July 5, 2025 • 25 mins
A backpacking trip to India takes a wild turn when friend of the show Will Hatton, aka The Broke Backpacker, finds himself surrounded by 100 monkeys — while tripping on LSD. In this psychedelic travel tale, Will recounts how a peaceful sunset at a Rajasthani fortress spiralled into monkey madness.
This is the first edition of Tales of a Trip: a brand-new segment on Tripology Podcast where fellow travellers and listeners of the show share their greatest travel stories — prepare for wild animal encounters, holiday romances, near-death experiences and once in a lifetime adventures.
Submit your own travel story to: https://tripologypodcast.com/talesofatrip
Before we get to Will's stellar travel story, we speak about:
- Manila and the Philippines: coffee culture & globalisation
- Alun shares the hilarious story of his Workaway experience in Hanoi, Vietnam, which saw him breaking into a building at midnight.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hello, and welcome to this episode of all new, brand new
Tripology. I'm Alun, and I'm here with my
best friend and one of the greatest backpackers of all
time. It's the ever-caffeinated Adam.
On this week's show, we've got some hypothetical, tripological
reasonings for you. These are sort of backpacking
(00:22):
scenarios where we're going to make you think on your feet, see
what you would do. And also, at the end of the
show, we've got a brand new itemcalled Tales of a Trip, which is
where you guys, the listeners, send in your great travel
stories. We're going to hear travel
stories sent in by listeners from all over the globe, only
three minutes long. We're going to unpack them,
digest them. It's going to be a hell of a
good time. We're here in Manila, aren't we,
Adam? Yeah, here in Manila.
(00:43):
It's becoming sort of a second home for me.
I like it a lot. We're living in an Airbnb at the
moment, which immediately changes the experience.
And I feel very comfortable here.
It's been nice having you here, sort of to move around Manila
with. Before you arrived, I was holed
up like a little rat bag, all with the flu.
And now you've arrived, I'm sortof journeying around Manila with
(01:03):
much more frequency. I've got a couple of
observations and things I've noticed while I'm there.
Okay, yeah, go on, go on. One of the main ones is, without
trying to sound like a much shitter, more preachy travel
podcast, you really should eat street food and do the less
restaurant-y things here. Because, my goodness, if the
(01:23):
quality and price aren't inversely correlated.
Yeah, it's a tricky one. It's not anything you like to
hear, of course, when you go to somewhere in Southeast Asia.
The more you pay, the worse you get.
But I think on a couple of occasions, we've probably felt
that. And I would say like coffee
shops is almost certainly in theconversation.
Yeah. Every time we've splashed out
(01:44):
like, oh, I just fancy a real nice black lungo, long black
Americano coffee. Or even if we've gone, hey,
let's try this like Filipino restaurant, try and get the best
sisig in McCarthy City. Yeah.
We've almost always been disappointed versus the times
where we found a vendor sort of just serving up fried pork on
the side of the road. I think it comes down to
(02:05):
expectations. I really do.
I mean, you jump online nowadaysand, you know, the easiest thing
to type in in any new city is best coffee in X or best food in
X. So the ones that make it onto
the internet often are the ones that can pay for marketing.
And the old man by the side of the road has been frying up pork
for the last 40 years. He hasn't got a marketing
(02:26):
budget. no He rarely ever if he spends money on marketing
doesn't he because you actually need a pin on google maps in
order to get reviews and if you've not even gone through the
rudimentary exercise of being like oh it's me it's grandpa
joe's pork sissing side of the road joint yeah if you've not
typed that in on google you ain't ever going to get the
reviews who knows about you onlythe locals.
(02:47):
Yeah i would say out of the whatdo we what do we have like two
two three coffees a day at a push definitely two yeah and we
do like to go to nice coffee shops where we sit and do a bit
of planning and a bit of chin wagging and that kind of stuff
people watching as you would do plotting Sort of podcast
domination we're thinking we're going to be the biggest trouble
when the podcast in the world how do we get.
(03:07):
There yeah so you know i've beenhere eight or nine days now so
that's equal to 16 coffees at a minimum yeah i would say only
one maybe two of those coffees were any good and they were both
in the same place Yeah, and today we had the most expensive
coffee, and by my money, one of the worst we've had.
Yeah, I would agree. I mean, we went to a place
(03:29):
called The Coffee Project just to out it on the pod.
And the thing I hate, and I knowthat this is going to be
unpopular, this is somewhat of ahot take.
Yeah, I like it. But I think that there are a lot
of places nowadays that are becoming completely almost like
generic in their appearance, in their aesthetic.
They're obviously catering to either a middle class Asian
(03:51):
developing country sort of demographic or white people on
holiday or expats. I think that's we saw that in
India. We've seen it all over Southeast
Asia. And these are the coffee shops
that even though they're in Southeast Asia, they're still
doing croissant. They're still doing, you know,
different. I saw a ham and cheese croissant
today looking all out of place on a Manila storefront.
(04:12):
I think it speaks to this like inverse backpacker price
paradigm paradox because in trying to appeal to this
ever-growing Western tourist audience, the prices get higher
because these things just don't exist in these countries and
backpackers are willing to pay them and travels and tourists
are willing to pay them. I mean, tourists just get put
(04:34):
under this one banner, whether you're staying in a hotel or a
hostel, whatever, you're just a tourist in a city.
And then because it's not from there, the quality of the
product is like less. You end up paying more for
things that aren't as good. Yeah.
Do you know what? The counter argument to this is
Taiwan, where they do have some fantastic Western cafes.
The coffee's exceptional. Some of the baked goods are
(04:56):
exceptional as well. But, I mean, what we've had so
far has been lacking. And the eye-watering sum of 215
pesos for a coffee that I didn'twant to drink, it's difficult to
stomach. And I don't know whether we live
in this world now where, you know, through globalization and
multiculturalism and digital nomadism, whether the coffee
should actually be any less expensive.
(05:16):
You know, we're up in arms saying, oh, but we're in the
Philippines. It should be cheap.
