August 23, 2025 • 30 mins
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Are you a Slow Travel supporter or a Fast Tourism fan? This week’s hot topic is the ongoing travel debate between Slow Travel and Fast Tourism. But which style of travel is right for you? Receiving the question from a listener into the Hostel Common Room, we share our thoughts and experiences on both travel styles. Will Adam & Alun finally agree on something?
Alun’s still surfing in Siargao but a brief lapse in concentration results in him being locked out of his apartment. With no answer from the Landlord, the only answer is to break in… Is it still a crime to break into your own apartment? Perhaps not if you remove an entire window?
Tales of a Trip returns with a creepy-crawly story from a remote cattle station in Queensland, Australia. Travel gives you the opportunity to experience new things, including spiders bigger than your hand! The fairytale ending is out there… somewhere.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hello and welcome to this episode of Tripology.
It's the only backpacking show where the hosts put on backpacks
and leave the house in the morning.
I'm Alan and I'm here with the ever daring Adam.
Wicked show this week, mate. We're going to find out what the
hell you've been up to for the last little bit.
We've also got hostile common room, an e-mail from a listener,
(00:22):
and then we've got everyone's favorite section of the show is
Tales of a Trip where we hear from a listener.
It's going to be a little voice note to get you inspired to
travel. Oh, that'll help keep everyone
engaged, won't it? They switch on their favorite
podcast and they get to hear, oh, we're going to hear about
what I've been up to in the lastweek.
Yeah, everyone's all excited forthat.
You're the main event, Alan, You're the main event.
Exactly. You know what I told you a while
(00:44):
ago that I've rented a motorcycle.
It's nice in it when you rent a motorcycle because it opens up
doors that were otherwise closed.
I've zipping around on that thing ever so much.
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Opens up doors in in terms of allows you to to reach faraway
places, you mean. Yeah, it opens up doors in the
way that only a vehicle can. I've been whizzing about me.
(01:04):
I tell you what. I went to a little road trip to
Sohatong Cave. It's a like, it's a Cove system.
Actually more of a Cove than a cave.
Some people call it Sohatong Cove.
It's really beautiful. You have to ride on your
motorcycle down to Dapper, whichis the nearest big city to where
I am in Chagao. Get on ever.
Such a lovely little boat. Ride that boat for about an hour
(01:28):
and they said it was half an hour.
It was more like an hour. You get to this whole new island
and go through a series of coves, caves, you dunk yourself
down, you see jellyfish, ever somany jellyfish there.
There's limestone, inlets, little things.
It's very beautiful there mate. I highly recommend it.
OK, so first question, are the jellyfish dangerous?
(01:50):
Well, they, I was told that these jellyfish would not sting,
but we sort of were in under thewater and it's very tempting to
play with the jellyfish when you're in the water, especially
when you've been told that he's not stinging jellyfish.
So me and my Swiss friends, we were being good-natured with the
jellyfish. He was swimming over to us.
(02:11):
We were free diving down with snorkels.
We sort of gave me a little torch.
No harpoons. No harpoons this time, but I'm
not entirely convinced that he didn't give us a very tentative
stinging. I can imagine that when a
jellyfish stings you, maybe not like a boxed jellyfish.
I think they're fairly deadly, aren't they?
But otherwise it's more like a sort of tingle.
You know when you get sunburned and your skin feels like it's
(02:33):
tingling, is it similar to that?Yeah, well, it's it's happened a
few times in the Philippines where someone local has told me
those jellyfish don't sting. And then I felt something which
feels remarkably similar to a sting, but I sort of feel a bit
like I've been gaslighted into thinking that wasn't a jellyfish
thing. What happened there was your
skin just started hurting moments after touching that
(02:55):
jellyfish. God.
OK, so you're there with your mates, you're playing with the
jellyfish, you're in the caves and the caves.
Yeah, exactly. There was one bit where everyone
had to swim down and hold your breath for 8 seconds as you go
underneath this limestone rock and then enter into a new cave
system. And as someone who's previously
(03:17):
bragged on the podcast that I can hold my my breath for 4
minutes, when you're in a situation where you absolutely
have to hold your breath for anyperiod of time, even like 8
seconds, that is much harder than holding your breath for for
4 minutes in a situation where you could just breathe if you
had to. Yeah, yeah, no, I get that.
I get that. What I'm trying what I'm
visualizing here, mate, is, is it like an air pocket or like
(03:40):
you say, another cave system? So you've almost got to swim
underneath a rock and then arrive up into a That scares the
shit out of me that does. I've seen a couple of movies
where that is sort of the plot and it goes tits up fairly
sharpish. Yeah, it's scary, isn't it?
Because you think, what if I went down, come up, hit my head,
float down to the bottom like anaforementioned jellyfish?
(04:03):
What actually happened was I came up and there was an
absolute plethora of other tourists on the other side.
It was almost like I entered into a little Filipino portal
into Europe. It was quite amazing the number
of Scandinavians, Germans, British people, a couple of
Americans down there. Before going under the water, I
(04:24):
was in a sort of Filipino limestone paradise.
It was very beautiful. It was very amazing.
I dumped my head under, held my breath for 8 seconds, came up.
I was in sort of like a little cavernous cafe somewhere in
Paris. That's so funny.
I'm going back that. That really does scare me.
I've done a fair amount of nightdiving and also wreck diving
(04:45):
now. I always tell people that I
really like wreck diving, but there was one wreck dive I did
which I think was actually off the coast of Malaysia.
It was a sugar boat that had deliberately been sunk so that
it could be used as a dive site.And I remember swimming through
the boat, one of the corridors or something, and there was
things growing at that point. It'd been, you know, sung 2030
(05:06):
years ago or something. And I, I've never been so aware
of my own dimensions, swimming through a corridor like that
because I'm maybe I've just seenone too many films, but I was so
scared that I would be stuck there and end up drowning that
like for a few minutes it completely ruined the dive for
me. That's called.
(05:26):
Proprioception, Adam, for for you and for our interesting,
lexically minded listeners, Proprioception is your sense of
where your limbs are in space around you.
And it is indeed. You know, you have to be very
proprioceptive when you're doingthat sort of thing, haven't you?
Yeah, because not only it's got nothing to do with just how big
(05:47):
your body is, but you've also got a tank on your back as well.
So it's quite likely because you're not used to walking
around with a tank on your back,it's quite likely that you think
you've got enough clearance to go through a hole, but in actual
fact your tank gets stuck and then you know before you know
it, your legs being wrapped up by seaweed and a couple of
jellyfish, and maybe you drownedto death.
Precisely, but I did enjoy the SOAS on caves.
(06:08):
I do highly recommend it as a little activity if you're in the
Philippines. But the real adventure for me
came very much when I got home. Got home sort of late afternoon,
drove the motorcycle all the wayback half an hour towards my
house. I was ever so excited to just
drop my stuff off, have a quick shower and then I was going to
go out for dinner with my friends and I'm doing that
(06:28):
thing. It's happened a lot to me at the
moment mate, and I think we might need an intervention.
