It's hot. Really hot. So hot you can drink 10 gallons of water a day and not have to go pee once. It's
been around 35 degrees the last couple of days and that usually wonderful breeze that we get from the ocean is not around.
Our poor room mates decided to cool off at one of the many outdoor pools in Brisbane and got a bad taste of the Australian
sun. They got a sunburn to rival any sunburn in little over an hour. We've watched the weather reports and they
are indicating that the UV levels are extreme. I guess that's the penalty for ozone depletion. Unfortunately for
Australia one of the holes in the ozone layer is right over Oz. We'll be sure to inspect for cancerous
lumps on our skin.
We have spent the last couple of days getting ready for Christmas and Janet is looking forward to having
a couple of days off. To help finish our plans we had to head to out a couple of stores last night and Janet
thought it was high time that she tried driving the new wheels. She did a great job but only made it down
the street and into a cul de sac where she determined that she didn't feel like she was quite ready to tackle the big roads
around our neighborhood. We are now planning to find a large quiet neighborhood so that she can get some practice.
We are both even a little rusty from not having driven a car period in a long time.
When we got home last night we were chatting with Mark and Gemma in the living room when we looked over to the
door to see yet another giant cockroach crawling up the side of the door. This cockroach has claimed
the title of being by far the largest bug we have ever seen. He was at least three inches long and
was ultra fast. Both of us are now seasoned cockroach hunters and we sprang to action.
Janet grabbed her trusty sandal to smack the roach as Chad grabbed the broom and trapped him into a corner of the
kitchen. We managed flip him over on his back (this really seems to piss them off because they just sit there and go
bananas trying to roll over) and Janet put him out of his misery. Chad swept him out the door and off the balcony
to his final resting place.
We haven't done too much else. The entire city seems to be moving in slow motion from the heat although we
have noticed that a lot of the locals don't even break a sweat and some of them even wear sweaters. Can you believe
it? We'd like to see them cope with a Canadian winter. Ha!
Oh well, I guess we shouldn't complain. On the weather news this morning they are predicting a temperature of 42
degrees for a town that is just inland of Brisbane. That's ridiculous!
Time for a Slurpee,
Chad and Janet
December 20 and 21, 2003
This weekend has been particularly hot. It was over 30 degrees both days and we don't have the benefit of air conditioning
in the house or the car (Stop swearing at us all of you sitting in the snow back home- we can hear you from here!).
Friday night we went to see the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" at the Chermside movie theatre. We definitely recommend
it to anyone who doesn't mind a little bit of gore and wants to get the pants scared off them (hey who doesn't?). We've
noticed that Australia seems to get movies a little later than the rest of the world. We've seen some movies that have
just arrived in Australia that were out in Canada six months ago. For example Dumb and Dumberer is coming out in a week.
On Saturday we went to discover yet another one of Brisbane's illustrious malls. We made it over to the Westfield
Garden City centre to complete our Christmas shopping. We managed to stay with our budget of for eachother. Our
intent this year is to buy as many small presents as we can so that when Christmas day arrives we won't finish the whole experience
in 10 seconds (ahh, reminds me of when I was young- wink wink). That night we spent some more time driving around to
get used to traffic on the left side of the road and look at some Christmas lights. One of the Brisbane newspapers publishes
a list of several of the homeowners around the city who have gone way overboard on their Christmas light displays. Apparently
one street in particular has gained some noteriety from some competitive neighbors. The neighbors on this street have
tried to out do eachother with their light displays in the past few years that the city has struck a deal with all of them
to pay half of their electricity bill if they keep their lights on at a certain time. So, the street can just about
be seen from the other side of the city because of the glow from the lights. We decided to check it out and were suitably
impressed. We continued driving around after that and saw a few more houses. We decided that folks in Brisbane
are either all or nothing kind of people when it comes to Christmas lights. In Canada it seems that almost everyone
at least makes an attempt at Christmas lights- be it a single string on a tree in the yard or a colored lightbulb. Of
course we have the over the top houses as well. But, in Brisbane you either quadruple your electricity bill, have a
blow up Santa in your yard, a sleigh complete with Kangaroos pulling it (in lieu of reindeer- a common Aussie tradition),
Koala's dressed in Santa outfits, and even speakers hidden in the bushes playing Christmas tunes over and over or absolutely
nothing at all. Apparently the rest of the city doesn't celebrate XMas?
On Sunday we decided to try to spare ourselves from the heat buy heading out to the beach. We made our way North on
the Sunshine coast to a small town called Redcliffe that had a bunch of beaches on Moreton Bay. We settled on a
place called Queens beach and settled in for a few hours. It was quite windy and the sun was blistering. In Australia
you can get a sunburn with very little effort but fortunately we've got a pretty good base tan from Thailand. We took
a dip in the water with hopes that we would cool down and found that the water was the warmest we've encountered yet.
It was actually like lukewarm bathwater and not nearly as clear as Thailand was. We were a little apprehensive getting
into the water considering all the creepy creatures that you read about but a lot of the locals seemed to be staying intact
as they swam. We figured that perhaps it would be better to not be able to see what might be stalking us or waiting
to be stepped on so that it could unleash it's deadly poison into our feet.
As we drove back from the beach we couldn't help but feel a little bit of the itch to get back on to the road. We've
gotten quite comfortable in Brisbane and have slightly forgotten that we are in a huge country with lots left to see and do.
"On the road again.......blah, blah, blah, blah, blah)- Willy Nelson,
Chad and Janet
Friday, December 19, 2003
We have spent the last couple of days virtually living in the car. When you haven't driven for a couple of months
and you've been at the mercy of the public transit system you really can't wait to be out on your own.
We got our "rego" transferred and insurance activated. It is much cheaper to insure and register a vehicle in Australia
than in Canada (especially Alberta). To obtain six months of registration (rego) and a year of 3rd party, fire, and
theft insurance it costs about 500 dollars. That's not bad for our wallets.
We are quickly getting used to driving on the left side of the road. It's a little unnerving and goes against all
of our insticts that we have developed driving in Canada. We are constantly telling ourselves to "stay left" and shifting
a manual with the left hand is a little bizarre. The one thing that Brisbane seems to have a lot of are roundabouts
(or traffic circles). They are a little daunting at first but once you get used to them they are really a great
idea. Traffic is always moving and it is much better than a set of lights.
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) Chad hasn't been called in for a shift at the cardboard box factory. Perhaps
it's a blessing in disguise.
On Thursday night we went to a huge local mall called the Westfield Chermside centre and did some Christmas shopping.
We've agreed to spend only 50 bucks on each other and we are going to buy smaller presents so that we have more under the
tree to open.
Janet is feeling a little under the weather but she's sticking it out at work and is going to enjoy her office Christmas
party today (boy what a tough job eh?). She tried to duplicate Jean's spinach dip to take to the party. Apparently
Aussie's have never heard of it before.
This weekend we plan to do a little more shopping and trying not to spend anymore money than that. We are feeling
the pinch a little from buying the car so we need to chill out for a bit to make up some money.
Santa is going to sweat his ass off when he gets here,
Chad and Janet
Tuesday, December 17, 2003
We finally have a car!!
We are
soon to be the proud owners of a 1986 Nissan Skyline station wagon. We had a look at the beast and we were convinced right
away that it was the car for us. Everything about it was in perfect shape and it had been owned by a family since brand new
and they babied it. We had a mechanic come by their place on Tuesday afternoon (apparently mobile mechanics are quite common
here) and they did a pre purchase inspection. The car passed with flying colors and the mechanic recommended that we buy it
because he thought it was an excellent car. Even the little things that you expect to be wrong with an older vehicle were
not applicable. So, we are finally mobile!
We have decided that, because we have this strange fetish requiring us to
name everything we own, we have temporarily christened our new car "Clifford". The reason for this name is due to "Clifford's"
tomato red body color. There was a cartoon and a series of story books a long time ago that was based on a giant red dog named
Clifford so, hence we named the car accordingly. However, we have considered "Sir Clive" and "The Vista Cruiser" as alternates.
Janet
is enjoying work and is settling in. She is finding that she really enjoys working for a bigger company in downtown. She spends
her lunch breaks walking around the busy downtown street malls and tries not to shop too much. She got her first paycheque
and it was a thrill to see the old bank account move up instead of down.
Today Chad went to a job agency that was hiring
for general factory laborers. He went through a two hour interview and induction/safety training process to learn about his
new job. The job entails packing cardboard boxes onto pallets at a cardboard box factory. The shifts are horrible times (either
3am until 3pm or 3pm until 3am) but the money isn't bad. At this point any work would help a lot to get the bank account a
little fatter especially after buying the car. So, cardboard boxes will be Chad's worst nightmare for the next little while.
That
is all the news for now. We are looking forward to driving the new car. The owners live nearby and are dropping off the car
for us tonight which really helps.
What exactly do you call a cardboard box stacker?,
December 12, 13, and 14
Unfortunately we have fallen into a fairly regular routine that doesn't make for the most exciting updates. So, we'll include
a quick update of what we're up to and continue the creature/bug stories as we thought of some more last night.
Update:
Janet had her first day by herself (the girl that was training her left) and she really liked it. She has four people working
in her area and they all seem to get along well. She is discovering that they really like to party and socialize. They spent
over an hour celebrating two people's birthday's that work in her office. The custom there is that the person having the birthday
brings in enough food and drink for the whole office to celebrate their birthday. It sounds like a pretty crappy deal for
the birthday person if you ask us!
Chad continued the job search (and worked on his tan) and then cleaned and cooked
for the rest of the day. That evening he provided some much needed moral support for Janet and solved world hunger. Bullshit!
but that is more exciting than what he actually did.
Bats: Apparently the bats that live here are a result of some
huge medical experiment or a tragic nuclear facility meltdown that mutated all of the bat population in Brisbane. Think of
all of the vampire movies that you've ever seen and remember the size of the bats in them. Those bats would be the babies
of the bats that live here. The bats here are big, brown, and furry. Their wingspan is about 1.5 feet across and their body
is the size of a guinea pig. They come out in droves at night and frequently scare the crap out of us as we walk by palm trees
(their favorite hiding place). Every single time we walk by this one house at night a giant bat swoops out of the tree in
the front yard and narrowly misses us. Must get rabies shot!
Beetles (we think): One day about two weeks ago we had
walked to Mac-ers for a McOz burger (complete with grilled onions and a slice of beet). As we walked through the parking lot
we noticed a large black blob walking around. On closer inspection we noticed that it was a dark black beetle type thing.
This guy was about the size of a 50 cent piece and fat. How lovely!
This weekend we are committed to finding a car.
Every Saturday is when the giant newspaper classified section comes out so we are on a mission. If we manage to find a car
in time we are planning on celebrating by going to a place called Dream World. It is Australia's version of the Six Flags
or Calaway Park (on steroids) amusement parks. We will have to see though as our mission is very clear cut.
Maybe we
could just steal a car?,
Chad and Janet
November 19 to December 11, 2003
In the three weeks since the last update we have had a lot of changes and gone through quite a bit. To say the least
we are glad to be in our new apartment. It has worked out great and we are really enjoying it.
Back at the 20th of November or so we got our bags and moved into our new digs. We met our room mates who were an
English couple named Mark and Gemma. They were really cool and surprisingly had a lot in common with us especially
because they are a couple of princesses like us! We ended up celebrating our new accomodations and we probably slept
better in the next couple of days than we had in a month. We spent a few days being homebodies and loved it.
It's something that you appreciate when you travel more than anything in the world because you never truly feel comfortable
at hostels.
Once we had felt that we had settled in to our new place we booked ourselves into the Castlemaine Perkins XXXX brewery
tour. It cost us and included four beers. We showed up at the tour and watched a very high tech "play" that chronicled
the events that lead to the creation of the XXXX brewery. I was proud to learn that one of the three founding members
was actually a Quinlan! See, even down under the Quinlan's are spreading joy and happiness to millions! We walked
through all of the various facilities as the tour guide explain the process of brewing their fine beer. Unfortunately
we learned the hard way that a brewery tour on a Friday afternoon isn't the most exciting on the factory floor. Apparently
almost everyone had gone home for the weekend so not a lot of machinery was running but we did get to see a "canning" run.
