In Search of a Lost Friend: A Study in Human Psychology

Phnom Penh, Cambodia • June 2017 • Length of Read: 5 Minutes

“Hey guys, I've got a hypothetical research question:

Suppose you're meeting a friend in a random European town or city that neither of you has been to before. You don't have the chance to plan a meeting place beforehand and you cannot contact one another when there. You just know that you will both be there on the same day. Where would you go? How do you find one another?

If you could comment below and answer that would be awesome. I'll let you know soon why I'm asking.”

Recently I’ve been burrowing down the rabbit hole of human psychology. Whilst writing these words I’m currently sitting on the rooftop of a quaint and cosy little café in Ho Chi Minh City; what seems like a million miles away from the hectic Vietnamese traffic racing around the streets below. I’ve been on the road for five months now and studying the way in which people interact with one another, in particular strangers, has fascinated me. On a daily basis, I’m subjected to meeting new people and listening to the conversation of others in hostel dorm rooms and bars. In fact, when just trying to write this paragraph I’ve stopped and had a ten-minute conversation with three lovely Germans at the table next to me about my books. So much for productivity and getting into my flow state, I know. There’s clearly just something far too intriguing about seeing a foreign traveller hammering away on the keyboard of a laptop.

Anyway, a while ago I mysteriously posted the above italicised question on my Facebook page with no real explanation as to why. A friend of mine living in Auckland had recommended a book to me called What If?, subtitled: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions and one of the chapters which really grabbed me was regarding the possibility of two immortal humans, placed at random points on planet Earth, actually managing to bump into one another. In attempting to answer this, the author drew upon an American study that was done in the pre-mobile phone 1970s, which puzzled a similar question to the one I asked my Facebook followers.

Back then, the best logical solution to finding your lost friend was deemed to be going to the town’s main post office and waiting at the receiving window where out-of-town packages arrive. The inventor of the puzzle’s logic was that it’s the only place that every town in the U.S. has exactly one of, and which everyone would know where to find. To me, this argument appears a little weak and outdated. There are far too many psychological factors in place to assume that everyone will follow this same thought process. I was curious. I wanted to know what people would do if placed in a similar predicament in the current era of 2017 but didn’t have access to the modern day smartphone and wifi technology with which we are now so accustomed.

Now, by nature of what I write about; my age; and my lifestyle, my primary demographic is twenty-something adventurous Westerners. The suggestions of brothels; pool halls; strip clubs; and Irish bars as possible meeting places were, therefore, inevitable. What could initially be dismissed as stupid, albeit funny, answers, however, have actually collectively formed the second of three categories that I’ve filtered the responses into.

The first category of response is what I will refer to as landmarks. These were the most common and basic responses, with no intuition about what the other person will be thinking required. Someone suggested to wait at the base of the tallest building in the city because it is likely to catch your eye just as much as the other persons, others suggested the main town square; train station; airport baggage reclaim; McDonald's; cathedral, and art gallery. The post office would fall into this category.

The second category is what I call inside jokes. This is more effective as you are actually using what you know already about the person to make an educated assessment about what their thought process is in the same situation. In addition to the aforementioned, ‘go to the equivalent place where you first met them’ was a popular response, as was ‘the common area of a popular hostel’ and ‘a hipster café’. If you and your friend have a shared love for flat whites then it’s highly possible that they will kill some time in a local edgy hangout, just as if your friend loves to get a lap dance at the end of a night out then you may well find them in a strip club. A silly suggestion at first that actually makes sense if you take into account a person’s interest and hobbies; not that I’d call lap dancing a recreational pastime.

There is a third category, however, which unanimously seemed to be regarded as the outright way of meeting your friend as efficiently and effectively as possible. A category that both What if? and the 1970s study failed to address. I call this category, public nuisance. The major flaw with the landmarks category, and henceforth the suggested solution of the post office, is that, even if your friend did decide to embark upon a city sightseeing tour, the chances of them spotting you in such crowded and busy places is extremely slim. Imagine trying to find a friend next to the Eiffel Tower even if you knew they were going to be there. I still lose people in the bloody supermarket. The same flaw is also at play in theinside jokescategory. Yes, there is an almost 100% chance of meeting your friend there if you’ve assumed correctly, but if they don’t make the same deduction then there is a 0% chance that you’re going to bump into one another accidentally. Unless you make yourself known that is…

The highest voted response that I received to my question? ‘Walk around bollocks naked and cause a city-wide commotion’.