I get ever so slightly distracted by something as I'm
doing something else. So I'm leaving the house.
I'm thinking, oh this is going to be great, I'm going to go for
dinner. My room, my bedroom door here
has one of those buttons on where you push it and it just
locks irreparably. Have you?
(06:48):
You know the kind? On the inside.
Yeah, so I just like, I'm getting ready to lock the house.
I lock the bedroom door, leave my keys on the desk.
I go in and do something else. I'm on my phone.
I leave the room the second thatdoor shuts, I think, oh you
bastard, you fucking locked the keys in the room, didn't you?
I knew immediately. I was like, I didn't even have
to like check, oh where are my keys?
I just knew. I was like, are you absolutely
(07:10):
messed up? Yeah.
Oh God. So now the dynamic is my keys
are locked in my bedroom. I'm supposed to go out for
dinner. I'm in sort of the kitchen area
of my house but I can't lock thehouse because my keys are in the
bedroom and I really don't know what to do.
So I messaged my friends and I'mlike I really can't come for
dinner because my house is open and I can't get into the
(07:33):
bedroom. I messaged my landlord and say
you know I'm locked out. She doesn't reply.
Message doesn't even go through and I'm in a sort of prickly
situation here because my mind starts racing.
I'm like, well, you know, in a few hours it's going to be time
to go to bed. Do I like sleep on the kitchen
floor? It's incredibly hot, it's
sweltering. If you've not got air con it's
(07:54):
absolutely ruthless. I was completely out of options
mate. What would you do in this
situation? Because you message your
landlord. No reply.
Yeah, the. Keys are inside the building.
There's no spare key around anywhere.
I mean, what do you do in a situation like that?
Well, you've got to scan the place for ways to get in I
guess. Is there any any way you can get
into the room? I don't know how far I'd be
(08:14):
prepared to go to be honest, if I found a window or something
but you gave it. You already tried to like
dislodge the the handle or something to try and I don't
know, jolt the door open or? I was trying.
That's amazing where your mind goes in a pickle.
That is because I'm quite handy with a lock pick.
I thought if I could get a Bobbypin and sort of a tension
wrench, I reckon I could have this door.
So you sort of like go out frantic on the street looking
(08:36):
for women that have their hair up thinking can I have a Bobby?
Can I have a Bobby pin? Can I want to pick my own lock?
I promise it's my lock. I've just locked up my house.
Hi, I just want to for dinner. Can I borrow a hairpin?
You kind of end up in a slightlyfrantic situation.
What happened in the inmate is there's a there's a window to my
bedroom. A metallic framed window seems
impenetrable, and I mean essentially cut to me on top of
(09:01):
my kitchen counter, a fan pointing at me so that I don't
overheat while I'm doing this. I managed to rock the window
just enough that it sort of slanted out of its frame, pop
the whole frame off the metal window, managed to take both of
the windows out, crawl through the gap that was created, get
(09:22):
the keys, open the door, and I was only 15 minutes late for
dinner. What an absolute nightmare.
Hang on. So just to get this straight,
there's a window from your kitchen into your bedroom.
Yeah, there's a picture on the screen right now if you go to
YouTube or you're watching the video podcast of this metallic
frame. I basically just managed to
very, very carefully dislodge that whole thing break into my
(09:43):
own bedroom via that process. And then what was the fallout
from that? Did you, were you able to
replace the window frame withoutanyone noticing?
Or did you just own up to your landlord and say hey you should
have answered your message or? No, there was almost no
consequences. I managed to replace the window
perfectly. So my suggestion to anyone in a
situation like that, would you be to remain calm and see if
there's any way that you can commit a crime on yourself in
(10:07):
order to achieve. Entry.
Well, what do you do now then? What's the sort of take away
when you're leaving, when you'releaving your room now?
Because you know that if you press that lock and you haven't
got any, you haven't got everything with you.
Yeah, it's, it's game over, I suppose now you now you've got a
way in. You don't really care if you do
that anyway. Yeah, no, I've actually been
using the Windows my primary method of entry.
(10:28):
It's actually made me worse if anything.
I'm clicking that button every time, locking my door behind
myself and climbing in the window at the end of the day.
Many of us go traveling to find ourselves, but what does that
really mean? Yeah, a lot of us go traveling
searching for meaning. And while you certainly can find
some answers climbing up a mountain or snorkeling in a
(10:48):
beautiful reef, sometimes we need some help to even ask the
right questions. That's why we've teamed up with
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chance to try therapy. You know what it's like, Alan?
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often rule out therapy. I've been using the service for
six months and I've travelled a lot during that time.
(11:09):
Organising therapy sessions using the online platform
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(11:31):
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of therapy. Adam, we've got ever such a
beautiful website, tripologypodcast.com.
It's absolutely chock full of features.
(11:52):
One feature is you can go to thecontact form there and type in a
question, the hostel common roomquestion for you or I, you can
ask us all kinds of question like are there any key chains
you would recommend for travel? Oh, Alan, how did you get salt
water out of your hair after a long day of surfing?
That sort of thing. And I've received little word
(12:14):
that a listener has done just that.
And Adam's going to read as a lovely e-mail as we enter the
hostel common room. Hostel common room How many
countries you've been to Mate? We do have a lovely entry into
the hostel common room. We always love hearing from you,
so please send your messages in.But we do have some that we
(12:36):
can't read out. But this week I've chosen one
that I can read out. We've got.
What? What ones have we?
Can we not read out if people have been sending naughty things
into the hostel common room maybe?
We'll share those in the in the Patreon section.
Sign up to patreon.com/tropologypodcast and you can hear all of
the other content that we just can't share on the show when
there's an advert involved. I I saw an e-mail coming to the
(12:58):
hostel common room the other day.
It just said Adam not safe for work.
We've got an e-mail here, lovely, lovely listeners emailed
in and the the title of the e-mail is slow travel with about
16 letter OS. So here we go.
It's from Jacob over in Denmark and Jacob says greetings from
Denmark. I'm binging your podcast.
(13:20):
It's awesome. I went on a four month
backpacking trip in Australia and Southeast Asia when I was 19
years old and made the mistake of rushing through, usually
staying about two nights in eachplace.
I had so much fun, but it was also exhausting to constantly be
on the move. I plan to work on a farm for one
month in Australia but left after four days due to
horrendous working conditions. We feel you're Yakob.
(13:41):
Because the rest of my trip was already planned.
I ended up staying in Sydney foralmost a month, not really doing
much besides hanging out to the hostel, going to the beach and
walking the streets of Sydney. The funny thing is that when I
now look back at my trip, my time in Sydney stands out as
some of the best. It almost felt like I was living
in the city for a very short while and not just visiting as a
tourist. I'm now planning on going on a
long trip and would like to moveat a much slower pace.
