Brian Thacker is a Travel Writer who thinks of silly travel ideas, such as turning up to numerous countries without a guidebook and actually acting on them.

He then turns these experiences into a number of Funny Travel Books which are a great read.

Actually, I’m a bit envious of him – he travels, writes, gains income from his books, and then goes travelling again!

One of his titles, ‘Where’s Wallis’, made my Top 5 Funny Travel Books.

Anyway, I’m on a roll with this interviewing stuff! After managing to score Paul Sorvino and Peter Moore for a chat, Brian’s agreed to an interview after a sizeable deposit to his bank account (Check out his official site !).

If you’re wondering what a ‘Possie’ is, that’s a fusion term between a ‘Pommy’ (an Englishman) and an Aussie! See more about Brian Thacker’s bio.

Anyway, here is the Brian Thacker interview!

The Travel Tart: Hi Brian, thanks so much for this opportunity to have a chat. You’re travel writing is definitely skewed towards the humourous side of travel – which is why I’m drawn to it! The irony is, if something is funny, it’s because it’s so close to the truth! I was wondering, what made you decide to become a travel writer, especially one with such a humourous bent?

Brian Thacker: I was working as a tour leader dragging drunk 18-30 Aussies and Kiwis around Europe when I read my first travel book. It was Bill Bryson’ ‘Neither Here nor There’ and I thought what a great job being a travel writer would be. I didn’t think it was something I would (or could!) actually do, but when I got back home to Australia I went through my travel journals (I’d written down all the fun and games passengers, crew and the locals got up to) and thought that I could (and should!) write a book. So, I wrote down a few stories and decided that I could do it then took four months off to write what would become my first book ‘Rule No.5: No sex on the bus’. The humourous bent part was easy because it was hilarious what happened on those tours. I couldn’t make that shit up.

The Travel Tart: In your most recent book, ‘Sleeping Around’, you ‘couch surfed’ around the world and stayed with a number of interesting characters. Can you put to bed the fears of some travellers who think they might accidentally book a couch with an axe murderer? I know there are checks and balances with Couch Surfing, such as an eBay-like rating system, but what’s your take on this relatively new phenomenon on travelling?

Brian Thacker: When I did my travelling for my book there was 140,000 members on couchsurfing.com.  There is now close to two million with almost 20,000 joining every week. It keeps growing because it works, The whole reference thing is wonderful. If 20 people have vouched for someone then it’s very unlikely that they won’t be as good as their references say!

The Travel Tart: Like yourself, I like the odd beer now and then. I try beer(s) in every country that I go to, as well as getting stuck into the food. I’ve even developed a Beer Index where I’ve measured the affordability of a country by the price of its beer per litre. I’ve even sampled millet beer out of a plastic rubbish bin in Namibia – which was actually pretty good!   I was just wondering, trying to pick your favourite beer can be quite a taxing task, but what’s the worst beer you’ve ever drank?

Brian Thacker: Oh, that’s a hard one. I think I have two joint winners. The first is Stella beer from Egypt. I’m sure it’s made from water from the Nile with very suspicious bits at the bottom of each bottle. And the other shocker is Tooheys New. It’s just tastes horrible and they don’t even make it from Nile water.

The Travel Tart: When I talked to Peter Moore, he mentioned that his travelling days have been somewhat transformed since the arrival of kids. How about yourself? How has the addition of kids changed your travel habits? Are you planning to badger your kids into becoming travel addicts like ourselves?

Brian Thacker: Having a kid just changed the way I travel (and write). I do much shorter trips and if I have to travel longer then I split the trip up over a few months so that I’m not away from home too long. It does also have it’s advantages, though. Because I work from home I can pick up my daughter from school and help out in class and I also get to hang out during school holidays.  And yes, my daughter is a great little traveller – she’d been on 50 flights by the time she was five!

The Travel Tart: I also asked Peter when was the specific time and place where he was bitten by the travel bug. Mine was in Kosovo, Peter’s was in Vanuatu. How about yours?

Brian Thacker: I first ‘travelled’ when I did my Big Trip OS to Europe when I was 24. From the moment I stepped on that plane I was hooked and by my first day in Frankfurt (where I just wandered around aimlessly) I was totally addicted.

