Notes on Some Time Spent Traveling: A Year in Hand

Keeping an eye on the heard. Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam.

Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam

Arrived today in Vietnam.  Made the most spectacular border crossing I’ve ever made and so, so simple and through spectacular mountain landscapes.  A guy asked me at the Vietnam border how the roads were in Laos.  I said “I don’t know, I took the river.”  I managed to cross the width of northern Laos by a series of river boats.    A distance as the crow flies of about 250 miles and roughly 30 river hours.  First, west for two days on down the Mekong river at the border with northeastern Thailand to Luang Prabang, Laos in north central Laos.  Then two more days north and east up the Nam Ou river, a tributary of the Mekong to Muang Khoua, Laos.  From there it was a slithering, slow bus ride through the mountains on a dirt track and low water crossings to the Vietnamese checkpoint.  Tomorrow I head for Sapa in north central Vietnam.

On my last boat ride in Laos it was a packed and cramped as usual.  Here, they fill the bus or boat with passengers until full, then wait for a few more to join just for good measure.  A mother and her you son, maybe a year old, got on and sat across from me, knees touching mine.  Also, I’m at least a foot taller than everyone else onboard.  The baby was only wearing a shirt, no pants no diaper.  I knew and I said to myself, that baby is going to go to the bathroom on this boat.  As soon as she sat down the mother started feeding the baby rice.  First putting it in her mouth, then spitting it into her hand and putting it in the baby’s mouth, mama bird style.  Handful after handful of rice went into the baby. Twenty minutes later, then man next to me pointed at the floor where the baby had just taken a massive dump next to my foot.  Perfect.  We alerted the mother and she did her best to clean it up, then put pants on the kid only to take them off a few minutes later.  It was awesome.

The scene this morning on the Nam Ou river as we crossed from Muang Khua at 6 a.m.  I couldn’t tell from the other side what was happening until the boat rocked up to the bank right about where the two guys in the center are skinning the baby buffalo.  I never even heard the screams.

Its been a year.  It was only supposed to be a year.  Im still a long way out in both time and distance and to be honest I cant really see the end of the road.  Thats not to say I don’t think about home or being near to home, I just know that its not on my map yet, and I’ve got a pretty big map.  I couldn’t be farther from home but I go there often.  On the long, long rides between stops I wonder if things are still the same, they probably are.  I think of what it will be like to be in America again and have yet to see a country that flies a bigger, prouder, flag than Americans.  I think of what it will be like to walk up the wooden steps onto the porch and to the front door of my parents house.  Then back down the stairs and over to the side door because the front door is locked but the side never is.  I think about the things that will be the same, about the people that will be different and the people that I miss.  I think about myself and if I will be the same, still a friend or a stranger.  I haven’t been home much the past three years or so and have spent more time with my backpack and camera than I have at home or with friends and family.  Im happy to think about these things.  It would be simple to get on a plane tomorrow and be home for Christmas and get fat on something other than rice and stand in front of a fire and speak english with people and be genuinely happy to be home.  But its not time yet and Im not ready yet.  My goal wasn’t to travel for a year and return home.  It was to travel around the world and not return home until I reached Oklahoma again or until I was broke.  I hope the two coincide.

Laos

Peaceful.  The mountains in northern Laos are peaceful and the towns and villages there are more easily accessed by river than by car.  Traveling in a slow boat gives you alot of time to think, like “Why am I taking a boat again?”  Maybe too much time.  It’s not a hurried place, but I think thats good because I’m not sure that it could keep up or that it would even want too.  It is still very undeveloped and transport is not exactly timely which gives you a chance to settle into where you are and observe the surroundings.  I met a Laotian man,Sam, going the same direction as I during my last two days in Laos.  He had been living in Australia the past 30 years working as a software engineer.  His family had fled Laos in the 1970′s during Lao’s “Secret War” during which it would become the most heavily bombed country in SE Asia during the Vietnam War.  After spending a year in a Burmese refugee camp, they were finally able to settle in Australia.  His mother and father had fled Vietnam during the 1920′s during a deep famine to settle in Laos, only to forced out during the war years.  Most of Sam’s family lives in Europe and Australia now and he was returning to Laos to accompany an elderly uncle to a hospital in Ha Noi, Vietnam.  The short amount of time I spent with Sam he raved about the peacefulness of his home country and its people.  I asked him if he thought Laos would ever catch up to the more developed countries in Asia and he was doubtful.  Its communist and according to him still very corrupt in government and police forces.  That may be the case although I had no bad feelings about Laos and no bad memories.

