Backpackerland

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellows,

Cazza met Lisa at a party in Tauranga.

"Jeez, sorry about your hair," said Lisa.

Cazza had just had her hair dyed purple and she thought it looked pretty bloody good ACTUALLY and anyway, who the eff are you with your crayon make-up?

It was the start of a beautiful friendship, based on mutual love of abuse, product and mags. Lisa was from Auckland, and Cazza moved there shortly afterward, flatting with a bunch of junior doctors who were the wildest party-boys Cazza had ever met. Maybe it was the stress, plus being young but whenever she came home from her job, she would find the doctors out on the back deck drinking "vodka and something".

On one memorable occasion, they ran out of mixers so were drinking vodka and fluoride. "Because it's orange". These guys knew no limits because they knew enough about medicine to treat their own hangovers. They would simply go into work, hook themselves up to an IV, get some oxygen and perk right up.

That was what one of them told Cazza anyway, as he prepared to go to work the next morning, packing up his papers in his briefcase and heading for the door. "I'll be fine..." he slurred, "bit of oxygen and I'll be good to go..."

"Okay," replied Cazza, "but you MIGHT just want to take off your dressing-gown and put on some trousers first."

Cazza was also working for Auckland's heath board at the time, furiously saving because she and Lisa had decided to head to the UK for their OE.

The "OE" or "Overseas Experience" is like a rite of passage for most Kiwis and Aussies. They don't necessarily want to move to Europe, but they do want to take two years out and EXPERIENCE it. Cazza and Lisa took all their clothes down to the market, flogged everything they didn't need and booked their tickets. Their flight was pretty uneventful, other than Cazza got stuck with a vegan meal for some reason and was STARVING by the time she reached the UK, and Lisa forgot to put on the DVT socks her mum had made her promise to wear. She ended up trying to get them on during a stopover in Bangkok, but because her feet had swollen by this time, she could neither get them fully ON or fully OFF. So she ended up running to the gate with comedy feet flapping about.

Cazza had been enticed by her friend JJ, an adventurous Kiwi-Columbian who had been driving Kon-Tiki tours around Europe for years. "You'll LOVE it!" she enthused. Cazza and Lisa's expectations were high, but their spirits dampened somewhat when they changed their life savings into sterling and received about £50 each.

"Eff's sake," said Lisa. 

Fortunately, JJ had already hooked them up with accommodation  in Harlesden. But again, it didn't quite match JJ's description. It was a three bedroomed flat with about 30 Kiwis and Aussies living in it. There were three guys who lived on the couch alone. Cazza never met or spoke to them; in fact they never even looked up from their bongs. 

There were also five guys who lived in the caravan outside. It was up on blocks, but they were quite happy there, coming in only to shower.

The shower itself was another matter. Apparently the light didn't work in there but that was just as well because no-one ever cleaned it and you probably didn't want to know what you were standing in. Cazza actually felt more wretched and dirty after she had finished showering. 

"How is it?" asked Lisa, waiting to go in.

But Cazza couldn't find an answer. She was too busy goggling at Lisa's travel towel. It was one of those compressed-cotton things, so when dry, it hardened into a firm little square of material. It looked like Lisa was waving a flag.

"It's pretty grim," admitted Cazza. "And for eff's sake, get a proper towel, you're embarrassing yourself."

JJ proudly announced to Cazza and Lisa that they had a bed. This was SPECIAL - most people had to sleep on the floor. "It was so lucky!" said JJ. "The boys LITERALLY found that mattress in an alley JUST YESTERDAY. The stains aren't even that bad!"

Cazza and Lisa. Less enthused by this. The ingrates.

The whole flat was like that. There was mould growing so large it looked like a head of cabbage. And something fuzzy hanging from the fridge, that turned out to be someone's dreads. Probably dating back to the Reagan administration.