The Travel Tart: I pissed myself laughing when I read about you visiting the Tamworth Country Music Festival in New South Wales, Australia as part of The Naked Man Festival. Especially the bit where you heard someone singing the song ‘I’ve Never Been To Bed With An Ugly Woman But I’ve Sure Woken Up With A Few.’ What a great title! One of the joys/horrors of travelling is coming across the different types of music that is usually blasted through numerous sub-woofers in barely roadworthy vehicles. What was your worst combination of a) music and b) transport?

Brian Thacker: Recently I was in East Timor and I caught a 16 seat bus that had 33 people in it. It was like a nightclub. There was blaring distorted house music, it was full of smoke and someone threw up on my shoes.

The Travel Tart: What was your scariest plane ride? Mine was when I took an internal flight in Kazakhstan, and I was transported in a plane that was, at best case, 25 years old (I love the Yakalov 40). I remember checking my bags in, going through security, and then having to load my bags on the plane myself! But the crew realised that there were too many passengers, and not enough seats! This created havoc where the flight engineers unbolted some ‘business’ class seats, and then they installed 5 extra rows with seats borrowed from another plane! This all happened while I was on the tarmac watching the whole fiasco! But I lived to tell the tale!

Brian Thacker: On a flight from London to Agadir in Morocco (with Royal Air Maroc) we got off the plane and when we were waiting to get into the terminal my girlfriend asked ‘Why does the sign say Marrakesh?’ We’d got off at the wrong stop. When we ran back to the plane a platoon of army dudes with very large guns ran after us and began screaming and waving those very large guns into our faces. Now that was scary!

The Travel Tart: Do you have any crazy adventures planned for the near future?

Brian Thacker: I’m currently writing my new book, so I had my dose of crazy adventures last year. I travelled through South East Asia using the original 1975 Lonely Planet ‘South East Asia on a Shoestring’ as my only guidebook. It was a wonderful trip and will make for a wonderful read!

The Travel Tart:  Looking forward to that one coming out!  Hey, I’m crazy too, and I’d like to tag along! Thanks for your time and enjoy your travels!

If you feel like a laugh and want to stir up your Wanderlust at the same time, check out any of Brian Thacker’s books.

Anyway, Brian Thacker’s titles are:

• Rule No. 5: No Sex on the Bus: Confessions of a Tour Leader
• I’m Not Eating Any of That Foreign Muck: Travels with Me Dad
• Planes, Trains & Elephants
• The Naked Man Festival: And Other Excuses to Fly Around the World
• Where’s Wallis?
• Sleeping Around: A Couch Surfing Tour of the Globe

My Nuts is usually something most males think about if they’ve been kicked there accidentally.

However, My Nuts probably isn’t usually associated with something you can eat.

But check out this Interesting Travel Photo taken by Carrie Kellenberger from My Several Worlds (you can follow her on Twitter at Globtrotteri).

This is from a local supermarket in Taiwan.

Hmm, I can imagine the public relations campaign for My Nuts.

• ‘My Nuts are the freshest around’
• ‘Make sure you eat My Nuts’

The possibilities are endless…

It’s probably just another case of Engrish gone wrong.

Cockroach Racing is a popular event that occurs every year in Brisbane, Australia.

They occur on Australia Day – the 26th of January each year.  Australia Day is the national holiday which commemorates the day where white settlers first came to Australia, on January 26, 1788.

But Australians couldn’t be bothered with big military parades or any pompous occasion like that!  Instead, we’d rather go to a hot pub, drink a lot of beer and watch some Cockroach Racing instead!

That’s right, those little vermin creatures that would survive a nuclear war, but those members of the insect kingdom we love to exterminate with all sorts of nasty chemicals.

Australians love to collect these beasts, and race them on the National Holiday at the Story Bridge Hotel in Brisbane.  We also like to blow all our money on a bet to see who finishes first.

The alleged story of how these races started is that two two old punters sat in the Story Bridge Hotel bar arguing over which Brisbane suburb had the biggest and fastest roaches.   They decided to race some roaches the next day and now, the races have reached their 29th year!

Here are some stills from the event.

The Cockroach Racing Arena – note that a jar of cockroaches is placed in the middle, and the first cockroach to reach the outer edge of the circle wins!

The Cockroach Race Starting Gate

And the winners..

While it may seem silly to race cockroaches, it’s all for a good reason – proceeds from the day go to charity.

I took some footage of the Cockroach Racing and had a friend of mine do some top notch editing.  You can check out his site at World Window and follow him on Twitter.

