Marco, Lahiri & Rory: travelling gypsies.

Malaysia

faifailemu — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 03:44:00 GMT

Selamat pagi, apa kabar?

We entered Malaysia on yet another boat. We had to be quick getting off the boat as the next bunch were already getting on with their luggage, boxes, chickens, goats etc. We got our stamp at Tawau immigration, again being escorted past a long row of Indonesians and Malaysians who were on our boat. We shared a minibus together with the three Swedish girls from the boat to Semporna. It was quite clear that they were a bit more aggressive in haggling down the price than we were. On the bus they had actually informed us that Tarakan, the city we had come from, was in fact an island. This was news to us, and kind of explained why we couldn't find any trains to Malaysia.

In Semporna we stayed at the Dragon Inn, a beautiful hotel on stilts above the water. It had a long walkway where at night some young Malaysians were having dance offs for entertainment. That night we booked a trip leaving the next day to Mabul Island. This is a remote island about 1 hour by speedboat off the coast of Sabah Borneo in the Sulu Sea and a great spot for snorkeling.

Marco and I rented some gear and went out for a plunge on arrival. This turned out to be a good decision as we saw some beautiful fish, but more importantly was our only chance to get out, due to the weather. It started to rain for the first time on our trip and continued to do so the following day. What else for us to do on this rainy bounty island than to drink rum and play games. It turned out to be quite a laugh.

So back in Semporna the following day we decided to hop on a bus to Sandakan to catch up with Lahiri again, who was already chilling there with the Orangutans. At the bus stop we had a laugh with some local kids, or more specifically I was laughed at by some kids, as I couldn't really handle the hot sauce I had tried. Never again...even my tongue was sweating ffs.

We met up with La at Sepilok Orangutans Sanctuary and we couldn't wait for the 3 o'clock feeding session. It was an amazing experience seeing these beautiful creatures in their natural habitat. They moved so slow in contrast to the ADHD macaques who were jumping from tree to tree all across the place.

In the evening we went on a night jungle track in search of some slow lorises. I turned up in flip flops and our guide just laughed, so I had to run back to the bungalows to find some boots. We ended up seeing some awesome flying squirrels which would climb up the massive trees, jump, spread their wings and glide through the sky. It was an amazing sight. We carried on and saw a large snake chilling in a tree, some toads, huge ants, but we were mostly occupied on keeping the leeches from stealing too much of our blood. Good thing I did go back for those boots.

From Sabah we knew that there were no boats going to Malaysia mainland so we decided to just head to the airport and buy the cheapest ticket to anywhere. Turned out they only flew to Kota Kinabalu (same island we were on) or to Kuala Lumpur. We bought the tickets and had about 5 hours to spend, so we head straight to the bar to kill some time.

We arrived in KL in the evening and didn't really want to spend too much time in a city so directly got a night bus to Langkawi. We didn't know anything about Langkawi, just that Row and Tau had spent about a month there and loved it, so couldn't really go wrong for us.

Langkawi is a beautiful island off the west coast of Malaysia close to the Thai border. The ferry showed hilarious Asian vampire films, but occasionally we managed to take our eyes off the TV and witnessed some beautiful scenery. We were surrounded by dozens of uninhabited green islands and clear water.

We stayed at Rainbow lodge with great hosts Eddy, Dan and Hummy. It's a great island for backpackers...duty free, which means cheap and lots of fun. I can kind of imagine Bali to be like this in the early days. A boulevard of restaurants, food stalls, shops and a beach full of bars. We ended up spending most our days and night outside Babylon Reggae bar which was a nice beach bar with tunes playing non stop. We also became locals at a restaurant next door with the craziest host ever named Michael. He was the kind of waiter who would unashamably pick up his mobile phone or walk off to play with his cats whilst he was taking your order. He let us bring our own drinks to his restaurant to save money but again wasn't ashamed to help himself to our bottles of rum or vodka during the night or take some beers to his chef. He often would change your order saying "no that's not good for you, I'll get you something else" and would also openly admit that his chef was shit. When he was hungry he would go to the kitchen, grab some shrimps and let the cook in the restaurant across the road cook them for him. We had such a laugh eating at Michaels and every night our table got bigger and bigger. We thought it would be fun to invite more people we met every night at the beach fire so it would confuse him even more. Good times.

