An Eedjit Abroad..

Oh
Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas!!!

It's been a while since we last spoke. Times are changin,' things are different, lifestyles are unrecognisable but I'm still blogging!

So when I last left you I was making the trip from Singapore to start some sort of new life in Melbourne for an undetermined amount of time, with no contacts, just enough money and no idea what the hell was gonna happen next. Well I landed in Melbourne on the first day and the first thing that hit me: frickin freezin!! My balls, that had been hanging loose and sweating uncontrollably for the last 6 months shot up inside me like a started hamster into it's tube (might as well start the blog as we mean to go on)..

I got settled into a Hostel on Fitzroy street in St Kilda and immediately couldn't wait to get out. Not because the people weren't nice or that it wasn't a nice hostel but cos I wanted to relax. I can't describe how drained I was from the trip I had no adrenaline whatsoever and would sleep for 14 hours at a time for nearly a whole week. Having said that, I got drunk on my first night there, losing a drinking game to a Frenchman and drinking nearly a whole box of Goon (Shit wine).

However, within the first two weeks I had managed to find a house to live for a few weeks, a temporary job and had done a successful gig. The land of opportunity was delivering on its promise..

So I moved in with two lovely English girls in St Kilda (aka little Ireland which I'll get to later) and began my job. My job was an Outbound Call Centre, the only consolable thing about it was that it was a regular wage and not commission based sales which I had heard so many horror stories about. It was ringing Shareholders in companies and giving them information on new board proposals and then taking a survey. Not so bad? Do it 200 times a day reading from the same script.. your brain will go numb! But hey it was good money and was paying the bills (and for the alcohol)

I made friends relatively quickly with people. I made friends with Dan on the bus from the airport! The majority of people I know are English and Irish. It's quite hard to not hang out in groups of English & Irish people for a number of reasons, mainly because you make friends through who you work and live with. But one thing that really struck me about St Kilda was the amount of Irish people around. Holy Crap!!  Is there anyone left at home seriously it's like every second accent is a backpacker: weird! I reckon there's Irish people in St Kilda who don't even know they're in a different country. They just got fucked one night and woke up here and just carried on.. Anyway, I made good mates in the block I was living and then through my job I met my friend Aisling who introduced me to and brought together the lads I hang out with now. Aisling (Dublin), Tracy (Dublin), Andy (Dublin), Pete, Jack and Jenna (Harrogate, Yorkshire) and Tom and Roisin (Cambridge) make up the Motley Crue! Good times are had by all!

So from St Kilda I moved to a different suburb called Brighton for a month or so living in a sweet apartment with Kim and Ishmael. Ishmael is the best Bridge player in the world no joke and him and Kim ran a Bridge club. Kim had lots of cool/weird stories about Bridge players!

From Brighton I moved to where I am now in Windsor. I now have a really sweet apartment just off Chapel Street which is a really great street filled with bars, restaurants and shops. I'm only 3 minutes away from the train station to get the 10 minute journey into the city and 5 minutes to our local that does happy hour drinks at $3 a schooner..happy days! Also living with an Ozzie bloke who's sound..

I've been out of work for a while now. The calling job lasted about 4 weeks. But at the beginning of December I secured a job working in Customer Service for an energy company.. Starting January 3rd it's much longer term than the last job and I can't wait to get back to work, earn some money and have a routine again. Weird how you crave those things after being living in la la land for so long..

So, that's all the boring stuff outta the way. So what you really wanna know is; what's it like?

Well I have to say Melbourne is an awesome city. There's loads to do, great nightlife, good comedy scene, beaches, awesome public transport and all in a culturally diverse, liberal place to live. Melbourne was voted the most liveable city in the world recently and I can see why.

What fun things have I done since I've been here? Well a lot of them can't be repeated on this Blog but a few activities have been:

1. The Aquarium
Melbourne aquarium was actually quite cool. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Afterwards we went for a drink in Bony Fish Island which is a cool bar that's literally on the river- it's attached to the support leg of a bridge.. followed by McDonald's..

Penguins!!

There was a queue of kids waiting to get their photo taken in this

Watch out Steve Irwin :)

Me, Tom & Roisin at Bony Fish Island

2. The Zoo
We had a great day at the Zoo. Loads of Animals. Followed by drinks in the Belgian Beer Gardens.

Grrr...

Me and Tracy riding...

She'll get up on anything

Petting a Kangaroo

Belgian Beer Gardens

3. The Beach
About once a week we'll have an impromptu beach day. Just chiilin and nillin on the beach with a Guitar and wine. Very civilised

Pizza on the Beach

Suncream anyone?

No idea either...

BOOM

Sunset good Times

Sunset at the Beach

Oh yeah....

Sweeet..

4. Spanish Festival
The Spanish festival in Richmond was awesome. There was a street of stalls serving Spanish food and Drink. There was a stage with dancing and music and then we went for a drink in a bar there and there was a Spanish band with Spanish guitar players. Man they know how to play music..

(No Photos Available)

Comedy is going well. I've done quite a few sweet gigs. The clubs though are in high demand so spots are limited and you have to fight for them. A lot of the clubs weren't booking this side of Christmas but I was lucky to get a number of cancellation spots. I will be doing a joint show with my mate Johnny P at the festival this year. That will be a gig every day for 4 weeks at the end of March through April. Venue and all is set. Just have to get people through the door now... Can't wait!

Live at the Exford Hotel

Plans for the new year:
1. Comedy Festival
2. Australian Open Tennis
3. Australian Grand Prix
4. I will have money again so expect to hit more of Melbourne's live music venues
5 Couple of music fests

So all in all life is sweet. Starting good work, got a gaff, got great mates, getting gigs and living the life. It took a bit of work to get set up but there wasn't any points where I thought I couldn't do it...

A Merry Christmas to all my blog readers and a Happy New Year. Thanks for being with me every step of the way for the best year of my life so far..

Here's to a happy and prosperous 2012

Malaysia & Singapore

Being honest, Malaysia wasn't one of those countries that you think about when planning the trip. You're thinking about the Stans, Georgia and China. Malaysia's just the one at the end that you don't consider. But I have to say it was one of my favourite countries. After the tourist saturated, unfriendly Thais you enter Malaysia and no one gives a shit about you. They're so used to foreigners in Malaysia that you're just another person. Since the beginning of their history they've had people going there. They started off with the Portuguese, then the Dutch and finally the British along with a huge influx of Indians makes it a truly multi-cultural society, something I enjoyed. Only one problem- the weather!!

Rainy season meant that our first stop: Georgetown in Penang was mainly a washout.. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site with huge amounts of history and the port where many conquerors landed to take advantage of Malaysia's resources. I visited Fort Cornwallis, a former British fort and had a look around the town, before it pissed down and we had to go home. I had a good time in the food court opposite the hotel trying all the foods and giving out about how expensive everything was. We're back in normal prices land now and it's quite a shock to the system! Unfortunately not a lot to say about Georgetown other than that the people were pleasant and it's a pity it was raining.

Fort Cornwallis

Me and...erm...Some British Explorer

Clocktower, Georgetown

From here we went to the fantastic Perhentian Islands. These, despite the below par accommodation were absolutely fantaaaastic! The beach, clear blue water and wildlife were rivalled by none on the trip to date. We spent 4 nights chilling in little huts by the beach. My favourite part of the Perhentian Islands was the morning we spent snorkelling. It was amazing how beautiful the underwater wildlife was. You could see these huge Coral Reefs that looked like an underground city when you looked down upon them from the surface. The sheer amount of wildlife in the water was astounding. We saw all sorts of fish including a White Tipped Reef Shark, a Giant Turtle, Clown Fish (nemo) and Barracudas!

View of the beach

The Clear Blue water

More Beach

These Guys were Everywhere!

Fish and Coral

Erm..More Fish

Me! Thanks Wendy

Nemo

Swam Next to this guy for ages

What you lookin at?

Jelly Fish

It was here that we had the Odyssey Olympics. Three teams, 5 events, 20 competitive, cheating scumbags battling it out for no prize or financial gain of any kind. Just running around and cheating shamelessly to get one up on your fellow traveller! But what fun it was. Started off with races through each other’s legs (I’d been doing that for the whole trip but was no harm for everyone to have a go), a sack race (again.. never mind!), blindfold races, treasure hunt (of sorts) and who could get buried with sand the quickest! I was completely wrecked afterwards!! So followed it up with a very civilised meal for Zoe’s birthday..

Fun Times

I was the Red Team...

Everyone

We were sad to leave the peace and tranquility of the Islands behind as we took the long journey south to Kuala Lumpur. Although it was, as Denis would say; “Just another city” I thought it was one of the best cities we’ve been to. Obviously, it’s not up there with the likes of Istanbul and Beijing, but KL was the first place I’ve been where I thought I could probably live. KL, like Malaysia is a huge modern Metropolis, a melting pot of different cultures and peoples and I loved it! I spent the first day looking around and seeing the famous Petronas Twin Towers and the Sky Tower and the huge 8 storey Mall was worth a look. 

Me at the Petronas Towers

Sky Tower

Guinness at an Irish Bar for the Rugby

Great night out at The Hard Rock Cafe!

After that it was stressy-pants time as KL was to be the location for the famous gig that I had promised the guys on the truck as far back as Europe. I’d sent off a few emails in China and the Comedy Club KL were the ones who got back to me and offered me a gig. It turned out to be a brilliant night out. The Comedy Club guys organized a small bar in the suburbs run by a couple of famous DJs and provided me with a support act. I have to say I was extremely nervous about it. I hadn’t performed in 6 months, had shit loads of new material to do, my old material was rusty and what’s more half of my audience were Malaysian!! What do Malaysian people find funny??? I needn’t have been worried though. The Malaysian people in the crowd were awesome they were going mental at everything as were my drunk traveling companions!! :) When I first started I was a bit slow and a bit rusty but as soon as I got a big reaction for good old reliable “Who’s Your Daddy?” I was flyin it! Wanna say a huge thank you to all the guys on the truck for giving me so much support on the night. And thanks for the underwear you threw. I've still got it! I’d like to say a special thanks to Mandy Ferries for designing the poster for the gig and taking such good photos of the night. I also want to give a massive thanks to my support act, the VERY funny Rizal Van Keyzel and also Rizal Kamal and Kavin Jay for organizing the gig. Hope to meet you guys again someday..

The Poster

Mmm Guinness

Mel, Aoife, Mandy and Lucy

Aoife and Sally

Steve and Denis

Keith laughing at the dirty ones!

Me with my Underwear!

Me and CJ reflecting

Mandy, Denis and Lucey

In action

Rizal Van Keyzal, support act and very funny!

Ok, SOME of these may have been staged...

Another action shot

Mmmm.....

As we made our LAST trip on the truck to Melaka the end of the trip was starting to hit a lot of us. We weren’t going to be taking the truck to Singapore so we had to say goodbye to Calypso here. We spent a couple of days in the very pleasant and quite Melaka having dinner at the Market as the adrenaline and desire for sessions began to wane. We had a glass of wine and toasted Calypso on our last night in Melaka. It was hard to believe that we were leaving her behind. She had been our home for the last 6 months. When you think back to all the time we’ve spent on her and all the memories we have it’s hard to comprehend. And cudos to Jim for driving her all the way here: 23,000 kms!

The Crew

All of us

We took very civilised mini buses to Singapore and crossed the poshest border crossing I’ve ever seen. Another opportunity for reflection. When you think back to some of the borders we’ve been through. Little shacks with cows and sheep and dogs wondering around where you have to wait all day just because they’re on lunch and frickin goats tied to roof racks! Singapore was like a huge modern airport with too many staff and too much space. What a difference a few thousand kms make!