What better way for a friend to find you than to stir up an event that draws maximum attention to yourself. Whether we like to think it or not, humans operate primarily under a herd mentality. We are constantly drawn to things that others are looking at, or commenting on things that others are talking about. If somebody decides to get stark naked and run about the town centre, then you can bet your damn ass that everyone nearby will soon gather round for a glimpse of the action. The only question now is, how do you cause such a public nuisance that you find your friend, but don’t have them bailing you out of jail for indecent exposure a short while after?

Perhaps I should just heed the advice given to me by my crazy and psychotic friend Lara: “If you’re talking about a girl, no need to meet her, just stay at home. If it’s not a girl then it simply doesn’t exist, since you have no friends. So there’s no need to bother yourself with this kind of ‘hypothetical research question’. Stay at home and close the door.”

Well, that's me told.

Crobs Abroad: The Seven Wonders of Scotland

Scotland, UK • June 2017 • Length of Read: 7 Minutes

There are numerous ‘seven wonders of the world’ lists kicking about online, from the ‘seven wonders of nature’; to the ‘seven wonders of the industrial world’; of the ancient world; of the solar system; of the underwater world; to the ‘seven wonders of the modern world’, which we have pretty much agreed upon as being, Machu Picchu; Petra; Chichen Itza; Pyramid of Giza; Great Wall of China; Christ the Redeemer, and the Taj Mahal.  I’ve visited the South American pair so far, but still have another five to go before I can tick off bucket list item #57.

Albeit quite novel, these lists are pretty interesting, so I was therefore disappointed when finding out that nobody has ever come up with a set ‘Seven Wonders of Scotland’. The Scotsman newspaper did once run a public vote to find out what Scots thought some of the most wonderful things that their homeland had to offer were, with the impressive Forth Rail Bridge taking first place accolades, but I still feel that a definitive list needs to be compiled.

Now, caveat time. I am neither a historian nor a geographer, and I struggle to follow Lego instructions never mind architectural blueprints, so for the purposes of this list I have excluded all wonders of nature and engineering. Scotland is one of the most beautiful countries in the world and I could never separate what if feels like to drive through Glencoe; climb Ben Nevis; traverse Skye’s Cullin Ridge, or witness the wildlife of the Outer Hebrides. If you are looking for this then Visit Scotland have put together a list of the best walking trips throughout Alba. And with this in mind, here are Crobs Abroad’s alternative Seven Wonders of Scotland.

Single Malt Scotch Whisky

Having rambled around a large part of the globe, the most common response by far from the locals of foreign lands when finding out where I’m from is to simply exclaim, ‘whisky’. No other word can define Scotland in a nutshell other than the name of the country itself, regardless of where you seem to go. I’ve had Cambodian taxi drivers, Peruvian mayors, and Kiwi hoteliers all express their love for the amber bead, and each also was under the impression that we have been raised on the stuff from birth as if it’s a replacement for breast milk.

Now, as most whisky connoisseurs will tell you, to be a single malt scotch the whisky must have been distilled at a single distillery in Scotland using barley and then matured in oak casks for at least three years and one day. What many people get confused over, however, is how to spell the word. Is it ‘whisky’ or is it ‘whiskey’? Quite simple, really. In almost all cases, if the whisky is made in countries with no ‘e’ in their names, such as Canada, Japan, or Scotland, then it’s spelt as so. If it comes from countries with an ‘e’ in their names, such as Ireland or the good ole’ U.S of A, then it's spelt ‘whiskey’.

Golf

The first written record of golf is when James II banned the game in 1457 because it was becoming an unwelcome distraction to learning archery. Even the King couldn’t resist the allure of the stick and ball game, however, and lifted the ban in 1502 when taking up the sport himself. The Old Course at St. Andrews in the Eastern Kingdom of Fife has been labelled ‘The Home of Golf’, and has its place on The Open Championship rota every five years, the oldest and most prestigious golf tournament in the world.

