Asia . Laos . Tube-Mecca

February 28th, 2010 - March 7th, 2010

Vang Vieng, Laos

8,000 kip = $1

"Real backpackers" are philosophers and connoisseurs. They want cultural immersion. They want new tastes and new sounds. They want adventures (successes and failures). They want to share stories and dream of destinations. "Real backpackers" are dynamic. They are adaptive. For those unfamiliar with Vang Vieng before their visit, they must exercise this ability to "adapt".

Vang Vieng is about partying. A whole town sacrificed to backpackers. Cheap food. Cheap liqueur. Moderately cheap accommodation. Zero culture.

It really is hard to imagine unless you think of it as a "theme-park" for wannabe adults. ALL the restaurants have televisions which constantly show episodes of Friends, Family Guy or The Simpsons. The bars all serve alcohol as well as a variety of soft narcotics: special-smoothies, mushy-shakes, O-tea.. And then there's THE RIVER.

Pay 105,000 kip (60,000 kip deposit refunded if the tube is returned by 6pm) and you'll be provided with a big black inner-tube AND a tuk-tuk ride to some riverbank about 5km out of town. First thing you see when you arrive at the riverbank? A bar. A sketchy looking tree fort about 10m up. A pasty westerner doing some-sort of squat-thrust on the edge of the tree fort. A taut length of rope stretching from the westerner to the top of what looks like 10m long fishing rod. And then somebody swinging in a long slow arc over the river. Sploosh.

As you launch your tube into the river, you'll see similar scenes repeated all along the riverbank: bar, platform & swing, flying westerners. As you slowly float down the river towards the second bar you will be targeted. Water bottles attached to lengths of rope will be tossed at you by barmen "fishing" for customers. If they hit you in the face, you may get a free drink.

To help distinguish themselves from their siblings, each bar advertises "extras". Free french fries. 15,000 kip buckets before 11am. "Special products". Volleyball mud pit. Water slides. WATER SLIDES! There's a small one with a ~3m vertical and big one with a ~20m vertical. The big one is made of jagged cement and kitchen tiles. When you want to slide a guy dumps a bucket of water on the tiles and you GO!

After ~2km, the bars end. Most people make it to this point at ~3:30pm. The river is ~6.5km. Floating without effort yields a speed of ~1km/h. This means that there is no chance of making the 6:00pm tube-rental-refund-deadline. With this in mind a small army of locals wait at the river bank offering quick transportation back to town for a small fee. The first time we tubed, we had to make use of this service. The second time though.. We paddled till our arms just about fell off, allowing us to double our speed to ~2km/h. "Epic" AND / OR "legendary".

---

NOTES

• You don't go to Vang Vieng for the food, though their are lots of places to get pizza. You don't go to Vang Vieng meet Laotians, though there are lots of them offering lots of things, "real backpackers in Vang Vieng" want alcohol, water sports, new adventures and stories.
• You'll be riding the tuk-tuk with a hodge-podge of internationals -- one of which will likely have been repeating this trip for the past 7 days.
  

Asia . Thailand . Southern Islands

February 7th, 2010 - February 20th, 2010

So after seeing the markets, playing at haggling and riding in some tuk-tuks (asian open-air taxis), it was time to leave Bangkok and start our island-hopping adventure. But before leaving the city we had a morning trip to see the floating markets: a series of narrow canals with market stalls on either side of the water as well as on boats. A very attractive venue full of deliciously overpriced produce and deliciously well-priced soup (I love you tom-yum!).

After the market, we boarded our VIP bus to the islands. Below is a compressed and type-written version of my memories.

Bangkok to Surrathani Port (bus) - ~12 hours (overnight)

• The seats on the bus reclined directly onto the lap of the person behind you. Inadequate air-conditioning. Tried muscle-relaxants to help ease the path to sleep, which literally made my body useless -- Stephen Hawkins must sleep well!

Surrathani Port - ~4 hours

• The VIP bus dropped us off here. We waited. Half-a-day later a minibus picked us up and brought us to the port where our boat departed.

Surrathani Port to Koh Samui (boat, AC) - ~1-2 hours

• Fast boat. AC. Awesome.

Koh Samui (AC, pool, breakfast included) - 3 days

• This place had everything you need to relax: free breakfast, good market, crashing waves, a bar with swings instead of seats, a waterfall that required a sketchy-local-guide (you could tell he lived in the forest by his smell!)
• Looked for a Muay Thai match -- too expensive

Koh Samui to Koh Phanang (boat) - ~1-2 hours

Koh Phanang (fan, pirated movies, malfunctioning toilet / shower) - 3 days

• Koh Phanang is know for it's lunar-schedule parties. We planned to come here for a Black Moon party. Our travel agent Joe promised us a Black Moon party. Our tickets had us LEAVING on the day of the Black Moon party. Screw you Joe. Not a total loss though. The beach where the Black Moon party takes place has a party every night. Our evening went something like: empty beach party, empty pool party, drinking, crowded pool party, dancing, crowded beach party, drinking, dancing, crowded foam party, dancing, fire party, dancing, pancakes, home. For those not acquainted with foam parties, imagine slowly dumping 50 kg of soap into a laundry machine that is has a constant flow of water and an over-active agitatory. 3m of bubbles covering a 10m2 plot. One of Team Canada spontaneously evolved into a foam based creature and spent the whole night hunting the bubbly depths.
• Awesome Asian BBQ. Imagine a large pan with a softly peaked-centre and surrounding trough (like an inverted doughnut) placed on a pile of glowing embers. Grab meat / fish / other to grill on the peak. Fill the trough with soup broth and slowly simmer vegetables and noodles. Very hands-on. Very fun. Came with one scoop of free ice-cream!
• Looked for aMuay Thai match -- too expensive

Koh Phanang to Surrathani Port (boat) - 1-2 hours

Surrathani Port - ~4 hours

• Again, randomly at this port.

Surrathani Port to Krabi (minibus / van) - ~7 hours

• You know that litte bit of "middle-seat" that's between the driver and passenger? Well I hadn't sat there since I was a kid.. so it was pretty exciting to sit there for this 7 hour trip.

Krabi (fan) - 3 days

• Nice coastal city.
• Visited Reilley beach. A nice stretch of sand. Cool cliffs. The hikes to the viewpoint and lagoon are short, but well worth it. To reach the viewpoint you have to follow a path that is as close to climbing as a hike can be. To reach the lagoon you have to shimmy down a series of ropes that dangle over short, but dangerous drops.
• Looked for a Muay Thai match -- too expensive

Krabi to Koh Phi Phi (boat) - ~1-2 hours

Koh Phi Phi (fan, pool, 1000 steps) - 3 days

• Crowded, streets filled with tourists and a handful of necessary locals.
• Bars everywhere.
• Pretty expensive food (by Thai standards).
• Enormous number of free buckets (buckets of alcohol).
• Impressive fire shows.
• Accommodation was at the top of a hundred steps, which were at the peak of a hill, which was through a maze of streets. Luckily our accomodation sent a guide to meet us at the docks. The guide muled a single-axle baggage wagon so we didn't have to carry our crap -- thanks! We found out later that the baggage wagon could also carry people who were badly intoxicated (one of Team Canada was generous enough to be the drunken guinea pig).
• Looked for a Muay Thai match -- too expensive

The trip was everything you'd expect of a tropical island hopping adventure: warm and clear ocean, comfortably basic accommodation, cold beer, good food, good friends and good fun!

The Journey into Laos

February 27th - 28th 2010

We parted ways with Team Canada in Pai, Thailand. Brigitte and Christel went on a 2 day trek to some local villages and the other two girls got sick but decided to stick around for an extra day and do a bus tour to the villages. Tyler and I decided to take the long but cheap route into Laos since we weren't pressed for time and we would meet up with the Sisters Dorge (Bridge and Chris) in Vang Vieng in 2 days. That was when the journey began.

Although we were unable to find the local bus from Chiang Mai to Pai on the way in, we were able to take it in the reverse direction. It was a fun experience, the turns were much easier to handle on the local bus as they drive much slower than the maniac mini-buses so it didn't make anyone on the bus sick. Tyler befriended a travelling man named David who was visiting from Taiwan and we all investigated the overnight bus option from Chiang Mai to close to the Laos border (Udonthani). The bus was pretty reasonable and although we had about 6 hours to kill in the bus station at Chiang Mai, we just read our books while David went off to spend money in town and looked as if we were crazy when we said we just wanted to hang out there until the bus came. Save money whenever you can, is our motto. And we'd already seen the sights of Chiang Mai.

