HOW TO dive beneath the Tourist surface: internet communities e.g. Couchsurfing

 How can you get to know locals and expats in a place you have never been to before ? It can take weeks and months to really meet people.

This used to frustrate me, because when I travel I often just meet other travelers or people dealing with travelers, working in hostels, restaurants etc... .That's nice but I wanted to meet locals and foreigners who had lived in the place for a while and see what life there was like for them.

Of course sometimes you can meet local people in buses and planes.

One way that has worked for me is to join an internet community of people who are into travel and who are interested in meeting travellers.

When I know what day I arrive in a place, say for example Macau, I ask if anyone from that community  is interested to meet up for an informal meal or tea 'n coffee session. Usually quite a few people are.  

The internet group I picked is called Couchsurfing.  It's a collection of traveler friendly people.

It was set up to develop a network of trust and allow those they trust to stay on their couches/Sofas - basically provide some space for people to crash overnight ! The idea has been around for ages. Servas was popular in the 1960's to 1980's before internet - when all was done by snail mail. They are still around http://www.servas.org/. I stayed at a Servas host in Singapore in 1985. The current incarnation of this idea is couchsurfing and other similar sites. I won't explain it all here, you can read more at: www.couchsurfing.org

Qu: Does everyone have to allow strangers to stay on their couch ?

No.

My flat in Melbourne is too small for hosting people, so I only meet people for tea/coffee for a chat, there is no compulsion to provide overnight hosting. It is perfectly OK to just meet people for tea and coffee, in a public place.

I set my couchsurfing profile to indicate that.

 I usually stay at Hotels/budget backpackers when I travel. Unless work pays :-)

In 2008 I joined the Egypt-Cairo Couchsurfing group and asked if anyone was interested to meet up. A few people were and they suggested a nice Cafe. It ended up with about 9 people coming, locals Egyptians, travelers, and expats.

In  September 2009 I wanted to meet people living in Macau. We got a lovely group of resident Macau-ans, European Exchange students and travelers. We all met at a popular ice cream shop suggested by one of the active Couchsurfers in Macau.

I had never met any of them in person before.
In a strange new city I like to meet locals and expats, otherwise I tend to float like a cork, on the surface of life and remain the gringo tourist ready for the milking. I'll probably always be the gringo tourist, but there are ways to dive below the surface and meet locals and other travellers.
Seven of us met at a famous ice cream shop on Sunday at 12.30. Four were local Macau residents, a lady who was studying business and has a wine import business, a final year High School student who wants to study in Europe, a Goverment employee in education who loves to travel and wants to visit 100 countries before he dies and a Japanese Macau resident who runs a business.
The foreigners were a group of exchange Univ students (Germany, Finland, Holland...) and a Japanese visiting her friend, + yours truly. Pictures here: Sunday meeting

We  met at a small inconspicuous ice cream shop that was famous for its ice cream sandwiches. Then the locals took us to eat at a REAL traditional noodle shop, we shopped for a new camera for the German exchange student. Our High School guide took the rest of us who stayed on for a tour of her favourite spots in Macau: the bisquit making, juice shop, super fresh tofu shop, backpackers place where a famous movie was shot. (thanks VL :-) )

Oh yea, and we found out about the graffiti scene in Macau, nothing like as full on as in Melbourne but some really nice stuff, with interesting ideas.
It seems that multinational marketing is getting really sophisticated: Apparently Coca Cola sponsored graffiti that subtly promotes their Zero Coke brand, but looks like a huge graffiti mural. Photo to follow once I manage to get a cable to connect the camera to the computer. [update: photo below]

I'd never been to the other islands of Macau, Taipa, and Coloane. A lovely Couchsurfer in Macau took me  on a night time sightseeing tour of those other parts.  Photos of the nightime tour here.

I was asked if most CouchSurf people were the younger set ?

Yes, age tends to make people more

• - scared,
• - more tied  down  with kids & work, and
• - richer i.e willing to pay for comfort i.e. unwilling to sleep on a couch, so yes,  most are young-ish.

However the more committed longer term active ones such as country "ambassadors" are often older, more mature and have made a clear committment.  Statistics are here

www.couchsurfing.org/statistics.html

Couchsurfing is my way of meeting people who are NOT on the tourist trail, and NOT working in tourism, but who are interested in other countries and travelers.

In Myanmar I met a Couchsurfing lady doing great work with orphans, widows from Cyclone Nargis; we are still in touch working on how to do "useful" stuff. My old High school buddy GK who was a monk in Burma for 15 years is also going to see about linking in with her work.

In Macau I met great Couchsurfing member working for a Christian  orphanage/children's home: (kids 3-18year old, some abandoned, others from troubled families)

We went for a nigh time tour or Macau, after work, on a small motorscooter, a true whirlwind tour.  This was just straightforward  friendliness as I remember it in the 1970's  when travellers were a select group and there was an instant camaraderie 'on the road'. Less suspicion, more commonsense. 

