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Khoa San Road backpacker world records


ricosuave

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The wonderful Khoa San Road and its people have officially entered the Guinness book of world records on many occasions, namely in the categories of….

Film watching

Least baht spent

Dying in an internet café

Most people sleeping in one room

Quickest transformation

Most people woke up by a single shag

Most ‘Don’t go there its full of tourists’

Most khoa san road laps

Longest lasting beer

Most consultations of the lonely planet in a single day

Most disgusting toilet collage

 

Film watching

On May 21st 2001, Jens Muller, a Danish backpacker, set a new world record for most films watched in a single day whilst on Khoa San Road. Starting his movie odyssey at 8am, he watched ‘Mad Max III’, ‘The Beach’ and ‘American Pie’ at Chai’s guest house. He then moved over to Sweety guest house, as ‘Dogma’ had just started. Quickly grabbing a Pad Thai, he returned to watch ‘There’s something about Mary’ and ‘My best friends wedding’. Realising it was only 7pm and he still had some time to kill, he ventured over to Merry guest house and caught the majority of ‘Muriels wedding’, ‘Seven’ and ‘Mickey blue eyes’. Returning to his guest house, he was just in time to have a second helping of American Pie. At this point the guest house turned of the t.v. and Jens went to bed, having watched an incredible 10 movies!!. Well done Jens.

 

Least baht spent in a day

The elusive ‘Zero baht’ day is often talked about in backpacker circles, but is thought of as an urban myth. However, it has been achieved once, by Francois Pascal, a French ‘Comehereandfindmytrueselfer’. The day of January 17th 2001 has been etched in the memory of every backpacker thanks to the courage of this incredible man.

The day started unmemorably enough, waking in his Khoa San Road shoe box, he ate the remains of last nights pad Thai for breakfast, washed down by some bottled water sensibly remaining from yesterday. He went outside for a walk, and took in a few temples, the non fee paying ones of course. After this he went back to the guest house, took in a movie and went back to his room for a nap. Re-emerging at around 5pm, he went off for another walk along the breathtaking Thanon Khoa San, where he met some really good friends he had met the night before. Francois’s resolve was breaking due to his need for rehydration and nourishment, but he got a lucky break. He was able to scrounge a small amount of Green Fanta, and one of his companions couldn’t finish the rice part of his green curry, so he was able to eat too.

But by 9pm his friends had gone, and Francois was close to breaking point due to extreme thirst. Allow Francois, in his own words, to finish off this amazing tale of courage and ingenuity.

“I was thirsty yes, I went into an internet café where I knew they had water. It is for customer only, but I remembered that I could check the hotmail for free if I don’t open the e mails. I asked the staff to log in for me, and while this happened, I went to the drinking water and had a big drink. The staff tell me the hotmail is ready, but I leave. They are not happy but they do say the hotmail is free if not checking”.

Congratulations Francois, for setting a record that can only be equalled and never beaten. You are truly world class.

 

Longest time spent in an internet café

This record is held by Calvin Adams, a Canadian crusty, and was set on August 12th 1999. Sadly, as you will soon discover, this is a world record tinged with tragedy.

Entering the ‘happy internet café’ mid morning, (official statistics put the time at 11:03am). He proceeded to check his e mail, and composed several mini novels to the people back at home. Three hours later, he was observed, quite inexplicably, staring at a picture of butterflies for over an hour. The only thing to say in his defence was that these were interactive butterflies, and he was spotted moving them around the screen. Next Calvin wrote a fairly detailed trip report for his own msn website. He then appeared to enter, witnesses observe, a state of internet psychosis, and was seen blindly surfing through websites of no real interest. Snapping out this, he reeled of another stack of rambling e mails. By now the time had just gone 9pm.

He eventually realised his situation, and got up to pay his bill. Then tragedy struck. Upon hearing the figure ‘602 baht please sir’. Calvin suffered a heart attack. The shock of hearing such a large amount of money, combined with an unhealthy period of inertia put too much strain on his vital organ, and he dropped dead on the spot.

What makes this story worse is Calvins actions before entering the café. In a desparate state to find a café that was cheaper than 1 baht a minute, he had visited 7 cafes to find the cheapest rate. Tracing his route, if he had visited the next café along, he would have found a half baht minute place. Perhaps hearing ‘301 baht please sir’ instead might have saved him. We’ll never know. At least for now Calvin Adams memory is remembered by his world record, and a rather bizarre poem/rant on the wall of room 3c in Lek Guest house, which he composed the day he died.

 

Most people sleeping in one room

This record was broken on February 1st 2000, where 22 people slept in a room at ‘My house’ guest house, eclipsing the previous record of 16. This was achieved by some brilliant co-ordination and a bit of luck. Firstly, the bed was far enough of the ground to accommodate 6 people underneath the bed, in addition to 6 sleeping on the bed. Finally another 8 slept parallel to the bed, on the floor, and by removing the wonky table and chair, another 2 were able to sleep in the foetal position. It is unlikely such a large group of people will ever be able to find enough motivation to save a few baht ever again, and as such this record is likely to stand for a considerable time.

 

Quickest transformation

The quickest conversion from normal person to worldwise traveller occurred only two weeks ago, on July 18th 2001. Mark Anderson, from Scotland arrived at Khoa San Road at 1pm, was able to find a guest house road quickly due to the low season, and set out to begin his road to Damascus. Within 2 hours 12 minutes, he had replaced his Levi jeans with a pair of something that resembled a pair of orange pyjarma bottoms, accumulated a Red bull t shirt with thai writing on, and had his hair turned into rope. He also within this time, had three piercings in various places, bought some tennis balls tied to the end of chains that he swung around ad nauseum, and bought some armpit hair extensions. He finished off his transformation by memorising Chapter 5, Verse 6 of the Lonely planet bible ‘Thou shalt attend full moon parties’, and Chapter 3, Verse 7 ‘Thou shall looketh down on sex tourists’.