They can fill something like 2000 cans a minute with the machinery. It was quite a sight. After we finished the
tour we were treated to four of their premium beers to sample. At that point they informed everyone that they only had
half an hour to finish their drinks as they had a function that was to begin shortly. This wouldn't be a problem if
the drinks were actually small sized but they weren't so everyone drank as fast as they could and we laughed as everyone wobbled
out of the brewery. Part of me wonders how a public company can get away with getting the general public pissed and
sending them on their way? Oh well, that's Australia for you.
We spent some more time during the rest of that week relaxing and meeting the people in the building. We were surprised
to learn that a majority of the tenants in the building were Canadian. There are people from Saskatoon, Lake Huron,
Calgary, and Toronto. Go figure?! Over that weekend we found an old barbecue (you know, the ones that don't have
a propane bottle and you have to light the charcoal and wait an hour for it to heat up) and everyone did their best to replicate
the famous Aussie barbie. The catch with an "Aussie barbie" is that whatever goes on the grill be it mutton, beef, snout,
lips, claws, assholes, hog, turkey, possum is fair game for anybody. I decided the best way to secure myself a decent
piece of meat was to act as the barbecuer. It was a good time and we got to know everyone in the building pretty well.
That same weekend we decided to take a trip to a big hill called Mt. Coot-tha. We took the bus over to it and went
to the lookout at the top of the hill. From that vantage point we were able to see almost all of Brisbane and even Moreton
Island. After we had our fill of site seeing we made our way over to a hiking trail to see the water falls. Now
being as intrepid as we aren't we tiptoed cautiously along the trail. This of course was our first introduction to the
Australian bush and we were sure that we would be bitten or attacked by all manner of horrible creatures. To feed our
fear we were subjected to the numerous unfamiliar sounds of the local birds and creatures in the forest. It's especially
unnerving when you don't recognize any of the sounds and are forced to assume that the noises are of various animals that
are communicating an action plan to attack us and systematically pick away at our flesh as we writhe in agony. Ok, so
that might have been a little embellishment. We didn't really see much of anything that would be interested in eating
us let alone sticking around to even look at us. Our intrepid jungle trek turned into a leisurely stroll through the
bush as we soon discovered that the "falls" were actually dried up. What lovely rocks though! So, we turned around
and followed some signs to an alternate pathway that claimed to be a natural outdoor aboriginal art gallery. As we walked
along the pathway we quickly decided that examples of much of the aboriginal art can be found in your local kindergarten class
room. We looked at rocks formed in a circle, paintings of stick men, spray painted hand prints, finger paintings, etc.
After that weekend we came to the realization that it was about time to start looking for a job. We had been told
by other travellers that Brisbane is a very hard place to find work but we weren't discouraged and began our job search at
the internet cafes. We fell into a routine of taking the bus downtown everyday to check the job websites and send out
resumes as much as possible. Janet had the most luck (as we had predicted because accountants are totally in demand
in OZ) and she started to get two to three phone calls everyday. She went to a number of interviews with job agencies
and recruiters and got a lot of interest. Chad discovered that the engineering opportunities were plentiful but only
for long term contracts so he had a little more trouble.
After a week straight of job searching we were in serious need of a break so we went with our room mates to the Brisbane
museum and art gallery. We looked at several interesting local displays about the Australian geography, history, culture
and so on. The one department that stood out for all of us was the creature exhibit. It included samples of many
of the insects, spiders, sea life, sharks, and all manner of dangerous and poisonous creatures. We were shocked to see
a preserved display of the ellusive "Huntsman Spider". This is the spider that holds the record for the most accidents
and injuries involving humans. The scary thing is that it is not because this guy is poisonous or even particularly
aggressive but he has a tendency of hanging out in car visors. Unfortunately for the unsuspecting driver he likes to
jump out and land in people's laps while they are on a busy freeway (we're assuming he likes to be petted) and terrifies the
poor driver causing horriffic accidents. Even worse, his other favorite place to hang out is people's houses.
Fortunately he wasn't as big as we had envisioned him to be. But with furry legs and a fat furry butt he is scary enough
at about 4-6 inches across.
In the following week we continued our job search and we were finding that the opportunities for Chad were going to require
a car as a lot of them were in remote industrial areas. So we included a car search into the mix of our activities.
We looked at a few vehicles and haven't found one yet. Through the course of our search we decided that a station wagon
would be the most pratical for us. Fortunately in Australia minivans are nonexistent and the station wagon is widely
accepted. People don't actually laugh and point when someone drives by in the old Ford Falcon cruiser (or the Vista
cruiser). Some of the vehicles that we looked at were the Nissan Pintara (we nicknamed this one the "Shitsan Pintara"
after we did a mechanical inspection on it) and a Holden Commodore (we had several nicknames for this one like "Golden Clunkadore",
"Rollin' Piece-a-Junk-adore", "Holdin' Rustamore"). We haven't found the right car yet but hopefully soon.
We decided that another tourist trap to hit would be Warner Brothers movie land. It's Australia's version of Universal
Studios or Warner Brothers USA and we got to meet Batman, Robin, Catwoman, Batwoman, Wiley Coyote, and Bugs Bunny. We
rode a bunch of rides themed around big movies like Batman, Scooby Doo, Wild Wild West, and Warner Brothers Cartoons.
It was great and we got lots of pictures (soon to be posted). We also watched a Police Academy stunt show and had a
great day.
Janet's quest for a job turned out positively as she interviewed with Tourism Queensland for a contract position as an
accounts payable officer. It wasn't her dream job but the people were great and the location was awesome. She's
currently in training and looking forward to being let loose on her own. Chad continues his job search and has been
focusing more intensly on a search for a car (Yeah we know all the jokes about Chad sitting on the beach while Janet slaves
away at work and pays the bills. Well guess what? It's true!! Just kidding).
That is what we have been up to lately. We are still enjoying Brisbane and we are starting to get to know our way
around. It is a very clean and relatively quiet (if not a little boring) city. But, no update about Australia
would be complete with a few bug stories....
Cockroaches: A couple of weeks ago we were all sitting around in the apartment. Chad looked over to the kitchen
and saw a cockroach the size of a small mouse cruising around the kitchen. We all jumped to our feet and chased him
all over the place. Unfortunately cockroaches are extremely adept at hiding and we lost him under the fridge.
A few days later though he cruised out into the living room. This time Janet was quick on the ball and smacked him with
a shoe to injure him. Chad grabbed the broom and sent him to his death as he careened off of the balcony. Then,
a couple of days ago the pest control guy came around to do his rounds (apparently he comes every three months because backpackers
seem to like to bring a lot of pests with them in their camping gear ie. bedbugs, ants, Christmas beetles, and everything
else you can think of). After the pest control guy sprayed and left we were talking in the living room when we looked
over and saw a cockroach the size of a small rat (OK not that big but as big a cockroach as you could imagine) and he was
going bananas. Apparently the pest control chemicals had flushed him out and he couldn't find a place to hide.
So, having gone through this once before Janet grabbed her trusty shoe and gave him a good smack. Chad grabbed the broom
and sent him flying over the balcony to his untimely death.
Spiders: We know now that Spiders in Australia are as big as you imagine them to be. Take the biggest spider
you can find in Canada and multiply it by 100. Fortunately the ones that we have seen that look extra big and creepy
tend to live in giant webs high up in trees and bushes. We have a couple around our apartment building that have a body
the size of a toonie and legs about two inches long. And they aren't furry! The worst though was the laundry room
incident. A couple of days ago Chad went down to the laundry room which is on the bottom floor. It is kind of
a dusty creepy old room that we were sure that a large spider would love to live in so every time we went into the laundry
room we creeped into it carefully and scanned all around for something big and furry. Well, that night we went
down and walked into the hallway and noticed something dark, big, and furry at the bottom of the wall by the laundry room
door. We freaked and quickly returned with a flashlight to see what it was. It turned out to be our first encounter
with a live Huntsman Spider (just as we predicted: in the laundry room!). He was huge and furry and had eyes big enough
that they actually reflected the light from our flashlight (uuuuggghhh!!). So, for the rest of the night we had to go
to the laundry room in teams as we acted like a team of stealth soldiers about to enter a boobytrapped facility.
Grasshoppers: All of you from Saskatchewan will be pleased to note that the biggest grasshopper you can find on you
car grille is about 50 times smaller than the ones you get here. They are actually about the size of a small bird (I'm
not kidding) and they actually make a fan noise when they fly because their wings are so big. If someone was unfortunate
enough to drive through a swarm of these beasts you would probably overheat your car, smear your windshield so bad you couldn't
see through it, and slide right off the road.
Snakes: Haven't seen any yet (except in cages) and don't want to.
Flys: Relentless but fortunately don't seem to be as bad in our neighborhood.
Anyway, we are having a grand time and are adjusting nicely to life in Brisbane. The funny things that we have learned
since we've been travelling is that a lot of your assumptions about yourself that you make before you leave home are wrong.
We predicted that we would die our hair green and get a bunch of tatoos, sleep on parkbenches if necessary, try shearing sheep,
sleep in total scummy cheap hostels to save money for partying, buy a Volkswagon bus, become hippies, become vegetarians,
make friends with every person you meet and so on. The thing that you discover about yourself when travelling is that
you end up acting more like yourself than ever. Everything is new and that can be a little stressful and shocking at
times so the one thing that you don't want to be unfamiliar is yourself. As well, people are still assholes or really
nice when you are on the other side of the world. If you didn't like the heat before or you didn't want to be a vegetarian
before you certainly aren't going to change when you go to another place. There that's a little philosophy for all of
you.
Ha ha, it's not snowing here,
Chad and Janet
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
We made a point of talking to Sander this morning about his rental properties. Apparently he has several in
many of the inner city suburbs around Brisbane. He told us about a property in a place called Newmarket that is on the fringe
of the inner city suburbs but still a five minute bus ride into the downtown core. It was each per week and the places were
fully furnished and shared with two other people. The apartments were two bedroom and all utility costs were included. As
well, we only have to put up two weeks rent up front and a fifty-dollar bond. After that we can pay weekly and we only need
to give one weeks notice if we choose to leave. To top it off the whole building is basically other working backpackers in
the same boat as us. How can you go wrong?
We both wondered that it might be too good to be true considering what
kind of luck we had been having lately. As well, you tend to be able to sniff out a scheister from a mile away after you travel
through Asia although we didn't get any bad vibes from this guy. So we spent most of the day hanging around the hostel, as
we had to wait until Sander was able to show us and another couple the apartments at around 2:00 that afternoon. Unfortunately
2:00 turned into 3:00 and eventually into 5:00 but we finally got on the road.
We made it into New Market quickly and
found that it was a nice middle class suburb. No trendy stores, no bums, no prostitutes, no gays, no criminals, and no "mildly
psychotic" people yelling at the wind. We pulled up to the building and it was your run of the mill three-storey brick apartment
building.
Now it is easy to sugar coat just about anything that might work for you when you've hit rock bottom or
the end of your rope. We were pleasantly surprised.......no, giddy when we saw these apartments. They were totally refurbished
just recently and really spacious with brand new furniture, tile floors, and appliances. They were decked out with a new tv,
microwave, and big double beds in the spacious rooms. We looked at two apartments as Sander explained that his rental business
was a long running family business partnership with his girlfriend's parents.
We went back to the hostel and we were
excited. Finally our hours of long effort and perseverance had come to a point. Our patience had paid off and after a short
discussion (30 seconds) and a flip of a coin (heads- best two out of three) we talked to Sander and secured our place at unit
number five on Foster Street. Yee hah!
We decided some celebration was in order that night and we headed out with everyone
from the hostel to the Fiddler's Elbow in the city. It was Karaoke night and we grabbed some pizza for dinner. We didn't feel
much like singing so we ended up out on the balcony where we talked with two girls from Ireland for the night.
