Down Under and Far to the East
by: Norman J. Olson
on October 17, 2019, we packed up and took the #74 bus from Maplewood to MSP for a flight to LAX… the flights were pretty full, but we got seats on a flight that got in a bit after 4 pm… to get from LAX to our daughter’s house in Riverside, we take the Metrolink which is a commuter train out of LA Union Station… since there is no train that starts at LAX and the bus would take several hours to get from there to Union Station, the only real option is the Flyaway Bus which is kind of expensive ($9.50 each) and slow at that time of day… due to rush hour on the insane LA freeways, it takes an hour to get from LAX to Union Station on the Flyaway bus… the Metrolink however is half price for seniors, so very cheap for us old folks and also fast and efficient…
so, we got to spend a week with our amazing daughter and her family… and soak up some of that warm dry Southern California sunshine…
on Thursday, October 24, we took the Metrolink and Flyaway bus back to LAX and caught the night flight to Sydney, Australia… we flew Quantas because our favorite airline was sold out, but, it was a real treat to get on their enormous Airbus 380, an entirely double deck plane… our seats were downstairs, for the 15 hour flight to Sydney… this was our first experience of this gigantic plane and we found it comfortable with a lovely smooth, if a bit long, flight… we went through a very efficient customs operation at Sydney and got on another big plane, an airbus 333 for the 4 hours from SYD to Perth…
Perth is a very nice city… the bus from the airport looked brand new, as did all the buses and trains we rode on… the city is clean, no litter anyplace… our hotel was downtown and there was a free shuttle bus around the city center that took us to the train station for day trips and around for food at the many Asian eateries located in the area… the entire city was nice with parks everywhere and no sign of the armies of homeless people you see in American cities… the Aussies were friendly and helpful to a person and we met tourists from Malaysia and elsewhere but none from USA… the first day, we took the train and bus to Rockingham where we hoped to get the ferry to Penguin Island, a sanctuary where the small “fairy” penguins live… when we got there, we found that the ferry was not running that day due to rough seas, so instead, we went to Rockingham beach… it was a hot day, in the upper 80s, but there was a nice breeze off the ocean, so we found a restaurant looking out over the beach and sipped a cool drink while watching the families playing on the beach… it turned out to be the grand opening of the new beach development of walkways and parks that they called the “foreshore” and so we watched the talent show and enjoyed the warm shade before heading back to the train…
the next day, we did get on the ferry to see the little penguins… there is a discovery center on the island where tourists can see rescue penguins who cannot live in the wild… the wild penguins are at sea fishing most of the day, so it is rare for tourists to see them… these little penguins are adorable as one could expect and following a tip from the ranger to look under the boardwalk stairs, we actually saw a wild penguin hanging out in the shade of the wooden staircase that went to the lookout at the top of the island… so looking out from his hiding place, with his head cocked sideways, he seemed as curious about us as we were about him… anyway, the ranger said we were very lucky to have seen one in the wild and we were thrilled… we saw many seagulls and large pelicans nesting near the wooden paths and stairways around the island… on the seaward side, the waves were crashing on the jagged rocks and on a lovely warm day, it was a beautiful sight… after we left the island and were walking back the mile or so on the sidewalk that ran along a grassy area which bordered the sea, to catch the bus back to the train station, we saw a sign that said we should not leave the sidewalk because there were poisonous snakes in the grass… we had no problem obeying that sign!!
the next day, we took the train and bus to Caversham wildlife park, which is located about a mile from the bus stop in the middle of a huge area of bush called Whiteman Park… we had the path to ourselves and on the walk across the park saw many wild kangaroos… they were in family groups sitting in the shade looking at us… the Australians were not impressed when we told them about seeing kangaroos, as they are apparently everywhere and are often considered a bit of a nuisance in urban areas… the wildlife park was full of Kangaroos and other Aussie animals… so, we had a super afternoon walking among the kangaroos who are very docile and used to tourists…
the next day the weather changed from hot and dry to cool (highs in the 60s) and intermittently rainy… and we spent the day at Kings Park, a huge botanical garden that is on a hillside overlooking the city and the Swan River that runs past Perth, about 15 miles to the sea and is wide like a harbor… we enjoyed the huge trees and the plethora of flowering bushes and gardens… as well as the scenic views of the glass and steel towers of downtown Perth, the busy ferry docks and the fresh breeze coming off the Indian Ocean…
the next day, we took a ferry to Freemantle, the port for Perth, a medium size port with the usual cranes and container ships being loaded and unloaded… Freemantle is a gentrified area with a nice beach and lots of trendy shops and restaurants… it was a little chilly for beach time so we took the free bus around the town and had a nice dinner at a little Italian place…
the next morning, we took the train back to Freemantle with our bags and walked from the train station to the cruise pier, about one kilometer… there we got on a Princess cruise ship, an older medium size ship, for a 12 night cruise ending up at Singapore via Malaysia and Thailand… we did not see any other Americans for the whole trip… but we got on well with the Aussies… we had formal dinner for the early seating, which is usually sold out by time we book a cruise, so it was fun to get to know the six other people at our dinner table… they were all Australians and were a bit older than us… this was not a young cruise by any means!! and they were all avid shoppers for jewelry, especially pearls, so, it was kind of fun for us to learn a bit about that as we are not jewelry people… they knew all the best places in the ports to get the best genuine pearls at great prices… so, after ports, they would be wearing their new jewelry purchases…
we spent the sea days in the warm, increasingly tropical weather, sitting on deck reading and drawing… the sea was rocky for the first few days but then very calm for the rest of the voyage… the Indian Ocean looks, from the deck of a ship, very much like the other oceans we have been on, which is to say, a vast expanse of deep blue water churned to turquoise with the passage of the ship… as we got close to the equator, we saw large numbers of flying fish, skimming away from the ship’s bow wave… the first port was Lombok, Indonesia, an island near Bali… we hired a taxi to take us around the island, but we did not get a good driver… he spent the whole tour trying to get us to spend money with his friends at vastly inflated rates for guided tours we did not want… and by the end of the tour, he was literally begging for more money… the actual price we had agreed to was a fair price for his services and the same as others paid… finally, the driver took us to see some monkeys at a monkey forest, but again we were surrounded by his friends begging for money… in this case, teens in school uniforms who said they wanted the money to buy cigarettes… well, the whole day was kind of a bummer, but we were glad to be shed of that guy and get back on the ship… tours that one arranges on the dock are usually great but every once in a while you hit a sour experience… it is part of travel…
the next stop was a wonderful day in port… the ship was docked at Kalang and we took the ship’s bus into the city of Kuala Lumpur, called KL by the locals… wow, what an amazing city… for some reason, I was not expecting much in KL, but it turned out to be a huge modern city with enormous, new skyscrapers downtown, full seemingly of prosperous busy citizens… the anchors of the downtown area are the massive Petronas Towers which rise out of an enormous shopping mall to about the height of the Empire State Building… with towering glass and steel buildings all around… there is a park with large ficus trees, lawns, fountains and a nice modern playground right at the base of these towers… we walked around the park and saw all kinds of people, moms and dads with babies in strollers, business men and women striding along with their brief cases, dark suits, conservative dresses and neckties, a few older people, some teens and young couples… it was a busy place… I thought that must have been what Manhattan looked like to tourists in the fifties, an Oz of skyscrapers and busy commerce… but last time I was in New York, or LA, or San Francisco, or Houston, the downtowns were full of armies of homeless people with shopping carts full of junk… sleeping rough, or junkies passed out in the doorways… dirt and trash everywhere… aging infrastructure… old beat up buses and subways… while in KL, everything seemed perfectly maintained… there was no trash anywhere and in the areas of the city I saw, none of the poverty and homelessness that plague American downtowns… this was true in Australia too and of course, even more so in Singapore… I saw a tee shirt that said, “the sun sets in the west”… and in those glittering far eastern cities, they believe that they are the future… there was no animosity toward us, in fact, when people found out we were from the US, they were excited to tell us they had studied there or hoped to go there in the future for a visit… but, I could not help but compare the glittering, rich and modern city of KL with the dirty and crumbling cities in America… I don’t really have much knowledge on these topics, so maybe they just hide their problems better than we do, but the difference in how KL and Singapore and the cities in Australia look and feel compared to US cities seemed striking to me…