The overnight bus was pretty nice from what I remember, the bad bus trips are what really stand out in your mind and this wasn't one of them. We were able to sleep and although we got to Udonthani around 6am, it wasn't too tricky to wake up. We then had to switch to a local bus that was supposed to take us to the border. It played really loud music videos and was full of school kids who were grooving to the tunes. They dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and pointed vaguely in a direction and said 'Border, there...." and then drove off and left us to aswarm of tuk-tuks negotiating prices. David handled the negotiations and the tuk-tuk man was sketchy and took us to a visa office instead of the border, where they were trying to charge us a ridiculous amount of money for a bus to the border and our visa (which we knew we could get at the border and for way cheaper). We argued with our tuk-tuk man and he came around and took us to the actual border.... sneaky man.

The Laos border was relatively easy but we did have a minor problem. You were supposed to fill out your departure card and then you get stamped for exiting Thailand, before you go get stamped for entering Laos and getting your Laos visa. The man we visited on the Thailand side looked at our empty departure cards and made a gesture that looked like he was waving us through to go to the other side. So we didn't know about the stamp and thought everything was okay. He even handed our departure cards back to us and Tyler and I looked questioningly at them but our friend David said Oh, that's just for the next time you come here. We were stupid to listen to this. But we took the bus across the bridge to the Laos side and were told after waiting in line for our visas that we had to go back because we didn't have the exit stamp. Boy were we angry! We looked into how much the buses back were and they were 4x what we paid to come across to the Laos side, and it wasn't that far of a walk so we just said no, got really grumpy and made our way back to the Thailand side (probably about 1.5km). Halfway there a mini-bus pulled alongside us with our backpacks and everything on, sweating like crazy and took pity on us and gave us a ride back to the border for free. Nice people do exist in Thailand.

We filled out our departure cards, got our stamp, got our visas on the Laos side and finally made our way out of Dodge. Another thing we learned is that Canadians have to pay the most for their Laos visa - $42. We think this is because other countries get a discount for being involved in removing unexploded ordinance from Laos, but Canada is not a part of it (probably because we didn't drop any bombs here). So the border official laughs every time he comes across a Canadian and says 'Haha, you have to pay the most!' Yes, very amusing.

Quite the exhausting morning. We found our way to a local bus to Vang Vieng and arrived in the city by early evening. The bus drops you off in the middle of a dirt road with not much in sight but we found our way to the river and to our accomodation with very little struggles and so we were happy to have a bed for the night. And awaited Brigitte and Chris getting to town the next day.

Asia . Thailand . Bangkok . Pat Pong

February 4th, 2010 - February 7th, 2010

So, Team Canada met around midnight at Khao San Palace. Their first act was to walk the length of Khao San Rd. Sounds simple, eh? Well, let me tell you about Khao San. This road has a lot going on. You want clothes? It's got clothes: suits, t-shirts, hats, t-shirts, sunglasses, t-shirts. You want food? It's got food: pad thai, pancakes, fresh fruit, fruit shakes, fried insects, mystery meat! You want alcohol? It's got buckets (literally). You want illegal stuff? It's got illegal stuff: pirated movies, music, drugs, ID cards, prostitutes. You want knick-knacks? It's got knick-knacks: croaking-wooden-frogs, neon-tribal-hats, things-that-spin-and-fly. You want to be yelled at? It's got yelling: "HEY!", "COME LOOK!", "CHEAP-CHEAP!", "YOU BUY!", "NO?!?", "YES!!!", "LATER????", "NOW!". Needless to say it was a pretty overwhelming experience after hours / days spent flying, so Team Canada retreated to their beds.

The next morning (and pretty much all subsequent mornings) was started with a fruit shake. Mmm-mmm good. Energized, the team was ready to plan. The first step was to arrange travel visas for Christelle, Mel and Milaine. A polite policeman told us that unless we wanted to be drugged and robbed, we should go see a government approved travel agent for all our travel needs. A difficult decision, but we decided to take his advice. Walking into the travel agent's office we must have smelled like fresh sticky-buns: covered with money and steamy with stupidity.. Here's an approximation of the initial meeting:

"How can I help you?"

"We need travel visas."

"Ok. Where are you going?"

"Laos and Vietnam."

"When?" 1

"Around one month from now."

"Where are you staying?" 2

"Khao San Palace."

"Please sit down." 3

* We sit *

Friendly. Factual. Revealing. With this conversation, the travel agent determined 1 how long we'd be in the country, 2 how much we spent each day, and 3 how receptive we were to commands. In the end all 6 of us signed up for a two week island-hopping adventure in southern Thailand. Recall, we started out with questions about visas for 3 of us.. Making destination and accommodation decisions with a group of 6 is always a chore, so despite the disparity between motivation and resolution, we were all happy. Especially Joe (aka Mr.Travel-Agent-Man).

The rest of the day was uneventful. We ate (the best pad thai ever). We wandered (the Grand Palace). I think we swam.. Most importantly we decided that we weren't getting enough culture out of Bangkok. We weren't seeing Bangkok's "BANG!". We needed to see a show. We considered a Muay Thai Kickboxing, but it was way out of budget. So we decided on the next best thing: Pat Pong.

Pat Pong is a district of Bangkok. A collection of streets offering red-light services. Similar to Amsterdam, it has transcended the reputation of being a pervy back-alley, and is now considered a tourist attraction. The main draw is a skills-show. ..Vagina-skills. .. .. .."Vagina-skills?" Yep. It's important to note that it's a muscle.. So it can do "stuff".. "Stuff" like "holding things".. And "smoking things".. And "launching things";.. "Launching? Launching what?" Bananas. Ping pong balls. In fact, these shows are traditionally referred to as Ping Pong Shows.. Pat-Pong, PIng-Pong.. it's sort of a play on words. Y'know, sort of witty. Other noteworthy skills were whistling a whistle and blowing out candles (from a standing position to a cake sitting on the ground! Just like those old kung-fu movies where a master blows out a candle flame with his fist!). A good evening (mostly).

For those of you considering one of these shows, I have two point of caution. Firstly, the glasses that drinks are served in are big enough to accommodate a ping-pong ball. Moreover, the performers seem to consider themselves amateur golfers, so hole-in-ones are highly sought after. Solution: cover your drink or simply remove it from the driving-range / table entirely. AND for god's sake, if your drink does get "polluted", then show some respect for hygiene and DO NOT DRINK IT. Secondly, Thailand has it's share of scams. Don't be afraid of them, just expect them and being willing to laugh when they happen. When we entered the venue for our particular show, the street-advertiser said 100 baht per drink, which is about 3 times the usual price. No problem, this is how they make money. After looking at a menu with no prices, we all ordered one drink for a total of 600 baht. At the end of the evening, the bill showed 1800 baht. Upon questioning the bill a burly woman with an aggressive smell and glow-in-the-dark contact-lenses showed us a piece of paper:

MENU

Just show 1000 baht / person

First drink 300 baht

Non-first drink 100 baht

Pure scam. We ended up throwing a total of 1000 baht and then hurrying out.

Asia . Thailand . Bangkok . Team Canada

February 3rd, 2010 - February 4th, 2010

The trip to Bangkok was pretty straightforward. Our flight was early in the morning so we decided to just stay in the airport. The plan was to find a quiet corner of the airport, create a baggage-nest and sleep until the alarm went off. There were a couple of failures in the plan:

• instead of finding a quiet corner of the airport, we found it's noisy-neighbor the food court (the airport was not 24 hours, but the food court was)
• instead of creating a baggage-nest, we sat in hard-plastic-fast-food chairs (one of the fast-food managers told us it was inappropriate to nest in a food court..)
• instead of sleeping until the alarm went off, we lay our heads on plastic table and waited until the alarm went off

Arrival in Bangkok was easy. Just hopped off the plane and hopped on the shuttle bus to Khao San Rd. Checked into Khao San Palace, which included a rooftop pool, air conditioning, en suite bathroom and television. Not our usual style of accommodation, but "Team Canada" needed an easy place to meet!

