Well, it's a wild continent, this African place. It took Shannon and I a bit to get into things here, as we spent the first 24 hours ensuring I had enough room in my passport (no problems most likely) and changing all our US dollars into post-2000 bills. That was quite a headache, as no one in this country wants to accept old bills, but it we got it done, met our tour buddies, and we're now on our way through Africa.
The very day we started, we did a game drive that night. I don't think much is going to top that first night, as we got within centimetres of a small pryde of lions in the park. We parked our truck only a few metres from a few females lying in the grass, with another female and a male lying another few metres away. They stretched, yawned and splayed out lazily for a while, before getting the scent of a pack of impalas a few hundred metres away. One by one, the females got up and started moving along the edge of the bushes, looking to start hunting the impalas. Impalas by the way are a deer-like animal, like a small gazelle.
The lions started by using the truck as cover, which meant that one by one, they would walk alongside our vehicle, before creeping into the underbrush. The impalas, which we could only slightly see through the trees as they moved, got extremely nervous, and started letting out a call which sounded like something between a dog barking and a whale exhaling. Our guide pointed out that two lions were hiding on our left, one was deep to the right, and the last was in the middle of the path, acting as a visual decoy to the impala. It was quite a clever plan the lions had, using the wind direction, the vehicle, the bushes and the decoy lion all as cover for the hunt. Unfortunately, lions compensate for their ingenious hunting techniques by being extremely lazy. While three of the lions still were intent on the hunt, one of the females seemily decided things weren't worth the effort, broke cover, and flopped down in the middle of the road. The male soon followed, brushing alongside our truck, and stretching out as well. And so, only a few minutes after it started, the hunt was over, with the lions having nothing to show for it but some very excited tourists.
The next day we spent in Kruger National Park, which is one of the big 3 famous game parks in Africa. It was a good (long) day of seeing animals, but hard to compete with the intensity from the night before. Still, we got up close to plenty of impala, elephants, rhinos, buffalo, wildebeast, giraffe, and even some smaller creatures like a chameleon and a vine snake.
This was all in South Africa, the first stop on our tour. Since then, we've traveled through Botswana, and are now in Zambia. It's getting to be pretty intense, as western goods are either expensive or hard to find (grocery stores are often lacking groceries here), and since we're right on the Zimbabwaean border, there's an eery feeling sometimes when you hear stories from people about the neighbouring country. Things are nearly impossible to get there, and our tour driver, who is from Zimbabwae, spends his days off shuttling food he bought in South Africa to his family in Zimbabwae. Some of the people on our tour took a white water rafting trip down the Zambezi river, which divides Zambia and Zimbabwae, and they came across some people trying to cross the river and smuggle food into Zimbabwae. They stopped the boat and helped everyone across, but apparently it's quite common for people to smuggle like this - something that would blow your mind if you saw how big and scary this river is and how massive the gorge surrounding it is.
Before I go, I'll also mention Victoria Falls (or Mosi-Oa-Tunya as the Zambians call it). I think they're some of the biggest falls in the world - the longest I'm pretty sure, and taller than Niagra though with less volume. Right now the "smoke" or spray coming off them is quite small, though when we got there we coudn't get more than a kilometre close to them without getting absolutely drenched. In the high flow season the water sprays for up to 10 km. I've never felt anything quite as powerful, and when you get close to them, you really do feel them with all the noise, water spraying you, and the ground shaking all around you.
Anyway, gotta run, it's expensive and slow here, which sadly means no pictures (I've been trying for an hour, which means $4 wasted). I'll try again later, but it looks like Africa will have to be photoless. Oh well, use your imaginations.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The Long Arm of the Law
Time's up now for Shannon and I in Indonesia, but I'm going to backtrack a bit and write about the final days from the island nation. And where better to begin than with our brief encounter with the Indonesian police!
Our final day in Indonesia was spent in Sanur, a quiet little beach town on the southeast side of Bali. We had 12 hours to spend before our flight to Johannesburg, and I needed a jacket, so we rented a scooter to drive to Kuta, about 30-40 minutes away. Of course, renting a scooter and driving from town to town in Bali is a pretty silly idea, but we had enough time somehow it seemed like a good plan.
Within moments, we were lost. Not too badly fortunately, and we managed to turn around and get back on the right track. The bad part of it though, was that we stopped at a light right next to a freakin' traffic police box, with two disgruntled officers working there. And so, as I mistakenly stopped on the wrong side of the stop line in front of the light, we were waved over to the side of the road by the two grumpy gentlemen.
I want to give a dialogue of the encounter, but besides being quite lengthy, it involved a lot of grunts, pointing, glaring and untranslatable blabbering by everyone involved. My position was one of confusion and apology, as well as coyness (I think that's the right word) in that I could not understand the traffic laws no matter how many times he offered them to me to read. Shannon played the angry tourist, giving the cops a hard time as they tried to bully us into paying them a bribe. The cops gave us every English law and diagram available to them, which basically said "you broke the law, so pay the officers money" without stating how much or why. And so once we "agreed" to pay the fine there (the two cops threatened to arrest our scooter once we said we wouldn't pay them), we haggled on the price, settling for 100,000 rupiah - about $12 CDN, and half what they originally wanted.
After 10 minutes with the cops, we were eventually let go, and made our way to Kuta. The drive there was straight along the highway with no turns. The drive back, sadly, was not straight, and no matter how hard we tried to go to Sanur, we contiually found ourselves drifing north, until we were 45 minutes out of the way, and had covered an extra 50km at least. We caught our plane without much worry, but it was one bloody hectic day.
Arak Attack
One of our stops on Bali involved an amazing island 90 minutes away from Sanur. We ended up forking over nearly 3 times what we normally pay for our accommodation, but it was well worth the money. We went snorkeling, surfing, ate some amazing food and met another couple from Canada at our place. We also hung out with some of the staff at our accommodation, and the other Canadian couple felt that it would be quite fun if the lot of us got together and had some drinks. And so, over 30 hours in advance, we made plans for a game of Uno and a few bottles of Arak to be had between us.
Arak, a sort of fruity Indonesian equivalent to vodka I suppose, was the penalty for screwing up or finishing last during the Uno game. 7 of us ended up playing, and it gave quite a full showing of the cultural differences between our two countries - The Canadians sipped beer and wine while playing, taking the Arak in stride but not really getting too drunk off it, while the Indonesians did there best to avoid it at first, but once they hit that line of "too much", it was hard to stop them from going for more. Well, mostly it was just the one guy, Urope, who kept going back for the Arak, but I think we drank 4 or 5 times more than the Indonesians, and we were all in about the same shape the next morning.
Idiocy
Shannon and I are now in Africa, which I'll write about shortly. We're having an awesome time so far, but there's been a little stress that came along with the trip here which I could have easily avoided - in my excitement to get on the trip and my stupidity in properly preparing, I never got a new passport before coming, thinking my old one had plenty of room, and now I'm nearly full up with stamps and visas. It turns out I'm not as bad as I had first feared, but now, every time we cross a border, I have to crawl half way over the counter and point exactly where I need them to stamp to make sure I have enough room to get out of Kenya and into Egypt. Today was the last big worry stamp, getting into Zambia, so unless the officer in Tanzania is a real jerk, there's no reason things won't work out. Still, the lesson here is to be extra prepared when it comes to traveling, and get a big fat passport cause you never know how big the stickers will be and who's gonna try and be funny and take up a whole page for no good reason.
Okay, gotta run, don't want to get caught in the dark away from home. Not in this continent anyway.
Our final day in Indonesia was spent in Sanur, a quiet little beach town on the southeast side of Bali. We had 12 hours to spend before our flight to Johannesburg, and I needed a jacket, so we rented a scooter to drive to Kuta, about 30-40 minutes away. Of course, renting a scooter and driving from town to town in Bali is a pretty silly idea, but we had enough time somehow it seemed like a good plan.
Within moments, we were lost. Not too badly fortunately, and we managed to turn around and get back on the right track. The bad part of it though, was that we stopped at a light right next to a freakin' traffic police box, with two disgruntled officers working there. And so, as I mistakenly stopped on the wrong side of the stop line in front of the light, we were waved over to the side of the road by the two grumpy gentlemen.
I want to give a dialogue of the encounter, but besides being quite lengthy, it involved a lot of grunts, pointing, glaring and untranslatable blabbering by everyone involved. My position was one of confusion and apology, as well as coyness (I think that's the right word) in that I could not understand the traffic laws no matter how many times he offered them to me to read. Shannon played the angry tourist, giving the cops a hard time as they tried to bully us into paying them a bribe. The cops gave us every English law and diagram available to them, which basically said "you broke the law, so pay the officers money" without stating how much or why. And so once we "agreed" to pay the fine there (the two cops threatened to arrest our scooter once we said we wouldn't pay them), we haggled on the price, settling for 100,000 rupiah - about $12 CDN, and half what they originally wanted.
After 10 minutes with the cops, we were eventually let go, and made our way to Kuta. The drive there was straight along the highway with no turns. The drive back, sadly, was not straight, and no matter how hard we tried to go to Sanur, we contiually found ourselves drifing north, until we were 45 minutes out of the way, and had covered an extra 50km at least. We caught our plane without much worry, but it was one bloody hectic day.
Arak Attack
One of our stops on Bali involved an amazing island 90 minutes away from Sanur. We ended up forking over nearly 3 times what we normally pay for our accommodation, but it was well worth the money. We went snorkeling, surfing, ate some amazing food and met another couple from Canada at our place. We also hung out with some of the staff at our accommodation, and the other Canadian couple felt that it would be quite fun if the lot of us got together and had some drinks. And so, over 30 hours in advance, we made plans for a game of Uno and a few bottles of Arak to be had between us.
Arak, a sort of fruity Indonesian equivalent to vodka I suppose, was the penalty for screwing up or finishing last during the Uno game. 7 of us ended up playing, and it gave quite a full showing of the cultural differences between our two countries - The Canadians sipped beer and wine while playing, taking the Arak in stride but not really getting too drunk off it, while the Indonesians did there best to avoid it at first, but once they hit that line of "too much", it was hard to stop them from going for more. Well, mostly it was just the one guy, Urope, who kept going back for the Arak, but I think we drank 4 or 5 times more than the Indonesians, and we were all in about the same shape the next morning.
Idiocy
Shannon and I are now in Africa, which I'll write about shortly. We're having an awesome time so far, but there's been a little stress that came along with the trip here which I could have easily avoided - in my excitement to get on the trip and my stupidity in properly preparing, I never got a new passport before coming, thinking my old one had plenty of room, and now I'm nearly full up with stamps and visas. It turns out I'm not as bad as I had first feared, but now, every time we cross a border, I have to crawl half way over the counter and point exactly where I need them to stamp to make sure I have enough room to get out of Kenya and into Egypt. Today was the last big worry stamp, getting into Zambia, so unless the officer in Tanzania is a real jerk, there's no reason things won't work out. Still, the lesson here is to be extra prepared when it comes to traveling, and get a big fat passport cause you never know how big the stickers will be and who's gonna try and be funny and take up a whole page for no good reason.