That first week in London was a disaster. Their money disappeared quickly. They had a big row over directions and ended up tearing their map of London in two, taking one half each and going in different directions. There was an IRA bomb scare in the British Museum and Cazza got mugged for her duty-free cigarettes.

"I was kind of excited because it was my first ever mugging," said Cazza, "but still man, those cigarettes..."

It was these experiences more than anything else that drove the pair of them north. They both had Scottish roots. England had been sh*t so far. What was there to lose?

They found their way to a hostel just off the Meadows in Edinburgh, where they were greeted by a terrifying Australian woman named Jo. "THIS is your token for the laundry. THIS is your token for the lockers. DO NOT GET THEM MIXED UP."

"Can we get our room key now?"

"I HAVEN'T FINISHED."

Maybe because of their bad attitude, they were assigned a room at the top of the hostel where the previous occupant had died "from a chocolate allergy".

Cazza and Lisa didn't ask. They got to their room, dazed and disconcerted. They decided they needed food and headed for a chippy. Cazza bought a hamburger, or at least she thought she did. 

"It was this THING. This deep-fried THING. This meat patty covered in batter and brown sauce and PLASTIC and when you peeled away the plastic, it was just this horrible MEATY MESS." She wanted to cry.

Meanwhile, Lisa was having issues of her own. "Saltersass?" demanded the scary Scottish lady behind the counter. 

"Errr... what are you saying?"
"Saltersass!"
"I don't know what you want me to say!"
"SalterSASS!"
"Yes? No? I just want some chips..."

Just a few weeks would pass and they would realise that "Salt or sauce?" is what you ALWAYS get asked in Edinburgh chippy shops. But for two green Kiwis fresh off the boat, it was all a bit much.

Fortunately, they were at least now in a supportive environment of Americans, Canadians, Kiwis, Saffies and Aussies all in the same boat, all adapting and passing on vital Scottish intel. Cazza took a job cleaning the hostel and while it didn't pay much, the only thing she could cook was pasta with tuna anyway, so living was cheap.

Until they went to the pub of course. That was what they saved all week for. The crowd of backpackers would go to the pub and scrape together their change to afford a pint. On one occasion, Lisa plopped a Tesco bag of loose change onto the bar and told them there was DEFINITELY enough change in there for two pints. "And I should know, I'm an accountant," she told the bemused bartender.

Unfortunately, everyone's rent was about to go up. It was summertime and the festival started. Word came down from the hostel management that they either pay more rent or get out. A breakaway bunch of guests decided to set up their own flat in Southbridge. There was a dodgy bloke who owned some flats, who was willing to rent out one storey of a building to them. There were multiple bedrooms and a box-room for any couples who wanted to shag in private.

Perfect.

Cazza and Lisa put together a posse. There was Alain the Frenchman, Keith the American, and then Ann, Macca, TK and Joshua (all Kiwis). There were also a rotating group of mates from the hostel who would come around to party. It was most definitely a party flat.

And TK was definitely the party dude. He had the best-paid job of the lot of them. He worked on construction sites as a carpenter. He hated it, his hands went purple in the cold, but he was the guy who would always lend you a tenner. Fiercely protective of all his little sisters in the flat, he took them under his wing. Cazza and Lisa learned to give him their wages every week and he'd divide it up for them. "THIS is your rent. THIS is your food. THIS you can have for yourself."

"Okay, TK."

They very quickly turned into a family. Macca and Cazza stole a Christmas tree from the House of Fraser one year, and Mom and Pop turned up from the hostel to make dinner for everyone, including scary Aussie Jo. Alain the Frenchman proudly contributed his pate, sent by his mum in France.

"This is lovely! What is it?"
"Eet is oss."
"What?"
"Oss".
"Oss?"
"Yeu kneu, 'oss'? Neeeeeeeigh!!"

The Kiwis spit Trigger out. Horseys are NOT food. Still, it was a great "Orphan's Christmas". And in fact, everyone loved it so much, the tree stayed up all year.