My favourite story about the sportsmanship and camaraderie in golf comes from what was labelled the ‘Duel in the Sun’ at the 1977 Open Championship at the Turnberry course, also in Scotland and now owned by President Donald Trump. Two of the all-time greats of the game, Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus, found themselves streaks ahead of the rest of the field and in a tense battle all weekend, with Watson eventually pipping Nicklaus to the Claret Jug on the final hole by one stroke.  That night, the pair were reportedly sitting in the clubhouse knocking back drinks and talking about the epic display they had put on for the crowd. ‘You got lucky,’ joked Nicklaus. ‘I had you all day,’ laughed Watson. A few hours later, a security guard, noticing some unusual activities on one of the greens, ran out onto the pitch black course to apprehend what he thought were a couple of hooligans. Instead, he found Nicklaus and Watson drunkenly staggering about, Watson with the trophy in hand and Nicklaus holding their sole club. They had decided to settle their argument like men, with a three-holes, one-club, midnight shootout. I have no way of verifying this story, but I so hope that it is true.

The Original 007

‘The name’s Bond, James Bond’. A famous catchphrase that Sean Connery almost never got to say. The anecdote goes that, when initially casting the titular character for this now world-famous spy and lady killer, creator Ian Fleming and the picture house production team didn’t want an already famous face to portray Bond. They, therefore, held an open call to which Sean Connery attended and absolutely bombed. In a stroke of luck, however, when discussing who they wanted at the end of the casting, Fleming happened to look out of the window of their offices and see Connery walking across the car park. ‘He walks like a panther,' said Fleming, commenting on Connery's  stride. 'Bring him back in for another audition’. The rest, as they say, is history. He nailed his second attempt and was given his license to kill.

The Kilt

“Is it true that you don’t wear anything underneath your kilt?” is one of the most frequently asked questions that a Scotsman gets from foreigners who are intrigued about our strange culture. Worn nowadays as a replacement for a tuxedo or a dinner suit at a black-tie event, no Scottish man is likely to ever look better than when donning the tartan skirt of his clan. I personally own one for formal use and have a second, more cheaply-made kilt, for partying and travelling. The looks that I receive when marching down the street in a foreign country with my pleats billowing in the breeze never get old, although most of them are unfortunately from people simply not familiar with what a kilt is as opposed to groups of girls getting hot under the collar. It is true, though, ladies. I don’t wear any underwear beneath my kilt.

Television

On 25th March 1925, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of televised silhouette images in motion. Cue the birth of the television. Within a year of this, he was demonstrating the transmission of the image of a face in motion and its popularity grew to a level that households around the world are now more likely to have televisions in them than hot running water. American’s spend on average five hours per day watching mind-numbing programming on the box, with hundreds of terrestrial and digital channels to choose from. Baird didn’t have this luxury, however. Rumour has it that he was pissed off after inventing it because there was nothing good on to watch.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival

For the entire month of August each year, the streets, pubs, clubs, and theatres of Edinburgh turn into a city-wide party when the world’s largest arts festival comes into town. The Fringe started in 1947 and there is no threshold as to whom can get involved and participate. All you have to do is rent out a performance space, come up with a ludicrous act, and the flyer like mental for people to pop their head around the door and watch your act. Categories of shows span across theatre; poetry; dance; circus; music, you name it.

What it’s most famous for, however, is the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, which has launched the careers of dozens of household comedy names. Previous recipients of the prestigious main prize include Stephen Fry; Hugh Lawrie; Al Murray; Steve Coogan; Dylan Moran; and Rich Hall but to name a few. There’s also acknowledgement for the funniest joke of The Fringe. Last year’s winner: “My dad has suggested that I register for a donor card. He’s a man after my own heart.”

