What follows is a comprehensive account of my 5 week journey through California, Australia and Thailand before arriving in China. It’s pretty long (about 20,000 words), but it is funny and interesting, I swear. There are 7 links to photo pages from each of the legs of the journey throughout the journal (and I tried to heavily edit the number of photos I uploaded so there weren’t a million).
Enjoy!
http://public.fotki.com/jeffnovich/worldtrip1cali/
> JANUARY 18 – San Fran
Luggage: I bought a 3 piece set of luggage. The only requirements were that it be big enough for all my shit to get to china and that it be as cheap as humanly possible. I lucked out with one that at least looked rugged and cost $54 all together. I decided to “be different” and try to differentiate my luggage from everyone else’s, as I knew it would blend in and with over a dozen flights, the odds someone would swipe my bag were high. I put a red and an orange Velcro twisty thing on each of the handles. I thought I was so smart. On the trip to the airport and in the skytrain to JFK, I must have passed about a thousand people who were also “different” each with some kind of differentiating twisty thing on their bag. What the f??
Zak’s fiancé Chung helped me pack since I kind of suck at doing that myself. I got too caught up in how to pack in the most optimal efficient way possible that I needed Chung to just throw a bunch of small shit into a baggie and cram it into the suitcase.
I headed out for San Fran at about 5:30am. The flight was 5.5 hrs and only had food for sale on the flight. What kind of budget assholes put you on a long flight with no food. American Airlines kind of sucks like that. No wonder their tickets were so cheap.
Upon arrival, I looked across the baggage claim and thought I recognized the guy across the way, and older man with a moustache who looked strikingly like my high school friend Alex’s father. But multiple eye contact with the man didn’t elicit any reaction so I assumed it was merely his doppelganger. I texted Alex on the way out: “any chance your dad just got off a flight to San Fran?” And as it turns out, yes, he was there for business.
Sarah, my friend from Hopkins and amazing graphic/web designer, picked me up and we headed to her place in Oakland. We immediately went to get some Mexican food at a nearby place that played country music the whole time…
Country music sucks. This Mexican had some country station playing the whole miserable time. I never liked country, but I never gave it a real chance. I kind of assumed it sucked based on a small sample I had heard, and believed that was all the chance I needed to give it. But today, I was forced to listen to this crap song after song. Country music songs have the cheesiest melodies, cheesiest singers and believe it or not, the cheesiest lyrics of all genres of music. When I say cheesy lyrics, I mean after listening to about a third of any given chorus or verse, you can deduce either the word they will rhyme, the phrase they will use, or, more times than not, the entire rest of the god-forsaken crappy song. You never think “gee, that was a unique lyric,” or “wow, I’ve never heard that word in a rhyme before.” No, it’s all the cheese you expect to hear in these shitty songs. That’s all I’m going to rant about that.
Later that night, Sarah and I boarded the Sushi Boat, a sweet sushi place that puts their eats onto little boats in a mote rather than the typical conveyor belt. Somehow, it makes the sushi taste so much better than conveyor belt sushi. It feels fresher. Not sure why. I ate a boat load. Haha.
> JANUARY 19 – Sarah/Zak
My roommate Zak was in San Fran visiting his brother. This is kind of amusing because it wasn’t until about an hour before he left for the airport (5 days before I did), that we realized we’d be in SF at the same time, or that I even knew he was going somewhere. We talk a lot, just rarely about plans and unless something is emailed to me, texted to me, and scheduled into my PDA, I will forget.
So we picked Zak up and headed over to the Google headquarters (or as they say, the Google Campus) where Zak’s old college roommate Armando works, (or as I say “works”… you’ll soon see why). Armando met up with us and took us to grab lunch before we went on a tour.
The Google Campus: Holy crap… the gist of this magical wonderland is – everything you would have wanted on your college campus, completely free and with no dorms. Right off the bat, while waiting for Armando to meet us, we sat in a lush room with a refrigerator full of “Naked” drinks (the $4 smoothies that are all natural). Armando met up with us and we ate at a cafeteria that felt like a catering buffet for a huge wedding, with every kind of gourmet food you could want. I had the sea bass and some steak.
We then passed by everything you would want if you worked someplace: a medical area, a massage place, a Laundromat/cleaners, countless coffee shops, freshly made smoothie shops, cafes, food courts, a huge fitness center, climbing wall, computer tech center, and the list goes on and on… around every turn was another place to eat or drink. All the ingredients in most of these places are organic or local with a focus on healthy eating (because all the nerds were getting fat by eating shit and drinking Coke all day and night at their terminals). So you don’t see any coke or any shit food but everything is still super tasty! Oh, and one last thing: it is all FREE. There isn’t a single cash register. You walk somewhere and take what you want. You ask for a meal and they just give it to you. This is my paradise.
Armando finished up the tour and showed us where he worked. It was basically a shared office but what was interesting is that the work environment also feels like a college campus – very collegial, if you will. Perhaps it was because Armando shares a floor with all the hottie HR girls who are perky and like to chat, but I think it goes deeper than that. It didn’t feel corporate at all. Everyone is young, friendly, and as one of the HR girls explained, google employees make their own schedule. You can come to work at 10 if you get your shit done. You can leave when you want, if you get your shit done. I dare say that even though I vowed never to get an office job again, Google would be the place I would consider working. It is a refreshing place and a shame that it is basically the only one of its kind – you’d be hard pressed to find another corporate giant giving away that much free stuff and with such a relaxed work environment. So maybe I’ll apply one day. They wouldn’t hire me anyway!
Later, we headed over to the Turnhere.com headquarters where I met with Marc, one of the head guys. Turnhere is a video production company that hires out freelancers (like me) to do short tourist videos (like the piece I did about central park). I had only emailed with Marc so this was a chance to meet him. He was a very nice guy and introduced Sarah, Zak and I to the entire staff of two dozen people who gathered round the video projector for their Friday afternoon screening. This screening would be my Central Park tour video, so I was kind of a star for those few minutes of Q&A after the video ended. Marc discussed a cool project he had lined up for me in Shenzhen, China, where I am now living and will be for the next 3 months. A major hotel chain wanted short, exciting tour videos to be produced for each of their hotels’ cities. Turnhere is producing those videos and hires out freelancers to do the legwork. I happen to be in Shenzhen. A hotel is in Shenzhen. So I became the go-to guy for that video. Marc handed me some info on the project and we were on our way.
Next stop was the courthouse where we met up with my friend Matt, a guy I know from Camp Eisner who was a counselor with me. I hadn’t seen him in over 8 years but when I was planning my trip to San Fran I noticed he was on Friendster and that he lived there, so I figured what the hell and contacted him. We rocked some Indian food (where they played bizarre Indian musical films – like glorified music videos with high production value).
Later that night we went to a bar called Zeitgeist that had an outdoor seating area. Everything went well, Zak had to catch a flight home and we all left. Standing on the street corner after Zak got a cab, I realized I didn’t have my wallet and looked at Sarah and almost crapped myself. After all, that’s just what I need – to start my trip around the world without my goddamn wallet. I knew it was someplace in the bar because I had paid for the first round. I went in, asked the bartender if he had seen it, but he hadn’t. I went over to the bench we’d been sitting at, and looked around. No dice. So I went back outside with Sarah to regroup. I figured it had to still be inside, so I walked back inside. This time, the bouncers (there were two) stopped me and asked for ID. I explained that I was just there 2 minutes ago. They said they didn’t give a F who I was, that lots of people come in and out, and that if I don’t have my ID, they’re not letting me in. Just what I need. I reasoned with them that I had lost my wallet and I was going inside to have a look around and I’ll be on my way. The second guy said “fine, but I think you’re full of shit, and you’re cutting into my dinner time.” Oh and they both stank of liquor and were pretty much the biggest assholes we could have found in San Francisco. This time, I went to the bench outside and had a closer look and luckily – thank the lord – I found my wallet, with my own footprint on it, right where I had been sitting. It had just fallen out of my back pocket and it was really dark. I turned to the asshole bouncer who was leaning over me and showed him my wallet and thanked him with a pat. Then we left.
> JANUARY 20 – Sarah
This was my sight-seeing day. Sarah drove me out to see all the typical San Fran sites. We hit up Lombard street, the windiest street in the world. In&Out burger, where I had a double-double (double cheese, double burger), cheapest food ever. Sarah had parked on the main strip at fisherman’s Wharf. We left the burgers and walked down the strip to find tickets for Alcatraz. Unfortunately, the actual tours were all sold out, so we instead got tickets for a boat tour, which was fine with me. By the time we got back to the car, police were walking by and before we knew it, a huge pro-life demonstration had begun parading down the street. This thing was enormous, more pro-lifers than you could wave a hanger at (that was low). But seriously, what a weird place to have your religious parade, right in the middle of San Fran’s progressive, democratic, certainly not fundamentalist town center… and, oh yeah, right when Sarah and I wanted to GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR PARKING SPACE and go visit the Golden Gate bridge. Asshole protesters wouldn’t get out of our way. There were so many thousands of them that were stuck there for the next 2 hours watching their signs of “abortion hurts women,” (although childbirth I’m sure hurts even more, and so does your stupid fucking parade that is hampering my sight-seeing time!!!). Also “women deserve better than abortion” – yeah like, oh I don’t know, the RIGHT TO DECIDE… well, that, and the ability to GET OUT OF A PARKING SPOT and enjoy MY LAST DAY IN SAN FRAN!!! Anyway, I got a bunch of their stuff on video as well as some heckler anti-anti-abortion people who did their own weird side parade and taunted the baby jesus sign-holders. So we sat and waited and did what anyone would do – made fun of them under our breath and took a few candid photos.
Finally we got out and headed over to Golden Gate where I continued taking stupid photos of me doing funny things with the bridge. I figured everyone has a photo of the bridge and themselves standing in front of it, but no one has taken a photo of themselves holding the bridge up between their fingers. That’s humor and it’s unique. Then there were the oddball people dressed in Civil War garb walking around under the bridge. I asked what was going on – turns out they were some sort of club that dresses up in Civil War garb and re-enacts stuff, and this was their first time doing it, so they were all very excited. But I didn’t think the Civil War was fought all the way out here, was it? I got a 3 on AP American History. No, this fort hadn’t seen any action (that was my word), but it was a special place nonetheless. I’m kind of making up what they said, I don’t really remember. But I was right, SF was never involved in the Civil War.
Tour time. We hit up this huge boat and went on a very cool trip around the bay, listening to a wireless headset. It was really fun and although I barely remember anything, I remember it was packed with lots of useful information. As we went under the GG bridge, a huge cargo vessel passed along side us. It said “China Shipping Line.” I turned to Sarah and said “that ship is coming from where I’m heading.” Of course, she had headphones on so she didn’t hear me, but I used that moment to reflect on seeing Maddy soon enough. In about a month, I’d see her for the first time in 5.
That night we met up again with Matt, as well as his girlfriend, at an authentic Chinese restaurant near their apartment. It was really good food and I thought I was cheating a bit because I vowed I wouldn’t eat Chinese for at least a month before coming to China. I figured it would set me right for eating nothing but Chinese. But this was good food so no harm done.