Everything should be cheap. Should it?
I don't know if it should anymore.
Well, I like traveling with you because I think when I go about
my day, I end up having blinderson like a horse about to bolt.
And I'm like, okay, now I'm going back to my Airbnb.
And I act out that going back tothe Airbnb is if that's all I
(05:37):
can do. But you, you sort of act like a
little travel octopus with tendrils going off in all
different directions. So when we were going back to
Airbnb, you just saw someone. hewas tucked away frying up what
looked to be a sort of slurry onthe side of the road yeah i knew
one of your octopus tendrils pulled you in that direction and
(05:59):
before i knew it i was just sat on the side of the road with you
and another backpacker and we were eating this thing i would
just walk straight past that because i was in transit mode
sure yeah i like your ability tokeep in different modes
simultaneously you were also little did me and the other
backpacker know in searching forfood mode.
(06:19):
And I respect that. I think that's something I'm
going to learn from as I continue to travel is try and
keep different modes switched on.
Yeah, I wonder if we can use theanalogy of a dog owner walking
its dog and I'm just sniffing around the bushes the whole
time. And you walk off and the other
backpacker goes, Adam's back there, is he?
Yeah, he'll be all right. He'll catch up with us in a
minute. And then when I don't, you go,
(06:40):
oh, he's actually found something interesting.
He's picked up a scent. It might be some street food.
There's an old philosophical problem problem, where people go
like, what's more free? The dog that's on a leash, And
therefore, it gets to live out along life being on a leash,
being by its owner. Or the dog that gets off its
leash, it gets to have true freedom, but as a result, it
(07:01):
gets scolded and ends up having its ability to just go and roam
around taken away from it. And the backpacking equivalent
with that, if you don't mind me getting philosophical, the
backpacking equivalent is like, are you on rails seeing the best
possible things all the time? and you know you're going to
have a very enlivening light experience where you get to see
all the greatest things a city has to offer because you're told
(07:24):
go see this go see this go and get the best to get this
restaurant go and do this or do you want to be the kind of dog
that's just like i am gonna experience as much as possible
do whatever i want sniff around every different thing but, maybe
you'll get food poisoning and that's okay yeah.
Always risk the bad meal as mr anthony bourdain said how do you
(07:46):
think that meal went i mean the the other backpacker that we
were with said it was the best thing he'd eaten in the
philippines so far and it cost 60 Pesos yeah he did also say
that one of his favorite things to do was eat fried chicken he
wasn't much of a foodie but i'llstill take his opinion at face
value i love that you gave him that experience and he loved
that i thought it was very beautiful very nice food yeah
indeed yeah no sign of food poisoning yet no.
(08:08):
No not just yet i mean it's been24 hours so we're still crossing
our fingers but that's that's the reason i love travel it's
because you can sort of cherry pick pick and choose i'll be
honest maybe it's one of my failures it's definitely where
the vast majority of my budget goes but how many of these
western style cafes do i need togo into before i realize that
invariably they're shit Yeah stay local don't go to these
(08:30):
expensive cafes just eat what the locals eat drink what the
locals eat and uh you'll be drinking and eating all day
long, Adam, backpackers find themselves in a plethora of
difficult situations It's a complicated thing to do,
travelling the world And by way of combating that I kind of like
(08:52):
to put you and you like to put me Through a sort of backpacking
simulation experience Where you propose hypothetical backpacking
scenarios And try and work out the solutions together It's an
item that we like to call Tripological reasoning,
(09:16):
Adam, I've been backpacking for nigh on a decade now, and
sometimes I get myself into somesituations and I think, oh, what
would Adam do? And this is one such situation
that I'd like to bring to the table.
I just want to know what you would do.
All right. I'm all ears.
Go on, fire away. I found myself very early on in
my backpacking career. I found myself in Vietnam, in
(09:36):
Hanoi City. Okay.
And I arranged a work away. You know we love workaways on
this show. Love workaways on this show.
For those who don't know, you'reworking away.
Hey, you sign up, you find something.
In this situation, it was a teaching job.
I was going to be teaching English out of an apartment.
Walking the park. I was on my way from China.
Yeah. And I messaged the host saying,
oh, I'm coming. Like, this is the day I'm going
(09:58):
to arrive. And then I just forgot about it.
Okay. By the time I arrived in Hanoi,
I realized that one of my messages hadn't sent.
Her last message was, what time are you going to arrive?
I'm going home now. Are you going to get here?
All of that jazz. here's the address in case you need it yeah
let's just see what happens right i arrived in hanoi i take
(10:20):
a cab to the address yeah i'm supposed to be starting my
workaway experience tomorrow yeah i get to the apartment
building it's completely shut down locked up no one's there i
have no cell phone service no way of contacting the host no
way of i've tried to like back when i was at the airport on
airport wi-fi i sent her a message saying look i'm going to
(10:42):
be there soon please let me in all that stuff no responses no
way of contacting what do you doum.
I mean it's a tough one i've been in similar situations
beforehand i'm assuming that we're going back in time to when
their wi-fi wasn't everywhere Wasn't ubiquitously available no
we're talking this is in 2015 yeah okay.
So we've got a contact number and we've sent messages but no
(11:05):
response No responses and i should mention as well it's dark
we're talking it's 11 p.m at night by the time i get there.
Oh that's a shame that's quite important okay so no
accommodation i mean i probably my Accommodation was the work.
Away yeah yeah yeah so you're living on site uh what what
would i have done i mean i wouldhave hung around at the address
(11:25):
i think um probably given it a couple of hours into the early
hours i would imagine that the reason she's not replying is
because it's late at night uh not even back in those days not
too late to walk into a hostel and book somewhere else to stay
uh you banging on the door i Mean how the door by the way was
like i knew the apartment was onone of the upper floors right
(11:46):
and the bottom floor apartment was just like locked down there
was no way of getting in it was just completely locked no lights
on inside no security guard nothing.
All right okay you having a lookfor a gutter well To Speak to
your hostel point, how would I even know where a hostel was?