Team Canada? Yes, that's right, "Team Canada." A carefully selected group of young Canadians brought together by chance in order to be awesome. Chance? Yes, that's right, "chance." Here's the how the roster was put together.. Tyler has a girlfriend: Jenny. Jenny had a coworker: Brigitte. Brigitte has a sister: Christelle. Christelle has friends: Mel and Milaine. Awesome! Awesome? Yes, that's right, "awesome". Here's some tabular data that describes all our awesome skills:

Name	Drinking Skills	Eating Skills	"eh"-ing Skills 1	Haggling Skills	Nursing Skills	Shopping Skills	"Pep"ing Skills
Dorge, Brigitte	¤¤¤¤¤	¤	¤	¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤	¤¤¤	¤	¤¤¤¤¤
Dorge, Christelle	¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤	¤	¤	¤¤¤	¤¤¤¤¤	¤¤¤	¤¤¤¤¤
Giberson, Jenny	¤¤¤¤¤	¤¤¤	¤¤¤	¤	¤¤¤	¤	¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
Lesage, Mel	¤	¤	¤¤¤¤¤	¤	¤¤¤¤¤	¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤	¤¤¤
Rondeau, Milaine	¤	¤	¤¤¤	¤¤¤	¤¤¤¤¤	¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤	¤¤¤
Speakman, Tyler	¤¤¤	¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤	¤	¤	¤	¤	¤

1 "eh"-ing Skills: ability to use the Canadian word "eh" in a grammatically correct way

EXAMPLES.

"How's it goin', eh? "

"I'm bloated, eh."

"Eh?!"

Curious about what will happen to Team Canada? Wondering about what adventures they'll have? Unsure whether the "nursing" skills will compensate for the "drinking" skills? Tune next time for answers to these questions and more!

Asia . Malaysia . Tanah Rata (the Cameron Highlands)

January 31st, 2010 - February 2nd, 2010

Kuala Lumpur was interesting, but it was also hot, humid and crowded. So after a couple days it was time to move on to somewhere a little more relaxed. Tanah Rata fit the bill. Situated in the Cameron Highlands the temperature was a couple degrees cooler, the humidity was less and the crowds were non-existent. Nice and easy. We stayed at the Cameronian Inn:

• beds clean
• prices affordable
• food good
• trekking available
• management strange..

The in-house food was pretty average aside from the scones. The scones are delicious because the setting is perfect scones. The mornings are cold. The Inn's garden is green and groomed. The tea is locally grown and brewed. It's nice.

The trekking was excellent. The guide, Yen visited the hostel almost a decade ago and never left. At some point he took on the local trails as a pet project. He hikes everyday at 10 o'clock with or without tag-alongs. He works diligently to maintain the trails: picking up garbage and cutting back growth. He's knowledgeable, social and keeps a good pace. The trekking information sheet says it costs 25R, but Yen never mentions the money so in the end it feels more like a well deserved donation / tip. In regards to the trails, they are comfortably challenging.15-20 minute up-hills followed by look-outs and meandering down-hills. The walk we went on passed through the tea fields, which carpeted huge rolling hills. Never seen anything like it. Also saw a good assortment of butterflies and some sizable pitcher-plants. Very cool. Lasts the whole day so bring water and snacks (or money for the cafe attached to the tea plantation).

The Inn's management was strange, but in a charming way. He was always about, hunting for conversation and servicing requests. Talking with him was circular and confusing, but there were some really interesting tidbits that have stuck with me.

Also of note was the business model for the Inn: honour-system. Pay on departure. The owner doesn't take passports or credit cards as collateral. He simply trusts people to do the right thing. And apparently people do! Aside from the paranoia it caused me, the system worked well (it felt like some psych experiment -- like there were hidden cameras everywhere!).

All in all the highlands were well worth the visit.

Tyler and Jenny

Asia. Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia (Continued)

January 28th 2010 - January 30th 2010

Although arriving in KL was a bit of a struggle, we settled in pretty quickly. We ended up staying in Chinatown, which was great for cheap deals on food from stalls but not so great for walking down streets with vendors constantly trying to sell their goods to us. Thankfully we have gotten good at just saying a polite 'no thank-you'. They were trying to sell us watches, purses, DVDs... anything you can think of. The food available was interesting. We're big fans of red bean buns - delicious! But a lot of vendors would have this weird meat patty that was fatty but they would dry out and grill and it was really pricey (for the area) and seemed similar to bacon. Very distinctive smell. Tyler was intrigued to try it but never actually got to. They made it in the morning at like 7am and then would continue to sell it all day. Very curious....

We discovered that Malaysian tea is not like tea back home. It was made from a powder and tasted like tea mixed with Milo/Ovaltine. Weird experience. The coffee was very different tasting as well, but still worth the experience.

Malaysian food was not very spicy from our experience but I think they toned it down once they saw that you were a westerner. Nobody believes that we can handle spice. Tyler discovered that the delicious soup 'laksa' has fish in it by default, and he did not enjoy the fishy taste. Lesson learned. All the other soup we had was delicious, and we even became accustomed to having soup for breakfast just like the locals (mmmmm bbq pork was our favourite).

The things we liked about Kuala Lumpur were the Lake Gardens - beautiful area to have lunch/breakfast. The National Mosque was fun to visit as well, they make you wear a light purple robe so that you are dressed modestly (even Tyler had to wear one). We also walked through a protected forest area to get to the KL Tower, very pretty walk. But once we got to the tower we saw that it cost double the price in our outdated book and decided we'd rather spend our money elsewhere. You get a nice view from the top of the forest area anyway. And the highlight of the sights we saw in KL was the Batu Caves - a place of Hindu worship. We went on a a day that was also part of a festival for the local Hindus, and there were a lot of parades that made our bus slow but were amusing to watch. You have to climb a few hundred stairs (but there were kids and old people doing it so it wasn't that difficult) in your barefeet and then walk around the cool cave at the top. There are different areas to get 'blessed' or give offerings, and it's a nice atmosphere. There were also tons of monkeys by the side of the stairs on one side, they got lots of offerings that day and would abandon half a banana to get some new piece of fruit (very wasteful monkeys). All in all the Batu Caves were amazing. And we sampled some delicious Indian desserts after in the market.

Also of note is the fact that a random monkey climbed me while we were walking back from the KL Tower and the forest reserve. He just came out of nowhere and grabbed onto my little purse strap (over the shoulder kind) and used it to climb up into my arms. Funny monkey. He then proceeded to do a bunch of different poses and was resistant when I kept trying to put him back on the ground, he'd just climb up me again. Eventually a guard finished laughing at the situation and said a Malaysian command and the monkey jumped off me. And I checked my wallet afterwards and the monkey didn't rob me.... I had my suspicions but he was just being friendly.

The bad part about KL was that it was very tricky to navigate walking through with a map. Going to the Lake Gardens was tricky and involved crossing multiple highways (which weren't really labelled on the map) and walking around in a few circles. But we eventually made it. Definitely a good test though. When taking the bus back from the Batu Caves we actually hit a car! It wasn't serious, the driver inspected and there wasn't really any damage but I have to say that's the first time I've ever witnessed it happening. We also almost got run over by a school bus that was having a bit of a breakdown and decided to park on the sidewalk. The door was jammed and the kids were trapped inside while the driver kept trying to pry the doors open with his hands. The kids had windows open and were pretty relaxed about it so maybe it happens all the time....

And the big disappointment for our time in KL was when we went to see the fireflies in a nearby village that was mentioned in our Lonely Planet guide. We asked about when the last bus back from the village was (because it had to be after dark) and the lady told us 11:30pm which was great news. So we took the 2 and a half hour bus to the village. Got there around 5:30pm and asked a taxi driver how much it would cost to get to the fireflies. He negotiated with us a bit and then was saying that he would drive us back to KL (at a very high price) because the last bus left at 6:30pm (before sunset even happens). We didn't believe him so we asked around but everyone told us the same thing, we would have to take a very expensive taxi ride back to KL if we wanted to see the fireflies. It was a huge disappointment and I was angry at Lonely Planet and the bus lady for giving me false information. If we had known about that then we wouldn't have booked our hostel in KL for the night and we could have stayed in the village nearby instead. But in the end it would have cost too much money to go to the fireflies and either pay accomodation in two places or an expensive cab back to the city, so we just took the last local bus back to KL. We were very disappointed but the highlights of our time there outweigh the bad. We're a little more weary now about things and that's probably a good thing. We'll be more careful in the future.