Before heading back to Sarah’s we took a detour and saw her old stomping ground and an icon of San Fran – Craigslist headquarters. Sarah worked in that run-down row house for about a year before moving on to one of her many other jobs.
I enjoyed SF tremendously. Obviously seeing some great people that I’d been out of touch with for so long made things that much more exciting, but the city itself is really beautiful and I’d definitely like to come back to take a closer look. The next day – on to LA.
> JANUARY 21 -go to LA
I flew to LA to meet up with Pam, a college roommate and friend who is getting a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at UCLA. She lives in Santa Monica and the first thing we did was grab some Mexican food. It was delicioso.
Pam’s apartment was very nice and spacious and was even walking distance to the UCLA campus (walking? What’s that in LA). I dropped my bags off and headed out with one of Pam’s 2 roommates to go for a hike up Temescal Canyon while Pam had to take care of some other things. It was a pretty cool hike and we got to see the sunset.
Pam, being the wonderful hostess she is, decided to have a little dinner party and cooked up a storm. one of the guys that Pam had invited looked like an identical twin to one of my good friends Tony from Hopkins. This guy had the same face down to the teeth and smile, the way he talked, his mannerisms, except that he had long dreadlocks and facial hair. But other than that, it was Tony’s twin. And no, I don’t think all black people look alike (which is what Tony said the next day when I asked if he had a twin). It was the weirdest thing to talk to a guy for a while who you are almost certain is someone else. I decided I couldn’t resist. I had to show this guy a picture of my friend Tony. He didn’t seem all that impressed with the similarities and I’m sure thought “not all black people look the same,” but was nice enough not to vocalize it.
> JANUARY 22 –Mark/Adam
Pam took me to the Promenade on Venice Beach, a gorgeous strip of beachfront where, if it were warmer she insisted, there would be all kinds of action going on. We got a light dinner because we were starving and walked around the area for a bit. That’s when I found a copy of PC Magazine which finally had my article about Skype in it! So I snatched 2 copies and immediately called my parents and Maddy and said to check it out.
We went to a nice tapas place called Cobras and Matadors where we were meeting up with my high school friend Mark (hadn’t seen in over 5 years), and my cousin Adam (on the Novich side, who I also hadn’t seen for 5 years). It was a really nice time and we all caught up. Mark works for E! television as a programmer of shows and Adam is an established TV writer.
A few minutes into ordering, Mark said “oh, it’s our first celebrity spotting of the night,” and pointed out Giovanni Ribisi and Jason Lee from “My Name is Earl” sitting directly behind us.
Unfortunately, Mark was exhausted from a job deadline and Adam wakes up super early in the mornings, so they couldn’t go out with us. In typical Pam fashion, we then went on an adventure…
First, the Chinese Theater, which basically just looks blurry in the photo, but I swear I was there. We walked around the corner to one of LA’s swankiest spots, the Roosevelt Hotel. It looked closed but of course Pam knew a side entrance, so we just walked through a crowd milling around their Suburban with tinted windows and a big bus. No one stopped us or carded us or even noticed us. I guess we blended in (yeah, right). Sure enough there was indeed something big going on. As it turns out, WB was having a big wrap party for something featuring some guy with a “Lil” in his name, like “Lil Dog.” Pam recognized the names. There was a big swimming pool and everyone was hanging outside. It was a bit odd because we didn’t really belong – something kind of obvious when we realized we were the only two white people there! But no worries.
We headed out to the next place, Chateau Mantra, another very swanky spot, and just walked in, did a lap, and left. It was pretty late on a Monday so it was understandably empty.
> JANUARY 23 – fly to Sydney
Pam and I had lunch with another Hopkins friend of mine, Dave, who I met on the Hillel Birthright trip to Israel back in 2000, and a friend of Dave’s. It had been almost 5 years since I saw him, but he was basically the same.
My flight to Sydney was that night at 10pm, but Pam thought a trip to LA couldn’t possibly be complete without a visit to the Getty Museum. Perched up on a hilltop and only accessible by a little tram ride, the architecture of this museum was simply mind-blowing! I’m not one to care much for buildings and even most art bores me pretty quickly, but walking around this place was a real adventure. With every turn there was a new sight – unlike a regular museum where it is art piece after art piece on a never ending wall, the exciting stuff here was outside and all over the place. I guess I don’t do a good job of describing it, but it certainly kept my attention and I have a very short attention span.
We hit up some great Indian food and Pam dropped me off at LAX. A few words about LAX…
It is the worst airport I’ve ever been to, by far. It was a mad house and completely disorganized. I walked in and went to the Air Pacific counter (Fiji’s national airline) to get my ticket. They gave me my boarding pass, put a sticker on my luggage, and gave my luggage back to me and said I had to wait on the main security line where, sure enough, everyone had their luggage in tow. I could not conceive of why LAX thought it’d be a good security measure to have everyone carry their luggage through a security clearance. It obviously makes more sense to check your bags and have them do it behind the scenes and load it on the plane. What the hell were we doing?
So I waited on a huge sprawling security line where there must have been several hundred equally confused passengers. Instead of having actual signs explaining the various steps to get on the damn plane (IE get boarding pass, take luggage to security, get a security sticker, wait on this other line, etc), they just had a bunch of people standing around in uniforms answering questions. This pisses me off because these people, though helpful, were answering the same stupid questions – one after the other – like ‘I want to get on a plane, what do I do’. I say stupid, not because the passengers were stupid. We were all confused as hell and I was pissed off at the insane inefficiency of the whole thing. Just put up some fucking signs or better yet, develop a security process that doesn’t blow so much ass and is just a bit more efficient.
I ask the woman where I’m supposed to go and she points to one line but says I could wait on that other line down the way, just inside the entrance to LAX. I’m still not sure why the hell we’re carrying our bags and walking through a security machine. I wait on the line because it’s supposedly shorter. People have all their stuff with them, enormous carts with 8 suitcases, guitars, surfboards, all kinds of crap. The line is a few dozen people and finally I get to the front where there is a guy taking the check-in luggage, walking it to an X-ray machine about 20 feet behind him, and then directing me to wait on another, parallel line, of people waiting to claim their luggage back, after it gets through the machine. I get up to the front of that line and still see no sign of my bags. Meanwhile it’s nearing boarding time for my flight and I’m still not even on a real security line to get into the gates. After an hour at LAX I can’t believe I am still waiting on a fucking line 5 feet inside the entrance where I first came in. I ask the security guy where my luggage is and that I have a flight to catch. He shows me some luggage that isn’t mine and another woman comes over and asks where I’m going. I explain my situation and she says ‘oh, your luggage is already checked.’ Excuse me? I just waiting on these lines for nothing? I asked her ‘is my bag going to get to Sydney?’ she said yes. I asked once more, are you sure it will get to Sydney and she confirms.
Ok, so I move on to the real security line which moves fast enough but the inefficiency and backward procedures here are mind-boggling and piss me off more than you can imagine.
The flight is fine but filled with about 700 or so people on board. I managed to sleep a fair bit on the 10 hr flight to Fiji. I also watched a crapload of American “The Office” episodes – I really love that show! It’s hilarious and I’d like to get the British version soon. Getting off the plane was fun as a Fijian band greeted passengers with music and singing. Zak and I have had a long standing argument over his expensive taste in water and how he stubbornly buys only Fiji water for $3/bottle in New York. I think that’s silly because after all, it’s only water, how good could it taste, and what a waste to bring a bottle all the way over here from halfway around the world. So it was amusing to see a big display of Fiji waters and I couldn’t resist buying one, though for only $1.50.
http://public.fotki.com/jeffnovich/worldtrip2sydney/
> JANUARY 25 – arrive Sydney
The next flight to Sydney was about 4 hours and I got in at around noon with Brandon, a good friend from high school who I’d be staying with, smiling at the gate. I lost a day, so it was now the 25th. We drove back to his place in Newtown, a hot neighborhood that reminded me of the Village in NYC, with countless little restaurants and shops all along a nice walker-friendly strip.
I threw down my stuff, took a minute to recover from the flight, checked my email and before I knew it, I had a beer in my hand. We went to a place called Shelbourne to meet up with Brandon’s brother, Ben, and some of Ben’s co-workers. I was telling about my travel plans to one of Ben’s co-workers who told me that his favorite cities were: 1) Sydney, 2) New York and 3) Chiang Mai (the Northern Thailand city that I was planning to visit…). That inspired some confidence in Maddy and my decision to go up there.
After a few rounds Brandon, Ben and I headed over to Wagamama, a UK-based chain noodle shop that was absolutely amazing! Maybe it was because I was drunk, or hadn’t really eaten in 2 days, but it was delicious.
Ben hooked me up with an Australian cell phone for while I was there. Aussie cell service is insanely expensive and obnoxious, though… A call from my Sydney cell to a cell in, say, Melbourne or Adelaide, would cost nearly as much as a call to my parents in New York or to Maddy’s cell in China because they are on different networks. The one perk is that incoming calls are free, so it’s nice when someone calls you, you don’t feel like you’re wasting tons of money or minutes on them.
> JANUARY 26 – explore
Bran and I suited up in some running gear for a jog from Coogi to Bondi beach, a gorgeous coastline route that passes a number of beaches and look-out points. Very scenic, very beautiful.
There are some very funny differences in Australia from the US. First is the McDonald’s… it’s called McCafe in an effort to make it classier, it sells a little more coffee drinks I think (I never went to one), and the Aussie’s call it “Macker’s” for short. Then there’s “Hungry Jacks’s” which is really Burger King’s twin brother with a different name but identical logo, commercials, food menu, etc. Apparently some guy bought the rights to open BK in Australia but decided to change the name.
We hit up some smoothies at a place that took the opposite direction from Starbucks’ sizes. Starbucks named their sizes “huge” “gigantic” and “monster” or whatever it is in French, but it’s obnoxious and cheesy. This place decided to try the other road: small, medium, and ORIGINAL. Haha. I like that. Or the other menu had just medium, and original, and underneath “kids size.” In Starbucks that kids size is a Grande.
As luck would have it, I happened to be in Australia on Australia Day, a huge celebration day on January 26th. What’s amusing about this is that back when Brandon and I were in high school, we shot a little video for the TV news program we had in our school and aired a segment on Australia Day. Brandon, looking nearly the same about 9 or 10 years ago, explained on camera first what Australia Day is all about and then different Aussie slang and which beers are really Australian (a point that would have been censored if our teacher had a delayed feed for the news, but that we later were reprimanded for, after all we were only 16 or 17 years old).
From About.com:
“On May 13, 1787, British Captain Arthur Phillip set sail from Portsmouth, England, to establish a convict colony in Australia. He sailed with 11 ships, 759 convicts -- 191 of whom were female -- 13 children of convicts, 211 marines, 46 wives and children of marines, and his staff of nine. Phillip landed at Botany Bay on the eastern coast of Australia on January 18, 1788, travelled some kilometers north to find a more suitable place for settlement and came ashore at Sydney Cove on January 26 in what is now the historic Rocks area at the southern end of today's Sydney Harbour Bridge.”
That night we went to the swanky Blue Horizon Bar at the Shangri-La Hotel – it’s one of those bars where you need to go into the hotel and up an elevator and hope that they think you’re dressed well enough to get in. We weren’t, but luckily they didn’t really look at us.
There were fireworks, but we could barely see them, so that kind of sucked. We headed off to do our own bar crawl and met up with Ben at some other place to drink cheap beer. Went somewhere else and met up with some nurses Brandon worked with in his hospital and continued drinking. Finally, we made it back home where I decided to rest my eyes for a minute and that was it for me.
Surprisingly I wasn’t all that jet-lagged. I was a bit tired, yes, but nowhere near what I was expecting. I was perfectly functional through most of the day, it was great.
> JANUARY 27 – Birthday dinner
My 27th birthday is on January 28th, so Brandon decided it would be nice to take me out to a fancy dinner over the weekend. It was a ‘digestive dinner’ but the whack Aussie way of pronouncing things, it was a “digg-es-tiv” dinner (hard “g”). We got dressed up and the three of us went to Café Sydney, a fancy restaurant on the roof of the Customs House at Circular Quay (pronounced “key”), where we sat on the outdoor terrace overlooking Darling Harbor. The food was exquisite. We started with some oysters and cocktails and once we were seated, moved on to a bottle of wine, and several courses. I forget exactly what we had but it was unbelievable and I took a few photos to try to remember what it tasted like.
Later that night we went to another bar which was empty except for 2 girls sitting across the way. I decided someone needed to bring them over to talk to Brandon and Ben. Contrary to what Maddy might think, I did not flirt with these girls. I literally walked over, asked if they wanted to meet my friends, and introduced them to my friends. I then stepped away and watched what I had created. I started to really miss Maddy so I tried to text her from my cell by responding to a text she had sent me via Skype to my mobile number. Unfortunately my message, “I miss you, I want you so bad,” accidentally sent to Ben’s cell phone, who was talking to one of the girls. We had a brief, awkward moment and continued drinking.
We kept going, left that bar and went to a different spot that was more of a club scene. By that time, we were all kind of exhausted and ready to call it a night.
> JANUARY 28 – real birthday, first interview
I can’t believe I turned 27 years old. It’s funny, I feel the same as I did when I was 18, and certainly I’m in far better shape now than ever before (although not after these last few nights of endless drinking and eating!). My only hopes as I age is that keep my hair (which is holding steady), not gain a gut (so far so good) and be able to keep running for a while longer (I’ll keep my fingers crossed to not get an injury).
Today also marked the first of my interviews in Australia for my Yahoo! Videos – a series of environmental news videos I had reported and scheduled interviews for over the last month. I had planned several dozen people to meet in a few major cities around Australia, so let’s hope they all work out!
I went to a place called Macquarie’s Chair, a chair carved into a stone that I forgot to take a photo of. I interviewed a woman involved with the New South Wales Nature Conservation Council who is working to save the grey nurse shark from local extinction off Australia’s eastern coast. The interview went well and she was very pleasant.
Afterwards, Bran and I walked around the Botanical Gardens. It was a really incredible place to walk around. It puts Central Park to shame with an enormous variety of flowers and plants and all these cool birds just wandering around. Parrots would come right up and some people were even holding them. There were bats hanging on some trees. And there was a funny sculpture of a buck-naked kid pulling a thorn out of his foot with his junk prominently on display, so I had to take a photo with him.
Later on we had some great Pad Thai at one of Brandon’s favorite Thai places on his block, Doy Tao. There are about 400 Thai restaurants along the main thoroughfare so that actually means something.
That night we watched the Melbourne/Adelaide soccer match with Brandon’s family and his aunt and uncle. Brandon’s cousin actually plays for the Melbourne team so watching the game was quite tense with the occasional yell at the TV because the referee made a bad call or the announcer said something critical or simply did not praise our hero, Mark Byrnes (http://www.melbournevictory.com.au/_content/image/00004699-image.jpg).
When the game was over, Brandon’s mom came out with a huge carrot cake she had baked and everyone sang happy birthday. I love the Aubrey family!
http://public.fotki.com/jeffnovich/worldtrip3cowra/
> JANUARY 29 – trip to Cowra
I had planned a few interviews with some ecologists from Australia National University to do a story about the decline in trees in western New South Wales. So Brandon and I packed up the car and shipped out west to see some of the country.
Our first stop was a small-town about an hour drive West of Sydney where we stopped for a delicious breakfast. On the way, there was a big truck holding what looked like three huge wheels of cheese. We wandered into a candy shop selling the usual favorites, but it also carried some interesting treats. “Santa’s Long Legs” was pretty funny – I called it “Santa’s third leg.” And the all-marshmallow cheeseburger and hotdogs were pretty repulsive as well. Nothing is more mouth-watering than a bright brown bun, orange cheese and a dark brown hamburger – all made out of marshmallow.
Our next stop was the Blue Mountains and “The Three Sisters,” a rock formation. We took the steep steps all the way to the bottom of the lookout point, wandered around a bit, then took the steps back up. What a pain.
A few hours later we passed a sign that said “wind farm, this way” and I figured we couldn’t miss it. It was the Blaney Wind Farm, a small wind farm with maybe 10 turbines but it brought back the good old times of when I did my masters project for Columbia and visited the farms in upstate New York. We took a few photos of the Carcoar Dam as well, which was very low as the drought is taking its toll.
We passed a few fields that had literally thousands upon thousands of cow dung piles. When my family had our dog Tillie, we used to let her in the backyard to do her business. Eventually the entire backyard was filled with mounds of dog poop which my mother lovingly refered to as “land mines.” But out here in cattle country, these mines don’t get cleaned up – it is a drought, meaning reduced rainfall. No rain means there’s nothing to wash the dung into the ground. So instead it just sits, dries up, and looks really funny.
We checked into our hotel and decided to make the most out of our time in Cowra. I had an amazing steak (after all, we passed nothing but cattle on the way there!) and then we went to an observatory.
When I say ‘observatory’ I mean a guy with some telescopes who lives about 10 minutes away from the town. We arrived around 9pm when it was pitch black and kangaroos were hopping around. A short, round, very friendly man greeted us (we were the only ones in that night’s tour group) and told us all about the sky, pointing at it with his little red laser pointer thing.
The full moon cast a bit too much light on the night sky so it wasn’t its usual starry brilliance, so we were told. Nevertheless, we were able to see Comet McNaught with our naked eyes. (great photo of it on aus day in perth http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070205.html).
We saw the rings of Saturn with our own eyes through a much larger telescope and even the craters on the moon up close. I’ve seen plenty of photos of planets and stars but seeing them with my own eyes on a quiet night in Australia was stunning.
> JANUARY 30 – Boorowa scattered trees
We headed out to meet up with the tree scientists in Boorowa, about a half hour away. On the way we passed a place called ‘the fun museum,’ which hilariously and without a hint of irony, was right next door to ‘the war museum.’ You can see a huge tank right behind Bugs Bunny’s face.
Today was a high energy day of meeting and interviewing six people; three scientists who each study the scattered tree landscape in some way, and three farmers. It was very interesting and I got to see a world I rarely see. So did Brandon.
The gist of the story is that the iconic Australian rural landscape (the tree-dotted rolling hills and valleys) will be treeless in about 50 years or so because no new trees are growing. As the new trees sprout either they are competing with non-native species of grass, a drought, or with sheep and cattle that either trample it or eat it.
This was a long day.
http://public.fotki.com/jeffnovich/worldtrip4melbourne/
> JANUARY 31 –Melbourne
Brandon and I flew out to Melbourne the next morning where I was going to do a story about a dredging project that threatened the health of the Port Phillip Bay. But first, we spent the day hanging out with Jen, a friend from New York who rocks, and with whom we would be crashing for two nights. (Jen was actually at the speed dating event when I first met Maddy, just a bit of trivia there.)
She was doing a semester abroad for law school, though her idea of studying was, well, let’s just say it didn’t appear to be a difficult semester. She met up with us and we dropped our stuff at her apartment at the Docklands in New Quay (again, “key”). Her apartment was basically like a multi-million dollar New York apartment; huge, pristine, gorgeous view. It was an unbelievable place to call a ‘dorm.’ I made a few calls to confirm interviews and we decided to head out and take a little tour of the city.
Melbourne is a strange looking city. It literally looks like a big coloring book. Or a cartoon. Everything you see is colorful in some bizarre way. The sidewalks have a pattern. The sides of buildings are shaded in with vivid crayola colors. As Jen noted on her blog () the city is bursting at the seams with public art. Really bizarre art, to say the least. You’ve got the infamous ‘cow up a tree,’ a huge rabbit sculpture, and a psychedelic piece that has lots of moving parts that the wind sends spinning.
That night at 9pm I had planned to shoot some little penguins – “shoot” meaning “video tape” and “little penguins” is actually the real name of the penguins (they used to be called “fairy penguins” but for some reason that wasn’t PC so they changed the name).
I was going to meet a penguin researcher who would do an interview and take me around to see penguins as they returned to the breakwater at St. Kilda. A breakwater is basically a long, big pile of rocks that connect to a pier that you can walk on, originally built to calm the waters when Melbourne hosted the Olympics.
Jen said she and her roommates were all planning to go to a bar that happened to be in this so-called St. Kilda place. I had no idea how big the area was but figured we’d have enough time to go for a few beers and then see penguins afterwards.
As luck would have it, or maybe because St. Kilda is tiny, the pier I was meeting the researcher on was literally across the street from the bar we went to. So Brandon, Jen and I headed off to see some penguins.
Zoe, the researcher, was a friendly, mid-60s woman with more energy and spirit than all three of us combined. We walked out on the breakwater and she shined her flashlight looking for movement amid the rocks. When she spotted something she hopped on to the rocks and climbed down to get a closer look and try to capture the penguin so I could film it up close. I could not believe she was doing this at 60 years old. I could barely shuffle a few feet from the path with my camera without panicking and believing I would fall to my death. Oh, and it was almost pitch black except for the guidance the little flashlights provided.
I ended up getting some very cool footage though I had to use night-vision on my camera, which actually shoots black and white rather than the typical green. The three of us headed out to meet up with Jen’s friends at a bar. But looking for the bar we stumbled across a burger joint serving up “Australian burgers.” We couldn’t resist. They had beets, an egg, and onions served on a burger, and they totally hit the spot.
> FEBRUARY 1 – Melbourne – Port Phillip Dredge
Brandon and I went out to Mornington Peninsula to meet up with my first interview of the day, Jenny Wharfe who heads up the Blue Wedges, a coalition of environmental groups who oppose a big dredging project in the Port Phillip Bay. They are worried that the dredging (digging up huge amounts of the bay’s floor) will devastate the underwater environment and hurt tourism and diving.
We headed back to central Melbourne and I did a quick interview with a researcher at the Bureau of Meteorology who explained how it’s tough to know how global warming will interact with El Nino, and the future climate of Australia is a tough thing to predict.
Then I met with a guy representing the Port of Melbourne (basically the arch-nemesis of Jenny Wharfe!). I’m used to doing basic ‘what’s going on’ type stories where something is happening but it’s not really anyone’s ‘fault.’ So this was pretty exciting to get two very different sides of a story where each side may exaggerate its claims or only discuss the elements that are positive. The Port people were pretty intimidating in their suits and ties, and a bit suspicious of me as though I were working for the opposition and I was going to take the interview out of context. I assured them I was legit and would present the issue as best I could.
