In the Bag
There is a guy in Pattaya who I have known for almost a year now. He is more of an acquaintance than a friend and to conceal his identity I won’t mention his nationality. Or cricket.
The strange thing is, in all the time I have known him, I have never seen him without a backpack on his back. Whether he is walking around, riding his motorcycle, sitting at a bar or eating at a restaurant, his knapsack is always with him. Recently, my curiosity got the better of me and I made the mistake of asking him what he carried around in the bag. His mistake was that he told me. Your mistake is reading about it.
He unzipped the knapsack and removed the contents one item at a time. First, there was a bottle of drinking water. This was not unusual because, naturally, in the steaming desert that is Pattaya, dehydration is always a major concern. Liquid refreshment is so hard to find that many tourists can be seen wandering the sois carrying plastic bottles of water for emergencies.
Next to emerge was a heavy, silver metallic gadget. It was a Mexican copy of a Chinese imitation of a Swiss army knife and it had everything that, literally, opens and shuts. There were nail clippers, a nail file, two screw drivers, a bottle opener, can opener, cork screw, a metal saw or file and yes, even a knife. He said he had owned it for years and it was very handy indeed. I asked how often he had needed to use it, to which he replied he remembered exploiting the bottle opener a couple of times.
The next item was very interesting. It was a piece of coiled string. This was very important, he said, because you never know when you will need some string and when you do need it, there is never any around. How long is a piece of string? I didn’t want to know. But again I asked how often he had needed it. He said it was the original string and he had never required its services yet, but he was sure the day would come and, when it did, he would be ready.
Then he pulled out a small face towel and a sealed plastic bag containing a pad of folded toilet paper. These needed no explanation as I could fully understand their inclusion in his survival pack. What I didn’t understand was the small sewing kit with some needles, different coloured cotton and spare buttons. I’ve heard of ‘Be Prepared’ but this guy was the master of all scoutmasters. Either that or he would make a good wife. My own philosophy is; if a button falls off my shirt then that’s what it wanted. It was karma. Fly away! Be free!
He then produced his medical kit which, in retrospect, would be the envy of some Third World countries. Small plastic bottles of mosquito repellant, sunscreen, eye drops, antiseptic solution and tubes of itch cream, chaffing cream and dermatitis cream made up the bulk. Bandaids, plaster in assorted sizes, cotton wool, sterile bandages and a small pair of surgical scissors were kept separately.
Then came the pills, including enough Imodium to plug the hole in the Titanic plus some laxatives just in case he ever OD’d on the former. The rainbow box of pills came with an accompanying typed list, colour coded for efficiency, to explain the use of each tablet: white ones for headache/fever; red ones for travel sickness; yellow ones for indigestion; blue ones for an erection etc. God help him if he ever lost that list! I asked him if he did a lot of travelling through the bush or up country. “No,” he replied straight-laced, “I just hang around Pattaya.”
There was a sleeping mask, ear plugs (definitely see a use for those in this town) and a plastic inflatable pillow. With that, I could take no more and told him I got the picture. But he was not finished yet. There was a watertight folder containing his Thai driver’s license and a full colour, laminated photocopy of every page in his passport. On the cover of the folder was a letter to a doctor stating his blood type and that he was not allergic to any medication. Underneath was three names and telephone numbers, presumably his next of kin. Enough! Put it all back in the bag. I don’t want to see any more.
But I wasn’t getting off that easy. Still to come was a business card folder, a small address book, a notepad, pen and a pencil, a road map of Thailand, a map of Pattaya and a map of the tube stations in London. (No, I didn’t ask.) He finally upturned the bag and, falling to the table, was a key ring containing his spare set of keys (at least a dozen), a disposable cigarette lighter, a metal spoon, a whistle, a rudimentary compass and a 3-minute egg timer. He paused as if waiting for me to ask something but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. There are some things in this world best left unexplained.
As he carefully replaced each item in his knapsack, I remarked on how thorough I thought he had been, adding that, if ever I found myself lost in the middle of nowhere, I’d like him to be with me. While he was deciding whether that was a compliment or not, I succumbed to the urge to relate my own personal travel attitude. I like to travel light, I told him, and, in Pattaya, the lightest way to travel is to carry the one and only necessity. Money.
How much depends upon the anticipated duration of the excursion and just how much of a sexy man I want to be. A very sexy man? Three or four thousand baht. A desirable man? One or two thousand baht. Mildly amusing? A couple of hundred baht. Bordering on leprosy? A pocketful of coins.