Haggis

As much as we like to mess with far-too-enthusiastic Americans by telling them that a haggis is a three-legged creature that runs around the Scottish hills and Highlands, it’s actually just a savoury pudding made from the pluck of a sheep. That is, it’s the heart, liver, and lungs of the sheep minced with some spices and stuffed into the lining of its stomach. Sounds delicious, I know. When served with a side portion of neeps (turnips) and tatties (potatoes), however, it is absolutely delicious, and nothing takes me back to my childhood faster. It is the tradition for a haggis to be bagpiped in and addressed during a Burns Supper; evening events which take place on the 25th January each year to celebrate the birthday of Scotland’s most famous poet, Robert Burns.

So, in conclusion, what I’m really saying is that, if under some bizarre circumstances you happen to turn on your TV and see a kilt-donned Sean Connery driving a golf cart through the streets of Edinburgh on his way home from finishing an improv sketch show at the Fringe Festival, whilst washing down a mouthful of haggis with a bottle of Glenmorangie, then that’s pretty fucking Scottish.

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Riding the Battambang Bamboo Train through the Cambodian Countryside

I first heard about the bamboo train from my friend Mario whilst lazing around on the beaches of Cambodia’s southern islands. He’d been the north-western town of Battambang the previous week and could hardly contain his excitement when retelling the story of his trip along the tracks of one of the world’s all-time unique rail journeys to the crowded beach bar that evening. From 3.7km east of Battambang’s old Parisian-style bridge, the bamboo trains race for twenty minutes along 7km of warped, misaligned tracks and over vertiginous bridges left behind by the French, rolling green pastures stretching out as far as the eye can see in all directions. Known in the local Cambodian language of Khmer as a norry, each little bamboo train consists of a 3m-long wooden frame covered in slats of tightly-strung bamboo canes. This is then simply balanced atop two barbell-shaped railroad trucks, a chugging gasoline engine is attached to the rear, and the train is ready to roll.

When the clock struck midnight the music came to a crescendo; the beer stopped pouring; and the bar was closed, plunging the place into darkness. We were living in a wifi-less island paradise and with zero artificial light around, and no pollution in the air, the sky was able to conjure up its magic for all to see. Racing to the beach, everyone stripped down to their white bits and splashed into the warm waters of the Gulf of Thailand. The sea glowed from the bioluminescence of the plankton living in its depth, and with each movement shimmers of glittering gold momentarily glistened under the light of a thousand stars that shone like diamonds on the big black canvas behind them. A more beautiful representation of nature you would struggle to find. As I floated about in the wonderment, however, a nagging began in the back of my brain. Mario had planted an idea, and when something new excites me I do everything in my power to make these ideas blossom into realities. I was going to have to change my travel plans once returning to the mainland. I was going to have to get on a bus to Battambang.

I was welcomed into my hostel with a free cold beer and I got chatting to the owners whilst perusing the lunch menu. Here Be Dragons was run by a lovely, nerdy, English couple in their early thirties and it was immediately apparent that the décor and vibes of the boutique backpackers were a direct extension of their own passions and interests. A graffiti mural of the Tardis from Dr Who covered one of the walls and gaming memorabilia was dotted around the bar between bottles of export spirits. The Beatles hummed softly in the background. Ordering a pork schnitzel and fries from the specials board, I asked the lady the inevitable question. I was too curious not to. ‘Why is the place called Here Be Dragons?’ She laughed, turned over the menu to the back page, and pointed at the old medieval calligraphy printed on it. ‘So many people were asking that we thought a full, proper, explanation was necessary’:

“It is a well-known (though false) fact, that there are places on ancient maps of the world marked with the legend ‘here be dragons’. All that the mapmakers knew of these mysterious, dangerous realms were the tales sailors and explorers brought back with them – fantastical tales of magical beasts and sea-serpents, of men with horns and lambs that grew on plants, of giant eagles that could swoop and seize and carry off an elephant. Here Be Dragons is a land of myth and make-believe, apart from reality, where anything could happen…”

Being low season, and the fact that Battambang is not a place that many travellers find themselves visiting, the hostel was fairly quiet. I therefore headed out on a solo mission guided by a local tuk-tuk driver called DJ who raced around town beforehand to show me the sights. At one point he even stopped in the middle of a roundabout so that I could get a good photo of the Battambang Buddha Statue before getting me safely to the start of the bamboo train. Dozens of the wooden slats lay strewn about and the place looked more like a mechanics’ forecourt than a station, but as soon as they spotted a Westerner the locals who were milling around jumped into gear; something the trains most definitely didn’t have. I paid my $10 fee and hopped aboard the front norry, balancing myself on a couple of cushions whilst my driver with a long emo-like haircut pulled at the starter chord. The engine looked like it had just been lifted from a lawnmower but it was still enough to get the wheels rolling along at 20km/h. With the wind gusting through my hair, I sat cross-legged and took in the beautiful landscape; a wide smile glued to my face.