(14:04):
I would love to get your advice on slow travel from your
experience. Are there any places that are
better for this way of travel orthat attract like minded
travellers? What about staying in hostels
for longer periods? It would be awesome to get your
thought on fast versus slow travel in general.
Yeah, Jacob, You Beautiful tropologist, thanks for sending
the e-mail. Yes, slow travel versus fast
(14:24):
travel. I have to say, I have to confess
to being I've had a penfront forboth styles during my tenure as
a traveller because I think they're good for different
things, they're good for different stages of life and I
think it's important to experiment with both and see
what you like. There's a lot of people that
would do away with fast travel just because of the sound of it.
(14:45):
They think, oh, that sounds all hectic and horrible.
They're usually the same kind ofpeople that say I don't really
like cities, I like to stick to the countryside.
And there's other people for whom fast travel is all they've
ever known, all they can afford really.
There's one of cram as much as possible into a very short trip.
That's valid too. I myself think it's important
(15:06):
sometimes to see all the things that you want to see in a place,
and sometimes you only have a month visa and you might want to
cram a lot in. There's other times in life
where it's really good just to slow down.
Like right now I've been in thisone little island for two months
and I'm having a whale of a time.
I'm still packing a lot of things into my day in Shagao,
but those things are like accumulating skills, surfing,
(15:29):
jiu jitsu, doing the podcast, that sort of thing.
So I think there's time to step on the gas and there's time to
shift into a lower gear and slowthe F down.
I think it's a really interesting question, mate.
And let's see whether you agree with my take on this.
And we can use you as an examplefor this.
If you're going to go to Chagao in the Philippines as a
backpacker, as a tourist, how long do you think you need in
(15:53):
chargal to do the things that you would typically want to do?
Oh, I mean, if you were just doing the things you could
really be done in a week, I would say, right?
If you just wanted to like surf the Cloud 9 once, go to Suhoto
Cove and maybe flit around, get a vibe of the nightlife, go to
(16:13):
some of the beaches, the rock pools, that sort of thing, you
could really have a most people stay for about a week.
Right. OK.
So let's see whether you agree with my theory here.
And hopefully, Jacob, it helps you somewhat.
I think that the slow versus slow travel versus fast travel
argument isn't just dependent onthe person or the stage.
I suppose if your purpose is to try and see lots of things
(16:36):
wherever you're going, I think it also is dependent on the
location because there are some places that I don't really want
to go on record saying this, butI don't think that you really
need that long to travel them sufficiently if what you want to
do is see the things that peoplewant to see, right?
If you really want to experiencesomewhere that is rich and has
(16:58):
is complex and is diverse, somewhere like India for
example, we both went to India for about 6 months and but we
met people that were only in India for two weeks.
So somewhere like India I think is at the extreme end of the
spectrum where I would say absolutely travel slowly because
India has to be experienced thatway in order to be somewhat
understood. I think that doing 2 weeks in
(17:19):
India just isn't doing it isn't doing it is doing it a
disservice. But somewhere like Luxembourg,
I'm not saying, you know, no offence.
I'm not saying that you can't have a great time being in
Luxembourg for six months, but Ijust don't think you need that
much in order to explore it sufficiently because it's such a
small city. I hear what you're saying.
That's a very like goal orientedway to look at a place I
(17:41):
suppose, which is completely valid while you're travelling.
What you're saying is like Indiais so vast and you can't
possibly see everything if you're moving through it fast.
So going through it slow qualitatively will allow you to
get the best out of India. But there are times where one
situation is you just need a break.
When I arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia, I stayed there for a
month, not because I needed to stay a month in Tbilisi, but
(18:04):
because I wanted to stop and recoup and reset for a month.
So that was where that slow travel became valuable.
There's also times where you youmight want to still live a
travel lifestyle, but put your attention somewhere else, like
in accumulating skills in a place.
(18:25):
So one thing you could do is travel as fast as you want or
your budget allows. And then when you find a place
which provides for you the things that you're looking for,
have the flexibility to take your foot off the gas and slow
down a little bit. Yeah, Yeah, I think you're very
good at that. I think it isn't just A1 size
fits all kind of approach. You need to sort of think about
(18:46):
what you need in that moment. And I always think that you come
away from countries just living the experience that you've lived
and being happy with that. Whereas I came away from
somewhere like India just to useIndia as the example.
Again, wishing a little bit likeI'd experienced it differently.
So I think if you ever managed to visit a country the way that
(19:06):
you think it should be experienced, I I think you're
already on to a win because we stayed in Mumbai for about four,
4 1/2 months. And as much as I love Mumbai, it
wasn't at all what I thought India would be for me.
And it's just, you know, basically motivated me to go
back there for even longer next time.
Yeah, someone said to me recently, they said, oh, your
reality is just a reflection of your expectations.
(19:30):
And I think if you go into a place thinking, Oh, my
experience here, the way I experience country has to be AB
and C, you're inevitably either going to be satisfied with the
outcome or dissatisfied with it.And I think if you just go to a
place and just want to experience it and you don't
(19:51):
prescribe what that should look like, you, you actually can be
surprised. Then isn't stops being this
prescriptivist thing of like, ohI need to go slow so I can do AB
and C&D? It's just you are just living
and travelling and experiencing at the pace that the place will
dictate. Yes.
So I think in answer to your question, Jakob, both fast and
(20:12):
slow travel have their own merits and are better for some
places and others and different stages of your life, all travels
and others. I think it's all good and it
should be experienced. Together Jakob, go at your own
pace man, Segway from place to place, seeing whatever you want
to see. But if you get that special
feeling and think, I'm really enjoying this place, slow down.
(20:32):
Jakob is very important. Zooming off at breakneck speed,
Adam, towards the final section of the show.
But a lot of people are saying it's their favorite section.
It's my favorite section. You told me it's your favorite
section. We are, of course, Speaking of
Tales of a Trip, a beautifully curated item where listeners can
(20:57):
go to tripologypodcast.com/talesof a Trip and send us a
recording of their best trip travel story.
You've just got 3 minutes to tell us your greatest story,
your most beautiful memory, yoursexiest experience, your most
wild adventure. Send us in a recording like this
listener has done. We're going to listen to it
right now. About eight years ago my friend
(21:21):
Michelle and I were in Australiaon our working holiday adventure
and we were looking into our second working holiday visa
here. So we had to do our so-called
farm work, as many of you guys will probably know if it's still
the case anyway, I think so. And we ended up on a cattle
station in far North Queensland,which is like in a little
(21:42):
triangle area in the far northeast of Australia, right in
the middle of it. Very interesting.
We were right in between. We were in a sort of cowboy
land, 30,000 cows, eighty horses, so much land you can't
even imagine. It was so big and 10 up to 25
(22:04):
people who live there. And I'd like to tell you guys
about one specific encounter with animal.
I was sick to cook at the station.
