As told by me

Another beautiful south-eastern Queensland day greeted me, unlike the north-east which is under two metres of water.

The highlight of today was the bus trip I’d booked south to meet up with my Dad. Annoyingly, this cost more than the Qantas flight down to Sydney I’ll be catching next week. There appears to be something of a lack of competition on this particular bus route.

I met a friendly young kiwi girl, Jade, while waiting for the bus. This was her first trip to the west island and she was heading for Canberra (poor girl). She asked me if I knew Canberra and if it was a cool place. I tried to let her down gently…

Off we went, crossing the border two minutes later in a suburban street, just north of the river (I would have thought the river itself would make a better border) and the clock jumped forward an hour. Queensland is a funny place in many ways, not least because of their attitude to daylight savings. I’ve actually met people from there that believe that daylight savings is bad because the extra sunlight fades the curtains and the cows get confused about what time to come in to be milked. There are undoubtedly some good reasons for not doing daylight savings, especially as you get up north, but it is a bit ridiculous to have houses across the street from each other being on different timezones (there has been an as yet unsuccessful campaign for some years to get south-east Queensland (ie Brisbane and the Gold Coast, onto daylight savings).

Anyway, the surprisingly comfortable bus pulled onto highway 1 and we made our way down the excellent new section of road that cuts out the old diversion inland to Murwillimbah, and arrived in Byron Bay in no time. After the bus emptied itself of european backpackers and then refilled with another load, we headed down the coast road to Ballina, where we had our dinner break at that internationally-renowned tourist attraction, The Big Prawn. I had crumbed Barramundi and chips, which was not as good as I’d hoped but it filled the hole.

We continued on south, getting back onto the good old single carriageway highway that has claimed so many lives (hey it’s only the busiest highway in the country, after all), and were making such good time that I thought we were going to get in about an hour early. That was until we took the forty minute detour out to Yamba and back (I vaguely remember this stupidity from the last time I caught this bus). Anyway, we continued on and stopped for a driver change at South Grafton, then forty minutes later, we pulled over on the highway at Woolgoolga for me to get out. Dad turned up just as we pulled in (we were in fact, pretty much bang on schedule), and we headed out on the headland to the beachhouse where he’d arranged an excellent curry for dinner.

Looking north from Woolgoolga

Woolgoolga punches well above its weight in terms of indian cuisine as it has the largest Sikh population in regional Australia, with not one, but two temples – not bad for a town of 4,000 people. The Sikhs arrived in the late 19th century (just before the White Australia policy was brought in after Federation, in 1901) and came to Woolgoolga to run the banana plantations. According to Wikipedia, some 10% of the town still speak Punjabi at home. This seems to be a pretty harmonious situation, though I do remember a story about the local RSL club refusing entry to some local Sikhs because they would not remove their turbans. I believe this was resolved when it became clear that at least some of these gentlemen had fought under the British Army in World War II.

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Australia - February 2009

Well, let me just say that Air Asia X carries the dubious honour of having the most uncomfortable aircraft cabins ever designed (and I believe they are a special, customised design). Not only did they squeeze in an extra seat in every row, making each seat that much narrower, they have also managed to come up with a truly insane seat design that doesn’t actually recline! They claim it does, but in fact it simply slides you forward thus cutting your already insufficient leg room in half. Suffice to say that next time I will be happily spending the extra few hundred dollars to fly in a plane that I can actually sit down in for a prolonged period without causing myself permanent injury.

Anyway, despite that, it was great to be finally back in the magical land of oz. Coolangatta airport (aka Gold Coast airport) is still a pretty small affair and the passport control and customs operations were a little bit toy-town-esque, but I finally managed to convince the customs official with the broad northern english accent that I was legitimate and headed out into the sunshine to meet my mate Guy for the first time in about 12 years.

I spent a lovely day with Guy and Nicolle and their gorgeous 18 month old blonde & blue-eyed bombshell, Josie, topped off by a swim and a bbq at the hotel that Guy’s folks were staying at. It was great to catch up with Guy & Nicolle after so much time and it was a genuine pleasure to meet Josie. All in, a very pleasant first day back in the country.

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Australia - February 2009

The Equator hostel is a great place to stay. If you’re heading for KL and want a cheap bed, check it out.

