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olliejohnson

57 Blog Entries
2 Trips
696 Photos

Trips:

A man from Cockshutt.
A Brit and a Canuck Down Under

Shorthand link:

http://blogabond.com/olliejohnson




A bloody long journey

New York, United States


The Stock Exchange gets into the patriotic Christmas spirit
Having taken my own sweet time to get to Australia from home, the journey from Melbourne to New York was something of an eye-opener. After the short flight from Melbourne to Sydney came the 13 hour behemoth to L.A. The 4 movies shown during this time still left 5 hours to fill with many failed attempts at sleep. Arriving in L.A. a little disorientated, I was knocked sideways by the full-on Christmas cheer at the airport. Strangely, it reminded me of Die Hard 2 (Die Harder). Without being led by the hand to the gate where I was supposed to take my transfer flight to New York, I soon found myself walking out of the airport, where I was accosted by a tramp. Does anyone else understand why tramps always manage to find themselves Santa hats at Christmas? Anyway, this tramp wanted to help me out. Too confused to fob him off, I had to accept any help I could get. Even if it was from someone too drunk not only to walk straight, but to form coherant sentences, and who smelled like he'd been rolling around in raw sewage. Sadly, even in this state, this man was more reliable than my own sense of direction. After pointing me in the right direction, he, of course, expected payment. Unfortunately for my Christmassy friend, I had no dollars on me. He assured me that he would be happy to accept any currency I had on me. Judging by his reaction to my stuffing several notes into his palm, I can only assume he's not aware of the current Laos Kip - $ U.S. conversion rate.


The Empire State Building
I caught the flight to New York without any trouble, and got to my hostel in Manhattan by the late evening. Woke up fairly early the next morning, and with the train to Buffalo not leaving till the mid-afternoon, I had a few hours to take some photos of the better-looking landmarks. After 8 hours on the train heading up alongside the Hudson, I got to Buffalo, and finally met up with Angela, and met Mr Nyhout (Angela's Dad). I was smuggled over the border (well, the guy assumed we were all Canadians and didn't check our passports), and we arrived in London, Ontario at about 1am.

permalink written by  olliejohnson on December 19, 2006 from New York, United States
from the travel blog: A man from Cockshutt.
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Rude wombats and leaving Aus for Christmas

Melbourne, Australia


The big Christmas tree in the centre of Melbourne
Two months ago I was sat in an internet café in Bali, whiling away some time looking at flight deals on the web. I came across one from Sydney to New York over Christmas at a pretty good price. Not thinking much more of this than perhaps to give it a surprised ’huh!’, I mentioned it briefly later when I spoke to Angela (my girlfriend), and joked that I could come over to see her for Christmas. It was brought up when we spoke again, and became less ‘wouldn’t it be good if…’, and more ‘should we do it?’. As is the way with these things, the day I went online to book it, the deal had gone. Luckily we both have amazing parents who wouldn’t want to see their lovely children unhappy, so with lots of help from Mr and Mrs Nyhout and Johnson, I’m heading off to Canada on Tuesday - to return to Sydney mid January. So I get to have a proper white Christmas instead of one on the beach with a BBQ (and of course I get to spend it with someone special!) I can’t say I’m too disappointed missing out on the sunny Christmas - like all the other British people I’ve met recently, I have to say that I don’t feel remotely Christmassy yet. The adverts are on, people are talking about it; but I’m just not feeling it.


All the nativity stars together for the final scene
I’ve finally made it out and about with my camera - so I’ve got a few photos of Melbourne at Christmas. My favourite thing is the window display at the department store, Myer. Apparently it’s traditionally a big deal, but I’m not sure if it usually contains the sort of thing that it has this year - a nativity play, but with Aussie animals (though spiders, snakes and crocs are noticeably absent). The story centres around ‘Wombat’, and his attempt to find a role in the nativity play - Possum has already shotgunned the role of Mary, with the Kangaroos taking the 3 Kings, and the Koalas the Shepherds. Clearly the casting director must have been high on the job, as it is only in the penultimate scene that Possum points out that no-one has taken the role of Jesus yet. So, wandering past this scene, you are given the fairly bizarre sight of clothed animatronic marsupials, re-enacting the birth of Christ.


Flinders Street Station - the historic train station in the centre
Last time I wrote, I’d packed in the door-to-door job, and was just about to start work at a call centre (another job that only financial desperation would force me into.) It actually wasn’t all that bad - and I got a good few weeks work out of it. It was at a company that gave information to shareholders in various companies - I saw myself as a bit of a Charlie Sheen - in Wall Street type character. But without the sharp suit and mountains of cash.


