THE BACKPACKER - DAY 7
Camp 7, approx 18km? from Camp 5, Somewhere in Northern Thailand
Coo-coo-uh! Coo-coo-uh! Ah, the velvety tones of the wood pigeon. It’s a beautiful summer’s morning. Morning Mood from the Greig’s Peer Gynt suite now gently permeates my ears and the smell of sizzling bacon starts to fill the air invitingly. I reach out for the bacon sandwich proffered lovingly by my nan. Wait a minute! My nan’s been dead for ten years! Aaargh! A dream!
“Up ye get, mate!” It’s Matt’s dulcet tones. Woe, woe and thrice woe.
“Apparently we’re gonna kick on in about an hour.” he informs me.
I drag myself up, rub my eyes, and focus on the real world. Matt’s ugly mush fills my vista. His face looks half-finished. Has the man no redeeming features?
“There’s a brew up outside if you want some. Café Matte. Geddit?”
He disappears out the tent flap and I flop back down. I think I’m cracking. This promised to be the holiday of a lifetime in a positive, life enhancing way and now it’s the fucking unexpurgated version of Dante’s Inferno. I actually catch myself saying the word ‘sigh’ as I get up (again). Before you can say ‘damp stinking clothes’, I’m dressed and out among my fellow campers.
“Ooh-yah! Bliddy good coffee, Matt!” says Morag, navvy-style.
“Just what I need, man.” says Phil, slurping his dregs, before re-filling.
Being Scandinavian types, Maria and Thijs eat some kind of chipboard crackers washed down with sensible water. I pour some coffee into a mug and sit down amongst them. The coffee is like tar only not as nice tasting. Diligent as ever, Thijs has been studying the map. He reckons it will take us eight hours good yomp to get to the finish line, where we can demand our money back, hang Hy and Lo, and scrub the smell of damp and decay out of our skins. Any order will do.
We gather our things and set off. The first hour or so was, by previous experience, fairly uneventful. Light jungle, boggy under foot, a damp pervasive heat, and lots of weird noises. We were making disturbingly excellent progress, principally due to Morag’s lead. She was almost walking as fast as she was talking. Maria asks her to slow down as Phil appears to lagging behind. We look round and see Phil, without his pack, pulling a face with his two front teeth prominent and 2 upright fingers of each hand at either side of his head. It was instantly recognisable as a man impersonating a rabbit. At first we thought it was a joke and made light of it. But when he just stared back at us impassively, twitched his nose, then hopped into the dense undergrowth, our collective hearts sank. I ran after him, leaving Matt with Maria and Morag, who by now appeared to be speaking in tongues.
Praying that he hadn’t dug a burrow, we searched and shouted for an eternity (= 10 mins). It was just by chance that I looked up at a tree branch, only to see Phil perched on it…naked. I called Thijs over. From the permanently pained expression on his face, I can see that even he is within a day or so of the loony bin. Surprisingly it only takes the promise of some millet spray and a cuttle fish to get Phil out of the tree. We dress him and then trudge silently back to the others like shellshocked Nam veterans back from another mission. Phil gets hugged and we sit down to take stock. Suddenly a lightbulb explodes in Maria’s head.
“The coffee!! Could it have been the coffee?”
“Mat what did you do to the coffee” asks Thijs sternly.
“Nuffink. I only made it super strength because I thought we all need a little caffeine lift to ring us all back up.”
“And nothing else” enquires Maria.
“Nah!”
“Are you sure?” Me, Thijs and Maria, all ask as one voice.
“Course I am fucking sure! I even cleaned out the pot and dried it with a lea……. “
“With what Matt?” Thijs enquires somewhat darkly.
“A leaf….just a leaf… to get the dregs out of the bottom.”
Maria does her CSI.
“That’s it. The chemicals off the leaf must have re-acted with the caffeine in the coffee.”
“And with my anti-depressants” says a recovering Phill in a monotone voice.
“Nay wonder Ah felt ah wiz goin’ fuckin’ raj!” No one has a clue what the man-woman means. You know Morag could be a Martian – the language, the looks, the gait.
We rest. We gird our loins. We move on. Only seven or so hours till camp. Spiffing! Matt’s stupidity aside, once again nature has picked at our collective scab. It is really just down to endurance now. Can we make it to the end vivo intacto?
