On the day of purchase, we took some photos and put them on the website, which you can see way back on the 2nd March 2001 update in the travelogue. However, the light was fading, and the photos were not that great, so here’s a page devoted to photos of the van which we took later in the travels. With a bit of luck, all those complaints about not being able to see the inside of the van in those original photos should now be appeased.

(a) so numerous
(b) digital images, not prints

I have finally sorted them out now, after literally hours of slaving over a hot computer and the tally of images would appear to be 2,418 - an average of 9.6 photos per day. My pre-Odyssey estimated average of 8 photos per day based on previous travels was a little inaccurate in the long-run, as it turned out. It appears that having a digital camera makes me 25% more snap-happy.

For those of you who love to see the statistics, here’s a brief rundown of the number of images in each country, in order of our travels.

• Brazil - 108
• USA - 1,459
• Mexico - 3
• Canada - 67
• Spain - 154
• Italy - 62
• England - 187
• Scotland - 26
• Wales - 14
• France - 81
• Hong Kong - 65
• Thailand - 122
• Singapore - 21
• Australia - 47

Naturally, there are some things to take into account here. One is that some places have very few photos due to safety concerns. I really did not feel like pulling my camera out on the streets of Mexico when we went there for the afternoon. On the other hand, the beauty of Rottnest Island, offshore from Perth, Australia was able to be captured because there is no street crime there.

Another factor is the sort of activity we were doing. In Singapore, for example, the main thing we did was to go to a night safari. This was not suited to photography at all, since flash photography scares the animals, and digital cameras do not cope well with poor light. The other major thing we did was to go to the Battle Box - a place where you are forbidden to take pictures so they can sell postcards with the images on them. Reasons like that caused a decrease in photography.

For those of you still interested in seeing photos that never made it to the website as we updated, and have not yet been intimidated by these figures, we’ll see what we can do.

• Hiking in the Brazilian rainforest. Although intensely humid, it was spectacular to be there in the jungle where jaguars and transparent butterflies live.

• Seeing snow fall for the first time ever in Virginia on April 1st. It was very exciting to actually see real snow fall from the sky, not man-made stuff at a resort, and not just on television. We never realised there was no sound at all to snow, figuring it was like rain and would make *some* noise, but it was deathly silent.

• Bryce Canyon, Utah. This is photographically rich country, and not to be missed. It does take a while to get there if you drive from the coast, but it is definitely worth it. The surrounding countryside is beautiful also, but the hikes down in the canyon really give you the best views of Mother Nature’s erosion skills.

• Dodge County Fair, Minnesota. Probably a contentious choice for some, placing a small county fair in the Top Ten, and excluding things like the Grand Canyon, but this was a great experience. Pig racing. Fried cheese curds on a stick. Projects on Australia by kids that had very dubious research sources. It all added up to a great night out and lives on as one of the highlights of the whole US trip.

• Wandering through ancient ruins in Rome, stumbling from site to site around each corner. The concept of walking through a major city and just finding buildings and statues and fonts that were thousands of years old is staggering. Until you have been there and seen it for yourself, you do not realise just how old the city is. More to the point, you realise that the discovery of Australia is an incredibly recent event in comparison.

• Bargaining over how many baht to pay for an item in the Bangkok night market. Admittedly, it was nice to ultimately leave a country where there were three prices for everything (the price the locals pay, the price the tourists pay after haggling, and the price the stupid non-haggling tourist pays), but it was also a lot of fun to figure out what we wanted and what we wanted to pay for it.

• Baby elephants at Samphran Elephant Grounds and Crocodile Farm. Gorgeous little elephants with no real control over their trunks which made them all the more endearing.

• Cable TV in the USA was a highlight for Di. I felt that having even more channels with nothing worth watching was a little silly, but Di was enraptured with the possibilities for watching utter manure at any time of day or night.

• Re-learning to appreciate a spectacular sunset or sunrise. We did not see so many of the latter, of course, but we presumed they existed. And since it was our Odyssey, we had the chance to decide whether or not to get up to see them.