So on one day, one of the days, I think it was in the first
month or so that we were there. I went into the pantry wanted to
get a jar of something from pantry.
(22:26):
And just before I literally touched the jar I noticed there
was a massive spider right on top of it.
It was I think it was bigger than my hand which insanely
vague it was. Even the boys there thought it
was. They've never seen anything like
it. So what I did, I pulled out the
radio system, which you do when you're there, and asked for
(22:50):
help. And boys came and saved me off
the spider. And.
Yeah. And they were like, oh, yeah,
we're going to play with the spider.
We're going to kill it. They were younger boys, like
teenagers working at the cattle station.
Boys will be boys in some cases,I guess.
(23:13):
And so I feared the spider, but I also felt very bad for it.
And so did Michelle. And So what at the end of the
day, the boys put these, put thespider in an empty butter jar,
like a like a leader jar, I think.
And they put holes on the top and left it there on the counter
(23:35):
of that little patio in front ofthe kitchen.
So Michelle and I were looking at Michelle and I were looking
at each other at the end of the night.
And everybody went to bed and we're like, OK, no, we can't do
this. So we took the spider.
I mean, we, we literally gathered all our courage, took
the butter jar, walked through the dark, sort of threw the
(23:59):
spider into the grass somewhere and and ran off.
Then showing our light to see ifit's gone, took the butter jar,
put it back in the same place, just with the lid, like slightly
off it. So the boys wouldn't say it
wouldn't, wouldn't know. And they said it in the morning,
let it go. Where the spider go?
(24:20):
Those boys sound great, don't they?
Iris there. What a wonderful tripological
spider saviour. I'm all for vigilante animal
justice in the tropological community, Adam.
Yeah, I know, I know. I can imagine that that story
would speak to you, because I think you would have done
exactly the same thing. I absolutely love the way that
Iris left the lid off the jar soit almost looked like the spider
(24:41):
could have escaped itself. Yeah, she both allowed.
I mean, she misled the boys and gave the spider a very
believable alibi. There she was like this spider
let herself out. Are you a man who suffers from
the most horrendous of phobias, Arachno?
I wouldn't say I'm afraid of spiders, but certainly Huntsman
I've come into work contact withwith one in particular.
(25:05):
Funnily enough, I was up in Darwin about 10 years ago.
Huntsman weren't even around then.
I remember 10 years ago when the, you know, Huntsman, no, no,
no. I was working at someone's house
as part of like a workaway exchange and part of my job was
to clean out their garage and they had a lot of stuff in their
garage. So I was spending, you know, a
(25:26):
couple of hours a day in there. They were big skiers, big
snowboarders. They had a couple of boats as
well. You know, it's like a bit of
paraphernalia here, there, everywhere.
They've been decorating the house non-stop for the last
decade, so the paint pots and what have you.
Anyway, super dusty work and thelight in there wasn't great.
So I shone a big torch, this bigsort of lamp, similar to the one
I'm using now, actually in therewhen I was working.
(25:48):
And I remember one afternoon I caught the shadow of my hand go
along a wall and it caught, it sort of caught my attention.
And then as I moved my arm down,the shadow didn't move with it.
And I thought, oh. You're that shadow.
Behave yourself. I'm absolutely sick of you not
(26:10):
doing what you're told. My body by choice it was.
It was the bloody, the bloody Huntsman, the Huntsman spider
the size of my hand. I mistook A Huntsman spider for
the shadow of my hands. That gives you some idea how how
big it was. Or how small your shadow is.
Yeah, yeah. But that, that house, I mean,
(26:31):
the people that listen to this podcast who know who I am and
have probably heard this story, that house has a quite a sad
place in my heart, actually, because it involved the, the dog
that I was walking that unfortunately lost its life.
And I'm maybe I'll tell that story in a Patreon, in a Patreon
(26:51):
section because it is, it is crazy.
And my family still mentioned that story to this day.
Well, I think about that story. It's one of the first stories
you told me and I think about italmost every time I see a dog.
So if you'd be willing, Adam, I would love to.
I would love to have that story in in this week's Patreon.
Yeah, it was the same house. It was the same house.
I just a word on arachnophobia. I'd like to say, you know, I'm,
(27:14):
I'm not afraid of spiders, but Ido have a phobia of the other
arachnid. You know, there's two arachnids.
You're in spider arachnid territory or tick arachnid
territory. I'm not a fan of the tick.
I find them quite a distasteful little arachnid.
Yeah, they don't do much good. You actually have a phobia of
them, would you say? Hatred, you know, like I think
(27:35):
those two things are synonymously used in today's
world. And I'm I'm a tick phobic in the
sense that I really dislike themand wish they would leave my
life. Yeah, yeah, completely,
completely. I mean, they're nasty little
buggers and they do a lot of damage.
I do just want to take the opportunity as well to say thank
you so much Iris, for sending that story in.
I do know Iris personally and I just want to tell you that she
(27:58):
has had some amazing experienceson in places around the world,
some of which I've shared. I've been very lucky to share
them with her. Just a little note on that farm
that she was on because I'm often very jealous of the
stories that other people are able to tell and this is one of
those. Let me just give you some
context. The farm that she was on, she
told me at the time, was about 1,000,000 acres, which is bigger
(28:21):
than the province that Iris is from in the Netherlands.
The driveway was 120 kilometers long and in order to buy
anything from a shop they had todrive for 7 1/2 hours.
So it just gives you an idea. Mate, You'll love this as well.
There was a sermon delivered to them by a pastor every Sunday.
A religious sermon that flew in by plane.
(28:41):
The. Pastor flew in by plane.
Yeah. Wow.
Is that not, it goes to all the communities in that area that
are obviously miles and miles apart, but you meet a very
specific, very different type ofperson on these cattle stations
because they don't really interact with the the rest of
the world. So if you do want an experience
like that, go to work away. They actually met the guy that
(29:02):
they end up working for in a barsomewhere else in Queensland, I
believe. But just Australia is such a
wonderful place to to have these.
I mean, they're just out of thisworld, some of these
experiences. Yeah.
Because you can't get that far away from from anywhere unless
you're in a huge country. I like the sound of that guy,
though. Rock'n'roll pastor hopping on a
(29:22):
private jet talking about Jesus.Oh, where are you going Saturday
night? Might.
So I've got to fly out of here back and talk about Jesus in a
couple of different farms. Mike, see you later hopping on
the jacket. I mean, what a life he must
live. I want to be a rock'n'roll
pastor when I grow up. But for now, mate, we're going
to have to talk more about all sorts of crazy goings on in the
(29:44):
Patreon section. You're going to tell me about a
dog which you unwittingly LED tothe destruction of.
I'm going to talk about ants flying through the the house is
going to be a right back and early an affair of in the
Patreon. If you want to get involved in
that patreon.com/topology podcast, we're going to head
over there now and have ever such a special time.
