Day 4 - Cairns

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No much to tell about today I´m afraid. The main objective today is to make it to the boat on time. I wouldn´t wanna miss my week in the Great Barrier Reef. :-)

My day started at 5 am and when I say "day" I'm making a very loose use of the word because it was still night. A bunch of idiots who couldn't sleep decided to have a party by my window and I was in one of those states in which you debate yourself on whether to go out and tell the idiots what you think about their ancestry or just close your eyes and keep trying...maybe they´ll go away eventually...and they did go away at 7...but by that time I had already given up on the idea of sleeping...

So I got up and started packing. Checked out was at 10 am, then I took the shuttle to town and loaded with my 3 rocksacks and the sleeping bag I made my way to Mike Ball (the diving centre organising the diving cruise). Today the sun decided to make a strong apperance so by the time I got to the diving centre I was soaking...

I left the main two rocksacks, signed all the paperwork and went for a stroll. Today it was a lazy day, no plans just walk about and relax... so I went to the marina to see the yatchs, laid down by the swimming pool, did a little bit of reading and little more.

I am supposed to meet the crew at 6pm at the meeting point, they´ll pick us up and take us together with our luggage to the yatch/boat or whatever naval vehicle we end up using. I've been warned to have dinner before 6 since all we are going to have at the boat is a champaigne reception with some light snack, after that we´ll depart and navigate all night until we get to the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow morning where all the fun starts! :-)

I´ve been reading the leeflet about what we are going to do and it looks like we´ll be having some night dives. :-) I´ve never done that before...but maybe it´s a good idea...that way in the dark I won't be able to see the shark which is about to take a quick snack with one of my tasty limbs.

There´ll also be some trekking in an island...and I believe we´ll pass by (if not stop) on the famous island of the best job in the world...I´ll be paying attention to the jellyfish there. ;-)

It all sounds pretty cool and I am really looking forward to it. I doubt I'll have access to the internet while on the boat so it is likely this will be my last post for the next 7 days or so but I'll make sure I keep updating the blog although I won't be able to update the content until I make it back to Cairns on the 4th.

The other novelty is that it seems I'm not going to be alone for the next 3 months as I initially expected, on the 4th of Feb when I return from the diving cruise I'll be meeting Aída, the other person that is going to join me for the next 3 months in this almost magical journey across this vast country.

There is a great probability another 2 or even 3 people will join us at other points of the trip as well. It seems Australia is becoming more and more popular in Spain these days.



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Day 3 - Cairns

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I never thought I would say this but after 2 days without seeing the sun, today for the first time I got to see it. It was just for a brief moment, the sky open up and a few minutes later the sun disapeared again. Shy fellow this Australian sun.

You can almost see it coming up on these two pictures:

It was a nice day to walk about today

I was meant to ring the diving cruise company today in order to confirm my attendance to the diving cruise. I dialled the number I had and a message told me the service I was trying to access was not available at the moment...what the...? I´ve tried a couple more times (like maybe on the 4th try I would get a different outcome...human nature) and same result.

Okay...it must be me then...no worries. I took the shuttle to town, walked to the place and walked in, confirmed my attendance for tomorrow and asked them about the telephone...it turns out I was given the wrong number! no wonder nobody was answering! but at least now it's all settled for tomorrow.

The check out in the hostel is at 10 am tomorrow...so I´ll have to take everything to Mike ball (that´s the name of the company)

and then spend the day in town until 6pm when I´ll have to meet them at the boarding point (wherever it is), and be ready to depart!

Today it wasn´t Astralia day so most shops were open and although it´s been cloudy most of the day, at least it hasn´t rainned.

Right after lunch I went to one of the local McDonalds and sat in one of the tables outside (I still can´t take the smell inside, it reminds me of my times flipping burgers).

Mind you I wasn't attracted to this McDonalds because of the high quality and tasty food as you can imagine but because of the Free Wifi. :-) So I took one of the tables outside and started typing...it seems I wasn't the only one with that idea, a few minutes later I found myself surronded by people with their netbooks typing like maniacs all around me! and I thought I was the weirdo for doing it...