After a while, Cazza and Lisa decided to stop sharing a room. This was because they were travelling to meet new people and have new experiences, not just hang out together. Also, they were starting to get on each other's nerves. Cazza is OCD-clean, whereas Lisa is relentlessly messy. Her side of the room was dominated by puddles of loose change, scads of magazines, and shoes kicked everywhere. Things came close to breaking point when Cazza did a big skid across the magazines, tripped over a shoe and nearly took out the bedside cabinet.

And then Lisa developed a habit of hiding in wardrobes and leaping out at people. Until Cazza tied a belt around the wardrobe handles.

"Let me out ya f***ing b*tch!" wailed Lisa.

Clearly, it was time for the two of them to mix it up. Lisa moved in with Ann, who was as messy as she was. That worked out okay, until Ann hooked up with Mike The Maori and the two of them spent all their time shagging. Lisa exiled them to the box room, but they got their revenge by stealing her sleeping bag.

"That thing was EFFING expensive!" complained Lisa. "And Mike has the smelliest j*zz ever! I'm going to have to BURN that thing."

Cazza had it easier. She shared a room with TK and the two of them would talk late into the night. She found out that there was much more to him than the party boy. He would tell her all about his dreams of giving up the hated construction. He told her he really wanted to become a photographer, and he showed her the pictures he'd taken around Edinburgh.

"These are REALLY amazing, TK," she told him. "Of course you need to be a photographer." He started to spend more time on it. Poring for hours over his photos, selecting only the best for his collection. But even his rejects got snapped up by the Southbridgers, who loved every one.

Of course, his love-life came up too. Lisa and Cazza had nagged and nagged him to LOSE THE EFFING MULLET. He had a long ponytail back there because he was concerned about his thinning hair. 

"Sunshine, there's nothing sadder than a bald bloke with an effing ponytail," said Lisa. Not sugarcoating.

She took him along to a proper salon, where he discovered to his delight that here was a place where women leaned over you and got right in your face. The ponytail was SNIPPED off and sent to his mum, who had hated it for years. And TK was reinvented. To his delight, he found short hair lessened the effect of the thinning and he was even more in demand than before. Women LOVED TK. And he was one of those blokes who really liked women's company too. He was best mates with all of them - whether they went out together or not.

"Look Cazza, look - these are my 'pulling pants'!" he announced one night. 

He was wearing obscenely tight leather jeans. He was trying to channel Jim Morrison, but Cazza felt it was more like he was channeling a pair of black puddings.

"You'll see," he responded to her scoffing, and went out for a night in the clubs. Cazza found herself being gently shaken awake at 3am. 

"Help, Cazza, help," said TK. "I can't get these effing things off."

They spent a full hour, with him wriggling on the floor, on his arse, on his face, turning and writhing like a salmon on a line. Cazza pulled at the sticky leather legs, which slowly gave way with a ssscccchhhhlorp noise.

"Talcum powder," said Cazza. "If you're going to wear those BLOODY things, you have to slap it on liberally."

"Oh cheers mate, good one," replied TK. Cazza added that she wasn't sure how sexy it would be when the trousers came OFF though. "You'll disappear in a puff of bloody smoke," she said. "And there'll be this strong smell of perfumed talc wherever you go. You'll smell like an old lady's tutley."

You can see why they became best mates and close confidantes.

"But why - WHY - did you have to shag Em?" demanded Cazza one night. 

Em was the name of her least favourite Southbridger. An Aussie chick who had arrived one day and immediately become the flat downer. She was also a photographer - of a sort - but she was "complex" and that meant she never took actual photographs, but spent all of her time squinting at flatmates through the camera lens, adjusting and readjusting the focus. She would sigh a lot and claim to be misunderstood.

"She's not misunderstood, she's just a manky effing eff," commented Lisa. 

