Category: Simon

Having been lured into buying cheap tickets for the bird park, it seemed rude not to go. The talking birds were suspiciously quiet, giving you odd looks when you talked to them (maybe I need more of a chinese-english accent), but at least we weren’t as bad as another western tourist who tried speaking to every single bird in the park in the hope they would talk back (which they didn’t!). It was also weird seeing the Australian birds captive in a zoo, like the Australian Pelican that had a fish wriggling in it’s mouth, and was then chased around by another, much larger pelican in hope of a feed. As soon as we walked into the Lorikeet enclosure (another Aussie bird, a small red parrot), one landed on Caroline who screamed, so it landed on me instead, pirate style. At $2 to feed them, who could resist, within seconds a flock of them had landed on me, all jostling for a slurp of the murky brown liquid, and only outnumbered by the gathering Japanese tourists. Occasionally, one would take a nibble of a t-shirt or finger, I wonder if they get bored of the same old slop (the birds that is, not the tourists…).

With 2 pairs of shoes to choose from and only one night to drink in Raffles, Caroline had to pick her favourite. Saying that, we needn’t have got dressed up so much, the place was full of tourists (who’d have guessed!), and the floor littered with peanut shells that crunch unpleasantly underfoot, as the thing to do is eat peanuts and chuck the rest on the floor (if anyone knows why please let us know). But we had our one or two Singapore Slings, revelled in the colonial surroundings and left, another landmark done.

We’ve been in Singapore for a couple of nights, we haven’t done much sightseeing, although shopping and eating do seem to be a big proportion of the tourist to-do lists.
Around the corner from the hotel is the Buddhist Tooth Relic Temple, a modern (there’s a car park in the basement!) temple, full of buddha statues and gold. The sceptic in me wondered why they emphasised inner peace resulting from giving money to the temple, and every brick and tile could be sponsored. I suppose they are at least being open about it, and there was a whole lot of gold to pay for.
That evening we went to the zoo, or more accurately the one and only Singapore Night Safari. Suitably laden with mozzie repellent we caught a tram around the park, making out the dusky shadows of animals as we drove past – the photo is of a rhino, and about as good as they got, so unusually for me, I just watched the animals. Finally we wandered around the walkways, constantly imagining mozzie bites, but seeing the animals when they are naturally active puts a new slant on a visit to the zoo. It would’ve been good if the bats in the walk-through enclosure weren’t so active!

All good things come to an end, but at least we had until the afternoon on Bintan before being dragged kicking and screaming to the Singapore Ferry. No longer will we have waiters who keep coming around to pour your drink for you, place your napkin on your lap, or fold your towels if you go for a swim. There’s even a mini culture shock back in Singapore when nobody smiles sweetly and says hello when you pass. In short, we liked Bintan, if you’re passing through Singapore at any point, make sure you visit!
Our next hotel, whilst not a touch on the Angsana in Bintan, is in the middle of Chinatown. We also arrived at the best time to experience Chinatown – dinner time! Our first call was to the food street, deftly avoiding the “pig liver” stall we made for the Thai stall and had spicy chilli chicken, the even hotter Mee Goreng noodles and pineapple rice – served in a pineapple! So simple and so nice.
Next was of course the markets, so cheap yet so full of useless tat, like silk tissue box covers, I mean who has a need for that? So we only bought three.

The weather gods were smiling on us today, during breakfast the sky turned black and there was a heavy tropical downpour, just enough to entertain us whilst we ate, cool down the air, and clear out the pool. By the time we got to the pool, the sun was out in full strength and we got down to some serious sun, swim, sun, snorkel, sun routine. Not that we don’t appreciate all this easy living, our holiday thus far has been as amazing as it has been long, and it still doesn’t feel right that we get to do all this stuff!
Caroline’s parents left today too, the original plan was to spend a couple of nights, but then I’m not too good at reading itineraries! We had dinner down at the beach again, but this time with musicians and countless different types of Indonesian/Malaysian Satay skewers (including little squids!) – the prospect of Malaysia is looking better by the day!

The pressure was on for me to do something crazy, leap off something or generally scare myself somehow for my 30th birthday, but I’m getting old and need to slow it down. So we went to Perth Mint, watched them pour gold bullion and had the official commemorative coin made for our World Tour. That’s more like it, much more mature. (ok, we couldn’t actually find anything to jump off, we’ll keep looking!)
I’d also like to say a big thanks to Mel, my little big sister who compiled an album of photos of my life and stories from friends and family, along with getting it hand delivered to me here in Australia – it really made my birthday special. Thanks as well to everyone who wrote something, and I hope Mel gets reinstated on Facebook after being flagged as a spammer for sending too many anonymous messages!

Well we’ve gone north, so it’d be rude not to go south. A combination of the weather turning wet, and the fact there’s not too much to do in the area when it’s off season, wet and cold (even the tourist information manager was stumped…) meant that the highlight of our day was spotting some rain drenched kangaroos. Better still, one had a joey squirming around in her pouch, but it was still a slow day.

Fremantle looked like a nice market town as we’d caught the ferry to Rottnest, so for Caroline’s parents last day, we explored what the markets had to offer. The town square could easily have been in Italy or France, dominated by the two old churches and smell of coffee being drunk by old men on a bench with caps on. We had a little trouble finding the markets themselves, and there wasn’t much else apart from the usual Australiana on offer. Not that we could actually buy anything as we’re trying to travel light and reduce our load, not increase it!

We’d been warned by Caroline’s uncle that they weren’t impressive, but we took the detour to see the Pinnacle rocks anyway, well we’ve got to do something to write in here haven’t we?
The rocks stand upright in the patch of sandy desert, looking like a cross between termite mounds and a henge created by a very hyperactive druid. A convenient driveway weaved through the sandstone rocks and meant we didn’t need to get out of the car, but we were glad to be out of it really. With our photos taken from every possible angle, we drove on to Perth, our little northern excursion complete and looking forward to the comfortable abode of Caroline’s aunt and uncle (and of course her aunt’s cooking!).

Monkey Mia is famous for the pod of dolphins that frequent it’s shores, in no doubt encouraged by the fish fed to them 3 times a day. We’d fed dolphins on the East Coast, so were happy to avoid the crowd getting wet, cold feet in the sea and instead watch from the pier (the dolphins only got a couple of fish anyway), as well as catch a glimpse of a sea turtle swimming about. The bay is also world heritage listed for the huge sea grass fields, which means dugongs (sea cows) live here, and we just had to catch a boat to try and see them. By now we’re 1000km north of Perth and although the sun is warm, the sea is not, which makes me agreeing to be the only one on the boat to sit and be dragged along the cold water in the boom net a little odd. The trip was worth it in the end, dugong were spotted munching on the sea grass in the distance, and although we couldn’t get close because of the shallow water, it’s another wild animal crossed off the list.

The little (150km+) peninsula surounding Shark Bay has quite a bit going for it. To begin with, there are a colony of stromatolites, bacteria that has hardly changed for the past 3 billion (yes, billion) years, and are responsible for changing the atmosphere to 20% oxygen so that life as we know it could start. Or, as Caroline put it, a bunch of rocks in the sea.
The bay is also the first landing site for the Europeans, the Dutch who landed here 300 years before Cook. Neither they nor the French who followed showed much interest in the land, and as soon as they did, Britain was quick to claim it as their own.
Just to contrast my ramblings of how big a place Australia is, today we bumped into Dirk, the guy who rented our first camper from Sydney. So not only did we meet one of the few Australians we know in one of the remotest places in the country, it’s also about as far as you can get from Sydney. Maybe the world is quite small after all.