The very helpful girl at the hostel gave me a map and a suggested itinerary for the day. First item on the itinerary was a quick trip on the monorail. KL appears to be the only city to have built a monorail and made it into an apparently viable public transport option, unlike those other great cities of Sydney, Seattle and Springfield.

I went a couple of stops and, following the directions I was given, headed towards the KL tower. About half-way there, I ran into the taxi driver that had driven me in from the airport last night. He was very friendly and told me that his daughter was heading to Melbourne to work at St Vincent’s Hospital. He then asked me if I had any time to talk with him about my country. This set off a red scam flag but I had a feeling he was on the level. I told him I was a bit short on time as I had to catch a flight in the evening, which was partially true, and continued on towards the tower, feeling a little bad about not having given him my time.

I soon arrived at the KL tower, the third-highest tower in the world, and the only one surrounded by a tropical jungle, as they kept repeating at every possible opportunity. What they didn’t mention was the fact that it also boasted what must be AJ Hackett’s lamest ride, a horizontal flying-fox along the side of the carpark – presumably they wanted to operate a bungy off the side of the tower, like they do in Macau, but this was all they got. They also had a “Winter park”, complete with Santa – come on guys, it’s February!!

I then headed over to the mighty Petronas Towers, the highest buildings in the world (on a technicality to do with the aerials, apparently, which make them officially higher than the Sears Tower in Chicago), until Taipei 101 was completed in 2004. Apparently a building in Dubai is about to claim the honour when it is completed soon. After a disappointly bland lunch in the adjoining shopping centre, I then wandered out into the large park, heading for the nearest underground station. Here I met my taxi driver again, and he didn’t repeat his earlier question, so I was convinced that I’d made the wrong call at our first meeting. He did take this photo of me though, and we parted again on good terms:

In the park that spread out from the Twin Towers, there was an awesome wading pool and children’s playground, which I wandered through on my way (I thought) to the KLCC underground station. After wandering for a solid twenty minutes, throughout which I was wondering why the signposting to this station was so poor, I actually found myself at the next station up the line. Why don’t tourist maps print scales on them?

Anyway, I caught the train a few stops down to the Jamek mosque, where the Imams were making lots of noise on the PA. This is quite a picturesque mosque, though the stormwater drain (which I’m guessing was once a river) next to it doesn’t do it any favours.

Next stop was across the drain to the Sultan Abdul Samad building, which housed part of the colonial administration, and the adjoining Dataran Merdeka, or Indepdence Square, where Malaysian independence was proclaimed in 1957. I then headed down to the old train station, where our train journey from Singapore had terminated when I visited here with my Dad and my sisters in the early ’80s. This is a beautiful, islamic-styled building which is sadly looking a little unloved these days.

I caught the monorail back to the hostel and after some internet and a shower, set off for the airport. I got as far as the monorail again when I realised that I’d left my phone charging at the hostel, so I jumped in a cab and had him take me, via the hostel, to Sentral station. He turned out to be the single worst driver in the world, so this was a pretty hairy trip, but we got there in one piece.

Rather than catch the slow bus, I decided to shell out a little extra for the Ekspress train, which goes to the “Main terminal” at the airport. Once there, I got a taxi around to the LCCT (Low-cost carrier terminal), a ten minute journey for which I was charged some £7. The journey goes around three sides of the rectangle that is the airport compound, and I smell a bit of a scam here, especially as once we reached the LCCT, I could see that the Main terminal was just a few hundred metres away…hmmm. I became even more suspicious later when they started making announcements that there were no taxis available, and everyone would need to catch the bus around to the main terminal to go anyway.

Anyway, despite the LCCT being nothing more than a tin shed, there was a free wi-fi signal, so I amused myself online until my flight was called

More Kuala Lumpur photos here

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Kuala Lumpur - February 2009

I had the best sleep in a long time and got up at a leisurely 10am, packed my stuff up and went downstairs for an equally lesiurely breakfast, when I encountered another quirk of Refill Now! – they only toast their bread on one side. When I enquired about this I was told that was the way the machine was set up. Oh well.

I hung around, making the most of the internet that they’d charged me 180 baht for, until 1pm, when I caught a taxi back to the embassy to pick up my passport. This was a very quick ride and I was in and out of the embassy in less than ten minutes, with my shiny new “Emergency passport”, which has four whole pages in it. I later realised why they issued it for seven months, which is that I need at least six months remaining to be allowed to enter Malaysia. That was very thoughtful of them, as I otherwise would have had a very boring and uncomfortable 22 hours sitting in transit at KL airport.

