Omituisten otusten kerho

Vilkaisin edellisen tekstin päivämäärää ja tajusin että on taas päässy vierehtämään tovi...

Kalastukset on ollutta ja mennyttä. Kampasimpukkaa tuli niin vähän että ensimmäisen kuukauden jälkeen oli saalista alle puolet normaalista. Niimpä yhteisellä päätöksellä hyvästelin kalastajan elämän ja loikkasin laivasta ensimmäisessä satamassa, Burnett Headsissä, joka on aivan Bundabergin lähimaastossa.

Oliko tässä katse jo maata kohti?

 Omituisten otusten kerhon meriosasto

Spanner crab, eli vapaasti suomennettuna jakoavainrapu. Lat.nimi Ranina ranina

Slipper lobster, eli Tohvelihummeri. Sukua Moreton bay bugille 

Kuinka käsitellä pallokalaa? Vastaus: hyvin varovasti.

Näitä "futiksia" tuli joka verkon mukana. Kysessä paikallinen merimakkara.

Pieni, kaunis ja tappava Sinirengastursas

Tämä kaveri osasi vaihtaa väriä valkeasta punaiseen

Tämä oli kolmikon tylsin, ja samalla yleisin. Ei vaihtanu väriä, ei tappanu puremalla eli ei mitään hauskaa.

Kalastus oli kokemuksena aika hienoa, mutta kolme ja puoli kuukautta ilman vapaapäiviä alkoi jo painaa. Aika ottaa hieman lomaa.
Suunta siis etelään ja kohti Gold Coastia. Junanvaihto Brisbanessa ja ajatukset kohti paikkaa nimeltä Surfer's Paradise.
Mitä teillä tulee mieleen jos paikan nimi on Surfer's Paradise? Niin mullakin. Surffareita, pieniä putiikkeja, pari baaria ja yksinkertaista majoitusta.
Todellisuus on kuitenkin jotain ihan muuta. Paikka on itärannikon lomakohde numero yksi. Ja mikä pahinta, täällä alkoi juuri paikallinen versio hiihtolomasta. Eli koko kaupunki on täynnä teinejä ja niille suunnattua ohjelmaa.
Onneksi on paikallisia kavereita joiden kanssa hypätä autoon ja ajaa vaikkapa Mount Warningille.

Kiipeäminen oli helposti vaivan arvoista.

Kuitenkin kaikki tämä olisi paljon mukavampaa jos olisi se kunnon kamera taas repussa painolastina. Gold Coast on kuitenkin vain keskittymä taajamia, joten kamerakauppaa saa hakemalla hakea.
Olin monen mutkan kautta päätynyt erään paikallisen kaverin kaverin sohvalle majailemaan, Darren on majoittanut sohvasurffareita jo vuosia.
Minä ja Deanna, puoliksi meksikolainen neitokainen Austinista, Texasista, kuka majoitti Darrenia ja hänen vaimoaan kotonaan amerikassa vain kuukautta aikaisemmin, päätämme pakata vain pienet reput ja lähteä yhden yön kestävälle reissulle Brisbaneen. Sieltä löytyy nimittäin kauppojen lisäksi jotain mieleenpainuvaa...

Alkuillasta saavumme valittuun hostelliin ja saamme kuulla että hostellin baarissa on juuri alkamassa liskonäyttely.
Sinne siis kiinnostuneinä kurkkimaan. Kiertävä "lisko-erkki" oli tuonut näytille puusammakon, pari liskoa, vesikilpikonnan, käärmeen ja parivuotiaan krokotiilin. Ja esittelyn jälkeen sai ottaa valokuvia. Tämä Brisbanen reissuhan alkaa loistavan turistimaisesti!

Kävi ilmi etten juurikaan pelkää käärmeitä

Seuraavana aamuna odotti lähtö kohti koalamaata. Joskaan eläintarha ei kokonsa puolesta voi mahtailla, siellä oli kuitenkin kiitettävän kattava valikoima paikallista eläimistöä kaikenkirjavista linnuista tasmanian tuholaiseen ja vompatteihin.
Ja siellä oli vesinokkaeläin. Sanoisin että menee listalla kolmanneksi. Ja vaikka vesinokkaeläin olikin aika mahtavan näköinen otus niin kakkospaikan vie kenguruaitaus. Sinne nimittäin sai mennä sisälle kahviosta ostetun kengurunruuan kanssa ja syöttää niitä!

Aika kesyjä kavereita, sanoisin. Huomatkaa etualan Kekokana, paikalliset kutsuu puskakalkkunaksi

Deanna ja ensikohtaaminen

Näettekö "kalkkunan" ilmeen? noin kahta sekuntia myöhemmin Deannan kädessä oleva ruokapussi oli kalkkunan nokassa ja ruuat pitkin nurmikkoa

Mutta kyllä ehdoton ykkönen oli kuitenkin paikan vetonaula: 150 Koalaa. Niiden aitauksia oli joka paikassa. Ja pienestä lisämaksusta niitä pääsi halimaan!