Much,
much, much, better,
Chad and Janet
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
This morning
we got up promptly to check out of the Balmoral House (yay, cheer!). We made a deal with the manager to leave our bags locked
up at the hostel so that we could head out to downtown to continue our apartment search.
We grabbed some breakfast
and filled out the rental application for the one bedroom in Spring Hill. We faxed the info over to the real estate agent
and went over to an Internet cafe to read up on some info about the suburb of Spring Hill. Apparently, Spring Hill is Brisbane's
oldest suburb and is a major gay neighbourhood along with having the privilege of being next door to an area called Fortitude
Valley that happens to have the highest crime rate in the state of Queensland. How nice!. We also read up on the "Villa Maria
Hostel" which we had now dubbed "Creepa Maria". It turns out it is a hostel built in the 1800's by the church and is now an
aged care hostel- so we figure there has to be plenty of ghosts because of all the old people croaking in there. We also looked
up the Pindari Salvation Army men's shelter. Apparently they will accept anyone for a bed per day and they don't mind mildly
psychotic patrons as long as they don't bring their drugs into the building. We had to agree with that as we had observed
a bearded man that wandered around the building that we had been looking at as he appeared to yell at several people. But......he
was by himself!
We're trying to keep an upbeat attitude about the place as seems to be our only option so far. So we
headed back to the Balmoral house to grab our bags after lunch and we started another marathon walk to our new hostel called
the Homestead. It was in an area called New Farm that is an older trendy neighbourhood that is similar to Inglewood in Calgary.
Kind of cool and kind of seedy all at the same time.
We were really impressed by the Homestead. It is definitely the
best hostel we've ever stayed in. It is a converted Queenslander style house that is in very good shape. The walls outside
the rooms and all the hallways had a jungle theme painted all over them and a pool, pool table, lounge and a big kitchen.
However, the pool was empty- oh well. A cool guy named Sander who is from the Netherlands ran the place.
After we
checked in we went over to a nearby restaurant called "Alibi" and hung around there for the afternoon. After that we stayed
in to do laundry and met our roommates. They were a couple from England that were on the last leg of their trip and turned
out to be the kind of people that we wished we had met at the beginning of their trip. It would have been very cool to travel
with them as we got along great and spent the evening talking about everything. As well they suggested that we talk to Sander
as they were aware of some rental properties that he has and they had stayed in them. Apparently they are quite nice and a
good price. So if we don't hear from the other place we'll follow up on this lead.
Must find place to live- Need job-
Want car- Still don't know how to surf,
Chad and Janet
Monday, November 17
Today was the day that we managed to ruin our feet and backs for good. Unfortunately the day was a little uneventful
as we continued on our quest for a place to live as we managed to rack up almost nine hours of continuous walking. Down
to the city centre, out of the city centre, back to the city centre, back to the hostel, to another neighborhood, back to
the hostel etc. etc.
We did manage to find a couple of interesting opportunities on the web so we ended up taking the train to a suburb just
on the fringe of the inner city called Ascot. It was a suburb that was by the Brisbane horse racing track and as we
found out was a sleepy and quiet land of endless housing and apartment complexes. We did a walkby of an apartment which
looked to be very promising, phoned the real estate agent, and headed back to catch the train back into the city so that we
could meet another agent at a different property.
Unfortunately it turned out that the place in Ascot wasn't going to pan out for us so we sat down to wait for the train
back into town. It made us feel better that the place in Ascot wasn't going to work out as we realized that Ascot is
not a major stop on the train line and we ended up having to wait an hour just to catch a train- even at rush hour!
We visualized ourselves being stuck in hickville while trying to catch a train to get to our jobs (whenever we find those).
We made it back into town a little late and met up with the real estate agent at a place in a suburb called Spring
Hill. It was a bit of a sketchy location as opposite the complex on the corner was a gigantic, imposing, brick building
that was built sometime in the 1800's which appeared to be empty- or so we thought as we read the one tiny sign that read:
Villa Maria Hostel. Next to the apartment complex was the Pandari Salvation Army Men's Shelter. What a lovely
place that is!
We ended up looking at the apartment. It is a small- no, tiny one bedroom that is reasonably nice and looks to
have been renovated recently. It is only partly furnished (fridge, bed, and stove) so we'll have to figure out how to
make do if we get the place.
We finished the night with yet another walk because we just don't like hanging around at our hostel (aka. the cuckoo's
nest).
We think we might be going crazy,
Chad and Janet
Sunday, November 16
Seeing as how we weren't having any luck with our house hunt we figured that we had better move to a cheaper hostel.
We checked out of the Tinbilly hostel this morning and caught a lift to the Balmoral House in the Fortitude Valley area.
When we arrived we understood immediately why the rent p/night was ten dollars cheaper per person. If you can imagine
the mental hospital in "One flew over the Cuckoos Nest" or the castle in "Strange Brew" (minus the jail cells and the hockey
rink) you might get an accurate picture of our hostel. Our travel guide described the place as "institutional".
Yeah, like we just checked in for a lobotomy.
It was apparent that the owner had also taken the time to note all of his personal pet peeves over the years and had
written little signs to place everywhere throughout the hostel. Imagine going to the washroom and looking over to see
a sign that says "Finished? Turn out the light!" or 19 signs in the kitchen threatening to expel you from the premises if
you forget to do your dishes. The nicest was in the rooms- "No smoking, No alcohol, No food, No noise after 10pm, No
open flames or heat sources, Don't forget your key, Don't leave the lights on!".
We really felt motivated after we checked in to find our own place to stay. We had developed a few leads from yesterday.
Strangely enough a lot of real estate agents wouldn't even give us the time of day when we phoned ads referencing a shared
flat. They quickly blurted out the address and told us to walk by before we pursued them any further. So
we began our continuous quest for a place to live as we were soon to find out why the real estate agents didn't have any time
for us.
Our first stop was a shared room in an area called New Farm. We came upon a large Queenslander style house that
we thought looked quite nice from the street. Now remember that we are nieve little Canadians who don't really know
what shared bathroom/bedroom flats are all about in big city Australia. As we got up to the building we realized that
shared bathroom/bedroom flats in Australia are where the government stores all of the circus freaks and victims of top secret
medical experiments. Picture us walking up to the house to find the manager as we are greeted by a family of three who
are 300 pounds each. The guy in the middle has a few teeth and resembles those trolls that you can buy with the pink
hair and the big nose. He rattles out some sort of babble about the manager not being there and he is promptly interrupted
by the 300 pound people living on the second floor. This is where they keep the lung cancer/lobotomy victims who
continue to smoke. They showed us the manager's phone number and we were kindly greeted by a man sleeping on a couch
outside on the front porch. What a lovely place. Next!
We crossed the circus freak house off the list and proceeded on to a number of different leads that we had. Most
of them turned out to be large Queenlander style houses that deceivingly appear to be quite beautiful on the outside until
you get inside. The carpet is original (from 1934) and so is the furniture. Imagine the places you see in movies
where the cop has to track down the suspect to beat him up and get information out of him. The suspect always lives
in a seedy place with a whole row of doors where you can hear everything going on- coughing, spitting, yelling, crying, and
some other type of physical activity. Well we were convinced that they have done some filming of cop movies in several
of the places that we visited.
We finally sat down for lunch dejected and hopeless. We had run out of leads and we weren't sure what to do next.
So we managed to talk ourselves into spending more money because we came to a staggering realization about ourselves.
This is a realization that can only be arrived at when you live out of a backpack for a month and a half- We are princesses!
We are far too spoiled to be living in a grotto (Aussie slang for dumpy place) so we are going to start looking for an apartment
that might cost us more money but will ensure that we don't go bananas trying to block out the sound of the people in the
next room getting it on 24 hours a day.
With our new budget in hand we hit the next internet cafe and gathered a bunch more leads. After that we did some
more walking- Of course! All told we actually walked nine hours in total today.
Tonight we settled back into Balmoral mental hospital for a lovely evening. We laid down to relax for a while on
our stained bedsheets and watched with wonder at all of the cockroaches running around in our bedroom. Of course you
can only be entertained by insects for so long so we thougt yet another walk would be in order.
We looked at another hostel to stay at for tommorrow and stopped at an Italian Gelato store. Admittedly we both
have always thought that Gelato is actually an icecream substitute made from some sort of mysterious ingredients. We
thought we were both being so adventurous until the lady at the counter looked at us, with that "how stupid are you?" look
on her face, and told us that it's just fancy Italian ice cream. Oh well, fancy Italian ice cream is great!
By the way, apparently New Farm and Fortitude Valley (where our hostel is) is the gay center of Brisbane.
How nice! (sarcasm)
Do cockroaches crawl on you when you are sleeping?,
Chad and Janet
Saturday, November 15
This morning we got up first thing and bought the Saturday newspaper. Just like in Canada it is the paper that
has the ultra thick classified section so we sat down in our room with our new cell phone in hand (we've already used up our
complimentary $30 credits from when we bought the phone- ooops! Can you say addicted to technology?) and started phoning
ads. Then......we came across an ad that specified a one bedroom apartment (flat actually) that was partly furnished
and only $150 p/w in a nearby neighborhood. We phoned the landlord and low and behold it was available and he even offered
to pick us up and show us the place.
We headed out to the street and met the landlord who was a nice retired guy that was quite chatty. We got along
well. When we arrived at the place we were suitably impressed. It wasn't shangri-la but it would definitely do
the trick and it included a garage. So we managed to convince him to agree to three months and as our luck would have
it- a couple from earlier in the morning who had also viewed the place phoned to say they would like to take it.
Unfortunately the landlord had to go with them because they were going to take it for a long term lease so we lost out!!
He felt so bad that he drove us back into the city and dropped us off right by our hostel. The one that got away......
We sulked a little bit and had some lunch while we tried to regroup and figure out a new plan of attack. We decided
to hit the internet cafe to do some more searching and phoned a couple of more leads but we didn't make any progress.
We were quite discouraged so we thought we would give up househunting for the night.
Tonight we decided to go for yet another walk (we have blisters on top of blisters) and we came across the Brisbane "Groove
and Grape" festival. It was a festival in a park downtown that had a bunch of local wineries and bars set up in tents
to sell samples of their wines and beer. They also had live music (which was a D.J. dance band) so we grabbed a drink
and sat down on the grass to enjoy the party.
After that we walked a little bit more and watched all of the locals celebrate the Australia Wallabies win over the New
Zealand All Blacks in the rugby world cup. We made our way over to a place called Irish Murphy's where they had a live
band playing and we spent the night partying in there.
Draft beer good, hangover bad,
Chad and Janet
Friday, November 14
Yet another day of househunting today. We looked at an apartment by the University that was a shared room in an
apartment with a Norwegian guy and a couple of other room mates. It just didn't work as we couldn't see ourselves getting
along with the Norwegian guy. His sense of humor was as dry as a popcorn fart. So we moved on to another
marathon walk with the hopes that we might find an apartment advertised on the street that would be the "one".
We put some major miles on our feet, saw some more giant spiders, and phoned a few places. We are having serious
trouble finding a landlord that will accept a short term rental. But......we are still confident that the place for
us is out there.
Tonight we met a couple of Canadians (finally) and they were shining examples of the good people from Canada.
They were two eighteen year old major stoners from Dryden Ontario who were quite friendly and spent the extolling the virtues
of a lifestyle filled with drugs and alcohol. It was quite entertaining.
We headed back to the room to hang out with some of our new room mates- a girl from Northern England (they speak with
a thick Irish sounding accent) who was on her way to Thailand for a three week trip. She had been in Australia for 6
months and was obviously completely sick of the place. We tried not to get too wrapped up in her complaining about everything
Australian.
Our other room mate was a girl from Sweden who was quite quiet. She didn't have much to say. The other room
mate was a girl from England who was very friendly.
We are looking forward to doing some actual fun things. House hunting sucks!
