| Victorian Adventures |
[Feb. 26th, 2008|12:53 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Laidley | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Isis | ] |
It was an easy drive to Philip Island from Melbourne and once we'd checked into our lovely sea view motel we went to the Island's Koala Sanctuary. To be honest we were both as excited as my Mum, having never seen Koalas before. They were hard to spot sometimes and didn't really appear to do anything by my god they were cute.
Pic: Cute Koala 1
Pic: Cute Koala 2
Pic: Cute Koala 3 - How they can sleep in these positions is anyones guess
Pic: A very rare sighting of a baby koala in it's mother pouch, zoom into the photo by her belly and you'll see a little head popping out
We learned that the main reason they sleep and laze so much is that their diet of eucalyptus leaves is a very poor source of energy, they can only digest about 2% of the leaves and even then it takes huge amounts of digestion and specially large appendices to get anything from these toxic and low nutrient/protein leaves. It seems the only reason they've adapted to eat these things is that no other animal was doing it and so it was abundant.
Pic: Me and Mum in Koala Heaven
Pic: Mum and Claire walk through the Koala forest
Pic: Our motel
Once we'd had our fill of the cuties we got a good nights kip before rising the next morning for even more animal madness. We visited the wild life park, and since we were the first people in the animals were all hungry and came over to eat out of our hands at the first opportunity. We saw wallabies, echindnas, wombats, kangaroos, Tasmanian devils, emus and many more marsupials and birds.
Pic: Mum feeds the wallabies, they were so tame and inquisitive - they'd make great pets!
Pic: Everybody say awwwwww
Pic: A Wallaby and her joey - the joey stays in its mother's pouch for about 9 months, and continues to suckle till it is around 12-15 months old - which can look pretty crazy when they joey decides to jump back into the pouch when it's half the size of its mother
Pic: Flo's new friend
Pic: A cute close up
Vid - Upon first meeting the wallabies Claire's squeals go right off cuteometre
Pic: Some crazy prehistoric looking Cassowary - they are the largest land animal in Australia, I wouldn't mess
Pic: Kookaburras - a large aussie kingfisher with a distinctive and disconcerting call which sounds like loud, echoing human laughter in varying degrees of hysteria and cackling.
Vid - The funny waddle of the Echidna also known as the spiny anteater. This bizarre creature (the males have a four-headed penis!) along with the Platypus, are the only egg-laying mammals
Vid - March of the emus, they certainly weren't shy. They're farmed in Australia for their meat, oil and leather and we have a farm just down from where we're currently living in Queensland
Pic: We enter a large open field full of grey and red Roos
Pic: Old red Roo striking a funny pose
Vid - Old Roo doing, err something, not really sure!?!
Pic: The bull red kangaroo. These guys can jump 3m/10ft high and leap distances of over 8m, and can hop at up to 60kmh/40mph. Pretty impressive... if he ever bothered to get up of his arse
Little red having a good ol' scratch
Pic: A sleepy Tasmanian Devil - The Tasmanian Devil is now the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world and a generally nasty, smelly, and aggressive animal
That evening we went to see the world famous penguin parade where the world smallest (and therefore cutest) penguins waddle from sea to shore and into their burrows in full view of the public every evening. The organised viewings have been going on for decades and it was a magical experience. Unfortunately for us (but fortunately for the penguins) we weren't allowed to take photos but just check the weblink above to see some of the lil critters.
The next afternoon we were on the road again or rather the sea as we took the ferry back to the mainland to get to The Great Ocean Road. We had planned to take 2 days to drive it but it was already getting late in the day by the time we reached Torquay at the start of the road. Claire managed to find us some great accommodation in a house for the night and we rose very early the next day to get the most out of the drive. And what a drive it was, it lived up to the hype, a new beautiful scene around every corner, we were stopping every 15 mins to take in the views, breathe the sea air and take photos.
Pic: Ocean View 1
Pic: Ocean View 2
Vid - Yet another picturesque spot and a my mum being a mum - but on the other hand I had locked myself out the van a record 6 times by this point :)
Pic: A very well travelled twisty tourist road = a very high accident rate
Pic: A tired Mr Driver. It was a pretty challenging drive in some sections especially in an old beat up van like Betty whose steering could best be described as floaty
We stopped off in a small town en route and visited a gorgeous waterfall. Driving down to the waterfall was scary enough in the van with a very very steep long decent - brakes burning and engine roaring, but once we reached the bottom to our horror we realised we might not have the power to drive back out! We decided that Mum and Claire should walk the 1st hill to reduce weight and I would take a run up and hope 1st gear was good enough... and it was! I don't think it did the van much good though.
Pic: The View that nearly cost us the van!
One of the main attractions of the Great Ocean Road are the Twelve Apostles. The Apostles are the remnants from constant erosion of the limestone cliffs of the mainland that began 10–20 million years ago. The stormy Southern Ocean and blasting winds gradually eroded the softer limestone, forming caves in the cliffs. The caves eventually became arches and when they collapsed rock stacks up to 45 metres high were left isolated from the shore.
We had really taken our time on the drive and really appreciated having our own transport which allowed us to do as we pleased rather than do an organised trip, but it also meant that we were still a long ways off from the Twelve Apostles when the sun started to sink in the sky. Sunset was THE time to be there and so we raced (a relative term with regards to Betty, we may have reached the speed limit) the sun to get there in time. We made it with minutes to spare as we parked up and ran out to the viewing areas where we were treated to the full on spectacular of a 'nature in all of its glory' moment. There are sunsets and settings for them that are beautiful and photogenic but this felt truly awe inspiring, it made you go very quiet without realising it. I'm glad to have had Mum and Claire there to share it with. The photos don't even come close:
Pic: Me & Mum
Pic: Flo & Claire
Pic: The mist rolls in off the southern ocean
Pic: Sunset 1
Pic: Sunset 2
Pic: Some more Apostles
Pic: Sunset over the ocean
Pic: Sunset 3
Pic: The 3 of us
Once the sun had disappeared from view and the light was fading we decided to end the road trip on that high and head back before it got dark. But since it had taken us all day to get out that far... I guess you can see where I'm going. So I decided to take a short cut inland! In an attempt to cut back onto the motorway, it really didn't look that far but as it quickly turned to night we were driving along small country roads with few signposts and poor maps. Somehow we made it back to the motorway to many cheers and headed back into Melbourne. The city was all lit up and I had never driven into it at night as we came over the West Gate Bridge it was a beautiful sight. I then managed to get us lost in home territory as I thought I didn't need a map at this point, dam the ego, but eventually after many false turns we got back the motel in Coburg.
One thing had become apparent on the road trip - Betty was in a bad way, the steering was getting looser and ropier and the van had started that horrible shuddering again. We needed her fixed and handed Betty over to Nash who in turn passed her onto our mechanic mate Ali.
We had seen more of Melbourne and her surrounds in 10 days with Mum than we had in 7 months living there! It was a fantastic time and although we were sad to be leaving again and missing Andrews Stag and Trin's Hen nights we had our next destination to reach and another very important person to meet. |
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| G'Day Melbi! |
[Feb. 23rd, 2008|11:27 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Laidley | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Isis | ] |
We decided to try to drive from Sydney to Melbourne in one day so we could fit in as much as we could for Mum (Annette) but we couldn't manage it. To start with we left far too late for the 900km (560mile) journey and within minutes of leaving Sydney's outskirts we, as per usual, got lost. Stuck on the wrong highway we suddenly saw a sign for Melbourne we dashed across 3 lanes of traffic and made it in a nick of time. Mum was getting her first experience of a Flo and Claire road trip with our basic maps and the ever confusing and unintuitive Australian road signs (even Mum agreed they were very misdirecting). Despite all the odds and previous road trip experience we got ourselves heading in the right direction but realised that there was no way we'd make it to Melbourne before evening and the roos start jumping around all over the road. Mum and Claire found a roadside rest area (a glorified lay by). We got into our pjs, sleeping bags and all the warm clothes we had. It was going to be a cold cold night in the back of the van.
We were woken at 7am by some idiot truckie who had parked up his behemoth of a road train right next to us, despite the huge amount of open space available, and was revving the engine for close to a half hour. Once we got up and out the van he stopped the revving, couldn't help thinking he'd been doing it on purpose. We groggily got set and got going. I was rather proud of having a mum for not minding to overnight freecamp in the back of a van with us.
Back on the road and all seemed to be going fine. We'd had a few near misses with the ever annoying bonkers truckies and I'd been stopped and breathalysed for the 1st time by the police who were stopping everything on the road. I rolled down the window and as always with the police my heart was pounding out my chest. They asked me if I had had any alcohol and I was totally confused. My brain was just a big soupy mess at this point, I knew we had a bottle of tequila in the van and was wondering if having an opened bottle was illegal, I felt I must have done something illegal and had to keep resisting the urge to just speed off. If my head had been with it I'd had realised immediately that they meant 'have you had an alcohol today'. I had to count to 10 over a machine and at about 6 they stopped me and told me to go on, I didn't have to breath into a machine or anything. Man I'm so bad with the police.
One minor crisis averted and onto the next - the van started subtly shuddering again. We hadn't felt this since we ran out of oil on the way down to Sydney. We checked the oil and it was fine and the shuddering was a lot less violent than before so we just soldiered on. It made the short last bit of the journey very stressful for me, but I knew we weren't going to be taking the van on from Melbourne and all we needed to do was make it there.
We arrived to a lovely sunny morning in Melbourne. Realising, since my Mum was with us, we couldn't really impose on our friends (*cough* as we normally do) and stay at one of their places, we scanned the local area for motels and caravan parks and decided on a motel in Coburg 10 minutes north of where we used to live in Campbell Street.
Pic: Since we never got around to taking a photo of our old house in Melbourne here it is
Pic: A nice pic of a Melbourne landmark - Flinders Street Station
Once we were parked up I noticed a bulge in one of the tyres and so took the van to a local garage to get a new tyre. When it came back to me with a 2 new light truck tyres they handed me a laundry list of problems that they said urgently needed fixing such as ball joints, wheel alignment, replacing the rear tyres etc etc It's been so hard to find a garage that won't try to scam you in some way. Sure if the car was less than 20 years old and worth more than the cost of all the repairs in their list then it maybe we'd go for it but we were happy to just keep Betty ticking over and fixing things when they broke, plus we knew from Ali that none of the problems they had listed were actually urgent.
Pic: Flo doin his motor mechanic thang (or as motor mech as he can get)
We had a few crazy incidents in our motel that reminded us very much of “Caravan Park Life” and one could look upon the motels that have permanent residents as rather like the caravan parks of the city. One night while Claire was getting some air outside the room some woman pushed right passed her and marched on up the stairs, the man who was walking behind her stopped and talked to Claire and told her he was the woman's father. He then went on to say that a man in one of the rooms upstairs had raped his daughter. Claire said he should probably call the police, at this point the woman (now upstairs) started screaming at the the man in the room. Another one of the motels residents came out to offer his help to beat the guy up. The manager of the motel arrived went upstairs and suddenly Claire heard a big struggle and decided it was time for her to leave and she came dashing back into our room giggling in nervousness. Eventually the police arrived and lots of shouting ensued. Just another night in Motel Life.
We took Mum to the Victoria Market where we had occasionally done our grocery shopping and we darted around trying all the tasters in the delicatessens, buying treats and Mum looked for a few gifts to bring back with her. Oh and Mum bought Claire a lovely red felt hat!
We met up with friends for dinners and drinks and Mum could finally put faces to names but we were so desperately short on time we really didn't get any time to just chill. So much to see and do in so few days.
We went to The Puffin' Billy narrow gauge railway. Most of the people there were young families with screaming children or loud intrusive Japanese tourists who annoyed Claire no end by trying to secretly take photos of me (as if they'd never seen someone with dreds and a few piercings before), and even Mum got annoyed by how very very loud they were. Despite all this is was a great experience.
Pic: Engine spurts steam as we leave the station
Pic: A lovely view from the train
Pic: A long train and a lotta legs
We went up The Rialto Tower in Melbourne CBD (Central Business District) and saw some great views. I hadn't realised how big Melbourne was, I had thought Sydney was far bigger but it's probably because Melbourne feels small and homely despite its size whereas Sydney still felt cold and impersonal. We got treated to a terrible video presentation once we got down to the Rialto ground floor. It was this glossy cheesy image of Melbourne with an even worse song that went on about ""Meeeel-bun, a great place to be, Meeeel-bun, where I want to be, Meeeel-bun, the living city, Meeeeel-bun, my home.. Soaring through fields of glory! Have the time of your life..." but hey it gave me a good giggle and Claire got a good nap during it.
Pic: Panoramic Meeeel-bun!
Next update we go further afield and get a bit more adventurous. |
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| Family Reunited |
[Jan. 8th, 2008|01:12 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Mulgowie | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Buzzing of the bees | ] |
We were staying in a hotel in Sydney with big double bed, en suite, kitchen, dvd/wide-screen oh and did we mention the jacuzzi, heated pool and gym on the roof? It was a welcome break from van-life to say the least.
We had one night in Sydney before we had to collect Flo's mum from the airport. We spent it eating good Italian pizza, drinking a cold 6 pack and watching rubbish on t.v. - great stuff!
Our late nights in Brisbane caught up with us and we were half asleep, but totally excited, waiting for mum in Sydney airport arrivals. We were there for ages and then all of a sudden she appeared and there were lots of hugs, kisses and maybe a little tear or two. We drove back to the hotel, a familiar route to us by now after the day before's drive into Sydney and getting so lost we ended up out by the airport.
Pic: Mum and Me at the airport
Mum was very good about her jet lag and decided to try and stay up as late as she possible could. When back at the apartment we planned out what we would like to do. So many things and so little time.
We all agreed to go to Sydney's Botanical Gardens. We walked through a big park reminiscent of the ones in London and stopped to look at the Anzac Memorial and Garden (Anzac - Australian and New Zealand Army Core??). The botanical gardens were really beautiful and extensive, they also have spectacular views of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House which looks amazing in the different shades of sunlight, I'm sure mum really knew she was in Australia when she saw it. We made time to check out the rare Wollemi Pine. Mum had a lot of info on it as they have one at her nursery that was presented as a gift. The Wollemi Pine was discovered in 1994 in the Wollemi National Park NSW after having thought to have been extinct for the last 30 million years! We saw some of Australia's beautiful birds (most of which I have since accidentally turned into road kill, I mean honestly what do they expect to happen if they fly under your wheels?!). It was great to see someone getting excited about the Cockatoos, Rainbow Lorikeets and Gallahs again as we had done when we first arrived, pretty soon you've seen them so often they become pigeon-like (although they do have their own pigeon here but being Australia of course it has to be a bit bizarre - Crested Pigeon).
Pic: Claire and Flo and the Wollemi Pine
Pic: Mum and Me with the prehistoric plant
Pic: Mum and Claire and Sydney CBD view from the Botanical Gardens
Pic: Rainbow Lorikeet
The next day mum treated us to a Sydney Harbour cruise, they told us a lot about real estate property prices and the who's who of who lived where which was interesting up to a point but we could have done with more history. Despite this is was still a very nice, informative, boat ride. Claire and I embarrassed mum no end by filling up our bags with the free muffins and biscuits that were on board, what can we say? we're skanky travellers! Mum was forced to admit it was a good idea later though as we were munching on muffins for travel snacks for the next few days.
Pic:Harbour Bridge View
Pic: Claire & a tired Flo on the boat tour
Pic: Harbour Bridge again
Pic: Opera House & Harbour Bridge
Pic: Opera House
Pic: Harbour Panoramic
Pic: Sydney CBD
Pic: Harbour Views 1
Pic: Harbour Views 2
Pic: Harbour Views 3/a>
Pic: Different View of the Opera House
Pic: The Harbour Bridge close up with a fireworks support structure for the end of APEC fireworks display that was to happen in a few weeks
Pic:Yet more harbour views
Pic: Under the Bridge
Pic: More Harbour Side Opera House
After the harbour cruise we had a nice leisurely stroll around the legendary Rocks Market where we got to see loads of nice handicrafts and taste lots of free food like the best hot chocolate in the world. Claire was going back for thirds and beyond.