While such a world record will always remain subjective, and slightly controversial. This is the fastest recorded conversion, of course if you know better……………….

 

Most people woke up by a single shag (root, screw, sex act)

On the night of October 22nd 2001, Shane Johnston (New Zealand) and Shani Lockmore (Australia) were engaging in sexual intercourse in their cardboard room at the ‘Nice place guest house’. Shane’s habit of recalling the names of great rugby league players at the top of his voice to delay ejaculation, and Shanis tendancy to bark like a dog during penetration had made this a particularly noisy session. Due to the flimsy construction of the hostel walls, and its ‘long corridor’ achitecture, the people in the 8 rooms to the left, the 7 rooms to the right, and 14 rooms in the opposite side of the corridor were all woken up. While this number of ‘disturbed rooms’ has been achieved before, and even surpassed, Shane and Shani made their way to the record books due to the fact that one of the rooms had 8 people in it, and another 9 rooms had four people or more. A total of 74 people had their sleep disturbed. Bonktastic!

 

Most ‘don’t go there its full of tourists’

The record for uttering the sentence ‘Don’t go there its full of tourists’ in a single conversation was set in December 15th 2000 by Melissa Hart, from Cambridge in England. During a predominantly one way conversation between herself and an Israeli male with poor conversational English levels and a keenness to get into her knickers, she was heard to utter it 413 times in just over three hours. At her peak, she uttered it at an amazing rate of 7 times a minute! What made Melissa’s achievement that more remarkable was that she had only been in Thailand 3 days herself, and had yet to venture outside Khoa San Road. What an amazing young lady.

 

Most khoa san road laps

The record for doing laps of Khoa San Road is 173 in one day (For the purposes of the record books, a completed lap is from one end of the road to the other and back again). This was set by Keith Fairhead of Ireland and was achieved on September 19th 1999. While waiting for his flight home at 3am, Keith tried to while away the time looking for some gifts to take home. Realising he and his family had little need for mirror balls, giant jenga games, badly copied cassette tapes, fake press i.d.s that can be spotted a mile off and souvenir key rings, he ambled up and down. With only 238 baht left, his search for a useful gift led to his amazing record breaking journey into history.

 

Longest lasting beer

As any backpacker knows, a beer on Khoa San Road is a real treat, and is to be savoured. Man cannot live on bottled water alone. Dietmar Mattheus of Germany recognised this fact only too well, and on April 30th, he treated himself to a beer in ‘Safe place guest house’. Watching a couple of movies, he protected both the quantity of his beer (by sticking his tongue over the top and taking pretend drinks), and the security of his beer (by taking it with him to the toilet). By the end of his third movie, the classic ‘American Pie’, his beer remained at over half full, despite accumulating an unappetizing layer of ‘stale beer cloud’. Midway through the fourth movie, ‘The Beach’, the Thai staff had grown a little suspicious of his activities and asked him if he would like a fresh beer. Declining the offer, he managed to get a third of the way through his fifth hostel movie ‘Priscilla Queen of the desert’, before committing a basic error of forgetting to take his beer to the toilet. The Thai staff promptly removed the stale beer, but not before Dietmar had made his own place in history by nursing a beer for 7 hours, 54 minutes.

 

Most consultations of the Lonely Planet in a single day

The record for this is held jointly, by Li Tung and Ling Yee of Japan, and was set on May 1st, 2001. The two girls had set off to explore Bangkok, and once they had left the Khoa San area, the Lonely Planet provided a useful source of cultural knowledge, flora and fauna, and places of interest. Sadly the girls orientation skills were not fully developed, so every turn into a new street meant a consultation with the wisdom bible. The old record of 685 LP consultations was broken at 7:41pm, when they were buying noodle soup at a vending stall. The first ‘consultation’ told them that they should pay no more than 15 baht for the soup. However the vendor asked for 20 baht. They began the process of ‘haggling’. The son of the vendor, a small naked boy, came up behind them and urinated on the back of their legs. A quick consultation of the LP to find out the cultural reason why this had happened earned them their place in history. They needed a further 17 consultations to get back to their guest house, setting a figure of 703.

 

Most disgusting toilet collage

The final record is for the greatest anal destruction of a guest house toilet, and was set by Javier Moreno of Spain on December 11th 1999. After two days in Khoa San Road, Javier’s diet had consisted solely of Pad Thai and bottled water, items that were alien to his usual nutrition intake. Entering the toilet of ‘Apple guest house’, he was feeling unwell, and also had not fully grasped the concept of a squat toilet. Standing up on the toilet, he released a gush of diorreahea that instead of hitting its desired target, it travelled horizontally and splatted all over the wall. Javier’s fiery Latin temperment took over, and in anger he emptied the waste paper basket full of tampons and pieces of shitty tissue and threw them all over the wall and floor. He compounded his actions by getting the hose out of the water trough and leaving it on the floor, thus flooding the toilet.

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Funny stuff Rico! Had dinner last night with an ex-pat friend and his sister, who was visiting from Europe. I had to supress laughter when she pulled out her Lonely Planet Guide Book! I wanted to ask her how many times she had referred to it today and tell her about the "record".

Ranger

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Wonderful. I lived on Khao San Road several years ago and they were all there. I was over there recently visiting a young cousin. My memory of my time backpacking I sincerely hope I was not as nauseating as my cousing and her friends who kept informing me I didn't know the real Thailand (even afte rmentioing I was amrried to a Thai and regularly go to her family get togethers)

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