We'll hope that you'll join us. Otherwise though, for you guys
(30:05):
that don't want to fork out somepennies for the Patreon, we'll
see you next. Week.
We'll see you there. Bye.
Hello and welcome to this episode of Tripology.
It's the only backpacking show where the hosts put on backpacks
and leave the house in the morning.
I'm Alan and I'm here with the ever daring Adam.
Wicked show this week, mate. We're going to find out what the
hell you've been up to for the last little bit.
We've also got hostile common room, an e-mail from a listener,
(00:22):
and then we've got everyone's favorite section of the show is
Tales of a Trip where we hear from a listener.
It's going to be a little voice note to get you inspired to
travel. Oh, that'll help keep everyone
engaged, won't it? They switch on their favorite
podcast and they get to hear, oh, we're going to hear about
what I've been up to in the lastweek.
Yeah, everyone's all excited forthat.
You're the main event, Alan, You're the main event.
Exactly. You know what I told you a while
(00:44):
ago that I've rented a motorcycle.
It's nice in it when you rent a motorcycle because it opens up
doors that were otherwise closed.
I've zipping around on that thing ever so much.
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Opens up doors in in terms of allows you to to reach faraway
places, you mean. Yeah, it opens up doors in the
way that only a vehicle can. I've been whizzing about me.
(01:04):
I tell you what. I went to a little road trip to
Sohatong Cave. It's a like, it's a Cove system.
Actually more of a Cove than a cave.
Some people call it Sohatong Cove.
It's really beautiful. You have to ride on your
motorcycle down to Dapper, whichis the nearest big city to where
I am in Chagao. Get on ever.
Such a lovely little boat. Ride that boat for about an hour
(01:28):
and they said it was half an hour.
It was more like an hour. You get to this whole new island
and go through a series of coves, caves, you dunk yourself
down, you see jellyfish, ever somany jellyfish there.
There's limestone, inlets, little things.
It's very beautiful there mate. I highly recommend it.
OK, so first question, are the jellyfish dangerous?
(01:50):
Well, they, I was told that these jellyfish would not sting,
but we sort of were in under thewater and it's very tempting to
play with the jellyfish when you're in the water, especially
when you've been told that he's not stinging jellyfish.
So me and my Swiss friends, we were being good-natured with the
jellyfish. He was swimming over to us.
(02:11):
We were free diving down with snorkels.
We sort of gave me a little torch.
No harpoons. No harpoons this time, but I'm
not entirely convinced that he didn't give us a very tentative
stinging. I can imagine that when a
jellyfish stings you, maybe not like a boxed jellyfish.
I think they're fairly deadly, aren't they?
But otherwise it's more like a sort of tingle.
You know when you get sunburned and your skin feels like it's
(02:33):
tingling, is it similar to that?Yeah, well, it's it's happened a
few times in the Philippines where someone local has told me
those jellyfish don't sting. And then I felt something which
feels remarkably similar to a sting, but I sort of feel a bit
like I've been gaslighted into thinking that wasn't a jellyfish
thing. What happened there was your
skin just started hurting moments after touching that
(02:55):
jellyfish. God.
OK, so you're there with your mates, you're playing with the
jellyfish, you're in the caves and the caves.
Yeah, exactly. There was one bit where everyone
had to swim down and hold your breath for 8 seconds as you go
underneath this limestone rock and then enter into a new cave
system. And as someone who's previously
(03:17):
bragged on the podcast that I can hold my my breath for 4
minutes, when you're in a situation where you absolutely
have to hold your breath for anyperiod of time, even like 8
seconds, that is much harder than holding your breath for for
4 minutes in a situation where you could just breathe if you
had to. Yeah, yeah, no, I get that.
I get that. What I'm trying what I'm
visualizing here, mate, is, is it like an air pocket or like
(03:40):
you say, another cave system? So you've almost got to swim
underneath a rock and then arrive up into a That scares the
shit out of me that does. I've seen a couple of movies
where that is sort of the plot and it goes tits up fairly
sharpish. Yeah, it's scary, isn't it?
Because you think, what if I went down, come up, hit my head,
float down to the bottom like anaforementioned jellyfish?
(04:03):
What actually happened was I came up and there was an
absolute plethora of other tourists on the other side.
It was almost like I entered into a little Filipino portal
into Europe. It was quite amazing the number
of Scandinavians, Germans, British people, a couple of
Americans down there. Before going under the water, I
(04:24):
was in a sort of Filipino limestone paradise.
It was very beautiful. It was very amazing.
I dumped my head under, held my breath for 8 seconds, came up.
I was in sort of like a little cavernous cafe somewhere in
Paris. That's so funny.
I'm going back that. That really does scare me.
I've done a fair amount of nightdiving and also wreck diving
(04:45):
now. I always tell people that I
really like wreck diving, but there was one wreck dive I did
which I think was actually off the coast of Malaysia.
It was a sugar boat that had deliberately been sunk so that
it could be used as a dive site.And I remember swimming through
the boat, one of the corridors or something, and there was
things growing at that point. It'd been, you know, sung 2030
(05:06):
years ago or something. And I, I've never been so aware
of my own dimensions, swimming through a corridor like that
because I'm maybe I've just seenone too many films, but I was so
scared that I would be stuck there and end up drowning that
like for a few minutes it completely ruined the dive for
me. That's called.
(05:26):
Proprioception, Adam, for for you and for our interesting,
lexically minded listeners, Proprioception is your sense of
where your limbs are in space around you.
And it is indeed. You know, you have to be very
proprioceptive when you're doingthat sort of thing, haven't you?
Yeah, because not only it's got nothing to do with just how big
(05:47):
your body is, but you've also got a tank on your back as well.
So it's quite likely because you're not used to walking
around with a tank on your back,it's quite likely that you think
you've got enough clearance to go through a hole, but in actual
fact your tank gets stuck and then you know before you know
it, your legs being wrapped up by seaweed and a couple of
jellyfish, and maybe you drownedto death.
Precisely, but I did enjoy the SOAS on caves.
(06:08):
I do highly recommend it as a little activity if you're in the
Philippines. But the real adventure for me
came very much when I got home. Got home sort of late afternoon,
drove the motorcycle all the wayback half an hour towards my
house. I was ever so excited to just
drop my stuff off, have a quick shower and then I was going to
go out for dinner with my friends and I'm doing that
(06:28):
thing. It's happened a lot to me at the
moment mate, and I think we might need an intervention.
I get ever so slightly distracted by something as I'm
doing something else. So I'm leaving the house.
I'm thinking, oh this is going to be great, I'm going to go for
dinner. My room, my bedroom door here
has one of those buttons on where you push it and it just
locks irreparably. Have you?
(06:48):
You know the kind? On the inside.
Yeah, so I just like, I'm getting ready to lock the house.
I lock the bedroom door, leave my keys on the desk.
I go in and do something else. I'm on my phone.
I leave the room the second thatdoor shuts, I think, oh you
bastard, you fucking locked the keys in the room, didn't you?
I knew immediately. I was like, I didn't even have
to like check, oh where are my keys?
I just knew. I was like, are you absolutely
(07:10):
messed up? Yeah.
Oh God. So now the dynamic is my keys
are locked in my bedroom. I'm supposed to go out for
dinner. I'm in sort of the kitchen area
of my house but I can't lock thehouse because my keys are in the
bedroom and I really don't know what to do.
So I messaged my friends and I'mlike I really can't come for
dinner because my house is open and I can't get into the
(07:33):
bedroom. I messaged my landlord and say
you know I'm locked out. She doesn't reply.
Message doesn't even go through and I'm in a sort of prickly
situation here because my mind starts racing.
I'm like, well, you know, in a few hours it's going to be time
to go to bed. Do I like sleep on the kitchen
floor? It's incredibly hot, it's
sweltering. If you've not got air con it's
(07:54):
absolutely ruthless. I was completely out of options
mate. What would you do in this
situation? Because you message your
landlord. No reply.
Yeah, the. Keys are inside the building.
There's no spare key around anywhere.
I mean, what do you do in a situation like that?
Well, you've got to scan the place for ways to get in I
guess. Is there any any way you can get
into the room? I don't know how far I'd be
(08:14):
prepared to go to be honest, if I found a window or something
but you gave it. You already tried to like
dislodge the the handle or something to try and I don't
know, jolt the door open or? I was trying.
That's amazing where your mind goes in a pickle.
That is because I'm quite handy with a lock pick.
I thought if I could get a Bobbypin and sort of a tension
wrench, I reckon I could have this door.
So you sort of like go out frantic on the street looking
(08:36):
for women that have their hair up thinking can I have a Bobby?
Can I have a Bobby pin? Can I want to pick my own lock?
I promise it's my lock. I've just locked up my house.
Hi, I just want to for dinner. Can I borrow a hairpin?
You kind of end up in a slightlyfrantic situation.
What happened in the inmate is there's a there's a window to my
bedroom. A metallic framed window seems
impenetrable, and I mean essentially cut to me on top of
(09:01):
my kitchen counter, a fan pointing at me so that I don't
overheat while I'm doing this. I managed to rock the window
just enough that it sort of slanted out of its frame, pop
the whole frame off the metal window, managed to take both of
the windows out, crawl through the gap that was created, get
(09:22):
the keys, open the door, and I was only 15 minutes late for
dinner. What an absolute nightmare.
Hang on. So just to get this straight,
there's a window from your kitchen into your bedroom.
Yeah, there's a picture on the screen right now if you go to
YouTube or you're watching the video podcast of this metallic
frame. I basically just managed to
very, very carefully dislodge that whole thing break into my
(09:43):
own bedroom via that process. And then what was the fallout
from that? Did you, were you able to
replace the window frame withoutanyone noticing?
Or did you just own up to your landlord and say hey you should
have answered your message or? No, there was almost no
consequences. I managed to replace the window
perfectly. So my suggestion to anyone in a
situation like that, would you be to remain calm and see if
there's any way that you can commit a crime on yourself in
(10:07):
order to achieve. Entry.
Well, what do you do now then? What's the sort of take away
when you're leaving, when you'releaving your room now?
Because you know that if you press that lock and you haven't
got any, you haven't got everything with you.
Yeah, it's, it's game over, I suppose now you now you've got a
way in. You don't really care if you do
that anyway. Yeah, no, I've actually been
using the Windows my primary method of entry.
(10:28):
It's actually made me worse if anything.
I'm clicking that button every time, locking my door behind
myself and climbing in the window at the end of the day.
Many of us go traveling to find ourselves, but what does that
really mean? Yeah, a lot of us go traveling
searching for meaning. And while you certainly can find
some answers climbing up a mountain or snorkeling in a
(10:48):
beautiful reef, sometimes we need some help to even ask the
right questions. That's why we've teamed up with
Better Help in a paid partnership that offers you the
chance to try therapy. You know what it's like, Alan?
Moving countries, time zones, jumping around from hostile to
hostile, having no schedule. These are reasons travelers
often rule out therapy. I've been using the service for
six months and I've travelled a lot during that time.
(11:09):
Organising therapy sessions using the online platform
couldn't be easier. I've been working with my
therapist on some deep rooted issues and I'm now in a much
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better help literally couldn't be easier.
You simply fill out a questionnaire and you'll be
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(11:31):
with a therapist that's right for you.
With thousands of positive reviews, US included, Better
Help is a platform you can trust.
Click the link in the description or go to
betterhelp.com/tribology Podcastand get 10% off your first month
of therapy. Adam, we've got ever such a
beautiful website, tripologypodcast.com.
It's absolutely chock full of features.
(11:52):
One feature is you can go to thecontact form there and type in a
question, the hostel common roomquestion for you or I, you can
ask us all kinds of question like are there any key chains
you would recommend for travel? Oh, Alan, how did you get salt
water out of your hair after a long day of surfing?
That sort of thing. And I've received little word
(12:14):
that a listener has done just that.
And Adam's going to read as a lovely e-mail as we enter the
hostel common room. Hostel common room How many
countries you've been to Mate? We do have a lovely entry into
the hostel common room. We always love hearing from you,
so please send your messages in.But we do have some that we
(12:36):
can't read out. But this week I've chosen one
that I can read out. We've got.
What? What ones have we?
Can we not read out if people have been sending naughty things
into the hostel common room maybe?
We'll share those in the in the Patreon section.
Sign up to patreon.com/tropologypodcast and you can hear all of
the other content that we just can't share on the show when
there's an advert involved. I I saw an e-mail coming to the
(12:58):
hostel common room the other day.
It just said Adam not safe for work.
We've got an e-mail here, lovely, lovely listeners emailed
in and the the title of the e-mail is slow travel with about
16 letter OS. So here we go.
It's from Jacob over in Denmark and Jacob says greetings from
Denmark. I'm binging your podcast.
(13:20):
It's awesome. I went on a four month
backpacking trip in Australia and Southeast Asia when I was 19
years old and made the mistake of rushing through, usually
staying about two nights in eachplace.
I had so much fun, but it was also exhausting to constantly be
on the move. I plan to work on a farm for one
month in Australia but left after four days due to
horrendous working conditions. We feel you're Yakob.
(13:41):
Because the rest of my trip was already planned.
I ended up staying in Sydney foralmost a month, not really doing
much besides hanging out to the hostel, going to the beach and
walking the streets of Sydney. The funny thing is that when I
now look back at my trip, my time in Sydney stands out as
some of the best. It almost felt like I was living
in the city for a very short while and not just visiting as a
tourist. I'm now planning on going on a
long trip and would like to moveat a much slower pace.
(14:04):
I would love to get your advice on slow travel from your
experience. Are there any places that are
better for this way of travel orthat attract like minded
travellers? What about staying in hostels
for longer periods? It would be awesome to get your
thought on fast versus slow travel in general.