Okay, gotta run, don't want to get caught in the dark away from home. Not in this continent anyway.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Fonetiks
It feels like ages since I've written a regular travel blog, with the last few all about the contrast to traveling while in Hawaii or the freaky creeps we met on the road. I think I'll get a bit more back to basics here.
Shannon and I are on Bali in Indonesia. For those unaware, Bali is an island province of Indonesia, and generally known as the big tourist hot-spot for beaches, night clubs, surf spots and artwork. We've been all over Indonesia so far, starting on Sumatra, where we hiked into the jungle to meet orangutans and floated down the river on inner tubes; Gili Air, a small island off the larger island of Lombok, where we did little else but sit on the beach and indulge in too much wine; we then went to Kuta on Lombok, where the big (well, big for me) surf was absolutely mind-blowing; and now we're in Ubud, a artsy-cultural tourist town which runs almost entirely on fancy clothes, paintings and culinary diversity.
So what have I learned about Indonesia? Well, for starters, they drive like lunatics. Reading about Indonesia, the "driving" section of our book describes Indonesia as a country that "drives on the left side of the road. And the right side. And the sidewalk." On the small two-lane pot-holed country roads that hardly can handle two vehicles traveling at once, it's not uncommon to have cars traveling 3 wide. An oncoming bus actually thrust us completely off the road and into the ditch at one point as it did a 4-car pass down the road.
The language here is perhaps one of the most basic in the world, having no tenses to the verbs, genders for nouns, and can be quite simple to pick up. It's also amazingly phonetic, so much so that often times English gets translated phonetically here in ways that don't look anything like the original world. "Dynamic Engines" becomes "Dainamik Enjins" for example. It's usually only outside of the tourist spots you see this, but it makes for lots of double-takes and re-evaluations of the logistics of many English spellings.
So far, the orangutan stop in Bukkitlawang and the big surf in Kuta have been my personal highlights. In Bukkitlawang, Shannon and I were spending a total of $25 a day, and having a great time doing it. In the morning we could hike into the jungle and get only metres away from massive orangutans as the wardens fed them. Then, for $1, we could rent a tube, hike up the river and float down the type of rapids that would require a 5 page legal document and 2 lawyers on hand to sign any and all legal rights away before any Canadian company would let you go floating down this. Getting to the top of the river to put in required crossing it at one point, one of the more comical events of our trip. Shannon and I were traveling with Jason and Abby, two friends from Korea, so the four of us found a spot nestled between two rapid sets. I climbed a rock jutting into the water and dove into the stream, scrambling to the other side 15 metres downstream from where I started (the river was only waist deep, but you had to get shallower before being able to stand). Jason the hurled the tubes to me, and once they were across, he Abby (who was 2 months pregnant) and Shannon leapt across as well. I would have to wade out as deep as possible and grab them one at a time and then help them to the opposite shore. All in all, it took about 40 minutes to figure out this thing, but was well worth it for the trip down.
Kuta was a whole different kind of freaky. I'm a pretty poor surfer, based largely on my inexperience I suppose. I'm at least aware of my limitations though, so when we got out to the break, I was a little nervous. To get to the surf breaks in Kuta, you need a boat, since they're all reef breaks off shore. And so, Shannon and I met a couple who were heading out to one of the bigger breaks, and we decided to join them. On the way out, Shannon suggested at least a dozen times that maybe I should stay in the boat, but I figured I could find a smaller section of waves to ride. Getting to the break, we saw waves that were breaking regularly with an 8-10 foot face, and the occasional set coming in around 12 feet high. I stayed way out on the end, trying to catch the smaller sets that came in, but even these had such a massive amount of water volume to them, it felt like being steamrolled by an elephant every time I got tossed by one of these monsters. In fact, the very first wave that came in broke early on me (since I was so far in) and hurled me so far along under water, I was convinced I wasn't coming up again. My thoughts were kinda funny though - "Not on the first wave. I can't freaking die on the very first gave. Gimme at least one more..."
Things got better in Kuta over the next few days. I found the smaller breaks, got a better sized board, and managed to catch my first "real" rides. I say real since, despite catching plenty of waves before, this was the first time I got a long, 10+ second ride, turning up and down the face and riding out without getting pummeled. I by no means looked good doing it, but it felt *%^#ing amazing!
Anyway, it's almost time to leave Indo. On the 2nd of Feb, Shannon and I fly into Johannesburg, South Africa (arriving on the 3rd). I'm getting pretty pumped for it - it's been a long stay in Asia, and I'm ready for a new and radical change. I will miss Indonesia though. It's been days but I'm still buzzing from the surfing in Kuta, and I'm not sure how I'll get by not doing that again. However, Africa is certainly going to have its own good times to show us, and I'm sure I'll have lots more to blog about then.
Shannon and I are on Bali in Indonesia. For those unaware, Bali is an island province of Indonesia, and generally known as the big tourist hot-spot for beaches, night clubs, surf spots and artwork. We've been all over Indonesia so far, starting on Sumatra, where we hiked into the jungle to meet orangutans and floated down the river on inner tubes; Gili Air, a small island off the larger island of Lombok, where we did little else but sit on the beach and indulge in too much wine; we then went to Kuta on Lombok, where the big (well, big for me) surf was absolutely mind-blowing; and now we're in Ubud, a artsy-cultural tourist town which runs almost entirely on fancy clothes, paintings and culinary diversity.
