The Phweblog

Elephant Gods and Gibbon Songs (Thailand/Laos #2)

2012-01-16T07:31:00.003-08:00

Elephant-sized

The Thais worship elephants (called 'chaang' in Thai; also the name of a delicious beer) as gods, and it's not hard to see why: They're amazing animals, intelligent and calm, many tamed as workers by their lifelong keeper, the mahout. But since Thailand's ban on logging, many elephants and mahouts are out of work, and some have turned to illegal Burmese logging, or begging in cities for money. Others have turned to tourism, running mahout training classes in the forests around Chiang Mai, teaching foreigners about elephant handling. I spent a few hours riding on the shoulders of my own elephant; my feet tucked behind her enormous leathery ears, my hands on the coarse bristles of hair on her head. There's something about riding an elephant that just makes you laugh, almost continuously. While washing her in the river at the end, the water behind her began to violently bubble. I soon realised I was witnessing one of the greatest farts in the animal kingdom. It was followed by three floating poops, the size of basketballs. Truly godlike creatures indeed.

Maximum Capacity
After an extended stay in Chiang Mai I was on the road, standing in a crammed local bus that stopped frequently to deliver parcels to roadside villages, and for anyone with an outstretched arm. After an hour of bending my neck awkwardly to avoid a haircut from the ceiling fan, I found a comfortable seat in the stairwell, knees and feet hanging out the open door. It was much more legroom than a seat afforded, so I happily took in the sights and smells of passing village life. Our destination was a town we knew nothing about, except a rumour that a once daily boat runs (or ran) from it downriver, towards our eventual goal of Laos.

We exited the bus near the river and saw a full boat untying ropes for departure. We sprinted to it, and the Thai captain seemed to indicate it was the boat we wanted. I asked the English girl on board where the boat was headed, to double-check. "You need to buy tickets up on the hill over there," she replied quite unhelpfully. Clearly, she hadn't been in this country very long. The driver urged us onboard, into the unshaded nose of the boat in front of the other 12 passengers. From the back of the boat came the unhelpful English girl again, twice yelling, "maximum 12 passengers!". We laughed heartily as the boat took off: At the situation, having barely caught the once daily boat out of town; and at the girl, who thought that tickets need to be purchased from booths and that vehicles have maximum capacities. Not in Thailand, honey.

Furrier Guides
We decided to splash out and do the three day Gibbon Experience, which is up there with a safari for one of the more expensive things I've ever done in a developing country. The Gibbon Experience is an (almost too) successful project to protect the rainforest by turning poachers into forest protectors, and giving nearly 100 local villagers a sustainable income from tourists so they can preserve their ecosystem. (It is debatable whether you consider tourism as sustainable income, but Laos is a stable country).

So how do they attract tourists? By tapping into all westerners deep-seated desire to live in treehouses, and fly through the jungle. (ever seen Return of the Jedi? Our little Lao guides only needed to be furrier, and we'd have our ewoks too). We began our trip into the jungle after a short instructional video helpfully explained how to step into our zipline harnesses like we're "stepping into a diaper", and to make sure we tie up any "crazy hair".

All the seven treehouses of the project were unique in location, view, design, size; but they were all entered and exited by zipline. We were fortunate to get the biggest, closest, newest* and best treehouse: a four-tiered treemansion in the canopy 40m high. It could comfortable sleep a dozen people, but ours was a rad and diverse group of nine people from six countries. This made the three days of hiking and epic ziplining -- some over 40m high and 500m long -- even more enjoyable. The "Treehouse nine", as we named ourselves, got along so well we actually stayed together for a total of a eight days!

Though many jungle tourist attractions have ziplines and even treehouses, few have gibbons to look and listen for (their songs were described as quite beautiful). These apes eluded us for the first two days, and though none of us knew what a gibbon sounded like, when were woken at sunrise on our final day by a call like nothing we'd ever heard before, we all knew immediately we were listening to gibbons. We sat in total silence for nearly an hour, focused on the haunting, eerie songs. They echoed through the morning mists rising through the jungle, the songs lifting and falling as one gibbon was joined by others for their crescendo chorus, before the decrescendo back to a single gibbon. The only thing I can compare it to are loon calls echoing over dead-calm Ontario lakes at sunset.

Mindgames

The second evening in our tree-mansion we heard noises on the roof and before long discovered we had two more occupants, of the rodent kind. The daring critters must have tightrope-walked the 50m zipline cable to reach the treehouse. After dinner, with light fading and none of the usual distractions from alcohol, electricity or technology, it wasn't long before our attention turned to how we could catch and evict the free-loading rodents from our exclusive treehouse. We tried chopstick bridges over water buckets, dangling rice baskets, and slingshot snares on precarious railings. The rats always managed to get the sticky rice bait, either through creativity, speed, or waiting until we were laughing too hard to notice them approach. Eventually the rats were full of sweet sticky rice and went to bed. It then dawned on us, hilariously, that in over an hour we -- an engineer, a computer scientist, and a brain surgeon -- couldn't outsmart a rat.

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What is better than 25 photos? How about 25 photos per second! With sound.

Experience some of the jungle ziplining madness and take a short tour of our treemansion on my Youtube channel. And as always, there are new photos and micro-stories at my Flickr site

Pop gan mai,
-Mike

*we wondered how the closest treehouse can also be the newest. Our guide told us a harrowing tale about the original Treehouse #1 catching fire in the middle of the night, full of six sleeping tourists. One of them had left a candle burning (against the rules), which torched a mosquito net and quickly spread. The occupants were just able to save their harnesses from the flames, and zip, three at a time, into the darkness as the treehouse burnt down behind them. Bloody tourists!

Lèse Majesté (Thailand/Laos #1)

2012-01-08T02:58:00.001-08:00

As the tuktuk crossed the bridge, coming towards me, two plastic bottles flew out and landed in the river. I gave the two backpacker passengers my best look of disappointment. The locals litter enough without us farang (foreigners) contributing. After this, and some other encounters with the touts and tourists in the infamous Khao San Road area, it wasn't difficult to say goodbye to Bangkok (or as my friend calls it, the "den of sin") after a day. As lovely as some areas probably are.

I boarded a sleeper train and awaited my three cabin mates. Would they be Thai or foreign? Old or young? Traveling or working? Then, a tall, muscular, and tanned fellow about my age appeared with his bombshell blonde girlfriend. They could have both been models. And then a greying middle-aged man. We all shook hands and introduced ourselves, though the older man didn't return the favour, mumbling an awkward 'hi'. The young couple, from South Africa, turned out to be interesting and insightful conversationalists over the next few hours, contrasting the nonspeaking and unnamed older cabin mate, whom someone decided we'd call 'Evgeni'.

One of the topics we discussed was the incredibly popular Thai king, reigning now through eight decades. But we only said good things, since many Thai and foreigners alike have been jailed for insulting His Majesty. The country is packed with photos of him, mostly decades old, and Thai people say he is a really nice guy. But we thought: Of course he is! Why shouldn't he be? He has lots of spare time, tens of billions of dollars, and a job for life. It shouldn't be hard to splash around some cash, kiss some babies, and smile for the cameras.

Throughout our conversation the temperature was steadily dropping in the car. We were on a frigid air conditioned car, chilled to about 16 degrees, because I didn't know I could have had the non-AC fan car instead. For cheaper! What a rookie mistake. With our regal discussion concluded, I shivered myself to sleep.

Chianging it up
In past travels I have often moved too quickly between destinations to develop any feeling for the rhythm of a place. This is usually because either me or my travel partner have very limited vacation time, and we get carried away with trying to see all the most amazing things before returning to the "real world". Since this trip is longer, and I am alone for most of it, I was able to spend over a week in Chiang Mai. By the end I had discovered an awesome pad thai vendor, coffeeshop, vegetarian restaurant, and hostel with garden hammocks. I also built a little circle of lovely yoga friends; and learned how to use the machines on the street to dispense filtered water to refill my bottle, saving a heap of plastic bottles from the landfills! (one of the most annoying aspects of traveling in the developing world is how many plastic bottles you need to consume)

Pai in Love
I spent New Years in a mountain town called Pai that has grown massively in popularity among Thai people after the release of a film called "Pai in Love". So I was lucky to avoid the crowds in town at New Years, by staying outside of town on an incredible permaculture farm run by a brilliant Thai man. (Permaculture is a method and philosophy of designing settlements based on relationships found in nature; i.e. self-sustaining and interrelated systems). Many of the dozen other travelers there had stayed for weeks or months, and some had returned for multiple stays over the past few years. Nearly everyone had their own bamboo bungalow in the forest to sleep, and shared in the work of cooking, cleaning and building. Even though my time was short I learned about sustainable building techniques by getting filthy making mud bricks all afternoon and watching some others build a bamboo bungalow. Sadly I wasn't able to stick around because my friend was arriving from Perth, but it certainly opened my eyes to this sustainable way to live, and I plan to return for a long stay to learn more in the future.

New Years was also unforgettable. My fellow permaculturians and I went to a concert in an art gallery courtyard. Everyone lit paper lanterns and set them floating skyward, creating an amazing scene with hundreds of floating lights filling the sky like stars. Plenty of lanterns got caught in the trees, which created a wonderful glowing ambiance of burning branches and potential forest fires. It was magic.

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And for some more photographs and mini-stories, visit my website.

I would love to hear how you are all doing, and how you spent New Years. So don't be shy to write me a short, or a long hello.

Until next time,

-Mike

Fraser Island and the Great Barrier Reef

2011-11-15T08:08:00.001-08:00

The trip was off to a good start before I even left Perth, as my taxi driver enjoyed my company enough to invite me to his wedding next year in India!

Nice island, Eliza, but sorry about your husband
Groggy after four hours of airplane sleep, I headed directly into Brisbane to meet my tour, and caught up on sleep as my 4WD off-road bus bounced up Queensland's sandy coast. My destination was Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world — over 120km long – and containing, by some estimates, more sand than the Sahara. Our barge landed at the southern tip of the island, and our bus rolled off onto the main road: The beach. Our tyres never left sand for the next two days as we explored this natural wonderland of rainforest (the world's only one in sand), perched freshwater lakes and streams (where we floated along on our backs staring up at the forest), rocky headlands (with panoramic views over the pacific, and breaching whales), shipwrecks slowly sinking into the beach, and sand dunes (some towering over 250m high). Named after Eliza Fraser — the shipwrecked and pregnant wife of the captain who lost both her husband, and six weeks later, her baby, when taken prisoner by local aboriginals after escaping their shipwreck — it's no surprise the place has UNESCO world heritage status! The tour guide taught us about the local flora, like Tea trees, Scribbly gums, Foxtail ferns, and Satinays. He then taught us about local fauna like drop-bears, and a new technique to prevent their vicious attacks: Hike with one hand on your head pointing your index finger skyward. So when a drop-bear lands on your head, your finger will jab their soft bellies, and they'll cease their attack. Luckily, we didn't have any encounters.

At the hostel that night, some loud American investment bankers were painfully hitting on the young cute German girls in our group. After we suffered nicely for half an hour, during which (a) one of them told us, unrequested, how many million dollars a year he makes—then told us again, still unrequested, five minutes later, but louder, and (b) the ringleader spilled his beer on the girl he was after. At that point I asked them if they were aware of the stereotype that American backpackers have around the world (as obnoxious drunken jerks). They were aware. I then asked if they thought they were helping fight this stereotype.

Zooxanthellae: say that three times fast
So I may have the best employer ever. I managed to win a three-day trip to the Great Barrier Reef as my company's corporate 'Reef Ambassador'. We had briefings by leading coral experts on coral science while we cuddled sea cucumbers; learnt about change management and workplace sustainability by two of the most enthusiastic business leaders in Australia; engaged in climate change debates while hundreds of birds squawked around us; were educated on the largest threats to the Reef while watching the sun set over a shipwreck; and were inspired to action by exchanging ideas with a cross-section of ambassadors all united by a common passion for protecting our planet for future generations. The GBR is the largest construction of living organisms anywhere on Earth. This experience showed us the splendour we all stand to lose by our own inaction.

Funnily enough, I asked our coral expert Dr Done if he knew the world renowned coral expert, Dr Charlie Veron, whose book I just read. His response was, "Oh yes I know Charlie quite well: In fact, I'm the one who introduced him to SCUBA diving! Before we met, he was researching... dragonflies, or something."

Halfway through the two-hour ferry ride back to the mainland, our boat suddenly stopped and went adrift. The captain told us the problem was the propeller shaft—something one of the sillier girls in our group misinterpreted, telling us we had struck a "propeller shark". The trip was to take 5 hours instead of 2, so like good Australians they opened up the bar for unlimited free food and beers. But we all had a more serious problem than potential drunken seasickness: we were all going to miss the last flight out of town, and be stuck in a place overnight where accommodation is near impossible to find. There were three from my company including the founder and executive director, JJ. Luckily we had a friend in town, a former colleague, that we thought would have some available floor space. I pitched my idea to JJ about sleeping on her floor, and he was totally keen! And this is what I love about JJ: He's probably a multi-millionaire, well into his 50s, with many important business meetings scheduled the next day that he'd miss because of our present situation — but he was excited at the fun prospect of us being forced to slum it on someone's floor. In fact he didn't even think we should bother looking for a hotel. "No matter what happens, it'll be fun." I couldn't put it better myself.

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While on the Great Barrier Reef I wrote, directed, filmed, produced, and edited together a short film about my experience. I presented it to the other ambassadors, and gave them all a copy of it too. It's available on my Youtube channel. There may even be a new internal 'creativity' award at my company, named after the character in my second last scene!

And as always I've poured blood, sweat, and tears into a photojournalistic narrative of my silly adventures (click any thumbnail to be automagically directed there).

Sending you positive waves,

-Mike

New Friends in Queensland

2011-09-25T08:58:00.001-07:00

I have not engaged on any overseas epics since my last trip report in July (aboot Canada, eh!) But recently I flew over to Queensland to see my friend's band play at an intimate three-day folk music festival held at a bush camp outside of Woodford. Note this isn't the Woodford folk music festival, which has over 130'000 attendees—but one precisely 130x smaller than that.

The vibe was magic. Mostly musicians attended, so despite having only one stage for the festival, each of the hundred crackling campfires every night were stages unto themselves, hosting impromptu jam sessions of guitars, violins, mandolins, harmonicas, accordions, banjos, and other folky instruments. One friendly couple (Canadian wife from Nova Scotia, and Irish husband) busted out "Farewell to Nova Scotia" in my honour.

It was a weekend of new friendships. The band I went to see is actually that of my flatmate Kathleen's brother, so of course she was there too, and invited one of her old friends, Karen, to join us. Now Karen is a dear woman, but a bit different to the typical people I camp with. She appeared at our campsite in her BMW convertible (with vanity license plates) packed full of camping necessities, wore her designer rabbit-fur hat and white Armani sweater (which sponged up red wine stains all weekend), and sported Hunter wellies (the rubber boots Kate Moss has apparently made fashionable). The enormous (aka Aussie-sized) tent we shared had two equal sized compartments: Three of us slept in one half, while Karen and her queen size air mattress completely filled the other half. Our different approaches to camping (and life) meant we learned a lot about each other's perspectives that weekend.

I made another friend, quite unexpectedly, when I struck up a conversation with a gorgeous baby girl, Ayla, next to the stage. We chatted for less than a minute, and then I sat down in the grass to enjoy the performance. A few people around me shared my curiosity as we watched the two year-old stagger over to her pile of blankets and stuffed animals, gather them all up her arms, carry them back towards me, and wordlessly build a nest in my lap. She then jumped down onto the pile and sat in my lap watching the show for the next thirty minutes. Her mother watched the whole thing, dumbstruck, and whispered, "She never sits still. She's adopted you!". It was magic. Especially the bit later on, when she pulled my hair and gouged my eyes. She loved me. The next day Ayla's mother bought her a smoothie, which Ayla offered me. And later in the day when I saw Ayla with her grandmother, I waved at her, and she ran over to me and sat in my lap. She obviously found me as captivating as my friends do, because within a minute she was asleep. She was out cold, and I had to carry her for fifteen minutes back to her mother. A week later I sent Ayla's mother the great photos I got of her, which she plans to print and frame. Ayla's mom replied, "we wish we could take you home with us!" My girlfriend Elyane enjoyed reading that.

I can't tell you about all the new friends I met that weekend, so I'll tell you about one more: One that came unexpectedly in the night and crept silently into my sleeping bag. I felt a twinge of pain when it bit me, but ignored it and went to sleep. In the morning I woke up to find a tick quite angrily attached to my armpit. I called the good doctor (and also lead vocalist and guitar player) Innes, from the next tent, and he got out his medical bag. Doctor Innes' first priority was to get out the stethoscope and check the vital signs. Of the tick. He announced, "The tick is in good health. Now I can begin to remove the parasite from it."

Fortunately for me, he botched the operation. The tick perished.
But the tick's brother avenged his death the next night. But that's another story.

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Sick of photographs? Too bad, I'm not going to stop anytime soon. But as a special treat, I have three very short videos from this trip! If you want to see what the good doctor does between tick removals, or my little Japanese friend Nozomi ripping it up on the marimba, check out my Youtube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/mikef13

And for photographs of this and other misadventures of the past few months, including storm troopers on the freeway, and abandoned power stations, click any of the thumbnail photos.

I welcome comments (on my blog or Facebook) so please let me know how you're doing and what's new and exciting in your lives! Bye for now.

-Mike

The Long Way Round (update #2)

2011-07-26T08:46:00.001-07:00

Going to Heaven

When left off in the first update, I had been through Copenhagen and Ontario, and was heading to Vancouver for my third leg. I pitched a tent on the very first night, camping at the Campbell Bay folk festival on the beautiful Mayne island, overlooking the Strait of Georgia. While we shuttled to the festival from the ferry in a van marked "Waste Disposal", our gumboot-attired volunteer driver Graham told us that his favourite band was Fish & Bird.

"But I'm kind of bias," he explained, "since this is basically their festival. They organise it all, and they own the property everyone is camping on. It happens to be the most beautiful spot on the whole island. You guys are going to heaven!" I got some laughs when I replied, "To heaven? Are you planning to crash the van?!"

Naam Good, Thanks

Back in Vancouver, I had breakfast with some friends at the well-known and well-loved 24/7 vegetarian restaurant The Naam, an institution open since the 1960's. A few days earlier I was warned (but forgot) about how bad their coffee is. Something about it tasting like dishwater. And shortly after I ordered my mocha, a crow even flew directly into the window. Bad omen, but even worse mocha. Now I'm not a coffee snob by any means; I drink mochas because I'm a coffee wuss, and can't tell good coffee from bad coffee. But I can tell good coffee from terrible coffee. It tasted like their dishwater percolated coffee, lightly sprinkled with cocoa powder, then—possibly in a shameful attempt to hide the evidence of the crime—buried in whip cream. I had my friends try it to make sure I wasn't being fussy, then instructed the waitress to take the awful thing away from me. She offered to make me another, and I enthusiastically declined.

Oh Canada

I never thought my Canada Day antics from last year could come close to being topped. (See "What's your Blood Type (Korea Update)" on my weblog). But this year, after spending the evening BBQing, slacklining and sparring as the sun set on Jericho beach, we ambled over to the UBC campus. At midnight, by the light of my mobile phone, Naho and I walked down a long trail that winds through dense forest, down hundreds of stairs to the remote Tower Beach. Oker had organised an unlicensed beach party, complete with turntables and a full sound system, roaring campfire, and even a deep-fryer making yam fries. Things went fantastically and a lot of people had shown up, when someone called to say the cops were at the top of the stairs. Oker cut the power for a few minutes of 'stealth mode', and we hoped that they would either be too lazy to break a sweat and hike down, or if they did, would only notice a pleasant campfire (and not the generator and speakers). After a few minutes we relaxed and resumed the music.

But then we heard a noise. A noise much louder than our massive speakers. A noise that sounded an awful lot like a helicopter. I looked up, just as the blinding helicopter spotlight lit up the beach like the ugly-lights at a club. Overwhelmed with national pride, I began singing 'Oh Canada' at the helicopter, and everybody joined in. I can only guess the helicopter was a (very expensive) way for the cops to avoid getting any exercise hiking down those stairs. But it didn't work, because he kept dancing for another ten minutes, until the cops came down in person to bust up the party. I considered starting a riot, but there weren't any nearby cars to flip over and burn. Oh, Canada.

I spent the final week around Vancouver having a blast:

We drank beers on Boris' roof at sunset and checked out the passing girls; until a woman walked past with her dog, and before anyone said anything, Matt called out, "Hey Mom". We all burst out laughing. And continued laughing, since she showed absolutely no surprise at her son and six friends perched 15 metres high on a steeply sloping roof drinking beers.

Jenn and I had deep and meaningful conversations balancing an enormous log, by standing on opposing ends, across another log at Wreck Beach. Then while laying on a bench, marveling at the tranquility of the Rose Garden, a landscaper fired up his power-trimmer inches from our ears and we fled, half-deaf.

Pacific Rim

The trip didn't stop even when I was on the plane back to Auz. I had myself a window-seat tour around the pacific rim, past areas of unparalled beauty. First, up the gorgeous inside passage of BC and Alaska, over dozens of islands, fjords and mountains. Then past the photogenic Bering Glacier—the continent's longest and largest. Not long afterwards, sleep deprived from the vistas, I was staring horizontally out at Denali, the continent's highest mountain. I was aching for a nap, but woke up in time to fly down the Kamchatka peninsula, before ending up in Beijing where we were put in a holding pattern for 30 minutes, which included views of the Great Wall. I couldn't believe my luck at the route and my seat! And I'm *so* glad I didn't swap seats with that little girl who asked me nicely to trade. She probably would have just played with Barbies the whole time anyways.

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This is by far the most involvement my friends have had in the goings on of these travel logs. Maybe you'll all be famous one day when I write a book. For some more meta fun, check yourselves out in photographic form by clicking any of the photos above.

-Mike

P.S. My next flight was Air China to Bangkok. If I had any doubt that my flight was full of Chinese people, it vanished seconds after we landed. I turned around to count how many people would stand up before the seat-belt light went off: There were over 30 in my field of view. Including 3 while we were still on the runway, braking.

Around the World in 30 Days (update #1)

2011-06-23T14:36:00.002-07:00

Oops, I forgot to release this one to the blog when it was written. A couple weeks late, so good thing these are non-perishable!

Security theatre

The trip wasn't off to a great start, when I had already counted 3 forgotten items before I made it through exiting Australian customs. One of the forgotten items was a pen; unfortunate because my wait for a working pen was longer than for the customs officer to stamp me out of the country. I was feeling quite jovial (and smart-alecky) so I joked with the explosive-trace lady about whether I looked explosive. We proceeded to have an argument about the definition of 'random passenger selection'. (Which is how she described the process of her picking whomever she felt like). I failed to convince her that human beings cannot make truly random decisions, since we cannot 'switch off' all our prejudices. Once she deemed me insufficiently explosive, she waved me onwards. One metre later, the body search frisker guy decided -- wait, 'randomly selected' -- me too. I swear she gave him a signal. But at least this guy had a saving grace, for on his tie was a Canada pin. That made everything just fine. I pointed to the flag on my backpack, and we bonded. If only he had seen my flag earlier, I know I would have been waved on without a search. Canadians are too polite to hijack aircraft.

Crimes against humanity

"Your flight time from Singapore to Frankfurt will be twelve hours and forty minutes." Crikey! When did Eurasia get so big? On the upside, I had a whole row to stretch out. On the downside, a nearby passenger's vile gaseous emissions frequently assaulted my olfactories. There were only two possible suspects: and my money was on the plump old Indian man with protruding ear and nose hair. I did my best to send him the message that his silent crimes were not going unnoticed, by casting suspicious glances at him with each offense. The villain; he showed no remorse.

We landed in Frankfurt, what an airport! The place was busier than a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest. The bar patrons tipsily clogged the walkways near my gate as they swigged steins; while metres away, Turkish cleaners argued emphatically and didn't clean anything. Everyone was fairly well dressed, besides a few eccentric old men with Einstein hair. And everyone kept speaking to me in German, even when I responded in English to their instructions. Perhaps I was doing too good a job at guessing what they were saying, or perhaps my German heritage confused them. Ach du lieber.

København

In just four days in the Danish capital I crammed in a month's worth of fun. We danced in a Carnivale parade. We swam in the cleanest harbour in the world and got in trouble for violating laws against child porngraphy. We danced some more in a free outdoor BYO-alcohol music festival at twilight (which lasts all night at 55 degrees latitude). We visited the forty-year old squatter community of Christiania and all the various drug stalls, and could not get a straight answer about how they import the drugs into the country ("use your imagination" was the best). And we snuck into Europe's longest salt-water aquarium after closing hours. One morning I lost my wallet; four hours later it was returned, by a well-known Danish actress nonetheless. Famous people in Denmark don't usually lead isolated lives like our celebrities; this actress was Afton's neighbour. And the next day in the art gallery 'Louisiana', we brushed shoulders with a famous Danish traveler and author. Don't ask me his name because I couldn't pronounce it then either.

While relaxing on the grounds outside Frederiksborg castle we were attempting meditation lessons, when a woman dumped a box of seven puppies on the grass beside us. That ended our session pretty fast. Who needs inner peace and presence of mind, when you can have puppies! During the drive through the countryside we passed the town of Taarbaek, famous because their head priest Thorkilk Grosbøll announced publically that he doesn't believe in god! And the people supported him still as their religious leader. Back in Copenhagen, I learned that many of the churches are going out of business. They're being used for art galleries and music festivals. Ahh, what a country.

Nina's house, conveniently located in the red light district where the rent is cheap and the neighbours are.. interesting, sits across the street from the "Copenhagen Gay Centre" (a gay club), and beside it, the "Club 34" (a straight club). We played the game "Gay or Straight" by observing the people on the sidewalk and guessing which club they were headed to. A game to really test your gadar.

Alqonquin antics

After planning my flights to allow a reasonable 8 day visit in Toronto, Dan pleasantly surprised me by unveiling he'd be flying to Toronto for four days. Three of those would be devoted to a canoe trip in Algonquin (my favourite park in Canada), somewhere I was shocked to realise I haven't been in five years. The night before we left, we still hadn't discussed which car we'd be taking. Brent's Volkswagen was questionable, because it is best characterised not by what's broken, but by what's working. But it's all we had. And without roofracks for the canoes. At 5:30am on departure day Dan unveiled his roof rack blueprint, scribbled on a torn sheet of scrap paper. So we found some lumber, pulled out the powertools, made 2 cuts, drilled 6 holes, and 10 minutes later we had roof racks! The final touch was a $2 pool noodle from Canadian Tire, sliced and diced to protect our rented second canoe.

We didn't lose a canoe on the highway, no doubt because Brent had one hand up, holding them. On the drive, Dan pondered if the buoyancy of two canoes could carry the weight of the Volkswagen. We almost got to test this when we arrived at the lake to put-in, got out of the car, and it promptly began rolling towards the water. Brent's park brake is on the "what's broken" list.

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For the multi-media experience, check out the photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrfuller/sets/72157626845233597/detail/ . There's also a video guided tour of our Algonquin campsite on my Facebook page.

Bring on Vancouver,

-Majke

Infinite Growth: How much is enough?

2011-05-10T04:58:00.005-07:00

I've just read the short and punchy David Suzuki book The Legacy. One of the two-page snippets sprinkled throughout the book presented me with something terrifyingly prophetic.

After WW2, Truman established the Council of Economic Advisors, which recommended that consumption become the new economic driver. Victor Lebow put it most succinctly when he wrote, in 1955 in the Journal of Retailing, that to maintain economic growth:

"Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. The measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns. The very meaning and significance of our lives today expressed in consumptive terms. The greater the pressures upon the individual to conform to safe and accepted social standards, the more does he tend to express his aspirations and his individuality in terms of what he wears, drives, eats — his home, his car, his pattern of food serving, his hobbies.

These commodities and services must be offered to the consumer with a special urgency. We require not only “forced draft” consumption, but “expensive” consumption as well. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing pace. We need to have people eat, drink, dress, ride, live, with ever more complicated and, therefore, constantly more expensive consumption. The home power tools and the whole “do-it-yourself” movement are excellent examples of “expensive” consumption."

Suzuki goes on to discuss growth:

"How can growth be the goal or purpose of an economy? It is the context within which growth occurs — what caused the growth, what the increased economy is to be used for, what the impact of that growth will be on people and ecosystems — that is all important. For example, our bodies required constant production of blood cells to replace the oens that die. But unbridled growth in any part of the body, even of blood cells, is, of course, cancerous and impossible to sustain in the human body or any system within the biosphere.

And by focusing on growth, we fail to ask the most important questions, like "How much is enough?" "What are the limits?" "Are we happier with all this growth?" and "What is an economy for?""

These words really resonated with me, and I ask you all to think about these questions. And share your ideas with me and others.

Lord of the Cookies (New Zealand, Update #4)

2011-01-27T07:37:00.001-08:00

Pretty Good Walks

Christmas was quite unlike any other I've experienced. Until two years ago, when I spent it working nightshift as an underground miner in the summer heat of the central desert of Western Australia, I'd spent every Christmas in Toronto, in the snow, with my extended family. This year, I planned to hike the fifty kilometer length of NZ's most popular "Great Walk", the Abel Tasman coastal track. (There are nine "Great Walks" spread across the most beautiful areas of NZ, on well-built trails with campsites and huts.)

I began the afternoon on Christmas eve with a two-hour boat ride up the coast of the park, passing countless sea-life, pleasant cliffs, hidden coves, and orange crescent-shaped beaches stretching hundreds of meters. Our ride began a few minutes late, because a reserved family showed up late. What's worse, the guide had just finished packing our backpacks in the hold. He went to see what luggage the family had with them, and returned with a defeated expression, shaking his head, and muttering to us, "We have to unpack the hold. They've brought the kitchen sink." They were going to a luxury hotel in the park with everything provided for them, yet they each brought three-times what anyone else brought, in huge wheely suitcases and grocery bags of food. I guessed correctly that they were Australian, because so many Aussies want their "outdoor experience" at least as comfortable as their normal daily experience.

The best part of the hike was that the tides completely dictate your timing, as some places are impassable except at low-tide, where you must hike through water. If you're impatient or slow, you'll have to (try) to swim, because high-tide is five meters above low-tide. I was a little impatient (I had to cover 25 km in an afternoon), and waded waist-deep through an estuary for nearly a kilometer. It's harder than I expected and took almost an hour, especially since I had to backtrack and meander to find the shallowest path. While I waited with some Czech girls for the tide to drop, some even less patient Germans crossed towards our side: Neck-deep, carrying their packs over their heads, and completely nude. They didn't see us waiting, so when the girls and I called out "Wooo weee!" at the naked Germans, they dived into the bushes and got changed.

That night I arrived before sunset at the hut and found friends with whom to share the huge Christmas cake I brought. My new friends were all northern hemisphereans: 3 swiss from a small village; 1 hyper German girl who said 'like' about, like, a million times; and 2 medical students from Slovenia. We all lamented the normality of snow and family, but were glad to be on a remote and beautiful beach at sunset, and full of Christmas cheer.

This hike couldn't have been more different than my North Island dayhike at the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, where sideways-rain lashed at our faces and the 60 kmh winds nearly blew us off the mountain. We couldn't see the stunning peaks all around us, including Mt Ngaurahoe — which you may know as Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings — but we met one local on the trail that tried to help us out. "Right there is Mt Tongariro," he said, drawing the mountain with his fingers. "And over there is Mt Ngaurahoe," he continued. "They're really beautiful, believe me."

We weren't sure whether to thank him or punch him, so we soggily hiked on, boots-a-squishing.

Captain Obvious

Our Rent-a-Dent car wound through vertical rock faces that towered to the clouds, covered in waterfalls too numerous to even name, and we pressed our noses against the glass in awe. We were in the promised land of NZ: The spectacular Fiordland National Park, and unsurprisingly, the weather was awful. This area sees 7200 millimeters of rain each year. Consider that the 'wet coast' city Vancouver gets a mere misting of 1500mm, and it puts things in perspective. We had planned a lesser-known, lesser-marked dayhike, but the weather wasn't letting up. My friends Al and Kat decided they'd do a few hours of the hike anyways, and I would stay back and take some photos in the valley. Just outside the hut where we parked, a couple fit outdoorsy folks climbed out of their Landcruiser and greeted us in the rain. The bearded guy asked where we were going.

"We're going to hike up to the saddle," Al replied.

The bearded guy looked at my friends Al and Kat in their goretex pants and hiking boots. Then at me, in my soggy pants and flip-flops.

"It's pretty wet up there," he told us.

"Yeah...", Al replied, water dripping from his face, "You don't say."

We had a laugh afterwards at this bearded man's revelation. But more importantly, at who he was — Allan recognized him immediately but never said anything until afterwards. He was Derek Thatcher, whom the Earth Sea Sky outdoor clothing company describes as a "freak of nature" having "climbed more difficult rock and boulder routes in New Zealand than everyone else combined." Al was already planning how in his next encounter with Derek he could dissociate himself from me and my flip-flop hiking ways.

Cookie Time

"Hello Cookie Monsters!", I called out to the teenaged staff loitering in the store, waiting to close up for the day. This was "Cookie Time", one of the few stores in the country dedicated solely to selling this hugely popular brand of cookies and cookie-like snacks. Their mascot, the "Cookie Muncher" is a crazed red-haired rip-off of Cookie Monster. I found my bag of cookies (half price for broken ones!), and another pack of dense granola bars — except down here they're called muesli bars. I asked the young staff girl if these granola bars were any good.

"I love them!" she said, surprisingly enthusiastic. "My parents were eating these the night they conceived me. So yes, they're really good."

What a saleswoman. I bought ten.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So if you hadn't heard, spoken to me recently, or possess psychic powers—I'm back in Western Australia. And I'm not going anywhere for a little while. But I've got forests of memories to walk through. I'll fondly miss:

Sunsets over mountains, valleys, cities, seas, glaciers, or all of the above; Incessant sandflies and their wonderfully addictive itch; Fantail birds maneuvering beautifully to hunt insects; Hugging trees older than Jesus; Watching Al's tent fall apart, a little bit more each day; Paua sausages and Monteith's Summer Ale; Al's impersonations of Kiwi farmers ("Rugbaaay"); and trying to run over possums, rabbits and stouts (it's the environmentally responsible thing to do!).

For the last batch of photos from Middle Earth, follow these simple instructions:

click this link ---> http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrfuller/sets/72157625391515079/

Respectfully sincerely yours truly,

-Mike

A Sign, a Thumb and a Smile (New Zealand, Update #3)

2011-01-13T21:06:00.002-08:00

After only two hours on the South Island, I was off to a rocky start with hitch-hiking. But once the Germans saved me from the torrential rain, my second lift came easily. Dave picked me up when I was eating a sandwich and looking the other way, blindly thumbing the air. He was a consultant to the thriving local wine industry, helping them be more sustainable in various ways. My third and final ride (for a while) was from an odd-ball kiwi couple whose station wagon interior resembled a homeless person's shopping trolley. They could have had a decent garage sale with only their car's contents. But they were friendly and talkative, until I asked what they did for a living.

...Awkward silence...

