Days off & Bangkok flashbacks

When Dayle and I first got into Melbourne we were sad and happy at the same time.
Happy because we were off on a new adventure in Australia but sad about leaving the awesome beaches (and mopeds) of Thailand.
C'est la vie, I suppose.
We don't often get days off in Echuca, but every Sunday (or when it rains) we're running through a huge list of errands that can only be completed on that single day. Like clock-work we find ourselves at the laundry mat with a bit of spare time to look back or forward on our adventures, our 'chill out' time.

We knew that Oz would be the same as Canada but different. Hence we've termed this difference 'Bizarro Canada'. At the moment, in this alternate version of Canuckistan, they're coming into the 'winter' season. Winter here is a lot like Vancouver during summer but warmer, a lot warmer - and sun. And instead of it raining all the time, it rains on the odd blue moon.

Australia is the middle of a 10 year drought, they need to import water from various places, and it's even a tradable commodity on the stock market. This was all explained to us by the owner of the tomato shed; Joy, whom politely explained the ins-and-outs of running your own tomato farm.
So when it rains you think that farmers would be delighted, nay orgasmic, at the slightest bit of moisture falling from the sky. Hardly, they quietly mutter and get a little fussy as though it were a great inconvenience and shut down all operations.
This is why I have day off.
And it's not just for tomatoes, but fruits and veggies too. It has something to do with the branches of trees or mud (I think), either they tend to snap due to the added weight of the rain or Ozzies don't like that sticky sock feeling when you've been treading through wet grass all morning.
They even have a cool name for the drought too: "The Big Dry". I think Canada should start naming our natural disasters.

So rather than kicking around the hostel watching "American History X" for the six thousandth time (there's a guy here who watches it daily, ugh), I'm up and about running errands (courtesy of Dayle, who left me an encyclopedia of things-to-do).
On my way down the street I saw the local bus whiz by and I was amazed that such a small town has a public transport system, then I remembered Bangkok.
Dayle and I have been dying to write about the bus system in Bangkok, and it's on my 'stuff-to-do-today' list.
At first is seems like there's no real system to the the Bangkok bus 'system'. All traffic in Thailand is chaotic and operates at a break-neck speed. But there is a method to the madness...
There we were at the bus stop outside our Bangkok hostel avidly waiting for the number 3 bus to come by. Key word: BUS STOP.
In Bangkok 'stopping' in inefficient and only for Westerners. Oh yes, the we saw several #3 buses, mostly as they flew by us at 60kph. To the other Thais at the 'stop' everything (it appeared) was running as usual. Then we figured out the trick...
As your bus approaches you need to flag it down by holding your arm out straight with your palm down, then in robot like fashion wave your arm up and down (but never above shoulder height). This gets the attention of the driver, who then cuts across 2 lanes of traffic without a second thought and opens the doors. This is your cue to start up a healthy trot in the direction of traffic, as the bus doesn't quite stop so much as slows down to 10kph.
This is just enough speed for you to grab hold of the (half attached) railing inside the doors and with the encouragement of the shouting fare collector, hop on quickly before either sucked under the wheels or left behind to dodge traffic.
After that it's like any other bus; hot, bumpy, and that 'weird/mumbly' guy that gets on at the next stop always picks the seat next to you.
On the upside it definitely makes the day more exciting, plus if the Bangkok bus system worked here you'd have more stories around the water cooler at work... "Yeah Bill, got my heart rate up today running next to the bus waiting for my turn to hop on. Poor Ms. Figgs got sucked under the wheels though."

Unfortunately we get to work by mini-vans that have leaking gas tanks or burnt-out interiors (really!), but that's another blog.

Love,
Adrian & Dayle "?"

Happy Paddy's day from Echuca!

Adrian 1505
Originally uploaded by bigquestionmarks.

Hello everyone, as promised we’ve updated our photos and videos. We’ve been working like crazy the past few weeks we’ve barely gotten a day off.
Some good news though, I’ve upgraded to a tomato shed, and we finally bought a CELL PHONE!!!
It’s great, for some reason we now feel like humans again instead of somekind of drifter, that’s the amazing power of the cell phone!
Go ahead, give us a ring: (04) 3201 3597

We’re both doing great, Dayle took on the night shift at her tomato shed so we devised a message passing system with these cheap 35 cent notebooks we bought. The idea was that we’d keep each other updated on our activities and what food we’re running out of etc… Go figure, come back from work to read a ‘note’, what I end up reading is a 7 page short story of Dayle’s day – she’s a journalist alright.
Shed work is weird, there are different stations they put you on but mostly we've been working the conveyor belt. Basically tomatos come down a belt and you sort through them and throw out the bad or funky ones. The only problem is that the belt speed is pretty fast, so you end up with tomatoes wizzing past you all day you develop a feeling that your in a fast car looking out the window. Then the abrubt stop when they shut off the belt for lunch, you feel like you're going to fall over, or that everything is still moving. In the end, your brain feels like mush from watching tomatos for 10 hours, so it's great to settle down with a book of ActionScript code and a cup of tea at the end of the day.