We rented out scooters for a few days and drove around the island. One day Lahiri, Marco and I decided to drive to the opposite side of the island to a place called Kisap. Thought it would be funny to have a piss up in Kisap. It turns out there was a golf course there so after a few beers we drove the scooters up to the driving range to hit a few balls. This was the most beautiful golf course I had seen in my life. We had such a funny time there and Lahiri stole the show a few times. His first shot managed to fly over the ground hit a gutter about 5 meters away and bounced back for him to catch it. We couldn't stop laughing for about 5 minutes. Another time he had an awesome swing and the tee went flying off into the sky, but left the ball at exactly the same spot. Lot's of fun and we also all got a few awesome shots after we managed to control our laughing.

Langkawi was just what we needed after travelling around Indonesia and Malaysia for a while, so we had no problem getting caught there for a week. Had some crazy nights making fires on the beach and each night the crowd around the fire got bigger and bigger. Good times meeting great people in Langkawi. I mostly ended up falling asleep first which was no surprise, but Kelly, Marco and Lahiri mostly had some funny stories the next day. Like meeting Jens at 10 in the morning who hadn't slept yet, or Lahiri being spooned by Loki.

So after a week in Langkawi it was time to move on and our next destination would be Thailand. We had bumped into some girls who told us that the new government in Thailand had changed the visa rules a week ago. If you where entering Thailand over land you could only stay for 14 days. So we were told we could buy a 3 month visa if we went to Penang, an island about 4 hours away.

We decided this would be a cheaper option for us than border hopping especially as Lahiri wanted to do the Muay Thai for a month. So the next day off we went to Penang. We bumped into a Dutch girl we had met the night before on the beach and who had been to Michaels with us. We had a few bottles of Vodka on deck and where joined by an Australian brother and sister who were traveling for a few months. When we arrived in Penang we decided to meet up with them that evening for dinner and set off to find accommodation. We ended up in the centre of Penang where there was some kind of Chinese street parade going on. It was pretty cool to see and when asking around for accommodation a lot of people told us it would be impossible to find something as everything was booked out. Maybe it had to do with the street parade, but it was really busy in Penang for the weekend. Nevertheless the second hostel we entered we found rooms. We checked in and heard a familiar voice around the corner. It was Jens the funny Finnish dude we had met in Langkawi, who was also in Penang to get his Thai visa. We had a session at the hostel, the Dutch girl and the Aussie brother and sister all dropped by and we had a late night. We ended up just having dinner at a burger stand just across the road from the hostel and Marco got lucky.

The next day we got our visas and hopped on a minibus towards Hat Yai. Unfortunately we had to share the minibus with a very negative and annoying Canadian dude who just wouldn't stop talking his experiences in Thailand. We all tried to be friendly but couldn't really care less, so tried to get some sleep. We got to the border and had to go through a bit of beaurocratic bullshit getting stamps for leaving Malaysia and then for entering Thailand but finally we had made it. We were in Thailand!

Indonesia

faifailemu — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:37:00 GMT

Okay, Okay ladies and gentlemen, sorry for not writing anything over the past 8 weeks but as you can imagine the last thing we want to do is sit behind a computer when we are surrounded by such beauty and such freedom. Oh my, where to start....since our last blog so much has happened...alright, apparently Lahiri and I made it to Darwin. We had a huge piss up with Marco and last I can remember we were in a supermarket and Marco was holding a 5 liter chillybin....Before I knew it we were walking through the airport of Denpasar (Bali). Turns out I got a bit sick in the plane as I had taken some of Lahiri's sleeping tablets, which must have disagreed with the bottle of champagne and white Russians we had in Darwin plus the bottles of duty free Jim Beams we had purchased at the airport. Kelly was waiting at the airport and was delighted to see us, Lahiri and Marco pretty well tipsy and me passing the customs yet again with my face decorated in ink as Lahiri had written "ghey" across my forehead when I passed out in the plane. WELCOME TO BALI.....

