This was it! Our great Oz adventure was about to begin, we stored our bags in the van, had breakfast, set up our bed. Now to buy some food for the van. Destination Aldi where everything is cheap and in bulk.
So we stocked up the van with essentials: noodles, pasta, Sauces, eggs, bacon, sausages, water, juices, fruit, Topped up with snacks: Chocolate, Crisps (Chips), sweets (lollies) etc
We departed a sunny Manly with a fond farewell and hit the coast road. Watching the sea and sights pass as we set out for Woolongong. We passed town after town stopping for coffees and sight seeing. All was great until 200k when disaster struck.
Bruce the damned van began hissing. The engine is right under the passenger seat so my backside began feeling warm. The temperature gage shot the needle off the scale. This was it 200k and Bruce was ready to give up the ghost.
To say I swore a little is an understatement. To say I cursed the name Asher (the car dealer) and all that he stood for again was an understatement. I haven’t the first idea why steam, coolant and extreme heat radiated from our engine. I paced and gritted my teeth and tried to google what might be wrong.
I will say this – don’t trust google!!! if something is wrong see a specialist. I was given the worst case scenarios from forums and self help sites. I had written the van off several times in my head.
After breathing time I decided to just top the levels up and see a mechanic in the morning. With the Water, Coolant and Oil filled, we got on our way.
Only 10k it lasted, I was cursing and swearing yet again, this faulty purchase was our lifeline to our travels. Not even a week in the country we were a few grand down and a heap of junk to show for it. The only saving grace in all this was we broke down outside a petrol station. We had managed to park the motor and weren’t stranded in the middle of nowhere.
The store clerk was a great help, he was more than good to us. As it was late in the day he said we could sleep the night in the van and he advised us to save money on the breakdown services and see one of the many garages on the 2k stretch.
So here we were stranded and annoyed. The place went my the name of Warilla. We had crash landed in a strange old town so what else could we do but drink and meet the locals.
-Jack and Kate-
The search was on, we had only a couple of days in order to look for our home on wheels our campervan for the next few months. This is what any traveller should know before they start. Unless you saved incredibly well, or perhaps you just have a lot of money spare maybe a nice work bonus before you left for Oz you are going to have to lower your expectations on what vehicle your expecting to pick up. If your buying you will have to search hard to find a cheap motor that hasn’t done a round trip across Australia a few times before it’s reached you and Australia is a bloody big place so expect a few Kilometres on the clock if you want to save the Dollars.
We had a budget and we wanted a campervan we sat for hours scrolling through endless pages of motors on Gumtree and other ad sites, we emailed and rang, strolled round local notice boards, rang and emailed some more. Some got back to us. We narrowed our choices down to a handful of motors but found our heart set on a Mitsubishi Express here in Sydney, Bondi Beach to be exact.
During this time we had met a Hungarian man in the computer room of the hostel he was very talkative and loud, nice enough though. He told us his travelling stories and his plans from here on out, conveniently at this point he was interested in selling his Toyota Hiace he had parked out in the hostels car park. With a desperate attempt to convince us it was the best choice and had everything we would need for best comfort and a good running motor he let us have a look. We got excited and went to check it out.
The van was a heap of crap. I can only describe it as a bricklayers van that had never been cleaned in ten years service and stuck together with duck tape. The bed was raised but homemade and slanted to the left slightly at a 30 degree angle. Relentless in telling us it was a very good van for everything we needed, it was thanks but no thanks from us.
The search continues we went back
to the Mitsubishi Express it looked ideal, the price was good and came with everything we could ask for, small kitchen space, under bed storage, windows, chairs, table, camping bits plus 4wd we were convinced we wanted to have a look.
We emailed and within 10 mins a response came through within 30 mins we had planned a viewing at Bondi Junction. This was exciting we were ready to look at our first motor.
We spent the rest of the day in Manly walking the beach, window shopping and relaxing. We still needed to catch up on our jet lag so we slept.
A ferry trip to Circular Quay and a bus ride to Bondi Junction got us to our meeting point. A car park opposite the station. Text comes through
10 mins delay be there soon
an hour passed and just as we were to give up hope a squeaky suspension spring sounded the arrival of the Mitsubishi. The white van turned a corner into the car park a little grubby but nothing less than what we expected.
