The Life and Times of KJ: March 2008

Well it has been a long time in the making. After a good 4 weeks in NZ after our large trip round SE Asia and the wonderful wedding of Kate and Dave on the 14th March I flew out on the 16th March to land 7 hrs before I took off.

I hope all have had a good Easter. It is not a holiday over here though the commercialism of the event is just has big as back in NZ. Anyhow in this case that did not bother me as I have had the week off getting my bearings around Redlands. I start work tomorrow. (Monday 24th LA my time).

After a real long flight of not getting any real sleep I arrived into LAX. I had heard horror stories. All went smooth as however. Went through immigration. All the VISAs worked 'thank god...' and then a real surprise. Just like Bangkok I walked straight out the doors without anyone taking a look at my 90kgs of luggage. A real mission was the problem of getting all my stuff onto a free shuttle bus to take me to the Hertz Rental location. After finding a trolley to move everything around they gave me a Mustang. I was meant to have an SUV so I could fit all my gear in it. They said it would fit so I was pretty happy about a Mustang. Still I walked with all my gear across the huge parking lot to find it was not there. To cut a long story short, I ended up with an SUV after all when they first said there were none available hence being 'upgraded' to a Mustang.

With no sleep it was off onto the wrong side of the road in my Hyundai Tucson with my trusty Google maps printed out. It was an 80 mile drive and the radio and amazing views kept me awake. The mountains were full of snow and the lighting that evening was impressive. Really really nice. My camera was not nearby so I did not get any shots. I had dinner with Edan (the 1 Kiwi I know working at ESRI in Redlands). That was really nice, we had burgers with his very cute girls (Kiwis also but talk with only an American accent) on the BBQ for dinner. We then went round to the flat Edan had organized for me with Derek and Alex. Both Americans, both at ESRI and both my age. They are great guys.

3 Bedroom House I am living in. Nice Palms aye...

Redland's Thursdays 'Farmers Market'

Here I am 1 week later posting a blog before I start work. I have had a rental the last week. A funny looking thing. A Chevy HHR. It goes ok. Not too great I imagine compared to other brand new cars but yeah it has been kinda fun to cruise round it. Mileage is ok, worst thing is the rear seat room and lack of visibility looking out of the car. So I have clocked up 550 odd miles on it in 7 days. I have kitted out my room. Desks, bookshelf, drawers Etc. and all the small things you need. Some clothes too. It all takes much longer when the places are so big and there are so many options for shopping. For those that have not experienced IKEA make sure you do at some stage. It certainly is value for money and a v ery different concept of shopping for Home furnishings and furniture.

Large (200 shops) of Outlet Stores in the middle of the Desert

1 of the many lovely houses in Redlands

On Saturday I went with Alex out to JensonUSAs biggest showroom. Pretty cool to see all the bikes we see from the web in one place. A nice Rocky Mtn road bike was very tempting (lots of road riding here) as was a demo Intense 6.6 with a nice X9 build kit, Juicy's, DHX 5, 66s Etc. for just 2800Us. The frames alone are about 2100US Next to the bike store was a real Big Bikes store. The biggest Harley shop I have seen. Man they are lovely machines. Next up was a bike shop called Dons Cycles. Lots of GTs and Specialized bikes. Alex got a great deal on a demo Specialized FSR. 1150US. A really good deal. Down from 1900US.

Bikes Bikes Bikes.... :-)

Today I went for a large drive up to the hills since I don't know when I will have a car next and the snow was still around. I was real impressed with the scenery. The freeway goes straight up the hill to 8000 feet (2200m). The lakes were lovely as were the houses and little mountain shacks. There is lots of potential up there for some exploring on both feet and bikes. I visited Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear Lake.

Pictures of Lake Arrowhead, Big Bear Lake and the Mountains

So that about sums up some of the stuff I have been up to. Its back to work tomorrow for the 1st time in 4 months. I am looking forward to it. ESRI sounds like a great place to work from the various people I have met working there thus far.

I have put more pics up of the Redlands area here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=32137&l=c13e1&id=518882572 and of my drive to the hills here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=32138&l=e6687&id=518882572

Anyhow until next time, take care...
Kurt

Supermarket Area I went to tonight for supplies

P.S – The Weather is amazing. Right now at 9.30 at night it is 25 degrees in my room. It gets down to about 10 or 12 degrees at night at the moment so it is still very seasonal. Kinda like our good summer days in Christchurch but a bit more of a range in the temps. Soon however the summer will begin and the heat is unbearable they all say. 45 degrees is very common. Guess that’s what AC is for eh…

Sorry Guys, that it has taken me so long to post since Northern Vietnam. Its very slack on my behalf.

While over there it became very difficult to find good places with the net, and good PCs for me to sort out the photos. A right pain in the backside. After a few weeks I began to forget about it and could nto be bothered. The other reason was spending ages in doors while there was so much to see and do did not seem like the best use of time. Our holiday seemed to get busier and busier as we went on.

So to run you down quickly (well not so quickly actually) of what we got up to after the Trekking we took an overnight bus to Hue (an old imperial capital). Next was a few days in Hoi An (best place for tailoring in the world). Quy Nhon was next and is a large coastal town well off the beaten track. Very odd walking round a large town being the only western people. Everybody would stare. a good experience though. Dalat was next after a vicious 10hr (meant to be 6hr) bus ride from Quy Nhon on a local bus. It is the local tourist spot with a few similarities to Queenstown without snow, ragged peaks or amazing mountain biking. In saying that I did go mountain biking on a the hardest tour they had and it was great. Managed to break a chain hehe, but as a consulation for the guide I taught him how to wheelie and bunny hop. Go figure aye...

After all the above witch took a couple of weeks and involved lots of walking and zooming round on both push bikes and motor bikes we headed to Saigon. (Ho Chi Minh City). The largest city in Vietnam but not the capital. That is Hanoi. Saigon was a great place. A lovely city with many ex-pats living there. Food was fanatastic and there were many museums and such sites to look at. The War Remnants museum was a pretty sombre place. Once again the Americans were in the spot light. History aye...

Like Hanoi the traffic was incredible. There are atleast 5 million motor bikes in this city. Thats the same number as in the whole of America. One looks at the intersections in wonder that there are no crashes or deaths every other minute. They are not super human however. 35 people per day die on the roads in Vietnam. We checked out the Cu Chi tunnels used by the Vietcon during the war and a lovely temple in the South Vietnamese countryside before we took a 3 day tour on the Mekong Delta to Cambodia.

The tour was great, the first day was very touristy but the rest was good. They lead a very relaxed life in these river/canal based societies. We had a homestay similar to that in Sapa then sleep on a boat while cruising up the Mekong. Once we crossed the 'water border' and cleared customs we were off up the Mekong for 5 hrs sitting on the top of the boat. The poverty of people living on the river banks was amazing. Vietnam is poor but this (Cambodia) is at another level yet again. They were however very happy waving at us like we were the Queen (well Bridget that is). I think they know that once a day a boat full or strange looking people cruises up the brown murky waters where they bath and do all mannor of other things.

35Kg Python - Pretty scary and feel nothing like you imagine.

After 1 night in Phnom Penh (Capital) we headed to the beaches of Sihonoukville in Southern Cambodia. The beach was great with bars and restaurants littered down the length of it. Food and drink was good value and the swimming was very nice. We had many a good night on the beach. We also did a large walk in 35 degree temps round the outskirts of the town and a day trip on dodgy little boats to do snorkelling and swimming on an island, called bamboo island. Again a lovely spot, and managed to play beach volleyball with some locals. Water temps were about 30 degrees :-)

After Sihounoukville Bridget and I ventured yet again off the beaten track further along the coast via private taxi to a riverside town called Kampot. The main reason for coming was to go to the Bokor Hill Station. A Nat Park. Of course Murphy was on their side and for the first time in decades they had closed the Nat Park to visitors, this day being the first day of the closure. Murphy was not even on the side of a great Irish couple we meet in Kampot who also arrived to do the same trip. The next day we all did a day trip to the country, pepper plantaions, Kep (Old Seaside resort for the kings) and another offshore island aboard a very leaky boat.