Living here a month we’ve begun to pick up on some of the slang and talk of the Ozzies, Dayle and I have compared some notes on what we’ve heard.
Tomato = Toe-ma-toe
Garbage = rubbish
Pot = half pint of beer
“How ya goin’?” = “What’s up?”
Hello / General inquiry / What? = Aye!(?)

And we’ve now both been driving in the land down under. It’s odd, but you get use to it, natrually everything is on the opposite side of where it usually is. You just have to keep repeating: “Stay to the left, stay to the left!”.

Well now we’re starting to get on our feet and off the credit cards. We have a lot more fun photos to upload and we’ll be doing that shortly.
Tonight some of the kids are off to the pub to enjoy the green beer - karaoke was last night!

Talk soon,
Adrian & Dayle






Pear picking in Oz on Vimeo

Guten tag Echuca

So long time no talk... we haven't forgotten you! I've been writing this blog in my head for weeks, it seems, but there's never a chance to get it up online. Here's what been happening:

Adrian and I are out in rural Victoria, in a town called Echuca. Living in a working hostel (as opposed to a party hostel), we're doing our own version of "The Simple Life", where we try out different jobs that are rural and completely out of character for us. We forgot to bring our chihuahua, oops.


We both started out pear picking together on a Monday, made not-very-good money ($31.50 to fill a god-awfully big wooden bin with pears), we came home aching and scratched to hell and never wanting to eat pears again. I got news that night that I could move onto work at a "tomato shed" (er, tomato sweatshop), but for $16, I thought I'd brave the tyrant boss and monotonous robot work I'd heard about. Figured I'd try to make it to 4 days and, well, I've done 8 shifts there now! Adrian continued with pears (the shed ONLY wanted females, since supposedly we concentrate better or something), but today (Saturday of Victoria's Labour Day weekend) he's trying out a tomato shed job of his own. We'll have to see how that went... me: finally, a day off, yippideedoo!!!!!!!!!!

The work kind of sucks, of course. We knew it would be hard work going in but you can't really fathom the backaches and counting down hours/bags of pears till you're actually doing it. But it's the end goals in mind... cell phone (coming this weekend, we'll give you all the number... txt/call us whenever! we're 16 hours ahead of you guys in ontario)... soon an apartment in Melbourne with a toasted that burns Hello Kitty into bread (yes, we saw one in Target). But the good news is the people here are fantastic-- at the hostel, at work, etc. Lots of Germans (we have learned many German words, some of which we should not repeat unless picking pears), English, Irish, Japanese, French and Koreans.... and even the people at work are pretty cool too-- I think the "tyrant" boss fired too many people before we started work and she's being extra nice. We're tired all the time and I start night shift at the shed for this week, watching and squeezing tomatoes going by on a conveyor belt, ugh, hour after hour. I got to start boxing them and it felt like a holiday. Other good news is we're on our way to extending our visas (we need 12 weeks of this kind of work) and so I guess we can stay longer in each place and check out the west coast when we buy a car, tis the plan. Yippee!
Oh yeah, and I got offered a "job" last week while me and the pear-picking boys were killing time in a local pub while the farmers wrote our paycheques... Aussie guy: "Hey, you want a job for tonight? $24 an hour, two hours." Me: "Oh yeah?" Pig Aussie Man: "Yep. You just need to sell raffle tickets in your bikini top in the pub tonight, only two hours." EW! Needless to say, I promptly turned that offer down and told them the other "sheilas" at the hostel probably will say no too...

What else?

Aussies are funny people. It's taken a bit of language-learning... there's no such thing as "granola bars" here, they're muesli bars. If I ask someone if they have eaten dinner yet I get a blank stare, so I translate to "tea". And I've actually started using the word "rubbish" in sentences. (Adrian's been concentrating more on learning useful German words like "armpit".) There is wicked camping equipment here-- we saw bunk-bed mattresses for tents! Multi-room tents! Etc etc, and we bought sleeping bags for $8.99 each, cheaper than a dinner out. Weird. They have a store called "Big W" here which looks and has the vibe of a WalMart (i think it's affiliated) and I went to the kitchen section for fun, and they have appliances for everything here-- pancake maker (like, really, DUH!), popcorn maker, ice-cream maker, of course, artistic toasters, and even a donut maker (that's just besides the conventional ones like blenders and cuisinarts and such). That's just a few observations...