We wandered around some of Sydney's beautiful Victorian style arcades. The shopping that was available was world class.
Pic: Annette in the Victorian-Style Arcades
After that we needed a nice cold pot (like half pint of beer). We went on a mission to find the oldest pub in Sydney and ended up walking through some old parts that reminded us very strongly of Edinburgh. We were given directions to one pub, The Lord Nelson founded in 1831. We were tired and since it had its own microbrewery and an open fire place we thought it a good place to rest achy bodies.
Pic - Looking for the oldest pub in Sydney - looks rather like Edinburgh
We naturally had to visit the Sydney Opera House. Unfortunately it was raining pretty heavily (good for Australia's drought bad for us) but that didn't dampen our spirits especially as most of the tour was internal. It was really interesting hearing about their struggles trying to make Jorn Utzon's concept work in the real world. His design was so bold that it proved structurally impossible to build and they could only proceed after giving the famous roof vaults a spherical geometry (instead of parabolic) enabling the them to be constructed in a pre-cast fashion which massively reduced the cost and time. We got very wet on the way back to the hotel and so took the rest of the day off and watched crappy Aussie tele - Mum was again surprised to see how Americanised the media is over here, masses of American shows and numerous ad breaks that seem to last forever.
Pic: Opera House interior 1
Pic: Opera House interior 2
Pic: The Opera House Roof
While we were in Sydney it rained all but one day! Nice going mum - bring a bit of the UK with you! We saw more rain that week than we had done in 6 months previously.
Pic: Rainy Sydney :(
One day we went on one of the hop-on hop-off Sydney explorer bus trips, it was quiet nice and we got to see a lot of Sydney with it. We got taken to see the famous Bondi Beach but once again it was raining heavily and we didn't get to see Bondi in its full glory.
On another day we visited the beautiful, relaxing Japanese Gardens. It was so tranquil it was easy to get lost in thought staring at the waterfalls and massive Koi.
Pic: Tranquil views
Pic: Tranquil view 2
Pic: I'm Stuck!
Pic: Mum & Son
Claire and I had heard about the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb and thought it sounded great but when we found out the price it lost it's appeal pretty fast. Since mum was not up for it we thought we could leave it for another time.
Our time in Sydney was drawing to a close and Claire and I STILL hadn't been in the roof jacuzzi! So on the last night we popped up there for a quick bit of luxury, it was so nice we reckon we'll get one in our place when we come back to the UK ;)
Pic: Our roof pool!
Pic: View from the hotel roof
I felt Sydney was very big and bustling and reminded me very much of London. It seemed, like London, to be a nice place to visit but not to live in. I felt no warm feelings for the place like I did for Melbourne and as much as I had enjoyed our time there I couldn't wait to see Melbourne again.
We had to clean our apartment room before we left, got in the van and started (late as always) on our way back to our Aussie home - Melbourne. |
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| Bundi to Syders |
[Nov. 15th, 2007|02:40 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Bowen | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | ISIS | ] |
We left Bundaberg in the early in evening in fine weather for our drive down south to Brisbane, but as the sun set with not a cloud in the sky it started to rain, and then pelt it down. We were pretty confused. Once I turned the windscreen wipers on a brown smear spread itself across our windshield and we realised it was bugs, torrents of them - and the water jets for the windscreen didn't work!
We knew that driving at night in Australia was hazardous but we'd been told that kangaroos were most active during dawn and dusk. Since it was night on reasonably well travelled roads we decided we'd risk the drive and just keep the speed down and stay alert plus we had our kangaroo whistles on the front of the van (supposed to deter the roos as wind rushes through them to produce an ultra-sonic scream) and bull bars.
We arrived in Brizvegas late that night and, with some great navigation from Claire, found Kev and Sarah in the city centre. They were at a bar with friends, some of which seemed very familiar. There big hugs and smiles all round as we met up with Gav and Brie for the first time since leaving Edinburgh and there were extra cheers when I brought out one of the big bottles of Irn Bru I'd bought for the long drive - it got passed around like we were some 13 year olds in a field with a bottle of white lightning.
The next day Gav, Julie and Sinead had a day off so we spent our time relaxing, playing music, painting and swapping yarns. I was particularly impressed by the creativity on display in their house, both Kev and Gav had been putting brush to canvas and they had produced some great stuff - it got me inspired and I had a bit of a paint myself. Later that night we went out for super cheap Mexican food and met up with Kelly (another aussie from the old Liquid Rooms posse in Edinburgh).
We left Brizi the next morning and headed down Sydney way to collect my mum from the airport. The drive started off fine but once we were on the high way zipping along at our top speed of 90 km/hr the van started to shudder intermittently for a few seconds and then return to normal. Everytime it happened it got progressively worse and we started losing power during the shudders. I switched the emergency hazard lights on which had also now broken as we started to go through the nightmare scenarios of whether we'd be able to make it to Sydney or if we'd have to scrap the van etc. It got to the stage where we'd gotten down to 40km/hr on a shudder and we really just had to pull over.
We called our breakdown assist and within the hour they met us. The mechanic messed about with the points a bit and then I mentioned whether it may have something to do with the oil as I thought I could have overfilled it in Brisbane. He checked the oil and discovered our problem - we were out of oil! Our dip-stick had been giving inaccurate readings as it jams as you remove it, in my ignorance I'd put about 300mls of oil in as a little blind top up and had thought I'd put too much in. The mechanic told us that our engine had a 4 litre oil capacity. Once we had here full of oil she was running like a dream and we were back on the road. We know in future that the oil will need topping up after drives of 2-3 thousand kms, since this was our 1st ever vehicle were just didn't know any of this.
We had used googlemap to print off directions for our journey from Brisbane to our hotel in Sydney. IT had all been going to well and it had all seemed a bit too simple and as we had got into Sydney we tried to follow these instructions to the letter. We were almost at the hotel and were waiting for the turn off from the cross city express and we waited and waited and suddenly the city was behind us we'd gone through a toll point and we were heading to the airport. We had taken a wrong turn. We took another look at the printout and realised the printer had cut off the last instruction of the page. We had to go back through the toll again, and pay again, and get back into the city centre, it was a nightmare finding the hotel and working our way around all the one way streets, we were going round in circles for about an hour causing all sorts of traffic problems and getting very very stressed. We finally found our way to the hotel, which Claire had booked over the Internet, and flopped onto the bed. |
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| Time to get rural |
[Nov. 1st, 2007|07:50 pm] |
This is SO SO overdue, been mental busy will try and catch you all up asap as this news is about 2 months old!?!
We were on the road to Bundi and as the sun was starting to set we saw a sign ''Fruit Pickers Wanted!'' Very excited at the possibility of a job we pulled in but were told that they had jobs but not for girls. A disheartening start to our search.
We got to Bundi in the early evening and went round every caravan park in town to see if they had any work contacts. We found only 1, but were told not to be hopeful. We were dejected. After our long drive we went looking for a supermarket so we could make dinner, but since it was after 6pm on a Saturday they were all closed and wouldn't be open again til Monday - our love affair with Bundaberg had begun.
When thinking Bundaberg think rural... is that the right word? Maybe 'local', little bit backwards? Deliverance??
We set up Betty in Bundaberg Caravan Park and had to seriously consider what our plans would be if we couldn't get rural work. We were tired but really needed a treat and went to the local cinema (which actually was open) to see Blades of Glory...... That really perked us up, it was funny enough to leave Flo in tears.
We woke early and nervously rang Beven, the only contact we had. We pretty much begged him for work thankfully he said for we could start on Monday picking cherry tomatoes - the next day! The work wouldn't be that constant and it would be paid on contract but it was work and the possibility of another year in Australia was left open. (One has to complete 3 months of rural work to get the second year of the working holiday visa - and we had cleverly left ours to the very last minute.)
That evening, while we made dinner by Betty, a couple came over who we'd be working with on the patch Kris(Canadian) and Elaine(Australian). They were really friendly and put us at our ease, and said they'd drive us to work in their van Bettsie (also a Nissan Urvan of similar age - later on we scarily found out that their van keys not only opened but also started our van!). They gave us advice on what to bring (rubber gloves and clothes that we didn't mind getting ruined etc.) and told us what to expect.
We met at 5:45 am in the chilly dark. When we got there we got our buckets (maybe 2 foot - 10kg) and started picking - it was a new patch so the fruit was sparse and very low to the ground, not a good day to start and we didn't know what we were doing. We were slow and bad and very worried we'd be sacked. 3 buckets in total at the end of the day (at $9 a bucket). By 1 pm when we finished we really thought we were the worst pickers ever and wouldn't be asked back the next day, but to our surprise we were. We got some tips and help from Kris and Elaine, and from Beven and soon we were both flying along with Flo regularly hitting $100 a day.
The caravan park was quite expensive compared to our income so we were started to free camp opposite Bundaberg airport but after getting very mucky on the patch (the copper sulphate used on the tomatoes leaves a dark green/brown stain on all your clothes and skin) we were needing daily showers. Kris and Elaine came to the rescue and we moved in with them into a small 4 person room with cooking facilities on the caravan park, Flo and I still slept out in front of the cabin in our far comfier bed in Betty.
The four of us got on like old friends and found living together relaxing and very enjoyable. We spent our time drinking copious volumes of goon (the cheap cask 'wine' here which we were getting for about $10 per 4 litres), playing cards, telling stories, playing guitar and generally having a good time. Our fun was not only restricted to home life as most days on the patch were filled with Elaine and I chatting and gossiping, and Flo and Kris throwing tomatoes at each other and anyone who got in the line of fire (usually me), stealing from each others bushes, pulling each other through the tomatoes plants and generally pissing about a lot.
Pic: Claire and Elaine after a day planting zucchini, we worked out they'd each walked about 40km, totally wreckedPic: Betsey (Elaine and Kris's Van) on the patch just before work
Pic: Starting work and it's still dark!
Vid - The patch in the morning
Pic: Kris and Elaine & another night on the goon
Pic: Kris's BBQ Bonanza - the dude knew how to cook
Vid - BBQ on the go at the caravan park
Vid - More BBQ
In mid-August Betty needed a new rego and safety check (like MOT and tax). We saw that the last safety check had been carried out just up the road from us and thought that if they'd passed her 5 months ago they'd do the same again - Betty really wouldn't pass a stringent safety check, too much rust and random old vehicle problems. Unfortunately up the road meant 60kms - oops! Once we got there (very late) the old guy didn't have time to check her over and so just signed the papers and ticked the same boxes as last time. Dodgy as hell but good for us as often they can pick all and any little niggle in the vehicle to fail you and you can spend huge amounts getting an old vehicle up top standard (as Kris and Elaine had to).
We did ask him about this strange scrapping noise in our front right disc brake but he dismissed it saying it was probably just a bit of dirt rolling around in there and said we'd be fine.
So with safety cert in hand we went to get registered. When we were asked if we had a gas system on board we foolishly said yes and were sent out to get a gas safety cert (please note Betty has NEVER had one of these). When we finally got to a place that could give us one we were told that Betty's gas system was a death trap and that it would cost far more than the van to get her up to standard. We just disconnected the gas and went back to get registered. And expensive it was (plus the odd fact that you have to tell them how much you think the vehicle is worth and from that they work out the duty you have to pay - the first time we had gone in we said $2500, second time after the gas fiasco we said $500 and it took some of the cost off - how odd, we still don't quite understand the reasoning behind it).
We got to see some more caravan park life, so many characters. For example the guy next door living with his 4 young kids (none of which went to school as far as we could see), he was smoking, drinking, swearing, taking drugs, and to top it all off possibly harbouring his brother, a known and wanted fugitive, there too - the police came round at one point but he'd left by then. While we were there a woman got run over accidentally by her drunken partner after a argument when he was driving after her. One day while we were sipping goon and playing guitar a man turned up with a bunch of kids looking for a neighbour of ours, when we told him the neighbour had moved out he tried to sell us weed - with all his young kids there! And many many more classic moments in the soap opera that is 'Caravan Park Life'.
We used our weekends off for little excursions, one of which was a fishing trip with a lot of co-workers to Paddy's Island, which wasn't an Island and wasn't owned by a guy named Paddy. It was sacred aboriginal land which was given back to the aboriginals because massacres took place there. On the first night of our fishing trip we stayed in Kris and Elaine's tent (the tent got wrecked when a semi wild horse trampled through it the next night when we were once again sleeping in Betty.) because despite what the safety check mechanic had said it was not dirt in our breaks - Flo and Kris has taken the wheel off and the break pads had totally worn away leaving deep grooves in the break disc, we had to get the pads replaced and left the van with a mechanic over night.
Tents went up, fire got started, goon got poured, got the chairs out and fun started. In the dark Grace (who was part aboriginal and whose family owned the land) and Beven both managed to catch fish, one of them was a poisonous stone fish and we were luckily they knew about these things or we would probably have tried to eat it. As the night went on most went to bed. I woke up really late in the night/early morning to find Flo still wasn't back so i went to find him. Flo and Beven were still up drinking & talking shit, with Rocky (Grace's partner) asleep on the chair. It all got a bit messy so I got Flo to come to bed.
Pic: 1st night camping
Pic: Moon on the river
Moonlit fishing
Vid - Kris tries to dry off and nearly sets his bum on fire
Kris and Elaine helped me collect the van while flo snoozed away the hang over. While we were gone something happened (a fight maybe, we still don't fully know) and everyone left leaving just myself, Flo, Elaine and Kris. We moved the fire to the sandy bank and while the men collected firewood the ladies relaxed in the sun. We had been trying to catch fish all day but to no avail. We blame the mullet we had as bait. Suddenly one of the lines twitched, Flo dashed over to it and started to reel it in. Unfortunately due to his excitement and total inexperience he reeled in the wrong way and the line tangled and knotted. Not about to let our only catch of he day get away and spurred on by Kris he just comically ran up the bank and dragged the fish out the water - a 12 inch (or is it Brim??). Since I'd been eating fish again for health reasons I felt I had a moral duty to kill this fish. Kris who was experienced at these things said we needed to stun it by hitting it over the head before we chopped the head off and gutted it. i got a frying pan and hit the fish over its head numerous times till I managed to knock it out. Kris taught us how to clean and prepare the fish and use eyes and mouth etc for bait. Once cooked we each got 1 mouth full, it was really nice but it wasn't going to keep us from going hungry.
Pic: 2nd night camping and we eat wild cucumber we found on the patch, spiky enough to cut you and a little biter but was good eating once prepared
PIc: Kris prepares the fire pit
Pic: Flo chopping wood for the fire
Pic: Blazing, a job well done
Vid - Lil' fishing clip
Another trip we took was to the famous Bundaberg Rum Distillery were Kris and I competed in cheekiness for the number of free drinks we could get out of them there - Kris won by 1 glass, the bastard.
Pic: If only
Elaine and Kris moved on and and flo and i finally started having some proper sleep (not staying up late, talking and drinking) but we were quiet lonely without them. We found out that there were $5 showers in the petrol station (a lot of petrol stations have showers). So we went back to free camping and saved ourselves a lot of money. On our last weekend off in Bundi we drove out to the coast to a little place called Bagara. We had some beers by the sea side found some lovely lost dogs who we rescued, ate some lovely cakes and pies. Oh and also had some very odd guy come up to us and ask us about Betty, he told us he thought the van had a great energy coming from it - we should have started walking away right then. He then looked in the back area, practically getting into the van where I was making the bed. Flo told him that although we loved our van she was a bit rusty around the roof, this weirdo proceeded to pull a big chunk of rust out the roof and say 'yes, yes, i see what you mean'. Flo nearly flipped, but instead calmly and very firmly told him to back away from the van and go away.
Pic: Claire in heaven
Pic: Does the brown dog remind you of another canine?
Our last few nights were spent camping outside Carina's house (one of our work mates) where we were able to plug in our van for electricity and therefore light. All very nice of her, her partner even cooked us a roast before we left. We finished work a day earlier than expected so we decided on the spur of the moment to head to Brisbane to see some friends before collecting Flo's mum in Sydney.