Pakkohan se oli

Nyt on siis kamera ostettu ja leikitty turistia. Ja hauskaa on ollut. Vielä on yks paikka käymättä ennen kuin lähden jatkamaan kohti etelää rannikkoa pitkin. Ensi tiistaina kun katsotte ulos ikkunasta ja jos näyttää kylmältä, lämmitelkää tällä. :P

Troolaten ja seilaten

Vaihdan kielen suomeen tähän blogiin, niin voi sukulaiset (ja muut suomalaiset) helpommin seurata.
Link to english version

Ensimmäinen kalastusreissu on takana ja makrillit on noukittu verkosta. Uusi rupeama on edessä ja tällä kertaa kohteena on kampasimpukka 20 metriä pitkällä troolialuksella. Parasta aikaa ajetaan kohti etelää ja Bundabergin aluevesiä. Vietettiin reilu viikko Townsvillen lähistöllä. Sieltä saaliiksi tuli kampasimpukoiden lisäksi Moreton Bay Bugeja, joka on paikallinen "rapu". On nimittäin kummallisen näköinen otus. Mutta maukas.

 Ravun pyrstö ja pää kuin tieteiselokuvasta.

Verkoista nousee paljon muutakin. Suurin osa täysin harmittomia, kuten alla olevat kalat.

Tuo punainen kala taustalla näyttää ihan kiukkuselta sammakolta edestä päin. Kaks muuta on kovia ku kivet.

Mutta näiden lisäksi lajittelupöydälle osuu usein Siipisimppuja ja muita vähemmän vaarallisia kaloja. Ja silloin tällöin merikäärmeitä. Onneksi niitten suut on pieniä niin ne ei pääse puremaan. On nimittäin melko myrkyllisiä.

Meillä on myös jätekalan käsittelyjärjestelmä. Suomalaisille tuttu Särkänniemestä.

Nämä kaverit seuraa laivaa helpon ruuan perässä ja sitähän riittää.

Eli kampasimpukkaa rahan toivossa jouluun asti. Mitä sen jälkeen tapahtuu, vain aika näyttää.

P.S. tässä vielä linkki aikaisempiin kuviin matkan varrelta

October 8th

Done and done.

I have finally cut my last fish. We dropped off 148 trays to the mothership on 4^th and went and got another 128 trays in the last 3 nigths. Which is good. We are now anchored few miles off Cape York, and this will be our last stop before Townsville. So starting from tomorrow it's four days and nights beaming south the shortest way.

Tonight is an eclipse of the moon. Cool since I don't remember ever seeing one before.

Also, mother nature gave us a surprise today when coming here. We had the tide pushing us forward when we were coming through between some islands. The water was calm but moving fast. All of a sudden we saw waves breaking in the middle of the sea in front of us for no apparent reason. It was the wind pushing the other way. From smooth sailing to bumping all over the place like crossing a line.

October 1st

Dolphin charity

Load her up and head home. That's the name of the game now. I thought the catch was getting smaller. Well, I was wrong. We have gone from 90 trays to 200 trays in three nights. The first 90 took us 6 days.

Average tray weights 11 kilos and we lose a third of a fish when cutting. And we can fit 250 trays in the room and 32 in the snap. You do the math.

Every spot where we have been cutting the fish we have had different sealife disposing the waste. Some have mass amounts of small fish, some have groups of catfish. Here where we are now we have dolphins. How cool it is doing your job and having a dozen dolphins swimming around your boat having easy breakfast? No need to go for a dolphin tour.

Oh, and on a sidenote: Sleeping while the boat is rocking has an effect on your dreams. It is really hard to walk.

26th september

Last stretch.

11 days left of the fishing season. And I am ready to go. How I know? I started having my dreams mix up with reality. Few nights back an hour before wake up I was already cutting fish into quarters. Then I realized I first need to wake up and pick up the net before I get to that point. Today when I was having a nap I was swimming at the back of the boat with a rod and a reel trying to catch spanish mackerel to get more fish to unload, but was only getting seaweed.

I am feeling more and more tired every passing day and it's really affecting my mood. And I think Bruce is starting to feel the end nearing also. He's been at it for 5 months already this year.

The haul is getting so small by night now that it getting to a point I would be making more money doing something else. And doing something else would allow me to be around other people also, which would be a big bonus...

So for anyone who is thinking of going fishing and making money. The fish don't know you want to cut them up and sell them in big numbers, so they don't get in to your net every night. And even if you still decide that this is something you want to do, for the love of god, choose a bigger boat! Just you and a captain day in day out can be a little stressful at times. And when you are out there you don't get to go ashore when you want to. Or go and have a beer in a bar even when you are. You a stuck in a metal can swaying up and down in the middle of nowhere and all you can hear is the main engine humming in the background. I know I will not be watching a lot of movies when I get back in to a guesthouse. You can bet I have seen a few in the passing days.

September 15th

Crocodile story included

I think I know where they got the idea for those flying seeds of the soul tree in the movie Avatar. Remember the white fluffy looking things that landed on the main guys arms and all?

