Post 200, Time to Look Back – Erich, Alrica, Carver, and Syarra

This is our 200^th post on the Extravelganza411 blog. We thought that as long as we are accepting this base 10 supremacy of society, it would be a good time to look back on everything we have been through so far.

This is a joint post, with input from everyone about things that we should recall. And we'll start with Extravelganza411 in numbers!

We left Lancaster, PA on August 14, 2015. We traveled within the USA and then abroad. Since that date, we have been on five continents in 20 countries (if you include the USA). The graphs below show you the percentage of our time spent in each continent, and in each of the countries. Note: Vatican City is grouped within Italy, as our time there was not enough for it to really show up as much of anything on the graph. Besides, we didn't spend the night. Though the Pope asked repeatedly if we would, but we didn't want to impose.

Continents

Countries

The blog itself has had 20310 views in that amount of time. Of these, 16762 are from within the United States. The second highest number of views comes from France with 973. And then, pretty surprisingly, the third highest is from Russia with 333. I'm not sure how we are getting word to Russia, but apparently someone there checks out the blog.

Of the authors, Erich has been the most prolific, followed by Carver, then Syarra, and then Alrica. (And then our one guest blog post from Erich's mother, Joni, reflecting on her stay with us in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.)

Perhaps Alrica has contributed the fewest posts of the four of us, but hers are the best viewed posts. The most viewed post on our blog was the very first one, Getting Out the Door, with 190 views. It talks about starting the adventure and the difficulties in getting the momentum going.

The second most viewed post is also by Alrica, titled Chondrosarcoma, and it has 186 views. This one is about Alrica's unexpected bout with a very rare form of cancer, discovered as we were making our plans to leave.

Finally, Erich cracks into the top three with the third most viewed post, Or Not. This post, with 174 views, tells of the sequence of events in Chiang Mai, Thailand that led to us being (thankfully) kicked out of a house sitting engagement we were supposed to be beginning that day

The least viewed, if you are curious, is Man of Stone by Erich with only 11 views. But in fairness, it was posted less than 24 hours ago, so it hasn't had enough time to make its mark

Or Not is a pretty short title, having only six characters (counting spaces.) But it is not the smallest. That honor belongs to Carver with his post whose title has only three characters. It is called UCH about his work as the Ultimate Chicken Handler at a farm where we house sat in France.

Three posts have only four characters, which you would think would be good for a win, but no. They are Fear by Alrica, Yop! by Carver, and San' by Erich.

The longest title of any post unquestionably goes to Carver. It is The Things I Thought About After Posting My Last Blog Post (including clarifications, and the night before the flight, and yesterday) with a whopping 133 characters. I would tell you what it tells the tale of, but it tells the tale of so many things, you should probably just read it.

Carver has a propensity for long titles as both the second and third longest titles are also his posts. They are The very important person who I can never respect again because the first time I saw him, he had a pigeon on his head with 117 characters, and South Gaul Pop Quiz and Further Plans and my Excitement about Going to Hungary and Why it Isn't all of Gaul with 107 characters. 

While these numbers have been interesting, one set of numbers has been on our minds a lot: money. It has been Alrica's job to keep track of our budget, which we are doing surprisingly well on. Our initial budget was $3000/month. This needs to include things like storage of our stuff in Lancaster and continuing deposits into our retirement account so it is really closer to $2300/month. For the first few months, Alrica kept track of every penny that we spent trying to get a sense of how we were spending our money, dividing it into categories of housing, food, supplies, travel, and communication. This wasn't so bad in South Africa where much of our payments were by credit cards, but by morocco, which is an entirely cash economy, every glass of orange juice became a challenge to remember and record. By the time we got well into Europe, budgeting switched to a monthly function of keeping track to ensure we weren't badly overbudget.  

