darryn

Being the the first weekday in the Netherlands, and a foreigner with a Working Holiday Visa, I had to register with the Vreemdelingenpolitie (Stranger Police). With my visa sticker in my passport came a letter telling me that I have to register with the Stranger Police in Zutphen, and then within three days of that I must register at the Town Hall in Zutphen. There I will receive my work permit.

There is no Stranger Police office in Zutphen so I rode to the police station, who had no idea what I was talking about. The officer went out the back and returned after five minutes, telling me that they used to handle this, but now they don’t and I should and I should go to the Stranger Police in Apeldoorn, a city about 20km away. We decided to go back home and call before making such a trip. On the way back we stopped off at HEMA, a department store. They are famous for their rookworst (smoked sausage) and so in the name of culture I ate one of these delicious, fatty treats. That’s three typical Dutch foods I have eaten now.

We got back home and Kirsten called the Stranger Police office in Apeldoorn. They did not know why we would need to report to them. Why would a Vreemdelingen need to report to the Vreemdelingenpolitie? I called their hotline in Utrecht and after pissing off the operator by asking to speak in English, she snottily told me that the procedure had changed and now I had just to report to the Town Hall and register there. There was an implication that the Dutch embassy in Australia, being in a backward country, was backward.

We rode to the Zutphen Town Hall (Stadhuis) and took a number. After about fifteen minutes it was my turn. I showed the papers to the man, who asked if I had registered with the Stranger Police yet. When I told him that , according to them, they were no longer necessary, he went out the back for about ten minutes. I could see him going from office to office, practically scratching his head. He returned with a package of thirteen forms for me to fill out, and made an appointment for me to return with the forms in eight days.

On the ride home, via the town centre, we went past a street vendor selling herring, another Dutch delicacy. They are served raw, whole (beheaded, gutted, split and filleted) in a little container with chopped raw onions on the top. They are eaten with the hands, and so I picked up mine and took a bite. Very fishy, very oily. The texture is very smooth but on the whole it was a pretty unpleasant experience. I took two more bites just to make sure and then slyly dropped the rest into his bin. My fingers stank of fish so I went to a nearby bathroom and washed them.

When I got back to Henk and Bea’s (home) I immediately washed my hands twice, once with hand soap and once with dish detergent. I could still smell it. I uploaded a few photos and posted again to my blog (up to Day 7 which was nine days ago). I washed my hands. Kirsten wanted to see her Oma (Grandma) in Eefde, a nearby town that was twenty minutes cycle away. We were warned beforehand that there was a big steep hill on the way and that it would be gruelling. The big steep hill turned out to be a gentle incline rising perhaps 10 metres over 250 metres that barely required a gear change. Another one of those perception things - to me it was practically flat, to them it is a mountain.

Kirsten’s Oma is a very small, very fit lady of 84 years. Her apartment is decorated with paintings that she made herself, and photos, including one of me! She served us coffee and biscuits, the coffee was pretty good, in fact all Dutch coffee that I have had so far has been good. I have been drinking it black, something I would never do in Australia.

The second round of coffees came out and this time I was given a chocolate. It melted a bit on my fingers, and when I licked them clean I discovered something unpleasant. The taste of herring stays on the skin for hours after touching it. Chocolate and herring don’t mix. I got up and washed my hands yet again.

Oma served us a little bit of tasty vegetable soup each, which tasted remarkably similar to my own grandmother’s vegetable soup. Then it was time to go as Bea was making us a special Australian dinner of lamb chops in a secret marinade. On the way back I saw something cool: the Dutch litter bins for cyclists are giant funnel-shaped nets on the side of the road that you can throw your rubbish into while cycling. I made a note to carry rubbish so I can use one next time.

The lamb chops were delicious, and the family retired to watch TV in the living room. Michel called me, he had received an email ad for an apartment to rent in Amsterdam at a good rate. I called the owner and set up an appointment to have a look at the place the next afternoon. I went to bed with tasty lamb on my lips and a sore arse from cycling.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I was woken rudely at 6:21 by a bird call that sounded exactly like an alarm clock beep. I tried to get back to sleep with no result, my brain hammered by this bird. I listened to its call, a repeating pattern: 5-5-4-5-5-4 (five beeps, followed by a pause, then five, pause, four etc). Being the only one awake I got up and went downstairs and made a coffee. I decided to watch my first Dutch sunrise by drinking the coffee outside on the balcony. In the cold I waited, and waited. The sun did not come up. It was quite light, there were no clouds, but the sun did not come up. Then I remembered the twilight. The sun did not come up for over an hour.

As the light increased towards dawn I noticed something. The bird’s beeping had changed. It was now a pattern of 8-8-7-8-7 etc. As the light increased, so did the bird’s call. Someone should do a study on this phenomenon and, once complete, make the species extinct.