They are called Feather Starfish and we get them in our nets basically every night. I found two of them alive after being 10 hours inside the net while it was on the reel. Hardy little things. Usually they are just chopped up to pieces when we shoot the net out. I wonder how they look like when you are diving amongst them?

Three weeks left of the fishing season. We are not catching as much fish as we did before, but still a fair bit.

I had a dream the other night where I said to my friend that I need to rest. Maybe this sleeping in 2-5 hours at a time is starting to get to me...

Luckily the nurses in Weipa hospital provided me with a splint to put on my hand when resting and some Codeine laced Paracetamol, so that's not bothering me anymore.

On to the crocodile story...

About a week ago we had an afternoon at a nameless beach. As I was minding my time collecting seashells for necklaces and finding a suitable lump of bauxite to send to a certain rock collector, when I came across something unmistakable. Crocodile tracks. And about 5 minutes later there it was. Right in the water next to the beach: my first salt water crocodile! It was about my size and I was curious to take a closer look. Too bad it was a little shy and I only got to about 10 meters from it before it turned around and started swimming away.

Fishing diaries pt.2

So I am in Townsville now. Finished for Aquataur and mackerel fishing in the gulf of Carpenteria. And I'm sitting on a new boat and starting a second tour. This time is the son of the previous boat and instead of net reel and fish, it's trawling and scallops. First two weeks will apparently be something else, but after that it is all about that coveted clam until 20th of december. After that I should have enough money in bank to do some of that holiday part of my working & Holiday visa.
On this boat we have another deckhand so it will be three of us and the eastern seafront of this hot continent.
Again I put a few entries from before here after this post.

This is how my plans change on a days notice. Yesterday I was making plans to head back to cairns and figure out what to do next. Try that again in few months.

September 4th

1 am.

On tonight first shot we had it all in our nets:

Sawfish, stingray, bunch of useless fish, a blacktip reefshark the size of me, sea snake and the saddest sight so far, two dead dolphins... Nothing else had made me feel sad so far on the nets. Not a big mantaray or anything. But looking at the empty dead eyes of those two unfortunate fellas made me feel sorry for them. They shouldn't even be out so far where we are fishing.

In the morning I have to take some pain killers again, because its pick up the net, move 300+ kilos of fish from snap to freezer room and cut the catch of the night.

But first few hours of shut eye.

September 1st

Unloaded another couple of metric tons of quartered grey mackerel today and again we are already heading back out to get some more. No rest for the wicked. Or fishermen.

I got to drive the boat for a while again today. It's not like the first Mickey Mouse cartoon. With these modern day technology you just sit your ass down, watch the radar for possible other boats, with setting to 3 nautical miles you would see them early enough. Take a look at the sounder screen for the fun of it. 10 meters. Deep enough. And make sure the boat stays on course on the plotter map on a computer screen. Adjust degree or two on the autopilot when needed.

5 more weeks on the boat I have left. With coming and going (mostly coming) pains on my right arm and nice allergic reaction from the fish slime/scales on the left making sure I don't get to operate on full health, I should keep myself on the edge for the time being.

This time off the backpacking scene has been nice, but I start to miss some human contact. Only time I see other people are when we are on port offloading and that is only other fishermen. They are not the most sociable group I must say. Or maybe it's just me. Or the fact that I'm a mere deckhand and not even Australian.

I've been thinking about Finland lately. I miss my mom, would love to sit down for a dinner with my dad. Go see my grandma, cousins, aunts and uncles.

And I miss few friends back there. Sisters Salminen and their counterparts and a bunch of Mikkeli originals to name a few.

I wonder if my bottlemail ever reached Pulteri or Kahvilla...

But I just love travelling life. So for the time being I can only hope any of the beforementioned will surprise me by letting me know that they are coming to a holiday somewhere near me. To spend a night or two with them would make my day. Would make much more than that actually...

August 26th

Land ho!

I have managed to get a Carpal Tunnel Syndrome on my right hand. Brobaply from cutting the fish since the table is just that bit too high for my height or something. Last night I woke up with the worst pain so far. It's way more than from a broken bone for example. My fingers go all numb and it feels like your tendons are being showered with needles and are ready to pop out from the palm of your hand. And the pain goes all the way up to your elbow.

So 7 am. I got up and decided to go see a doctor. When captain Bruce came down from the pier he told me that we need to move fast. They gonna do some maintenance on the wharf so we need to pull out in 2 hours. Ok, plan B. Hit the pharmacy and get the strongest painkillers and muscle relaxants available and go with that. In the shopping centre I stand in front of the pharmacy door in dismay. Opening hours 9-18. Fuck.

So now we are already heading back out again and all I can do is hope that we have some medication in our first aid kits that helps me through this run. If not, I will get my pain treshold up because I have no other choice. It's not like I'm gonna stop working.

August 24th

Happy Birthday to me!

Still out on the sea. Seems like this trip is going to be just over 2 weeks. I think in three days time we will be going to the harbour to unload.

The mackerel has been coming in nice and steady and in big numbers, which is good. I'm getting faster and better at my job which means I don't get cursed at anymore, which is also good. So life is good.

