Cairns if you do, plans if you don't
February 11, 2006
Internet Cafe and Didgeridoo Shop
Downtown Cairns, actually
~ 11:45am
Sydney finished up just fine. Hit Bondi Beach on Wednesday (easy on the eyes in every respect). I really liked Bondi. Good natured attitude, not too touristy, beautiful beach. Thursday, I went over to Manly Beach, supposedly more authentic for the locals and a bit more upscale. Instead, I found it to be much more commercialized, due in part to it's proximity to the tourist center in downtown Sydney. Getting to Bondi is a haul on the train and a city bus, but you can hop over to Manly on the scenic ferry ride.
Thursday night I met up with Mike back in Bondi and we stayed up till 5am at the Bondi Hotel drinking, carrying on and dancing. Met Fizz and Deed, two lovely British sheilas who kept us on our toes all night. They were still going strong when we limped out to catch the last bus back downtown at 4.
I also Spent Wednesday learning about the buying a car, in preparation for a purchase soon. It's pretty daunting at first, but I think I'm getting a feel for the market. The scary bit was the Kings Cross Auto Market in Sydney. The market is really just the second underground level of a parking garage in Kings Cross. Descending into the gloom, your eyes adjust to see a mini community of grubby backpackers sitting in the darkness, tossing frisbees and hackysacks, waiting for fresh travelers to come down and take their vehicle off their hands. Apparently it works, but the whole affair is pretty dodgy. You get a lot of folks sitting down there for days with their visas' expiration and flights home looming. Not a fun looking way to end your trip. The thought of ending up like a Gollum/car salesman hybrid nearly put me off from buying a car completely. Coming to Cairns yesterday, however, has convinced me that I need my own wheels.
Our hostel is clean, it is not expensive, it's not even too rowdy. It is however glossy with the backpacker culture. Prepackaged tours, "specials" at the bar designed to ply more money from you, pub crawl busses to the hottest nightclubs in town.... well and good, but not why I came here. It also occurred to me that I haven't actually been traveling solo the way I wanted. Between being back in NY, down in the DR and Haiti with Lou and Sydney with Mike, I've had the luck to travel in good company. Time to go it alone for a while.
Speaking of Haiti, I noticed that Rene Preval is in the solid lead in the election counting, but might not get the 50% required to avoid a runoff. Already, business-interest candidate Charles Baker is asking for an investigation into fraud. I'm all for clean elections, but there's definitely people with an interest in maintaining confusion. Preval is the popular candidate with the nation's poor and we saw lots of people on the streets campaigning for him in Cap-Haitien. Many Americans look at a poor nation like Haiti and blame the Haitians for their plight: "If they just wanted it bad enough, they could have peace", "If they just worked hard enough, they could have an economy", etc. What they don't realize is that for the past century, the Haitian people have been desperately trying to get themselves together, only to be undermined at every turn by the policies and direct action of the USA-- beholden to the industrialist minority elites that benefit from Haiti's poverty.
pardon me.
Up in Cairns now, the central city on the north Queensland coast, Great Barrier Reef country. I'm looking into booking a 3day/2night liveaboard diving trip out on the reef. You stay out on the boat, they prepare all your meals and provide all the gear. While I'm out there, I want to score my PADI Advanced Open Water cert, which includes a whole slew of specialist dives like photography, naturalist, bouancy control and night diving.
On top of that, I think I may have found my car. It's a 1995 Ford Falcon Panel Van. There is only one word and that word is bitchin'. $3995 and it can be mine. Oh, and Lou, it has an extra fuel tank-- that takes LPG!! I'm going to sleep on it.
A brochure for a 5 night liveaboard sailing course crossed my path lastnight also. Curiouser and curiouser.
Internet Cafe and Didgeridoo Shop
Downtown Cairns, actually
~ 11:45am
Sydney finished up just fine. Hit Bondi Beach on Wednesday (easy on the eyes in every respect). I really liked Bondi. Good natured attitude, not too touristy, beautiful beach. Thursday, I went over to Manly Beach, supposedly more authentic for the locals and a bit more upscale. Instead, I found it to be much more commercialized, due in part to it's proximity to the tourist center in downtown Sydney. Getting to Bondi is a haul on the train and a city bus, but you can hop over to Manly on the scenic ferry ride.
Thursday night I met up with Mike back in Bondi and we stayed up till 5am at the Bondi Hotel drinking, carrying on and dancing. Met Fizz and Deed, two lovely British sheilas who kept us on our toes all night. They were still going strong when we limped out to catch the last bus back downtown at 4.
I also Spent Wednesday learning about the buying a car, in preparation for a purchase soon. It's pretty daunting at first, but I think I'm getting a feel for the market. The scary bit was the Kings Cross Auto Market in Sydney. The market is really just the second underground level of a parking garage in Kings Cross. Descending into the gloom, your eyes adjust to see a mini community of grubby backpackers sitting in the darkness, tossing frisbees and hackysacks, waiting for fresh travelers to come down and take their vehicle off their hands. Apparently it works, but the whole affair is pretty dodgy. You get a lot of folks sitting down there for days with their visas' expiration and flights home looming. Not a fun looking way to end your trip. The thought of ending up like a Gollum/car salesman hybrid nearly put me off from buying a car completely. Coming to Cairns yesterday, however, has convinced me that I need my own wheels.
Our hostel is clean, it is not expensive, it's not even too rowdy. It is however glossy with the backpacker culture. Prepackaged tours, "specials" at the bar designed to ply more money from you, pub crawl busses to the hottest nightclubs in town.... well and good, but not why I came here. It also occurred to me that I haven't actually been traveling solo the way I wanted. Between being back in NY, down in the DR and Haiti with Lou and Sydney with Mike, I've had the luck to travel in good company. Time to go it alone for a while.
Speaking of Haiti, I noticed that Rene Preval is in the solid lead in the election counting, but might not get the 50% required to avoid a runoff. Already, business-interest candidate Charles Baker is asking for an investigation into fraud. I'm all for clean elections, but there's definitely people with an interest in maintaining confusion. Preval is the popular candidate with the nation's poor and we saw lots of people on the streets campaigning for him in Cap-Haitien. Many Americans look at a poor nation like Haiti and blame the Haitians for their plight: "If they just wanted it bad enough, they could have peace", "If they just worked hard enough, they could have an economy", etc. What they don't realize is that for the past century, the Haitian people have been desperately trying to get themselves together, only to be undermined at every turn by the policies and direct action of the USA-- beholden to the industrialist minority elites that benefit from Haiti's poverty.
pardon me.
Up in Cairns now, the central city on the north Queensland coast, Great Barrier Reef country. I'm looking into booking a 3day/2night liveaboard diving trip out on the reef. You stay out on the boat, they prepare all your meals and provide all the gear. While I'm out there, I want to score my PADI Advanced Open Water cert, which includes a whole slew of specialist dives like photography, naturalist, bouancy control and night diving.
On top of that, I think I may have found my car. It's a 1995 Ford Falcon Panel Van. There is only one word and that word is bitchin'. $3995 and it can be mine. Oh, and Lou, it has an extra fuel tank-- that takes LPG!! I'm going to sleep on it.
A brochure for a 5 night liveaboard sailing course crossed my path lastnight also. Curiouser and curiouser.
posted by Scottley at 5:43 PM
1 Comments:
Hey Scott, Between the Haitian rants and repetitive "i went to blah bar and then went home" posts, your blog has become exceedingly boring. Please post some porn to make it more interesting. -TJ
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