Those Who Dislike Backpackers

[keestha]

Often I have been wondering why many people on this board seem to dislike backpackers, recently it surfaced in threads concerning the visa free entry through the land border being brought back to just 15 days.

Sometimes I think they must be those holding jobs with fat expat salaries, who never had to struggle to stay afloat financially and who don't know what it is to be penny pinching. The same people who complain the entrance to their soi is cluttered with vendors and foodstalls emitting unpleasant odours. But maybe I am wrong.

So why do you dislike backpackers? Do you resent their scruffy appearance, which most of them in fact have not? Does it irritate you when they are in front of you in the 7/11? Those of you who live in Bangkok won't be often going to the Khao San Road area anyway. Or does it bug you that in the beerbars the ladies give a lot of attention to the handsome young man backpacker whilst neglecting you old pot bellied geezer though you have a fat wallet to spend on ladydrinks and so on?

Or maybe it is just that many farang Thailand residents seem to want to have Thailand to themselves, complaining there are too many farangs around wherever they go.

[davejonesbkk]

I dont like the backpackers who think that everyone here is on a huge year long vacation and can just bum around. I posted on the Lonely Planet thread last year about resorts on Koh Samet island with wifi as due to my work being internet related I can't be offline for more than 24 hours and some muppet left a comment about 'a bird went seeking a cage' or something pathetic.....

[sbk]

You mean the same attitude of people who think that because you live in Thailand you should eat Thai food all the time? I see that comment on the forum all the time, and this presumably from non-backpackers.

[polecat]

Sometimes I think they must be those holding jobs with fat expat salaries, who never had to struggle to stay afloat financially and who don't know what it is to be penny pinching.

Obviously not that hard up, seeing as you're bumming around Southeast Asia.

When does Mummy's next cheque arrrive, by the way?

I know you're not a backpacker yourself, but it's more fun if I pretend you are.

Edited January 22, 2009 by polecat

[JoeThePoster]

Or does it bug you that in the beerbars the ladies give a lot of attention to the handsome young man backpacker whilst neglecting you old pot bellied geezer though you have a fat wallet to spend on ladydrinks and so on?

Does that really happen? I mean, are fat wallets and ladydrinks no longer in demand?

Do I need buy a backpacker now?

[Geekfreaklover]

From the tone of the question looks like you are looking for a rise. Fair to say that their are good backpackers and bad backpackers same way there are good and bad expats.

But I will bite. What does annoy me sometimes is the way, backpackers sometimes tend to move in great herds, particulary on the gulf islands. These herds can fill a resturant for over two hours, where they will settle down, watch american movies with only five bottles of water between 17 of them. The resturant owner must be chuffed....

Also the way some backpackers dress in what they imagine to be typical Thai clothing, Thai fishermans trousers with no pockets, thai-dye and the like. They think that they are blending in with the cultture. Culture thinks 'farang kee nok' ...

But hey it is an adventure! And I dare say the average backpacker is having a lot more fun than the average expat.

[Geekfreaklover]

Or does it bug you that in the beerbars the ladies give a lot of attention to the handsome young man backpacker whilst neglecting you old pot bellied geezer though you have a fat wallet to spend on ladydrinks and so on?

Does that really happen? I mean, are fat wallets and ladydrinks no longer in demand?

Do I need buy a backpacker now?

How much would you have to pay for a decent backpacker then?

[polecat]

But hey it is an adventure! And I dare say the average backpacker is having a lot more fun than the average expat.

"Fun" is an anti-buddhist concept. Please show more cultural sensitivity.

[sushi5734]

I don't really dislike backpackers as such, but I think its fair to say they have evolved over the years, now its seems that many fall into two groups;

• Lager louts mascarading as backpackers getting absolutley w@nkered leaving a trail of vomit and piss everywhere they go and quite a few getting into fights which ruins the whole thing for me. It seems that the islands have become an alternative to Ibiza or Ayanapa. Just the kind of people I came over here to avoid. The only time I have ever seen trouble in Thailand has involved a drunken farang.
  