Fully five seconds elapsed, before she said, "Uh... a little bit of this, and a little bit of that." (They were on the dole)

Secret Weapon
After a few days off visiting kiwi friends and their families, I was on my way out of Nelson, and bumped into my Taiwanese friend Michi, part of my entourage for eight days in the north island. We decided to hitch down the west coast together. It was win-win: safer for her, and better for me, since people are suckers for couples. Especially when the girl is a tiny asian dwarfed by her backpack. I joked that she was my secret weapon, and we spent the next four days touring the West Coast, covering 900 km via eight lifts, without ever waiting more than 2 hours. Since I love meeting random people and hearing their stories, plus I'm a cheap bastard, nothing beats hitching. Here are my lifts' stories:

Rex the South African newspaper editor dropped us off, but an hour later appeared again! Comically, he had fueled up, gotten back on the highway, and half an hour later realised he was going the wrong direction and turned around. We revised our plan, so we went on with him for another hour.
Mark the machinist, a well-tattooed kiwi, put us in dog-hair laden backseats, and kept his dog in the front seat (where he couldn't bite my face).
Becky the American, a bit lonely because her travel partner had left two weeks early due to family emergency, bought us McDonalds in exchange for lessons on how to use Skype.
Gordon emigrated from England to help expand his Christian yoga church (God appreciates limber worshippers), and gave us yoghurt and apples. His dry wit contrasted the flooded roads through which we tried to pass. The rain had closed roads all over the west coast, and he was on his third attempt after getting turned back twice to wait for water levels to drop.

Before I began hitching I wondered what kind of people would pick us up. Would they be tourists, immigrants, or locals? We began a contest, New Zealand vs the World, keeping score in our heads of who picked us up. Including the three lifts I got before Michi joined me, the World was leading 4 to 3. Surely it would be sad for NZ if foreigners helped us out more than Kiwis. Could New Zealand launch a comeback?

The Comeback
Our next lift was from a real kiwi 'bro', Tony, a tattooed trucker, and expert in Tae Kwon Do. We didn't argue when he gave us strawberries. For those of you paying attenion, you'll note that this was our third straight lift who gave us food!
Mark was a local environmental consultant, who also began as a mining engineer! He loved living on the west coast, and who can blame him. The Lonely Planet calls it one of the top 10 road-trips in the world, and it's in my top 3.
Kathryn was a kiwi who spoke like a Brit, because her mother taught her as a child that the kiwi accent is "atrocious". (They butcher their vowels, but I love it.) She was a mother of three in her sixties whose husband had recently left her. It wasn't bad enough that he ran off with a forty-year old Zimbabwean woman, but he also left Kathryn half a million dollars in debt she barely repaid by selling their house and business, leaving her nothing. Of course, her husband was robbed blind by the Zimbabwean woman months later, putting himself into the upper echelon of fools.
Our final ride came from Dmitri, a Russian GPS programmer living in Auckland, and we spent two days with him, camping the night on a remote beach with alpine-glow views of the Fox glacier at sunset.
The final score in the New Zealand vs the World contest, thanks to a late comeback by NZ, was 6 to 5. We had come 900km in four days, seen everything we wanted and more, and met some amazing people.

* * * * * *

I've still got a grab bag of little things to write about, so there'll be one more update coming. I've uploaded more Flickr photos, like some stunning coastal cliffs in Tasmania. And a cute child playing in the rain. How can you resist? Just follow the link behind the thumbnail above.

-Mike

P.S. My title comes from the fact that Michi and I had signs for all our destinations, but also a second sign with smily faces and "PLEASE". And we always smiled.

Long White Cloud (Down Under Update #2)

2011-01-01T21:21:00.002-08:00

Prejudices
Before I even landed, I loved New Zealand. From great kiwis I've met traveling (like Tarn, who saved us from being arrested a second time in China), the beautiful landscapes I've seen in film and television (Lord of the Rings, anyone), the sensible policies the country has adopted (eg. the smallest coin denomination is ten-cents, and made from aluminum), and my disproportionately high number of kiwi friends. But things didn't start well for me: In the first three days of my trip, I had my iPhone erased, and a dog bit my face. But despite the pain of losing all my music before a roadtrip-heavy month, and the annoyance of six-hours of facial bleeding, I'm still in love with this country. And that's just after the north island. And all my kiwi friends tell me the south island is even better. (But they're all from the south island)

For one thing, in the largest city Auckland, people still make eye-contact and greet you on the street, and thank their bus drivers. The bus drivers in my hostel neighbourhood were comically obligated to echo a response to anyone who beeps at them. I heard one bus, waiting to turn at an intersection, reply to 'beep-beeps' from a dozen vehicles and scooters passing by! And more randomly, I followed a mob of people to discover a free Christmas concert with over 10 000 locals in attendance. So far after two weeks I'd only encountered one rude person; a wicked campsite owner at Hot Water Beach, who, when asked if we could have a few litres of tap water, asked for $4/L, claiming it to be her cost price. After we asked a few questions -- which revealed she was a blatant liar -- she became very rude, and I pointed it out to her. That's when she exploded with obscenities, calling me a "little s$#t" and we decided to leave, as she decided to throw us out.

Carnivorous Cannibals
In Waitomo we signed up for "The Legendary Blackwater Rafting Company's" cave tour, which involves caving through underground river systems, hopping down waterfalls and floating on inner-tubes through glow-worm infested caves. I asked how a company can achieve 'Legendary' status. Funnily enough, they were the original company in the area to offer 'blackwater rafting', so when everybody else began copying their tours, they had to change their name!

Our guide Joel had the most amazing singing voice, which we discovered as he serenaded our group while we floated in pitch darkness downriver on our backs, staring up at a galaxy of glowworms across the cave ceiling. The other guide explained that glow worms are actually larva, and in their youth the strong eat the weak ones, and the glow is actually their waste product. So they aren't glow worms, but actually "carnivorous cannibalistic maggots with glowing poo".

Thumbs Up
On the north island I had a rented car and 3 internet friends to join me and split costs. My new friends, a German, Taiwanese and Malaysian, all split up to head our separate ways after a hectic north island highlight-reel tour. We met a Frenchman in the north island who had great success hitch-hiking, and offered me the advice, "You must wear your backpack; don't put it down on the ground. The bigger the better; and with a smaller bag over your stomach if possible. And you must stand or walk really slowly, like you could collapse at any moment." So with his advice plus my own philosophy from past experiences (like always smiling), I set out to get from the ferry to a friend's place. The rain was pelting down and I was drenched even before I walked to the edge of town, where I stood for another 2 hours in sideways-rain and watched over 200 cars pass me by. I decided that my wretched state (soaking-wet and cold), juxtaposed with my beaming smile, made me appear insane, so I let my expression show my despair instead. Thankfully some Germans saved me. It was worth the trip out to my friend's bach (cottage), which her great-grandfather built, and still has the original candle-holders on the walls. I even learned to slalom water-ski there, towed behind her 50-year old boat, with a "new" 40-year old motor, and a trailer made from Ford Model T parts. The boat's so beautifully restored and full of character that people wanted to buy it and put it into a museum.

* * * * * * *

Undaunted from my first hitch-hiking attempt I was keen to give it another crack. I'll let you know how it turned out, in my next update, all about the south island. Check out some visuals from this photogenic country by clicking the thumbnail photo at the top, and don't be shy about throwing down some comments!

-Mike in the South Island

P.S. The Maori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa, which means, "the land of the long white cloud".

Hipsters, Tigers, Devils, and Kiwis (Down Under update #1)

2010-12-10T04:32:00.001-08:00

Rooftops and Alleyways
On my way to meet my mother for a week in Tasmania I popped into Melbourne for a few days to see what everyone is raving about. At first I was overwhelmed with black t-shirts too long, slipper shoes with no socks, heads shaved on the sides but bouffy on top, and skinny jeans (full length, or cut-off to reveal skinny legs). But this is understandable, since Melbourne is the art and music capital of Australia, and it did not disappoint. With an old mate from first year uni as my tour guide (and gracious couch-provider) I got to experience the best parts of what makes the city so special. And two of those things are rooftops and alleyways.

There are lots of great rooftop bars in the city, busy every night, with fantastic views of the city. And then back on the street level there are alleyways everywhere leading to small bars and clubs. Victor led me down one alley completely coated with graffiti, past rubbish bins, barred windows, and surprisingly good street art, to arrive at a bar with a wild theme: Chemistry lab. There were beakers, pipettes, industrial sinks, and eerie lighting. In keeping with the mood, on the way back from the bar in the same alleyway, we saw a pigeon eating a chicken.
Another club was infamous because the biggest party happened in the bathrooms! It was called "3rd Class". It's now closed, I can't imagine why. (For an idea of what this place was like, Google "Vive Cool City" episode 186. It's not PG-13.)

Aspect I Suspect You Will Respect
Many of the old houses dripping with character all over Melbourne have names, visible from the street. We passed five named houses in a row, entitled 'Aspect', 'Prospect', 'Suspect', 'Disrespect', and finally 'Respect'.

Tigers Through Hoops
I landed in Melbourne at 'terminal' 4 (the low budget 'terminal'. I can't in good conscience call it a Terminal) We walked out of the plane onto the tarmac, for hundreds of metres, to arrive at our carousel. It was a joke, we were still outside! (but with a roof) They even had glorified port-o-potty toilets. But I still can't complain given the ticket price for Tiger Airways.

It was just as entertaining when we were leaving, and Tiger made customers go to extraordinary lengths to avoid fees. Many of these fees seemed set up specifically to trick people into paying them, or perhaps to see if they'd jump through the hoops. They advertised 10kg of carry-on, but in fine print said that you must split this into two bags with maximum 7kg per bag. They advertised web check-in discounts when you bought the ticket, but if people forgot to check-in online they were charged $50 each at the counter! And if you were over the weight limits they charged $20 per kg! There were passengers everywhere, at the check-in desks, with bag contents exploded around them, unpacking or repacking between checked and carry-ons. But after all these delays and frustrations, the airplane would carry the same weight anyways. I paid in advance for extra checked luggage (I need camping gear for NZ), but didn't have a scale at home. When I put my pack on the scale, it read 19.8kg. I had paid for 20kg. I gave myself a high-five.

Taz
We visited a fantastic zoo on the east coast of Tasmania. When we walked up to the Tasmanian Devils, we found one spinning in circles! Warner Brothers: Is everything else true too? I'm going to get myself an umbrella and an anvil.

I received no laughs from the staff when I referred to the wombats as "little speed bumps".

Seventh State
I have a month while I'm between jobs, so I decided to visit Australia's seventh state: New Zealand.

OK, it's not part of Australia. But Australia's constitution has provision to allow New Zealand to join the country. The idea was as unpopular at confederation as it is now. But the flags are almost identical, so how different could the countries be?

(Kiwi friends with couches: I'm only joking! I'm here so you can show me how much better your country is than Australia! It shouldn't be very difficult.)

* * * * * *

I upgraded my camera after 5 years with the old DSLR. But photos are really about "the eye", not the gear. (So don't expect better photos). Check out my flickr set by clicking the thumbnail above.

-Mike

Four Floors in a Fine City (Singapore, Update #7)

2010-11-20T06:52:00.002-08:00

Zero Stars, Insufficient Jets

During my last week in Myanmar I received 2 emails from JetStar, urgently advising me that my flight Singapore-Perth had changed it's flight number. I scanned the itinerary and confirmed my flight leaving Yangon hadn't changed. So when I arrived at the Yangon airport to see my flight was cancelled, I wasn't impressed. And there wasn't even a JetStar representative to tell me why! I got put into a hotel across the street, and festered there all day until my Myanmar Airways flight the next morning. Interestingly enough, there wasn't a single Burmese staff or pilot on the so-called "Myanmar Airways" flight. They were all French! I wasn't sure whether this was an upgrade or not.

After my three day recovery from Burma in Singapore I was flying back to Perth. I went to the airport early to try and score some compensation for my mistreatment in Yangon. I showed up at the JetStar counter to watch my Perth flight status change from "Check-In Open", to "Cancelled". No. Joke.

I usually wouldn't mind, but there was a problem: I had a dental operation the next morning in Perth. My dentist was going on holidays the following day, so I couldn't reschedule. And my medical insurance to pay for this $1300 procedure was expiring a few days later, since I quit my job. So I could not be delayed.

There were 30 angry people at the desk around me, and 100 more coming, who no doubt had 130 great reasons why they also needed to be in Perth the next day. So I set phasers to "maximum charm", and took aim. My first target, a nonchalant young female employee, told me the only other flight to Perth was full. I gave up on her, she wasn't going to help me. I quietly determined the manager, caught his name, and when he finished his phone call (reserving 100 rooms at a hotel!), I politely asked for a minute of his time to explain my situation. He said he'd try, and told me to wait behind a French woman in line. Her story was rather eventful: Her Mexican boyfriend had poor visa advice from JetStar staff, so when they landed in Bangkok without a visa he was thrown into the detention center for hours, awaiting deportation. They were sent to Singapore, where he also had no visa, and was promptly chucked in another detention center. If they didn't get on the plane to Perth (where they did possess visas) he'd be spending the night in the communal cell with 40 other guests, some of whom had been rotting there for months. And they'd even charge him $25 for the accommodation. We all got on the flight, but not without a couple more suspenseful hours, and an enormous delay and re-routing due to volcanic ash. I was 10 minutes late for my dentist.

Three Weeks and Three Thousand Kilometers
While Jon and I were trekking in the northwest Vietnam highlands, we stopped for lunch in a trailside hut, and met two women our age who were lawyers from London. We joked and chatted awhile, exchanged emails, and went our separate ways. (Ours to Burma, theirs down Vietnam, up to Hong Kong, and over to Bangkok).
Fast forward 3 weeks, and 3000 kilometers. I'm walking along the waterfront in Singapore, a city of 5 million people. Two nice looking ladies come walking towards me, and they looked a bit familiar.
I stopped. Slowly removed my sunglasses. And stared in disbelief. And they did the same. It was my two friends from Sapa. Unexpected and unlikely encounters are one of the highlights of traveling.

No Durians on the Train
They call Singapore "A Fine City", because the government keeps the city clean and orderly, by prohibiting many things and fining those who offend. You'll get fined for possessing chewing gum, littering, smoking almost anywhere, jaywalking, drugs (even if they're only in your bloodstream), pornography, or failing to flush public toilets. But if you overstay your visa you don't get a fine -- instead, they cane you.

Mod Oz
Surprisingly there were a lot of Australian establishments around Singapore. There's even one restaurant called 'Fremantle Port' -- that's the port city on the coast where I live! When I walked past one expensive restaurant advertising fine Australian cuisine, I laughed. I didn't even know we had that in Australia! It must mean really nice toast with gourmet Vegemite.
Though in seriousness, "Mod Oz" (Modern Australian) food has plenty of Asian influences, so it's interesting that now it's spun around 360 degrees back to Asia** I think I'll start a restaurant in Australia, improving upon Modern Australian food from Singapore. I'll call my cuisine "Postmodern Australian".

The most posh entertainment and shopping area in Singapore is on Orchard Road, where you'll find Armani, Cartier, Burberry, Chanel, Prada, and the most expensive hotels. I had been 3 days without being called 'handsome', so I needed an ego boost. I went for a walk around the one mall on Orchard Road that stands out from the rest: Orchard Towers. This mall is famously known as "Four Floors of Whores". Every other shop is a massage parlour. And after a 10 minute walk I had 15 women compliment my appearance. Perhaps the most sad yet unsurprising observation about the mall was that on the 2nd floor, nestled between the highest density of brothels, I found The Aussie Bar.

* * * * * * *

The moving platforms and escalators of Singapore operate just slightly faster than in anywhere else I've been. It's subtle, but I like it. I'm a bit less subtle: Take a look at my finished photo album from the trip by clicking the thumbnail above.

Thanks everybody for reading, responding, and commenting on my updates and photos. I hope you enjoyed these chapters in my ongoing global adventures.

-Mike

**Another cross-cultural fusion story: Ramen noodles originated in China hundreds of years ago. But after returning Japanese soldiers from WW2 in China set up restaurants at home, they became popular in Japan, and in 1958 instant ramen was invented there. Cheap manufacturing meant that the Japanese ramen production eventually moved to China. (At this point we have Japanese-style Chinese noodles, made in China for Japan). And before long the Chinese became huge fans of ramen too. They now consume 50% of the world's ramen and nine times more than Japan.

Smoking Monks and Criminal Comedy (Myanmar, Update #6)

2010-11-15T08:26:00.001-08:00

Laughing All The Way to Prison
Last week Myanmar had its first "elections" in 20 years. The news anchor for the state television channel assured me they would be "free and fair", but with the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi still under house arrest (where she's been for 14 of the past 20 years, after winning the last election in a landslide!) nobody doubts the unfairness of the election. People are so paranoid around the country to speak out that the response we heard repeatedly was, "I don't like the government. But I cannot say anything else. You know," then their eyes would dart side-to-side. At this point I'd make the "zippered-lip" motion, and they would nod knowingly. A political comedy trio called The Moustache Brothers we went to see in Mandalay has served a dozen years in prison between them, just for telling jokes about the government.

The ruling party even created an election propaganda sitcom which I watched last week with my hotelier. The plot was basically a lot of normal people, experiencing normal problems, and the ruling military party solving them. (As an aside: the commercials are hilarious. We saw the same few celebrities hired to sing and dance before green screens, to advertise five different competing instant coffee brands, in consecutive ads! This was followed by the same celebrities advertising fertiliser!) I'm not really sure what the point of this election was, since everyone both in and out of Myanmar know it's a farce. Not one person we met cared about the election, except the few who dutifully planned to vote by spoiling their ballot. Myanmar would need an internal propaganda machine rivaling China's if they were to convince the local populace they were getting a fair election. And funnily enough, China just commended the dictatorship of Myanmar for their successful elections.

Upper Class

The government owns all the trains here, one major reason not to ride them. And they also profit handsomely from foreigners with hefty prices (required in USD), often 3x the cost of a bus ride. But I love watching out the window of trains the countryside rolling past, unpaved and without choking exhaust. So when I found a train cheaper than the bus, and went for it. (With the government selling billions of teak-wood lumber to Thailand, and oil to China, I don't think me abstaining from one train ride could collapse the regime) I chose upper class, since I still had a searing headache from my four-day illness, and having come directly from a 14-hour bus ride I was in no mood to spend a further 11 hours on straight-backed wooden benches, with children swinging from luggage racks, people piled high around me with no concept of personal space.

I walked down the platform past all the 'ordinary class' cars (and in the truest Aussie sense of the word, they were) to my 'upper class' car. Comparing carefully, the only changes to upper class were thin vinyl coverings on the straight-backed wooden benches... and the label 'upper class' outside the coach. The trains were in the worst condition I've ever ridden. Sometimes the vertical oscillations in the car were so great that everyone's bums had become bouncing basketballs. And the horizontal violence was so sudden and sharp, I imagined the train could derail itself at any moment. When I couldn't even stand up, the food vending women continued to gracefully walk the aisles, stepping over bodies, balancing heavy loads on their heads. The walls and ceilings were destroyed from years of water damage, with nonfunctional wiring hanging everywhere, filthy stained floors in tatters with some holes to the tracks, and every door and window rattled to pieces. Every original latch, on every door and window, was broken, replaced by sliding bolts, of which most were broken. Past me walked an unbroken parade of vendors selling coffee (instant, of course), eggs, corn on the cob, betelnut, cigarettes, fish heads, fried crickets, and some cold meat stew ladled from a punch bowl.

Adjacent to me sat an old monk peacefully, smoking a huge cigar. Directly across sat "the shadow", a woman dressed head to toe in a black burqa (she even had black socks with black sandals) who, for 6 hours, did not eat, drink, stand, speak, or do anything to prove she wasn't a statue. Out the window I looked down the train to see passengers sprinkling a gentle, uninterrupted snowfall of litter. We clickity-clacked past abandoned platforms with stray dogs trying vigorously to increase the local puppy population.

By the time we arrived on the outskirts of Mawlamyine, it was night. Burmese cities have few streetlights, and no electricity to spare; and my train had no functioning lights inside the coach. As the train inched the final few kilometers in complete darkness, I was the only passenger left on my coach, until a few homeless children ran up and climbed aboard. They searched for food or valuable trash in the thick blackness of my car, creeping around me like rubbish-seeking ninjas. (Anywhere else I may have feared they'd rob me, but Myanmar is extremely safe for tourists. Remember that we all must carry our entire trip's funds with us, so locals know the average foreigner has $500 in their pocket. Yet there are no reported cases to Lonely Planet or Wikitravel of people being mugged or robbed.)

Characters

In Mawlamyine there's really only one place for foreigners to stay, and they generally all leave town together via the twice-weekly slow boat to Hpa-An, so the eight of us in the city at the time got to know each other pretty well. We'd meet randomly in the streets, have dinner together, tell stories on the steps of our hotel, and share the locals we met (who were also eager to meet, teach, and learn from us). Two of my fellow tourists had very interesting histories.

One older professor from Adelaide went to China as a child with his Ambassador father. He met Chairman Mao! In the 90's he went back, to teach English to the highest officials of the Communist Party, including the President and Prime Minister. Another younger friend from Russia told me stories of his various schemes to avoid mandatory military service (including drinking a whole bottle of vodka, then getting his friend to stamp on his leg to tear a ligament); and his adventures in capitalism and near-imprisonment during the economic liberalisation of perestroika. He built a large business selling pirated CDs which caught the attention of Microsoft's international piracy crackdown, who very nearly made him an "example".

* * * * * * *

I managed to leave Yangon** (but not without some complications) just three days before one of the most important days in their last 20 years: The release of Nobel Laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. Whoops!

I hope my timing was a bit better when it comes to my photographs. Have a look by clicking the thumbnail above.

-Mike

**Many news broadcasters have referred to Yangon as Myanmar's capital. This is wrong. Upon the advice of astrologers, the military dictators moved the capital — at great expense — in 2005 to Nay Pwi Taw ("Royal Capital"), an empty arid plain 300km north of Yangon.

Models for the World, and Soft Rock Ballads (Myanmar, Update #5)

2010-11-09T06:25:00.003-08:00

Hold On
In Burma, new cars are as rare as free-speech. In Mawlawmyine (formerly Moulmein), they still use awesome old Chevrolet trucks from WW2. Besides a few Land Rovers driven by the Generals or the politically well-connected, cars are from the 80s or earlier. And most have right-hand driver setup. This wouldn't be so strange, except that somehow since British colonisation, Myanmar has managed to switch to driving on the right side of the road. This makes even the mundane task of getting on a bus exciting; since you're stepping into traffic. And even better, it adds a new dimension to overtaking other vehicles; since the driver can't see oncoming traffic until his entire vehicle, and all of its nervous passengers, are looking straight at it.

Myanmar people are avid carpoolers. This makes greenies like me smile (if I don't see the blue smoke billowing from the tailpipe). We've traveled in a regular pickup truck carrying 30 people, plus luggage. A local joked that, "from far away you cannot see any pickup. Only people, coming towards you."

The Path to Nirvana
My last day wandering alone in Mandalay I had a random string of really nice encounters. Outside a Buddhist temple a kind woman vending food served me a delicious meal of rice, soya and green beans, and tomato onion prawn curry. When I asked the price she replied "present" and refused payment. Minutes later I was looking for a pickup ride home and stopped to help a man unload the roof of a bus. It wasn't going where I needed but the driver insisted I board, and a woman told me that the driver would make a detour to drop me off. He refused my fare, too! When I got off the bus I went to buy some street pancakes from an Indian lady who sells them in a tiny, lively alley neighbourhood we found by accident the day before. The pancake lady's only English speaking friend, amid a chorus of giggles from the neighbourhood women and children, proposed to me! Afterwards, I walked past some friendly teenage girls outside a clothing store, and they waved me in to chat (with more giggling). One girl opened a handwritten lyric book, and soon we were all singing "My Heart Will Go On". Later when the girls called me beautiful I immediately protested, "No, not beautiful. I'm 'handsome'." I thought I was having a lucky day, or people were just on a karma spree, but that day marked a turning point from the standard developing world kindness to a whole new level that puts Burma in the company of Nepal, Laos, and Iran (places where I know or have heard the people are outrageously kind and generous.)

The Quest for Nyi Nyi
I get really excited about random challenges when traveling, like trying to find a backpack repairman in Amsterdam, or a hidden mountain temple in Korea, or a specific conman in Zambia. (I only succeeded in one of those challenges, by the way). My last night in Mandalay I met a Polish girl who was trying to reach her young tour guide from Inle Lake, which was my next destination. She said everybody pretends not to know this guy "Nyi Nyi" because he's a freelance undermining tour agencies, so she didn't think I'd find him. So I told her I surely would, and she wrote a letter for me to deliver. (I didn't steam it open but am almost certain it was a love note). The town was so small I had great fun bouncing around the social networks. After asking a few people, the first person who knew Nyi Nyi said, "Oh yes! I know her. She got married and moved away 4 years ago." I kept looking.

While chatting with a freelance guide about the fine art of eating betelnut, I learnt that Nyi Nyi's father-in-law sells sandals in the market. I went to check it out, and found that there were more than a few old men selling sandals in the market. The friendliest of all them called out to me and after chatting for 5 minutes I was feeling lucky, and asked if he knew Nyi Nyi. "Why yes. This is his wife," he said pointing to his daughter. Jackpot! We arranged to meet at their house for dinner that evening. Funnily enough, later that day I befriended an interesting Brazilian whom I spent a lot of time with over the next few days. This Brazilian told me he had just met Nyi Nyi on the street, as Nyi Nyi was looking for me. Small town!

We were invited to so many locals' homes for tea or food, always refusing payment. I spent hours in Phyu Phyu's 'bamboo hut' sitting on the floor with her mother and sisters, playing with the kids (one of whom I'm now named after), drinking tea, teaching English, learning Burmese, and watching the women kick out their rambling, incomprehensible, drunken father when he got too loud or began to smoke. He actually hadn't lived there since they threw him out 5 years earlier, but only visits for meals, and lives with his drinking buddies down the road. Burmese men love their whisky.

And I love that town. In the afternoon people would start playing Chinlon, an incredible sport like volleyball, but only feet and heads can contact the ball, which is made of rattan. The leaping bicycle-kick ball spikes over the net were spectacular to watch. At night guys would sit out on the street singing and playing guitar beautifully, from their stool, doorway, or parked motorbike. It was a shame I had to leave, because only two weeks later was the famous Fire Balloon festival I only saw video of: Unmanned hot air balloons loaded with fireworks -- fuses burning -- take off from the center of a crowd of thousands. The balloons don't usually make it up very high, and sometimes are still on the ground, when they start firing thousands of colourful fireballs in every direction, often directly into the half applauding, half panicking crowd. It's a pyromaniac's dream!

Sensory Overload
I like to generalise a country into the most common stimuli experienced by each of my senses during a trip. Here goes.

Sight: Thanakaw (facial cream/sunblock worn by all women) and longji (like a sarong, worn by everyone) decorating the most beautiful people in the world. If height didn't matter, a fifth of the young women here could be models. They are stunning.

Sound: Clipping speakers blaring deafening music, (because it keeps the bad 'nat', or spirits, away). And what they play on every bus ride, which seems like the only genre of music: nauseating, repetitive soft-rock ballads with low-budget karaoke video accompaniment, often out of sync.

Taste: "Chinese Tea" which is drank by everyone, everywhere, for free. This is in contrast to Burmese tea, which isn't free, and often comes from a "3-in-1 mix" packet (unfortunately).

Smell: Cooking oil, from the ubiquitous roadside deep fryers. That, or open sewers (unfortunately).

Feeling: My butt, numb from sitting on long trips in a space designed for people that live in a country where five-feet is 'tall'.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I've barely managed with all these internet restrictions, but have uploaded a few more photos to Flickr, with descriptions. The new ones are mostly watercolour. (You'll see). Click the thumbnail above.

-Mao Kan Tu (Lucky Man)

Burmese Days (Myanmar, Update #4)

2010-11-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

As expected, we've had a few snags trying to surf the internet since arriving in Myanmar over a week ago. We've barely even waded in it -- I'd call it splashing. During the few minutes each hour that the internet is actually working and assuming there's power, we're still restricted by government firewall from accessing Yahoo (which owns Flickr), Facebook, any real news websites, any website with 'blog' in it, and much more. And the speeds make me reflect positively on my 14.4-kbps modem days.

Arrival
Besides the strange VIPs on our flight to Burma, including a Kim Jong Il look-alike with wiry, 15cm-long neck hair; and a clan of spoiled, stiletto-heeled Asian bimbos with iPhones 4, our flight was uneventful. The captain informed us that we were landing on schedule, 30 minutes earlier than our itinerary stated. So our airline obviously wasn't aware of Burma's 30-minute time zone shift. We'd have a wait for our hotel pickup.

After customs, we were met by an overly-friendly Burmese man, dressed like almost every Burmese, in a plaid longyi (like a sarong). He welcomed us warmly to Burma, but informed us that our hotel always forgets to pick up their passengers. He graciously offered to take us in his taxi. He was even kind enough to tell all the other backpackers the same thing. Taxi drivers are same everywhere. Fortunately the rest of the people in this country are unimaginably kind.

Something Fishy
The longyi's have no pockets, but we've seen many creative workarounds. A fisherman we noticed tied his longyi with a front pouch, where we dropped all of his still-wriggling fish. When playing their favourite street game of wiffle-ball hackey-sack, men make their longyi's into shorts, with a sumo-esque strip of fabric pulled underneath and tucked behind. And when carrying wallets they tuck it into their waists against their lower back. I noticed the few trousered men, despite having pockets to carry their wallet, still carry it the same way.

Colonial Charm
As usual I love noticing the quirks of a country that make traveling here like nowhere else I've been. They are one of only three countries officially on the imperial system (keeping good company with the USA, and Liberia). They changed their flag (didn't you hear?) just two weeks ago to a very post-colonial-African combination of yellow, green and red stripes, with a big star in the middle. (Ghana, don't hold your breath for royalties). The power never goes more than a few hours without interruption, even in the largest cities. So in front of nearly every building in Yangon and Mandalay on the sidewalks citizens have installed large diesel generators. With these oily monstrosities, mangy stray dogs, cars without headlights, piles of rubbish ready for burning, and few streetlights, you've got one filthy, pedestrian-unfriendly obstacle course.

The capital city, Yangon, is a charmless place. The old colonial buildings are all filthy, dilapidated, grossly stained with mold from the humidity. Jon likened the appearance to some post-apocalyptic city after 20 years occupied by zombies. Our hotel was near one particularly enormous, even palatial, colonial estate in disrepair. We noticed behind two walls of barb-wire fence, separated by an open sewer (the moat, as it were), some squatters washing clothes, evidently living in this burnt-out mansion. But then we noticed they were washing their police uniforms!

Mandalay, the second largest city was only mildly better. We visited the nightmarket, which sounded great, except that due to road works, at its center was an open sewer. And when we arrived, the power was out (surprise surprise) so everyone's table was shrouded in darkness. We couldn't see what anyone was selling!

Currency Manipulation
In the past 50 years the government has thrice declared without prior notice certain currency denominations to be worthless. In 1985 they even demonetised three quarters of the country's currency (the 20, 50 and 100 notes) and created 25, 35, and 75 notes (because it was the dictator's 75th birthday). Two years later they scrapped those silly denominations and replaced them with 15, 45, and 90 notes (because the dictator's favourite number was 9). And two years later the current General took the country in a coup, and brought in the current sensible denominations. In fact I'm sure many of those 1989 notes are still in circulation -- most bills are so old, torn, taped up and filthy, that they're barely readable. Some bills are so irrepairably shredded, they are kept in plastic sleeves. Coins would be a sturdy solution, but we haven't seen one yet. (People still transact with bills worth 2 cents). The banking system is disconnected from the world, so all ATM and credit cards are useless. Once in the country, the only way to obtain more money, is to leave the country. We brought of all our (slightly under-budgeted) money in crisp US bills, which we knew we had to exchange for Kyat. Since the black market rate per dollar is about 900, and the official exchange rate about 6 (yes, six), we would opt for the dark side. And since the largest bill is worth about $1, we'd be walking out of our blackmarket transaction like drug lords (with bricks of money).

And the transaction went like this: A really friendly Indian-Burmese man found us in the market, offering us a better rate than others, with a plausible backstory about why his boss can give a better rate than anyone else. (Tyre business in Thailand needs USD). We met his 'boss', made jokes and talked at length. His boss even told us how happy he was we stayed at the YMCA, because they taught him his suburb english, and he's endlessly grateful. In short, these guys gave us 'good vibes', and I've learned that in these parts of the world, that's crucial.

The money arrived, and two new men replaced our 'good vibe' friends, to conduct the transaction. These new men were edgy, unfriendly, and had sinister and (unfortunately common) teeth, blood-red and rotting, from betel-nut addiction. These guys gave us 'bad vibes'. We counted out every single bill (nearly 400 of them; remember their largest bill is $1), inspecting and replacing the worst ones, over a tense twenty minutes. Satisfied, we extricated the USD from our money belts. When they saw the bills, the men let out a choreographed groan. Our serial numbers were not good! Oh, just imagine our bad luck! But these kind men would do us a favour, and take the bills at 10% lower rate. In marveled disgust at their dishonesty (and saddened that this idiotic trick must actually work on some tourists), we walked out and found a 'good vibe' Sino-Burmese man to change our money. He warned us about one of the other scams he called 'fast hands', because the money changers count the bills in front of you yet somehow you end up missing up to a third of them. We met a couple Canadians who lost $80 to this. The best part of the whole transaction was when we saw the original con-man on the street later, we mentioned casually that somebody else took our 'bad serial numbers' without question, for the same great rate he was offering. It was almost worth our wasted time just to wipe that grin off his face.

* * * * *

I've (finally) managed to get some internet access that's lasted more than 5 minutes. The election next week has caused the government to lock down web access for hours at a time. With proxy workarounds to get past the government firewalls, I've been able to access Flickr. I hope you find my efforts worthwhile (click the thumbnail above)

Thwa me naw,
-Mike

You Buy From Me!? (Vietnam, Update #3)

2010-10-22T20:51:00.003-07:00

High Country

When we disembarked after dawn in the highland town of Sapa, we were met by the infamous packs of local H'Mong and Dzay women selling handicrafts to foreigners. Birdlike, they call out, "You buy from me!"

A trio quickly attached themselves to the hapless Jon. For the next 24 hours, each time we stepped out of a restaurant or off the steps of our hotel, the same three girls would materialize, enveloping Jon, chirping their question and statement, "You buy from me? You buy from me!"

During our usual town wandering, I found the local school and without hesitation, entered to distract the kids. After disrupting all the classrooms, the english teacher approached me and introduced herself (her proficiency did not make her position apparent) and invited me to her class. She showed me the lesson plan for the next 45 minutes, and I began. Ninety minutes and 50 students later, I had taught two classes. The kids were really impressive, especially how outgoing they were, in contrast to East Asian kids who I understand to be very shy and unwilling to volunteer. We made up some vocab games after the lessons, such as "What's the word for this? Now draw its picture on the board." and "What do Mike and Jon do for work?". After guessing teacher, construction worker, singer, artist, and writer, they got me as an engineer. They never did guess Jon's job (lawyer).