Wombat attempting to be the Archangel Gabriel. Unfortunately, he was too heavy...
In the past couple of weeks I’ve seen the first familiar faces for a few months - Nina and Andy. Had a really nice week catching up and getting fed the much-hyped Tanner risotto. And today, another meeting of note - finally caught up with Murph Jr, Tay, Colly and Erin for lunch, and a chat about their travels. It was great to catch up girls, and I hope the rest of your travels are as much fun as they’ve been up to now. I was delighted to see Murph Jr waking Murph Sr up in the middle of the night to speak to me on the phone - though, ideally, this would have been done on a week night. Murph Jr also informed me that the Wombat nativity play has been slightly controversial in Melbourne, as apparently it’s a bit too sexual - the animatronic animals look, to certain strange observers, as though they’re humping each other. Hmmm.

Oh yeah - the Ashes. Can’t say I’ve been enjoying it that much so far. The only thing that brought a smile to my face - apart from KP’s superhuman exploits, was when Warne was picked up on the stump microphone calling Bell ‘the Shermanator’ (as in American Pie).
So, I need to get off to start packing for my next international travels. I set off from the hostel on Tuesday at about 7:30am, and I’ll finally be with Angela 2 ½ days later when she picks me up from Buffalo train station. So, I’ll hopefully be writing my next entry from Canada. I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all my family and friends a very happy Christmas!


permalink written by  olliejohnson on December 17, 2006 from Melbourne, Australia
from the travel blog: A man from Cockshutt.
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Getting settled in Melbourne

Melbourne, Australia


The Yarra - which runs through the centre of Melbourne
I’ve been here in Melbourne just about a month now, so I thought it was about time that I wrote something about what I’ve been up to. The only problem is the complete lack of photos to add to this entry - I keep on forgetting to take my camera out with me when I do go out, and I’ve been too busy/lazy to go on a photo-taking tour of the landmarks. So, sorry about that.

I arrived in Melbourne from Bali in shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops in the mistaken belief that it would be warm in Australia approaching summer. Turned out that it wasn’t. For about the first 2-3 weeks it was actually bloody cold. And to my utter dismay the fates conspired to continue the trend of it always raining on my birthday.


Cathedral with skyscrapers
I spent the first week in the ‘Ritz for backpackers’ hostel, which was ok - the main benefit was that the bar underneath the hostel was the one that hosted the weekly ‘Neighbours Night’ (where you get to meet 3 stars of the show.) It was on my first visit to this, that I met a couple of guys who would be my companions for the next couple of weeks - Rhys and Filipo (the later an Italian with a hilarious Essex accent). Law graduates from Oxford, they were spending a few months travelling before they started their first jobs. This information gave me great hope for the quiz that takes place at Neighbours Night (which we think had a first prize of $200). We came second. Gutted. A few pints of beer and snakebite later and I was in real trouble. Luckily, the stars (Skye, Dillon and Ned) had disappeared by this point, so I was in no risk of making a t**t out of myself in front of anyone famous. Which is surely the main concern on any night out.


The Melbourne skyline by the Yarra
A week later, I had no desire to go again, but the boys assured me it would pay for itself - we would obviously win the quiz this time. We’d go there early, get good seats - not miss a trick. I was encouraged when Rhys randomly bumped into a couple of girls from their course. More Oxbridge intelligence, and being girls, they’d be able to answer questions on Netball and stuff too. I was happy with a team of 5 - $40 each. Then the problems began. The girls each had a drunken bloke in tow, and they had a couple of friends too. 9. $21 each. Then 2 more randoms. And the drunk blokes were on their mobiles, making it bloody obvious to all and sundry that we were cheating. We clearly got busted - we only got a few questions wrong, yet didn’t even figure in the top 5. However, meeting Stefan Dennis cheered me up. Especially when he made an absolute fool of himself asking the audience to sing the chorus of his one ‘hit’ with him to an uncomfortable silence, with the odd interjection of a drunken shout. The others on show were Elle and Stingray.

As I mentioned before, I celebrated my 24th birthday soon after my arrival. I went out in the evening with Rhys and Filipo and managed to score a free meal - a descendant of distant family of Filipo’s lived in the area, and wanted to meet him, so we went out for an Italian meal. This guy had a son who was a promoter of the biggest student nights in the city, so we were taken to one of these and were given free beer for the first couple of hours. Sweet!

I sorted out some proper accommodation in my first week here - I’ve got a room in a house-share. Which seems to be pretty much a bedsit. I get my own room, fully furnished, with all bills included, and have to share a bathroom and kitchen. Only problem is the lack of a lounge. But considering some of my housemates, this is probably a blessing in disguise. There’s 15 of us in the house - with 4 couples sharing rooms. There’s 2 hippy couples, who’ve headed off this weekend to some hippy festival, a big gay Cook Islander (who’s as camp as Christmas) and a hideous pair of middle-aged lesbians (one of whom I actually thought was a bit mental when I first met her, but then I found out it was that she was batting for the other team. Which explained a lot. And I genuinely think she’s an alcoholic too.) The one bright light in all of this is an American girl who works in a pastry shop. Every night that she works, she brings us back a dozen or so pies and pasties. Obviously I make sure I get my fair share, having to compete with the fat Cook Islander and a massive Kiwi bloke who usually snares at least 3.


Federation Square - a collection of strangely shaped buildings in the city centre make up this weird little area
The room is ok once you get used to it - the only problems being the sink which backs up a lot, leaving bits of food floating in it and a strange smell, and the discovery today of a mouse (whom I’ve named Bruce). I’d heard some scrabblings before, but I’d assumed it was from outside. Turns out not. Also, the kitchen isn’t blessed with amazing utensils. There’s now only one bowl to go around the whole house. There was one knife, but that has now disappeared too. I’m having to butter my toast at the moment with the back of a spoon (which actually works pretty well.)


Statue of The Don, outside the MCG
I’d been looking for work for almost a week, money was getting a little tight, when I landed a job doing pretty much the last thing that I’d ever willingly choose to do. Door to door sales. It wasn’t such an intimidating prospect - just trying to get people to change electricity companies. In the 2 days of training, we were told the opportunities would be endless and the money would be awesome. $25 a sale, and we’d be making anything from 6 - 8 sales a day (working a 6 day week). The only thing that would hold us back would be ourselves etc etc. Well, the top-selling rep, an Irish guy with the gift of the gab who’s been doing the job for a year manages 8 sales on a good day, 4 on a bad day. The other reps that have been there for 6 months manage 5 sales. This is all before tax of course. So the money wasn’t actually that good unless you were really experienced and a really good, enthusiastic salesman. Enthusiasm, if you know me well, is something I struggle to bring to the surface much. I think any charm that I have is….well, more of a slow-burner. Personally, I’m quite suspicious of enthusiastic people. Why the hell are they so pumped? Why are they always so happy?? They must be hiding something. Or slightly mental. I just wish I had a tranquiliser gun so I could calm them down when they were around me. So, you can imagine my delight in being trapped in the back of a small car for ½ hour every morning and evening, with the most hyper 17 year-old you can possibly imagine. And this was from first thing in the morning to late in the evening, after a long day of work. After a while of listening to her jabbering on about her life story, we all grew to just sit there and tune her out. Her response to this was to actually sit there and talk to herself. And not just a monologue, but a dialogue. She would ask and answer her own questions. Crazy, crazy girl.


St Kilda beach
I found the job actually not that bad, though I found it difficult to really push people into making the decision to change and sign the contract there and then, which was the only option we were allowed to give them. If we made less than 2 sales a day, we were given a ‘safety cushion’ of the equivalent of 2 sales anyway - $50. Which, after paying for my accommodation, transport and food left me with FA for a day of walking around and taking abuse. So, after almost a week of this, I decided enough was enough, hit the job agencies hard, and have now got an hourly wage ($19.50) working at a call centre. This might sound as bad as door to door, but it isn’t sales, only information from a company the customer is already with. So it should be ok, and it’ll be nice to finally get some money.