The vessel for the two day boat trip down the Mekong to Luang Prabang, Loas. All along the way everyone we passed stopped what they were doing to watch us pass and we likewise stopped to watch them. Im not sure if they were more interested in us or we them.

Monks collecting rice offering in Luang Prabang, Laos.

Thailand

Fisherman with his son on the island of Ko Pha-ngan, Thailand.

I didn’t find Thailand to be the paradise that I’ve heard it to be.  Maybe I was in the wrong place or didn’t stay long enough but it just didn’t do it for me.  Its very hard to get off the tourist trail in Thailand and if you use a guide book you are almost guaranteed to not have a unique experience.  The main tourists places are so over-run with tour companies and taxi driver and bars that for me, it was off putting.  It was unregulated, unbridled tourism at its worst.  There are two main problems with Thailand: It is unbelievably beautiful and dirt cheap.

They say that acts of physical violence are rare in Thailand.  During my first three nights in Chaing Mai in northern Thailand I witnessed two separate acts of violence.  On the first night, a young German traveler was mugged and severely beaten in the street.  He was staying in my hostel and came in the room about 4 a.m. crying and bleeding.  He was attacked in the street where he was beaten and robbed of about $20 and an Ipod by three Thai men after leaving a bar.  His first mistake was he was very drunk and his second was that he was alone.  Some trouble is avoidable.  In second occasion, a dude was driving down a very busy main street in Chaing Mai on a motorbike when he stopped immediately, jumped off his bike and started kicking, punching and screaming at girl in the street.  He then went back to his bike, got a machete and began beating the girl across the back with the machete still in its sheath.  No one around me seemed to be surprised by this or outraged.  I have to believe they knew each other, it didn’t seem random.  Both events gave me a very bad taste for Thailand.  I’ve never even come close to witnessing violence while traveling and it happened in the same city with days.  I was not sad to leave Thailand.  I know there are better things there, better people, I must have just read the wrong book.

Muay Thai fighter and trainer in Chaing Mai, Thailand.

Muay Thai, Chaing Mai, Thailand.

They start off young in Thailand.  These kids couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 years old.  Bets are always being taken during the matches even for the youngsters.  They begin training at a young age, and if they can make it to even being a paid fighter both the fighter and the family can ensure a better quality of life in Thailand.  I would imagine its more fun to fight than go to school.  Its very similar to little league baseball of football with much pressure being lifted up on young shoulders.  It felt a bit strange watching two 8 year olds battle it out for adults and tourists alike but I’m not sure thats its any different than watching your kids play football any friday nights or weekends.

Malaysia

Tea plantation workers harvesting tea leaves in the Cameron Highlands in central Malaysia.

I spent a few days in Singapore.  I didn’t find Singapore  to be just insanely clean and orderly in fact there are parts of the city that are borderline filthy and chaotic.  It is however a shoppers Mecca and still the cheapest place in Asia, I have found, for electronics.  Just don’t ask alot of questions and bargain hard.  Its not a budget place so I didn’t hang around long and made a pretty simple border crossing into Malaysia where I made my way to the east coast and the beach.  I was only supposed to spend a few days traveling through Malaysia and spend a good chunk of time in Thailand.  After two weeks I didn’t want to leave Malaysia.  It’s a very simple place, very easy to move around in.  Very kind people, always inviting you for a drink or to join them for something.  You are never a stranger and never alone if you don’t want to be.  It is a muslim country so I think that alot of people on an SE Asia trip don’t spend a huge amount of time there because they feel it might be somewhat a closed or regulated place.  But you miss out if you don’t plus its a huge bargain.

Some type of farm something. Malaysia.

Snooker hall. Malaysia.  I was invited in to play.  I was hanging around outside with my camera because it looked super creepy and I thought it was like a secret man cave or something.  They were really friendly and invited me to play a game and I thoroughly embarrassed myself with lack of snooker skills.  Its a good thing they didn’t invite me to play like dagger throw or flaming chainsaw toss.

Time is on this guys side. Malaysia.

Thats me, Travis, on the banks on the Mekong in Luang Prabang, Laos.  It was tired that day.