Coo-coo-uh! Coo-coo-uh! Ah, the velvety tones of the wood pigeon. It’s a beautiful summer’s morning. Morning Mood from the Greig’s Peer Gynt suite now gently permeates my ears and the smell of sizzling bacon starts to fill the air invitingly. I reach out for the bacon sandwich proffered lovingly by my nan. Wait a minute! My nan’s been dead for ten years! Aaargh! A dream!
“Up ye get, mate!” It’s Matt’s dulcet tones. Woe, woe and thrice woe.
“Apparently we’re gonna kick on in about an hour.” he informs me.
I drag myself up, rub my eyes, and focus on the real world. Matt’s ugly mush fills my vista. His face looks half-finished. Has the man no redeeming features?
“There’s a brew up outside if you want some. Café Matte. Geddit?”
He disappears out the tent flap and I flop back down. I think I’m cracking. This promised to be the holiday of a lifetime in a positive, life enhancing way and now it’s the fucking unexpurgated version of Dante’s Inferno. I actually catch myself saying the word ‘sigh’ as I get up (again). Before you can say ‘damp stinking clothes’, I’m dressed and out among my fellow campers.
“Ooh-yah! Bliddy good coffee, Matt!” says Morag, navvy-style.
“Just what I need, man.” says Phil, slurping his dregs, before re-filling.
Being Scandinavian types, Maria and Thijs eat some kind of chipboard crackers washed down with sensible water. I pour some coffee into a mug and sit down amongst them. The coffee is like tar only not as nice tasting. Diligent as ever, Thijs has been studying the map. He reckons it will take us eight hours good yomp to get to the finish line, where we can demand our money back, hang Hy and Lo, and scrub the smell of damp and decay out of our skins. Any order will do.
We gather our things and set off. The first hour or so was, by previous experience, fairly uneventful. Light jungle, boggy under foot, a damp pervasive heat, and lots of weird noises. We were making disturbingly excellent progress, principally due to Morag’s lead. She was almost walking as fast as she was talking. Maria asks her to slow down as Phil appears to lagging behind. We look round and see Phil, without his pack, pulling a face with his two front teeth prominent and 2 upright fingers of each hand at either side of his head. It was instantly recognisable as a man impersonating a rabbit. At first we thought it was a joke and made light of it. But when he just stared back at us impassively, twitched his nose, then hopped into the dense undergrowth, our collective hearts sank. I ran after him, leaving Matt with Maria and Morag, who by now appeared to be speaking in tongues.
Praying that he hadn’t dug a burrow, we searched and shouted for an eternity (= 10 mins). It was just by chance that I looked up at a tree branch, only to see Phil perched on it…naked. I called Thijs over. From the permanently pained expression on his face, I can see that even he is within a day or so of the loony bin. Surprisingly it only takes the promise of some millet spray and a cuttle fish to get Phil out of the tree. We dress him and then trudge silently back to the others like shellshocked Nam veterans back from another mission. Phil gets hugged and we sit down to take stock. Suddenly a lightbulb explodes in Maria’s head.
“The coffee!! Could it have been the coffee?”
“Mat what did you do to the coffee” asks Thijs sternly.
“Nuffink. I only made it super strength because I thought we all need a little caffeine lift to ring us all back up.”
“And nothing else” enquires Maria.
“Nah!”
“Are you sure?” Me, Thijs and Maria, all ask as one voice.
“Course I am fucking sure! I even cleaned out the pot and dried it with a lea……. “
“With what Matt?” Thijs enquires somewhat darkly.
“A leaf….just a leaf… to get the dregs out of the bottom.”
Maria does her CSI.
“That’s it. The chemicals off the leaf must have re-acted with the caffeine in the coffee.”
“And with my anti-depressants” says a recovering Phill in a monotone voice.
“Nay wonder Ah felt ah wiz goin’ fuckin’ raj!” No one has a clue what the man-woman means. You know Morag could be a Martian – the language, the looks, the gait.
We rest. We gird our loins. We move on. Only seven or so hours till camp. Spiffing! Matt’s stupidity aside, once again nature has picked at our collective scab. It is really just down to endurance now. Can we make it to the end vivo intacto?
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