This morning a woman did just that. I almost was hit, probably avoided by 5cm and thanks to my brakes. I swore the shit out of her. She could have seriously injured me or even killed me.

She had the audacity to wind her window down and scream ‘Dont swear at me, get a f**king license and learn the road you f**king cyclist’.

This is the type of person we need off the road. Blathering idiots who disregard anyones life other than their own. Who talk on their phones while driving. Who smoke in their cars with children. Why can’t people be mindful that they are driving a vehicle, weighing over a tonne (more than 10 times the weight of a cyclist). She obviously doesn’t know the road code herself.

I was indicating right, sticking the the right of the road getting ready to turn into the adjacent road, when she undertook me then cut me off while turning right.

If I was a cat, i’d have one less life.

update: it appears this link has been removed from google search. Yesterday the search term “Avis chipped windscreen Melbourne” brought back my link in 3rd place. Now it’s absent, even if you include “marksy”

update 2: Google “may” have inadvertently rolled the search result back to a month prior, as it’s back in the search (and ranking high too).

update 3: Avis contacted us last week saying that they’re sorry to hear of our poor service and offered to compensate us 50% of the damage and want the receipt to look into the matter further. That’s a good start, however we don’t feel that we should pay anything since we didn’t do the damage! Also, travelling 22,000km back home – we’ve misplaced the receipt, so don’t really have anything to go on. My advice is, don’t drive with Avis.

My girlfriend and I flew into Sydney for a holiday in late February 2012, to see friends and travel a bit on our way to Melbourne.

We used vroomvroomvroom.com to choose a car rental company, and found Avis to be the cheapest at about $150 for 4 days unlimited kms, no return.

We made our way from our friend’s, Miranda, house to Avis Sydney. The lady was nice, gave us maps to get to Melbourne, suggest some stops on the way. Things were going great. She showed us around the car, very minor scuff marks and then made our way down to Melbourne.

Our first stop was in Bateman’s Bay. My father organised a nice cheap motel for us which was sweet. The next morning we had a long haul of about 6 hours drive, to just outside of Melbourne. In morning we were due to drop the car off, we filled up the tank of gas, I cleaned the windows and made our way into the city drop off point.

We finally found Avis Melbourne, but there wasn’t a clear indication of where to park the car, so I parked in a roadside park, paid a dollar for 15mins or something. Put the ticket up in the dashboard and walked into Avis.

The man at the counter seemed stressed and unfriendly. I told him we had a car to drop off, and he told me to park the car in the parking complex, like I was a complete moron. His tone suggested that it was appropriately signposted.

We drove up the ramp and just inside the darkness was a small sign saying Avis customer parking. Completely invisible from the road, mind.

Upon leaving the car, we did a check around to see if there was any damage or we’d left anything behind. The only issue my girlfriend had was that the car was a bit dirty (inside and out). But I was confident Avis would clean the car themselves.

We went to drop back the keys with the grumpy man at the desk and expected him to sign off the car. Instead he took our rental papers, and printed our receipt. Done, even without a smile.

We went to find our accommodation for the night, put our bags down and were getting ready to go out for dinner. My girlfriends phone rang. It was Avis. I thought to myself, I guess we left something in the car.

I thought wrong.

They were calling to say that they are going to have to replace the windscreen as we had apparently damaged it. What?! But we didn’t notice any damages to the windscreen?! I cleaned the windscreen before dropping off the car, and even put a parking ticket into the windscreen before dropping it off.

We asked to come and see the damage but were told that the car had been moved to another place for cleaning. The woman from Avis said we can come all the way to the other side of town to inspect it.

We got there at about 6pm and spoke with the woman. She was very rude and accusative. She led us down into the basement where they clean the cars, but she couldnt find the car. It turned out, the car had been returned to the original location. We were confused about this whole situation and it seemed a bit dodgy.

We asked why didnt the guy sign off the car in the first place and she said that’s a normal thing. We then asked why did the car get transfered back to the original location when she told us to come all the way over the other side of town. She couldnt answer. We then suggested that the damage could have happened on the way from the original location to the other side of town and she spoke up raising her tone at us saying “take a look around alright?! there’s absolutely no stones around town.. it’s not like there’s trucks racing up and down the streets and stones flicking up”. We laughed at her defensive and irrational answer.

Who the fuck speaks to a customer like that? I was so mad, i left as i felt like swearing at her. My girlfriend and i stopped a moment just outside to let what had happened just sink in.We thought to go back and ask if we can see the car in the original location, because at this stage it was just there words against ours.

The woman was in the back office and said something like, “no, im too busy to talk with you”. Her colleague expressed his understanding and was calm and told us that we could see the car in the original location.