I have been thinking about Koh Rong lately and how I miss the place. Not the work but the wibe of the place itself. I want to go back there. I want to go be a boatboy for free for some of the nice boat drivers there.

I also want to go to India. To see Rajastan and Varanasi. And to go hiking in the Himalayas.

And I haven't done any of the ”must-do” things in Australia yet. There is Uluru (Ayers Rock), Great ocean road, Fraser Island, Byron Bay and so much more.

If I travel around here after I hop off this boat I am afraid I don't have enough money to do anything else when I leave the country. Except to go back to Finland and start working again.

If I am lucky this gig will spawn me another season fishing for something else. Maybe my captains son knows a boat I can go on working for the scallop season. That would give me more chance of income and it ends in December, so I would have more money to possibly do more than one of the options I have...

But time will show.

EDIT:

While sitting on the railing on my tiny spot between the net reel and the sea waiting to put on floater bubbles on to a net speeding past me faster than one meter per second, I had a time to think before the boat reached it's desired fishing spot. I will just play this out first and see what the end result is. No use for me to start getting ahead things even if I feel the travelbug itching on me harder every day.

Maybe it would be a good idea to do some research on India before just rushing off. Koh Rong will be there for me if I want to get back there. And who knows what future brings anyway?

For now it's still 45 days until the fishing season ends here.

August 18th

I was supposed to write a post when I get back on mainland for the whole fishing business but I have to do an update so I won't forget. I am now on my second trip out. First lasted 11 days and this will probably be the same. We are anchored in a small cove with few other boats because the sea has been little rough past couple of days. 2 nights ago before my captain decided to come here picking up the net was like working while riding a rollercoaster.

Today was a birthday of one of the deckhands of another boat here. 18 he turned. Young fellas. We went to the beach and had a little BBQ on a campfire. Very nice spending few hours off the boat. There was a crocodile slide on the beach. So at least 1 of them lives here. No swimming in the sea. Also many bullsharks and hammerheads around. Can find some tigersharks also in the area. Plenty of reasons to stay out of the water.

If some one had told me few months ago that I would be manhandling sharks big enough to swallow my arm I would have laughed at them. But when you grab a hammerhead by its ”hammer” it gas no chance to bite you.

And big bullsharks we don't get on board. Just shoot them with a shotgun to get them from eating through the nets.

Stingrays I don't touch. Not the big ones at least. Apparently the sting is very painful and can take you to a hospital.

Sawfish get caught up on the nets also. That is a no pick up species, but the only way to get them of the net is to saw off the ”saw”. Sawing a saw off a sawfish.

Maybe I should describe a normal 24 hours on the boat so you get a little picture on what I am actually doing:

6am.-7am. And onwards: Waky Waky! Time to have a cup of tea.

Reel the net back in from the last shot of the night. All 600 meters of it. Hope for Mackerel and nothing else. In case of sharks cut off the dorsal-, back- and the lower part of the tail fin to be frozen while we drive to anchor point. In case of edible size (black tips or small hammerheads) sharks cut off rest of the tail fin. The captain hasn't sold a fin in 3 years but keeps them anyway in case they start selling again. If there is only few sharks I get to cut the head off and gut them.

After anchoring pull all the frozen fish out of the trays in the snap freezer and bag them. Move to freezer room (-30 degrees celsius).

Breakfast time!

After breakfast cut, quarter and pack the mackerel in to metal trays averaging 11kgs each. Put in the snap freezer. I am in charge of quartering and packing. If I have a slow day my beloved captain will surely let me know about it. He is a kind of person that doesn't apparently believe in positive feedback. I guess 35+ years in fishing does that.

Around midday to 2pm. : Processing if the fish should be done by now. All left to do is clean all the boxes, baskets, knives and cutting boards used in the process. And scrub the surroundings of the working area on the deck. Free time until Tea (dinner). Down to my bed I go to watch movies on my laptop.

5pm. Tea time! Second meal of the day. Usually after this is time to pull the anchor and shoot the net out for the first time.

Around midnight: Lets see what we got, shall we? Reel the net in, take out the fish (which is hopefully mackerel and not big hammerheads) and put them in the brine tanks. If there is less than 30 trays of fish, shoot the net out again.

3am-4am: Time to check what the second shot of the night gets us. If still not enough, shoot the net out again. These shots with 10-20 trays of fish in it only take around 1 hour to pick up. Unless I am again ”fucking around wasting time”. Luckily I am starting to get a hang of how to put the net on the reel evenly so I don't get told off from that too often. Only when I am too slow picking out the fish.

7am: Waky Waky! And it all starts over again.

Timetables are subject to change. Sometimes we keep the net in the water for a longer time on one go and do only 2 shots, sometimes skip the first shot, and IF we get enough fish on the first or second shot, we pull to the anchorage and start cutting the fish straight away. In the night.

So yes, my Australian adventure has surely started.