We were on the road again...
Since leaving Kris and Elaine they've gotten engaged! And we're very happy for them... and now we always have a place to go when we go to Canada - sweet! |
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| Road trippin' with my favourite ally |
[Sep. 3rd, 2007|12:49 am] |
So we left Tatyana's a lot later than we had expected (some of you out there may have felt you could have predicted that). In fact we didn't really fully manage to leave Melbourne till about 2 in the afternoon with all our shenanigans. Flo and Kev up the front of the van with Sarah and me relaxing in the back.
Pic: The hair dye bafoons
Vid - Kev doing an Indiana Jones impression with Tatyana's electric garage door - Classic
Pic: Navigator Kev in his wooly hat
Pic: Claire and Sarah in the back of the van in the cold
Pic: Heading through northern Victoria with dramatic skyscapes
Pic: More pretty Victorian bush
We arrived in Wagga Wagga in the late evening (we had expected to be a lot further on by the end of the day but since we started out so late). But ah well there you go at least we didn't drive in the dark and kill anything - especially ourselves. We'd all heard the horror stories of night driving (though later found it to be dawn and dusk driving) and kangaroos and wombats and the like freezing up in your headlights - a lot of the time the vehicle and it's occupants not coming off much better than the animal they hit.
Wagga Wagga was very very cold by the time we got there so we collectively decided (despite Flo's protests that we'd be fine) that it was just way too cold to stay in the van. So we got the caravan park's cheapest cabin which was apparently meant to have a heating. The woman on reception was very strange when we met her she said I was very brave to do what i did to my hair (oh ya my hair is now pink and purple) and that she would never have the nerve to do that kind of thing and gave a really weird laugh. We later found the book of Mormon in our room and everything became clear - the weird woman and all the hairy men walking around. All a bit scary. Our cabin was basic and the heater was so so so shit it only blew out warm air and in the night i swear it was blowing out cold. We were lucky we decided to get a cabin though cause we could see our own breath on night runs to the toilets. Ohhh but we found a great way of heating up the room while cooking dinner, so we left the hobs on till just before we went to bed. All I can say is that the money was well spent on our pricey merino thermals - we had a good old sleep while Kev and Sarah were shivering all through the night.
We left Wagga Wagga early so we could get further north and into warmer weather. We drove all day (ehem - Flo edit: I drove all day) to Newcastle. Now Australians say that Newcastle is just a horrible industrial town but we agreed with Billy Connolly who'd said that it would be considered a beautiful seaside town by UK standards. Kev and Sarah stayed in a YHA hostel and Flo and I had our first experience of free camping. We were parked outside their hostel and it was great, slept like logs (they sleep well don't they?) and this on-the-road travelling thing really tires us out, we were asleep within 5 mins of hitting the pillow.
The next day we passed by Sydney but saw little of it but did notice the petrol getting cheaper. We arrived in Port Macquarie, another nice sea side town, and stayed in a caravan park with loads of boagans as they called them here, others might call them rural, country folk, or more likely trailer trash. As an example one morning the neighbours were having a domestic - picture half naked bratling toddlers running around while the mother throws glass vases and eventually a fully loaded tool-box at the partner who's ducking behind the car and throwing insults back. Our first trailer park experience... little did we know there would be many more to come.
Vid - Silly dogs in a campsite
We stayed in Port Macquarie for a couple of nights. Highlights included my first ever take away Fish & Chips, which were great and a couple of lovely walks down the beach with Flo.
Flo: I had been driving along at 110km/hr during our inital dash up north to warmer climbs and the Van had started making some strange noises. We got it checked out and were told it was 'pinging' and that using the higher octane fuel should sort it out, after this experience we resolved to travel at 90km/hr which was better for all concerned.
Claire: We also had decided on a name for our van as Skippy just didn't feel right - a bit too stereotypical backpacker-in-Australia van name. We went through many ideas, most of them terrible until Flo decided on Betty - he said it was because she was an old girl but also because she was blue, so we now have Blue Betty named after Betty Blue
Pic: Port Macquarie
Pic: Pink and purple Claire in Port Macquarie
Pic: Claire looking out to sea in Port Macquarie
Pic: Sarah Kev and Claire in Port Macquarie
Pic: Betty! with Kev and Flo after a gaffer-tape patch-it job on the pop-up roof
Pic: Claire on Port Macquaire Beach
Pic: Flo & Claire on Port Macquaire Beach
Pic: Kev's Poker Face (late night card games in Betty)
Vid - Drunken card games in Betty
Vid - Driving along 1
Vid - Driving along 2
Vid - Driving along 3
To get our second year visa we need to do 3 months seasonal work (which means pickin fruit or something like that, that no Australians want to do). Time was pressing on and we had to organise some and since we'd spent about 7 months in Melbourne alone we really needed to get it done soon. Considering Flo's mother and grandmother were visiting us for close to a month in August and September we knew we were cutting it rather close but felt sure that there'd be loads of work available, especially up in northern New South Wales or around Brisbane in Southern Queensland. So with that in mind we headed up to Ballina apparently an Irish town and that's all we know, we didn't stay long and we headed to Byron Bay aka hippy hangout.
Pic: Claire and Betty looking out over Byron Bay at the surfers
Pic: Pretty pavement mosaic on Byron Bay pavement
Pic: Pretty Sunset, maybe around Byron
In Byron we rang Harvest line and found out there was no work in NSW (New South Wales). We didn't do much there since it was quiet cold and we were a little down about the fact that there were no jobs in NSW or southern QLD (Queensland) the only place was Bundaberg (in mid Queensland). This was a lot further north than we had intended to go. We had to seriously consider that on 10th December we would be leaving Australia. We decided what the hell, we'd driven this far and come so far away from home, we would go a little further than expected and go all the way up to Bundy. Kev and Sarah had decided that it was too far for them and we left them sadly in Byron Bay where they ventured on further to Brisvagas aka Brisbane. We didn't get a proper chance to experience Byron Bay but hopefully will at some point to see if it lives up to the stories and do it justice.
On the camp site i had my first driving lesson and no it didn't end in a car crash or a screaming match. Flo is a very good teacher, calm and very patient :). No stalling and apparently that's a good thing! Flo felt it would be a good idea to learn a bit in case of emergencies, so even if i could only go at 10km an hour i'd be able to get us to safety (just very slowly).
Sleeping with four people in the van was definitely an experience. We physically had room in the bed for 4 people to lie flat next to each other but it was hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder. Couldn't move an inch. We really thought the van was bigger than it was our perception of the space we have in there really isn't realistic. Kev and Flo in particular woke to find themselves in a few hilarious compromising positions, but I can say no more.
Betty had once again started to make very strange noises, this time when we braked, but since the brakes still seemed to be working and time was running out for us to find seasonal work we had to press on to Bundaberg.
The Road Trip: 2,200km |
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| Time to ride the spiral |
[Jul. 14th, 2007|02:11 am] |
THIS WAS THE 2ND UPDATE IN ONE EVENING SO CHECK THE PREVIOUS ONE POSTED TOO (that's the one below this). Just like the buses, none for ages and then 2 come along at once ;)
So the time has come - we leave Melbourne tomorrow. WoW. How time has flown and what amazing, beautiful experiences we've have. What wonderful, generous, and genuine people we have met and befriended. The times have been dark and cloudy too, many moments of down not just up, as life tends to go, but all with valuable lessons learnt - NO REGRETS.
So a few things catch up on before we go:
Claire: I successfully finished my course in care work - though I have to wait until mid-November for the certificate - slackers!
Flo: I have been going to Life Coaching. Our friend Trinity has left her high flying nursing career and followed her dream of becoming a life coach. She was taking on a few clients pro bono to gain more experience and asked me if I'd like to try it. I went in with an open mind but also with a healthy dose of skepticism, mainly based around preconceptions about Life Coaching involving Americans with very white teeth and fake tan jumping around on a Stage trying to get everyone motivated (think Patrick Swayze in Donnie Darko), but I was happily surprised. It has been a very rewarding, and sensible (the ideas/proceesess/strategies behind what we've done make logical sense to me), experience. A lot of stuff was worked through, and is still being explored, and I am all the richer for knowing myself a bit better and knowing how to deal with myself better too. I intend to keep coaching going on the road to some extent via regular telephone sessions.
We gained a lovely new housemate, called Rowen, at our home in Coburg. A very veerrrryyy chilled Aussie early 20s bloke and all round great guy. He also offered us his old laptop for free (again the generosity of near strangers has been overwhelming here) so we could watch dvds in our van on the road. He spent a good deal of his own time trying to get it up to scratch for us but sadly in the end it was too far gone and needed a new hard disk, with only a few days to go til we left we just didn't have time to sort the new hardware out.
Here's a few pics from Melbourne tha Lindsay our old housemate, and friend from Edinburgh, took during the summer here, just random stuff some people might wanna see.
Pic: The road we live on!
Pic: Our tram! The good ol' number 19
Pic: St Kilda's famous Luna Park - that we never got round to going to! oops!
Pic: St Kilda Beach
Pic: St Kilda Pier
We had a massive night out at the start of June to see the DJ Rob Acid at a club in Melbourne with a gang of about 20 mates. Probably the best big night out since New Years - took over a week and a half to recover... we're getting so old!
Flo: Transformers the movie was AMAZING. It felt like being a kid again. Any bloke who was a kid in the 80s should see this, and anyone who wasn't would probably enjoy this too (if action movies are your thing).
Flo: I had major problems when trying to leave my work, I was having rumours about me being untrustworthy and possibly being a thief spread by the main manageress behind my back. Thankfully the rest of the staff who were hearing this (other duty mangers mainly) had no doubts as to where their loyalties and trust lay and gave me heads-up on what was happening. I left eventually, after a week of anxiousness, with all the money I was owed. I am so happy to have left that place - I was so hurt that the manageress inexplicably turned against me, when I thought we were real friends, I truely have never worked so hard at a job in my life (and for such low pay). I was told though, from people that had worked there for over a year, that this was common practise when someone left so that they could try and screw that person out of what they were owed on their last 2 weeks wages, so it wasn't really that personal. I leave though with my head held high, a number of really good friends made and a lot of lessons and life experience gained - once again No Regrets.
Kev and Sarah arrived in Melbourne (from Edinburgh via Thailand) and stayed with us in Coburg for a week, for the past few days we've been staying with Tatiana and Alex in Sunshine (Melbourne suburb) as the lease on our Coburg home expired and, although we enjoyed our time there, we didn't leave under the most positive of circumstances - it was really time to move on a while ago.
The van is all packed and ready to go and it felt like we would never reach this point, its been a long long few weeks for both of us, emtionally, physically and the rest. There's definitely 3 people we especially owe this road trip too and thats Ali who tirelessly, and selflessly, worked on our van to make it into the quietest, safest, 23 year old van you've ever heard of (then would only bill us for parts and not the near 7 days of labour put in), Nash for always being there and also setting us up some beasting speakers so we can blast out Kyuss and Tool as we ride through the desert, and Tatiana for her support for Claire and for putting us up in her (and her partner Alex's) home when we really needed it.
Though we'll see them again soon, but briefly, we will miss our lovely Melbourne and our friends who really made this place a home for us...
The road is open...
With my feet upon the ground I lose myself
between the sounds and open wide to suck it in,
I feel it move across my skin.
I'm reaching up and reaching out,
I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me.
And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been.
We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been.
Spiral out. Keep going, going... |
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| Itchy Feet |
[Jul. 14th, 2007|01:17 am] |
Another month full of fun and frolics, ok well over a month but who's counting, and our time as Melbournians is nearing its end, time to ride that spiral again...
But before we go into all that it's catch up time!
We have been quite intensely busy recently, and that's a good thing, lots to do and lots getting done.
Flo: I got promoted at work (currently a small privately owned supermarket) within the 1st week from general store monkey to trainee duty manager, and very recently to full(ish) duty manager status. So the upshot was that I still got paid the same but had huge amounts of responsibility! Hmmm yes. I can't really complain though as it's my decision and I saw it more as a learning experience. Although I've helped manage places before its never been something quite so big with this many staff and to be honest it's a lot harder than I thought. I am enjoying the challenge though and I'm learning valuable transferable skills.
Claire: We attended our friends Andrew and Trinity's engagement party. Held in a massive James Squires brewery pub (they have their own micro-brewery on site for a host of great ales etc) on the water front. Said water was the Yarra river (which is contimated with ecoli yum yum) meeting the sea . It was a great night if a little bit too drunk (see photos), the $1000 bar tab not really helping matters. We didn't get home till 7:30 in the morning and it took us two days to get over the hang over, we're just not as able for these big nights any more.
Pic: Claire and Nash in intense discussionings
Flo: The next day Joel (our house mate's boyfriend) and I went to see
Slayer, with Mastodon supporting, unfortunately due to the previous night I spent the gig sitting on the side seating with a shaky hand clutching a cup of water, couldn't even bang my head. Mastodon were very impressive though we missed the first 2/3rds of the set. Slayer were good but not great which was disappointing as I'd been waiting to see them for years. They just seemed tired, but that's fair enough when you're at the end of a world tour.
A group of us went to see the stand up comedian Danny Bhoy, who was from Edinburgh, during the Melbourne comedy festival. It was rather PC humour but very enjoyable none the less. Both of us loved to hear him joking about back home and conjuring up images of Edinburgh. Just before the gig bizarrely enough we bumped into a girl we used to work with in Nicol Edwards back in Edinburgh, how odd is that!?
Myself and my mate Dave (the boyfriend of one of Claire's college mates) went to see Nine Inch Nails. Like Slayer it was another gig I have been waiting years for. We got there early and then realised that since the que was already down the street and wrapping around the corner that we should go to the pub and drink until the que had gone away. We tucked into a dinner of delicious Guinness (hadn't really drunk it in close to a year, and it was great) and bar crisps and since that was actually what our dinner was we got rather wrecked rather fast. We stumbled into the gig to find the best Industrial venue I had ever seen - a black dindgey venue yet with a lot of space in it, 3 levels all with great views of the stage and best of all multiple walkways, you could watch from, across and over the pit. It looked like something out of a movie... and the gig was great.
Claire and I also went, with Nash and Rachel, to see the band Sunn O))). We had never heard of them before, and were going on Rachel's recommendation, and weren't really prepared for what ensued. The support was a Japanese post-rock/punk band called Boris that were really good and then Sunn O))) came out and it was THE heaviest and THE slowest thing we'd ever heard, forget slayer, forget meshuggah, forget cannibal corpse, this was heavy on a new level. The bass was making my eyelashes vibrate, my internal organs were being scrambled. Nash told me that they regularly try to hit the brown note during their performances and boy they couldn't have been far from it. In the end it was hurting our ears so much that Claire and I went to the upstairs bar that still gave a clear close view of the stage but behind a thick perspex screen - even with this sound dampening I had to have my fingers in my ears. But don't get me wrong - it was fantastic! Even Claire really enjoyed it, the music was interesting, simple and complex, melodic and droning, theatrical. I would highly recommend seeing them to anyone who has a musically open mind - just bring some decent earplugs.
Pic: Sunn O))) 1
Pic: Sunn O))) 2
Pic: Sunn O))) 3
Pic: Sunn O))) 4
Pic: Sunn O))) 5
Pic: Sunn O))) 6
Pic: Sunn O))) 7
Vid: Sunn O))) - just to hear the droooonnnneeee
Claire got a lovely new haircut with autumnal shades dyed through. Her hair has finally recovered from having dreads.
Claire, her best friend Tatiana, Nash and Flo at the Comfortable Chair Pub, full of comfy chairs and old arcade machines that had been converted into tables!