Once we were safe and sound in Jen’s apartment, we passed out. It was about 7pm.
> FEBRUARY 2 – Adelaide – Dolphin Sanctuary
We caught a 7:40am flight to Adelaide where we went out on a boat to see dolphins with researcher Mike Bossley of the Dolphin Conservation Society, who was dubbed “Doctor Dolphin” after his years of work. The story here was about how a group of dolphins are living in the midst of a major industrial area and about the pressures on them living so close to a city.
We then went out to lunch with Mike (an extraordinarily nice guy) and later met up with the head of the South Australian Recreational Fishing Advisory Council, a group that pushes for fishing. Once an area is designated a “sanctuary” then recreational fishing is off-limits as it can hurt the dolphins.
An amusing anecdote that Mike told was that back when he was pushing to get the area designated as a sanctuary, he was at odds with the head of SARFAC. They went to blows over the issue but eventually, once it became a sanctuary and fishing wasn’t as impacted as feared, the two became friends. Now they go swimming together regularly (in their youth, both were Olympic level swimmers).
The other amusing thing is both the Dolphin Sanctuary and SARFAC gave us hats with their emblem. We thought it was kind of funny for us to wear the opposing hat, though it really wasn’t that funny, and we were the only ones that got the joke.
That evening we stayed at a nearby hotel, went for a swim, ate some pizza, and passed out at 8:30pm.
> FEBRUARY 3 –Kangaroo Island
Another butt-crack of dawn flight but this time to famous Kangaroo Island. I believe the funniest moment of the entire trip happened when Brandon and I went to the counter to check-in for our flight.
We got our tickets and checked my one big piece of luggage that Bran and I were sharing. But I still had my backpack with the video camera, and my tripod case that I was going to carry on. The man at the counter looks at my tripod case and asks “What’s inside that?”
Without missing a beat and not realizing what I was saying, I respond with a straight face “a kangaroo.” (I must have been saying “kangaroo island” in my head). The guy looked very confused, after all, what would I be doing with a kangaroo in my carry-on, and isn’t that illegal? It took me a second to follow up, “no, sorry, that’s a tripod.”
The 30-seater airplane was the smallest plane I’ve ever been on. By 8:30am, we were eating breakfast at one of the two spots in Kingscote, the tiny town on the island. Our day was pretty full. We saw the Remarkable Rocks (a beautiful rock formation), Admiral’s Arch, Sea Lion Bay, and a cave.
Happily, our 1970s style motel had a swimming pool and wireless internet, so I chatted with Maddy by the pool on my PDA via Skype. For dinner, we went to Kangaroo Island Fresh Seafoods. The first thing about this place is that it’s right next door to a Caltrex gas station in a converted garage, so you think it’s going to be a typical gas station restaurant (not usually good). But it is a regular fresh seafood place with all kinds of seafood on ice. You can take the raw seafood home or have them cook it for you there. We had fish sandwiches, scallops, shrimp, and calamari, all deep fried, and unbelievably delicious!
What was kind of funny is that we saw a single kangaroo on our entire trip on Kangaroo Island. What gives? You kind of assume they’ll be swarming all over the car or something, but no, they didn’t even come out at night when they normally get on the road and become dangerous to driving cars. Nothing. I want my money back.
> FEBRUARY 4 –Adelaide
Checked out a nice beach where we walked out pretty far and the water barely hit our knees. Then took a noon flight back to Adelaide where we had a 6pm flight back to Sydney. So we stashed our stuff at the airport and took a bus into the city. It hit 45 degrees Celsius today… that’s roughly 115 degrees Fahrenheit. That is insane. We had lunch, walked around the Botanical gardens (which were quite nice, those Australians really know how to do their botanical gardens!), and checked out a hip lounge for a drink or two.
http://public.fotki.com/jeffnovich/worldtrip5sydney/
> FEBRUARY 5 – Sydney
While Brandon tried to spend the day sleeping (he was about to start a 7 day night rotation at the hospital… in the ER!), I did a few interviews all over Sydney, so it was a pretty packed day.
I headed out to meet with an underwater videographer to pick up some footage of grey nurse sharks that I was going to use in my piece. Then I hopped in a cab and headed out to Macquarie University to interview a researcher about the grey nurse shark. He had released a study a few years back based on his models that predicted the shark would be locally extinct off the east coast of Australia within a few decades.
Then another $40 cab ride to a suburb of Sydney (close to where Brandon’s parents live, actually), to meet with Valerie Taylor, an older woman who has been diving with her husband for years. She takes photos and he does video and she is actually quite well-known around Australia for her environmental advocacy as well as her photography. And let’s not forget, she and her husband shot the live shark footage that was used in Jaws as well as other big movies. I didn’t know much of this before I arrived. I got her name through someone, so I just knew she was someone who’d be able to talk about diving and how the sharks are threatened.
When I came, she barely knew who I was. She said she was scheduled to do a number of interviews that day. Apparently she’s quite media savvy and at 70 years old, she had enough under her belt so I’m guessing for a number of years, she’s been mostly doing the lecture circuit. I didn’t realize I was about to do an interview with an Australian legend. (Here’s an interview she did on ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/talkingheads/txt/s1403416.htm)
I met up with Brandon’s brother, Ben, in the city that evening for some drinks at a few cool spots and we ate “wedges” (big French fries with a delicious dipping sauce). Later that night we all met up with Brandon who was fully awake and getting ready to go in for his shift at 10pm. We went to a conveyor belt sushi place across the street from a funny place called “Burger-licious.” I couldn’t help singing the Fergie song: “I'm Burger-licious (so delicious) / My body stay vicious / I be up in the gym just working on my fitness / I’m Burger-licious”
> FEBRUARY 6 – Sydney
Nothing special today except Jen deciding to come to Sydney for 12 hours to make it to the Scissor Sisters concert we were going to tonight. (More trivia: I only learned of the Scissor Sisters through Maddy when I copied her iPod songs.) I had asked Brandon to get some tickets for the show today so he got one for himself, me and his brother. But he realized he would be on a shift tonight and wouldn’t be able to go. He mentioned this to Jen back in Melbourne and she flipped her shit. Turns out, Jen is a major Scissor Sisters fan. She decided to fly to Sydney at 6pm tonight, go to the concert with me and Ben, and fly back out at 6am to get to her 9am law class. Jen, needless to say, is insane (and I hope that is made clear by the photos of her in a crazy blue top she wore to the concert!).
Ben and I had a few drinks and went to Oporto, a fast-food chicken burger spot. My old friend Greg who spent a year in Sydney said this place was the thing he missed most about Australia, so I figured we had to check it out. And it was certainly a tasty chicken chili burger.
We met up with Jen who had just arrived, and continued to do more drinking. She was hungry and there just happened to be another Oporto (it’s a ubiquitous chain) right across from the Sydney Entertainment Center, so we decided to indulge once more.
The concert was great!! We came in for the final song of the opening band, Sneaky Sound System. They were actually quite good and I later downloaded their album which has two great songs and a lot of crap. The Scissor Sisters are a pretty wild band and they played a fun selection from their new album and their last one. Jen has a good post on her blog about the evening. (http://aunz2007.blogspot.com/2007/02/scissor-sisters-in-sydney.html)
http://public.fotki.com/jeffnovich/worldtrip6brisbane/
> FEBRUARY 7 – Brisbane - Coral
This morning I flew to Brisbane, a surfer city a few hours north of Sydney. I was going to stay for about a week by myself to do three more stories: coral reefs, fire ants, and koalas.
The first stop was a 40 minute taxi ride from the airport to University of Queensland (I love how they call it “uni”) which cost me about $50. I was hemorrhaging money all day. I met with a professor named Justin Marshall who has helped develop an online network to monitor coral reefs around the world for bleaching. I interviewed him and took a taxi back to the airport to catch a shuttle bus up to the Sunshine Coast to meet with a high school teacher who has been using the coral watch program to teach about coral reefs and engage his students and participate in the data collection.
The first stop at Sunshine Coast was an awesome place called Underwater World (I was thinking, “where’s Kevin Costner?”). It was a very cool aquarium that Tony (the teacher) had arranged for me to film. So I had an escort from the staff take me around (obviously for free) and discuss all the exhibits. I got some wonderful footage of sharks, corals, otters, sealions. It’s a really cool place and it would have been nice to hang out for a bit longer but, as much of my trip has been, it was a little rushed.
Afterwards, we decided there wasn’t enough light to do the interview that night, so we’d do it tomorrow morning right before I head back to Brisbane. Tony, a very cool high school teacher who was graciously putting me up for the night, then took me on the most memorable tour ever.
First, we stopped off at a hill where his wife and mother-in-law were waiting with his two little poodles, and we watched the sunset. He decided we were starving and needed to polish off a big serving of “prawns” (shrimp) at his house, so we headed back. Tony’s house was breathtaking. It wasn’t that it was huge or gaudy but it was classy and every little thing made me think “wow, that’s cool.” For instance, his ‘backyard’ was a patio, overlooking a swimming pool, overlooking a narrow (100 feet across) stream (they each cascaded over one another). On one side of the patio was a waterfall, but small, and it was more like water that was falling over a stone wall. To get to the patio, he opened up a screen door that bent like an accordion from one side of the room to the other, so he opened it entirely to the outside. He had a little aquarium with an eel and some brightly colored fish.
We finished off the shrimp and Tony asked me what food I was in the mood for. He and his wife used funny terms for “expensive” and “cheap” when describing possible restaurants: “top market” and “middle market”. So we decided on a seafood joint where all the seafood is on ice and you choose it and they cook it up and serve it (similar to Fresh Seafoods in Kangaroo Island). Then we had to decide on which mode of transportation we’d be taking. I was a little confused.
Before I knew it, I was putting on a helmet and jumping on the back of a black Vespa scooter that Tony was driving. We sped off and I was scared shitless, but it turned into a pretty sweet ride. Dangerous as hell as we whizzed down big streets at 70-80 kph, but tons of fun. We got to the seafood place, ordered a variety of seafood – fish, ‘bugs’ (basically lobsters), prawns, calamari, and we ate it on the water. There were possums crawling around in the trees behind us.
We headed off to the town center to have a coffee. Tony showed me the “loo with a view,” a well-known bathroom on the beach that has a second floor you can walk around on.
Tony then took me around the town on a little tour. I would have taken a few photos but my hands were a little tied up with, you know, hanging on for dear life.
> FEBRUARY 8 – Brisbane – Fire Ants
I woke up at the butt-crack of dawn once again so I could get an interview with Tony and catch my shuttle bus back to Brisbane by 9am.
I got to Brisbane and hopped in a taxi (another $50 fare!) and headed off to the Fire Ant headquarters in a suburb to do my second to last story about the fire ant infestation in Brisbane and how it is mostly under control.
