SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

On the flight from Kuala Lumpur I felt like the exotic part of the trip was over and I was about to enter a decompression chamber. After spending over 4 months in non-English speaking countries I was finally re-entering the English-speaking world. I didn’t expect anything about Australia to be particularly exotic, but at that point I was very interested to see what it was like Down Under. I had a window seat in the front row of the back section of the plane so I had unlimited legroom. The flight landed on time and I shuffled off the plane and headed toward customs looking forward to actually being able to have deep conversations with locals if I wanted to.

The line was long for immigration, but when I got to the front I was waived through after only a couple of basic questions. As I was looking for my bag on the carousel a Customs guy came up to me and asked where I was coming from then asked for my arrival card and he then squiggled something on it. At first I thought this might be a pre-clearance to save time in the customs line, but it turned out to be the opposite. I got my backpack and got in the customs line and when I got to the front they asked me if I they could look in my bags. I asked about it and they admitted that I was flagged for some reason. The inspector seemed proud when he found a small wooden statue in my backpack and he said the guy who flagged me did a great job. I wondered what he was talking about since this was a $2, 6” wooden Buddha statue that I forgot I bought in India.

He asked if I had in fact checked the box on my form that said I was not carrying various banned items and I said ‘yes’. I’ve checked all the way down one column on dozens of these types of forms that always ask things like: Are you carrying explosives? Are you carrying heavy weaponry? Are you carrying vials of Anthrax etc.? But this one asked if I was carrying any wood. Wood?!?! I had forgotten about it, but I doubt I would have checked it off even if I had remembered. It turns out Australia has had a few famous problems with foreign animals and even bacteria entering the continent, and I had even read about those before I got there, but I didn’t expect wood to be a problem. The inspector warned me that I would be fined next time, but said the statue was really no problem. Then he pulled out my sport sandals from my backpack and said, ‘A-ha!’ There was some dried mud on the soles and he said this was a problem. Instead of immediately handcuffing me he told me to stay put and he took off with my muddy sandals into an office.

A few minutes later, he reappeared carrying my sandals, but he had washed the soles in the back room and he also had a plastic bag into which he placed the sandals. I thought this was pretty nice that they washed my sandals and let me go with a non-scary warning. I suggest that anyone going to Australia be pretty careful about what you have in your luggage and read the arrival card carefully, but I don’t really think it’s a problem if you have something on their weird list. A minute later I was on my way into the Sydney night. I decided to take the airport train to the Kings Cross area and then find a hotel on foot once there. The train station is below the airport and the ride into the city center costs around $AU12 (about $US9). I took the train to the Central station and then switched to the local line that goes to Kings Cross.

I emerged in Kings Cross and was very pleased that it was warm on this May evening, but not hot at all. After the boiling heat in Thailand it felt wonderful to be in mild weather again. I found the street I was looking for right away and walked up the block to the Original Backpackers, which is where I hoped to stay for a couple of nights. On that same block were several other places that called themselves ‘Something Backpackers’ and it took me a few days to realize that a ‘Backpackers’ is just a ‘Hostel’. I was ready to meet some Aussies, but everyone I met at the Backpackers was from Europe, including all the people working there. They had a small and fairly expensive room available and the guy at the desk actually said I would probably be happier at another hotel on the next block. He even called over for me and confirmed they had a room. It was a larger room for $AU55 instead of the small room they had at the first place for $AU65. I went to the other place and checked in. The guy at the desk there was a German guy and I later discovered his family owned the place.

The room had a TV, but the bathroom was down the hall. This seemed to be the cheapest place to stay in central Sydney and I was surprised by how little room you get for your $, especially compared to Thailand and India. Sydney is not cheap in any way. I planned on spending Friday and Saturday nights in Sydney and then finding a place to rent for a week or so outside of town to relax and catch up on some work and also to eat healthy for a bit. I put my stuff away and then went back down to ask where I could buy some beers. The guy at the desk told me there were 3 bottle shops on the main street around the corner so I hit the street. Since I had approached the hotel from a different street I was slightly shocked to find that exiting the hotel and walking about 20 steps put me in the center of the red light district of Sydney. It really consists of about 4 strip clubs clustered together on one street, but there were also some hookers standing around most of the time.

I found a bottle shop and asked for a six-pack of some good local lager. The guy went to the frig behind him and grabbed a sixer and told me it was $AU16. Huh? He said others were as cheap as $10, but the good stuff was $16. I almost asked for the cheap stuff, but I figured I would only drink a few beers in Australia so I might as well try the good stuff. I went back to my room and put them in the small fridge and had a few before I went out. The beer was okay, but it didn’t seem to be up to premium standards as far as I was concerned.