Another one is that internet in this hick town is really expensive, and without USB plugs, so no photos again, I'm sorry! But we promise to keep you posted, and we love all of your comments. It's still hot here in days and getting cold at night... yes, it's fall. Thinking about you guys and your snow that will be gone soon, don't worry! Anyhow, keep in touch...
Miss you!
Love Dayle (and Adrian, from the shed)

Domo

Hello everyone!

We feel very much like robots picking pears in Echuca. We'll post another blog soon, we just need to kick start our brains!







Robot on Vimeo

Yeehaw, we're heading to the Outback

It feels like we've been in Melbourne for ages now, but today's only Friday and we got here Monday. So far, we haven't been doing a lot of sightseeing-- except brief rides on the "City Circle" tourist tram :) We've been fretting about work-- something brought on by our month of fun in Asia, and our hellhole of a hostel, which we chose because it's cheap, central, and it had free airport pickup. Adrian and I were reading reviews of it today (on our 4th day there) and had a good laugh. Funny the stuff that's not on the advertising... shower-peeping Japanese men, bedbugs, bad smells, flies in the "breakfast". Ew! (Paula, it's Europe all over again, but worse!)

But today we had a big weight taken off-- we found some work, yippee! Tomorrow we're heading out to a town called Echuca, north of Melbourne, along the Murray River. We'll be picking as many pears as possible for the next few weeks (or switching to another farm if this one sucks)... dreaming the whole time of (Adrian and I dream of these things in different order, of course): a snazzy apartment, a laptop, a cell phone (adrian says IPHONE!), and a campervan!!! (oh yeah, and new Converse shoes)
The town looks cute and quaint and apparently it's a weekend getaway for Melburnians. It's got paddleboats and red river gum trees, so I read, and now we're fantasizing about being "home on the range". (Well, actually, we stay at a hostel, and ship out each day to gather pears. We'll probably never want to see another pear again by the end of it. Oh well!)

In other news... We've been spending so far, a great deal of our time going library to library, using free internet, reading newspapers (I was reading about drivers in Shepparton- near Echuca- in fear of being overrun by kangaroos while on the road!), books, etc. It's sunny and hot here (end of summer), and Melbourne's streets are unbelievably clean and wide. Yesterday we bought some business clothes (future planning), at Target-- yes they have Target here! Otherwise, we've noticed the people in this city really seem to like designer clothes. Melbourne is full of super-modern architecture, which is cool-- colourful buildings, weird shapes, huge outdoor urban sculptures (like "Cow in a Tree", which is literally, a big old papier-mache-looking cow, upsdie down in a sculpture of a tree. We'll snap photos...). So, I'm reminded a little of Rotterdam, but then there's the odd palm tree, which makes it California perhaps? And the streets are a hilly grid, which is kinda like Vancouver. Maybe we should stop comparing.

Still, we giggle every time we encounter names like... Batman Park, Batman Road, etc. (So maybe John Batman was a settler... still funny) Good old Australia!
Today we're going to treat ourselves to a beer and some sightseeing, after we buy outback straw hats and open bank accounts, that is. We'll stop cheaping out soon and if we go to a real internet cafe, we can actually upload some photos!
Miss you all; we'll be in touch from our new frontier-town home. ;)
Love, D & A

Ps. So glad the cold Canadian weather is letting up, and very jealous of everyone buying Jays tix right now!

Hello Oz!

It's funny how quickly the last bits of our Thailand journey slipped away. It was too beautiful in our last Thai stop to even hit an internet cafe (and too much of a rip-off). After Koh Tao, we hopped on a ferry and headed south to Koh Pha-Ngan, the island known for its "Full moon Parties" (and we avoided that area like the plague, strung-out hippies, ew)

Flipping through our book, a beach on the Northeast corner of the island grabbed us-- Thong Nai Pan Noi Beach. A 45-minute ride across dirt roads, through jungle, and up and down hills brought us to a most heavenly spot! A wide, velvety-soft white sand beach with turquoise water was waiting for us, and we stayed in a cute little wooden cabin on a mountain overlooking the bay. It was fabulous. Keeping us company each night were frogs and lizards (Adrian almost stepped on a big toad again!) and giant butterflies...