• Tarquin or Lucinda types on a gap year funded by mummy and daddy, they walk onto KSR and undergo a tranformation into the backpacker uniform, fisherman pants, chang vest, tribal tatoo, piss hair dreads. They then spend the next 6 months talking about how poor they are and how in touch they are with the tribal folk.........P!ss off!!
  

Yes they are stereotypes but stereotypes don't come from thin air!

[Jingthing]

I wouldn't be caught dead backpacking or God forbid CAMPING these days, but my memory is intact to when I myself was a backpacker (and a truly cheap backpack it was) so realize that many of us oldies think quite fondly of you.

Edited January 22, 2009 by Jingthing

[JoeThePoster]

Or does it bug you that in the beerbars the ladies give a lot of attention to the handsome young man backpacker whilst neglecting you old pot bellied geezer though you have a fat wallet to spend on ladydrinks and so on?

Does that really happen? I mean, are fat wallets and ladydrinks no longer in demand?

Do I need buy a backpacker now?

How much would you have to pay for a decent backpacker then?

About the same as an English teacher, I guess.

[Samuian]

I was a "backpacker" for years, without a backpack, just a simple travel bag and traveled southeast asia crisscross for years, by then there were simply no comfortable trails for the Samsonite and Delsey Clipper Clans and no fancy spas attached to "Boutique Hotels", then the "lonely Planet" Travel guide was a pin board with a zillion of messages in amny european languages, in the "pudding shop" in Istanbul, so in Tehran, Meschad, Herat, Kandahar, Kabul, Quetta, Peshawar, Amritsar and New Delhi all the way to Kathmandu....by then much of the travel over land was made with trucks... local buses, trains... no comfort at all but unbeatable experiences and shoulder to shoulder with the locals... of which one is cut off from in today's "Tourist Resorts"...

Those travelers, their interaction and demands made headway for the Samsonite and Delsey Jet Set Clipper Clans, they were the pioneers!

Edited January 22, 2009 by Samuian

[Smithson]

Don't know about TV members, but the TAT doesn't seem to like backpackers. Personally I wonder if the don't contribute more than 2 week tourists because they stay longer and spend their money at small businesses rather than multi-nationals. They also have less impact.

I have to agree about the pretending to be poor while coming from a rich family bit.

[pumpuiman]

I've got nothing against traveling on a budget...nor do I believe the less than exemplary comments made toward "backpackers" are aimed at budget conscious travelers.

I think most are referring to the hippie throwbacks who are as you mentioned scruffy and odoriferous. The ones who allow their hair to mat into filthy dreadlocks. The ones that ignore Thai cultural differences and show up at offices or temples in shorts and bikini tops. The ones that dress as if they have just returned from an episode of "Survivor Jungle Thailand"...though dressing this way is frowned upon by Thai people. Or perhaps the ones you see haggling over 10 baht with the vendor who makes a couple dollars a day profit. Or maybe the annoying as hel_l "guru's" who say "Right on" every sentence, and claim to fix auras or some crap.

I used to backpack. I traveled the world on a budget, but I always respected the culture of the places I traveled. Traveling on a low budget inevitably puts you in the company of some filthy hippie types. I lived side by side with them on the beaches of Hawaii....and their hippie shit got old real fast..."borrowing" money...trying to get on welfare (to vacation longer) ......<deleted> people trying to sell "rare" sea shells............the list goes on and on.

I traveled to Pai on a week long trip with a family of Thai people. They looked out the windows of our van as if driving through a zoo. Khao San Road is the same.

They are an embarrassment.

[canadianmonkey]

Often I have been wondering why many people on this board seem to dislike backpackers, recently it surfaced in threads concerning the visa free entry through the land border being brought back to just 15 days.

Sometimes I think they must be those holding jobs with fat expat salaries, who never had to struggle to stay afloat financially and who don't know what it is to be penny pinching. The same people who complain the entrance to their soi is cluttered with vendors and foodstalls emitting unpleasant odours. But maybe I am wrong.

So why do you dislike backpackers? Do you resent their scruffy appearance, which most of them in fact have not? Does it irritate you when they are in front of you in the 7/11? Those of you who live in Bangkok won't be often going to the Khao San Road area anyway. Or does it bug you that in the beerbars the ladies give a lot of attention to the handsome young man backpacker whilst neglecting you old pot bellied geezer though you have a fat wallet to spend on ladydrinks and so on?