               Photos of the trip here  - it gave me a chance to show off my new  camera (Canon G10) , which lets me take photos from a moving motorbike at night with NO flash, (at ISO 3200).

The Couchsurfing meetings remind me of the world I grew up in Germany in 1960's, a basic trust is still alive over here that is dead in most big Western cities after 2001. (not complaining, simply observing).

This kind of internet community is a great way to dive behind the tourist barrier and meet locals, expats who are at one end of the Bell Shaped Normal Distribution Curve, that is, the 3+ sigma group (explanation here).

I never surfed anyone's couch through the Couchsurfing site yet, because I'm one of the older ones. Also I prefer my freedom to come and go as I want, - it would have to be someone I really felt comfortable with and know for a while to actually do the couchsufing thing and sleep on a couch.

In Asia a cheap backpackers hostel  is my standard accommodation.

As I mentioned above: I don't host people, my place is too small 6.5 x 6.5 meters, I'm older (see above points re age again :-)) and it would have to be someone I really trusted to do the hosting-a-couchsurfer thing.

Clothes, dress, and the message it gives out to all around you:
Another thing about getting out tourist mode: dress in such a way that the local people think you are living and working there (i.e. an expat), travelling around for holiday.
        In Thailand I know I've hit the right dress level when local people ask me: "where do you work ? how long you been working in Thailand ?"- then I know I've dressed the correct way :-)
- Then I know I don't run around with clothes that scream "TOURIST !!!!!"
Thais have a phrase for certain groups of foreigners  'kii nok tourist' ... I'll leave you to work out what it means :-)

One really useful thing I found out over time was this:
I take a suit jacket.
- It helps me blend in,
- it is NOT the usual backpacker dress so instantly takes me out of that pot.
- It makes people (in SE Asia) think I am working locally (expat).

I take jackets that I can knock around a bit, older stuff, that is good for travel.

And in case people think it makes me look rich, no, not really, as I wear the suit jacket with clean pants, jeans, whatever, and the rest of me clean and casual.And it is not JUST clothes, attitude matters even more.

I also found wearing clothes like this makes locals trust me more, they are actually more friendly.
I get better service, better responses from most places.
Admittedly I am over 40 years old, so I guess that helps the image as well.

It is ironic because for my work at the University I don't usually wear a suit jacket. Or if I do, it is very casually.

 Travel tips for women in the links at the end talk about dress too.

Ok and we might as well face the inevitable question of SAFETY

A collection of links and info by Lonely Planet, Couchsurfing and Haiko, is here.

I'm an Academic and Engineer, by trade, and researching things is in my blood. It is curious how our human psyche puts up with the incredibly high chance of getting killed in a car accident (details here)

            and yet turns itself inside out, about things that are really rare. Kids are taught a fear of strangers that changes the shape and the whole tone and feeling of our society, and yet we are quite happy to accept risks of 1 in 100  of being killed in a transport accident over the average lifetime. The social risks from strangers or in travel are 10,000 times less than that. Having said that, of course does not mean it NEVER happens, it just means it is rare - some good figures by a reputable group from Oxford Uni on accidents and travel  here    and on general healthy living here.
And having looked at the numbers does not mean my heart and guts agrees. Numbers don't mean little in the end.  In the end it is everyone's personal choice. I guess we all 'gotta go one day'.  ---  Enjoy the ride. :-)

I've talked more about how I used Couchsurfing to meet some great people in Macau in September2009 on another blog  here.

'dance me to the children who are asking to be born....'  - Leonard Cohen

I walk with her, and I hear the gentle beating of mighty wings....

I hear the sound of her wings.... and the darkness lifts from my soul...