Needless to say, we loafed around on the beach pretty much every day. Drank banana shakes and swam in the warm, shallow water when it got too hot. On our last day, we got a little more active and paddled a kayak to the next bay, and discovered hoards of skittery crabs on the rocks. Definitely sad to leave our awesome little beach (we'll post pictures soon)... but we had to...

The long ride back to Bangkok began on Saturday (Feb 17) morning. First, the pickup truck across the island (made us a little sentimental for our Cambodia times). Then the 4 hour ferry to the mainland. Then an all-night bus... which was, to Dayle's delight, was infested with cucarachas and tiny spiders weaving webs all over her blanket while Adrian slept. (Well hey, we lucked out for so long!)

And our homecoming, to Bangkok for one last day. We spent it in the massive weekend market, bargaining our way through and observing that (1) they seem to like selling used shoes at full price (2) there are tons of independent, really cool t-shirt designers! (3) shopping is hard work (4) the place smelled like mothballs and (5) uniformed security guards ride Segways... how strange!

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And now... after more long, exhausting travel (we're thinking we never want to ride a night bus or train ever again!) we have crossed the equator and rolled into Australia. Wow!

It feels a little like "Bizarro Canada." Signs are in English again, everything's SO much more expensive (no more $7 private bedrooms, *sniff*) and streets are labelled and designed in a grid. How Commonwealth!

We haven't heard too many "g'day's" yet, but we're listening. For now we're running around, exploring, trying to line up jobs soon. We'll be in Melbourne for a little while, we think...

Miss you all! Tell us what's up in Canada.
Love A and D "?"

P.S. Adrian says he's upset he can't eat congee anymore. Dayle's just happy to get cheese again!

Wrestling Moray Eels and Swimmer's Ear

Well we've arrived in the southern islands of Thailand after a very scary bus ride to Chumpon from Bangkok.
There we were sound asleep when a loud bang and a trailing hiss woke the bus around 2 am (night bus). Soon after a pit stop at a bathroom everyone was huddled around a massive shredded bus tire, but since the driver wasn't too worried neither were we.

It was an early morning ferry to get to Kho Tao and the sunrise was gorgeous.
On Kho Tao we were swarmed by people trying to get us to get to their resorts and such, but with our stomachs empty we bussled through and got some banana pancakes and went room hunting.
We found Scuba Shack and made arrangements to do an 'Open Water' scuba package that had us sold (with 4 ocean dives), and a PADI certification.

The first few days were basics and reading and intro diving (basic drills and such), but the last two we squeezed in 3 dives and saw a whole bunch of cool fish, coral and jellyfish - even the occasional moray eel.
It was great fun and well worth the trip here, alas we both have swimmers ear. It kinda hurts and it feels like you're on a swaying ship from time to time but we're alright.

We just spent an extra day on the island to soak up some sun and to see the 'Underwater Festival', a yearly fundraiser/party/awareness event for the reefs and just an overall piss up. We missed some of it - study, study!
As for the beach its beautiful, white sands and blue waters. We knew we were going to hit this place last because if we came here first we probably wouldn't leave!

We met some cool people and had our own 'guard puppies' on the beach. Seemed that every time we'd sit down to enjoy some rays, two puppies would come running to our section of the beach and play fight on our things.

But as for adventure, we're off to the island of Kho Pagnyang to see what's going on over there (and more sun).

Our trip is coming to a close but a new one awaits in Australia, stay tuned and we'll update soon with some pictures and video.

Safe travels,
Adrian & Dayle "?"

Bouncing out of Cambodia

Picture 801
Originally uploaded by bigquestionmarks.

Cambodia had quite the effect on us... it was an amazing place full of great people. We began to feel like family at the Green Park Village guesthouse in Siem Reap by our 5th day there. We listened to Cambodian pop ("Hey Boy"... by an unpronounceable singer... very catchy) in the car with Hak, and rode Sotee's tuk-tuk around Angkor.

On our last day, we rented some bicycles and headed down a bumpy road to Aki Ra's landmine museum ... which we spent hours engrossed in the stats and info on the state of Cambodia and other countries afflicted with them. We even met Aki Ra, who's the former child soldier who used to lay them, and who's now made it his life's work to dig them up and disarm them. Humbling, that's for sure.

