Aloha from Hawaii

Hello everyone… as you might already know, I’ve left Australia and I’m starting to head home… and well, instead of just flying over Hawaii on the way back, I figured I might as well stop over for a couple weeks! (It’s also $400 cheaper to stopover here than to just fly directly home).

It is amazing here. The weather, beaches, scenery, volcanos, mountains are all beautiful. So is the snorkelling, surfing, hiking, driving and of course partying!

I’m not gonna write anymore about Hawaii, but simply let these pictures tell the story:

Waikiki Beach:

Everybody’s going surfing… surfing USA!

Sea turtles on the beach:

Black sand beach in Maui:

Hawaiian sunset:

Surfer hitting some waves on Waikiki beach:

Watching the lava flow from a volcano:

The blue waters of Lanikai beach:

Scuba Diving the Great Barrier Reef

Before coming to Australia, I knew that I really wanted to try scuba diving… I didn’t know very much about it, but I’ve always enjoyed snorkelling and have been fascinated by the idea of “swimming with the fishes”… (The Australian way, not the Italian way lol)

After leaving the zucchini farm, I wanted to do something fun, so I flew up to Cairns and signed up for a 5 day “learn to scuba dive” course.

There were about 14 people in the course, with the first 2 days being in a classroom/pool and the next 3 on a boat on the Great Barrier Reef.

At first I thought, how hard could it be? Just put on the scuba tank, flippers, mask and dive in… but was a bit more complicated than that. We had to learn how all the equipment works, and underwater computers work, how to equalize the pressure that builds up in your body, learn to become neutrally buoyant, what to do in emergency situations etc.

The first time I went underwater was really weird, I felt a bit claustrophobic and it just felt really strange breathing in and out underwater. As weird as it might sound, remembering to breathe was a little hard at first, but you quickly get used to it and it all becomes normal.

After spending 2 days in the pool, I was anxious to finally get into the sea… and after a choppy ride out into Coral Sea, we arrived at our first dive spot, the Flynn Reef.

We put on our gear and jumped in… we slowly went underwater and followed a rope that we used as a guide to the bottom of the sea. Then, we finally let go of the rope and were able to swim around on our own for the first time. It was amazing. Letting go of the rope and having the freedom to swim around anywhere I wanted to felt like riding a bike without training wheels for the first time… or maybe the feeling a young bird might have when leaving it’s nest and flying for the first time. I loved it.

Swimming around the bottom of the sea:

Swimming next to a jellyfish (and hoping it wasn’t venomous)

Over the next 3 days living on the boat, I did a total of 9 dives into the reef, each dive was about 30-40 min long. I saw plenty of colourful reefs and rocks, clams, sting rays, eels and jellyfish. I saw giant fish that were bigger than me, 80 year old turtles that were bigger than my kitchen table and I even found Nemo!

One of the highlights of the whole diving experience was the “night dive”. It was basically the same as diving during daylight, except it was pitch black and we’d have to bring flashlights and glow sticks down under with us to be able to see… and… and… one more small difference… some fish are nocturnal hunters and primarily come out to feed at night… and when we were about to dive, we were lucky (or unlucky) enough to have a group of sharks approach our boat as we were putting on our scuba gear. The lights from the boat were attracting all sorts of fish and as I looked into the water I could see 4-5  sharks circling around the boat… I was like “screw this!! I’m not going in there…” but of course I still went in anyway. This type of reef shark is apparently not a threat to humans… (at least that’s what they told us!) Nevertheless, jumping into the water and seeing 2-3 metre sharks swim past me and circle around me underwater was surreal. (and no one got attacked lol)

Jumping in for our night dive:

After swimming away from the sharks, we headed down into the water and around the reef following nothing but the small ray of light coming from our flashlights. It was really cool to swim around, not really being able to see where you were going and not knowing just what could be swimming right next to you!

So I am now a certified PADI scuba diver and can dive anywhere in the world. I hope to dive again some time soon and look forward to diving in other parts of the world as well. It can be pretty addictive, but also expensive and definitely not for everyone. There were a few people who quit the class, mainly because they couldn’t get used to breathing underwater and they kept panicking. (Mostly Asians)

…and in case you were wondering, they say not to pee in the water while you’re wearing the wet suits, but everyone does anyway. (I think)

The Zucchini Farm

Day 1 – The Caravan

After spending some time around Sydney, I decided to get a job for a few weeks and while looking online, I found a zucchini farm that was looking for some general help.  The pay seemed decent and I would even be getting my own living area with a kitchen and laundry! I hear many backpackers get work on farms and even though I had no idea what to expect when I got there, I figured I’d give it a shot… after all, how bad could it be… right?? I was about to find out.