So what have I learned about Indonesia? Well, for starters, they drive like lunatics. Reading about Indonesia, the "driving" section of our book describes Indonesia as a country that "drives on the left side of the road. And the right side. And the sidewalk." On the small two-lane pot-holed country roads that hardly can handle two vehicles traveling at once, it's not uncommon to have cars traveling 3 wide. An oncoming bus actually thrust us completely off the road and into the ditch at one point as it did a 4-car pass down the road.
The language here is perhaps one of the most basic in the world, having no tenses to the verbs, genders for nouns, and can be quite simple to pick up. It's also amazingly phonetic, so much so that often times English gets translated phonetically here in ways that don't look anything like the original world. "Dynamic Engines" becomes "Dainamik Enjins" for example. It's usually only outside of the tourist spots you see this, but it makes for lots of double-takes and re-evaluations of the logistics of many English spellings.
So far, the orangutan stop in Bukkitlawang and the big surf in Kuta have been my personal highlights. In Bukkitlawang, Shannon and I were spending a total of $25 a day, and having a great time doing it. In the morning we could hike into the jungle and get only metres away from massive orangutans as the wardens fed them. Then, for $1, we could rent a tube, hike up the river and float down the type of rapids that would require a 5 page legal document and 2 lawyers on hand to sign any and all legal rights away before any Canadian company would let you go floating down this. Getting to the top of the river to put in required crossing it at one point, one of the more comical events of our trip. Shannon and I were traveling with Jason and Abby, two friends from Korea, so the four of us found a spot nestled between two rapid sets. I climbed a rock jutting into the water and dove into the stream, scrambling to the other side 15 metres downstream from where I started (the river was only waist deep, but you had to get shallower before being able to stand). Jason the hurled the tubes to me, and once they were across, he Abby (who was 2 months pregnant) and Shannon leapt across as well. I would have to wade out as deep as possible and grab them one at a time and then help them to the opposite shore. All in all, it took about 40 minutes to figure out this thing, but was well worth it for the trip down.
Kuta was a whole different kind of freaky. I'm a pretty poor surfer, based largely on my inexperience I suppose. I'm at least aware of my limitations though, so when we got out to the break, I was a little nervous. To get to the surf breaks in Kuta, you need a boat, since they're all reef breaks off shore. And so, Shannon and I met a couple who were heading out to one of the bigger breaks, and we decided to join them. On the way out, Shannon suggested at least a dozen times that maybe I should stay in the boat, but I figured I could find a smaller section of waves to ride. Getting to the break, we saw waves that were breaking regularly with an 8-10 foot face, and the occasional set coming in around 12 feet high. I stayed way out on the end, trying to catch the smaller sets that came in, but even these had such a massive amount of water volume to them, it felt like being steamrolled by an elephant every time I got tossed by one of these monsters. In fact, the very first wave that came in broke early on me (since I was so far in) and hurled me so far along under water, I was convinced I wasn't coming up again. My thoughts were kinda funny though - "Not on the first wave. I can't freaking die on the very first gave. Gimme at least one more..."
Things got better in Kuta over the next few days. I found the smaller breaks, got a better sized board, and managed to catch my first "real" rides. I say real since, despite catching plenty of waves before, this was the first time I got a long, 10+ second ride, turning up and down the face and riding out without getting pummeled. I by no means looked good doing it, but it felt *%^#ing amazing!
Anyway, it's almost time to leave Indo. On the 2nd of Feb, Shannon and I fly into Johannesburg, South Africa (arriving on the 3rd). I'm getting pretty pumped for it - it's been a long stay in Asia, and I'm ready for a new and radical change. I will miss Indonesia though. It's been days but I'm still buzzing from the surfing in Kuta, and I'm not sure how I'll get by not doing that again. However, Africa is certainly going to have its own good times to show us, and I'm sure I'll have lots more to blog about then.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Creepy? Or Absolutely Wrong and Illegal?
There are a number of certain "inevitabilities" that a person will encounter over enough time on the road. Travel delays, health issues, scams, rip-offs and other undesired events. Last night provided one of the more unexpected "inevitabilities" that I certainly had hoped not to encounter, and that I was very much unprepared for, as I'm fairly certain that last night we encountered a group of men involved in child prostitution.
Right now Shannon and I are in Indonesia. Despite despising the big cities, we're staying in some pretty small-town laid-back places, usually with very few tourists and a whole lotta leisure to enjoy. Indonesia has been the first place I've ever been to where it really is as cheap as people say, generally because there doesn't seem to be a big tourist push anywhere. So, when we were out for pizza with two other friends last night, we were rather unsettled to see three elderly European men sitting with a young woman and a small female child at their table. We mumbled to ourselves for sometime before deciding these guys were almost certainly pedophiles, and one of them was going home with this kid - probably the old guy whose lap she was sitting on.
Abby and Jason, the two friends we're traveling with at the moment, had to go back early since Abby wasn't feeling so well. So Shannon and I were left alone in the restaurant, waiting for a pizza to come out. We grew more and more uncomfortable as time went on - our pizza was taking forever, and the three men (all at least mid-50's, overweight and really shady looking) were doing nothing to calm our fears that they were looking for trouble with the poor girl sitting with them. Finally Shannon and I decided to try and do something. So, I went to the restaurant staff. It was certainly an awkward conversation, and one that ended with them telling me the young Indonesian woman was the man's wife and the girl was his daughter (a blind person could tell however that there was no blood relationship there). It was a little strange though since I swear I had heard the man referred to say he had left his wife in Thailand.