The bamboo frames were originally built to transport crops between farms and are strong enough to hold up to three tonnes of rice. With the introduction of paved roads, however, the train track was disbanded in favour of trucks, before being re-opened solely as a tourist operation. Each norry would now be said to have a maximum capacity of between ten and fifteen people depending on sizes, which is more than can be cramped into a modern day elevator. I also used the word ‘track’ there in its singular. Interestingly, there is just one parallel track slicing its way through the countryside, and this is where the simplicity of the bamboo norries shines through; providing the perfect solution to the halting problem on any single-track line of what to do when two trains going in opposing directions meet. What happens? One norry is simply picked-up and taken to the side of the tracks so that the other has free passage. When the coast is clear, it is then replaced and you are on your way again. Sometimes there’s no need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

Having let past a couple of German girls on their return journey, the rule being that the norry with the fewest passengers is the one that has to cede the track, we were soon back up to full speed and click-clacking our way along at breakneck speed. The brakes sounded like they were about to fail, the engine sounded like it was sure to blow, and the wheels sounded like they were hanging on by their last few screws. It was more like the world’s least health and safety conscious rollercoaster than a train, but for the entire journey, I felt like the norry had warped me back into a childhood state of fun. As Emit Brown said to Marty McFly: “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”

See A Dead Body (Bucket List #15)

Cambodia/UK • Various Dates • Length of Read: 3 Minutes

“So there’s a great essay written by Sigmund Freud called ‘On Transience’, and in it, he cites a conversation that he had with the poet Rilke as they were walking along this beautiful garden. At one point, Rilke looked like he was about to tear up and Freud said, ‘What’s wrong? It’s a beautiful day. There are beautiful plants around us. This is magnificent.” To which Rilke says, “Well, I can’t get over the fact that one day all of this is going to die. All these trees, all these plants, all this life is going to decay. Everything dissolves into meaninglessness when you think about the fact that impermanence is a really real thing. Perhaps the greatest existential bummer of all is entropy.” I was really struck by this because perhaps that’s why when we’re in love we’re also kind of sad. There’s sadness to the ecstasy. Beautiful things sometimes can make us a little sad. And it’s because what they hint at is the exception, a vision of something more, a vision of a hidden door, a rabbit hole to fall through, but a temporary one. And I think, ultimately, that is kind of the tragedy. That is why love simultaneously fills us with melancholy.” – Jason Silva.

When people look through my bucket list, there are two items which tend to be commented on far more than any others: ‘#52 Fall in Love’ and ‘#15 See a Dead Body’. I think that this is because, as humans, we feel a much greater connection to ideas and events that tug at our heart-strings than we do to adrenaline based activities such as skydiving, relaxing activities such as bathing in the blue lagoon, or adventure activities such as spending the night on a desert island. These other activities are nice added extras, but love and death affect us all. Not in equal measures, but they do affect us all.

My second published book, We Ordered a Panda, which can be purchased through my online bookshop, is my comprehensive answer to the former. My way of feeling better about things is to write them down. Yes, I wish to entertain and inspire, but my writing also doubles as a form of therapy. As an atheist, I am constantly melancholic about love and death. I know that there is no afterlife. I know that I am no phoenix and that when I do eventually die there will be no rebirth from the ashes. By seeing a dead body, I felt that it would provide such a horrific and stark image of the fragility and shortness of life, that I would then be able to further comprehend and understand how I wish to better spend mine.

I have now been unfortunate enough to see multiple dead bodies, and can indeed say that this has been the case. I’m not going to go into the specifics of such incidents. Trust me, as much as you think you want to know, you don’t want to know. And even if you did want to know, I don’t want to share them with you anyway so you won’t know.