Maybe a little bit of jet lag left.

After breakfast Kirsten went downstairs to the kapsalon to get her hair cut and coloured. This gave Bea time to take me on a bike tour of Zutphen. I saw a lot more old cool buildings and saw some of the gates from the Old City. In a main square type area there was a market happening, and it was here that I bought and consumed my first real Dutch kroket, which is a fried snack food. I would describe it as a crumbed chiko roll skin filled with pureed Tom Piper Irish stew and 15% meat pie filling. Quite tasty, probably very good drunk food.

We returned to the salon and Kirsten was ready, so Bea drove us to the nearby city of Deventer where we had arranged to meet Michel and Marjolein. The weather was sunny and warm* (18°C) so of course everyone was taking advantage and sitting outside in the sun. We went to a cafe and did the same. In the Netherlands, cafe means pub, eetcafe is a pub with food and coffee shops sell marijuana. Being as how we were at a cafe, we ordered some beers. Tasty, tasty beers.

After a few, Michel introduced us to the game European Roulette, which I suspect he invented on the spot. To play, you set the timer on a digital camera and pass it around the table, lens out. It is like a hot potato that sometimes takes photos. Good clean fun, too bad the photos didn’t exactly turn out to be gold. I had to match Michel drink for drink. We had five, but one of those was a double and another a triple so by the time Henk and Bea arrived for dinner we were both a bit happy, lightweight Michel a bit more so.

A note on Dutch culture - I was treated as very strange for ordering some water while drinking. They brought out a tiny one litre carafe and four small glasses which were finished in one minute. I ordered another, which brought a strange look, and she brought out another small carafe. When pouring, I noticed that the carafe was covered in dust. They are never used. I was given a few strange looks. In supposedly sophisticated Europe they still think you’re a bit of a poof for drinking water. In Australia when you order your first water your mates tease you a bit, but they all get a glass on the next round. We are smart.

We went to an eetcafe for dinner, tasty but there was certainly price shock, especially after Malaysia where everything is effectively free.

*There is a nationwide translation problem, where Dutch people use the English word “warm” where the word “cold” should have been used.

Popularity: 16% [?]

In the morning we went for a farewell swim in the sea, showered and got a cab to the airport. We were flying AirAsia again and so had to get there early to be in the front of the queue. The flight was uneventful, I saw some wide areas where the forests had been raped bare. We got a cab into the city, going 150km/h in a 90 zone and driving in between the two lanes.

We got a hotel room just for storing our bags and went across the street to a shopping centre, recommended for “genuine” DVD’s and software. Got a few games (some that I already owned but didn’t bring the discs).

We headed over to the tailor to pick up my finished suit and shirts. The jacket fit quite well and looked good, but where were the pants and shirts? “You pick up tomorrow”. Aaarrrggghhh. I leave the country in 6 hours. I had given them almost 2 weeks to get it all ready, and they knew when it was required. An urgent call to the offsite sewing sweatshop. I explained the situation. They told me that there was no problem, they had almost finished and I could come in and pick them up tomorrow. I explained that i was leaving the country that night and never returning. “OK, finish tomorrow. You pick up then”. At this stage I was negotiating with three people, two on the phone and one in person. They all know little bits of English, but like all Malaysians they each know the word “cannot”. Eventually I think that we came to an agreement where I paid half and took the jacket and they will finish the pants and shirts and send them to me in the Netherlands. I will pay the other half when they arrive. I wonder if this will actually happen.

We made a quick trip to Chinatown to haggle over some last-minute purchases then it was back to the hotel for a shower and to dress into our flight clothes.

We had booked a taxi and he was waiting for us in the lobby when I checked out. Another high speed ride to the airport and we checked in, getting exit seats once again. We had 3 hours to kill so we went to the Pan Pacific Hotel bar again for beer and unsecured wireless internet. I uploaded a few more photos and posted something. I found a power outlet and plugged our laptops in so that we had a full charge for the flight. We made it onto the plane at 23:50, just in the nick of time.

Popularity: 10% [?]

At about 12:30AM on the 29th of March 2005 an earthquake measuring 8.4 on the Richter scale occurred off the coast of Sumatera, not too far from us. We were violently awoken by the bed flipping, Exorcist style, and the creaking noise as the highrise hotel tried to twist itself apart. The main part of the quake went on for perhaps 2 minutes but it seemed a lot longer. Those who know me will understand this: when the earthquake woke me, I thought “oh, its just an earthquake” and went back to sleep. Kirsten however was not so dismissive and her panic became infectious. I looked out the window and I could not see any other buildings shaking, and even the palm trees looked still. That was when I started to worry: perhaps it wasn’t an earthquake, perhaps it was just something wrong with our building! I quickly joined Kirsten in dressing, grabbing our stuff and out to the exit. Kirsten needed a bit of convincing that the elevator wasn’t the best way down, but she followed me to the fire escape. As we made our way down the 7 floors more guests joined us. In true Malaysian style, when we got the to bottom of the escape our way was blocked: the doors were barricaded from the outside and the area was being used for storage. I knew that there had to be another exit and led the others to it, and we got out through a fire ladder to the street.

