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During our 5 day stay at North South Backpackers in Pretoria, we were always entertained. Either it was playing with 4 year old Oliver ( another American boy who was staying there), swimming in the pool, or playing pool, I think the whole family would agree, well at least the children, North South was one of the best backpackers we’ve stayed at, if not the best. There was one downfall, no cook. No cook means no restaurant, no restaurant means no food to order when you’re a bit hungry, no food to order means you have to walk to a place to eat. But despite that, it was great. If you were feeling hot, you could go jump in the pool. If you were feeling bored, you could go play with Oliver or pay 5 rand for a round of pool. It was like a home away from home (It actually was like a home; it had bedrooms, bathrooms, and a kitchen. Because we have no pictures of it, I’m trying to make it so you have a better feel of what it was like).

When we arrived, Phillip, the manager and owner, gave us two coins for two rounds of pool. This made Kieran and Asher think that pool was always free, which it wasn’t. For this reason they started taking coins out of a jug that was on the front desk. When I noticed that they had a Namibian ten cent coin, I asked them where they got it, so they showed me the jug. It was like a dream come true! Coins from all around the world! Backpackers from all over the world had put their national coins and other coins that they had from previous countries that they traveled to in the jug. I asked Phillip if I could take them into our room to look at them. He said I could as long as I didn’t let the little kids suck on them. So I took them into our room and sorted them into the countries they were from, and into doubles, singles, triples, etc. I just looked at them, like a scientist staring at his/her experiment. I also took out my coin collection that has hugely developed since Australia (look back to the “What kind of coins do you have?” and ‘ Coins or keychains? Both’ to see what it was back then). Maybe my collection could have had a fighting chance against his if I hadn’t sent those home. I wonder when I get back home and combine all the Australian and New Zealand coins, all the coins that my parents have collected for me from their previous trips, the ones I have now, and the ones I have yet to get in the future, if my collection will be bigger than his. If only I could’ve gotten a picture of his…oh well would’ve, could’ve, should’ve, let’s get on with the post.

Since he had so many doubles, triples, etc., and I had many doubles, I asked him if we could trade some. He said it was fine and I should give him what I thought was fair. So I picked out like 17 of his and like 15 of mine. Now don’t think I made this trade. Actually he got the better part of the trade because I also gave him some bills. I gave him some Chinese, Laotian, and Indian bills. He really liked the bills, so he put them up on the wall with the rest of his collection. I got many different kind of coins from him (see list at the end of the post ), and he got many different kinds from me. After the deal was done I studied my new coins for the interesting new features, sorted my coins again, and also counted all my doubles, and my singles, to see how many singles I had compared to doubles. At that time I had 79 doubles of the 66 different coins, so in total I had 145 coins. But now I have more because we went to Swaziland in the time that it took me to write this post. Now if you want to see my collection in all its glory, you can look at the list below, or you can wait until the end of the trip to see my final coin post, which will be individual pictures of each coin, and there will be many tallies and list.

Keep in mind that I don’t have every coin from all these countries. For example, I only have 3 types of South Korean coins, but that doesn’t mean there are only 3 types of South Korean coins. Also keep in mind that I will probably lose, trade, and get more coins from a country. For example, we’re going back to places where they use the Euro, so I will get more Euro coins. And it will be the same with South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana. And since I have lots of Chinese duplicates, I will probably trade some of them.

Also, some countries like Cambodia and Laos have no coins.

South Korea

5 total coins
3 types of coin prices (remember this is what I have not how many there are in South Korea )
0 types of discontinued coins

China
20 total coins
3 types of coin prices
2 types of discontinued coins

Vietnam
17 total coins
5 types of coin prices
0 types of discontinued coins

Thailand
27 total coins
6 types of coin prices
2 types of discontinued coins

Laos (Coins that I bought in Laos. They are from when France ruled Indochina. I bought them because Laos doesn’t use coins.)
3 total coins
3 types of coin prices
(they’re all decommissioned)

Singapore
16 total coins
6 types of coin prices
0 types of discontinued coins

India
21 total coins
5 types of coin prices
2 types of discontinued coins

Euros
5 total coins
4 types of prices
0 types of discontinued coins

South Africa
12 total coins
7 types of coin prices
2 types of discontinued coins ( I have a 2 cent coin that might be discontinued, it might not. I think it is because I found it on the floor and it’s the only one I’ve seen. And also I think there are more that are discontinued that I don’t have yet, but I’ll get ‘em! )

