Me leg

For all those wondering; my antibiotics are over tonight. It hasn't really gotten all that much better.
I'll be heading to the doc here tomorrow morning to see what else I can do. All will be fine! :)

Tradness & Madness

Hello!

I think that may be the longest between posts...

Anywhoo, where to start...


Ah yes! We went to Melbourne, we lost another night sleep. But it's the way of the cheap backpacker: Travel overnight to save on a nights accommodation :)

We weren't happy to find our flight delayed though:



But after watching a beautiful sunrise stretch across Victoria from the plane, we were ready and very excited to be heading back to Melbourne:

- that's an excited face on Dave I assure you!

We checked into a backpackers around the corner from where I used to live, and after a short nap, we were out taking pictures and wandering the streets in search of the ghosts of our time here:

Some things were finally finished too, like the Eureka tower(One of the tallest in the world I believe) and Southern Cross Station (The buildings noises from this one kept us awake for a few months)


I revisited a few old picture sights:

And saw some of the old buskers too:



Twas time for me to go around and see if I could wing my way into the old apartment block...







I did! But I couldn't use the lift, tis key operated. But still, twas nice to waddle in this far:



In our room in the hostel was a Samoan guy, now these fellas are huge by nature, and extremely strong! He seemed fine at first, but things got a bit hairy. He started dealing drugs out the bedroom window. He would sleep all day, and go out all night. He shall also remain nameless. Let's call him Don. Don was nice to us, and basically seemed a bit lonely really. We felt a wee bit sorry for him. I even lent him $15 when he ran out of money. But after he said 'I get paid tomorrow in my account, I'll sort you out then' - I knew I would never see it again. As 'tomorrow' was a Saturday, and wages don't go anywhere on Saturdays.
A long story short, the Friday night, he went out, came back in with a prostitute halfway through the day, using his key to bring here around the hostel, trying to get lads to come the where she worked. Obviously Don got some money for doing this.
I headed to bed, put in my earplugs and hoped the rest of the night would be fine.
It was in way, but he came in at 6 in the morning, hammered.
He proceeds to phone his Mum in Adelaide, which is an hour behind.
Don was simple, we chatted lightly, and slowly.
On the phone to his Mam, he told her how he loved Dave and I...
Strange.
He also told her how he had bet the shit out of several people that night and got a really good phone out of one of the beatings...(Which was part of his plan to pay me back, he said the next morning)
Don had also beaten up Harry Potter and cut his hand???... (Dunno what that's about, must have been some poor dude with a bowl haircut and glasses)
She didn't sound to bothered(She was on loudspeaker by the way)
Don told his Mother he was going to come home and beat the shit out of his brother for doing so much heroin...
But that he didn't want to spend anymore time in jail...

....you can see where all this is going.
After an hour of this sort of talk, he finally hung up the phone, and fell asleep. Probably the only place he can find peace you may think? No.
Don liked to beat the wall with his fists in his sleep and roar abuse in between bouts of Sleep Apnea.

Enough about that!
On to brighter subjects! :)

Sessions.

One of the main reasons I miss Melbourne, is the people I met at the trad sessions.
John Fitz moved out here in '59 with his two brothers, Paddy and Joe, they are the centre of the trad scene in this city ever since. John can play more instruments than I can name:


The Corkman was another session I went to, but I missed the most part of it this time:


I went down to the old bridge outside where I worked that we used to run over the top of, a bit mad really we were!
I sat and played some music for my wee friend here:


Twas then time to hitch a tram out to the Dan O'Connell for a belter of a session:

- we started at six, and went on for about 5hours! Luckily I had stayed in bed very late before this. We headed down the road to see some old timey music in the railway bar.

I headed off pretty soon after getting there so as not to miss my tram back into the city centre. Some musicians were here from when I used to play, and some new ones, everyone is great here. I'd love to live here...

Anywhoo, just got a text for session happening in a house out in the suburbs, gotta go! :)

The Sepsis & The Scenic

Hey folks, I've written this blog backwards while photos loaded, I've no time left so explanations and stories will be short, except for the end of the post, sorry about that!

- similar pics eh!?
Darwin harbour and surrounds.

- so that's what we were up to for the morning today!

On another altogether more serious note, I have had a lump down near the auld private parts, due to it's taboo position on the body, I haven't really mentioned it here on the blog, but over the last few days, it was getting quite painful and swollen. I believed it to be a hernia, and was very sad, as I knew surgery was the only cure, which at the rate it was progressing(which I found odd, but thought it was due to the heavy lifting of the bags) was going to be soon, and would involve me going home early.

Long story short, this afternoon, I was finding it hard to walk properly. We had a bit of spare time today, so I said I wouldn't wait until Melbourne and would go see a doctor here.

Lucky I did, it turned out to be my lymphatic system unable to clear an internal bacterial infection in my leg from the reef cut I got diving in Koh Tao!

So it was off in here after the doctor:

- where I was told by the pharmacist that it's a wonder I didn't have severe Septicemia. She proceeded to tell me how I might never have made it home if I left it any longer - not a cool thing to say!! I thought I was hot and cold from adjusting to the weather, and weak from the travel and lack of slepp(And good lock of pints last night!)

Dave waited patiently on what has become our favourite bench in Melbourne:
As you can see from the swelling, there's something on the auld skin, it looks like I've ankles going all the way up my shin in real life.
After it was all over, I rewarded myself with a wee cheesecake and a mug o' shcald:
The end!