A short guy with dark curly hair possibly Jewish jumped out the drivers side this was to be an American named Asher we shook hands, and had a look inside,
I pretended to know what I was talking about. Asking to lift the passengers seat up to have a look at the motor. I twisted caps and poked things and asked questions about things I had no idea about. A small lesson before I left England gave me some basics I should tick off to know if the van was worth the money.
Heads up to anyone travelling get an idiots guide to car mechanics or a manual if your not sure before hand it’ll save you some hassle down the road.
We were happy, it had what we needed bed, storage, kitchen area, runs well, came with pink slip we were happy and wanted the van. Now just to withdrawal the cash.
Bugger!
The last thing that was on our minds was to carry the money, we had it in our heads we could just pop to the bank withdrawal what we needed, however today was a Sunday, somewhere between our jet lag and excitement we hadn’t even given a blind bit of notice to what day of the week it was.
The next hour was a run around town withdrawal money from ATMs on Oz Cash Cards, Credit Cards, UK Bank Cards, anyway we could get money out, we did all this whilst trying to entertain Asher with a coffee at Maccas and swapping stories. If I’m honest i was bored of the guy after 2 mins, a monotone not much to reveal kind of guy, awkward silences ensued, it did nothing for the panic that surrounded me as Kate an I took it in turns to find money from somewhere.
We did it!!! We scraped together just enough cash and handed it over, signed the documents and were now the proud owners of a Mitsubishi Express 4WD. We drive our way back to Manly taking the scenic tour across the Harbour Bridge. We were one step further to hitting the coast road. We were excited as we parked the motor in the Hostels Car Park.
The excitement of this damned motor was to be short lived but that’s for next time
-Jack-
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Hanoi-ing
Hanoi was moist, warm and a little bit irritable. The Vietnamese knew how to wrangle a couple of extra quid for little to no effort. In spite of our lack of staying in Vietnam they still wanted us to stump up for a Visa. This wouldn’t be such a ball ache if the money went on the service they provide in issuing you a visa. So we stood for about an hour in a cue luggage in tow hot sweaty and unable to go anywhere. I did however take this time to give my everything a modest wash, a wasted few minutes as sweat wouldn’t stop pouring from everywhere.
Eventually our time came round and we made our way out. We were to take an internal flight to Ho Chi Min city (a secret stop labeled only in our small print might I add). A baggage lady a representative of Vietnam Airways stood at the door of the Arrivals. She said we didnt have to check in but rather she could take them as they were already bound for Sydney. Several other passengers happily handed over our cases and so did we. When strolling past Check in many of the other Sydney passengers were checking in their luggage by hand. I’ve watched enough of The Real Hustle to feel a little giddy at the thought of leaving my bag with a complete stranger in a suit. Those two girls had not long been arrested in Peru, slight paranoia kicked in, my ass was grass as soon as I hit Oz.
Anyway naivety aside we had decided to make our way out to Hanoi and see some sights in our 10 hour stop over. Meeting a couple of the younger passengers in the hour long visa cue wait we tempted ourselves a visit into Hanoi centre. Taxis are cheap and 5 quid can get you to just about the moon and back. Understanding there is a set price for taxi trips and we were not to be duped into anything else we attempted to explain the price we expected with one of the drivers. There is no luck in trying to negotiate with a man that hasn’t the foggiest what your saying. After many attempts at speaking louder and pointing at things I gave up. It was easy enough to be driven to somewhere you didn’t know and being dumped there, however the chances of four non Vietnamese talking Brits getting back to the airport could have been a tricky situation. We resigned ourselves to beer and grub in the airport restaurant.
Now to describe Hanoi airport is this
London Tube Station on a Saturday with the population of London on top of the population of a small country trying to get through Piccadilly station.
Ankles were targets for baggage trollies everyone is in everybody’s way apparently. Pushing, shoving, hustle, bustle and a humidity you could cut with a butter knife we scrambled through for food and beer. On the plus side at 5″3′ I eventually felt like I was finally the average height.
Fed and watered me and Kate made our way to departures lounge falling asleep on each other. We curled up and slept. Heaven knows what time had passed until we were shaken by one of the passengers we had met who was concerned we might miss our flight. And thank the lord she did I was stone cold out of my head asleep and so was Kate we both have a small reputation for missing flights and we could have spent a day asleep at this point.
All aboard we settled for the next 2 hours all I was concerned about was the film I would watch Kate was fast asleep.
Take off for Ho Chi Min
Jack and Kate in Oz 