During the course of my travels around the world, I have met my share of rude, boorish tourists. Smokers in particular really irk me; when I dine at a nice café or restaurant, I don’t particularly care to be gulping down cigarette smoke while I eat my food. It seems some of these young European tourists – in particular the French, German, Dutch and Israelis - don’t show any hesitation at all upon entering a restaurant before they light up a cigarette.

Unlike the USA, there are no laws prohibiting smoking in restaurants and cafes in most countries, so I guess I have to grin and bear it as far as smokers are concerned.

I remember one particular instance that left a really bad taste in my mouth. I was a passenger on an old slow boat along the Mekong River from the Thailand Border to Luang Prabang in Laos. The guy sitting directly in front of me – he was from Belgium - kept on smoking his fags and the smoke would waft backwards toward me. As I really abhor cigarette smoke, I politely asked him to refrain from smoking. Well, the guy stopped for about 5 minutes before he started smoking again - one cigarette after another. Talk about being an inconsiderate lout.

What irks me even more are a special breed of travelers who hijack their hostel – usually young backpacker types - and party late night (and into the wee hours of the morning), while other guests of the hostel are trying to sleep. These people can get very rowdy and raucous (loud) especially when there is alcohol and drugs involved. Unfortunately this is a notorious aspect of backpacker culture. I find their behavior to be very rude and inconsiderate. See the story of Nate the Great Lout!

On my most recent trip to Bolivia, I had a very bad experience with some very inconsiderate and vulgar tourists at my hostel.

I was staying in Samaipata, a small mountain town located on the backpacker tourist trail in southern Bolivia. The town becomes very quiet after 9:00PM as there are very few bars or nightspots for tourists to congregate. With nowhere else to get together, parties among backpackers often happen spontaneously at their hostel. Sometimes these parties last until the wee hours of the morning.

I had returned to my hostel about 11:00PM. Walking to my room, I passed by a group of young backpackers – both males and females - who were having a little party outside on the patio. Quite rowdy and loud - as evidenced by the number of empty beer bottles on the table, they were obviously somewhat inebriated. I greeted them goodnight, sort of an indirect way of telling them to keep the noise down.

Obviously they didn’t get the message as they continued on with their loud chatter and laughter. As I was trying to sleep as were some other hotel guests, I really thought these people were out of line. As the noise escalated, I bolted out of bed, went outside and told them very politely to keep their voices down.

I guess that was like adding fuel to the fire – as they got even louder and more raucous. Another 30 minutes elapsed (it was now close to midnight) before I bolted out my bed again, ran outside and told the young merrymakers to shut up already.

One of the young men - I recognized his voice as being Nate, the American guy from San Jose, California - retorted “Hey Old Man, Why don’t you go back to bed and put in your earplugs”. As he made his snide remark, the young British gals laughed hysterically like hyenas. Funny, huh? I wanted to shove my fist up his mouth but common sense prevailed as I returned to my room.

Well, the group did not break up their party until shortly before 1:00AM but not before singing in unison, Johnny Cash’s classic song “Ring of Fire”. Oh well, at least they sang it in tune!