You can see more at the official Cockroach Races website.  You can also follow Cocky Races on Twitter!

Here it is!

If you want to learn more about Cockroaches, check out The Compleat Cockroach: A Comprehensive Guide to the Most Despised (And Least Understood) Creature on Earth.

Since Twitter has exploded, there seems to be an exponential increase in Twitter Travel Contests around the place.

There doesn’t seem to be day where someone is offering a giveaway if you tweet this or that.  Hey, I’ve even had a few giveaways here on The Travel Tart, such as the odd Travel Book here and there. 

This hasn’t been too taxing because I haven’t been that imaginative.  I don’t let merit get in the way of someone scoring a prize – I just let a random number generator pick a commenter for me!  (Try this one, it’s good! http://www.random.org/).

It’s all about making life easier, not harder!

But Nomadic Matt has a great Twitter Travel contest going – and I’ve even been shortlisted in the Top 15 for a trip to Costa Rica, including an airfare (my shonky poem entry for this is here). 

I’ve been shortlisted for some fantastic travel junkets, for example a 3 month all expenses paid around New Zealand -  with not much luck.

Today, I’m not going to bore you with crap like ‘I’m definitely the best candidate..’ blah blah blah or I’m experienced with this blah blah blah so vote for me blah blah blah.  I’ve already done that in my entry!

But I’ve come up with a list of Twitter Travel Contestant Types that I’ve pulled out of my backside!

Here they are:

The Facebook Friender

This person has thousands of Facebook Friends that aren’t really their true friends.  Votes are canvassed by sending out daily Facebook status updates to make sure someone votes for them.  Facebook Status updates are sent out to Twitter, with Twitter updates being sent back to Facebook in a perpetual cycle of updates.

The Twitter Tragic

Sends out the maximum allowable tweets per hour pleading for people to vote for them.  Sometimes for days or weeks.

The Pleader

You know, the one who types, usually in uppercase ‘PLEASE PLEASE VOTE FOR ME, I’M DEFINITELY THE BEST CANDIDATE FOR THIS PRIZE. I KNOW I’M THE BEST!’

The Enormous Emailer

Will send out an email to EVERY person from every single email account they possess.  Many times.

The Beautiful Person

This contestant uploads a profile picture that is a professional glamour shot in a skimpy outfit to appeal to the opposite (or maybe sometimes both) sex(es). 

The Briber

‘If you vote for me, I’ll [insert any task you nominate here, such as selling your soul].

As for me?

I’m The Easygoer

I might send out a few things here and there, but I’ll go with the flow.  I sent an email out to a few friends which said.

Hey, I’ve been shortlisted to score a trip to Costa Rica.  1 of 15!  The highest vote getter doesn’t necessarily win, but it helps!

It’s really simple – I’m #13.  Just press on that to vote!

http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/vote-and-send-someone-to-costa-rica/

Hey, if it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t life goes on and there will always be another fantastic travel opportunity around the corner.

However, since I’m a Travel Addict, I won’t knock back a free trip either!

So if’ you haven’t fallen asleep, go to this link here and click on #13 and we’ll see what happens!

I’ll try and stuff you in my backpack and declare you as ‘Miscellaneous’ to the Costa Rican immigration officials if I win (oops, that’s the Briber!).

Chop Chop!

You’ve only got until March 1 2010!  Thanks!

I’m really chuffed today – I have an interview with one of my all time favourite Travel Writers, Peter Moore. I’m a massive fan of his work, which tends to take the piss out of his travels.

Two of his titles appeared in my Top 5 Funny Travel Books.  You can check out the official Peter Moore website and follow him on Twitter.

Peter was silly enough to accept my offer to interview him for The Travel Tart website, so here it is!

The Travel Tart: Hi Peter, thanks so much for the opportunity to chat.  You’re an Australian travel writer who is now based in the United Kingdom.  How have you found the lifestyle change?  Would you like me to email you a picture of the sun? ;-P

 Peter Moore:  I’ve been here five years now and I’ve got to say the novelty is only just starting to wear off. I found myself complaining about the snow the other day and thought, Oh God, I’m becoming a whinging Pom!

Having said that, when the sun is out it’s almost perfect. Not too hot, not too cold. And Fullers do a really nice Honey Beer that hits the spot.  Just need Global Warming to speed up a bit and it’ll be like that for a couple of months a year instead of a couple of days!