Not sure what this is a statue of. But there's a nice palm tree next to it
Melbourne itself is a really cool place. I’m living in St Kilda which is just outside the CBD, and there are lots of really nice bars and shops nearby. Only, I don’t have any money to spend in them. The weather here has definitely improved over this last week, hitting the mid 30’s at one point, and my weird housemates are trying to fire up the BBQ in the yard at any opportunity at the moment. I’m just missing the shrimp at the moment. But as soon as one does cross my path, you can be assured that I’ll throw it straight on the Barbie.

permalink written by  olliejohnson on November 25, 2006 from Melbourne, Australia
from the travel blog: A man from Cockshutt.
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End of the road

Kuta, Indonesia

I decided that I'd take a few days off from doing anything when I got to Kuta (the tourist/backpacker haven in the south of Bali), and spent the time sleeping, eating and going to the beach. I had 2 weeks in which to accomplish more, and had great plans to travel the Island, and maybe even brave the 11 hour trip to the Gilli Islands just off Lombok. However, I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't even left Kuta these past 2 weeks. I simply couldn't be arsed (plus the fact that I was so pissed off by the constant harrassment from taxi-drivers and moped people offering transport, that I decided I'd start a one-man stand against them). I've been caught in a coma enduced by excess sleep, cheap food, cheap beer and baking hot weather.

The sun sets on Kuta Beach

So, accomplishments during the last 14 days:

-I've kept a pretty regular sleeping pattern
-This has been composed of the main sleep at night, and early afternoon kip (usually just after lunch) and an early evening kip (between 6-8pm)
-I've managed to become a regular at a sports bar. When I arrive, all I need to do is pull up my stool, and a cool Bintang will already be waiting for me
-I've found a quiet restaurant down a back-alley that puts on Family Guy every time I come in
-I've worked on my tan

So, other news from Bali...

Over the past few days Kuta has been invaded by Japan. Luckily for me and my natural aversion to hard work, the invaders are tourists, and as far as I know, have no desire to annex Bali in a violent coup, round up all the residents and foreigners and begin a brutal regime. But that's only as far as I know...


A game of football on the beach

Anyway, the snap-happy little chaps have given the town a little more life, as it's been remarkably quiet until now. Speaking to people that have been visiting Bali for years, I've found that it's been as quiet as this pretty much ever since the first bombing. The second one last year really was a hammer blow. The backpacker party scene has now moved to Thailand.


Symbolism. A final sunset
Well, apologies for the lack of variety in photos. As I mentioned above, I haven't actually seen anything interesting, so I just took a stroll down to the beach for sunset last night and snapped away.

I'm off to Melbourne in about 10 hours to begin my mission to make 'birthday friends'. The big day itself is next Thursday, and as of now, I have 0 people to celebrate it with.

So, that's it. End of the road. No sooner do I make it as the posterboy of Blogabond, then my reign at the top is cruelly cut short. Just like James Dean, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. Except that I won't actually be dead of course. Having said all that, I'll probably write one more blog in a week or 2 from Melbourne. Just to let everyone know how I'm settling in.

permalink written by  olliejohnson on October 28, 2006 from Kuta, Indonesia
from the travel blog: A man from Cockshutt.
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Mount Bromo

Probolinggo, Indonesia


View of Mount Bromo from the edge of the large crater

The next morning I climbed into another minivan for the first leg of my trip through Java back to Bali. The other passengers were a French couple, a French Canadian, and a short fat hairy middle-aged Frenchman, who did actually smell, and wore incredibly short shorts. Of course, I ended up stuck in the back of the minivan with fatty. The air-con was broken too. On top of this, the floor in front of me was so hot from the engine underneath, that if I tried to take my flipflops off I got scorched. So, we cooked. And I would describe the smell given off by Frenchman, as something akin to when someone stuck a tuna sandwich in the heater in the English demountable at school, after a few weeks in situ.

The bus stopped after a couple of hours, and without a word, we pulled up over a mechanics' pit, and a couple of guys got out a blowtorch and some spanners and got to work. 1/2 hour later, we were back on our way, and eventually got to our hotel in the pitch black and freezing cold (due to the altitude) at around 9:30.

We were visiting Mount Bromo; another active volcano. Only this one was a lot more picturesque, and a lot less volatile - Bromo is quite happy just sitting there smoking away and looking good. So this means that you can climb all the way to the Crater's edge and have a peek down.


Close up of Bromo itself

Bromo is actually only one of 3 side by side volcanoes, which are all located inside the Crater of an old super-volcano. It was from this super-volcano's edge that we were to get our first peek and photo-opportunity of Bromo at dawn the next morning. And it really was a spectacular sight, with a thin layer of mist covering the massive plain within the Crater, only punctured by the 3 peaks in the centre. As the sun grew stronger and the mist began to recede, you could just make out the temple at the foot of Bromo, and it was towards this that our jeep headed next.


View back down from Bromo's crater towards the temple
It took about 5 minutes to travel across the plain in the jeep, just from the edge to the centre. It was a surreal landscape to travel through - completely flat and desolate from Crater edge to volcano. No trees, no features, just dusty grey sand underfoot.