We want a place that isn't grotty (Aussie word for shit hole),
Chad and Janet
Thursday, November 13
Our room mates from England had to move on today so we bid them farewell and got back out on the road to look at a few
more places to rent. We looked at a couple of shared apartments that would probably do the trick but perhaps we're being
too picky. We know that the accommodation would only be short term but we just couldn't see ourselves really getting
along with the other room mates. They were just too different but pickings are starting to seem a little slim so we
may be settling with something after all.
The rest of the day consisted of a lot of walking and checking notice boards. We are looking forward to getting
the business end of the trip out of the way and getting back into the fun stuff. Life is rough eh?
So, nothing really interesting happened today and.........Oh yeah, we saw our first SPIDERS today! We were walking
on a pathway along the river and Janet stopped and suddenly grabbed my arm. Her eyes went as big as golf balls and she
made a wheezing sound as she pointed over to a web amongst some bushes. In the web was a giant black spider. It's
body was about the size of a loony and it had long legs that were about 2 inches long. It wasn't furry and it was jet
black. As if that wasn't enough we encountered yet another giant spider as we ran away from the first one. This
one was slightly smaller than the first one and had lime green details on his back and his legs were furry. How creeped
out can you possibly get? Very! (after seeing those guys) We quickly scampered away and booked tickets home
on the next available plane to Canada (just kidding).
Must start looking for a job soon (In a spider free environment please),
Chad and Janet
Wednesday, October 12
We woke up this morning, looked in our wallets and bank accounts, and determined that we had to find some cheap accommodation,
and fast. We set out to Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology to check out all of the notice boards
to see if we could find a place to rent. Actually a flat to share or a room to let as they put it. There
was quite a bit available and we even went over to check out a house that was nearby to the University. The house
was an older place that was similar in vintage and style to a lot of inner city houses in Canada. It had hardwood floors
and was fully furnished. It also came complete with a large backyard and two dogs (the landlords) who promptly introduced
themselves. Now neither of us are dog people normally but a select few always manage to get us to smile. The dogs
were a hyperactive combination- one was a Don Cherry dog and the other was something kind of like a Chi Hua Hua. The
Don Cherry dog wasn't particularly bright but friendly and he was constantly being harrassed by his little mexican friend.
These two dogs chased each other all around the house while we checked the place out. We think we could live with them
though as they were too cool.
We decided to consider the place and look at a few others so we moved on and set up a few more appointments for the next
day. We spent the rest of the day touring around the grounds of the Universities which are both on either side of a
large river that winds its way through town. The grounds are absolutely beautiful and it is evident that a lot of planning
and thought have gone into the layout of the city. We also noticed that there were groundskeepers and city workers constantly
doing maintenance all around the are to keep it in pristine shape.
That night we rested our weary legs for a while and then walked over to a place called Caxton street which was supposed
to be a great place for nightlife and restaurants. When we got there we were a little disappointed as there were plenty
of places to grab a bite to eat or something to drink but apparently Wednesday in Brisbane is the night that everyone stays
home. This doesn't sound unusual but every other night of the week including Monday was easy to find people out partying
(in the popular areas of course).
So we had a little taste of home at MacDonald's. They had a burger there called the McOz but we opted not
to try it. It was another burger complete with a slice of beet and who knows what else but MacDonald's has never been
noted with a great ability to experiment outside their area of expertise so we gave it a miss.
They don't have Clamato juice here damn it!,
Chad and Janet
Tuesday, November 11
This morning we decided that we'd have to have a day of responsibility and get some errands done. So, we found
the immigration building downtown and sat in line for about an hour to get a sticker placed in our passports that indicated
our eligibility to work. We thought that the process might have been a lot faster as all of our records and the entire
registration process was online as we had chosen to do. Unfortunately we managed to show up on the day that the printer
was broken and we were forced to sit in line while they rerouted the immigrant traffic elsewhere in the facility.
We then went over to the Australia Tax Commission to enquire about getting a tax file number. This is something
you need in order to ensure that you do not get taxed at a rate of 47%. That could certainly put a damper on things.
After that we went out to find a cell phone. We were a little nieve about the whole experience as we didn't even have
a cell phone in Canada so we had to do some serious homework. There are basically three major cellphone (or mobiles
as they prefer to call them here) providers who all force you to buy prepaid phone packages. The minimum contract you
can get otherwise is two years and they have all sorts of conditions so we obviously narrowed our search to the prepaids.
After extensive searching we finally settled on a phone and we figure we got a pretty good deal. We'll email the number
if anyone cares to know it so you can leave a message but don't expect us to call you back with it as the rates are unbelievably
bad (but still the cheapest we could find).
After that we found a long distance phone card and stumbled across a mall food court that, if you hit it late enough,
sells off containers of the lunch time food for half price (about $3). What luck! We dined on gourmet chinese
food and shared a "Lift" (Aussie version of Fresca). That night we headed back to the hostel. The doctor and the
French guys and the English guy had left to be replaced by a couple of girls from England. One was a nurse and the other
was a physiotherapist. They had been travelling around in the northern part of Queensland and they were on their way
down to Sydney where they would eventually head on to New Zealand for work. They were very cool and down to earth and
we spent the evening chatting. We called it an early night after we made a quick trip to the local "Coles" supermarket
for a few groceries. It was great to see North American food especially Doritos (which they don't seem to have in Asia-
well actually they do but they are crappy imposters. I think the bag actually said Poritos).
Did you know Aussie meat pies only have to contain 25% real meat by law? What's the rest of it made of?,
Chad and Janet
Monday, November 10
We got up somewhat refreshed (the party animals were a little quieter last night) and we checked out of "Cheers".
We grabbed the bus to the train station and headed back into Brisbane. When we arrived in town we headed over to a hostel
called "Tinbilly Travellers". It's a year old, purpose built, hostel that is a pretty neat building. We checked
in and met our new room mates. They were a couple of guys from France named William and Matt. They were
pretty cool and they had a few stories. Apparently people from France can only have a tourist visa for three months
and they are not allowed to work so these guys were quickly running out of money and had plans to go home in the next couple
of days.
We found this hostel to be a lot nicer than "Cheers" and while it is a bit soulless it's clean and everything is virtually
brand new and squeaky clean. We checked out the building and talked to a few people before we decided to head out and
check out Brisbane's downtown area.
In order to give an idea of what Brisbane looks like you should imagine Vancouver and Saskatoon all rolled into one (minus
the hippies, farmers, and pine trees). It is a cosmopolitan city and the downtown core is crazy during the day but seems
to clear out almost completely at night. There isn't a major nightlife to speak of right down town so we decided
to stop in at the hostel pub. We played in the pub trivia game with the rest of the bar and our French room mates.
Our team was called French Canadian Bacon and we ended up in the playoffs to determine the titleholder of the coveted last
place spot in the rankings. We managed to prevail and one a lovely burnt wooden spoon. I'll cherish it forever!
When we got back to the hostel we met another room mate that had checked in. He was an English doctor that
had been living and working in Cairns up north for the last eight months. Believe it or not he was only 26 and he already
had two years of experience as a doctor! We spent a little time chatting with him and determined that it would be appropriate
to call him Doogie Howser for the rest of the night.
Later (much later) that night another room mate entered the room and took the last available bunk. I'm not sure
if he was actually registered at the hostel or was looking for a warm bed but he turned out to be a very friendly fellow.
Yet another English guy following the rugby matches around.
How ya goin mate?,
Chad and Janet
Sunday, November 9
We got up a little on the late side today and delicately made our way out of the hostel as we dodged hungover pub crawlers.
The weather was beautiful. In fact so far it has been a little cooler in Australia than we expected as it has been about
15 to 25 degrees with far lower humidity than Asia. We realized how climatized we had become to the sweltering weather
in Thailand and Malaysia because as we walked through the streets we both commented on the cool breeze and mild weather that
we were enjoying. Neither of us had even broken a sweat when we discovered that it was actually 28 degrees with not
a cloud in the sky. We're screwed when we come back to Canada.
We decided that we'd have breakfast at a place called "Hungry Jack's". They seem to be everywhere and we discovered
that Hungry Jack's is actually Burger King. Who the hell is Hungry Jack and what did he do to the King? Always
the adventurer, Chad tried the "Aussie Burger". It turned out that it was a version of a loaded burger the way that
Aussie's like it. It was basically a whopper complete with lettuce, tomato, onion, fried egg, 2 slices of ham, and a
thick slice of red beet. And....it was great!
We moved on to check out the beach which was beautiful and packed with lot's of people. The waves look great and
we're looking forward to doing some surfing soon.
We walked over to catch a snake show on the street. They had a snake handler (sort of like crocodile Steve or whatever
his name is on tv) and he had six snakes. He had one python which wasn't dangerous and the top five world's deadliest
snakes in there with him. We watched him play with a brown snake (No.2 deadliest snake) and the tai pan (No.1 deadliest
snake) and he taught us the tried and tested secrets to survival around deadly snakes.
No.1: Stand still as snakes can't smell, hear, or see you very well beyond 2 to 3 meters (they can actually only see
shadows). We wondered if they might notice the pee running down your leg. Like we're going to stand still.
No.2: Wear thick boots and pants when in the outback. I'm sure that I will remember this little detail on the day
when I forget to wear boots and pants and I'm confronted by a Tai Pan.
No.3: If you are bitten, wrap a bandage around the area that was bitten (not too tight) and seek medical attention within
five hours. Don't clean the bite as the hospital will swab the area and do a venom detection kit to determine what type
of anti venom is needed.
He also mentioned that the Tai Pan was also capable of "jumping" to strike. And it can strike repeatedly in multiple
directions (up or out). Then he reminded us that if he took a pin and dipped the tip into the venom, waved off the excess,
it would still have enough to kill three adults. And he wants us to stand still when we see these bastards? Oh
yeah and when a Tai Pan comes between Chad's legs and strikes upward onto his balls repeatedly I'm sure he's going to be glad
he stood still.
We then headed back to the hostel to do a bit of laundry. We hung around for the Hostel barbecue for some good
"Aussie Tucker". We had chicken and some mystery meat sausages with salad for $4. It was decent.
That night we went to visit the Ripley's believe it or not museum. It had quite a few displays and we really liked
it. After that we went back to the hostel and headed to bed. It was quite a bit quieter as most of the pub crawlers
were still in bad shape from the night before.
Two headed cows do exist apparently,
Chad and Janet
Saturday, November 8
This morning we got up extra early complete with hangover from the infamous "Victoria Bitter" and we checked out of our
room. We made our way down to the Brunswick St. train station to head over to the backpacker accommodation office that
we had heard about downtown.
As we made our way downtown a "funny" little incident happened- or according to Janet it was funny. Chad was introduced
to the experience of being "shat" on by one of the local birds- HOW WONDERFUL! We had a good laugh though and carried
on after we went through about 6 wetnaps (Thanks Leah).
We checked at a few places along the way to the accommodation centre and they were all full of people that had come to
watch the rugby cup so we checked at the accommodation centre and they told us that we would have to go out to Surfer's Paradise
to find a place to stay as there was nothing left at all in Brisbane or the surrounding area for the weekend. So we
grabbed a quick bite to eat and jumped on the train (Similar to Calgary's LRT but a lot bigger) out to Surfer's Paradise about
an hour away.
When we got to Surfer's we got a taste of what all of the travel guides had described Surfer's Paradise to be.
It was a glitzy, touristy, richy, and backpackerish kind of place (??). We had heard it described as a version of Miami
"down under" which we thought was about right. It was however a real treat to walk in clean streets with English everywhere
and no strange smells (at least not from the sewer). We checked into a backpacker party hostel called Cheers and went
straight for a nap. Side note: we have learned something about eachother on this trip: We both have a trigger
to turn ourselves into whiny, cranky, grumpy, impatient people. Chad's trigger: No sleep (he was therefore all of the
above when we reached Surfer's Paradise. Janet's trigger: No food! (there is a demon living in there somewhere-
I swear!! Don't be fooled by her cuteness! Chad ;)
We learned that trying to have a nap in a party hostel can be a little difficult and it usually helps if you don't have
two overweight slobs for room mates. Our bunk beds were covered with sand and who knows what else and the entire room
smelled like dirty feet as the two female room mates had had the room to themselves for a long time. Oh well, who wants
to sleep anyways?
