Transcript
elricho: Welcome to the Private Charlie Club podcast, making you 12 and a half minutes more awesome each week. He's Ben, I'm Richard, let's go. ben how are you doing this week?
Ben: I'm well, mate. You're sounding a bit better too. That's good. Good to have you back.
elricho: I'm fighting my way through, it's an uphill slog, but I can't keep a good man down, as they say.
Ben: Mate, the man flu is brutal. It's only 50% of the population would know.
elricho: The man flu is brutal.
Ben: Or is 49% or something?
elricho: Yeah.
Ben: A new new listener country call out is Venezuela this week. Now, on the phone, it's very common for Venezuelans to answer, hello, which I thought was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah.
elricho: Oh, that's pretty cool.
Ben: So, g'day to our Venezuelans, or hello if you're on the phone. Hey, the Fully Awake Project, mate, as we get older, have you learnt the power of holding your tongue?
Ben: Like just not saying something?
elricho: Yes. Largely, largely yes. so I was always quite good at it, actually, to be fair, I think.
Ben: Yeah, actually, that's that's a fair call. i haven't I haven't been historically good at holding my tongue, but I did actually recently. I was in Jakarta Airport.
Ben: I was waiting in and in line in an airport bathroom. There was five cubicles, and I felt like I was there forever. it seemed like an eternity. I reckon it was probably only 10 minutes.
Ben: But the... The old me would have yelled out, come on, hurry up. You know, what's going on? The new me, I didn't say a thing. I was very zen. Anyway, this's guy this guy in the cubicle net nearest to me, he walks out, goes over and washes his hands.
elricho: Very soon, yeah.
Ben: and And I gave him like the death stare. But I didn't say a thing. And the cleaner gives the cubicle the once overnight. And so i've gone and used it. Anyway, 20 minutes later, I'm seated on the plane.
Ben: The guy from the cubicle comes in and sits right next to me.
Ben: What are the chances? Like there was probably 40 flights. leaving it in the period that I was in, in the, in the airport.
elricho: Yep.
Ben: What are the chances that that guy, like imagine if I'd actually like spoken up, would have been a completely different flight to the one that we actually had, which was,
elricho: We've been a very different flight. Bit tense.
Ben: so there you go. As I, as I get older, you can teach an old dog new tricks. And, And, um,
elricho: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah, I was very happy.
elricho: Well done. Well played.
Ben: While I was in Indonesia, though, we'll move straight into the travel tip of the week. Count your change. I bought something in Bali, and I can tell you it was 109,000 rupiah, handed the guy 120,000. He gave me back a 10.
Ben: he gave me back a
elricho: So, so like $10.
Ben: yeah, we're not talking, it's not a lot of money.
elricho: Yep.
Ben: It's not a lot of money. But he handed back me back a 10,000 rupee a note and he just said, sorry, I don't have any 1,000 notes. And I was like, so he shortchanged me with this biggest smile on his face.
Ben: Is that the best scam ever? Can you like just not give people the full change and just say, sorry, I don't have it? Is that a thing in Indonesia? Yeah.
elricho: You know, it kind of is actually. Yeah, it kind of is a thing.
Ben: Okay, buyer beware.
Ben: So i could have I could have tapped.
elricho: Yeah. So, yeah.
Ben: I could have used FPOS.
elricho: It could be a scam though.
Ben: I could have used FPOS, but I was trying to use up my yeah you know my currency because I'm not Jason Bourne. I'm not someone else on this podcast.
Ben: and And, yeah, just it just struck me that it was it was completely oblivious to the fact that he was shortchanging me and saying, sorry, I haven't got it. Move on. So...
elricho: There we go. Yep.
Ben: There you go. Good one. Can't change in Indonesia, folks. Or use digital digital means. Hey, yeah any listener feedback coming in, mate?
elricho: A listener, JR, writes in during the week and he says, I was going to flick you an email because I like the discussion on the fast train, the fast train in Japan deep dive.
Ben: Oh, God. Of course he was.
elricho: They also have an amazing heated toilet seats.
Ben: Yeah. That's
elricho: Did you know that you could also choose your theme music while the while you're in the toilet?
Ben: Oh, that's interesting.
elricho: Rain, wind, gentle music, whatever suits. And he says, the feature's not available everywhere. They just got lucky. So how about that?
Ben: That is interesting.
elricho: that sounds like That sounds like it's not really encouraging you to get out of there faster. That sort of sounds like it's...
Ben: The gentle music might have you just having a nap.
elricho: like it's
Ben: Yeah.
Ben: I'm glad he didn't flick us the email.
elricho: Exactly.
Ben: He knows that we, yeah if he's obviously listened to some of our other episodes. I'm not too sure about this heat-seated toilet either. That's heated seat toilet. I'm i'm not a fan.