I left and went to a few bars along the main strip that evening. I knew because this was the red light district that this was an unusual place to start exploring Sydney, but it is also without a doubt the backpacker headquarters of town also. The places I went were pretty dead, but overall I was very impressed with the civilized nature of Sydney. I went to an Irish pub that the guy at my hotel suggested, but it was completely packed so it was difficult to get to the bar much less actually order a drink. I stopped by another place that was charging a cover charge so I didn’t go in and finally I settled on a brightly lit bar that was adjacent to an off track betting place. Half the customers were betting on dog races from somewhere in Australia, but I just had a couple of beers and then called it a night.

The next morning I went searching for a place where I might be able to rent an apartment. It was a complicated and mostly fruitless search. I finally concluded that I would have to get out of the Sydney area to find a place I could rent for a week that would be affordable enough to do so. My plan was to take the train to Gosford on Sunday and begin looking there so I had all day Saturday to do touristy things in Sydney.

The weather was perfect so I headed out on foot toward the Sydney Opera House about 2 kilometers away. It’s a very pleasant walk and I was more impressed by Sydney the farther I went. I arrived at the Opera House to discover it looks a bit different from land than it does from the photographs taken from the air or from the harbor that are always seen. It’s impressive up close, but it’s actually 3 separate buildings that are barely attached at their bases. After snapping the few obligatory photos I noticed a double-decker tourist bus just out front. I asked the driver where it went and it actually sounded like a perfect way to see Sydney in a short time. For about $AU25 you get the full city route with hop-on/hop-off privileges for 24 hours, but also a different route that tours the beach communities, highlighted by the famous Bondi Beach.

I jumped aboard and climbed up top to find only a handful of other passengers even though it was a Saturday and the weather was ideal. The bus basically loops around all the main attractions of Sydney and I won’t describe them here, but I will say that Sydney seems to be as close to an ideal big city as I have ever seen. The few slums I heard about are hidden away on the outskirts, leaving the entire Central Business District (or CBD, which is what they call the city center in every Australian town) as a pleasant and efficient place.

I actually jumped off the first bus about halfway around because there was a convenient connection to the Bondi bus at the central train station. I switched buses and took the 90-minute loop to Bondi and then through several more upscale bays and inlets to the harbor on the way back to the train station. Bondi is smaller than I imagined, but it’s damn nice and the surfers were out in force even though it seemed a bit cool to be in the ocean. Bondi is basically a cove that is surrounded by a very pleasant beach town. Since I don’t surf I’ve never been that crazy about beach towns, but Bondi seems about as nice as any I’ve seen. The other suburbs that we went through also seemed really sweet.

Back on the main bus we headed to the other side of town and the rest of the inlets deeper into the harbor including several historic areas that are being gentrified into yuppy hangouts. Sydney is a huge city that is divided by the large harbor, but I didn’t find it to be quite as aesthetically pleasing as I had anticipated. Guidebooks go on about how beautiful the harbor is, and I suppose it is, but Sydney isn’t really hilly enough that you even realize the harbor is there unless you are on the waterfront or in a high rise. It’s a very nice town, but it’s not like San Francisco or Seattle where breathtaking views are the norm from all over town.

That evening I went back to the Irish Pub early enough to have a few beers. The main entertainment consisted of a fat guy who played guitar and sang familiar songs. He was good and he seemed to know just about every song that people requested. I was a bit surprised that of the 20 or so songs I heard him play only a couple were from Ossie artists. He pretty much went back and forth between American and British songs and the crowd knew all of them. I am always fascinated by how much homegrown music people listen to in smaller places compared with American or British hits. I found it to be great that the music fans in Australia seem to gravitate to the best music out there instead of just the best local stuff. Australia has had enough huge international music superstars that it doesn’t need to be worried about its own music getting lost out in the world.

On Sunday I checked out of the hotel and went to the train station for the journey to Gosford to look for an apartment. Gosford is about 90 miles north of Sydney on the main commuter train route that terminates in Newcastle so trains were literally leaving every 30 minutes or so. I was very impressed by the train situation in Sydney so I was surprised to keep reading and hearing that the locals constantly complain about it. I got on a train around 10 a.m. and it left a few minutes late. The train was scheduled to stop about 20 times on the way to Gosford, but just after the second stop the train stopped completely. There was an announcement that some compressor had failed and they were looking into it. One aggravating thing about situations like that is that usually the people in charge don’t bother to let the passengers know what is happening, but this guy announced each and every step of the process as we sat there for about 30 minutes. Eventually they announced that the train would need maintenance so we would pull into the next station and switch to the next scheduled departure.

I was then about 45 minutes late by the time the next train got underway so I got a taste of why the locals all complain. Once underway the trip was uneventful and I got some very nice views of the countryside on the way to Gosford. My friend Paul, who is from Sydney but lives in Orange County, California recommended Gosford as a place I might find what I was looking for. After this much travel I really needed a place to stop for a bit and get my jogging program started while I catch up on some writing work, including this journal. Since my plan was to hunker down in a place for a week I didn’t want to pay big city prices.