All I´ve done today basically is to look around for all the different activities that you can do in Cairns and I finally reduced the possible winners to the following 4...when I can back from the Great Barrier Reef I'll get back to Cairns for one or 2 days so hopefully I'll be able to do one of those...I still haven't decided which though. I admit suggestions. :-)

I´ll have a busy morning tomorrow with all the packing I´ll have to do but I'm really looking forward to the diving cruise...I haven´t done any diving in a little over a year and diving among sharks it´s something I'm a bit aprehensive about but it'll certainly be a unique experience.

Not sure whether I´ll have any access to the internet after tomorrow and while at the yatch/boat or whatever it'll turn out to be but even if I don't I'll keep typing and typing until I can update the blog. :-)


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Day two - Cairns

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Not a good start. I was planning on going to town and spend the day there but when I got up at 5:30 am (thank you Mr Jet-lag) it was rainning...and it continued rainning until 2pm.

I forced myself to be up until 10 pm yesterday to minimise the effects from the jet-lag and because I hadn´t slept much in the previous 24 hours, I slept like a baby until 5:30 am...despite of having a disco with music from the 90s right by my window all night, which probably explains why I woke up wistling a song from the 90s...

I had a long list of things to do in town today, with all the flying and the waiting of the past 2 days I finished reading two of the books I brought with me hence I was thinking of putting them in the post and send them to myself so I won´t have to carry them acrosss Australia (I liked them so I just can´t bring myself to throw them away).

I also needed to exchange some money. I got some yesterday at the airport but today I was planning on exchanging enough to be able to pay for a few activities, and also to buy some trekking shoes... I didn´t buy them in Spain since I had to throw mines away last year because I didn´t want to carry them with me all the way here.

Another compulsory buy would be some t-shirts. :-)

And since I have a fridge in my room, I also wanted to buy some drinks , it´s really hot and humid in here and although it may be cloudy and even rainning make no mistake, the temperature is probably close to 30 C.

So at 10:30 am I was fed up with waiting for the rain to stop so I thought, sod it! I'm going anyway!, I waited for the shuttle to turn up, hopped into it when it arrived and off to town...

You´ll probably find the next laughable but when I got there 90% of the shops were closed saying they were closing for the Australia Day...yes ladies and gentlemen...today Tuesday 26th of January is AUSTRALIA DAY!!! that goes to prove how even the most simple and well laid out plans can all go horrible wrong with an ill twist of fate.

The rain and Australia day didn´t put me off though I had a plan and I was sticking to it!, besides...putting things in perspective and thinking positevely as I found out later, it could have been worse. :-)

Despite of wearing a raincoat, I got soaking wet, it was raining so much that sometimes you would consider for a few seconds whether it was worth crossing the road, do you *really* need to cross it?. Most streets offer some protection from the rain but crossing a road offered no protection whatsoever you were on your own, so after a few road crossings and after walking for a while I got to a money exchange place where I exchanged some euros into the local currency (the Australian dollar, 1 AU$ = 0.6 €), the guy saw me all soaking wet and cracked a joke about how much it was raining today and then he told me I was very lucky...how´s so I asked in amazement, last week we had a cyclon!...and he was right...There I was all soaked up to my toes, doing some shopping on Australia day, raining like on the inaguration of Noah´s arc and I was feeling like A LUCKY GUY!!! because it can always get worse. :-)

So there is no much more to tell about the day, I didn´t book a 14000 feet skydive on a cloudy day when is raining like there is no tomorrow...I had enough water as it was for feeling like doing some white water rafting, ballon on a day like this?, banging jumping? (perhaps without the rope with all this water I could proably dive at the bottom) sailing? (yeah right!).

In the end I went to have lunch to an Italian in order to try one of their pizzas which wasn't too shaby I may go back there another day and try something else. I bought some drinks, fruit and milk and went back to the hotel where I got into my swimming trunks, grabbed a towel and jumped into the swimming pool...even when it rains it´s really hot so the swimming pool is always whispering my name...

I haven´t taken too many pictures today.The day wasn't very inviting to photograpy.

The streets on a rainy day:

People were using the public swimming pool despite of the rain...

