Sitting here on the plane, drawn to Australia by the promise of high wages and plentiful jobs, not knowing if any of it is really true. I feel like a frontiersman or a gold miner rushing to stake the next great claim.

Tired. 4:28am. It’s an icy tundra in here and AirAsia doesn’t give a fuck about you. Nothing. No blanket. No pillow. No nothing unless you have the coin to pay for it. Regardless, the tickets were dirt cheap, so I guess I shouldn’t complain about much.

The second half of our journey to Australia has been easy going. Make the bus from Penang to Kuala Lumpur on time. Journey 5 hours south to Kuala Lumpur. Short taxi ride to the next destination of our couch tour across Malaysia.

Smooth Sailing.

We lucked out big time in KL. Our couch surfing host Morteza was a laid back Iranian dude with a spacious apartment in a quiet part of town. Over the next 4 days Morteza and his countryman Saeed would give us a grand tour of their home away from home. Sharing their food, customs, and an insight into this strangely diverse peninsula. We’d eat Indian food with our hands, smoke Malaysian styled hookahs, and discuss the tragedy and futility of war, a direct relation to what Morteza and Siaeed experienced growing up in Iran.

To say that Kuala Lumpur is simply diverse one would have to overlook the specific cultural composition of the city. Like Jackson Pollack using a palette of the world’s peoples. It’s so interesting to see such largely different cultures living harmoniously and side-by-side. In any case, that’s what I saw in Kuala Lumpur during those 4 days.

Morteza and Saeed dropped us off at the train station 3 hours before our flight. 1 hour on the bus. Casually smoking cigarettes outside the airport while pondering life outside Asia. No rushing. Made the flight on time. Regretted checking the bag with my long sleeve shirts.

Tip #1: Tap Your Network

If you don’t have one, get one. Find one.

As I mentally reviewed my friends, acquaintances, and past travel buddies, I realized that I didn’t really know anyone in Ecuador before I moved here. In order to find contacts and job prospects, I put the word out to my friends and hit the Internet. I perused the Lonely Planet forums by searching for jobs in Ecuador.

I signed up for Couchsurfing, not because I was looking for a place to stay, but because I’ve heard it’s a great resource for meeting people on the road. I joined a few groups based in Quito and signed up for email updates. Every day my inbox is full of Couchsurfing messages from travelers or locals looking for like-minded people who want to take salsa lessons, go bar-hopping, or take weekend trips together. (more…)

Back at home in Victoria, BC, I had heard whisperings of this website called www.couchsurfing.org. People told me it was a site where you could backpack to different cities and sleep on people’s couches for the night, or if you weren’t traveling at the moment, you could host travellers on your couch. “Cool idea”, I thought. But I didn’t follow up as I was renting a room in the condo were I was living so I wasn’t really comfortable inviting strangers over to crash on our couch. And the last thing I needed was another “membership” to a social networking site.

Fast forward to Turkey. The rest of the Jet Set Zero cast are active members on the couchsurfing site, using it both to find places to stay and hosting other travellers. Still, I resist. Finally, I’m sucked in because of the great information on local parties and events that it provides – namely, the party that we ourselves are throwing to celebrate Hallowe’en and our Istanbul departure.

What do I find when I join? A well-organized site dedicated to helping travellers find a safe place to crash for the night. There is also the all-important social networking, too – you can arrange (or be invited) to grab a coffee with someone in order to meet new people or get information on something you need to know about. My joining was reluctant but it seemed like time.

Now we’re in Saigon. The couchsurfing network here is awesome, tons of people use it and there are daily posts about getting groups together to go see stuff or questions about how something works in the city (ex. sights, areas to stay, etc.). I liken it to a very social, specific model of Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree, of which I’m a huge fan.

And what has it done for me? Well, when I look back on things, it’s actually done a great deal for me here in the city:

1.) It helped me get my job. I had just started to send out emails to schools looking for work, when I realized that the task of finding a job here was a little more daunting than I had originally realized. So, I put a post on couchsurfing titled “I NEED A JOB!” Immediately, people responded with different ideas. One of those was from a teacher at Cleverlearn Language Centre (where I am now employed), who gave me the name of the HR person to send my resume to directly and also to say that I was a friend of his. That was my foot in the door which got me the interview (which obviously got me the job).

2.) It helped me find my motorbike. I had scoured the tourist strip looking for a motorbike to rent but I knew I could do better price-wise. So, I put up a post about wanting to rent one and a fellow couchsurfer responded that he knew a woman that was renting a brand new one for cheap, and they’d make any minor repairs or adjustments that were needed along the way for free. Met up with this gentleman and now I have my sweet ride for cheap!

3.) It’s helped me widen my social circle. I check out the Saigon group posts fairly regularly, and there is always something going on. I am quite okay with inviting myself along to a potluck dinner or party of someone I’ve never met, in order to meet new people. It’s especially important if you are new to a city and need a way to get started socially.

So thank you, Couchsurfing. You provided me with fellow couchsurfers who were able to hook me up with a job, wheels and friends. Now, it’s up to me to keep the Couchsurfing karma going by providing advice and assistance to others!