Trekking the heavily terraced river valley, passing indigenous minority groups with our H'Mong guide Su was a bit surreal: Usually ruins are indigenous and the inhabitants are immigrants; but here the local indigenous groups live in and around ruins from the French colonialists, who left long ago. On our second day of trekking, after a 5 hour morning in the mountain sun without shade or sunscreen (we expected clouds and rain the entire trek), Jon's fair skin was incandescent. I wasn't so burned, but was definitely feeling sunstroked as we approached our pho' hut for lunch. My headache got worse all day, and that evening I nearly lost it during a cramped bus ride down a sinuous mountain road to the train station. It didn't help that I had eaten my first duck-fetus egg that afternoon.

Early to Rise

After another overnight train ride with an ungodly morning arrival time, we were in Hanoi. Fortunately we could drop by the local 'gym', the large Hoan Kiem Lake and city park, to see how the locals stay fit at dawn. Hundreds of people jogging counterclockwise around the lake (and they call themselves Buddhists...), dozens of women doing synchronised tai chi aerobics to music, and dozens of men pumping home-made cement barbell weights.

Travel Advice

Yesterday when I went to ask a local tourist agency where I could find a restaurant that served dog, I noticed his flash new iPad on the table. When he saw my eyes light up, his eyes lit up, and wordlessly he plopped it on the table between us with a foosball app already loaded. After 5 minutes of intense competition, I realized when I heard the door open behind me that Jon had been waiting on the street the whole time for my 'quick question'. After another game, I got the advice I needed.

We fly to Myanmar this afternoon for three weeks. I'm not very optimistic about internet availability there. It certainly could not compare to here, where nearly every hotel has free wifi! I'll try to at least post photos along the way when possible. Check out the photos to date including ones from the trekking, by clicking the thumbnail above.

Chao,

-Mike

Following the Compass Needle (Vietnam Update #2)

2010-10-19T01:43:00.002-07:00

Easy Riders
There is a special episode of Top Gear where the hosts buy old motorcycles in Vietnam (cars are too expensive here) and ride north up the country. One of the two most spectacular places along the way is the 150km coastal/mountain road from Hoi An to Hue. I was determined to do this ourselves. Everything came together the afternoon beforehand, as it usually does for me, and we even had a free guide, Thonh, for some of the ride. He is a member of the famed Easy Riders group that show people around the country on the backs of nice cruiser bikes.
Along the way we learned that:
- Sunscreen is a good idea (my chest is charred);
- Driving behind a chicken truck is a bad idea (feathers were blinding us, and the ammonia was suffocating us);
- Riding on the shoulder is a good idea (oncoming semi trucks would pass each other on the two-lane highway, forcing all opposing traffic onto the shoulder); and
- Navigating the chaotic sea of motorbikes in Vietnamese cities is even more challenging than it looks. Drivers here have my respect.

When we arrived in the food capital of the country, Hue, we sat down for a quick dinner before our night train departed. Next to us, 3 Americans from Alaska were slurping milkshakes and in good spirits, and we watched to see what food they were having. First the plain steamed rice came out. They didn't waste any time, putting a bit of sauce on the rice and digging in as
they awaited their mains. But when they finished their steamed rice, paid and left, we could only scratch our heads and wonder aloud, "Who comes to the food capital of Vietnam and orders plain rice?"

Northern Comfort
We were warned that the warm southern hospitality of the locals doesn't stretch all the way to the north. In Hanoi we went to a famous flashy restaurant popular with locals. Despite the 40 staff members outnumbering the patrons, we received horrible service. Maybe the only positive from the American War was that they taught the south good service.
We arrived in the port city Hai Phong to get out to Cat Ba island, our jumping off point to the spectacular UNESCO protected archipelago of Ha Long Bay. We were accosted by an aggressive woman who followed us around asking for 3x the going price to bring us to the ferry terminal. She then intimidated the dozen cab drivers we tried to bargain with into not accepting any offers, or using their meter. One guy told us straight-faced he had no meter, and even stuck to his guns when I reached into his window and pointed at his obviously functioning meter. We eventually found a great cabbie outside the station who charged us the right price (we tipped him for it). But at the ferry terminal we encountered another witch, who refused to smile (I asked for one), and put us on a slow-boat at an inflated price. At least it left on time!

On the island, we experienced a striking example of the East Asian concept of "face" (or reputation) when trying to arrange our tour to the archipelago. The Brits we met had found a tour operator with a good vibe, and we went to find out some more details before booking. The operator mentioned the captain of the ship was a family member and we were to meet him on the dock the next morning. To make sure we found him, I asked for the Captain's name. Our operator hesitated, stuttered and stammered, and became red-faced, as he was caught in a lie. We knew the Captain was not his family, since everyone here claims their coworkers are family. We didn't care! But he obviously did: He told us that in 15 years he'd never been asked so many questions and he no longer wanted to do business with us (worth $225!). He
stood up, shook our hands, and walked off. He'd lost face, and we were left sitting there, staring at each other in stunned silence, not sure whether to laugh.

Life in Ha Long Bay
We found another operator and chartered a boat for a two day tour of the striking, UNESCO-protected archipelago of Ha Long Bay and Bai Tu Long Bay. Here, hundreds of limestone spires and mountains rise vertically from the ocean, some hundreds of metres. Our craft was a small diesel houseboat with two smiling locals as our Captain and First Mate (cook & guide). During our two days we witnessed the unique, simple life of the locals. They live on man-made floating islands in the bay, constructed from styrofoam blocks lashed together with bamboo and rope, tethered to opposing limestone cliff faces so they don't drift away. The many islands protect them from open seas, and if global warming raises sea levels, their homes will rise too! They all farm fish in netted areas within the ocean, and grow clams and mussels in baskets of sand hung from the bamboo skeleton of their island. Each of the countless farms support one family in a tin shack built in the middle of the artificial island. We moored up to one of these islands for the night.
Right before bed while spitting toothpaste into the water, we discovered the strong bio-luminescence of the organisms in the water. This is a beautiful phenomenon, not unique to Vietnam characterised by the water glowing green (like glowsticks) for an instant when you disturb it. It's mesmerising. I put my feet in the water and kicked up a glowing froth. Chris jumped in and swam, his arms tracing green wings around him like an angel, his feet creating a comet tail behind him. The effect is too dim to capture on film, but it's okay, because I'll never forget it.

During the day we explored caves on foot, hiked up an island peak, and kayaked in between, underneath, and even inside some of the islands: Our guide told us to paddle into a low, dark cave. We entered, dodged between stalactites, and continued into the blackness. As the light from the entrance faded, I nearly knocked my head a few times on the steadily dropping ceiling, now barely above my head. The Brits turned back, convinced it was a dead end. Then we noticed what seemed like light ahead of us. I was overcome with laughter as we went towards the light and emerged inside the island, to a lake half a kilometre wide, completely encircled by a crown-like limestone island.

This trip has been unusually smooth: None of the cons, arrests, bribes, getting lost, or falling violently ill, that usually enrich my trip. So I was excited when on our return trip to terra firma, in choppy sea, our engine broke down. Although I'd love you to

Just sit right back and hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip,
That started from a tropic port,
Aboard a tiny ship....

Another boat just towed us back.

-Mike

P.S. When I had enough light to take photos. Or click the thumbnail at the top.

P.P.S. No more propositions of marriage. These northerners aren't nearly as friendly! Though one drunk guy tried to kiss me, before I fought him off, and he jumped on his motorcycle with three friends. They made it ten metres before crashing to the pavement in a ball of sparks.

You Want Motobike? (Vietnam Update #1)

2010-10-15T10:48:00.002-07:00

The Mekong Delta. The name carries with it exotic, dangerous, even haunting associations, from countless war movies. It was the first place in Vietnam I spotted, through my window. From the air it appears a rich solid green, divided by hundreds of muddy, sinuous waterways. But the sun, reflecting strongly off this green, betray it's true watery state. Even what looks like solid earth is flooded rice paddies or sodden plant nurseries. I knew we had to go see things up close, later. Before I knew it, I was approaching Ho Chi Minh City, which looked like a mat of blocky, pastel-coloured houses poking up like Lego bricks.

In HCMC, motorcycles rule the roads. They move fluidly past gridlocked cars in the congested streets. Hordes circle roundabouts like swirling schools of fish — especially when a bus approaches, like a shark, darting towards an elusive school that opens a gap only for an instant, the predator passing through unsuccessfully. The bikes outnumber cars at least 15 to 1. And people transport everything on them: sacs of instant noodles, saplings, air conditioners, framed paintings, porcelain toilets, fluorescent light tubes, granite tiles, 100L of water jugs, massive panes of glass, and Canadian backpackers. Jon and I took our first trip 12km across town, on these "xe om" (literally 'hugging vehicle') motorbike taxis. We picked his driver because the man had a helmet with Che Guevara on it, and his name was Mao. How much more communist could you get? (Maybe if he wore a Kim Jong Il shirt)

Our next motorcycle-taxi ride a few days later wasn't as smooth. With rain imminent, the drivers were confident they knew our destination 12km away. I became suspicious when he asked me for directions. But he really revealed his bluff when he stopped outside a hotel and called a woman over to ask me where we were going. By this point we´d been riding in the pouring rain for 15 minutes, aimlessly, as these guys had no idea where they were taking us!

We left town to visit the Cu Chi tunnels, an elusive 230km network of brilliantly engineered passages from where the Viet Cong based their attacks on American-held Saigon. The Americans never succeeded in driving out the VC, despite bombing, flooding, and gassing the tunnels. The ventilation system could be controlled to channel gases into uninhabited areas, the drainage system moved water back into the Mekong, the chambers were too deep for bombing, with too many hidden exits to block them all, and too narrow and booby-trapped for Americans to enter inside. I climbed down inside one of these tunnels, 3m underground. It was winding, humid, stuffy, dark and narrow inside, only 40x90cm. To move forward, I had to shuffle while squatting. I'm not claustrauphobic; I work in dark tunnels underground. But after a few metres I wasn't too excited about turning the next corner. I decided to turn around. When I realized I couldn't (my femur is actually too long), I felt a tad anxious. I blindly squat-shuffled backwards out of the tunnel and was happy that I never had to spend 4 minutes, let alone 4 years living down there like the VC did.

I've been pleasantly surprised by the common sense approach to safety and the environment this country has. Bathrooms have soap, buses and trains leave on time, everyone wears motorcycle helmets, and cities abound with rubbish bins. While we munched streetside baguette sandwiches on a hot night in the Mekong delta, the sky erupted with a monsoon downpour. A rubbish collector -- a small woman in full raingear -- politely collected our wrappers and empty water bottles. She turned and walked two steps before chucking it all in the street-cum-river. Pointing down the street I inquired, "To the Mekong?". Beaming, she nodded, proud of her efficient work.

I´ve uploaded a few photos with captions to my Flickr by clicking the thumbnail above. Please indulge yourself.

-Mike
(Mostly typed via iPhone. These hotels have free wifi!)

P.S. Most ISPs in this country have blocked Facebook, so forget about contacting me that way.
P.P.S. I've had 3 women propose to me. So far.

The Top End to The Kimberley

2010-09-17T06:02:00.003-07:00

The Arrival

The night before my flight was to depart Perth, and still no word from Jolene. I was flying to Darwin, to meet two friends for the middle part of their roadtrip. We were going to see two of Australia's most renowned areas: The Top End (around Darwin), and The Kimberley (the northernmost part of WA) Could something have happened to them? Very likely. This is a place measured in hundreds of kilometers. They began in Perth, 4000km away. Their intended route included the Gibb River Road, a rough dirt track with only two inhabited stops along its 600km stretch. And their mobile coverage would be limited to a couple pin-pricks on the map.

As soon as my phone had signal, a couple minutes before landing in Darwin, I waited anxiously for a message. (Yes, I risked a fiery plane crash, by activating my phone.) But found no messages waiting for me. I began to formulate Plan B: How much fun would it be to hitchhike 1800km across the outback to Broome? But then, a sign! Jolene and Phillip were on their way to the airport, huzzah!
Minutes later they picked me up in the overloaded SUV. It had just enough volume remaining to contain me. I discovered through the trip that Phillip is a very thorough fellow, and given enough time to pack, could have filled a semi-trailer with 'necessities'. In fact, on their departure day, Jolene was waiting from 9:00am. Every two hours she would get a message warning of further delays to his packing. Finally, at 4:00pm(!) Phil asked if they could leave the next morning instead. I wished I could have been there: Jolene stole her flatmate's car and drove to Phil's for an intervention. Upon arrival, she found the SUV was nearly full, including a roof-mounted 'pod'. They were able to negotiate the removal of some of Phillip's necessities, but what he did bring along included the following:

- 2 machetes—one practical, one for appearances (it looked badass).

- 2 air mattresses—one normal, one enormous, which required its own obnoxious electrical pump to blow it up. We cringed whenever he used it.

- 4 cameras—film, digital, underwater, and pocket-sized.

- 2 boxes of textbooks—covering all things vegetable, animal, and mineral.

- 3 pillows, 2 lanterns, and an ever growing collection of rocks, seeds, fruits, and plant 'pods'; the latter becoming a running joke throughout the trip (remember he had a roof-rack 'pod' for some his pods)

Magic Hour

I have a great mate, who worked some magic with his former employer to arrange for us an hour-long tour of Kakadu. This national park is a wild place, of stunning beauty and fame (not least because Crocodile Dundee went there). I should mention that this friend is a helicopter pilot. And the tour from a doorless helicopter. At sunrise! And over the headset we listened to Pearl Jam.

Best. Flight. Ever.

Feeling Alive

Unlike the rusty desert of Australia's interior, The Top End is a tropical area, rich in life despite the nearby harsh landscape. Everything is a alive. Termite mounds rise metres from the ground; entire flocks of birds bend trees near breaking; thousands of enormous fruit bats fill the evening sky (And your ears, with their noise. And your nose, with their smell.). Ants establish colonies in your sealed food bins; flies and moths attempt to carry away your dinner; hunting geckos bring the walls to life. And cane toads become a tripping hazard as the nighttime paths around camp appear to move underfoot.

In Litchfield, a park with well-needed swimming holes and four breathtaking waterfalls still active in The Dry, I noticed a trend. The petrol station employees, café workers, and tourists were nearly all young Europeans. I made friends from Germany, France and Holland. One young Dutch couple on bicycles (in this climate!) camped beside us.

"Where are you two going?", I inquired.

Shyly she responded, "Oh, we're on our way to Adelaide."

"Uhh...", I prepared to ask a dumb question, "like, South Australia?" (Like, 3000km away)

"Yes," she paused. "Actually this is just the end of our trip."

I wise-cracked, "And where did you start? Holland?"

She paused again. And I stopped laughing.

They'd been on the road for 17 months. Through Europe, the Middle East, the Stans, down the Malaysian peninsula, island hopped through Indo to Darwin. And now they just had the trivial matter remaining, to travel 4000km across the centre of this dry and sparsely populated continent, to finish in Adelaide.

The Autobahn

We pulled up to a gate just off the highway. Beyond it lay 55km of dirt track, leading to Purnululu National Park. Contained within it are the famous Bungle Bungles: A series of stunning hills, narrow chasms, and strange rock formations. The signage warned that only high-clearance, 4WD vehicles should attempt the journey. With our overloaded, soccer-mom SUV we were barely clearing the tarmac highway. We'd heard the road was "terrible". I stopped a German couple on their way out in a sweet Landcruiser, and asked for advice. "Oh, it's very rough. Took us 3 hours. Large rocks everywhere. We had to drive like this," he said, waving his hand around like an airplane in a dogfight. His wife kept repeating something in German, emphatically. It sounded ominous—but most German does. The husband never translated for me, but I imagined she was saying, "You guys are insane to take your sad little car down that road."

I got back in the car and told my friends what the Germans had said. Phillip responded, "Of course the Germans think its rough. They're used to driving on the Autobahn. Let's go."

Strange Encounters

There is a richness in Aboriginal culture, which includes ancient rock-art, linguistic diversity, deep knowledge of flora and fauna, and an inspiring philosophy regarding people's connection to the land. But of course there are huge social problems, like many countries with indigenous people. We had some encounters that were both sad and funny.

While driving down the highway 30km from Halls Creek, in the dead of night, we were flagged down by a car full of big, bumbling aboriginals. They explained that they were out of fuel. Of course we offered to help them, because even though their story was more than likely fictitious*, if there was even a small chance they were stuck, we couldn't leave them there: This wasn't a busy stretch of highway. After pouring in 10L, they all nodded in agreement that it wasn't enough for the 30km drive. They agreed they needed all 15L we had to spare. So we emptied our jerry can, and I shook my head telling them "If that doesn't get you back, you have a hole in your fuel tank!"
After thanking us, I stepped into the car as one of them came running up to me, asking "Do you guys have any smokes?"

Down the road we reached The Kimberley's oldest pub, in Fitzroy Crossing. We went there for lunch and beer. The place was fairly quiet: about a dozen people, all save for us, local aboriginals. I noticed a pretty serious looking 'security' bouncer. Making conversation I asked, "So... security, eh? Things get pretty rough in here?"
"Yeah, twice a month, on payday. I mean, benefits day." He gestured towards the local clientele. "None of these people have jobs."
He continued, "Imagine 200 people crammed in here," (it wasn't a big place) "Spending $7000 per hour." Yikes.

We sat down and ordered some lunch. Jolene ordered the only healthy-looking option on the menu, a veggie chicken wrap. When it arrived, she unwrapped it to find the fresh tomato, carrot, and lettuce was accompanied in the flatbread by a battered and deep-fried chicken finger. The publican explained, "Only miners come here for lunch."

Before we left Fitzroy we went to the supermarket but found it closed and barricaded, for renovations. Cluelessly we circled town, wondering if the petrol station was the only place to buy food! As we passed the high school we noticed an A4 paper sign taped over the school sign, announcing "SUPERMARKET". We cautiously entered the back of the school, and found the supermarket: Inside the gymnasium. The cashier stood beneath the basketball net. And some wiseguy must have done a layup with a box of cereal, because there was one hanging in the hoop mesh.

This trip was one of the most photographically rewarding of my life. Give your eyes a feast, along with some mini-stories, at my website, or by clicking the thumbnail above.

Fair dinkum!

-Mike

*As I told this story to a table of my coworkers, they simultaneously sighed in frustration. "You fell for that!?"

Warping Time (Korea Update 2/2)

2010-07-14T07:41:00.004-07:00

I write (the beginning of) this as I munch on the results of my final ₩18000: Dried sea weed—with a dash of sesame—purchased in the airport only 5 minutes before boarding to leave this country. And only 3 calories per sheet!

Diagonal Bisector

We left Seoul with incredible speed. Not because we feared the police after the inner tube float, but because we had tickets on the high speed train: Korean Train eXpress. This train is restricted down to only 305km/hour. As we bisected the country, to the second largest city located in the south-east corner of the country, the train blew past lush rice farming communities. What struck me was how dense the Koreans build even their farming towns! They had high-rises larger than anything in Perth; all to allow more precious land area for cultivating food, and at the same time reducing wasted money on all sorts of sprawl-related infrastructure.

Urban Planning

The train terminated in Busan, also utilising their land well. The city is smaller than Perth, with three times the population. But it's where people live that's also interesting. Like Hong Kong, the lush green mountains are left forested, for green space, hiking, and a few Buddhist temples*. Nobody gets to build a house "in the hills", where they would live above other people, get a better view, and simultaneously ruin everyone else's view of the mountains. Urban density, especially the egalitarian kind, makes me smile.

[*One striking temple, Seokbul-sa, is cut from an enormous rock face. The Lonely Planet describes it as "hard to find and difficult to reach". An accurate description. We gave up.]

One day after our arrival in Busan we were boarding the overnight ferry destined for "Korea's Hawaii": Jeju volcanic island. I had spent the entire 24 hours in Busan conscious. And half of that time was within arm's reach of soju (Korean sweet vodka), or one of its many portmanteaus: Somaek (Soju with beer), Socol (Soju with cola), or so-J (Soju with orange juice). For I had made a dozen new friends, some who barely spoke english, that I met in a club at 3am after Jon left. We traveled back to their hotel and stayed up to 9am bonding with help from the world's two most powerful agents: Sport (world cup!) and alcohol (maekju, soju, makgeolli).
But it was time to get some sleep—scheduled carefully around watching Germany destroy Argentina.

Shields, Cones, and Tubes
Feeling great after the win, and adequate sleep, we decided to park our bags at a hotel and head immediately to South Korea's highest mountain, the shield volcano Hallasan, to reach the summit. As a rule, Jon is not a fan of hiking, nor any form of practical exercise that does not promote the development of 'beach muscles'. But after countless obscenities and 10km of ascent, he was even more excited than I to reach the volcano's crater rim summit. The photo above is the victory shot. (Of course we wore our couples shirts). The walk down destroyed our calves, and we limped in hilarious agony around the island for the next 3 days. Actually, we did as little walking as possible, thanks to Mr Lee......

Mr Lee's Bike Shop
In accordance with Korean law, Lee can only rent motorcycles and scooters to foreigners with international drivers licenses and at least one year of riding experience. I possessed neither. But we thought we could compensate with charisma and charm. After a ten minute discussion, he acquiesced to lending us a motorcyle and scooter. Feeling pretty proud of ourselves, we sat down to sign the waiver. He then plucked an extra waiver—for foreigners without proper licenses—from a rather handy stack beside the normal waivers. Perhaps we weren't the trailblazers on this path of illegality.

We had more fun on the bikes than I thought possible. We criss-crossed the island to walk through cold, dripping underground lava tubes (the world's largest), and summit a stunning tuff cone jutting 200m straight up from the beach in Seongsan (well, I did. Jon napped). We cruised the winding roads of the interior through foggy conifer forests and between lush green cinder cones. We navigated through the city, Korean-style: Lane-splitting, running red lights, riding down sidewalks. And since our motorbikes didn't have front plates, we flashed smiles and peace-signs as we sped, well over the limit, right under the numerous speed cameras.

Warping Time
I've come to realize that one major attraction of traveling, especially when engaged in a steady routine of work, is its ability to slow time.
We have preciously short lives. And with the world changing so quickly—and ever faster—we're losing many of the treasures it has to offer now. The world will be a much more homogenous place when we're older.
My mind was bursting after one single week in South Korea. The places I saw, the language I learned, cultural distinctions I experienced, the foods I ate, the people I met, and the adventures I shared. It has brought me memories to digest for a long time.

Thanks for being my tour guide, Jon!

-Mike

P.S. The photos are uploaded. Twenty three photos; twenty-three mini stories. (For now). Visit them by clicking the photograph above. And don't be shy to leave a comment.

Addendum: What Lies Ahead
Despite having a quarter less GDP than Canada or Australia, I think SK is way ahead of both these countries technologically. I noted a few examples:

- Eight-megabit 3G internet on the subway (that's almost certainly faster than your high speed internet at home)
- Geothermal, wind, and wave power generation
- Fifty-inch flatscreen touchscreen television for interactive learning in Jon's elementary school classroom.
- Mobile reception everywhere; even on the open ocean ferry ride, or a 9 hour Hallasan mountain hike.
- One subway card you can refill, that worked in two different cities, 500km apart
- Elevators that allow you to unselect a floor
- Live television in taxis; for checking the latest traffic cameras (or more commonly, for watching soap operas while driving)

What's your Blood Type? (Korea Update)

2010-07-07T13:42:00.002-07:00

My friend since grade 9, Jon has been living in Korea for the past two years teaching english and learning Korean. This gave me an excellent opportunity to visit a friend and see a place off the (western) tourist trail. South Korea is a country, like China, that would be painstaking to visit without speaking the language. Jon (his Korean name is Mi-Nam or 'Handsome'—but judging from his webpage maybe his middle name should be Wongja-Byong or 'Prince Disease') met me in Seoul, and we began a full-on ride across the country—all the way south to the volcanic island Jeju off the southern coast.

Don't Talk to Strangers
Nowadays, kids learn english from a young age in school. But among people my age and older, it is usually at a level insufficient for anything but the very basic. In Japan, people will rarely randomly speak to you in public places, out of shame for their poor english. Fortunately Koreans are less shy! A woman on the subway struck up a conversation with me, and one of the first questions she asked was "What's your blood type?".
Was she serious? I repeated the question back to her a few times to make sure I understood her english. Maybe if she was a doctor this would be less strange, but she was a tour guide for Japanese. I told her my type (A+, how apt) but didn't think most westerners would actually be able to answer.
It turns out that in Korea, blood type is important. So much they require it on job applications, along with portrait photographs (one big reason cosmetic surgery is so popular here).

Heart and Seoul
There are two t-shirts I've always wanted that pun on place names*. But I don't believe one should wear clothes containing geographical references unless the wearer has been to said place. Since one of the shirts had a Korean reference, and since couples in Korea often wear matching shirts, I knew that I had to get a pair of shirts for us this trip. But after realizing that the shirts had to be (a) ordered from America and wouldn't ship in time, (b) Only came in blue, *ugh*, and worst of all (c) was written in a serifed font -- I had to custom design and have printed our own shirts for the trip. They arrived the day before I left! Every foreigner laughed at them, but we had to explain the joke to all the Koreans who inquired. Click here for the result.

In Seoul there exists a tranquil babbling stream slicing across the heart of the city, sunken from street level. It has gentle cascades, stepping stones, and wooden arched bridges. At night on a wall they project automated evolving digital flowers, and every hour there's a mesmerising laser show to music, projected into a cloud of fog. This place is called Chung-gye-cheon. Many people come here to relax, have a date, play music, or nap. The most amazing thing about the place, and what serves as a great example of the progressive attitude of Koreans, is that for the past 50 years up to 2005 this stream was covered with concrete and topped with a highway. Imagine any of our cities ripping out a highway to build a public cultural space!

Jon and I enjoyed the place so much that we wanted to celebrate Canada Day there. Not just at the river. In it. So we bought some inflatable tubes, ziploc bags for the camera, and a couple cold beers. At the riverbank while inflating the tubes an elderly security guard accosted us emphatically. He seemed to be really excited about our masterful plan, even more than we were! Of course I couldn't understand Korean, but I caught the gist and Jon half-translated.
"Ah, no beer allowed? OK we'll drink it first."
"Oh, we can't swim either? Police will come? Hrm..."
I asked Jon to inquire if "floating" was allowed, but he didn't know the word. We were out of luck. The eagle-eyed guard stood by for half an hour as we sat on the sidewalk, in our half-inflated tubes, drinking our beers. But we'd have been stupid not to try it again.

We wandered at street-level through downtown, looking for a less-guarded area. The next entrance had a security guard already waiting there (they had walkie-talkies). We weren't about to sneak past him with our inflated orange tubes very easily. We walked on. At the next entrance, with no guards in sight, we rushed down and jumped in, floating for 10 minutes. Young people smiled and waved while shaking their heads in disbelief. Old people also waved, but it was more of the "Oh-my-gosh, what-are-you-foreigners-doing, get-out-of-there-now" kind of wave. When we spotted another guard on the bank, we climbed out and up, slipping into the busy downtown crowd, dripping wet.

There are some photos and more mini-stories on my website by clicking the thumbnail photograph above, with more to come!

Annyeong-hi gyeseyo,
ㅎ Hu Nam ㅎ

- - - - - - -
* (The first has an outline of Kenya and reads "Kenya dig it?". The second, an outline of South Korea and reads "South Korea's Got Seoul").

From Red, to Gold, to Blue

2010-04-05T05:42:00.003-07:00

For those of you joining programming already in progress, this is one of my erratic weblog entries. The purpose is to entertain, teach, update, share photos, and maintain lines of communication from across the earth.

All That Glitters is Not Gold

They call the harsh desert of the Aussie interior the 'red centre'. Although this term has been commandeered by the tourism industry around Uluru (Ayer's Rock) a satellite image reveals how vast this red central desert is*. Definitely not like a red bulls-eye on a dart board—this is a dart board that's mostly bulls-eye! Like Canadians, who live in a band along the southern border, Aussies live in a green band around the coast. Except when the minerals call....

So it was here in the vast, iron-stained deserts of Western Australia, 1200km from the 'red centre' but surrounded by plenty of red dirt, that I was driving. For four hours, with only two places (hardly even towns) to stop along the way, I was on my way to the biggest gold mining town on the continent. As I drove past road-trains hauling ore and hundreds of kangaroos in various states of decay, I thought back to my old stereotypes of this country and how well this drive matched them. When we got to Kalgoorlie, the caricature of Australia continued. We went for a beer at one of the pubs. (This town claims, like many others globally, to have the highest pubs per capita in the world). One of the many beautiful, (only) female bartenders served us—then asked if we'd like to donate for the removal of her shirt. Confused for only an instant, I remembered that this bar—and virtually every other bar in town—was a "skimpy bar".

I met some very strange characters in the bar, who philosophized freely with me, the ignorant foreigner. They told me about the correct etiquette for patrons and skimpies; the benefits these bars bring to both parties, like how much money skimpies make; and numerous other half-baked ideas. The explosives course I was on (my reason for being in this town) also had quite a philosophical lecturer—in a more truer sense—who told us hilarious stories of his explosive hijinks as a youth when he blew up sand on the beaches of Sydney. But over dinner, we also debated the morality of modern society. And where could be more apt than Kalgoorlie? The town's also famous for brothels—many which have public day tours. At night, they're open for another kind of business.

New 'South Wales'? Or 'New South' Wales?

Bill Bryson raises the question in his book In a Sunburnt Country, regarding the naming by Captain Cook of this Australian state. Did the place remind him of new version of South Wales? Or was it a new, southern version of Wales? We'll never know. But the mystery didn't stop me from shuffling my work schedule slightly, and getting a week off to visit Australia's largest city and it's nearby mountain scenery.

In short, Sydney is one of the world's great cities. It has a beautiful climate; a coastline of cliffs, beaches and rocky outcrops that winds endlessly around coves, inlets and bays. They've preserved and exploited the waterfront in a fine balance. There's lots of high and medium density living, with decent public transit (including many ferries up and down the harbour). I sound like an advert, but I really liked the city! People there know how to ride escalators properly (stand to one side, damnit); have some fashion sense (no bogans in ugg boots and pyjamas); and were very interesting and helpful during my random encounters with locals (except the old crazy lady, who approached me ranting, swearing and spitting. She called me a 'harlequin', then bonked me on the head)

The Cross
This infamously seedy neighbourhood near the heart of Sydney didn't disappoint. The popular backpacker street is lined with hostels, while the curb is lined with rows of "for sale" camper vans and their loitering inhabitants.
I went to the famous center of King's Cross—beneath a giant Coca Cola billboard—for some people-watching and photography. I watched an ambulance go past, then two horse-mounted cops, then a gang of 6 police officers walking the beat on a 'routine' patrol. Ten minutes later, the scene repeated itself! Another ambulance, horse-cops, and gang of walking cops. I watched a few people get arrested, and moved on.
A woman of the night offered her services, so I offered mine back to her, seeing what she would pay me.
Not even attention.

Blinded by Science
One minor reason for going to Sydney was to see an art exhibition by Olafur Eliasson, a Danish-Icelandic artist who had an exhibition a few years ago in London. I'd seen flickr photos of it and was amazed—he loves to interact with the viewer to mess with their perceptions of scale, space, perspective, etc. In this one he used the simplest elements of geometry, light, shadow, and mirrors to create awe-inspiring pieces I explored with the excitement of a child on Christmas morning.
Besides the joy the overall exhibition brought me, I got an additional boost from some of the many college art students on a class field trip. They were examining a very simple exhibit, where the artist has set up a spotlight in a dark room and aimed it at a slowly rotating disc of glass. The glass was treated in order to cause thin-film interference** (like your glasses, or a soap bubble). This made the reflected light purple (moving slowly around the room as the disc spun) and the transmitted light yellow (fixed in one place on the wall behind the disc). As the glass disc rotated, the two colours thus changed in intensity—the yellow circle on the wall becoming more yellow as the spinning circle moving around the room became more purple—due to the effects of incident angle on the strength of thin-film interference.
This thin-film interference works upon basic optics principles (for anyone who's taken high school physics), but to these art students it was baffling magic! I watched and listened in amusement as they debated the cause of these colours, and at one point stared into the (white) spotlight, hoping to see the spotlight changing colour. I love seeing science amaze people. And cause eye damage.

Eating Devices and the D-Store
I wanted to hike in the famous Blue Mountains just outside Sydney, but knew nobody to come with me. I like the extra adventure that strangers bring to the mix, so I found myself a couple camping/hiking mates online and we were off for 3 days. The Aussie with us, who knows about lavish Australian-style campsites, complete with gas grills, counters, shelters, water, and toilets, assured me our campsite would have water. It had an amazing view of the escarpment and valley below, and a luxury composting toilet; but no water. I decided our best bet was to befriend the other campers and try to mooch some water for our big day-hike, planned for sunrise the next day. We'd first greet everyone; then assess which group had the most favourable combination of friendliness and spare water; then, mooch away.

First we said hello to a couple in a rented campervan, and although the girl was friendly her boyfriend just stared at us and wouldn't even say hello. Perhaps he thought we were being too friendly (with his girlfriend). In her french-Swiss accent she told us "There's no point speaking to him, he doesn't know english!". Mystery solved. Level of friendliness: Reasonable. Water level: Low.

We moved onto a trio of unclean, heavily bearded, wild-looking young men. They were cooking some strange squash and spring-onion stew, beside their elaborately self-painted campervan. They were surrounded by an explosion of clothes, tent, surfboard, guitars, water, and food. Their kitchen table was the broken body of a guitar. We thought at first glimpse that they were daggy Australians, but they were immediately betrayed by their bouncy Swedish accents.
I can't remember what we first spoke about, but it wasn't long before one of them (Mats) appeared from behind the campervan, his arms full of spring-onions. He asked "Would you like some spring-onions?"
A strange offer, I thought. Definitely the first time I've been offered free spring-onions. But I hate spring-onions. I politely declined.

I wandered around a bit and noticed they had some loaves of bread. Seven. I asked Jans how he expected to eat them all before they went stale. "We don't" he replied, handing me one.
"So why'd you buy so many?" I asked.
He leaned in towards me, and lowered his voice. I leaned in closer, and he began to speak quietly in his hilarious bouncy Swedish accent,
"Have you ever heard of dumpster diving?"
I was in stitches before I could respond. I was so proud of them, I even shook his hand right then. I loved these guys already.
He continued in a low voice. "Don't tell the Swiss, we gave them a loaf earlier but didn't tell them where it came from."

The next morning we awoke to watch the sunrise over the valley below, from the escarpment lookout the campsite was built along. The Swedes offered us some oatmeal for breakfast, and some kiwi fruit (they had about 50). One of us didn't have a bowl yet, as we hadn't finished the container of apricots we planned to convert into a bowl.
"That's okay," Mats said as he offered his bowl. "We have plenty of 'eating devices'."
He reached down and picked up a spoon and a dustpan.

After a long and exhausting dayhike we made dinner from 'rehabilitated' food and stayed up late telling hilarious stories from all of our travels. They'd been working in Melbourne for a few months before this roadtrip began. Isak told us that he hadn't even checked his mobile phone since he quit his job a month ago. "Actually," he corrected himself, "I didn't quit my job. I just left town, and turned off my phone."

The next morning we visited behind the local grocery store, aka the "D-Store", to see what the Swedes could find to restock their kitchen. It was a remarkable amount. And nothing in rough shape either — packaged fruit and veg still in saleable condition; cakes and snacks still unexpired; even a damaged box of gourmet Guylian shell chocolates. Isak coined a new phrase that morning, to go along with many of their other patented phrases.

