Thai Me Kangaroo Down Sport!

Being a good Boganette, I’ve travelled to several of the usual Aussie Bogan destinations.

Naturally, we’ve exhausted the diamante scene on the Gold Coast. BtT and I have had coconut jello squares at a luau in Honolulu (blech). We’ve done cheapy slots (and the chocolate wheel) in Vegas. The BHG is collecting Disneylands (three to go). Our thongs and carry-on tube of Vegemite have made friends on the Love Boat in the Caribbean and Mexico.

But no matter how far or how wide we roam, there are some places we just haven’t been. And as my dad says, “Blossy, spend it coz ya can’t take it with ya when ya cark it.” So when we needed an emergency travel package deal after selling our house for more than it’s worth (invest the cash? Pffft!), we reckoned it was time to do Phuket. In fact, with JetStar you actually literally can’t go past Phuket. The plane stops there. And Vodka’s twenty bucks a litre duty free.

It’s suitably perfect, and you get a lot of bang for your buck in developing countries. You get like, a million baht to a dollar. As long as you can master the slip-n-slide with the hawkers on the beach, or as we like to call it, “bugger off mate!” you can practically BUY Phuket with the pocket money of a home-schooled adolescent.  Lying like starfish in the very salty Andaman Sea, trying to figure out whether it’s legal in Thailand to get a teenager to go buy you a drink, BtT summed it up perfectly… “God this is nice. It's... paralytic!”

The Thai people are just so damned nice.

Every time we’d turn around someone was bowing or praying or asking us if we were happy enough. Have a welcome drink. Have a scented towel. Can I get you a complimentary shuttle? Let me carry everything in your hands and walk silently behind you for as long as you wish. Tricky names some of them have though. One of our breakfast waitresses was called Porn (we were busting to ask if her last name was Star...) and our room cleaner was named Jif. She would take her shoes off to come into our room, even if it was to deliver fresh ice fifteen times a day. Even the Sheraton resort’s resident elephants were constantly polite. Not like those raucous African ones with all their trumpeting and stampeding.

I was accosted by 'Sandra' (we think she may have English-ed her name a bit, God knows what it was before...) from Guest Services at breakfast one morning, wanting to know if there was anything that could make our stay more perfect. I must’ve looked a bit doubtful about the ‘perfectness’ of my stay, because the next day a complimentary birthday cake arrived at our room and we got extra bottled water and hand lotion. And they put extra ‘weird fruit’ out at breakfast after I mentioned that the Dragonfruit was a bit light on (and some lamb chops for BHG… yes I know, no one eats lamb chops for breakfast… she does…) and brought BtT some larger custard donuts (tricky having to keep opening his mouth for all those tiny little ones). Yay. NOW we’re happy!

Think we might’ve overdone the ‘luxury’ travel thing with the adolescent though. Our clue? One morning at the breakfast buffet, she looked deep in thought (first warning sign of an epiphany…). When asked if anything was on her mind, she commented, “I’ve heard that there’s places to stay in the world that don’t come with an included breakfast. Is that TRUE?” Being the always-on-guard-for-a-teaching-moment parent I replied, “Actually, yes. In fact, there’s places called Youth Hostels that lots of young people stay at when they travel. Apparently it’s quite fun. You could do that with a friend when you’re eighteen (hint, hint)” Shocked, the BHG exclaimed, “Well, not if there’s no BREAKFAST! What would I eat?” Looks like we need to book somewhere next time where she sleeps on the floor and scavenges local bakeries with loose change.

I love to watch.

Watching Aussies out of their natural environment is always fun (“darl, where’s the sunblock?” “What am I… your bloody personal lacky?” “Can ya get me a beer when you look for the sunblock? And stop bloody complaining otherwise I’m getting one of those Happy Ending massages from that tent over there!”), but watching people from around the world is just a hoot really. It’s one of the best things about going O.S. Having a gander at people from other countries and cultures just makes me bloody pleased that I’m Australian (ie, ‘normal’). OK, so we’ve got a little holiday 'Paunch ‘n’ Peeling’ happening and I did alternate between my 75% off Ezi-buy mail order bikini and circa 2005 adidas swimmers designed more for laps than exotic beaches (BHG calls it my ‘full body suit’ a la Thorpie I guess), but generally we’re not an embarrassment to our nationality.

Not like some others who should never be allowed out of their home country.

In the surf was an entire Indian family delegation Bollywooding in swim-sari’s. I didn’t even know you could GET Hindi-approved togs (made my adidas racer-back look quite skimpy!), but here they were, in all their glory, sequins and full make-up. Even great-gran was having a go. Yeah, good on ‘em we thought… the first few times. Funny how Bollywood in the surf kinda wears thin after a bit, threatening the serentity of our paralytic paradise. Until they got dumped by a wave. Then it was funny again.

Then there was a Russian family, all KGB-like with dark sunnies and black beachbags. The father and son were having an argument in Russian whilst Glamour-mommy basted on the spit, when suddenly the seven year old-ish son burst into English, saying “I don’t know who you are and I do NOT SPEAK RUSSIAN!” We were in stitches and then the father grabbed the son by the leg and yelled (in English), “How many times do I have to tell you not to break the hotel toilet!” The son answered, “I thought you were joking!” Father responded, “Why would I joke about hotel toilets???!!!!!!!" And went purple in the face. Geez. Have another vodka mate. And give the kid some Ritalin-ski. Or make him dance with the Indians.

Of course there’s the requisite lobster-coloured Poms whinging about the price of beer, the gay Italians holding pinkies and marching proudly in their patterned budgie smugglers and the Japanese carting their fluoro and Hello Kitty floatation devices around (do they not teach swimming in Japan?) There were the token Yanks, doing every motorised sport imaginable, their nasal voices piercing: “HEYYYYY, Chrisssstinnnnnne! Rev the motorrrrrrrrr. Fassssterrrrrrrrr!!!!!”

But you can always pick the Aussies.

Actually, the BHG made it her mission. She just swam around in the ocean randomly talking to see who spoke English. Preferably anyone under thirty, given the lack of children at resorts out of school holiday season (“Yess…. I’m HOME SCHOOLED ok?”). She did actually hit on a nice family from Ballarat. Shane and Suze had brought their kid (Amber? Amblyn?) and both sets of elderly parents (yes, I KNOW, as IF!!!! ) and hired a gi-normous private-pool villa. SCORE! For BtT and I too actually, since Suze seemed to like offering to have our whiney-always-hungry-where’s-the-sunscreen-can-i-buy-a-drink adolescent over to ‘the villa’. Then we’d meet up on the beach for a 99 Baht ($3.30) cocktail (or two). We did encourage Shane & Suze from Ballarat to adopt… but alas…apparently they just wanted someone to play with their whingey-annoying only child too.

So, with a new knock-off Dior handbag, Prada sunnies, an XL Hard Rock Cafe shirt (BtT collects them, tragic Bogan behaviour) and a Thai-dyed dress, bandanna, etc, we’ve packed up our pauchy, peely bodies and headed home. There’s only so much relaxing you can do you know? We slipped so easily into a routine of doing bugger-all that we might need a holiday to get over it. One of those detox don’t-feed-me spas. Or a bootcamp where they boss us around instead of offering us cool scented towels.

Best just make sure that there’s duty free alcohol. And a buffet. And a beach. Maybe just a pool or two as well. Yes… definitely. Bugger doing Budget. We’re going to raise the bar (or at least sit under it with our wobble-board!)

Yes. That's our new goal. To represent our nation at holiday resorts around the world. Building Better Bogans!

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Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport, Rolf Harris, 1957.