Right okay well i mean there's alot in hanoi you wouldn't need
to walk that far i wouldn't havethought until you could maybe
(12:08):
find a hotel or something maybe walk into a hotel and uh speak
to the reception see if you've got a number you can call as
opposed to just message on a on a platform these are All good
ideas i do know what it speaks to i'd only been traveling for
one month total i started traveling in 2015 yeah and what
i did in this scenario worked out great right but Now I would
(12:30):
do something completely different.
Now I would like, I'd always make sure I had some way of
contacting or data or Wi-Fi. And I would just go, okay, I've
messed this up. I'm going to go to a hostel or
something. Definitely.
That's the right way to do what you did.
But also the more boring way. Because I was so inexperienced.
I was just like, oh God, if I don't get into this apartment
somehow, there's no way I'll ever do this work where I can't
(12:53):
possibly fathom it. What I ended up doing, mate, was
going around the side of the building. there was a fire
escape ladder you know that you get in new york apartments oh
yeah and it was locked up right i climbed over the initial gate
onto the fire escape right walked up the fire escape and on
the fifth floor one of the windows was ajar right.
(13:16):
You already know you already knew at this point which floor
the apartment was on I was actually on the supposed to be
on the fourth floor right so i climbed through that open window
into the apartment blocks oh. It was like a corridor window it
wasn't into an apartment Right yeah it was a corridor window
thankfully yeah i didn't know how to time necessarily yeah
yeah went through the apartment down the stairs to the where i
(13:37):
was supposed to be right found the apartment and knocked loudly
on the door at. 11 o'clock at night Probably more like
midnight at this point right andi mean thankfully i heard just
some voices behind going, hello?And it just so happened that the
other workaway people were awake.
(13:57):
They were having a bit of a drink, a boogie.
They let me in. They were like, what the hell
are you doing here? It was great.
Because from their perspective, they kind of had a vague sense
that someone was supposed to be arriving for the workaway that
day. Yeah, sure.
And they were like, oh, I guess he's not coming then.
They'd resign themselves to that.
And at midnight, some disheveled21-year-old kid comes through a
(14:19):
window down the stairs and goes,oh, I'm sorry, I'm here.
It was amazing. I'm not sure I ever would have
thought that that was the right thing to do.
How long was there between you doing that and you sort of
arriving? Are we talking like a 15-minute,
I've got no options, straight upthe ladder?
Or are you sitting out there foran hour thinking, I can't climb
the fucking ladder. That's not the way this is going
(14:39):
to... I pondered it.
I mean, I really sat and took mytime and thought, is this the
way out? Is this the life that I want to
be living in? I want to live in this scenario
where I've got to basically break into this building.
Because you never know as well. They actually told me that that
was the only night that week that they'd been up and awake.
Oh, right. Okay.
So it was unlikely. It was just by happenstance they
(15:01):
happened to be having a bit of aboogie that night.
Well, maybe let's extend this then.
What do you do if they didn't answer the door?
Do you just continue to bang? I think I would have slept
outside the door. At least you're inside, I
suppose. At least you're inside.
At least you're inside. I mean, the moral of the story
is do some fucking planning before you're supposed to turn
up somewhere. don't be outside an apartment at midnight with no
(15:22):
plan no phone and no data although that is easier now in
the modern world yeah. Difficult in 2015 mate i like it
i think that's a important lesson to learn Um we love
learning lessons on topology podcast tales of a trip it's a
brand new section on the podcastwhere we get backpackers from
all over the globe to send in three minutes of their greatest
(15:46):
travel stories, something emotional, something beautiful,
something daring and dangerous, you can head to
tropologypodcast.com forward slash tales of a trip and you
can send in your greatest travelstory.
For the very first edition of Tales of a Trip, it only made
sense that we have a friend of the show, an absolutely
wonderful storyteller, Will Hatton, send in his favourite
(16:09):
travel story. So let's hear it now.
Okay, so let me set the scene. It's Bundi in Rajasthan, India.
I've just spent the last two weeks driving a multicolored
rickshaw named Tinkerbell, whichwas 35 years old and which I had
bought for 300 euros across the Rajasthani desert.
It was an emotional journey. Upon arriving into Bundi, which
(16:33):
is a spectacular town with a sacred lake overlooked by a
towering fortress, Myself and mybrother Alex, my favourite
travel companion We decided the time had come The time had come
for rest and recuperation And sowe each took a tab and a half of
LSD And we hiked up to this magical fortress We spent a
(16:55):
happy day exploring Scrambling along the ramparts like warriors
of old And gazing out across theblue city below And then,
sitting as the sun set But we noticed, to the corner of our
eyes, monkeys. More than one monkey.
Quite a few monkeys. 12 monkeys,30 monkeys, 50 monkeys, 100
(17:16):
fucking monkeys. Weird patterns all around them
because the LSD is hitting it strong.
And what's in my hand? A fucking banana.
Now, during the day, these monkeys, they head out to the
town of Bundy. They pilfer.
They scavenge. They're basically a nuisance.
But once sunsets, oh, that's when the real fun begins.
The locals, they know not to be in the fortress after dark, but
(17:39):
we did not. We were not armed with any
sticks. Later, we would realise that the
friendly local who had been gesticulating at us and saying
something about sticks had been warning us not to head up into
the fortress without arming ourselves with a stout wooden
cane to fend off these feral beasts.
The monkeys, they swirled and ducked and dived around us,
(17:59):
charging in with their fangs, bright and glistening and
breaking off at the last possible second.
We slowly but surely made our way down the battlements to the
only way that we know in and outof this magical fortress.
And it was a hole, a hole in thegate, a monkey-sized hole.
And within that hole even was the biggest motherfucking monkey
(18:23):
you ever did see. It was glowering at us, thangs,
shiny and wet, and all around us.
I shit you not, there were 30 big baboons and a hundred or so
of the other small little motherfuckers.
They kept charging us and breaking off at the last second.
I turned to my brother and I said, Alex, we've got to kill
(18:44):
this monkey. We debated.
