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...