What I will say, however, is that crossing this item off my bucket list has strangely led me to be a much happier person. Knowing that I only have a limited time on this Earth, and staring death in the face, has triggered something in me to live much more in the moment; to stop worrying as much; to do even more crazy things, and to eliminate any regret from my actions. Instead of fearing death, I am embracing life.

When I was walking home drunk from the pub one night with my good friend Possum, she got out her phone and started to play Yellow by Coldplay. “This is the song that I want to be played at my funeral,” she said, almost stumbling off the pavement into oncoming traffic, “and everyone in attendance will have to turn up in yellow clothes. I want it to be a celebration of my life and not a mourning.”

How beautiful. How melancholic.

Taking a Shitty Two-Day Slow Boat down the Mekong River from Thailand into Laos

Chiang Rai Bus Terminal is more the type of parking lot that you’d expect to find in a scrap yard than at a station supposedly equipped to deal with Thailand’s national transport system. With the rain pouring down in torrents, and my Lonely Planet guidebook doubling as a hood, Twiggy and I took our bags from the hold of our coach which had just pulled in, hopscotched around the meteor crater-sized potholes, strolled out onto the depressing main street, passed a lonely looking cat café, and took cover inside a dainty corner bar. Ordering some chicken and rice, as is standard across Asia, we looked at one another and nodded in agreement. Chiang Rai was a town with absolutely zero redeeming qualities. We needed to get ourselves out of there pronto.

The food was hotter than the Devil’s Hell, and taking an accidental bite right into a rogue chilli that had made its way into my dish the taste buds in my mouth were sent overboard. I bent over the table and began flicking my tongue in and out like a lizard hunting flies in an attempt to cool myself down; sweat pouring down my forehead and catching on my brow. Twiggy found this the funniest thing in the world, and rather than helping a brother out by fetching a pot of yoghurt or a glass of milk, he instead burst into fits of hysterics. Karma soon struck, though, and in his laughter, he began to choke on the lump of sticky rice that he was chewing on, sending him into a coughing fit that turned his face an unhealthy hue of purple. As I continued to act like I was trying to lick my way through a litre tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream without a spoon, the pair of us must have looked like special needs patients to any onlookers. Onlookers such as the Aussie couple sat at the other side of the bar.

Like the owner of the bar, they also made no attempt to aid us, and instead sniggered away until we both managed to get ourselves back to normal. Well, I’ll never be normal, but back to usual let’s say. After tentatively finishing our meals, being careful to avoid any repeat incidents, we politely accepted their request to join them for a drink. No sooner had we shuffled over to their table, however, did I realise that the guy was a complete prick. Bald, tanned by the Western Australia sun, and covered in your standard sleeve tattoos that many fifty-year-old bikers tend to rock, all he wanted to do was blow his own trumpet. I read somewhere once that Marilyn Manson had undergone surgery to get his lower two ribs removed so that he could self-fellate his own penis, but though that, if I'd told the Hell’s Angel beside me this, he may have taken it as a revelation as opposed to the likely fictitious story it is. Either way, he was so crazy about straddling motorbikes that I got the impression he’d rather stick his knob inside the exhaust pipe of his Harley Davidson than his rather attractive hippie wife. She told us that they had a friend who owned a hostel in Cambodia called Lazy Gecko and that if we name-dropped them to the proprietor upon arrival he’d sort us out with some high-quality marijuana. I lied and said that we would.

The couple were also planning to escape Chiang Rai by taking a slow boat down the Mekong River from the Thai-Laos border to the colonial French settlement of Luang Prabang. It was for this purpose that we’d initially come to the tumbleweed town, as I’d been told by a few fellow travellers whilst dotting around the rest of Asia that this two-day, one night, trip was a bit of a booze cruise, and the perfect way to chew up the miles. With nothing to do in Chiang Rai, and running the risk of being stuck with the Aussie couple if we stayed an extra night, Twiggy and I booked tickets costing 1,800 Baht for the boat that departed the following morning. Unfortunately, our excitement wouldn’t last long.