Pic: A rare sight, claire in high heels
Pic: 2 mischief makers
Pic: Flo need more beer
Pic: Flo on the arcade machine - a picture of concentration
Pic: Nash 'avin a bash
Vid: This came out very dark but can be seen if the settings on the comp are brightened - so here's a rather merry Claire demonstration Traditional *cough* Irish Dancing to Tatiana and Nash
We went to the movies (as we tend to do) and saw
300 - great if you like graphic artistic blood splattering violence mixed in with rippling muscle and boobs, which we do! Flo may have enjoyed it a bit more than normal because he was still on a heafty dose of panadine forte from his tooth problems :)
Spiderman 3 - Total rubbish, big disappointment, felt I'd been robbed for my $7 for the ticket. Came out of the cinema raging that we'd been stupid enough to give our hard earned cash to make Spidy 3 one of the highest grossing movies of all time. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
We saw both movies at the IMAX, it was the first time either of us had gone and it was a great experience. I'd definitely go again.
Big news now on us travelling on now:
We had always planned to buy a van or car or something to drive around the country in and after talking with our friends about it Nash came to us and told us we could have his old Toyota Hiace for free! Yes - f o r f r e e. Man he is one nice guy.It was his old work van but he had since dissolved his business and had no use for it. It was also in a bit of a state so really needed it to be checked over. Ali, another friend, who is a car/van mechanic came along, again for free, and checked 'the whale', as it's affectionately known, over and told us it looked a lot worse than it was. We were thrilled. Within the week though our plans had gone belly up and the clutch went on the van and Ali found out that the parts needed to get it ship-shape would cost a minimum of $1400. Considering we'd have to set up the van as a living space too it just wasn't worth it.
Claire (being the super organiser that she is) had been checking out vans on the internet for a month or more when she told me to get my ass in gear and find us some vans to view. I got onto www.thegumtree.com.au and within the day had 8 possible vehicles. The next 2 days were spent running all over the city to look at them. Nash came along too to help, since I know nothing about vans, or cars for that matter. Ali came out again to check over 4 of the best looking vans and on the night of the 3rd day of looking we put in an offer on a 1984 Nissan Urvan called Skippy. After some crafty bargaining we handed over $2450 in cash, filled in and swapped a lot of paperwork, and took possession of our very own campervan!
We were elated. We got a great deal on it too. We were reliably informed by many sources that with a little bit of prettying up we could sell her on in high season for over $5000, even in the low season (now) we saw another 1984 Nissan Urvan, that had had its interior all done up, online selling for $7000.
Since then I've gotten used to driving round this old tank with no power steering, gym or no gym my right shoulder is taking a beating. It had been over 5 years since I'd driven but it all comes back very quickly. So far I've reversed (very slowly) into 2 dustbins, 1 tree, and my bosses car! Heh yup, still a little rusty, but I would claim its all due to the extra foot of rear bull bars that I keep forgetting is there. Its hard enough to park or 3 point turn in a thing this size let alone with extra stuff on the back - but I'm learning it and getting better with her every day.
Skippy has just been serviced by Ali and the poor guy had to work his way through an A4 sheet of little problems I'd found with her, but we're making sure she's in the best condition we can get her before hitting the road.
On the day we took possession of the van we found out that 2 of our good friends from Edinburgh, Kev and Sarah, would be arriving in Melbourne on the 5th of July. We put to them the idea of doing a road trip up to Queensland, which we had to get to by mid August to get the car re-registered, and they enthusiastically accepted. We had gone from having no clue about when we were leaving and what we were doing to all sorted in 3 days! Gotta love it when everything comes together so perfectly - that's what we get for not planning ahead and leaving it up to the universe . |
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| Life in Melby |
[Apr. 25th, 2007|04:32 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Melbourne | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Bright Eyes | ] |
How time flies when you're back into a routine.
Flo:
Since the last update I have had more tooth trauma and ended up with a swollen face and after a couple of weeks of antibiotics had to have a tooth removed (this was all the result of my one and only filling 9 months ago - what bad luck!). While all this was going on I also lost my cushy job at Blue Tongue - the business closed down. Not a good week! But sure enough other jobs are cropping up and I have started work again.
Pic: Big Face - Thank God for Codeine
Pic: Blue Tongue 01
Pic: Blue Tongue 02
Pic: Blue Tongue 03
Pic: Blue Tongue 04
Pic: Blue Tongue 05
Pic: Blue Tongue 06
I've really found in the last few months that I am totally fed up with rubbish jobs. It's motivating me more than ever to start seriously thinking about what I want to do with my life when we get back degree-wise and job-wise, it may be time soon to finally grow up, who knows. I took the book 'What Colour Is Your Parachute?' out from the local library. I'd always been lead to believe it was one of the best books around to help you find some direction when is came to employment, we'll see how it goes.
We've been to see some gigs in the last month:
- Flo and Nash went to The Eagles of Death Metal - not that impressed but thought that The Answer as support totally out-shone the main act. Felt like being at a Led Zep gig - Awesome!
- Claire, Flo and Mark went to see Eric Bibb. It all came from a recommendation long ago by Gary in the Edinburgh Music Library. We were all hugely impressed by this Grammy Nominated acoustic blues guitarist/singer, especially Mark who is a blues lead guitarist. Most of the time it was just Eric Bibb and his guitar, sometimes with a legendary double bassist none of us had ever heard of, but the quality that was produced stunned us. Top marks.
--> As a side note, I got a nice recording of the whole gig but didn't know of any site for mp3 upload, like a photobucket, anyone know of any?
- Flo and Claire went to see The Directors Cut of Donnie Darko at The Moonlight Cinema. It was Andrew and Trin's present to Claire (& I) for her birthday. As they said it was something very 'Melbourne' and they knew how much we both love film. We took along blankets and a picnic in the Eskie (we'd call it a cool box) Andrew and Trin gave me (& Claire) for my birthday. We snuggled up as the sun set in the botanical gardens and watched a the film on a giant inflatable cini screen. Being the directors cut an' all it was a long affair and by the time the stars were out and the bats flying all around over us Claire was fast asleep, we were so cosy I almost gave in too.
Pic: The moonlight cinema
Pic: Claire and Flo. Not our best photo ever, but Claire was eating at the time and then the camera battery ran out!
We finally got round to doing something touristy. We went to the Science Museum and Planetarium. The Museum was interesting but too full of screaming school kids for our liking. The Planetarium was a treat though. We got to see the stars from the Southern Hemisphere perspective and learn some aboriginal constellations. We can both find the southern cross now too.
The day though was not without incident: Both of us got busted by the ticket inspectors on the train. We both had got muddled and, completely innocently, either had incorrect tickets or ones that weren't valid for our journey. We explained our mistakes and gave full and correct information to the inspectors thinking that our innocence combined with it being 1st offences would beget leniency. Ha! Forget about it! Once again the system has been designed as a way of collecting money for the government rather than to inform the public and stop fare evasion. We got dropped with a combined fine of $316 two days ago. Ouch! When we recounted it all to our local friends they said that they have always gotten away with false names and addresses - we were being punished for our honesty too. The day didn't end badly though. we went and saw the film Pan's Labyrinth. Flo and Claire's short caption review: 'Wow, go see this.' There was nothing we could find negative to say about it at all - a beautiful, moving, harrowing piece of Oscar winning cinema.
We went to the pub with Nash and Vagas a few weeks back to see Fight Night. It was the 1st time Claire had watched boxing and it'd been years for me. We were both a little bored at the start but once the quality started to improve we were both enthralled. Great stuff. We were, along with the rest of the packed pub, shouting at the big screen waving hands in the air by the time the main event came up... in the end the guy we'd been rooting for legendary Melbourne local, Sam Soliman, lost to the superior, but arrogant, and all round nasty piece of work, Tony Mundine.
In other news I joined Andrews D League basketball team only to be left on the bench to score the game because I have piercings - no one thought to tell me I'd have to take them out before the match. As I didn't have an hour spare and a pair of pliers on me I tried taping all my piercings at the time but it was never going to work - me running round with taped up eyes, ears and mouth. My basketball dream ended before it began, and although I was raging I didn't really have anyone to blame. I'm still going to the gym , which I started again to get back in shape for basketball - I had really been that keen for it, and have started playing streetball a bit so its not a total loss. Oh and talking of piercings, much to the eye-rolling of my parents, I got a new double top-lip belly-button piercing a month ago - 1st new one in years - though as I look to the future I am starting to allow the possibility of my taking out some of the more 'in your face' ones. Who knows! It won't happen for a while yet though, that's for sure.
Claire:
The care course (SVQ) I was doing in Edinburgh before we left, fell to pieces. My idiot tutor led me to believe that all the work I had done for the course, pages of material, essays, assessment, he would put together and submit for me. After many emails and no response I gave up. So when looking for care worker jobs in Melbourne I lied at my interviews and said that I had the course but did not have the certificate (which they believed innocent old me), which was fair enough as I had put in the work. So while I was here I thought why not do the Australian equivalent course? Because by the time I get back to the Uk I wont be able to work in the care industry with out the SVQ (or equivalent) - all thanks to that one fool of a man.
Anyway I started a really good personal carer course. It's actually internationally recognised as a higher level than the SVQ and will enable me to get senior carer positions when we get back. I've been learning many things including administering medication in certain situations, a level of responsibility previously only for nurses. I have also made loads of really great friends through college. I can now say "Cheers!" in Russian, Japanese, Somalian and Australian all thanks to our many nights out in the Retreat Hotel (hotel and pub are the same thing in Australia) down the road from us.
Since doing this course (thanks Dad) I have decided that although its going to be hard I'm going to do nursing at university when we get back. It something I've felt I wanted to do for a long time but doubted myself too much to do it. Now with this course and the strong encouragement of my teachers and from Flo I feel ready to go for it when we return.
Soon to come:
Some nice general photos of Melbourne so you can get a feel for where we live.
Flo and Joel head off to see Slayer with Mastodon supporting, Flo and Claire see Danny Bhoy at the Melbourne comedy festival (the festival that the Edinburgh one sprang from as far as I've been informed), Claire and Flo get to see Nine Inch Nails.
We get a bit too drunk at an engagement party, and we take on possible ownership of 'The Whale'.
Watch this space!
Unrelated Extra's:
An interesting Music Vid I saw - don't really like the Pink Floyd remix but thought the idea behind the vid was cool.
A great music vid forwarded by Rich thought other's might appreciate it.
A YouTube video about a woman and her dog that at 1st had me confused then laughing in disbelief. |
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| G'Day |
[Mar. 8th, 2007|11:14 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Melbourne | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | sleepy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Mogwai - Close Encounters | ] |
Much has happened since we arrived in the lovely land of oz and it's time to get the ol' LJ up to speed. This is a very very compacted version minus a lot of crazy stories and adventures just to keep it all at a readable length.
We arrived on the 11th December to a chilly overcast Melbourne morning. We were met in the city Andrew and his partner Trinity. Back during the end of our Spain '04 tour, while staying in Barcelona, we met Andrew and Mark from Melbourne. About a month later Andrew came and stayed with us in our brand new flat at 12 Parkside Street in Edinburgh. It had been over 2 years since we'd seen each other, that's the kind of time apart from someone, who you didn't really know in the first place, that can make you nervous. Questions like: Would he be the same? Would it be awkward? Would we even get on? What was Trinity going to be like? Kept bouncing round inside our heads. Well thankfully all our jet-lagged anxiousness was unfounded. We were driven via a quick mini-tour of the city to their lovely house in Burnley, in expensive South East Melbourne.
We stayed with Andrew and Trin for about 2 weeks. They treated us very well, better than we could have hoped for, but we spent our free time relentlessly house and job hunting pretty much from the off, mainly using the site www.gumtree.com.au. We were pretty damn organised if we do say so ourselves, the majority of that is down to slave driver Claire. Within the 1st week we had Bank Accounts, Tax Numbers, Medicards, mobiles and Claire got a job in a Nursing Home, but we still didn't have a house!
We couldn't seem to find a place to live that felt right. Every place had something pretty major wrong with it, we viewed some seriously dodgy places. We met up with Lindsay who had worked with Flo in Edinburgh Central Library and had been travelling around Australia for about 4 months. While chatting with her we remembered a lovely house we'd viewed that we thought would be perfect for her. The reason we hadn't taken it was because they only wanted 2 people to take the 2 rooms available. Lindsay liked the place and then Claire and I were offered the other room in the house. We took them up on the offer pretty much straight away.
So now we live in a wonderful house in Coburg, North Melbourne with Lindsay, Eliza and Russell - Eliza's lovely old ginger cat.
Pic: Claire and Lindsay in the kitchen
Pic: Claire on her favourite sofa after a hard days work with Russell
Pic: Claire and Eliza in our back garden chilling out. Purposely long exposure.
Pic: Our back garden with our chilli plant on the 'lawn'
Pic: Claire with her baby
Pic: Russell
I got 2 jobs both on the far side of town from where we now lived (yes I am Mr. Clever) in the Espy (Esplanade Hotel) a Melbourne institution, probably the best known bar in the city, and Blue Tongue Juice and Smoothie Bar. Claire got a job within minutes (as always) and works at Anzac Lodge Nursing Home.
Pic: Blue Tongue Smoothie Bar CSI. When our back freezers died a death so did the massive box of frozen blueberries in them, leaving this rather disconcerting stain. As a little aside the lovely Joel now also works there with me after I put a word in for him.
Pic: The main shop a-frame. I did the design for the St. Kilda Festival (where the shop is based in south Melbourne by the beach). It was time to wipe it clean so took a photo after all the effort.
So far we've had 3 aussie barbies. The 1st at the best new year's eve/day either of us had ever had, the 2nd was a general gathering of lovely people we've met since we've been here that coincided with Claire's Birthday, and the 3rd was for Flo's birthday in our back garden.
Pic: New Years Eve: Cricket in the park outside Andrew and Trin's. Andrew Bowling
Vid: Trin goin her hardest (that's an aussie phrase for any of you who might get the wrong idea)
Pic: One of the most random but awesome presents Flo has ever received. A Huge Birthday Bone! From Nash and Chris
We're both very happy here. We're earning decent cash, have a large and lovely group of friends. Flo's eating so much fruit and veg at his smoothie bar he's never been so healthy and we've both started exercising again. The weather is generally fantastic apart from when we first arrived and the bushfires dropped the air quality down to that of Calcutta.
What else has happened?! So much it's hard to tell! Flo went to a the Australian Basketball League semi-finals with Andrew and Joel (Eliza's boyfriend) as his birthday prez from Claire. Claire has started college doing study relevant to the care industry, and has decided that she wants to train to do nursing when we get back to the UK. Flo had to call the police after there was a big fight in Blue Tongue. We both enjoyed some spoken word Hip Hop nights with Eliza and Joel (who is an MC).
Pic: Eliza and Joel at MC Babble spoken word Hip Hop night
Pic: Claire and Joel on our first drunken bonding sesh a few days into the new year
Vid: Joel raps without beats at another spoken word Hip Hop/Poetry competition. The sound quality may not be that great but the gist of the rap is that anti-abortion laws are currently being debated in the Australian Parliament and these were Joel's views and opinions on the topical subject. Be warned there are a few naughty words in this. Both of us have been very impressed by what we've seen thus far of the Melbourne Hip Hop scene. Joel runs his own night here and very quickly changed our stereotypical view of MCs as monosyllabic morons who just talk about how much cash they have, how much better they are than everyone else and generally shout out 'Make some noise!'.
And finally how could we forget we saw the mighty Tool at the end of January (far and away our favourite band for those of you that don't know). It was awesome. I won't bore you with my fanatical obsessional ramblings.
Pic: Nice pic of Danny behind his kit with a lovely Maynard silouette
Pic: Tool with frikin' laserz on (blurred)
The following should probably only be bothered with if your are a Tool fan. The base completely swamped the tiny mic on my camera, you get to see some pretty visuals and if you're a super Tool pervert like me you can always sync the album track to the vid *sigh* so sad.
Vid: Stinkfist - Sound is particularly poor on this one
Vid: 46&2 pt 1
Vid: 46&2 pt 2
Vid: 46&2 pt 3
Vid: Lil' bit of Wings with some Laser action 1
Vid: Lil' bit of Wings with some Laser action 2
Well that's us up to speed we reckon. A brief skim over 3 months of fun and frolics, madness and mayhem.
