Hoggart Simon - Dont tell Mum: hair-raising messages home from gap-year travellers

First Published in hardback in Great Britain in 2006
by Atlantic Books. Atlantic Books is an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd.

This paperback edition published in Great Britain in 2014 by Atlantic Books.

Copyright Simon Hoggart and Emily Monk, 2006 and 2014

The moral right of Simon Hoggart and Emily Monk to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders.
The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

Illustrated by Scott Garrett/Heart

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN: 978 1 78239 371 9
E-book ISBN: 978 1 78239 480 8

Printed in Great Britain

Atlantic Books
An Imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd
Ormond House
2627 Boswell Street
London
WC1N 3JZ

www.atlantic-books.co.uk

Contents

Foreword

The original edition of Dont Tell Mum came about via a series of coincidences that brought Simon Hoggart and me together. My mother, a seasoned recipient of alarming gap-year emails, helped me to collate and self-publish a small collection of travellers emails a year or so before I met Simon. He was given the booklet and had been thinking of doing something similar and somehow, attesting the theories of separation, we were put in touch. Essentially, we were party to the same act he a parent and myself an intrepid, nave, thoughtless but enthusiastic teenager embarking on a gap year. For different reasons we considered the same material amusing. I could provide tales from fellow travellers, ready for exposition, and Simons wonderful gift for observation could unite the stream of stories with humorous surveillance.

Eight years have passed since the first edition of this anthology and despite the social-media revolution that has since taken place and the now multiple number of reliable methods of communication, the essence of our (the audacious travellers) messages to them (the anxious parents) remains largely the same. Mums today will no doubt find it equally as hilarious that there are snakes in our compound and we have been enjoying homemade hallucinogenic healing tea from new tribal friends as they did eight years ago. I clearly remember breathlessly emailing home in barely punctuated discourse during my own gap year nearly a decade ago, illustrating a complete disregard for how my messages may be received and interpreted. Surely, I reasoned, some communication was better than none. Emails lately received from my younger brother would suggest this logic hasnt changed.

Technology today, however, is even more dangerous for the undiscerning adventurer. Instant photographic evidence to accompany tales can be far more worrying for the parents, quashing hopes that email accounts of bungee jumps and motorbike rides were wildly exaggerated. Having been the victim of a mother who once tracked down and called the hostel I was staying at in Thailand to try to lure me home for no particular reason, I am grateful that means of communication were relatively limited. These days I dread to think what a Facebook check-in might lead to.

What is also noticeable about gap years today is the seemingly broader choice of things to do. I suspect all of the adventures I have recently heard about for the first time were available when I was travelling, but somehow, likely a result of blogs and greater information sharing, the variety of things people seem to be doing on their travels has widened. Nowhere is too far, too wild, too political or too difficult. The same dedicated gap-year organizations have largely survived, and new ones have undoubtedly emerged, but it is no longer the norm to sign up to an often overpriced specific package. Mainstream trips used to take in full-moon parties in South East Asia, teaching English in India, touring Australasia or building things in Africa. All eminently worthy and adventurous enough for most, but more recently I have heard descriptions of questionably legal trips to Burma, ice tours in the Antarctic, trekking to remote parts of China, hitchhikers and cyclists in Russia, and a writers journey through Palestine.

It is incredibly sad that Simon will not see this new edition in print, though his own amusement and remarkable wit is evident in his lucid commentary. The documentation of gap-year experiences through multimedia is now simply astonishing, however the stories that are assembled here are still genuine and still relevant and we hope they will entertain a new generation of travellers. If you are able, I urge you to pack your bags and take off, whether you go before or after university, for a few weeks or more than a year. Above all, it is great to finally have something to write home about.

Emily Monk

May 2014

Introduction

It is one of the milestone events in a modern parents life. You get to the airport with your child. It is possibly the first time they have left home for more than a few days. Even if they have been away to school, they have always been near helpful, protective adults who make sure they are fed, watered, clean and safe. Whats more, it seems only a few months ago that they were toddlers, taking their first steps, saying their first words.

Now they are going alone into a wider, more frightening world. They are probably less anxious than you, which is important, because you are very anxious indeed. Every article you read describing backpackers being murdered by drug smugglers in Thailand, or falling off South American mountains, is about your child. Never mind that dozens of your friends have got their offspring back safely after many adventures some of which were, admittedly, terrifying, bizarre, or merely the result of their own stupidity. Never mind that at the schools gap-year briefing session, the teacher smiled comfortingly and said, Well, we havent lost anyone yet! They are going thousands of miles away, into the unknown, and you wont be there to help.

Then the long-feared moment of parting. I can still see my own eighteen-year-old daughters brave smile as she had her boarding pass checked on the way into the departure lounge, a place where there are many retail opportunities but no hugs. You realize that, in a way, your entire life is going to be on hold until the moment a few months later the same child emerges from Customs. And that is another landmark moment, especially when, back at home, they unpack a cascade of presents souvenirs, packets of strange spices, letter openers, a cufflink box made from the skin of a crocodile, brass candlesticks, a liqueur made from fermented cactuses, leather elephants decorated with coloured beads, recipe books which would be wonderful if you could find any of the ingredients at Sainsburys. There are great drifts of photographs: this was our guide through the caves; these are all the kids in my class; he was that boy I told you about; this was the view from the top, Im afraid it was a bit misty that day Of course you dont care that it was misty youre just overwhelmed with relief that they are safely back under your roof again.