Dreams Of Fluffy White Towels

By Bobby Diablo

Trapped in a dead end job within a faceless Government department, Bobby Diablo bought a round the world air ticket on a whim and set off travelling, thinking "this will be easy". Turns out it wasn't. With a tiny rucksack, a wet weather poncho and only four pairs of boxer shorts, Bobby emailed his adventures back to his adoring public on a weekly basis to prove that he really was travelling and not just holed up in his bedroom at home. "Dreams of Fluffy White Towels" is a detailed guide on how not to organise a backpacking trip. From ladyboy pickpockets in Bangkok to full on revolution in Fiji, this inept backpacker lurches from crisis to crisis with all the panache of Bert and Ernie.

"Dreams Of Fluffy White Towels" is the second book in the Minor Obsessions trilogy.

Volume 1- Dancing With the Deviltones
Volume 2- Dreams Of Fluffy White Towels
Volume 3- Mad Englishman and Dogs

The three books take an autobiographical and humorous look at the subjects of music, travel and pets. They also follow the progress of technology on all of our lives. The first book, “Dancing With the Deviltones” is very much an analogue book- all hissing, cassette tapes and floppy discs. "Dreams Of Fluffy White Towels" relied totally on email, which was king in those early days of the internet. The final book, “Mad Englishman and Dogs” is a full on social media extravaganza showing how far we’ve come in the fifteen years that these books deal with.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bobby Diablo
• Release date: Nov 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301770229

Bobby Diablo

Graphic Novels Collector Professional Dog Scooterist Minis Rugby Coach Tin Tin Enthusiast Devil Dog Hoarder Burlesque Compere VW Camper Van Sympathiser Youtube Director Moustache Wax Veteran Tweed Lover

Book preview

Intro to Reality

February 2001

Call me Ishmail. Ha ha ha. Might as well start as I mean to go on and plagiarise wildly. Actually, Call me e-mail would be a better intro as this was the medium I used to get in touch with home on my epic worldwide misadventure.

So, this is probably a handbook on how not to undertake a backpacking trip round the world. If it helps anybody in that capacity then it will all have been worth it. Learn from my (many) mistakes. Every other travel book that I’ve read seems to have been written by someone who knew what they were doing and wasn’t mildly panicked for much of the trip. They also seem to have undertaken the trip with the express purpose of writing a book later. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing for much of the journey. I was just running away from reality and the book thing only came later when I saw the big pile of emails that I’d sent home.

Before we kick off there are some things about me you’ve just got to know so that the rest of the book makes sense.

My name is Bob. I was born in a crossfire hurricane (Mansfield) in 1973. I attended Queen Elizabeth’s Boys School in Mansfield. This probably sounds a lot grander than it really was. In reality it was an anachronism left over from grammar school days. It was also a bit of a sink school whose catchment area included two of the roughest council estates in town.

I have always had a capacious memory and at school this was considered to be a sign of supreme intelligence. I always knew otherwise and eventually proved myself right by attaining increasingly weak grades through my school/ University career culminating in a Desmond (2.2) Law Degree at Lancaster University. I have also never had an original thought in my life. If imitation is the greatest form of flattery, then I must be the biggest flatterer in the world. I was thus thrust out into the world and drifted into the seedy underworld of the Civil Service.

I signed the Official Secrets Act and became a tax inspector, the most hated profession around. Sweet. Apparently, Morrissey wrote Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now about his job working for the Inland Revenue. I can see his point. I plodded through daily life with minimal ambition until Glastonbury 1999. I was off my head sat listening to The Corrs. I was thinking, Why can’t life always be this good? when a thunderbolt struck. Life can be this good if I buy a round the world air ticket and leg it. I attempted to hand in my resignation at work but they offered to give me extended unpaid leave, suspecting that I was going through some sort of crisis (which I was). God bless ‘em. Celebrated the millennium at home and after minimal preparation I cashed in my savings and set off into the unknown.

So, that’s how it happened. It may also be necessary for you to know that I favour the extreme skinhead as my haircut. I’m not a right wing extremist or anything but I just like the practicality of it. I also like the feeling when you rub it. I’m about six foot tall and a bit chunky. I also enjoy facial hair experimentation. I’ve always got some crazy sideburn/ goatee combo. I had a couple of tattoos done in my wild impetuous youth. One is of a Celtic knot and the other is of a foetal baby alien (Bonkers).

I am proud to be a Mansfield man having lived there all my life. Mansfield is a strange town. The main employment used to be with the coal mines. Then all the pits closed in the eighties and the area became depressed. People from other local towns refuse to come drinking in Mansfield due to its hard reputation and the air of violence that you get in the pubs on a Friday night. I never notice this as I’ve been raised on it and never knew anything different. We have quite a strange accent and say Eyup and call people Me duck. And we’re probably all inbred. And we fear change and strangers.

My previous travel exploits included the usual round of boozy Spanish package holidays and that’s about it. Independent work travel was never really on the agenda, although as a kid we used to go to Scandinavia on the ferry because my dad was scared of flying. Maybe that’s where the seed was sown.