Notes on some time spent traveling: Alright, now it gets interesting

Sydney, Australia

So now Im in Sydney.  I’ve spent the last three weeks here arranging visas for Russia and China.  Not the simplest of tasks.  The plan from here on out is to travel overland through SE Asia, starting in Singapore all the way to China where I’ll pick up the Trans Siberian Railway via Beijing, through Mongolia and across Russia to Moscow.  The China-Mongolia-Russia leg of the trip will be done in January and February.  Winter.  If I make it that far, I’ll cross Europe in some fashion and then back to the U.S.  I’ve tied all my loose ends securely to the wind and by the time this gets read I’ll be in Singapore.  I have a feeling Im not prepared.  I’ve obtained the most difficult visas before hand so thats good.  I don’t speak any of the languages, I don’t have a good idea of what I want to see and there has been major flooding in a lot of the areas I hope to travel through.  Its not ideal but it should be fun to watch.

They have an event in Australia during local carnivals and fairs where an amateur boxing promoter sets up a tent and invites volunteers to step into the ring and fight each other for three rounds and no money. It really is quite a show. The fighters are almost always in varying states of drunkenness though I don't see how that matters. I caught this show in Katherine, NT. I took a job for two days working with the carnies at the carnival. Carnies are a fascinating group of people indeed.

The brothers Norse: Patrick on the left and Jean Phillip on the right. I met them at the last station I worked on and caught a ride to the east coast with them when we left the station. They painted the van themselves and have been nearly a year traveling the world from Norway, headed to South America next. Cool dudes. Great van.

So, you can go anywhere in the world, where would you go?

My projected route over the next few months excluding eastern Russia.

Notes on some time spent traveling: Burleigh

Burleigh Station, Richmond, Queensland

This is about 1000 head of cattle headed to the yards where some will be separated from their testicles and all will be branded. I was lucky enough while on Australia to get to ride in helicopters a couple of times. A lot of people pay money to ride around the Outback on horses and four wheelers. I got paid to do it.

While traveling with the convoy I met a group of cattlemen from Queensland that were traveling together.  I sat down with them for lunch one afternoon while on the road and they asked me what I was going to do after I left Canberra.  Again I didn’t have a good plan and made a joke about which one of them was going to give me a job on one of their places.  I wasn’t serious and hadn’t planned on working any more and didn’t think anything about it.  On the last day of the protest one of them told me there was a job for me with a guy named Allister and that I’d be wise to take it.  I spoke to Allister and he said I was welcome to ride back with him to Queensland and work on his station. Alright, I grabbed my bags and off I went, to someplace that I don’t know where it was with people that I didn’t really know who they were..  There were for of them in a Ford extended cab that was pulling a 20 foot gooseneck trailer.  Wasn’t much room in the truck for a  skinny, long-haired hitch hiker who talked funny.  So I spent most of the 36 hour drive from Canberra to central Queensland asleep in the gooseneck.  It was still pretty great.  I was headed to Burleigh Station, some 400,000 acres north of Richmond.  I signed on for a month.  They were mustering cattle every week so there was plenty of work.  I befriended a Norwegian carpenter who had arrived at the station two months earlier and who’s contract would be up the same time as mine.  I was a short month but epic none the less.  There were 20,000 head of cattle on this property and a good two hours from boundary to boundary.  We would spend the weeks castrating and branding calves, driving cattle on horseback and fixing windmills.  One morning we spent 4 hours cutting up horse meat to use for dingo bait.  You soak the meat in a bucket of 1080 poison, then Allister flies his plane around the property while someone drops the bait from an open window in the back of the plane.  That was something new.

Burleigh homestead. Again, notice the nothing in the distance.

 

Notes on some time spent traveling: No confidence

Canberra, Australian Capital Territory

I spent three months on Lakefield station, from mid May to mid August.  I was only hired for six weeks but just never left.  The work was starting to slow down and I was ready to move on.  I didn’t have much of a plan for after leaving the station but I had been keeping an eye on something.  I had heard of a possible convoy of truckers that would driving from all across Australia and meeting up in the capital of Canberra to protest the national government and try push for an election of a new Prime Minister.  It was called the “Convoy of No Confidence”, referring to the public’s lack of confidence in the Federal Government.  Its not a foreign idea in any society.  The journey for some vehicles would be 8 days driving across Australia and ending with a two day protest at the capital.  The idea was to collect participants and vehicles in each city the convoy would pass through, camping each night in towns along the way.  Upon arrival in Canberra the convoy would descend upon Parliament House and circle the building, horns-a-blaring, lights-a-flashing and middle fingers extended 90 degrees at arms length.