A look down into Bromo's crater
We got out by the temple, managed to avoid all the locals trying to get us to use horses for the walk, and made our way to the Crater's edge. Looking in, it was a sharp drop down into the centre, but it wasn't that deep. There was a crack right at the bottom, perhaps only a few metres wide, though which the clouds of smoke were pouring. The sulphur in the air here was pretty strong, and after a while walking around the Crater you could really feel it getting in your nose and throat; so I only lasted about 15 minutes up there before heading back down.

We got back to our hotel on the larger Crater's edge in time for breakfast, and were on our way to Bali by 9. We were supposed to arrive in Denpasar in Bali at 7pm. We finally pulled up at the bus station around midnight.

permalink written by  olliejohnson on October 12, 2006 from Probolinggo, Indonesia
from the travel blog: A man from Cockshutt.
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The Lava Hunter

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

I spent a couple of days relaxing in Bali before making my next move. With another couple of weeks to go before my flight to Melbourne, I'd decided to head into Java - I booked a flight to Yogyakarta, and planned to get the bus all the way back to Bali.

Yogyakarta is a medium-sized city in the middle of Java, and, as much as the visit to the city itself interested me, I was mainly there for the sights out on the city's outskirts. I spent a couple of days wondering around Yogya, (which everyone seems to call it), which turned out to be enough for me. It is one of the few cities I've visited where you can still get a real sense of what the place was like before Westernisation. The place is still headed by it's own Sultan, and his palace (the Kraton) is a major attraction in the centre of the city. Unfortunately, due it being Ramadam the opening hours were made very anti-social (certainly anti-Ollie), and it closed by midday. And lying in a comfy bed, a decision had to be made between sleep and culture. With 3 consecutive pre 5am starts on the horizon, sleep won out. I did get a photo of the front though.


Borobudur - (A giant buddhist monument constructed in the 9th Century AD)

The first of these early starts took me to a massive ancient buddhist monument called Borobudur. It was built in the 9th Century, and I can only assume it took a bloody long time. It's huge! It has 1,500 narrartive panels carved into the side, and there are 432 man-sized buddha statues sitting there chilling on it. The ones on the top have what look like big upturned laticed bells covering them. Very strange. The views from the top were amaxing though, and I got a good sighter of the place where I would be spending the wee small hours that night; Mount Merapi.


View from the top of Borobudur
Now, I have to admit that I don't have a clue what made me decide to go 'lava hunting' that night, because let's face it, I'm a born coward. Maybe it was just because the poster for it at the tour operators desk looked cool. Maybe because I thought 'lava-hunting' sounded like a manly thing to do. Maybe because I wanted one final excuse to wear my expolorer hat. Whatever it was, I have to admit that if I'd been fully informed about this volcano, there's no way I would have gone. This is what the Lonely Planet has to say: "Merapi is one of Indonesia's most dangerous volcanoes and it erupts with alarming regularity. In November 1994 an eruption killed 69 people; in January 2001, pyroclastic flows and thousands of earthquakes prompted the Volcanology Survey of Indonesia to raise the warning status on the mountain." I don't know what the hell pyroclastic flows are, but I don't reckon they're a good thing.

Mount Merapi from Borobudur

I was the only tourist on this particular trip. It was just me, the middle-aged guy who I booked the tour from (who proudly told me in one conversation that he married his wife when he was 27 and she was 17 - followed by lots of manly laughter and back-slapping. Come to think of it, he did keep on touching my arm all the way on the climb. Hmm.), and his son, who acted as driver. On the way to our viewpoint, we picked up a load of local kids on mopeds who were intrigued by the white guy in the 4x4, and decided to join us for the show. I felt we were going a little 'off-piste' when we started driving around road barracades. We stopped near our destination for some hot ginger tea, and my new fans got an opportunity to chat to me about England and asked if I'd heard of Beckham.


