The Red Centre, and the Tropics

 

 

 

 

Bye-bye Siouxie

We were sad to say goodbye to Madi after such an excellent week, and Melbourne obviously felt the same. We were up bright and early on Monday morning, and the skies of Melbourne cried floods of tears. It bucketed down. We splashed our way amongst the commuter traffic, and, on approaching the airport, found the ‘car rental return’ signs. Several sudden and complicated turns later, we entered an enormous hanger, full of cars, only to discover that the company we’d hired from didn’t live there. Check-in time was looming, and the situation was becoming a little worrying. There were no useful signs whatsoever, but, eventually, thanks to a very jolly helper from Hertz, we finally got some directions that made sense. We had to go off the airport site, and head further away, to the south. The clock was ticking, and the rain was still tanking down. At last we found East Coast Car Hire and managed to hand over Siouxie to her rightful owners. We said our goodbyes to another great car, and Billie (a lovely lady, originally from Croatia), duly drove us back to the airport, where we arrived, thankfully, in time for our flight.

Hello Alice

Our flight to Alice Springs was just a couple of hours, and yielded fascinating glimpses of the massive wilderness below. Canyons and cliffs, multicoloured rock-faces, and riverbeds, both wet and dry, told of a tough, near impenetrable land. As we approached the airport, a scant covering of greenery smudged across the red sands, and we stepped off the plane in temperatures of 40C, and glorious, glorious sunshine.  The airport at Alice is really lovely, very small and easy to negotiate. We picked up our bags and took the airport shuttle bus – an excellent deal – to our hotel, the Crowne Plaza, on the bank of the Todd River. Which wasn’t wet.  At all.  In fact, it’s bone-dry for 95% of the year. It’s named for the amazing Charles Todd, who, in an extraordinary life, left Islington for Australia, was instrumental in the completion of the pan-Australia telegraph, linking the country to Britain and the rest of the world, and the setting-up of a series of meteorological stations. His knowledge allowed him to make the first observations that showed how droughts in India and Australia were the result of the ‘El Nino’ phenomenon, and to observe two of the rare transits of Venus. He also demonstrated the first-ever electric street-lighting in Adelaide. His wife, just seventeen when they left London, produced six kids whilst living in the tough desert territories, and lent her name, Alice, to the heart of the region.

The heat was incredible.  So we did the sensible thing after unpacking – we had a couple of beers in the bar, and planned our afternoon.  We needed some provisions, and although the walk to the centre of town took only about 30 minutes, it was a super-hot afternoon, so we decided to take a taxi.  This was a Very Good Idea.  Not expensive, and we were there in a trice.

We picked up a few bits at Woollies, and then made our way to the booze shop, which was shut. We hung around for a few minutes (until 2pm – official booze-shop opening-time in Alice), and then pounced on some wine. We then discovered, to our disbelief, that you need ID in order to buy alcohol in Alice. Whatever your age. Alice Springs, we understand, is one of only a very few places in Australia where this is the case, and we know they have their reasons, but it would have been good to know in advance!  So, muttering profanities and majorly pissed off, we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel, picked up our passports, returned to the same booze-shop, and eventually managed to purchase our very necessary nectar.

After all that activity and frustration, there was only one thing to do, so after a quick swifty to make sure the booze was OK, we donned our swimmers and plunged in the pool!  It was gorgeous.  Warm, without being too much so, and blissfully welcome after our busy day. Lovely.

Dinner was a revelation.  The hotel has a wonderful Thai restaurant, called Hanuman, which has picked up a stack of great reviews. Another good move – the food was outstanding.

On the Rocks

It was a 6am start for our visit to Uluru and Kata Tjuta (known, prior to 1985, as Ayers Rock and The Olgas).  We booked with Emu Tours, because it was a 335km drive from Alice, and it had to be done in a day.  While we waited for our tour bus, we chatted with a Canadian couple, who had booked with another company for a two day trip. Our bus duly arrived and we were on our way. Almost. One of our number had got caught in traffic, and we had to detour to pick her up. Which was lucky, particularly if you happened to be both elderly, and Canadian. Because, just as we got to the outskirts of town, there was a phone-call. The couple we’d been chatting to were supposed to be hitching a lift with us, because their company couldn’t fulfil their booking. So we waited. They finally arrived, and, eventually, about 40 minutes behind schedule, we were on our way.