The big problem was her lack of housework. Everyone else pitched in to keep the place nice, but not Em. One night the girls decided that enough was enough. "WE are going to the pub," they told her. "YOU are cleaning the effing bathroom and if it's not clean when we get back, you're out."

They went to O'Neill's over the road and looked back at their flat. They could see camera-flashes going off, like internal lightning. "Oh eff, we should see what she's up to," they decided.

They went back up to the flat to find her sitting on the bathroom floor, bawling her eyes out and taking pictures of the dirty bath. In the scum, she had scratched out the words "I HATE YOU ALL". 

And TK had shagged THAT. Cazza was appalled. 

Em did not leave, and in fact her brother moved in too. He was also artistic, which manifested itself as him moving around the room in a leotard and tights at all times. He was a tumbler. If you asked him to do anything, from flicking on the light to changing the channel, he would do a forward roll and go "voila!" before doing it.

This may have been one of the reasons Cazza and Lisa started to think about moving on. But it wasn't the main one. After being in the backpacker bubble for so long, they yearned to stretch their legs and properly BE in Scotland, not view it from outside. Cazza made a group of friends at the Hebrides bar. More and more, she orbited in their circle - and as a chick with Shetland roots, she found herself included, and with a new identity aside from just being The Kiwi.

Lisa, Macca and a group of the others decided to give London another crack. This time they would be going with proper professions and a better idea of how to cope with the capital. TK headed off to Ireland where he managed to find work as a photographer and started his training in earnest. Joshua travelled the world from Saudi to Brazil, working as a surveyor. Meanwhile, Ann and Mike got married and moved to Australia. Occasionally Cazza and Lisa would go back to the Southbridge flat - but the people were different. And the place was turning into a hole. No-one was doing cleaning any more. It started looking like the Harlesden flat where they started.

Things started moving. Lives started solidifying, but still there was always a circle of friends who would get back together, shifting and changing, reducing and growing over time. Reg joined the group, Fat Pete joined the group, and of course I joined the group. Sort of.

I remember the first time I met this group of people, I felt very much under the microscope. Was I REALLY good enough for Cazza? These backpackers are protective.

Pop eyed me from the other side of the room. He is a large, imposing American man. He voice is as deep as Barry White's. 

"Do you know you can make NAPALM out of a styrofoam cup?" he asked me the first time I met him.

"Oh. Er. Ha ha. No," I replied. "Gosh, that's handy," I added.

But this was just his way. He wanted to get the measure of me, I found out later. TK was just the same. Was I good enough for his Cazza, his little sister? I felt like I was being given the third degree the first time we met.

I guess things must have gone okay though. A few years later, he was our wedding photographer. Although that doesn't describe it very well. It was more like he was a guest at our reception, who was in the thick of it all night. He took pictures that put me right back in the moment every time I look at them. There's nothing posed or fake about them. They are like snapshots direct from TK's memory of the night.

And when he danced with Cazza, he told her he was happy she'd found a good bloke. From a Kiwi, that's like the highest praise you can get. I remember the two of them that evening. He looked like a proud father. And then he went off and had a threesome with one of Cazza's cousins and her mate. Some things just don't change.

Of course, you can't be a backpacker forever. We are (nearly) all respectable people now. We have jobs and houses and things that you can no longer stuff into a backpack and take around the world. But sometimes we reconvene. This weekend a group of us got together to plant a tree for TK. He stayed a friend to everyone, kept protecting people right to the end. He realised his dream and became a photo-journalist, covering the story of the Kenyan government harassing and moving the Masai people off their lands.

It was there, in 2008, that he was murdered. It was a brutal shock that brought us all back together again ten years ago. The phone calls went all around the world. This weekend, all the stories were told over again. And for a while it was like twenty years had not gone by for Cazza. 

Maybe she can't be a backpacker forever. But Backpackerland is a place you can always return to, in your memories and in your heart. We may have emigrated, but she will never leave that place behind.

S.

p.s. Typically, I don't like to reveal identities, but if you want to know more, read on.