My contact, Jenny, had organized a whole day of fun for me. Back when I was emailing her about doing the story, I had asked if there was any film of an actual fire ant nest or if I could film one. She said that unfortunately she didn’t have video and that as soon as they find a nest, they immediately destroy it. Since most of the nests in Brisbane had been destroyed, (most recent one was back in December), she said the odds of a real nest spraying to happen on the day of shooting was slim to none. But sure enough, luck was on my side! Someone had called in a fire ant nest and the control center had just happened to plan the nest spraying on the day I was shooting. That was our first stop.
But first, fire ants. Fire ants are tiny ants that are extremely aggressive. When you piss them off, they don’t sting and run away. They come out like an army on the attack and bite you in swarms. And unlike bees, they can bite multiple times, which they do. Oh, and their bite feels like you’re on fire, hence “fire” ant. The big problem is that they are a non-native species, so they spread very easily. Back in Argentina where they come from, they have natural predators that keep their numbers in check. But here in Australia, there are no predators and they just spread like wildfire and wreak havoc on the landscape and livestock (and people).
But the most ridiculous thing about fire ants is how they spread. Fertile males and females grow wings. When the time is right, they fly up together and mate mid-air. The male dies and falls to the ground. Yeah, he has no use anymore. The female can keep flying for up to 2 kilometers and when ready she lands, sheds her wings and lays eggs to start the new colony. That’s why Australia is scared shitless of the spread of these nasty suckers and how they can actually spread far and wide pretty quickly.
So we headed off to an ant spraying which wasn’t quite as dramatic as you think, but it was cool to get footage of these ants in the wild. Then we went to “fire ant hill” which is a hilltop right next to a maximum security prison! that used to be the most infested site in Australia. According to legend (or, Jenny), you couldn’t walk anywhere on this large patch of land without running into a nest. Now it is completely nest free and stands as one of their shining achievements.
Then I interviewed a very nice couple who had been the first to report fire ants in Australia back in 2001 because the ants had infested their backyard and garden.
I then switched gears and headed back to the University of Queensland to do an interview with a renowned coral bleaching expert, Ove Hough-Guldberg. He clearly had done many interviews on camera before because he would keep going over the same answer until he got it right, as though he were an actor deliver his lines perfectly. For a well-known guy in his field, he was very nice and funny and great to work with.
Afterwards, I took yet another taxi (jesus, these taxis are going to kill me!) back to the fire ant center where we headed off to the lab where they keep a whole bunch of ants in what looks like a big filing cabinet. The guy pulled out one of the buckets and it was completely open and filled with ants. This was definitely a great starting point for a horror film. “A fire ant lab guy drops a bucket of ants and in the frenzy knocks over the rest of the bunch. The millions of ants go crazy and leave the facility to colonize a super-species of seriously pissed off ants.” Or better yet “the lab guy turns into a fire ant and leaves the facility in search of prey and leads his pack of pissed off fire ants.” Hollywood is totally going to buy this one.
Seriously, though, it was a very scary place because the ants weren’t covered at all. The buckets were lined with a plastic so they couldn’t grip it and crawl up the side (though it begs the question: perhaps one ant will evolve and be able to grip that plastic…hmmm?). The other ridiculous thing is that a bunch of the worker ants have wings. Why aren’t they flying around and stinging my face? Turns out, if you keep the humidity high enough, the ants don’t want to fly. Again, question: what if an ant evolves and decides to fly in a higher humidity? Whatever, I didn’t get stung and got out alive.
As the sun started to set, we passed a huge number of kangaroos hopping around in the wild so I got out and filmed them for a bit. Jenny dropped me off at Cloud 9, a backpacker hostel in Brisbane where I thought I could rough it a bit to save some cash. If the previous night with Tony was really classy, comfortable and fun, this place was the exact opposite…
I shared a tiny room with a Korean girl and two guys. Bunk beds, a nasty bathroom, and virtually no outlets, this place was pretty skeezy. But I guess at $26 per night, (AUS dollars), you get what you pay for.
> FEBRUARY 9 – koala sanctuary
This morning I decided to start the day with a coffee and an egg on a roll before I headed off to see koalas at the Lone Pine Sanctuary. What the little café brought me was a poor excuse for an ‘egg on a roll’… it was a pile of scrambled eggs heaped on top of buttered hero bread (see photo). Not quite what I had in mind.
The Lone Pine Sanctuary turned out to be an amazing place! It was basically a small zoo but a lot of the animals were just out in the open. For instance, the cafeteria had tables and was surrounded by koala pens (the koalas just kinda sit around and do nothing). Wild turkeys were walking around everywhere. And there was a whole area with tons of kangaroos where you could walk right up to them and pet them. They are hilarious animals when they try to walk slowly. These were animals raised in very human-friendly conditions, so they were kind of like dogs, completely docile and were perfectly happy if you pet them or took photos up close. Also, you can’t help but notice the male kangaroos with their junk hanging down. That’s pretty funny. And the female ‘roos’ with their ‘joeys’ in their pouch is amusing to watch too… they look really uncomfortable.
I was here to do an interview with the koala expert. The Sanctuary has the most koalas in captivity – about 130 – and this woman knew every one of their names, personalities, dispositions, family histories, etc. She held a koala during the interview. Koalas are very cute though a little funny looking. They basically sleep for about 16 hours a day, and eat for the rest. And the only time they get animated is when they’re ‘in the mood.’ The females will start squawking to the males and hop around. Kinda like demanding girlfriends, except girlfriends just want to be taken out. I also got to pet an Emu, a bird that looks like an ostrich that was hit with an ugly stick.
> FEBRUARY 10 – Fraser Island
Today I embarked on 2-day jeep tour of Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island and a top site recommended by many friends of mine. When I reserved the ticket, the friendly woman on the phone said “bring a torch, and a pillow.” So I bought a flashlight and figured I could deal without a pillow for one night.
This trip turned out to be the tour from hell. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. Let’s begin from the beginning.
The ticket said to meet at the Transit Center down the street from my dirty hostel at 6:30am, as the jeep, she warned, leaves at 7am. I got there, and soon enough everyone else did too. It was a great bunch of people: a german girl, a british couple, a whole bunch of Koreans. The tour guides were friendly, and ours, Paul, didn’t wear shoes, at all. Nevertheless, everyone seemed nice. This was going to be a great experience.
We all load up into a 4WD jeep that must have been the most rickety piece of shit I’ve ever seen. But I thought, ‘these are professionals,’ and Paul reassured us that he’s been doing this 5 years. Paul also has a bandaid on his finger because on yesterday’s tour, he explains, he was bitten by a goanna (a really long, sharp toothed type of iguana that apparently will bite the shit out of your finger if you get too close). Oh, and here’s something to remember about goanna bites:
From: http://www.mdavid.com.au/reptiles/lizardbite.html
Goannas, dragons and monitor lizards are known for lots of things, but oral hygiene isn't one of them. These amazing critters feed on all sorts of stuff, including the rotting flesh of dead animals. This turns their mouth into a breeding ground for many types of dangerous bacteria that can cause dreadful infections if one bites you.
So Paul explains that because he got back at about midnight last night, had to wake up 4am for this tour, he hasn’t had time to get a tetanus shot or have the finger looked at. I know we’re going to be in for a great trip.
Then, the jeep won’t start. We have not left the Transit Center and already, well, we haven’t left. Turns out the key won’t turn the ignition. Paul calms us down and says they’re calling a locksmith because they think the key is a copy and just hasn’t been cut properly. They didn’t just call in another rental jeep because this company, Sunrover Tours, is the cheapest ass-backwards company ever and didn’t have any on hand and runs an operation that barely keeps their jeeps in working condition.
About 1.5 hrs later, around 9am, the locksmith comes. He walks over to the jeep, looks inside for about 3 seconds and turns to Paul: “it’s not your key. Your barrel is shot. Nothing I can do.” Turns out, the barrel where you put the key in had been worn down to a point where no key could work. (I have my suspicions as to why this happened and will share later.)
We hop in a “maxi-taxi” (a van), and drive about an hour or so to another destination where we pick up a rental jeep. This jeep is a nice new Land Rover with comfy seats. Finally, we’re on our way. It’s already 11am, and it looks like we’re not going to do much today because we still have a ways to go. But Paul assures us that in the hundreds of tours he’s done, he has never missed any of the destinations. We will see everything, don’t worry.
We get to Rainbow Beach, the launching point where we’ll get the ferry to Fraser Island. But first we buy supplies for that night: beer, water and barbecue foods. Everything seems to be falling into place. Although, as if the rental jeep were too comfortable for our needs, we swap it out for another 4WD jeep, this one maybe ten times more shitty and run down than the first one we had started with. Nevertheless, we pile in the back – 5 people along each side – and drive onto the ferry.
Fraser Island is super cool. There really are no roads and everyone is in a 4WD jeep driving 80kph on wet sand. It’s insane. We learned the hard way that our jeep basically had no shocks so while the beach was a fairly smooth ride, as soon as you drive inland, you go over really bad, completely uneven roads. I have no idea how the jeep’s axels don’t just snap in half, but we were violently thrown around the entire time. It was pretty cool, but gut-wrenching. The doors to the jeep don’t close properly, floors are completely rusted through in some parts and basically it’s ready for the junk heap.
The camping area (we were sleeping in tents, didn’t you know) was pretty stank. The tents were all busted up; either the zipper didn’t zip properly, the tent was torn open or the tarp underneath was torn. Since the ground was a bit wet and bugs are definitely out, this wasn’t an encouraging encounter. But we made do and chose tents. I ended up picking one that, while not torn up, had no rain cover. I looked at the clear sky and figured there was no way it would rain that night. Also, the “refrigerator” was a box that was covered in rust and dirt, so that was kinda nasty too.
We piled back into the death mobile and headed out to a hiking path. About 45 minutes later, after passing some of the most gigantic spiders I’ve ever seen, we went swimming in a lake that felt just a little bit too warm to be normal or clean. I don’t have a photo, unfortunately, but the “shore” was a steep hill of sand which went up maybe 100 feet. It was pretty nice and exhausting to run up it.
That was pretty much it for the first day. Paul assured us we’d see everything else tomorrow. We went back to the campsite, fired up the BBQ, and grilled up various meat we bought.
Later that night, under what began as a clear sky, it started to rain. Of course it did. So me and my tent-mate jumped out and got into the next open tent with some torn tarp underneath. We woke up with some water at the side of the tent, but it wasn’t that bad.
> FEBRUARY 11 – Brisbane – koalas
First thing in the morning, we are barely 50 feet from the campsite and we get stuck. But no worries yet. The other jeep (they always travel in tandem) hooked up a line and pulled our hero out. So far so good.
We drive out to drop off the trash at some spot on the beach and that’s when the other jeep gets a flat. OK, these things happen. Paul helps him out and they change it lightening quick. The odds of that happening again are low, Paul assures us.
Next stop is the big shipwreck, which is a pretty cool site. But we have about 10 minutes there so that we can stay on schedule and actually see everything that was promised to us in the travel brochure.