Unfortunately we didn’t see a whole lot of Singapore as we were only there for two nights and the main focus now was on good byes and trying to work out how we’re going to survive without each other and without CJ doing our thinking for us. On our last day we went to The Grand Hyatt Hotel for Sunday lunch. You pay about 100 euro to be allowed in from 11am to 3pm and you eat and drink as much as you want! Now we’re not talking Burger, Chips and cheap beer here! No! The best Seafood, Mussels, Clams, Sushi, Chinese, Roast Dinner and incredible Deserts, with as much Champagne and Wine as you could drink. Those of you who know me will know that this is a dangerous situation at the best of times. And as a result..I dug in!!!!! It even cheered me up from the bad rugby results the day before! It was a really nice afternoon and the best way to finish the trip and when you consider the food and service we got-Good Value! I didn’t need to shout “Champagne” once, I never saw the bottom of my glass!

Champagne!

Very civilized bunch

Steve and the women

Shrimp

Desert

Chocolate fountain!!

Awesome seafood

So before we knew it, it was time to say good bye. We did it in shifts. Some people at 8am, some at 11am and the rest of us at the airport in the evening.

What can I say about it? One of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It was a horribly depressing feeling saying good bye to everyone. Ok, on a trip like this you’re not going to get on with everyone all the time. And obviously you become closer to some more than others. But when you think about it there will never be any other situation in your life where you spend as much time with a certain group of people. It’s ALL DAY, EVERY DAY for 6 months. When you’re at home you might see your friends once, twice a week for a few hours, you’ll see whoever you live with every day, but only for a few hours in the evening. On this trip it’s 24/7 with the same people. It’s hard. Sometimes it sucks. Yes it’s fucking frustrating. But at the end of it you’ll have 4,5, 6 or more people that will be your friends forever. And the people you didn’t get on with. You won’t even remember what you didn’t like in a few weeks’ time..

And yes, there was a tear!

People will ask me what was the best this, what was the worst that. It’s impossible to say your favourite country or the best moment especially because for a lot of them, you just have to be there. But I’ve tried my best in this little next bit.

·         Favourite Country: China, Georgia, Malaysia

·         Least Favourite Country: Turkmenistan

·         Best Activity: Ballooning in Goreme, Tubing in Laos, Elephants in Chang Mai, Quad Bikes in Goreme

        Best Sight: Angkor Wat, The Great Wall, Gas Crater in Turkmen

·         Best Cultural Experience: Noodle house in Wuwei with Chinese family, George being unable to use a Knife and Fork, Meeting Georgian Rugby fans in Kasbergy, Meeting Azerbaijani sailors on the Caspian Sea

·         Best Country Guide: George (China), Nastia (Kyrgyzstan)

·         Best Scenery: Kyrgyzstan, Georgia

·         Nicest People: China, Malaysia

·         Worst People: Turkmenistan, Thailand

·         Best Food: Chinese Rice dishes, Thai Curry, Uzbek Shashlik Kebabs, Turkish Kebabs

·         Worst Food: Georgia

·         Most Touristy: Thailand

·         Least Touristy: Georgia, The Stans, Western China

So to sum up. What an amazing, incredible, eye opening, educational, mind fuck of a six months. I’ve seen things and places that most people won’t get even close to. I’m part of the only 22 people in the world that can say they’ve driven overland all the way to Singapore this year and am in an exclusive club of some 500 or so who have ever done it. I’m immensely proud of myself for doing it and am forever in the debt of the people and circumstances that have allowed me to be a part of it. I want to say a big thanks to all of my fellow travelers for making it the trip it was. I want to say thanks to CJ and Jim for getting us here. I want to say thanks to Pete and Kirsten of Odyssey for making it possible and designing the best overland trip there is. I want to say thanks to my Uncle Alan for helping me financially and to my family and friends for being so supportive. And last of all: YOU! For reading my Blog. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have writing it. 

But of course it’s not over. I’m onto the next adventure: Australia!

So keep checking back for my adventures Down Under in Melbourne and around as I look to break the Comedy Scene and make some money working a shit job! And keep your eye out for my new show coming soon: “An Overland Odyssey: The Story of Driving from London to Singapore” That I plan to bring to the Melbourne Festival next year.

And now I have the travel bug. South America and Africa are on my mind.…

Bye for now, Ben

Day One