Warwick and Richard – forever now known as “Wick and Dick” were outstanding guides, and really good fun.  The journey down to the rocks took about 4 hours, including a stop, and they took turns driving, chatting, and keeping up a constant amusing and informative banter.

Both Uluru and Kata Tjuta are in a vast national park, and we visited Kata Tjuta first, and walked The Valley of the Winds. It’s a fairly steep climb, with red rocks and earth, green vegetation, and multi-coloured rock, under very, very blue skies. And then there’s the brightness. The sun screams down. Walking into the valley between the rocks in temperatures in excess of 46C is a full-body experience!  It goes without saying that long sleeves and hats are sensible, and sunscreen must be worn, along with a hearty spray of insect repellent. The only really unpleasant thing about the whole deal is the bloody flies. They fly into your face, and appear to have a predilection for nostrils and earholes, which they target with an unerring accuracy. It is horrible, and most irritating. Many travellers choose to wear unsightly nets over their faces, sometimes attached to floppy hats, and sometimes just freestyle, pulled down over their heads like a Tyneside tart’s tights, but although they are, of course, incredibly sensible, we are not. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to put them on. We’re on holiday, not a Post Office raid. We know we’re are daft, but they looked it….

The walk took about an hour, and we returned to our magnificently air-conditioned bus. Bliss. Wick and Dick then told us the Aboriginal legend relating to KT. Apparently, one day, the men of the local tribe left their families, as per, to do their normal day’s hunting, sitting about, and chewing the cud, and, whilst they were away, the men of another, very naughty, tribe kidnapped their women and children. When the hunters returned, they were absolutely livid (natch – no supper for them), and managed to track their families down.  They quickly overcame the baddies, and the baddies expected to be speared for being baddies. Well, the original mob had a better idea and made said baddies dig holes in the ground with the women’s sticks (which was very infra-dig because the baddies were men and mustn’t meddle with women’s things – sticks, that is).  They then buried the baddies in the holes they’d dug, with their heads sticking out the top, and they became rocks. The rocks of Kata Tjuta. There are many other stories that Wick and Dick told us about these rocks, involving snakes and things, and we were highly entertained by them all.

Next was Uluru.  It is so famous that most of you will probably have seen pictures or film of it, but as is always the case, seeing it is a completely different experience.  It is big, beautiful and, again, very, very red, and we had two more extended walks around the base of this wonderful rock. These are walks we would not have missed for the world, but it was bloody hot!

Wick and Dick were brilliant guides. Not just because of their great humour, but also for their depth of knowledge. They had so many stories and anecdotes up their sleeves, it was really fantastic. We had a brief look at the Sunrise Viewing Area, an enormous space set aside for the said activity. It is an impressively large area of tarmac, set beside the rock. It has masses of car parking spaces marked out, and special areas for coaches and buses, and for the disabled. It also has a splendid set of loos for all persuasions. It is immaculate. It set the Government back 21 million dollars to build, and they certainly got their money’s worth. The orientation of the site was the special project of a Sydney company. Who experienced a little difficulty with the concepts of ‘sunrise’ and ‘sunset’. So the brand-new viewing area sits in the shadows of Uluru, as the pesky sun continues to rise on the other side. Oh dear…Wick and Dick were on the ball, though. They found us a lovely place to park up and enjoy the sunset, and proceeded to cook us a ripper barbeque, with loads of salads and snorkers and wine and everything – fab!

We left the park at about 7:30pm, and ETA at Alice was about 1am!  We had an in-bus movie, on one of those baby screens – Avatar. Blimey, great choice. Filmed in 3-D, and even shown in I-Max cinemas – not exactly small-screen stuff…but it’s a long enough film and managed to chew up well over 2 hours of the journey.

Our final day in Alice was Australia Day.  We’d been warned that everything would be shut, and it was, but, frankly, that suited us fine.   We were whacked after our trip to Uluru, and used the day usefully, doing laundry, and reading books by the pool.  It was heaven.  We made a return visit to our delightful Thai restaurant, and then packed our bags in readiness for our flight to Darwin.