We made our way back again to find the car. On walking down the road, not even 5 minutes away from Avis, was the main road, covered in loose stones. All flicking up when cars drove through. Stupid woman.

We returned to the car to find it, half cleaned and a small stone chip in the lower passenger side of the windscreen. It was about the size of a 20p coin. This was honestly the first time we had seen it. We were both certain that this was made on the journey from the original location to the other side of town.

We called back the woman to say yeah we can see the chip now, but never saw it to begin with. We told her we thought the chip happened on transit, but she then said that it was discovered at the original location. But this is a complete lie. Why would the notice the stone chip, move the car to wash, only wash half of it, then return it to the original location.

My idea is that they picked up the car, moved it to the second location, stone chipped the windscreen on transit, started washing it, notice there was a chip there, returned it to the original location in panic.

Doesnt that sound a bit dodgy?

They said that they were going to charge us $160 regardless, and that if it was repairable it would cost less.

We were pretty pissed at this situation. That we had no say in the matter, and this greedy company was screwing its customers and playing a horrible trick.

We spoke to Avis at the airport about the matter, and they agreed that they should have signed off the car with us to check for damages. She told us to write to customer service as this wasn’t fair practice.

When we arrived in Auckland, again we spoke with Avis there, to get their opinion which also agreed that Avis policy (as most other rental companies do) should sign off a vehicle with the customer.

We got back to London and wrote to customer services. We heard nothing. A week later, we followed up with a confirmation email, to see if they got our email. Nothing. Finally, nearly 8 weeks later we receive this reply from Avis customer services:

Dear Ms Hassanova,

Thank you for your e-mail.

I was sorry to learn about your disappointment concerning the damage charge applied against your account.

I have investigated your query with our Australian insurance department and it has been confirmed that you have been charged for damage to the car, which was not marked on the vehicle condition report as pre-existing. The windscreen was found damaged at the end of your hire.

Any damage caused to the vehicle during the rental period would be considered the renter’s responsibility under the terms of our agreement. According to our records you locally accepted to be financially liable for any damage up to the amount of AUD2650.00 when you signed your rental agreement.

Also under the terms of your Agreement, we can claim the full amount of the excess when we discover that one of our cars is damaged, although the final charges usually reflect the cost of the repair. As per the received documents the final cost of the repair was AUD165.00 therefore you were charged accordingly

In your e-mail you also questioned the inspection of the vehicle. I would like to point out that the rental station does not require to have a joint inspection of the vehicle, however we do advise the customer to check the vehicle to ensure that no damage has been missed and they agree with any damage that is shown on the documentation provided. When a vehicle is returned it may not be checked with the customer, however it will be checked very shortly after being returned and the car parks that the vehicles are parked in are secure and therefore very unlikely that any damage caused would go unnoticed.

However I am extremely sorry that you felt our members of staff did not provide the levels of professionalism and customer care that you would expect when renting from us. I hope that you will accept my most sincere apologies. I have forwarded this matter to the rental station concerned and can assure you that a review will be carried out to ensure that all staff will demonstrate an improved customer focus in the future.

May I ask you to provide me with the return slip you received and signed at the time of check-in so that I can get back to Avis Australia and ask them to investigate this issue further?

I have attached a copy of the received documents for your records. I hope the provided information clarifies the issue.

Thank you for your patience while I have looked into this case.

Yours sincerely,

Herta Zuh
Senior Customer Service Specialist
Customer Services
Avis Rent a Car Limited
United Kingdom

As we wait for a reply and action on this criminal activity, we still hold Avis responsible and know that we will never use them again, nor recommend them to any friends or family, and tell as many people possible about this story to prevent anything like this happening to anyone again.

Arriving at Bangkok at about 5pm, we took a taxi to our accommodation in Khao San Road. The taxi driver was a really nice Thai guy, very interested in New Zealand. Knew more All Blacks player names, knew lots of cities/towns than I’d have expected. He’d never been but heard great things from previous travellers. It took us about 2 hours to get from the airport to Khao San, because of rush-hour. It was crazy seeing so much traffic and chaos and yet the Thai people don’t seem to stress. It ended up costing us ฿400 for the taxi. A mere, £8. At this point i should mention, ฿50 is £1.

Our accommodation was fairly basic, ฿1000 for two nights, bed, bathroom & shower, airconditioning. It was just off the street and was surprisingly quiet. We put our packs down, had a shower, then headed out for a look around. We first had to stop off and have a drink and some food. ฿120 for a large Chang, ฿70 for a Pad Thai. Delicious.. Chang beer is a local Thai mass produced beer. Nothing really special about it, except the percentage of alcohol is about 6.7%. I say ‘about’ 6.7% because it seems like the alcohol content varies from bottle to bottle. You can feel a little tipsy after just half.