The fishing season ends 6.9. Remains to be seen if my captain kicks me off the boat before that or if I jump ship fed up taking shit. But I think he is like that by nature. And I am polite enough person not to go all out on 64 year old guy who somehow reminds me of my grandfather. I bite it and scream and curse at him in my mind.

ps. There is absolutely nothing I can spend money here. I pay 20$ a day for food (taken out of salary) while on board. And when we go shopping I can choose what ever snacks I want. And the food he cooks is good.   

Fishing diaries

I am sitting in Heritage Resort hotel here in Weipa having a cold beer and my first WiFi connection since starting the job on the fishing boat. And my first day off. And it tastes good!
Soon it will be a year since I left Finland and it kinda feels funny. Wonder all the things that have happened there? I read from an email that my cousin is getting married soon. Big hugs and all the best for them!

I will post a string of post what I wrote down while on the boat. Still no camera so unfortunately no pictures. Those have to wait until I finish my trip and get back to civilization. And camera shops.

By the way. If any of you readers have suggestions or interests on what you would like to hear what is not here, don't be afraid to ask.

Northbound

One night about two weeks back I was browsing some plane tickets completely fed up with Melbourne. It was cold as a Finnish autumn. Temperatures topping at 15 degrees celsius and raining on a daily basis.
The job I had was good fun, but only just barely enough to pay my rent and get some food on the table. I was wasting my days away in a guesthouse -though a very nice one that is- doing nothing when I was supposed to be on my great Aussie adventure.
So plane tickets I did book and the cheapest option was Cairns. I was supposed to head to Perth because judging from Gumtree the outback jobs originated from there. But what the hell, I wanted to see Cairns also.

So on the set date I arrived to the airport with a new duffelbag filled with the clothes accumulated during the cold days in Melbourne.
There is a cliché going around that Finnish travellers always go around with a knife. I was no exception.
So when checking myself in I declared the sharp objects in my luggage and the machine instantly blocked me from going further and asked to contact a staff member. So I did and she said it was no problem and just check "no" on dangerous items. 15 minutes later I am happily reading a book in the boarding hall when I hear my name called for check-in desk 14. Didn't I just come from there? The same lovely girl greets me there and says: "when you said you had knives in your luggage, I thought of a swiss army one. I didn't expect a borderline sword!" I guess I should have been little more specific.
After chatting a while with this girl the AFP-officials finally arrive and we can go see my bags and what all the fuzz is about. Before one of them puts his hands inside my bag he double checks me: "are there any other sharp objects? needles or such?" I assured him all 4 of my sharp objects are in sheaths, although he should grab the machete by its cardboard container to avoid cutting anything. It was a nice chat with the guys and they let me depart with all of them, the kitchen knife, my army and carving knife and my Cambodian machete.
Apparently the last one is illegal in the state of Victoria but I had a valid reason for having it. A farming tool that can be useful while camping, etc. They thanked me for my happy disposition and back to my book I went having seen a part of an airport people don't normally see.

After spending a day in a guesthouse in Cairns I felt the atmosphere really antisocial and started looking for something different. The cheapest option was Asylum guesthouse so I decided to go take a look. When the staff heard where I was going they snorted and said: "You get what you pay for in Cairns."
I don't need en-suite bathroom in my dorm and Asylum seemed a little run down, but my friend told me he had good time while in there so I decided to give it a try. Within 1,5 hours after checking in the day after I had already met more people than I had in 2 days in my old guesthouse. Enough said.

Yesterday morning I was having my morning tea and decided to browse Gumtree yet again not expecting to find anything there since it had been really quiet in there and the banana season was still a week away. Somebody needed a deckhand on a mackerel boat and I thought: "Fuck it. the ad is posted 3 minutes ago so why not send them email. They won't respond anyway." I was wrong. 15 minutes later I had an email with a phone number asking to call him and talk further. Tomorrow when checking in to fly to Weipa I will remember to mention the size of them knives. I hope this 4 months will be the real start to the great Aussie adventure.


Seems Weipa is a little off the beaten track...

Unstuck

Time for me to be moving again. The job I had here in Melbourne was enough to pay my rent and bring food to my plate. Just barely. And that is why I'm not here in for.
So in an hour I will take off again and head to the airport. Tomorrow morning I will arrive in Cairns and hopefully to better grounds for jobs.
Lets hope my bad luck in jobs changes in a new city...

The world of bussies

So I did some math... In a good week I would be making 450-600$ working for KK Sales & Marketing. Which is not bad as money comes. But that is in 50+ hours of work. The national minimum wage is 17,59$/hour. You get the rest.
Now I am working in a nightclub as a bussie a.k.a. glassie. So I collect glasses, fill up the ice and carry more drinks to the bars. And this pays 20$/hour. Last weekend I worked 32,5 hours between Friday 20:00 and Sunday 13:00 so I made 600$ in that time. Yeah, I'm not going back to sales. I am not nearly ruthless enough and I apparently lack the skill to summon enthusiasm out of thin air to close in the bookings. So screw that. Back to the business I am familiar with.