Pic: Random pretty long exposure - kinda looks like a heart
Pic: Random pretty long exposure of candles on our patio |
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| Oh yer... we're back |
[Feb. 2nd, 2007|11:43 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Melbourne | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Tool Tool Tool Tool Tool Tool Tool Tool | ] |
Ok 1st the apology for the lack of communication since we arrived in Australia. There's been a lot to do here! And not just having fun + whenever have had a spare minute neither of us felt inspired to write up LJ. So here we go finally our time in...
Borneo:
We flew out from Chiang Mai already missing Thailand little did we know what was to come in Malaysian Borneo:
Arriving at Kuala Lumpur's budget terminal KLCC we had to wait in only semi-air con conditions (in midday in KLCC in the middle of the jungle that's cookin') for 1 1/4 hrs to get through passport control. It was the most appalling airport system I have ever seen - people in SE Asia have no idea how to queue. In all fairness it wasn't the Malaysians (they had their own passport control 'queue') it was the Philippinos and Indonesians. They were ruthless with their queue jumping and strategy. I was raging by the time I was through. I shouldn't have been surprised though some cultures just don't have cuing hardwired into them like we do in the UK/Ireland/Australia. Claire had managed to skip the queue after making a fuss due to her needing the toilet, this worked out well since our bags had been dumped unattended by the baggage carousel as other flight's baggage had started to come through.
We had our flight to Sabah scheduled for the following day and decided that it made much more sense to sleep in KL International airport than pay for a taxi to and from KL + accommodation. So with the help of This Website we got a great sleep with our eye masks and ear plugs despite the random fashion show that started next to us.
We flew into hot and humid in Kota Kinabalu (KK), Sabah's unofficial capital and through a miscommunication (*cough* all Dave's fault) we got a taxi into town rather than a lift from Dave in his hire car - Doris the proton! We were a bit apprehensive but also excited about meeting Dave (our mate from Edinburgh who had changed his travel plans to spend time with us in Sabah). We had been very used to travelling in our twosome and anyone who's travels with friends before knows how easily thinks can go sour. Thankfully we all got along fantastically and the travelling twosome happily became three.
Pic: Dave with some racist cheese!
We quickly left KK and the rubbish Planet Kinabalu Hostel who had given away our double room after I'd reserved it 3 months previously! They claimed they had no record of it until I pointed out to them that the print out of our correspondence was on their notice board behind them... heh oh well!
A map of Sabah with our route in dark green, notice how the only roads in the country are the ones shown on this 'map' the rest are dirt tracks for palm oil plantations. Now the map we had was like this one, but drawn by a 2 year old and had been through the wash a few times.
Our 1st destination on our crazy ten day Sabah road trip was the Kinabalu National Park and Mount Kinabalu, at 4100m, the tallest mountain in SouthEast Asia. We were ready for the challenge of a lifetime but first we had to get there! I was navigating with a tourist 'map' that looked like it had been drawn in crayon, with incorrect or absent road names. Needless to say we got very lost, a lot. Slowly slowly I was learning the ways of Malaysian roads and 'maps' and we thought we'd get there before sun down, that was until the fog descended. We made it through the densest fog I have ever seen let alone driven through with 1 or 2m visibility on winding mountain roads. Dave & Doris were trying their hardest but without fog lights and totally squint main beams we were driving blind. After numerous stops, to ask people where the hell we were, we made it (a lot later than anticipated) to Park HQ.
Claire:
Before leaving travelling i kept trying to get out of going up the mountain and flo kept telling me that it was easy (Flo: I was lying) and that it was just steps all the way to the top. Plus it was another reason i had to give up smoking but i kept changing my mind. When we got there i thought i could do it...maybe, and flo was really happy that i was going to properly go for it.
After arriving late to the National Park, despite being driven by Dave who thought he was a racing driver, we missed the guide's talk on the itinerary about the mountain routes, so we knew nothing about different paths we could take. When I, very bleerie eyed, was brushing my teeth a girl asked me which way we were going up. I was quiet shocked to find out that there was a hard way and an easy way. She told me her aussie friends and her had decided to go up the hard way and down the easy way because the hard way was the more scenic. We thought that sounded like a good plan to us, and coming down the easy way after what we'd have been through sounded sensible.
We went to breakfast with the english girl and 2 aussies, and found out that they had gone to bed at 8 p.m. and WE were the noisy neighbours that kept waking them up each time we came in and out of the room. The last one was about midnight we were very apologetic about that. Especially considering we had to all get up at 6 a.m.
At park head quarters we got our obligatory guide and we also had to pay extra for a taxi to the bottom of the mountain (we noticed when in Malaysia there is always little extras which they never tell u about and we wouldn't mind paying if they told us about all these little extras and if it was in just one lump sum).
Pic: A view from the base of the mountain
I rented a 'god saviour' stick for 5 Ringit which flo had thought i was mad to do but it saved me later. We had been told that we could rent sleeping bags and everything else we needed at the guest house, but my stingy boyfriend decided he could carry up all our stuff in his big ruck sack (I didn't complain because it meant I had less to carry! Plus it was good for him because it meant less complaining from me). I thought they (flo & Dave) were mad for carrying all that stuff, we weighed it at 17kgs for flo, but if that's the way they wanted it who was I to complain.
Pic: The trail map at Mesilau Gate (see far right of the trail) and the very start of our climb
The first hour started off at a quiet hard incline. I didn't think I could last it but after another half and hour we went down! That might seem like a good thing, but when you're trying to climb a mountain is certainly isn't. We ended up going well below the altitude we started at, and changing from going up to down really tested our legs.
Pic: A view down to where we started, still a long long way to go
Pic: Once we'd gotten into our 1st 'up' climb we popped out into the open for a few meters and got a great view of the peak
Pic: The Mesilau Trail proving it was the hard way by leading us back down!
Pic: A pretty waterfall 1
Pic: A pretty waterfall 2
Pic: Claire videoing the pretties
Pic: Claire demonstrates with a packet of biscuits how the altitude was beginning to show.
Pic: We climb on as the mist descends. The foliage has changed to be scrubbier and more stunted as we gain height.
Pic: Finally we meet the easy trail, our guides laughingly tell us that if we'd have chosen that route to start, we'd be at the halfway guest house by now... we were not amused... who's bloody idea was it to take the hard way anyhow?
We had plenty of company as we were climbing with the english girl and aussies we had chatted with earlier and our guides occasionally pointed out plants of interest, many orchids and especially their world famous Pitcher Plants - these are carnivorous plants that entice their prey in with sent and colour. Once the prey is in the plant (which is shaped like a pitcher) it cannot climb the slippery inside surface and is digested. This all sounds interesting and we had seen plants like these before but not ones so big that they had been known to eat rats. There were also giant leeches. At first we were alarmed until we learned that they only fed on the 1m giant worms they had there. Good Weblink to worm and leech pics and info.
Pic: Some of the pitcher plants thought not the biggest ones
Pic: A view of the peak through the mist, still a long long way off
Pic: Flo getting tired... the 17kgs burning into his back
Pic: One of many minor obstacles Claire had to tackles
Pic: Dave (the fittest of us - imagine how we look at this stage!) taking a well needed break.
Pic: Claire and Dave knackered
Pic: Pretty photo of the plants and the mist 1
Pic: Pretty photo of the plants and the mist 2
We were getting so tired after 6 or 7 hours of hill walking that flo started to absent mindedly use the 'hand rail' to help him up. He kept complaining of feeling like he was being bitten or scratched on his hands... then we noticed the sign showing someone holding onto the electrical supply cable and being dead. Flo stayed well clear of it after that.
Pic: Flo tired and already its getting dark and the mist is dense enough to block out anything more than 10 meters away
It took us 8 hours in total to get to the guest house Laban Rata. Laban Rata is at 3325m which is high enough to get altitude sickness. We had really started to noticed the altitude on the last 1000m. Arriving at Laban Rata i was elated. It took eight hours of pushing myself on very little sleep the night before (cause we were the noisy neighbours). Lots of people arrived up before us but lots had still to come even though they had taken the "easy" route.
Pic: We arrive at Laban Rata
Pic: Proof
We relaxed and had some food with our friends, who had made it up about an hour before us. Once it started to really get dark we said goodbye to dave who had to stay at a guest house 200m further up, at that time in the evening and at that altitude and incline it is a VERY long distance. We shared our room with two sixty year old men who had climbed Mount Kinabalu 13 times and were heading for Victoria Peak which required climbing equipment. When we came into the room we switched on the heater because it was close to freezing but when our very polite room mates came in they opened the window. We thought they were mad but two hours into our sleep we awoke cooked. Sadly for us we could not get back to sleep (this is very common due to the altitude)
At 2 a.m. with less than 2 hours sleep each and feeling a little ill, we got up met our guide and walked up to dave's guesthut. He'd had even less sleep than us. So tired and achy as we were we started the final assent to the summit before sunrise. It was pitch black the air was icy and very thin. We started off in gloves, fleeces and coats, but very quickly went to t-shirts and head torches. Even though our skin was freezing to touch we were toasty warm from all the exertion. We had to put the gloves back on for the rope & scrabble stage of the assent (apparently 70degrees incline). Neither flo nor i could believe what i was doing - unfit, ex-smoker, scared of heights (luckily it was in the dark). It was the hardest thing i have ever done i was pushed to my limit but somehow i was really enjoying it... for the first two hours, then the alltitude kicked in and the air got really thin. My heart was racing and my lungs were burning. It like i was sprinting but all i was doing was walking very slowly. We were both feeling nauseous and to make it worse we had people dry retching behind us very loudly.
When we reached the plateaux i had had it, i felt like i couldn't go the last 300meters to the top at Low's Peak. I was emotionally wrecked and felt like I'd done enough, enough for me. That was until Helen the English smoker from the group we'd started our climb with arrived behind us, she was in a similar state. I comforted her, then she walked on, and suddenly i had my strength and determination back. We started scrabbling up to Low's Peak. Flo and I made it for some of the most awe inspiring views, and feelings, of our lives.
The camera doesn't come close:
Pic: Still racing to Low's Peak as the sun starts to rise
Pic: Sunrise starts 1
Pic: Sunrise starts 2
Pic: Us
Pic: Us again
VIDEO: Breathless at Low's Peak (apologies for the swearing)
Pic: One of the lesser peaks through the mist
Pic: Sunrise through the mist
Pic: Pink dawn
Pic: The misty volcanic plains
Pic: Sunrise at the Peak 1
Pic: Sunrise at the Peak 2
Pic: Sunrise at the Peak 3
Pic: Sky lights up
Pic: See if you can spot Claire and Flo at the bottoms of Low's Peak
Pic: Sun rays
Pic: Orange Clouds
Pic: Lava Plains
Pic: Sunrise at the Peak 4
It took us 4 hours to get to the summit and 2 and a half hours to get back down to Laban Rata where we forced some food into our stubborn bellies.
Pic: Down the lava flow to Borneo
Pic: Waves of rock
Pic: The rope leading down
Pic: Flo cold, tired, wrecked on the way down
Pic: The biggest gorge in the world
It took us another 5 hours to reach the base. I found going down even harder than going up as my poor knees got a beating. The steps we were going down, on the 'easy' way, were often over 2 foot and a few times I got stuck with one foot on the step below me and my trailing leg caught under my bottom unable to untangle myself without falling over, luckily I had flo to catch me.
Pic: More pitcher plants
Pic: Back to jungle and even more mist!
Pic: This lady porter of less than 5 foot it carrying up what appears to be a very large television and video/dvd player. And she wasn't even pausing for breath, it put us all to shame. At one point we saw a guy carrying a couple of metal girders up on his back we asked 'what are they for?' he replied 'I don't know but they weigh over 60kgs'. That's close to flo's bodyweight
We got back to park HQ for a shower a a log fire. All sounds pretty chilled? Well lets backtrack an hour or so... we arrive totally done in to find Doris our lovely Proton had had her boot forcibly opened and some of our groups bags (not flos or mine) had been tampered with though nothing had been stolen. This was while the car was parked in the car park and our bags had been in secure lock-up. We were fuming, but they have not got much of a concept of customer service in Malaysia and we got no compensation - we even had to pay for our log fire!
Without flo's continuous support and selflessness throughout the climb I would never have made it. Every step of the way he was there for me and I was there for him. We both felt it had been a beautiful experience in many ways but especially from the point of view of our relationship. After taking on Mount Kinabalu I felt I could do anything I set my mind to. It was a like nothing else, it was life changing.
How we'll remember Mount Kinabalu
Flo: As all good road trippers know spontaneity's the name of the game so we decided to go next to Sandakan on the far east of the country. Our plan was to see one of only 3 orangutan sanctuaries in the world and visit Turtle Island to see turtles (surprise surprise!) giving birth and their egg hatchery.
We arrived in what turned out to be an armpit of a place. A dodgey sleezy port town. We stayed one night in Sandakan after finding out from the amazingly helpful tourist info office that Turtle Island would be prohibitively expensive and that the orangutans were best seen in the morning, which we had missed.
We decided we'd move on and had another mammoth drive to Semporna on the far south east coast, first having to pushstart Doris after her battery died. By this point I was getting better at navigating with our 'map', my directions to Dave generally went something like:
Flo: 'Oh a major roundabout, and oh what a surprise it's not on the map'
Dave: 'Ok well we're on it now what turnoff do we take?'
Flo:'Err there's no signs dude!.... Take that one *pointing* it looks more main'.
Dave: 'More main?!?'
It was great fun! Poor Doris took such a beating though. The roads were appalling. Pot holes were the least of our worries. With no warning at all, often in the dark, the tarmac would stop and we dropped 3 inches into gravel track, parts of the road had subsided down into rivers or ravines and instead of fixing it the authorities had just placed traffic cones around the affected area. We had to keep our eyes peeled for dogs and cows and other wildlife that was just wandering around on the road. Our road-kill count was 2 frogs, numerous flying things and 1 chicken that made a nasty mark on the paintwork and knocked a plastic light cover off. We almost added a few very foolish Malaysians to that list who thought it was fine to walk down unlit main roads in dark clothing at night - to Dave's credit he may have driven fast enough for Claire to declare at the end of the trip that she would never get in a car with him again but he did drive very well.
We made it to Semporna and The Dragon Inn our hostel that was built on stilts over the sea! We got a lovely room and over the next 2 days, and 6 dives, Dave and I did the best SCUBA diving either of us had ever done. We sailed out to Puala Sipidan that was Jacques Cousteau's favourite dive site, and is consistently voted one of the worlds top ten dive sites.
The visibility was unbelievable. 30-40 meters. Underwater you couldn't move for sharks and turtles, and on the 1 1/2 hr boat trip back to the mainland on the first day we saw a huge school of Pilot Whales that swam with the boat and then flying fish. Amazing. I felt privileged to have been there and seen all I did.
Pic: Flo on the boat out to Sipidan
Pic: A view of Sipidan to show how calm the sea was. The whole 1st day of diving it was like a mirror
Pic: An example of the water clarity - you're looking down 30 meters
Pic: With vis this good you hardly even need to get in the water!
Pic: The pilot whales that swam with our boat
Pic: A jealousy shot...heehee
Video: Often we saw turtles on the surface but this was the only time I got my camera out in time so not the best example of what we saw
Links to some pics of what I saw while Scuba diving - these are not my photos.
-Saw a 2m Leopard Shark
-A shot that shows the leopard shark's distinctive tail
-A reef (non oceanic) hammerhead shark was seen for the briefest of moments at the edge of the waters visibility
-Green Sea Turtles were so abundant that they became the norm. I couldn't count how many I saw swimming or resting. At one point we saw 5 at once. Some were my height and I stroked one of their shells - it was like slimy rock
-Hawksbill Sea Turtles were just as common on our dives as their green cousins
-We saw 2 Octopus, well I say saw, but they are VERY well camouflaged.
-On the 2nd day we had to rush into the water as a HUGE school of 1 to 2 meter humphead parrot fish we chomping through the reef. They were there at the end of the dive too surrounding us.
-The pilot whales!
- Others included sea horses, white eye moray eels, HUGE all enveloping schools of Giant Traveli that spiraled around you for meters in all direction, lionfish, massive schools of batfish, strange fish with unicorn style horns that I never found the name of, the list goes on and on.