• Donuts for breakfast in North America. There is no finer way to start the day than with a couple of chocolate-iced ring donuts, and a glass of orange juice. Almost feels healthy, but you know it is isn’t, which makes it all the better.

I am sure there are quite a few of you out there looking at this list and wondering how the heck some of these managed to make an appearance. It really all boils down to what WE enjoyed the most. Other people doing the exact same route would probably get something completely different out of the travels, but that’s what it is all about.

Of course, it is good to be back and catch up with family and friends, but on the other hand, there is the small matter of reality that wants to attack us once more. Returning to a land where we have no home nor employment is a little daunting, to say the least. We are hoping to at least get some work in the near future and are already energetically searching the employment information.

Since the last update, we swung through Singapore and checked out what is known to be the most expensive city in south-east Asia. Not only is it reasonably expensive, it is terminally dull. An extremely efficient city, to be sure, with everything very well regulated to make certain that citizens and visitors are whisked around with great speed and accuracy, but it is rather dull.

We did, however, manage to check out the Night Safari there, which is the only one in the world. In essence, it is a zoo that is open at night, with lighting provided that allows visitors to see the animals and the animals to be active, since the lighting simulates moonlight. It was really quite interesting to see some animals moving about that usually, when seen in a regular daytime zoo, are pretending to be dead inside a log at the back of a cage. Very expensive at $SGD18.45 each, but a must-do if you’re ever in Singapore.

We also went through Battle Box in the heart of the city, where the decision was made to surrender Singapore to Japan in WWII. It cost $SGD8.00 each but was really quite interesting to go through if you have an interest in that sort of thing. Neither of us profess to be knowledgeable at all about that part of the world at that time of the century, but it was very informative and worth visiting.

If you are also interested in efficient use of space, be sure to stay at the Boon-Wah Hotel while you’re there. In order to save space, the room curved around a corridor, meaning there were several non-right angles in the room. Also, to fit everything in, the shower nozzle was located right above the toilet, since the toilet was installed INSIDE the shower cubicle. Suffice to say, we had to time the shower and toilet visits right if we did not want to sit on a toilet which had just been drowned by the shower…

Food was a bit of a concern, with nothing really outstanding on offer. We went to a bakery and found several nice cakes (avoid durian cake though - very unpleasant). We both decided to avoid the pie filled with “chicken and dog” though…

Singapore, we decided, was a large US-based shopping mall. Wherever you go, there is a department store from the USA. You can easily walk past a McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King, Outback Steakhouse and Taco Bell in the same block when searching for food. Shopping includes JC Penney, Gap and other large department stores which are found in large shopping malls all over the USA. Walmart seemed to be missing though, which seemed a little odd. In any event, for a country dominated by the British for a long time, the capitalist icons of the USA have now well and truly taken over.

We went out to Rottnest Island this time in Perth - something we failed to get to in the last travels to Western Australia. We found a 2-for-1 deal to get over on the ferry, saving us $AUD40 for the day which was great, to say the least. We hired bicycles and ended up riding up and down gently undulating terrain for about 15kms or so, enjoying the spectacular views of the reefs and clear water. We also managed to see quite a few quokkas for which the island is famous. We were concerned that we’d not see any of the 10,000 quokkas since they are nocturnal, but they were very easy to find.

Sadly, when I opened my bag to get the camera out to take a photo, I decided to move some distance away so as not to disturb them. Upon hearing me remove a packet of chips to get to the camera, the quokkas immediately leaped up and raced over to me, struggling to get inside the backpack to reach the food. Given the number of signs asking people not to feed them, for the animals to equate a rustling potato chip packet with food is kind of concerning. So much for them being independent critters…

Alas, whilst on Rottnest Island, we got very sunburned. Because I was wearing a bicycle helmet, I could not wear my hat and my whole face got burned, with Di not getting quite as burnt. We both look a real treat now with our faces peeling badly. The really sad thing is that we were both freezing cold on the day we were there, since it was about half of the temperature we’d had in south-east Asia, with none of the humidity. Therefore, though we were both huddled inside polar fleece while locals wore shorts and T-shirts, we got sunburned. Silly us.