Swaziland
18 total coins
7 types of coin prices
0 types of discontinued coins

Now we get into the ones that I traded for. I’m still going to Namibia and Botswana, so I will get more from there, but for now here are the ones that I have:

Namibia
4 total coins
4 types of coin prices
0 types of discontinued coins

Botswana
5 total coins
5 types of coin prices
0 types of discontinued coins

These are ones that he also traded me but I’m not going to:

Malawi
3 total coins
3 types of coin prices
0 types of discontinued coins

Tanzania
1 coin

Mauritius
1 coin

Scandinavia
1 coin

I also found a coin on the floor somewhere.

England
1 coin

And so there is my coin collection in all its glory. It will be much bigger when we get back because I will add all the NZ and Australian coins, the ones I have at home, and the ones I will soon get.

McKane And His Ginormous Coin Collection has logged out

Technorati Tags: Backpacker lodges, Coin Collecting, coins, Family Travel, Round the World, Round-the-world, RTW

Who knew Africa was so amazing? Well, a lot of people, but certainly not us. I had to work hard to get Tom to agree to include the continent in our journey. He harbored the usual fears: malaria, AIDS, crime, hippos, but I pressed on. I finally obtained his approval when I convinced him it gave us a much bigger bang for our frequent flyer bucks (the more miles we fly for free the more value from our RTW tickets) and promised to limit our travels to the more developed nation of South Africa.

We arrived on the Dark Continent over a week ago and were immediately smitten by this gorgeous, vibrant land. We spent a glorious five days in Pretoria doing absolutely nothing but eating cheap, delicious food, shopping at an actual supermarket, lounging beside the pool, and getting a vision for our month here. Blame it all on a Belgian named Tom, but our itinerary has expanded from one African country to five. Tom has been working at our backpacker lodge, North South, for the past year. Prior to that, he traveled Southern Africa extensively and is a resident expert on the region. When we asked him where he thought we should go, he filled our heads with stories of warm people, ancient ruins, and natural wonders from Mozambique to Namibia and Zimbabwe to Lesotho. After many discussions and picking of other people’s brains, we decided on an action-packed itinerary that includes many parts of South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Zambia (Victoria Falls!!!! Yay!!!!), and Namibia.

We’ve rented the big, bad 8-seater Mercedes Vito to ferry us from country to country. The Vito, which we’ve taken to calling Uncle Vito, should be the source of much shame for Mercedes since it is neither luxurious nor smooth. Uncle Vito is particularly annoying since at the ripe old age of 4, his air conditioning is ineffective and most of his windows and doors do not function properly. The rental company gave us a decent deal and apologized when they delivered him with a cracked windshield and broken sliding side door. Apparently the previous renters trashed Uncle Vito during their two-week tour and even broke his key off in the ignition. The company offered to replace the windshield, but we said no way. Given the likelihood that we’ll take some rocks along the way, we prefer one that is already trashed. We have “super cover” collision insurance but it doesn’t cover glass damage, nor does it cover any damage that is caused by our negligence. In a nutshell, this means we’re covered if anybody hits us, carjacks us, or steals the car, but not if we hit anything, including an animal, a common occurrence in a region where donkeys and elephants roam free. We’re also not covered if we leave the car unlocked or lose the key. South Africa is rife with theft and reckless drivers, so somehow insurance companies get out of covering anyone who is at fault. We can’t figure out how this can be since it undermines the very point of insurance, namely that “accidents happen” and usually someone is at fault, albeit unintentionally.
So we’re going to try really hard not to inflict any damage on Uncle Vito (i.e., repeat the New Zealand Campervan of Shame experience) while we cruise the nether regions of this massive continent. He’s big enough to accommodate camping gear and groceries, which are going to be a necessity in pricey Botswana

and remote Namibia and which we’ve already used in Swaziland and Zambia. We’re excited to see everything from oceans to mountains to deserts, and from giraffes to lions to penguins. Though we vowed never to travel great distances in a car again any time soon after Rajasthan, we’re now well rested and ready to ignore our own advice, especially since we’re the ones driving and most of the roads we’ll be traveling are in good condition. We’ve got three and a half weeks to get to Cape Town. We’ll let you know how it goes!