But this last disappointment led to us being tired of being in a big city so we decided to move on to the Cameron Highlands to enjoy nature and hiking. :)

Asia . Malaysia . Kuala Lumpur: The Asian Invasion

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

This is one big entry for one big day. It chronicles the trip from Brisbane, Australia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

There is a theme that is visited twice in this entry: my (Tyler's) retardedness. In both cases revolve around poor booking / reservation choices. The first instance involves our flight. The second involves our accommodation. Excuses can be made, but why? Enjoy.

We had been staying at our friend Bonnie's in Brisbane. Brisbane has a major international airport. When I booked the flight, I chose to depart from "Brisbane / the Goldcoast". Brisbane and the Goldcoast are not the same place. They are close, but the commute by car still takes about an hour in good traffic. The original plan did not involve a car. It involved feet, buses and trains:

• walk from Bonnie's house (our host) to Carindale mall, Carina
• catch a bus from the mall to South Bank station, Brisbane
• catch a train from South Bank to Robina, Gold Coast
• catch a bus from Robina to Coolongata Airport

The total travel time for this trip was almost 3 hours. Our flight departed at 9:00am. Due to constraints caused by last minute planning, we could not stay overnight in the Goldcoast (the components of journey to the airport were not mapped out until the day before the flight..). Due to constraints caused by the schedule of public transport, the actual trip couldn't start until around 4:30am. This means that the earliest we could arrive at the airport was 8:00am. Yielding a mere hour to traverse the check-in process: check bags (15 mins), security screening (10 mins), find flight gate (10 mins), and deal with unforeseen issues (? mins). Worrisome. Enter Bonnie. We love Bonnie because Bonnie is awesome. Awesomeness in this case translated into her driving us to the airport, before going to work. So instead of having to "walk, bus and train" our way to the airport, we instead "sat" our way to the airport. Also, instead of waking at 4:30am and arriving at 8:00am, we slept until 5:00am and arrived at 6:00am. Brilliant (thanks Bonnie!).

The airport check-in went smooth. We had to go through two security check-ins: one for the main domestic terminal and a second for the international terminal beyond. This was atypical. Apparently the international flights are more worried about terrorists than domestic flights. I guess this means that most terrorists are international. Which begs the question what happened to domestic terrorists? The Uni-Bomber, that Timothy guy with the van, ..others?

The flight was similarly uneventful. Barely noteworthy things included:

• seats that refused to recline
• learning that outside food was not allowed on the plane, then trying to sneakily eat our homemade lunches (several lemon-pepper tuna / spicy tuna sandwiches and a bag of dried apricots; yum)
• a patch of turbulence that made me feel like I was playing on a swing-set

NOTE: the next bit has been compressed to save you time; it's also written in the present tense (I don't know why)

We arrive in Kuala Lumpur. Our first mission: exit the airport.

Collect backpacks from conveyor belt. Exit the new arrival area where the help desk is located. Realize we need some help to find the buses. Realize we cannot re-enter the new arrival area where the help desk is located.. Notice the humidity. Begin to sweat. Withdraw 400RM from ATM (3 Ringgits Malaysian == 1 Australian Dollar == 0.95 Canadian Dollars). Search for buses, find trains. Search for buses, find families. Search for buses, find taxis. Search for buses, find buses. Buy ticket from first vendor who flashes us a smile. Enter bus. Notice the AC. Sweat turns to frost. Shivery ride to KL Central. Exit bus. Frost to sweat. Notice the Malaysians. Dark hair everywhere. Purchase LRT ticket for China Town / Pasar Seni (1 RM == 0.33 AUD == 0.3 CAD). Enter LRT. Sweat to frost. Exit LRT. Frost to sweat. New mission: find hostel.

We meet a nice English girl who's lost. Look at her map and decide we all need to go in the same direction. Start moving. We realize we're lost. We realize we're not lost. She finds her hotel. We find our hostel. New mission: check in.

We check in. We TRY to check in. They can't find our reservation. Confidently I ask to use their Internet to show them my reservation email. Recall, there is a theme. Upon bringing up my reservation email I am informed that I reserved a room for 2 nights, starting February 27th, 2010. Today is January 27th, 2010. The hostel is fully booked. The manager says Jenny and the bags can stay in the waiting area while I go search for accommodation. He lends me his copy of the Lonely Planet to help facilitate this. I determine my destination: a double room with AC at The Original Budget Backpacker Travellers Inn (44 RM == 15 AUD == 14 CAD). I move. I'm on mission. I'm running ("lightly jogging"). This surge of activity acts like a catalyst for my guts. The relationship between the spicy tuna and apricots becomes "excited". Bubbles form, bubbles burst. Images of Earth's primordial ooze. The ooze is in my guts. It's trying to create life again. I turn some corners. I'm whizzing past people. The Lonely Planet in my hand. I carry it close to me. It's the traveller's bible. It lets people know: I'm a tourist, I'm important to the local economy, they NEED to get out of my way. I see the red sign for the hostel. There's a room available. I book in immediately (ignoring my dreams of haggling). I start to make my way back to Jenny. I'm glowing with sweat and success. Bubbles form, bubbles burst.. Life is stirring.

I make it back to her. Bags on our backs, we're moving to our new home. I see the red sign for The Backpacker Travellers Inn. I follow it down a road I don't recognize, into a lobby I've never been to.. I ask myself the question: Where am I? A sign clearly answers me: The Backpacker Travellers Inn.. The attendant smiles at me. I think he thinks I'm stupid. I smile back! Retreating out the door, Jenny in tow. I return to the red sign and notice another red sign labelled: The Reggae Guesthouse.. Then I notice ANOTHER red sign (same font face and same font colour!) labelled: The ORIGINAL Backpacker Travellers Inn. We're off! We find it. Our room already has the AC running.. Awesome. Bubbles form, bubbles burst. New mission: toilet.

Easy. Down the hall. Open stall door, close stall door, lock stall door. Drop pants. Chocolate babies (LIFE!). Success. Awesome. And yet.. Eyes widen with realization of a flaw: where's the toilet paper? Shitshitshit. New mission: hygiene.

I'm looking around: a sink, a bucket, a bar of soap.. Rejected. More looking: a hand held shower head on the wall. Weird. I strip down and hang my clothes on the door. I'm trying to imagine some sort of power ballad (I don't want to half-ass this). The french have a word for it. The French are gross (no offense Jeremy). "Bidet".

After this, things get "technical" and not really worth retelling.. Anyways, success.

We ended up eating at some food stalls in the market. The rumours are true: delicious.

Guess that's all,

Tyler & Jenny

Brisbane, Bonnie, Brigitte and lots of Bundy!

Tuesday January 19th 2010 - Wednesday January 27th 2010

We were really spoiled during our stay in Brisbane. My friend that I met while working in Scotland, Bonnie, let us stay at her place (which she shares with her sister and her sister's partner) for the entire week, she picked us up from the airport and picked Brigitte up from the Gold Coast airport as well and let her crash at her place as well. We were quite the crowd and tried to pay our way in food and drinks to make up for the inconvenience. She has the cutest puppy that was so happy to have lots of people around and just tried to lick our feet and faces all the time (for some reason those were her two favourite body parts).

Bonnie was also our tour guide and took a fake sick day to take us to the beach. We played in the rip tides (as tourists do), had a barbecue and bundy rum with coke while trying to fish. Bonnie got a bit sunburnt during the day off and got teased at work the next day, but not fired so we were happy about that. :)

Most of our time was spent relaxing and getting ready for our big Asian adventure. On the week-end was the big reunion with Renee and Kempy joining the Scotland gang party and helping to fill the house. More barbecue, bundy and beer were enjoyed. :) Plus some wii games and competition was fierce.

