Read Online The Backpacker by John Harris - Free Book Online Page A

noticed the posters in the window: brightly coloured pictures of tropical beaches; blue skies, blue seas, white sand and lush jungle backdrops of the deepest green. Koh Samui , read one, Phi Phi Island , another. Two bikini-clad models were lying on a gleaming white yacht in one poster, and underneath the operator of the travel agency had written, KOH PHA-NGAN DAILY BUS / TRAIN.
    My soul lifted like a rocket, my eyes cleared and I took a step back to focus on the door sign. Opening hours: 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. it read, and, for the first time since my fiancée had left, I took out my wristwatch to check the time.
    TWO
    After India, train travel in Thailand was a breeze: the train was clean, each person had a separate coffin-like box to sleep in with a curtain for privacy, the carriage was air conditioned, they served beer and, above all, they ran on time. My train south was due to leave at half past six and it did, to the minute. The only drawback was the price, which was ten times the cost of an equivalent journey in India. In fact I was rapidly learning that everything was ten times more than I’d been paying the day before.
    Although I wasn’t running out of money yet, the cost of the flight from Calcutta to Bangkok was an unexpected burden on my budget. I had expected to have to fly but, contrary to the advice I’d received from other travellers, there were no cheap flights to be had in Calcutta, and it had cost the same for that one-way, two-hour flight as a cheap return ticket from London to New York. The cost of that ticket alone could have kept me on the road in India, all food and lodging included, for two months at least.
    However, I did have a choice when leaving Bangkok to either go by train or bus. The bus was slightly cheaper, but in the end, having weighed up the situation, I chose the train. A wise choice because although the bus left earlier, getting me away from pigs and dogs, I didn’t feel up to sitting in a seat for ten hours. At least on the train I could kill two birds with one stone: get there and have a good sleep.
    The train pulled out of the station, and at about nine o’clock, after dinner and one beer, I zonked out, fully dressed. The sound of the other travellers around me laughing and discussing their various ports of call faded into infinity along with the sound of the train wheels, and I drifted off, cosy in the knowledge that there would be nothing to disturb me.
    The next thing I knew, the guard was walking up and down the train waking everyone up for breakfast. We were transferred onto a clapped-out ferry early in the morning and I lay on deck, soaking up the magical first rays of the sun, content that I was finally, truly out of Bangkok and among blue sea and palm trees.
    Little green islands were dotted around the place, coming into view and then, when each person on the boat had discussed whether or not it was their island, passing us by. I had just muttered, ‘Ahh, this is the life,’ to myself and lain down on the top deck, when I heard a vaguely familiar voice above the whine of the engines shout, ‘Hey, Suzy, isn’t that John over there, that British guy?’
    I opened one eye. There was a pause while Dave fought his way over to me, across the bodies strewn on deck, occasionally giving a one fingered gesture to anyone who complained.
    â€˜Well, la-di-da!’ he said, standing over me, the sun eclipsed by his head. ‘Hey brother, you too huh? Me an’ Sooze couldn’t take it either.’ He did his familiar secret agent style glance over his shoulder and crouched down beside me. ‘To tell you the truth John, heard there’re some, er, babes on this island of ours. Thought I might bag me a couple. Whaddya say?’
    I agreed half-heartedly before Suzy came over lugging Dave’s guitar and looking thoroughly pissed off. She shoved it at him angrily as he stood up. ‘It is John,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Well