Many of you might be surprised that a family of four can live off of $2300/month or roughly $75/day. It helps to live slowly. Most of our accommodations have been airbnb's which we get at either a weekly or monthly rate depending on how long we will be staying there. We have used this service 16 times. When it fits our needs, we try to housesit. Housesitting is a service where we stay in someone's home and take care of their pets but no money is exchanged in either direction. We have enjoyed getting to know our hosts, and love playing with their pets. The financial upside is that it is free accommodations from which to explore an area. Travel is our second biggest cost. We try to take buses, public transportation, ferries, etc. where appropriate but flights inside Europe and inside Asia are surprisingly affordable, sometimes more than trains. Our best deal was Berlin to Paris for $52.20 for the whole family, including our two checked bags, followed closely by Bangkok to Chiang Mai for $68. Our 3rd biggest expenditure is food. In France, at $447.85 for groceries alone, this was our biggest expenditure since even the grocery stores were terribly expensive and we cooked almost every meal. In places like Chiang Mai, a full meal was between $1-2 per person so we ate out almost exclusively, just keeping a stock of peanut butter and jelly for those times when it rained and nobody wanted to leave the apartment. Finally, the theft of our backpack, which only had clothing and eyeglasses, in South Africa and cell phone in Morocco cost us $996.88 but left us more careful and cautious.

But we have amassed many things besides just numbers. (This is not in any way meant to diminish the importance of numbers, of course!) Here's a helpful collection. We have found the two most useful phrases to know in any nation you visit are “Thank you” and “Hello”. So we have compiled a table of how to say each of those in the foreign countries we have visited.

Useful, right?

The next most useful thing to know how to say is the numbers. See why we didn't want to diminish their importance.

On our journey we have discovered many amazing foods. Each country has its own specialties, and many of these we do not know how to make ourselves. But there are some we have learned to cook.

• Pap from South Africa
• Meatball Tagine from Morocco
• Crepes from France
• Tom Kha Kai (Coconut Milk Soup with Chicken and Galangal Root) from Thailand
• Phơ Bô (Beef Noodle Soup) from Vietnam

In addition to these we have written several posts about foods we have encountered.

We've also written about culture, traffic, methods of travel, birthdays, meeting people, seeing nature and wildlife, seeing cultural sites, getting haircuts, shopping for groceries, and fire hydrants.

We've had highs: the gorgeous sunsets in Greece, the many African animals in Namibia, the Kat Rim Khan night market in Thailand, and our introduction to marsupials in Australia.

We've had lows: Our backpack stolen in South Africa, the hotel room with bedbugs in Spain, the tatami mats in Japan, and, well, we don't yet have one for Oceania.

And most of all, we've definitely learned. We've learned about geography, history, religion, and culture. But most important, we've found out that people everywhere are decent, friendly, and kind. They want a safe world for themselves, opportunities for their children, and peace between all. No entire group is bad, and no individual is perfect. But we're all pretty good.

And if we learned nothing but that, it would be enough to justify the journey.

Man of Stone – Erich

The Golem of Prague was a man made of clay. Superman is the Man of Steel. But do you know of the Man of Stone? Or perhaps more precisely, the Man Half of Stone?

He was the Nargun, a mythical half-man, half-stone creature in the stories of the Gunaikurnai Aboriginal people of Australia. According to the legends, the Nargun is made of stone except not all of him. But most of him. And if you attack him with a boomerang or a spear, it will just bounce back at the attacker. (The aboriginal Australians didn't have guns or even metal weapons, so there is no mention of what would happen if a sword or bullet hit him. Unlike with Superman where we know what would result.)

The Den of Nargun is a real place located in what is today Mitchell River National Park in Victoria, Australia. We visited the park today and walked to the Den of Nargun.

On the way we saw and heard kookaburras. Though never at the same time. I mean, we saw kookaburras, but they weren't making their laughter-like call. And other times we could hear the “I'm so amused” call of those birds, but we couldn't see who was making it. (This reminds me of a new proposal. I suggest we stop calling bird calls calls and instead call them their ringtones. Good idea?)

Rapids on the Mitchell River

We also got to see the Mitchell River and the canyon it has formed. We saw scarlet parrots. And we saw this guy.

What is it wearing? Is that a shell? A leaf? A tortilla?

I don't know what he is. Like a cross between an insect and a hermit crab?

We climbed down into the canyon and then we climbed up out of it

The area is filled with lovely waterfalls, tall canyons, steep paths, and the unusual flora of a temperate rain-forest, close to the furthest south that any such temperate rain-forest exists.