Then on to a freshwater stream that flows out to meet the beach. We could wade in it quite far and the water is nice and clear. I notice Paul takes the ignition key for the jeep, buries it in the sand and heads off to the water. He explains that he hides the key because he’s going swimming. That’s when I realize… the reason the first jeep didn’t start was because the barrel was totally worn down, something that I’m sure was a result of the sand! Goddammit. But before I know it, our time is up. Next stop…
…Central Station, towards the center of the island on the worst road of the island. Within 5 minutes the other jeep’s tire goes flat again. It’s a different tire. But now, because our jeep is not the same model (because Sunrover Tours sucks and doesn’t keep their vehicles functioning properly, so we had to rent this one) our spare won’t fit theirs. So now we’re screwed.
Paul doesn’t miss a beat. No problem, he says, just gotta run down to the gas station and pick up a tire that has 8 bolts or something. He leaves while we sit around on this road waving at the intermittent passersby, some of whom get stuck in the sand and take a few moments to get traction back. Paul returns with a tire. He explained later that he had to literally dig through a junk heap at the station to find the right size tire. But the one he found had a gash in it he had to mend and a ton of mud and crap caked inside it which he had to clean out by hand.
So he’s back, the jeep is up on the jack. Paul and the other guy circle around and start digging a bit in the sand to make room to put the tire back on when all of a sudden, the jack falls over and the entire jeep falls a few feet onto it’s tireless corner. Paul and the other guy are fine, but completely stunned. Paul throws up his hands and finally looses his cool. He had explained the whole time that problems do happen but he rarely sees so many things go wrong in one day, so we’ll be fine. So much for that…
We are all driven back to the main area (with food and a hotel pool) while Paul goes back to get the jeep driving again. They return about an hour or two later and prepare lunch for us. So far we have done very little today and it’s already around 2pm or so. I kinda just want the day to be over and get to sleep. It’s tiring driving around in a jeep with no shocks, getting thrown around, your insides scrambled to a pulp.
We make the trip to Lake Wabby, a beautiful clear lake. Of course, we only have about 10 minutes to spend there, so we better make them count. (Worst tour, EVER!) We pack up again and head over to Central Station which has an amazing rainforest that, given a tour that didn’t suck, normally has a 45 minute hike. We’re there for about 5 minutes and in the most rushed way possible, Paul explains that the area was used for logging and moving trees around. But no time for that. Meanwhile, a goanna shows up as we were walking towards the jeep. A little blast from the past for Paul, I guess.
And that’s that for the tour from hell! It can’t get much worse… can it? Now we just have to make the last ferry off the island. We do better than that! Paul gets us just in time for the SECOND to last ferry off the island. Maybe this trip isn’t as bad as I thought. After all, we all made do with a bunch of unforeseen circumstances that were all completely out of Paul’s hands and he handled everything with a smile and entertained us. I felt pretty bad for the poor guy. He explained that these tours are his livelihood and he only gets $100/day and usually works 16 hour days, having to be tour guide, mechanic, entertainer, doctor, chef… you name it. It’s a thankless job but he said he really enjoys it and that this is all he’ll ever do for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, we were all taking bets on what would go wrong next. Would it be another flat? Perhaps the engine would die on us. Maybe someone will throw up, or a kangaroo will jump out and hit the car. We didn’t foresee what would befall us next.
After the ferry lands, Paul drives off and does about 80 kph in a 50 kph zone so we could get back to Rainbow Beach and return the rental jeep on time. And yes, he gets pulled over. You might think that isn’t so bad. Unexpected, yes, but a $150 speeding ticket, sucks but manageable. But what none of us had realized is that Paul already had points on his license. The cop had some bad news. This violation put him over the limit and he would lose his license, and thus the ability to do these tours (since they require driving thousands of kilometers every week). He just lost his job.
He could still drive us home, but it was pretty somber in the car after that ordeal. I felt pretty bad for him. The guy has tons of pressure on him to make deadlines and get everything done, and then when something bad happens, he is the one to get screwed.
But the day wasn’t over just yet. We still had a 3 hour drive ahead of us and one of the most stressful rides of my life. You see, poor Paul hadn’t gotten a whole lot of sleep, and after a full day of fixing so many problems, he was pretty exhausted. The rest of us hadn’t done a fraction of what he’d done and virtually all of the 9 other people in the jeep were passed out as soon as we hit the highway. I stayed up, staring at the rearview mirror at his eyes as they fluttered open and shut. I was scared shitless he might fall asleep at the wheel on the highway so I tried to make small talk with him. He knew I was just trying to keep him awake and he insisted he was fine. We stopped at a gas station and he got some food. I told him it’s cool if he needed to take a short nap or if I could get him some red bull or something. We’d rather be alive that home on time. He insisted he was fine to drive, that he was just quiet because of the points on his license. I knew he was bummed but he must have been exhausted too.
We made it home alive, thank god, with no close calls. I just tried to talk to Paul the whole time and did a fair bit of praying to god during our silent moments. I had decided I couldn’t deal with the backpackers any longer and that it was worth it to have a nice room all to myself, complete with more than one stinking electrical outlet. I checked into a nearby hotel, called Maddy, plugged in all my batteries to charge, finally took a shower (I was quite dirty after this whole ordeal), and passed out.
> FEBRUARY 12 – Koala Beach
This morning I met up with the Save the Koala Foundation people and rode along with them in a bus with several suburb politicians including the mayor of Redland Shire. This trip had been planned by the koala people for almost two years and the main goal was to show them a place called Koala Beach, a residential community that was built with conservation of koala habitat in mind. The idea was to get some of the politicians to consider making any new developments in their districts, which contain some of the most populated koalas in the wild, conform to this type of process.
Koala Beach was about 2 hours away. It was indeed a community built around koalas. While they weren’t running around and jumping all over the place, it was clearly a development with significant environmental consideration. For instance, fences need to have a certain gap at the bottom so that any critter can pass through. Car speed limits throughout the area are 30 kph. Then we spotted a koala in a very tall tree next to a house. The little guy was trying to sleep, but the wind was knocking the tree to and fro quite violently.
We headed back and I got on my flight back to Sydney where I met up, once again, with Ben and Brandon, and we had one final dinner at Matsuri, a fancy sushi restaurant that served some excellent fish.
http://public.fotki.com/jeffnovich/worldtrip7thailand/
> FEBRUARY 13 – see Maddy
I got a fair bit of sleep and Brandon and I hung out during the day and took care of a few errands – developing my film, watching “The Office,” and eating a kangaroo steak. Yeah, I decided the last thing I’d do in Australia is taste kangaroo (something that is pretty hard to find, actually), and it was quite good with a distinct flavor that I can’t really describe.
Then I bid farewell to Brandon, the most gracious host and friend, and headed off to Bangkok to finally see Maddy! It’s been 5 months since I’ve seen her!
The Thai Airlines flight was half full, so I had an entire row to myself. It was about 10 hours or so. They served some very good food and came around several times to offer cocktails, which I hadn’t gotten on any other flights I was on.
The Bangkok airport is huge and is very nice. I got my bags (thank god) and got to the entrance to wait for Maddy for the next two hours. I stood there staring at the customs exit (where I had gone out of) in anticipation when Maddy surprised me from behind. What a great feeling to finally be back together again!
> FEBRUARY 14 – Bangkok
The Century Park Hotel was nice and it offered a full free breakfast, so I was happy. We decided to do a bit of exploring in Bangkok and walked a few blocks from our hotel to catch a metro.
Bangkok was the most underwhelming city ever. I believe the word “bangkok” actually means “dirt” in Thai. It is absolutely disgusting. You walk for 3 minutes anywhere near outdoors and you breath in enough fumes to knock you unconscious or at least give you a splitting headache. We were nauseous most of the time we were outside. I love to walk so this was pretty upsetting for me. I want to bitch for a minute about this: how do you live in or govern a city where the air is so polluted? That made me more upset than anything, that this place was so utterly repulsive and polluted but that in 2007 it appears nothing has been done. I read an article a few weeks later that said Bangkok’s outer limits were as clean as New York city air, and that’s good if it’s true.
All around Thailand are huge billboards of the king and all I could think of was “what an ass… does this guy ever just walk around and smell how disgusting his country is?” It’s clear that most people just accept it and move on. You’ll see people holding cloth up to their mouths, which should be a sign that something’s wrong, but it doesn’t seem to stop anyone.
We hopped on a little boat cruise around the river that goes through the city. If I thought the air was polluted, the water was ten times more disgusting. There was tons of shit floating around everywhere, and any time the boat hit a small wave and a sprinkle of water threatened to moisten my face, I shielded myself like it was black death. The long narrow boats had these funky motors belching black smoke with a long rod and a propeller at the end.
We ate at what seemed to be the only nice restaurant on the “water,” but it kind of felt like the rest of the area – dirty, run-down. We looked at a bunch of temples and Buddha statues but once you’ve seen a photo of one, I’m content. When you’ve seen one in person, you’re satiated. But when you see several in person, it’s just too much Buddha. It’s not that I can’t stand Buddha temples and statues, but the places were so dirty and surrounded by the filth of the city and traffic that it’s hard to think you’re in a beautiful place. They were mostly run-down too. The word of the day is “underwhelming.”
I can see why nice hotels and buildings are the cream of the crop here—everyone wants to get the hell out of outside and into someplace that is clean. It’s amazing to me, and very hypocritical, that the difference between outside (public spaces) and inside, like the hotels or wherever, is so stark. Everything inside is so pristine, so manicured. There are a ton of people employed to clean every piece of dust off everything and keep things sparkly. And this is in most places, not just fancy hotels. But when you get outside, people literally treat the spaces like shit, freely peeing or crapping on the side of the road, throwing tons of garbage on the pavement. It amazes me how there is this obvious notion of what is ‘nice’ as you can see in any establishment. You might assume, well this culture just doesn’t give a shit about cleanliness. They are content living in a shitty river and perfectly happy breathing in fumes all day. But you would also then expect that attitude to persist no matter where they are. And I don’t think it’s just because they need to be a certain way to attract tourists. It’s not like New York is spotless but people aren’t constantly peeing in the streets or throwing trash everywhere.
Perhaps the only good thing about Bangkok was that they had these hot pink taxis all over. Pretty funny.
We used the hotel’s gym and I went for a good run and then we took a dip in the pool.
> FEBRUARY 15 –Chiang Mai
We flew up north to Chiang Mai, a famous city that a lot of people recommended seeing. It was also a bit underwhelming…
Our hotel was a small 1970s-style lodge that I really enjoyed. It was also about $30/night, total, so that didn’t hurt.
We checked out the night market which basically sold mostly crap. It brought to mind a great episode of Family Guy where Brian and Stewie get stuck in the middle east and wind up in some bazaar. A guy selling his wares yells out, “crap for sale… cheaply made crap for sale.” That’s pretty much what these markets were like, but it was fun to look around. It’s amusing to shop with Maddy because she scoffs at nearly every item and says “oh, that’s made in china,” or “oh, you can get that in china for a nickel.” Whenever she saw something she liked, she’d try to bargain by naming a price way under their asking price and when they gave a lower price, but not what she asked for, she’d just say “well, that’s the going price in china, so it’s that price or nothing.” I tried to explain to her that this isn’t China and to be a little more flexible.