"Dumpster happiness."

. . . . . . . . .

Shameless self promotion: http://www.michaelfuller.ca/
Look at these photos, because they can't look at themselves. They're a visual feast! And low in calories.

-Mike

P.S. Did anyone else know José González is Swedish? Born and raised!

*See for yourself. I began my drive from work, here.

**For an animation of thin film interference, visit this website

Much Needed 'Strine' Update

2010-02-25T23:44:00.001-08:00

Expressions of Friendship

Greetings everyone. It's been some time since my India updates, and even longer since my last Australia update. The great thing about moving to a crazy new continent is that the mundane becomes hyper-interesting. That's true of travel in general, and one of the primary reasons I travel so much. But eventually the mundane becomes mundane, and there is, quite literally, less to write home about.

Even the (once) strange expressions I now use have become so engrained I question sometimes which are Australian and which are Canadian. (The answer is usually "Australian"). Examples: "I was flat out (like a lizard drinking)" means I was really busy; referring to something as "ordinary", "average", or "agricultural" (they all mean something bad or poor quality); "taking the piss" (making fun of people — very common here); or "full bottle" (completely understanding something).

But with a longer time in one place the plus side is feeling part of some community. I have two; work and Perth. I spend about 2/3rds of my life at work, with the same few hundred people, working, eating, exercising, and socialising. So I've built up some good relationships. In Perth I now have a handful of close friends, whom I define as people I will keep in contact with for the rest of my life, especially when planning future travel in order to reconnect. I have learned, from Perth and Vancouver, that it takes six-months of regular contact and a full year of casual contact to form the 'history' required with people to consider them a close friend.

One such workmate and friend is Fish*, who's actually been teaching me heaps about my newest role at the mine.

Fish and I have absolutely nothing in common on paper. He has a "no reading" policy, so he's never completely read a book in his life. But he's so open and sincere, and has the most amazing ability to make everyone around him happy, so we get along like a house on fire. (That means really well).

Under the Sea

Western Australians are workaholics. People don't dilly-dally. They head straight from school to uni to work and get a mortgage young. Or they quit high school after grade 10, straight to work, and get a mortgage young.

The other day in the ute with Turtle and Fish they were discussing how glad they were to get straight into work at a young age. (Turtle's my boss at age 28, and Fish is coworker at 23). I sarcastically said "Yes, you guys will be ready to retire at 35!"

Except they thought I was being serious. "That's the plan," they confirmed, dead serious.

Misconceptions and Stereotypes

In a secondhand shop I found an interesting book about Australians called "Culture Shock Australia". The writer gives some hilarious views on what people around the world stereotype Australians to be; which I'll reproduce here without express written consent:

"If you are of continental European origin, this means the Aussie is a barbaric, loud-mouthed, ignorant and uncultured, hopelessly provincial. He is physically outsize but mentally miniscule, somewhat naive, and nearly always extremely badly dressed."

"If you are British, you probably see your Antipodean cousin as a rather alarming, far too frank, frequently obscene; a naive colonial boy in shorts, an insular sheep-farmer sporting a big hat with corks hanging off it to keep the flies away."

"If you are Asian... most likely, you have been persuaded that the typical Australian is a dyed-in-the-wool racist, besides being lazy or on the dole and totally incompetent.."

He does go on to explain where this misconceptions come from, to give the Aussies some justice. I'm not agreeing with these stereotypes, as they are exaggerations, but as the author writes later, "...where there is smoke, there are usually a few glowing coals.."

Positive about Perth

I realise that in my few emails regarding life in Australia, my views of Perth were not always positive. But Perth is an easy target for criticism, which is especially common because so many people miss home, having immigrated here for a job.

So, many months ago, I decided against the easy route of slamming Perth, instead focusing on the great things. One of which is the extensive network of dedicated cycling paths. I still don't own a car**, so ride everywhere. The paths mean no more running red lights or lane-splitting between slow traffic—fun as that may be. It also gets me places more quickly than the lackluster public transit (Oops, think positive).

Because of it being summer and all, this city really starts livening up. There are massive music festivals every weekend, serving all tastes; a month-long international arts festival with daily plays, music, films, and public art.

The climate lies just slightly warmer than "perfect"; this summer's had a record-breaking rainless streak of 83 days. And (coming from Vancouver I wouldn't think this is possible, but) I've forgotten what clouds look like.

I hope you're all living healthy, enjoying every moment as they come, learning something new everyday, and meeting somebody new every week.

From Down Unda,

-Mike

P.S. Of course there's been some more photographic adventures since India, including a successful fishing trip where I caught one weighing more than all my life's previously caught fish, combined. Click the thumbnail above.

P.P.S. If "strine" is confusing just read it aloud.

* Fish's name actually has nothing to do with drinking like one. He's actually an incredible swimmer.

** I actually just bought a car since writing this. I'm proud to say it only cost me as much as my bicycle plus mobile phone. Let's see how long it holds up.

Better Late Than Dead (India update #5)

2009-11-09T07:36:00.002-08:00

High Tea
Our next destination was the northwestern Indian hill station city of Darjeeling, famous for the tea grown on sprawling plantations nearby, with gorgeous views of the Himalayas including the tallest and third tallest peaks on the planet. From Kathmandu our choice of transportation was a 17 hour bus ride along some of the most treacherous roads, passing many burnt out wreckages of unlucky buses; or, a 45-minute flight. It wasn't a difficult choice. And the flight only ran an hour behind schedule, which I deem quite a success.

The winding mountain road leading to and from Darjeeling is lined with bright, hand-painted signs of caution to potential dangerous drivers. We delighted in reading the clever messages, and can recall a few:

"Slow by five, save lives",

"Drive with whisky, very risky",

"Better late than dead", and my favourite,

"Hurry burry spoils the curry".

In Darjeeling we awoke early to watch the sun rise from a popular indoor lookout built on Tiger Hill. Hundreds of Indian tourists traveled from far and wide for this event and we found them to be quite the spectacle. A pulsing mob of people crammed us into the corner of the room against a window, shoving and clambering over each other, knocking me down into my seat a number of times, in order to take photos of.....
A thick fog, enveloping the entire hill. I grew frustrated at the insanity and complete lack of photo opportunities, so I crossed the room to find a clear view of the tallest mountains in the world, bathed in a beautiful pink morning alpine glow. And to get a clear photo, I only had to shove a couple people out of my way — the mob was all staring into the fog hoping to glimpse the sun rising over some unremarkable hills. When the fog did part (a little) an uproar of cheers erupted from the crowd. It's the first time I've ever heard people hooting, clapping, and cheering for a sunrise.

Garçon! Coffee!
The restaurant service in many of the establishments we've visited has been less than stellar. Of course, when people are making $2 a day you cannot expect prompt and friendly service, but I've begun compiling a list of some of the hilariously bad service we've received.
In one very posh Kolkata bakery the only cashier was unable to serve the customers, because he was busy having a conversation on his mobile phone. In a famous Darjeeling tea house /coffee shop we were told flatly that they had no croissants, when we could plainly see a pile of them beneath a sign marked "croissants". At a swanky hotel restaurant in Nepal we were first told they wouldn't serve a la carte meals — only the overpriced buffet. But then they changed their minds. We sat down and ordered a milkshake — but were told they had no milk. Minutes later they changed their minds and brought us the drink. I ordered a veggie burger — but was told they had no bread. I offered to go out to the street and pick some up — and then suddenly yes, they did have bread.

We both asked each other if we looked or smelled wretched, not able to believe that the waiter was so clueless.

Packed like Sardines / Sit Down, Stand Up
When riding the Metro here it's quite apparent that pushing and shoving is a part of the game. No matter how many people are crammed in the train car and preparing to exit, the incoming passengers will force their way into the car, slowing or preventing the escape of the outgoing passengers as they plug the door.

When we flew domestic from Kolkata to Delhi we witnessed another incarnation of this behaviour. Seconds after the plane landed and began taxiing off the runway, nearly everybody leapt out of their seats, opened baggage compartments and crammed themselves into the aisles pushing up to the door. I could only shake my head and laugh. Even my Indian seat-mate chuckled in agreement.

Taxi Strangeness

Much like in China, I felt remarkably safe throughout the entire trip. Probably because the country is so crowded, one never feels isolated and vulnerable to kidnapping or mugging. The morning of my final departure from India, however, was an exception.

In the early hours of the morning my pre-arranged taxi showed up and the driver came to the door. But so did two other men, apparently coworkers (or accomplices?) of the taxi driver. I suspiciously entered the cab, wondering why three people were necessary to pick me up (unless I was going to be kidnapped. Then three was the optimal number). Fortunately the extra two never joined me in the cab.

As we neared the airport, I could see a man standing alone at the roadside. My cabbie slowed down and the man got in — without a word or even a glance exchanged between them — and we drove on. Once again I became suspicious, but it was overshadowed by my feeling of entertainment at the creepiness of the ride thus far.

Near the terminal minutes later, just as suddenly and silently, we slowed and the man handed some change to the driver and got out. I wouldn't be kidnapped after all.

Through the long plane rides back to Australia I looked forward to the comfort and normality of a sensible Western society. After an uneventful jaunt through customs, I left the airport after 1am and found a taxi queue of more than forty people. Incredulous, I investigated and found that all the taxis were lined up single file like a McDonalds drive-thru, picking up passengers one group at a time, before depositing the required $2 to raise the gate and exit the drive-thru. There were plenty of cabs, but this idiotic arrangement was significantly slowing them from collecting all the passengers. Apparently I had been away from Western Australia too long, because I forgot that WA isn't always a sensible Western society.

The photos are mostly up now, but stay tuned for a few more. Click the thumbnail above to view.

Thanks for all the comments everybody. Until next time,

- Mike

Anything is Possible (India update #4)

2009-11-02T05:07:00.001-08:00

Watch Your Step
Varanasi, once known as Benares, is an ancient, sacred city along the Ganges river. Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains all consider both the city and the river holy, and more than one million pilgrims visit it annually. It's described as the oldest continually inhabited city in the world; Mark Twain said "Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together". Varanasi is a caricature of Indian stereotypes: Religious, crowded, loud and dirty. It's a place of extremes, and despite a few weeks already in India, was a real shocker.

Varanasi is the most disgusting place I've ever been -- this isn't a complaint, it's why I went there. In the narrow alleyways along the river, I was blocked in by roaming cows who needed a wipe, and confronted with corpses: Of mice, and a cardboard-stiff cat. I paused in sympathy at a mangy stray dog, covered thick with flies, convulsing uncontrollably in it's last throes of life. I encountered piles of feces from at least 3 different animals, including humans. And all this in the fifteen minute walk to my hotel.

The Ganges is many things. Somehow it is simultaneously a rubbish tip, a holy bathing place, a sewer, and a sacred cemetery. You can watch people placing lit candles in the river as blessings, next to others bidding farewell to their bags of rubbish. Hundreds of people excitedly bathe and swim daily, unfazed by the city's piped-in raw sewage. The real confronting part though, was the bodies. We walked to one of the ghats (steps leading down to the river's edge), and saw a few pyres burning casually, apparently untended. As we approached I was apprehensive about what I knew was in the fire. I soon noticed a pair of feet sticking out, with the skin melting off the bones.

It is quite a sacred honour for Hindus to be cremated on the holy Ganges river, and everyday three hundred are set alight. About thirty people who are not to be cremated -- children, priests, lepers, among others -- are ferried out from shore, tied to a rock, and dumped overboard. I asked about floating bodies that I'd heard about. "Sometimes the rocks come loose," the boatman told us. We learned that people must be cremated the same day they die, so there is a house located a few meters from the burning ghat full of poor, sick people, waiting to die. They are accepting donations in order to pay for the wood needed for their own cremation. Another quite humbling place.

On a happier note, we experienced Varanasi during the nation's biggest festival.

Where's the Earplugs?
Diwali, the Festival of Lights, is a two day celebration, that is ostensibly about exchanging sweets with relatives, and setting off an obscene amount of firecrackers. From our hotel rooftop, the highest in the neighbourhood, we watched a panorama of roman candles, sparklers, fireworks, spark showers, and cherry bombs. This unbelievable combustion of black powder began in the morning, and reached a peak at dusk, which lasted well until the night. The typical igniter of these 'firebombs' was an unsupervised ten-year old boy. These kids showed no patience for dud firecrackers, which they eagerly picked up again to attempt to relight. I wonder how many digits were lost that evening.

Hunting Rhinos
In Nepal we found an exceptionally pleasant and warm people, and a welcome respite from India. Last year when I visited the Australia Zoo I was excited to feed an elephant, but in Nepal's Royal Chitwan Park I got to bathe with one in the river, get sprayed with a trunk full of water, and get shaken off one's back before it dunked me underwater. Later, Dan and I had a mini safari and found wild rhinos. Our mode of transportation was "Bonekelly", a lumbering elephant.

The Kathmandu valley is a fertile, hilly place full of rice terraces and dotted with small farming villages. We rented mountain bikes and rode out of town, and after a grueling climb for a couple hours on 'roads' unfit even for mountain bikes, we felt destroyed. When deciding on a hotel I spotted a sign for "The Hotel at the End of the Universe". I decided if there was a restaurant, we'd have to stay the night. There was.

On our ride home we flew down a lengthy downhill of smooth tarmac road (rare in Nepal!), passed buses, taxis, trucks, and motorcycles. The road then flattened, tarmac gave way to a dusty and mangled gravel road, and we weaved our way between vehicles and pot holes, and with a little help grabbing the back of trucks for speed boosts, we got back to Kathmandu faster than the motor vehicles! A win for self-propelled transportation.

But a loss for my rattled hands and bruised butt.

Photos are fresh from the oven. Have a taste by biting into the thumbnail shown above.

Sab kuch milega,
-Mike

(A popular Hindi saying, especially good when bargaining and they tell you your price is impossible. It roughly means "Anything is possible")

Yes? No? Maybe? OK! (India update #3, from Nepal)

2009-10-24T01:53:00.002-07:00

Early Bird gets the Worm
Most people go to Agra only to see the Taj Mahal, and maybe the Red Fort. They write off the town as a filthy hole full of touts and tacky souvenirs, but I had a fun day of random exploration in the old city bazaar I'd like to tell you about.
But first I should say that the Taj Mahal is the most exquisite building I've ever visited, especially when seen at dawn and when the crowds are small. I arrived early, got some beautifully 'magic hour' photographs, loitered around, and left before 9am. Later in the day I overheard a South African complaining about police pushing people out of the Taj. I had seen people getting ushered along if they loitered too long inside the tomb, a small dark room inside the Taj, and assumed he was talking about this.
No, no: An army of police officers with bamboo sticks herded thousands of tourists out of the entire building and surrounding gardens shortly after I left! Some people were actually struck when they turned to take some final photos on their way out. I couldn't believe what he was saying. The officers also reminded the tourists as they kicked them out the gate that their $15 entry tickets were not valid for reentry. Please come again!
Apparently a "VIP" was coming for a visit (allegedly the President of Argentina, which I couldn't confirm). They would re-open 6 hours later.

I later wandered into the bazaar, and left behind the ocean of tourists visiting the town's actual tourist attractions. People were not used to seeing a happy Canadian wandering around smiling and saying 'namaste', and every 20 minutes somebody ushered me into their shop to have a chat:

First there was the Muslim leather dealer who told me you can get beef (illegal in this holy city) secretly if you knew the right people. He also told me that leather was farmed from cows after they stopped producing milk. I didn't think you could kill cows in India!

Then there was the young pharmacist who said to me gravely "You look so comfortable, walking around here. Do you feel safe here?".
I replied "Of course, why shouldn't I feel safe? Are you dangerous? Is he dangerous?", indicating his goofy friend; and as a smile began to creep across his face, I pointed to a frail old man nearby and asked "Is he dangerous?!".
That set him laughing.

Later there was a naan man baking in his tandoor, who laughed when I tried to look inside and got a face full of wood-smoke. Next door was the blacksmith with crazy green eyes who showed me his international coin collection glued to the wall. He had two Canadian dimes; unfortunately I had nothing to contribute.

I befriended a bicycle rickshaw driver who happily explained his name was "One-Two" (spelt Vantu). I learned he gets 50 cents if he brings tourists to certain shops to look around, so I let him bring me to one. I took him out for lassi (a yogurt drink) and he told me about his life. He never want to school. As he put it, "Money... is a problem for my family." He taught himself to read and write Hindi with help from friends who did attend school, but he's unable to read or write in English. He began working at age 11 in a restaurant, where he'd earn $1/day. He saved enough for the rickshaw (about $200) and now by transporting tourists (only) he earns at least $5 per day. He happily bragged that some tourists pay him five times the price he's willing to accept for the 3 km cycle I was on. He had some Australian coins he couldn't change at the bank, which I offered to buy for the proper exchange rate. When I shelled out the hundreds of rupees for the coins, it reminded me how cheap India really is. Because I never think in dollars, only rupees, I'm often bargaining over 25 cents. It was a good reality-check.

Making a Difference
Where a quick horn toot would suffice, Indians (and to a lesser extend, Nepalis) opt for prolonged, and often repeated, deafening blasts. Dan had a brilliant idea: Buy a hand-held airhorn, and blast back at the horn lovers.

When a single-file line at a train station would be fair and efficient, Indians opt for a mob, three to four people deep, jostling for position; a snake-fight of arms waving rupees at the small ticket window. I've began trying, one person at a time, to remind people how to line up. When someone jumps in the queue I tap them and, smiling, tell them we have a line (miming a straight line) and they should join the end of it (indicating with my thumb over my shoulder). Surprisingly, people nearly always comply, with a look of shameful incredulity on their faces. Others in the line are pleasantly surprised at my audacity, and usually inspired at least temporarily to continue the habit of forcing queue-jumpers to the end of the line.

When all our patience is sapped for touts, who can be a constant annoyance in the busier tourist cities ("You want hotel? Taxi? Trek? See my shop? Change money? Hashish? Jiggy-jiggy?"), we began to try and have some fun with them. Yesterday a bicycle rickshaw accosted me, offering a ride on his rickshaw. I responded by asking if he wanted a ride on my rickshaw. He did. So I jumped on his bicycle, and he sat in the back, while I rode myself to my hotel. I didn't even charge him for it.

Today a tout just walked up to us and said "Yes?". I replied "No?". Then Dan added "Maybe?". And the tout replied "OK!". And we continued walking.

Complaining alone is too easy. It's more fun to try doing something about it.

Take Care of Your Bags
The sixteen-hour night train journey from Agra to Varanasi was completely booked out and tremendously oversold. Even the emergency tickets were impossible to get, because the largest festival of the year Diwali was the very next day and Indians were traveling home for it. A 20+ hour bus trip was out of the question, and I had to be in Varanasi, so I got some advice to just board the sleeper coach with my 'general' ticket (which they never sell out of) and bribe the conductor into giving me a bed. This is the Indian way of doing things.

As the train arrived I took a look at the 'general' class. People filled the seats and aisles, the cars so full many were actually hanging completely outside of the train. Clearly those cars were not an option, so I jumped into a sleeper car and onto a bed stacked with luggage. As long as the train began to move with me on it, I was home-free. A young man asked me what bed was mine. "Uhm, this one I think?"
"Let me see your ticket. This is my bed" he said.
"Uh, the ticket's buried in my pack. My bed must be down here." and I moved on. Drat.
I scoured up and down the train car. It became obvious that my brilliant idea of boarding a full train was not unique. There was at least a quarter too many people in this car! I walked past a bed with a bit of space beside 3 other Indians, one of them smiling at me. "Here's my chance," I thought. I sat down, flashed smiles and tossed out 'namastes', started getting to know smile guy and the rest in this 8-bed section, and offered around my box of Indian sweets. The train began moving and I was in the clear, or so I thought.
Later on the conductor wandered down the train. I was nervous, but it became obvious that he wasn't even bothering checking tickets. There were way too many people like me and sorting out the mess would be impossible. I knew that no beds were available so I watched him walk past.
I migrated from the edge of one person's bed to another, moving when they began fidgeting to get their space back. Indians have a different sense of personal space than we do, and don't mind crowding, but I wanted to be nice to people who presumably paid full fare. I slept in innumerable awkward positions stretched across bunks, curled up in corners, kinked-neck crammed into low-headroom spaces, and arched across my backpack laying on the floor. Late in the night a family decided to join our 8-bed compartment, now holding 13 people. This was insane.
Sometime after midnight I was kicked awake by railway police, carrying absurd rifles (we're on a train!) and beaming a flashlight in my face. "Ticket, ticket" they demanded. I put on the best clueless-tourist-who-just-woke-up face you've ever seen, and searched for my ticket -- for another class, remember -- handing it to them non-nonchalantly. They began to chuckle.
(Aside: I get nervous when I hear police chuckle, owing to the Kashgar policeman in China who held us for 4 hours of questioning before demanding a bribe (see "Escape from Xinjiang (China Update #9)") and nearly causing us to miss our expensive train.)
In a thick accent they asked me where my bags were. "Oh no. I'm going to be booted off a train in the middle of nowhere at midnight," I feared. I slowly pulled out my backpack from under the seat. Suddenly they said in a pleasant tone, "Please take care of your bags," and walked off. That was close!
I spent the next few hours sleeping on the floor underneath the bottom bunk, with my torso protruding into the aisle, where people would step over my face to get past. I managed to get a few hours of sleep before my shoulders went numb and I had to sit up.
In the morning I talked at length with three of the Indians with whom I shared many laughs, especially when rehashing the insanity of the previous night. I recalled to them that a fat old man had kicked me gently a few times before letting out a huge fart, and then placing his feet firmly in my lap for 15 minutes.
The three Indians got along like old friends, laughing and telling stories, but had only just met on that train ride! It really blew me away how these sort of experiences are lacking in our day to day Western lives where we don't even say hello to most of the hundreds of people we brush past each day.

We're in Kathmandu now for a couple days, glad to have some reprieve from the insanity of India. Take a look at my photos and mini-stories from the trip so far by clicking the thumbnail above

-Myke

P.S. Most people here spell my name with a slight twist.

Horn Please

2009-10-15T06:41:00.002-07:00

You may have noticed photos from Amritsar's Golden Temple, the holiest place for Sikhs. All Sikhs are expected to make a pilgrammage to the Temple once in their life, and volunteer for a week. There is an enormous hostel housing thousands of pilgrims (and a few tourists), a kitchen that feeds up to ten thousand meals each day, and many other general maintenance tasks -- all completed by the army of volunteers at no charge to visitors. (though of course donations are welcomed).

There is a museum in the Temple outlining the history of the Sikh people, which I can summarise in one word: Martyrdom. They've had lots of it, and they've got no qualms about sharing. The gallery has hundreds of gory paintings of Sikhs through history getting persecuted. I've never seen such graphic depictions in an art gallery before. There's three I specifically remember:

- A man is serenely placed, with a zen-like look of calm contentment on his face, over a roaring fire in an enormous pot of boiling water.

- Another man is tied up, in between two men handling opposite ends of a large saw. They are sawing the Sikh in half, from the head down.

- The last is a man tied around a huge wooden cyclinder, being flattened between an opposing cylinder covered in steel spikes.

The gallery was definitely not rated PG.

When we arrived in Shimla, a beautiful Swiss-mountain-resort style town set in the Himalayan foothills, built up along sharp ridges, we tried to find an auto-rickshaw along with a British guy named Jeeves. When the first driver told us the standard outlandish "first price", we laughed at him and asked another guy. The first driver interrupted and said "It is the same. We are all the same. We have a union!"

As if on cue, all three of us split open with laughter. A minute later while I tried to catch my breathe, the man yelled at us, "Stop laughing! We are serious!"

After laughing a bit more, we stretched our lungs and legs in the mountain air, and walked to our hostel.

While I'm on the topic of fun with auto-rickshaw drivers I'll tell another story. We exited one garden and three men simultaneously accosted us. We tried to play them off each other, getting them all down to 30 rupees, where they wouldn't budge. So we showed them the Canadian flag and told them the first one to guess the country gets our fare. None of them had any clue. "Poland? England?". We even gave them multiple choice. No luck. Their patience was waning. This was going to be the hardest $0.75 they'd ever earned.

So we just picked the guy with the blue shirt, Dan's favourite colour.

Most of the auto-rickshaws, taxis, and cycle-rickshaws have a colourful "Horn Please" painted on their rears. A minority opposition sport "No Horn", but it doesn't stop anybody. As one auto-rickshaw driver explained, "Better to have horn than to have brakes."

The horn is the quintessential sound of India. But horns come in great variety. There's the standard horn, the dying-horn, the buzz, the quack, the vibratto, the siren (for ambulances), the cycle-rickshaw bell (technically not a horn), and even ditties. I'm sure there are many more rare and endangered horn species yet to discover. I'll keep you posted.

I'm off to catch a completely full night train, 12 hours to Varanasi. I've been instructed on how to bribe the train conductor into getting me a sleeper bunk, or at least a spot on the floor devoid of rubbish or cockroaches. Wish me luck,

-Mike

P.S. New photos as usual by clicking the thumbnail above

Touchdown (India update #1)

2009-10-08T10:09:00.002-07:00

Coming from Canada, Dan arrived about a week before I did. Normally
very eloquent, his single email prior to my arrival had some profane
exclamations about the place, without much detail. It piqued my
interest and I couldn't wait to get here. Knowing how impossible his
hotel would be to find, we arranged a place to meet just hours before
my departure: An intersection in the Main Bazaar area at 3:30am. No
problem, assuming my flight arrived on time.

I awoke in the middle of the night when my flight to Delhi touched
down. Confused about the time zones, it seemed like we were a bit
early, but my last flight had been 20 minutes early too. "Welcome to
Kolkata", the pilot said. Pardon me?

My seat-mate, a Buddhist Burmese surgeon from Kansas (fascinating
guy), confirmed what was going on. Somebody on board had a heart
attack: "A chubby Chinese man from Singapore". The pilot came on the
speaker soonafter and in his thick Indian accent said, "Sorry we
didn't explain the situation with the heart attack passenger early,
but we didn't want to 'psyche him out'". I've never heard a pilot say
"psyche him out" before.

Knowing only Dan's hotel's name, I looked forward to the mission of
finding it when I would eventually land, 3 hours late, in Delhi. It
didn't prove as fun or difficult as I hoped, because I just kept
asking strangers until I found myself in front of the place. That's
the beauty of traveling here -- so many people speak english! Though
it's a big plus, along with extensive rail networks, travel here poses
many challenges. Filth and poverty, how easily you can fall ill,
endless touts and beggars accosting you, and oppressive tropical heat
and humidity.

On the lovely topic of filth, one of the funniest juxtapositions is
seen when riding the 2nd class trains. Very clean, smartly dressed
local men in pressed pants and shirts and polished leather shoes step
into the train bathrooms, greeted by an aromatic combination of
excreta sloshing around the floor. I just can't get over the hilarity
of that contrast.

Today a man in the market selling an air rifle I inquired about
proceeded to cock it and level it at my face. I quickly pushed the
barrel down and away from me and yelled at him. He just laughed and
said "it's just an air rifle, hahaha it can't hurt you!" I told him
it'd do some damage getting shot in the eye. Fool.

Many more stories to tell, but it's late. There's some nice photos
and short stories on my website. Just click the thumbnail image above.

Namaste,
-Mike

Michael who?

2009-08-31T07:18:00.002-07:00

Banking on Coincidences
The credit card I hurried through in order to quickly buy my Macbook Pro sent my first statement last month. It had all my purchases on it, but a few oddities. Last time I checked my name wasn't "Michael David Fuller"; and my card number wasn't right.

Australian banks haven't impressed me much. On top of my Citibank Visa not working with Apple (see "Bitter Winter Solstice", 21 June), my Citibank online login requires me to type in my password by clicking a visual keyboard with my mouse. On top of that being a ridiculous way to enter any discrete type of information (no, I don't mean discreet), it means I can't bank if I'm ever in a public place with the possibility of wandering eyes or cameras present. And now another bank sends me a statement that could be somebody else's, who just happened to purchase the same items, on the same days, that I did.
I called them up and was told the credit card number is changed by a few digits for security purposes: In case anybody opens my mail. As dumb as I think that is, the best part is yet to come.

I had to go in to a branch to sort out the "David" thing in person, and what the branch manager discovered was shocking (to her) and hilarious (to me). They had linked my credit card to some freak, with my exact birthdate, named Michael David Fuller, who recently closed his accounts in New South Wales (across the country). If I decided not to pay my $3000 bill it would be his responsibility to repay it, with his credit rating on the line. If only I knew beforehand; you'd all have flights to Perth, care of my doppelgänger.

Canadian Snow Boots
It's very often that I must remind visitors to my place to take their shoes off. The unit is carpeted, and Perth is built on sand, so things get very gritty very quickly if people were to trod around the house in their shoes. I didn't really think about this behaviour much. I just assumed I had a less polite social circle than I had in Canada. But I would now like to share with you a scientific fact: Australians (generally) do not remove their shoes in the house! I'm pretty sure Canadians generally do (but let me know if I'm wrong).
I had a discussion at work with a group who would not remove their shoes in their own or friend's places unless specifically requested. They claim "if we had big snow-boots like in Canada—sure we'd take them off."
But we canucks don't remove our shoes just because they're snowy! I don't want all the grass, sand, gum, feces, smushed snails, discarded junkie's needles—and whatever else you step on— smeared all over my carpet! This is a matter of practicality: How long does it take to remove a pair of shoes vs. vacuuming or steam cleaning carpets?

Hey!
All Australians pronounce 'H' as "heych" instead of "8ch". They also say "hey?" instead of "eh?". This must mean something....

Song and Dance
My time on the Project Team is wrapping up in a month, and though I'm excited to start something new (and go on a month's holidays with my best friend), I'm really going to miss this team! They're the best professional coworkers I've ever had. The consultants are highly-experienced overachieving management superstars from eclectic backgrounds with great idiosyncrasies, the company employees are enthusiastic and interesting, and everybody is fun, encouraging, and hilarious. One consultant Jason is a cool nerd who did some breakdancing when growing up in Sydney.

We often take 'field trips' to nearby historic sites. Last week we were visiting an old cemetery. While I carefully framed a photograph of a tombstone, I heard Michael Jackon's "Thriller" begin to play behind me. I slowly turned around, to see Jason, performing moves from the famous music video. I laughed until my sides hurt.

This morning in our group office, Jason said to us "I'm sorry guys but I need to put on some of my music for a minute", and began playing some Village People. When the "YMCA" chorus came, we couldn't stop ourselves. While we danced away, two other team members were having a serious meeting in the end office with the door open—so only one of them could see us dancing. He burst into laughter, totally confusing his meeting partner who then rushed out to see three of us disco dancing between the desks. It was then brought up at the daily review meeting as a "success of the day". I love these guys.

Contemporary Art
A month ago I attended an art gallery opening in Perth that—in terms of what I've seen here in nearly a year—stands unrivaled,. This art gallery opened for one and only one night. They had a fantastic local DJ spinning breaks and house music, and a makeshift bar, and over a thousand excited people attended to wander this labyrinthine gallery to appreciate the hundreds of pieces on display! What makes the event so unique is that this art gallery was in a five-storey carpark.
A local street art organiser, Ololo, was first asked to 'brighten up' the entrance to the parking garage. The owners loved it so much the whole project blew up into what is probably the largest single gallery of street art in the world. Over 18 months, 60 artists from across the country were brought in to paint hundreds of works. And they did fabulous work. You must really have a look at the set here, which only captures some of my favourite pieces, but provides more backstory. Like the dismembered head that joined us live from Denmark.

For my flickr photostream with a very atypical collection of recent additions from long ago: Africa, Brisbane, Hockey (in Australia!) and Hong Kong, please have a gander here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrfuller/

A photo never gazed at may as well be a photo never taken. Without you, my photos are powerless!

- Michael David Fuller

P.S. I've got my flights sorted for Christmas, to Toronto with stopover in Vancouver. If you'll be around please let me know.

Malaysia: Street Gangs, Shopping, and Scam Artists

2009-07-22T06:49:00.004-07:00

I took my last breath of airconditioned Australian air as I prepared to disembark. (I already liked this country, since they used the correct verb 'disembark' instead of the outrageous Americanism 'deplane'). I stepped out of the plane—onto the tarmac, of course—and filled my lungs with sweet, tropical, major-city-in-a-developing-country air: A combination of tropical forest, dirty fuel combustion, exotic food, sweat, impending rain, and sewage. Just delicious!

Treating Myself

I hate to read play-by-play travelogues, and avoid writing them, but I need to illustrate the great diversity of mostly food-related, and mostly cheap experiences possible in KL. My first full day in Kuala Lumpur:

Jackfruit followed by Chinese steam bun for breakfast, monorail to Chinatown to explore. Get a traditional back/arm massage ($10). Malaysian nasi goreng kampung (fried rice with egg, prawn, chicken) for lunch with a pandan-almond-coconut cake snack, then back to the Golden Triangle area to hunt for electronics deals. After an exhaustive floor-by-floor exploration of the six-storey electronics mall—which takes hours and requires meticulous note-taking to relocate the cheapest places again—I bump into a hostelmate in a street cafe and join him for some hookah with mint shisha and enjoy a starfruit juice. Then I hike over to the 4th largest telecommunications tower in the world (CN Tower being the tallest) and watch the sunset from 275m (this was an expensive $12 but has a higher viewing platform than the Petronas Towers—formerly the tallest buildings in the world). I descended the tower, ate a Malaysian waffle-cake with kaya (coconut & caramel spread), then found a fine sushi restaurant for dinner (with promotional prices: $2 dinner!). On my exhausted walk home I found a nice cocoa soya milk in 7-11. Total food cost for the day: $10!

Street Gangs of Melaka

Malaysia is divided into two separate land masses, KL being in West Malaysia. I make it a habit of visiting United Nations protected sites (UNESCO) if I'm ever nearby, and two hours south of KL is a a town built up around what was once a vital stopover point for traders between East Asia and South Asia, Melaka.
While on a wander I encountered the most curious of gangs. They were all dressed in black, had matching t-shirts, and appeared to be sponsored by Nikon. They turned out to be a club of Malaysian Nikon digital SLR photographers, each with their nicknames on their shirts and the shiniest, most expensive gear imaginable. One guy jokingly maintained he only shot with the kit lens (the standard lens that comes with a new camera), but take a look for yourself. He held a lens worth five-times the price of a kit lens! I made fun of how shiny their cameras were, comparing their straps' bright "Nikon" logo to my well faded and worn out logo. They told me how cheap you could buy a new Nikon strap in Malaysia. I told them they are missing my point! They were such a good spirited bunch and we had a lot of laughs in just a few minutes. We're all Flickr buddies now, so I can see that most of them are remarkably talented. I usually worry when I see people with shiny cameras.
If the cameras didn't already give it away, I think some of them have a bit of money: One guy has photos of his friends tackling each other on the shiny hood of their Ferrari.

Cultural Fascinations

A few observations about Malaysians and KL:

- despite Kuala Lumpur being the shopping capital of the world, I witnessed a handful of people boarding the escalators as if it was their first time. They stood ready at it's base, staring down at the moving steel before them, waiting for the precise time to step forward as if they were preparing to leap from a bridge onto a moving train.

- Malaysians like really loud and irritating cell phone sounds.

