ECPG and bytea

Guys, surely some one's done this before? I've tried using
PQescapeBytea too, but still get (slightly) different output. If I try
and insert "\x02\x01\x02\x03\x04hello\x05\x64\x99\x45" I get (int
values of chars printed):

INSERT: 2 1 2 3 4 104 101 108 108 111 5 100 -103 69
SELECT: 2 1 2 3 4 104 101 108 108 111 5 100 92 50 51 49 69

hoping someone has a quick answer... if not I'll post a full source
example and look into it more...

Thanks, L.