Our deranged family of bussies is something I enjoy myself with. The hours are long, work is hard, but still I would not change it to being a bartender in that venue. They are there mainly to open bottles and mix very simple drinks to a bunch of retards, I mean customers. I could out do any of them if it came to that.

Last Friday was one of my most interesting working nights I ever have had. I thought doing that gig on a nude cruise years back in Finland was it. I was wrong.
For confidentiality issues I won't be able to tell you much, but I can tell you the rules:
For us: No eye contact, no engaging customers
For customers: Only sexy clothing, no long pants unless they are chaps or see through. No jackets, dresses or normal street clothing. Or anything else the organizers deem unsexy.
You understand already the rules for bussies? There was also a grope-box and exhibitionist lounge. And free condoms on all tables and bar counters.

Tomorrow is Rn'B party and Saturday the usual technoparty. Let's see if I find 85$ in change/bills on the floor again this weekend.

Winds of change

So Hunky Dory was not so hunky dory as it first seemed. The chefs knew how to smoke the new guy out. I lasted all of 3 days taking shit from the guys and them telling me I am getting payed under the national minimum. After seeing the roster for the second week and seeing only 1 shift there I said sayonara and good riddance to the guys and took off. After getting my paycheck (almost 2 weeks late) I realized that the guys were just bullshitting me about my wage. I had been paid the minimum (17.59$/hour). Oh well, guess they didn't want me there.
Lucky I landed a job in sales instantly after quitting there so my money is still coming in.
I didn't want to tell you guys about it until I had been there for a while and see the money. You know what kind of stigma door-to-door sales have. But I don't need to even sell anything, I'm just making appointments for a solar expert to go in and have a chat with the homeowners and try to sell them some solar systems. It is still hard work and lot of walking but at least I get to see all these nice suburbs and get a lot of fresh air. :)
Still looking for something else though because this is still not what I came to Australia for. But if this makes me enough money, I will bite the bullet and do something cool afterwards.

Guess what...

I HAVE A JOB! Your beloved bartender/waiter/manager i now a cook! Hunky Dory is the place to be if you want fish and chips. And that is where I will spend my time making money for a while. I was so excited yesterday when I got off that I could not go to sleep until late night. Either that or it was the energy drink I had.
The feeling when you know that soon you don't have to be stretching every cent as far as possible is SO good. Maybe in few weeks I have enough to buy a new body for my camera. And some juggling stuff. And start paying off the debt I managed to accumulate to my mom.
But enough chit chat. I need to go to work.

Crawling days

It feels like I need to update but I have nothing to say.
All day is the same: I try to find a job, sit in the guesthouse and try to spend as little money as possible. I have hit a boring section of travels. I give this city one more week and if by this time I don't have a job, I will go to another town.

I do remember a story from Koh Rong tho...

One day I was happily doing some landscaping in the guesthouse (chipping away a big rock of sandstone from a path) when one of the Khmer worker comes up to me: "Juhis. There is a snake in the kitchen. Maybe one of you guys can come and handle the situation?"
So I gather my machete and a 4 foot long stick and head up. As I get in to the kitchen I see one of the cooks poking around with a long piece of wood in the corner, jumping and screaming. When the snake gets out and gets pinned against a wall I see my first glimpse: it's a fucking pit viper! After a moment the viper gets loose from the grip of the wall and wood and starts heading away from the restaurant with about a dozen tourists watching, I tell the other to let it go. But instead of getting out it decides to climb a hibiscus in edge of the dining area. Not a proper spot for a lethal snake in the middle of lunch rush. A Khmer guy gets a small hit on it with its stick, which then breaks down. The snake is not hurt, but stunned enough to poke its head out of the bush. At this point I give it a full force overhead swing with my stick and it connects perfect at the back of the neck. The snake drops from the bush and we collect it to a safe place. After few moments we realie that the snake is not actually dead so we need to chop off its head. When I took the body and held it next to my body I realize that I have just been battling a 6-foot killer snake with a -what at this point startedd feeling small- stick and a big knife. Afterwards I was amazed how calm I was during the whole episode...

Christmas came early!

...Well not really but I got a parcel from mom anyway! Now I have my Egyptian cotton and camel hair, my Finnish wool and some salmiakki and Fazer chocolate. Happy days!
Days flow by here in Melbourne and I'm growing to like this city day by day. Now if I only could land a job and everything would be sweet. But today will be another day of going thru some bar and restaurants and spreading my resume around. And before some wise-ass says "Gumtree!" I tell you: EVERYONE USES GUMTREE! And that means that all the interesting/good jobs get so many hits instantly that you actually have to be very lucky to land a proper job that way. Sure there is a lot of casual jobs (16-20 hours a week) in cafes and such, but I need somethign else. Can you see me in a cafe making latte and filling sandwitches? Right.
But still I am hopeful that my job is just waiting me around the corner. And atleast this way I have time to do some jewelry and have enough energy to do yoga (almost) daily.

Oh, I felt the feels of bureucracy weigh down on me the first week. I opened a bank account, but cannot get my internet banking details until I present a phone number. And I cannot get a phone with a payment plan (my phone broke down in Cambodia) before I present them a bank statement saying I have money in my account. Would I be getting a phone with a payment plan if I had the money to buy it straight away?! Idiots.