- The Petronas twin towers as a landmark an added dimension of navigational usefulness than a traditional single skyscraper. A regular single tower will tell you, with a glance from any point in the city, how far away you are from that landmark. With no other tall buildings around, you don't know which direction you are from the landmark, only the distance. But with twin towers, by seeing how much one eclipses the other, you can glean a second piece of navigation information: Knowing your position relative to the axis of the two towers (i.e. whether you're north/south of them, or east/west of them). Now if only they made them different colours, you could then figure out your location precisely from anywhere in sight of the towers.

- In Canada we have Chinese-Canadians, but in Malaysia you have Malaysian-Chinese. I asked around and met Malaysians whose grandparents emigrated from China as children, but these 3rd generation Malaysians first language was still Mandarin. Despite the multicultural flavour of KL (with enormous populations of well-established Indians, Malays, Chinese, and even Indonesians; and large groups of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Christians), these cultures all remain very insulated from each other. Public schooling is in Malay language, but even if Malaysian-Chinese students attend these instead of private Chinese schools, they still keep almost exclusively Chinese friends. Of course, similar people will always associate, but I was surprised to see how strongly the culture is carried between multiple generations. It made me appreciate Canada even better, for we have more of a 'salad-bowl' of cultures, allowing me to have European-Chinese-Indian-Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Atheist friends.

Chasing the Rabbit

On my last day in KL I finally had the random meetings and discoveries I love about traveling. I began the day wandering down to the monorail station and passed an enormous, decrepit, abandoned prison taking up a huge block of valuable real estate in the core of the city. I found a guard tower door open and climbed atop the tower to look inside and take photos over the wall, but didn't dare to climb down into the prison in broad daylight beside a very busy street and monorail line. (Something for the next visit!)

As I wandered around Little India I found a busy place to eat and was seated at the same table as an older Chinese-Malaysian gentleman. He had round-frame eyeglasses and a wispy, grey beard. We got talking, and I found him to be well mannered and educated. He then let me know that he was bound to London soon to be "conferred as a Duke" for his "services to the Queen". He wouldn't elaborate on what services those were, because "people in Malaysia don't much appreciate the Monarchy" so it's a sensitive issue. He then went on to tell me that Michael Jackson died from skin pigmentation complications due to excessive sweating while performing (he knows this because he studied medicine); that he's a harbinger of a radically new generation of muslims; and that his ancestor was the 2nd agong (head of state) of Malaysia, Sultan Hishamuddin. At least he has his facts straight about the Sultan. We had some other interesting discussions, as he wasn't a raving lunatic, but soon the restauranteur was ushering him away—to make room for more hungry customers but also with the knowing smirk of a man who knows this guy regularly entertains tourists.

The next encounter was with a couple of young Filipino couples, who greeted me on the street with "Hey, nice shoes! Where did you buy them?". Even if I wasn't wearing boring hiking shoes, the random greeting would have set off alarm bells. I replied "Canada. Calgary actually. But I'm from Toronto.", and with great surprise he said "Really, Toronto! Wow, my cousin is going there soon to work at a hospital!".
Here we go, I thought. Let's chase this rabbit a little bit. I'd heard of this scam—a popular one in KL—which starts with this ruse. I entertained their friendliness a bit more, and they tried to build some rapport. The whole time I was acutely aware of my wallet, iPhone, and camera. They wanted me to meet their cousin for coffee to answer questions about Toronto, which I agreed to, until they told me she isn't around here but off in some suburb. I kindly declined of course, and emphatically offered my email for any questions she had. They took it without any enthusiasm. Then they promptly said farewell and jumped onto a public bus. Even though I was very careful, due to the rapidity of their departure I had the inevitable mini panic attack as I searched myself for what they may have pick-pocketed. (The last time people ran off that suddenly was in Zambia when I got temporarily conned) What did they take? Nothing! I even searched inside my wallet in case they had magical money-teleporting powers. All the ringgit were right there. I felt a strange mix of curiosity and dissatisfaction, wishing I could have figured out their plans.

Next time I'll set aside more time for aimless wandering, and if I encounter scammers, just ask blatantly, "So how does this scam work?"

If you're not familiar with the routine: I've put up photos on my Flickr site by clicking the thumbnail above. Check them out and comment freely, either on the site or by electronic-mail.

-Mike

P.S. If you're curious about my shopping, I picked up a 500GB USB/Firewire harddrive, a Tokina 11-16mm wide-angle lens, and great Japanese glasses. By avoiding outrageous Australian prices, I saved nearly double my flight costs.

Bitter Winter Solstice

2009-06-22T08:12:00.002-07:00

Light showers and 16˚C! What happened to perpetual summers? But we still managed to outdoor climb today, the winter solstice. And despite having no heating in the house, it's not an issue because I imported some secret weapons: a down vest and down booties.
At work in the outback it's a bit chillier and our utes (pickup trucks) had frost on the windows! I quickly recalled a story some Australian once told me years ago in a Berlin hostel, about how to deal with windshield frost in a land devoid of ice-scrapers. Credit cards! And it worked like a charm. Now if only they worked as credit cards.... (read on)

Seeing the Light at Cosmos
There are big changes afoot for me at Cosmos. I've started a completely new role on the opposite spectrum of my old job, and as a result I've just had the most interesting, challenging, and rewarding week of my working life.
A few months ago some business improvement consultants came to site and did an audit. Then they returned, assembled a team of 6 employees from a cross-section of backgrounds, and began an 18-week business improvement initiative. I heard about all this while working underground and was so intrigued I questioned the head of the consultants, Paul, about their company and the project at Cosmos. I would have loved to be part of the team but I was just getting into some interesting and important underground experience, finally training to operate an expensive and vital production drill rig, so I was content. Well, somebody decided to quit the team, and I was approached by the mine manager. He told me my "keen interest in the project, and inquisitive nature" made me stand out to fill in on the project team. I felt my ego grow a bit. Then he added "And there was really nobody else available," thus returning my ego to its original size.

I've been having a great time, sorting out "areas of opportunity" (consultant-speak for "problems") and facilitating solutions to all sorts of issues surrounding maintenance; being trained by the consultants in management skills; being privy to confidential information regarding the business; working with a 10 person team of intelligent and constructive people; and overjoyed to see that we're beginning to improve all aspects of the operation. I've gone from looking at the mine from the bottom up, to the complete opposite and viewing it all from the top down.

A week before I was pulled out from underground, I had finally begun my drill training. It was a pleasant change from truck driving or service crew, and after a week it was still novel and fun. I got to operate a multi-million dollar longhole rig, which is a precision drilling machine with neat robo-hands to add and remove drill steels. In addition to all my photos over the months, I've uploaded four moderately instructive videos to my YouTube account.

Looking forward
Other upcoming excitement for me includes a short trip in mid-July to Kuala Lumpur (I'll be sure to hug a Kuala there too). I was hoping to also buy a new Macbook Pro, except I had some delays — my Citibank Visa was declined. I called them and was told "We've been having problems with our Visas on the Apple Store. I assure you we're looking into the problem and it will be addressed soon".
I asked them how soon, because I'm damn impatient once I've decided to buy a new computer and it's not in my hands.
"We really couldn't say how long it will take to address, but we are looking into it", she responded.
I said, "Alright, tell me then: When was this problem first identified?"
"January".
Wonderful. It must be their top priority. So I jumped online and applied for another credit card. This bank advertised "Approval possible within 60 seconds of submitting your application!" I filled out the 15 minute application, submitted it, and within 60 seconds, bingo!

"This application requires further review. You will receive our response by letter within 7 business days". So much for the wonders of the internet.

"Livability"
The Economist has just released it's latest livability index based on a city's stability, environment and culture, infrastructure, education, and health care. But not affordability. Story available from The Economist.

I was surprised to learn that I've actually called home 3 of the top 5 cities in the world! I don't know if that's a positive because I've enjoyed myself, or a negative because I have less to look forward to. And I didn't consider any of them to be 'perfect'. But if I could mix and match a few characteristics of Perth (weather, beaches), with Vancouver (mountains, islands, rock climbing) with Toronto (family, multiculturalism, subway, sunny winters) I reckon I could make something approaching paradise. I don't agree with Calgary in there, but I have a hate-on for Calgary.
The bottom 10 cities are also listed, and I've decided they make great inspiration for places to travel next. Harare, here I come!

Food Firsts Down Under
Whenever I travel I always try McDonalds once in each country. There's always something different, like taro pies in China, shrimp burgers in Japan, or avocado-topped 'Magnifico' burgers in Chile. But I have yet to try McDonalds here, more commonly known as 'Mackers'. They don't serve kangaroo, but they do have an Australia burger. I also still haven't tried the Burger King yet, which is called Hungry Jacks. It's the same chain of restaurants, same logo, just different name.
Restaurants aside I'd like to harp on about some other foods. Bagels! They really aren't common down here and I just had my first one in 9 months! And this country needs more granola. Nobody even knows what it is, and the shops only sell "toasted muesli", which isn't crunchy. I've got no problems making my own granola, which I did last night, but if Australia had more granola they'd rank even higher in the livability index.

I've uploaded an eclectic few photos since the Brisbane adventure. They're available as always by clicking the thumbnail above.

Shoot me an email, especially those of you I haven't heard from in forever. Yes, you know who you are.

- 'Full-Strength' Fuller

P.S. Ask me about the new nickname sometime.

Brizzy

2009-05-19T16:17:00.001-07:00

I learned something the other week from my mining crew that was entirely unexpected. When some guys were being particularly sexist to a female truck driver that we rarely work with, I hinted that maybe the best way to have more women entering the industry was to be a little more respectful towards the ones that are already in it. The mine site probably has under 20% female representation, and on the mining crews specifically, closer to 5%. I was amazed at the response: My guys I spoke to feel there shouldn't be any women working underground! Now these aren't superstitious old farts, they're guys in their 20s who never stop talking about women! Perplexed, I dug for answers and they explained to me that women will just sleep around with men and turning them against each other, flirt rather than work hard for promotions, and always rat out somebody for breaking the rules instead of keeping their mouth shut (the "Australian way").

Last month I spent my week off in Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Things didn't start well when the taxi driver took me on a scenic detour to my car rental agency, and attempted to charge me nearly double the fair fare. He failed. Then one fellow at the rental agency had a remarkable outburst at me when he presented the inspection form to sign and I wanted to actually inspect the car before I signed it. How insane of me. When I returned the car at the end of the trip the same man was there and spitefully charged my credit card for fuel without my authorization. Apparently the tank needle wasn't "past Full". We'll see what Visa thinks about this. I don't mention these experiences to complain; I laugh at all of these things. Especially the taxi driver, for joining the likes of other 'confused' cabbies I've had in China, Guatemala, Peru, and Tanzania. I never expected it in the developed world!

The city is a lot more urban than Perth and I welcomed it. Highrises everywhere with stellar views, a dense and busy downtown, funky markets and districts, efficient ferry-boat public transit utilizing the snaking Brisbane river very well, and 24-hour stores (they're not allowed in Western Australia). The city skyline isn't remarkable, but that's pretty standard for Australia (besides Sydney).

The highlights of the trip were numerous. I did some outdoor climbing on the city-center cliffs at night, urban exploration into old buildings and downtown rooftops, fed kangaroos and elephants and saw wildlife shows at Steve Irwin's zoo, went up an 80-storey tower at Surfer's Paradise in the evening for an incredible view from the world's tallest residential tower (and tallest building in the southern hemisphere), visited a science center and was made to feel two-years old again, hiked in a rainforest, saw a bird of prey show, had lorikeets on my head, hugged a koala, and saw some very good friends I haven't seen in years.

Of course, I captured much of these experiences digitally, along with many more. Have a look at by clicking the thumbnail above.

I just had a great week off in Perth, climbing twice and even doing some karaoke with my Asian friends. After they sang some classic Chinese hits I'd never heard of, I fought back with Avril Lavigne. Go Canada! After some bubble tea I dashed off to a retro party where I "dressed up" as a hippie. Complete with Greenpeace shirt, hemp necklace, and Birkenstocks. Unfortunately I've had too much fun, so I need to balance it out by going back to work for two weeks at the mine.

Please keep me up with what you're all up to these days. I'd love to hear from anyone out there!

Your Aussie Mate,

-Mike

Shenanigans

2009-04-13T23:12:00.003-07:00

Some days it's a circus underground, and I can't believe how much fun we have. My crew has a few real characters who play off each other for the entertainment of all. Luke is a 28 year old practical joker with a quick wit, and Brent is similar but at 35 he's wiser and more mellow. One night-shift Luke drove past Brent underground in the haul truck, mooning him as he passed. Brent encountered Luke moments later where we hang our tags. Brent calmly walked up to Luke, grabbed his work coveralls, and tore them off like wrapping paper. Luke was left standing underground in only rubber boots and his underwear, forced to call the shift boss on the radio asking for a new pair of 107-sized coveralls. The shift boss brought Luke size 87 coveralls, quite intentionally the smallest we stock. His outfit was tighter than John Travolta's in "Saturday Night Fever".

Money Talk
In North America the penny, nickel, dime, and quarter are ubiquitous. So much that our governments refuse to scrap the completely wasteful penny, which costs many times more to produce and distribute than it's actually worth. That makes no cents to me. Smartly, Australians smallest coin is worth 5 cents. But it's got no name. It's a "5-cent coin". Lame! (I touched on this briefly in "Some Local Culture", February 24th).
And if you want a quarter—well you're out of luck. You can have a "20-cent coin" or a "50-cent coin". Worst of all they don't have loonies or twoonies. "Hey mate, do you have a one-dollar-coin?". "Nah mate, only loonies, sorry".
Following our lead in Canada, I've decided we need to name the Australian coins. Their one-dollar coin has five kangaroos on it, so my suggestion is 'Roonie'. Anyone got anything better?
Their two-dollar coin has an old aboriginal fellow (aka an as 'elder'). There are a lot of politically-incorrect names for aboriginals, so steer clear of all of them when suggesting a coin name. I've got no clever suggestions.
The one saving grace with the money is that fortunately, their bills have names! The blue $5 is a "blue swimmer"; red $20 a "lobster"; and yellow $50 a "pineapple"..

Speaking of money: It is quite the spider's web and will easily ensnare people. I've made inquiries with many of my fellow miners, who share this soul-destroying work schedule of two weeks on, one off, as to what motivates them to continue it for years and years. For nearly all, even the people you don't suspect, it's the money. But what do they use it all for?
Well in Australia, home-ownership is strongly encouraged both by the culture, and by the government (with sweet grants for new homebuyers to the tune of $21000 if buying a new home, $14000 if buying a 'used' one)†. So most of the people I work with, many who should be off enjoying their late teens and early twenties, are instead quite often handcuffed to a mortgage they can barely afford (even if they can manage to keep their job in today's labour market). Of course in the long run they'll have a house and that's a great investment, but at the expense of their youth!

† (Because people just buy more expensive homes with the extra mortgage leverage the subsidy gives them, this actually leads to an overpriced housing market)

The others without mortgages still manage to spend all their money despite initial goals to be saving up for a mortgage downpayment. The money they make draws them into a lifestyle they could never maintain without this sort of pay (like new cars all tricked out, motorcycles, lots of alcohol, nice furniture and massive televisions, expensive fishing trips, etc). One truckie is 19 and lives in a rented house by himself at $1300/month—shocking if you consider that we only spend 10 days per month at home. He couldn't even afford to attend a concert on his time off.

The motivation behind this whole rant was hearing the phrase too many times around here "You can't have any fun without money". They mean big money. And I think this attitude is so tragic and sad. I've seen people, with far less money than even the poorest first-worlders, have loads of fun. Perhaps one of the most important lessons from university life is learning to squeeze tonnes of fun out of only teaspoons of money—a very important life skill.

Pissy Driving
My money rant reminded me of something else tragic and shocking: The incidence among my miner coworkers of driving while "pissed". Not angry, in Australia that means drunk. Driving under the influence a.k.a. 'pissy driving' seems to be another cultural curiosity out here. Not surprising considering how much Aussies love their beer. One coworker in his late 20s has a brand new car he's making payments on but can't drive! He's had his license revoked for two years. Another coworker in his early 20s with three DUI offenses already got into an accident, and knowing that a fourth DUI offense would put him behind bars I asked him what he did. "I hoofed it, ran away! I told the cops the next day that they were throwing rocks at me." It's hard to believe how many of my miner coworkers drink and drive.

Summer's Over
Thanks to a botched contracting job on our runway, the summer heat has melted our landing strip. We're flying in and out of the nearby town until we get consistent highs below 30˚C. Although it's technically spring now, up at the mine I'm going to continue calling it summer. We did have a string of "cold" days last week, which left me laughing at a few of the situations. One 18˚C morning a coworker said to me "I hate it when it's cold out." I responded "Yeah, me too" assuming he was being philosophic, but he was referring to the morning 'chill'. To be fair, when you come out of the 35˚C mine soaked through with sweat and hit 16˚C air it feels pretty cool. But another day a huge tough man I work with was shivering hard, clutching a rag feebly like a blankie, and moaning about how terribly cold he was. On a nice October day in Canada I think he would freeze to death!

Sensory Assault
I've begun doing charge up work, which means loading explosives and detonators into drilled rock faces for blasting. It's a fun change from fixing things with service crew, but I had quite a tough introduction to the work when we had to charge a poorly ventilated tunnel on my first day. As we prepared for the charge, my coworker told me "This is basically the worst it's ever going to get".

As we were lifted up to the top of the tunnel to charge the rock face in the hottest area of the mine, the temperature rose by at least 10 degrees. We loaded explosives as our glasses fogged up and overalls soaked through with sweat. When we were lowered down to the "cooler" mid 30 degree temperatures at the bottom of the face, the ammonia fumes were unbearable and stung my nostrils and throat, forcing me to retreat to fresher air for a minute.
The ANFO explosive I had gotten all over me was dissolving into ammonia and running into my eyes and mouth, stinging my eyes and filling my mouth with a bitter taste. My minor cuts and scrapes were on fire as the ammonia found its way, somehow, into all of them.
Combined with the constant deafening noise of machines working, I realized then that this experience was an assault on all my senses simultaneously. Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin. All the charge up since then has seemed pretty easy!

I just got back from a fantastic climbing and hiking road trip in the south coast. This area is spectacular and I took a few nice photos. Have a look by clicking the photo above.

Thinking about all of you,

-Mike

Some Local Culture

2009-02-23T18:56:00.002-08:00

Last month this continent country celebrated "Australia Day", based on the anniversary of the first fleet of colonists to descend upon this land. It's not a big holiday over east, but in WA many people celebrate it with shrimp and large quantities of beer (If you were paying attention you'd note this sounds awfully similar to how Christmas was celebrated. And every other Australian holiday). Some people take offense to the holiday, calling it "Invasion Day" and claiming it marks the beginning of the destruction of aboriginal culture. Friends of mine call it "Bogan day" (roughly translated to "redneck day"), because Perth is overrun with drunken redneck fools. Most of my friends celebrate the day by listening to the fan-voted top 100 songs of the year, aired on a phenomenal radio station called Triple J. Up at the mine, where I seem to be for all noteworthy days (Christmas, New Years, Birthday, Australia Day, Valentine's Day... so far) I was asked,

"Seal Basher, do you know what day it is today?"
I replied quite correctly, "The day before we fly home.. Oh yeah, and Australia Day."
"Nah mate. It's STRAW-ya day, not Aus-TRAIL-ee-ah day. Learn to speak properly."

I'm slowly unlearning english.

More on the local culture: Last break I spent an extra week in Perth, attending a Shotfirer's course for blasting. I rode the train out to suburbia each day to take the class on the outskirts of the city. Perth is fascinating because the bogans/rednecks live right in the city, unlike in North America where rednecks live in small towns away from major cities. In 5 days of riding the train 45 minutes each way, I saw all manner of shifty characters: A personable panhandler negotiating with me to try and get even a 5-cent coin (Aside: Australians don't have very creative names for their coins); a man who boarded barefoot; one young man wearing a wide-brimmed bush hat so large it appeared to be swallowing his small head; and the best of all these two young yokels (and likely crystal-meth addicts) waving around $170, absolutely ecstatic about their recent acquisition of wealth. Noticing my slight interest (I glanced in their general direction), they began explaining their fortune:

They had "found" a bicycle in the bushes ("It had disk-brakes. Disk-brakes!!"), and gone to a bike shop for an estimate of value. Finding it was worth over $2000—a fact they continued to repeat to their amazement—they decided to sell it on the street for $200. They were offered $170 and couldn't believe their luck. The puzzling thing was their continued emphasis about how much the bike was actually worth. All I could do was shake my head, not just because they were thieves, but because they were terrible businessmen.

There are a few more photos on my website. There would have been more photos, from the circus and recent rock climbing respectively. But Cirque du Soleil wouldn't allow me to use my camera in the show, and the rock was so hot I couldn't be bothered hanging around taking photos while my shoes (and feet) melted!

Electronically yours,

-Mike

Reef Madness

2009-01-17T05:30:00.000-08:00

Work
My little room is outfitted with a fridge and aircon. When I leave for work each day I turn off the aircon, and when I leave site for a week I save more energy by turning off the fridge too. This week summer is finally gearing up and bringing daytime temperatures above 40˚C. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I came back to my oversized tin-can of a room, and inside it was 60˚C! The fruit I left out to ripen had done more than that; it had cooked. So perhaps I'll be leaving my aircon on from now on, but only slightly. Once the room cooled down enough to have a shower without continuing to sweat, I learned our water pipes aren't buried very deep, because on the hot days my Cold shower faucet yields pretty warm water.

There's a 20 year-old truck driver on our crew we call 'Cracker' because he has a bit of a drug habit, and admits to regularly using crystal meth (aka crank, crystal, or ice). In the safety meeting someone announced "the ice machine's broken, it keeps making dirty ice". Immediately someone whispered "Did you hear that Cracker? Dirty ice... dirty ice!" and everyone who overheard struggled to hold back laughter as the meeting continued. Cracker just pretended he didn't hear it, and continued being a little twitchy.
P.S. Yesterday, Cracker was driving up the haul truck at the end of night shift and fell asleep, smashing into a wall at 6 km/h. But he managed to destroy the cab ($160000, not counting labour and down-time). He was fired immediately. Too bad, considering he just purchased a new car a month ago, which he's also already managed to smash up while drinking and driving.

Play
On my last break in Perth I rented a car with some fellow Canadians and did a whirlwind trip up to the "Coral Coast" of Western Australia to visit the famous Ningaloo Reef. We stayed in some great little beach towns full of backpackers and camper vans, usually with one main street that ran right near the beach. I met lots of interesting foreigners and eccentric adventurers including one man who was a mechanic in a rally-car race across China in 1988. He told me about how the Red Guard soldiers ensured the foreign visitors didn't stray from their race and see something they shouldn't: They guarded every 200m along the few thousand kilometer route!

Before we left I was told it's nuts to up there in the heat of summer. We evaded the laser-like sun by having our fun early in the day: We went snorkeling and I bonded with rays, turtles, and a Zebra shark which looked harmless enough (and thankfully was). I learned about mango picking at a plantation, and was rewarded with two-dozen of what is now my favourite fruit (even after eating fifteen of them in 3 days!).

We visited the UNESCO-protected stromatolites of Hamelin pool—one of only a few places in the world where these 3.5 billion year-old bacteria-rocks can be found. But we timed our visit poorly as it was midday and an eye-popping 47˚C. The bright-white cockle-shell beach acted as a mirror, and the heat though a bit choking was dry and surprisingly comfortable given the situation. But looking over at one of my Canadian travel partners, who arrived only a month earlier from the Albertan winter, I realized my experience working underground had acclimatized me to the Aussie heat: His bright-red neck was glistening with sweat and he was cursing mother nature for allowing such unthinkable (and unCanadian) temperatures. It was pure comedy.

From Terra Australis,

-Mike

P.S. I've posted lots of photos from the Reef roadtrip and around Perth at MichaelFuller.ca and think it is wise for you to all go and see them. Click the above thumbnail for photos from the Coral Coast. Go on!

Demons and Australus

2008-12-28T19:14:00.001-08:00

On my first night back from the mine I was driving in my flatmate Peter's car when we arrived and parked in the driveway sometime in the night. You know you've been mining too long, when you're fumbling in the dark for the door handle and decide to reach up and turn on your cap-lamp, only to find you're not wearing one.

No two weeks are ever the same here at the mine. Because the shift supervisor, loader & drill operators work week on / week off, whereas the rest of the crew work two weeks on / one off, the group dynamic changes every week. I've been enjoying this recent week of work because of the fun, quirky, quality guys (and gal). The crew I first began working with months ago at the other mine -- this mining camp has two adjacent mines run together, and miners sometimes switch between the two -- had a few really demonic personalities. With total darkness, overwhelming noise, oppressive heat, and time constraints to get work done, the stress levels can run high. Add a dash of inexperience (a.k.a. Yours Truly) and you've concocted quite an explosive mix. I witnessed some coworkers transforming into beings of pure stress, and had people cursing themselves blue in the face at me. But these short, demonic outbursts would often soon evaporate: Many people were helpful later, explaining what they were trying to tell me during the curse-hurling.

I did a few nights of dump truck training last month. Despite the 650 horsepower engines, these trucks never really go faster than 15 km/h, and top out at 6 km/h when fully loaded with 55 tonnes climbing up. In an entire shift they may not even travel 100km. But the staggering and humbling reality of that much horsepower hits you at the fuel pump after a 12-hour shift, when you pour in over 600 litres of diesel. This is one of the stark reminders of the environmental and economic costs of running a mine.

Last month it dawned on me that I had not yet learned how kangaroo tastes. Most Australians don't eat kangaroo, as it's only been legal nationwide for 15 years. In 2005 they even had a naming competition to decide on a culinary name for the meat. "Australus" won, but I would far prefer "jumpmeat". Regardless, neither name has caught on, but the meat is widely available in supermarkets. So off I went. Asking the clerk where to find it, she quickly responded, "Oh, let me show you. I wouldn't want you to accidentally buy pet food."
Well, that's not something I expected to hear. She showed me where the roo meat was: In the same section as pet food, but right on the edge near the human-approved meat. And separated by a divider from this human-grade meat. A pretty funny place to put it, I reckon, and suspect that as it slowly becomes more acceptable the supermarkets will migrate it closer to the beef, pork, and chicken.
And the results? Well let's give you some background first. The meat is very lean, and must not be overcooked. How lean is very lean? Consider that tuna fish is a fantastic healthy source of protein, partially because of it's enormous 15:1 protein to fat ratio. Scanning the kangaroo nutritional information, I learned roo meat has more than double that ratio. And ecologically? Kangaroos don't overgraze the native plant species, require less water and feed than sheep or cattle, and since they're soft-pawed they don't damage the fragile native grasses like feral hoofed farm animals. With each bite, you're practically saving the Earth.

I've been updating my website with lots more informative photos from the neighbourhood, the zoo, the aquarium, and the mine! Please have a peek at www.michaelfuller.ca or click the thumbnail above!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Joyous Kwanzaa.

-Mike

Crocs, Slang, Fruit

2008-11-27T18:20:00.001-08:00

My Croc-wearing Vancouver friends would be interested in knowing that Perthians seem to dislike hate loath Crocs. I've been told they're so ugly, they're actually offensive. During my first week in Perth, with little luggage, I went out on a Friday night in the city with some new friends. I was in my best travel/outdoors clothes, oblivious to the fiercely-strict and widely enforced "leather shoe" policy. It is considered quite an achievement that while wearing a fleece and Crocs, I managed to waltz right past the bouncers -- who looked at my attire -- into one of the poshest bars in the city. Surrounded by people wearing suits, some friends of friends I met congratulated me on the accomplishment, before joking to have me thrown out.

Being in Western Australia now, far from Vancouver, I'm reminded of home in the strangest ways: In Vancouver I ate "WA Grown" apples; now I eat "W.A. Grown" apples.

The other day I sat down for breakfast and began to spread peanut butter over a banana. Halfway through I noticed my coworkers watching -- no, staring -- at me. With a look of half curiosity, half disgust. "What the heck are you doing?!" they exclaimed.
"Oh... yeah, hmmm. You guys don't eat peanut butter and banana here. Do you guys eat peanut butter and jam? It's sort of like that." I pointed out, to help my case.
"Heard of it.... but nah, never tried it", one guy responded, with nods of agreement from the rest. They winced as I began to devour my creation.
"Well in Canada everyone eats peanut butter and jam. And many eat PB and banana. It definitely beats your Vegemite!", I told them.
(If you don't know, Vegemite is a thick, salty, nearly black yeast paste that every Australian loves. But nobody else has heard of it, and if they have, probably think it's gross.)

The slang here is so diverse it's like learning another dialect. I've stopped noting all the new words that Australians have invented. Most people have no idea that a substantial proportion of their vocabulary cannot be found in the dictionary. "Oxford? What's that anyway! We're in Australia, not England, mate", they'd tell me.

Some of my favourites are what they call groups of people. An electrician is universally referred to as a "Sparky", and a carpenter as a "Chippy". For obvious reasons. But a red-headed person is a "Ranga": Because they look like orangutans! I'll never look at another red-head again without seeing a large, mainly solitary, arboreal ape.

On the topic of funny names, I've met so many miners with nicknames now. A few are perfect, and some others have interesting stories behind them. Examples of the funner nicknames include Smurf, Twiggy, Pedro, Cowboy, Ripper, Pirate, Peewee, Rookie, Gun, Sumo, Deathie, Turtle (and his brother Tortoise), Download, Hollywood, Rimo, Superdave, and Slugger.

I've put up a few more photos from underground at the mine, and some from a recent climbing trip. I should have a couple more of Perth in the near future. Check out www.michaelfuller.ca or click the thumbnail above!

-Mike

MickMike Posi-Bolt

2008-10-26T15:30:00.002-07:00

So I'm back at work for my first full two-week swing. The first week is nights, the second days. After my first couple nights of night shift I must say it's been a tad easier than I thought to adjust, and there's a few reasons why. They have made 12-hour day timing symmetrical, basically having breakfast and dinner open from 5 to 7 (for both AM and pm). Whilst underground, lunch times are about noon and midnight. Since it's always dark underground you don't worry that the sun is up or down; and when you begin and end your days its dusk and dawn or vice versa. So in theory the only real difference between day and night shift is which way you look to see the beautiful sunrise/set! Just don't look for too long, or you'll notice which way the sun is moving.

Wasteful Attitudes
We're given cheap tupperware containers to pack our lunches in each day, and I wash mine out and reuse them for a few until they crack and break. A few people have commented "You are the only one that reuses those containers. Why bother when you don't have to pay for them?". Someone else told me that I'm likely to get food poisoning from reusing the containers. I asked him if he washes his dishes at home or just throws them out after every meal.

Last sleep (I can't say last night because I work nightshift) there were power outages because our generators can't quite keep up to the power demands. Without the aircon our small rooms (about nine square meters) heat up quickly to the high thirties, and I woke up drenched in sweat. Last evening the camp manager was asking us if we would please make sure to turn off our aircon while we were away working our 12 hour shift. I was incredulous -- why would she have to ask us something so obvious? It takes literally under a minute to cool down the room, so who would leave it on for 12 hours they're not there? The guys around me were equally shocked. Ah, but not for the same reason! "What?!" they exclaimed. "Our rooms are going to be bloody boiling when we get back each day!"

Posi-bolt
As part of my training, and the main reason I came to Auz for work, is for practical hands on experience with the underground mining contractor to whom I've been seconded for six months. During my first week, the safety guy handed me the utility belt and I cinched it up as tight as it would go. And it still fell down over my waist. Now, consider the safety guy is referred to as "Big Ben"; he's 6'4" tall and about 250 lbs. When I asked for a smaller belt he said, "You're going to have to fatten up, young fella. It's the smallest we've got." Big Ben now refers to me as "posi-bolt" because he claims I resemble the 220 cm long, 3 cm diameter steel bolts we use underground.

Netball!?
So I witnessed "netball" being played on the UWA campus the other day. What's that, you ask? Well, I'll tell you: First, start with the thrilling sport of basketball. (Can you taste the sarcasm?). Then remove the dribbling -- that takes too much skill and precision. Finally, remove the backboards and stand the nets on a vertical post, eliminating those boring slam-dunks. There you have it! Netball! The dullest sport you've never heard of!

Mick / Mike
When I began with the contractor, a few people called me 'Mick'. I casually corrected them, "It's Mike, actually." But I was scratching my head about why this kept coming up; nobody had ever called me Mick before in my life.
But then after correcting my next-door neighbour in the camp, he corrected me! "No Mick, it's Mick. You're in Australia now. Michael is Mick, not Mike. Get used to it." And now this crazy fad is catching on. It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't a 'Nick' working on my crew. I'll have to just plant the seed for the name "Fuller" with a few people, and it should spread like bushfire.

I've put a few photos up from my week off in Perth. Working a 2x1 schedule, you learn to cherish every moment in Perth. But it's not hard when there's 100km of beach, a good mate of mine I met in Zambia lives in Perth and owns a boat, and it's sunny everyday!

Check out www.michaelfuller.ca for the photos! (Click the thumbnail above)

-Mick

Summer Camp

2008-10-08T04:48:00.002-07:00

The Camp
When I arrived at the mining camp, the promised wireless internet connection did not reach my room. Damn. I went into the camp manager's office and told the large woman behind the desk about my complete lack of wireless reception with the hopes of a room transfer.

"Oh, that's because it's windy today", she explained confidently.
Staggered by her response, I couldn't stop myself "Uhm, actually wireless operates using a frequency of light. Wind has no affect on it".
She looked at me like I was exceedingly idiotic. "Well, just wait until the wind dies down. You'll see. OK?". The 'OK' wasn't really a question, it was a closing remark, and she turned her back, to continue her vital work of managing the papers on her desk.

Today, the air was dead calm....
The wireless still didn't work. What, you didn't believe her did you?

Language Difficulties
I've needed to overcome numerous lexical hurdles here. For one thing, Australians use heaps of slang. I can't believe how many words and phrases they've invented on this isolated island continent. Arvo (afternoon), bogan (redneck), CUB (cashed-up bogan, referring to the money-laden rednecks due to the mining boom), stubby (beer bottle), swallow's fart (early morning), fair dinkum (being serious).... more than you'll ever need to know unless you plan to visit.

And of course there's profanity to adjust to, being at a mine. One guy even explained "If you're not being sworn at twice a day, it means nobody likes you". But it's even profane for a mine, and I'll explain why: The first tenet is that you can say nearly anything and it won't offend people, because Auzzies have thick skin. Then consider Auzzies love to make fun, or "take the piss [out of you]". To top it off, being a mine many are naturally quite foul-mouthed. It's all a perfect storm, really. I must refrain from adopting the local dialect or I'll be in trouble when I'm not at the mine.

One more lexical quirk is the fact that I describe myself as "outdoorsy" and am accustomed to people (in Canada) knowing exactly what I mean. But in Perth (and the rest of Australia), everyone is 'outdoorsy'. They all love going to the beach, walking the dog in the park, and the occasional jog. So I need a new term -- how about 'adventure outdoorsy'?

Advertising
Watching the morning news the other day I had to double check I hadn't accidentally switched channels, when a really corny talkshow style infomercial began. Later I confirmed, to my horror, that their morning news features infomercials (with one of the anchors hosting the infomercial!). The regular anchor actually announces "Now we're going over to Peter, who's got Steve from MagiCook with him. He's going to tell you about a revolutionary new way to save time in the kitchen, by preparing delicious and healthy meals in half the time!"
You really have to see it to believe it. And it doesn't help that Peter has the charisma of wet cardboard, showing painfully forced enthusiasm for the products he's showcasing (on the news!). It really calls into question the credibility of the news channel and anchors, whom we're supposed to believe are unbiased and objective. They're called anchors for a reason!