The only tree that survived the eruption
At about midnight we made our final small journey to the viewpoint. The car pulled over, and as I jumped out a cloud of dusty ash enveloped me. It felt like I'd stepped into the Blair Witch Project. Except without the witch and the trees and that. So just lots of darkness really. It was pitch black above, and pitch black underfoot - my torch was only able to shed a small amount of light in the darkness. The only other light given off was from the stars, as the moon was nowhere to be seen. I felt a hand grab my arm, and my guide began marching me uphill, with the fanclub in tow, attempting to avoid the boulders of varying size that dotted what landscape I could make out. We soon reached a small plateau, but when I turned around, there was no-one behind us anymore. I asked my friend what had happened to them. He considered his reply for a second before rapidly patting his heart with his hand. I'd played this game before. "Ok....their hearts are beating faster?...", I looked around for inspiration. Ok, lifeless landscape, massive volcano, and...is that a rumble?
"They're scared?"
"YES!", came the instant reply. Jackpot! The brief moment of celebration at having breached the language barrier was then replaced by no small amount of concern. This was then added to somewhat when my guide shone the torch over to one side. This illuminated a small ditch with a few planks of wood covering the entrance. A closer look revealed a battered-looking door a few feet behind the planks.
"Yesterday," my guide said, motioning grandly at the surroundings. "Eruption, yesterday."
"What! This erupted yesterday?!" I squealed, and was already thinking about how much trouble I'd be in with my mum and my girlfriend for having died whilst visiting an active volcano.
"Yes," he nodded solemnly, "yesterday."
Jesus, Yogya wasn't that far away, but I hadn't heard a thing. Evidently sensing my increasing panic, my guide sought to clarify himself.
"Yesterday.....Juni."
"June?"
"Yes. Juni. 3/4 Months."
"bloody hell mate. Juni is not yesterday. Yesterday is....yesterday," I said gesturing behind me. That should clear it up for him. Still, June was recent enough, and I later found out that 2 people had died in the bunker that he'd pointed out. It'd got buried beneath hot ash and the temperature inside had reached 900 degrees. The whole area where we were (4 km from the crater) had effectively been fairly heavily shat on by Merapi.


A big gazeebo-type thing that was half buried in the June eruption.
I took my place on a 3 month old boulder to watch the mountain for signs of lava. After about 10 minutes my guide shouted excitedley and pointed towards a red hot clump of boulders working their way down the mountain. It did look pretty amazing. And you could hear it too. An intermittant low crackling sound. It was a really unique experience - unbelievably relaxing being so isolated near the top of a mountain in the middle of the night with the most clear sky imaginable, but slightly terrifying too, what with the big pissed-off volcano spitting out red hot boulders in all directions. After 1/2 hour or so watching this, we made our way down, and began the drive back to Yogya.

permalink written by  olliejohnson on October 9, 2006 from Yogyakarta, Indonesia
from the travel blog: A man from Cockshutt.
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Seeing the sights in Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

So, we turned up at 8am to catch the bus back to Jerantut, and were subsequently told that we should have reconfirmed as there wasn't enough space on the bus. I put up a storming protest, which centred around blaming someone else (the rep back in Jerantut) for the error. After a little debate and a few phone calls, the woman organising things on our end managed to sort out another bus to come and pick us up, only we were told that we'd have to wait a few minutes as the driver was currently in the shower. When the bus did arrive, he drove at speeds approaching my dad's, and made the journey which usually takes 1 1/2 hours in 45 minutes.


KL Tower
From Jerantut, me Flo and Marcus took local buses all the way to Kuala Lumpur, which still only took just over 3 hours, and disappointingly, there were no weird locals doing crazy things to keep me amused . Using the Lonely Planet as a guide, and with me staying well away from any navigational duties, we made it to our hostel without any problems. Though things did look a little ominous as we climed the stairs to the reception, and saw 5 hippies sat around a table, strumming a guitar and playing bongos. Luckily, this was the extent of the hippy action while we were there.

We spent our short stay looking at really tall buildings and sorting out tickets for wherever we were going next. For me, this meant booking my flight to Bali and finally booking a flight to Australia (from Bali.) I get into Melbourne on October 29th.


Kuala Lumpur from the KL Tower

First on the sightseeing list was the KL Tower - which proudly bills itself as the fifth highest tower in the world at 400-odd metres tall. We got tickets to go up it to the observation deck, which gave amazing views of the city and of the Petronas Towers. From here we walked over the the Towers themselves (the second highest in the world at 450-odd metres tall) and took some photos.


Petronas Towers with a tree in front
Apart from that, all we did was spend some on the internet, get our last tastes of Malaysian food, and drink some ridiculously expensive European beer. I also took it upon myself to expand my German friends' English vocabulary. I've made sure that they're going to arrive in New Zealand and really blend in; using such pleasantries as "old chap", "I am inclined/disinclined to agree with you"; as well as such basics as what "cleavage" and "morning glory" are. I also taught Flo the "DO IT!" line from Starsky and Hutch, which he's adapted with aplomb into an enthusiastic "f**king DO IT", which he's said he can't wait to use in New Zealand. Boys, you're going to be a big hit.

