The Chamborres Expedition

The snoring began at 11:57pm on Tuesday September 18^th on a night bus from Melaka to Kota Bharu. 40 minutes into the hurricane of noise coming from the seat behind me, I decided to whip out the computer and write this…

The guy on my bus right now clearly has a terrible case of sleep apnea, causing him to inhale massive gulps of air through his mouth, nostrils and what seems like many other holes on his face. I am seriously in fear that he might suck up all of the oxygen on this bus, leaving the rest of us dead. But that may actually be a nice reprieve. He is a true sasquatch, as I’ve come to call them. Just being a snorer does not make you a sasquatch. One crosses the line into sasquatch-dom when at least 5 different noises are produced while snoring.

I mean, how is Mike sleeping through this? I am in awe that those ear plugs are doing any good.

No clue how he does this

Me on the other hand, I am not so enthused. My thought right now: why the hell are we going to the Perhentian Islands anyway?

Me being really pissed off

My disdain for snorers started long ago, and has grown to a deep seated hatred over the course of this RTW trip. Let me share a few of the stories to help you understand why.

Zagreb, Croatia – March 28^th, 2012. After taking the train in from Budapest, Mike and I stopped for the night in Zagreb before making the long haul down to Split early in the morning. We met one of our dorm mates, a nice college girl from the States, and enjoyed a fantastic Croatian/Italian feast up the street from our hostel. We climbed into bed, a few glasses of wine in us, and fell asleep rather quickly. After a few hours, *slam* goes the door, *sound of rustling clothing*, feet up the ladder, and BAM the most intense snoring I have ever heard begins faster than you can say fuck. I swing my head off the top bunk and say to Mike, “Oh my god, I’m going to kill those 2 guys!” and Mike’s like “What 2 guys?” I could not believe my ears, but that horrible sound was seriously only coming out of one person. It didn’t take long before my anger was boiling so high that we relocated ourselves to the couches in the common room.

The best couch bed in the world

Istanbul, Turkey – April 11^th, 2012. We checked into our hostel, a lovely and clean place right in the heart of Sultanahmet, just a few blocks from the world famous Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia. After an awesome day of sightseeing, we came back, showered up, and plopped ourselves into bed. After some time, a fellow dorm mate arrives and starts up snoring louder than I have ever heard in my life. This guy takes the cake by 255% over “man who sounds like two” from Zagreb. Unfortunately this hostel’s common area locked at midnight, so there was nowhere for us to go. I walked out in the lobby to sit and let my anger fester a bit, which prompted some questions from the front desk guy. I explained the situation. He said “just wake him up or stuff a dirty sock in his mouth; I used to do it all the time back when I was in the army.” Never before in my life did I imagine that I would shake a stranger awake for snoring…but, I did. And so did Mike. And so did another bunk mate. We shook this guy awake over and over and over and over and over again and he just kept at it. Snoring like mad. No one in our 12 person dorm room could sleep. Mike even resorted to taking a sleeping pill. Finally, after a few hours, I went back to my friend and the front desk and begged him to let us sleep in the lobby. He wouldn’t let us sleep on the couch, but agreed to something even better; we finally got some solace in another dorm room.

Tokyo, Japan – June 19^th, 2012. One night Mike must have figured, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. The previous night we’d discovered that we not only had a snorer in our dorm room, but a sleep talker as well, a very boisterous and animated sleep talker at that. In an effort to help ourselves sleep a bit more heavily on our second night in Tokyo, we shared some beverages with a few Aussies at our hostel. They must have done the job for Mike more than me, because he was out like a light as soon as his head hit the pillow. Soon enough sleep talker starts up. And not too long after a new arrival has added in his snores. Next thing I know, Mike has joined the crew too, and I had a god damn snoring/sleep babbling symphony on my hands. If you think snoring is bad, you don’t know anything until you’re in a room with 3 of them!

So there you have it, a brief history of my hate for snorers. Although, I will admit that I’ve had an epiphany on this bus ride tonight.

There is nothing I can do about said snorers, other than physically remove myself from the situation (although not really possible in this particular instance on the bus, I did consider throwing myself out the bus when sasquatch started up a few hours ago). Anyway, if I can’t control the situation, why not just laugh about it? People who willingly put themselves into a dorm room of strangers, knowing full well that everyone will hate them for snoring, are buffoons and buffoons deserve to be made fun of. After nine months on the road, and many encounters with snorers, I have finally learned that to remedy my hatred, all I have to do is laugh.

-Amy