The 50p-a-Day Crowd
Compared with miners, boxers or gangsters, travellers hardly seem like the most macho crowd, yet traveller machismo is alive and well all over the Indian subcontinent and South East Asia. Being a hard-man traveller has nothing to do with boozing, fighting or shagging, though. Toughness on the road comes down to just one thing. How little money have you spent?
If you are willing to live off a handful of rice and a sprinkle of lentils each day, hitchhike and sleep in the dormitories of the worst hostels you can find, it is possible to count your daily budget in pennies.
And if this is the case, you are likely to count it loudly. Parsimony and modesty don't tend to go together in this part of the world. If you start hanging around traveller haunts that are cheap or free, you are likely to hear loud and competitive stinginess-bragging.
The Haggler
Close relatives of the 50p-a-day crowd, the hagglers are a subtly different breed. A committed haggler does not necessarily have to be on a low budget. All you need for membership of this group is a profound and belligerent commitment to the avoidance of being 'ripped off'. This commitment will extend into all your dealings with the local community, whether you are spending 20p on a rickshaw journey, or £200 on a handwoven carpet.
Being ripped off, for true hagglers, means paying more than the locals. Since any businessperson worth their salt is likely to charge rich, gullible tourists who never return a few rupees more than local repeat customers, hagglers exist in a state of permanent rage. Every transaction they make, in their eyes, is a rip-off. Two fat white hagglers travelling a mile up a steep hill on a cycle-rickshaw will consider themselves to be swindled if the exhausted, undernourished cyclist charges them 15p where a local would pay 13p, and will argue vociferously, gladly matching the exertions of their driver, to get the extra 2p knocked off the price.
If you challenge a haggler over their behaviour, pointing out that 2p is not a large sum of money, they are likely to get angry (assuming they aren't angry already - which they probably are), and tell you that it is a matter of pride to pay local prices.
The Upper-Class Charity Case
To arrive at Bristol University without having spoon-fed at least one Indian beggar is simply not done. For a certain class of person, charity work in the Third World is positively de rigueur . Girls with breeding, who like to take ornamental degrees at Bristol, Exeter or Edinburgh universities, go through a strange phase in life after they have fallen out of love with their ponies, and before they have fallen in love with their barrister husbands, when they only have eyes for Mother Teresa. During this phase of life, Calcutta is the place to be.
No Calcuttan beggar can hope to be left in peace by the hordes of rich English girls who comb the streets in search of the most abject and picturesque poverty they can find. Cynics occasionally claim that an obsession with starving Indians is a bizarre form of late-stage anorexia, though this is considered unkind. However, none of the skinny posh girls hanging around Calcutta's slums ever complain that the Indian diet strips yet another stone from their bodyweight.
The Clingon
Clingons can be found in the lounges of all backpacker hostels, sitting alone in the corner, sipping a herbal tea, their eyes scanning the room, searching for a victim.
When you see a possible clingon, it is absolutely essential to avoid eye contact. If you slip up, and accidentally glance in their direction, you are done for.
Clingons are the strange breed who set off travelling alone, yet hate being on their own.
Perpetually miserable, their misery abates slightly if they can find a companion to whom they can moan about how unhappy they are. They are constantly on the lookout for victims who they can 'hook up with'. Do not be fooled. They will suck your very life blood - impossible to shake off however far or fast you travel - moaning at you until you are more depressed than they are, at which point they will ditch you and move on to fresh prey.
The Smoker
A popular obsession among travellers is the worry about being 'hassled'. As a general rule of thumb, the more someone smokes, the more they are obsessed with hassle and how to avoid it. This hassle consists principally of local people trying to sell you things, though any person native to the country you are visiting who attempts to communicate with you will usually be considered a perpetrator of the hassling sin. The best way to avoid hassle is to never go anywhere.
Most travellers will smoke the odd joint. The more you smoke, the more arduous physical movement becomes. If you are a truly dedicated smoker, putting on your flip-flops and getting to the nearest café for a banana pancake is the most you can manage. Just because your daily travel is counted in metres rather than miles, no one would ever dare deny that you are a traveller.
Ten Years Off And Counting
Just because Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister when your year off started, it doesn't necessarily follow that you have now graduated and got a job. Despite dwindling resources, failing health and deteriorating sanity, some people just can't face the idea of going home. After a year lying around on beaches and up mountains, the thought of being told to study again simply doesn't appeal to truly dedicated slackers.
Once you've been on the road more than a couple of years, you will rise to the status of sage within the traveller community, thanks largely to your vast and hilarious stock of gastrointestinal disorder anecdotes. You then face a stark choice. You can live as a heroic wise man in Asia, or a drop-out loser posh boy without a degree back home. Those stories won't seem quite so enthralling in Surrey. The beard and body-odour will lose its sexual magnetism, too. Unsurprisingly, the return to England is delayed and delayed.
• William Sutcliffe is the author of the backpacking-in-India novel Are You Experienced? published by Penguin, £5.99
