An Idiot Abroad: S02 Ep03

What happened?

This week’s bucket list charged Karl with being sent off to Australia to swim with dolphins. However, he was sent to Thailand first as a stopping off point to see ladyboys, visit Monkeytown and fight in a blind Thai boxing tournament. It was only when he arrived in Australia was he informed “swimming with dolphins” had changed to “swimming with sharks”, and Karl was placed into a cage and lowered in to the water with the deadly fish.

Thoughts

It was good to see An Idiot Abroad feel like it was back on form with this week’s episode. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and perhaps it was telling that the actual ‘bucket list’ event of the episode was the least engaging part of it. Better was the bulk of the episode that followed Karl in Bangkok and, as usual, participating in stuff and witnessing things that other travel documentary shows shy away from.

It was very strange seeing Karl dressed up as a woman by the ladyboys. They actually did a good job in making him look feminine! If they could have persuaded him to shave his beard off then he might have actually made you look twice. Of course, the genuine ladyboys were practically indistinguishable from regular women, and it was fun to see Karl confronted with it and then question his own sense of gender. I’m sure Suzanne his girlfriend would be thrilled to hear that if he found out she was a guy all along then he’d probably stay with her anyway – albeit demanding that she participate in more heavy lifting!

This episode certainly did make me laugh and chuckle pretty frequently. Karl getting put through his paces by the Thai boxing instructor, and looking like he was genuinely getting angry and stressed out by the physical endurance and being harassed by a dog at the same time. The blind Thai boxing part did succeed in making Karl look silly, but I’m glad they didn’t dwell on it.

It was good that Karl actually (well, seemed to) go out and see something that he wanted to see. Going to Monkeytown was just bizarre. Monkeys are those kinds of animals that are cuter in idea and perception than they are in reality; they are smelly, scavenging and pretty wild. That there was this entire area called Monkeytown that was given over to the monkeys (and, naturally, the tourists) just boggled my mind.

Karl has been synonymous with monkeys for quite some years, for anyone that ever heard the podcasts or watched The Ricky Gervais Show, he was regularly reading out ‘monkey news’. Clearly he has an interest in them, and so to see him broken down and disappointed, lamenting ever meeting his heroes, was pretty funny.

I did think Karl was in very good form here, and it’s his mood that can very much make or break the show. He really seemed to go with the flow in Thailand in good humour – from the moment he turned up there to be fired at with water and paste, trundling into his hotel looking like a refugee, he got involved in everything that was thrown at him. Kudos as well for remarking how picturing a naked Rupert Murdoch in his head made him think of a turtle without its shell!

When the climax of the episode came, the swimming with sharks bit, I just didn’t feel it. I think the editing of the piece did its best to make it look exciting but, really, it was just Karl in a cage looking frantically around him as, occasionally, sharks came near. Can’t really expect more, of course – I am not suggesting I would only have been satisfied had his cage been attacked like he was Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws – but I did wonder if maybe the original plan of swimming with dolphins might have produced a genuinely good, golden moment.

It wouldn’t be in the spirit of An Idiot Abroad to have Karl enjoy something and have it be wondrous, but coming at the end of a gruelling episode and journey I don’t think anyone would have begrudged him a joyful experience at the close.

What was the best part?

I thought Monkeytown was the best part, purely because it was a fascinating place to see anyway. But watching Karl being accosted by monkeys crawling over him, snatching food out of his hands, amidst this strange little area of Bangkok was something I found interesting and entertaining.

What do I think will happen next?

Karl is being sent off to some frozen wastelands to see whales, by the looks of the clips at the end of this episode. Should be interesting, actually.