The New continent

Now I feel like I'm back in the books of living after 4 hour nap and first Subway (!!) in 7 months. First Sleep in Melbourne was at the airport and that 3 hours was not quite enough. But now the first week in Greenhouse Backpackers is paid and I can start getting my bearings and look for a job.
But man IT'S COLD! moving from night time 27 and daytime 35-40 degrees celsius to night time 6 and daytime 17 was bit of a shocker! But nothing I could not get used to...

This trip has been all about recommendations. First in Berlin my friend suggested I go to Top Banana in PP, there the lovely couple running the place told me to go check out Koh Rong. Well, we all know what happened there. Then when flying here I sat next to a Filipino girl who was working in a childrens hospital here in Melbourne and she suggested this guesthouse. And so far all has been good or better. Let's see where the next recommendation leads me to. Maybe an awesome job? Only time will tell.

Sidenote on the girl a was sitting next to: She was 28 and catholic. I am not deeply religious and well marinated in seasonal restaurant work. How much from different worlds could we be? And still we had good time during the flight. Again a perfect example on how cultural or moral bounds don't matter at all if you don't let them to.

Oh well, I guess you might be getting these posts here a little more frequent now that I'm around constant internet. By the way, if anyone has some questions, please post them here. I'm sure I have forgotten to tell something someone wants to know.

Funny times, funny things

It has been an interesting 24 hours or so.
Last night I was out in Phnom Pehn and was going to grab some street food with this Australian guy. A street kid came to ask for money, we straight up refused but offered him food. Few minutes later he was sitting with us enjoying some fresh water clams. Few of his friends came by asking for money also. Same routine, but these two claimed not to be hungry. The first boy told us it's because of the glue they sniff. After we made the first boy order some food from the stall for him ("You eat what you want, we pay!") we told him to tell his friends to come also. After five minutes of resisting we have 3 boys in our table happily drinking some Samurai (local strawberry flavour energy drink) and eating away rice and stuff. Not hungry? I would say that was the first proper meal these boys had in a while.
It felt good to get these boys to eat something and must have looked funny to the locals having 2 western guys and 3 small boys sitting in tiny plastic chairs laughing and eating.
Now already in Kuala Lumpur in my homely Birdnest GH and tummy fully of yummy indian.
Few things has changed here. New stores and guesthouses has popped up, a lot of road and other construction going on and few new Indian Ladymen (because these guys are well past their "boy" age) patrolling the streets in the evening. Even Bakti woodlands had raised prices, but luckily the food was as good as ever.
Tomorrow will be my last day in asia for a while. Lets see if I get as funny feeling as I did when I was leaving PP airport this morning. I got a vivid flashback of the feeling I had when first arriving there. And that felt like ages ago.

Towards next chapter

Time on Koh Rong has finished for me. What crazy amazing times I had there...
I felt it was fitting for me to end my Cambodia to the same place it all started. So again sitting in Top Banana but this time tomorrow morning I will board Airasia and take a small breather in a city I know allready. Kuala Lumpur here I come again! Bakti woodlands is waiting for me with delicious indian food!
But that is just a stop on my way to Melbourne, Australia. I need to start working for real and actually earn some cash to further my travels.
So interesting few days ahead. From a tiny island community to a city with population of 4,1 million...

Labour Camp: Paradise

These posts are coming too infrequent. I need to check back on older stuff to see what I wrote last time. The Island is getting a good grip on me. :D

So almost five months I have been working in BHGH and it has taught me a lot. I forgot to tell you that I ended up managing the whole place since before new year already. That will look good on my CV. But managing a 10 bungalow resort on an island with minimal staff (3-6 western, 2-4 Khmer) is hard work. Everything has to be ordered and shipped from mainland. And when I mean everything, starting from gas bottles and coal for cooking, big pieces of ice (around 25kg each) for keeping everything cold, drinks and food and all that you could imagine you would need on an island. And more.
When the delivery comes it's not on a pier where we put them on a cart and push to the restaurant. Instead we wade in chest deep in to the sea with or with out the help of a small boat to load the stuff on and carry all to land. And then we carry it to the storage on our shoulders. By experience I can tell you that 50 kg of rice 30 meters up a rock and root filled path gets heavy.
And bandages and iodine. Lots of them. The local rocks here have a tendency to peel off pieces of skin when you kick them while walking barefoot and the coral sand (read: sand so fine it squeaks under your feet) from the beach will go everywhere and infect every single wound you don't take care of. Three times I have seen a person getting so many infected wounds at the same time that the body cannot keep up and every single scratch goes off. Lucky it wasn't me.
BUT I scraped the skin off from the top of one of my toes, it got infected in 12 hours and even when I went to mainland the next day to get away from the sand and dirt I still lost a toenail.

Other issues we have on the island is water. It has not rained in 3 months. Well, it has. Total of 4 hours. That's quite little considering we would spend around 2000 liters of fresh water daily. But as of now we have basically none. So before it rains again the shower will be the sea. And I have mastered the skill of showering with 1,5 liters of water.

