Apr 2006

14 - 16 April

Here we have another entry devoted to one of our dream detinations - Uluru. Australia is big; really big, and Uluru is not the sort of place that you can just jump in a car to get to. So we hopped aboard a tiny twin-engined Fokker for the three hour flight from Cairns.

We'd watched so many programmes on the 'Travel Channel' before leaving for the world tour; we'd seen images of Uluru so many times and yet nothing can prepare you for the moving experience of seeing it in reality for the first time.

Uluru has it's own tourist resort which consists of five sets of accommodation covering every budget from a camp-ground to a five star hotel. Naturally, we resided at the lower-end of the scale in a perfectly accepable four-bed dorm at the Outback Pioneers Lodge.

Entertainingly, evening meals here are by way of a do-it-yourself barbecue - you choose the meat (including Ostrich, Kangaroo and Crocodile if so desired) and frazzle it to your liking. I stuck to T-bones.

Only around Uluru for the Easter weekend, we had to make the most of our time, so we promptly booked onto as many tours as we could fit in.

First up was the -obviously essential!- sunset tour:

The following day, Saturday, we opted for a tour of the nearby Kata Tjuta ('Many Heads' in Aboriginal language) - a formation of 36 massive rock domes, smaller but similar in appearance to Uluru.

Here we had the option of walking the Valley of the Winds, or taking the less strenuous but equally scenic walk through the Walpa Gorge. Feeling slightly jaded from the previous evening, we opted for the Walpa Gorge:

Saving the best until last, on Easter Sunday we took the opportunity to walk right around the base of Uluru. Packed lunches were provided and - a nice touch - each one contained a tiny Easter egg! The 9km walk kicked off at sunrise, and as you can see was spectacular.

Between us we took at least 150 photos of Uluru and the surrounding area - for many more take a look at our gallery here

Just my opinion of course, but an excursion to Uluru should be mandatory on any traveller's Australian itinerary; for me it was the most moving and awe-inspiring moment since our journey began.

One final observation - our cameras weren't capable of capturing the night sky, but here we saw the clearest and most vivid views of our galaxy that you can imagine.

11 - 13 April

We touched down in Cairns very early (about 04:40) on Tuesday 11 April. Prior research suggested that Australian Immigration Control would be a tortuous process - very strict rules apply regarding what can and can't be brought into the country; for example, if you happen to be carrying any fruit, honey or cold meats on you they MUST be disposed of before passing through customs or you'll be liable to a hefty fine.

It's true that this was perhaps the longest Immigration process we had yet encountered, but the staff were friendly enough and we encountered no problems.

Despite the early start, we found an open cafe at the airport and passed a couple of hours before phoning our hostel for a pickup.

After Asia, Australia seemed like a homecoming... everything in English, normal looking houses and streets, rain, etc.

Cairns is a nice enough city; big on tourism and backpacking, and the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. It has a restaurant-lined esplanade which lies along a man-made beach and large harbour, and a great many shops and 'hotels'. In the Australian context, a 'hotel' is what the British would call a pub i.e. a drinking establishment.

We grabbed a few hours sleep at the hostel to recover from the flight then headed out into the evening. Cairns backpacker hostels routinely give out meal vouchers which can be used at a somewhat joyless wooden establishment (no offence!) called the Woolshed. We tried the place a couple of times - who can resist a subsidised meal? - but to be honest we found no shortage of better, livelier and more relaxed eateries.

After eating, we found a suitable 'hotel' to have a pint or two in. This had a large video-screen jukebox playing classic rock videos from the 1980s as well as more recent stuff - great!

At the bar, I noticed a number of folk drinking a dark brew which clearly wasn't Guinness. Not fancying a lager (99% of Australian beer closely resembles lager), I ordered a pint of the dark stuff. The barmaid seemed slightly taken aback by this request (and I suddenly noticed that everyone else was drinking halves), but she duly pulled me a pint.

Only on sitting down and taking a good pull of my pint did I realise that it was actually pre-mixed whisky and Coke! This seems fairly normal in Australia...
... I quickly reverted to lager.

Thursday 13 April

Of course, there was no way that we could stay in Cairns without paying a visit to the Great Barrier Reef - one of the most impressive wonders of the natural world.

The day didn't start well; it was pouring with rain as we made our way to the harbour to board our boat.

Then, not too far into the trip, Sharon's usually reliable sea-legs succumbed to the 'motion of the ocean' and she joined the ranks of green-faced, bag-clutching landlubbers on the upper deck.

Sharon had the last laugh though; being the chicken non-swimmer that I am, I didn't last in the ocean for more than ten minutes even despite wearing a rather slinky (Sharon assures me) wetsuit for bouyancy. This is the only -poor- excuse I can offer for the quality of my reef photos which follow

That black looking, spotty, triangular thing in the third photo may be a fish. Sharon took some piccies with a proper waterproof camera which are much better. Honest.