AirCon
I've moved into my new place, with two flatmates. I'm so happy to have found a place quickly, with funny (and clean!) roommies, with a gas stove and lots of counter space, in an awesome location and for a unbelievable price! But I must tell you about one thing that blew my mind: Pete was explaining the electricity bills, which sounded really low. I asked "What about in the summer when the aircon is being used"
"Oh, we don't have aircon", Pete replied. (Although it stays over 30˚C for weeks straight). "Alright, that's no problem", I told him. I can get a fan.
"No heater either", he added. (In the winter the temperature is in single digits every night).
Good thing I brought my down booties. But seriously, I've never heard of a house without heating or aircon. But this just shows how perfect the climate is in Perth!

I've been putting up a few photos at www.michaelfuller.ca from Perth and the mine. Check them out! Just click the thumbnail above!

Catch ya,

-Mike

Cosmos and Prospero

2008-09-25T04:41:00.002-07:00

The night before my first day of work, a group of ladies at my hotel waited 45 minutes for taxis which never came, and ended up walking to the club. Taxis in Perth are notoriously bad, so I aimed to be extra early to the airport. My cabby arrived on time (whoa!), and turned out to be a Somalian New Zealander with a fantastic African-Kiwi accent. We discussed foreign policy and politics, and later he 'accidentally' missed our turnoff and ran the bill up an extra $5. I have a knack for getting drivers like this no matter where I am. (see China updates in the archives here)

My buddy Dave Medilek, well known in Canada as 'D-Med' told me a story about his first day at his mine. They asked him if he had a nickname, and he told them "Sure, everyone back home calls me D-Med".
"D-Med? No way that'll ever stick. You're 'Horse' now."
And proceeded to introduce him around the mine as 'Horse'. People ask where his name came from, but I don't think anyone knows.

So I rocked up bright-eyed to my office after the flight 600km into the outback north of Leinster (latitude 27°36'04"S and longitude 120°34'28"E if anyone's really curious) and was introduced to my new coworkers. A few minutes later, 'Tortoise' showed me to the notice board on the wall where I found a full A4 sized portrait of myself (that I had sent to the office weeks earlier to help identify me in the airport.) On the portrait was written 'Seal Pup'.

So now I have a nickname. Why 'Seal Pup'? Yeah, I asked too. Apparently Canadians are famous for being a nation of seal-clubbers.

I had forgotten how much joking and pranking goes on at mines, and Australia tops them all. Australians love to "take the piss" (which means "make fun"). Each mine I've worked at is more isolated than the previous one, which means each one has a tighter knit group of people. When you spend this much time this far away from everything, your coworkers have to become like family. When you work for 13 hours a day, 14 days straight, it can't feel like 'work' or everyone would burn out. After only a few days here I'm loving the camaraderie of this group. Smurf, Turtle, his brother Tortoise, Hatchie, Yarpi.... and plenty more. Slovaks, Brits, Zimbos, Afrikaaners, Canadians, Aussies, there's a real international team and everyone works very well together -- but not with geologists, naturally.

After my upcoming 6 month stint underground running equipment and fixing vent bags (I'll be seconded to the contractor), I'll be joining this eclectic team of laid-back and hilarious engineers for some technical experience, and I can't wait. It's amazing how young the mining work force in Australia is. For instance in my Canadian underground mine the average miner was 45+ years old, whereas here its low 30s. The average engineer in Canada was pushing 40, but here its low 30s.

Yesterday when a wallaby casually hopped in front of me on the path outside my room, I had one of those realization flashes: "My goodness I'm in Australia!". I love those moments.

For more photos check out my website (click the thumbnail above!) and select either the "Around Perth" or "Around the Mine" sets.

Cheers mates,

-Mike

P.S. The subject refers to the two major orebodies of my mine, each with their own ramp access and engineering team. The ramps are called Ilias and Helene. Can you tell that the original President was Greek?

Quokkas and Kangaroos

2008-09-22T04:33:00.001-07:00

G'day mates,

After a grueling 25 hours of first-class flights I have arrived at the antipode. My new home: Perth. I am struggling to find a decent place to live so I'm being patient and hoping that at work I meet some people that know people.

*mental ventilation warning*: The city itself is urban-planning train wreck -- they wanted to keep a 'small-town' feel to a Vancouver-sized city. Even the densest part of the city is scarcely different than Etobicoke. They built a freeway along the beautiful downtown waterfront, stranding it from the city. And there's huge empty grassy spaces like Calgary (but not as useless as Calgary's). Then they built a large unwelcoming and terminal-like convention center on the water (well, separated by a band of highway) which even horrifies the locals. The design of the bunker of a convention center, and its placement off the nearby waterfront, completely ignores the vista of a beautiful shore. Business hours are restricted, so few things are open beyond 5pm. Tonight (Sunday) I walked downtown at 6:30PM and it was unreal: You would have guessed the time to be 3:30AM. People claim they're "trying to model their city after Vancouver". They're not trying very hard. *ventilation complete*

Things sound a bit downer, but its not bad (I just like to really rant once I start). I've met some friendly and interesting people already. The downtown area of Perth has free busses all the time, and plenty of them. There are so many places to run, walk, bicycle, volleyball, swim, surf, kayak, and all that inside the city! Then there's the surrounding areas, virtually untouristed places due only to this being the most isolated city in the world. And the upcoming summer to look forward to. But maybe best of all, Perthians walk incredibly fast. You can't realize how much I appreciate this as a fast-walker. While walking at full tilt today, somebody actually passed me.

Anecdote time: While walking downtown on my first day here I saw a woman carrying a large disc resembling some sort of medical equipment. Asking what it was, I found out it's a component from her metal detector. Why is she carrying it around downtown Perth you ask (and I did)? Why, to exchange it at the local metal detector shop for a much larger and more expensive one, of course! And why would she want to do that?
She opened her camera-phone and showed me a picture taken from up north (near a thriving cosmopolitan town called Tom Price) the previous day -- of a three ounce gold nugget she found in the outback. (That's a $2500 rock). Needless to say she was ready for a larger metal detector. Finding gold nuggets laying around -- this is how big and empty WA is.

Random fact time: Did you know that Perth contains 75% of the entire state's population (1.5 of 2 million)? Consider that the state of Western Australia would be the 10th largest country in the world alone, and is twice the size of Western Europe.

Keep up to date on random photos and iPhone camera captured observations from around the city and the mine, by clicking the thumbnail above!

Your friend,
-Mike

P.S. I haven't seen any quokkas, or kangaroos yet. So the subject may have been misleading, I admit. I'll keep you posted.

2008-08-25T21:16:00.003-07:00

The Future is Now (Update #11)

Upon landing in Japan I was expecting to be guided by multi-lingual robot assistants to a mag-lev bullet train which would take me directly to my destination. This did not happen. I obviously had some misconceptions about how advanced this country was. But after more than a week I've come to appreciate the subtle but brilliant design prevalent here.

For instance,

Taxis: Drivers can push a button to automatically close the rear doors.

Fridges: The door can open to the left and to the right.

QR codes: Lots of products feature 2D bar codes (called QR). If you photograph the barcode with your camera-phone, it will automatically retrieve extra information from the internet, such as nutritional information of McDonalds burgers from the wrappers.

Toilets: I've already mentioned the automatic lid opening and wiping, but even more brilliant is the tank refilling system: A tap pours water into a basin where you can wash your hands, before draining down into the tank to be used for the next flush. So you've washed your hands without using any extra water and without touching any door handles or faucets.

The people here are so very polite. It's very nice of course, but when an everyday encounter with say, a cashier, involves an endless stream of polite formalities it must begin to lose some meaning. There's even a really funny statement I've heard a few times to say 'Thanks', which is "sumimasen arigato gozaimas" or literally "sorry thank you" plus a polite suffix word at the end, for extra politeness!

More on the (polite) culture of Japan:

- While watching The Dark Knight in theatre (it just came out in Asia last week), the movie ended and the credits started rolling. I got up and went to leave but when I reached the doors I noticed the lights still hadn't come on. And nobody else had gotten up! Fascinated, I stayed to see how long they would wait. The entire audience sat through the whole credits.

- With no cars coming from either direction, people will stand at an intersection endlessly awaiting the 'Walk' sign. I don't hesitate to j-walk here, which was the norm in China. In fact more than a few times in China I triggered mass mob j-walks where dozens of people stepped off the curb with me to cross a busy street, stopping all traffic despite our clear absence of right of way.

- Public sleeping is totally acceptable, and you see people napping all over the place. Sometimes I wake up (hey, when in Rome..) on the inter-city train to find no less than half the passengers dozing. And as Afton pointed out after living here, people have an amazing ability to wake up just in time for their stop.

I've put up some more photographs accompanied by explanations on my flickr set (click the thumbnail!)

Matane,

-Mike

Rising Sun (Update #10)

I have continued my eastward trend and have come to Japan. Before commenting on all the zany things this country has, and how completely different two neighbouring countries can be, I'll say a few things about China:

I spent 64 days in China including Hong Kong, and visited 17 provinces. There is far more to see but I think I covered much of it, leaving for another time the furthest reaches of the north-east and the south-west. The country is a world unto itself: The history is long, the country vast, the population enormous, and the ethnic variations rich. Most of the young people desperately want to travel within their own borders before ever considering moving away or traveling outside of China. Many even have shockingly little knowledge about the outside world -- because to them, like I highlighted earlier, China is the world.

I spent my final days in Beijing eating Peking Duck and having engaging discussion with Oker (who spent longer in China than I, and speaks the language), and returning to the restaurant a few nights later for the most expensive dinner of the trip with Jordan. In between, Jordan and I visited the most hiliariously menu'd restaurant in China Our choices included (rewritten exactly as shown):

- Heat the oil Splash at Similar Stick The Noodles

- Like Helmets The Noodles [this was actually Naan bread]

- Northwest sheep face

And our favourite,

- Sour odor hot amorphopallus riveri filament [a bowl of noodles]

We laughed until we cried and the waitress who spoke zero english must have thought we were mad.

We also visited the Olympic buildings, with great difficulty. We couldn't ride the metro to them without tickets, and after crossing one section of an intersection passing 23 police officers (and not that many tourists) we found the bus that took us nearby the Bird's Nest and Water Cube buildings. As you've probably all seen from watching the spectacular opening ceremonies last night, the buildings are truly magnificent. But what you didn't see is the distasteful military barracks -- complete with camoflouge trucks, portable trailers and tall razor wire fencing -- that they've dumped in front of those wonderful buildings.

So, I'm in Japan, a land where toilets sense your approach and welcomingly open their lids and heat up the seat; and if you're feeling adventurous you can press a button and experience a refreshing but tickling spray of water to do the wiping for you. At this moment I'm not writing to you from a toilet -- though that would be pretty cool -- but from an internet & manga (comic book) cafe. My spacious private cubicle has a padded floor, beanbag chair, and sheets. I'm staying the night by buying a night package for $20, and they even have free drinks and a shower. This is a far cry from the warehouse-sized cafes in China where a sea of young people hack away at each other's virtual selves in online video games.

Culture Shock summary, so far:

- when taking the train in Japan I noticed demarcated lines on the floor where people calmly queue; and passengers disembark the trains before the others embark. In China a wave of embarking passengers push their way onto trains as you exit by swimming salmon-like through them.

- after a spectacular fireworks display in Kyoto I noticed all the people carrying their rubbish out of the park with them. In China the streets and public places are spotless, but not because people are clean. On the contrary -- people through trash wherever they please -- but an army of migrant workers roam public streets and parks cleaning up.

- Japanese being much richer are consequently larger. I have noticed far more obesity, and also much taller people here than in China. But people are also more active here, running or playing baseball in the parks; whereas in China people seem to be more sedentary but stay slim through healthy diet and very light exercise. (You'll often come across groups of 50+ people performing Richard Simmons-esque light aerobics)

- My first impression of how people appear differently is that Japanese tend to have larger eyes, noses, and jaws than Chinese; and the women have shorter legs.

- I realized what a monoculture China is in terms of style. Most young people dress very conservatively, but the women very elegantly. Business men tend to wear formal pants and shoes with golf-shirts. But in Japan the style is of the extreme kind. Businessmen wear formal suits with jackets in 35 degree heat. Some young people have outreageous bleached hairdos, heavy makeup, glasses frames you'd wear in Halloween, wild hats -- many young people even dress in traditional kimonos with wooden sandals -- the variation is endless.

Its quite daunting to be once again completely incapable of communication. All that Mandarin down the toilet! So far everyone in Kyoto and Hiroshima has fundamental english comprehension, but this won't be the case in the countryside. I'm finding Japanese much harder to pickup than Chinese, because everything is at least triple the syllables to remember. It doesn't help that most verbs and many nouns have polite suffixes that must always be added. Or that sentences are constructed subject-object-verb; or that that counting up numbers and counting up objects are completely different numbering systems. *sigh* I'll just point at the phrasebook or mime my way around the country.

Click the thumbnail above for more great photographs and stories.

Sayonara,
-Mi-e-ku Fu-ra

Final China Updates

2008-08-25T21:02:00.005-07:00

Here are the final three China updates from newest to oldest:

Escape from Xinjiang (Update #9)

The policeman on the phone hissed,
"You must leave Kashgar. Now." and hung up.

That's where the story left off before.

Some background: After 5 days of painful bureaucracy (an entire story itself) in early July, Jordan got his visa extension granted by the Beijing police. They kept his passport and gave an official government receipt, and ensured very clearly that we could travel anywhere within China using this receipt as his passport replacement. We did just this for a few weeks, until we reached the edge of the world in Kashgar where -- thousands of kilometers from Beijing -- the 'laws' are whatever the police fancy. (The Chinese proverb states "The mountain is high, and the Emporer is far".... so do whatever you want)

So as he instructed, we left town. Not permanently, but for 2 days to visit the beautiful Karakoram Highway and the Pakistani-border city of Tashkurgan. Of course this isn't what he meant when he said get out, but we're too clever to listen to instructions plainly. (Digression: On the highway trip we had to cross 3 military checkpoints. Our tour operator is big and has plenty of 'guanxi', or connections, that I spoke of in Update #8. When the military denied Jordan passage, our driver phoned the commanding officer directly, who arrived in minutes to order his underlings to let Jordan through. This was a real eye-opener -- to fudge the paperwork we were all written down as being German!). Upon our return to Kashgar we had to stay one more night, then catch an afternoon train the following day. Early in the morning the day of our train departure we went to the tourist police station to ask for Jordan's visa number, so we could appease the hissing, accented officer who was complaining 3 days prior. This turned out to be a really bad idea.

The woman hardly asked us what we wanted before snatching Jordan's all-important government receipt and grabbing the telephone to make 6 consecutive phone calls. Minutes later the police arrived and we were arrested and brought to the real police station for interrogation. This was pretty interesting.

Our lovely policeman -- who named himself "Max" with a laugh -- flip-flopped between telling us that (a) we completely misunderstood the Beijing police instructions; and (b) that the Beijing police were 'crazy'. Max hand-wrote a 5 page confession, in Arabic, that Jordan had to sign and thumb-print with ink in 30 places. During the hours I sat in the office, Max's partner "Abdul" was a very busy officer: He carefully balanced his time between drinking tea, staring out the window, and drumming his fingers on his desk. At one point an old man wandered into the office and without a word handed him $800 cash.

To make a long story short, we were still being questioned within an hour of our $120 train departure time, with all our bags unpacked in our hotel across town. Within 5 minutes of our train departure, we were still not on board. In the end we did make the train, but Max made Jordan pay an $80 fine/ransom/bribe and didn't provide any receipt. Jordan almost laughed out loud at the piddly sum, considering the 4 annoying hours it took the officer to issue the fine.

Ah but the fun didn't stop here! In our next city -- Turpan, the hottest place in China and second lowest place after the Dead Sea -- the hotelier saw Jordan's receipt and immediately reached to phone the police. My heart sank, aiya! And we had no evidence of the fine he just paid! Fortunately the ridiculous climate (44 degrees everyday we were there) means the town shuts down in the afternoon. The police were closed! Huzzah! We very suspiciously slinked away from the hotel, and spent the next 2 days hiding in the basement of another hotel with Jordan checked in as a New Zealander named Tarn (another story). Every footstep in the hallway made us freeze in fear, and I contented myself by consuming a kilogram of the most delicious grapes each day (for $0.75!).

To make things even more fun, all the internet bars in the city were closed to foreigners so we had to use the one temperamental machine in the back of the hotel's cafe to reach the outside world. Then we discovered as I tried to change my flight that the flight website was blocked by the Chinese government's Great Firewall -- but only for flights between our province and Beijing; all other flight combinations were okay.

This morning, from the comfort of Beijing, we read some shocking news. It seems that karma caught up with the police in Kashgar; this morning 16 police officers were killed -- by truck, grenades, and swords -- outside what may be the same police station we were interrogated at last week.

Tomorrow Jordan and I leave China, and I head to Japan for two more weeks of lessons in East Asian culture. For now please check out the final photos from my 8+ weeks in the Middle Kingdom, China. (click thumbnail!)

Nimen de pengyou,

-Mike

New Frontier (Update #8)

In this edition: We learn about guanxi; Jordan nearly falls in a man-hole; the bureaucratic headache continues with a creepy twist; and we see how far from "Chinese" you can get with two consecutive 24-hour train rides.

On the train the other day I was recalling ideas about "Chinese food". As a child, Chinese food was oily fried brown rice, spring rolls, and shrimp or chicken balls covered with impossibly red syrup. When attempting to a explain fortune cookies to Chinese friends we met on the train I burst into laughter -- they had never heard of such things. I realized that in over 50 days here I have yet to see any of the aforementioned foods.

We also discussed with my new friends the idea of guanxi ('connections'). In China you need guanxi to get good jobs, apartments, or into good schools. It's not what you know but who you know. For people considering immigrating to Canada who feared their lack of guanxi, we had to explain that things don't work the same there.

Jordan and I have been moving steadily westwards after escaping the bureaucratic nightmare in Beijing. A 24 hour train ride brought us through Gansu province into Xinjiang; through poor and sparsely populated areas full of energy resources (coal and oil); and across Gobi landscapes. On more than one occasion we witnessed a coal mine out one window, and nodding donkey oil pumps out the other. But hours later we passed through Asia' largest wind farm. A land of extremes!

Arriving in Xinjiang we felt we landed on another planet. The people look and dress nothing like the typical Han Chinese; nor do they eat the same foods, or speak the same languages. We saw ginger-haired children with green eyes, men with long pants and kufi hats, and head-scarved women with thick unibrows. There were mutton dumplings and bagels everywhere. Signs that weren't just in four different languages, but four different alphabets! Greeting people in Mandarin, Arabic and English in a span of 10 minutes. Police with bullet-proof vests and automatic weapons (this province borders eight countries -- six of them Middle Eastern). And like mentioned in the intro, man hole covers that are faulty - we'll never step casually onto another Chinese manhole cover again after one trap-door nearly swallowed Jordan.

Now for the creepy story. Last night at 2am a heavily accented man opened Jordan's dorm room and asked "Which one of you is Canadian....?"
The American girl replied with her nationality, while Jordan smartly kept his mouth shut and pretended to sleep. The man quietly slinked off into the dark. I was awoken in the next room to Jordan's story, and we both slept uneasily the rest of the night. I had a wild nightmare. In the morning after I confirmed with Jordan that I wasn't dreaming, the boss stopped us at our door. He demanded we show Jordan's visa -- which we don't have, because it's in Beijing being extended! We were then put on the telephone with a heavily accented police officer who would only speak and not listen. He yelled for a bit, then hissed,
"You must leave Kashgar. Now." and hung up.

But no need to worry! We should have things sorted out soon.

I've uploaded more photos to the China gallery, especially from Kashgar's famous Sunday Market. The people look amazing, and aren't what you expect from China.

Housh,
-Mike

Go West (Update #7)

When I woke up, I couldn't feel anything below my waist.

Don't worry, I'm not paralyzed; but I imagine the feeling I experienced to be similar. I was riding a hard seat train overnight to Xi'an last night, and forced to contort my body into countless uncomfortable positions in order to rest my head against something comfortable. Like my knee; or a table. It reminded me of other terrible transportation experiences in the past (like the 'fish bus' or the 'vomit ferry' from my Africa updates), except that the story I have is not quite as entertaining: I spent 10 hours on a dirty train sleeping in 5-10 minute periods, and didn't get up once for fear of losing my awful seat to something much worse.

Hard-seat is a very interesting mode of train travel; once all the seats sell out, the tickets keep flowing. People cram the car beyond the clearly posted capacity, standing where they can or commandeering enough real estate on the side of someone else's seat to place a butt-cheek. In the past when trying to visit my friends in their hard-seat car, I swam through one train car of people before giving up and returning to my hard-sleeper car. It's crowded.

In Beijing I was joined by Jordan and saw the necessary sights nearby. I was struck by a few things, which made the city my least favourite so far in China.
- the people were the least friendly, and a few tried to rip me off (for $0.80; and they failed)
- their Mandarin is horribly difficult to understand, as they mumble and say "arrrr" a lot, like pirates.
- their ability to understand, or patience to attempt to understand, my 'Mandarin' was lacking
- the city is really sprawling and the sights aren't 'exciting' as much as they're 'historically significant'.

But there were some great things too. Like the Metro system, which was super cheap ($0.30) and featured computer animated educational videos about various olympic events. And of course the Great Wall was beautiful; we hiked it with a young surgeon we met there from Beijing, originally from Inner Mongolia. I reminded him that the wall was built to keep Mongols out of China. His english was poor so he didn't understand me. But I laughed enough for both of us.

Another awesome Beijing experience was the enormous mall of Silk Street where you can find replica watches, jeans, shoes, suits, ties, polo and lacoste shirts, goretex, and softshell jackets, all being sold cheap by pretty young women who think I'm handsome (they wouldn't flatter me just to get a sale, would they?). I usually warned them before I began bargaining that they're going to hate me before we were finished, because I bargain hard. As is the case everywhere in China, the people have number tags instead of name tags, and I always ask their *Chinese* name (since most have an 'english' name for foreigners). One girl selling watches had a particularly difficult Chinese name -- but a pin of Snoopy on her vest. Throughout the entire negotiation I kept calling her Snoopy and trying to contain my laughter (and Jordan's) over her half-laughing, half-annoyed protests about her actual name. I bought the watch from her, so everybody wins.

Now that I'm accompanied by Jordan (a Canadian of Chinese ancestry, who speaks no Mandarin), the locals here assume he's my tour guide, and ask him permission to take my photograph. After he finishes staring at them blankly, I reply in broken Mandarin that my friend doesn't speak any Mandarin, and yes they can take my photo.

So, now Jordan and I are heading to the western extremity of China. Our plan to Mongolia fell through on account of train unavailability, flight and visa costs, and inadequate time to plan and execute a proper tour. Instead we fought with Chinese bureaucracy to have his pathetic 12 day visa extended -- a fight that took 3 days, 7 visits to a bank, 3 visits to the visa office, and $3500 -- and we're going to see Xinjiang province. The province is a country unto itself: It makes up 1/6th of China's size, borders 8 countries, and has completely different languages, cultures, and foods. And should be less busy than the Beijing area!

I've added some more photos of course, so check them out and leave comments!

-Mike

Updates Galore

2008-07-07T02:44:00.004-07:00

The IP changed again and this site was lost for a while; I'll fix this once I'm back in the Western hemisphere. Here's a dump of all my email updates!

Shanghainese (Update #6)

"It's real, it's real," the woman asserted, waving the "IPod" at me. (that capital "I" was only the first clue). "We no sell fakes here, only real!".
"Do you think I have a shao nao zi?", I asked. ('small brain').
"OK I be honest, it's fake. But very good quality! You want buy? 150 yuan for you, best price! No? How about an IPhone?"

Shanghai has been an awesome rest stop, and a huge transition point for my trip. I arrived here with Bronwyn, Oker and Alex to meet former roommates and soon-to-be-married friends Barry and Christine for a few fun days together. First Alex left for Toronto; then Bronwyn to Japan; finally B&C to Belgium to get married. And I'll be leaving tonight with some Irish lads to climb Huang Shan mountain before meeting Jordan in Beijing. For my last dinner with B&C, I had some rice dish in a franchise restaurant, and suddenly realized that I was holding a fork for the first time in over a month.

Another fond food/drink memory will be a coffee Alex and I had together, back in Chongqing (which we visited purely to see a vast and polluted city; and it delivered). Our $4.5 drink at Also Milo Coffee included a view of downtown, in a venue with hardwood floors, granite counters, and live piano music. It also happened to cost as much as our night's accommodation.

In Lijiang, Nanjing and here in Shanghai we've visited a few fantastic discos. In China the clubs play great music without covers or lineups, and (in Lijiang) we were the center of attention everywhere we went. Strangely, the clubs in Nanjing had at 3-4 elderly police officers, slumping against the DJ table half asleep. When we exited the club we chatted to some university students who had no idea where Canada was. Or America. Or Europe. In fact, they couldn't even name any countries adjacent to China except for Japan.

I can really see my surival-Mandarin coming along, thanks to some help from Barry, and his former coworker and now Mandarin teacher "The Crystal" (she prefixes everyone's name with 'The'). The dialect spoken here is, at least according to the locals, 'standard Mandarin'. Even if it that's untrue, it's an easy dialect to understand.
If I can't fully communicate with people, I can at least say enough to make them laugh at me. And I hope that soon my broken-Mandarin combined with the average level of broken-English most young people speak will sum to an effective level of communication. We'll see.

zhu yi qie an hao (apparently zai jian is not a proper close)

Down the Yangtze (Update #5)

The mosquitoes in Canada are large, slow, and dumb. You can usually get them but if they bite it would itch. In Zambia they were tiny, slow, and pathetic. If they bit, you didn't even notice (unless you got Malaria - then you definitely noticed). In China they are small, fast, and stealthy - likely from a billion people swatting at all the slow dumb ones. And their bites itch! We've seen some people with scars all over their arms from scratching the bites.

On the surface, traveling here you see the various cultural differences that you see anywhere, and welcome them for teaching you something new about the world. But when we look closer here we're often struck by the strange (to me of course) subtleties that pop out every now and again, many while in Lijiang:

We walked the cobbled streets of old town past a club blaring some Enrique Iglesias latin pop, but it was the 'Rasta Club'. It featured the first black people we saw in 2 weeks in China, pounding on drums next to the DJ.
Later that night in the streets after the bars closed (mandatory at 11:30 for noise reasons - and they don't push it by even a second) many young people took the a public square for guitar and beer by candlelight. As I joined them, the dozens of people present, joined by passersby around, would often break out into an emotionally charged chant "Sichuan, Jaio, Sichuan, Jaio" which I thought was another Chinese pop song everyone knew the lyrics to. But I was told it's actually a nationalistic chant for Sichuan province after the earthquake disaster.
The next morning on the news broadcast from the only english channel, CCTV 9 (remarkably apt acronym that station that controls most of the TV channels - it actually stands for China Central TV station), I heard a news report about the Dalai Lama supressing religious freedom. The reporter described the 'hypocrite' Dalai who dared to speak of freedom when his own brute squad was being sent around to beat up and burn houses of Indian Buddhists who don't consider him their leader but instead consider Dorje Shugden. The anchor actually scoffed and shook her head with disgust at the Dalai at the end of the story. Searching Google (after Chinese firewall filtered the results, of course) I find nothing but anti Dalai Lama news and more information to back up this story, but I really wonder what's going on.

Later that morning as we walked down the street looking for cheap bubble tea (only $0.40!) we were passed by a half dozen marching soldiers in full fatigues and storm-trooper helmets -- led by a soldier with a machine gun strapped on his back -- just out of a pleasant morning march down the main street of town to reinforce to the city that they're here, and ready, whenever their needed. We've seen large trucks with an open tray at the back, driving very slowly through the street; the back full with a dozen soldiers all intensely scanning the surroundings (us, the public) as they pass. And once while on a night bus, we were awoken late at a random police checkpoint where a cop boarded the bus with video camera in hand and pointed the camera one by one at each passengers face, recording us all "for our own safety". Wouldn't all this make you feel safe and secure?

Despite proximity to Japan it's uncommon to find Japanese cars here. I wonder how much this has to do with the two country's long history and deeply rooted feelings towards each other. There are plenty of VW, a few American, many Chinese brands, and plenty of French cars (in line with this country's love affair for France - which has got to be China's favourite after their own).

In Chengdu when we were wandering the Trust Mart (like a small Wal Mart) nearing closing time, there was plenty of people buzzing around us in the store. We failed to notice at first, but they were all employees. Dozens of them. As we browsed the aisles near the checkout, about a hundred employees streamed past us and then formed multiple line-ups in a militaristic fashion. This was in a store that would have a dozen employees in Canada. The mob blocked the exit, and we were directed by their boss (or commander, I don't know which) to come through the crowd. The sea of employees parted, and we passed through half laughing and half staring incredulously at what was going on there.
A few days later we went into a real Wal-Mart, to compare to what we're used to in Canada. The prices aren't a whole lot different there than in Canada, because its all Chinese goods but without the shipping costs added. But by comparison to the rest of China, this makes Wal-Mart the upscale department store people with money will go to shop - a total inversion of its role in North America.

I've just come down the Yangtze from Chongqing to Nanjing (two cities referred to as 'burning furnaces' for their summer temperatures) by dingy Chinese passenger ship, and by train.

Thousands of Kilometers (Update #4)

In the last few days Oker and his Mandarin has allowed us to have some pretty unique experiences. When walking in the Long Ji rice terraces he was in his usual state of hunger and asked a goat-herding peasant if the nearby village had a restaurant, which it did not. Long story short: We got fed delicious rice and soybeans in her house, and toured her subsistence farm. This wasn't our first or last time inside a peasant's home; Oker makes a point of exploring villages and their inhabitants in every new area of the country we visit, something we could never do without him with any success.

I think it was the previous day's dinner when we ordered some bamboo-shoot chicken, and were told that we'd have to order another chicken dish to justify killing the chicken -- "Kill the chicken? Really? Can we watch!?"

Of course we could! So we went out back and pulled a chicken from the cage, which the owner of the restaurant promptly handed to me to hold awkwardly. And within an hour the chicken was no more than a pile of meat (beak, feet, brain, and all) on our table, in various dishes. We got to stand in the kitchen the whole time, learning how the neck is slit, blood is drained, hot water is applied to loosen the feathers, and how it's gutted. All the while Oker with his camera right in the action (getting splattered with some blood during the chopping stage). We explained that we don't keep chickens in our yards in Canada, and the woman wondered how we'd ever taste fresh chicken.

Now to address the subject of the email. My professor advised me that a really beautiful route between Ping'an and Guiyang would be well worth the bussing overland. The road, relatively straight on the map, looked about 400km long and we planned to leave at 7am to catch a 10pm train (a pretty conservative estimate we thought). After our first bus into town from the village we spoke to the bus station attendant. In China nobody really knows the bus routes that other stations offer, so she wasn't very helpful, but did suggest we backtrack the opposite direction by 2 hours south in order to get a bus north again. Preposterous, we thought, and a good way to waste 4 hours. So instead we grabbed a bus to the next town along our route. In the end this trip required bus; bus; taxi to an impassable mud pit formerly a road (remember we're going through a province hit hard by flooding); boat ride around the impass; another taxi over the worst road imaginable while crammed between Alex and Oker in the backseat of a poorly ventilated van that covered 60km in 4 hours on a humid day, and at one point featured us singing along to the only english song we heard - by the Backstreet Boys of course; bus ride to a completely untouristed town where we slept the night after trying in vain to find a single available computer at two internet cafes bursting full of people. In the morning our final 6 hour bus ride wound through mountain passes and minority villages, to the soundtrack of Oker vomiting loudly. Then we boarded our overnight train another thousand kilometers to Kunming.

Our land route of 400km took us 7 legs and 20 hours of travel to complete. But the scenery of all the minority villages, mudslide damage (they're putting huge buildings up right next to oversteepened slopes already showing plenty of landslide potential), and strange towns (where all the rubbish bins are colorful mushrooms, or small towns with 4 lane wide concrete roads fit to drive tanks down), and the random adventure of it all, was well worth it.

We continued on hundreds of kilometers more, to a town as close to Tibet as anyone can get these days (Tibet is closed until at least September): Shangri-La, formerly known as Zhongdian before the government renamed it to attract more tourists. This place is a Tibetan county, so it's populated by the same people that reside in Tibet, and is at high altitude, so we're happy to be here in comfortably cool temperatures.

I'll leave you with a few random observations. There are very popular knockoff brands of motorbikes here (Keweseki, Hongb), based on blatent piracy of Japanese design and parts; and the helmets people wear, if any, appear no better than cheap baseball helmets.
People tend to carry heavy loads on a long pole over their shoulder with a large basket on the end of each pole; which is a method very different than the basket-on-head method of Africans; or the load on the back with strap across the forehead in much of Latin America.
We all know that China has the most cigarette smokers per capita, but I've found most people don't smoke more than a few a day. On that topic, late at night our bus driver pulled out an enormous 3-foot long water bong at a rest stop, and puffed away from his driver's seat for 10 minutes.
The land around any major city is used very efficiently for growing crops - even the small land areas found in the midst of highway cloverleafs.
Bargaining here is usually pretty easy, because on a few occassions people have dropped their initial inflated price by 70% with no stops in between.

Until next update (likely in Sichuan province)

2008-06-12T00:07:00.002-07:00

Rice Terraces (Update #3)

I write to you from the Zhuang (a minority people) village of Pingan in China, perched on green hills looking out onto beautifully terraced rice fields.

I've been in China for five days now and have had some pretty awesome experiences already. My first otherwordly experience occurred when Alex and I were riding on a sleeper nightbus from Shenzhen (Hong Kong's mainland counterpart) on our first night in China proper. The highway was elevated slightly and I peered out into of a hazy, heavily industrialized city that seemed to disappear into penetrating darkness. Large electronic billboards and signs flashed foreign symbols and corporate logos onto the dark cityscape (think Blade Runner), and as we rocketed along a brand new highway the bus emitted an alien-like buzzing noise like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was completely surreal.

Traveling with Oker (Tom) and Alex has been a blast, but Oker in particular has provided an endless source of hilarity. Being a Canadian of Chinese descent who can speak relatively good Mandarin, he is so enigmatic to the Chinese here. He knows it, and takes every opportunity to magnify it; for pure entertainment. For starters, he dresses in somewhat ragged clothing and wears a hat that only farmers wear here. So they think he's a poor farmer from the countryside, except that he's carrying a $3000 camera at all times, and speaks english fluently. If that wasn't enough, he is illiterate in Mandarin and has to ask locals to read a sign or menu to him - which results in a pretty incredulous reaction and furthers their belief that he's a poor peasant.

He'll also alternate between telling people he's our guide, or we're his slaves, or that my name is Da Shan ("Big Mountain"), or that he's Japanese (which many rural Chinese find horrible). It's an endless source of fun for us.

I have found that very little of my preconceived notions - about crowdedness, sanitation, safety, wealth, climate, landscape, or people - were true.