For Australia day (Tuesday January 26th) Bonnie took us to her home town of Killarney and we got to meet her parents and they fed us for both lunch and dinner. We also went exploring and got to see beautiful sights, lots of waterfalls and we tried to catch crayfish in the river. I was the only one who had any success but had to put him back since barbecuing one crayfish won't feed 6 people. We're learning new skills though. I think maybe the crayfish like potatoes more than old beef.... we were more successful in Singleton. Bonnie's mom makes excellent chocolate slice, we were hooked and ate a lot of it. :)

More time on the farm

Monday December 28th 2009 - Monday January 18th 2009

We were on the farm for Christmas and New Years - both passed by pleasantly enough. We had to work a lot over the holidays as our supervisor was trying to get a lot done as the owner kept calling him with new tasks to do. Tyler was working pretty much every day, and Anja and I alternated days as we were both doing the same task - herbicide. All 3 of us finally had a day off together - New Year's Eve - so we took the bus in to Darwin (as we weren't allowed to take the car past Humpty Doo) and spent the day in 'the big city'. It was a nice day, we got a lot done that we had waiting and managed to see our first movie in 6 months - 'Sherlock Holmes'. We played cards and made a big dinner for the 3 of us, drank sparkling red wine and toasted to the new year while watching the huge fireworks display taking place in Sydney on tv.

The next few weeks were pretty rushed as Darryl wanted us to get everything done before Tyler and I had to leave (Jan 19th). Since all the herbiciding and insecticiding was done we got new tasks in the new year. Tyler got the hardest job of all - centuring. He had to use a chainsaw and bend down low and make a ring near the base of each mango tree. This makes the tree flower later so that the fruits don't come out too early. The farm had 11,000 trees so it was a pretty big task for just Tyler and Andrew. But they got it done!

While the boys did the chainsawing, Anja and I got to do cultarring, which was also pretty difficult. Cultar is used to stop the trees from growing too big and to make it easier to pick mangoes from them but have more mangoes in a small area. We basically just had to carry 10 litre buckets of the special cultar potion and pour the designated amount on each tree (depending on size, health and type of mango it produced). We got very strong shoulders and arms from pouring and carrying the buckets up and down every row. Darryl drove the truck and filled the buckets with the magic potion, but it was mostly Anja and I that did the carrying and squatting required for the job. We had to pour the liquid at the very bottom/roots of the tree. We also had to fight a lot of ants and try to pour the liquid before they climbed up your leg in order to defend their homes. Very vicious!

The rain ruined a few of our days but not enough that we couldn't finish on time. And since we finished on time we got rewarded with a fishing trip in our boss, Barry Albrecht's boat. That was lots of fun. I was not a very good fisherman, but Tyler caught the biggest fish of anyone on board. And the fish was delicious, Barry even cleaned all the fish for us and we got to eat fresh fish for the last of our days on the farm. So tasty! The type of fish that we mostly caught was Snapper, and it's one of the best in Darwin's waters. Definitely going to try fishing when we're back home in Canada. Anja ended up getting seasick during the voyage, but she did catch a little guy that was big enough to eat. The only fish I caught was a throw-back... but I did manage to catch a lot of other people's lines. So that counts for something....

Our end on the farm was kind of anti-climatic as we were planning on going into Darwin to spend time with Anja and look around in some stores. But since she was staying on the farm to work for a few more weeks, Darryl told her she had to work that day so even though we'd made other plans, she was stuck working all day and we just relaxed and got ready for our night at the airport in preparation for our flight to Brisbane.

Mango Farm #2 - Arnhem Mangoes

Wednesday, October 28th 2009 - Sunday, December 27th 2009

So we were back in Darwin, back at Frog's Hollow Backpackers and disappointed with our current unemployed status and desperately looking for more work. I was tired of living in the Top End, the heat is terrible and I just wanted to get out of Darwin but we had free internet at the library and no way of heading to the west coast at the moment (although we were looking for jobs basically ANYWHERE). The job hunting got old very quickly and we were giving up hope and deeply considering relocating to the west coast for a change of scene when on the Saturday morning around 9am a man from the temp agency next door came into our hostel and asked 'Who wants to work packing mangoes?'. Unfortunately, I was in the shower at this time but Tyler was out in the common room area and jumped at the chance. And that is how we got our second mango farm job.

We had to pack up our stuff quick, sign some papers, watch a safety video that was falling apart from overuse and then the recruitment officer drove us to our new farm in a little town called Humpty Doo (which we were familiar with since that's where our previous mango farm was located). He told us that the job should go for 6-8 weeks, but once he was gone and we were talking to the managers of the farm they laughed and said that packing was almost over - not even a week left. We were angry at being lied to but made the most of it and worked a ton of hours and packed like crazy for that week. Since I had worked packing before they let me be on the 'grading' team, which means that I got to stand in the same spot for 10 hours and sort between good (1st grade) and alright (2nd grade) and unsellable (bulk/juice) mangoes. Tyler did lots of box lifting and crate moving - very good for muscle building.

There were tons of people here but after that week mostly everyone cleared out. People had the option of staying on for pruning season, so we decided to give it a go. There were about 10 of us who stayed - a mixture of mostly Germans, another Canadian girl, 2 people from Taiwan and a native Australian. And we also got 7 of the Indian guys who had been picking mangoes during the season. Pruning was pretty fun, there were basically 3 different tasks: pruning shears (for the low branches), a long hand saw (for the tall branches) and a rake (for all the fallen/cut branches to be raked into a pile with and eventually turned into wood chips by another machine). There was also a chainsaw team that went through the trees first. They were pretty hot days, but very satisfying. I had a heat rash for a little while because I was wearing too many layers (a tank top and a long sleeved shirt) but once I only wore the long sleeved shirt, the rash went away. We worked 7am until 4:30pm, half-hour lunch and the pruning lasted for all of November. The only bad part about this farm was that we had to pay a weekly rent for the containers we lived in which was $105/week whereas our rent was free at the previous farm. But we still saved a lot of money and learned how to make naan from the Indian guys, and samosas as well. Tyler perfected making breakfast pitas/flatbreads and we ate them every day for our morning break to give us energy. Hopefully he'll still make them when we come back home. :)

Our team for pruning was usually me, Tyler and a Taiwannese couple named Iris and Steven. We were known as the 'couples team'. We worked well together and everyone had their tasks that they liked to do. Steven was usually the saw man, Iris liked raking and Tyler and I would rotate with the pruning shears and the other rake. The pruning shears were my favourite but I would get bad finger cramps in the mornings, this started from packing at the Siah's farm - but it would go away by the time work started. Pruning was a good work-out though, definitely got some muscles from that month of hard work.

Basically everyone left after or during the pruning season but we were offered to be kept on for various farm tasks and upcoming centuring (chainsawing a ring around the trees to stop them from producing fruit too early) and cold tarring in January. So we are still working at Arnhem Mango farm and there is only Tyler, myself and a German girl named Anja left of the original pruning team. We have two Australian supervisors - Andrew and Darryl and the owner of the farm is a man named Barry who is very nice but very particular. We've done some gardening, fertilizing, fixing sprinklers, spraying herbicide and spraying insecticide for all the trees. I think there are around 10,000 trees on the farm so it has been pretty busy. We get to drive quad bikes and a golf-cart like car called a 'Gator' and Tyler even got to drive a big tractor for spraying insecticide on the trees (they were getting damaged by caterpillars). We're learning lots of new skills and enjoy working outside and getting our hands dirty for a change.

Farm life is not very exciting - we now work 6:30am until 3:30pm because of the afternoon rain that comes pretty much every day since it's officially the rainy season (although January is supposed to be the worst). We usually just have muesli for breakfast (with yogurt and mango while it lasts - there are no longer any left on the trees that are edible), then breakfast pitas around 9:30am for breaktime. Our lunch is usually leftovers from the day before (pasta, rice, curry, sandwiches, etc) and an apple for a snack. We have lots of time to make dinner so we're learning and experimenting with new dishes. We're pretty good at making curry now after our lessons during the road trip with our friends. And soup is always a classic for us, even in the hot weather.

We no longer have to pay rent now as they got rid of all the containers and we are living in the old group kitchen area. There are lots of fans and it's attached to an enclosed kitchen so we don't have to worry too much about bugs (the ants find their way into any place, they're very annoying), the mosquitoes were getting to be too much for us in the outside eating area at night time. We were covered in bites! So we're living comfortably. And we have an internet stick so as long as it's not too cloudy or stormy, we have a signal and can go on the internet. It's a nice luxury to have. We usually eat our dinner while watching the show 'How I Met Your Mother' that's on every night at 7pm, I'm addicted to it. And the only other show we watch regularly is 'Survivor' that's on for 2 hours every Tuesday night. We haven't watched it in years but it's pretty good this season and it's nice having something to watch regularly.