We had bumped into Adrian (Canadian dude who we knew from Sydney Mate's Place) at Darwin Airport who was also going to Bali and met up with two mates of his Rob and Leanne in Bali. We rented scooters and entered the world of hectic Asian traffic. It's such an uncontrolled chaos where you just have to grab every opportunity you can...when there's a gap, just go for it. It's so much fun driving around and the amazing thing is we didn't see one accident.

The next day Paul arrived from Perth for a 10 day vacation. It was so much fun seeing him again and we had a blast. First of all we decided to go on a little tour of the island, see the monkey temple, swim at some nice beaches and generally just enjoy driving around as we had the previous day. Within 5 minutes and I think it was the 3rd turn we made, we had lost Paul. He must have been dreaming when we all turned right as he just happily drove straight ahead. Leanne had tried to call out to him but he just had eyes for the road. Well it's pretty impossible to find someone back through the traffic in Bali, even though we had split up and found Marco the day before, but then again this is Paul we're talking about. We had such a laugh about it in the evening when we met up with Paul again and we decided to go out for a few drinks.

We met some friends Kelly knew from back home Ben & Chloe and Garry & Kim and pretty much chilled at La Walon bar most of our time in Bali. Lahiri had a few funny incidents when trying to get his dreads, but I think I'll let him write a little about that himself. Glue, nail varnish, shiny toes, oh boy how we laughed. We had such an ace time in Bali and were a bit sad to leave but we had a big trip ahead of us. Oh I forgot to mention my mission on kidnapping Kelly was a success. She had decided to travel with the three of us so from this point on we became the 4 travelling gypsies.

It got a bit emotional saying goodbye to Paul, but we had left him a little something in his hotel room to remind him of us. Let’s just say we redecorated his room and had a good laugh doing so.

Next was a night bus to Surabaya. Tried to sleep a little but got woken in the middle of the night to passengers singing Indonesian karaoke on the buses entertainment system. This was our first encounter with Asian karaoke.

Surabaya was a busy busy city with a lot of traffic and not much more going for it. Our main reason for going there was to catch a boat to Borneo. Another reason for choosing Surabaya for me was that a very good family friend had passed away in Canada a week or two prior and he was born 80 years ago in Surabaya, so we had a drink on him.

We managed to book a boat for the same day going from Surabaya to Pare Pare on the Island of Sulawesi. Then it would hop over to Balikpapan (Kalimantan) on the island of Borneo and then back to Sulawesi to Pantaloan. It would continue to Toli-Toli and then back to the island of Borneo to Tarakan our final destination. This was a 5 day boat trip economy style. It was going to be a tough journey but turned out to be an amazing experience.

On arrival at the port it wasn't hard to notice that we were the only white people to be boarding this huge ferry carrying about 4000 people. We got many looks and many smiles off the locals and some tried to talk to us, in Indonesian funny enough. Marco got chatting or actually some dudes got chatting to Marco and he just smiled, laughed and agreed but mostly tried to explain that he didn't understand. Nevertheless they didn't mind, they just happily chit-chatted on. Then one little dude tried to sell Marco his cell-phone for peanuts just because he didn't have enough change to pay the porters to carry his luggage onto the ferry. Marco offered that we would help him carry his luggage onto the ferry so he could keep the little change he had. This kid was delighted and what a happy little dude he was. The gates opened and off we went into the impatient crowd of people trying to board the boat, all 4000 at the same time. They have a funny sense of logic in Indonesia. They see a door open and all of a sudden they all head straight for it without thinking that it's too small for everyone to pass through at the same time. All of a sudden some police or security dudes were screaming and trying to get some system going to get everyone in and then noticed the four of us. They made way for us which made us feel a little uncomfortable as we were all in this together. We all needed to board the boat and we didn't really want to be treated differently to the rest. On the other hand we were quite happy to get on the boat as we were carrying heavy backpacks plus the excess luggage from the funny happy little dude. Marco must have had the biggest load carrying a huge box full of hard cover books, I was carrying a computer and Lahiri had a box consisting of I think the components of the computer. We showed our tickets and got escorted through the ferry to a place where we could place our bags and sleep. It was like sharing a dorm with a few hundred staring eyes. We slept on wooden boards and used our backpacks as pillows. Our fellow passengers just couldn't understand why these 4 white tourists were in economy class and didn't book themselves a 2nd or 1st class ticket which entitles them to a private cabin. That would have been no fun at all.