Alex didn't want to kill the monkey.
He believes in veganism and not killing monkeys.
You know, I understood his point.
And in the time that it took us to debate, the monkey, thank
God, they catered the hole. And so we dived through and we
turned to each other and we laughed and we embraced for we
had survived the monkeys of the Bundy Fortress.
(19:07):
Whoa, thank you, Will, for sending in that story, surviving
a monkey attack on Bundy Fortress.
I like the image of them going over the ramparts like warriors
of old. Beautiful.
Yeah, I mean, I have actually been to Bundy on his
recommendation. Okay.
So I've probably been to the exact fort he's talking about
and taken the exact LSD that he's done.
(19:29):
I'm joking. Difficult to believe a story
when it starts with taking a tabof LSD.
Yeah, because you start wondering, is the monkey
situation as described, or was it something to do with the
psychedelic drugs? I think, I mean...
You don't have to be Will to tell a story, but it helps.
He's a good storyteller. He weaves a narrative.
(19:49):
You can really imagine him regaling the hostile common room
with that sort of tale. I mean, I'd be amazed if that's
the first time he's told that story, because it's
well-drilled. It sounds like he's performing a
page of his journal. I absolutely loved it.
I think there's, without question, a great storyteller
and a great story. Being surrounded by, he didn't
say rabid, but they seemed aggressive.
(20:10):
Certainly. Baboon's an aggressive type of
monk. Yeah, was that difficult for you
to hear as someone who loves monkeys more than most?
Well, I was very disappointed tohear that Will had gone to a
monkey haven with a banana in his pocket.
I mean, that's one of the worst things you can do, isn't it?
(20:30):
Do you remember when me and you,it was in Mumbai, we went to
some ancient caves and we were traveling with some other
backpackers. And one girl, she had a packet
of biscuits in her pocket. She was constantly being hounded
by the macaques. I had to teach her to make eye
contact with the macaques to stave them off because she was
just getting pestered all day long.
Yeah, it was interesting to watch the way that she reacted
(20:52):
to the monkey, which at one point was sort of airborne,
wasn't it? It was like swinging around on
her backpack, hanging on for dear life with one arm.
Yeah, she sort of did a 360 no-scope to biscuit combination.
Yeah, yeah. It's difficult to have sympathy,
I think, when, you know, you're going to be surrounded by
monkeys. I was thinking, why is she
getting so much attention? Oh, because she's got an open
packet of cookies in her bag. But what would your
(21:15):
recommendation for Will be? Because, I mean, not the
greatest thing to do, walk around with a banana in your
pocket. Well, you know, psychedelic
drugs, they're a big part of thebackpacking scene.
We all know it, but other podcasts don't talk about it.
It's a normal thing to do, isn'tit?
But I wonder if Will knew and his brother, did they know that
it was going to be such an animalistic experience prior to
(21:38):
taking the LSD? Because often you take LSD,
something like that, to heightenyour connection with the natural
world, heighten your understanding of where you are
and like to have a deep spiritual connection.
But it sounds to me like if theyhadn't taken the LSD, they would
already have got quite a wild experience anyway, just
naturalistically. Yeah.
I mean, it may sound like I'm speaking from personal
(21:59):
experience and I am, but being on psychedelics and being around
animals is not fun or almost ever actually.
So being confronted with 20, 30,50 monkeys, I imagine that would
have wore thin pretty soon. Yeah, me and you, of course, are
two people who worked on a farm and some of our early meetings
(22:21):
revolved around our curiosity into the psychedelic world.
So we do know what it is to be surrounded by animals that can
do you physical harm, like a horse that can kick you in the
face. Especially when it's got five
heads. Yeah, exactly.
Wow. Yeah, I think it's interesting,
isn't it? I think probably the way to go
would not to be take psychedelicdrugs and then surround yourself
(22:43):
by dangerous wild animals, but it makes a hell of a backpacking
story. Yeah, I think having said that,
being on the ramparts, sunset, you're in Rajasthan, which is a
beautiful area. Absolutely love it.
Like I said, I went there on hisrecommendation.
Had he taken the LSD and just watched the sunset over the
fortress and over the lake, amazing experience.
Monkeys on this occasion maybe ruined the experience.
(23:05):
He said they were baboons, didn't he?
A couple of baboons in there, yeah.
Baboons are like known for beinga particularly aggressive type
of monkey. So much so, there's this amazing
story about a group of baboons that changed their behavior
because they treat each other absolutely awfully in
adolescence. And then as a result of that,
they become awful, you know, because they're treated so
badly. Right.
(23:25):
There was this amazing case of this baboon colony where a hotel
opened up nearby. Yeah.
So all the most aggressive alpha, alpha baboons got
tuberculosis, because they were the ones that would go to the
hotel and eat the trash. So they ended up dying off.
And then there were no evil, aggressive alpha baboons to
treat the young ones badly. So the baboon colony became this
(23:47):
altruistic, beautiful commune where everyone was just treating
each other well. It became like almost a
subspecies of baboons. It was like, we treat each other
nicely because all the adult males are dead.
Wow. So it's a shame Will didn't come
across those baboons because he had a cuddle as opposed to
having to run away. Yeah, he wouldn't have even
lured them in with a big banana in his pocket.
There you go. Tales of a Trip.
It's a new item on the show and it's one that we're very, very
(24:09):
passionate about. Like I said, you can go to our
website, tripologypodcast.com forward slash tales of trips,
send your story in. It's got to be three minutes and
it can be anything. It can be a wild, daring story
like the ones Will's just told, or it can be how you met your
first love traveling, what traveling's meant to you.
It can be anything, but we want to hear from you.
So please send us a message via that recording button, or you've
(24:32):
got access to all our socials inthe description of this episode,
Instagram, email, all that jazz.We just want to hear with you.
we want to connect with the audience.
