Five ways to shit your pants.
June 3rd, 2010
On my recent blog about my loop-de-loop flight on a Tiger Moth biplane one of my readers (thanks Adrian) said that he would have shat his pants if he’d done it. He also suggested that I do a blog about the scariest encounters in my travels. I have been scared a few times in my travels (restaurant bills in Europe scare the hell out of me for a start), but thankfully nothing too bad has happened to me – oh, beside getting a gun put to me head and almost dying in West Africa. Anyway, here is my Top 5 Scariest Encounters (in no particularly scary order):
Gun to the head – Trans Mongolian train, Russia
The train was trundling along through the middle of Siberia when I was confronted by two scarily drunk Russians on my way back from the dining car. One asked a me a question in Russian and… (read more)
I’ve been to Bali, too.
May 25th, 2010
I never wanted to go to Bali. I steered clear of the ‘Island of the Gods’ because I always thought it was more like ‘Island of the Yobs’. I imagined Bali to be full of seriously inebriated Aussies in Bintang singlets drinking buckets of iridescent cocktails in the Fair Dinkum Bonza Koala Bar. Okay, that pretty well sums up the crowd at Kuta Beach, but I’ve been to Bali three times in the past 18 months and become totally intoxicated by the place (and that intoxication had nothing to do with iridescent cocktails). And, if it wasn’t for my new book that I am writing (re-tracing the original Lonely Planet South East Asia on a Shoestring), then I may not have gone to Bali at all… (read more)
BYO sub machine gun.
April 25th, 2010
Yesterday I risked life (and losing my Spanish omelette breakfast) by flying upside down in a 1942 Tiger Moth biplane. My 30 minute joy flight (with ‘mild’ acrobatics) left from the Point Cook RAAF base and skirted the city before climbing above Port Phillip Bay for ‘more than mild’ acrobatics. I almost wet my pants and vomited at the same time on the first loop-de-loop. It really is rather disconcerting to be upside down with only a 70 year old seat belt from stopping you falling out. And just when I thought I was safe… (read more)
The gentle art of persuasion.
April 23rd, 2010
Last night I went to the program launch for the 2010 Emerging Writers’ Festival at the Wheeler Centre. I did feel a little out of place, though. And it wasn’t because I am already an ‘established writer’. Emerging writers are very cool – there was lots of groovy facial hair and hipster clothes going on. I hadn’t been to the Wheeler Centre before (it only opened earlier this year), and I was very impressed. The Wheeler Centre (named after Tony and Maureen of Lonely Planet fame) is the centrepiece of Melbourne’s UNESCO City of Literature Initiative and as well as hosting literary events is also home to the Victorian Writers’ Centre, Melbourne Writers Festival, Australian Poetry Centre and something called SPUNC… (read more)
Flights for $3 (inclusive of taxes and toilets)
April 11th, 2010
I’m off to Bali next month with my girlfriend Beth and I started looking at flights today. And being somewhat frugal I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the cheapest way to get there. After way too much time searching around I did find a cheap way, but it does mean detouring quite a bit. If we fly to KL with Air Asia (for $139 one way from Melbourne) we can get a flight from KL to Bali for $35. I’m not sure If we’ll do it because we’d have to pay for accommodation in KL and it does seem a lot of mucking about when we can fly direct to Bali in 6 hours, but boy wouldn’t it be fun being an ex-pat in KL. I’d be going to a different country every weekend if I worked in Malaysia. You could fly from KL to Singapore for $10, Krabi for $20 and Ho Chi Minh City for $25… (read more)
The Great Crash of 2010.
April 3rd, 2010
Well, it’s been a while since I last blogged but that’s because the hard drive on my computer crashed. As in died. As in gone and all my data gone and never to be seen again gone. I had backed up all my photos and music (thankfully), but not, well, everything else. I lost all my manuscripts (at least I have the finished books!) and. worst of all, I lost the current manuscript I’m working on. YES, I KNOW – why wasn’t I backing it up? That’s because I’m a dumbass. Oh well, back to the drawing board. I do have all my notes, so not all is lost. Anyway, I have a new hard drive and… (read more)
The World’s Longest Lunch.
March 13th, 2010
Yesterday my girlfriend Beth and I went to the World’s Longest Lunch. And no, I’m not still there eating – it’s long as in it was one very long table seating 1000 people. It’s one of the major events of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival and this year that very long table stretched down St Kilda Road in front of the National Gallery and Arts Centre. I’ve been wanting to go for years (in previous years it has stretched around the boundry line at Docklands stadium and along the river front at Southbank). This year’s theme was Chinese and… (read more)
Great news for ALL my Slovenian fans.
March 5th, 2010
Spati okrog (kavč surfanje ogled sveta). I’m not sure if that makes any sense, but that’s what I got when I translated ‘Sleeping Around (a couch surfing tour of the globe)’ into Slovenian on Google. Today I signed the contract for a Slovenian translation of Sleeping Around (which I’m guessing isn’t done entirely on Google translation) and should be out there later in the year. That now means my books have been translated into German, Thai, Mandarin and Slovenian. Not quite world domination, but I’m working on it… (read more)
Hookers, strippers and lemon chicken.
February 15th, 2010
I’ve just come back from a buck’s party weekend. It was for my friend Nick and we had hookers and strippers and then we stripped Nick naked and chained him to a lamp post. Actually (and thankfully) it was all rather tame. We drove up to Mulwala (which is over the border in New South Wales) where there was golfing and boating followed by a Chinese dinner at the Mulwala Ski Club, drinks in the ‘nightclub’ and a quiet game of Texas holdem poker back at our rather flash townhouse by the lake. No one fell over, no one threw up and Nick didn’t get stripped naked and wrapped in toilet paper then thrown into the gutter… (read more)
Say cheese.
February 7th, 2010
I think I’m a pretty good photographer… then I see work from real travel photographers and I realise that I’m at best just better than average. I actually studied photography for five years (as part of my graphics degree), but I just don’t know all those little ‘tricks’ that can turn an average photo into an amazing photo. But there is help. Friend, and fellow Australian Society of Travel Writer member, Ewen Bell (that’s one of his photos above, not mine!) has recently started a website called Photography for Travellers and… (read more)