After a short nap we grabbed a drink and checked out the hostel a little bit. It had a pool and a bar with a lot
of games and things to do. It was pretty cool but we decided to head out and grab something to eat so that we could
check out Surfer's a little more.
After we spent some time checking out the area we went back to the hostel to hang out for a bit. It was Saturday
night and a pub crawl was planned and everyone was running around getting ready to go to the bar. We had no idea that
so many girls packed high heels in their backpacks. We decided to give the pub crawl a miss as we were still fighting
a bit of jet lag and lack of sleep. As well, we realized that we were spoiled in Asia because it is very expensive here.
At the rate that we've had to spend so far we should be home in a couple of weeks. See you all soon! (just kidding)
We headed to bed at about midnight after cheering on 3 consecutive rugby matches with people in the hostel bar and spent
the night trying to sleep in between drunks coming back to the hostel and singing various tunes. (Damn UK idiots).
Tooheys New beer is good,
Chad and Janet
Friday, November 7
We got up extra early to get ready for our flight that was to leave at 9:20 in the morning. We made it through
check in and customs was quite easy to get through. We were excited to see that the plane was slightly smaller than
the one that we took from North America and we ended up in a row of only two seats right beside the window. Poor suckers
in the middle with four seats He he! The flight took about 7.5 hours and it went pretty well.
We arrived in Brisbane at about 7:30 local time where we were introduced to Australia's recent crackdown on disease and
pest control quarantines. We had to sit in the plane as the flight attendants sprayed it and everyone in it with some
sort of aerosol disinfectant. We then had to watch a video that detailed the giant list of things that we could not
bring into the country including food, dirt, insects, guns, medicine etc. It was complete overkill.
We got off the plane and made it through a few layers of customs personell and it was reasonably easy to get through.
We then had to wait as they brought a trained dog to sniff everyone's luggage for food and drugs etc. Then we had to
put all of our luggage through an extra screen before we could leave the airport. What a mess!
That was only the start of the fiasco of our evening in Brisbane. As we foolishly forgot to book ahead a place
to stay we came to the realization that there was virtually nothing available for accommodation in the entire city due to
the Rugby world cup taking place in Brisbane this weekend. How nice. After a good deal of phoning around we found
a place that was far too expensive for our budget but was a nice room to have after a nonstop travel schedule in the days
prior.
That night we decided to explore "The Valley" which was the area of Brisbane that we ended up in. It was a trendy/trashy
neighborhood that was filled with bars and clubs and all manner of people and ahem, should we say "lifestyles?". We
did a little exploring and ended up settling down for a drink at an outdoor cafe where we had our first taste of "Victoria
Bitter". Our verdict: Not bad but Canadian beer is better!!
Later that evening an Australian couple noticed our "accents" and decided to introduce themselves to us. They were
definitely a couple of characters and we hung around with them for the night. We definitely decided that the Aussie's
are quite friendly. The night ended up being a little longer than we would have liked but a good time was had by all.
Unfortunately the hotel we were in did not have a vacancy for the next night so we had to plan to be on the move again
in the morning.
Want place for SLEEP!,
Chad and Janet
Thursday, November 6
Our train arrived in Kuala Lumpur at about 8:00am. Unfortunately as comfortable as we claim the train ride was
it was difficult to get any sleep and we were dead tired. But, we had some breakfast at KL's fancy new train station
and ended up taking the ultra-highspeed commuter train (130mph) out to the airport so that we could confirm our flights for
the next day.
We spent a fair amount of money just to get out to the airport which is a ways out of KL. We didn't think that
our budget could handle a return trip into KL city to see the Batu caves and a couple of other sites that we had originally
planned to see. So, after a little bit of inquiring we ended up checking in to a nearby airport hotel and had a long
nap as we were in desperate need of sleep. Of course our hotel room was equipped with not one but two geckos including
one that ran over Janet's foot and put her into gecko surveillance mode.
We had a fairly relaxing day (if not kind of boring) as we were stuck out by the airport where there was absolutely nothing
but the hotel and the airport itself so there wasn't much to do. So we used a little creativity and decided that a couple
of beers might be a nice thing to try. (As if we needed more beer...)
Where is that damn gecko?, (by the way we think that geckos actually squawk. Or we hope it was only a gecko because
we couldn't find anything else in our hotel room that would make the kind of sounds we were hearing.........shudder)
Chad and Janet
Wednesday, November 5
We got up bright and early today to make it over to the bus station so that we could catch the local city bus that would
take us to Pedang Besar. The bus we took was the most beat up, rickety, piece of crap we had ridden on to date.
You could see the road through the floor and the bench seats rattled constantly. It was about a 50 minute bus ride through
Hat Yai morning rush hour and then through a few small towns to Pedang Besar which is a small town that straddles the Thai/Malaysian
border.
The bus dropped us off right at the border crossing and we went through Thai customs first to "check out" and then we
actually walked across the border. It was a little unique as we strolled along with our packs on a road that was lined
with barbed wire fences and armed guards. We reached the Malaysian customs officers and we made it through without any
trouble. We continued walking right over to the train station which was in the same compound as it too straddled the
border.
We spent the next 3 hours sitting around the train station waiting for our train until it arrived late and we were able
to board. The train ticket that we got was for 2nd class berths. We got two bottom berths that were quite comfortable.
We've decided that train travel like that is the way to go! On the way we met a girl from Thailand that was going to
school in Malaysia. Her name was Frida and she spoke very good English. We spent several hours chatting with her
into the night and enjoyed learning about her culture from an actual citzen. Overall the train ride was an interesting
way of seeing the country as we stopped in many places that we had not seen along the way the first time.
Have a nice day,
Chad and Janet
Tuesday, November 4
Today we bid adieu to our favorite place in Thailand. We checked out of the hotel extremely early (before 8:00)
and caught the local bus into Phuket city. The bus, during morning rush our, is about the slowest mode of transportation
available. In fact we even noticed a few pedal bikes passing us. So, eventually we made it into Phuket and made
our way over to the bus station.
We caught the 9:30 bus to Hat Yai and (with the help of Gravol) slept most of the way. Unfortunately the bus air
conditioning system seemed to be on the fritz so we boiled most of the way. This was a little trying in conjuction with
the driver's apparent death wish. We had to strap our bags to our legs because the bus careened around corners so fast
that stuff on the floor was flying everywhere. What a thrill!
It was an odd yet comforting feeling to arrive in a place that we had actually been before (this far away from home).
We checked into the trusty "Singapore Hotel" and did some research at the train station and the tourist office to determine
our plan for tomorrow.
Tomorrow we plan to take a bus from Hat Yai to a place called Pedang Besar on the Thailand/Malaysia border.
At that point we will cross through customs and catch a train that we booked that will take us overnight into Kuala Lumpur.
To say the least we are expecting a bit of a fiasco tomorrow as information about Pedang Besar and the customs/train schedules
are a little sketchy.
We caught a little live music tonight at the "Post Laser Disc Cafe" (what kind of name is that?) and we will call it
an early night so we can be on our way tomorrow morning promptly.
Looking forward to Oz,
Chad and Janet
Monday, November 3
For once we actually decided that we had more important things to do than go to the beach. We had to figure
out our travel arrangements so we got up early (before 11:00) to catch the local bus into Phuket city. We made it over
to the bus station and checked the schedule and made a few stops on the way back to catch the bus into Kata beach.
We managed to mail off a few postcards in Phuket so a lucky few of you should see something sometime this year we figure.
It took us 30 hours to get here, we can only imagine how long it would take a little postcard on the slow boat to Canada.
We made it back into Kata in the late afternoon where we decided to take a hike along the ocean shoreline. We started
at Kata beach and made it along a shoreline of huge rocks and boulders. It was a very cool and challenging hike as we
dodged crabs and various other sea life that we hadn't seen before. Our hike took us longer than we expected and the
last part of it had us making our way along the rocks in the dark and finally onto Kata Noi beach which was our original destination.
We got some great pictures and hopefully we can get them on the site soon. We have yet to find an internet cafe that
has a connection fast enough to do anything other than check email and update the text portion of the website.
Tomorrow we plan to leave Phuket to take the bus back to Hat Yai so that we can get on with our trek back to Kuala Lumpur.
Bye Bye beach.....,
Chad and Janet
Sunday, November 2
After last night we decided to sleep in yet again. How unproductive can you get? At what point do you decide
that you haven't contributed one iota to society in a single day? The answer: when you've spent a week at Phuket.
Of course a hearty breakfast was in order and we figured that the best remedy for a big night out was a day at the beach!
So we headed over to our favorite Kata beach and sunbathed for a while.
In the evening we grabbed some dinner at the "Tex-Mex" place and called it an early night.
Sand everywhere,
Chad and Janet
Saturday, November 1
Today we headed over to a beach next door to us called Kata Noi. It was a short walk to get to it and we basically
found that the one street that makes up "Kata Noi" consisted of the usual tourist shops and a whole lot of construction.
We got onto the beach and discovered that it was quite quiet and finding a place to hang out undisturbed wasn't very difficult.
The beach was a little smaller than Kata beach and the water was a little rougher and less clear than the other beaches
but still pretty nice. We had a couple of drinks on the beach and had a relaxing day.
That night we headed out to have dinner at a place called "La Banana" where we decided to have pizza (again). We
figured that a little bit of partying was in order so we cruised around to a few local establishments, including the local
prostitute pickup bar (one of many) and observed the antics of the she-males and the "hoo-hoo" girls over a game of Jenga.
How's that for a strange evening?
Cover your crotch boys and girls!,
Chad and Janet
Friday, October 31
Happy Halloween! Apparently Thais don't recognize Halloween as a holiday like we do. So, no costumes or candy!
(boo hoo).
Today was another exciting day of suntanning and swimming in the ocean. The weather was great (super sunny and
hot) and we are definitely getting some serious tans (and some burns).
We ate out at "Kwong Shop Seafood" (Sorry we don't recommend it) and had a little Thai food. Unfortunately in the
tourist areas they think that you can't handle any spice so the legendary "Fiery Hot" Thai food that you hear about generally
doesn't seem to exist. Instead they see the white guy coming along and they take out every last bit of spice (and sometimes
flavor) out of the food. Too bad says Chad!
Tomorrow we plan to make our way over to "Kata Noi" which we had planned to do a couple of days ago and we will head
over to "Karon" beach the day after that. We booked our seats on the train that we will be taking from Pedang Besar
at the Thai/Malaysia border to Kuala Lumpur. We will be leaving Phuket on the 4th to take a bus to Hat Yai where we
will overnight and take a bus to Pedang Besar to catch the train the next day.
Where's the sunscreen?,
Chad and Janet
Thursday, October 30
Today was another "typical" day around Paradise. We spent a bit of time at the beach and Janet managed to get bitten
or stung by something (we're not sure what) while swimming in the ocean. This creature or parasite or bug or whatever
left a couple of clusters of mosquito bite-like (or blisters) bumps on her leg. They seemed to burn for about a half
hour and they disappeared as quickly as they came. Strange! It didn't stop us from getting back in the water though.
Other than that we kept things to a minimum as a little "Thailand revenge" was setting in and we basically chilled out.
Where the hell is the TP?!,
Janet and Chad
Wednesday, October 29
We have realized that there is a definite trend here in the tropics with respect to weather. If it is hot and sunny
for a few days then you can guarantee that it will rain at least one day after that. Well guess how the weather was
today?
We figured that we would give the soggy beach a miss today so we headed over to a little Australian cafe for breakfast
and spent the rest of the afternoon playing cards and hanging out in our room in order to avoid the rain. That night
we had Tex-Mex (we told you that Thai food was scarce here) and we wandered around trying not to get rained on too hard.
