Travel friends: Marvin Another dutchie. Master of the Dolphin and the shark. Also riding the pony

Marvin, friend, party animal and the man I learnt the ways of the shark and the dolphin. I bow too thy master. Always 2 there are, A master and an apprentice.

Little did I know how much of an impact marvin would make in my travels and the friendship, I would make with this dude from holland. It all started in Auckland, at the Auckland central backpackers. I'd been there maybe tops of 2 days longer then marvin. At the start he was pretty jet lagged, so I didn't really see much of him other then sleeping. So on my scaled of interest marvin wasn't scoring high, lets say.

But after he recovered, the stuff we both got involved into became stuff of legends. To many stories to point out. This dutchie was a funny bastards and a all round good guy.

Its partly because of him, my 3 days in auckland became 12 days. Some of the highlights was just the general mayhem we caused in the globe bar, the acb, and in and around auckland itself. This guy had something with the ladies. We could not walk down the street, without some chick smiling in his direction. The man had the scent of the animal.. and the ability to morph from a dolphin into a shark and back again.. He also liked to ride the pony.. mysterious coded language I am using, which may become clearer later on. I passed his teachings on to other lesser mortals..

While in auckland: One of the things we got up to was marvin showing me his digital vid camera. He kept handing it to me like I knew how to work it and read the manual. Which was all in dutch. It was his kind of joke. We took this camera to auckland university and filmed the campus. Then we pretended to be exchange students.. where we came from varied on how bad our accents sounded. One moment I was belgian, danish, swedish.. germen etc.. dependant how long I could stay in character for.. For marvin, he already had a freaky accent so, he just talked normally. We interviewed a few students about Auckland uni, asked them why they all spoke funny, why did they love fush and chups.Thats how Kiwi's pronouce fish and chips. Trust me, its true. How could they all live so close to australia and not all move there, because it was so much better? Why, when you went to the movies they asked for 12 fuffty, instead of 12 fifty, for entry into a movie? Of course we filmed all of this. It was cheap entertainment for us. We ended our tour of Auckland Uni, with me asking a parking attendent how sexy he looked in his uniform and did he get alot of female swedish backpackers hitting on him? I think he then called security and we bailed out of there asap.

We were the last to part from room 210, in the auckland central backpackers. He headed off on his quest and me on mine. It was by chance only a few days after I had met moniek in rotorua and at least 3 weeks since I'd last seen him. That I was walking through central rotorua. I got to a street corner, instead of walking straight to my normal internet cafe, I turned left. I had a sense I needed too. I walk another 30 feet. Stopped outside a shop, to hear a song I enjoyed listening too.. I was looking at the ground and as I slowly turned around I looked up slowly across the road. All I saw was this huge big white smile and my name being called out.. Then I saw it was marvin, Straight away my kidney and liver moaned. For they knew, that from this day forward, they were going to be abuse alot by beer. Random chance we bumped into each other again. We all then moved into the same backpackers and room. Then went about becoming infamous in rotorua.

Oh the story about marvin, me and an irishmen and 2 local rotorua girls is something to be told later.. But I can tell you.. Its a mad story that had me shaking my head and marvin in all sorts of trouble.


Till the next time.

Travel friends spot light. People Who made my journey, what it was.

La Moniek: A dutch girl from amsterdam. I met her in Rotoura, NZ. How did I meet this crazy dutch young dutch woman? Well she was staying in my room. She walked in after midnight. I didn't know she was dutch, her english wasn't so good when she was tired. That didn't stop me taking the piss out of her. What she said next, went on to become a part of our travel folk law.

Being from Amsterdam, she claimed they were talkers, debaters.. thinkers.. This didn't stop me tearing into her.. and because she was thinking in dutch, then converting to english to keep up with my verbal assault, she got frustrated and fired back with: "No you, Shut the fuck up, BITCH!" I paused and then laughed so very hard! I'd never been called a bitch in my life.. Not only did it fire me up even more, I kinda like it.. I get energy from abuse.. Its another form of loving. But that phrase went on to be overused by our travel friends and everyone we met soon learnt of it..

Mad dancing star of many a disco/nightclub. The woman, who owned so many dances floors. Who, out danced so many others. The woman, for a bet, tried to kiss and out dance a woman off one dance floor, because of a mishap between me and this other woman. The star sign of a taurus. The bull and the leo.. Horns and claws.. We had many laughs and adventures together through NZ.. And one good one is this story:

IT was in taupo, I had one night to many out on pub crawls, parties and meeting people. Fantastic country and place to meet people. Anyway, I had little sleep over the course of the last few days and moniek, came into our dorm room to talk to me and anna. She asked us, if we would join her on a hike. I was a little surprized, a hike? It was the tongariro crossing, Mount Doom for you lord of the rings fans. It took her about 30mins to convince me. I was half mad, seeker of fame, fortune and adventure.. This was right up my alley. So I agreed, the bus picked us up at 630am. IT would be an 8 hour hike 18kms up and over a volcanic mountain aka mount doom.

A normal sane person would have said, right moniek I am off to bed see you in the morning. No, this crazy, stupid dumbarse of a party animal said, excuse me moniek, anna and laura I'm going out. I will be back and ready for the hike at 630am. Long story short, I got back to my dorm room at 330am. I got about 3 hours sleep. IT was very cold. I was hung over, tired and hadn't been eating right for days. NO veggies to give me energy.. but it was this challenge this test that called me..

I stagged out of bed and got ready, bought some food and water from a local 24 hourpetrol station. And then I waited for moniek to show up or the bus.. which ever came first was my thought. The bus arrived I boarded. I started to talk to the french canadian girl that was coming with moniek. Problem... moniek had dissappeared to get some throat drops. Did not make it back and the bus took off with out her.. I was puzzled, as we drove for about 40mins, I was thinking this was great. She got us all up for this and then missed the bus.. She better not miss that 2nd bus or I'm going to kick her arse!

Our bus was about 20 mins from tongariro crossing, when our bus got a call over the radio, that a girl from taupo backpackers, had made it onto the other bus, so don't worry, shes here. I looked around the bus and thought umm.. thats not our backpackers and the only person I know from there, was moniek. So I asked the driver, could you ask what does that girl look like... the drive talks to the other driver. Shes fairly tall, got black curly hair. "hmm I think" is she dutch? Yes it the answer. I then ask, is she sorta crazy looking? The driver asks and the reply is yea, a little bit. I cough, I ask the driver, ask if she double dutches!!!? HE asks the other driver and the reply back is.. he won't ask her that.. we both laugh. I then ask is her name moniek? Yes is the answer and I laugh and tell the other 3-4 people that yes, moniek made it. We'll wait for her, when we get off, they are 20mins behind us.

Moniek arrives and we all give her some stick for being late and missing our bus. Moniek begins to tell us the story of what actually happen. You see, she hitchhiked all over NZ. We all thought she was made. Nz is a fairly safe place, but still it pays not to take risks. Though her hitch hiking skills came in handy this time. Moniek told us, she got all us up for this. It was 630am, she was fully dressed and ready for the hike and she not miss out on this. So she flagged down cars and told the drive what had happen, this driver and her then chased down the 2nd bus and waved it down and she got onto the bus.. Of course the bus driver was pissed about this but she made it. And for wat ever reason, that impressed the lot of us.

We started the hike and I what I can remember 2 things from that hike about her was 1) She talked non stop about a certain subject. 2) She was buggered very quickly but it was a tough start and very cold...


Moniek, thumbs up too ya.. More to come on those I've got pics of that made my travel journey over the past year or more interesting.