The idea of this appealed to me.  I had no previous interest in Australian politics but the thought of a throng of angry Australians circling Parliament House in protest interested me.  I took a bus to Katherine, about an hour North of Mataranka, and found out where the group was camped and thought I’d try and hitch a ride.  I turned up at the camp not knowing anyone, with a backpack, a camera and an accent.  I was obviously not from around the area.  I found out who was in charge of the thing and introduced myself.  I asked if I could ride along and photograph the whole thing and in exchange they could have copies of the photos, I just wanted a seat.  Luckily they had an extra, in fact, only one.  We covered 2,250 miles across Australia over the next four days, meeting people at every stop, listening to stories, collecting petitions,  and for me, sleeping beneath the stars in the Outback.

It wasn't a particularly disorderly protest, it was in-fact quite orderly, though the point was no less made.

For two full days, from the time we left Katherine, we were only three vehicles.  A professional truck driver, a beekeeper and his wife and two station owners.  It was going to take more than six of us to overthrow the government.  But, there were more.  At the same time we were traveling south, 7 other convoys were traveling towards Canberra from all directions.  The whole way down we heard rumors about how many vehicles were actually going to converge on the capital.  It depended on who you asked though.  Some said 1,000 maybe up to 5,000.  Others said 100 tops.  After the third day it seemed like the later would be the most accurate.

The opposition leader Tony Abbott made an appearance one night to answer questions. He would be the top candidate for PM if it was decided there would be an an election. Guess which one he is.

I never heard what the numbers actually were.  On the day of the main protest, my group drove around Parliament House at about 6:30 am.  I stayed on the lawn of the capital to cover the protests and when the next wave came through, there were trucks circling the Parliament, covered in banners and paint and honking for a solid hour and a half.  It was one of the most impressive things I had ever seen.  I could only imagine what it would be like to see 2,000 protesters driving around the U.S. Capitol Building, honking their horns, flashing their lights, hanging banners out their windows.

When we stopped to camp each night we were always greeted by folks who were supporting the convoy but could not join. They fed us great meals at night and even better breakfast. People went out of there way to do what they could to help. I could tell that it was a very important thing that was happening, if for no one else than the people in rural areas who wanted to see something like this happen for a long time. It was the best possible way to see Australia.

Notes on some time spent traveling: The Never Never

Mataranka, Northern Territory, Australia

I arrive in Mataranka in the dark. I get off the bus at a roadhouse with the intentions of meeting a station owner with whom I am supposed to start work for the following day. I don’t know exactly where I am. The bus driver goes inside for coffee and on his way out he asks “Are you meeting someone here?” I say “I think so.” He gets back in the bus and continues south. There is no one here, my phone doesn’t work and the only sounds I hear are of the aborigines yelling at each other in the bushes. I see an old cattle truck parked up the street so I walk towards it, drop my bags next to the tires and sit under the street light and wait. I think this the truck. I see a large shadow, in a large cowboy hat, move slowly towards me from the trees and into the light. I stand up, “Are you Garry?” I ask. “Yep.” He says. I picked the right truck.

Welcome to the Never Never

Lakefield cattle yards, 135,000 acres in northern Australia

My time in Australia would revolve primarily around a somewhat remote cattle station in the far north of the Northern Territory of Australia. Lakefield Station, located roughly six and a half hours by bus south of Darwin, near the small town of Mataranka, lies in an area of the Northern Territory referred to locally as “The Never Never”. I asked around and the best story I could get was that the first European explorers were told by the local aborigines that the land could “Never ever support a proper settlement.”

From left: Garry de-horning calves, an old cow we butchered on my second day and ate at least once everyday for about 8 weeks after, and branding.

 It was supposed to be a quick look around Australia, a month maybe. After a week in Sydney and further inspection of my funds, I decided that it might be best to work for a couple of weeks and earn some extra cash, then head to Asia. I Traveled to Darwin and replied to a job posted on a hostel notice board, “Station hand required, must be keen to work, call Garry.” I called Garry. He offered me the job that night on the phone, best I could tell, because I had, at minimum, previously seen cows and had driven a tractor. So when he asked me to meet him in Mataranka the next day I said “Yep!” Great, what’s a Mataranka? A quick glance at a map revealed no Mataranka. Get a better map. I locate Mataranka, south of Darwin. Darwin, Australia, for reference, is closer to Singapore than it is to Sydney.