The in-flight magazine on the airplane to Chiang Mai had a great cover story. "How to take good pix of your girlfriend," was, I kid you not, the title of the article. Eagerly I thumbed through the pages, hoping that the article would shed some light on this perplexing problem that plagues everyone with ugly girlfriends. Luckily, my girlfriend is already sexy, I reasoned, so every photo I take of her is a good one. But I was curious what tips the article had for guys who are less fortunate and perhaps have lower megapixel cameras.
Read the article, complete with hilarious before and after shots.
http://www.one2go-magazine.com/insidestory/insidestory_feb07.htm
But then, the airline was called "One-Two Go," and truly, how much can you expect from an airline that leaves off that third and most important number. Who the hell goes on "two" anyway? Idiots.
Our hotel in Chiang Mai was pretty nice and it also had a cute little restaurant. The thing I really love the most about Thailand is how insanely cheap everything is. The great thing about food being cheap is that you can take chances and experiment with things you're not really sure about, and it's no big deal if you eat a little bit and don't like it because you've spent almost nothing. This also extended to drinking. At every meal, we would get water, beer, I would order a smoothie, preferably mango, and also a cocktail. Plus the orange juice was always fresh squeezed.
Because Thailand's water is putrid, and nobody wants to spend all that much on bottled water, there is a really cheap bottled water available that I am guessing is the lowest grade of bottled water, called "ozonated" water, whatever the hell that means. Anyway, it really makes no difference because I didn't get sick, and that's all that matters to me.
Among some of the interesting things being sold at the night bazaar in Chiang Mai was a bunch of very realistic looking automatic weapons. I thought they'd be real fun to try to get through security on my flight home, although I'm not sure what I'd do with plastic guns.
Maddy is really big into massages, and in Thailand there is plenty of massaging going on. I never got one before, so Maddy talked me into getting a foot massage. I thought, who in their right mind would want to touch my feet, no matter how much money I was paying them. I wouldn't touch my feet for $100, and now somebody was going to rub them down for half an hour. Sweet. I'm not quite sure why Maddy loves massages so much. It really boils down to somebody squeezing your foot or digging their knuckles into your back for an hour. Maddy calls it relaxing, and for the most part it is relaxing, but only because you're sitting in a really comfortable chair and trying to doze off. But it's hard to doze off with somebody digging their knuckles into your back or pulling on your toes. But it's cheap, and cheap always equals fun for me.
> FEBRUARY 16 –Chiang Mai
This morning we decided to go explore the city a little bit. Feeling adventurous, we went on one of the most dangerous little taxis ever, called "tuk-tuk"s, which describes the sound they make. Though they should be called “cough-coughs” for the fumes you constantly breath in when riding one. These are three wheeled piece of shit taxis that carry two people in the back. They are open-aired so you can freely breathe in all of the fumes while you are sitting in traffic. They are also insanely dangerous. But, they are ridiculously cheap, costing maybe a 50 cents per person to get to most places.
We flagged one down and asked him to take us to a temple. He offered to continue taking us around for as long as we liked. So we went to another temple that he recommended, although like I said before, all of these temples basically look the same. There are some interesting things about them, though. They all have Buddhas, that's for sure, but the Buddhas tend to be in various positions. Sometimes they are sitting down with their gut hanging out. But sometimes they are lying down, relaxing, or "reclining." These guys look really comfortable except for the fact that snails are covering their head, but that's another story. And if they were real people, not gold statues, they’d be breathing in noxious fumes all day and probably have cancer by now.
One temple had a whole bunch of signs with what basically sounded like fortune cookie quotes on them. I was looking for my lucky numbers. There were also a bunch of stray dogs just sitting around. We tried walking down the path that one of them was standing on, but he glared at me and barked a little bit so we decided to go somewhere else.
Standing in front of one of the statues, I decided to test out the article I had read the day before, the one about taking good pictures of your girlfriend. I had Maddy pose in front of a stone structure and instructed her to do tip #4: "make a pouty look with your lips. you can do this by silently mouthing the word "whoa." And tip #6: "take close up photos". I then took another with tip #2: "use props. sunglasses in your mouth or an umbrella". You can see how amazing my results were. Maddy would just look terrible if it weren't for these helpful hints.
All these photos made us hungry, so Mr. Tuk Tuk took us to a restaurant he recommended. It was very good food, but basically the same as all of the other Thai restaurants. Again, I can't stress enough how much I love how cheap everything is. We would look at the menu and order six dishes. You just don't know how good things are going to be, or what you're going to like, and when most of these dishes are under one dollar per plate, what the hell.
The last stop on our tuk tuk journey was to a diamond market about a 10 minutes away. Driving in a tuk tuk through the city is a little bit dangerous but manageable. Driving at highway speeds with multiple lanes of speeding cars is a little bit more scary. The diamond store claims on the entrance to be the world's largest diamond store. (Obviously this would be Maddy's idea, not mine.) I got pretty bored pretty quick and focused my attention on a bunch of aquariums with sharks. But the sharks were obviously way too big for the tanks and it pissed me off they were so poorly treated. The three sharks were continuously swimming from one and of the L-shaped aquarium to the other and back, repeatedly. For sharks to breathe, they need to be continuously moving water through their gills, so it was obviously a very uncomfortable environment for them to be in. That was really all I noticed. I don't care for diamonds or any other jewels at all, but the show room was pretty big, and I guess if you like expensive shit that sparkles, like Maddy does, then it was a fun place to poke around.
Afterwards, our tuk-tuk brought us home and we paid him a whopping 400 baht, or about $10, for the several hours he was with us. It was probably too high but he was very nice and helpful, and not trying to rip us off, something that can be hard to find around here.
Maddy thought it would be fun to do a full body massage at a spa. So we signed up for a 2.5 hour foot and body massage. Maybe it's me, but massages really don't do anything. And this was a high-end place. I just don't see the point if you walk out and feel more or less the same as you did walking in. It's bullshit, just like when I got acupuncture.
> FEBRUARY 17 –Chiang Mai – tour from hell
Because everyone and their mom told us to go ride elephants when in Chiang Mai, Maddy and I decided to sign up for a full day adventure tour where we would go hiking to a waterfall, ride on elephants, see a village of long necks, see butterflies, and ride on ox carts.
The tour started off simple enough. We got picked up at our hotel and picked up everyone else on the tour. The final count was 10, four couples, and two Swedish guys.
The thing about these “tours” is that they are not at all what you expect a tour to be. When I think of a tour, I think of a tourguide, someone who explains in a somewhat entertaining way what you are looking at and why it’s cool. Or at least someone who tells you what’s going on and where you’re going. The Thai tours are really just a driver and someone who makes sure no one dies. They barely talk and simply drive to a location and expect you to follow them. The only difference between us and being a bunch of kidnapped tourists is that if we were kidnapped, we’d have to wear something over our head til we get to the destination. Maybe I’ve been watching too much 24.
First we saw some crappy butterflies. Then we went to ride elephants. I had read about elephants in Thailand and how many of these places mistreat them terribly. Maybe we should have picked a more reputable elephant place, or not gone at all, but we went. I haven’t even seen many elephants in my life, so it wasn’t entirely clear that these elephants were being mistreated. The guys running the operation would lead each elephant with a stick with a metal hook at the end (like mini scythe) which they’d poke right behind the elephant’s ear. It wasn’t a hard poke though, and it seemed just as benign as a horse rider kicking his heels into the side of the horse. Just a nudge to get them in the right direction.
(I’ve read some material on this now and it seems like they are abused horribly in their early years and then they become obedient. It breaks my heart to hear that, and going on the elephant ride I was conflicted because I wasn’t convinced that this was an ethical operation. I just spent all this time doing environmental stories and here was a big one about animal cruelty that I was actually patronizing. It’s a bit too late now, but if I were to do it again, I obviously wouldn’t go on one of these tours.) But back to Thailand…
So we rode elephants. They walked on a path for about 20-30 minutes and at the end we could feed them bananas. Next we went on probably the most dangerous and worst hike ever. It was up hills in the woods along incredibly narrow footpaths that were inches away from long falls. The path itself was dusty and dry so there was very little traction. There wasn’t a lot to grab on to either. Our guide, a woman who spoke little English, led the way. Before long, since her pace was a bit too fast for everyone, we were already missing one of the couples. We all stopped and the guide went back and said we should keep moving and just follow the trail. So we did. It sucked. Finally, after at least an hour of aimless walking on a trail that supposedly led to a wondrous waterfall, we got to the waterfall. It was nice, but not quite wondrous and not exactly worth the high-risk journey.
After the hiking we visited what appeared to be a little tribe, but felt more like a gift shop. Of course, because this was a Thai tour, we had absolutely no idea where we were or whether this was in fact a tribal village or a place to buy some water. The next stop on our tour from hell was oxcart riding, where we got to sit on wooden carts and be pulled by oxen for about 20 minutes. Not exactly the most exciting journey, and the crappy shocks on the jeep ride on Fraser island were nothing compared to the non-existent shocks on this wooden cart.
When the ox carts pulled and, we all felt like we desperately needed a drink, and purchased pretty much as much alcohol as we could carry to our next stop: the bamboo rafts. Actually, the bamboo rafts were quite comfortable, and relaxing, especially with several bottles of beer.
After the rafts, we all piled into the crappy jeep and headed out to what would become our final stop, thank God, a small tribal town, which also happened to be a little depressing. It was a collection of huts with a few dozen people, most of whom were trying to sell the same types of junky jewelry and trinkets that were sold in the night bazaar.
We were finally finished with this tour from hell and started to feel relieved. I don't think at any point during the day did I feel like I was on vacation. We were pretty much stressed out the whole time thinking either we were going to die or that this tour sucked.
> FEBRUARY 18 – Chaing Mai lazy day
Today was a pretty uneventful day. Because we were so sick of Chiang Mai and so ready to get out to a beach, we just kind of kicked it all day. We walked around the city, got lunch, got foot massages, and then went out to a really nice dinner.
Final thoughts on Chiang Mai. Maybe spend a day or two there if you really want to see some elephants, but the city is pretty nasty and doesn't offer a whole lot of anything. It gets pretty boring after a little while, and the fumes started getting to us. We were trying to figure out the whole time why all of our friends had so fervently recommended this city, and perhaps we didn't do the right tours or see the right things, but I started to realize that it boils down to one useful cliche: "different strokes for different folks." What is really awesome and exciting for one person may be pretty dull and boring for another. I personally value cleanliness above almost all other factors, and if the city, such as all of the cities in Thailand, are disgusting, then that will get in the way of my having a good time. After all, how can you enjoy yourself if you can barely breathe. So I'm sure Maddy and I got good advice and our friends really did have an amazing time, but I'm not sure we all share the same idea of what a good time entails.
> FEBRUARY 19 – Ko Samui
We flew out to Ko Samui, about a two hour plane ride from Chiang Mai. The first thing you notice about this large island off the eastern coast of southern Thailand is the airport. It's just a completely open hut with a couple of signs and a very funny looking little baggage conveyor belt.
As soon as we got off the plane, there was someone from our hotel waiting to pick us up. We were so VIPs. We were staying in a little bungalow hut about 50 feet from Chaweng beach. Our room was pretty nice, but just a short walk outside led us to an awesome swimming pool and the entire beach. We decided to go for a little walk and explore the Chaweng area.
About 20 minutes later we found ourselves drinking cocktails at the "three monkeys" pub, at about 1 p.m.