It was late at night by the time I arrived at the farm and was greeted by the farmers. They were a Lebanese/Maltese couple and had 4 young kids and at least 4 loudly barking dogs. After I met the farmers, who spoke with a bit of an arabic accent, I was shown what was to be my new living area (which turned out to be an old caravan behind the barn): 

As I stepped inside the trailer, the place was pretty dirty and I couldn’t decided if it smelled more like a wet dog or a wet carpet… I was going to be living on a farm after all, so I wasn’t exactly expecting to walk into a 5-star hotel anyway… here’s what it looked like inside:

That doorway straight ahead led to a small bathroom that reminded me of one of the dirtier bathrooms that I saw in Asia… the toilet and seat were very dirty, the shower curtain was covered in mould and as I pulled it back to look inside the shower, I was greeted by 3 frogs jumping around!

As advertised, I did have my own kitchen and laundry… this was it:

Finally, I went to check out where I’d be sleeping… which turned out to be a mattress on the floor. It was turning into a bit of a horror story… they gave me one sheet that had some dark stains on them. (I figured it they were from the last backpacker who never made it off this farm alive). 

Speaking of which, they said the last worker just left yesterday… after one hour of work. He was another backpacker who just got up and made a run for it after his first hour… the worker before him lasted a day and a half. Hmmmm.. not exactly what I wanted to hear on my first night!!! What am I getting myself into…? lol, all part of the experience I guess? The farmer had an evil look and his wife grinned like a witch when they talked about the last people who worked for them. (I couldn’t help but think that maybe the disgusting smell in this place was from the bodies of those who never made it out alive…)

and OH no internet or phone service!!! So I can’t even call the cops when these people come in here to kill me. 

 

Can’t be that bad I think to myself as I look down at my “bed”… only to see a big spider crawling up the wall next to it… oh great… So I kill it and start to set up my sheets… strategically putting the blood stains towards the bottom by my feet…

Well off “to bed”…  

 

Luckily for you reading this… you can only see and not smell it!

If this is my last ever post…  Daniel, please take care of my hockey gear and Stephanie… you can have all my movies (and pogs). 

Day 2 – Get to work

I survived the night and was up early for work, after the worst sleep I’ve had the entire trip… it wasn’t the sore neck from using a blanket I found as a pillow, but the fact that I had woken up almost every hour vehemently scratching new mosquito bites. (at least I’m hoping they were mosquito bites??) lol…. Flashbacks of the fleas in the house we rented in France immediately come to mind… anyone who stayed there knows exactly what kind of night I had!!

So I met the farmers at 7:30am to find out exactly what I’m supposed to do all day. My first job of the day is walk up and down the crops, pulling weeds away from zucchini plants. Didn’t seem so bad at first, but after a few hours of weeding I was a bit sore and the temperature climbed up to around 30°C… I was starting to wonder what the hell I was doing here… I stuck it out till about 11:30 when I was allowed to have a short break. I drank some water, ate a slice of bread and back to work… The farmers often yelled at me and each other in what sounded like some sort of Arabic language… I had no clue what they were saying, probably for the best lol… I ended up working in the heat until early evening before going back to the caravan. I chugged a bottle of gatorade faster than Napoleon Dynamite, laid down and didn’t move for the next half hour… I was uncomfortably numb…

The Zucchini crops:

Day 3 – Hot, hot heat

Today was a 9 hour work day… and somehow even hotter than the day before. Imagine the hottest day of the year… you know… when it’s too hot to do anything and you just wanna sit inside somewhere air conditioned and eat popsicles? That’s how hot it was and I’m pulling weeds out of the ground, in the heat, wearing a long sleeved shirt because the zucchini plants will give you a rash. I remember at one point it was just so unbearably hot and I was trifling through the dirt… I started to feel a bit delusional… but instead of being in a desert and seeing a mirage of water… I sat down staring into the dirt and imagined the Kool-Aid guy flying down into the crops… so I laid back, closed my eyes and pictured myself falling into his giant pitcher of Kool-Aid. Like those Nestea plunge commercials…? Well, a few seconds, maybe it was minutes later, I opened my eyes… still laying in the dirt. Back to work…

Day 4 – I want to break free

My alarm goes off at 7am… it plays a random song every morning… today it played “Queen – I Want to Break Free” lol… work was more of the same old stuff… sweating in the heat and getting yelled at in Lebanese by the farmer again… he dug through my basket of fruit I had just picked and threw a good portion of it back on the ground “Rubbish, rubbish, ruuuubbbbbiiiiisssshhhh etc” was the only thing I could understand him saying.

Day 5 – When it rains

It pours. Literally. It was more or less a torrential downpour for most of today. It would’ve been impossible to work in this weather and I stayed in… the caravan leaked everywhere… luckily not where I slept, but it still made everything damp and smell even worse than it did before. I Watched episodes of a TV show called “Breaking Bad” that I had stored on my hard drive. I have to make my own meals everyday and I was slowly running out of what I had brought. I think my biggest meal of the day was a slice of cheese on toast and an oreo cookie.