Or maybe it is just that many farang Thailand residents seem to want to have Thailand to themselves, complaining there are too many farangs around wherever they go.

ok you obviously are a backpacker..

Get a shower and some brains.

Girls like you more than fat guys? wait.. NO.

the girls may they be whores or normal thai girls like fat expat a lot more than backpackers. EVERY girl i have met from every area has told me how much she hates backpackers.

1) poor

2) unclean

3) generic attitude

4) very unclean

5) really cheap

6) doesnt know how to party

when the fat expat is: only unclean.

dont get me wrong, i dislike both of them as hard but nobody likes backpackers.. it's a common ground for hatred, thais hate them, fat expats/sexpats hate them, normal expats hate them.

I personally hate the fact that they abuse poor countries by using their resources for the cheapest price possible, they'd rather not eat for 12hours than overpay 20baht. Then they have this way of walking up to every person who live here, telling them off for destroying the country's culture blahblah

[Jimjim]

Because they're kii nok, ha ha.

No, perhaps it's those people who are growing older and jealous of young backpackers. Perhaps it's stereotyping. Perhaps it's...could be anything, really. Seems some have a lot of misplaced frustration. C'mon, give it a rest. The world doesn't demand that everyone has to spend $5000/day when they travel.

[Samuian]

.........................edited......

They are an embarrassment.

Nice rant...not all are "Hippies" and not all "Hippies" are stinking, unwashed, Dreadlocks people, not all Dreadlocks people are... unwashed and filthy!

If YOU feel embarrassed it's up to you "these people" having some fun and live THEIR life, maybe student today, on his/her year long trip around the planet and maybe"tomorrow" a successful lawyer, doctor or any other professional and not much different then YOU!

I have been "one of them" for more then two decades and nobody ever has seen any of the stereo type, your rant is all about, in me and still today I feel more comfortable as a traveler, amongst travelers then among this sterile, stereotype, same, same tourist crowd complaining about cloudy sky, dirty Road, dust, the food, the people, this inconvenient, that inconvenient.. and occupying two sun chairs at the pool by 6 am not showing up all day!

Edited January 22, 2009 by Samuian

[Head Snake]

Backpackers are cool. They enrich our lives.

[Jingthing]

I thought about this a little more. Young people are often smug and feel they are superior to old people. Its natural for older people to resent that. Younger travelers are mostly lower budget travelers. Perhaps its not the backpack or the cheap mode of travel, but that the old people are pissed off they are past their own SALAD DAYS. Jealousy!

[Jimjim]

Exactly, Jingthing, exactly.

[Hssl]

The "back packer" infront of me at the Nong Khai immirgration booth that was so tall the camera was just getting shot of her t$ts was really offend when i translated what the immirgration officer was trying to tell her............. step back i need to take a picture of your face and not your t$ts.

Maybe i just don't like stupid people!

[DaleBlue]

Girls don't like or dislike boys becuause they are

1) poor

2) unclean

3) generic attitude

4) very unclean

5) really cheap

6) doesnt know how to party

7) BACKPACKERS

Girls like boys that are sincere and loving, NOT just a one night stand, or happens to be heading toward the same direction.

[Maigo6]

No, perhaps it's those people who are growing older and jealous of young backpackers.

I think that probably sums it up, why would an expat in Thailand be concerned about how much a backpacker spends each day, there are cheap places in Thailand that survive only because of the backpackers that frequent those places.

I think that older farangs who are in Thailand can feel somewhat inferior when they are with their gf or wife who is 30 years younger than them and they walk past a bunch of young guys having fun who are the same age as she is, having fun is the operative word, instead of continuous moaning!!!

Secretly these old guys wish they were young again and resent the fact that young guys come to Thailand, appear to be carefree and have a laugh at minimal

cost, whereas the old tired miserable worn out expat never does nothing but moan and whine about how hard done by he is, whilst continually diving in his pocket to appear to be happy with his lot, knowing full well that if he was broke, that little lady 30 years his Junior wouldn't pizz on him if he was on fire.

Live and let live folks, you was once young yourself, don't try to deny the young people of today having a laugh and freedom of movement and free love etc etc..