Yeah, Jacob, You Beautiful tropologist, thanks for sending
the e-mail. Yes, slow travel versus fast
(14:24):
travel. I have to say, I have to confess
to being I've had a penfront forboth styles during my tenure as
a traveller because I think they're good for different
things, they're good for different stages of life and I
think it's important to experiment with both and see
what you like. There's a lot of people that
would do away with fast travel just because of the sound of it.
(14:45):
They think, oh, that sounds all hectic and horrible.
They're usually the same kind ofpeople that say I don't really
like cities, I like to stick to the countryside.
And there's other people for whom fast travel is all they've
ever known, all they can afford really.
There's one of cram as much as possible into a very short trip.
That's valid too. I myself think it's important
(15:06):
sometimes to see all the things that you want to see in a place,
and sometimes you only have a month visa and you might want to
cram a lot in. There's other times in life
where it's really good just to slow down.
Like right now I've been in thisone little island for two months
and I'm having a whale of a time.
I'm still packing a lot of things into my day in Shagao,
but those things are like accumulating skills, surfing,
(15:29):
jiu jitsu, doing the podcast, that sort of thing.
So I think there's time to step on the gas and there's time to
shift into a lower gear and slowthe F down.
I think it's a really interesting question, mate.
And let's see whether you agree with my take on this.
And we can use you as an examplefor this.
If you're going to go to Chagao in the Philippines as a
backpacker, as a tourist, how long do you think you need in
(15:53):
chargal to do the things that you would typically want to do?
Oh, I mean, if you were just doing the things you could
really be done in a week, I would say, right?
If you just wanted to like surf the Cloud 9 once, go to Suhoto
Cove and maybe flit around, get a vibe of the nightlife, go to
(16:13):
some of the beaches, the rock pools, that sort of thing, you
could really have a most people stay for about a week.
Right. OK.
So let's see whether you agree with my theory here.
And hopefully, Jacob, it helps you somewhat.
I think that the slow versus slow travel versus fast travel
argument isn't just dependent onthe person or the stage.
I suppose if your purpose is to try and see lots of things
(16:36):
wherever you're going, I think it also is dependent on the
location because there are some places that I don't really want
to go on record saying this, butI don't think that you really
need that long to travel them sufficiently if what you want to
do is see the things that peoplewant to see, right?
If you really want to experiencesomewhere that is rich and has
(16:58):
is complex and is diverse, somewhere like India for
example, we both went to India for about 6 months and but we
met people that were only in India for two weeks.
So somewhere like India I think is at the extreme end of the
spectrum where I would say absolutely travel slowly because
India has to be experienced thatway in order to be somewhat
understood. I think that doing 2 weeks in
(17:19):
India just isn't doing it isn't doing it is doing it a
disservice. But somewhere like Luxembourg,
I'm not saying, you know, no offence.
I'm not saying that you can't have a great time being in
Luxembourg for six months, but Ijust don't think you need that
much in order to explore it sufficiently because it's such a
small city. I hear what you're saying.
That's a very like goal orientedway to look at a place I
(17:41):
suppose, which is completely valid while you're travelling.
What you're saying is like Indiais so vast and you can't
possibly see everything if you're moving through it fast.
So going through it slow qualitatively will allow you to
get the best out of India. But there are times where one
situation is you just need a break.
When I arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia, I stayed there for a
month, not because I needed to stay a month in Tbilisi, but
(18:04):
because I wanted to stop and recoup and reset for a month.
So that was where that slow travel became valuable.
There's also times where you youmight want to still live a
travel lifestyle, but put your attention somewhere else, like
in accumulating skills in a place.
(18:25):
So one thing you could do is travel as fast as you want or
your budget allows. And then when you find a place
which provides for you the things that you're looking for,
have the flexibility to take your foot off the gas and slow
down a little bit. Yeah, Yeah, I think you're very
good at that. I think it isn't just A1 size
fits all kind of approach. You need to sort of think about
(18:46):
what you need in that moment. And I always think that you come
away from countries just living the experience that you've lived
and being happy with that. Whereas I came away from
somewhere like India just to useIndia as the example.
Again, wishing a little bit likeI'd experienced it differently.
So I think if you ever managed to visit a country the way that
(19:06):
you think it should be experienced, I I think you're
already on to a win because we stayed in Mumbai for about four,
4 1/2 months. And as much as I love Mumbai, it
wasn't at all what I thought India would be for me.
And it's just, you know, basically motivated me to go
back there for even longer next time.
Yeah, someone said to me recently, they said, oh, your
reality is just a reflection of your expectations.
(19:30):
And I think if you go into a place thinking, Oh, my
experience here, the way I experience country has to be AB
and C, you're inevitably either going to be satisfied with the
outcome or dissatisfied with it.And I think if you just go to a
place and just want to experience it and you don't
(19:51):
prescribe what that should look like, you, you actually can be
surprised. Then isn't stops being this
prescriptivist thing of like, ohI need to go slow so I can do AB
and C&D? It's just you are just living
and travelling and experiencing at the pace that the place will
dictate. Yes.
So I think in answer to your question, Jakob, both fast and
(20:12):
slow travel have their own merits and are better for some
places and others and different stages of your life, all travels
and others. I think it's all good and it
should be experienced. Together Jakob, go at your own
pace man, Segway from place to place, seeing whatever you want
to see. But if you get that special
feeling and think, I'm really enjoying this place, slow down.
(20:32):
Jakob is very important. Zooming off at breakneck speed,
Adam, towards the final section of the show.
But a lot of people are saying it's their favorite section.
It's my favorite section. You told me it's your favorite
section. We are, of course, Speaking of
Tales of a Trip, a beautifully curated item where listeners can
(20:57):
go to tripologypodcast.com/talesof a Trip and send us a
recording of their best trip travel story.
You've just got 3 minutes to tell us your greatest story,
your most beautiful memory, yoursexiest experience, your most
wild adventure. Send us in a recording like this
listener has done. We're going to listen to it
right now. About eight years ago my friend
(21:21):
Michelle and I were in Australiaon our working holiday adventure
and we were looking into our second working holiday visa
here. So we had to do our so-called
farm work, as many of you guys will probably know if it's still
the case anyway, I think so. And we ended up on a cattle
station in far North Queensland,which is like in a little
(21:42):
triangle area in the far northeast of Australia, right in
the middle of it. Very interesting.
We were right in between. We were in a sort of cowboy
land, 30,000 cows, eighty horses, so much land you can't
even imagine. It was so big and 10 up to 25
(22:04):
people who live there. And I'd like to tell you guys
about one specific encounter with animal.
I was sick to cook at the station.
So on one day, one of the days, I think it was in the first
month or so that we were there. I went into the pantry wanted to
get a jar of something from pantry.