Darwin, and the Origin of Beaches

We really didn’t know what to expect.  We ‘d seen weather forecasts for Darwin whilst travelling round the rest of Oz, and it looked permanently thundery and humid.  So we decided that if the weather wasn’t going to be great, well, we’d just chill out for a couple of days, and catch up on the blog.

What a great surprise! A short flight from Alice, and we landed in blazing sunshine! We shuttled to our hotel – the Vibe, on the new waterfront complex in Darwin.  It is brand new, very comfortable, super cheap and we had A MICROWAVE in our room. Yee hah! This might not mean much to you, dear readers, but it was vital to us. Our  stock of Oz dollars was rapidly diminishing, and a microwave meant that we could pick up a couple of cheapo meals, and thus could slip into the brilliant routine of doing stuff during the day, and eating in/reading/blogging in the evenings – perfect.  So, Darwin was shaping up very nicely indeed.

We explored the city, and fell in love with it, and the people, who were uniformly pleasant and laid back.  We investigated hiring a car or motorbike, but decided against it. It would have been a waste of money, as it was just not necessary.  Darwin had enough to keep us happy for the few days we were there, including lovely walks, and great bars. Especially The Fox, where we met Debbie, a lovely lady who is threatening to include the UK in a proposed world trip next year (just DO it, girl!), and a cinema, where we managed to catch up on a couple more Oscar-nominated movies. One was The King’s Speech. We thoroughly enjoyed this. A small film, beautifully done. And then there was the Grey Duck. Er, Black Swan. OK on some levels, dire on others. Still have True Grit and The Fighter at the top of our pile.

The Vibe, our rather groovy hotel, is part of a huge regeneration project, down by the sea. They’ve built hotels, apartments, a conference centre, shops, roads, a wave-pool, and a lagoon, with a beach. Why build a false beach, with such an extensive coastline? Well, in the sea there are sharks. Oh, and maybe, the odd crocodile. And a plague of stingers – jellyfish, that is. So, we loved the lagoon, and it’s lovely, sandy beach. Man-made, yes, but hot, swimmable water, and nobody biting chunks out of you…

It’s an ill wind…

Mother Nature’s really playing the bitch on Australia this year. Not content with floods in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, and fires at Lakes Entrance and Perth, she decided to introduce another Cyclone.  This event was planned for the night of our departure. It was expected to make landfall around Cairns, which threatened to impact our flight. Our plane from Darwin to Singapore originated in Cairns, but that was just one of the airports that had to close because of fears about the approaching tempest. We were lucky, however. Jetstar managed to re-jig their schedules, and eventually we left Australia behind, just one-and-a-half hours late. The cyclone wreaked havoc, as predicted, and once more the population of Queensland was subjected to more pain.

Singalonga Singapore

We had every intention of staying in a transfer hotel room at Changi Airport, as we were due to arrive at 9:30pm, and it seemed the most sensible thing to do, as our flight to Hanoi was due to take off at 3.30pm the following afternoon. However, at check-in at Darwin airport we discovered that we couldn’t in fact do that, because we were not, technically, in transit.  So, literally moments before we were called for our flight, we managed to book a hotel in Singapore using the laptop, and Expedia. Our priorities were (a) near the airport and (b) cheap. We found what seemed to be a very reasonable hotel, called the Perak, in Perak Road. It was nowhere near the airport, but  cheap? Oh yes!

Our flight with Jetstar was very comfortable.  The food was the best airplane food we have ever eaten – chicken and noodles.  It was just scrummy. Masses of chicken, and the flavour was really terrific.  Well done, Jetstar.

The flight was about 4 hours, but went by in no time.  When we arrived at Changi, we quickly collected our bags, found the hotel shuttle bus, booked our journey and were on our way.