Yeah it's going to be a fantastic exercise in building
community and we're always so inspired by speaking to
different people this is a platform for you guys to share
your stories with us we're goingto play them out and uh we can't
wait to hear them thanks ever somuch for will for sending that
(24:54):
in yeah It's a travel community podcast isn't it and speaking to
the community right now we're going to go off to our patreon
section where we're going to talk a load of travel nonsense
it's like 15 minutes long comes out 24 hours.
Early Cheap as chips Yeah, Cheapas chips Head over to
patreon.com forward slash chipologypodcast And we'll see
you there. We'll see you there Bye Cheers,
Bye bye,
Hello, and welcome to this episode of all new, brand new
Tripology. I'm Alun, and I'm here with my
best friend and one of the greatest backpackers of all
time. It's the ever-caffeinated Adam.
On this week's show, we've got some hypothetical, tripological
reasonings for you. These are sort of backpacking
(00:22):
scenarios where we're going to make you think on your feet, see
what you would do. And also, at the end of the
show, we've got a brand new itemcalled Tales of a Trip, which is
where you guys, the listeners, send in your great travel
stories. We're going to hear travel
stories sent in by listeners from all over the globe, only
three minutes long. We're going to unpack them,
digest them. It's going to be a hell of a
good time. We're here in Manila, aren't we,
Adam? Yeah, here in Manila.
(00:43):
It's becoming sort of a second home for me.
I like it a lot. We're living in an Airbnb at the
moment, which immediately changes the experience.
And I feel very comfortable here.
It's been nice having you here, sort of to move around Manila
with. Before you arrived, I was holed
up like a little rat bag, all with the flu.
And now you've arrived, I'm sortof journeying around Manila with
(01:03):
much more frequency. I've got a couple of
observations and things I've noticed while I'm there.
Okay, yeah, go on, go on. One of the main ones is, without
trying to sound like a much shitter, more preachy travel
podcast, you really should eat street food and do the less
restaurant-y things here. Because, my goodness, if the
(01:23):
quality and price aren't inversely correlated.
Yeah, it's a tricky one. It's not anything you like to
hear, of course, when you go to somewhere in Southeast Asia.
The more you pay, the worse you get.
But I think on a couple of occasions, we've probably felt
that. And I would say like coffee
shops is almost certainly in theconversation.
Yeah. Every time we've splashed out
(01:44):
like, oh, I just fancy a real nice black lungo, long black
Americano coffee. Or even if we've gone, hey,
let's try this like Filipino restaurant, try and get the best
sisig in McCarthy City. Yeah.
We've almost always been disappointed versus the times
where we found a vendor sort of just serving up fried pork on
the side of the road. I think it comes down to
(02:05):
expectations. I really do.
I mean, you jump online nowadaysand, you know, the easiest thing
to type in in any new city is best coffee in X or best food in
X. So the ones that make it onto
the internet often are the ones that can pay for marketing.
And the old man by the side of the road has been frying up pork
for the last 40 years. He hasn't got a marketing
(02:26):
budget. no He rarely ever if he spends money on marketing
doesn't he because you actually need a pin on google maps in
order to get reviews and if you've not even gone through the
rudimentary exercise of being like oh it's me it's grandpa
joe's pork sissing side of the road joint yeah if you've not
typed that in on google you ain't ever going to get the
reviews who knows about you onlythe locals.
(02:47):
Yeah i would say out of the whatdo we what do we have like two
two three coffees a day at a push definitely two yeah and we
do like to go to nice coffee shops where we sit and do a bit
of planning and a bit of chin wagging and that kind of stuff
people watching as you would do plotting Sort of podcast
domination we're thinking we're going to be the biggest trouble
when the podcast in the world how do we get.
(03:07):
There yeah so you know i've beenhere eight or nine days now so
that's equal to 16 coffees at a minimum yeah i would say only
one maybe two of those coffees were any good and they were both
in the same place Yeah, and today we had the most expensive
coffee, and by my money, one of the worst we've had.
Yeah, I would agree. I mean, we went to a place
(03:29):
called The Coffee Project just to out it on the pod.
And the thing I hate, and I knowthat this is going to be
unpopular, this is somewhat of ahot take.
Yeah, I like it. But I think that there are a lot
of places nowadays that are becoming completely almost like
generic in their appearance, in their aesthetic.
They're obviously catering to either a middle class Asian
(03:51):
developing country sort of demographic or white people on
holiday or expats. I think that's we saw that in
India. We've seen it all over Southeast
Asia. And these are the coffee shops
that even though they're in Southeast Asia, they're still
doing croissant. They're still doing, you know,
different. I saw a ham and cheese croissant
today looking all out of place on a Manila storefront.
(04:12):
I think it speaks to this like inverse backpacker price
paradigm paradox because in trying to appeal to this
ever-growing Western tourist audience, the prices get higher
because these things just don't exist in these countries and
backpackers are willing to pay them and travels and tourists
are willing to pay them. I mean, tourists just get put
(04:34):
under this one banner, whether you're staying in a hotel or a
hostel, whatever, you're just a tourist in a city.
And then because it's not from there, the quality of the
product is like less. You end up paying more for
things that aren't as good. Yeah.
Do you know what? The counter argument to this is
Taiwan, where they do have some fantastic Western cafes.
The coffee's exceptional. Some of the baked goods are
(04:56):
exceptional as well. But, I mean, what we've had so
far has been lacking. And the eye-watering sum of 215
pesos for a coffee that I didn'twant to drink, it's difficult to
stomach. And I don't know whether we live
in this world now where, you know, through globalization and
multiculturalism and digital nomadism, whether the coffee
should actually be any less expensive.
(05:16):
You know, we're up in arms saying, oh, but we're in the
Philippines. It should be cheap.
Everything should be cheap. Should it?
I don't know if it should anymore.
Well, I like traveling with you because I think when I go about
my day, I end up having blinderson like a horse about to bolt.
And I'm like, okay, now I'm going back to my Airbnb.