Not a happy chappie all chained up :-(

Back to Phnom Penh on the dusty roads packed into a Camry (Taxi) passing by the local 'Cambodian Taxis'. We were told that in and on one van that as many as 35 people can be transported. The spots on the roof though the coolest due to the breeze were the most hazardous. Especially if you missed seeing a large branch from and overhanging tree while bounching down the potholed roads at speeds which are ludicous.

In Phnom Penh which is a pretty dirty place overall we vistied a number of museums and historical landmarks including the S21 Prison of torture during Pol Pot's regime not to meantion the 'Killing Fields' where they brutally excuted thousands of people with clubs and threw them in mass graves. They would not use bullets as they were too valuable to the regime. Over his 4yrs at the helm the country lost atleast 2 million of the 8 million inhabitants. He was as bad if not worse than Hitler many say.

The Bone Momument at the Killing Fields (6000 skulls are in here)

Siem Reap was next. Here is the richest town in Cambodia due to the world famous attractions that are the Temples of Angkor. The most famous of course being Angkor Wat. We spent 2 days exploring countless ruins. The ruins were much more interesting to me due to the fact that fewer touurists were there. I feel sorry for the many tourists that fly in, stay in a flash hotel, get driven round on a big flash bus, see just a couple of temples including the circus that is Angkor Wat. The best temples personally for me are those where the jungle has take over the constructions. It was so cool climbing up impossibly steep stairs and exploring thousands of temples, rooms and passgage ways.

After a 3hr ride zooming to the Thai Border we hopped on a bus for Khao Yai Nat Park. Of course there were no buses so we hopped that the driver would drop us off in the right spot. He did not and we were lucky to find a 'Nana Couple' that could get some local guy in a beat up ute to drive us to the place we wanted to stay. What a mess aye, he said it was 30 mins drive so 200baht sounded resonable. 6 mins later we were there and after lots of arguing I reluctantly paid him the equaivalent of 8 bucks. At this stage were were pretty savvy at knowing if we were getting ripped off, but truth be told we simply limited the ripping off. There are always people fleecing you. Thats how travel is though in these parts. Its all part of the expeience, a part I never really got use too. Nothing is face value, there are always altaria motives where they are only interested in your wallet. One gets a little tired always being on gaurd, always considering the motives of nearly anyone you talk too.

Anyhow we did a 1 day Safari into the Khao Yai Nat Park. I was sceptical at first but it would have been difficult to do it ourseleves and we paid the money. It was a great day as it turned out. Hanging on the back of a ute we saw the lovely moonsson rainfoest and many creatures. In the wild we saw gibbons, monkeys, lizards, snakes, crocs, heaps of cool birds, large deer things, big insects and massive trees. It was a fantastic day and I wished we had more time here to do more trekking and wildlife watching.

After a few days in Bangkok chilling out and shopping we went to Kanchanaburi for a couple of days before we were to head back to civilisation. I say this but Bangkok is a very large modern city with more shops and establishments for the rich than all of NZ put together. At Kanchanaburi we rented a bike and zoomed round the countryside checking out the Death Railway, the Bridge over the River Kwai, some temples, lovely mountain vistas and the Tiger Temple. A very touristy place but the only place in the world where for cheap you can get a series of photos of you touching and being with real tigers.

One last big night was had in Kho San Road in Bangkok with Zoe and Nick (pomms we had meet at the islands of Thailand then Saigon). A great night was had, though I finally once and for all worked out that Thai Wiskey and myself do not mix.

We got to Brisbane on the 7th of Feb and were met at the Airport by my Brother and his girlfriend. Lance and Vanessa were great hosts and for a week we did all the fun touristy things the Gold Coast is renown for. The Australia Zoo, Movie World, Dream World, Brisbane Internation Car Show, Sea World, shopping, chilling out Etc. In a weeks we spent not much less that a whole month of travel in Southeast Asia. Still it was a great time and we had tonnes of fun.