The Travel Tart: I was wondering where the travel bug bit you.  For me, it was post war Kosovo in 2001!  I was there for work, and that experience gave me a taste for places most package tourists would avoid like the plague!  Where was the place (and time!) where you thought, ‘I just love doing this travel thing!’ ?

 Peter Moore:  It was when I was nineteen and I went over with my dad to Vanuatu. Dad was a plumber and a Seventh Day Adventist and had volunteered to build a shower block at a mission school on a tiny island called Aore. When it was finished the headmaster took us over to another island, Malekula, to meet the Big Nambas.

There are two tribes on Malekula, the Big Nambas and the Small Nambas. Both gad about with only a red cloth wrapped around their penises. But they have different opinions on the importance of size. Let’s just say the Big Nambas go through a lot more red cloth.

Anyway, we climbed up this mountain, got invited into the village enclosure and had a few drinks with the Big Nambas chief (it was obvious why he was the boss!). And I was just smitten. It hit me that there was all this stuff going on in the world I had no idea about and I just wanted to see it all.

The Travel Tart: I’m guessing that travel has changed so much since your first overseas trip, thanks mostly to this revolution called the internet.  Actually, I remember watching a funny news bar headline from the Chaser’s CNNNN program, which said ‘Backpacker Spends Entire Round The World Trip in Internet Cafe.’  What do you think has been the biggest change regarding travel during this time?

 Peter Moore:  Yeah, the Internet has definitely had a huge impact, both good and bad.

On the up side, it’s much easier to keep in contact with people you meet. And sites like couchsurfing make it easier to meet locals and get a real insight on things.

On the downside, people spend too much time in Internet cafes telling people about what they are going to do rather than just doing it. And there’s a tendency to research a trip to buggery, booking rooms, looking at pictures of the beach etc rather than just turning up and being pleasantly – or unpleasantly surprised.  As you know, some of the best experiences come when things go horribly wrong. I worry that we’re researching those kinds of serendipitous disasters right out of the equation.

The other big thing has been the emergence of budget airlines. Especially here in Europe. All of a sudden you can get somewhere for the price of a packet of chips. Over the next couple of months I’m going to a mate’s 40^th in Stockholm, Marcos’s 50^th in Livorno (he was the Vespa restorer in Vroom with a View) and out to Diyabikar and hopefully into Iraqi Kurdistani, all for less than a return flight to Brisbane from Sydney.

The Travel Tart: Which one of your books was the most enjoyable to write?  I know that’s like saying who your favourite child is, but my personal highlights of yours are No Shitting in The Toilet, and The Wrong Way Home.  I’ve also enjoyed your other books as well, as they all have a great sense of humour injected into them.

 Peter Moore:  It’s funny that you refer to the books as children, because that’s how I feel about them. And like you said, I shouldn’t have favourites but I do. The Wrong Way Home is my golden child. I loved that trip and I think that comes through in the book. Travelling from Cape Town to Cairo for Swahili was also fun. And I really enjoyed doing Italy by Vespa. I was a little worried that Italy would be less adventurous than my other journeys and that I’d have problems meeting locals. But my little Vespa took care of that – on both fronts. OK, I love them all!

The Travel Tart: I’ve eaten and drank some strange substances in my time, such as Tea with Egg, Cow’s Nose with Peanut Sauce, and heaps of other stuff that have appeared in my 52 Travel Tips for Weird Food and Drinks.  What’s the most bizarre or awful thing you have ever drunk or eaten, assuming you could identify the ingredients?

 Peter Moore:  Man, I’ve eaten it all. And most of the time, didn’t find out what it was until after the fact. Dog in the Philippines, cat in China, a deep-fried Mars Bar in Scotland. (OK I knew what that was when I was eating it but that didn’t make it any less gross.)

As for the worst, well there was the gristly, congealed soup I couldn’t finish at a bus stop in Albania. It was simply inedible. And then there was the Yakatori sparrow I couldn’t finish in Tokyo. It was quite tasty – like chicken – but I couldn’t bring myself to eat it’s head. Even though my Japanese friends insisted it was the best part.

The Travel Tart: Italy, Egypt and African minibus drivers made my list of the Worst Drivers in The World (I’m sure you would be familiar with African minibus drivers in Swahili for The Broken Hearted).  I know you’ve travelled to a truckload of countries, but which place tops your list for the Michael Schumacher Award for Most Outstanding Defensive Driving, or otherwise, the worst drivers?