On our way back we passed a funny sign advertising a particular tour. It said the tour was "101% stunning." I thought, how odd that it would only be a mere 1% more stunning than any other tour that might advertise itself as being 100% stunning. While you are exaggerating, you might as well exaggerate the shit out of it and say that it is 150% stunning or even 200% stunning. Go nuts. But 101% stunning doesn't sound all that stunning. Maybe it's just me.
A few stores later Maddy got distracted with sunglasses or bathing suits or jeans or something and decided to look around. Bored, I just stood outside and waited for her, but I noticed that right next door there was a custom-made suit store. (I would find out during the next few days that there were about 5,000 custom-made suit stores all along the street, and Maddy and I reasoned that they are probably all using the same mass manufacturer tailor to sew the suits.) Curious, I walked in and immediately the shop owner told me about all of the amazing deals he could give me. I could get two suits, five ties, five button-down shirts, all for $140, or something like that, I don't remember, but it was dirt cheap. (Turns out, it really wasn't because it was only the cost of fabric and not labor, so they kind of screw you and the price is really double or so.) I thought this was a pretty good deal and lingered long enough for Maddy to walk in, decide she wanted to dress me, and start picking out which colors would look good on me.
After a lot of haggling and bargaining and Maddy explaining that we were going to China and that you could get all of this custom-made clothing for half the price that he was selling it for (she is quite convincing when she whips that info out), I agreed to buy 4 button-down shirts, and 1 pair of pin-striped pants for $100. This was a damn good deal by any standard. Maddy picked out fabric and I signed off on the ones I liked, the guy tape-measured me all over, and we left, to return the following day for a second fitting.
Back at our bungalow we looked in the mini-bar and realized that the bottle of rum was only about $3 and the mixers were all less than $1. We indulged. A random dog joined us on the patio.
That night we went to a place called Ninja to eat, as it was recommended in the Fodor’s tour book my mom gave me. It had some amazing food but there was one very funny thing about the menu. It had pictures of everything and what was hilarious was that they felt the need to show things that were fundamentally the same just with slightly different condiments. For instance, in the pancake section, an entire page of 12 pictures of 2 pancakes with slightly different things on the side: banana condensed milk, coconut condensed milk, strawberry jam, egg condensed milk sugar…. I thought how amusing, they could have just put a photo of pancakes, and then all of the extras you could get on them, but instead they had every permutation listed and photographed!
They also had crab poo! (Actually no, crab in Thai is “poo” so it was a translation, but a funny one.)
Thailand loves incense. You can smell it burning almost everywhere you go. But it seemed to follow Maddy and I every time we wanted to eat. On our last night in Chiang Mai, there was a very strong smell of incense where we were sitting in the restaurant. I looked around and couldn't find where the incense was actually burning. It turns out, they love the incense so much that they actually put a small bucket of it at the foot of all the tables at many of the restaurants. Here at ninja, it was no different. I looked at Maddy and perplexed I asked where that smell of incense was coming from. At this point I didn't realize they do this all over. Maddy looked around and pointed at our feet. Damn incense!
I particularly enjoyed Ninja because at the end of our meal, the main guy running the place came to our table with a calculator and actually calculated our tab in front of us, listing every item we ordered. Other than our tuk-tuk driver, this was the other person in Thailand not out to take advantage of the stupid American tourists.
Another amusing thing about Ko Samui is that in addition to regular gas stations they also have actual barrels of gas, used to dispense to motorbikes or canisters. These gas vendors look as though they are just another vendor, perhaps selling beer from an odd-shaped keg, or lemonade. Odd stuff.
> FEBRUARY 20 – Ko Samui
We basically spent today chilling on the beach and ordering drinks and food.
A cool thing they do on the beach is set off these crazy fire-lit flying things. Basically they’re like big paper lanterns with a flame at the bottom and they go up in the air vertically and are taken up by the wind until you can’t see them anymore. Like a balloon on crack. They look pretty insane going up and you think “how the hell could this work?” Maddy thinks they are the reason there are UFO sightings in Thailand.
> FEBRUARY 21 – Ko Samui
Today was our snorkel day. We went on a tour that took us out to Koh Tao and spent the day swimming in bathwater and looking at awesome coral and fish. We put sunscreen on twice and still managed to get sunburned by the end of the day.
Before we boarded the boat, a guy was coming around and taking photos of everyone. I figured this would be used for their awesome brochure showing people having a great time. The guy kind of surprised people with a photo rather than asking anyone to pose. A little creepy. Then when we returned, they had actually used those photos to make plates as a souvenir we could purchase. Since this was the most ridiculous thing we’d ever seen for a tour souvenir – I mean, a plate? To commemorate our day of snorkeling? The photo they took basically had nothing to do with snorkeling, and the plate just said “Koh tao.” You’d think a good souvenir would at least have a snorkel or a dive mask or some picture of a fish on it. And a plate? Huh? But whatever, it was like $1 so we each bought it and hoped it wouldn’t break on the trip home.
That night we went to a highly recommended restaurant called "Captain Kirk," after Star Trek. It was quite good. I had curry chicken or something served in a coconut, along with the requisite cocktail, water, beer, and fruit drinks. We spared no expense.
> FEBRUARY 22 – Ko Samui
We decided to be a little bit daring today and do something that neither Maddy nor I have done in a while. Fish. I think the last time I went fishing was when I was in fourth grade in Mr. Pappierman's class when the entire fourth-grade class went on a fishing trip. I remember two things that day. One was that an old man got a hook in his head. The other is that I ate some bacon, (something that was expressly forbidden by my father because my family keeps kosher) and my best friend Benny told my father. Needless to say, my father was not happy with me, nor was I happy with Benny.
But things have changed, and I decided it would be fun to revisit the fishing boat and go out on what they advertised as "big game fishing." I envisioned these so-called "big game" as barracuda or sharks the size of small children.
As soon as the truck came to pick us up, we had one look at the other people on the tour and we realized we were just slightly out of place. They all seemed to be older, gruff men who knew how to fish. One guy even brought his own fishing pole. I started to fear this might be another tour from hell, but at least we had sunscreen.
First of all, the truck that they picked us up in was basically a pickup truck except it had no top on the front, or a windshield. It was completely open air, so as we rode along the highway, the driver could barely see because the wind was blowing so hard in his eyes.
The boat itself was a rickety piece of shit. To get onto it, we had to walk up something that appeared to be a dock but was made from a bunch of sticks roped together. Fishing is not really my thing. For some reason, I thought big game fishing meant something out of Jaws, where we would set up our fishing poles off of the back of the boat and the boat would drive through the water and everyone would kind of sit around and wait until something pulled on your line. And only then would you actually get up and reel in your catch. Instead, it was much the same as the fishing trip I went on in fourth grade. We all stood at the side of the boat and cast our fishing lines out and reeled them in. Of course because Maddy and I didn't know what the hell we were doing, we barely caught anything. Actually, Maddy was the only one on the boat not to catch anything. Poor Maddy. I caught one, and then I ended up catching another, but only by accident because it was also caught by someone else's unattended fishing one.
The fish were about the size of my hand. Hardly big game. Once everyone was pretty stacked with their catch, the two guys running the boat went to work on cooking the fish for lunch. The fish was actually pretty good, although because all the fish everybody caught was so small, the meal wasn't quite as hearty as I would have liked, and there were a lot of bones.
In the end, I don't think fishing is something Maddy and I particularly enjoy. We get bored pretty easily, and fishing is definitely a boring thing to do unless you are constantly catching fish.
> FEBRUARY 23 – Ko Samui – back to Bangkok
For our last day in Ko Samui we walked around a bit and did a few last minute things: drank a bunch of red bull (which is made in Thailand and therefore extremely cheap), drank Tiger Beer, picked up my shirts (which fit great) and planned a nice dinner at the other side of the island to watch the sunset.
A car picked us up and drove us about a half hour to the western side of the island to a place called Big John’s which was recommended to us as having a spectacular view and great seafood. The place was cute, but not exactly “top market” (as the Aussies would say). The salad appetizer we had was pretty funny: basically a pile of raw onions topped with a ridiculous amount of Russian dressing, and a cup of Russian dressing on the side in case you needed more. That was the recommended salad. We proceeded cautiously.
I ordered shark, something I never had (lest Benny would report the offense to my father!). It was delicious. The entertainment for the night was a group of traditionally dressed Thai women dancing around the tables to music that a guy at an electric keyboard was playing. In between dancing, the piano guy would play the cheesiest elevator music we’d ever heard. That was amusing.
We made it to the airport on time and everything was fine… except for the fact that we were going back to the worst city on earth. We dreaded returning to Bangkok, but reasoned that one night would be OK. We just wouldn’t leave the hotel.
When we arrived, we jumped in a taxi and gave him the hotel: The Royal Princess Hotel. It was recommended as being very classy since ambassadors would routinely stay there because it was close to the King’s palace (or something like that). Driving along the highway away from the airport the car starts kicking, like it’s out of oil or something. Maddy is already tired and passing out but I tell her I don’t want to die, that I hope this isn’t how it’s going to end, driving in a crappy ass taxi that dies in the middle of a highway in Bangkok of all places. So we take bets on whether the car will be able to make it or not. 10 Baht says the car will die before we make it. Maddy insists it’ll be OK, but then the car rolls to a halt… on the side of the highway! The driver jumps out, flags another taxi down and transfers our luggage. I knew this wouldn’t be easy. The new driver gets us to a hotel, the Princess Hotel. I’m thinking, I don’t think this is the right place and Maddy takes one look at the nasty hotel and says “there’s no way this is it.” We get back in the car, and finally get to the right place. It is gorgeous, but it is also 1am and we’re exhausted.
> FEBRUARY 24 – fly to hong kong
We hung out around the hotel, used the gym for a bit and got ready to head to China. Our flight was at 5:40 so we hopped in a cab and got to the airport at 3:30. Unfortunately, after searching for the Finnair counter in vain, Maddy had a look at the ticket again. It was in military time. It said: 15:40. Our flight was at 3:40 and it appeared as if we missed it. Maddy already had tears in her eyes and tried to explain just how fucked we were since there probably were no other flights to Hong Kong because it’s a busy time. But maybe we weren’t screwed.
There was a counter that had a printed page with our flight’s number. It turns out, bad luck was good for us. The flight had been coming from Beijing, but the food car had rammed the side of the plane, rendering it unfit for flying (no one was hurt or anything). So our Finnair flight actually never even got to Bangkok. They had arranged for a different flight with Cathay Pacific to take everyone at 1:30am. Then they sent us to the airport hotel, the Novotel, where we would be given lunch, dinner, a room, and transportation. We totally lucked out!
The room was great and we quickly had lunch and took a nap for a few hours. Then we took a dip in the pool and had some dinner and a shower and headed back out for the shuttle to take us to the airport. We even got an exit row on the plane so we had a ton of room.
Finally in Hong Kong, it was about 5am and we had to take a bus into mainland China. I got through security with all my video tapes and gear just fine. Now I’m in a place I call home for the next 3.5 months.
Labels: california, china, maddy, oz, travel
posted by Jeffro @ 1:47 AM
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