It was pretty boring around the farm when I wasn’t working too… no tv, internet, radio, phone, books, games or people to communicate with. The farmers and their family went to their cozy house every night and I mainly sat around the caravan, trying not to get bitten by anything.

Day 6 – The Great Escape

Woke up and it was still raining. Went to talk to the farmer to try and get paid for the work I had done to date and I got yelled at for not working the day before and was told I was to work rain or shine!!! So I went out with my jeans, t-shirt and running shoes trying to walk through the mud as the farmers and family pointed and laughed “No boots, no boots!! bahehaehaeha” (While they wore rain coats with hoods, big rubber boots and gloves). ugh.

I finally decided that enough is enough and I couldn’t work at this farm anymore… I came close to leaving many times before, I can see why the last worker left after the first hour! I tried to stick with it but it was time to go. I was out of food, my clothes were soaked and full of mud and I couldn’t even imagine having to slave it out one more day. I went to their house and told them I needed money for food so they ended paying me a bit today (not entirely everything I was owed, but I could care less at this point). As soon as I had some cash in my hands I ran back to my trailer and I was packing my bags!

Later that night, I had a friend come pick me up for good. The farmers didn’t even notice him come by… we quickly threw my bags into his car and started to drive off! I couldn’t stop laughing and smiling as we were racing off down the long driveway. That night we ordered an  large extra pizza and I don’t think I’ve ever ate so much… Pizza really can fix almost anything!

Looking bad, sometimes I think to myself “maybe it wasn’t so bad?” Then I think about it a bit more and shudder at the thought of being back in that dirty caravan… how bad it smelt… ew lol it haunt me forever!

The day after I left, we got a really nasty phone call from the farmers once they finally realized I was gone! hahaha I wish I could’ve seen their faces when they found out… I can just picture them yelling and swearing about it just like they did to me the whole time I was there.

After all this, I decided it was time to have some fun and see more of this big country, so I booked a flight up to “Cairns” to see the Great Barrier Reef. Stay tuned for the next update from the reef!

Australian Update

Hi Everyone! So it’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything and I just wanted to say everything is going really well and miss you all! After travelling through Asia by foot, bike, motorbike, taxi, tuk tuk, back of a pickup truck, van, bus, ferry, speedboat, long tail boat, kayak, train and 11 flights later… I finally made it to Australia!!

I still have more stories to share about Asia and I hope to put them up soon.

Australia, if you haven’t heard, is REALLY hot right now. There’s a big heat wave going on and today hit 46°C, the hottest day ever recorded in Sydney! I decided to check the weather in Tottenham… and wow… I was sitting in weather that was 62 degrees hotter than back home!!! (yes it’s day vs. night, but still crazy)

When it hasn’t been so unbearably hot… I’ve been spending time relaxing on different beaches, exploring Sydney and the Central Coast of Australia – where I’ve primarily been staying with a friend I met in Thailand. I’m hoping to get a job in the next week or two so I can make a bit of money to travel around the country a bit more… that, and I’m starting to run of of money lol. Everything is really expensive here, especially compared to SE Asia. Even things like a basic cup of coffee or a bottle of water costs about $3-4, while the same thing in Thailand was like 25 cents.

Bondi Beach:

It was nice to talk/see some of you over the holidays on Skype… it was a little weird being on the other side of the world for it all. (Now I know what Jean Mark feels like in England when we Skype with him… seeing everyone on a laptop and getting passed around the dinner table like a plate of turkey!)

Christmas is celebrated here, although I didn’t find it to be as big or as commercialized as it is it in America. Firstly it’s really hot out… and obviously no chance of snow! I only saw 2 houses in the entire area I’m staying that had Christmas lights on… the malls were busy, but they didn’t play Christmas music… Home alone wasn’t even playing repeatedly on TV! (I did watch my favourite classic ‘Christmas’ movie though: Die Hard!!)

New Year’s Eve on the other hand, was a really big event. Sydney has one of the largest New Year’s parties in the world with approx 1.5 million people coming out to celebrate and watch the fireworks.  I went down to the Sydney Harbour and got to watch the fireworks over the Opera House and Harbour Bridge… here’s a couple pictures:

Here’s a video I took of the fireworks:

Hope everyone is doing well (and keeping warm!) I’ll write again soon.

The Full Moon Party Survival Guide

Sometime over 20 years ago, backpackers who were travelling through the Thai Island “Koh Phangan” gathered together and held a party one night during a full moon… the tradition has since continued and grown into one of the largest monthly gatherings in the world. Every month on the night of a full moon, a crowd of 20,000-30,000 partygoers join together on “Haad Rin” beach for an all night party.

