I’m not entirely sure why but this celebration manifested itself in the form of Jack and I going moonlit skinny dipping together in the bay. There was a deluxe motorboat anchored offshore so we swam out to it and climbed up. For the second consecutive night I found my trying to hijack a boat which, added to the fact that I had previously tried to steal a Tuk Tuk as well, gave me some serious questions to ask myself.
After failing, we swam back to shore to find that, predictably, our clothes had been stolen. We commenced a naked walk up the beach and approached our giggling group to request our clothes back. They said that it was Robin and pointed at the water where he was now skinny dipping as well, looking at us and laughing. Going on instinct, Jack and I ran at him. Jack got there first and hit him hard with a rugby tackle into the waves. Realising I was going to be beaten there, I slowed down, waiting for him to stand up and then accelerated, dropping him again with a second tackle. To this day I wonder whether the sight of the three of us, naked and rugby tackling one another into the water was the most authentically gay thing the watching crows saw throughout their entire trip. I hope so.
Having finally given him a chance to speak, Robin denied the accusations and said that Leah and Kristen were the culprits. We glanced inland and saw the two of them laughing and holding our clothes, we had been tricked and Robin had now been falsely accused of stealing the clothes of three skinny dipping Tipsy Jokers in the space of 24 hours.
21/10/10 - Our time on the pristine shores of Ha Long Bay had drawn to an end all too quickly, in fact the same could be said for our time in Vietnam as a whole. I awoke to my final full day in the country and lay on my bunk, staring out at the waves, whilst reflecting on the entire tour until everybody else began to wake.
Before long it was time to leave and the boat arrived, ready to take us back to the mainland and I said a sad and reluctant farewell to Ha Long Bay. With the weather still beautiful, I went up on deck to sunbathe and found myself a free lounger. There were more people on deck than loungers though and they were quickly taken. Robin needed to lie down so I offered him mine to share. In one final but massive act of holiday gayness, we ended up spooning one another in full view of the entire boat for the following half an hour.
We assumed that nobody was paying attention but were wrong and were eventually told that we were ‘freaking everybody out’. The world clearly wasn’t ready for two cousins with questionable moustaches openly spooning one another and, not wanting to taint our legacy, we sat up and sung the
Flight of the Conchords soundtrack.
Following the three hour return bus journey to Hanoi, we booked into a hotel for our final night. There had been discussions about returning to Snake Village as a group but we were truly shadows of our former selves and nobody could face the prospect of spending another night drinking, especially not Robin and I who had our 23 hour reverse journey early the following morning.
That night, like Jesus and his apostles, the Tipsy Jokers shared a last supper. We decided to treat ourselves to an expensive looking Italian restaurant in the centre of Hanoi and gorged ourselves on pizza, pasta and red wine. The atmosphere was subdued though with an underlying gloom over the fact that our time together was over.
After the meal, we strolled back towards the hotel via the hostel where Phil and Tyson had checked in and suffered our first goodbyes. Feeling a strong pang of sadness in my heart, we vowed that this wouldn’t be the final meeting of the Tipsy Jokers and said our goodbyes. Tiredness had simply engulfed us at this stage and with an early start ahead, we returned to our room to watch a film and sleep.
22/11/10 - The alarms that told us it was time to go home sounded at 6am. In unified silence we packed our belongings and knocked on Jack and Backhouse’s door so that we could say goodbye to them as well. It felt deflating knowing that we were leaving our comrades and this country behind and even more so in the knowledge that there adventure was set to continue without us. Regardless though we had to go so got into the taxi and waved goodbye.
After landing in Hong Kong and reboarding for the last leg of the journey to London Heathrow, we had time to privately reflect on this bizarre but wonderful experience that already seemed fleeting and so far behind us. Robin was looking through the on board entertainment and suddenly looked at me excitedly. Throughout my entire diary, I haven’t mentioned that the motive behind our trip, the genesis of the entire holiday, was emulating
Top Gear’s Vietnamese special where Clarkson and the gang undertake the exact same trip, from Saigon to Ha Long, by motorcycle. Sure enough, fate had played its final hand and the exact episode was part of our viewing schedule.
Finally we arrived back in London and boarded the Heathrow Express back to Victoria. Before I caught the last train home we stood outside, sharing a final cigarette and trying to mentally readjust to what now seemed a strangely alien world. Our time had run out so we said goodbye and went our separate ways. After boarding the train back to normality, my head was buzzing, full of thoughts and memories that I knew I could never make anybody else fully appreciate or understand. Vietnam was now Tipsy Joker territory and as I sped home through the night I knew we had accomplished something fantastic, ambiguous in nature but fantastic.
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lilmisscesc
Francesca
Hi
Nice!=D