borneo japan sweden tenerife france philippines ireland prague

portugal venezuela barcelona mexico australia japan malaysia

It’s Week 34 throughout the whole of the world but who’s keeping count? Perhaps only The Swedish. While most of the planet may have problems remembering what day it is, the Swedes keep track of how many sets of seven have passed since New Year. This may not sound desperately exciting, but it’s clever and it works. Such is Sweden.

‘But he told me he loved me,’ cries a plump, young English girl wearing a dress so tight she must have been born into it, ‘and I’ve just seen him kissing someone else.’ ‘Welcome to Tenerife,’ I tell her, ‘and wipe that mascara from your chins, it makes you look common.’

I was not only tired of being the last one down the slopes, but of also using incorrect snowboarding phrases, so I had arrived in Chamonix for practice. I needed to get in a few extra days of boarding before our big group excursion later in the year. Hopefully by then, it would be me who was waiting in the queue for the ski-lift, saying the right things, laughing at the slow people, and cursing under my breath at their incompetence.

“It’s just like being in space, apparently,” claimed a friend who attempted to describe the experience of scuba-diving. Neither of us were qualified astronauts but I think I understood what she meant. And although the tiny Filipino Island of Panglao is only a few hours further than the diving Mecca of Cairns, it really is a different world. Courtesy buses don’t take you to high-rise apartments here – I arrive on the roof of a jeepney looking down on the wooden huts. Accommodation is very basic; the only stars are the ones up there by the moon. I climb down the steps of the jeepney muttering something about ‘giant leaps’.

“They’re the friendliest people in the world, so they are.” I’d heard it so often that it was beginning to grate. Why did the Irish receive all the accolades while English folk were considered to be polite but pompous? But  it was not only travellers’ gossip that had been thrust upon me over the years - images too bombarded my television screen. The Tourist board’s campaign promoting “The warmth of the Irish welcome” made me feel ill. So what did they have which gave them such appeal? As a bitter and competitive Englishman fed up of hearing just how great the Irish were, I embark on a mission to find out for myself …

“It’s not the same anymore. There are too many tourists. You should have gone there twenty years ago,” suggested a friend when I told him I was off to Prague. “Yes, I should have done,” came my reply, “but I was only ten.” Even if I had been able to carry a backpack at such a tender age, I still doubt my mother would have allowed me to sneak behind the Iron Curtain. But twenty years is a long time; I’ve grown up and so has the Czech Republic.

Countless hours of sunshine, a coastline boasting more surf than anywhere else in Europe, and more fresh fish than you can shake a rod at, are just a few of her attractions. Though if you were to ask someone what they knew about Portugal, the most likely response would be ‘It’s next to Spain’.  Formerly synonymous with pensioners on golfing holidays, the country is experiencing a rejuvenation, spearheaded by the popularity of  her cosmopolitan capital.

“You’re only going there to perve at the girls” claimed a friend before myself and Nick embarked on a journey to do just that. The country itself has a lot to offer, though the majestic Angel Falls and the Caribbean waters are less synonymous with Venezuela than the impression this country’s girls have made in Miss World contests. 

“It’s the most natural thing in the world,” claimed a friend trying to describe the experience of a nudist beach. “So is shitting in the street,” I replied, “and I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that either”. I had a point – walking around completely naked may have been acceptable thousands of years ago, but as a civilisation we have moved on. We now use things called toilets to take a dump, and we wear things called shorts to visit beaches. Unless of course we have been drinking, and our reputation is at stake. 

Her hand drifts gently up one side of my shorts. Another hand does the same up the other leg. A third hand zips down my fly. No, this is not some tale of extra-terrestrial lust with a multi-limbed alien, this is a Mexican strip joint. And I’m being fought over by three ladies eager to get a hold of more than just my cash.

Ten years is a long time in tourism. Changes can occur in the areas where you least expect: patience, charity, tolerance, et cetera. But what shocks me most is the attitude I have adopted to those ignorant Pommy backpackers bogged down in front of us who can’t move their jeep because they don’t know how to move it because they’ve only ever driven their mums’ Minis around The bloody Cotswolds.

The Japanese would call it mi-te mi-na-i fu-ri but it’s a phrase you don’t hear in Japan because to say it means to acknowledge its existence, and if it isn’t talked about, how can it possibly exist? Roughly translated the phrase means voluntary blindness and the Japanese are the masters of it. Their government will tell you that whales are not hunted for food, and that World War II was just an unfortunate incident; looking away is how these people deal with the uncomfortable. And anyone who has ever boarded a train in Japan will no doubt recognise the effects of this temporary optical deficiency: the drunken salaryman singing karaoke to himself cannot be seen; the young couple blatantly kissing by the sliding doors are not really there; the horse reading the book is just a figment of everyone’s imagination. The horse? What?

I don’t ride motorbikes. I don’t know how. But when I’m on holiday and someone presents me with a scooter, I always saddle up. It could be the heat, the oversized helmets, or the sunglasses… I don’t know. But as soon as I squeeze that throttle, I enter the world of 1980s television.