We left Semporna after 2 days and drove north for a good few hours to Sepilok, just by Sandakan, where we stayed the night in a grotty jungle infested room - once upon a time all the ants, spiders, beetles and bugs would have freaked Claire out but she was cool as a cucumber. In the morning we rose a bit woolly headed after a night of drinking and paying cards (mainly Indian Poker) to go to Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary. Where we waited for a few hungover hours til a big ginger ape came out of the undergrowth to scratched his balls in front of a 100+ adoring visitors. Ok I was a little annoyed at seeing so little after the relatively expensive fees but it all goes to a good cause and the 1 orangutan we did see was impressive - he could hold 4 bunches of bananas at once, and peeled them as he ate with both feet and hands.
Pic: Orangutans are the official state animal of Sabah. The word derives from the Malay and Indonesian phrase orang hutan meaning "person of the forest"
Vid: The big guy
It was a little disappointing to have come so far to see just 1 orangutan but that's what you get when it's nature - no guarantees, and it was nice to see them semi wild instead of behind bars.
We drove ever on and dropped into Sabah Tea for a bite to eat and a cuppa. After drinking a LOT of ice tea we continued our drive to KK and both Claire and I got some much needed kip, thankfully Dave didn't need any sleep as long as he had food - I have never seen someone so skinny eat so much. My main job as front passenger seat was navigation but if you asked Dave I reckon he'd say my most important function was endlessly feeding him biscuits, crisps and chocolate. In the end we gave up asking Dave if he was hungry and just said 'Food?' to which, with eager eyes, his reply was always 'Food? Food Now?'.
Vid: Harsh driving conditions
Pic: Sunset on the way to KK
Pic: The 3 of us with Doris after we got her washed before her return to the hire place.
Arriving safely in KK we met up with a local called Daniel who Dave had befriended. We got invited to a family party being held in a bar on the sea front and played cards and got drunk again.
We waved goodbye to Dave the next evening on the 9th of December as he rushed off to catch his flight to Thailand. 2 hours later Dave arrived back at our hostel grinning. Wrong day! He had turned up 24 hours early... so unfortunately we had to open a few more bottles of Tiger Beer and get out the playing cards again.
The next day we went our separate ways. Dave to Bangkok and Claire and I to KL.
Once back in KL we found our way onto the flight that would take us to Australia the place this whole crazy travelling idea started with. Both of us excited, apprehensive, waiting to see if we really could pull it off - jobs and a place to stay, or if we'd even like it.
Well lots has happened in Oz in the month since we arrived and all will soon be told - hopefully a hell of a lot sooner than this last update took. |
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| Coming soon to a blog near you |
[Dec. 6th, 2006|07:46 pm] |
Watch in amazement as Flo and Claire make an attempt on the summit of the highest peak in south east Asia. Will they make it and conquer the freezing cold and altitude sickness? Or will they flake out, give up and rest aching bones at the halfway guesthouse? Old friends are reunited, animals get killed and Flo gets to do some world class scuba diving... and discover how they got to meet the 'old man of the forest'.
All this and more! Coming soon to a blog near you. |
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| Bye Bye Bangkok |
[Nov. 24th, 2006|09:12 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Chiang Mai | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Sigur Ros | ] |
Claire: Maybe you remember us saying that we had a Thai massage on Ko Pha-Ngan which was really painful? Well we decided, since we had time to kill and sore feet, to go for a foot massage. Yes sounds relaxing i know, and yes it started out that way too, but a few mins into it they had their little sticks outs, and their tiny vice-like fingers, and they were pushing them into all the little tender areas of the foot. So painful. We had mistaken foot massage for foot rub. D'oh!
Flo: There was one plus side though! At the end of the massage you have some hot Thai woman pushing down with all her body weight on your ankles. Then it all gets a bit awkward: she walks her hands up your legs getting higher and higher (all the time you're thinking surely she's not going to go any higher... now that's got to be as far as it goes - starts praying the masseuse wasn't half deaf and had heard 'soapy massage please!'... think about that for one sec... yup you got it). She ended up with her hands either side of my crotch leaning all of her body weight on me. I just had my eyes screwed tightly shut trying not to giggle and feel like an awkward school boy (poor ol' Claire was in exactly the same situation as me... just not grinning as much). There is a reason for this, apart from me being so irresistible, they are apparently putting pressure on the main vein and artery that go to the crotchal region... which just happens to be either side of the goods.
After this torture (ehem... yes dear I swear it was torture) we went to watch the new Scorsese movie 'The Departed'. It was the worst pirated DVD we'd ever seen and totally ruined the film for us. We could only make out half of the words. They did have the subtitles on but, this being a Thai pirate, they didn't even remotely resemble what was actually being said. We saw some completely bizarre bits of text. Imagine: 'I feel I've just got to move on' becomes 'I neel befor your gong' etc etc... at least it made it funny.
As the string of bad luck continued we found we had been infested with Bed Bugs! We found they were all over the creases of our mosi net (one that I'd vanquished) and, when squished, full of blood which kinda explained this! These fuckers bites were the itchiest we'd ever had and they seemed to be indestructible. We thoroughly checked everything we owned for 3 hours and then moved rooms... and found 2 in there the next evening. We didn't know if we had brought them or if they were there to start with. Since they only come out to feed at night Claire had the ingenious idea of leaving the lights on and sleeping with eye masks! Although this did seem to work Claire was finding it harder and harder and was regularly 'freaking out' before bed with thoughts of blood suckers crawling all over her. She was really suffering from lack of sleep after more than a week of it when we had our knight in shining armour step in: Claire's brother put us up in a 5 star hotel for 3 nights. This place was lush - the TV was nearly bigger than our previous room!
We bought some cheepo pirate DVDs to watch too:
Clerks 2, The Illusionist, The Black Dahlia, Saw 3, All The King's Men, The Lady In The Water
We made best use of the facilities however by washing everything we owned in scalding hot water (to kill the Bed Bugs and their eggs - better that than use the only chemical treatment known to kill them, DDT). We haven't been bitten since and since our time in the President Solitaire everything's gone smoothly. We finally felt at ease again.
... and you'll all be glad to hear it's all gone great since then! ... but back to Bangkok:
We had gotten very used to Bangkok. No longer surprised by such delicacies as squid on a stick, liver on a stick, egg on a stick (seriously), Chicken Feet (I tried it but it was like rubbery bony gristle), or such products as Kangaroo Essence, Nipple Pinkener or Placenta Cream. Though we stayed 3 weeks in Bangkok we were still happy to be in this vibrant, bustling city.
We discovered the joys of http://www.youtube.com and spent many a baking hot afternoon in an air con net cafe watching new South Park (Make Love Not Warcraft (10:08) was amazing if you have any online gaming experience especially WoW).
For everyone at Edinburgh Central Library: I finally got to use my penknife for something more exciting than cutting up fruit n veg! This guy in a room down from us in Shanti Lodge had bought a really really cheap alarm clock and it had been going off non-stop from early morning till late night. Our neighbours got pissed off and found management to open the door but they discovered that this fool had put his own pad-lock on the door for extra security. What the silly boy didn't realise was that all that was keeping the locks in place were 4 screws. So with trusty penknife in hand I unscrewed the the lock, broke into the room, and took the batteries out of the clock leaving them on the bed. I carefully locked back up his room to the cheers of the surrounding backpackers. I can't imagine what that guy must've thought when he got back later to find his alarm clock on the bed with no batteries and 2 padlocks still untouched through the door lock.
Extras!... not too interesting left over misc pics and a vid from Bangkok:
Claire reading in Shanti Lodge restaurant/chillout area
A pic of Shanti Lodge a warm chilled out place
More Shanti
Even more Shanti
Vid of some yummy bugs for sale in the weekend market
Rush hour bangkok
Flo and one of many random elephant statues
We left Bangkok on Wednesday night (22/11/06) by coach for Chiang Mai in the far north. Our final destination in Thailand... how the hell did we end up with only 1 week left?! |
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| Bangkok Fights |
[Nov. 17th, 2006|10:06 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Bangkok | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | hopeful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Tool | ] |
Date period (Tuesday 7th - Friday 10th November)... ish
Flo:
We found our hostel lacking. Despite it's many positives (listed in last update) the place had no atmosphere and we just got grunted at by the staff when we said hello. It's amazing how much customer service counts for when you have alternative places to stay in all around you. So, despite still feeling very rough from my dental drama, we moved all the way to Shanti Hostel (all 5 meters down the road) and into a different world. A chilled out, friendly, haven with a great restaurant.
Probably Bangkok's most famous attraction is The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew. Built in 1782 this huge complex of palaces, royal mausoleums, temples and monuments is pretty overwhelming. The central attraction of the Emerald Buddha then is rather surprising in being only 75cm tall while golden structures tower all around it. The sacred image is always clad in one of 3 seasonal costumes (summer, rainy season and winter)... but not for us! We got to see the ol guy naked! Since we were there between rainy and winter seasons the Buddha was waiting that very day in his birthday suit for the crown prince to come change his costume.
Palace etc 01
Palace etc 02
Palace etc 03 demon painting
Palace etc 04 demon painting
Palace etc 05 demon painting
Palace etc 06 The previous King's mini Angkor Wat - he liked what he saw in Cambodia so much he had a wonderfully detailled mini relica made for the Thai people to see
Palace etc 07 A zoom into the mini Angkor Wat looks pretty realistic
Palace etc 08
Palace etc 09 a 'real' Naga for all my WoW comrades
Palace etc 10 - Half man, half err... chicken?
Palace etc 11 - Half angel, half lion maybe?
Palace etc 12 - 2 of the 6 Big Demon guardians
Palace etc 13 - seriously guys we know how he feels
Palace etc 14 - One of many shrines
Palace etc 15 - The Emerald Buddha's lil house
Palace etc 16 - Since he was naked this was as close as we could get, zoom in to see it
Palace etc 17 - cool Statue
Palace etc 18 - Minature garden
Palace etc 19
Palace etc 20
Palace etc 21 - notice the classical European style building with a very Thai style roof! Throughout the Palace we saw different cultures influence. The guide told us Thailand was the land of acceptnace
As you can probably sense from our photos it was impossible to capture what is was like being there it was all too big, too golden, too gilded, too coloured. Not to say it wasn't beautiful. We spent out on a personal guided to0ur to get more out of the experience which was well worth it since without description we were just looking at a load of pretty buildings and statues.
Bangkok has many sides one of which is definitely shopping, shopping and more shopping. We've experienced both nerve centres MBK (Mahboonkrong) queen of Shopping Malls and Chatuchak King of Markets. Both of which are staggeringly large.
MBK has 14 floors, but it's mainly the floor space each occupies that can disorientate you... it's just ridiculously big and you can lose yourself for hours. Can you guys imagine Claire in a shop with 14 up and 14 down escalators? Thankfully they also had some lifts but in one of the older shopping malls we had a classic moment when Claire froze up just before a down escalator and then couldn't get on it. She'd been great on them until that point but once she froze we couldn't get down. No lift, no stairs, stuck. We were there for about 15 mins with half the floors shop assistants staring at us, this really didn't put Claire at ease or help the situation as they had no idea why we weren't going down it. Some even tried to politley push claire onto it. Eventually much to their amusement they stopped it for us and after that Claire was fine on them again. Made for a funny 15 mins anyway.
Our trips to MBK were often motivated by the cinema on the top floor. We spent a few chilled out evenings (a bit too chilled with air con dropping the temperature to toe-numbing level) seeing some new movies for about 1.50 each which is pretty good. Unlike the UK you can go for the VIP ticket for 6 quid and you get a leather reclining sofa to sit in, a blanket, a foot massage waitered service... you get all that for the price of a ticket in the UK. sweet:
The Prestige 8/10 Great movie
Monster House 7/10 Good fun, exceeded expectations
The Guardian 0/10 Why oh why... we thought ah we're a bit bored and Kevin
Costner wasn't too bad in Robin Hood... WRONG. All bad,
all bad. I mourn those 2 and a half hours of lost life.
Casino Royal 5/10 Main comment 'Boy that was long'
Had a bizarre moment in MBK a few days ago when a large Arabic (Turkish maybe) looking guy grabbed me by the shoulders beaming. I was totally disorientated until I realised he was displaying me to his wife and family who had the video camera out! I started laughing nervously but the guy turned me round for a full view of my newly shaved dready mohawk. This hadn't happened since I lost the mohawk, all a bit weird considering I don't look too unusual anymore (I think?? half the people I see here have dreads)... I wish I gotten our video camera out and taken some of them back... heh.
Chatuchak Weekend Market was again a maze, a jungle, a behemoth. We went for 2 full afternoons and saw about 15% of it... we think, who knows! It sells anything and everything. Both of us got some new clothes and bartered our hardest for a tiring but fun couple of days. We had thought previously we'd buy large amounts of cool stuff, even handicrafts, and post it back to the UK in readiness for when we come back and set up home but with money being tight, and a long way still ahead of us, we reigned ourselves in. We decided to leave all that for the return journey perhaps as we've fallen in love with Thailand and couldn't imagine not coming back here.
Claire:
We've ended up not really doing much with our days but what we did do was quite tiring especially since we'd walk every where. Flo had been knocked back pretty bad by his wisdom tooth extraction. Neither of us thought it'd be much bother but he'd come out in the biggest mouth ulcers I'd ever seen, probably because we'd been doing to much for his body to handle. He was getting really weary throughout the day but his mind was being effected too. He couldn't remember anything, make decisions, find where we were going - some of you may think that this was what he was like anyways, but trust me he really wasn't with it. So I basically had to take charge of everything. Which was fine as I was able to boss him about and mother him. Which I'm good at.
Very soon though everything seemed to conspire against us and we both had to be there for each other. When one of us emotionally fell the other would find strength, absorb all the stress and reassure the other that it would all be ok. We leaned on each other and together we coped:
With the whole bank card mess behind us we thought we could let our guards down so on Thursday (9th) we decided we'd have an easy day I'd get my legs waxed, maybe go for a massage and then later that evening go to the Mai Thai kick boxing at Ratchadamnoen Stadium.
So walking along I found a place to get my legs done. I bartered them down from 450Baht to 350, which is 5 quid for both full legs, not bad... so as you do in Thailand I left my shoes at the entrance of the shop. I left mine inside under a chair. Flo decided he'd go and do some Internet while i got them done because the last time it took ages. Leg waxing here is pretty much pain free, because the wax is a lot thinner than at home which is good, I always found it so painful. It was so painless in fact that when finished the waxer persuaded me to get my bikini line done. Apparently I'd be 'beautiful' and it got her the 100Bhat back that i had bartered out of her. PS bikini wasn't as painful as i thought. I would do it again.
I went downstairs and my shoes weren't there. I thought 'silly Flo took my shoes, why did he do that?' then the manager told me some story I didn't fully believe about some guy having been in their salon and having loads of bags. Then some taxi driver picking up this guys stuff for him and he must have taken my size 5 Tevas into his taxi and driven off. All I could do was laugh in disbelief. I borrowed their shoes and went looking for Flo. Eventually I found him and he went to them to find out the story for himself and to get their address so we could go to the police and get a report number for the insurance claim.
We got lost a couple of times looking for where the Lonely Planet had said the tourist police was (alarm bells should have started ringing straight away). Eventually we got on the right track, after hours in the heat of the day, and realised that it was just up the road from the Mai Thai stadium we were going to later that day. Ah we thought 'things can't be that bad today after all'. When we got to the correct street we popped into the Tourist Office just to check exactly where this Tourist Police Office was, but to our dismay we were told it had moved 5 months ago to the other side of the city. Not only that, we had to report the crime in the Local Thai Police Station where the crime happened.
So we trudged all the way back to Banglamphu Police Station which was literally just down the road from the beauty parlour and reported the case of the stolen shoes. There was no Poirot unfortunately just the rudest, least helpful people we had met in the whole of Thailand. Eventually we got a report out of them and, after our disgraceful treatment, we had just enough time to walk all the way back to the Mai Thai stadium in borrowed uncomfortable sandals. I could only walk at half the pace and ended up getting blisters.