At the end of all these travels, we learned many things about the world and ourselves. Possibly the most interesting thing we learned was that a holiday can be too long. When we landed in Melbourne, there was no sadness about being back in the rat race once more, but a sense of relief that it was all over and we could stop carrying those bloody backpacks around! Man, they were heavy suckers! At least the one thing that stopped up buying lots of useless stuff was the knowledge that we had to carry it. You really think twice whether or not you want a small metal Eiffel Tower souvenir if it adds weight to the pack…*grin*

In the next month or so, we’ll probably issue a few missives about the best and worst experiences we had, as well as update the site to reflect some travel advice we think might be worthy in case anyone is interested. However, the traveling portion of the Odyssey is over, and we’d like to thank all those who sat down and read the mails, and especially thank those who took the time to respond to the emails. It was really great to hear what was happening with our friends around the world when the emails came in. Makes it all worth logging on when that happens.

Thanks again to one and all, and to those who complained that I wrote too much, just be glad we did not take a laptop or the emails would have been twice as long and three times more frequent. A scary thought indeed considering we were gone for 251 days.

As you might have guessed, we still don’t look like Thai citizens enough to be ignored by the hordes of people selling postcards, umbrellas, baskets, T-shirts, paintings, tuk-tuk rides, jewellery, gems, suits, etc. It really is getting quite frustrating, though we have worked out that so long as we walk in the opposite direction to the traffic, we can eliminate (almost) the tuk-tuk touts.

Thailand, by the way, is not built for the tall. This can be quite handy in that I can walk through a crowd and see what is happening all around me, but is bad in that I cannot stand upright in a bus or train without pressing my head into the roof. This is especially a problem on trains where they have the handstraps hanging from the roof, or on non-air conditioned buses where they place circular fans on the ceiling.

Even the room we are staying in has had to be Trav-proofed with a towel on the bathroom door. Why? Just to remind me not to smack my head into it, since it is so short. It is odd that the main door to the room has a regular sized door, but the bathroom door inside the room is much shorter and after I banged my head on it, Di suggested hanging a towel from it to remind me it is lower. That worked well enough, but I forgot when I went to the bathroom downstairs near the restaurant and that one was made of marble. That one really hurt and left me with a nice bump on my head…

I neglected to mention Thai food in the last couple of reports from Bangkok, so for those that wanted to know how I was coping with the food, the answer is “not too badly”. Actually, in an interesting twist, it turns out that I have a far higher tolerance to spicy food than Di now, and so while she is unable to eat a medium strength curry, it does not bother me so much, and I can easily eat it.

Mind you, the other day I did eat a meal that was beyond my abilities which was really my fault. You see, I was buying it from a food stall at a market and I was asking the vendor what the meat was.

Vendor: Chicken
Me: Okay. Is it spicy or not spicy?
Vendor: Medium spicy.
Me: And that one over there?
Vendor: Chicken too. Not spicy.
Me: Hmm.. Got any pork?
Vendor: Yes, but spicy. You no like.

At this point, I got a little uppity. Nobody tells me what I want or don’t want when it comes to food, dangnabbit. I decided that I wanted to prove her wrong.

Me: Spicy or very spicy?
Vendor: Very spicy.
Me: Very spicy for you? Or very spicy for me?
Vendor: Very spicy for me.
Me: Right. Give me that one then.

She was rather surprised but served it up to me, and I thanked her and left. I ate it. It was EXTREMELY spicy! My lips were burning and I was no longer able to feel my throat as the food slipped down my gullet. I only managed to get through half of it before I had to give up and then down just under a litre of water. Felt that meal burning my lips for the remainder of the day, but it was worth it. Tasted really good, just burned like hell!

When eating today, Di and I were chuckling about how we liked to cook “Thai” food at home, and realising that what we were eating was so Australianised that any self respecting Thai person would not even recognise it. Somewhere in between is a happy medium, and the curry we ate for lunch today was still too hot for Di to handle, so we’ll have to work her up to that since I thought it was pretty good.