And I act out that going back tothe Airbnb is if that's all I
(05:37):
can do. But you, you sort of act like a
little travel octopus with tendrils going off in all
different directions. So when we were going back to
Airbnb, you just saw someone. hewas tucked away frying up what
looked to be a sort of slurry onthe side of the road yeah i knew
one of your octopus tendrils pulled you in that direction and
(05:59):
before i knew it i was just sat on the side of the road with you
and another backpacker and we were eating this thing i would
just walk straight past that because i was in transit mode
sure yeah i like your ability tokeep in different modes
simultaneously you were also little did me and the other
backpacker know in searching forfood mode.
(06:19):
And I respect that. I think that's something I'm
going to learn from as I continue to travel is try and
keep different modes switched on.
Yeah, I wonder if we can use theanalogy of a dog owner walking
its dog and I'm just sniffing around the bushes the whole
time. And you walk off and the other
backpacker goes, Adam's back there, is he?
Yeah, he'll be all right. He'll catch up with us in a
minute. And then when I don't, you go,
(06:40):
oh, he's actually found something interesting.
He's picked up a scent. It might be some street food.
There's an old philosophical problem problem, where people go
like, what's more free? The dog that's on a leash, And
therefore, it gets to live out along life being on a leash,
being by its owner. Or the dog that gets off its
leash, it gets to have true freedom, but as a result, it
(07:01):
gets scolded and ends up having its ability to just go and roam
around taken away from it. And the backpacking equivalent
with that, if you don't mind me getting philosophical, the
backpacking equivalent is like, are you on rails seeing the best
possible things all the time? and you know you're going to
have a very enlivening light experience where you get to see
all the greatest things a city has to offer because you're told
(07:24):
go see this go see this go and get the best to get this
restaurant go and do this or do you want to be the kind of dog
that's just like i am gonna experience as much as possible
do whatever i want sniff around every different thing but, maybe
you'll get food poisoning and that's okay yeah.
Always risk the bad meal as mr anthony bourdain said how do you
(07:46):
think that meal went i mean the the other backpacker that we
were with said it was the best thing he'd eaten in the
philippines so far and it cost 60 Pesos yeah he did also say
that one of his favorite things to do was eat fried chicken he
wasn't much of a foodie but i'llstill take his opinion at face
value i love that you gave him that experience and he loved
that i thought it was very beautiful very nice food yeah
indeed yeah no sign of food poisoning yet no.
(08:08):
No not just yet i mean it's been24 hours so we're still crossing
our fingers but that's that's the reason i love travel it's
because you can sort of cherry pick pick and choose i'll be
honest maybe it's one of my failures it's definitely where
the vast majority of my budget goes but how many of these
western style cafes do i need togo into before i realize that
invariably they're shit Yeah stay local don't go to these
(08:30):
expensive cafes just eat what the locals eat drink what the
locals eat and uh you'll be drinking and eating all day
long, Adam, backpackers find themselves in a plethora of
difficult situations It's a complicated thing to do,
travelling the world And by way of combating that I kind of like
(08:52):
to put you and you like to put me Through a sort of backpacking
simulation experience Where you propose hypothetical backpacking
scenarios And try and work out the solutions together It's an
item that we like to call Tripological reasoning,
(09:16):
Adam, I've been backpacking for nigh on a decade now, and
sometimes I get myself into somesituations and I think, oh, what
would Adam do? And this is one such situation
that I'd like to bring to the table.
I just want to know what you would do.
All right. I'm all ears.
Go on, fire away. I found myself very early on in
my backpacking career. I found myself in Vietnam, in
(09:36):
Hanoi City. Okay.
And I arranged a work away. You know we love workaways on
this show. Love workaways on this show.
For those who don't know, you'reworking away.
Hey, you sign up, you find something.
In this situation, it was a teaching job.
I was going to be teaching English out of an apartment.
Walking the park. I was on my way from China.
Yeah. And I messaged the host saying,
oh, I'm coming. Like, this is the day I'm going
(09:58):
to arrive. And then I just forgot about it.
Okay. By the time I arrived in Hanoi,
I realized that one of my messages hadn't sent.
Her last message was, what time are you going to arrive?
I'm going home now. Are you going to get here?
All of that jazz. here's the address in case you need it yeah
let's just see what happens right i arrived in hanoi i take
(10:20):
a cab to the address yeah i'm supposed to be starting my
workaway experience tomorrow yeah i get to the apartment
building it's completely shut down locked up no one's there i
have no cell phone service no way of contacting the host no
way of i've tried to like back when i was at the airport on
airport wi-fi i sent her a message saying look i'm going to
(10:42):
be there soon please let me in all that stuff no responses no
way of contacting what do you doum.
I mean it's a tough one i've been in similar situations
beforehand i'm assuming that we're going back in time to when
their wi-fi wasn't everywhere Wasn't ubiquitously available no
we're talking this is in 2015 yeah okay.
So we've got a contact number and we've sent messages but no
(11:05):
response No responses and i should mention as well it's dark
we're talking it's 11 p.m at night by the time i get there.
Oh that's a shame that's quite important okay so no
accommodation i mean i probably my Accommodation was the work.
Away yeah yeah yeah so you're living on site uh what what
would i have done i mean i wouldhave hung around at the address
(11:25):
i think um probably given it a couple of hours into the early
hours i would imagine that the reason she's not replying is
because it's late at night uh not even back in those days not
too late to walk into a hostel and book somewhere else to stay
uh you banging on the door i Mean how the door by the way was
like i knew the apartment was onone of the upper floors right
(11:46):
and the bottom floor apartment was just like locked down there
was no way of getting in it was just completely locked no lights
on inside no security guard nothing.
All right okay you having a lookfor a gutter well To Speak to
your hostel point, how would I even know where a hostel was?
Right okay well i mean there's alot in hanoi you wouldn't need
to walk that far i wouldn't havethought until you could maybe
(12:08):
find a hotel or something maybe walk into a hotel and uh speak
to the reception see if you've got a number you can call as
opposed to just message on a on a platform these are All good
ideas i do know what it speaks to i'd only been traveling for
one month total i started traveling in 2015 yeah and what
i did in this scenario worked out great right but Now I would
(12:30):
do something completely different.
