I trek..therefore I get annoyed by Australians

I have just arrived in Chang Rai. My Thai money and visa are running out so I am looking forward to getting to Lao in about four days. Chang Rai is about one hour from the border. Before Chang Rai I was in Chang Mai which was very nice. More laidback than Bangkok and much smaller so it was easier to get around. I stayed in a nice guesthouse that organizes treks (mind you, just about every guesthouse here arranges treks) and signed up for a three day one. We took a four hour songthaew (basically a truck with benches in the back..hard benches..and poor suspension) ride to Wieng Chang which is just on the border with Burma and then trekked for about four hours to Huai Ya Sai village where the Lahu tribespeople live. We stayed there overnight (in bed by 8.30pm. Once the sun goes down there's not a lot else to do as there are no lights, T.V., internet cafe or brothels there to entertain you) and then trekked for another four hours to the Mae Tang river. We then hopped on a bamboo raft and took a two hour journey downriver. That was really fun. With the jungle looming over you on either side you could imagine you were in a H.Rider Haggard story. We passed some people fishing and they yelled out to our guides that they had lost a net full of fish so there would be a number of dead or half dead fish floating down the river somewhere and to keep our eyes open. Waste not, want not and all that. So for the next half an hour whenever a fish was spotted one of the guides kept leaping off the raft and into the river in a monkey-like fashion and grabbing them (I say monkey-like because of the agility..in no way am I drawing comparisons between Asian folk and monkeys. Oh no siree). One of the other people in the group was feeling ill, either from some of the food we had been given or from the motion of the raft, and wherever she looked there were gaping mouthed bug-eyed fish staring at her which I cant imagine helped much.
The only downside of the trip was the fact that there were other people on it. One guy called Nicholas was Argentinean and he was okay, just a bit young and silly sometimes. I know! Lets rock the raft! That'll be fun and terribly clever!
The other two were a couple who were unfortunately Australian. I don't mean it was unfortunate that they were Australian. I mean they were the unfortunate type of Australian, not the okay type. Some Australians can be okay whereas almost all Americans are unfortunate. Actually to be fair the girl, Jess, was not too bad but Jean-Paul (strange name for a Ozzy I know..he entirely lacked the Gaelic style and sophistication of his moniker) was a right tit. Really dumb. Having a conversation involving him was like talking on the phone when there was a delay in the signal. It would start, go on for a minute or two and then he would suddenly switch on as if he'd only just tuned in and you would have to backtrack over what had already been said in order to bring him up to speed. He kept shouting too.
It wasn't so bad when we were on the trek as it was only us and the guides but when we got back to Chang Mai they insisted we continued to spent time together as if we had been through a profound bonding experience. Now, spending three days in close proximity with people is just about enough for me and I was looking for some solitude to restore my equilibrium but for form's sake I went along with and it was when we were out in the town that his, and to a lesser extent the other's tit-esqueness really came into effect. For a start he refused to eat Thai food so we had to go somewhere where he could get a burger or some chops. Not a problem as loads of places do Thai and Western but that's not the point. The way they treated the waiting staff left a lot to be desired and they were just generally loudly critical of people and things which I found really embarrassing. When the others were playing pool I started a conversation with Jean-Paul about films to try and find some common ground only to discover his favorite actor was Vin Diesel on account of his sterling work in such modern classics as The Fast and the Furious and XXX.
To top it all off in an unbelievable fashion Jess read the blurb on the back of a book I was reading and was criticizing it, saying it looked really corny. That was annoying in itself as it was The Star of the Sea by Joseph O' Connor and it was really good but then after Nicholas said in a really pretentious way that he grew out of fiction when he was a teenager and now only read true stuff (which made me want to smash him round the head with a bottle of Chang beer) she said, in all seriousness, "Remind me..'fiction' means?" to which Nicholas replied "Something that's made up" and to which I replied silently to myself "Jesus....Jesus fucking Christ".
Still, managed to get away from them and am now enjoying some hard earned time to myself in Chang Rai. I feel better for having got all that off my chest. Thanks.