We definitely appreciate not having to put up with the tons of tuk tuks and songthows (taxis) that they had in Patong but
the one thing they do have tons of here are tailors. These guys use the same lines every time in order to try and sell
you a custom made suit or dress:
1. They try to shake your hand "Excuse me sir/ma'am, could I offer you a look at this fine apparel?"
2. "Where are you from my friend?"-they ask
3. we answer- "We don't need a suit/dress, Thanks"; they repeat question two while still trying to grab your hand or
arm
4. we answer- "Canada" while trying to walk away
5. they say- "Do you know my friend Bryan Adams in Canada?"
6. "ha ha ha ha ha"
7. we answer- "Who wants to wear a damn suit when it's 35 degrees out with 110% humidity?"
8. we run away as fast as possible as they start at question one again.
We've decided that we aren't going to go to Bangkok or Chang Mai anymore. It is 13 or 14 hours by bus to get up
there and we have to be back to catch our plane in Kuala Lumpur on Nov. 7. We figured that at this point we would waste
a lot of days travelling and all to get to a dirty smoggy city (we both don't really like cities anyway) and why would you
want to leave paradise for that? So we're sticking around the island of Phuket until around the 4th of November.
We then plan to take a bus back to Hat Yai and catch a train all the way to Kuala Lumpur on the 5/6.
Tomorrow we hope to do some snorkelling at a beach called Kata Noi right next to ours.
Praying for sun again,
Chad and Janet
Tuesday, October 28
It turns out a little prayer to the sun gods can work wonders. We headed out to the beach after a quick breakfast
and spent the day sunbathing and playing in the ocean. We can't get over how clear and warm the water is and the sand
is fine. To top it off the beach is still fairly uncrowded and an open spot to stretch out is easy to find. However
the only complaint we have is the beach umbrella and chair mofia. All the chairs cost 50baht each to rent for the day.
Ok so that's only $1.75Can and if it were in Canada it would cost $5 so why are we being so cheap?! Anyway we are a
couple of tightwads so we laid out the sarong on the beach and called it home (we ain't payin' for chairs).
The weather was beautiful and HOT today. We both made some serious gains on our tans and Chad managed to burn his
shoulders quite nicely (tip: always remember to evenly distribute your suntan lotion in order to avoid streaks).
That evening we headed over to the North end of the beach and into Karon (the town/beach next to Kata). We went
for supper at a Danish restaurant (Thai food is a little hard to find here in resort land) and we had a good old fashioned
Western meal. Cheeseburger and fries and a Club sandwich with fries. So what if we didn't indulge in the local
cuisine? It tasted damn good.
We cruised around the area after dinner and did some people watching and stopped in at a few shops to see what was happening.
We came upon a place called "Dino world" where they had a couple of elephants (on the sidewalk!) and you could ride them or
feed them if you cared to. We have both seen the "real videos" where the elephants freak out and stomp all over there
trainer so we opted not to go for a ride. That and the fact that we're cheap skates! We also kind of felt that
the whole spectacle was a little cruel. There was an awful lot going on around the elephants and they didn't seem to
happy.
We ended up spending the remainder of the night back at our bungalow where we relaxed and did some reading. (Pretty
damn exciting eh?)
Nursing sunburns,
Chad and Janet
Monday, October 27
This morning we checked out of "sin city" and took the local bus into Phuket town and then caught another one to a place
called Kata/Karon beach. Now, so far we have only been in Thailand a few days and we recalled how several people we
had talked to had gone on about how great it was here and that it was their favorite place in the world etc. We hadn't
really agreed with that entirely since we got here. We were looking for that magical place in the brochures where the
water is clear, the beaches clean, and the sun is out. Well.......we finally found it!
Kata is a beautiful beach with that sand that feals "squeaky" when you walk on it. The beaches are relatively quiet
but enough people to keep it interesting (heh heh topless anyone?). The water is clear enough that you can see your
toes when you are up to your chest and the sun is finally out. We realize how hot it can actually get when it isn't
raining! We found a little bungalow right across from the beach that we got a great deal on. It also has a pool
but we figure that we'll be on the beach most of the time.
We decided to splurge on dinner and had some local Thai dinner with some fresh seafood. It was great and broke
our budget but with respect to Canadian prices for the equivalent it was incredibly cheap. We're currently checking
out the "night life" and so far it's a little more family oriented but there's enough dark alleys with neon lights that we're
sure we'll find something over the top.
The plan for the next 5 or 6 days is to finally settle down and do some serious beaching. As long as it doesn't
rain........
Praying to the sun gods,
Chad and Janet
Sunday, October 26
We started the day off with a swim in the hotel pool as thankfully the sun had come out and it turned into a beautiful
morning. We had some fresh fruit for breakfast and decided to head down to the bus stop by the beach as we figured that
we were going to take the local bus over to a different beach kalled Kata beach. But, we were bombarded by taxi's
(tuk tuks and songthows) relentlessly as soon as we stepped out onto the street. We were harrassed all the way down
to the beach as we walked through all the restaurant and bar areas on the way. Everybody wants a piece of your wallet
here. Unfortunately this really soured our mood (Chad mostly- Mr. Crankypants!) ((In fact, Chad wanted to buy an assault
rifle of some type- no matter what brand but big and mean with bullets that created the maximum amount of damage to the target
when fired- to use on the local taxis)).
We ended up running out of time to get to the other beach so we stayed in Patong for the afternoon. We walked around
the promenade area and did some people watching from a local pub (actually an Irish pub- how local is that?) and we ended
up taking part in a Thai buffet later that night. Chad discovered how spicy Thai food can really get as we found a small
dish full of some type of fish sauce with these tiny little peppers that were about half the size of a dime. One touch
to the tongue just about brought tears to your eyes and burned all over the place. Pure fire!!
That evening we headed back into the heart of sin city thinking that we might as well play the game while were here (uh,
actually just watch the game, we ain't playing transvestite tag). We saw plenty of "katoeys" which are the local he-girls
and lots of the fat old white guys picking up the local hootchies.
We did end up stopping into one place to watch an authentic Mauy Thai boxing fight. It is one thing to watch it
on tv but another to see it live. It was a brutal display and it seemed like the fighters were actually taking turns
punching or kicking eachother in the head or the ribs as hard as they could. The fights only lasted two rounds each
and they were all pure slugfests. Afterwards the fighters all came around and shook your hand and we realized that they
wanted a "tip". So of course we figured that they could certainly punch harder than both of us put together so a "tip"
it was. Except we ran away after the last fight was over before the boxers had a chance to get to our table.
Tomorrow we check out of sin city and head out to Kata beach.
You want Thai massage on hoo hoo?,
Chad and Janet
Saturday, October 25
Got up, got packed, got on the bus. We bid the smoggy city of Hat Yai adieu and we were on our way. We were
quite concerned about how we would make out with respect to getting a reputable bus to make it to Phuket not knowing the language
and all but we managed to find quite a nice one. In fact there was a "flight attendant", movies, food, and the trip
was quick and relatively comfortable. All told the 7 hour trip cost us only $18 for the two of us!
Along the way we passed through several small towns including a town called "Krabi" that we had originally intended on
going to but decided not to. That was probably a good idea because it was pouring rain there. Most of the towns
in Asia are now starting to look the same and are relatively uneventful. We've kind of lost that dreaded feeling of
pulling into a strange foreign place and not knowing where to go. They all have the same characteristics for the most
part.
We made it into Phuket which is a small island that is supposedly the same size in area as Singapore. The
tourist brochures promised amazing beaches and water so we were excited but we weren't expecting the water to be falling from
the sky. We made it over to the tourist information office in Phuket town and changed some money. We then took
a local bus out to a beach town call Ao Patong. It then really started raining- monsoon style!!
We had a rough idea where we wanted to stay so we thought we could walk there. Keep in mind we had fifty pound
packs on and it was pouring rain so we decided we would catch a local taxi. Now we knew that a reasonable amount to
get around town would be 10 to 30 baht but we didn't ask right away. The driver didn't know where he was going and actually
drove us away from where we wanted to go. So we stopped and figured out where we wanted to go and asked how much.
He said 100 baht. We laughed and right away he went to 50 baht. We said 30 but he wouldn't budge and basically
we all got frustrated and we ended up leaving the taxi without paying. Unfortunately we weren't anywhere near where
we wanted to be. We now had a hate on for the local taxis and stubbornly (Chad mostly) decided to walk to our original
destination.
We headed on our way in the monsoon rain with the 50 pound packs on and made it about half way until we decided to stop
and turn around. So we ended up back where we were, soaked from head to toe, and extremely tired. We asked around
at a couple of places for a decent rate and we finally came upon a super nice resort that we ended up being able to negotiate
a pretty good price for an awesome room. This place has a pool and is definitely resort quality, all for only $25 a
night for the both of us.
We wandered around later that evening around Patong and discovered that we had stepped into the land of anything goes
or Sin city Thailand. As pathetic as it was there were tons of old fat white ugly Australian and English men that looked
like lobsters from too much sun who had a little Thai girl on their arm. Ah prostitution. But, it doesn't stop
there. Would you care for a young boy? How about both? There are also streets filled to the brim with bars
of every type (especially sex oriented) with Thai women in skimpy clothes hanging around and calling at the old fat guys on
the street.
The worst part about this place, along with the high prices, is the taxis and the hawkers. They are relentless,
they hassled us up to three and four times repeatedly to buy something or take a ride and there are literally hundreds of
them. And they all ask you for something! It drives Chad nuts especially and our cool and polite demeanor that
we had with them before we came here is now gone. Sorry Canada, we aren't doing anything for the positive image of Canadian
travellers.
That night we ended up having pizza (go figure that Thai food is harder to find here than anything else) and walked around
tourist mania. Nice beach though......(topless anyone?- Oh yeah, that means you too Grandma!)
Please take us away from the taxis!,
Chad and Janet
Friday, October 24
Not a very eventful day today. We stayed in for a while and did some reading of our novels. We're trying
to have a cheap day so that we can get our budget back online. We walked around as usual all over the place. We
stopped in to pick up all of our pictures which we have now converted to CD. Unfortunately the internet cafe we are
in will not let us upload the pictures for some reason so we'll have to wait and try again somewhere else. Soon the
pics will be up hopefully.
We've definitely seen all there is to see in Hat Yai. The only major observation that we have is that the pollution
from the cars here is choking. So, tomorrow we will head to Phuket by bus. It's about an 8 hour trip and we're
hopefully going to find a clean, sunny, quiet beach- Is that too much to ask?
Must have sleep,
Chad and Janet
Thursday, October 23
We actually had to sit here and confirm that we were correct about what day of the week it is. It doesn't seem
to matter when you're on the road......(how cheesy a statement is that?)
We had an eventful 24 hours so far. Last night as we brushed our teeth we realized that we had yet another house
guest in addition to our resident gecko. As Chad leaned over the sink Janet looked up and noticed the 2 inch long cockroach
that was sitting on the wall perilously close to Chad's head. If you can imagine how many octaves higher Janet's and
Chad's voices could get you would have to multiply by a 100. We ran out of the bathroom and slammed the door shut.
For the next half hour we tried everything from a juice carton to a water bottle to a sandal. We didn't want to squash
him at first because we thought it would make too much of a mess but after several failed attempts at catching him (these
bastards are fast!) we decided to go in for the kill. Unfortunately we think we only grazed him with the sandal and
he got away behind a crack in the wall.
This morning we headed over to the ferry terminal and boarded the ferry to Satun Thailand. The ferry was only about
45 minutes and as luck would have it it was sunny and warm the day we left. Go figure. When we arrived in Satun
we met a guy from New Zealand who suggested that we slip 20 Baht (Thai currency) into our passport when we were going through
customs. He seemed to imply that it sped things up a bit. So we played the game and low and behold we made it
through without incident.
In the Satun terminal we were bombarded (the worst ever) by bus drivers, tuk tuks, samlors (pickup trucks that you ride
in the back of), and hired cars (kind of like private taxis. We didn't know any better because Satun does not have any
official taxi service or bus service so we were forced to go with one of the local hired cars. Our initial plan was
to go on the bus from Satun straight to a place about four hours away called Krabi. But unfortunately we missed the
only bus in the morning so we thought we would be able to catch one out of a nearby city called Hat Yai only 100km away.