It was night time, knocking on 10pm, and the place was buzzing. It was Chinese New Year, and hair, everywhere was being let down. The transfer took about an hour – longer than we’d thought it might, but that was because we were the last hotel on the run!  The first drop was at a Hilton, and the next was to another one – how many do they need? Both were in what seemed to be a rather flash, modern part of the city, near the river. There was light rain, but certainly not enough to dampen spirits. Lights sparkled, New Year’s lanterns swayed in the breeze, and, everywhere, masses of people swarmed to their various celebrations. We looked, somewhat regretfully, at the Novotel, as we sped past, wondering fleetingly if we should perhaps have played safe, and paid more…but the bus carried on, away from the splendour of the high-rise part of the city, and into a warren of little lanes, thronging with people, bikes, music and cafés.  Our excitement began to mount and, suddenly, the driver announced that our hotel was just ahead, but that the road was too narrow to take the bus any further!

We dismounted, ruckies on backs, and trudged through the crowds to the Perak Hotel.

We walked into a different world. A charming man on the desk immediately presented us with a satsuma each, and a bottle of water, wishing us a Happy New Year.  Yep, we’d managed to bag ourselves another festival – it was Chinese New Year, it was nearly midnight, and we were in Singapore!

Chinese New Year is a major deal for the Chinese, and there are a lot of them in Singapore. Now, everyone enjoys a good knees-up, and the fact that we were slap-bang in the middle of the Indian section of town, didn’t lessen the hoolie one whit. The joint was jumping, and the whole world seemed to be celebrating. The Year of the Rabbit was underway, and the streets were hopping to a cacophony of Bangra, Reggae, Rap, and Europop, blasting out of every café, car radio, house and shop. Because it was nearly 11:30pm, we went out for a drink and snack immediately on dropping our bags, in our cutest of rooms, and the receptionist recommended a bar/café, the Countryside Café, just around the corner.  Inaptly named it may have been, but it was just terrific. We fought our way through the press of revellers, and there, deep in the heart of this crowded city, was a little haven of delights. Countryside? No. Café? One of the very best. The owner, Shreelatha Menon, gave us the menus and immediately started chatting to us.  Within minutes there was very little we didn’t know about her family, and even less she didn’t know about ours!  The food –  hot and sour curries from Southern India, was outstanding, and even though it was washed down with a decent splash of beer and coffee, the whole bill came to less than £7 each. Delicious, and outstanding value, and a real shock coming on the heels of expensive Oz. Wonderful. Shreelatha was great fun, and we were up to the scuppers in New Year spirit, before the long day kicked in, and we retired to our hotel

We fell into bed, although as our room was street-facing and the whole neighbourhood was set in for an all-nighter, we didn’t really sleep until 4ish in the morning. At 5am, on the dot, the local muezzin kicked in with his call to prayer, and, by 6am the local traffic sprung into life, hooters hooting, and honkers honking.

Unperturbed by our short night, and conscious of the fact that we had to leave for the airport in the early afternoon, we had a splendid breakfast (included in the price!) before setting out to explore. It would have been silly to have strayed too far from our area, as there was just so much to take in, and, besides, we had already decided we will definitely have to return. Singapore has, apparently the best quality of life of any city in Asia, and we can add to that the fact that they know how to party as well.

The atmosphere in the Indian district, with it’s cafés, markets, shops, smells (well, most of them) and fascinating streets was so exciting. We had a really good look round, and, surprise, surprise, found ourselves back at The Countryside Café for a couple of beers, before taxiing back to the airport. We sat outside the café, enjoyed our beers, and had a chat, this time with the absolutely charming Thishanthi Thanuja Perera, a beautiful Sri Lankan student, who was working at the café. As we sat there, we were most entertained by the ladies of the Thai massage parlour next door.  Yes, yes, but not that sort of entertained.  There were three lovely ladies there, and because it was the Chinese New Year, they were very busy building a beautiful little shrine to Buddha outside their premises.  The shrine was decorated with incense, candles, fruit, flowers, biscuits and, finally, a very beautiful little cake!  It was charming, and the effort and time they took to make it as beautiful as possible was really sweet. We said farewell to the café, and the city.  A very brief, but thoroughly energising visit.

So, back to the airport, and a bit of a wait as the plane was delayed by a couple of hours, and then up on the board came that most exotic of destinations, Hanoi. We were finally on our way to Vietnam, and we were well up for it. Into the unknown – yee-double-hah!