The next 5 days we ate rice and mingled and laughed with the locals. We missed our first and maybe even second meal call as all the announcements were obviously in Indonesian but soon one of Marco's mates was waking us up each time food was being served. He even brought our food to us the first time but after that we decided to go get it ourselves. We took turns walking and each time we strolled the decks everybody greeted us with hello's and smiles and wanted to take a picture of us. We now know what it feels like to be famous, paparazzi everywhere. One dude even kept coming back to Kelly and I with different people and taking pictures with his camera phone. We think he had a little business going on as he kept returning with more different people and started snapping away. Kelly and I also saw a band perform one night, Marco had a karaoke session with a cool Malaysian dude from Borneo who was sleeping next to us on our level and Marco also managed to scare a lady who was flirting with him. That was hilarious and the whole area of our deck had a good laugh about that. Each time we entered a port it was nice to chill on deck and enjoy just seeing land with beautiful views of the surrounding hills.

The five days past pretty fast as we read and slept quite a lot cause there was not much to do on board. On arrival in Tarakan we got our backpacks and waited in line to depart the boat. This turned out to be even more hectic than boarding the ferry. As soon as the doors opened, loads of porters came storming in, in search of bags they could carry. This was their job and the more they could carry the more money they could make. It was crazy, one kid came storming in flew passed us and pushed an old lady out of the way, who fell over, to get passed her. It wasn't a very nice sight. The second we set foot on land we had decided to just walk for a bit because there are so many people offering to bring you somewhere....TAXI...TAXI....So the best thing is to just say you don't need a taxi, you already have it sorted and if you're lucky you're left with just one dude still following you.

We managed to all get out of the rush and got a lift to a hotel for the night. We didn't really want to stay in Tarakan as we really wanted to make it to the Malaysian part of Borneo to visit the Orangutans sanctuary and Marco and La wanted to do some diving. But as we had been in the boat for 5 days just living off rice and an occasional egg we decided we deserved a good session.

Tarakan was a bit of a dirty city and at first it seemed quite difficult to find a bar. We had a few beers at the Swiss Bell Air hotel and I had a little swim in their pool cause it looked too refreshing to resist. The next day we wanted to book a ferry to Tawau in Malaysia, but no ferries were leaving as it was some Muslim holiday. We checked in to another hotel and were greeted with a free Muslim breakfast to celebrate the holiday. They were so lovely and after we decided to go into town to have a proper piss up. We dropped by a pharmacy because Lahiri had an odd growing burn on his chest which came out of nowhere and the look on the lady's face at the pharmacy was priceless when he showed her his burn. Eeeeuwww! She claimed it was herpes and gave him some pills and cream. We found a bar and had a few beers. A few led to loads and we got our proper session. Can't remember too much of getting back to the hotel, but took some funny pictures to remind us of the day/night.

The next day we booked our ferry to Tawau and upon departing the Indonesian port of Tarakan Lahiri had lost his departure card. They made a huge issue out of it and in the end gave him a new one and told him never to mention it again. They told him "You didn't lose your departure card and you didn't receive this one from us." We made it on to the boat when Kelly, Lahiri and I noticed they hadn't given us our Malaysian departure card back. So to avoid having to go through all of this in Malaysia again we asked the captain if we could run back to immigration to obtain our departure card. 20 minutes later it was all sorted and we were back on the boat. A loader of the boat tried to hook up Lahiri and Marco with some Swedish girls who got on board which was quite funny. It was an awesome boat and we received a little lunch box with water, cake and candies. This was a nice welcoming gesture and reminded us of something Paul had mentioned us. "Don't worry guys, as long as you make it to Malaysia you're sweet as. It's civilized over there."