Another photo of the promenade:

Another thing that may be worth mentioning is how patriotic everyone is around here, specially young people. Most Australians between 20 and 40 years old painted their faces either with a fake tattoo saying I Love Australia, or simply the australian flag, most of them were wearing the flag with them around town and they were LOUD!!! alcohol may have helped on that though...they were a very happy bunch. :-)



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First day - Cairns

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Cairns location

At last! I made it! I thought I would never get here...it´s been the longest flight ever!
The first flight for 12 hours was actually quite nice, I was lucky enough to have flown on one of the new flashy Airbus A380. It was 2 weeks old! it even smelled new!

It had all the typical gadgets to choose the film you want to watch, serie, documentary, etc... you can pause it, you have your personal tv set and the best of all is that I didn't have anyone to my right and left which gave me quite a little bit of extra room.:-)

Due to past experiences, now it becomes almost customary to steal/borrow the blanket from the plane and take it with me on my trip...you wouldn´t believe the amount of uses you can give it and best of all, before you come back you throw it away so it doesn´t take any precious space in your suitcase. If you grow attached to your crapy blanket fear not, because You are going to get a new one on the way back anyway.

The main use and the reason why I always take it is because many times you don't know where you are going to end up sleeping. The sheets they have given you (if they give you any) may not be clean enough for you, or any nightmare you can think of when it comes to sleep on a pair of clean sheets. With the blanket you can always put it on top of everything and sleep on top of it as a last resort...which is something I must admit I´ve had to endure in the past. It´s better be safe than sorry...

Once we got to Singapore, the nice part of the trip was over and the hardship started, after waiting for a couple of hours we got into a smaller plane A320 I think, which was full, it had no entretainment system whatsoever and run some kind of discriminatory scheme with some passengers. I got a blanket, a meal and a drink, the couple on my left got nothing, not sure what kind of tickets they had but the only thing they didn´t do was to spit in their faces every time they passed by...
They were second class tourist class if that exists!

I am not sure how long it took this leg of the trip maybe 4 hours maybe 6 it felt like 12 though...after that it came the best part, we got off, went around the airport so much that I went too far, got my passport stamped by customs and then I had to ask them to get me back in again! which they did...then we sat in a waiting room for 2 hours and joined THE SAME PLANE we had left a couple of hours later... it must be some kind of modern scheme to take tourist to visit all the local airports...anyway two and a half hours later and we landed in Cairns...at last! and with all the time zones we crossed, it was 10 am I didn't sleep more than 3-4 discontinued hours in the previous 24 so I could do with a shower and a good bed...but not...to avoid the jet lag I decided to stay up until night and hopefully tomorrow I´ll feel a little bit better than today.

The hotel looks really nice from the outside

Cairns Serpent Backpackers Hotel

The hotel it´s very nice from the outside but the room inside looks like a jail cell. Don't take me wrong, it´s functional and it has all it needs but it´s being build in such a way that it truly resembles a jail cell.
The hotel offers Wifi and cyber cafe services from 4 AU$ an hour. It also offers a free shuttle to centre town and the airport.

Cell A2

On the positive side, I´ve had the chance to go to town and visit it.
Cairns seems to be the paradise for all the adrenaline seekers in the world because most of the travel agencies have all sorts of ads for banging jumping, skydiving, white water rafting, cable diving, etc... I even have one ad in my room to go skydiving from 14000 feet 250 AU$!!

The climate is tropical, like it is in Thailand and Cambodia for example...so 15 minutes at the airport waiting for the pick up truck garanteed me a completely wet t-shirt from top to bottom.

And apart from a nice promenade, it has a *very* public swimming pool and every shop under the sky so whatevery thing you forgot to bring this is your chance to find it and buy it.

I'm planning on spending some more time in town tomorrow and perhaps book one of those adrenaline seeker excursions. ;-)

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Gearing up for Australia 2010

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This is it!

The time has come.

I'm going to Australia!!!!

I've been reading about all the different ways in which you can have a horrible and painful death over there...Crocodiles, sharks, jellyfish, snakes, spiders...you name it, they have it! For one reason or another, the snakes they have are the most poisonous in the world...same with the spiders and funny enough even the jellyfish is so dangerous that should you get stung by one and don't receive any treatment for it you'll probably die...