Anyway, the staff were no help, so once we finished our food and paid our bill, we approached the woman who was sitting at the table, though we waited till she stepped outside for a moment.
I asked her - "Is that your husband?" She looked at me oddly, then slowly slunk away. I asked her more, "who is that guy?" and "is that your daughter?" but she eventually retreated back into the restaurant. Shannon and I then grabbed a tout (kinda like a tourism worker, making money on over-priced referrals) we met and asked him what was going on.
"Oh, that's his wife and daughter," he said. When we pressed him further, he said "don't worry about it, everyone's OK. I'm sure they're OK." I jumped ahead in the conversation and just asked him "So, who does he pay to be with her?" It may have been a little inappropriate, but the tout just said he wasn't sure, but not to worry.
Things weren't getting any better, or any clearer. We were still sure he was a pervert paying for the girl, but there was no way to know for sure. So, we left, and wandered half a block away to get some water. Looking back, we saw the Austrian guy walk out of the restaurant, hand-in-hand with the little girl and no one else.
We quickly followed him up the street, heart racing, whispering to each other about what to do. Finally I decided to approach the guy, though I think we had whispered far too loudly, as the Austrian turned into a large party of locals in one of the taverns.
"I don't really feel good about this now," I said, far too loudly and nearly in arm's reach of him. But Shannon kept on, and walked right up in front of the guy.
"Excuse me," she said (or something like that), "do you mind telling us what's going on with you and this girl? Is she your daughter?" I jumped up beside her, and realized how much I towered over this creepy guy. It probably didn't hurt that I was nearly bumping my chest into him, but it felt good that my chest was almost as high as his chin.
"This is my daughter," he said, smiling. And that's how the conversation began and went. We pressed him on what was going on, he got all goofy-eyed, smiled at us, and laughed about how he was a "local" and these people were his family. It was such a messed up situation. The guy spoke Indonesian, he casually brushed off our accusations, yet he seemed to take little offense to us calling him a pedophile. He sent the girl after her mother, though now it seemed her mother was at the party, and was not the woman back at the restaurant.
I'm not sure how long we stood there with him, I thought maybe 3 minutes, Shannon thought more like 10, but it certainly felt like an eternity. By the time it was wrapping up, we were convinced he really was a pedophile, and for better or worse, we told him we would pay him to leave the girl alone that night. He thought that was funny, though his response didn't make much sense. Anyway, I made a final somewhat nasty remark towards him, one of those "Well if you are a pedophile..." kinda things, and left.
Looking back there was heaps more I wish I'd done, but I really don't think I was ready or equipped to do much more than I did. We managed to take a photo of the guy, though I wish I'd taken one more while he stood there in front of us with the girl. Still, I've contacted a few child protection groups to see if there's anything more that can be done. But oh wait, the story's not quite over yet.
The next morning Shannon and I join Abby and Jason for breakfast, and retell our adventures from the previous night. We sat there for a good hour mulling over what we did, what we could have done and what we'll do now, before finally looking for something more enjoyable to talk about. Of course, that turns out to be precisely the moment the old Austrian man shows up in our hotel, now with two young children, a boy on his right hand and the girl on his left.
"Ahh, there's the man I'm looking for," he shouts and comes up to us. "I think you owe me an apology."
"An apology?" I say to him. "Maybe you could tell me a little more about what's going on." "These are my children," he says, and I ask them where their mother is then, since they look nothing like him.
"Well then, would you like to try and buy them from me now?" he says, with that same creepy stupid look on his face. Abby and Jason both turn to him and tell him he should never be speaking about children like that, and he abruptly turns away and leaves, still holding both kids hand-in-hand.
And that's that for now. I haven't heard anything back from the online child prostitution groups, and I haven't seen the old man again since. Oh, that's what I said to him, I told him "I'm sure I'll be seeing you around the island" as we left that night. Of course I didn't expect him to track me down the next morning in my hotel. Bloody creepy!
I'll leave it at that for now, since I've written enough for tonight, but there's plenty of great things to write about Indonesia still, and I'd hate to let anyone think this was just a country of sex-tourist, because it certainly isn't.
Right now Shannon and I are in Indonesia. Despite despising the big cities, we're staying in some pretty small-town laid-back places, usually with very few tourists and a whole lotta leisure to enjoy. Indonesia has been the first place I've ever been to where it really is as cheap as people say, generally because there doesn't seem to be a big tourist push anywhere. So, when we were out for pizza with two other friends last night, we were rather unsettled to see three elderly European men sitting with a young woman and a small female child at their table. We mumbled to ourselves for sometime before deciding these guys were almost certainly pedophiles, and one of them was going home with this kid - probably the old guy whose lap she was sitting on.
Abby and Jason, the two friends we're traveling with at the moment, had to go back early since Abby wasn't feeling so well. So Shannon and I were left alone in the restaurant, waiting for a pizza to come out. We grew more and more uncomfortable as time went on - our pizza was taking forever, and the three men (all at least mid-50's, overweight and really shady looking) were doing nothing to calm our fears that they were looking for trouble with the poor girl sitting with them. Finally Shannon and I decided to try and do something. So, I went to the restaurant staff. It was certainly an awkward conversation, and one that ended with them telling me the young Indonesian woman was the man's wife and the girl was his daughter (a blind person could tell however that there was no blood relationship there). It was a little strange though since I swear I had heard the man referred to say he had left his wife in Thailand.