Playing guitar one night after work with Arthur, the 76 year old road grader driver and Katja from Germany.

I have greatly under estimated the size of Australia. The Northern Territory is two and a half times as big as Texas and has fewer than 200,000 residents. It is vast place and still relatively wild. Its cattle country and the cattlemen here produce beef not for Australia but for live export, primarily, to Indonesia. Given the vastness of the area and the sparse population, the people here must be relatively self-sufficient. Lakefield is off the grid. They pump their own water, produce their own electricity as well as the majority of their own food. After all, when you live amongst 8000 head of cattle you don’t go grocery shopping toting a Visa card and a wobbly-wheeled push cart, you go to the paddock, armed with a satchel full of knives and a truck bed full of leaves. I’ve gained a lot of respect for food over the past few years and when circumstance causes you to have to physically cut it from the bones of a beast and eat it a few hours later, you tend to pay more attention to not only how much you eat, but how much you waste.

Northern end of Lakefield Station. Notice the lack of anything in the distance, from here its over an hour to the nearest neighbors.

From left: Kirra and Bubbala the orphaned wallaby that lived in the house. Garry, Dillion and Carl during morning tea. Everyday, no matter where we were, at about 10:30 every morning we would sit and have tea.

Notes on some time spent traveling: Leaving New Zealand

 I think it’s a good rule of thumb that anytime you see a man walking with a goat that you take his photograph. No matter where, no matter what. I met this guy, I think he is called Peter, just strolling around the town of Ross on the west coast. The goat is called “little one” and it was awesome.

Wellington, New Zealand

New Zealand is as advertised.  I’ve never been to a place that crams such a wide range of eco-systems and landscapes into a relatively small package.  I can’t really compare the places I’ve been on the South Island with other parts of the world I’ve seen.  The Southern Alps are a dominating force here, changing weather patterns, altering trade and commerce and causing mild vertigo whilst driving on their retardedly crooked roads.  The west coast is wet, heavily vegetated and sparsely populated.  The area between the Tasman sea and the Southern Alps is rainforest and Middle Earth as Pete Jackson would have you believe.  The glaciers that exist here, primarily Fox and Franz Josef, exist nowhere else on earth at this latitude, roughly equal to that of Chicago.  The terminal base of Fox glacier lies about 15 miles from the sea.  Parts of the central South Island are as moon-esque as you’ll see anywhere, aside from the moon of course.  The land there sees few drops of rain and even fewer people.  To the east, the South Pacific ocean and at the bottom of New Zealand, when the wind is from the south, you’re quickly reminded that there is nothing but cold, cold ocean between you and Antarctica. 

In three months time in Twizel (central South Island) I lived with seven Germans and two Chileans.  There are alot of Germans in New Zealand, in fact, someone should check with Germany to see if there are any kids left there.  Although the Germans themselves were quite nice as people, the language did start to have a certain mind numbing effect on me by the end.  If French and Italian are romance languages then German must be like the hacking death cough language.  That’s probably and exaggeration.  With my contract at the salmon farm having ended on the 31st of March, I packed my bags and caught a ride with my friend Lindsey, from Twizel and headed south to explore a bit.  The weather was turning cold and the first snows had fallen in the mountains already and I really didn’t want anything to do with winter.  I decided to rent a car and make my way around on four motorized wheels for 15 days.  I slept in the car, not comfortably, and froze my testicles off most nights (no joke, woke up one morning and the left one was rolling around on the floor).  Sigh.

 I’ve been hanging out in cemeteries after dark lately. It just seems right.

For the most part I’ve accomplished what I set out to do in New Zealand.  I farmed a few salmon, made a few dollars, met some very memorable people and likewise, some forgettable ones.  I saw some mind-blowing sights, heard some insane stories, skipped a few stones, picked a few bones and learned a few things whether I wanted to or not. I also realized that I’m not as cool or as smart as I thought I was.  That could well be the most valuable lesson to come from it all yet.  I don’t think we are ever as smart as we think we are, big picture wise, the amount of things we could possibly learn will never come close to the number of things we have the potential to learn.  The more I move around the more I see how little the world actually needs me, in fact, it needs me none.

On the left, doing some washing in a river but I can’t remember where and biting the head off a salmon on the right, obviously.