Despite the terrible day we'd had once at the Mai Thai we had a really good time. It was definitely the real deal - on Samui etc there was Mai Thai every night but the local friends we made told us it was the same rubbish fighters every night and was purely for the tourists, Bangkok was the place to see it. On each match Flo and I would pick a corner colour and back that fighter hoping that he would win. In the end I won 7 matches out of 9 if I was a betting woman i would be really rich but it would be too hard to make a bet in all the chaos. As you can see in the 1st video they did these bizarre hand movements and were shouting and running around.
Mai Thai Crowd - with us up in 3rd class in the thick of the betting - 1000 Baht for us since we're farang, Thai's get in for a fraction of that price
Mai Thai Fight 1
Mai Thai Fight 2
Mai Thai Fight 3
A vid of the betting crowd
Video not the main event but a good fight - notice the guys hands raised in silouette gesturing for the bets
The interval performance - not real fighting just for show like proffesional wrestling
The main event vid 1
The main event vid 2
I had a great time and would definitely go again.
The next day was Insurance Day, another terrible day that pushed us both to our stress limits.
Flo got through to his medical insurance no problem to reclaim the 20 quid for the extraction and follow up where she removed his stitches and, shocked by the ulcers in his mouth, prescribed him some medication. I had to ring another number but only between 9am and 5pm UK time. We went off did some bits and came back tired, but tried to ring the insurance on a 500 Baht (nearly the same as half of Flo's dental costs) phonecard and get them to ring us back on to the hostel's phone, but it never seemed to work. We had to call them back five times, ended up on hold and wasted all the credit in the process. We felt defeated: Flo couldn't find a place to do an international Fax of his dental report for his claim, I couldn't speak to the insurance for mine. All the time and phonecards we wasted pretty much cost us what we were trying to claim back! It seems impossible to actually use these services we've paid for if you're backpacking.
This posts getting very long so we'll leave it there for the mo, more bad luck to come... but don't worry we're still laughing! |
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| Bangkok Lights |
[Nov. 15th, 2006|02:41 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Bangkok | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | drained | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Terrible Thai Soap Opera | ] |
(Dates covered: Thursday 2nd - Monday 6th November)
The Boat/Night Bus to Bangkok was to be an organised and sensible affair but as always we have to muck it up some how... we had purchased a couple of Valium to put us to sleep... yes I'm sure you can see where this is going already (memories of Spain 04's sleeping pill night coach experience still burned into our memories). So at 18:00, half an hour into our journey, we took our happysleepy pills. This may seem early but we had a 5am arrival. Half an hour later they still hadn't kicked in and the coach stopped! We were to have 1 & 1/2 hours food n toilet break... THEN they kicked in. We waddled off the coach and did our best to get some food and spent the final hour in an Internet cafe while our brains were in the process of totally shutting down (poor ol' Richard took the brunt of our silliness on msn). It was pretty funny it got harder and harder to think at all, and all we could do was giggle at our own uselessness. We got back on the coach and slept like the dead.
At 5 am we went to Tavee Hostel in the Thewet district of Bangkok, apparently the over 30s area! It's 15 mins walk north of Banglamphu, the more famous backpacker district. The hostel seemed nice at first, very very clean, authentic Thai decor and wood carvings everywhere with great rooms for the price.
Once the sun had risen we headed for the Bangkok Tourist Office and passed the local Thewet market on the way. We saw a few choice items (these are cockroaches right??) along with buckets of still live seafood (eels, terrapins, frogs, fish, crabs etc.) and the usual exotic fruit n veg.
We weren't 30 mins out the hostel before we were nearly con'ed with a Bangkok Special. We had read about these guys in the Lonely Planet. We had practised how we'd deal with them. We knew they'd be there.. and still they nearly got us!
The scam goes as follows:
A friendly Thai male approaches the noob visitor and strikes us a conversation.Sometimes the con man says he's a university student, other times he may claim to work for the world bank or a similarly distinguished organisation. They may tell you that the sight you're off to see is closed for a holiday. Eventually the conversation works it's way around to the subject of the scam - the better con artists can actually make it seem like you initiated the topic. They then say they can get you in a tuk-tuk (tiny taxi/motorbike/rubbish bin with a motor in) for a sightseeing tour or to take you to another attraction and then before you know it you're in a shop in a high pressure sales situation at silk, jewelry or handicrafts shops.
Ours was a variation on the usual theme but even so WHAT SUCKERS! Thankfully Claire had her wits about her and as soon as she heard 'cheap Tuk Tuk' she marched me off saying 'No no no no no!'.
Throughout our time in Bangkok we've been approached by these guys numerous times, they're so easy to spot now. When they ask the standard 'where you from?' we now tell them 'Scamland' they just look confused and say they don't know where that is.
So con men conquered we made it to the tourist office and found out that we had arrived just in time for the festival of Loi Krathong. During this time Thai people float small floating flower arrangements with candles and incense down the river and there was a boat decoration competition.
Loi Krathong info poster
Flower Floats 1
Flower Floats 2
BBQ Bananas! While waiting for the ferry to see the boat competition
Claire waiting on the jetty
A small selection of the many decorated boats, we cheekily sat in a river view cafe in a prime spot for the proceedings for 6 hours sloooowwly nibbling at our food (of course the cheapest stuff on the menu) and drinking 1 bottle of water between us:
Pic:Lit up boat 1
Vid:Lit up boat 1
Pic:Lit up boat 2
Vid:Lit up boat 2
Pic:Lit up boat 3
Vid:Lit up boat 3
Floating flowers in the park looking romantic
Floating flowers in the park under the harsher light of a flash bulb making it all look like a big pile of rubbish
I had made an appointment at the dentist to check out my wisdom tooth as I was fed up with the random bouts of agony it was inflicting on me. She said she would remove it for me if I wished and after thinking it through carefully we decided it would be best just to be rid of the dam thing.
Skip the pics of the tooth if you think the idea of seeing a bloody wisdom tooth is minging.
The Vid Before
The Vid After
Tooth 1
The tooth 2 - note the rare 5 roots, one of the reasons it was such a bastard to get out the dentist said
The experience wasn't one I was looking forward to - having had my first ever filling 4 months previous and the anaesthetic not working. The Bangkok dentist was great though the slicing, crunching, scraping sounds coming from my mouth were the only disconcerting part of the procedure. Apart from the long periods of time when the dental team were talking in Thai - and my paranoid brain was translating it into 'Oh no I've severed the main artery! We'll have to go in from a new angle... bring me 10cc of morphine stat. I'm not gonna loose another one, not again!'.
So you guys remember how on Ko Tao we couldn't find an ATM that would accept any of our bank cards? Well in Bangkok we were having no luck either. We were running out of money fast, despite our thriftiness, and had to call home.
Calling home would be pretty simple one would think, but nooooo once again it all goes tits up for us and we bought the only phone card in Thailand that doesn't work in any phone booths. 10 phone boxes later, in the heat of the day, at the edge of cracking up we begged the 7/11 who'd sold us the card to let us use their shop's land line. We forgot about the clocks moving 1 hour in the UK and rang Annette at about 6 am on a Saturday morning. Ooops! She was amazing as usual and got to work kicking some Nationwide butt. We found out later that day what had happened:
When Claire's debit card got swallowed in Ko Samui Annette (who has power of attorney for both of us) cancelled the card and asked for a new one to be sent out. Nationwide decided that what she had meant was 'Claire and Flo are dead I want you to cancel both their debit cards and reissue the cards to me and send them in your own sweet time with my name on'.
This had coincided, very unluckily, with Claire's Irish bank card deciding it didn't recognise her pin anymore and we had to wait for a new one to be sent out.
We didn't know if mt debit card would be reactivated or not. It got to Monday we were still waiting and had 7 Baht (about 10p) left in our collective purses. At this point Annette took matters into her own hands and wired us an emergency 100 quid. My bank card got reactivated late on Monday night.
What a mess!
Soon to come:
Be shocked and amazed by the unbelievable strings of events and circumstances of bad luck that befall us over the coming week... seriously guys it's been one of those laugh or cry weeks. |
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| Underwater wonderland |
[Nov. 11th, 2006|08:27 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Bangkok | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | exhausted | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Hippy Hostel Music | ] |
Flo: Ko Tao has to be my favourite place we've been so far. It felt like home, like Edinburgh did when I first got off the train all those years ago. That good gut feeling you get deep in your... err... well in your gut!
*** The differences we noticed between Tao and Samui/Pha-Ngan ***
1. Almost no girly bars.
Finally we could sit down for a drink, rare as it was, without the sleezy feeling
of being in a bar half full of loud western white middle-aged men and half full of
stunning thai women wearing very tight clothes.
2. Connected with (1.) Not having to see the embarrassing sleezy Nana couples every
few seconds.
For those of you who don't know what I mean by nana couple it would be described
thus: Older 'farang' man with dyed reddish hair, beer belly, a wallet full of
pension who 'somehow' happens to be walking round with a gorgeous young thai woman
or man, or sometimes something inbetween. There is no aparent shame in this sex
tourism and it is seen as the norm in many areas of high expat (someone please
explain to me what expat means or stands for I dunno - I just know 'em when I
see 'em!) population such as Samui.
3. Samui was relaxed but Tao was super relaxed, totally chilled laid back atmosphere.
There was no pressure to buy stuff as you passed a shop or browse in it. Thailand
wasn't as 'bad' as Malaysia for being hassled but on Ko Tao they didn't seem to
care if you were there or not! Just like in the UK! Execellent!
4. Fewer massage parlours.
There were a few, just not one for every 3 shops you passed as was the case on
Samui with the oh so familiar call from 3-10 women in unision "Haallllo
Massaaaasse for yoouuuu?"
*** ***
We chose to stay with Big Blue Diving Resort right on Sairee Beach. I'm really sorry we don't have any decent photos of our time at Big Blue my only excuses are that a lot of the time was spent diving and the rest was ...err.... well we just couldn't be bothered to get off our asses cause they were embeded in huge beanbags, or thai triangle matresses, with soft lighting and chilled funky music, with the sound of the sea lapping on the shore.
Like Ko Tao Big Blue felt 'right'. The combination of friendly helpful staff/instructors combined with a 50% discount on our accommodation if we did scuba diving with them made for one of the best times of the trip. We would stay there again no question.
SCccUuuUBbbbBAAaaaa! ehem... scuba:
The main, if only, reason for us going to Ko Tao was to Scuba dive. I had dreamed of taking my Divemaster qualification at Big Blue. This would have taken me to the 1st while we travelled. My dreams were shattered however when I found that it took a minimum of 4-5 weeks and preferably close to 2 months to become a DM. I decided that instead of being down in the dumps about my miscalculation (Ithought DM coudl be achieved in 10 days) I would enjoy my time on Ko Tao and fill it with pleasure dives and get qualified as a DM in Australia instead.
It had been over 5 years since I'd last tasted that chemically treated dry air but once I got back into it I couldn't get enough of it. It was hard not to skip along I was so happy after a good day of it. It was awesome! I dived pretty intensively getting up at 6 most mornings to this view:
View back to Ko Tao from Dive boat
Diving to depths of between 34m and 15m. By far my favourite dive was Chumphon Pinnacle possibly because I'm such a lightweight - I kept getting narced because of the depth, but mainly I got to see sharks for the 1st time! Lots of them.
Here are some of the underwater life I got to see (these are all linked photos since I had no underwater camera):
Black tip reef shark
Grey tip reef shark
Moon Wrasse that loved to 'clean' my ear cavity by dive boming it without warning.
Titan Trigger Fish that are VERY aggressive if you accidentally go near a nest, one diver previous to us had punched one in self defence (although he had gone in to piss it off on purpose to see what would happen) and he aparently mangled his hand up pretty good off it's scales + they have teeth. We gave them a wide berth.
Blue Spotted Sting Ray or the now renamed Steve Irwin ray
Some BiiG Pufferfish which never puffed up :(
Clown Fish or Finding Nemo fish swimming in and around their Anemone homes
The perpetually surprised looking and poutey boxfish!
2 of our favourite members of Big Blue were Ugly Dog and Squishie!,the dogs on Ko Tao were, just like it's human residents, lovely and chilled. It's bizarre in Malaysia all we saw were cats since arriving in Thailand it's been dogs.
Claire: I wanted to enjoy the Scuba experience because of Flo's passion for it and that he wanted to share this seemingly great experience with him. So I signed up for an 'Open Water' scuba diving course (the first diving qualification you can attain). I knew I was going to be very nervous becuase Flo and I'd been snorkelling 1 week before and that had been my first 'underwater' experience. At the start I paniced, spluttered and had the horrible feeling of not being in control. But eventually with Flo's help I calmed down and really enjoyed it loads, I didn't want to get out of the water.
I never felt very secure on the course but persevered (mainly for flo, but also to prove it to myslef) through all of day 1, but found the course went far too fast for me. I just didn't feel secure or safe and couldn't stop panicing, but when it was just Flo and I felt safe and calmer. By the end of the day I felt I should do some more snorkelling and get used to it at my own pace rather than going through, and fully pay for, a course that I really deep down didn't want to finish.
I got a headcold (with my hypercondria I was convinced that my temperature of 101 degree was dengue fever) and since I wasn't going to dive we upgraded to our first bit of luxury on this trip - an air-con rooom! So I could comfortabley sit and read, listen to music and write while Flo dived the days away. Not only was the room an air-con (still very cheap) but it was also our first hot shower and flushing toilet since London, but by far and away we were most excited by our fridge. We had a fridge :)
WE LOVED OUR FRIDGE! It was so lame of us, but I actually sent Flo out (yes I do have him well trained) to buy things that required refridgeration specifically so we could put them in there... then we found out other travllers had been doing the same and felt happier being part of the collective lameness.
Flo and I also celebrated our 3 year anniversay on Ko Tao which was meant to be a special and romantic day/night buuut in true Claire 'n' Flo fashion it all went horribly wrong. Both of us felt ill and Flo's teeth started to hurt, and I mean really hurt. They were hurting so bad he was curled up feotal most of the night. He also caught my headcold. Flo wanted to keep diving in his messy state but with all this going on we decided he could dive again later on in the trip. We decided to move on.
An additional reason for leaving Tao was that ALL our bank cards had stopped working, my debit card having already been swalloed by a dodgey ATM on Samui. My Irish emergancy card said the pin was invalid and Flo's Debit card said it was having a communication error. We paid for our time at Big Blue on Flo's Credit Card (the 5% charge we had to pay would have kept us for 1 day here - felt a bit robbed) and had to use some of our emergancy travellers cheques to tie us over til Bangkok where we thought the machines would be more reliable. We were running very very low on funds.
Not only have I now had maggots in my old toothbrush but on leaving Tao I found a baby cockraoch had made a nest in the bottom of my toothbrush holder. Sick or what?
Flo: So we decided spontaneously to leave Ko Tao and head for The Big Mango! or Bangkok as it's more commonly know (it's full title is: Krungthep mahanakhon amonratanakosin mahintara ayuthaya mahadilok popnopparat ratchathani burirom udomratchaniwet mahasathan amonpiman avatansathit sakkathattiya witsanukamprasit! Now you try saying THAT with a mouth full of jellybabies) by overnight bus, and that my dears is a new silly story all in itself...
Literary side note:
Current reading/audio book material-
I have to thank Megan from Edinburgh Central Library for recommending Anthony Beevor to me, 'Stalingrad' was outstanding and I can't wait to get round to 'Berlin'.
Also to thank Mark for telling me of Stephen King's 'The Talisman', now I just have to find the rest of the Dark Tower series in 2nd hand bookshops here (near impossible).
I'm currently reading Melville's 'Moby Dick' and it's a little hard going, so I've been working my way, slowly, through Keruoac's 'On the Road' on mp3 as a break.
Claire's been reading an Agatha Christie Priorot compilation but has not been very impressed with it and been listening to 'The Count of Monticristo' and 'The Man In The Iron Mask' by Dumas on mp3 |
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| The Final Day on Samui |
[Nov. 7th, 2006|10:13 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Bangkok | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  hungry | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Viggo Mortissen & Buckethead | ] |
Aaahhh it's been a while since the last update we keep leaving it too late!