There’s one for the books - Trav, the king of “steak and three veg” when he left Waaia turns into someone who craves a curry hot enough that Di cannot eat it…

It seems a little weird that we will be home soon, and quite interesting to see that when we planned the ticket months ago, we debated whether to go to Indonesia or Singapore. Given the recent threats made against Westerners in Indonesia following the air strikes in the last two days, we are very glad we chose Singapore!

We will be returning to the country without jobs or a home, so that will be a pretty important priority to take care of in the short term obviously. Rather sad to be returning to the real world, since no matter how much a tuk-tuk driver might be annoying, if the worst we can complain about is that, life is pretty good.

See all the folks back home soon…

Spent today shopping for clothes at the Chatachuk weekend market and having a blast spending little money. Bought a couple of T-shirts for $2 a piece, and some other shirts for winter at $10 each. Doing a bit of an overhaul of the wardrobe here, that’s for sure. The only problem is conveying the fact that I need something larger than the average customer.

I tried on one shirt at a stall which was an XL size but I found that my arms stuck miles out the ends of the sleeves. The guy who owned the stall just about fell over laughing at the sight of this gigantic fellow who put on an extra large shirt and had no chance of fitting it.

On the other hand, with the crowds at the market, I was fine since I was so far above everyone’s heads that I was able to see both sides of the alley at all times, and then choose what I wanted to shop for.

Picked up our suits this morning and damn, I look good. Oh, so does Di, of course, but that’s enough about her. I mean, damn, I look GOOD…*chuckle* In fact, were the evil Destiny’s Child to write a song about me, it would have to be “Suit-A-Licious”…

Went out to Samphran Elephant Grounds and Zoo yesterday and found a couple of baby elephants that were just adorably cute. Born on the 10th and 19th September 2001, they were just tiny little elephants that made you think “hey, we should get one”. Unfortunately, we could not think of a good way to get the little ones onto the bus back to town, so we had to leave them behind.

Also saw crocodile wrestlers (aka “bloody idiots”). Two guys stuck their arms and heads inside crocodile mouths, wrestled them, lay on the crocodile backs, kissed them (yes, kissed them!) and generally did all manner of stupid things. Armed with a stick. We reckon Steve Irwin would be eaten in a second compared to these guys tackling bloody big crocs armed with only a foot long length of bamboo!

Saw elephants stand on their heads, and dance and play soccer and do all manner of things that tourists love and probably elephants should not be doing, but that’s life in Thailand.

PS: No, I mean I look REALLY good…*grin*

Anyone going to Bangkok cannot walk a few feet without this being screamed at them by a very “helpful” tuk-tuk driver. It’s hard to reply anyway, since that involves opening your mouth into the swirling fog of exhaust fumes, but you quickly learn to be blunt. Or bargain. Hell, why walk all over town when some guy is willing to let you pay him to almost kill you and it only comes to about $2 for the privilege?

Yesterday, we watched as a truck carrying gas bottles came to a sudden stop, causing a gas bottle to pop open. The driver calmly climbed out, into the back of the truck, over the other 12 bottles and turned off the one that had suddenly spewed gas all over the place. He then climbed back in the truck and was on his merry way, presumably to repeat the performance in a few blocks.

We are having a lot of fun here so far, checking out the markets and doing some serious shopping. We have not really bought very much, but are having fun still. Getting snazzed up with some new tailor-made threads for the impending job interviews (eek!). It’s amazing, by the way, how many tuk-tuk drivers just happen to know where you can get a suit tailor-made really cheap…

Bangkok is the city of scam, and we have been targetted by many of them so far. We did our research though, and have not bought into deals “too good to be true”. The concept of buying sapphires for $2000 and selling them for $7000 might be appealing to some, but not to those of us who read the scam alerts…

Similarly, never pay what the price tag says. Why not? There are no tags! A beginner’s guide to shopping in Thailand goes along the lines of :