We headed over there and realized when we got there that we couldn't get to Krabi the same day either so we were forced
to get a hotel. At first we were apprehensive about Hat Yai as the Lonely Planet guide we have said that Hat Yai is a
popular destination for Muslim Malaysians who like to partake in the local "flesh trade" as they can just quickly pop over
the border and get their fix. You want sucky sucky Dr. Jones?
After walking around aimlessly for a while (we were quite lost) we thought that the Thai's were pushy and only out for
a buck. We were basing this on the cab drivers though and as soon as we broke down and took one to the hotel Singapore
we got out of the scummy Bus terminal area. After some exploration of Hat Yai we have decided that we quite like it-
perhaps our favorite city to date. The people are as friendly and smily as we were told and while many buildings are
a little run down the city is relatively clean and a lot more of an open and free culture. Janet is especially enjoying
it as she isn't being leered at by the Malaysian muslim men anymore. The Thai's seem to just let you be which is cool.
For supper we stopped into a "Steak House". It was the only place that had a lick of English on the sign.
So we got our menus that were entirely in Thai Arabic script and the waiter just pointed to every item and said either chicken,
beef, or meat (one can only wonder). There were about 15 items on the menu but apparently they are only one of the three.
So we picked item number one which turned out to be a chicken breast with four french fries (exactly), toast, and cole slaw.
It was fantastic. However when you are starving the phrase "I could eat the ass out of a dead skunk" does apply once
in a while.
We plan to hang out for another day and then head straight for the island of Phuket by bus. It is supposedly a
picture postcard beach place and still relatively cheap.
Pictures will definitely be up in the next few days.
By the way- We have over 300,000 Baht in our bank accounts combined! How's that for a bank balance?! Very
cool to see on the ATM printout.
Sawat dii Khrap (It means hello- that's all we know how to say so far),
Chad and Janet
Wednesday, October 22
We know that a lot of you are asking about pictures. Don't worry we have taken lots but as we get farther and farther
away from the major cities we are unable to find photo places that can develop digital camera pictures. We hopefully
will find some in Thailand and when that comes the pictures will be up as soon as possible.
Today we woke up to......rain. But, luckily it has stopped and for the first time it looks like there isn't a cloud
in the sky!! We are going to have a beach day and learn a little Thai before we head into Thailand tommorrow.
We have basically had a low budget day so far and plan to keep it that way. We got a little spooked last night
at the prospect of crossing over into Thailand as English is not very widespread there like it is in Malaysia. We decided
that we had better brush up on some of the basics and do a little research before we jump into that.
So, Tiger beer, the beach, and a Thai phrasebook is the plan today!
By the way, there are no hot water showers here. Cold water is cold water even when it's 25 degrees outside.
Brrrr!
Getting out suntan lotion,
Chad and Janet
Tuesday, October 21
Apparently there is no shortage of rain here as we woke up to yet another rain storm. In fact it was so bad the
last couple of nights that the streets have been covered in fallen palm tree branches, coconuts, and whole trees! As
well as the usual garbage all strewn about. Slobs!
We decided that we'd had enough of the local scenery so we rented a car. For fifty ringgit we got a Proton Saga
through the hotel. Proton is the Malaysian cheap car of choice. You see them everywhere and they are made by Mitsubishi
exclusively for Malaysia (we think). It was more than a little strange to drive this thing as it was built for driving
on the left hand side of the road. It was a standard and the gearshift was in its usual place but the shifting pattern
was the same as cars in North America. The clutch and gas pedal locations were the same as NA as well but the signal
light switch was on the right hand side of the steering wheel rather than the left. The strangest thing is looking to
your left to see out of the rear view mirror.
We took off to fill up the car at the local "Petronas". Here you have to pay first and so we had no idea how much
this car needed. We thought: "let's put in about 10$CAN and see how much that gives us because the car was dead empty
to start. The gas ended up costing about 1.37 ringgit per litre which is about $0.40 a litre. That almost filled
the car entirely!
We took off to our first stop at the North Western point of the island which was the Seven Wells waterfall. We
had to make our way up an extremely steep winding road to a small parking lot. We then had to hike up a set of stairs
that took us probably 10 minutes to get up to the top. It was very beautiful at the top and provided some great views.
When we headed back to the car we came upon about 10 monkeys in total. All the way from the babies to the Mom and
Dad. "Cute little monkeys" we thought until Chad looked over at the Dad monkey and got a growl. We actually had
to shoo them away from the car to get out and we drove to the bottom of the hill. At this point we were greeted by yet
more monkeys. These guys are not shy (ie. It's time to mate!) And we also discovered that Janet is not particularly
fond of these creatures. We checked with one of the locals about the monkeys and he laughed at us saying that they
weren't vicious and were used to being fed peanuts by the tourists. We finished by hiking to the bottom of the
falls and we really enjoyed it.
Next we headed to Pantai Pebble beach which was one of the coolest beaches we had ever seen. There weren't
any other people to be seen anywhere and the sand was some of the most unusual we'd ever been on. We watched some of
the little sand crabs walking around and saw what we thought was a muskrat of some type?
We headed over to the Temurun water falls next which were just down the road. It was absolutely incredible!!
Unfortunately it is hard to describe how nice it is but we did get lots of pictures which we will hopefully be able to
put up soon.
We got back on the road and dodged lazy road crossing monkeys and dogs (nobody moves out of the way for anything
out here) to the "Black sand beach". Along the way we continually had to remind ourselves to stay on the left
side of the road! Luckily this island doesn't have a lot of traffic but- All scooters and farm vehicle operators should
be shot!!
Just before the black sand beach, we came up upon a road block. It was an entire herd of water buffaloes that
had decided that a migration down the main highway would be in order. So we waited for a bit while some of the locals
hollered at the water buffaloes and we slowly crept by to get past. This apparently is a fairly regular thing.
We arrived at the black sand beach and we were soon to be disappointed. The sand was black all right (mostly
black shale that made the sand look as if it was doused in oil) but the area was covered in garbage and remnants of fishing
nets that had washed up onshore. Unfortunately, this is a scene that we have found to be all to common in Malaysia.
The people here do not seem to realize what they have and don't mind dumping their garbage anywhere they feel
like. It is sad and a total lack of respect for the environment. Perhaps they could pay someone 5 ringgits
per hour to pick up the garbage in these places? I'm sure that would do wonders for the tourist trade.
After that we talked to an Australian couple from Sydney that we met and we headed on our way. We passed through
Kuah on the way back in Pantai Cenang.
We finished out the evening with a less than appetizing dinner at a local restaurant. Janet had some sort of rice
dish that had what we initially thought were pork rinds. They were small shrivelled salty little things. But,
we determined that they were actually some type of fish kind of like a freeze dried minnow that had been turned into jerky.
MMMMMM!
Still raining,
Chad and Janet
Monday, October 20
"Selemat Hari Deepavali!" which means (I think) "Happy festival of lights". This week is the beginning of the Indian
Festival of Lights which we seem to think is kind of like their Christmas. You'd think it would be a cool festival with
lights all over the place but we haven't seen any yet. Mostly we've just seen a million commercials and posters proclaiming
Happy Deepavali!
Today, we woke up to rain, and lots of it!! Apparently we arrived at Langkawi near the end of it's monsoon season
which was supposed to have been over by now but like everywhere else in the world the weather is a little messed up.
We decided that we had been giving our budget a beating so we planned a very chilled out and cheap day.
Basically we had a local breakfast of fried Bee Hoon (Chad's favorite) and Fried rice (Janet's favorite). Don't
worry, the fried rice has a little more to it than you think and we've been told that it is a local Malaysian favorite.
We spent the remainder of the day walking around in the rain and we stayed in for a bit here and there. Janet found
a book (the Horse Whisperer- She doesn't even like horses!) and she's been engrossed in it ever since.
We finished out the day with some more peanut butter sandwiches and orange juice. And of course- a couple of Tiger
beers. You want to talk about cheap beer? The island of Langkawi is a duty free island and beer costs about 1.50RM
(ringgit) a can which is about 0.50$ Can. Not bad!!
Damn mosquitos!! They are stealth and very small and hard to catch. You'd think that they'd be big enough
to carry you away here but they aren't. They are effective though and they can even get you through your shirt because
they are so small. Ah, Malaria here we come!!
Milk would be nice if we could find it,
Chad and Janet
Sunday, October 19
Updates at long last!
Today we got up and headed into town on the old No. 93 bus all the way to the ferry Jeti. We boarded the ferry
to Langkawi at about 8:30 and we took off. It was about a 2 hour trip and the ferry was relatively quick. It was
kind of rainy and overcast but we were able to see Langkawi and all the surrounding islands fairly well as we got closer.
We navigated amongst all manner of fishing boats into the Kuah (capital city of Langkawi) terminal. Incidently, "Kuah"
means "gravy" when you translate it into English! We took a taxi directly to a beach called Pantai Cenang which was
recommended as the best beach on the island by our travel book.
When we reached Pantai Cenang we looked around at a few guesthouses and settled on the "AB Motel". It has some
pretty decent little A-frame chalet houses with porches, air-con, tv, and bathroom (yuck!). Of course it also came equipped
with a resident gecko. We also had a resident gecko in our last guesthouse as well. They are pretty cute
though and you tend to never see them again once they see you. Unless they like to crawl on your face when sleeping!
Our chalet is right on the beach and the whole strip is pretty dead but we are pleased with the location. It's
definitely sllllloooooooowwwww out here. And, thankfully we haven't seen any rats yet.
We spent most of the day walking around on the beach and we went for lunch to have pizza (cheaters!). We made up
for it though by having peanut butter sandwiches and orange juice that night for supper in our chalet.
Saturday, October 18
Today we got up around 10:00 because we figured we needed to sleep in. Why? It's not like we work or anything!
Anyway, after some discussion we felt that perhaps we had made a hasty decision about Georgetown and we decided that maybe
a sight seeing trip might be in order after all. We headed over to the main street and caught the public bus No.93.
We bounced our way into town and started out at the main mall and bus terminal in the city. We took two hours to find
the tourist information booth (how effective is that Georgetown tourism association?) We decided that we were going
to get on a ferry to go to Langkawi tomorrow so we bought our tickets there and got some further info on some decent sights
to see.
We decided that our budget couldn't afford taxis or those pesky trishaws (we probably couldn't fit two people ((Western
size people)) in those carts anyways) so we walked through China town to a restored Buddhist temple called Khoo Konsi (or
something like that- uh, it started with a K?). The temple was one of the most amazing pieces of architecture and
art that we had ever seen. After that we headed over to a large East Indian mosque and decided to go in and have a look.
We kind of got off on the wrong foot to start with. We entered in through a closed gate on the side and headed
right into the mosque. We were busy checking things out when we passed by one of the security guards and a priest (perhaps?)
who quickly stopped us to remind us that we couldn't be in there with shorts (oops) and that we shouldn't have been walking
where we were walking. Anyways they made us put our shoes outside (we had taken them off and were carrying them but
shoes apparently don't belong whether on your feet or in your hand) and gave us these long robes to wear. Of course
they don't supply these robes for Western size cowboys so Chad's didn't exactly go to the floor but the priest let it fly.
They told us that they had to pray 5 times a day and you could pray either in the mosque or wherever you happened to
be. The prayer cycle is loosely based on the position of the sun and they have giant loudspeakers that shout out the
prayers all around the neighborhood for everyone to hear.
We then moved on to see a variety of old colonial buildings that had been converted into government buildings or churches.
We finished our tour at the Jeti (ferry terminal) where we saw Fort Cornwallis. It is a huge brick fort with a cannonball
shelter and cannons all around the perimeter of the fort. It was quite cool.
Tonight we made our way back to Batu Ferringhi and went for dinner at an East Indian restaurant. We had a local
specialty called 'Satay' which was a lot like souvlaki with a curry peanut sauce. We both secretly thought that it tasted
like peanut butter with some pepper in it. Janet had cashew chicken curry and Chad had some other type of chicken curry
but the name escapes us right now. After that we toured the area to check out the night markets which are really happening
on a Saturday night.