So where were we, ah yes the final day on Ko Samui and what a day it was!
We had signed up for a Thai Cooking Course. These seem to be a common activity while travelling around Thailand.
We were picked up in the early afternoon by a Khrun (meaning Sir) Sont Sukhavachana the politest, best spoken, and friendlist thai we'd met. He drove us in his VW Camper hippy van, it was 29 years old and he left the back sliding door open for 'natural air-con!', calling it his baby.
We got a half hour tour of the local market taking in the local seasonings, fruit, veg, meat and sea food. He gave explanations, tips, ways of telling ripness or freshness, and shortcuts to working out whether a fresh herb would be good with a certain style of cooking even if you wern't familiar with the herb itself. The variety astounded us! 4 types of egg plant, 4 types of basil which we had not heard of before, more fruits that were alien to us than ones that were previously known. 3 stages of the coconut and what you can do with it... the list goes on and on. Now when we go round the markets here we have a vague idea of what some of the stuff is.
We cooked up our meals in his house with his lovely wife and son helping with the prep. It was just the 2 of us in the class. Claire preparing vegetarian versions of the meals and myself the original meat.
Claire at one of the cooking stations at the ready (some of the more observant of you may note the lack of ingrediants or food. We had already finished but thought it was worth a pic)
We were not only taught how to make the dishes but also about the ingrediants, cooking in general and how thai people eat them.
We made:
1. Poh Pia Tod : Deep-fried spring rolls
We made a sweat and sour cucumber dip to accompany them that was the nicest we'd tried in all of Thailand so far, Khrun Sont's own recipe.
2. Phad Thai : Stir-fried rice noodle " Thai" style
Pad Thai is the great! but was also the most stressful thing I've ever cooked - once all the prep has been done it takes seemingly no time at all. Everything has to be added in the right order with the right time interval between additions to stop over cooking or burning. After finishing this course of the meal, since we were eating everything we cooked, it was getting to be a struggle... but we soldiered on.
3.Gaeng Kiew Waahn Gai : Green curry soup with chicken (but were also instructed how to make Gaeng Phe Gai : Red curry soup with chicken)Was lovely too and was kept warm to be eaten at the same time as the final dish...
4. Priew Waahn Gai : Sweet and sour Stir Fry
We were especially surprised by how our preconceptions of 'sweat and sour', generally from chinese takeouts, were so far from the truth of traditional thai sweet and sour. The green curry also was subtly different from many we'd had before in all ways positive. A lot of this was due to our great cooking and mastery of the kitchen.... ok and maybe also Khrun Sont Sukhavachana's passion for teaching real traditional methods and his numerous years in the hotel restaurant industry.
Try as we might we couldn't finish the entire meal, even I was defeated.
Claire tucks into courses 3 and 4
Once driven back to our hostel we waddled down the beach with a bottle of Sang Som (Thai Rum, but also refered to as whiskey) and Orange Juice and sat looking up at the stars. We ended up seeing lots of shooting stars which Claire hadn't seen before. One of them was memorably huge - a massive blue and white streak across the sky fizzeling at it's end.
Whilst this display was going on Claire noticed some yellow-orange lights in the near distance (if that makes any sense). There were 2 to 4 of them at a time and the moved slowly in the sky and then other lights separated from them and dropped to the ground or sea (it was too dark to see detail). Some slowly moved horizontally , or up, or down or just disappeared, this disturbingly odd display went on for at least 10 mins... with years of world experience, a physics background and a healthy level of cynicism we concluded rationally that IT HAD TO BE ALIENS... only after a few more mins did we work out that they were paper mini hot air balloons being let off to drift into the sky at the far end of the beach.
My dreams that night were full of food related silliness including at one point Claire and I being dressed up in huge vegetavble outfits (I think she was a carrot and I was a corn on the cob) and we had to swim around a huge pot!
We left Beers House and their evil yapping rat dogs on Ko Samui and got the Catamaran to Ko Tao, and man was the boat fast! But on the choppy sea it was hard to even stand up let alone walk around. Claire laid down with a seasickness pill and within a couple of hours we arrived on Ko Tao.
Next update should be up tomorrow I hope! SCUBA fun, the start of our insane money troubles and my first hand experience of Thai dentistry. |
|
|
| Life on Samui |
[Oct. 28th, 2006|07:18 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Ko Tao | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  SCCUuUBBbBaA! | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Some new metal rubbish in the net cafe | ] |
We've been on Ko Samui longer than anywhere else since we started our travels. The main reason for this was my (claire's) detox and cleansing fast undertaken at The SPA Samui. I did the 7 day full cleanse and it was tough. I had no solid food but drank 5 silty detox drinks, 30 herbal supplements and colon cleansing tablets and 2 colemas each day! Amazingly the colemas made me feel better each time, but not for long, but by the end of the course I was hungry and weak but felt rejuvenated. During the experience a LOT of emotions were brought to the surface, this was normal I had been told, and it was a hard time for our relationship, but every hard patch we go through and get through makes us stronger.
We actually had to move rooms in our guesthouse to en suite since I was having to make far too many trips to the outdoor communal bathroom every night during the cleanse. Such a shame that the new room came with veranda a decent fan, shelves, and a hammock.
Vid: Claire in the hammock talks of her SPA adventure with no details spared be warned!
Claire relaxes in the hammock
The view from the guesthouse 1 - Lamai Beach
The view from the guesthouse 2 - Lamai Beach
Breaking my fast in style! Corn on the cod cooked on the beach!
I was especially pleased that I still haven't smoked! Over a month now and I'm starting to really feel the benefits. Since we started travelling I've also lost half a stone which was due to cutting out any junk food/drink and wheat and keeping to an asian diet (LOTS of rice!). Somehow being starved for 7 days only lost me 2 pounds but that wasn't why I went on it so i wasn't too bothered.
During my time walking to and from the SPA, we were staying 5 mins walk away down Lamai Bach Flo streched his top lobe piercing up half a millimeter, over deviled his devil sticks and broke them, and tried the infamous Durian or Bread Fruit that's so pungent it is illegal to have in airports and most hotels. He also met a nice tattooist who fixed his dreds. I had been maintaining his hair pretty religously but the salty water and sun had totally messed them up. The tattooist fixed his hair (every dred) to perfection in a rediculous 45 mins and showed me how to do it too.
Dred fixing 1
Dred fixing 2
Flo ate most nights round the corner from where we stayed in a local thai place. They didn't speak much English and although they were very nice I think they thought I was really wierd as I never ate anything while Flo gobbled up chicken fried rice for 30Baht, I had to sit and dream of food. They made some traditional sweet thai rice snacks that I made Flo try. I kept getting him to eat different things, none of which were described in english, since I couldn't - I had to enjoy food through watching him stuff himself and occassionally torture himself. See the spicey soup stuff below HAHA. I still don't know why he bothered to finish it all, I surpose he just doesn't like leaving food go to waste, even if it nearly gives him an ulcer.
We have no idea what any of these rice things were called!
My precious goo!
Pic: Hot Soup 1
Pic: Hot soup 2
Vid: Hot hot hot Soup
Vid: Fool me three times...
Trying to get around Samui is a problem if you want to be stingy bastards like Flo and I since it's a nightmare to walk. We tried to go from Lamai to Chaweng on the main road, the only one we could take, but quickly found that there was no pavement the cars used the hardshoulder and it was really very dangerous, after an hour we gave up and got a local island taxi having saved ourselves NO money! as we had to pay the standard rate.
Gotta love their signs
Talking of roads and traffic I've now seen an unbelieveable 5 people on 1 little scooter and the scarey image of a kid of about 10 driving off on a scooter too with his 6 year old sister on it.
We decided to spend the last few days on Samui doin activities and on Wednesday 25th we went on an excursion to the Ang Thong National Park just west of the island. The wonderful book The Beach was based there and we saw areas that had been filmed for the film of the book. We did sea kyaking, a little easy trekk to a gorgeous lagoon, and snorkelling. Flo didn't realise I had never snorkelled before and was making fun of me, all I had to do was to remind him that he had originally thought we were going to be kyaking from Samui TO the national park (4 hours round trip on a fast boat across open sea... yes dear). We also saw friendly jellyfish lots of sea anenamies and colourful fish, Flo kept diving deep to look at stuff I think he's really looking forward to scuba diving. On the way out the weather was terrible, lightning and heavy rain I got bad sea sickness but felt ok when lying down. Thankfully as we arrived the skys cleared and it turned into the best weather we'd had that week.
Blue Lagoon
Kyak fun
Lil Kyak Vid
Super Kyak-man!
Some of the crappest fireworks of all time later that night back on Lamai Bach
So far I love Thailand, the people, the food and the relaxed atmosphere... and their beautiful gardens. There's a lot more stil to see and I can't wait.
PS the Mosi's are just evil
Next update: leaving Samui and a wonderful cooking experience with Mr Sont of Siam Kitchen - See www.siamkitchen.net, and arrival on SCUBA paradise at Ko Tao. |
|
|
| Malaysia to Thailand |
[Oct. 18th, 2006|03:26 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Ko Samui | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  upbeat | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Max Romeo | ] |
Loooong update be warned!
We were up at 6 am to catch our boat from the island Kecil Perhentian to Kuala Besut on the Malay mainland. As usual the tickets we had purchased for the slow boat had to be upgraded to fast boat tickets because the slow boat no longer ran - one would ask why the hell they kept selling us tickets for it then!
We loved Malaysia but throughout our time there we've felt a bit like people were trying to squeeze us for every last penny they could. For example on the way to the Perhentians we had been told we had paid for a full transfer to the island in a coach with NO transfers til the jetty. Half way through the journey from Taman Negara we stopped at a remote restaurant to eat lunch (forcing us to eat where they want us to expensively) and did not get us back onto our nice coach. Instead a grumpy old taxi driver took us the next 200km... and he was insane. Not happy happy insane either but insane in the sense of overtaking everything and at any point in the road. I kid you not at one point we overtook an ambulance that had it's sirens on. It was probably coming from the horrific pile up we'd seen a few kms back I was praying that this wasn't an omen for us. Claire managed to cope with it by looking at her feet and not at the traffic coming straight for us. I coped by thinking 'this guy looks pretty old, he must be good at this or he'd never of made it this long'. I almost intervened when he was overtaking 3 cars (his record in our trip was 2 cars and 2 coaches in one) up a totally blind hill. As we were nearing the top on the wrong side of the road I moved to speak to him but he pulled in. His form of an apology was to laugh and tell us 'Don be scaret!'... he bought us each a Green Malaysia Orange kinda sweet kinda sour, I liked them.
Once at the jetty we bought our slow boat tickets, fine. Then there was the Perhentian conservation charge on the way to the boat (a load of rubbish as far as we could see from the rather dirty beaches we sometimes found), then the boat was the fast boat so that had to be paid for, once at Long Beach there was a charge for taxing us and our bags from the boat to the beach... as you can see we'd got a bit sick of extra charges not previously mentioned despite the fact that they weren't THAT much money to us.
Ok rant over, back to more current affairs.
We got to our guest house in Kota Bharu planning to stay a few nights there. We were surprised to find this town to be very clean and friendly and full of really REALLY nice veggie restaurants. Poor old Claire almost had tears in her eyes at the thought of not having to eat that odd green vegetable again.
Claire said she wanted to go to Thailand the next day and not hang around any longer. I was faltering thinking it was a lot of early get ups and a long way to travel and would we have time to organi..s.... we thought sod it, lets just go for it that's half the fun of this kind of trip.
We were up at 6am AGAIN! after little sleep headin for Rantau Panchang by local bus. Once there we walked a km or 2 out of Malaysia and into Thailand. Another stamp in the passpost! We entered Sungai Golok in Thailand and set our watches back an hour. Arriving at the train station before 8am. Unfortunately our train wasn't til 11:30, infact our ticket office hadn't even opened yet. We had left a bit too much margin for error and had 3 1/2 hrs to wait in the heat and we were shattered. We passed the time with trips to the local market for 'flied lice an chiken' claire having to make do with just simple flied lice.
We got on the train on time that would takes us through the dodgey muslim south and into the easy middle region of Thailand... and all for less than 400 Baht! We were going 3rd class (that's all there was) but you can't complain about an 11 hour journey costing you a bit less than 3 pounds. It quickly got cramped and uncomfortable on the train. People were quite rude and we'd been expecting the legendary Thai smile and a humble generous attitude. But we got pushed, stepped on and not a smile to be seen! Maybe it was a different attitude in the south.
We arrived 1 hour late in Phu Pin and were worried about whether we'd still be in time to catch the night ferry in Surathani to Ko Pha-Ngan. We got offered a lift in a sawngthaew (like a pickup with rear roof and 2 benches facing each other to sit on in the back) to the night ferry for 150 Baht. I was a bit offended at the idea of paying the same for a 10 min taxi as our entire train journey and so started to barter. I got him down to 120 Baht... in retrospect haggling over 30 baht (40 p) with time running out was probably not my smartest moment. But we got in the back of the truck, whose speedometer was at reassuringly at zero the entire way, a big excited grin on our faces and speed along (at zero km/hr) to catch the ferry. Please note that the ferry would more accurately be described as a freight carrier with a deck for smelly travelers to pass out on, and we did just that.
We arrived on the party island Ko Pha-Ngan famous for its legendary drug crazed Full Moon parties often attracting crowds of 12000 to Hat Rin Beach. We were pretty shattered (another get up at 5:30 after a few hrs sleep) but got another sawngthaew to Hat Rin from Thong Sala.
Our lovely room was en suite in a chilled out garden area. We had arrived just after a Full Moon and ended up leaving just before Half Moon. This suited us just fine though. We were up for a party and some fun, but the madness that went on at those times would have been a much for us currently.
We had our first beer in 3 weeks when we arrived - A nice cold gasey Chang
We went out most nights but ended up getting too drunk too fast on a lot of free promo drinks and the deadly Bucket Drinks - a seaside bucket filled with booze. The shots they poured ended up half filling the glass and we crashed out most nights before the party really kicked off on the beach... yes I know super lame, but we had fun and we tried to be hardcore like the old days! Also the fact that alcohol over here is so relatively expensive, 1 beer cost the same as a cheap meal for 2 that we'd prefer to spend our hard saved cash on things we couldn't do back home - like get off our faces.
Drunken off angle photo 1
Drunken off angle photo 2
We mainly drank at the Drop-In Bar on the beach
While on the beach we were entertained by a load of fire performers. I took loadsa photos and vids of them and thought they were great. Feel free to skip them if you like there's none of us in them and they're a bit repetitive. I just thought they were cool.
Fire Photo 1
Fire Photo 2
Fire Photo 3 - Wings
Fire Photo 4
Fire Photo 5
Fire Photo 6
Fire Photo 7
Fire Vid 1
Fire Vid 2
Fire Vid 3
Fire Vid 4
Fire Vid 5
We both got traditional Thai massage on a recovery day. I quite enjoyed the subtle blend of pleasure, forced stretches and torture... Claire on the other hand said she was glad she'd had the experience but would be going for the standard relaxing massage next time.
I bought some devil sticks after enjoying Mav's so much up in Edinburgh. I'm pretty bad at them (those who know me and my normal level of coordination can imagine the messes I end up in) but am steadily getting close to a rank amateur mastery of them. Oh and I also bought a NON-black T-Shirt! Yes a momentous day, a day to be remembered... I wasn't sure about it but it was dark red and UV orange so look out for it in upcoming photies.
We left Ko Pha-Ngan upbeat but realising it wasn't fully what we were looking for... it turns out Ko Samui was.
Here's a pic from the boat over to Samui to make you all jealous, next update in a few days to bring the blog up to speed.
Ko Pha-Ngan to Ko Samui sunny sea view
Side Note:
I know there's been cries for better photos but unfortunately all the truly 'classic' moments or shots have been when the camera was packed away! and Claire just doesn't like being in too many photos or at least having them broadcast over the net. But be assured that we're having a fantastic time with or without the camera. |
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