1. We walk near a stall. Perhaps even make the bold move of looking near it.
2. The person at the stall leaps up, with a broad “hello” to let us know they speak English, or at least their version of it.
3. We say “hello” back, or nod, and point at some item and ask how much.
4. They tell us a figure that knocks our socks off, and makes you laugh and put it back. If you happen to be really “lucky”, then they may offer us a second price “okay, okay, just for you!”. This price only knocks one sock off, since it is only about 10% lower than the original outrageous price.
5. They thrust a calculator at me and ask “how much you pay? How many you buy? Three? Six? Four hundred?”
6. I stare, a little bewildered. One minute ago, I did not even know of the existence of the small wooden elephant with a small wooden log in it’s trunk, and the next minute, I am being thrown into the melee of mass import restrictions.
7. Figuring I do not care, I offer a price about 25% of what the original price was.
8. The vendor looks horrified and counter offers with a price about 10% higher than my suggested figure which you expected would be laughed at.
9. Hmmm, now the item looks a little more attractive, but then I think “do I really want a little elephant with a log, especially if I have to buy them by the dozen?”
10. I decide it was a load of folly, and say it is okay, but I’m not interested in that many elephants.
11. They look very sad, and I leave the stall. They follow, with calculator in hand, showing a new number, half way between my figure and their counter offer.
12. By now, I feel guilty, since they are giving me the “if you do not buy this, my kids will starve” look. I hold firm, knowing I really do not want that many elephants, or in fact, any at all - it was just an innocent query, and keep walking, feeling guilty as hell for getting their hopes up a little.

We keep hearing that the tourism industry is being severely crimped by the lack of flights since many people around the world are now scared to fly, so we are not sure if the “kids will starve” look is real or not.

Seems pretty genuine to us in a few cases, but other vendors do not seem to be so upset about the deal. Hotels in Hong Kong were discounting heavily and were easily available despite it being in high season. Then again, prices in Hong Kong are ludicrously high anyway…

In other activities, there is a very cool thing just around the corner from us in the night market - a baby elephant. She is named Pyril (sure I did not spell that right!) and is 15 months old and very cute. The owner stands there and sells cucumbers and asparagus to tourists to feed her, and this is probably really wrong for the elephant, but it is so cool! It is so hard to resist, despite the fact you know that it really should not be in the city.

And besides, when it only costs $1AUD to feed a baby elephant - how often do you get that chance???

The most disturbing thing we have found here are the Osama bin Laden themed T-shirts. You can buy a T-shirt that shows a picture of the plane about to smash into the second tower of the World Trade Centre, along with the caption “Good Bye”. Not your choice? How about a picture of Osama facing Bush Jr with a little “VS” written in the middle? Or just Osama’s face? Any colour you want, it is there, for a mere $5-$10AUD. It’s just incredibly sickening to see, and we are not sure whether or not any American tourists have taken it upon themselves to beat up the vendors or not. We have not seen anyone wearing or buying them, but they are for sale within a few hundred metres at any time, if you want one. There are clearly two sides to every story, but we did not expect the T-shirt version of it.

Will be checking out more temples in the next few days and trying to fill our lungs with more exhaust fumes. Yummy.

A very special mention here to our good friend, Nuchanart, who is reading this with probably a great deal of horror to see Bangkok described thus. We know we are seeing the tourist version, and not the real side of the city, and there is nothing we can do about it. Neither of us pass really easily for Thai citizens…

Went to the night market in Temple St last night and bought myself a new pair of sunglasses since I broke my other ones in Paris (not tackling the hat thief - just squashed them accidentally). Kind of fun to barter for them, and they cost $16AUD in the end.

Going to a goldfish market this arvo - might buy my brother a souvenir. I am sure he would love a dead goldfish. We will try to get it through the rest of the trip alive by storing it in water in a zip lock bag, but you never know what will happen. Hey, it might be a snack yet - it seems there are worse things on the menu here…

First phrase in the food section of the Lonely Planet guidebook is the translation for “I don’t eat dog”….