So off we were to our next destination Malaysia.

Gallery: Golf with Marco

faifailemu — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:07:00 GMT

Point Walter

Introduction: 2 years in the life of....

faifailemu — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:28:00 GMT

Jambo! My name is Rory, half Dutch half Irish from Amsterdam and my journey started about two years ago. I was surfing the internet at work when I saw a great deal on singaporeair.com and spontaneously booked a one-way ticket to New Zealand.

A month later I was sipping Tigers on my way New Zealand via Singapore. Kia ora New Zealand! What a country. After a half a year travelling around and occasionally working but generally just having a blast I ended up in Mount Maunganui. It started off a bit rocky as my credit card got stolen and maxed out at various electronic stores, fancy clubs and restaurants etc. But within no-time I was back on track, working at the Mount backpackers for accommodation and across the street at Astrolabe as a kitchen hand in the evenings.

Without knowing it this would become my home for the next half a year. And with home I don't just mean a house where I live, but a home where I live and am surrounded by friends and family and gain some beautiful memories. (Have a look at aussie film The Castle to know what I mean) I met such amazing people here and had some of the most awesome times of my life at the Mount. My colleagues at Astrolabe were all ace. They all surfed, loved to party and had a passion for cooking. Before I knew it I got promoted to larder chef which was just an amazing experience and very fulfilling. Back at the hostel there were always party's going on by the time I finished work and that's where I met Lahiri and Marco.

Lahiri another Dutchie arrived a few weeks after I had settled in and being half Dutch we started chatting. Didn't take long to notice that we we're both on the same wavelengths and genuinely enjoyed having a laugh. Lahiri had been in the Mount before, liked it, so returned and was planning on staying and working for a while. It wasn't my initial plan to stay, but I kind of had been forced into staying and saving some money due to my credit card misfortune. I guess it’s just fate. So we started hanging out together with other travellers passing by. It was quite a funny place, the Mount Backpackers as in most hostels people stay for a few nights and travel on, but in the Mount people didn't really leave. There were a lot of long-termers, which was pretty cool as you got to know everyone better and kind of became roomies. Not too long after Lahiri had arrived we noticed Marco check-in and said to each other "moet je die Duitser zien…..mafkees". Turns out this German had a sense of humour. We instantly became great friends.

But Marco and Lahiri weren't the only ones. The Mount was a real magical place and like I mentioned before I met some amazing people here. Kingpin Davel the German Lenny Kravitz, Galo and Francesco our Argentinean juggling brothers, Canadian Chris the best night warden ever, Brooke our sweet hostel manager, Roger with his Mellick freebies, Katie surfer chick from the States, Pennie who gave us the best leaving party ever, Sissel Sarita, the two German Christians and many more, forgive me if I missed you out. And then of coarse there's the rest of the family, John "I slap the beacon out yo mouth" I had met Jean Jean (HIGH FIVE) the first month I was in NZ and worked (well...) with him in Hastings for a month or so. Nick our missing brother from the same father. Luci (bumbum) always up for a little cuddle and a party together with her Somerset companion Row, who introduced me to Super Cider Sundays which we have been keeping up ever since. And Tau our Maori bro, who livened up many party's with his guitar. Complain Dain, Eoin the other half of “Hukapuzi” (our crematorium DJ Collective) and Paul "what am I an asshole" Fitzpatrick.

We had many good times together especially the week before Lahiri and I left to Samoa for a month. It started off with probably some mad party at the hostel, some of us staying up and deciding to watch the sun rise from the top of the Mount. Penny got a keg of beer and gave us a wicked party at her place. Then we were busking on the streets of the Mount followed by a legendary Katchafire gig. Then came Magic Monday, need I say more? And Tuesday Jam night at the Mellick when La and I where picked up by Steve and brought to the airport silly drunk but loved-up carrying a backpack filled with good vibes.