There are too many things to discuss in such a short email, but I qualify the above with some information about the few places I have experienced thus far, which may be subject to change after another 8 weeks:

The places I have visited have not been densely packed and overflowing with people as one might expect from the most populous nation. The water, food, and hotels are remarkably clean. There seems to be virtually no theft or need to worry about muggings. People live decently well and there are few beggars and no slums. The rains have been torrential and unrelenting for the most part, which I probably should have expected given the climatic information available on the internet - but to be fair it has been unseasonably wet. The landscape in this area is spectacular, with jagged karst limestone peaks shooting up from an otherwise flat terrain; everything draped with a thick green layer of foliage including impossibly steep cliff faces. And lastly the people have been very kind and helpful and there are virtually no touts, who exist for the sole purpose of harrassing tourists into buying something or staying somewhere. Most people just go about their business with a casual glance at the white backpackers strolling past. Although one tout at a bus depot upon finding out that Alex and I were continuing onto the next city told Alex that he was stupid. This was hilarious, especially to Alex, who enjoys when people are forthright.

I'll be uploading more photographs so please take a look at my flickr set for China by clicking the thumbnail above.

Hong Kong (Updates #1 and #2)

2008-06-06T20:00:00.003-07:00

Update #1
I made it to HK alright, nearly an hour ahead of schedule! Not bad for Air Canada. They even fed me on the plane. Three times!
Alex and I connected and I also had no problems getting into my relative's flat.

This place is rainy and humid, but bearable. It's breathtakingly beautiful, especially the urban density. There are residential apartments 100 storeys tall, contrasted by undeveloped pristine forested hills in every direction you turn. Just the way things should be!
High speed trains, busses everywhere, and ferries to get you from nearly any island to any bay or peninsula.

For dinner Alex had some unsweetened fruit cocktail dessert, but this was not your ordinary bland fruit cocktail. It contained "white fungus"; which looked like it sounds, has coconut texture when eaten, and tastes like mushroom.

Update #2
After two acceptable days of weather here in Hong Kong, we've had two days of nonstop tropical downpours - which did not stop us from exploring the city - that turned my feet into pinkish prunes. I've never heard thunder roar for so long before.

As you may suspect, the traffic in HK operates like Britain (or in East Africa where I was last summer): Drive on the left. And naturally, you would expect that when walking down a sidewalk the same rule would hold (as it did in East Africa). Not true! I find this very strange, and slightly frustrating. Even the escalators are left-biased, so why not the pedestrians?

Another thing about HK traffic is that since many streets are so busy, fences and barriers are set up to prevent pedestrians from crossing. There are overpasses and underpasses to cross these streets, but they never seem to be where you want them to be! This means you have to walk around the city with a similar amount of strategy as one would drive; knowing when and where to cross to prevent getting stuck painfully close to your inaccessible destination.

Window-mounted air conditioners are ubiquitous here. So are stores that blast the AC while keeping wide open the front doors and windows. In fact, considering that HK's dense and tall buildings prevent proper airflow through the city, I would wager that all these AC units are actually raising the temperature of the entire city by a few degrees. These aircons also lead to many random drips of condensation water ostensibly falling from the sky, and if you aren't watching for puddles on the ground you regularly get a random drip down your neck. At least I hope it's condensation water.

Today we depart for China proper, and I'm ready to dive in after testing the water here in HK. I've uploaded some pretty photos to my flickr page, so please check them out by clicking the thumbnail above!

Out of the frying pan.....

2007-11-24T00:05:00.001-08:00

Despite an absence of updates since my return to Canada, I have not abandoned this blog. It was a mere state of hibernation as I plunged, like some nutty Scandinavian member of a Polar Bear Club, into the first semester of my final year at UBC.

This term I opted to forego involvement in the executive of the Varsity Outdoor Club, and any major involvement in the Mining Executive (I represent students at 3 meetings with industry members each year). Yet my term has been as busy as I could ever imagine, despite thinking last year was busy! I'll outline some of what I've been up to:

Applying for scholarships. Jon convinced me I had a shot at a Rhodes Scholarship. He's given me some of the best advice of my life, so I listened. A lengthy application procedure followed - including 6 reference letters! How it works is that UBC selects 8 candidates to send to the BC Selection Committee, who select 1 candidate each year. I would have liked to make it past the UBC judges. I didn't. It turns out that UBC failed to see the subtle genius of my application, and how my life is intricately tied with Cecil John Rhodes'. I didn't make it explicit, because I didn't think they needed a history lesson, but I'll lay it out for you here:

Cecil John Rhodes founded De Beers in 1880. I worked for De Beers Canada in 2005.
The territory of Northern Rhodesia, named after Cecil Rhodes in 1895, became independent in 1964 and changed its name to Zambia. I worked in Zambia in 2007.

Come on, clearly I was destined to win this thing! Ah well. Who wants arguably the most prestigious scholarship in the world - a fully-paid 2 years at Oxford - anyways?

Applying for jobs. Who knew university could fly by so quickly? Suddenly I realize so many of the strangers I met in Vancouver have now become close friends, whom I will sorely miss when I leave to work. Work where you ask? If only I knew! Lots of interviews but no offers forthcoming so far. Canada or Australia seem likely choices.

Organizing/fundraising for February field trip to Chile. Every year the graduating class of UBC Mining Engineers flies off for an international field trip over reading break. Past years were in Brazil, Poland, and China; this year's in Chile. We need to raise $85000 and self-organize the entire trip. I've been helping out as much as I can, and fortunately my fellow engineers are awesome team members: About 3/4 the class is really making a contribution. That's a pretty good fraction, trust me.
On a related note Colin, Jeremy and I went down to a mining investment conference in San Francisco last weekend. Partially to raise field trip money but also to get our school's program out there and network with industry. What an incredible experience! So many hospitality suites, sponsored parties at expensive nightclubs and art galleries, business cards and job offers. I had the finest hors d'oeuvres and wines I've ever sampled, had a day to do some sightseeing and photography, and unforgettable late-night wandering with Colin around downtown SF. Check out the San Francisco flickr set for photos. One of the best parts was to spend quality time with two solid buddies from mining.

Rock climbing, as usual. Great trips to Penticton, BC and Smith Rock, Oregon with the VOC. Fun times as usual. Click the locations in the previous sentence for links to flickr photos.

Next term I'm only taking 4 classes, by far my lightest ever! What a way to finish university. Hopefully I can get some great backcountry skiing and (indoor) rock climbing done. And make sure to spend more time with those extra-special friends I'll miss post-graduation.

Africa #4

2007-08-24T23:46:00.000-07:00

The conclusion of my adventures in Africa has come. The final days proved the most exciting and eventful, because of a few memorable journeys.

The bus trip down the coast to catch my ferry was sticky and humid, yet nobody would open the window. I had the aisle seat, so bus etiquette meant I had no control over windows. Then the woman in front of me opened a window! Ah, a breath of fresh air. But just then a woman across the aisle leans over, says something in swahili while scrunching up her nose and pointing to her kids, and the window begins to close. Usually I'm very accommodating but this time I had to protest. It was close to thirty degrees, cloudy, and 100% humidity. The woman said "But there are children here!" and waved towards her two kids, both clad in bright new fleeces despite the heat. "Your kids won't freeze. I can't breathe in here, I need the window open." She agreed, but continued to scrunch her nose everytime the breeze flew towards her.

I met two British guys while scouring Dar es Salaam for a hotel the night before my ferry ride to Zanzibar. We ended up sharing a triple room and traveling together for the final 5 days of my trip. They were both interesting secondary school geography teachers. Yesterday after two days on the beach - and a nice sunburn - in the north of Zanzibar island I bid them farewell. I chose the $1 daladala instead of the $5 tourist taxi for the 60km ride back to the main town. (Distances in Africa are better measured in time than kilometers, because of the strong variation in both bus and road conditions. This trip was to take 60 minutes in the tourist van but twice that in the daladala). The daladala bus was a small truck, with wooden bench in a U shape around the tray, with open sides and a thin roof. It was 'licensed' to carry 20 people, which believe me is enough already. The trip began with about 10 and I kept my bag with me, as opposed to on the roof where they'd like to put it. This proved to be one of my best decisions ever. The truck soon filled to 20 people, and my each time the vehicle screeched to a halt I felt the weight of 10 people sliding into me, pinching my knees together so hard I thought my bones would shatter. Each time we stopped (which was every few minutes, whenever somebody waved down the bus using the 'dribbling basketball' motion common to Africa), people would move on and off and I would have a second of respite from the pressure. At least my squashed body would have a variety of squashing, so no part would be numb for too long. At the halfway point of the trip, some men with large baskets stopped the bus. Each basket was nearly a meter long and half a meter high, and filled with fresh fish. These baskets weighed well over 100 lbs each, because it took 5 men to lift them - up onto the roof of the bus. After the two baskets were up, I turned to see what else they had. I had to look a few times to believe what I saw - a giant manta ray, more than a meter in wingspan, and dripping with slime and blood. As they heaved it onto the roof, I noticed a gooey liquid dripping off the side of the bus. The fish baskets were loosely woven, and the ray was merely strapped on, so nothing prevented their slime from running freely off the side of the roof. The locals on the bus noticed this and quickly unrolled the tarpaulin window covering to prevent goo dripping onto our backs. Seemed like a good idea, but proved otherwise. Instead of the slime dripping dangerously close but usually missing our backs and falling to the road, it was now being randomly ejected in all directions by the flapping tarpaulin - sometimes away from the bus but often flinging droplets into the seating area. I'm sure glad I saved a clean shirt for the plane home.

As my flight is midday today, I opted for the cheap night ferry back to the mainland last night. It would also save me a night's accomodation. Seemed like a brilliant plan to me. It wasn't, but like most terrible adventures they are worth it for their stories. We boarded this boat at 9pm and with a handful of other backpackers were shown to the 'VIP lounge' upstairs, with couches and foam mattresses. And cockroaches - but only the small ones. Later on, another dozen well-to-do Tanzanians joined us upstairs. I visited the bathroom, and noticed it was in a sorry state. I expected not to revisit it and was thankful for that. Upstairs, I slept well at first, despite the exceedingly rough seas that tossed the small ferry up and down, giving you the feeling of weightlessness characteristic of rollercoaster rides. I've always enjoyed that feeling, when your stomach goes up into your throat, and started to wonder how people could become sea sick. At 4am I awoke and the violent tossing was rolling me around too much, so I watched the angry waves splash over the bow from my bed beside the window. As I thought of something I had to write down, I took out my notepad and light. Within seconds I felt sea-sick. As I tried to sit up and breathe slowly, I took out my earplugs and heard the wretching of several others in the dark room. The air in the room was stuffy and unpleasant. I realized that fabric furniture, carpeting, and foam mattresses are not appropriate for a place that holds a handful of seasick passengers on a nightly basis. The air began to feel much more unpleasant at that thought. I scrambled downstairs to the bathroom, which condition had, as expected, deteriorated noticeably. A bathroom that starts out messy does not improve during a journey. I wasn't going to be sick, just wanted to use the toilet. But in this part of Africa people squat, they don't sit. So the toilet seat was covered in muddy footprints, and I had to use it in the same fashion. Believe me, that was a tough balancing act. I'm quite proud that I managed to avoid both being thrown off by the rough seas, and becoming sick given the conditions at hand. I went outside to get some fresh air and all was well again. I wish I could have had a photo of the second class seating on the boat. Bodies lying everywhere, limbs strewn over armrests, boxes, and railings. I even saw one man sleeping on a staircase - now that is a feat.

And so I've found myself back in Dar es Salaam, and ready to go to the airport. Don't worry everyone, I managed to find a shower at the YMCA early this morning, and saved a fresh set of clothes for the trip home. This whole summer has been an unforgettable and eye opening experience, and I appreciate all the feedback I've received from everybody. I hope you've enjoyed my tales and anecdotes.

I haven't posted my photos since the last update, because a hostel fried my card reader. (I'm glad I didn't plug in my iPod!). The latest photos will prove the best, so please check in a week or two for them!

Africa photo set

-Mike

Africa #3

2007-08-20T04:10:00.000-07:00

Since my last update I've experienced almost a week in
Kenya. I spent most of that in Nairobi and found the
city surprisingly safe, and refreshingly modern. The
people spoke English perfectly and the busy
cosmopolitan city was bustling with smartly dressed
professionals; suits, shiny shoes, and a mobile phone.

But the traffic was strikingly bad. Despite having
public transit (no subway, only busses; this is Africa
remember) the streets were choked with vehicles - most
of which would never pass any first-world emissions
test. It seems the tuktuk hasn't been discovered here,
which would help the traffic somewhat. During rush
hour, I could walk the 3km to downtown from the hostel
at least 20 minutes faster than any vehicle could make
it. And it's a 20 minute walk. Oddly, the traffic
police direct things during daylight hours, and the
traffic lights are ignored.
The taxis were overpriced ($5 for a 5 minute ride), so
I frequented the busses and matatus (aka daladala, aka
collectivo. They're private minivan busses, pouring
smoke from the exhaust pipe, filthy and crammed with
people).
I met a woman on the bus while traveling back to the
hostel. She was smartly dressed, a receptionist, and
her english was perfect. She suddenly told me "I live
in Kibera. Have you heard of Kibera?". My eyes
widened. Kibera is the largest slum in the world, and
is located on the western edge of Nairobi. I told her
"Yes of course I've heard of it. But.. how can you
live there? What's your house like?". "I live in a
shack." Wow, I have since learned that lots of
gainfully employed people reside in the slum and some
even like the neighbourhood.

On my last day in Nairobi I was wandering the National
Archives and while searching for a balcony I found an
industrial scene on the rooftop, and took a photo of
it (see flickr). The security guard brought me down
to the directors office, and I kindly went along.
Thought it would be interesting, and curious what it
was about. Of course, he suspected me of terrorism,
because only terrorists take photos of non-touristy
things. Later the security guard outside the enormous
Kenyatta Conference Center stopped me while taking a
wide photo of the enormous edifice. He asked what I
was doing: "Taking a photo. I'm a tourist - it's what
we do", I responded. He slowly and emphatically
replied, "That's a very bad idea." Later I wanted to
take a photo of some movie-theater hot-dogs, but of
course that wasn't allowed either.

Another strange thing about Kenya is that smoking is
banned in public places. Outside. But inside bars
and restaurants its fine. This is one of those laws
that run contrary to logic (like Zambia making cars
daytime-running lights illegal). Its best not to
think about these things and just accept it: This is
Africa. Logic is out of the question.

One night in Nairobi I went out to a nice pub with
live African music and a relaxed outdoor atmosphere. I
knew that prostitutes were common in bars in Africa
and wondered how you could tell them apart from just
regular women being nice. After 20 minutes an
unattractive black woman sat down beside me. She was
even missing a tooth, and asked me my name. I told
her, and she told me hers. "Lucky". Well, I didn't
have to wonder any longer.

Everytime someone sees my Canadian flag they say
"Canada! Vancouver Toronto Montreal?" Always in that
order. They tell me that most people they meet are
from Vancouver. Perhaps Vancouverites are just more
likely to speak to the locals here instead of ignoring
them.

Its nearly everyday that I do a double-take and see
something totally random that makes me laugh. Most
people in East Africa buy second-hand clothes, and
most of these clothes come from North America. So you
encounter the most random and fun shirts. Example: a
kid on the side of the train tracks in Tanzania with
an old-school Canucks logo on his sweater. Or a
begging man on the street wearing a Vancouver Sea Bus
shirt. Or a guy in Dar es Salaam wearing the high
school phys-ed uniform from the school that a fellow
traveler attended in Washington DC. Two of my
favourite shirt sightings were a teenager with a shirt
reading "#1 Grandpa", and another time a young man
with a shirt explaining "It's not a bald spot, it's a
solar panel for my sex machine".
And it extends to vehicles too. A matatu (remember,
minivan bus) painted with Toronto Blue Jays colours
and logos all over it. And Africans don't even like
baseball.

I also spent two days in Hell's Gate National Park with a dutch traveler. The park is one of the only you can bicycle and hike through, and the Rift Valley scenery was beautiful. I discovered that zebras and gazelles are terrified of humans on bicycles or foot but completely ignore vehicles. We even explored a naturally carved river gorge and had to rock climb over hot-springs. This area is very geologically active and the government generates electricity from geothermal energy. It reminded me of Iceland.

Last night I took a night train to Mombasa, on the Kenyan coast. In the morning we passed through Tsavo, famous for the man-eating Tsavo lions. Back when the railway was being built, over one hundred workers were eaten by lions. There's even a movie about it which I've seen: The Ghost and the Darkness. Now I'm heading south to Zanzibar where I'll spend the rest of my trip on the sunny archipelago rich in history and culture.

As usual check out my flickr photos by clicking the thumbnail above!

-Mike

Africa #2

2007-08-12T22:53:00.000-07:00

I've returned from my safari to Lake Manyara, the Serengeti, and the Ngorongoro Crater. The wildlife was plentiful and we saw everything I wanted besides a rhinocerous (I'm told on cold days they hide in the woods.) We even saw a rare tree-climbing lion, and the very shy and hard to spot leopard. I also loved the elephant that charged towards our landcruiser, but happily ran past when we moved out of its intended path. But the wildlife wasn't the highlight, it was the scenery.
The African Rift Valley extends from Ethiopia to Mozambique and represents a failed attempt by the earth to rip apart the continent. As a result a stunning landscape was created with sharp escarpments and steep valleys. On route to Serengeti, you climb an escarpment and look out upon the vast Lake Manyara. The lake seems enormous, because you cannot see across it. The air is not very clear, likely due to the dust created by the dry conditions of the season. As you climb the escarpment up hundreds of meters, you eventually begin to drive along the rim of the Ngorongoro crater. This is the largest caldera creater in the world, formed by a massive volcano exploding and collapsing into itself. The views had to wait, because we drove up in the morning, and all we saw was an impenetrable fog and an increasingly thick jungle of vegetation. We saved the crater for last, and continued towards the Serengeti. As we descended back down the hundreds of meters to the plains, the scenery once again changed to dry savanna; the monotony only broken by an occasional stand of small trees or a kopje (granite outcrop) in the distance. As we approached the gates to the Serengeti National Park the plains seemed to get larger and before long, nearly the entire horizon was a laser-straight line and I felt at sea. Perhaps this is what living in Saskatchewan feels like, minus the lions and giraffes.
We went to the crater last, and camped on the rim. We arrived in the dark and a thick fog was rolling in. The camp was packed full of tents and one huge umbrella tree loomed over everything, its silhouette just barely visible in the dark and fog. My guide advised me to move my tent away from the edge of the clearing - elephants and wildebeest frequently barge through. In fact, in the pitch dark that evening an elephant walked right into camp and drank from the water tanks, and a wildebeest loudly munched in the bushes just behind the toilets. The next morning we descended through the fog into the crater and witnessed another impressive landscape. This crater is a permanent home to many species like zebra, wildebeest, buffalo, elephants, lions, and rhinos. And everywhere you turn there are huge herds running past you, or a lion sleeping only a few dozen meters from some overconfident zebras. It was marvelous.

The whole safari was very cheap, because of course I chose the cheapest budget company I could find. I was considering going with the second cheapest option, but when the cheapest option director mentioned the group would be me plus three ladies, it pretty much sealed the deal. Boy was that a mistake.
My luck would put me with three British ladies who had never camped before. Never even slept in a tent either. And being a budget safari, we were putting up and taking down our own tents each night. Rather, that's what supposed to happen. Instead, I was doing everything. And these are old-school canvas tents with broken poles and bent pegs.
The first night I was showing them how to put up their tent and one said to me "But Mike, we don't need to learn how to put up a tent. We never go camping." One morning I even had to lend them my torch (they only had 1 between them), and pack my belongings in the dark. Then take down and put away my tent in the dark. And they still hadn't even finished packing. But they learned something about camping and I learned something about patience, and we all got along in the end.
Two of the girls had SLR cameras, but one of them really said some silly things. Like "SLR - Standard Light Reflex" or after using my camera for a photograph she commented "Hah, very nice fake-shutter sound" (my camera's a D-SLR and makes the same mirror-flip sound like every other SLR).

My favourite quote of the trip from one of them was the night we rolled into the very basic camp in the middle of the Serengeti, where lions have been known to sleep with their head against your door. This camp has no power or running water, and only pit toilets. She asked, "Where can I charge my iPod?". Classic.

I've since left Tanzania and spending a week in Kenya. I'm in Nairobi now and the people are even nicer than in Tanzania, and the city seems even safer than Arusha or Dar es Salaam despite what the guidebooks say about the dangers of Nairobbery. I've found a wonderful backpackers hostel, which is harder than you think in East Africa. (This place isn't well set up for budget tourists' accomodation, like South America or Europe. Most tourists to Africa are very wealthy and you're never short of $500+ hotels).

As usual I've been posting photos on flickr (click thumbnail above). More are coming when I can find a card reader. The last hostel's computer fried mine. At least it didn't fry the photos too.

-Mike

Africa Update #1

2007-08-05T05:09:00.000-07:00

So, I got robbed. Well, maybe the correct word is
conned. Where can you draw the line? If you figure
out you've been conned within 10 seconds, and the
perpretrators are still visible, does a connery turn
into a robbery? I was trying to change money on the
street because the official places were closed on
Sunday, but instead I paid $50 to learn a valuable
lesson in Livingstone (on the Zambian/Zimbabwe border).
After they had taken the money
I yelled 'thief' and gave chase, but my groceries
slowed me down and they hopped into a van around the
corner. A woman with some friends on the street
scolded me afterwards: "Why didn't you yell louder!?
We would have caught them if we heard you. Next time
don't be so quiet!".
It was essentially my first day traveling alone, and I
felt pretty stupid. I have encountered so many
friendly Zambians (all of them) and let myself become
naive. I was pretty down on myself, but tried to
forget about it because the next morning I was going
to bungee jump off the bridge to Zimbabwe -- one of
the highest bungees in the world. That would help me
forget about what happened.
But in the morning I find out that the bungee doesn't
run Mondays. It's the worker's day off. Why close
one of the biggest tourist attractions in Africa for
1/7th of the week, rather than switching staff? If
you're asking such logical questions like this, you
haven't been in Africa long enough. I had to catch a
45 hour train ride to Tanzania the following day so I
couldn't wait, and I didn't get the chance to bungee.
However, during my day wandering around town, I was
going to pay attention to everyone's face so I could
try and catch my conman. After the entire day of
errands and sightseeing, I resolved myself to the fact
that any man smart enough to con tourists was also
smart enough to lay low for a day.
Around 16:00 I realized I still hadn't changed money,
and rush to the official FX office. Comparing rates,
a man tapped me from behind and asked if I needed to
change money. I turned around and couldn't believe
what I was seeing: the stupidest conman in the world,
staring back at me without even recognizing who I was.
I casually put my arm over his shoulder and explained
who I was, asked for my money back, as I looked for a
policeman on the street. The guy protested at first,
then bounded away like lightning when he realized who
I was. I learned my lesson from yesterday, and within
seconds my chase was joined by 5 guys. Then my 5
helpers yelled ahead and we were joined by 10 more.
In under a minute, the man was caught and my posse had
grown to 30 people. They asked me what he did and I
told them. Then the fun began. The thirty enraged
townspeople were climbing over each other to slap-down
the conman. Hard, echoing, open-hand slaps rained
down on his face, his smooth head, and his back. The
cops arrived and we stopped the crowd after a minute,
and dragged his sorry ass the the station. I didn't
expect my money back, but figured this was $50 well
spent. Fortunately, his father came and offered to
repay me if I dropped charges. I accepted, and in my
remaining few hours in Livingstone before catching a
nightbus north, I had a wonderful dinner with a
friendly Welshman I met.

I'm now in Dar Es Salaam after a wonderful 50 hour train ride from Zambia to Dar es Salaam (Tanzania). The Chinese built railway line and railway cars made me laugh -- the toilets were just holes in the floor, the signs were all in Chinese, and the sink and shower drainage was ridiculous (check my flickr page soon for those photos). I met more fascinating people, this time a group of young Christian 'believers' with whom I spoke for hours. The trip was wonderful, cheap (half price for students costing me $22), and didn't seem long at all despite the 1900km journey. We passed through game parks and purchased delicious food out the window everytime the train stopped (which was very common and usually without apparent reason).

And now Dar es Salaam. This city has a wild mix of Indians, Arabs and Africans, with most people of muslim faith. I know this because this morning before dawn a man with a megaphone was outside the hotel, booming the arabic morning prayers to whole neighbourhood. And this happens every morning. Here the weather is humid and stuffy, and despite the proximity to the ocean there is little breeze. I think I got athlete's foot from walking for 10 minutes with sandals down the filthy and odour-filled streets. The city is not very tourist friendly, and things are expensive ($15 hotel and $8 for a nice restaurant meal). The hotels' single rooms were all full, but I met a Jewish-Canadian and we shared a double room. And lots of travel stories. The Tanzanians are far less kind than Zambians, far more aggressive, and speak far less English (Swahili is their common language). Zanzibar is near, but I'm heading inland to Arusha to find a safari.

Click the link in the thumbnail above for my flickr photos!

Kwa heri,
-Mike

Zambia #8

2007-07-15T03:12:00.000-07:00

So the miners are on strike. It all began when the workers’ union representatives traveled to the Zambia head-office to negotiate, and were promised a 21% raise on their base salary plus back-pay from the start of negotiations. This was expected to come into effect last week but due to an accounting debacle and some poor communication between union and workers, it didn’t happen for everybody. Seems that some had their raise and back-pay, some only had 6% raises, and some even had their pay reduced. The bean-counters were warned to fix it fast but they didn’t. Now the Leading Hands and Managers are operating equipment, along with some workers who snuck through the protest. Although our stockpiles are running down and this can’t keep up forever, the mill is thrilled with the consistency and quality of the ore feed! And further proof that the stock market makes no sense: When the news hit the exchanges about our strike, the stock jumped up over 3% in the remaining hours of trading.

Last year it only lasted half a day before being resolved, but the Ghanaian Production Manager had to go to court in the capital. He had taken a photo of the union leader during the protest, and faced charges of witchcraft. The union leader felt that he was being cursed to death by the black-magic of the black foreigner. The superstitious fear magic (sometimes known as ‘ju-ju’) from Africans originating from other parts of the continent.

We’ve had some pretty hilarious occurrences over the last few weeks, which I hear about from the production crew at our daily meetings. Last week the dozer went to our rubbish dump to bury and compact things, and found about 50 locals scouring for scrap metal. They fled into the forest, but when they saw the dozer was burying their treasure, they started hurling rocks. The security has since been stepped up, and there are plans to make the landfill area our new snake-relocation zone.

And two days ago a 40-tonne truck’s parking brake seized on, and while the truck drove up a ramp the brake caught fire. The driver jumped out and smartly chocked the wheels, and our Shift Manager came with the water truck to quickly bring the fire under control. When the fire was extinguished the brake released, and the chocks proved inadequately small for the 2-meter diameter tyres. The truck began creeping backwards, and everybody hesitated to jump aboard the soon-to-be runaway truck. It rolled down-ramp for over a hundred meters, narrowly avoiding a grader, a pickup, and the sheer-drop off the high-wall into the pit. At the bottom of the ramp it ran over a stop sign before rolling to a relatively peaceful stop. Even funnier is that the Shift Manager and Production Manager were laughing to the point of tears as they told us what happened on their watch. Since no equipment or people were hurt, this situation’s hilarity could be appreciated. But at any first-world mine, people wouldn’t take it so lightly. Hurray for a laid-back Africa.

The 21 tradesmen of Team Indonesia have now been joined by 50 Filipinos. Sometimes at lunch I wonder if I’m still in Africa. Apparently, flying in these skilled contractor teams is way cheaper than employing the local people, and you get better results, much faster. As unfair as this is to the local people desperate for work, the problem with Zambians is that so many certified tradesmen have forged certificates. And some of the authentic certificates are from schools that have no equipment, so people can graduate without ever touching a wrench or lathe. What good is that!? But I’ve been in contact with one of the social development coordinators and they’ve found an excellent trade-school in the Congo that they’ll be investing in and recruiting from.

I've got some more photos posted on the flickr account, like newspaper clippings you could only find in Africa, what 40000 kg of explosives can do, and visual accounts of two more hilarious occurances not mentioned above. Plus chimpanzees! Check them out by clicking the thumbnail above.

Only two weeks remaining for me here before I’m off to see something other than rocks and dust. It's the final countdown. (And I've got that song by 'Europe' stuck in my head).

-Mike

Zambia #7

2007-07-03T03:43:00.000-07:00

At night the temperature here drops into the single digits, and my tin-can accommodation has absolutely no insulation. Fortunately I remain comfortable with plenty of blankets, but I still dread that first contact of bare-feet to floor each morning. With the temperature rising rapidly early in the morning and never even a whisper of wind, the mornings are always comfortable. But the Zambians and Australians around here sure complain about the cold, especially at breakfast where we eat in an essentially open-air cafeteria.
On a similar topic, it appears that nobody here understands the function of the “defrost” setting in a car. Both Africans and Australians will get into a car on a cool morning, leave the heater off or set it to dash/floor, and then repeatedly wipe the fogging windows with their hands all the way down the road. The Zim woman with whom I surveyed in the bush absolutely refused to allow me to turn on the defrost heater. She was adamant that heaters ‘smell funny’ and we should just wipe the windows ourselves. Whatever.

During the monthly safety meeting the Mine Manager relayed a story about his time working at Palabora mine in South Africa, which is separated from Mozambique by a large game reserve. The mine had two large smokestacks that could be seen from over a hundred kilometers away in Mozambique, and escaping refugees would use these as landmarks for navigation to South Africa. The mine would frequently catch small groups of starving, dehydrated refugees who had come through the fence from the game reserve. The mine would give them food and water, and my boss then started asking them about their journey. He discovered that their party of 5 initially started with about 50 people! All the others had been bitten by snakes, collapsed from exhaustion, or been eaten by lions. The refugees actually came to be the primary food source for the lions of the game reserve. I wish I was joking.

The other night at the pub I was quizzing a few Zambians about marriage and relationships. Considering how westernized the people here are, I was astonished at what I heard.
In most parts of Africa including Zambia, a married man having a mistress or girlfriend is socially acceptable. Even further, a man is legally allowed to take multiple wives, but women cannot have multiple husbands. Most men who take multiple wives do it as a show of wealth or virility. But I’m told a jealous wife will sometimes poison the favourite wife. Or the husband. Most people here are understandably monogamous.
In a divorce, the wife gets nothing. And because the man is the “custodian of the marriage”, a woman cannot legally get divorced without his agreement. Amazing how the people are so devoutly Christian, yet are able to mix in traditional customs. I can just imagine the missionaries bargaining with the natives they encountered here hundreds of years ago.... “Alright, if you cut out the cannibalism, we’ll let you keep the polygamy. Deal?”
I promised the guys that with globalization and increasing women’s rights they would see these customs changing within their lifetimes.

Yesterday was the most fun I’ve had on the mine site yet. A 120 meter TV tower needed a cable brought up and connected to a radio repeater. It seems everybody around here is afraid of heights; meanwhile I was jumping at the opportunity to climb anything after so long without rock climbing. So after dragging up an increasingly heavy amount of coaxial cable behind me, I discovered that the plug did not fit the socket. Oh well, now I have to climb it again later.
In the afternoon my boss the South African Mine Manager (for description see the end of update #4) had invited me to come for a dirtbike/quad ride around the perimeter fence. I was under the impression it would somehow be work related -- looking for damage perhaps. I didn’t expect being invited for something fun. But fun it was, oh boy. A 400cc quad can really rip, and on the open road I got it up over 80 km/h! The huge mine property has lots of trails ranging from footpaths to full-width roads, and there are lots of dirt pits to play around in. There are even zebra, impala, and elan (like a deer) on the property, but we could only find hoof prints today.
And it’s not because we were on loud machines -- it’s actually much easier to find African wildlife from motorized vehicles than on foot. Because humans and animals evolved simultaneously in Africa, the animals are now instinctually frightened of a recognizable human shape. Hence why, (a) you cannot domesticate African animals, and (b) a car allows you to get up very close to animals without them running off, to the delight of safari-goers.

As usual I’ve posted plenty of new photos! Please take a look and feel free to comment. Click the thumbnail above.

-Mike

Zambia #6

2007-06-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

Despite the potential for unfriendly animal encounters in the bush whilst surveying, I survived unscathed. My snake paranoia, driven by tall-tales from everybody at work, was fortunately unfounded. The local villagers living in the area have killed and eaten anything larger than a mouse, and besides a plethora of beautiful and exotic bird species I saw no animals during my week of surveying. But my week was far from boring…

The day-to-day office work had gotten a bit monotonous, but my last week completely smashed that monotony. Along with Gilly, the wife of a displaced Zimbabwe farmer working at the mine and friend of the CEO’s family, we drove over 2 hours from the ‘civilization’ (hardly) of our nearby town Solwezi into a very basic preliminary bush camp directed by two young Zambians named Dominic and Amos. Dom is a former conservation officer and national park guide full of hilarious stories of wild animal encounters, while Amos is the nephew of the local Chief Kapijimpanga and acts as a liaison with the local villagers and fishermen. They both successfully direct a small team of local villagers to clear roads, construct small buildings, and prepare the area for a future construction camp. The local villagers happily receive $2.50 per day – and I’m told this is only slightly less than the monthly salary for similar workers in Zimbabwe. This parcel of land, 22000 hectares, was donated by the elderly chief to the CEO in order to develop what will likely become a game reserve. The chief wants something to help employ the local people. This land has never been owned before, and judging by the inaccessibility of certain parts of it, it is likely we were the first white people ever to see much of it.

I learned an amazing amount during this week. The first thing, learned on the initial drive to the camp, was that the movie scenes of young children from roadside villages excitedly waving and chasing after cars are true. I learned that on Sundays you’ll find very smartly dressed, humble elderly men bicycling to church. And on Sunday night, while driving through the local village we stopped to pick up some of the workers for Monday morning. I found everyone acting goofy -- pawing the vehicle, shaking our hands limply, muttering in broken English or their local Kaonde, calling out to Dom and Amos, peering into the car by pressing their faces to the windows. Every single person was completely intoxicated! They were drunk off their locally brewed beers (katchasu) and liquors (chibuku). This is what happens every Sunday, and most Saturday afternoons. But by sunrise the next morning, a dozen guys had walked and bicycled 15km to our camp to ask for work, seeing our Landcruiser the day before and assuming we were the big bosses.

The backcountry in Canada is typically devoid of people, where you go to be alone with nature. In Zambia the local people really add an interesting spice to the backcountry. As we drove, hiked, bushwhacked, forded rivers, motor-boated, paddled in dugout canoes, and even rode dirt-bikes through the virgin woodlands we encountered evidence of human habitation. An abandoned grass-roofed hut appears in the forest. A tiny footpath. Small snares to catch ground-dwelling animals. A random forest clearing, full of sorghum or maize. Upraised rows of soil where a small farm once existed, now hidden by natural vegetation. Or more obvious signs like finding a group lying about in their family-sized villages chowing down on kapenta (dried fish), wild hot chilly peppers, and nshima (maize-meal dough). Fishermen scrambling to maneouver their small dug-out canoes to the shore to avoid being swamped by our motorboat wake. (As an aside to all my canoeist friends, I was totally shocked to see the local fishermen haven’t learned to J-stroke. They’re switching sides every few strokes like amateurs). I found the natural setting to be enriched by the presence of the peaceful local Zambians.

