True tales inspired by E4's Gap Year

7 February 2017

 It’s February in Britain so ‘tis the season to get booking your summer holiday. With E4’s Gap Year – Tom Basden’s comedy-drama about a motley crew of travellers exploring Asia touching down on the channel this month and bringing us some much needed winter sun, the C4 press team thought we’d share some holiday memories.  There’s Delhi belly, New York City cops (and cheesecake), lashings of cringe-worthy, toe-curling cliches.  Enjoy our holiday horrors dear reader!  

 

Benjie Goodhart, Press Site Editor

I travelled round India for six weeks in 1989. I had my passport and all my money stolen on a train. Then I got typhoid and amoebic dysentery while swimming in a lake in Kashmir. By the time I returned to Bombay, I was too weak to stand. I remember them trying to get some liquid and sugar into me by giving me a bright green lemonade-type drink called Limca. Moments after drinking it, I had the same bright green drink emerge from, ah, lower down, and it was still fizzy in the toilet.

I went into hospital, where none of the nurses spoke any English. Every time I asked for a commode to crap in (which was so, so often) they brought me a cup of tea instead. The only book they had in English was a philosophical work by Jean-Paul Sartre. After a few days, a man was brought in to the bed next to me. He was 87 and had had a stroke. They didn’t think he’d make it. He was released from the hospital before me. I missed the start of term because I was still in hospital. It was the start of my last year at school, and I was to be made head boy, and read the lesson in Westminster Abbey, a great symbolic moment in my young life. Instead, I was on a hospital bed next to a man who had the worst flatulence I have ever encountered, before or since.

 

Kate Conway, Factual Entertainment, Features, Formats, Daytime, Education and Music press

I was sleeping in a dorm with bunk beds while in Byron Bay. On the first night the English Gap Year kid in the bunk above me brought a girl back and proceeded to have vigorous and vocal sex above me all night. The following night he got so drunk he peed himself and I had hot wee dripping on me through the mattress. I left Byron Bay the next morning…

 

Marion Bentley, Factual and News & Current Affairs

Whilst travelling in Borneo I had what rates as one of the best experiences of my life, swiftly followed by one of the worst. My then boyfriend and I stayed at an orangutan sanctuary. That evening  we were offered a night wildlife walk and a visit to some of the younger orangutans in the nursery. As we were looking at some of the toddler ‘tans we came across a beautiful 7 year-old who had been released into the wild but wasn’t so keen on independence. He seemed to crave human affection and I was ecstatic when he cuddled up to me. Serious life high point hence blissed out face.

Eventually the ranger insisted we move on. He had to forcibly remove the orangutan and myself but off we set on the walk. I had been warned about the various creepy crawlies and snakes in the jungle canopy so had sensibly opted for long trousers, shoes, and a long sleeved top. What I hadn’t banked on was the leeches. Or the possibility they could drop down my v-neck top. Moments into the walk I felt the first attach it itself, then another and another. I could feel them moving across my chest and stomach. Accompanied by a ranger, it didn’t feel appropriate to rip off my top or make a scene, plus I was really enjoying the wildlife (flying foxes!!) so, apart from hissing various obscenities about the situation I made it calmly back to the hotel. It was only when we got back to the room and I stripped that we realised the extent of the infestation.

Literally dozens of leeches had suckered on, leaving bloody trails across my torso and legs – and horror of horrors, one was busy burrowing under my pants. My indomitable stoicism evaporated as my boyfriend heroically flicked them off with a stick then captured them as they jumped about the room, flushing them down to the loo. Despite being a qualified doctor, even he turned a little pale when he discovered the extremely inflated one that had gorged on a large vein on the back of my knee.

Leeches finally removed we headed to dinner where I gently bled throughout both courses, the little critters having left anti-coagulants in each of the tiny wounds.