So now I’m in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital.  I’m trying to find a boat to Australia of which there would be many I would think.  One option is take an all inclusive cruise for 10 nights that also stop in Fiji and Tonga.  That is a pricey option and therefore not an option.  My best, and cheapest, bet is to talk my walk into getting a ride on a private yacht or sail boat or somehow find my way onto a container ship bound for Oz.  That’s what the next week or so has in store for me as I move up the North Island.  I can afford to fly but its the whole “journey not the destination” thing.  When and if I arrive in Oz I’ll work there for a bit then head north into Asia, slowly working my way back to the U.S.  I hope to be gone for a while.  Have a nice day!

Fox glacier, west coast, South Island.

Kids in the peace circle in Twizel.  There was supposed to be a large earthquake the day I saw them.  They were trying to stay in a safe place and there was a quake but it was small.

Lawn bowling at Gore, NZ.  The guy on the right is awesome.  New Zealand athletes have a slightly different build than U.S. athletes.  It isn’t the most physically demanding of sports as you can see but the folks were rather nice.

Near Hokitika, west coast, South Island.  Always be aware of the current tidal conditions when you park your car.  They drove down in the dark and then got stuck in the wet sand, I don’t know who the lady is.  The rocks are at Moeraki Boulders near Omaru on the east coast of the South Island.

Notes on some time spent traveling

Thanks to Jan Voss of Belgium for the photo here. Jan is quite a guy, he speaks four languages, has a Porsche and an Alfa Romeo. He is a great friend and Im very glad to know him.

 

If there is one thing I’ve learned from the different jobs I’ve held it is this:  If there is a stick lying around that looks like it is used to club something in the head with, then it probably is.  You better not lose that stick, don’t do it.

A very good friend of mine asked me a few weeks ago if it was difficult to travel.  I hadn’t really ever thought much about the difficulty of it all.  Hoping your planes align with your trains. Hoping the local anti-military protest doesn’t align with your bus and spending the night in the park or train station when it does, are all part of the game.   I told him the hardest part was the money aspect of it.  I’m four years out of college now and still $15,000 in debt from an education that I had every intention on using to make some sort of legit career for myself that paid actual money.  Its funny, I’m on the snail repayment plan (joke).  The more I think about it though I would say there is a bit of difficulty involved.  I am absent for alot of firsts back at home.  First concerts of friends bands, first teeth and words for my niece, first wheelchair for my dad, epic snowstorms and even more epic thunderstorms.  All things that I truly wish I could have been there for.  But its not the idea of the people and things that I do miss, its the idea of the possibilities that I might gain in return.  I have my mind blown everyday, everyday, even by the simplest things.  Im not a huge star person but there are constellations in the Southern Hemisphere that are not visible in the Northern, like literally stars I’ve never seen.  I get to see the sun rise everyday, and here, its the first sunrise in the world.  I meet people everyday that I thought I would never meet.  They are simple things really and at the end of the day they wont fill your pockets with much but god damn its a blast!  My dad said it best once “Its just money”.  You know they make it everyday in Washington D.C. at a big factory on a big machine, I’ve seen it with my eyes.  When I think about the time spent and the money spent and the effort I put into trying to save both, I find that somehow entire days went by without actually having accomplished anything.  I’m trying very hard to not think too far ahead of tomorrow because of all the things I cant afford to lose, today is the most valuable.  Because unlike money, the days are done and they aint making anymore in Washington.  So when you say “I’ve always wanted to travel.” I say that its not difficult.  Your own personal circumstances are likely where the difficulty lies, not everyone can just leave work or send the kids to grandmas.  I just think that its not important where you go or when you go or even why you go, just so long as you go.

I had a couple of small articles published in a journal since I’ve been gone.  I haven’t been able to read it yet but one was mailed to my parents.  My mom read it and told me she really liked them and just couldn’t believe that I was in New Zealand feeding fish.  Moms tend to like most things their kids do even if they aren’t that impressive.  I mean a baby could shit in its hand and smear it on the wall and moms would get a kick out of it.  Thank you very much mom!!!

Thats Jan in the yellow. The Germans made the cake. I asked how did they make it taste so good and the response was "Because we are German". Brilliant!!

Riding the bike and holding the cake, they said it was impossible.

New Zealander? I barely know her.

I found this bike in a pile of garbage and quickly took ownership of it. It was intended for, but not limited to, use by children. It is yellow and I ride it most places.