Remember when you were young and thought you would live forever ?...lol, don't try to deny the youth of today feeling the same just cos you are now old, grey, fat and miserable.

[polecat]

they are past their own SALAD DAYS. Jealousy!

What are these salads of which you speak? And are they with one chilli or two?

And surely you mean banana pancake days, anyway?

[sushi5734]

Its the lager louts that I hate as they bring the worst aspects of western behaviour over here, its the same story in Bali with p!ssed up aussies getting into bother there. I didn't come 6000 miles to find another Benidorm!!

The hippy backpackers are pretty harmless, I occasionaly find mildy irritating but more often than not they are very amusing to watch, they all come over here to 'find themselves' and express themselves as an individual but they all come out of KSR in the same uniform

everyone wants to be unique, not many want to be different!!

Thankfully I live far aware enough from the tourist scene to not be that bothered by them, but if I lived on Koh PanNgan or somewhere like that, I would probably feel different

[Jingthing]

nd surely you mean banana pancake days, anyway?

I speak what I mean. Salad Days:

The phrase was coined in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra in 1606. In the speech at the end of Act One in which Cleopatra is regretting her youthful dalliances with Julius Caesar she says:

"...My salad days, / When I was green in judgment, cold in blood..."

The phrase became popular only from the middle of the 19th century, coming to mean “a period of youthful inexperience or indiscretion". The metaphor comes from Cleopatra's use of the word 'green'—meaning someone youthful, inexperienced, or immature. The probable allusion is to certain leafy plants (such as dandelions) that are edible when young and tender.

[Moonrakers]

Backpackers don't bother me at all really, but then I don't interact with them much at all anyway.

What doe's get under my skin though, and I know that it shouldn't, is the way that so many of them act as if they are traveling to be 'unique', to do something 'different' and to 'break their chains from society' blah blah.

Yet when you go to somewhere like KSR, you generally find that they all look EXACTLY the same. Same clothes, same hairstyle same everything. Someway to be 'different' eh!

[Geekfreaklover]

Backpackers don't bother me at all really, but then I don't interact with them much at all anyway.

What doe's get under my skin though, and I know that it shouldn't, is the way that so many of them act as if they are traveling to be 'unique', to do something 'different' and to 'break their chains from society' blah blah.

Yet when you go to somewhere like KSR, you generally find that they all look EXACTLY the same. Same clothes, same hairstyle same everything. Someway to be 'different' eh!

...and after they leave Kho San Road to go exploring, they are shocked to bump into the same backpackers that they had already met on Koh San at a Backpacker bungalow in Ko samui !! - They all travel to the same places on their unique independant adventures. Remember the mantra - If it's not in the lonely planet. Don't do it.

Edited January 22, 2009 by Geekfreaklover

[pumpuiman]

.........................edited......

They are an embarrassment.

Nice rant...not all are "Hippies" and not all "Hippies" are stinking, unwashed, Dreadlocks people, not all Dreadlocks people are... unwashed and filthy!

If YOU feel embarrassed it's up to you "these people" having some fun and live THEIR life, maybe student today, on his/her year long trip around the planet and maybe"tomorrow" a successful lawyer, doctor or any other professional and not much different then YOU!

I have been "one of them" for more then two decades and nobody ever has seen any of the stereo type, your rant is all about, in me and still today I feel more comfortable as a traveler, amongst travelers then among this sterile, stereotype, same, same tourist crowd complaining about cloudy sky, dirty Road, dust, the food, the people, this inconvenient, that inconvenient.. and occupying two sun chairs at the pool by 6 am not showing up all day!

Yes, it's up to me to be embarrassed. I've traveled with other budget travelers who were not like a walking sideshow....good company. I too feel more comfortable among "travelers".

But there are filthy hippies out there..I know, I've smelled them, lived with them, given them rides to pick up their welfare checks and put up with their bull for many years.

They are the atypical "bird shit foreigner".........referred to by Thai people.

[Jingthing]

Yet when you go to somewhere like KSR, you generally find that they all look EXACTLY the same. Same clothes, same hairstyle same everything. Someway to be 'different' eh!

So what else is new? Its new to THEM.