I can't wait to get there!!! :-)

I just read about this guy who got awarded the "best job in the world" which basically was to live in an island that resembles a piece of paradise in Australia and blog about it while you get paid handsomely for it...well it seems in one of his last days he got stung by a jellyfish and he almost died... so the bottom line...if it can happen to the luckiest guy on earth...it could happen to you too! :-)

I just went through my boxes looking for my diving logbook and the diving tables because on the third day I'm going to be on a diving cruise for 7 days by the Great Barrier Reef with unlimited dives with the sharks and the jellyfish! and plenty of time to blog about it in between...not sure whether they'll have WiFi on the boat though.


Below is the MASTER PLAN for the next 3 months.

First 2-3 days to recover from the jet-lag, then 7 days diving cruise with unlimited dives in the Great Barrier Reef!!

And we are already in February with two more days in Cairns where there are lots of activities to do. Rollerblading, white water rafting, treking, helicopter trips, banging jumping, rapel... you name it, they provide it. :-) Somehow I don't think I'll get bored.

Then a 3 day excursion to Cape Tribulation, this is a trip through the rainforest all the way to Cape Tribulation which it seems to be a tropical paradise where you can do some snorkling, diving, or just lay by the beach...

Then flight to Sydney and 5 days in town... 3 day trip to Melbourne which includes Camberra, the Australian Alps, Lakes Entrance and Wilsons Promontory (which is the southern tip of Australia).

Then a week in Tasmania and back to Melbourne.

For March, we'll start with a few days in Melbourne, then it comes the tour: Melbourne-Kangaroo island-Adelaide, I think Kangaroo island will be just the place to see kangaroos :-) , we'll also see Torquay which they claim is every surfer's dream. We'll visit the Grampians National Park, seal bay where we'll get to see some seals.

Then a few days in Adelaide and back on the road to the Australian Outback.
Flinders Ranges, Wilpena pound, the famous Uluru (Ayers Rocks) the orange mountain and Kings Canyon.

Another tour Perth-Albany-Perth then 4 free days in Perth

It turns out I'll be in Adelaide on my birthday. :-)

 

And for April, there is a 10 day excursion throughout the West Coast, from Perth to Broome, then to Darwin and from there we'll be visiting the Kakadu Lichtfield Park where we'll have a wildlife Croc Cruise where we'll see some crocs, we'll also visit the Twin and Jim Jim falls and we'll also see some aboriginal rock art.

After all that we'll have a few free days in Darwin and back to Europe...

Despite of spending 3 months in Australia I don't think I'll have too much idle time in my hands...but rest assure dear reader I'll do my best to keep you informed and entertainned with my adventures or rather missadventures whatever comes and of course lots of pictures. :-)

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Phnom Penh - Cambodia

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Phnom Penh airport was what I can only describe as a ZEN airport (at least on the national arrivals terminal).

This was the first and only time I've seen a terminal with its own little ponds, and flowers, completely open space with no roof...so while you wait for your suitcase you can hang around by the ponds and admire the multicolour flowers...unless it's the late hours of the afternoon and the mosquitos are trying to make a dinner out of you, in which case you stick to the luggage belt and stare at the ponds and the multicolour flowers from a safe distance... We were having our malaria tablets every day but better not tempting your luck...

This time we weren't offered a car from the hotel so we took a taxi. We already knew the price was fix but still... we tried to haggle over the price, after one month haggling every day for everything we just started haggling without even thinking about it. It's like it's expected from you and people would take you for a fool if you don't do it...

Anyway, when we finally got to the hotel it was already dark and we were quite tired so we walked around the hotel and congratulated each other for choosing such a wonderful place. :-)

 

 

It wasn't the cheapest nor the closest to the river but like the Loreal's ad...we were worth it!

The first thing we did was to make good use of the swimming pool...I would swear I could hear the swimming pool calling our names... so 5 minutes into the hotel and the 3 of us were already in the water. :-)

Now it was time to find something to eat and luckly for us we were very close to a street full of decent restaurants so after a 5 minute walk we found a fantastic restaurant colonial style. Food was good and we didn't even have to use the chopsticks! they provided us with fork and knife...how luxurious was that!!

Right in front of the restaurant there was a shop were you could buy any film, tv series or documental ever made for one dollar each. It was truly amazing, there were lots of these shops in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, it was a normal shop with its air con, selves, and lots of dvds fully labelled and wrapped up... and they were as good as the originals with special features and everything!

