{"id":401,"date":"2023-12-12T13:00:58","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/?p=401"},"modified":"2024-06-23T08:40:22","modified_gmt":"2024-06-23T08:40:22","slug":"bonus-content-tour-group-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/?p=401","title":{"rendered":"Bonus content – tour group one"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My trip is split one third in Northern Thailand (completed) and two thirds in Southern Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. The latter two thirds are with an entirely different group and tour leader to the first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Group travel is daunting, invariably succumbing to peer pressure, cliques and gossip. It also has a fun edge, in the sense that you will never see the group again, so the consequences of not conforming are lower. I find myself balancing between friendly, quiet and at a slight remove from the group. Without any further information to judge my character, this is labelled (perhaps generously) as ‘independent’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were 10 other people on the first half of the tour and 1 tour guide. On the whole, there was balance in the group and it was mostly a pleasant experience. But common enemies arose and cultural rifts surfaced, and this is the debrief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The British: Couple One and adult son with down syndrome\/autism. Guess of ages: late 60s and early 30s. A hacking cough and a snooty attitude quickly established this couple as an enemy to ignore and unify against. The group’s patience with them declined in parallel to their health. Tensions hit peak when the Americans asked them to take a covid test and wear a mask. I also hated these two. The wife hadn’t seen a smile in 40 years. When cycling, her only contribution would be to say things like “we’ve only cycled a mile”, to which I would respond “wow J., that is quantitative of you”. It will be hard to auction that script to tv producers. She was constantly mortified by going to the bathroom, and talked about this constantly. The husband, E., was a nonsensical, blabbering mess. Decades of being undermined by his wife has left his sanity so precarious that he can only repeat the same three ‘stories’ and pretend that shell constitutes a life. I pay respect to Pheobe Wallas Bridges, who has intricately modelled the father character in Fleabag off E. Their disabled son was the concentration of happiness in this family, outside of which there was no room for joy. Unsurprisingly, they complained a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The British: Couple Two. Guess of ages: early 60s. Unfortunately, by proximity of age, these two got lumped frequently with couple one. Outside of being our sacrifice, they were cheerful and grateful to be in Thailand. The husband joyfully remarked he couldn’t tolerate chili and bought one a tropical print t shirt a day. The wife was blandly pleasant. Compared to Couple One, these two were the Buddah reincarnated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Americans: American One. 48. Had quit his job at Tesla and had not been working for nearly a year. Was travelling solo for an undisclosed (to me) reason. It had the undercurrent of troubles in immediate family. As a rebellion against internal turmoil, M. was the backbone of the group and was very engaging. He would ask inquisitive questions of both Thailand and those on the travel group. He was very inclusive, with the exception of Couple One. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Americans: American Two. Age 35. She had also quit her job, citing a boss that used to be a peer that “she couldn’t deal with”. Red flag. S. pandered to every stray dog, a tiresome habit to entertain. People who think doting upon stray animals is a redeeming character trait tend to be self centred. She talked a lot but substance was little.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Colombian: Age 30. Was passionate about her job in sales, her boyfriend, her mum and ultimate frisbee. Appeared happy to be touring Thailand. Had asked her work for three months off to travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other Australian: Age 50. Opening line “I went to the travel agent and asked for a Contiki tour for old people”. Wanted to talk a lot about Australia, which is annoying to entertain given the entire purpose is to be in Asia. However, she was keen to make friends and was fine to chat about anything, so complaints I had about brash bogan behaviour were balanced out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Swiss girl: youngest of the group, age 27. Beautiful and enigmatic. Favourite animals are bats. She is my favourite in the group. Between jobs and had just done an Intrepid tour to Central Asia, and had also visited South Korea. When talking about Twilight series, and asked if she was Team Edward or Team Jacob, she said she was confused about bisexuality at that stage and preferred Alice. Every conversation was quietly rewarding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bonus (Thailand)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bonus-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions\/411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}