Now I would like, I'd always make sure I had some way of
contacting or data or Wi-Fi. And I would just go, okay, I've
messed this up. I'm going to go to a hostel or
something. Definitely.
That's the right way to do what you did.
But also the more boring way. Because I was so inexperienced.
I was just like, oh God, if I don't get into this apartment
somehow, there's no way I'll ever do this work where I can't
(12:53):
possibly fathom it. What I ended up doing, mate, was
going around the side of the building. there was a fire
escape ladder you know that you get in new york apartments oh
yeah and it was locked up right i climbed over the initial gate
onto the fire escape right walked up the fire escape and on
the fifth floor one of the windows was ajar right.
(13:16):
You already know you already knew at this point which floor
the apartment was on I was actually on the supposed to be
on the fourth floor right so i climbed through that open window
into the apartment blocks oh. It was like a corridor window it
wasn't into an apartment Right yeah it was a corridor window
thankfully yeah i didn't know how to time necessarily yeah
yeah went through the apartment down the stairs to the where i
(13:37):
was supposed to be right found the apartment and knocked loudly
on the door at. 11 o'clock at night Probably more like
midnight at this point right andi mean thankfully i heard just
some voices behind going, hello?And it just so happened that the
other workaway people were awake.
(13:57):
They were having a bit of a drink, a boogie.
They let me in. They were like, what the hell
are you doing here? It was great.
Because from their perspective, they kind of had a vague sense
that someone was supposed to be arriving for the workaway that
day. Yeah, sure.
And they were like, oh, I guess he's not coming then.
They'd resign themselves to that.
And at midnight, some disheveled21-year-old kid comes through a
(14:19):
window down the stairs and goes,oh, I'm sorry, I'm here.
It was amazing. I'm not sure I ever would have
thought that that was the right thing to do.
How long was there between you doing that and you sort of
arriving? Are we talking like a 15-minute,
I've got no options, straight upthe ladder?
Or are you sitting out there foran hour thinking, I can't climb
the fucking ladder. That's not the way this is going
(14:39):
to... I pondered it.
I mean, I really sat and took mytime and thought, is this the
way out? Is this the life that I want to
be living in? I want to live in this scenario
where I've got to basically break into this building.
Because you never know as well. They actually told me that that
was the only night that week that they'd been up and awake.
Oh, right. Okay.
So it was unlikely. It was just by happenstance they
(15:01):
happened to be having a bit of aboogie that night.
Well, maybe let's extend this then.
What do you do if they didn't answer the door?
Do you just continue to bang? I think I would have slept
outside the door. At least you're inside, I
suppose. At least you're inside.
At least you're inside. I mean, the moral of the story
is do some fucking planning before you're supposed to turn
up somewhere. don't be outside an apartment at midnight with no
(15:22):
plan no phone and no data although that is easier now in
the modern world yeah. Difficult in 2015 mate i like it
i think that's a important lesson to learn Um we love
learning lessons on topology podcast tales of a trip it's a
brand new section on the podcastwhere we get backpackers from
all over the globe to send in three minutes of their greatest
(15:46):
travel stories, something emotional, something beautiful,
something daring and dangerous, you can head to
tropologypodcast.com forward slash tales of a trip and you
can send in your greatest travelstory.
For the very first edition of Tales of a Trip, it only made
sense that we have a friend of the show, an absolutely
wonderful storyteller, Will Hatton, send in his favourite
(16:09):
travel story. So let's hear it now.
Okay, so let me set the scene. It's Bundi in Rajasthan, India.
I've just spent the last two weeks driving a multicolored
rickshaw named Tinkerbell, whichwas 35 years old and which I had
bought for 300 euros across the Rajasthani desert.
It was an emotional journey. Upon arriving into Bundi, which
(16:33):
is a spectacular town with a sacred lake overlooked by a
towering fortress, Myself and mybrother Alex, my favourite
travel companion We decided the time had come The time had come
for rest and recuperation And sowe each took a tab and a half of
LSD And we hiked up to this magical fortress We spent a
(16:55):
happy day exploring Scrambling along the ramparts like warriors
of old And gazing out across theblue city below And then,
sitting as the sun set But we noticed, to the corner of our
eyes, monkeys. More than one monkey.
Quite a few monkeys. 12 monkeys,30 monkeys, 50 monkeys, 100
(17:16):
fucking monkeys. Weird patterns all around them
because the LSD is hitting it strong.
And what's in my hand? A fucking banana.
Now, during the day, these monkeys, they head out to the
town of Bundy. They pilfer.
They scavenge. They're basically a nuisance.
But once sunsets, oh, that's when the real fun begins.
The locals, they know not to be in the fortress after dark, but
(17:39):
we did not. We were not armed with any
sticks. Later, we would realise that the
friendly local who had been gesticulating at us and saying
something about sticks had been warning us not to head up into
the fortress without arming ourselves with a stout wooden
cane to fend off these feral beasts.
The monkeys, they swirled and ducked and dived around us,
(17:59):
charging in with their fangs, bright and glistening and
breaking off at the last possible second.
We slowly but surely made our way down the battlements to the
only way that we know in and outof this magical fortress.
And it was a hole, a hole in thegate, a monkey-sized hole.
And within that hole even was the biggest motherfucking monkey
(18:23):
you ever did see. It was glowering at us, thangs,
shiny and wet, and all around us.
I shit you not, there were 30 big baboons and a hundred or so
of the other small little motherfuckers.
They kept charging us and breaking off at the last second.
I turned to my brother and I said, Alex, we've got to kill
(18:44):
this monkey. We debated.
Alex didn't want to kill the monkey.
He believes in veganism and not killing monkeys.
You know, I understood his point.
And in the time that it took us to debate, the monkey, thank
God, they catered the hole. And so we dived through and we
turned to each other and we laughed and we embraced for we
had survived the monkeys of the Bundy Fortress.
(19:07):
Whoa, thank you, Will, for sending in that story, surviving
a monkey attack on Bundy Fortress.