Aside from that I've been doing a lot of reading, whatever books have been left behind on the farm. And Tyler has been programming for fun and playing computer games. We also watch stuff on the computer to relax. And I'm in the process of writing all my Christmas cards, late I know, but they will get sent. It's a big task and tricky to get to the post office during office hours since we don't have a car and we're working but we have a week's vacation now and Darryl is going to take us out some days so I should be able to manage. I think we're going to get to go fishing, very excited about that. Tyler wants to catch enough to feed us for weeks. :)

Christmas day was pretty good, although not the same as home. I was disappointed because there were no Christmas movies on the 4 channels that we get on Christmas Eve, the closest I could find was 'Father of the Bride' so that's what I watched. I didn't get to see 'It's a Wonderful Life', that's one of my Christmas traditions. We made a Christmas tree out of a mango branch that Tyler and I found out in the orchard. We filled a pail with dirt and put the branch in it and then we all made little paper snowflakes and tied floss around them to hang them on the tree. Then we bought little gifts for each other and Anja and got to open them on Christmas morning after breakfast (french toast with brandy flavoured custard and some orange slices and chai tea to drink). We had a relaxing morning and made carrot muffins to take over to Darryl and his mother's new place for lunch. They invited us over for nibbles and conversation. It was a very nice afternoon and all 12 muffins got eaten so they were a bit hit. :) It felt more homey than if we had just stayed at the farm all isolated. And as per usual it rained in the afternoon on Christmas, but the morning was very nice.

So we have a week off to relax and hopefully not go crazy with nothing to do. We have to find ways to keep busy. Work should start in early January and I think we're already ready to start working again and making money - 3 days off is more than enough for us. We're hoping to go to Darwin for one of our days off and go to the movies, we haven't been in about 6 months and there are a lot of good movies out here. Keeping our fingers crossed.

Happy Holidays everyone! :)

Darwin - reunion with friends and working on a mango farm

Sunday October 4th 2009 - Tuesday October 27th 2009

Our time in Darwin was spent reuniting with old friends from our Melbourne hostel. Apparently most people that come to Darwin stay in the same hostel - Frogshollow Backpackers - so every morning you see lots of familiar faces that you didn't think you'd see again. Darwin tends to be the last stop for a lot of people before they fly home so we spent time reuniting and then saying good-bye again as everyone from our road trip and other friends flew back home since their visas were up. Kelsey went off to Asia for some travelling and meeting up with her friend, Ciaran flew back home to Ireland to prepare for his PHD starting in November and the only ones left from our road trip were Steve, Tyler and myself. Steve is still trying to sell the car, but is living and working in Darwin in the meantime to save some money before leaving Australia and doing a bit of travelling before going home.

We did a lot of job hunting only to find that the agency that works for the Harvest Trail doesn't actually get a lot of business and they were telling us that the mango season hadn't started yet, but we knew it started weeks ago. Not many people in the area go through the agency. We spent a lot of time in the water since it's so hot in Darwin, and a lot of time in the air conditioned library looking for jobs and phone numbers to contact for farm jobs. Very frustrating! In the end we got a phone number from a French girl in our hostel who got another job while she was laid off from her mango farm for 2 weeks and now they had called her back to work so she was trying to find replacements.

Enter me and Tyler. We called the farm the next day and they wanted us to start immediately. Luckily we had Steve to drive us to Humpty Doo (a nearby little town) and we got a little lost but managed to find the plot of land that was our mango farm. It was run by a Chinese couple (Mr and Mrs Siah) and they showcased the free accomodation in little bunkers that had air conditioning. We were so happy! We had a crash course in mango packing and were just left to work things out ourselves and get to work with a team of 4 other workers. Some days the machine would be at maximum speed and the bins would be close to overflowing, but Mrs Siah liked to work us hard and we did pick up the pace. It was good work, we probably ate our weight in mangoes and papayas (so delicious) and we had tons of hours (we worked 86 hours in 7 days). The work was hard and we were sore every night - very stiff fingers and thumbs from making boxes and sore backs from lifting for 12-13 hours a day. Everything was going great, we even got a day off after working for 14 days.

Then there was an overflooding of the mango market as all the crates of mangoes got shipped on the same day from all the farms in the area and there weren't enough places to buy them. About 60 skids arrived in Melbourne at the same time - too many! We were let go from the job since they weren't making enough money from selling the mangoes so we were dropped off in Darwin and set about on the job hunt again. We are not happy campers.

The Great Road Trip through Southern Australia, the red centre and the Northern Territory

Monday September 14th 2009 - Day 1


Not much to report for this day, we left around noon and ended up camping in a rest area because it got dark very fast. Drove through highlights of the Great Ocean Road since Steve (our main driver and the person whose car it was) had never been. London Bridge is still standing, guess the recent falling bit wasn't as major as I had thought. Finally got to see the 12 Apostles without cloud, fog or rain so that was a bonus. :)


Tuesday September 15th 2009 - Day 2


Camped at Coorong National Park and met a German woman riding a push bike across Australia. Very inspiring. We saw a creepy millipede/scorpion insect but thankfully it wasn't vicious. And we had an illegal fire in the park but it was so nice and helped us stay up later than we usually do while camping. And we didn't get caught. Hurray!



Wednesday September 16th 2009 - Day 3



Made our way to southern Australia, we had to eat all of our fruit and vegetables right before the border as they have very strict rules about taking them over state lines due to fruit flies.



Drove to Adelaide, had lunch out in a sandwich bar to save time. We were mostly shopping for supplies and using internet in Adelaide. It wasn't a very long stopover. I had wanted to meet up with my penpal who lives there but it was too short notice and would have been awkward holding everyone up so I just left it alone. Hopefully we get to stop by there another time for a visit. We made it to the Barossa Valley, one of the famous wine regions in southern Australia. And we camped there overnight in order to do a tour of the wineries the next day.



Thursday September 17th 2009 - Day 4



Rented bikes from our campground in order to tour the wineries. The bikes weren't in the best condition but we made do with them. Ciaran had the brilliant idea that we wouldn't waste any of our time by eating lunch in between our tour of the wineries, we'd just eat around 3pm when we returned the bikes. And we didn't bring bags so we didn't have any water aside from the glasses you were allowed to pour at the winery itself. So let's just say that it didn't take very many samplings of wine to have us all drunk and trying to ride our bicycles in a straight line. Funny times. There was a minor bicycle collision which resulted in Tyler's bike breaking and we had to return it early. And we lost a key to one of the locks... but we never had to pay anything extra.



The people serving the wine got a kick out of us and I think they gave us more than they should, but we're not complaining. We made it to 5 wineries total but the girls had to refrain from the last winery as we knew we were at our limit and couldn't stop giggling. We had lunch at 6pm and slowly recovered from the wine. Definitely should have brought lunch with us. Lesson learned. But still a fun time.



Friday September 18th 2009 - Day 5



Made it to Flinders Ranges National Park. There were tons of emus, kangaroos and wallabies when we first arrived and were driving to the free bush camping ground. It was a beautiful national park but got there at night time so the hikes were saved for the next day.



Saturday September 19th 2009 - Day 6



We stayed in Flinders Ranges on this day as well. We hiked around Wilpena Pound, the famous sight in the national park. It was a 4 hour return hike and very beautiful from up high looking around at the surroundings. Ciaran was in heaven because the place was full of lizards, but there were no snakes to be seen (we think it was too cold for them). We ate tuna sandwiches at the top and took in the beautiful views. We started the trend of taking group photos on timers at the same time and this carried on for the rest of the road trip and resulting in some injured cameras that fell from great heights due to the wind. Luckily our camera is quite fat and proved very durable and the wind just couldn't blow it over.



Sunday September 20th 2009 - Day 7



We drove towards Coober Pedy but only made it to Maree by nightfall. It was nice to have a cold beer, our first in a week. The camping ground also had a very cute dog that I ended up playing catch with. Adorable! The wind was pretty bad that night and actually blew the fly off Kelsey's tent and Ciaran got out of his own tent to fix it in the middle of the night. I got my worst sleep of the entire trip because of the constant flapping of our tent against the wind. But it was free so we can't complain.