Macau A - travels in Macau

how come I love the messy shops, the lively raucaus restaurants, the worn outness of buildings, narrow winding streets so much ? - I've just arrived in Macau, 29Aug09 at 22:30 If I was ever going to talk about having lived in a place in another lifetime, and I had to pick a place, this would be one of them for sure. I feel at home here straight after arriving at 10:30pm via Kuala Lumpur and an 11 hour stopover. I surprise myself with the confidence with which I lounge in the corner of a restaurant, order stuff, get served by guys without shirts wearing old shorts, because its clean-up and close-up time but the white gringo wanted some of the last bits of food in the trays before they got cleaned away. I speak one word of Chinese and they none of English. The teenage son was hauled out to face me, "Ze foreigner", at first but that wasn't neccessary after a while. The staff kept going, chatting, watching some comedy of manners and talking animated with each other. The mentality, the approach, the attitude to life is soooo very different to where I normally live in Melbourne. Not bettter or worse, just so different. Not many speak English here, but unexpectedly some do "stand in line please" a lady tells me. I surprise myself again by not minding that at all. Ï'm trying to figure out if the bus goes to my hotel" I tell her. She very kindly ends up showing me where my bus stop really is. There seems to be less fear of talking to strangers. Not the "Oh my god a stranger's talking to me" instant apprehension of inner city Melbourne. [Country people are not like that I found.] Or maybe I just look really harmless. Certainly the check in girl must have thought I was some absent minded professor when I couldn't get the electronic room door open. Turns out you have really crunch the handle down like crazy. Almost to point of brute force. ----------- 30Aug09 Sunday ------------ The hotel "Öle London" is nice but they charge for two persons per room and I don't want to afford that invisible companion (AUD $99 total). A cockcroach falls on me at the first alternative hotel I look at. It started as a funny scratch at the side of the neck which I flicked off and onto the front desk. Turns out to be a roach lands onto the check-in desk. Not a good omen. But maybe it was there in my shirt from overnight ? Don't know, these things happen. I have no money to pay the hotel in HongKong Dollars. Banks are closed on Sunday. So money changing turns out to be interesting. There are changing booths in Senado Square I'm told. It's easy to get to, the hotel desk lady tells me. (Beware of that phrase "it's easy to find'.) I have a choice to risk it and beat a track through tiny alleyes and curving streets to Senado Square or to play it 'safer'. I decide to take the longer but surer route along main roads I can't miss according to the map (yea sure, ha ha ha ) . I get lost anyway. Out comes the trusty magnetic compass and old jungle and boy scout skills come to the rescue. That and the odd confirmation question from locals. After asking 7+ people I finally find the exchange booth. Phew. Then I realize: oh!!! this is literally around the corner from where I set out. With a little more adventurousness I'd have found it in a few minutes...and I'd have found exchange booths with better rates at that... Oh well I got to know Macau better. There's a little life lesson in this if I care to look. Hmmm..... I am proud to say I can now get around most areas and have some idea of where I am. Compared to my time 3 years ago I'm feeling like an old hand. I even remember some of the vague glimpses of those frantic 1.5 days from memory and they fit into the overall picture. At the HOtel the whole family comes out to eat behind the front desk. Somehow I like this mix of business and private, it feels nicer and more human to me than 5 star robotic friendlyness. However I could get used to both if I had to ... ;-P "Knock, knock" I open the door. "You not check out ? Please pay". Ok I pay my $280 Macau Patacas (Aud $45) - a bit upmarket for me, but hey the place feels nice. The real cheap places tend to be overrun with red light activities. The area I ended up in is the street of "felicidad" i.e. 'happyiness' - it used to be famous for happiness of the carnal kind. Most of that activity has shifted to the casinoes, closer to the punters, but some of it still lingers here I think. -----------o(O)o--------------- I arranged to meet a group of locals and travellers in Macau on Sunday. I had never met any of them in person before. In a strange new city I like to meet locals and expats, otherwise I tend to float like a cork, on the surface of life and remain the gringo tourist ready for the milking. I'll probably always be the gringo tourist, but there are ways to dive below the surface and meet locals and other travellers. One of those ways is to meet likeminded, traveller friendly local & expat people in that strange new city. So 7 of us met at a famous ice cream shop on Sunday at 12.30. Four were local Macau residents, a lady who was studying business and has a wine import business, a final year High School student who wants to study in Europe, a Goverment employee in education who loves to travel and wants to visit 100 countries before he dies and a Japanese Macau resident who runs a business. The foreigners were a group of exchange Univ students (Germany, Finland, Holland...) and a Japanese visiting her friend, + yours truly. Pictures here: Sunday meeting We used this site www.couchsurfing.org to meet up. Everyone met at a small inconspicuous ice cream shop that was famous for its ice cream sandwiches. Then the locals took us to eat at a REAL traditional noodle shop, we shopped for a new camera for the German exchange student. Our High School guide took the rest of us who stayed on for a tour of her favourite spots in Macau: the bisquit making, juice shop, super fresh tofu shop, backpackers place where a famous movie was shot. (thanks VL :-) ) Oh yea, and we found out about the graffiti scene in Macau, nothing like as full on as in Melbourne but some really nice stuff, with interesting ideas. It seems that multinational marketing is getting really sophisticated: Apparently Coca Cola sponsored graffiti that subtly promotes their Zero Coke brand, but looks like a huge graffiti mural. Photo to follow once I manage to get a cable to connect the camera to the computer. [update: photo below] that was it so far... If I won Tattslotto, you can imagine what I'd be doing full time. :-) Blowing my own trumpet a bit: After 4 years of pushing, modest result in the newspaper: Heiko and the cypress trees being chopped at the Melb Gen Cemetery- here. as they say, every dog has his day :-) Travel tips by heiko here and by lonely planet below: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travel-blog/community/?p=1084 ch H 'dance me to the children who are asking to be born....' - Leonard Cohen Haiko's - blog list here or direct: life42 or backpacking or stories. --> Risks of being alive & Media :-) I walk with her, and I hear the gentle beating of mighty wings.... I hear the sound of her wings.... and the darkness lifts from my soul...