Anyway, the staff were no help, so once we finished our food and paid our bill, we approached the woman who was sitting at the table, though we waited till she stepped outside for a moment.
I asked her - "Is that your husband?" She looked at me oddly, then slowly slunk away. I asked her more, "who is that guy?" and "is that your daughter?" but she eventually retreated back into the restaurant. Shannon and I then grabbed a tout (kinda like a tourism worker, making money on over-priced referrals) we met and asked him what was going on.
"Oh, that's his wife and daughter," he said. When we pressed him further, he said "don't worry about it, everyone's OK. I'm sure they're OK." I jumped ahead in the conversation and just asked him "So, who does he pay to be with her?" It may have been a little inappropriate, but the tout just said he wasn't sure, but not to worry.
Things weren't getting any better, or any clearer. We were still sure he was a pervert paying for the girl, but there was no way to know for sure. So, we left, and wandered half a block away to get some water. Looking back, we saw the Austrian guy walk out of the restaurant, hand-in-hand with the little girl and no one else.
We quickly followed him up the street, heart racing, whispering to each other about what to do. Finally I decided to approach the guy, though I think we had whispered far too loudly, as the Austrian turned into a large party of locals in one of the taverns.
"I don't really feel good about this now," I said, far too loudly and nearly in arm's reach of him. But Shannon kept on, and walked right up in front of the guy.
"Excuse me," she said (or something like that), "do you mind telling us what's going on with you and this girl? Is she your daughter?" I jumped up beside her, and realized how much I towered over this creepy guy. It probably didn't hurt that I was nearly bumping my chest into him, but it felt good that my chest was almost as high as his chin.
"This is my daughter," he said, smiling. And that's how the conversation began and went. We pressed him on what was going on, he got all goofy-eyed, smiled at us, and laughed about how he was a "local" and these people were his family. It was such a messed up situation. The guy spoke Indonesian, he casually brushed off our accusations, yet he seemed to take little offense to us calling him a pedophile. He sent the girl after her mother, though now it seemed her mother was at the party, and was not the woman back at the restaurant.
I'm not sure how long we stood there with him, I thought maybe 3 minutes, Shannon thought more like 10, but it certainly felt like an eternity. By the time it was wrapping up, we were convinced he really was a pedophile, and for better or worse, we told him we would pay him to leave the girl alone that night. He thought that was funny, though his response didn't make much sense. Anyway, I made a final somewhat nasty remark towards him, one of those "Well if you are a pedophile..." kinda things, and left.
Looking back there was heaps more I wish I'd done, but I really don't think I was ready or equipped to do much more than I did. We managed to take a photo of the guy, though I wish I'd taken one more while he stood there in front of us with the girl. Still, I've contacted a few child protection groups to see if there's anything more that can be done. But oh wait, the story's not quite over yet.
The next morning Shannon and I join Abby and Jason for breakfast, and retell our adventures from the previous night. We sat there for a good hour mulling over what we did, what we could have done and what we'll do now, before finally looking for something more enjoyable to talk about. Of course, that turns out to be precisely the moment the old Austrian man shows up in our hotel, now with two young children, a boy on his right hand and the girl on his left.
"Ahh, there's the man I'm looking for," he shouts and comes up to us. "I think you owe me an apology."
"An apology?" I say to him. "Maybe you could tell me a little more about what's going on." "These are my children," he says, and I ask them where their mother is then, since they look nothing like him.
"Well then, would you like to try and buy them from me now?" he says, with that same creepy stupid look on his face. Abby and Jason both turn to him and tell him he should never be speaking about children like that, and he abruptly turns away and leaves, still holding both kids hand-in-hand.
And that's that for now. I haven't heard anything back from the online child prostitution groups, and I haven't seen the old man again since. Oh, that's what I said to him, I told him "I'm sure I'll be seeing you around the island" as we left that night. Of course I didn't expect him to track me down the next morning in my hotel. Bloody creepy!
I'll leave it at that for now, since I've written enough for tonight, but there's plenty of great things to write about Indonesia still, and I'd hate to let anyone think this was just a country of sex-tourist, because it certainly isn't.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Lies!!!
The only constant is change my friends, and the beard-growing exploration has suddenly come to and end! It's probably temporary (we'll see how the bald-face goes), but the brief stop in Hawaii included a family photo session, and I felt that besides the need to look a little cleaner for the pictures, having a photo that better resembled how I gererally appear and not as the scruffy traveler I looked like would be nice.
And so, for the time being, "pogonic" does not accurately exemplify my outward appearance. But hey, things change.
In only a few hours, Shannon and I will be leaving Hawaii, which is rather sad. I think this is about my favourite place on the planet. It's a bit too expensive, and I would certainly miss snow (and even the cold a bit maybe) of winter over time, but otherwise it's such a mind-blowing place with an overwhelming amount of things to see and do (especially for such a tiny spot).
The next stop (eventually) is Medan, Indonesia. It'll take nearly 3 days to get there, and will include 6 different planes. Yeuch. We also spend another night in Bangkok, which is becoming a nasty habit. Anyway, it's time for bed, so that's all for now. I've thrown up a few of Steve's pictures (he's my brother for those who don't know), though I couldn't quite make out which photo is which on the tiny little thumbnails. Hence, there's no real "story" to them, so you'll just have to imagine what kind of crazy adventure I had along the way taking them. Enjoy, and g'night!