After work, a Kiwi bloke might slip into some jandals and walkshorts and head off to the pub for a piss-up with his mates.  They’d have some greasies, scull some piss and try to give their ferrets a run at the same fanny who might be two sammies short of a picnic.  Brassed-off, they’d head home packing a sad, hit the hay and have to wake at a sparrows fart the next morning.  Still pissed, they might have a case of the trots and spend some time trying to strangle grandma in the dunny the next morning.

This is what I’m up against here, I’ve been involved in more than one conversation with co-workersd that at no point during were we ever talking about the same thing.  These conversations usually end with a confused head tilt sideways, followed by me saying “Wait, we’re not talking about the same thing.”

I share a tiny house with two Germans, Svea and Sventje in the back and two Chileans, Paula and Sebastian seated. We have no fewer than six types of tree in the yard, one of which is apple flavored. There was a bit of confusion in this photo. Its fun here.

I have been 37 days now in New Zealand and settled in a place called Twizel, in the middle of the South Island.  The area I am living in is called “The Mackenzie Country”, a very vast, open space with not many trees and not un-similar visually to New Mexico.  One difference is just over the hills from town is a rugged expanse of glaciers, ice fields and then rain forest. There is also a kind of mythical figure called the Southern Man.  He  is on the local beer cans and advertisements and roams the area on horseback drinking beer, a version of the Marlboro Man.  Twizel is small, about 1,500 people, secluded and quite a random place.  The town itself was only founded in 1968 to house and serve workers building a series of lakes and hydro-electric power stations.  Twizel was set to be abandoned at the end of the project but the residents decided to stay.  All the houses look the same inside and out.  Everything, in every house, is from the late 60′s to early 70′s.  I’ve landed a job on a salmon farm, of which I know nothing about, feeding and subsequently murdering salmon.  Its a viscious cycle really, more-so for the salmon than myself of course although they are quite tasty.

Some of the people I work with. Anette, left, lives at the salmon farm at all times. She must spend most of her free time shooting animals and birds because there is almost always a dead something, skinned, sitting at the foot of her stairs. Daniel and Shane, brothers, twins, native Kiwi's and pretty good dudes.

I bungee jump to work every morning and reverse skydive home in the afternoon, backwards.  At night I rustle penguins on sheep-back.  I have bitten the heads off of two salmon and will not answer any questions about it.  I also learned that mosquito repellant doesn’t repel mosquitos but actually blocks human scent which is an attractant to mosquitos.  In this case a less expensive option might be standard household cat urine.

So, this is where it gets tricky.  By the time you read this tomorrow, it will be two days from now for me, your time.  Now, I’m only half as smart as 50% of most people so lets do the numbers.  If we start at yesterday morning where you are, by this time for you a day ago, I will be up to my ears in tomorrow.  Basically its the future here.  It gets better. On the plane ride from the U.S. to New Zealand you skip a day, leave on Monday, arrive on Wednesday.   It sounds quite cool in theory but think about it.  You are losing a day, some of us can’t afford to just lose days willy nilly.  Now I’ve never been a huge fan of Tuesdays, more of a Thursday man myself, but I think we should be re-embersed for that day lost.   Its not the time lost that bugs me, its the possibility of having the best day of your life.  Who knows what could have been?  Instead, somewhere between L.A. and Fiji an entire day goes missing in some unidentifiable crevasse of space and time.  I think this the same basic plot of “The Matrix”.

So I am having a pretty good time here.  Really, the best part so far has been meeting people from all parts of the world.  Most of the people I am around everyday are all in New Zealand for the same reason, work and travel, so if nothing else we have that in common.  There are quite a few other migrants in the town. Most of the restaurants and farms are staffed by people from other countries.  There are only two local television stations that we receive here, TVone and TVtwo.  Rumor has it that a third station, TVthree, exists but I cant verify that.  The joke “sea food” (open your mouth to see the food) goes over pretty good in New Zealand.  I think that may be the key to my comedy career, when I stop be ing funny at home, its debatable as if I ever actually was, just move.  I am going to be gone for awhile.

How are you doing?

 

I spent the most interesting Christmas of my life at a hostel sharing facilities with about 30 mentally disabled people. I hung around them for a few days prior to Christmas and was lucky enough to be invited to dinner with them on Christmas day. Its hard to explain why it was neat, it was just something I never expected.

 

New Zealand rodeos are exactly the same as American rodeos.

Here are some photos from Azteca boxing club in Oklahoma City.  I’ve been hanging out there for the past few weeks shooting the kids trainging.