This is part of the going back up

We did then proceed to the Den of Nargun. Among the Gunaikernai people, stories were told of how the Nargun would grab and eat children who were found at the pool outside his den. This both convinced children not to wander off, but also to stay away from the den.

The Nargun lives in there

However, the Gunaikernai people did use the cave as a location for learning and initiation rituals for women. It is a place that the Gunaikernai men did not and still do not go. Visitors are asked not to cross the pool and enter the cave, out of respect for the Gunaikernai traditions. We only gazed at it from across the pool at its mouth. We certainly would never want to disrespect the traditions of those who lived in this land for thousands of years before Europeans arrived.

I mean, who would do that? You'd have to have a heart of stone. Or perhaps more precisely, half of stone.

The World is My Playground – Erich

The Bard once wrote, “The play's the thing.” And I know he was talking about a theatrical performance and not jumping and running and climbing and sliding. But I'm going to purposefully misinterpret that quote right now and talk about play.

We visited a playground here in Sale, Victoria, Australia. And play, while universally enjoyed by children everywhere (and some adults as well), can have some differences.

First, you don't always see a peacock walking around in your playground.

What, you think this playground is just for people?

And sometimes a peacock has to show off.

Look at me! Look at me!

Sometimes on playgrounds you have competitions, right? Well, so do the peacocks.

Here's his rival

And why do they do it? All in the hopes that their women might notice them.

Unimpressed with the ostentation

On the run

Like the peacocks, I too must put on my courtship display to garner Alrica's attention. Here I am playing the xylophone to demonstrate my suitability for her.

I assure you, melodic sounds ensue

Actually the xylophone on the playground is unusual in the tones it produces. While it does have eight different notes that it can play, it does not make a major scale. I'm not sure what scale it produced.

Do re mi? That would be too easy.

There were other unusual sights on the playground. Instead of seesaws, there were these seats hung from a vertical that would bounce up and down.

Talk about verticality

The kids climbed into this spin capsule. It's kind of like the tea cups ride at an amusement park. You pull on the disc in the middle and the capsule spins around.

Not dizzy yet

You know the bouncy seats on a big metal spring. Often they look like race cars or frogs or other vehicles or animals. Well, the same was true here. There was a frog one and a turtle one. But there was also this: An echidna!

Go with what you know, right?

Educational sidenote: An echidna is also called a spiny anteater. It is one of the two species of monotremes.

Educational sidenote sidenote: A monotreme is an egg laying mammal.

Educational frontnote (because why should sides get all the notes): The other monotreme species is the platypus.

Another fun item at the playground that we don't see at home was this zip line.

Posing while zooming by. Isn't that multitasking?

You pull the seat uphill, hop on the seat, and zip line down to the other end.

One final, very cool, difference, but one that we did not personally enjoy: A swing designed for a wheelchair.

This is a great idea

Not everything was different than playgrounds in the United States. Similarities include: swings, spinners, mulch, and helicopter parents.

I've mentioned in other posts how in many countries parents let their kids have a lot more freedom to play in ways that could potentially hurt them. That's not meant as a bad thing, I think it's great. But here we witnessed total hovering. My kids were playing on a spinner. A small girl came to join them. No problem. But then said small girl's mother was way too worried about the spinner actually spinning while her little girl was on it. I can only imagine that for my kids (who were being very careful with the smaller ones) it did cut down on the fun of that particular piece of playground equipment.

I even got vetted! While we were there, a school group came. They were a prep class. This doesn't mean prep school like it would in the States. It means kindergarten. Anyway, this class of 5 and 6 year olds all in red shirts and red hats comes to play.

I'm standing in front of the big spinner where my kids are playing along with the smaller kids. I think this is what happened. Some of the chaperons of this school group were unhappy about some man they didn't know hanging out near their kids. So they sent one of the fathers who was chaperoning to come and question me. Though at first I didn't know it was an interrogation. I thought he was just being friendly.

“Your kids go to the school?” he asked me. I didn't know which school he was talking about, but I knew the answer was no, so I explained that my kids were homeschooled.

Then he asked if I lived around here. I explained I was visiting. He asked where I was from. I explained that and how we were traveling.