I have two major interests in life. It turns out that I am a shit hot five-a-side football goalie. This revelation only appeared comparatively recently. It is the only time in my life that I have been any good at sport and it is definitely the only time I have ever been first pick for a sports team. The goalie thing was thrust on me after I knackered up my left knee playing squash. The knee was operated on but was never the same again. It now goes wonky every couple of years or so and I’m in extreme pain for a couple of weeks.

My other love is music. I have been likened to that bloke out of High Fidelity by Nick Hornby due to my extensive musical trivia knowledge. I absolutely love skater punk music but I don’t possess the coordination or balance to skate or snowboard or surf. Still I like the clothes. Big trousers. It’s gotta be a loose fit. My favourite band of all time is The Vandals from Orange County, California. They were the stars of that X-Files episode where the kid gets struck by lightning and from then on goes round on a killing spree. Top entertainment.

I am also the lead vocalist/ shouter with Mansfield electro-punk love Godz, SWAB. We are brilliant and will eventually take over the world if we can be bothered to get ourselves motivated. And if we ever buy a van. We currently have to borrow a plasterer’s van. Dusty speaker stacks, dude. We are a three piece and work pretty well together. I write a few songs but my main role is to jump about lots on stage and take my shirt off halfway through the set. We generally play biker pubs and Uni stuff, often to a reaction of silent, open mouthed awe. The kids know where it’s at. The bloke in the local music shop loves it when we go in. We are total halfwits and he always takes the piss out of us and we usually leave having bought a very expensive piece of equipment that we don’t need. One day, Mr Fat Cat Music, we shall be revenged. Oh, yes.

That’s the other thing about this book. It has a soundtrack. My daily life is accompanied by music playing in my head so I have tried to reproduce this here. Anyway, movies have soundtracks so why not books? Innovative, or what?

So, that’s all you need to know, apart from the fact that I was and remain spectacularly unsuccessful with the laydeez. Oh, well. The book was written on the road and is made up of the emails that I sent home to my buddies. I would liken it to a live album. Do people still make those? I’d love to buy Britney Spears – Live at Leeds. No, I don’t think that would work. Not much action on the mixing desk, I imagine. Of course I’ve touched the emails up a bit when I got home but even Iron Maiden’s seminal double album, Live After Death had overdubs. My stuff also has a few overdubs but the majority is the original bollocks written from internet cafes round the world. There was generally one instalment per week for the eight months that I was travelling. I sent them on a Thursdays. A purely arbitrary choice of day but what the hell.

So, let’s go to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in January 2000 for the first instalment….

Hot in the City

27th January

Good gravy, what have I done? I’m alone in a city full of foreigners. It’s about thirty five degrees and getting hotter and about 100% humidity. I’m scared of the food, the people and the traffic. I guess I’m not in Kansas any more, Toto. I’m definitely not in Mansfield any more, youth.

Felt a bit peculiar leaving my folks at Heathrow. I hadn’t really thought about it until the final moment as I was so desperate to make a start to the trip. However, at the last second I got a bit of a tear in my eye and told my mum and dad that I’d see them again in three months in Malaysia. Seems a bit of a long way off. Decided to make the most of the flight as this will be my last taste of luxury for a while. Got a seat over the wing emergency exit so I had giraffe size legroom. Spent most of the journey wrestling with my personal TV set, first trying to find it and get it working and secondly trying to make Citizen Kane stay on. Free booze, though. I’ll tolerate almost anything when I’m drunk (except Morris dancing).

After twelve hours we landed in Kuala Lumpur. Found my pack straight away on the luggage carousel took a deep breath and set out into adventure city. Had minimal trouble finding the bus into town. Put my daft hat on to prove that I was an experienced traveller. Not sure what headgear proves exactly, but it made me feel a lot more confident. I was under the impression that everyone on the bus would be going to hostels. I then learnt the distinction between backpackers and independent travellers. Everyone else was dropped off at reasonable looking hotels with porters outside to come and collect your baggage. I was the only one left on the bus when it arrived at the Youth Hostel. I don’t think the driver had wanted to shock the classier passengers with the appearance of the scummy hole. What a dive. Checked in, took my shirt off in the sweltering heat and went to bed.

The Youth Hostel is totally dead. I only spoke to one person in the whole two days I was there. He was an Aussie on his way to Prague. He led me the wrong way through Chinatown. I was sweating like a pig after I’d humped my gear across town. Why was I shifting my stuff? Because I’d had enough of the Dull Hostel. I seized the initiative for once in my life and moved to a groovier abode.

I’m now at a hostel called The Travellers Station. It is above the KFC in the railway station. The building is fantastic. It is all minarets and Islamic bulbs and towers; oriental revival built by the British colonial crazy boys. The hostel is a total dump but the atmosphere is buzzing. Loads of kids from all over the world. It is run by a strange Sikh bloke called Mr Singh. Sample pearl of wisdom from his lips – Never shave any hair on your body. There is a large rat living in the dorm who comes out at night to scare the hell out of you as he scurries across the floor. The air conditioning only comes on at ten o’clock at night. When you come back during the day, you just have to sit completely still on the bed and hope that the sweat will dry. Luckily, you can get a cold shower. In fact, that’s all you can get. Hot water seems to be non-existent. Bit of a bummer when you want a shave.