A Quick One

Yeah the places we want to go here are several hundred dollars for trips out to them.
We are sad about that but realize there is nothing we can do about it.

So we're heading Melbourne, and we're very excited!
We leave Thursday, well laaaate Wednesday night.
I can't wait.

Gotta go here now though, no time for pics.

Bye!

Singapore Summary & Darwin Drought

Singapore is snobby, but in as best a way possible.


It's tiny, 204km squared, that's so small(roughly 15miles by 9miles)


Yet there's 4.6million people here! Madness.


Against all odds, we bumped into people who shared the night boat with us. Bumped into people who had served us food in the busy restaurants of Singapore, only to remember us and greet us very enthusiastically.


The best part? The only safe tap water in SE Asia.


The worst part? No seasons; alway hot, heavy rain at times and sticky.
Enough about Singapore I hear you say.

Well one more quick thingy....



In Singapore airport we had a fella ask can he get a photo with us, so we got one with him:



We were as giddy as two young school boys playing conkers.


We looked like this for the entire flight to Darwin:

Myself and Dave want to live in Australia. Our favourite city in the world is Melbourne.

So you can understand we almost had a stroke when we had great trouble getting in...

We were dragged aside, separated, questioned, had our passport handed along from immigration officer to immigration officer, searched, quizzed, drilled and finally let in.

I can't even go into specifics.

What harm, I'm here now! (Cue the evil villain throwing his head back with laughter)

Darwin.

Still can't believe it, the accent, the beer, the people and the heat. It's all here!

A quick waddle to a book exchange has got us a cheap travel guide so we can lok up cheap stuff in the area. But to be honest, we keep talking about Melbourne...

If there was some way there, that was also cheap, I'm pretty sure we would do it.

We've been walking the streets, thinking about what to do. Hence the face continued:

It wasn't long before I found the biggest didge in Darwin to take my mind of things....

Comments

Hey folks.
A really quick post as I've to head off and get ready for my flight...
Thanks a million for all the comments. I've been replying to them as a comment on each blog post as that's the only way I can do it. So if you typed something and think I haven't got back, I have! :)

Hope all is well with everyone, I'm in great form, and am looking forward to the next leg of the journey very much.

Oh yeah, the archives have the older posts, I think it archives once a week or something...

Chat you from the other hemisphere!

Down We Go

Down Under that is!

Probably the best news I've got in a while. A flight from here(Singapore) to Darwin is only 65euro... I leave tomorrow. :)

But let's go back a few days...

Leaving Koh Tao:

Dave wasn't the happiest to be leaving due to it being savage:

I was done diving:

To give you and idea of how cozy the night boat(which takes around 8-9 hours from 9pm to 5.30 - 6am)Here's the size of the beds:

Meanwhile, I had a 6'5" Dutch giant, his wife and kid sleeping in beside my 'bed', of course the giant lay in the one beside me, he had probably eaten his other two children for breakfast. Ah no, I felt for him, he wouldn't have fit in two beds even. I also walked some white paint half way around the boat, so looking back, I took nothing only pictures and left nothing only footprints like they always tell you to! :)

After the night boat, we were stuffed into a tuk-tuk and off to wait about an hour in Surat Thani for a minibus. Note the mid morning faces:




It came and took us 5 to 6 hours down to the almost border town of Hat Yai. One of a few cities according to Dave that are blacklisted for tourist due to terror alerts(worst case was 70 attacks in one day). A short wait here, but long enough for our bellies to long for some food. We needed something substantial, something very substantial, something that would sit in the stomach for days, something that wasn't rice or vegetables....

That's right...

Pizza Hut!

- after our shameful return to western food, we were ready for the next leg of the journey. A bus to take us the entire length of Malaysia and into Singapore. What a journey! Over all from Koh Tao it took us around 37 hours I think. Exhausting, but full of strange happenings that kept us going. Having said that, some things happened that were terrible. Poor Dave had the unfortunate experience of seeing several young people pulled from a wreckage as we passed.

Considering the journey we took, we don't look that bad:

A quick waddle down towards Singapore city centre to look for accommodation was on the cards.
See this hotel:


- well it's not ours. But the tiny white one to the left is our hostel!

Never in my life have I been so stared at. Well maybe in Vietnam....(Remember that Shane!)

We proceeded through the streets, very afraid to break the law. Death by hanging and the cane are still very much in use here. Which seems strange in a city so obviously trying to westernize itself.

Anywhoo, we decided to head onto the district of Little India. What a place. If you're ever here, you should definitely make the effort to go there. I've never been to India, but this is pretty damn close to what I imagine it's like:

I got more stares here than before. People would stop in their tracks, tug on their loved ones and point at us, or stop mid sentence when we got close. Twas gas!

A wander through a local market:


The crown jewel of Little India for both of us was Dave's call. The temple to the Goddess of Destruction: Kali. Popularised in Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom, this was a very surreal experience. I got some great field recordings in the temple of chants and beats, and even managed to squeeze a few pictures of things:

Here's the very detailed roof, when the Japanese bombed back in the day, the surrounding people took shelter in the temple, believing the Goddess would protect them, and they were right! One of the only places in the area left untouched.

Next time you here from me, should hopefully be from Darwin! Well as you can tell, the internet is also super speed here, so I managed to shtick up a load of pics. I'll leave you with this slightly odd one: