I reluctantly left the paradise Mecca I will now think of as a second home and returned to KL. Unfortunately I was not subject to the rock star treatment Dylan and I had previously experienced, instead I checked myself in to a semi-decent hotel in China town and collected my infamous Olympus waterproof camera from the repair centre, apparently fully repaired. I was subject to my main bank account being cancelled and my card swallowed. Due obviously to the unresolved issue with my Olympus camera and the idiots in the store in Vietnam all those months ago charging my cards numerous times and refunding all but two transactions, meaning I had still paid for the broken camera twice. My father had spent many an hour on the phone to the bank and filling in visa dispute forms for the bank to turn around and deny ever receiving them. Eventually when they received one of the forms they stated it was apparently too late under international banking laws to dispute the transactions. So I paid twice for a camera which lasted barely 3 weeks, the interest on my credit card for all those months, the phone calls to the bank on my UK mobile, god knows how much of my time and money on skype and effort attempting to get the camera fixed. Now I headed for Thailand where the camera would last 5 minutes in the ocean before flooding with water again. So the morale of the story: always keep your cool even though you may feel the uncontrollable desire to commit mass slaughter and napalm the Olympus and Nationwide headquarters, never buy anything in Vietnam on a bank, credit, debit or any other card, withdraw cash out days in advance if you have to and never under any circumstance buy Olympus cameras. Their customer care is non existent. You have to make your own way to one of their 20 repair centres across the world and even when you do get there it takes 3 weeks to fix the camera and you have to return it to the same centre to collect the “repaired” item only for it to break yet again and then be told to return it to another repair centre at my own expense and by the way we don’t do refunds is that okay Sir? “Well what exactly do you do to support you warranty if you don’t give refunds and you obviously don’t repair cameras?”
I returned to Thailand to spend a couple of weeks exploring the west coast before heading to Australia in time for Christmas and New Year. My first destination was Hat Ton Sai in Krabi Province. Although the beach is part of the Thai mainland, the vast cliffs and rocky outcrops prevent it being reached via land, the only way to get to the beach is on a long tail boat from Ao Nang, about 20 minutes away. The beach is flanked by steep cliffs making it a playground for some of the world’s best climbers. The place reminded me of the Perhentian Islands off Malaysia’s north eastern coast, a tropical paradise for back packers. I spent a couple of days relaxing on the beach recovering from the journey up from KL before departing to Phi Phi Don, an island a 90 minute boat ride away. The island retains similar features to that of Hat Ton Sai beach and Krabi with harsh steep rocky cliffs scattered throughout. The next few days were spent soaking up the rays in Phi Phi and exploring the islands of the surrounding area, including Phi Phi Le, the beach seen on the block buster movie The Beach and Bamboo Island, one of the most picturesque islands I’ve seen. Regrettably I spent an entire day in the baking heat without applying sun lotion or wearing protection, I paid for my stupidity with diarreah and vomit throughout the night. At one point two stray dogs came along, I wasn’t too sure of their intention but they seemed hungry as they munched away on my stomach bile and proceeded to show their skills at catching my yellow mucus before it had a chance of reaching the ground. On returning to my room and adopting the international I’m a sick pathetic male foetal position, I heard what seemed like running and splashing. I flicked back my curtain to see the same 2 dogs chasing each other running along the decking and jumping in to the pool. They seemed to be enjoying themselves as they carried on doing this for some time. This caused amusement in my state of illness.
I left Phi Phi and ventured to the notorious Phuket, Thailand’s largest and most touristic island. I remember a few years back when Gaz and I had visited Phuket; we were so disgusted by the levels of prostitution and sexual harassment, the latter which we fell victim to, that we cut short our stay even though we had paid for 2 more nights in a 5 star hotel. The island had not changed since then and is definitely the worst place I have been to on my travels. It attracts a strange type of people who clearly have not spread their wings far enough to realise what the place is like. I was purely heading to Phuket to visit Sarah, a girl I knew from London who was actually on the same flight to Mumbai all those months ago. Some how I let her persuade me to save money by staying in Phuket for 2 and half weeks over Christmas and New Year. It was during this time I began to miss Bali more and more and despise this seedy place. Christmas was a no goer, being predominantly Buddhists they don’t celebrate Christmas but the Thais do make an effort for New Year, with an impressive fire work display in Patong, epicentre of the island’s sleaziness.
Escaping the sordid grotty hole of Phuket I landed at Singapore airport with hours to spare ready to do some duty free shopping, spend a couple of hours on a tourist bus exploring the city and possibly watch a movie in the airports free cinema. Alas even the looses plans go array and before you know it I was checked on my flight to Australia yet Singapore Airlines could not check me in as they were missing some magic coupon, which is all part of the round the world ticket between partner airlines. According to Virgin Atlantic I had already flown to Australia in September on the same flight as my ex, even though I had no entry visas for Singapore apart from that day and my passport showed I was in Thailand at this time. To cut a long story short I spent 10 hours in the check in area of the airport on the phone to Virgin Atlantic attempting to get a magic coupon issued. The discrepancy was driving me nuts and Singapore Airlines did all they could to assist me yet they were hampered by bad records and some Nazi type chap at Virgin Atlantic. Eventually the Virgin Fuhrer swallowed his words and informed me to call Air New Zealand as he could not do anything at his end and Virgin no longer had control of the ticket. One of the Singapore Airlines staff phoned Canberra and confirmed that the last time I had been in Australia was in 1997. A 5 minute conversation with Air New Zealand and I was booked on the next flight out, running half the length of the airport (if you have been to Singapore Airport you’ll know this is far) to make my flight, missing my duty free shopping and severely pissed off. Life always has a way of putting you back in your pathetic little box and making you realise what you have. I was seated next to two Singaporeans who were heading to Brisbane to see their young early 20’s friend who seemingly was just about to die. The mood was sombre to say the least, so we decided to forgo sleep for some well deserved red wine and talk the flight away.
Nearly 12 years after I had left my precious Australia I was back and on the east coast, somewhere I’d never visited during my childhood. It’s safe to say the Australian authorities make anything and everything difficult for their entire population and its visitors. I don’t think they are attempting to make life hard I just think they are perfectionists and do not want to spoil their perfect little world. The airport was one of the securest I had seen, with numerous sniffer dogs employed throughout and a vast amount of nosey staff curious as to my whereabouts over the last years. Brisbane is a strange place, a small city inland from the coast along the Brisbane River. It was obviously a shock coming from 9 and half months of the hustle and bustle of Asia. Brisbane and Australia seemed not just quiet but deserted, empty and hollow, generally lifeless and dare I say boring. But with a population density of 2.8 people per square km compared to that of some Asia countries; Singapore 6,336, India 336 or even the UK at 246 and the world average of 45 obviously including areas such as vast deserts, Arctic and Antarctic tundra, Australia is a pretty quiet place and hence the pace of life is very slow. One thing I adore about Australia apart from the vast expanse of ocean surrounding the country and the great weather, Australians view life very differently from us Europeans. They seem to work to live not the other way around which us Europeans thrive on, ok maybe apart from the French god bless their cheesy soles.
Brisbane was the first time I used the traveller website Couch Surfing. I had been meaning to use it for some time now and it is a genius yet simple idea. Locals register themselves on the website as having a couch available for travellers to crash on for free and travellers search for couches available in the area they are visiting. I stayed on one girls couch for 2 days and met another surfer who took me to watch Australian State 20/20 cricket match at the GABBA. I met 2 adorable Welsh girls in my dorm and after a couple of days relaxing in Brisbane realising there isn’t much to do we hired a car and headed off to Byron Bay, a picturesque little town south of Surfers Paradise in northern New South Wales. Byron is home to Jack Johnson, a gorgeous lighthouse, a beautiful golden beach and cool young surfer types. We paid $150 for one night in a ransacked wooden caravan, which doubled as an oven. Being on the east coast one must rise pretty sharpish to see the sun at ocean height, an apparent obsession of the human race. We did not wish to disappoint our forefathers so at 5.00 am we were out of bed and headed up to Cape Byron Lighthouse. The scenery was breathtaking. As the sun slowly meandered its way up through the depths of the ocean, the vast array of colours swayed and changed. The rich blues of the ocean were spectacular, the whiteness of the waves crashing beneath us, the sky switched its way through numerous colours of blues, greys, oranges, reds, yellows, using the ocean and scattered clouds to create a variety of colours and strange patterns. (Pictures on my facebook). So if you do happen to go to Byron Bay, an early morning trip to the lighthouse is a must. Not a lot else happened in Brisbane, apart from meeting up with a diving buddy from Koh Tao, Jade, the night before my flight to Perth. Jade and her friend had unsuccessfully (first time in a while as I do appear prone to persuasion on this trip, especially from females) tried to convince me to stay on the east coast, move in to their flat on the Gold Coast and get a job over there. I awoke the following morning after missing my alarm; I had obviously had a few more than I thought. I woke at 8.50 am knowing that my flight left at 10.00 am. God only knows how I made it but I sure as hell wasn’t missing another flight that had happened far too many times on this trip.
I arrived in Perth with my bank accounts raped ready to seek out employment and start to save some more money ready to buy my future home in Bali and enough cash to hopefully travel a little more and do my Scuba Diving Instructor course. It so happened that I hit Australia just at the wrong time, infact the worst time in years for unemployment. In one week over 20,000 people were fired from Western Australian mines alone and I did read that over 1 million Australian expats living abroad plan on returning within the next 12 months. Baring in mind that Australia has a population of around 21 million, that’s a lot of people. So with increasing job cuts, highly skilled experienced workers returning home and highly skilled miners heading to the towns and cities looking for work, Australia is no longer the job hunters dream it once was.