Finally, came the moment that he had a realization which caused me to have one too. At that moment, he noticed the two much bigger kids on the spinner with the kids in red. And he had his realization. “Oh, those are your children?”

“Yes” I answered. And that's when I realized that until that moment I was 'creep at the park' rather than 'good father allowing his children to enjoy play.' After that we had a very pleasant conversation about my family's trip and his ideas of great things to see in the area. Once the need for protection had passed, he was as friendly as could be.

After all, he recognized the need my children would have for play too. Everyone needs some play time. Again, in the somewhat misquoted words of the Bard: All the world's a playground and all the boys and girls (and some of the grown-ups) are merely players.

My Second Marsupial - Syarra

With the squeaky beach and the wildlife I would call this a successful day!

After a two-hour drive we arrived at Wilsons Promontory (or as they call it here Wilsons Prom). Driving through Wilsons Prom was neat. We were driving by the wildlife walk when we saw emu standing in a pasture eating. So we decided to walk the path and hope to see more wildlife.

Our hope was answered when in the distance we saw kangaroo. After walking on the path, getting lost, looping back, and continuing on the path we arrived at a field. In the distance was a single kangaroo standing like a statue. I don’t think that it had a joey but at that distance we could not tell. Then another, 2, three more arrived. A whole troop of kangaroo ran 150 feet in front of us. Some had joeys some didn’t. With our video camera we zoomed in and got a picture of a joey. The kangaroos were amazing. Hopping with heavy joeys must be hard, wouldn’t you think so? Well I think so.

Anyway then we left so we could continue to squeaky beach. The sand does squeak! It was fun even though the water was too cold to play in. There were big rocks to climb and we enjoyed it. 

On the way out we met with some people going to have fun at the beach. They were very friendly and it was interesting to talk to someone who lives in Melbourne. All in all, today was a good day in which I met my second marsupial!

Koala sits in an old gum tree - Alrica

We arrived onto our fifth continent last week at the start of a three-day rain storm. We are housesitting for a friend at their lovely home in Sale, Australia and after five weeks with spotty internet in Vietnam, three days was just about right to get caught up on our research projects, homeschool, and just bond with our friend’s dog and relax. Monday morning arrived with sunshine and blue skies and it was time to explore. We headed about an hour and a half east to a place called Raymond Island with the hopes of our first marsupial sighting. We weren’t disappointed.

Syarra with our new friend Pepsi!

The drive out was lovely and it was really fun to get back in a car after many months of public transportation. There is just a different level of freedom. And the road was quiet and peaceful which was a nice change from the constant noise and congestion in streets in Southeast Asia. Arriving into the quiet town of Paynesville, we followed the signs to the ferry landing where we parked the car and walked over to the ferry. We have done ferries before but this one was a bit different. For one thing, it only travels about 200 meters or 660 feet. This ferry is also a chain ferry meaning that it uses a chain as a guide to get it from one landing to another. Also, we didn’t actually recognize it as a ferry at first. It seemed to be just an extension of road since it was there when we got there. Cars just pulled onto it and parked and then waited until it crossed before pulling off. There was a small waiting room for pedestrians on the side and we liked that pedestrians were free.  We sat and enjoyed the cool air and the clean waters with birds swooping in to catch fish. Ten minutes later, we disembarked.

Ferry coming in to dock.

Prices are perfect if you are willing to walk.

Pedestrian waiting room.

Raymond Island is known for koala bears that were introduced/cultivated in 1953. The island is well covered with eucalyptus trees, otherwise known as gum trees, and hiding amidst this flora are around 600 koala bears. We saw our first one within moments of stepping off the ferry. It was way up in the tree tops so we didn’t get a great view. The kids had already made a beeline for the park across the street. We joined them and were excited to see this one:

This guy was just a few feet away from us.

We played Where's Waldo to find this guy in the upper right corner.

After watching this guy for a while, we walked over to a picnic table and got out the sandwiches that we had brought along. Several birds hopped nearby looking for a handout but were disappointed. After finishing her lunch, Syarra went back to the playground equipment and called to us that our koala friend was now down out of the tree and crossing the street. We put our food down to see the koala walking bowlegged across the street. With our backs turned for just a moment, one of the magpies grabbed hold of Carver’s sandwich and tried to fly off. The sandwich weighed almost as much as the bird did and with both kids chasing it, it was bound to lose. It dropped the food and hopped away. Carver grabbed the sandwich but was disappointed to find that it was no longer edible. Well, lesson learned, don’t turn your back on these tricky birds.