By the way: We've decided that if you ride a motorcycle or scooter in this country you will be able to do the following
whilst riding:
1. Talk on the cellphone
2. Eat an icecream cone
3. Transport at least three people or your entire family (whichever is greater)
4. Wait until it is dark out and you've had a few beer before you ride with no helmet and bare feet
5. Drive on the sidewalk
6. Drive the wrong way on a lane
7. Pretend that your head is fixed in the forward position thereby preventing you from ever making a shoulder check
8. Drive a bike so seriously underpowered that you can't keep up with traffic
9. Not wear any sort of eye protection so that you can't see where you are going
10. Have up to 5 baskets or suitcases attached to your scooter or motorcycle at the same time. (You have to be
able to transport your chickens somehow?!)
Tomorrow we will get up to catch a bus out of Batu Ferringhi at about 6:30am. We have to make it to the ferry terminal
by 8:00 to catch an 8:30 ferry to the islands of Langkawi. We hear the beaches are cleaner and the water is clearer.
You want buy Rolex sir?
Chad and Janet
Friday, October 17
Today we got up early and checked out of the hotel. We made our way over to the local bus station and caught a
city bus that was to take us to Batu Ferringhi (where the beaches are!). This bus driver was, very friendly, but a complete
and utter maniac driver. The bus whipped around corners so fast that people slid around on their seats and garbage on
the floor flew around the bus. On the bus we met a woman from Switzerland who was obviously a backpacker. She
was in her 50's and had been backpacking around the world since 1993. She doesn't actually have a home address but she
makes her way around from her inheritance. She's a different cat alright but she chatted with us and showed us over
to the guesthouse in Batu Ferringhi that she was staying at.
We ended up, with some negotiation, getting a spotless air conditioned room with bathroom and fridge right on the beach.
It was only $12 a night. What a deal!
Right now it is only lunch but we've walked around the beach and some of the area. We love it already. Batu
Ferringhi seems to be a laid back and friendly place with a decent enough beach (not the best but pretty good) and lots of
cool guesthouses. The food stalls and restaurants seem pretty clean so we plan to take it easy today and maybe go for
dinner tonight. We have to get our budget back on track!
Happy in the sand,
Janet and Chad
Thursday, October 16
We decided we had seen all that Melaka had to offer, including a couple of giant rats the night before, and we checked
out of the hotel and headed over to the bus. We decided that we really did like Melaka quite a bit. Even after
only a couple of days some of the shopkeepers that we saw frequently were chatting with us as we made our way over to the
bus station.
We boarded the bus and began our way to Penang Island. On the bus we met a guy name Naszeem (I think the spelling
is butchered) and he was one of the nicest and down to earth locals that we had met yet. He had grown up in Melaka and
was quite well versed in Malaysian culture and even North American culture so we chatted most of the way to Penang Island.
The trip was about eight hours and of course the scenery usually consisted of palm trees and jungles on either side of the
road. When we got further north nearer to a town called Ipoh we passed through a lot of hilly mountainous areas.
In some spots we saw Buddhist temples that had been built into the rock on the sides of mountains. They were quite
cool. Another neat thing that we saw were caves in the sides of mountains that had huge limestone stalagtites and stalagmites
at the entrances. We were disappointed we couldn't stop to see them a little bit more close up.
When we finally arrived in Georgetown which is the main city on the island of Penang we fought our way through rush hour
traffic to the bus station. It was getting dark and we started to wander through the streets in search of a place to
stay. It got a little hectic as the areas were ancient colonial buildings that had not been refurbished and were instead
turned into shoddy makeshift street vendor stalls and stores. We dodged rats and sick animals to make our way over to
what looked to be a somewhat reputable hotel. The hotel was fine but of course we blew the budget yet again on it.
That evening we walked around the area a bit but we decided that whatever attractions it had to offer could best be seen
by someone else.
Wednesday, October 15
Today we continued our touring of Melaka. We started off with a few of the old tourist attractions consisting of
churches and colonial buildings from the 1500's to the early 1900's. The museums were quite good though exhaustive.
It's damned hot and muggy here we decided!
We had lunch at a roadside cafe and sampled a little more local cuisine. Janet had the ginger chicken rice and
Chad had "Beef Huey Teow". Neither of them were that spicy but very good. Of course, Tiger beer and something
called "Shandy" which is actually beer mixed with Lemonade. It was great.
If any of you ever come to Melaka you will find that you are constantly hassled by:
1. Rickshaw (trishaw) drivers
2. Ogling men (for Janet only so far-thank goodness)
3. Giant housefly's (think of a peanut shell sized housefly- You should have seen Chad squeal and run when he saw one
of those!)
Our plans tonight are to stop by a place called the Looney planet cafe for some dinner. Tommorrow we will catch
a bus out of Melaka at 9:30 in the morning for a seven hour bus ride to Penang Island up north. We want some beaches!
There certainly weren't any here!
Starting to get tans,
Chad and Janet
Tuesday, October 14
We set off on the bus this morning after another tasty "Western Style" breakfast at the Hotel restaurant, stopped at Buka
Jam for some water and headed over to the monorail to get over to the bus station.
When we arrived at the bus station we just about turned around and ran away because we had reached one of the seediest,
smelliest, darkest, and chaotic places we had ever seen. You entered what looked to be a giant parkade into a choking
array of food stalls and hawkers worse than any we had seen in Bukit Bintang. We headed over to the ticket area which
was like a giant anthill/cattle yard and we found the "Transnasional" ticket window. Apparently these buses are a little
bit slower but they are government run and a lot safer than some of the other buses. After we got our tickets we sat
down with eyes in the back of our head at the bus platform and boarded the bus. What a surprise when we got on!
Air conditioning, clean, new and not that full.
We headed on the trip to Melaka about 90km south west of KL and saw about a billion palm trees along the way. It
is a little deceiving because there has been so much deforestation and replanting that the so called natural forests aren't
actually that. The trees are all planted in straight rows if you look closely. We passed by a few uninteresting
towns aside from the A'famosa water park which we were disappointed that we couldn't go to because it was to difficult to
get to.
We arrived in Melaka and right away we noticed that it was quite a bit cleaner and organized than the slums of KL.
We got off the bus and made our way through a few hawkers and tried to leave the area but a crusty old rickshaw wanted to
show us his postcard and picture collection to see if we knew his friend from Canada.
We asked around about different places to stay with various locals and one guy from Atlanta that we met. We decided
to go a little more upscale and stay at a place called "Hotel Orkid". It is quite clean and we have enjoyed staying
there.
We walked around the area quite a bit. We found a chinese laundry to wash our stuff (called a "Dobi") and after a
bit of sightseeing we found a very cool place called the "Discovery Cafe". It is a very cool old colonial building that
was crumbling to the ground before they restored it and turned into a backpacker's mecca of sorts. We enjoyed three
Tiger beers each and dived into the local cuisine for the first time. Chad had the Portugese inspired "Chicken Devil
Curry" and "Fried Hoon Bee" noodles while Janet had the "Fried Rice"- (what an adventurer!). Chad's dishes were quite
fiery!!
By the way, did we mention trying to cross the road in this country is ridiculous and dangerous. There are few crosswalks
or sidewalks and you basically just fend for yourself!
Send emails!
Janet and Chad
Monday, October 13
Kuala Lumpur has completely redeemed itself! To be honest we thought we might have been ready to come home last
night. The fishy garbage smell from the street that made you want to hurl, the delapidated buildings and hotel,
no food, tired, smelly feet and various other body parts (this happens after 30 hours without a shower travelling halfway
around the world). But...we managed to get some sleep- a lot of it! About 16 hours worth. So we realized that
our mood might have had something to do with lack of sleep. Anyway, we woke up this morning to a "Western style breakfast"
compliments of our hotel consisting of two eggs, white toast, beans, and two hot dogs (They are even worse here if you can
imagine that). But it filled the void.
After breakfast we headed over to the local "Buka Jam" (7-11) for some water and to our delight we found Ritz crackers
and Oreo cookies. You'd be surprised how little it takes to get excited! With our new found stash of food we headed
over to the Bukit Bintang Monorail station and made our way over to the Kuala Lumpur tower (pretty much like the Calgary tower
only a lot taller) and we had to head through a forest preserve/park which was our first official (or so we thought) jungle
walk. With that we realized how much the human body can actually sweat in such a short distance. Overall though,
the forest walk was very cool- It was filled with palm trees and goofy sounding animals that we unfortunately couldn't see
but heard everywhere.
We took the tour which gave us a great view of KL and after that we decided that a complete cheat day was in order.
We started with a bottle of Tiger beer and Corona (in KL?- Janet's idea) with a couple of sandwiches from a little cafe at
the base of the tower. After that we caught a taxi (teksi) over to the famous Petronas towers (the tallest in the world).
Unfortunately the towers were closed to tours today but we checked out the mall at the base of the tower. Once we stepped
into this place we thought we had stepped into a TD Square times 3 with only the ritziest and American of stores.
After that we headed out to catch the local subway and we walked around a bit until we came upon the Hard Rock Cafe KL.
Talk about wimps eh? We figured we didn't want to break with our cheating tradition and we needed to continue easing
ourselves into this place. So...Burgers and fries it was!! And it was good dammit!
Overall we've decided that KL is actually a hell of a lot nicer and richer/cleaner every where else except the area that
we are in. It's kind of like coming to Calgary and getting a hotel in Victoria Park. Oh well, it's got charm and
it's growing on us. A much better day!
Our plans are to head to a town called Malacca which is about an hour and a half south of KL. It will cost us 7.90
Ringiit which is about $3 Canadian. Not bad! We are going to be headed straight for the beach. We figure
that we need a little more time to adjust to our new environment in order to ease out of the culture
shock.
Don't forget to email us! We don't have jobs anymore and we apparently don't have anything else to do but sit around
waiting to hear from someone. Just kidding.
Selamat Malam (Good evening)
Chad & Janet
Sunday October, 12
Hey everybody. We made it in one piece. I don't recommend a flight as long as this to anyone. We spent
30 hours making our way over here. We sat around Vancouver airport for about 5 hours and we caught our flight to LA.
The lineups in LA were incredible some of them were probably as long as a football field. Anyway- the flight was ok-
I caught a cold at the beginning of the week so I had some sinus problems on the plane which made things a little uncomfortable.
We flew for 14 hours from LA to Taipei, Taiwan and we had an hour layover there. From there we got back on the same
plane after they refueled it and took a 4 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur.
We got our bags ok and took a taxi (teksi in Malay) to an area called the "Golden Triangle" on Buket Bintang street
(or something like that). I haven't seen anything golden about it! Actually this place reminds me a lot of Mexico
with the curious smells from the street vendors, garbage all over the place, and insane traffic behaviour. Apparently
no one is allowed to have large motorcycles over here as there seems to be about a million "scooter gangs roaming around".
The weather is 26Deg.C and ultra humid. Basically you would have to try really hard not to walk into a Palm Tree
as they are everywhere. We checked into the ultra luxurious Hotel Seasons West (or something like that). It cost
us the princely sum of 15$ a night each so we eagerly booked for two nights. Now that we've been here for at least three
hours I think that two nights might be one too many (just kidding-maybe). We are pleased to report however that the
room appears to be cockroach free and we do have air conditioning.
It's currently 4:00pm here in KL on Sunday (we skipped a day coming over here) which means it is about 1:00am in Calgary
on Sunday morning. The good thing is that we probably won't starve- Mcdonald's is only a short walk away and KFC
is only around the corner. I think we'll need a day or two to let everything soak in before we start diggin into
"Frog Porridge" (saw that already) and all the other local delicasies.
We will be making some plans in the next few days as to where we want to head out to next. We'll update as soon
as we can. With regard to pictures- We haven't really taken too many yet and we wouldn't know where to start with regard
to getting them put onto a CD but we'll get that figured out soon enough.
Drop us a line and let us know how much you miss us!