A Sunday session at Ocean Beach Hotel in Cottesloe over looking the beach was called and I met up with a very good friend I’d travelled with in Vietnam, Jimmy, the Welshies from Byron and some travellers from my hostel. Australia sure has become more expensive over the years, with $9 for a beer being the norm. That’s more than you’d pay for the same beer in London. Sarah and Vicky (the Phuket girls) arrived, we spent 2 solid days searching for work and came up with a couple of sleazy bars in the outback for the girls and a Telstra call centre for me, which worked off commission. We soon realised that anymore time spent in Perth and we would be selling our bodies just to buy food and pay for accommodation. Our plan to work the fruit season when we arrived had been squashed by late winter rains in the south of Western Australia. Nonetheless we thought it would be a good place to head to so when the season did start we were down there and ready. We headed down south the night after I had my fairly new fancy Sony touch screen camera stolen in Perth, yes that’s 4 cameras in 10 months that have gone wrong. Well actually both Sony’s ended up stolen, Olympus just refused to work and the Lumix was a stop gap cheap but awesome reliable camera while the new Sony and Olympus were both broke. Anyway on our way down to Margaret River we soon realised that as it was Australia Day weekend we would not be able to get accommodation. Fortunately, Jan and Garry, my adopted aunty and uncle from when we had lived in Perth all those years ago offered us to stay with them for a few days. Overwhelmed and not wanting to turn down a good thing we accepted their generous offer. We were greeted by Jan and taken down to Garry’s work, Vat 2 Restaurant on the beach front of Bunbury’s Koombana Bay, where we spent the next few sun soaked hours sipping on lush white wine. Two weeks later and we are still here in Eaton, 10 kms away from Bunbury. The kindness of Jan and Garry can’t be expressed in words. All these years without any real contact and it’s as if I had never left Australia. Both girls have managed to gain employment as cleaners in local shopping centres (a standing joke between us all), Sarah also washes dishes at a lovely Italian restaurant in town while Vicky worked one night week in one of the “classy” biker bars in Bunbury. Jan has been kind enough to lend us her car when she is not using it so I have become the taxi driver and after being rejected a million jobs in 2 weeks and not wishing to lower myself to man handling faeces, getting abused by manner less drunken Aussies or taking orders off some jumped up lesbian head chef. So until the fruit picking begins I am relying on money from the dole (if it ever arrives), insurance money for my latest robbery, credit card money for a double payment and interest, a refund for the Olympus oh and heaven for bid I just remembered, compensation from the Army for underpaying me for 4 years solid without even an apology. I’m sure it’s more likely to see the Pope go down for rape than the British Army pay me what they duly owe. Its cringe worthy at the best of times watching them attempt to look after their serving personnel never mind those whom have left. Well I actually went for an interview yesterday at the Mantra Hotel, a brand new hotel over looking Koombana Bay. I was applying for a casual (which means two nights a week) night porters job. The manager asked me if I would be interested in a full time job at reception as it was currently all girls and he wanted a male in there to balance things out. I obviously expressed my interest and was informed that 150 people had applied for both jobs and he would try and get back to me by Wednesday. Three hours later he called me offering me the job. I had spent weeks being rejected for work and finally I was being offered a better job than one I had applied for. I start next week, so now I am torn whether I should stay here or go further south for fruit picking in the baking heat. Baring in mind that most people do fruit picking so they can have a year extension on their year visa, something I obviously don’t require.
On a brighter note, one which doesn’t involve chasing after people who are utterly useless at their job, Aussie day was superb, I will give the Aussies one thing, they sure are passionate about Australia day. Especially for a country which really has such a short history and lack of culture and identity apart from maybe beaches, kangaroos, bbqs, surfing and smashing the Poms at every single game we invented. Yes I can hear you yell, “what about the 2005 Ashes series or the rugby world cup?” both a one off lets face it. Don’t even comment on the medals tally of last years Olympics, they have a population one third of ours and actually if you think about it and do the sums in the top 10 points table, Australia has a tiny population compared to China, Russia, USA, Japan and the European countries. The next smallest population in the table was South Korea with 50 million and they finished one place below Australia in seventh, so they are better at sport than us. So Aussie day yes Vicky, Sarah and I along with one of the lovely girls Garry works with, Becs, all went to the beach. It was a gorgeous day and Becs and I were so fortunate to be swimming inches away from a small school of dolphins that were hunting along the shore line. It was a magical moment and maybe beats the day I travelled from Gili to Bali and watched the massive school of spinner dolphins performing across the open ocean. The day ended with a modest but enjoyable firework display in Bunbury “city” centre.
For those cricket lovers amongst you; the IPL (Indian Premier League) auction was carried out yesterday and it’s great to see 2 of England’s finest players, KP and Flintoff bought for the highest amount even though they will only be permitted to play half of the series. The series runs from 18 Apr until 1 Jun and is then followed by the Twenty 20 World Cup, 5-19 Jun. I may have to remain in Australia to soak the atmosphere of the cricket up. Until then I shall attempt to work away and save some dosh for my future home in Bali…hmmmm Bali….