He's the thief!

We put on jackets to ward off the cool weather and the mosquitos and followed the Koala Trail which lead us around the island. We saw several koalas, lots of gorgeous birds including eastern parrots and lorikeets - and even a few kookaburras, and several locals who were delightful to chat with. I have no doubt that we will do more of this kind of exploration while in Australia, but this was an ideal first outing. Stay tuned for more!

Hard to take a picture of these lorikeets but the colors were amazing!

The Grocery Store - Syarra

We are in Australia doing a house sit in a city two and a half hours from Melbourne. Yesterday we went to the grocery store. If you read our blog you would know how exciting the grocery store is, if you have not you can read these blog entries:

Chợ Bến Thành and Chợ Bà Chiểu - Carver 

In which the store had chicken feet and heads.

The Land of the Rising Fun – Erich 

In which there was octopus and Italian Lime Fanta.

Mall Adjusted – Erich

There was uterus.

Here the food and the types of food at home are alike and the experience is similar. The people speak English and where I find the most difference in food is in the snacks and spreads. You may have heard of Marmite from the UK and Vegemite from Australia, mixes with yeast extract as well as other things, which in my opinion are not good.

(shudder)

There were many types of tuna in the grocery store: Smoked, in Thai red curry, tomato and onion, seeded mustard, sweet chilli, in spring water and olive oil, mayonnaise and corn, lemon pepper (and of course regular tuna)

Eight weird kinds!

 Also there are good snacks like chips and candy.

Interesting flavors of chips

Totally new

A different Cadbury

  

Though there are no particularly special things, We got normal things particularly good. The yogurt is local and amazing. We got an apple rhubarb twist and a raspberry coconut twist, it was so good we went back and got toffee honeycomb twist

Yum Yum

The Squash (or as they call it Cordial) is a concentrated liquid so that when it is added with water it produces a drink. Here it is particularly good, we bought raspberry and lemon flavored cordial. When we got home I tried them mixed together and it produced a delicious raspberry lemonade.

The store brand is amazing!

This our experience with the grocery store. And it was made easier by everyone speaking the same language.

Master Craftsman - Alrica

Before we close out our trip to Vietnam, I wanted to share with you some reflections on craftsman. As we travel around the world carrying all of our stuff, we can't really afford to add to it so I get to look longingly at the amazingly artistic works in the bazaars and medinas but rarely get the fun of haggling for and buying stuff. Occasionally, I do get to buy something like in Malaysia where I was starting to really need a new shirt and picked up a gorgeous batik painted shirt. Batik is a craft where melted wax is applied to cloth in gorgeous designs. The cloth is then dyed and the wax is peeled away to reveal the art. The shirt I purchased was fairly simple but lovely and comfortable.

Vietnam required a different kind of purchase. On our way there, one of the straps on our biggest backpacks snapped off. This was probably a $300 backpack and not easily replaceable but we started looking into it soon after arrival. We found smaller packs but they would require us to trim down our gear even further, not something that any of us were excited about. Sewing through heavy canvass and nylon straps was not something I intended to try with my simple needle and thread I had packed so we emptied the pack completely and went out looking for a tailor that might be willing to take it on.

As we walked through the streets of district one in Ho Chi Minh City, we passed by a group of guys sitting on the sidewalk repairing shoes. Seemed like it might not be too much of a stretch so we presented them with this challenge in our limited Vietnamese and lots of hand signals. They grasped the problem immediately and started to work on it. Using a knife and some sort of metal tool with an eye in the point, they cut off a piece of unneeded strap, replaced the broken piece, sewed it all back together, and finished their work so that it looked as good as new. The entire process took about 10 minutes and cost us 50,000VND - about $2.10. It is hard to express my appreciation for this craftsman that took a problem that could have been a major issue for us and fixed it. The pride that he took in his work reminded me of the value that craftsman across the world bring to us, whether they be making woodwork in Morocco or fixing shoes in Vietnam.