(22:26):
And just before I literally touched the jar I noticed there
was a massive spider right on top of it.
It was I think it was bigger than my hand which insanely
vague it was. Even the boys there thought it
was. They've never seen anything like
it. So what I did, I pulled out the
radio system, which you do when you're there, and asked for
(22:50):
help. And boys came and saved me off
the spider. And.
Yeah. And they were like, oh, yeah,
we're going to play with the spider.
We're going to kill it. They were younger boys, like
teenagers working at the cattle station.
Boys will be boys in some cases,I guess.
(23:13):
And so I feared the spider, but I also felt very bad for it.
And so did Michelle. And So what at the end of the
day, the boys put these, put thespider in an empty butter jar,
like a like a leader jar, I think.
And they put holes on the top and left it there on the counter
(23:35):
of that little patio in front ofthe kitchen.
So Michelle and I were looking at Michelle and I were looking
at each other at the end of the night.
And everybody went to bed and we're like, OK, no, we can't do
this. So we took the spider.
I mean, we, we literally gathered all our courage, took
the butter jar, walked through the dark, sort of threw the
(23:59):
spider into the grass somewhere and and ran off.
Then showing our light to see ifit's gone, took the butter jar,
put it back in the same place, just with the lid, like slightly
off it. So the boys wouldn't say it
wouldn't, wouldn't know. And they said it in the morning,
let it go. Where the spider go?
(24:20):
Those boys sound great, don't they?
Iris there. What a wonderful tripological
spider saviour. I'm all for vigilante animal
justice in the tropological community, Adam.
Yeah, I know, I know. I can imagine that that story
would speak to you, because I think you would have done
exactly the same thing. I absolutely love the way that
Iris left the lid off the jar soit almost looked like the spider
(24:41):
could have escaped itself. Yeah, she both allowed.
I mean, she misled the boys and gave the spider a very
believable alibi. There she was like this spider
let herself out. Are you a man who suffers from
the most horrendous of phobias, Arachno?
I wouldn't say I'm afraid of spiders, but certainly Huntsman
I've come into work contact withwith one in particular.
(25:05):
Funnily enough, I was up in Darwin about 10 years ago.
Huntsman weren't even around then.
I remember 10 years ago when the, you know, Huntsman, no, no,
no. I was working at someone's house
as part of like a workaway exchange and part of my job was
to clean out their garage and they had a lot of stuff in their
garage. So I was spending, you know, a
(25:26):
couple of hours a day in there. They were big skiers, big
snowboarders. They had a couple of boats as
well. You know, it's like a bit of
paraphernalia here, there, everywhere.
They've been decorating the house non-stop for the last
decade, so the paint pots and what have you.
Anyway, super dusty work and thelight in there wasn't great.
So I shone a big torch, this bigsort of lamp, similar to the one
I'm using now, actually in therewhen I was working.
(25:48):
And I remember one afternoon I caught the shadow of my hand go
along a wall and it caught, it sort of caught my attention.
And then as I moved my arm down,the shadow didn't move with it.
And I thought, oh. You're that shadow.
Behave yourself. I'm absolutely sick of you not
(26:10):
doing what you're told. My body by choice it was.
It was the bloody, the bloody Huntsman, the Huntsman spider
the size of my hand. I mistook A Huntsman spider for
the shadow of my hands. That gives you some idea how how
big it was. Or how small your shadow is.
Yeah, yeah. But that, that house, I mean,
(26:31):
the people that listen to this podcast who know who I am and
have probably heard this story, that house has a quite a sad
place in my heart, actually, because it involved the, the dog
that I was walking that unfortunately lost its life.
And I'm maybe I'll tell that story in a Patreon, in a Patreon
(26:51):
section because it is, it is crazy.
And my family still mentioned that story to this day.
Well, I think about that story. It's one of the first stories
you told me and I think about italmost every time I see a dog.
So if you'd be willing, Adam, I would love to.
I would love to have that story in in this week's Patreon.
Yeah, it was the same house. It was the same house.
I just a word on arachnophobia. I'd like to say, you know, I'm,
(27:14):
I'm not afraid of spiders, but Ido have a phobia of the other
arachnid. You know, there's two arachnids.
You're in spider arachnid territory or tick arachnid
territory. I'm not a fan of the tick.
I find them quite a distasteful little arachnid.
Yeah, they don't do much good. You actually have a phobia of
them, would you say? Hatred, you know, like I think
(27:35):
those two things are synonymously used in today's
world. And I'm I'm a tick phobic in the
sense that I really dislike themand wish they would leave my
life. Yeah, yeah, completely,
completely. I mean, they're nasty little
buggers and they do a lot of damage.
I do just want to take the opportunity as well to say thank
you so much Iris, for sending that story in.
I do know Iris personally and I just want to tell you that she
(27:58):
has had some amazing experienceson in places around the world,
some of which I've shared. I've been very lucky to share
them with her. Just a little note on that farm
that she was on because I'm often very jealous of the
stories that other people are able to tell and this is one of
those. Let me just give you some
context. The farm that she was on, she
told me at the time, was about 1,000,000 acres, which is bigger
(28:21):
than the province that Iris is from in the Netherlands.
The driveway was 120 kilometers long and in order to buy
anything from a shop they had todrive for 7 1/2 hours.
So it just gives you an idea. Mate, You'll love this as well.
There was a sermon delivered to them by a pastor every Sunday.
A religious sermon that flew in by plane.
(28:41):
The. Pastor flew in by plane.
Yeah. Wow.
Is that not, it goes to all the communities in that area that
are obviously miles and miles apart, but you meet a very
specific, very different type ofperson on these cattle stations
because they don't really interact with the the rest of
the world. So if you do want an experience
like that, go to work away. They actually met the guy that
(29:02):
they end up working for in a barsomewhere else in Queensland, I
believe. But just Australia is such a
wonderful place to to have these.
I mean, they're just out of thisworld, some of these
experiences. Yeah.
Because you can't get that far away from from anywhere unless
you're in a huge country. I like the sound of that guy,
though. Rock'n'roll pastor hopping on a
(29:22):
private jet talking about Jesus.Oh, where are you going Saturday
night? Might.
So I've got to fly out of here back and talk about Jesus in a
couple of different farms. Mike, see you later hopping on
the jacket. I mean, what a life he must
live. I want to be a rock'n'roll
pastor when I grow up. But for now, mate, we're going
to have to talk more about all sorts of crazy goings on in the
(29:44):
Patreon section. You're going to tell me about a
dog which you unwittingly LED tothe destruction of.
I'm going to talk about ants flying through the the house is
going to be a right back and early an affair of in the
Patreon. If you want to get involved in
that patreon.com/topology podcast, we're going to head
over there now and have ever such a special time.
We'll hope that you'll join us. Otherwise though, for you guys
(30:05):
that don't want to fork out somepennies for the Patreon, we'll
see you next. Week.
We'll see you there. Bye.
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