It was amazing we caught that flight on time and maybe even more amazing was how they let us on the flight drunk and covered in face paint looking like a teenage mutant ninja turtle and a clown. Good times, but we needed a little month break on a pacific island after all those crazy party's. We needed to charge our batteries because we'd be back in the mount for a week. Oh how we missed everyone after a month and when we arrived back at the Mount and surprised everyone the party started again. "I've got love, darling....love sweet love, darling....we will rock it all night long, darling..." This is when we missed our first flight together. Well, we actually missed it on purpose because we couldn't leave everyone, not that soon. We booked another flight for a week later, so we'd have some more quality time with the family. But we were to meet up soon again.

Lahiri and I flew to Brisbane by accident. Well, we had booked it but after we realised Nick and Dain would be in Sydney, we booked another flight to Sydney to depart the following day. In the train, bags packed Galo's Argentinean flag representing, I asked Lahiri what time our flight would be arriving in Sydney. He checked his backpack looked up in the sky as to look for a plane or something and cracked up. We were supposed to have been on the plane 3 hours prior. We had thought the arrival time in Sydney was our departure time in Brisbane. To top it off, a lady who overheard our laughter and muck up told us that the train wasn't even heading to the airport but way out of the city. Priceless, well it did turn out to be a bit pricy as we had to book yet another ticket.

In Sydney we were also to meet up with John again, as well as Nick, Dain and Galo (which was a nice surprise). I worked on the streets of Sydney as Santa’s Little Helper dressed up as a reindeer collecting money for the Children Cancer Institute the 10 days leading to Christmas. Spent Christmas on Darling Harbour with John, Lahiri and Nick prank texting Marco every 5 minutes pretending we were at the airport waiting for him as he had planned to be there for Christmas. But just as us, he couldn’t leave the crowd back in the Mount

For New Years Marco, Lahiri and I made the largest cocktail we had ever made before. A 9 litre White Russian to celebrate us reuniting again. We had an awesome time at Milk Beach (ironically) where we were able swim in the water and watch the Sydney Harbour Bridge light up at 12 o'clock. Unfortunately we didn't all make it till midnight.

After New Years Marco and I were locked out of our apartment as I had left the key in the apartment we were staying and the person who let me stay there was off to Bali. So we decided to camp out in a park in the centre of Sydney. The next day we had a 17 hour bus journey booked to Melbourne, but managed to miss the bus as we were enjoying some Czech beers in an awesome Czech bar/restaurant with Lahiri. It was lovely to find this gem of a bar in the middle Kings Cross where mainly just drug dealers and prostitutes hang out but also just to taste some proper beer for a change. This is where our travel plan came to life. We decided we all hadn't had enough of travelling yet and thought it would be awesome to buy a bus and travel back to Europe. Pick up some hitchhikers along the way and meet some new people. This plan would later evolve into what we are about to start right now. A bit more on that a little later. Marco and I realised we were running a bit late for our bus to Melbourne so hopped in the tube and ran to the bus port but were about 5 minutes late. So it was to be another night in the park and on the bus the next day.

We moved into a huge house in Melbourne with a whole lot of people Lahiri and I had met in Sydney when staying at Mate’s Place hostel. Dain, Marco and I got a wing of the house to ourselves, which some people called the “Shithouse” but we liked to refer to it as “The Elite Wing”. Melbourne was fun, much more of a European vibe than Sydney. I worked as a milkman during the day and at the Espy at night. The Espy was a cool place, huge music venue with a few rooms and restaurant and cocktail bar. I did this for two months during which time Marco had left to Perth to meet up with Lahiri and Eoin had arrived in Melbourne. My last week in Melbourne I got fired from the Espy for giving Dain and Eoin a free beer. I couldn't believe it, only in Australia.

