Once upon a time in a village in India, a man arrived and announced to the villagers that he wanted to buy monkeys and he would pay $10 each for them.

The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at $10, but, as the supply started to diminish, it became more difficult to catch the monkeys and the villagers stopped their efforts.

The man then announced that he would now buy monkeys at $20 each. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms.

The offer rate increased to $25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch one!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now act as buyer on his behalf.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: ‘Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when he returns from the city, you can sell them back to him for $50.’The villagers squeezed together their savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man or his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere! 

Welcome to the Sharemarket!

• When travelling to Europe in Summer, understand that their summer can be as hot and humid (sometimes moreso) as a Queensland summer - Recommend taking shorts and singlets (obviously Kristy didn’t do this which is why she’s included this tip - she underestimated the power of summer in Europe)
• Book ahead - Don’t just show up in some city hoping to find accomodation on the spot, especially when travelling in peak season, or you could end up paying top dollar for very dodgy accommodation.  You’ll also end up wandering around in a foreign city, where you may not speak the language, hot and tired and stressing over how much further you need to walk to find something suitable.  Recommend using an internet cafe and booking your accomodation at least a couple of days in advance.  A good site Kristy & Pete used was www.booking.com, where it allows you to search in many different languages for hotels, hostels, apartments, resorts etc all over the world.
• Get yourself a good backpack designed for backpacking / hiking - Kristy would recommend visiting somewhere like Kathmandu - they usually have a great 50% sale at Easter time, so plan ahead.  These backpacks are expensive (which is why she tells you about the sale) but worth every penny.  Pete had one of these where as Kristy used a Qantas bag that could be converted from a backpack to a wheelie bag to a shoulder bag.  She thought this was a good idea at the time, but Europe and the UK have a lot of stairs and cobblestone type footpaths and roads, so the wheelie bags are not always the most practical option.  And when converted to a packpack, her bag did not have the same support that Pete’s provided.

• Travel as light as possible - just because the airline’s luggage limit is 20kgs, don’t keep packing until you get near the limit.  In summer, the most you probably need is one warm jumper / cardigan / jacket and 1 pair of jeans or long pants.  The rest of your clothes should be light, cool shirts and shorts.  For the females, pack minimal make up, jewellery, cosmetics etc….honestly you really don’t need them.  And as for shoes, 1 pair of comfortable sneakers as you’ll be doing a lot of walking, 1 pair of thongs (that’s flip flops or sandals for the foreigners) for showering and wandering around in dodgy-looking hotels / hostels, and if necessary, 1 pair of flat comfortable dressy shoes (if you think you can go without these then all the better).  FYI - If you’re visiting Paris and plan on going to the Moulin Rouge, they say the dresscode is dressy, but smart casual really is sufficient, and it’s suspected that many other places around the world would accept similar dress.
• Take a first aid kit - this may seem like a typical travellers tip, but honestly whilst Kristy & Pete didn’t have need for many things in their first aid kit, there were a few things they used semi-regularly, like the scissors, bandaids, safety pins and tweezers.  Add to the first aid kit, something for indigestion / heart burn (Kristy prefers Rennies), antiseptic cream (if not already included in the kit), and something for gastroenteritis (Gastrolyte is good for refueling your body when the poos and spews hit, and Bispectin is good for fixing the problem). Neither Pete nor Kristy had any problems in this area but everyone is different, and some may be affected by the local water, food or anything.  Also, keep in mind that if you don’t want to carry these things over there with you, you can always buy them from a pharmacy / chemist when you arrive.  In Italy and France at least, pharmacies are well marked and easy to find by a large green cross, protruding from the side of the building, as seen here

• No need for bedding - if you’re planning to stay in hotels / apartments / resorts, there is no need to take sleeping bags and pillows etc.  Even most hostels provide linen either as part of the cost or for a small additional fee.  Kristy’s recommendation, though, would be to carry your own pillow case, this way you can dress the pillow each place you go and not have to worry about where your pillow may have been.
• Get yourself a Lonely Planet guide (or equivalent) specific to the areas/countries you plan on visiting.  These guides provide much useful information, like recommended places for accommodation, sites to see or sites to skip, places to eat, maps, approximate costs of food, accomodation, tourist attractions etc, and basic language translations to get you by.  But whatever you do, don’t take the guide as gospel.  You may have different interests and standards to those who have contributed to the writing of the guide, for example you may enjoy something the guide has suggested is dull or you may miss something fantastic that the guide has not mentioned.