I like the image of them going over the ramparts like warriors
of old. Beautiful.
Yeah, I mean, I have actually been to Bundy on his
recommendation. Okay.
So I've probably been to the exact fort he's talking about
and taken the exact LSD that he's done.
(19:29):
I'm joking. Difficult to believe a story
when it starts with taking a tabof LSD.
Yeah, because you start wondering, is the monkey
situation as described, or was it something to do with the
psychedelic drugs? I think, I mean...
You don't have to be Will to tell a story, but it helps.
He's a good storyteller. He weaves a narrative.
(19:49):
You can really imagine him regaling the hostile common room
with that sort of tale. I mean, I'd be amazed if that's
the first time he's told that story, because it's
well-drilled. It sounds like he's performing a
page of his journal. I absolutely loved it.
I think there's, without question, a great storyteller
and a great story. Being surrounded by, he didn't
say rabid, but they seemed aggressive.
(20:10):
Certainly. Baboon's an aggressive type of
monk. Yeah, was that difficult for you
to hear as someone who loves monkeys more than most?
Well, I was very disappointed tohear that Will had gone to a
monkey haven with a banana in his pocket.
I mean, that's one of the worst things you can do, isn't it?
(20:30):
Do you remember when me and you,it was in Mumbai, we went to
some ancient caves and we were traveling with some other
backpackers. And one girl, she had a packet
of biscuits in her pocket. She was constantly being hounded
by the macaques. I had to teach her to make eye
contact with the macaques to stave them off because she was
just getting pestered all day long.
Yeah, it was interesting to watch the way that she reacted
(20:52):
to the monkey, which at one point was sort of airborne,
wasn't it? It was like swinging around on
her backpack, hanging on for dear life with one arm.
Yeah, she sort of did a 360 no-scope to biscuit combination.
Yeah, yeah. It's difficult to have sympathy,
I think, when, you know, you're going to be surrounded by
monkeys. I was thinking, why is she
getting so much attention? Oh, because she's got an open
packet of cookies in her bag. But what would your
(21:15):
recommendation for Will be? Because, I mean, not the
greatest thing to do, walk around with a banana in your
pocket. Well, you know, psychedelic
drugs, they're a big part of thebackpacking scene.
We all know it, but other podcasts don't talk about it.
It's a normal thing to do, isn'tit?
But I wonder if Will knew and his brother, did they know that
it was going to be such an animalistic experience prior to
(21:38):
taking the LSD? Because often you take LSD,
something like that, to heightenyour connection with the natural
world, heighten your understanding of where you are
and like to have a deep spiritual connection.
But it sounds to me like if theyhadn't taken the LSD, they would
already have got quite a wild experience anyway, just
naturalistically. Yeah.
I mean, it may sound like I'm speaking from personal
(21:59):
experience and I am, but being on psychedelics and being around
animals is not fun or almost ever actually.
So being confronted with 20, 30,50 monkeys, I imagine that would
have wore thin pretty soon. Yeah, me and you, of course, are
two people who worked on a farm and some of our early meetings
(22:21):
revolved around our curiosity into the psychedelic world.
So we do know what it is to be surrounded by animals that can
do you physical harm, like a horse that can kick you in the
face. Especially when it's got five
heads. Yeah, exactly.
Wow. Yeah, I think it's interesting,
isn't it? I think probably the way to go
would not to be take psychedelicdrugs and then surround yourself
(22:43):
by dangerous wild animals, but it makes a hell of a backpacking
story. Yeah, I think having said that,
being on the ramparts, sunset, you're in Rajasthan, which is a
beautiful area. Absolutely love it.
Like I said, I went there on hisrecommendation.
Had he taken the LSD and just watched the sunset over the
fortress and over the lake, amazing experience.
Monkeys on this occasion maybe ruined the experience.
(23:05):
He said they were baboons, didn't he?
A couple of baboons in there, yeah.
Baboons are like known for beinga particularly aggressive type
of monkey. So much so, there's this amazing
story about a group of baboons that changed their behavior
because they treat each other absolutely awfully in
adolescence. And then as a result of that,
they become awful, you know, because they're treated so
badly. Right.
(23:25):
There was this amazing case of this baboon colony where a hotel
opened up nearby. Yeah.
So all the most aggressive alpha, alpha baboons got
tuberculosis, because they were the ones that would go to the
hotel and eat the trash. So they ended up dying off.
And then there were no evil, aggressive alpha baboons to
treat the young ones badly. So the baboon colony became this
(23:47):
altruistic, beautiful commune where everyone was just treating
each other well. It became like almost a
subspecies of baboons. It was like, we treat each other
nicely because all the adult males are dead.
Wow. So it's a shame Will didn't come
across those baboons because he had a cuddle as opposed to
having to run away. Yeah, he wouldn't have even
lured them in with a big banana in his pocket.
There you go. Tales of a Trip.
It's a new item on the show and it's one that we're very, very
(24:09):
passionate about. Like I said, you can go to our
website, tripologypodcast.com forward slash tales of trips,
send your story in. It's got to be three minutes and
it can be anything. It can be a wild, daring story
like the ones Will's just told, or it can be how you met your
first love traveling, what traveling's meant to you.
It can be anything, but we want to hear from you.
So please send us a message via that recording button, or you've
(24:32):
got access to all our socials inthe description of this episode,
Instagram, email, all that jazz.We just want to hear with you.
we want to connect with the audience.
Yeah it's going to be a fantastic exercise in building
community and we're always so inspired by speaking to
different people this is a platform for you guys to share
your stories with us we're goingto play them out and uh we can't
wait to hear them thanks ever somuch for will for sending that
(24:54):
in yeah It's a travel community podcast isn't it and speaking to
the community right now we're going to go off to our patreon
section where we're going to talk a load of travel nonsense
it's like 15 minutes long comes out 24 hours.
Early Cheap as chips Yeah, Cheapas chips Head over to
patreon.com forward slash chipologypodcast And we'll see
you there. We'll see you there Bye Cheers,
Bye bye,
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