Unfortunately they had to leave for Singapore the day before I left for Bali, which left me on my own again to wander around the city. In the evening I decided to treat myself and have some proper Western food; so I got a rib-eye steak from an Irish bar with a pint of Old Speckled Hen, before heading off to the Hard Rock Cafe for a Fudge Brownie Sundae. It was whilst munching my way through this that a lonely old expat came up to me and asked me if I wanted to join him, as we were the only 2 people on our own. Innocently I went over to his table, but just in case he had any ideas, I quickly mentioned that I had a girlfriend.

It turned out that he just wanted an English person to talk to - he'd lived in Kuala Lumpur for 6 years, was the director of some company over there, and apparently recognised something of himself in me. So I had to sit there for just over an hour as he imparted advice on me, and picked my brain on certain issues. As I was getting ready to leave, he gave me one final anecdote, which compared me to Bambi and him to an old stag. Slightly disturbed and confused, I went on my way.

permalink written by  olliejohnson on October 6, 2006 from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
from the travel blog: A man from Cockshutt.
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Getting covered in bat shit in the jungle

Jerantut, Malaysia

As I returned to my Guesthouse in Kota Baharu, I found 2 German guys that I'd met on the Perhentian Islands there too; Marcus (who'd been my diving buddy in my Open Water course), and his friend Flo. They're making their way to New Zealand, where they'll be till January before heading home. My German isn't so hot, so luckily for me, Marcus has just graduated as an English teacher, and Flo is also fluent. On a demonstration of my German, they were amazed that I'd had 5 years of lessons at school. Anyway, it turned out that they were heading off to Teman Negara on the Jungle Railway too, and there was a taxi going from our Guesthouse. This made things a lot easier for me.


On the Jungle Railway down to Jerantut
So, the next morning we arrived at the station at 6, met up with Khurum (who had now decided that he didn't fancy Teman Negara any more, so was going to Kuala Lumpur. He had grander plans than our little jungle jaunt. He was off to Borneo.) and got onto the surprisingly comfortable train in the pitch black. The seats were really springy, and the reason for this was soon apparent. We were to be riding a bucking bronko for the next 10 hours. Luckily, it wasn't too hot or packed, so, apart from the bouncing, the journey was relatively comfortable. The scenery was pretty good too, as we were taken deeper and deeper into the world's oldest rainforest (apparently no ice-age or tectonic activity has affected this region).

On arriving in Jerantut (the stopping-off point for journeys into the jungle), we decided to share a room there that night, and head off to Kuala Tehan (the town right next to the National Park) the next morning. The main highlight here was the male receptionist with a ridiculously high voice attempting to flirt with us, and his clear interest in Flo. We went to an 'information meeting' in the evening and were lectured at by the guy giving the talk, who had an annoying habit of shouting "get it??!!", at the end of every sentence. We left after half an hour, during which he'd managed to describe only that there were 2 ways to get to the park; bus or boat.


Water Buffalo in the jungle
Well, it turned out that there was only one option, as when we tried to get the bus the next morning, we were told that it wasn't running, and we'd have to take the 3 hour boat journey, which turned out to be a killer. We saw jungle, some water Buffalo, and that's about it. The boat itself was a long, thin, narrow type, 2 people wide and sitting very low in the water. And there were lots of leaks - there was a guy sat in front of the driver whose sole job was to bale water for the entire journey. The guy I was sat next to, Asif, was an architect in London, travelling alone, and was to join us in our jungle adventures.


Flo posing in the Pink Palace
When we finally arrived, the 4 of us set off to look for accomodation. By this point, I was dying for a piss, so I signed into the first cheap place we came across while the others had a look at some other places. 10 minutes later they came back, saying they'd found somewhere much nicer that was exactly the same price - it had mosquito nets and everything. I really couldn't be assed to move, but they insisted, so I managed to get a refund and headed off with them. Well, words cannot begin to describe the homosexuality of the dorm that greeted me when I opened the door of this new place. Pink and peach mosquito nets, draped over each set of bunkbeds, with little frills at the bottom and even peach coloured walls. This room even smelled of girls.