Now I am taking a holiday from holiday here in Siem Reap. Week off will help me carry thru the last weeks on Koh Rong with out me losing my marbles completely. Those of you who have done seasonal work for example in ski resorts will know what I mean. And our place is the only one on our side. Other human contact apart from customers and co-workers is 30 min trek thru the jungle away.

So a few relaxing days away from it all and being a normal traveller again for a while. Do all the touristy stuff and all.

Until next time!

PS. Waterbuffalos have a very distinct smell.

Is it really been that long?

Wow! Long time since I had the chance to write something. Internet in our resort is too slow for google's quite heavy user enviroment.

Lot has happened since last time.

I had to do a visa run to get my visa changed into a so called business visa, which can be extended up to 6 months. I had already decided to make it to Thailand so I can pick up some fisherman's pants with me. Take a bus to get to Koh Kong and cross the border there, take another bus from the border to Trat. Quick and easy. Not. The morning I plan to leave I go to buy bus tickets only to find out that all the buses are full. Fair enough, plan B. back at the guesthouse I see couple of Finnish guys packing their stuff, aiming for Phnom Pehn later on. And these guys are selling their bike. I didn't buy the bike since I really have no need for it on the island. But I did borrow it for a couple of days.
Road to Koh Kong from Sihanoukville was interesting at times. There had been rains in the past few days so I found myself easing my way around muddy ponds size of a kid's swimming pool. Or following in a column when there is no pavement for couple of hundred meters. But the bike was still the better solution anyway. Because I saw the cars really struggling at some points where as I could just weave my way around the potholes and pools.
When I reach the border I find out that I am not allowed to take the bike across the border. So I have to store it in a local guy's house while I'm in Thailand. So I still need to take the bus on thailand side and of course I bought my bus ticket from Cambodian side when I could have saved couple of dollars buying them from Thailand side.
There border on Cambodian side is full of hustlers who offer to do the customs for you. If you give them your passport you will have to pay them and basically all they do is fill out 1 piece of paper. And they claim that you have to pay to get the exit stamp. Which is false too.
In Thailand I go look for my luxury bus to find out that it is a minivan. Of course. Should have not expect anything else.The five minutes we were supposed to wait for the van to leave turned in to a nice half and hour and we were pissing ourselves laughing when every time one of the westerners would ask about the departure the answer from the locals was either "one minute" or "soon".
Trat itself was a nice small town with good food from the markets and it acted as a good access point to other places in the country
Caro came to meet me there with the intention to come spend another month in Koh Rong. So the next day we went to take a walk around the markets to see if we could find what we wanted to buy. We did find a shop that sold wax strings suitable for macrame making. And lots of wooden and plastic pearls. A shop we found and I bought 30 pairs of pants to sell at the guesthouse. Then we came up to a shop called The Reggae Shop. The owner was a really nice local guys and they sold some hand made clothing made by his wife and lots of stuff in red, gold and green. And with Bob Marley. He invited us to come back around 6 o'clock to enjoy a bowl full from a shisa. And offered to come with us because we didn't find a place that sold cotton hammocks. He had some really tasty apple flavoured tobacco to put in the shisa, they went out to get some snacks and beer and we ended up having a really nice night out at the night market eating fried crickets and worms(!) and still not finding any hammocks.
Way back to Sihanoukville was better than when going the other way since the road had had some time to dry out.

Couple of weeks later back in BHGH and the reception phone rings. "Hello. This is Mikko speaking. Do you have any vacancy?" After I finished the call I thought: "Hmm... That sounded familiar..." Few hours pass and I see a long-tail boat coming in with a guy with long blonde dreadlocks standing in the front. And my suspicions got confirmed: it was indeed a Mikko I already knew. We had worked together in Levi five years a go! Week later we are again working together.

December came and one day I'm walking up from the beach bar when all of a sudden a girl walks down towards me and shouts: "Juhis! What the fuck are you doing here?!"
It is none other than Maiju, who used to be my flatmate, again back in Levi, same season. Talk about coincidence! And she had just checked in our guesthouse.

So good times and old friends in a piece of paradise. Christmas happened with out much off a hassle.
Then came new year.
The owner of the guesthouse, Mr.Jones had bought in a small warzone worth of fireworks. We made fire to the beach and set 18 roman candles as tall as me, couple of dozen small torches and bangers, 1 medium size barrage and 1 big one. And a firecracker string abt. 2 meters tall.
When new year hit I was on the other end of the set-up, Mikko on the other end and Jones waiting to light up the big ones. And we all had a burning cigarette. Next couple of minutes was frantic running around trying to light up everything at the same time. What good fun! Khmer workers screaming and laughing and all the guests from the guesthouse gathered up at the fire.

Now we have finally finished the extension to the beach bar, have built a deck for the grill and everything is rolling on nicely.

Well, that's it for now. Lets see when is it when I have a chance to come back here again. So have a wonderful start to your year and I will see you next time!

ps.Pictures has been updated also