There was a carpark/open area near the hotel and it was here that people were massing, many still in their pyjamas. It seemed that most of the town had left their beds and the streets were crowded with frightened people, waiting for some authority to tell them what to do. Eventually one of the local restaurants turned on their street-facing TV’s to CNN, and the crowd was 30 deep trying to get news. In this crowd we met two backpackers.

The guys were from Norway and Holland, and both were living in Thailand. They had to come to Penang once per year to renew their Thai visas, which is a common practice. It turned out that they had the two rooms next to us in the hotel. We did not feel ready to return to our rooms so the four of us decided to do some drinking. After the first jug, one of the guys pointed out something about the other patrons: although there were more women than men, Kirsten was the only female. We were in a she-male bar. The beer was flowing and after about 2 hours the guys decided that they wanted to go on a trishaw ride, so we bid them farewell and ordered another beer. When Kirsten went to the bathroom, as a single guy I attracted she-male attention and soon there were a few at my table winking and shaking their arses at me, ignoring my shaking head and ‘go away’ gestures. I was very happy when Kirsten returned a few minutes later. We finished up around 3:30 and went back to sleep.

We got up early to catch the 8am ferry back to Langkawi, passing the Norwegian guy in the lobby, who looked very, very sorry for himself. The ferry ride was uneventful and we spent the rest of the day sleeping, eating, drinking, swimming. I went to the internet cafe and posted a few more photos.

Popularity: 12% [?]

We wanted to stray away from the resort area and see a bit of the island, so we hired some motorcycles. Please note that they were not scooters or mopeds, but real motorcycles. Softcock 110cc motorcycles, but motorcycles nonetheless. This was the first time I have ever ridden a motorcycle and I was pretty scared for the first half an hour or so. Kirsten’s bike ran out of fuel about that time and I had to leave her near a handily located police station and go off in search of a petrol station. After about 30 minutes, not having spotted a Petronas station, I found a motorcycle rental shop (shanty) and negotiated for some fuel. The man filled my 1.5 litre water bottle and I found my way back to kip, via a very smelly and poor fishing village. Of course her battery was now flat and we could not start her bike until a helpful local showed us how to kickstart. He asked for a ride to Kuah and I obliged, after disclaiming that it was my first time and we were both likely to die.

After about 45 minutes, having survived, we arrived in the town of Kuah (1 syllable), which is the main town in Langkawi. It is not a nice place at all, very dirty and smelly, but not in a charming or exciting way. Kuah is where all of the ferries depart, so we checked the timetables and prices for a ferry to Penang, as we were planning a trip the next day for a bit of shopping.

After Kuah we kept riding through to the North of the island. Malaysian cycle riding is both safer and more dangerous than Australia. Because there are so many bikes, everyone is aware of the bikes and seems to know the dimensions of their vehicles to the millimetre. The drivers are more considerate, and always pass with a wide berth, and they get a lot of practice at this as they pass all the time.

After about an hour we found a beach which we thought was Pillai Kok (but wasn’t). We went for a swim, one at a time while the other guarded our possessions. There were wild monkeys in the area and after the swim I asked a local man what kind of monkeys they were. He looked at me like I was an idiot and said “normal kind”. When I got back to my bike, a monkey had been through the basket and stolen my sunscreen, which was now on the ground a few metres away - close to a male monkey. I didn’t want to threaten him as he might be carrying rabies, so i slowly approached and he ran away.

We were on the home stretch by this point and after another hour it was 4:30pm and time for a refreshing drink. We stopped at a “Reggae Bar” on the beach and enjoyed some large watermelon juices. On the way back to the resort we stopped at a shop and filled our bike baskets with cheap beer (AUD$0.60 per can) as we are cheapskates. Dropped everything off at the resort and then went out for dinner to the Boom Boom Cafe, a Pakistani restaurant. We had lots of tasty food - when you choose what you want, it isn’t like Australia where you get some rice and a bit of each chosen dish all on the one plate. We ended up getting 5 full mains, as well as rice and naans. We did not finish. The tandoori chicken was just plain chicken cooked in a tandoor, it was not red with spices like it would be in Australia. Although we had so many dishes the meal did not cost much.

After dinner we went back to the resort to collect our laptops, taking them to an internet cafe that allows direct connections. We both posted to our blogs (now only 3 days behind) and I uploaded 3 new photo galleries: Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Pulau Langkawi. It took 4 hours to add all of the photos as my new camera makes 4MB files and the upload speed was not that good.

Popularity: 4% [?]