And so, for the time being, "pogonic" does not accurately exemplify my outward appearance. But hey, things change.
In only a few hours, Shannon and I will be leaving Hawaii, which is rather sad. I think this is about my favourite place on the planet. It's a bit too expensive, and I would certainly miss snow (and even the cold a bit maybe) of winter over time, but otherwise it's such a mind-blowing place with an overwhelming amount of things to see and do (especially for such a tiny spot).
The next stop (eventually) is Medan, Indonesia. It'll take nearly 3 days to get there, and will include 6 different planes. Yeuch. We also spend another night in Bangkok, which is becoming a nasty habit. Anyway, it's time for bed, so that's all for now. I've thrown up a few of Steve's pictures (he's my brother for those who don't know), though I couldn't quite make out which photo is which on the tiny little thumbnails. Hence, there's no real "story" to them, so you'll just have to imagine what kind of crazy adventure I had along the way taking them. Enjoy, and g'night!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Introspections, Observations and other Events
I'm a little off the blog at the moment, as the round the world trip has taken a sudden turn away from the usual traveling adventures. Rather than bumming around SE Asia, sleeping in dorms, eating at cheap greasy street shops and haggling over a few cents with merchants, Shannon and I are now spoiling ourselves rotten in Hawaii. We touched down on Kauai island on the 17th, and are now spending our days relaxing on beaches, hiking in the mountains and biking through the very muddy paths. It's actually not all that relaxing, since we've spent most every day doing some moderately to extremely strenuous activities, but it is quite enjoyable, especially having nice things around like flush toilets, laundry machines and the ability to cook for ourselves.
One of the trips we undertook was an 8 hour hike through one of the muddiest, boggiest trails I've ever imagined much less hiked on. Our ultimate goal was through two different water-diversion tunnels, blown through some mountain ridges in the 1900's. We hiked (and often crawled) for 4 hours through the sludge before arriving at the first tunnel, which was over 1.5 km long. The 2nd tunnel eluded us just long enough that we weren't able to crawl through it, as we were losing sunlight much too quickly, but now I'm half-way torn between crawling through the sludge again to find the mysterious 2nd tunnel, and just avoiding the whole disgusting ordeal and just enjoying other things Hawaii has to offer. There's still plenty more tunnels, hikes, caves and waterfalls to see, but it's hard to give up on something when you've come so close to making it. The tunnels themselves (or the one we saw) were pretty impressive, nearly 6 feet high the whole way through with nearly a foot of water running along it. A flash flood probably would have wiped us all out, but I think fearing that only made it more fun.
Anyway, Hawaii is great, but it's hard taking the time to write about what's happening. Traveling overseas in non-western countries has something much more mystic and unexpected to it, where even the smallest details of your day make for an interesting story. Getting lunch can turn into a 3 hour challenge, bedrooms come with uninvited houseguests (people or bugs usually), and every day includes not just thoughts of what to do but also where to go and how to get there. You find that you have to be "tuned in" or "turned on" every waking moment just to really appreciate or even understand what is happening around you, where as now, even so far away from home, I can almost shut down and just coast through life, munching on comfy food, sleeping in a comfy bed, driving from point A to B in my comfy rental car, hardly worrying about a thing. And if anything goes wrong, the world speaks my language and hardly a soul is worried about hassling me for a dollar every time I ask them so much as the time.
Not that Hawaii is all monotony and cakewalks. I'm with my brother Steve and his wife Laura (and there two litle kids Max and Nash, the cutest little bundles of joy and occassional poop you've ever seen), and Steve is pretty gung-ho for doing something advernturous whenever he can. Our last Hawaiian adventure took us to a barely touched remote lava tube (so deep and long that had our lights burned out, we would never have emerged), and a 4 hour hike on along a hunting trail to the caldera of a still active volcano. The volcano trip was pretty freaky, and I'm fairly certain of all the dicey things I've done that had the highest likelyhood of killing me (and the whole family). There's nothing quite as "out there" that we have planned for this trip so far, but there's still 8 more days to find something nutty.
We're leaving here on the 1st of January (though we'll be spending New Years away from the family in Honolulu since our flight leaves super early). From there, we've decided to forego Vietnam and spend some extra time in Indonesia. Running around Laos and Cambodia had Shannon and I feeling rather cramped for time, sort of as if we would arrive in a country, spend a few days finding all the great stuff to do and see, then leave before we actually had a chance to do it. And so, we're putting all our traveling eggs in one basket, and doing Indonesia as best we can. I figure the surfing, beaches, islands, etc. should be what we're looking for, and everyone we met on the road had very little pleasant things to say about the Vietnamese travel industry. As someone (or some book) put it, the "Tuk Tuk" drivers there are so anxious to have your business, they'll drive over you just to get to you first. They'll then charge you whatever price they feel you should pay and never budge from it no matter how ridiculous it is. And so, nice as the country itself sounds, there's enough junk to go with it that I don't mind saying "no" to it this time. Maybe next trip. Anyway, till the next blog, thanks for reading!
