Backpacker Fiction: You Say Enclave, I Say Ghetto...

Thursday, November 6, 2008

You Say Enclave, I Say Ghetto...

Anyone of a certain age who's traveled through Asia will know what the terms Bui Vien, Khao San, Boeng Kak and Thamel refer to.

Filled to the brim with cheap accommodation, restaurants that serve muesli-fruit-yogurt to dread-haired hippies in cotton sacks, cheap Marlboros and pirated CD shops, these backpackers 'enclaves' serve as a home base for young independent travelers to explore the city.

My relationship to these backpacker ghettos changed as I became a more experienced and confident traveler.
At twenty-three years-old, I did a month in Vietnam, my first true "backpacker" experience, and I was more than glad for the amenities that Saigon's Bui Vien area provided. My first day, I had met two Australian girls, two Israeli's and a British guy taking full advantage of Saigon's cheap prostitutes. I stocked up on pirated CDs, bought cheap t-shirts, drank beer at the street-side cafes and generally decompressed into Vietnam.

In Bangkok, I did the same. The legendary Khao San road was to me a travel destination in itself and as I stood at one end looking down the long fluorescent tube swarming with travelers, I felt as though I had unlocked some bonus level in my life. I sat with a Tiger beer and just watched the street go by, both enthralled and repelled by what I saw.

I suddenly remembered a line from Alex Garland's The Beach: "You know, Richard, one of these days I'm going to find one of those Lonely Planet writers and I'm going to ask him, what's so fucking lonely about the Khao San Road?"

Was this what became of my dream of wandering through foreign landscapes, spending the nights on floors of

secret monasteries or riding an old motorbike down hidden paths to perfect beaches? Was everyone planning the same thing? Was I just lying to myself about my uniqueness and was actually just part of an ultra-hip tour-group?

A British girl I met on Ko Phangan told me of having met four other British guys who boasted of not having left the Khao San in four days. We both balked at her story, revealing that some travelers hold a secret (or not so secret) snobbery against these ghetto areas.

These areas are viewed by experienced travelers as too easy. Everything is at your Western fingertips. And most likely you will not even have to search for it; it follows you around in broken English saying, "You want tuk-tuk? You want internet? You want cheap room? You want cheap girl? Cheap boy?"

The Khao San is "Backpacking 101" and as the traveler begins to navigate the world with more confidence, the less likely he needs to surround himself with other beginner travelers. He becomes more adventurous, self-reliant, intrepid.

On my fourth trip back to Thailand, I realized my relationship with the Khao San had changed. Like an oft-frequented night-club, I had "been there done that" and wanted something more authentically Thai. I chose a guesthouse far away from the backpacker strip in the middle of Thai suburb. There were no Western restaurants, English speakers, or other travelers. I was alone in the Thailand I had come to experience in the first place.

I walked down a maze of streets out to a wide road clouded with construction dust. Headlights from oncoming trucks beamed through, illuminating silhouettes of Thai women carrying thier children. There were street stalls of deep-fried anything and as I picked my way over muddy puddles, curled dogs and dropped animal pieces, I felt a different buzz than the one I had felt standing before the Khao San on my first trip to Bangkok.

I sat at a low plastic table and shared whiskey with an extraordinarily drunk Thai man who was dead-set on driving me home. I was stared at and smiled at by everyone who caught a glimpse of me, not ignored as is is the case with the jaded Thai workers of the Khao San. I didn't see a single Westerner all evening and was one of the few times traveling where I felt truly "lost" - and I was happy.

While I think it's possible simply to dive into the deep end of global travel, I think these backpacker ghettos serve a much-needed function of initiation. A college freshman is grateful for a dormroom full of other freshmen in the same boat, but four years later and full of confidence, that same student is more than ready to move on, tired of the same old-same old and looking for a new set of experiences. Backpacker snobbery towards these areas, I realized, comes more from boredom than contempt. Certain areas and countries are easier to travel than others and because I began in the comforting enclave of Bui Vien in Vietnam and I was able then able to tackle India and Burma.