My next task was to go around the corner to the Thai immigration office to get an exit stamp, so they’d allow me to leave the country. The lovely security guard ladies on the gate at the embassy (as this was my third trip there in three business days, we were becoming good friends) offered to hold on to my backpack while I did this, which was just fantastic, so my ten minute stroll to the immigration office was as pleasant as the temperature and humidity allowed.

Once I’d got my ticket and form from the reception desk, I went around to the main office just as they called my number. I quickly filled in the form and submitted my new passport with the letter the embassy had given me and ten minutes later I was all done, much to the disgust of the American sitting next to me who had been waiiting there for an hour to report in, as he’d had to do every 90 days for the last ten years.

I’d allowed a good hour and a half for the embassy and immigration formalities so I was now well ahead of schedule. In fact, I really could have got a much earlier flight. Oh well, better safe than sorry and all that.

After my last Thai street meal for the time being (a decent pork noodle soup), I strolled back to the embassy, picked up my bag from my new friends on the gate, and jumped in the next taxi going past. The driver tried to offer me an all-inclusive deal of 450 baht to the airport, which I was pretty sure was too much, so requested that he just keep the meter running. We had a clear run out to the airport and the total fare, including the 70 baht worth of tolls, was 301 baht. I paid him this and he then audaciously suggested that I might like to tip him 30 baht! I told him that I might have considered it, if he hadn’t tried to rip me off at the beginning of the journey.

My flight was an hour late so I had a solid four hours to kill at the airport. This was not so bad though as it’s a shiny new airport and there were a few unsecured wi-fi networks to connect to. The flight itself was pleasant enough. Air Asia appear to be a pretty good airline – similar to Easyjet but with much more attractive staff and much better (and cheaper) food.

We finally arrived in “KL” just before 11pm local time (Malaysia is an hour ahead of Thailand), and I’d by now realised that I was going to have to get a cab to get to my hostel, which supposedly closed at midnight. I finally got in a cab after 11.30 and was informed that it was an hour into town. Why any city would build their primary airport 80km out of town is beyond me, but a quick call to the hostel reassured me that they would still be open when I got there (I’d emailed them from Bangkok to let them know I was going to be late).

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

I got up at the crack of dawn, had a quick shave and shower and headed out onto the main road, where it took me about 15 minutes to find a taxi driver, and then about another five minutes to find one who could understand where I was pointing on my map.

We set off on what ended up being a solid hour stop-start journey towards the embassy. The traffic lights in Thailand (it was the same in Chiang Mai so I presume it’s a similar story in most cities) are set on very long cycles and, in most cases, a crossroads will involve four full cycles – ie the opposing traffic does not flow at the same time. This means that when you’re moving, you’re going at a fair clip, but when you’re stopped at a light, you’re often there for a solid five to ten minutes.

I got the taxi driver to drop me at the Banyan Tree, as I had decided to get new photos done (the first lot were pretty awful, it has to be said), and about 20 minutes later, with a much more acceptable set of photos in hand, I dashed down the block to the embassy, to find a mercifully short queue at the consular desk.

After about a 15 minute wait, I was served by another very helpful consular official, who checked and confirmed that all my paperwork was in order, enquired about when I was planning to travel (tomorrow at 6.45pm was my answer, though until this moment I wasn’t holding out much hope of actually making that flight) and disappeared for a couple of minutes. When he returned, he said my new emergency passport would be issued for the maximum seven months (I would have been happy with seven days!) and would be ready at noon tomorrow, which would give me plenty of time to go to Thai immigration (very conveniently located two blocks from the embassy) and then get to the airport. As if that wasn’t good enough news, he also informed me that due to recent currency movements between the aussie dollar and the baht, the fees I was due to pay had actually dropped by 300 baht!

So that’s all good then.

In a decidedly better mood, and with a new-found appreciation for Australian bureaucracy (though it has to be said that during my time in the UK I had decided that it rated pretty highly anyway, at least in comparison), I set off up the road to Lumpini Park, a large oasis of green in the middle of the city. This is a pleasant enough park though it was a rather overcast and muggy day so I was soon thinking about the next airconditioner I could expose myself to.