While I was booking my trip, I knew I would be in Thailand during a full moon and decided there’d be no better place to go than to this epic party!

The hotel I stayed at was about a half hour away from the party, but there were about 10 other young travellers who were staying at the same place and we were all planning to go together. Everyone met up in the lobby for some pre-drinking and to get some traditional full moon party ‘glow in the dark’ designs painted on us. (At the party, some people got their whole body painted, many wore bright florescent clothing and a few people wore really funny costumes… not sure if this was because it was Halloween or not, but either way it was pretty entertaining).

Once the sun set and the darkness began to rise… we knew it was time to party. We all jumped in a taxi and headed down. (and by taxi, I mean the back of a long pick-up truck that fit all 10 of us). After a rowdy ride down, we got dropped off and could already hear the loud music pounding and see crowds of people flooding the streets walking towards the beach… and for the next 12 hours I had a wild, crazy time in Thailand partying, jumping through fire, meeting new friends, drinking buckets and of course… dancing to gangnam style! (about every half hour lol).

Action shot of the party:

In case you ever plan on attending a “full moon party” here my top 10 survival tips to help you get through the night!

1. Be prepared – The main beach party starts around dusk and ends at sunrise… of course the “sunrise party” starts immediately after this, so you could end up on the beach for more than 24 hours if you wanted to… so either get plenty of rest the day of the party or drink lots of red bull! (that comes in medicine bottles in Thailand).

2. Get dressed up – Whether you wear some fluorescent clothing, get a bit of tribal face paint or get your whole body painted, it’s fun to join in and get colourful!

3. Arrange a meeting place – I went to the party with 10 other people and before we left, we said the first thing we were going to do when we got there was to pick a “meeting spot” in case someone got separated… of course we got there and all got separated within about 15 minutes. Never saw most of the people ever again… who knows if they’re even still alive… Luckily, (many hours later) I randomly ran into a couple of them!

4. Don’t eat the “street meat” – Try and eat beforehand, but if you do get hungry… try and find a pizza place or some other place where they are making their food fresh. You’ll be tempted to eat the fruit/spring rolls/chicken on a stick etc. because it looks and smells really good (especially when you’re drunk and hungry)… but that food has probably been sitting out in the heat for hours… and if you walk past the same place 5-6 hours later, you’ll see the same food sitting there!

and yes that’s a little girl helping to sell food at like 3 am:

5. “Fuck it, get a bucket” – What exactly is a “bucket” you ask? Well, it’s what they serve your alcohol into of course… if you get a rum and coke for example, they’ll fill up your bucket with rum, then add a little bit of coke just to give your drink some colour. Then they throw in about 5 straws for you to drink out of and you’re all set!

The area where you buy the buckets:

Partygoers buying some buckets:

6. Don’t bring anything valuable – This one might be a bit obvious… but don’t bring too much cash, keep your iPhones, expensive cameras and anything else locked up in your hotel. (oh, don’t bring your passport either… lol). At some point in the night, you’ll start to sober up and realize your pockets are probably empty…. I brought an older, small digital camera and it luckily survived the night!

7. Stash some cash – This one is tried, tested and true by me… at the beginning of the night I was thinking ahead and hid some “back up” money in between my foot and my sock lol… several hours later when it was time to take a taxi back to the hotel I had somehow completely run out of money… then I suddenly remembered I had the extra cash hidden in my sock and was almost as happy as that time I got my lost passport back! It would’ve been a long walk back otherwise…

8. Do NOT go in the water!! – Think about it… about 25,000 people on one beach… limited bathrooms… and throughout the night guys (and girls), were lining up and using the sea as one giant urinal. At some points in the night you could see more than 30 people lined up peeing… enough said!

9. Do not fall asleep/pass out – If you don’t think you can make it to see the sunrise (which is actually really amazing), then just go home early! There were many people who were passing out all over the beach… when this happens, a couple Thai men come over, pick them up and carry them over to the “sleep area”… I’m not joking! There is a huge area of the beach closed off and they simply pile up all the people who have passed out. It’s actually helpful so those people don’t get stepped on, or worse… although they’ll probably wake up without any money or belongings!

10.  Stay away from drugs – Thailand has very strict drug laws and you always hear about someone buying drugs and getting put in jail for 10 years, it can happen to anyone at random… that being said, many people were openly taking/smoking illegal things… and the best piece of advice I can give is: if you happen to meet really cool people from Melbourne, when it’s their turn to buy drinks… ask what the drink they’ve just bought you is BEFORE you drink it!!!

You might end up with 50+ pictures of this on your camera……..

Anyways!! that’s about it for now…. stay safe!

P.S…. Here’s a short video I took from the party: