It really is amazing to me that I am sitting in Perth, Australia. Just amazing. Why did we not go to Darwin??? We were ahead of ourselves and the wet season has not finished. Simply that.
Perth is a city but quite small by our standards. It is bright, sunny, new and spacious. It seemed so devoid of people that it was like walking in a virtual city, at first, even the cars were quiet. Wierd. It has malls. a river and a nearby beach. I cannot fault it in looks but we searched for a spirit. That was hard. We went into a pub ob Friday at about 5pm and it was busy with people celebrating the end of their working week. God, it was noisy. Not spirited, just noisy.
We caught the airport shuttle into town which was qwerky. It cost about six pounds. Shockingly expensive after asia!!The driver whittered on, waited until he was full and had to get off to run around and open the doors every time someone wanted to get off. Out hostel, the Barracks, was full! It looked grubby too. We walked around the town and Northbridge but the backpackers were all full. The sun was searing my skin and I was weary. One had a space in room 9. We booked 2 nights with relief. We went up to the room. It contained a double bed with dirty bedlinen, a pile of rubbish in a plastic bag and a full bin. We went down and asked for our money back. The young girl on the desk looked surprised but she did give us our money back. We trapsed to a few more. Lee left me in one hostel that offered a double bed in a room with two single men!!! He came back a short time later having got us a double room for $65 (2.2 to the pound) a night!!! More shocks, but relief too. There was a pool too. There was a lounge, huge kitchen, an outside seating area, a laundry and clothes line, everything we needed. Our room was like a uni students room with a shower and sink. The loo was next door. It looked clean too!We dumped our bags and went out to explore at about 7pm only to find the town closed down. We were bewildered and headed back to the hostel. There was a bottle shop, liquor store, and an arcade with a supermarket and kebab shop in it. We had a look around the supermarket pricing things, shared a kebab between us and bought a few beers from the bottle shop, for some extortionate price. It was quiet that night and we slept like logs. We had arrived in Australia.
During the next few days we explored the town on the fabulous free buses. The red one ran from across the road. We walked down by the river, had a look at the shops, bought our sim card and a phone-home card and generally bedded in. We trekked around the hostels and travel shops to look at the van boards. We viewed three, and bought one. The downside was that the girls were not going back to Germany until the 25th, they wanted to go off to Esperance for their last two weeks. We agreed and off they went. We went off to Freemantle in our hired car after booking out on the Monday.
Lee went off to hire a car to transport us to the south of Perth. It cost about 7.50 a day for 7 days. We chucked our three bags ito the boot and off we went.
We headed to Fremantle village along the Sterling Highway. It was a coastal run and we could see all the building developments. We viewed the three sites south of Freemantle and chose the last, one of the 'Big 4' camp sites that are superbly run, but quite expensive. We were not ready to camp as we did not have the right equipment and did not want to buy stuff until we had had a good look at the contents of the van, to see what we needed.
We have now spent one week in a deluxe chalet at Woodman Point. It has a lounge and dining area, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a verandah. It seems so normal to have a car parked on the driveway. We went shopping at Woolworths, which is a supermarket out here. Back to normal eating, no rice or noodle! Bacon, milk, cheese, bread with no sugar in it! YYYEEESSSSSSS!!!!!!!
Lee is cooking, without a grill though, and, on gas. Trauma! I have helped too. I am now doing all our washing and ironing!!! Hmmmm!!!!
We went to Rockingham via the coast road. It was clean and quiet like Perth. There were not many people but those that we saw were so relaxed. What a fabulous beach. Endless. Nothing on it. Just white sand!!! The esplanade was edged by a grassy area that had shaded, benched areas and changing rooms. The bike path ran for miles. I took my first dip in Aussie waters, with a big grin and cheer. I did not see the jellyfish until I got out. Two see-through blobs of raw egg size lay on the water line. Yuck! With the heat I was dry in 10 minutes. We went off to the city shopping mall. We just wanted to look. We tried fish and chips between us. Not bad. Rockingham was a lovely little seaside town. I would recommend it.
The next trip out, on Thursday, took us a bit further down the coast, to Mandurah. Again this was a small town on an estuary. It had parkland and a few small shops. Most of the buildings were single storey. We sampled the local fish and chips. The best so far! We meandered around the local shops and Lee decided to go into a local hair dressers and get his hair cut short. We both had ourselves restored after the disaster of our Thailand haircuts!! On the way back I noticed that there were whole estates of bungalows. It was clean, quiet and well spread out, giving a feeling of space and light. The sky seems always to be a rich blue with some pure white clouds and, of course, sun. Again, there did not seem to be many people.
On Sunday we drove back towards Perth where we could observe Aussies at play, in the surf of Cottesloe Beach. We parked, with no charges, and took our folding chairs down to a near empty beach where we could look at the surfers, of all ages, having fun waiting for the incoming tide.
We joked with some guys, who came past carrying a canoe, that we looked very English sitting thjere in our chairs, they asked whether we had a flask of tea too! The answer was no!
Later, we moved about a mile down the road to the main town area. There were loads of people in the water, at the water line, sitting on the grass and benches. No-one was intruding on anyone else. It was fabulous. There was no litter or shouting. People were walking to the bins to dump their rubbish. The sun shone, the breeze cooled us. It was a glorious beach, town and day. We saw something of how it all worked out here. Interesting. Perth is gaining more points every day.
This week we plan to get the bus to Fremantle and have a look around, then, later in the week get the boat out to Rottnest Island. No cars are allowed. We may have a bike or take a tour.
In seven days the van should be ours and we will head south to view more of western Australia; Bunbury, the southern tip where the two great oceans meet, Albany and Esperance, before we attempt the four day drive across the great Nullabor Pain to Adelaide. It is both exciting and daunting;the distances, the animals, how much we don't know, but we have made it this far so we will make it in our own way no-doubt.
Sunday, 17 February 2008
Saturday, 2 February 2008
Indonesia-Life on the road is exhausting!
This leg of our journey also got off to a bad start as we did not have on on-going ticket to leave and nearly got sent back, I don't know where to!!!!
We arrived at Jakarta airport at 12pm. We had to state straight away how long we were staying. We had thought between 7 and 10 days, based on our recent experiences. We thought that if we liked Bali we would stay and relax but if we did not we would get the hell out of there. Our stay was immediately limited to 7 days as you had to pay either 10 or 25 dollars each depending on whether you were going to do 7 or 21 days. I did not feel very welcome as all other visas had been for 30 days. I wondered if we had already lost one day travelling, but they dated it for the 31st. That was something at least. It got worse!
When we went through immigration they wanted to know where we were going next. We said Bali but had not yet bought the ticket as the internet page for this would not open up. We just thought that we would buy it at the airport. They seemed appalled at this. We were sent back to their ticket desk to buy a ticket but the young men behind the counter said that they could not do it. They sent us to the Cebu-Pacific desk. It was not open. We waited. I expressed concern to a passing security guard about our bags which would be getting dizzy going round and around the baggage claim belt. He said that they would be okay. He returned to the immigration counter. We waited. Ten minutes later the immigration guy motioned for us to go back up there. They processed our passports and reactivated the visa, which we had just paid for and they had cancelled. We were on our way. It was 2am. We got a taxi to the terminal for domestic flights.
The airport was closed! We sat on benches outside. The ticket desk would open at 3.30am. Flights began again at 6.30.We waited. A girl came by selling stuff from a trolley. We bought water and disconsolately flicked small insects off our clothing. We had been travelling for 14 hours now. I was a bit tired but, worse than that, I was hot, melting. Your skin is continually wet with perspiration. Your clothes and hair sticks to you, even if you have just had a shower. Trying to apply insect repellant is hard unless you are in a breeze because it just skates off the surface of your skin. I watched small cockroaches skuttling around. It is all so disgusting. The airport became busy with people arriving in taxis. We were joined by a delightful pair of youngsters called Richard and Maria, from Sweden. They were going diving up on a northern island. At about 4am we went to price a ticket to Bali. They were 60 pounds each, which was a bit expensive, but at least we could progress! We all chatted happily until 6.30 then we went in to the air-conditioning. There were no toilets and nowhere to sit. We could not check-in as it was too early. I was just making a space to sit on the trolley when Richard and Lee spotted a business lounge with wonderful brown leather armchairs. It was only 50,000 rupiah to enter (about 3 pounds), and there was a free breakfast and unlimited tea and coffee. We paid up, looking very un-business like with our backpacks, and slumped with a cup of coffee. Maria fell fast asleep. They were flying at 8.30. We were flying at 9.40 ish. While we tried some of the food a snake was eating a lizard on the television! I hoped that his breakfast tasted better than ours! Lee went on the free internet to check on the football results. It was the slowest connection ever. After 40 minutes he went off to the loo waiting for the details of the league table to fill in. He had the headings. While he was gone a man came and used the computer so he had to set it all up again!! I watched a dubbed soap. It only had 4 actors, two couples, and was all based on misunderstandings with the usual dramas. We relaxed until 8.30. Richard and Maria had gone at 7.30.
Processing was fairly straightforward apart from check-in. Lee was doing ours and was pinned in by some people who had come late. They hemmed him in so he told them to move back and have patience. They did not appreciate this .They called each other names but there was no international incident.
The flight was a good one, and we slept through most of it. It was 2hour not 3 as we had gained the hour we lost in Jakarta! I was woken by the stewardess offering a bottle of water. I took it and realised that my mouth was open. I quickly shut it and 'came-round'. We had now been travelling for over 27 hours. We hoped into a taxi and headed for Sanur, in the south, as it had been described at Kuta, main resort and area of the bombings, in a cardigan. The driver did not know where the hostel was. Great! He asked someone and deposited us outside for an exhorbitant fee, despite being a ticketed airport taxi!
The hostel did not have any vacancies so we had to stay up the road and booked in for five nights from the following day. We left our bags and went out for a cold beer and a meal. We returned to our homestay after that and fell asleep. We think it was about 5 or 6 when we fell asleep. We surfaced the next morning. I woke at 6 am and went to get hot water so that we could have a coffee.
After showering and packing-up breakfast started well with a fried egg, not the two advertised on the menu! When my tea and Lee's coffee arrived however, and I poured the milk in it coagulated in lumps on the top. I showed the lady and said that the milk was off. She said it could not be because she had put it into the fridge!!! I looked at the disgusting mess in my cup, so did she but she could not see what the problem was! I just asked for two cups of hot water and got the sachets of creamer and Nescafe from our backpacks. We spoke to Merlin and Ninia from Holland. They were incredibly lean and tall, maybe 6ft 6", and very nice. We headed off down the road. The owners asked where we were going. We said, "To join some English friends."
We dropped off our bags and went off to the internet cafe while we waited to book in. We had to book our flights out to Perth for the 6th!!!! We found a flight but the computer went off line. We had printed off the details but when we went back on it had added another 80 pounds to the cost! We searched again. The Quantas site would not book anything before the eighth and, after the trouble we had had at the airport in Jakarta, we did not want any complications on exit. We decided to hop into a taxi and go the the Quantas Office which happened to be in the Royal Bali Hotel. It cost 15 thousand rupiah and seemed a rather grand place. The guards opened the boot as we went through the checkpoint. I asked the driver why and he said that they were checking for bombs! Us????
We got our flights for 12.15 am (ungodly hour!) on the 6th February. They were 240 pounds which was quite a shock. When we left the hotel the porter was going to call us a cab until we asked, "How much?"
"35,000 rupiah," he replied.
We said, "You must be joking! It only cost 15,000 to get here."
"It is the hotel taxi," he said, embarrassed. We walked on. Near the top of the drive other taxi drivers asked us if we wanted a cab. We showed them the address. "35,000," they replied. We told them not to be silly and told them the price it had cost us to get there. They asked 20,000. We stuck to our 15,000 and they said okay. Whilst we had gone about this negotiation we had seen hundreds of men in yellow, black and white tee-shirts or jackets walking past us returning to the hotel. We asked what it was. The taxi driver had said it was a huge conference. "Political or religious?" I asked.
"A fundamental Moslem Party Conference," he replied.
I was left reflecting on how such a thing could take place on an island that had suffered bombings by radical Moslems. The world is a very strange place sometimes!!
We have been in Bali for four days now. We are weary of asia, rice, excessive heat and insect bites. We are fed up with maps, boats, planes, boats and buses. We miss our little world, family and friends but we are ploughing on. Perth is in our sights and we will use huge reserves of energy getting into that way of life. I suppose we will be okay once we get going in the van, but it all seems so expensive after asia. It fills me with all kinds of dread and anxiety, and a little excitement. Maybe I am getting a bit old for all this......
We arrived at Jakarta airport at 12pm. We had to state straight away how long we were staying. We had thought between 7 and 10 days, based on our recent experiences. We thought that if we liked Bali we would stay and relax but if we did not we would get the hell out of there. Our stay was immediately limited to 7 days as you had to pay either 10 or 25 dollars each depending on whether you were going to do 7 or 21 days. I did not feel very welcome as all other visas had been for 30 days. I wondered if we had already lost one day travelling, but they dated it for the 31st. That was something at least. It got worse!
When we went through immigration they wanted to know where we were going next. We said Bali but had not yet bought the ticket as the internet page for this would not open up. We just thought that we would buy it at the airport. They seemed appalled at this. We were sent back to their ticket desk to buy a ticket but the young men behind the counter said that they could not do it. They sent us to the Cebu-Pacific desk. It was not open. We waited. I expressed concern to a passing security guard about our bags which would be getting dizzy going round and around the baggage claim belt. He said that they would be okay. He returned to the immigration counter. We waited. Ten minutes later the immigration guy motioned for us to go back up there. They processed our passports and reactivated the visa, which we had just paid for and they had cancelled. We were on our way. It was 2am. We got a taxi to the terminal for domestic flights.
The airport was closed! We sat on benches outside. The ticket desk would open at 3.30am. Flights began again at 6.30.We waited. A girl came by selling stuff from a trolley. We bought water and disconsolately flicked small insects off our clothing. We had been travelling for 14 hours now. I was a bit tired but, worse than that, I was hot, melting. Your skin is continually wet with perspiration. Your clothes and hair sticks to you, even if you have just had a shower. Trying to apply insect repellant is hard unless you are in a breeze because it just skates off the surface of your skin. I watched small cockroaches skuttling around. It is all so disgusting. The airport became busy with people arriving in taxis. We were joined by a delightful pair of youngsters called Richard and Maria, from Sweden. They were going diving up on a northern island. At about 4am we went to price a ticket to Bali. They were 60 pounds each, which was a bit expensive, but at least we could progress! We all chatted happily until 6.30 then we went in to the air-conditioning. There were no toilets and nowhere to sit. We could not check-in as it was too early. I was just making a space to sit on the trolley when Richard and Lee spotted a business lounge with wonderful brown leather armchairs. It was only 50,000 rupiah to enter (about 3 pounds), and there was a free breakfast and unlimited tea and coffee. We paid up, looking very un-business like with our backpacks, and slumped with a cup of coffee. Maria fell fast asleep. They were flying at 8.30. We were flying at 9.40 ish. While we tried some of the food a snake was eating a lizard on the television! I hoped that his breakfast tasted better than ours! Lee went on the free internet to check on the football results. It was the slowest connection ever. After 40 minutes he went off to the loo waiting for the details of the league table to fill in. He had the headings. While he was gone a man came and used the computer so he had to set it all up again!! I watched a dubbed soap. It only had 4 actors, two couples, and was all based on misunderstandings with the usual dramas. We relaxed until 8.30. Richard and Maria had gone at 7.30.
Processing was fairly straightforward apart from check-in. Lee was doing ours and was pinned in by some people who had come late. They hemmed him in so he told them to move back and have patience. They did not appreciate this .They called each other names but there was no international incident.
The flight was a good one, and we slept through most of it. It was 2hour not 3 as we had gained the hour we lost in Jakarta! I was woken by the stewardess offering a bottle of water. I took it and realised that my mouth was open. I quickly shut it and 'came-round'. We had now been travelling for over 27 hours. We hoped into a taxi and headed for Sanur, in the south, as it had been described at Kuta, main resort and area of the bombings, in a cardigan. The driver did not know where the hostel was. Great! He asked someone and deposited us outside for an exhorbitant fee, despite being a ticketed airport taxi!
The hostel did not have any vacancies so we had to stay up the road and booked in for five nights from the following day. We left our bags and went out for a cold beer and a meal. We returned to our homestay after that and fell asleep. We think it was about 5 or 6 when we fell asleep. We surfaced the next morning. I woke at 6 am and went to get hot water so that we could have a coffee.
After showering and packing-up breakfast started well with a fried egg, not the two advertised on the menu! When my tea and Lee's coffee arrived however, and I poured the milk in it coagulated in lumps on the top. I showed the lady and said that the milk was off. She said it could not be because she had put it into the fridge!!! I looked at the disgusting mess in my cup, so did she but she could not see what the problem was! I just asked for two cups of hot water and got the sachets of creamer and Nescafe from our backpacks. We spoke to Merlin and Ninia from Holland. They were incredibly lean and tall, maybe 6ft 6", and very nice. We headed off down the road. The owners asked where we were going. We said, "To join some English friends."
We dropped off our bags and went off to the internet cafe while we waited to book in. We had to book our flights out to Perth for the 6th!!!! We found a flight but the computer went off line. We had printed off the details but when we went back on it had added another 80 pounds to the cost! We searched again. The Quantas site would not book anything before the eighth and, after the trouble we had had at the airport in Jakarta, we did not want any complications on exit. We decided to hop into a taxi and go the the Quantas Office which happened to be in the Royal Bali Hotel. It cost 15 thousand rupiah and seemed a rather grand place. The guards opened the boot as we went through the checkpoint. I asked the driver why and he said that they were checking for bombs! Us????
We got our flights for 12.15 am (ungodly hour!) on the 6th February. They were 240 pounds which was quite a shock. When we left the hotel the porter was going to call us a cab until we asked, "How much?"
"35,000 rupiah," he replied.
We said, "You must be joking! It only cost 15,000 to get here."
"It is the hotel taxi," he said, embarrassed. We walked on. Near the top of the drive other taxi drivers asked us if we wanted a cab. We showed them the address. "35,000," they replied. We told them not to be silly and told them the price it had cost us to get there. They asked 20,000. We stuck to our 15,000 and they said okay. Whilst we had gone about this negotiation we had seen hundreds of men in yellow, black and white tee-shirts or jackets walking past us returning to the hotel. We asked what it was. The taxi driver had said it was a huge conference. "Political or religious?" I asked.
"A fundamental Moslem Party Conference," he replied.
I was left reflecting on how such a thing could take place on an island that had suffered bombings by radical Moslems. The world is a very strange place sometimes!!
We have been in Bali for four days now. We are weary of asia, rice, excessive heat and insect bites. We are fed up with maps, boats, planes, boats and buses. We miss our little world, family and friends but we are ploughing on. Perth is in our sights and we will use huge reserves of energy getting into that way of life. I suppose we will be okay once we get going in the van, but it all seems so expensive after asia. It fills me with all kinds of dread and anxiety, and a little excitement. Maybe I am getting a bit old for all this......
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