Peter Moore:  You know, I’ve become immune to minibus drivers over the years. I realise that there is a very good chance that I will die and accept that with a kind of Zen calmness. Unfortunately that calmness is almost immediately shattered when they put on music. It is invariably bad and played very, very loud.

Maybe there should be a new award for minibus drivers with the worst taste in music. I would nominate the guys in Indonesia with their penchant for Asian death metal and the African drivers who insist on playing tapes that sound like ice cream van music. If I had to nominate one driver though, it would be the guy in Antisaribe in Madagascar who played the Vengaboys nonstop. I’ve still got ‘Kiss (When the sun don’t shine)’ stuck  in my head!

The Travel Tart: Actually, the Indonesian example I can relate to!  One CD was the Asian death metal, but this was followed up by Air Supply’s Greatest Hits!  It was a strange juxtaposition.  Speaking of dodgy forms of transport, I recently hopped on a Vespa for a ride around Zanzibar. I think Zanzibar is the place that Vespa’s go to after they die in Italy.  This one was so unroadworthy, I wouldn’t have entered it into a demolition derby (I think brakes were an optional extra).  But you seem to have a great relationship with your Vespa in Vroom with a View and Vroom By The Sea!  Are you planning to ride one in any future travels?

Peter Moore:  I think I rode that same Vespa when I was in Zanzibar! The only way I could stop it when some cops waved me over was to ditch it in a muddy puddle beside the road. They weren’t impressed!

As for riding a Vespa again for a book – probably not. I’d wanted to ride a Vespa around Italy since I was a teenager growing up in the western suburbs of Sydney. In the end it was the Vespa that made the trip – and hence the book. Italians loved the fact that there was this crazy Aussie guy riding around on a forty-year-old Vespa and dragged me off on all kinds of adventures. It really was like being given the keys to the city.

So yeah, it worked for the Italy books. Let me see a side of the country I wouldn’t have seen. And got me in with the locals – a tricky proposition in a developed country. But I don’t want to become ‘The Vespa guy.’ There are way too many other adventures I want to have.

The Travel Tart: I see that you’re writing your latest book, titled ‘Blimey’, in honour of your recent travels around the United Kingdom.  Has this trip confirmed or denied any Pommy stereotypes for you?

Peter Moore:  A bit of both. For one thing I’ve never eaten as many curries or drunk as much real lager. Everyone thinks that their local Indian or brewer is the best in the UK and are keen for you to confirm it. And showering is a minefield. I’ve never seen so many different or complicated hot water heaters in my life. I couldn’t turn one off in Bristol and thought I was going to flood the place.

On the other hand, the stereotype of the Brits being uptight and inhospitable has been blown right out the window. As you probably know, I put the call out on my website for people to suggest where I went and maybe offer me a bed for the night. The response was amazing and I’ve had so many Poms go out of their way to put me up, feed me, show me around that it has been really humbling.

Worse, they’re suddenly better at cricket. I’m just hoping the Socceroos get to the final sixteen and do them over in soccer (or football as they call it here.) Man, that would be sweet!

The Travel Tart: I agree, go the Socceroos!  I’ve read on your website that since kids have come into your life, that you’ve found it a challenge to travel like the way you used to.  Are you planning to turn your kids into travel addicts like yourself?

Peter Moore:  Just one – my daughter, Daisy. She’s only five, so at the moment we’re just doing family trips – getting an apartment somewhere for a week and exploring. She’s already been to Australia three times, Fiji, Singapore, Norway, Italy and Poland.

Will she become a travel addict? I’m not sure. At the moment, Disneyland Paris is top of her list. But the other day I caught her watching a show called Lost Tribes of Africa and she was absolutely fascinated by the Dogon people in Mali. So much so that I had to take her into the British Museum to see the collection of African bronzes there. So there is hope!

The Travel Tart: Thanks once again for your time Peter!  Looking forward to ‘Blimey’ coming out!

If you want to have a good laugh and feel the spirit of adventure, I highly recommend reading any of Peter’s books.

Peter Moore’s Titles are, in chronological order:

• No Shitting In The Toilet
• The Wrong Way Home
• The Full Montezuma
• Swahili For The Broken Hearted
• Vroom With A View
• Same Same But Different
• Vroom By The Sea

He will have a new publication called ‘Blimey’ coming out soon.

Hope you enjoyed this Peter Moore Interview as much as I did!