Monday 10 April - Flying to Australia

And so we bade farewell to Singapore and closed the Asian chapter of our travels.

Soaring skywards toward Australia, we reflected on the fact that we'd been pretty much on the move every day for almost four months with very few breaks.

Luckily, this does not appear to have affected us in any way...

Andy

Sharon

6 - 10 April

By the time the bus from Melaka reached the border with Singapore it was pouring with rain. We are talking torrential rain. We'd been relatively lucky with our world weather up until now (i.e. four months of near-constant sunshine), but this didn't bode well.

However, the immigration process was commendably trouble-free and by the time the bus reached the terminus in Singapore the seemingly endless downpour had stopped.

We ditched our bags at the hostel (an awful room for the first night, as they'd cocked up our booking) and headed out for the evening.

Downtown Singapore

Two things became very quickly apparent;

i) Singapore is at least as humid as the worst bits of Asia, and
ii) Singapore is about ten times as expensive as the worst bits of Asia

Undeterred, we found a local pub - the Lot, Stock and Barrel and remortgaged our house to buy a couple of pints.

I'd had high hopes of Singapore as the guide books suggest there is lots to do. I particularly fancied the cable-car from mainland Singapore to the Sentosa Island theme park.

In a bid to be healthy, we embarked on yet another cross-city walk, following a long highway and finally climbing a steep hill to the cable-car station. Arriving sweat sodden and on the verge of collapse, we were told by the highly apologetic attendant that the cable-car was undergoing maintenance and therefore out of order. D'OH! Sometimes it pays to phone ahead...

The following day we headed to Singapore Botanic Gardens, and this time there was no room for disappointment. Out of the hustle and bustle of town, the gardens are a beautifully landscaped and peaceful haven, where you can easily forget your rapidly diminishing bank account for a while...

Another aspect of Singapore highly noticeable to a foreign visitor is that everything seems to be prohibited; chewing gum is banned, jaywalking is illegal, you can't eat or drink on any public transport, you can't smoke in public, you can't skateboard or rollerblade anywhere, and you'll be strung up (or worse) for drugs or vandalism offences. As such, Singapore seems a bit sterile and joyless, and almost as though fun is something that has to be enforced...

Anyway, following our slightly disappointing earlier visit to Kuala Lumpur Zoo we decided that the highly praised Singapore Zoo should be worth a visit. It is. In fact, it's the probably the best Zoo we've ever been to as care has been taken to provide as natural an environment for the inhabitants as possible. And they have Meerkats.

Eating, drinking and shopping seem to be the three main pastimes in Singapore and it's fair to say that we heavily partook of all three in our few days here (the shopping malls are endless)

But, of course, we couldn't leave Singapore without a visit to the famous Raffles Hotel and the Long Bar in which the Singapore Sling was invented. Once you get over the crunchiness of the floor, which is heavily covered with discarded monkey-nut shells (a big bowl sits on each table) the bar is very comfortable and homely, in a colonial sort of way.

And there ended the Asian leg of our tour. Next stop - Oz!

4 - 6 April

We returned from Borneo to AirAsia's airport terminal which is conveniently situated in the middle of nowhere. We knew that our next destination was the historic city of Melaka; question was - how to get there?
We could take the 9 Ringgit shuttle back to Kuala Lumpur, buy tickets and then hang around for a Melaka-bound bus OR take an unfeasibly expensive (198 Ringgit!) taxi from the airport. Which do you think we did?

Luckily, the taxi was a big luxury model making the two-hour journey very pleasant.

Melaka is reminiscent of Chiang Mai in Thailand, having a picturesque and historic centre bordered by a modern commercial belt.

We stayed in a good hostel called the Travellers Lodge, conveniently placed near a large shopping centre and several decent pubs and restaurants.

The older part of the city has some great architecture (particularly Chinatown)...

... and the odd surprise:

Melaka was to be our last port of call in Malaysia; our next destination was Singapore and we needed to book transport. We thought that a walk to Melaka's new purpose-built bus station to buy tickets south would be a good way to see the city. Hmmmm. The (very nice) new bus station was a long, hot walk from the city centre and is situated opposite -bizarrely- a huge new Tesco superstore!

A man in a fez sold us tickets for an -ahem- 'luxury' bus trip to Singapore for the following day (albeit in part-exchange for Sharon. I willingly agreed.)

Arriving in town after a slow walk back, the heavens opened and we searched in vain for a beer and respite. Finding nowhere we dashed back to our digs, pausing briefly once when a large Monitor Lizard (about the size of a baby crocodile) appeared from a storm-drain in front of us.

Another fabulous Indian meal in the most unassuming and inconspicuous restaurant rounded off our time in Melaka and our travels in Malaysia.

The following day, we were driven to the bus station by Albert, a taxi driver who has genuinely missed out on his true vocation as comedian, singer and all-round Bollywood star. Seek Albert out if you ever visit Melaka, but hurry - he's been driving his taxi for twenty years and plans to retire in the next five.