We set out on the bumpy bus ride early in the day, this time prepared for the ride ahead. We landed at the border, caked in dust, relieved to get back onto pavement. And coming back to Bangkok-- which we were so eager to leave two weeks ago-- really felt like we were coming home. Familiar streets, food vendors, even the sound of that annoying bird that woke me up every day. Refreshing, but we wouldn't trade our intense, horrifying, awe-inspiring, and humbling trip to Cambodia for anything.

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After a lot of showering and some beer, the dust is gone, and we've suited ourselves up in, yes, $6 pairs of Birkenstocks (Yippee!), and we're counting the minutes till our bus takes off tonight from Bangkok south to Ko Tao.... the island where we're going to indulge our dreams of becoming scuba divers... time to frolic with fishes (hopefuly not sharks!) and loaf around on the beach like proper bums. Wish you all were here!!!

-Love Dayle and Adrian "?"

We Heart Monkeys

Picture 565
Originally uploaded by bigquestionmarks.

Cambodia was super for many reasons... ancient temples of Angkor, Khmer food was fantastic (does Toronto have a Khmer restaurant yet??), the vibe in downtown Siem Reap had a real French colonial/ sip red wine on balcony patios/ think about Vietnam war movies essence about it. But one thing we weren't expecting...

...MONKEYS!

Like Adrian said, our ticket to Angkor Wat was paid off before we got to the ruins. Riding past a gang of monkeys is endless entertainment. We watched them groom each other, jump up other tourists' legs, run around after each other... well, monkeys pretty much never sit still. I was waiting for the perfect artsy black-and-white monkey shot (had the black-and-white film all loaded up in Dad's old Olympus)..... three monkeys on a log, maybe scratching themselves or something. And all I could get was them humping.
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Now, not to confuse things, but the strapping young lad featured here was not part of those simian scholars I was telling you about... he's actually our hired guide, Steve.

Steve enlightened us all about the ancient Khmer empire his squeaky voice. He was a much better climber than us. Our day with Steve was well worth the money-- he had a great sense of humour and I really think he has a future in stand-up comedy. But Steve would rather be on wheels-- he's an avid cyclist with Tour de France aspirations... as long as the winnings come in bananas!

Power Travel & Cambodian Kaos!

It's been a gruelling 5 days of travel, bumpy roads, and traveller's 'stomach' - but we've experienced a beautiful country with a world heritage site to boot!

We were last in Pai (northern Thailand) when we decided to do the old "Power Travel", it worked well for us in Mexico so why not. Basically it's hardcore travel till you hit the destination you want to be at, but not knowing the times of departures of any bus stations your arriving at. The upside could be that you could be waiting for an hour, the downside is that you might be sleeping over night in a bus station (only happened once in Mexico).

Luckily we didn't have to sleep in any bus stations!
From Pai we got to Chiang Mai, then South to Bangkok, there we turned our eyes East and onto the border town of Aranyaprathet.
All of that was within Thailand, a total of 18 hours on clunky busses - but the views were great.

Enter Cambodia. We had gotten a Visa through a local travel agent for slightly more than the going price ($20 USD) - Cambodia has a 'suggestive' fee for entering the borders. We were prepared for this and it all paid off in the end, after meeting some other travellers on the other side of the border - turns out we made a good decision.

Poipet is the border town in Cambodia and we were off to Siem Reap (another 6 hours), home to the famed Angkor Temples.
Now the main road between Poipet and Siem Reap is a bit like a "Mad Max" movie, it's dusty, red, barren, and full of weird driving machines. Oh yeah, and it's full of pot holes - Everywhere - for 6 hours!

By the end of our squashed bouncy journey we found a guesthouse and promptly flopped our raw tired butts into bed.

The Angkor Temples were our first thought when we woke up, and that's exactly where we went, we rented some bikes (no mopeds, boo hoo!) and before we knew it we were walking inside one of the biggest ancient temples in Cambodia; Angkor Wat.
Now this may not seem too big, but in about a 30 km (squared) area, with about 30 such massive temples and cityscapes of an ancient civilization - it's a bit to go through (we got the 3 day pass).

*Special Dayle note* Our 3 day pass paid off the first 5 minutes upon entering the park.... MONKIES!
They were everywhere, and you could go right up and stand beside them. Sure you got the odd one that would hiss and take a swipe at you, but the rest were very cute.

What's next? We'll probably check out a couple museums, the ones documenting the civil war (Pol Pot and his cronies), and the landmine museum.
It's truly an eye opening experience when you get to see a country climbing out of the rubble of war and genocide, but take it from us this country is on the up and up!

Travel safe!
-Adrian & Dayle "?"

PS. The Internet is wicked slow here so we'll update pictures and video ASAP!