One of the fondest memories of my trip was from one very peaceful night at the campfire. As the temperature dropped towards single-digits, everyone else in the camp went to bed and I was left alone, snuggling up to a personal-sized campfire of hot embers that never once blew smoke in my face. The air was completely still, and occasional raucous laughter drifted down the open marshland from local villagers miles away. With zero light pollution, the sky overhead was foreign to me but bursting with stars and constellations – like Scorpius, and the Southern Cross. The mosquitoes, which were laughable by Canadian standards, had all gone to sleep. The tranquility of the scene was only surpassed by peaceful nights in Algonquin Park, where the beautiful and unmistakable loon call echoes down the lake.

Check out my flickr photos by clicking the thumbnail above. You’ll find some mini-stories with the photos.

Yours Very Sincerely and Long-Windedly,
-Mike

Zambia #5

2007-06-05T08:59:00.000-07:00

With 100 channels on the satellite television, I can watch motorcycle racing, a 5-day cricket match, and even beach volleyball. But not the Stanley Cup finals.

Before arriving I was aware of the prevalence and importance of mobile phones in Africa. Without the infrastructure for landlines, mobiles bring communication to rural areas. They are especially important for farmers, to help them determine to which market they should bring their crop. But with all the differences between our cultures, one thing is unchanged: Ring tones.
I remember the day I arrived; I almost burst out laughing when from down the hall I heard the same goofy ring-tone that Jordan had on his phone back in Canada.

The peanuts here, known as groundnuts, are a cheap snack available in the market. However, they are boiled rather than roasted. This means they are slightly mushy, an unfamiliar texture for a typically crunchy snack. It also means they don’t keep very long, which I learned the hard way today when I hungrily discovered my bag of moldy peanuts.

I’ve now been away from Canada for the longest stretch in my life, topping my 31 days in South America last August. I’ve been away from ‘home’ many times in my life, and for far longer stretches. But being away from home and outside of Canada is another experience entirely. For starters, the exotic new foods cooked by somebody else eventually leave you longing for your own normal foods like pancakes, yoghurt, or oatmeal. The Zambian food we’re fed consists mainly of fat, then protein. The meat is usually stewed to hide how gristly and tough it is, and everything comes with a very rich sauce. Raw or crisp vegetables are scarce -- they’re typically boiled in oily water or fried in butter. The “salad” available every single day consists of iceberg lettuce (no nutrients), raw onion (disgusting), and tomato (delicious and nutritious). I’ve been eating a lot of tomato salad. On the plus side, we’re usually given a variety of choices.

The isolation of where I’m located is settling in, as the initial ‘travel euphoria’ (as Maxine calls it) wears off. There are no cinemas, galleries, museums, clubs, culturally significant sites, or even musical shows here. A Google search for “Solwezi tourism” yields a page with two photographs, and another page with the headings “Dining, Nightlife, Lodging, Activities, Experiences, Things To Do”. Followed by “No Entries”. But I am still meeting new people every day, and discovering the cultural differences by conversation with coworkers and random employees hitchhiking into town or back to site.

For instance, I’ve met two Rastafarians so far. I guessed they were Rastas, and was right both times. This isn’t telepathy - you can spot them from a mile away. They’re literally the only men with hair longer than a few millimeters. They have radical names too – Gift, and Happyguy. No joke.

This morning a fellow employee in the office explained her intentions to have a survey completed for the boundary of some land recently gifted from the local chief to the CEO. The land contains a few abandoned villages, some beautiful rivers, and some thick forest. The CEO plans to develop a farm, a fishing village, or a game reserve on the land. I think I’ve been cooped up in this office long enough, so I volunteered, pending boss approval. Despite her warnings of “hot in the day and freezing at night”, “bushwhacking through thick forest”, “swamps”, and “lots of mosquitoes”, I’m somehow still looking forward to spending a week in the bush. Fighting off mosquitoes, snakes, lions, and a menagerie of animals I’ve never even heard of will give me a new appreciation for the dust-hole I currently call 'home'.

As usual I’ve posted plenty of new photos! Have a peek by clicking the thumbnail above.

Cheers

Zambia #4

2007-05-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve had a great opportunity of late, teaching surveying students about mining. My class consists of three students. I’m sure glad I brought scanned notes from all my classes, which I used to create handouts for them. Needless to say, I couldn't use Powerpoint.

To get to my class I must drive into town, a 12km trip that takes 25 minutes. Along the road to Solwezi, 60 km/h speed-limit signs mock you. Pot-holes have their own-potholes. Townsfolk ride their bicycles along the edge of the road, adding to the obstacles. Sometimes the bicycle passengers are dangerously distracting – have you ever seen a bicycle carrier rack loaded with three confused adolescent goats? Witnessing that is enough to cause an accident without all the other hazards.

On the topic of strange sights – have you ever seen a 25,000L fuel tanker truck driving ahead of you, spraying fuel from a hole in the tank? I hadn’t before either. When he stopped, guys were standing beside with 20L pails to catch the leaking diesel. I wonder how many pails they needed.

I’ve been spending some time with Team Indonesia, a crew of imported labourers. A few of them speak English and I’ve learned that some of these guys are highly educated. The first one I spoke to introduced himself in broken English as “Marlon Brando” – he’s a chief accountant and financial analyst with an MBA, getting field experience before going back to the corporate office. The chef worked in 5-star hotels before the tourism industry literally bombed, another two are engineers, and at least one other is an engineering student paying for his education.

I’ve also met lots of workers by offering them lifts if they’re going my way – usually the canteen or the city of Solwezi. There are many people that have migrated to this city since the mine opened 3 years ago, which has more than doubled the local population. I’ve met teachers working as security guards for $50/month, the lowest paid job on the site. I’ve met engineering students who couldn’t afford to finish their education and must work for 2 years to go back. I’ve met unemployed who come to the mine gates every morning hoping for temporary labour. Every single person I’ve ever met has been friendly and open and bubbling to speak to me, and I am invariably asked to help them secure a higher paying job on site. All I can tell them is to keep applying, and working to impress their superiors. This mine employs 1200 people, and there’s just no way it can employ everyone who needs a job – especially when people are coming from all over the province looking for work. The mine has a “Foundation” that spends money in the local community. I haven’t learned enough about the provided benefits, but I know the local schools and hospital are unacceptable. Most of the Zambian geologists and engineers have left their families back in larger cities with better facilities. Another definite problem is the horrible road conditions in the city – even the road to the mine is terrible. Around here, pot-holes have their own pot-holes

At the last mine I worked, I had no computer for the first two months and was forced to computer hop, as people cycled out of the office to visit the field. Thus I was pleasantly surprised here when given a corner desk with a 2 GHz computer with CD burner and 15” monitor. (I was lucky to show up the day the Chief Geologist was quitting, and smoothly took his desk). This was solid, but I was soon ‘bumped’ by the new Chief Geo, and my spirits were low as I had flashbacks to the last mine. However I got another corner desk but a slow computer with only a CD-ROM and 15” monitor. Things were soon looking up, upon discovering the computer was actually 2.8 GHz and just in dire need of a reformat. I had previously befriended the IT guys, who wiped it for me. Now the computer was flying! I also acquired a DVD burner through my IT connection. Just when things couldn’t get any better, the new engineer quit and I snagged his 17” LCD monitor when nobody was around. I don’t know if anybody realizes, but I think I have the sweetest machine in the office.

In my first week here, my boss Gerhard hadn’t smiled once. He is South African of British descent, and quite a down-to-business type of guy. I hadn’t gotten many friendly vibes from him, and rumour has it that the aforementioned Chief Geologist left due to their inability to get along. Gerhard has since shown a few chinks in his armour – in one morning meeting last week the senior engineer reported that we had no water in the dongas (the trailers we live in). With a straight-face and serious tone, Gerhard turned to me, and spoke with his high-brow British accent, “So that’s why your hair looks like that. I thought you were just having a bad-hair day.” Everybody laughed.

I’ve posted more photos at my flickr site, click the thumbnail above.

Please take a peak, and feel free to leave comments.

Happy African Liberation Day!

Zambia #3

2007-05-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

I’ve been getting very nostalgic of late, thinking back to my childhood days in elementary school. The reason? I ran out of lead for my imported mechanical pencil. Now I have to sharpen my pencil. How can people work in these conditions?

The weather here is gorgeous. There have only been two days where a cloud passed between me and the sun. Every day is in the mid 20s, with a cool breeze and low humidity. At night it remains in the 20s until midnight where it drops into the low teens. The strange this is, some of the people in the office like the AC cranked, so I need a fleece inside! And this is their winter.

Without a day off yet, I’ve only visited the nearby town only a few times. One of my visits was delivering a fellow engineer to teach a class. I decided to visit the infamous 'Shoprite' grocery store to see if the stories I'm told are true:

Every morning, enterprising customers collect every loaf of bread from the Shoprite bakery and purchase them each for $1. They transport the loaves to the storefront sidewalk, where they sell for $1.15. It seemed to me this practise has now caught on with toilet paper too -- but I didn't get a good look because I was slightly worried about my vehicle outside. (A local boy offered to 'watch my car', I declined, and decided it was better not to leave it for too long. Good thing too, as the fire extinguishers have a history of going missing when left unguarded). I went back a few days later and while purchasing some bananas noticed a huge mob of people, disregarding proper queuing etiquette as they anxiously awaited the forthcoming loaves fresh from the bakery. Ah, what a place.

In order to drive in the pit here, the employees must pass a driving examination. This normally wouldn't present any difficulties but a few special circumstances made this an interesting adventure: They drive on the left. They sit on the right. The turn signal on the steering column is on the right. The vehicles are all manual transmission (I normally drive automatic), and the gear-shifting hand is the left.

I stalled the vehicle once, I drove through a stop sign, and I scored perfect.

The daily maid service in my room is very thorough. They clean, sweep, wash any dirty laundry in the hamper, and make the bed. Sounds pretty sweet, you say? It has its aggravations too. They often mix up clothes and my laundered boxers disappeared. It turns out my next door neighbour had been given them. Then some shoes appeared in my room, which turned out to be my neighbours'. (Yes, for some strange reason they randomly wash your shoes). Another day, their thoroughness turned into invasiveness as they went into my closed cabinet, tidied all my personal belongings, investigated my clothing and overruled my interpretation of ‘dirty’ by deciding themselves what should be laundered. This was a bit much, considering both my passport and money belt is hidden in that cabinet. Not only that, but I'm told my clothes won't hold up very long against their rigorous washing methods - clothes would have a better chance were they washed with gravel.

I’ve met some more interesting individuals, such as a former Zimbabwean farmer who was forced off his land with little compensation. He had pedigree cattle he had selectively bred for 30 years, only to be slaughtered and sold. He had a $40 000 irrigation system he couldn’t sell, because nobody is buying farming equipment. Another man I spoke to had parents that escaped to England with only what they could carry.
(Background: President Mugabe earmarked 95% of white-owned for redistribution to black people, many of whom had no experience or skills in farming. The country had formally been producing excess food but now relies on food aid for 1.8 million people. And very recently, contrary to all common sense, the UN appointed Zimbabwe to head the Commission on Sustainable Development).

I met another guy, a South African, describing “croc feeding” at a reservoir full of crocodiles that he found a few hours away. Him and his friends attach a leash from a stake in the ground to a live chicken’s ankle, and run back to their car and wait. The real fun began when the leash snapped and the chicken came straight towards their car with the crocodile in hot pursuit. If I get the chance to try this out, I’ll be sure to send photographs.

Hope everyone is doing well. Don’t be afraid to send me an email. Click the thumbnail above for photos.

Zambia #2

2007-05-07T04:00:00.000-07:00

Zambians are the friendliest and smiliest people in the world. Everyone greets you warmly and is interested in pleasant and open conversation. It helps that English is the official language, and everyone speaks it with a charming, and predominantly comprehensible, African accent. This has made my introduction here much less intimidating than if I were to have worked in another foreign land.

My office has an eclectic combination of local and ex-patriot employees: Zimbabweans ("Zimbo's"), South Africans, Brits, many Zambians including two Mining Engineering and two Geology students, a Ghanan, an Australian, an American, a Russian, a Filipino, and a lone Canadian - me. After making quick friends with the Zambian students Sumili, Zimba, Chiko, and Mas I will be visiting them at the University of Zambia ("UnZa") in Lusaka. Photos are available at my Flickr site (link below).

My work schedule is 13 days on followed by 1 day off with hours from 7:00 to 18:00, which doesn't include time spent eating breakfast and dinner. One interesting thing here is that people don't commonly use the AM/PM system, leading me to challenge myself to re-learn time (rather than simply 'translating' into the AM/PM system).

During my off-time, I have found plenty of things to do: Go to the gym, listen to the radio, read in bed, do sudoku at my desk, read at my desk, do sudoku in bed - the possibilities are endless. I'm sure glad I brought a stack of books. If I actually receive time off, I may go bicycling, visit Solwezi, go golfing (2 hours away) or to the driving range (nearby).

The food here has been delicious, and my diet seems pretty healthy. Vegetables are grown locally right on the property, and desserts or sweets are infrequently available (only weekend lunches have desserts). The meat possibilities are endless - even breakfast has 4 meat choices! (Eggs, sausages, ground beef, and chicken liver).

The other night at dinner they were having a barbecue and the cook came into the pub and told us "the meat is ready". I went out to the grill to try some chicken and the cook, confused at my request, told me the chicken wasn't ready yet - only "the meat". Apparently chicken is the vegetarian alternative here. Afton, I'm so excited for you!

Looking back on my journal, there's a few short anecdotes to relate:

-During the final approach to the airplane landing at Ndola I noticed a dusty football pitch full of lanky, African, barefoot adolescents and for the first time it struck me that I'm really in Africa.

-Listening to the radio my second night here I heard a report about a number of individuals in a far-off village being accused of witchcraft and subsequently hanging themselves. For the second time it struck me that I'm really in Africa.

On the hazards of the area :
-My first day here, my boss informed me that malaria was inevitable and that medication only causes problems by preventing a timely diagnosis. We'll see about that, but I'll stick to the Malarone Thank You Very Much.

-The Filipino geologist mentioned that cobras, vipers, brown snakes, and black mambas are all common in the area and have been seen on site. In case you don't know, the black mamba is lovingly referred to as the "two-step snake" - because that's how far you can get before you drop dead. One bite has enough venom to kill 30 adults.

I've posted some photos with descriptions at my flickr site; click the thumbnail above to reach them.

Until next time!

Zambia #1

2007-05-06T01:18:00.000-07:00

(Emailed to a few people upon arrival a few days ago, I've posted it here for everyone who wasn't on the mailing list)

Hello everyone! After 26 hours of flying, 14 hours of layover, and 4 countries, I have arrived at Solwezi in Zambia.
Upon arrival to site, I was dropped off with all my belongings at the office and sat for a half hour, struggling to stay awake as I awaited my boss. He introduced himself, and immediately began describing the project he'd like me to work on. His first words were, "We're throwing you into the deep-end...."
The facilities here are very basic. I live in a container with a bed and a desk, and share a bathroom with an Australian geologist. I have electricity.
I have been given a desk at the office with a computer and internet, so I must write personal emails on company time. Considering how busy I'll likely be, an abundance of emails isn't likely. I'll try to send updates every week. I've taken a few photos and will attempt to post some on my flickr site. Check out
my flickr set.

If anyone wants me to add their email address to my mailing list, let me know. Now back to work...

Arsenic in Inner Mongolia

2007-03-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

The latest MINE 391 assignment is a one pager regarding metal poisoning. In this Mining & The Environment class with Marcello Veiga we have learned about many important case studies on this topic; some of them natural and others human-induced. For this assignment we had to dig up something we hadn't learned about. Unfortunately there are too many examples of metal poisoning in the world, and I chose to write about an enormous arsenic poisoning problem in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia. Here you go:

Arsenic Poisoning
Arsenic typically reaches humans through ingestion pathways of food or drinking water. It is a chronic illness and kills by affecting essential metabolic enzymes, leading to multiple organ failure. The Canadian interim maximum allowable concentration is 25 µg/L while the WHO guideline is 10 µg/L. As(III) is more toxic than As(V), and compounds of arsenic are much more toxic than the metal in its pure form. The first symptoms of arsenic poisoning are melanosis on the chest, back, limbs, and gums. Advanced symptoms include skin eruptions on hands, feet and torso that eventually lead to skin cancers. Other resultant health effects are anemia, gangrene, and cancer of the kidneys or bladder.

Huhhut Alluvial Basin of Inner Mongolia
The Huhhut Alluvial Basin of Inner Mongolia in northern China has been providing groundwater to inhabitants for decades for both domestic and agricultural use. This basin lies along the northern side of the Yellow River and south of the Daqing (Great Green) Mountains. It measures 4800 square kilometers and contains a 1500 meter thick aquifer made of poorly consolidated sediments from the Quaternary age that naturally contain high levels of arsenic (mainly As3+). No industrial or agricultural activities in the area contribute arsenic to the environment. No elevated levels of arsenic have been found in surface soil, fish, air, or crops.
Researchers concluded the aquifer creates a reducing environment high in organic material allowing for the relative ease of arsenic movement and accumulation. Water was previously tapped from shallow (less than 10 meter deep) dug wells, but they’ve been replaced by tubewells extracting from medium depth (less than 30 meters deep) or by deep artesian wells greater than 100 meters depth. Arsenic concentrations in the medium wells were found to be between 1 and 1500 µg/L, while deep wells ranged from 1 to 300 µg/L. Even the shallow wells contained high concentrations everywhere except around the margins of the basin.

Implications and Health Problems
National water studies had been conducted in 1984 and demonstrated the high level of arsenic, but no diagnoses had been made. In 1990 the problems first became apparent; skin lesions (melanosis, keratosis) and increased cancer rates. About 1500 arsenicosis cases existed by the mid 1990s. The affected region supports a population of over one million people -- 300,000 of which are believed to be drinking water containing arsenic in concentrations above the Chinese legal limit of 50 µg/L.

Solutions
Some areas have been provided low-arsenic surface water by pipes, or small-scale reverse osmosis facilities. Only a fraction of the affected area has been helped. This arsenic contamination problem is unique in that it affects both shallow water dug wells and groundwater piped wells, otherwise a solution would be much easier and cost effective. Surface water collection could be an option, but annual precipitation levels are not very high so it may not be feasible; there also exists the possibility of pathogens. No option exists to switch aquifers, so treatment of groundwater is necessary using arsenic removal technology. For a solution to work it must be cheap, easy to make, simple to use and maintain, and most importantly have the support of the local people. One affordable method is the zero-valent iron method used by MIT in 2004 in Nepal and in the 3-Kolshi filter in Bangladesh. Both use cheap and locally available materials. Unfortunately some technologies do not work well for As(III) removal so pre-treatment may be necessary to oxidize As(III) to As(V). Post treatment may also be required to remove bacteria.

Conclusion
The Chinese government failed to act when high levels were first discovered, and this has led to a serious humanitarian issue in the region. The distribution and speciation of arsenic in this area is especially problematic due to the prevalence of the more toxic and more difficult to treat species As(III) present at all depths of this vast aquifer. This problem is not limited to the Huhhut Alluvial Basin, but affects an enormous area of alluvial plains in northern China providing the drinking water for 5.6 million people. There were around 20,000 diagnosed cases of arsenicosis in the entire region as of 2001. Global arsenic poisoning is affecting millions, in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nepal, and even New Zealand and the USA. As the MIT researchers and people like Marcello Veiga have proven, simple effective solutions can be found to prevent metal poisoning. The problematic areas must first be identified, and then the local people must be provided with solutions that they are capable and willing to adopt. It is through this process of identification and customized problem solving that millions of people can be spared such dreadful and unnecessary suffering.

References

Environment and Social Unit. World Bank. “Towards a More Effective Operational Response”. Jan 2004. 11 Mar. 2007.

Z. Luo et al. "Chronic arsenicism and skin cancer in Inner Mongolia -Consequences of arsenic in well water". SEGH Meeting Presentation, San Diego, CA June, 1995.

Wikipedia. "Arsenic Poisoning." 11 Mar. 2007 .

Clayton, Mark. "A Race to Fix a 30-Year-Old 'Solution'" Christian Science Monitor. 17 Feb. 2005. 11 Mar. 2007 .

Veiga, Marcello. “Chapter 05 - Fate of Metals in the Environment and Toxicity”. MINE 391 Notes. 2007.

Reading break in Montreal and New York

2007-03-13T21:12:00.000-07:00

I began my February reading break at the 17th Annual Canadian Mining Games in Montreal, where I captained the UBC team to a proud showing. We did well in Environmental, Mine Design, Jackleg, Mineral Separation, and the two mystery events: welding and sumo wrestling. It was an unbelievable time full of meeting and competing, and exploring one of Canada's great cities. It was my first time in Montreal and enjoyed it, despite my very brief stay (3 days of intense competition, then 2 days of urban exploration).
After Dan, Ed, and Brent joined me in Montreal we proceeded south across the border to do a snowshoe trip in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks in upstate New York. Click the thumbnail above for all the flickr photos.

Mining & The Environment

2007-01-11T23:08:00.000-08:00

Each year of schooling, my courses become more interesting. Last term I had a course on Renewable Energy which proved enlightening, as well as a very practical Engineering Economics course that taught me many principles that older engineers had begun to explain to me during work terms in the mining industry. I had an Underground Mining Methods course that reinforced my interest in UG mining (as opposed to boring old Open Pit); and had an amazing professor for Groundwater Hydrology - a pertinent elective given the problems with groundwater availabilty and contamination that I've been reading about in news and books (i.e. Jared Diamond's "Collapse").

This term my courses also seem to be on the right track, especially Mining & The Environment with Marcello Veiga. He is the most fun professor that anyone could ever have, employing his ukelele / guitar / harmonica and writing hilarious songs for us. But he's also involved with many important causes in mining and works with the UN to help save artisinal miners from mercury poisoning and fight poverty. Click on his photograph to read an entertaining and accurate article about his teaching style and work.

For our first assignment I have written a response regarding the Lake Cowal controversy in Australia where a cyanide heap leach mine has just began production. Here's my article below. Leave a comment with your thoughts on anything and everything I've said.

Gold cyanidation, or heap leaching, is a controversial processing technique. Operations utilizing a chemical as poisonous as cyanide must do it extremely carefully and safely. In the past, some companies have caused irreparable harm to local environments, threatening the health and livelihood of the inhabitants; both human and animal. Examples include Summitville and Baia Mare. It is for this reason that new operations intending to utilize cyanide must combat pressure from government, aboriginals, local citizens, NGOs and ENGOs.

The Cowal mine in New South Wales, Australia is one example of a recently completed mine that uses cyanidation and faces fierce opposition to its methods.

The article from MiningWatch explains that Lake Cowal is the largest inland lake in the state, is protected by international agreements for migratory birds, is a significant wetland, and is home to many native and endangered species. This article claims that the lake is sacred Wiradjuri land containing many artifacts, and that the mine will exclude the Wiradjuri people from using the lake. The source for the article is the Coalition to Protect Lake Cowal, which is fiercely opposed to the mine.

MiningWatch gives an appearance of an objective story, but they’ve received most of their information only from the Coalition. This gives me doubts; I don't believe the Wiradjuri people would completely give up the rights to visit a lake if it was as sacred as the Coalition claims. I find it more likely that the natives opposed to this mine represent a minority fraction of the natives who agreed with Barrick to allow it. The facts given at the beginning of the MiningWatch article outline some of the problems faced by Barrick. Their job will be to ensure that the wildlife is only minimally affected. My experience at Highland Valley has shown me that mines can actually serve to protect wildlife from hunting and other disturbances like development and logging. With the world watching, Barrick will be putting in extra effort to please the public.

The article from ABC news outlines more material issues regarding the operation. From Barrick and the Premier of New South Wales, this article explains some of the benefits such as 240 permanent jobs and all the tertiary jobs for local suppliers and businesses. Other benefits include the jobs, training, and education offered to the local community. Hopefully the workface can remain employable after the closure of the mine with the skills and knowledge gained with the help of Barrick. An independent survey shows 80% of residents support the Lake Cowal Mine. The Lake Cowal Action Group provided ABC with some drawbacks, namely the loss of water for local farmers, possible cyanide risks, and failure to resolve native title issues.

This Cowal Lake situation involves three major problems that have led to the large controversy. The problem of water management is common around the world and with climate change and large-scale agriculture and mining, fair and reasonable permitting must be employed based on accurate availability. Australia is especially sensitive to these problems and thus should be much more careful before handing out permits in the future. If the Cowal Mine is using water within its permit, and farmers are running out of water, then this represents a failure by the government and needs to be address immediately.

The second major problem at hand is that of potentially dangerous mining practices in sensitive ecosystems. The Cowal Mine is the first operation certified under the new International Cyanide Management Code; an independent third-party auditor. It conducts follow-up audits regularly, one year after startup and every three years thereafter. A committee in the UN Environment Programme developed this Code. This is hopeful given that poor farming practices and feral animals have ravaged Australia, thus many unique animals are on the decline. Lake Cowal represents an important habitat and ecosystem, and coupled with Australia’s oversensitivity and poor environmental health, the government must be very careful when conducting environmental assessments. If the Lake Cowal area is as unique and sensitive as many believe it is, the Australian government should have asked Barrick to propose a processing technique without cyanide before allowing the environmental assessment to pass. Cyanide use must be looked at worldwide to determine if it is worth the risks. When disasters still occur in developed countries with environmental guidelines, imagine the potential for harm in developing nations where guidelines and enforcement are minimal. Perhaps the total elimination of cyanide use should be considered on a worldwide basis? With regards to Cowal Lake, the mine is already operating and is using cyanide. With the world watching, the largest gold mining company in the world – Barrick – will make sure to take advantage of this opportunity to prove that they can use cyanide responsibly.

The last major problem is that of aboriginal land claims. More than one tribe of Wiradjuri people made claims to the land, and the winning party was the one who agreed with Barrick to allow the mine. If this is a problem, it is in the courts and does not appear to be Barrick’s responsibility to resolve. Native land claims are a global problem and one that governments have been attempting to solve for many years. The problem presents great difficulties because governments have broken promises to native peoples, and now must cause economic harm to current residents to satisfy old treaties. With the addition of competing claims by native bands, it is impossible to solve many land claims without harming some of the parties involved.

The issues in the Lake Cowal Mine stretch beyond this single location, and appear all over the world. A more fundamental approach is required in order to lay the foundation to solve these problems on a global scale. Dangerous mining practices must have stringent regulations that apply to operations regardless of where they are located; this prevents exploitation in areas with weak regulation. Water management and permitting must be made a priority by many governments in order to prevent conflict between such parties as mining, agriculture, and city residents. Native Land claims must be settled as quickly and equitably as possible in order to give sufficient time for tensions to ease and streamline the development of future mining operations.

Articles Chosen:

"Wiradjuri Nation Opposes Barrick Gold at Lake Cowal", 7 March 2006

"Premier to Open Lake Cowal Gold Mine", 29 September 2006

Other References:

“Social Responsibility Case Studies"

“Lake Cowal”, 6 October 2006

"First Operation Certified Under International Cyanide Management Code", 17 April 2006

Toronto Visit

2007-01-11T22:50:00.000-08:00

After my exams in December I had a much needed visit to Toronto for a few weeks. Highlights include visiting family I hadn't seen in far too long, rock climbing (introducing basics of indoor climbing to Dan, Brent and Maxine), a killer LAN party at Purdy's, unexpectedly delicious and surprisingly inexpensive Dim Sum with Chris & Dan & Purdy at Yiu Wah in Chinatown, rekindling my interest in martial arts at the Trinity Jun Fan & Kali school downtown, a unique New Years Party at Christin's, discovering the joys of the Nintendo Wii, playing football in the pouring rain with 17 other high school friends, playing street hockey with the good old hockey group, helping my Dad building his airplane, going to a jazz fusion show for the Indian-influenced band "Monsoon" at the Rex, and stuffing myself with delicious food. And these are just the highlights.

This visit resulted in a new appreciation for the city, in various ways: I discovered that outdoor rock climbing is available and not too far away; sushi is just as delicious, albeit more expensive; dim sum is just as delicious, and even less expensive; martial arts is available from a fantastic school now that a former student at my old defunct school has begun his own (Trinity Jun Fan & Kali); it's hard to see your family (close & extended) only once or twice a year; I really miss interacting with my best friends who mostly live in and around Toronto (I don't know enough nerds in Vancouver); and the subway system is a pretty efficient means of transportation.

Check out random photos of just a few of these events by clicking the thumbnail above.

Climbing in Skahahaha

2006-10-30T18:16:00.000-08:00

Each Halloween the Varsity Outdoor Club has a trip to Penticton to climb at the amazing Skaha Bluffs. As an exec member (Membership Chair) I volunteered to organize the trip this year. With the help of the VOC wiki, nobody got lost finding the campsite, the bluffs, or Christine's house for the potluck dinner.

We got an amazingly cheap deal at the Lost Moose campground, and camp fires were out in full force to warm us at night. Throughout the course of the weekend I had a chance to meet everyone on the trip, except one guy dressed as a priest at the costume party. There were 60+ people from the VOC and 4 from VOCO (our brand new brother club at UBC Okanagan. Interestingly enough, we had more members on this trip than they have total).

I love these large trips because I meet all sorts of interesting people that I may not otherwise, due to the vastness of our membership body (~400 members). The costume party and potluck was fantastic, and so was the Jackson Triggs White Merlot that I consumed. Highlights include Mike & Fiona's "Quickdraw" costume and Jordan's pear costume (and Jordan drinking beer through his costume's eye-hole).

The climbing was excellent as usual - I climbed every route at the Fern Gully, leading about half and seconding the other half. I spent the day with Kristen Beaumont, Scott Webster, and Greg Dennis. On Sunday we didn't climb, due to the sub-zero conditions and snowfall that occurred during the night. The weather caused multiple accidents along one icy stretch of highway on the way home.

Next destination: Smith Rocks, Oregon, for Remembrance Day Weekend.

Back at School

2006-10-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

The last two and a half months have seen quite a flurry of activity for my life. It started with 2 weeks in NWT, then nearly 5 weeks in South America, then I returned after school began and had to move, then had 3 weeks in Vancouver where I was fortunate to have little school work but lots of exec duties running the membership drive for the Varsity Outdoor Club and finding funding for Mining Engineering Club activities.

I managed to get a few amazing trips already this year: I had a great day trip to Chekamus Canyon for sport climbing with some VOCers I hadn't met before. Then we went to Glacier School for introduction to glacier travel and crevasse rescue. The next weekend was to Exit 38 near Seattle for some fantastic sport climbing, then last weekend I went to Shannon Falls near Squamish for trad climbing with Alex, Mike and Fiona.

Photos for Exit 38 can be reached by clicking the top thumbnail, and Shannon Falls can be reached by clicking the second thumbnail above.

Peru/Bolivia final update

2006-09-08T18:02:00.000-07:00

I am now back in Vancouver, comfortably seated in my 3rd floor townhouse bedroom on the UBC campus. The final leg of our South America trip featured a deathride to the Amazon where we did a 5 day tour of the jungle and grasslands. There we met a genuinely interesting and fun pair of Brits with whom we traveled the remainder of our trip. James and Will are their names, from Bath.

During the jungle trip I had the opportunity to piranha fish (they are vicious), pet wild alligators on the head, play with anacondas and tarantulas, and watch as James and Will went swimming with dolphins and within a few meters of alligators. We then returned to La Paz by air and discovered possibly the greatest restaurants of all time - Brosso and Dumbo, where their cartoon-like atmosphere is only beat by the phenomenally tasty and unbelievably low priced food - where we ate like kings for pocket change. We also couldn't resist going to the cinema to watch Samuel L Jackson's 'Snakes on a Plane'. This movie tried very hard to be bad, and succeeded - and listening to James the film guy critique the movie was well worth the $4 price. (Accurate review here.)

We then traveled to Lake Titicaca to visit Isla del Sol, the birthplace of the first Inca leader and the place where the Inca God Viracocha first appeared. Here we had quite an adventure trying to find our own way back to Copacabana - hiring a private boat, then looking for a bus that didn't exist, interrupting a Bolivian domestic dispute to ask for directions from a man who spoke no English, being told at least five times to walk 30 minutes to the next town for a bus, haggling with a row-boat owner for a ride and leaving him sulking in the street after he wouldn't budge $0.75 on the price. The adventure was almost over at the crest of a hill after hiking 10km with all our gear but no food, where we found three dozen well-natured locals on their way to market. We were the butt of many hilarious comments by one woman who had the locals in stitches - but all of us deeply confused due to our lack of Spanish. When the mini-bus arrived it quickly filled with locals, so arriba it was and we sat on the roof with the luggage for the terrifying 15 minute ride along a dirt road perched on the side of a very steep hill.

From Copacabana we traveled around Lake Titicaca and up to Cusco where we saw many local ruins, ate at fancy restaurants (but not expensive restaurants, because such a concept doesn't exist in Peru), were dragged to various bars by the 'promoters' that most bars employ; then promptly given innumerable free drinks at each bar before leaving, explored the extensive black market for DVDs and CDs, and of course visited Machu Picchu and the nearby Aquas Calientas.

After a week relaxing in Cusco we flew to Lima and spent a day in the airport. Fortunately I found a nearby restaurant to walk to and spend my remaining Peruvian currency - I can't stand airport prices. Getting rid of our currency was helped by the Peruvian government; they charge a USD$30 departure tax! After Lima we hit Houston for a quick stop before the flight to Seattle, upon which I was upgraded (and by this I mean asked by a husband to change seats so he could be with his wife) to First Class where I enjoyed fine dining, ample leg room, comfortable chairs, and majestic service. In Seattle we missed the shuttle to Vancouver by seconds and spent more time in an airport as we waited 2 hours for another shuttle. The final leg of our journey was an agonizing two hour drive to Vancouver that instead took five hours because of all the frequent stops. Then I rushed to campus to move into residence and catch up on my first day of classes, which I missed.

I have compiled a list of the funny stories from the trip, only one of which is given here, so feel free to ask me for a story whenever you see me. The final Peru/Bolivia photo set is up with my favourite photos from the trip. Click the thumbnail above for the set.

Peru update 2

2006-08-17T15:43:00.000-07:00

Hello again, I´m now in La Paz, Bolivia. I´ve been told that this is the cheapest country in South America and I believe it. Our hostel is a bit pricey at $4 per night and our daily food costs are running around $5 (for restaurants, 3 meals a day).
Since the last update, we've gone to Puno on the shore of Lake Titicaca and visited the famous Los Uros islands made entirely of reeds, where people live in reed houses and even eat the reeds. This lake is the highest navigable lake in the world at 3800m we the air is noticeable thinner. Then we traveled around Lake Titicaca into Bolivia where we had a very interesting border crossing and took a $1 bus ride to the ancient city of Tiwanaku to see the ruins. Then we took another $1 ride to La Paz.
Tomorrow we bicycle down 4000m vertical meters on the worlds most dangerous road (dont worry it´s safer on a bike than in a car), on our way to the jungle of Rurrenbaque for a 5 day adventure.
Click the thumbnail above for the entire Peru gallery.
Ciao