“Have you got your accommodation booked for tonight?” asked a plump, camp man as we shared a tuk-tuk from the border town of Huay Xai to the pier. He was travelling with his boyfriend and the couple from Leeds had donned themselves in full travel wanker gear.

“We sleep on the boat,” I laughed, correcting him. “Booze cruise here we come.”

“No we don’t,” he said, looking confused. “It’s not the bloody QE2 we’re taking. What on Earth made you think that there would be enough room on the boat for all of us to sleep?”

“Don’t joke with me right now,” I said, starting to panic. I’d dragged Twiggy all the way from Glasgow to a corner of nowhere in Western Laos with the promise of a party boat, and now the wind was being taken right out of our sails by a dude who looked like Gru from Despicable Me wearing a Clint Eastwood poncho

“Seriously,” he said, thinking that I was the one joking. “This is no booze cruise either. Most of the people on the boat will be locals who use the river to commute back and forth between their sporadic riverside settlements. We all disembark at dusk to spend the evening in a one horse shoreline hamlet called Pak Beng.”

“I think you might be right,” I admitted in deflation as the pier came into view. A wooden raft of a boat sat docked, looking as depressed as I felt. Even Huckleberry Finn would have scoffed at how primative it was. My supposed booze cruise liner turned out to have car seats that had been seemingly ripped from the same dilapidated and haggard minivan than had shakenly escorted us to the Thai border, and a toilet that looked like it had been cleaned by a blind person suffering from chronic diarrhoea. As we boarded, an American dude from Houston, Texas, sat down across the makeshift aisle from me and immediately collapsed the seat with his fat ass. Typical. They weren’t even screwed down. I opened my book and started to read. This was going to be a long, long excursion.

As we set off, a sixty-nine-year-old woman that bore a striking resemblance to Noddy Holder from Slade came over for a chat. She had been travelling the world with her Icelandic husband called Magnus for eight whole years in full retirement, but despite having more stamps in her passport than almost anybody I’ve ever met seemed to lack any form of geographical knowledge. Whilst retelling us a frightfully long story about confronting homeless people on Big Island Hawaii when there for her eldest daughter’s wedding, Noddy informed us that Honolulu was America’s 56th State. I looked at the perm of white hair atop her head and started humming Merry Christmas Everybody. She soon left.

An Israeli girl wearing Harry Potter specs and a pair of skin tight leggings that bore a colourful pattern of the solar system on them then sat down behind us. Bored of the typical backpacker questioning of ‘how long are you travelling for?’ I asked her what she thought about humanity’s strive to colonise Mars in an attempt to become a multi-planetary species, but only got a grunt in response and a complaint about the packed lunches that we had been given.

Unperturbed, I then asked her what she thought the greatest man-made construction of all time was, but again she just shrugged and replied that she felt that nothing man-made has ever been of benefit to the life on our planet. I told her that I thought the International Space Station was a pretty neat project and that, were it not for irrigation networks and modern advancements in medicine, the likelihood of her having survived long enough through childhood and getting on a plane to the other side of the planet so as to annoy me with her wishy washy Earthly philosophies would be somewhat drastically reduced. She told me in response that I should read a book called Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by an Israeli author she couldn’t remember. I told her that it had been written by a gentleman going by the name of Yuval Noah Harari and that I’d finished it only a few months ago.

Changing her tune, said she that she was genuinely impressed, and expressed her delight at how excellent and beautiful the view from the river was. I told her that the only way I would consider the view to be excellent was if I’d spent the previous twenty years looking at the four concrete walls of a prison cell. She told me I was being a bit grumpy and morbid. I told her that the boat did have many similarities to a prison cell in the sense of the poor amenities and that we couldn’t leave it. She soon moved to a seat at the back.

‘Perhaps I should make a conscious effort to be a bit nicer to people,’ I thought to myself, putting my earphones in and directing my gaze down the murky and muddy Mekong. We did have another 500km to cover which would take approximately fourteen hours. How I wished that we’d just booked a flight. Now that’s a man-made invention everyone can get on board with. Here’s a toast to the Wright Brothers and Lucky Charles Lindbergh.