The bright colours and fragrant food smells and people trying to sell you crap was almost overwhelming. We headed to bed at about 2am as we wanted an early morning to see as much as we could in the little time we had in Bangkok.

Prior to coming to Thailand, my idea of it wasn’t completely off. I envisioned a sci-fi city mixed in with old world huts/cramped living. The CBD was huge sky scrapers with alien-like lighting. A few blocks later, you were in slum-like conditions, people living atop of one another.

Khao San Road is a popular destination for tourists. There are many bars, restaurants and plenty of markets with crap in. T-shirts to handbags to trinkets. Old gypsy women walked the streets, trying to sell bracelets, and wooden toads that made a chirping sound. The morning heat was a sign of what was to come. It was only 10am and was almost 30˚c. We sweated so much, we had to keep drinking water. The people constantly approaching us “Hello friend, Hello lady, where you from? You want tuktuk?” grew tiresome quickly. Starting off with polite replies, rapidly changing to blunt no’s. Otherwise you’ll be taking the whole day to strangers and buying stuff you don’t need.

We decided to take a tuktuk with this guy who seemed very friendly. ฿40 for the whole day seemed pretty cheap. He said he’ll take us to three or four major Buddha sites as some were closed for the monks. He kept talking about today being a special day just for tourists. It seemed a bit off, so we both kept our wits with us. He was happy to park up and wait for us while we had a look around each monument. The Buddha areas seemed to be a sanctuary for homeless cats. I’d never seen so many ratty looking cats in my life. In Buddhism, they respect each animal as they believe they may be reincarnated as one. Or something. We headed on with our tuktuk driver, and on the way back to Khao San he said he needs to stop and get a petrol voucher. The government gives them a petrol discount voucher if they show around tourists. The catch is that we the tourist, have to stop off and view his mates collections of suits. Continuing on again he said he has to make another quick stop. This time was a jeweller who sold purple stones for crazy expensive prices. However, the shop keeper had a beautiful golden retriever dog in the shop who reminded me of my families late dog, Mollie.

We got back on the tuktuk and said, no more stops, take us back. It was getting on to about 6pm and we wanted to have dinner and drinks before it got too late. He dropped us off exactly where he picked us up, gave him the ฿40 then he demanded tips and wanted tips in Euros. We gave him shrapnel – probably only about ฿5 worth.

On our way back for some food, we stopped at a suit maker to see how much it would cost me for a custom suit. It came to about ฿5000, fully tailored suit. I’ll take it.

That night we wondered down Khao San Road to have a look around the shops/markets after stopping in at a dodgy street restaurant. We ordered a beer and decided on our food. I ended up getting something really spicy. Rouzie’s too was quite spicy. However, after a couple beers we started chatting with the owner guy and he loved magic tricks. I got out some cards and started showing his skills. Quite impressive how he cut and shuffled the cards. But this was nothing compared to what we were about to see.

He told us to join the people next to us, so he could show us a new trick he’s been working on. They were Germans, French and American. I guess he got us to move, so he could get more people on seats for his restaurant. However, he shuffled the pack and got each of us to take a card, show it to each other (without him looking at it). Then put it back into the pack randomly then shuffled it like crazy. Split the pack, shuffled again. It was impressive. He then, fanned out the pack and went around the table saying “i think your card is this one”. Damn, each of the cards he pulled out were correct. We gave him a round of applause and got another beer each.

He didn’t want tips. He just loved entertaining us. And practicing his english. Later he came back again and asked if he could show us one last trick he’s been working on. We were like, okay sure. He asked Rouzie to sign a card and the each of us to take a card, remember it and put it back into the pack, again randomly. He then shuffled and shuffled the cards and shuffled some more. Then, he pointed an American girl and said, ‘this, is your card’. ‘Ahh, no sorry’… ‘THIS is your card…’, ‘Nope’. He then said sorry, scratched his head and shuffled the pack apologising. He went around the rest of the table successfully guessing each of the cards, until he came to me and Rouzie’s cards. He said ‘right, the last two. I’ll let the lady go first’ Rouzie started to speak and was cut off when he interrupted saying, ‘no, this lady’ pointing to me ‘with the beautiful long hair’. Laughs. He starts going through the pack and tells me to tell him to stop randomly. ‘STOP’ I yell. ‘This your card’, ‘yes’! How did he do that..? ‘The final card’ he says. He goes through the pack and puts them on the table. ‘Something is not right…’ he says disconcertedly. He looks around the floor to see if he’s dropped cards, bends down takes off his shoe and shakes it. Out falls a folded up card. He unfolds it and says to Rouzie ‘is this your card?’ Wow. It was. The card she had signed, was folded up in his shoe. Very impressive. Then he’s silent and looks a bit puzzled. He coughs, then pulls a card from his mouth. It’s the American girls card. WHAT?! Table goes crazy. He then looks at me and says ‘looks like you need another beer, i’ll go get you one’. Takes one step, takes his other shoe off, and pulls out a beer from his shoe. I shit you not.

