TRAVEL .... with cadet travel reporter DON GORDON-BROWN
Intrepid tours are always totally unforgettable. Except, of course, for the bits you forget. Please let me explain this apparent contradiction by telling you about my most recent trip with Intrepid Tours – a 15-day odyssey of Bali and the neighbouring island of Lumbago. It proved to be no exception to this rule in that it was forgettably unforgettable. Well, at least to my two travelling companions.
My missus and I have been Intrepid tour aficianados for quite some time – we’ve done close to 20 trips over the years – but it now means we’re often the oldest folk on these jaunts and this one was no exception, bar one.
To make us feel just a little more spritely this time, we took along my missus’s charming English cousin Charles. He’s quite a bit older than me. Oh, who are we trying to kid: the poor old bastard is a zimmer-frame step away from 24-hour fulltime care and extra-strength overnight kimbies.
He was largely the reason why on tour’s eve I asked of the missus – both of us have been Intrepid tour aficianados for quite some time – whether our travel insurance might allow us to bali out, because I really was concerned that Charles might not have been able to complete some of the more arduous activities because of his infirmity.
And my intrepidations proved to be well-founded. One morning we were to wake at 3.30am to make a four-hour trek up to the rim of some volcano in cental Bali, the name of which escapes me just now. Determined to put some of the youngsters in their place, I trotted up the mountainside with a couple of heavy rocks in my backpack for good measure while humming aloud the theme music from the first Rocky film. It was damn cold up at the crater waiting in the pre-dawn darkness for the hour or so it took them to catch up. Dear old Charles stayed in bed, claiming a dodgy right knee and crook back would not have seen him complete the ordeal. What a sook, eh? Well, that’s the way I remembered it happening.
That’s him pictured at right. And, no, he might be old but he’s not senile. Well, not fully. He’s a kind soul normally but sarcastically wore the label of my favourite beer on his forehead throughout the entire trip, rather rudely claiming that I was having trouble remembering what it was called whenever ordering it as my main course at all meal times. Absolute piffle.
And hence the aspect of these tours that the young folk with us simply could not get to enjoy – and will not do so for many years to come – namely, the nightly game my missus and Clifton got to play, trying valiantly to remember what they did the day before, where they stayed, who they were ... those sorts of questions that pop up more and more often for those of advanced years. My own mind is still 100 per sense, but I joined in the game from time to time, feigning sharp-term memory floss too, just to put them at ease.
This fading memory game that’s easy to play when you’re a little long in the tooth you’ve got left is actually accentuated on Intrepid trips – I’m not sure whether I’ve mentioned that my missus and I have been aficianados of their tours for quite some time – but they certainly know how to pack activities into each and every day. Exhaustion and early-onset dementia exact a toll on the elderly that made the trip somewhat of a blur for the other two.
“I’m really looking forward to getting out at dawn tomorrow and watching the dolphins,” Charles said to us one night after a few Bintangs.
“We did that yesterday, you goose,” I replied as gently as possible.
“I know that!” Cecil replied indignantly. “All I’m saying is that I’m really looking forward to getting out at dawn tomorrow and watching the dolphins.”
“I’m not eating any dolphins,” the missus addled in a huff.
These conversations are exactly as they happened, to the best of my memory. I couldn’t write them down straight away as I’d momentarily misplaced my notebook and penis.
“Do you think those two lasses from Norwich are an item,” Charles must have asked me a half a dozen times over Bintangs during the trip, having forgotten he had asked the same interesting question a half-dozen times before. The jury is still on that one.
My missus, who along with me has been an Intrepid tour aficianado for quite some time, has a mind that’s not all that much better. Each place we stayed at became a foggy memory for her the moment our tour bus pulled away in the morning. “I really enjoyed the pool at that place,” was one comment the missus made that was greeted with awkward silence from Cedric and myself. It had no pool.
“I wish I’d bought a sarong at that weaving place,” Charlton rued one night. He had virtually bought out the place of sarongs only hours earlier and was at risk of having to buy another piece of luggage to take them all home.
As the youngest – by far – of the trio and whose mind is still as sharp as a steel tap, I was just thankful to be there to put them both straight when they got a little too muddled, and to calm them down when they fretted too much when they could not comprehend what was going on around them. Even considered coming up to breakfast one morning pretending that I’d also forgotten to put on my trousers, just to take the edge of any lingering embarrassment over an incident a day or two before. I’m thoughtful that way.
But in the end we all got through it all okay, regardless of what we now may or may not remember of the fortnight.
So, thank you once again, Intrepid tours, for an exceptionally well-planned holiday led so capably by Sukyio, the rakishly good-looking tour guide from Java with the million-rupiah smile. The whole experience was forgettably unforgettable.
You’ve given us such fantastic memories of Bali and ... ah, err ... that other island nearby .. that will definitely linger in our memories for a very long