Monday September 21st 2009 - Day 8



In the early morning Kelsey got teased for flirting with the coffee guy and this teasing continued for most of the trip. We visited a sculpture park on the way from Maree to William Creek, it was very cool to walk around and look at what different artists had created. They had made large sculptures with scrap metal and even cars and buses, look for photos posted on my Facebook. We also entered a dust storm once we arrived in William Creek. The one that you saw on the news that made it all the way to Sydney but we were definitely in the heart of it. We tried to get to Lake Ayre but couldn't see anything at the southern Lake Ayre. We plowed on to Coober Pedy and couldn't see anything on the road and had to constantly pull over and wait for the storm to calm down. We ended up camping underground once we made it to Coober Pedy at a camping ground called RIBA's. Kelsey destroyed a cactus while arguing with a very drunk Ciaran who finished all of our alcohol (wine, whiskey and port).

Tuesday, September 22nd 2009 - Day 9

It was our second day in Coober Pedy - the town known for having underground housing and lots of 0pals. The dust storm continued and was very intense. We went to the Didgeridoo cafe to relax in the early morning and ended up buying $6 coffees from a crazy but entertaining European man who kept saying "I make good coffee for you!". We also visited the underground Serbian church and went noodleing for opals in the middle of the dust storm. We came across a cool graveyard where one grave had a keg and wine bottles on it and the gravestone said 'This drink's on me'. Very clever. We ended the evening by watching the movie "The Wrestler" in the tv room on Tyler's laptop and scared away the families in the campground from the tv room due to the sex scenes. We made burgers for dinner and they were delicious.

Wednesday September 23rd 2009 - Day 10

We drove from Coober Pedy to Curtain Springs. Curtain Springs is a free camping ground about 100km away from Ayers Rock/Uluru. The dust storm finally finished. We stopped at the border but ignored the quarantine since we didn't want to get rid of our fruit and veg when there was little opportunity to shop in the Red Centre.

Thursday September 24th 2009 - Day 11

We visited the Olgas and did the Valley of the Winds walk. We also visited Ayers Rock and walked around the entire base, we were swarmed by flies and sweat buckets in the sun. We took photos of Uluru at sunset. We camped at Curtain Springs again. We were exhausted by teh time we got home but Ciaran plowed on and made dinner then we all just passed out super early from our full day of hiking.

Friday September 25th 2009 - Day 12

We woke up to car trouble, there was a gas leak. We relaxed around Curtain Springs campground and I had to fight the emu for my handwashed clothes as it kept trying to drink the soapy water and to eat the drawstrings on my trackpants. Kelsey made sound for lunch since we had a lot of time to kill and it was delicious. Steve managed to fix the car with some help from one of our neighbours in the caravan park. We made it to King's Creek station for the night/late afternoon. We only paid for 2 people and were paranoid at night about being caught by the ground owners.

Saturday September 26th 2009 - Day 13

We left by 6:30am and made it to King's Canyon. We did the rim walk and started at 7:30am and it was nice and cool at that time, a beautiful walk. We drove down a very sketchy road to see the Meteorite sight and then made it to Alice Springs and stayed in a YHA family room.

Sunday September 27th 2009 - Day 14

We relaxed in Alice Springs and had a big breakfast. We met an aboriginal man named David while eating our lunch in the park who tried to sell us his painting and shared our lunch with us. He started inviting all the other aborigines to join us and that's when we decided it was time to leave - we're generous but not that generous. We stayed at G'day Mate caravan park and tried the trick of only paying for 2 people again and it worked.

Monday September 28th 2009 - Day 15

We left Alice Springs and drove to Devil's Marbles and camped there. 2 aboriginal men gave a talk about their culture and the origins of Devil's Marbles and how it is cursed. There was no drinking water or any water at the campground but it was free.

Tuesday September 29th 2009 - Day 16

We walked around Devil's Marbles. Then we drove a long distance in the super hot car to Mataranka. We swam in the Thermal Springs and camped in Elsey National Park where there were tons of wallabies around and we saw a mama wallaby with a baby in it's pouch - so cute!

Wednesday September 30th 2009 - Day 17

We drove to Katherine. There were tons of wallabies on the road and we encountered one that had been hit seconds before we got there - it was very traumatic as it was in shock and hopping across the road spasming. The boys had to deal with it while Kelsey and I cried in the car dealing with the impact of seeing the hurt creature. Very traumatic for everyone involved. We swam in Kathering Hot Springs (very beautiful) and then the 1st level swimming lake but we got covered in baby leeches/worms and decided it was best to leave. We camped at Springvale Homestead but never paid. Steve managed to leave his cell phone there charging so we had to sneak back in the late evening to retrieve it - very tricky.

Thursday October 1st 2009 - Day 18

We rented canes and rowed the 1st, 2nd and 3rd gorges in the Katherine gorge for the full day - so fun! There was lots of swimming and no crocodiles. It was so hot that we no longer needed our sleeping bages or sheets at nighttime to sleep in. We also managed to lose the frisbee and Steve left his fliplops at the beach but some girl mistakenly wore his (we could tell by the duct tape used to hold them together) so he got his shoes back and the girl had none because Steve didn't wear any shoes back. We also briefly swam at Edith Falls despite croc signs since the campgro0und said it was safe. We camped at Edith Falls and Tyler successfully made bread using the campfire.

Friday October 2nd 2009 - Day 19

We arrived in Litchfield National Park. We visited Buley Rockhole, Wangi Falls, the Magnetic Termite Mounds and Florence Falls. We tried to find beer to drink but no success. We camped at Florence Falls 4WD campsite. There were no showers, lots of bugs, a full moon and bats flying across the sky. We had our last campfire and made baked potatoes.

Saturday October 3rd 2009 - Day 20

We swam at Buley Rockhole in the early morning to cool down before our long drive. We drove all the way to Darwin and arrived around noon. Finally in the big city - hurray! :)

Extended Return to Melbourne and Wilson's Promontory

Saturday September 5th 2009 - Sunday September 13th 2009

Thankfully I checked the receipt for our flight to Melbourne a few days in advance as I had written down in my notebook that we flew out on Sunday but it was actually the Saturday. Crisis averted. :)

We returned to Melbourne and stayed in our good ol' hostel Bev'n'Micks for the first night to catch up with everyone. We learned that not much had changed and a lot of the people who had left to travel elsewhere had come back for a short while. The old gang was back together. We weren't able to just pay for one bunk, so that was disappointing and part of the reason we only stayed there for 1 night. We were able to store out luggage there though and for the next few days we stayed with our friend Jess and her mom and boyfriend. We had met Jess on our Croatia boat tour. They spoiled us by cooking fantastic meals, giving us wine and letting us watch movies all day on their couch while they were out. Such nice hospitality. :)

We were only supposed to be in Melbourne until Tuesday but there were complications with the car and ordering parts and having other things fixed and we were delayed until the week-end so in order to make the most of it we decided to do a little road trip to Wilson's Promontory for 3 days, 2 nights. We rented a little mini car and crammed the 5 of us into it with all our gear. We looked hilarious but it prepared us for the big road trip in the 4wd Pagero (so much more space that it felt luxurious after our mini-car). Wilson's Prom was beautiful, did some great hikes and had great goals so we ended up hiking around 25-30km in a single day. That was exhausting! But we got to see Sealy Cove beach and it was spectacular. The prom is nice because you can see all the re-growth that's taking place as it had some pretty serious fire damage recently but it's already trying to recover. Some parts the trees are just black and decaying but they'll have little green sprouts growing up out of it. Amazing to see. It was also full of wombats, they are the cutest animals ever and can crush your skull with their muscular bums if you try to follow them into their burroughs.

Also to note, on the first night we left the passenger window all the way down and discovered in the morning that an animal had climbed into the car and eaten some bread and gnawed on our dark chocolate. Our main culprits are the birds (since they would gnaw on chocolate) or a possum that was at our campsite the next night sniffing around. He looked suspicious, like he knew we had food.... and the birds swarmed our site the next morning, so they were on to us as well. Perhaps they teamed up. But we learned our lesson and locked and closed everything after that event. :)

It was a great road trip - camping under the stars, eating camp food and lots of hiking and adventure.