Each of us look around in somewhat amazement and disbelief. That was the most craziest magic i’ve ever seen. Either he is a great misdirector or some crazy Thai black magic at hand. We give him a big tip at the end, and he’s very humble but thankful.

We had another walk around, looked at some more markets then wondered back to our hotel. Before heading back, i wanted to try something dodgy from the road stalls. A deepfried grasshopper. Among the many different types of insects the road stall provided, the grasshopper was the least disgusting. There were beetles, grubs, slugs, spiders, something that looked like peanuts but were probably something horrible,

I ate the grasshopper. Not too bad. It tasted like, grass.. or hay. However, it was crunchy as very hard to swallow. It was like eating a prawn shell. It’s legs, tickling my throat on the way down. Some Canadian blokes watched and took photos of me eating it. They thought it was incredible and let me have a swig of their beer to help the insect down my gullet.

Before heading back, we decided to get some cocktails in. Cheap and cheerful roadside cockies from a ladyboy. Not like that… Was about ฿60 for a strong Mojito. She/he wasn’t trying very hard to be a lady. Pretty much just a bloke, wearing a miniskirt, boobs and long hair. We wanted to see a cabaret show, but didn’t have the time or even know where one was. We weren’t really interested in seeing any sex shows. I’ve heard some stories and the are quite off putting.

In morning we headed to a market we heard about the day before. I thought it’d be best to catch a taxi. Rouzie thought that it’d be cheaper by tuktuk. ฿200 i said was pretty cheap, however considering the tuktuk guy took us around for only ฿40 for the whole day. I thought it’d be better to ride in air conditioning for a bit anyway. It took quite a while to get to the market. Maybe 30mins of taxi drive?

The market was huge. The biggest market i have ever seen. Probably 2 square kilometers of market. You could buy everything in there. And haggle the crap out of it. Rouzie wanted to buy materials for a friends wedding, for decoration. We wondered around for ages, i found some lovely little wooden tealight trinkets for friends and family. Lots of beautiful things like hand made furniture, most cheap but too hard to bring back or ship. Fake t-shirts, fake handbags, fake shoes.

After a good couple hours there, we headed back to find a tuktuk. Rouzie was adamant tuktuk would be cheaper. Unfortunately they weren’t. They were ฿250 WITH stops. Without stops, would have been ฿500. So in the end, the taxi for ฿200 was the cheapest. So we took another back.

We headed back to our hotel, picked up our bags and my freshly made suit and headed to the airport. Next stop Phuket.

For £30 including shipping, this is the cheapest PC in the world. This is less than the price of an Arduino starter pack. For developing countries this is a massive opportunity. All you need is a HDMI tv / LCD and i guess innernep.

It probably won’t ship until late August though.

However when configuring Windows I found I couldn’t access my Mac. I restarted everything including the router. Nothing. It kept asking for my username & password (the account that has access on the Mac). I then did a quick search and found this piece of information:

You have to manually disable security polices to connect to LAN based NTLM. Go to Local Security Policy; find Network security: LAN Manager Authentication and set it to “Send LM & LTLM Responses”. Find Network security: Minimum session security for NTLM SSP (may be 2 of them) and set it to “no minimum”

Without knowing this I would probably be in the corner, crying and gorging on a whole thing of candy beans.

Sneak peaks look fantastic.

via imdb

Hey look, they even have Outrageous Fortune:

Rouzie has to fly back early so will head off a week before me.

Nice.

• it’s now a new year
• I moved into a new flat
• I now own crystal (thanks parents)
• built a hdmpc from scratch for under £170

However, somethings haven’t.

• still don’t have Internet
• brakes on my black pony bike are still crappy

At any rate, I’ve a list of things to do this year. Many are already in motion and some might take a while to achieve.

• Plan month trip to NZ, Thailand, Australia
• give up drinking for the month of January
• give up smokes
• get rid of Christmas belly
• write an instrumental album
• set up an automated security system
• write an iOS app
• travel to more than 5 different countries
• save

Anyways, all that more and hope to be updating more often, with better content.

Booyaa!