Me and my 'lovely bear and friends' bedsheets
And to make things worse, my bedsheets had 'Lovely Bear and friends' all over them. I told them it was pretty much the gayest thing I had ever seen (and I've seen Murph dressed up like a woman). Flo decided to dub it 'The Pink Palace'.



permalink written by  olliejohnson on October 3, 2006 from Jerantut, Malaysia
from the travel blog: A man from Cockshutt.
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Getting covered in bat shit in the jungle 2

Jerantut, Malaysia


Flo on the canopy walk
Eager to escape our effeminate enclosure, we set off into the jungle that afternoon for more macho pursuits. A 1 and 1/2 hour trek through rainforest followed by a canopy walk fit the bill perfectly. The canopy walk was around 30 metres above the jungle floor, over flimsey bits of wood laid over a laddder of sorts. This was all held in place by a hell of a lot of rope, which in turn was tied to some really old trees. With my explorer hat on, I imagined I was Indiana Jones walking over the rope bridge in the Temple of Doom (far removed from the Graham Norton of our dorm).


Bats in the bat cave
The next day we decided to go to Goa Telinga, which is a small, dark, cramped cave filled with bats. Ever mindful of the dangers of leeches, every precaution was taken. Long sleeve t-shirts and trousers were worn, and to avoid the threat of leeches at ankle-level, personal dignity took a blow as trousers were tucked into socks. Luckily Flo and Marcus had brought head torches, so we could actually see where we were going in the cave. This turned out to be especially helpful considering that there was bat shit everywhere, which made everything really slippy, and also meant I spent a fair amount of time losing my balance and rolling around getting covered in the stuff. It was a pretty weird experience with thousands of bats hanging in the cave around us. Occasionally you hear a load of fluttering and then before you'd even seen it, you'd feel the beating of air past your face as a bat flew right past you.


On a jungle trek
On the way back to the hostel, Marcus somehow managed to get a leech in his sock, which gave him a hell of a bite before being turned to mush. The rest of us, owing to complete over-protection and layers of mosquito spray, managed to stay bite-free. Stupidly, the guys all listend to me when I told them that, contrary to what it specifically said on our tickets, we didn't actually need to reconfirm our return journey to Jerantut for the next day. I'm still certain that that's what the guy said at the meeting. Anyway, my error was to be revealed when we turned up to catch our minibus at 8 the next morning.

permalink written by  olliejohnson on October 3, 2006 from Jerantut, Malaysia
from the travel blog: A man from Cockshutt.
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Perhentian part 2

Kota Baharu, Malaysia


Sunrise over Big Island
I met some really interesting people on the island:
- one guy had spent the last 15 months travelling to this point from England overland. The southern route too - which took him through Iran and Pakistan, and along the Afghanistan border. He reckoned Iran was the most friendly place he's been to.
- another had been travelling for a year and plans to for another 4 or 5. He saved up this money by working as an environmental spy on an oil rig. To do this he had to have a legitimate job on the rig, and got paid shit loads for both. After 4 years of doing this (2 weeks on the rig, 2 weeks off), he'd managed to save 40,000 pounds.
- bizzarely, 2 guys, travelling completely separately, who'd both been in the British under 18 gymnastics squad, and lived at Lilleshall for a few years. Queue drunken acrobatics on the beach at night.
- a Canadian guy who was a pilot in the Yukon (in the North of Canada). He had to fly supplies to various scientific and explorative camps, and absolutely loved his job as he got to spend all day with birds' eye views of the deserted wilderness.


The damage caused by a locked out Ollie
The doors to our chalets were locked by just a small padlock, with a tiny key that i was inevitably going to lose. When this did finally happen, in my attempt to break back into my room, I managed to put my foot through the wall. I eventually found the key underneath the chalet. I tried to hide the damage by pushing the broken plank back into place. It seemed to work.


Richard Keys and Brian Clough.
I also managed to spot a fair amount of nature in my time on the island. I had 2 ghekos; Richard Keys and Brian Clough, guarding my room each night, and they stayed in exactly the same place. I liked them. There were also more monkeys, monitor lizzards, and what I swear were pygmi squirrels. I need someone to check that last one out for me though.

I'm now back in Kota Bharu, and will be heading off to the national park in the middle of Malaysia; Teman Nagara, tomorrow, for more animal fun. The 'Jungle railway' to the park leaves the station near Kota Bharu at 6am. It's going to be an early night.


permalink written by  olliejohnson on September 25, 2006 from Kota Baharu, Malaysia
from the travel blog: A man from Cockshutt.
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