Ben: I would be up and out as quickly as possible on that on that little episode. Yeah, okay. Interesting. Interesting. So the conundrum of the week we just we we We alluded to this last episode.
Ben: you have you You rent cars from time to time, right? And do you do you fill it up like when you return it or do you just pay the $9 a litre or whatever that they charge?
elricho: I do, I do.
Ben: Yeah.
elricho: I know. What is that? with the How do they even calculate what that what that number is going to be?
Ben: like had it Yeah. And why do they ask us to prepay a tank?
Ben: who Who's going to actually do oh, yeah, please, yeah, charge me as much as you'd like for something that I'm that that i'm something that i'm not going to use.
elricho: I'm just going to leave it here and cipher the petrol out.
Ben: but Yeah, do you get to go to the NSA, I'll pay for that whole tank, so can I have the rest of it in a jerry can, thanks? But my question to you is, what's the furthest you can be from the airport?
Ben: when you're returning that rental car and you're filling it up and it still gets, you know, you come across the line and you and you've got a full tank that you present to the staff that you hand the car over.
Ben: Have you done the maths on this?
elricho: I haven't done the maths, but I'm pretty sure that I've filled up 30 or 40 Ks from the, uh, from the end before.
Ben: Yeah, okay.
elricho: And then it was, uh, and then it was fine. I think, i think so long as, you know, the, those gauges, they often just kind of like max out at, at the top.
elricho: And so, you've got a bit of wiggle room there to play with, I think in the, uh,
Ben: I reckon your number's pretty close. i I actually tried to do some maths on this. And, yeah. So, it's not research per se.
elricho: Oh, research, actual research.
Ben: I mean, I just did it in my head. Yeah.
elricho: You fill up when you fill up.
Ben: But I was thinking the average car's probably got a 60-litre tank.
elricho: Yeah, yeah.
Ben: So that's what I worked on. And I reckon the needle would probably start to move at about 5% usage, 3 litres.
elricho: Mm-hmm.
Ben: which is three lires And your average car is doing, you know, seven or eight kilometres per litre in in city traffic.
elricho: Mm-hmm.
Ben: So that's the sort of 20 to 25. But to your point, you've got that wiggle room. at the top of the needle. So i had guessed it was in that 30 to 40 range as well.
elricho: Mm-hmm.
Ben: So interesting because, you know, the the current me is always sort of like driving as close to the airport as I can to fill up so that I don't get caught. But now I'm sort of thinking, no, going to test this. I'm going to start.
elricho: it's always a hassle trying to fill up near the airport, right?
Ben: Correct. And they,
elricho: Because they always have these crazy maze of one-way streets to kind of like get get around and stuff.
Ben: yeah, yeah.
elricho: And and sometimes, like like at Kool and Gata, for example, the closest petrol station is in is in fact you've you've kind of got to exit the petrol station onto the service road and then loop back around through the airport to get –
Ben: Yeah, okay.
elricho: you know, to, to, to, you know, sort of return, return the car. It's, it's yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's it's a maze, you know, you've got, you've got to kind of got to learn it.
Ben: Not helpful.
elricho: Right.
Ben: Whereas Adelaide and Brisbane have both got very accessible service stations on the way back into the airport.
elricho: If you're a tourist, you would have challenges.
Ben: don't I think you pay a premium at Brisbane because they know that you're probably going to shoot through there. i don't know if Adelaide does it to you.
elricho: Exactly. Yeah.
Ben: But yeah, I found both of those cities pretty simple.
elricho: Yeah.
Ben: Sydney, i ended up mapping service station that was near the airport into the GPS so that I could just click that first and then go on to the airport.
Ben: But I don't hire cars too often in Sydney now. it's That's not a city I like driving in too often.
elricho: It's so with the train there too.
Ben: Yeah, train.
elricho: It's great, right? you can just You can just get pretty much straight to where you need to go.
Ben: Or this new thing called Uber, I think that might take off. yeah Yeah, other people drive for you now, mate.
elricho: What? Uber. Yeah.
Ben: It's a thing. It's a thing.
elricho: Fancy.
Ben: Hey, short episode. Probably, you know, not not a bad thing for those who have had to sit through our deep dives from time to time. We'll give them a few minutes back. That is it, Richard.
Ben: Listeners have been BCC'd on our week. To our listeners, thanks for joining in. we'd love to hear from you. Why not head over to bravucharley.club to get in touch? We'd love some feedback. JR, flick us your feedback. I know you want to. And in next week's show we ask, how come we can go on a road trip and people are fully on board with that, but the term air trip has never taken off?
Ben: See you next week. Bravo, Charlie Club, out.
elricho: And that's the pod.