Rich
One of the trips we undertook was an 8 hour hike through one of the muddiest, boggiest trails I've ever imagined much less hiked on. Our ultimate goal was through two different water-diversion tunnels, blown through some mountain ridges in the 1900's. We hiked (and often crawled) for 4 hours through the sludge before arriving at the first tunnel, which was over 1.5 km long. The 2nd tunnel eluded us just long enough that we weren't able to crawl through it, as we were losing sunlight much too quickly, but now I'm half-way torn between crawling through the sludge again to find the mysterious 2nd tunnel, and just avoiding the whole disgusting ordeal and just enjoying other things Hawaii has to offer. There's still plenty more tunnels, hikes, caves and waterfalls to see, but it's hard to give up on something when you've come so close to making it. The tunnels themselves (or the one we saw) were pretty impressive, nearly 6 feet high the whole way through with nearly a foot of water running along it. A flash flood probably would have wiped us all out, but I think fearing that only made it more fun.
Anyway, Hawaii is great, but it's hard taking the time to write about what's happening. Traveling overseas in non-western countries has something much more mystic and unexpected to it, where even the smallest details of your day make for an interesting story. Getting lunch can turn into a 3 hour challenge, bedrooms come with uninvited houseguests (people or bugs usually), and every day includes not just thoughts of what to do but also where to go and how to get there. You find that you have to be "tuned in" or "turned on" every waking moment just to really appreciate or even understand what is happening around you, where as now, even so far away from home, I can almost shut down and just coast through life, munching on comfy food, sleeping in a comfy bed, driving from point A to B in my comfy rental car, hardly worrying about a thing. And if anything goes wrong, the world speaks my language and hardly a soul is worried about hassling me for a dollar every time I ask them so much as the time.
Not that Hawaii is all monotony and cakewalks. I'm with my brother Steve and his wife Laura (and there two litle kids Max and Nash, the cutest little bundles of joy and occassional poop you've ever seen), and Steve is pretty gung-ho for doing something advernturous whenever he can. Our last Hawaiian adventure took us to a barely touched remote lava tube (so deep and long that had our lights burned out, we would never have emerged), and a 4 hour hike on along a hunting trail to the caldera of a still active volcano. The volcano trip was pretty freaky, and I'm fairly certain of all the dicey things I've done that had the highest likelyhood of killing me (and the whole family). There's nothing quite as "out there" that we have planned for this trip so far, but there's still 8 more days to find something nutty.
We're leaving here on the 1st of January (though we'll be spending New Years away from the family in Honolulu since our flight leaves super early). From there, we've decided to forego Vietnam and spend some extra time in Indonesia. Running around Laos and Cambodia had Shannon and I feeling rather cramped for time, sort of as if we would arrive in a country, spend a few days finding all the great stuff to do and see, then leave before we actually had a chance to do it. And so, we're putting all our traveling eggs in one basket, and doing Indonesia as best we can. I figure the surfing, beaches, islands, etc. should be what we're looking for, and everyone we met on the road had very little pleasant things to say about the Vietnamese travel industry. As someone (or some book) put it, the "Tuk Tuk" drivers there are so anxious to have your business, they'll drive over you just to get to you first. They'll then charge you whatever price they feel you should pay and never budge from it no matter how ridiculous it is. And so, nice as the country itself sounds, there's enough junk to go with it that I don't mind saying "no" to it this time. Maybe next trip. Anyway, till the next blog, thanks for reading!
Rich
Friday, December 5, 2008
Pictures Worth a Thousand Words (or at least a glance over on the blog)
Putting up pictures online sometimes is a giant, giant pain in the backside, so I decided to try and throw up a whole crap-load at once. I think I'll have to keep them smaller though from now on (if you click on them, you get the full-sized image) since it takes about 5-8 minutes to load each picture.
Shannon and I have arrived and now left Cambodia. The pics here are all from our time there, which was quite short, only 6 days.
We went to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, the two major tourist destination is town. Phnom Penh is the place to go to learn heaps and heaps about the Cambodian genocide, Siem Reap is where you'll find Angkor Wat. Both are absolutely mind-blowing, though in very different ways. I got a little overwhelmed by Phnom Penh, and at the prison/torture camp, I spent the last hour just sitting in the courtyard, rather exhausted from a day of skulls, graves, pictures of victims and stories of people who both died and survived the genocide horrors.
The sights at Siem Reap were amazing, and I'm sad I didn't get more of the great pictures we took online. Hope you enjoy them, I'm gonna leave it at this here, since we're now in Vang Vieng in Laos, and internet costs about 4 times what it should. There seems to be an internet cartel in town, with all the internet spots either savagely overpriced, or painfully slow. It's a nutty town this Vang Vieng, and I often think I've been transported back to some beach town in North America. Oooh, gotta run, enjoy the pictures!!
Shannon and I have arrived and now left Cambodia. The pics here are all from our time there, which was quite short, only 6 days.
We went to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, the two major tourist destination is town. Phnom Penh is the place to go to learn heaps and heaps about the Cambodian genocide, Siem Reap is where you'll find Angkor Wat. Both are absolutely mind-blowing, though in very different ways. I got a little overwhelmed by Phnom Penh, and at the prison/torture camp, I spent the last hour just sitting in the courtyard, rather exhausted from a day of skulls, graves, pictures of victims and stories of people who both died and survived the genocide horrors.
The sights at Siem Reap were amazing, and I'm sad I didn't get more of the great pictures we took online. Hope you enjoy them, I'm gonna leave it at this here, since we're now in Vang Vieng in Laos, and internet costs about 4 times what it should. There seems to be an internet cartel in town, with all the internet spots either savagely overpriced, or painfully slow. It's a nutty town this Vang Vieng, and I often think I've been transported back to some beach town in North America. Oooh, gotta run, enjoy the pictures!!
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