• Luggage Security - everyone is paranoid these days about luggage security, and knowing that most bags these days have about a hundred pockets and a 2-pack of luggage padlocks costs around $20-$30 for a combination, or around $10-$20 for a 2-pack of key locks.  A cheaper alternative is to grab a packet of small zip ties / cable ties and use these to lock each pocket instead.  They can be cut off at each end of your journey using the scissors from your first aid kit, but are deterrent enough for people trying to get into your bag.  Cable ties cost around $2 for a pack of 100, and the leftovers can be used around the home when you’re done travelling.

Combination / Key Lock or Cable / Zip Ties are a good idea to protect your luggage.

• Pocket Coins - When wandering around in foreign cities, always carry some local currency coins in your pocket.  These come in handy when gypsies, hawkers, canvassers stop you and trap you into buying their wares.  Don’t dismiss the idea, these people are very good at what they do and are especially attuned to catching tourists.  In Milan Pete and Kristy got done coming out of the Metro station, where a couple of Sudanese (at least I think they were Sudanese) guys tried to sell the travellers hand woven wrist bands.  They were both adamant in saying no thank you, but before they knew it they each had a wrist band tied onto their wrist….they are very quick and sneaky.  Then they expect you to give them money because they’ve just given you something, despite the fact that it was against your will.  In a situation like this, you don’t want to be pulling out your wallet with large notes in it where they can swiftly swoop in and take what they want (this happened to a friend on a recent trip to Europe, where the hawker dove into his wallet and took a 50 Euro note for the same type of wristband Kristy & Pete had).  If you find yourself in this sort of situation you can grab a couple of coins out of your pocket and quickly move on.

There are plenty more tips that could be shared, but these are the main tips that Kristy thought she and others would benefit from in the future.

(oh, by the way, I guess you’ve noticed by now, that Kristy is still trying to pull off this third person thing)

There’s no need to go into great detail because if anyone is that interested, you can always check out Pete’s Travel Diaries or for photos check out flickr.  They started with a few days in London catching up with some friends…and they both can’t say thank you enough to Con, Libby, Chris and Gerard for  putting up with them.  They then ventured down to Paris courtesy of Eurostar, and after some pain-staking wandering, looking for accomodation, ended up in some shoddy room which would not meet 1-star by Australian standards, then went to the Moulin Rouge that night…OMG LOVED IT!!!!  The Moulin Rouge that is, not Paris….her first Parisian experience and Kristy couldn’t get out of the city fast enough.

From here they trained it to Milan, landed late at night and found their hotel was waaaaay out in the ‘burbs….nice room though.  Next day they saw a little of Milan - Duomo being the main attraction, despite the visit causing them to nearly miss their train to Venice (small case of miscalculated timing).

Venice was the next stop, and gee was Kristy glad they had booked 2 nights in Venice….this is her favourite city in the world (thus far).  Now she’s not quite sure how to describe what she felt when in this beautiful city but it was certainly positive.  She loved the fact that there were no cars, trucks, bikes, scooters etc.  And the narrow alley-style maze of the floating city is awesome…they’d just turn a corner and see where it took them…it’s a great feeling when you’re just wandering with no destination or timeframe in mind.

After Venice, yes sadly they had to leave, it was Florence.  Now prior to their trip and even since they’ve been home, Kristy has heard from so many various people that Florence is the most beautiful city in the world.  Well, this was not her opinion but perhaps she just missed the beautiful part.  When they alighted the train, they found the international train station was filthy and the area surrounding it was no better.  There they stayed in a hostel which was not so bad but reasonably expensive considering what they’d paid for hotel rooms and apartments in the last two cities.  Given that they were not real keen on seeing Florence, they decided to take day trip to Pisa the following day, and this was worth the trip.  Pisa is a beautiful old city / town and they really enjoyed the trip.