This turned out to be the underground, which had a station at the far corner of the park, so I made my way over there, and after a quick bag search at the security barrier (that must be fun at peak hour), was soon enjoying the coolish climate of the platform at Silom station. After a couple of minutes a train, with suitably arctic air, whisked me along the short journey to Hua Lumphong station (the main Bangkok station), where I was soon sweating again.

I was quite hungry at this point and after wandering around the station turning my nose up at all the overly westernised franchise food outlets (subway et al), I found myself at a noodle stall just outside, where I enjoyed a lovely chicken curry with noodles. The only problem with this is that I now literally had sweat dripping off me (the curry wasn’t helping on that account), much to the amusement of the ladies at the noodle stall (I was a pretty funny sight, I imagine). After getting those noodles and soup inside me as quickly as possible, I then went and stood in the nearby doorway of the station (where the airconditioned air pours out) for a number of minutes, much to the continued entertainment of the noodle ladies.

With my sweat factor slightly under control, I decided to grab a taxi for the short ride to Wat Pho, down by the river. Wat Pho is a very large compound, though not as large as the Grand Palace next door. The main attraction here is the enormous reclining buddha, a good 50 metres long at least and probably 15 metres high.

I wandered around Wat Pho for about half an hour and decided that I didn’t have the energy (nor the inclination to cough up the 250 baht entrance fee) to manage the Grand Palace as well. As a compromise then, I hopped on the 3 baht ferry to Wat Arun, a large khmer-style temple on the opposite bank.

I was starting to fade a bit now so crossed back across the river and caught the express ferry down to Saphin Taksin, to get on the Skytrain. I had finished my book last night (Spook Country by William Gibson – a very good read) so wanted to hit a bookstore for my next installment. A short Skytrain journey took me to Siam Central, in the heart of the shopping mall district, and I wandered into the Siam Paragon centre. A quick enquiry at the information counter soon had me up three flights on the escalator and into an impressively large and well-stocked bookshop that catered for a number of languages. I found the english sci-fi section with ease and was very pleased to find a wide selection of Gibson books for me to choose from. I bought two and then headed down to the food court for a very good noodle soup with roast pork, which was surprisingly cheap (50 baht), given the salubrious surroundings.

I then caught the Skytrain out to the burbs and decided to see just how far the hostel was from the station. Forty hot and sweaty minutes later, I knew the answer.

I retired to the arctic airconditioning in my room, read the first chapter of my book and played some games on my computer (I’ve discovered an Age of Empires-like game which is great for killing a couple of hours). At about dusk I popped downstairs for a couple of quiet beers and a lovely (though a bit on the small size, given the price) Pad Thai, then retired for another relatively early night.

More Bangkok photos here

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09

I found myself a new hostel on the internet, which though it is a way out of town, is at least on the right side of the city for the embassy, which is now my main concern. It sounded pretty interesting, based on the reviews I’d read, and once my taxi driver finally found it (it really is out in the sticks), I could see what these reviewers had been talking about.

It’s pretty much brand new, is well designed and is set in a lovely garden setting, with a small pool even, in a relatively (when the local dogs aren’t fighting) quiet suburban street. It has a very chilled, though not terribly cheap bar cum restaurant which opens out on the garden. It also has a rather odd name – Refill Now! (I believe the exclamation mark is integral to the brand, a la Yahoo!).

I spent a rather pleasant afternoon and evening here, making use of the unlimited (though not free) wi-fi, the highlights of which were the fried chicken and green papaya salad, though it was the smallest serving of papaya salad in thailand, and the Nadal v Federer final from Melbourne.

I then discovered one of the quirks of this place (there are a few and they’re all related to someone being a little too clever when designing it) when I went up to bed for an early night, as I wanted to be at the embassy first thing in the morning. After preparing myself for bed, I then discovered that the main light in the bedroom had no switch. I was informed that it was an automatic light, that goes off at 10pm and can’t be overridden. I suggested that this was absurd, that I really needed an early night and that perhaps I should go and find another hostel. I was again assured that it could not be turned off before 10pm so I went up to my room and started writing a complaint on their website. Magically, and without further discussion, the light went off about five minutes later – well before 9pm! – and my complaint went unsent.

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Thailand - December 08, January & February 09