On arrival in Perth I met up with Lahiri and Marco again. We stayed at a horrible hostel where there were fights breaking out every weekend. We couldn't wait to get an apartment but it proved harder than we thought. As well as getting a job for my sake. We heard a lot of big stories that there's plenty of work in Perth, but it didn't work out that way. I did a lot of random jobs, from being a Greenpeace front liner to a timber floor layer, before I found a steady job. I got a government job for the Department of Planning and Infrastructure as a document controller part –time hydro graphic surveyor. It wasn’t as difficult as it sounds pretty much digitising data and cruising around on boats measuring the depths of channels across WA. I also got a job at an Italian restaurant in the evenings. By this time we had managed to find an awesome apartment in South Perth, so it was all falling into place again.

We had a home again named “Labouchere”, a place where we were gonna work and stay untill our Visa's ran out. We got internet hooked up, bought a barbeque and it was like the Mount again. Before we knew it we had visitors from The Mount, from Sydney and from Melbourne which we had met along the way. Dain and Swedish Max we're the first to live on our couch for a while. Mira was staying in Perth and stayed over a bit. We had Debra coming over from Sydney for a weekend. Jonas and a friend from Sweden and probably a few more I missed out. Luci stayed for a bit before she headed over to Vietnam. Row and Tau drove a campervan over from Melbourne and stayed at Labouchere before they headed over to Thailand and Malaysia. They all returned after their Asia adventures to my delight to welcome Kelly into the family. At one stage I remember there were 10 people at the house and it was awesome. Whenever you got back from work there would be someone there to chill and party with. And I'll never forget the crows.....waaoohaaooaoaooah

By this time Eoin (Ain't nothing gonna break my stride...ah) and Paul (oh it's such a hassle ffs!) were living with us already and Eoin introduced us to Scotland (Lindsay) and the Mexicans (Fransisco and Susana (Tuti)).

Had some great times living in Labouchere with a lot of little trips around WA. Margaret River 3 times introducing us to Grace Barbe and wicked golf trips. And an awesome wine tour I did with Kelly which was hilarious. I travelled up to Carnarvon twice (Oi troi oi!) to visit Luce, Row, Kel and Tau, who were working up there at Callagiddy Station with Pete, Chris and Claire(Yum).

“Swan in the Valley” and Oktoberfest (Happy Happy Happy Burzday!) in the Valley were memorable but probably the best trip we did was the weekend up to Ledge Point. We even had our own bar here (...look at ze S car go...mwah ha ha) The only sad thing was that Marco wasn't there he was up in Darwin, but I think he was on the phone to us all night, so his presence was definitely there.

During our time in Perth we also had time to plan out our journey and see how realistic it really was. The bus idea turned into a Toyota Land Cruiser and as time went by we realised we weren't saving as much as we wanted, mainly cause we were enjoying our time and did these little trips when visitors arrived, which was well worth it. So the plan changed to a trip overland from Australia to Europe. This way we would also get in contact with more locals and travel the way the locals do.

So this is where we are today. Marco is in Darwin waiting for Lahiri and I to arrive. Lahiri is in Melbourne enjoying three more days with Luci and I am in Fremantle at work for two last days finishing off a project. Then a few more things to organise before our first going away party hosted by Grace Barbe and her band on Friday. Saturday we have to finish a list we started a while ago at the Paddo's. 140 different beers to drink for us to get our name carved on the wall of fame. We are at 75 I think so will need to get down to it on Saturday for "The Mount Crew" to be on the wall. Sunday Fransisco has hired a 20 person private cruise ship with barbeque, music and drinks for the afternoon, celebrating Scotland’s birthday and our departure. And then Monday it's off to Darwin to meet up with Marco. Don't know what he has planned for us, but have a slight idea what it might be and then Wednesday off to Bali. I can't wait to start travelling again and especially to get to Bali and see Kel. Although it might be of short due as she has a flight booked back to Perth two days later, but I plan on kidnapping her. So there are two more flights standing in the way of our journey. If we can make it past those two obstacles our trip will be starting in one week from today. I can’t wait……..

Bali here we come!

Gallery: The Family

faifailemu — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:20:00 GMT

One love

Gallery: The Mount - Apia

faifailemu — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 06:25:00 GMT

leaving NZ for a well deserved holiday