Confessions of a former backpacker

Time can move slowly when you are on an assignment alone. Recently, at a resort I was reviewing in Vietnam, I found myself at a loose end. I’d polished off the complimentary handmade artisanal chocolates, scoured more than 100 channels in vain for something decent to watch and nearly disabled myself on one of the king-sized bed’s fashionably sharp edges.

With nothing left to do but amble around aimlessly in a monogrammed terry-toweling robe, I began reminiscing about the first time I visited Southeast Asia and how my approach to travel has changed in the intervening 17 years. Back then, in 1999, I went mad – or at least that’s how it seems to me now. It was not as if I’d had a sheltered upbringing. I arrived in Bangkok off the back of a leaving party that dragged on for around three weeks.

Nevertheless, as a good middle-class boy from Edinburgh, I didn’t expect to be occupying matchbox-sized rooms, spending 17 hours in the back of a pickup truck to see temples in Cambodia or donning an American football helmet for a coronary-inducing six-hour speedboat ride down the Mekong River in Laos. The fact that I was also decked out in backpacker-issue fisherman’s pants, garish replica T-shirts and love beads only adds to the retrospective unreality of it all.

I’m much older now and, if not much wiser, certainly more pampered. My improved earning capacity allows me nicer hotels, and the novelty of bus travel wore off somewhere around the invention of the iPod

Yet, I did all these things (and more) within a fortnight of touching down at Bangkok’s Don Mueang airport. What’s more, I loved every minute. Finding a bed, no matter how grimy, for less than US$6 a night appealed to my sense of adventure and my Caledonian sense of thriftiness.

Uncomfortable long-distance bus journeys, meanwhile, didn’t bother me in the slightest. Why splurge on an airline ticket, I reasoned, when I could spend an entire day hemmed in by a crate of chickens or fish sauce, listening to the compilation tapes I spent entire days prioritising before departure?

I’m much older now and, if not much wiser, certainly more pampered. My improved earning capacity allows me nicer hotels, and the novelty of bus travel wore off somewhere around the invention of the iPod.

The first time I cruised down the Mekong, I needed several shots of rotgut Lao whiskey for Dutch courage, while my stomach was reeling from some iffy fried chicken. Last time I made the journey, this time on a luxury cruise, the beverage of choice was French Champagne, while catering was provided by one of Asia’s top chefs.

Although I’ve sampled some incredible experiences, I still can’t help feeling like a sell-out when exposed to the finer things in Asia. In fact, although I loved the cruise, it was a relief to reach Phnom Penh and be sped away from the jetty to a favourite noodle shop in a US$2 tuk-tuk.

I can’t turn back time, and nor would I want to. During a recent revisiting of the Full Moon Party on Koh Phang Ngan in Thailand, I was desperate to leave by around 9pm. Nevertheless, I’m glad I retain at least some naive wonderment in defiance of all the five-star trimmings – and that I do so without owning a single pair of fisherman’s pants.