Month: March 2006

Ouchy Wouchy!

When someone says they want to see you at noon, your mind usually meanders to thoughts of lunches. A salad perhaps, or maybe some pasta. And a beer. Hmmmm… lovely lovely beer.

Not Dr O’Dempsey. Nice bloke though he is, he had an ulterior motive.

You see, since New York I noticed that a mosquito bite had been getting larger and sometimes painful. It was like a stabbing feeling in my back that would last up fifteen minutes. As time passed it would ooze a little blood, and the pain was getting sharper.

My first port of call was a local clinic (I no longer even bother trying to see a GP any more) where she poked around at it. This nurse however, is one of the sharper bunnies at this clinic and she did actually listen to my symptoms and take a good look. After I left she thought about it, rang the world renowned School of Tropical Medicine in Liverpool, and then asked me if I could go back later in the week. It might be a larvae that I had.

Cool! This would make a great anecdote!

Various checks were made, vaseline smeared on, and so on. But nothing popped out, and the doctor was left with just one course of action. Cut an X in my back and take a peek inside. Let me say now, that even with a little local anaesthetic, this still hurts quite a lot. Still, after a bit of poking about he found nothing, apologised and patched me up. He couldn’t dig as deep as he’d have liked to as there’s a risk of getting too close to the lungs, and so although there’s a possibility there’s something in there there’s not a lot, short of general anaesthetics and a surgeon, that can be done.

If something’s in there it’ll probably die now and my body will absorb it in due course. If there’s nothing there… well at least the pain’s stopped.

For information – the symptoms that made them think it might be a bug:

Pricking sensation at times.

Inflammation and a bump, but no real sign of infection such as pus.

Getting larger over time.

And I got the bite in the Amazon.

Anyway, now I have a nice X on my back to remind me of a great holiday ;o)

Currency exchange when travelling

I’ve often wondered about this – a lot of travellers take out traveller’s cheques or buy currency from their bank in advance. They often then exchange at banks when abroad.

As a regular overseas traveller I always felt, but hadn’t really researched properly, that ATM’s and credit card transactions were best – in spite of 2% commission charges.

Then I learned Nationwide makes no commission fees.

You then have the currency spread – ie, the difference between the price you buy and the price you sell. That’s pure profit. A lot of money changers in airports are working on up to a 10% spread. That means they’re taking 5% of your money each time you change. That’s a significant hit. If you expect to spend £1000 on your trip, £50 might easily make for an extra night somewhere, or a nice meal one day.

So after seeing a forum posting about this subject I decided to do some research and responded as follows:

Hmmmm… my experience of Travelex has been that they have a large spread on the currency prices, which usually means there’s a big profit somewhere. But interested by Stepehen’s claim I thought I’d investigate the website.

So, to the pound:

EUR = 1.4122
HKD = 13.1911
USD = 1.7021

Now let’s try my favourite with all things travel-money related. Nationwide:

EUR = 1.3937
HKD = 12.8700
USD = 1.6737

It’s a significant difference. However, I know Nationwide are using Travelex to provide their exchange service. So we have to pay extra to give both parties a profit, by the look of it.

But interesting.

Then my usual method – VISA debit card from Nationwide either to pay for things or from cash machines.

EUR = 1.46
HKD = 13.57
USD = 1.75

Though that’s what the website says, it looks like the figures are rounded in all those cases.

So far it seems to suggest that the mighty old card is better. Even if you take the usual 2% that most banks charge, you’re still better off with the ATM. Just. Having said that, the VISA site isn’t clear as to whether you pay more if you withdraw from a cash machine than if it’s a transaction in a shop.

Incidentally, the forex rate right now appears to be:

EUR = 1.45935
HKD = 13.498
USD = 1.73880

Which VISA actually appear to be bettering, though VISA’s prices may only change daily.

Shows to me that the exchange rate for actual cash is significantly more expensive than using cards.

I should now look at the exchange rates I get from banks for Euro cheques! Never looked so closely really and I’m convinced we get fleeced.

Shiny new things!

Well… kind of. You won’t see much difference, but I’ve just upgraded the software for the blog to v2.0.1 – in reality it makes the blog a fair bit easier for me to use, but won’t make much of a difference to you except that with a bit of luck you’ll see better updates. The theme’s changed too, so the colours and layout may look a little different, but all the functions remain the same.
Of course, my trip’s over now, so the updates on here won’t be so frequent. However, there’s the background stuff I promised, and then there’ll be information and updates on my sprinting and hillclimbing this year. Within a short while I’m also hoping to sort out the upload of some pictures from the holiday. But there’s a lot to get through… I managed some 2000 photos in two months!