Andy & Gordon

I stumble into the crummy hostel room in KL after having a really shitty flight having to listen to this Australian introduche himself and tell me all about his trip to nepal and how cool he was. I was having a bad day. Threw my bag in the exquisitely crummy locker, just feeling so fucking sick of people and turn around. I turn around and this guy dressed as a punk is sitting on one of the beds going: "This place is much worse than the place I stayed in in Bangkok." I say arduously: "Where'd you stay, the Hilton?", to which we both laugh and start talking. Then this other, older guy comes in, a lot of character in his face, kind of like a skinny Elmer Fudd and joined in. Shortly after we decided to go out for food all three of us and something strange happened. It's hard to explain, but sometimes you meet people who come from completely different backgrounds and lifestyles from you, yet you share some strange connection. It's like we had known each other for a really long time and yet we didn't know each others names.

For two days we have been sitting at our computers chatting and giggling away at the hostel, going out for beers in bars and exchanging jokes and irrelevant facts, talking about relationships, life, the economy, travel, we've exchanged websites for funny comics, been reading up funny Facebook posts to one another and everything has been so natural that I haven't even given it a single thought.

The three of us are respectively 12 and 15 years apart from each other. The older American guy worked as a computer programmer for a huge company and one day decided to sell everything he owned and start traveling. The German punk is traveling the world looking for punk scenes wherever he goes. Now we of course know each others names, stories and contact info and so on, but despite our different stories and all the shallow shit, we sit around and chat with each other like old friends.

There is really something to be said about those times when you randomly come together and form a group of friends from nothing, it's kind of like in kindergarten, but with beer.

Stuff like that makes me really happy I took this trip.