We made our way back to Melbourne and were lucky enough to be able to stay with the nice hostel manager - Josh. Who lived just around the corner and was missing having company since his roommate moved to Brisbane. There was enough space for the 5 of us and we just relaxed and cooked him dinner and tried to keep the place tidy as repayment to him.

And finally by Sunday night the car was returned and we were all set to head out on Monday morning. It's about time!

Travelling up the east coast of Australia - 7 stops!

Tuesday, August 11th 2009 - Saturday September 5th 2009

East Coast trip

We booked our tours for the east coast while in Sydney because there was a friendly Canadian guy named Andy who said he'd give us a good deal. It wasn't a bad deal but it was pretty much the same deal as all the other places so it wasn't really a bargain. We also discovered that if you don't book ahead then you can get really cheap last minute deals when you're closer but that's something we'll remember in the future.

1st stop - Byron Bay

Byron Bay was lots of fun, a very relaxed surfer town. We loved it immediately, as do most people that visit it. Most people end up staying there for a while and finding jobs so that they can stay in a hostel and surf all the time. We were very tempted, but we did take our first introductory surfing lesson while in town. It only cost $40 and we got the 2 hour lesson, a wet suit and a half day hire to use any day afterwards with the equipment. It was so much fun and harder than it looks but they basically just push you out on your board with the wave and all you have to do is 'pop up' and stand on your board. Tyler was amazing and I fell more often than stood but it was still good fun. We will be surfing pros one day.

We tried surfing by ourselves the next day with our free hire but it was so choppy that the waves just threw us around even when just riding the wave on our stomachs. Crazy! But we practiced timing the wave and I think we have the hang of it now.

There is also a worthwhile hike to the lighthouse in Byron Bay that was very beautiful. We reached the most easterly point in Australia and saw our first whale. Did not manage to get a photo though, they're too quick!

2nd stop - Noosa, QLD

We bypassed the Gold Coast due to the description in our guidebook which summarized it as 'glitzy' and thought that didn't sound like our cup of tea. So we took another night bus to the Sunshine Coast and stayed in good ol' Noosa. It was another relaxed, quiet town with excellent beaches and surf. This time we just got body boards from our hostel because they were free to rent but still lots of fun. Also did a little hike around all the cliff faces and beaches.

3rd stop - Brisbane (aka ' Bris-vegas)

We weren't impressed with Brisbane. The promenade was pretty nice and the little man-made beach/pool looked fun for families. But the hostel charged us more than they said on the phone and it was super crowded but the rooftop was amazing. We spent most of our time up there relaxing and enjoying the coolness to the air (since the daytime was soooo hot!). It's funny calling it Bris-vegas, I think that's my favourite nickname. You have to go there to appreciate the nickname, does not remind you of Vegas at all.

And the grocery stores close ridiculously early. Very disappointing for hungry travellers.

4th stop - Hervey Bay, QLD and Fraser Island

There's not much to Hervey Bay other than it's a good place to go whale watching and it's the take-off point for all the Fraser Island tours. We did our 3 day tour with Koala Adventures and we got a 4 wheel drive that was top heavy with an upper storage compartment - but in 5 weeks they are no longer allowed to have those for the tours because of all the accidents with backpackers who drive too fast and flip over. There have been casualties in the past but thankfully everyone in our group was very safe. I was the only girl in the group and there were just 7 of us - me, Tyler, a Scotsman named Andy, 2 kiwis, 1 guy from Switzerland and a German. Good mix.

Fraser Island was beautiful - the best fresh water lakes we have ever seen and fun sand dunes to roll down in. You could drink the water as you were swimming - amazing! We saw a few dingoes but it was mostly at night when we were cooking and they could smell our delicious food. They never attacked though, we must have been too scary for them.

Fraser Island is a must-see though. Driving was quite the experience - on the beach it was nice and smooth, we only had a few close calls with rising tide times and driving over rocks and making the car tip at precarious angles. Otherwise driving on the pathways was crazy, we got stuck a bunch of times and had to push the car out a lot but nothing we couldn't manage. We even had a lucky team song (the ever popular 'Battlefield' song you hear all the time on the radio here in Australia) that always got us out of the ditch if we sang it while the car struggled.

Fun adventure.

5th stop - Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays

Our Whitsunday sailing 3 day trip was also lots of fun. Very similar to our Croatia cruise so we enjoyed the Fraser Island trip more on the whole since it was different, but you can't complain about beaches and swimming and snorkelling. We didn't have sleep on the boat either, we actually got to stay on an island so that made it more enjoyable (boats are awfully cramped). The beaches were beautiful, we got very tanned. And the snorkelling was my favourite part. Tyler and I even saw a sting ray up close - he was light purple in colour with yellow spots and I knew better than to follow him too closely. He lost me quite easily anyway. I did touch all the coral I could though, and all the fishes that came close to me - I'm such a rebel! I didn't hurt the coral though and our shipmate told us it was okay (he also recommended grabbing onto turtles and 'turtle surfing' so he had his own set of rules).

Our boat was called the 'Pride of Airlie' and it was quite the party boat. Within 5 minutes of taking off from Airlie Beach harbour people had taped up a snorkel to use it a funnel for goon (boxed wine - very cheap). We were not allowed red wine on board the boat as they knew how messy people would be and it stains. But it was fun to watch all the drunk people - British people can drink a lot. We were amazed.

We saw tons of whales while sailing but I never managed to get a good picture again - they're tricky animals.

6th stop - Townsville, QLD

We had heard mixed reviews about Townsville but thought we'd give it a go and see what it's like and we did not regret it. We finally tested out the whole paying for one bed because we share a bed and I got to be the 'secret' and Tyler snuck me in. And it worked! Despite the hostel having cameras all over the place - quite the rebels.

Townsville is a cute town, very cosy but with all the city essentials you need. We spent most of our time on the promenade under the cover of trees. They had amazing parks for children, way better than any we had seen back home. It's basically heaven on earth for kids. There's a water park as well. Just wish it didn't look creepy for us to hang out in the 'kid areas'.... we were mighty jealous.

We also did a hike up Castle Hill in the early morning but it was still boiling hot and we sweated up a storm. Great views though. And we spent the rest of the day in the pool/stinger free area. There were signs all over the place warning about jellyfish, I think they're a big probelm in the area. But we never saw any - boy were we disappointed. ;)

7th and final stop - Cairns, Northern QLD

We were sneaky again in Cairns and only paid for 1 bed - hurray! We love getting better deals. Most of the time we just relaxed in Cairns. They really spoil you in the hostels, they're a little out of the city centre but they have free shuttle buses every hour that take you to and from the city. And we even got a free dinner every night at a place in the city centre and the food was tasty and sizeable (mostly curries, spaghetti or stew). And beer was pretty cheap as well. One of the nights we just kept winning free pitchers of beer, we were on some kind of lucky streak or the host/MC just really liked us.

Our main accomplishment in Cairns was that we went for our first dive lesson. It was pretty nerve wrecking and I freaked out a little bit at first feeling like I couldn't swallow because my mouth was all salty but once under the water I relaxed and it was amazing. We had to link arms with the instructor (Tyler and I on opposite arms) and they slowly guided us around, I think we only got about 5 metres under the surface but it felt so deep. We got the hang of popping our ears, getting water out of the mask and cleaning out our breathing apparatus. We saw some amazing fish and coral, some fish were about the size of us and quite scary even if they aren't able to eat us. Definitely a memorable experience and something we'd like to try again sometime. Don't think we want to get certified though... at least not yet. Have to get used to it first. And I'm terrible with flippers on - my feet like to be free! That was probably one of the hardest things for me. I kept doing the bicycle kick instead of the proper straight leg and the instructor was annoyed because I was making him have to kick harder.... whoops! Next time I'll be better, I swear!

Cairns was a nice city, but the beach was terrible. Best to hang out in the lagoon/pool or go on one of the diving excursions to actually see the reef. It's the stuff you'll remember for the rest of your life.

Flew back to Melbourne on the Saturday morning in preparation for our big road trip through Central Australia with some hostel mates. Adventure awaits!