One of my roomies is a large Moslem bloke from Atlanta, Georgia. He had come up through Singapore and had taken the opportunity to have some trousers made while he was there. He was talking me through the advantages of these strides, in an accent reminiscent of Scarlett O’Hara on steroids (LOTS of steroids):

Large Moslem Bloke: Well, you see, I’m a big guy, a big guy who does a lot of prayin’. Five times a day. I need plenty of room round the butt. I got a big butt. I don’t like this zipper fly though. I like to get my pee pee out, do my business and put it away again. Like this.

ME: Aaargh! Put it away!

Woke up this morning to the sound of hurdy-gurdy. The Swedes have arrived. One of them has got a violin with him. We’ve just been down to the train platform to watch him busk. The locals seemed to love it. We Westerners are like giants over here. The average height amongst the locals seems to be about four foot nothing (like Kylie). I’ve waited a long time for the opportunity to present itself, but now absolutely everyone looks up to me.

Went to Little India yesterday. Very colourful and busy and bizarre. One bloke had a stall where all he seemed to do was taunt leeches with a small stick. The crowd was agog. Oh, no, the leech has turned feral. It’s coming straight at us. Aaargh! – Oh, no, it’s just a mollusc. There were also chairs lined up for foot massage. I didn’t dare try it, though, with the state of my socks. Other attractions in the town include the highest flagpole in the world and an independence square with a cricket pitch in the middle. There were some mad dogs and Englishmen wearing whites playing cricket in the mid-day sun. Hot Imperialist action.

My major task in the city was to find the British Airways office to change my plane tickets. The nice lady at the tourist information gave me the address and the subway station to get off at. I was just getting off the train when I stumbled across the biggest mall I have ever seen. The arrivals hall at the station just fed you into it. I was there like Ted Intrepid with my floppy hat and water bottle and there in front of me is Laura Ashley. Bit of an anti-climax really. There was quite a nice lake outside the mall so I sat there to eat my lunch. I was looking at all the skyscrapers thinking, Why can’t I see the Petronas Towers? they’re like the tallest buildings in the world. I slowly turned around and there they were rising skyward behind me. Oh, there they are …

There is a mad crazy night market in Chinatown. They sell everything and it’s all fake brands. English football shirts seem to go down a treat. In fact, I was almost run over by a gang of moped warriors in the middle of the road. The peculiar thing was that they were all wearing Ipswich Town shirts. I’m sure you wouldn’t see that many Ipswich shirts together even in the heart of Suffolk. Very strange. You have to go steady on the streets. Nobody walks on the pavements and the gutters are about two feet high to cope with the tropical downpours. You have to play dodge the moped as you sprint across the streets. Bearing in mind that I can twist my ankle just by looking at an uneven surface, I am really having to watch what I’m doing.

The hostel has got a load of books in the common room describing traveller’s experiences in other countries round the world. You can just pick up the book and add your own tale of woe to it. I have been reading them at night. Blimey. Everywhere I intend going gets a totally bad write up. It seems inevitable that you will have your stuff pinched in Thailand and the transport is lousy in Vietnam. Am contemplating just staying in Malaysia for three months. The other places sound too scary.

Mind you, I went to check out the central bus station today so I know where to catch the bus for my onward journey in a few days. It seemed like downtown Bombay. Huge streams of people everywhere, loads of vendors of suspect looking food and me with no idea where to buy a ticket. I am still scared of the local food. Luckily, Kuala Lumpur is sufficiently westernised for it to have been invaded by Ronald McDonald, 7Eleven and Colonel Sanders. Come to Papa, you beautiful Big Mac Meal…

I’m off to a place called Melaka sometime soon. I’m already losing track of the days. Melaka seems to be a bit of an ancient town tropical beach paradise. Sweet. I seem to have arranged to meet up with a few of the dudes out of the dorm here. They are going down there the day before me and have promised to save a bed for me. Seems this is the way to go. You have to indulge in chit chat with your room mates and you may get favours from them. It’s good to talk.

Before I go I’ve got to do my laundry. Looks like you give Mr Singh your dirty clothes and they miraculously appear fully cleansed later in the day. Brilliant. Have also got to buy a new watch. I took mine off the other day so that I could apply some sun screen to my pasty white arms. When I looked round, the watch had disappeared. D’oh! Hope this is not going to be a motif for the rest of the trip.

I’ll see you down on the coast, if I manage to get up in time without a watch. Bloody hell.

Club Tropicana

3rd February

So finally, I’ve actually done some travelling! After bumming around in Kuala Lumpur for five days I took the bus down to Melaka. I am now getting to the stage where I only know what day it is according to the day printed on my malaria tablets.

All pretence at reality has been suspended. I have taken on