Breakfast was included so we ate until we couldn't eat anymore and left for our first day in the capital...

The plan was to visit the temples and they weren't too far away so we decided to walk all the way there instead of taking a tuk-tuk... at some point we took the wrong turn and ended up walking along a non very touristic street...it was early in the morning but the sun was starting to make its presence noticed, and between the heat and the stink from all the rubish in the street we were all starting to regret the idea of walking...then we realised we had taken the wrong turn
without any argument from anyone we all decided to do the rest of the trip by tuk-tuk. The stink was too much to bear...so we stopped the first tuk-tuk we found, haggled for a few minutes over the price and off we went to the temples.

The price to enter the temples was exorbitant in comparison with an average salary, if I recall correctly it was something like $20 each although I suppose they would have a different price for locals. We got a bit dissapointed with the temples...they all had a clear Thai style unlike the temples in Siem Reap. You wouldn't say that out loud in Cambodia or you could end up with a black eye but although they were worth a visit, the temples in Thailand which follow the same style are far more impressive.

I suppose in the same way Vietnam was taken by the Chinese for about 1000 years and now you can see the chinese influences all over, in Cambodia you can see the Thai influences from their occupations.

At 11:00 or so they closed the temples, yes that's right they closed the whole place until 14:00 so instead of hanging around until then we decided to go back to the hotel and go back to the street with all the restaurants to try our luck with another one, so we picked a tuk-tuk at the exit from the temples, haggled with the driver and when the price was right we hopped onto the vehicle and made our way back to the hotel and from there to the restaurant.

Then we spent some time by the swimming pool and by late afternoon we decided to go and check out the river at night and find a place where to have dinner.

We got a tuk-tuk from the hotel...haggled a bit about the price and a few minutes later we were by the river... it was quite dissapointing so we decided not to go back the following day as we had planned, nonetheless we found a fantastic restaurant by chance. It was very popular with foreigners and it had all the walls filled with previous customers comments...from people all over the world in all languages and the food turned out to be really good. I'm sure it was recommended by some guide book otherwise how would you explain the influx of foreigners all going to the same restaurant? And we saw a couple of local guides who brought their group of foreigners to the restaurant...the things you find by chance sometimes...

The following day we decided to spend it by the swimming pool, reading and drinking, sorry re-hydrating... until it was the time to say good-bye Cambodia and go to the airport.

Back in Hanoi

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Back in Hanoi. Not my favorite place on Earth but I must admit it´s got some charm.

From Sapa, they drove us back to the train station where we took a night train back to Hanoi.

The train left us at the Hanoi station at 5-6 in the morning and after some haggling with a couple of taxi drivers we went to the hotel/travel agency to have a shower.If you were wondering...yes, you do have to haggle even at 5 in the morning!

After that we went out to see Hanoi before the crazy traffic.

Below is a picture that Susana took from a police vehicle...I kid you not, this is an official police car:

It´s amazing to see how many people go out early in the morning to exercise, they play badminton at the park, they do some kind of tai-chi , some running, etc...

We walked around the lake for a while until they started opening all the shops...

Until it came the time to have breakfast...

Actually we had coffee/hot chocolate with croissants. O:-)

With a full stomach, we decided to go and pay a visit to the Temple of literature, which turned out to be just another example of how much of the Vietnamese culture comes from the chinese.

Susana had a thing for weddings and every time she saw some couple getting their wedding pictures taken around the lake she also took a few. From all of them, perhaps the most striking is this one.

That's right, this is A WEDDING PICTURE!

From another wedding, the bridemaids wearing a typical Vietnamese dress. Mind you, this type of dress you could also see it at schools since it´s part of the girl's school uniform, generally all in white.

For the rest of the day we just walked about and tried to stay alive among the crazy traffic...Sometimes you need to take a picture, words cannot describe accurately what is like in Hanoi.

What do you do should you have to transport anything from point A to point B in Vietnam? You just take it with you on a motorbike of course!


After Hanoi, it was time to go south, so we took another night train to Hoi An. Night trains turned out to be a great way of travelling, you save a hotel fee for the night + you are already travelling and when you get up in the morning you are at your destination.

While meeting people here and there I had the chance to listen to some horror stories about travelling by bus in Vietnam... The bus may be cheaper but after what I heard...definetely not worth it...