From Florence it was onto Rome, where their hotel was in the bronx, and the room in the hotel looked like an old converted storage space.  Anyway, she’s not complaining, but it was the butt of their jokes most of the time they were there and it was at least comfortable and not too expensive.  Rome was fantastic, so many great sites to see and enxiting things to do.  Trevii Fountain was definately Kristy’s favourite and in fact, whilst she’s says that Venice is her favourite city in the world, the Trevii Fountain is definately her favourite individual site in the world.  It’s just fabulous, the way the fountain is actually carved out of the side of the building and and the detail in the scultpure and the cool water running over was just so relaxing, she could have sat there and watched it for hours.

 From Rome it was back to Paris, and any horrible opinion she may have had of Paris before, this brief visit changed her mind.  Paris is quite nice and houses some of the largest and most brilliant places Kristy has seen.  The Louvre for example is absolutely tremendous…Kristy & Pete didn’t have time to do the whole gallery, but they did check out as much art as possible.  The Arc de Triomph is ginormous, and the Eiffel Tower is really a site to see….no they didn’t climb it.  Kristy doesn’t do heights, and the Duomo in Milan put her off any more elevated sites for the rest of their trip. 

After Paris they trained it up to Calais and crossed to Dover via the Cezanne (Sea France ferry), and from Dover back to London.  She had to admit, by the time they were on their way back to London, she was a little relieved and felt a little more relaxed.  She just never fathomed how difficult it could be in a country where you don’t know the language…mind you, the travellers knew enough to get by, but Kristy would love to live in one of these European countries for 3-6mths and learn the language through necessity, because you’d be amazed at the extra linguistics they picked up just in the short time they were there.

As for London, she can see why so many Aussies go backpacking and end up staying there….the culture is not unlike Australia, and Kristy suspects the transtition from Oz to UK would be reasonably seamless.  By this she means it’s an English speaking country so there’s no language barrier, the public transport is amazing, the cost of living is comparable with Oz but in different ways, and you’re likely to run into any number of other Aussies at any  given time, so that shoud ease the homesickness a little (maybe).

 Anyway, so Kristy’s next post shall be her travel tips…stay tuned (but don’t hold your breath, you might turn blue)

For anyone who hasn’t tried it, Kristy highly recommends grabbing a friend…obviously one who is open to being a clown, and attempting it….

So, despite the fact that she doesn’t really have anything to say of any value, here is a blog post essentially about nothing, and only written for the sake of testing the waters with writing in third person.

• The velvet paintings in your house were bought from an art dealer on the side of the highway
• You’ve ever changed your baby on the hood of a car
• Your favourite topless bar is the one where your daughters work
• Your primary income involves pigs or manure
• You think “Chablis” is the name of last month’s Playboy centrefold
• Your dogs are still chasing your car a mile down the road
• You own all the components of a soap-on-a-rope except the soap
• You can tell your car is low on oil by looking at the garage floor
• The only vegetable in your diet is the pickle on a Big Mac
• You’ve ever shot at a NO HUNTING sign
• The passengers enter your vehicle through the driver’s-side door
• All of your cousins are kissing cousins
• The receipt for your car’s tune-up is more than two pages long
• Your handkerchief doubles as your shirt sleeve
• All of your golf balls come in an egg carton
• You’ve ever laid rubber while traveling in a funeral procession
• Your living room curtains are beach towels (or sheets)
• You were born with a plastic spoon in your mouth
• You taught your children how to play “Pull My Finger”
• Your best coon hound gets a birthday present and your wife doesn’t
• You cut your toenails in front of company
• Your car is permanently covered in paw prints
• You have Mason jars with stuff the FBI can’t identify
• You list “staring” as one of your hobbies
• You dated your daddy’s current wife in high school
• You have no hubcaps on your car because you’re using them to feed your hunting dogs
• You’ve ever ordered a bucket of skin from KFC

Check out Richard Hammond driving a Bugatti Veyron in a one mile race against a Eurofighter Typhoon jet.

Awesome huh?!