our next port was Penang where we took a bus tour around the city of Georgetown, visited one of those lovely, golden Buddhist temples with a huge reclining statue of Buddha and statues of the Buddhas for the various years of the Chinese calendar… although Malaysia is a Moslem country there is a minority Buddhist population, mostly of Chinese extraction… we also saw a lovely mosque near the port with a blue roof… this was a resort city, I think, so had souvenir shops etc. for the tourists… we stopped at a chocolate factory to get some of the serious dark chocolate they sell… it was a smaller city than KL but seemed busy and prosperous…
the next stop was the resort area of Langkawi, Malaysia… there, we joined up with two Australian couples we met on shore and rented a skiff for a three hour tour… this skiff had a huge outboard motor so we took off across the water at a very high rate of speed… it was a warm day with a bit of rain, but the boat had a roof and it was so warm that the rain felt good… just out from the port, the sea is dotted with small islands… some have high cliffs and some are more flat but all are covered with tropical vegetation and so speeding across the water between these island was a spectacular adventure… one stop was on an island where there were a lot of monkeys… we bought some bananas at the stand by the beach so we could feed the monkeys like the other people were doing… most of the other visitors were school groups or Malaysian tourists from other parts of Malaysia… well, the monkeys loved the bananas and would try to grab them out of the bag or out of your hand… then we went to an island of towering cliffs… the boat pilot threw some fish parts he had brought along in the water and huge fish eagles came swooping down from the cliff tops to grab the fish parts out of the water… after the tour, we went to the town and walked around looking at the resorts and the tourist shops…
our next port was Phuket, Thailand, which is one of the best beaches on this planet… we went to a local hotel and for a small sum spent at their restaurant for cold drinks and snacks, they let us use beach chairs, so we sat in the shade of a huge tree looking out over the beach… we were surprised to see that as the tide went out, we could see that the underwater part of the beach was covered with rocks, but we had no interest in swimming anyway… and so sat and watched the boats go by, looking out at the islands which were covered with tropical jungle… it was very hot but, there was a lovely breeze off the ocean and so we spent a beautiful afternoon sitting in the shade…
after Phuket, the ship had another sea day and then we wound up in Singapore… Singapore is a large, ultra modern city, a world center of banking and commerce… it is said that one in three containers that goes anywhere on the sea goes through Singapore… the subways are fast, efficient, clean and look new… the people are friendly and courteous, often offering us or other elderly people a seat, for example, if the train was crowded… everybody on the train is on their phone and the whole city is very high tech… there are a lot of young adults on the train dressed to the height of fashion with the cool, windswept hairdos favored by the young Asians… there seemed to be a huge mall at every train station with endless shops for high fashion clothes and make up… the malls are a respite from the blistering heat and humidity of this city which is exactly on the equator…
we spent a whole day at the Singapore zoo which is very spectacular with orangutans swinging in the trees above the paths were people are walking… and a night tour in which you can see all the nocturnal animals busy about their nighttime animal routines… the zoo seems to be making great efforts to preserve species that are going extinct in the wild and all of the exhibits talk about the need for humans to make an effort to preserve our biodiversity… another day was spent at the bird park… I had developed a cold that day, so found the day somewhat difficult, as the temperature was near 90 degrees and the humidity was near 100 percent… we also spent days exploring Sentosa Island, a beach resort area near our hotel and Marina Bay park, a large botanical garden near the iconic Marina Bay Sands Hotel, a huge structure of three curved skyscrapers topped with a sort of a surf board looking structure with a park at the top nearly 700 feet above the street…
Singapore is a gourmand’s delight because, there is literally food everywhere… from terrific expensive restaurants to what they call hawker stands which are street side set ups, usually involving a cluster of small restaurants and tables under some kind of roof selling usually various Indian, Chinese or Malaysian food… we ate twice at the Lau Pa Sat Hawker Center, which some say has the best satay in Singapore… in the middle of the business district, surrounded by wall street type towers, this center has a roof with ancient wrought iron pillars and supports… around the outside are satay stands where the satays are cooked over smoky wood fires… these glazed bits of meat on a stick are ordered from one of the waiters who will find you a table and take care of your order… we like to get naan bread with curry sauce from one of the Indian stalls to make a kind of sandwich of the satay while most people just eat them off the stick… anyway, this was the best eating we had on the whole trip… even though the food on the ship was terrific… on last Monday, when it came time to leave Singapore, I had made a plan to fly China Eastern Airlines to Shanghai where we could catch our favorite airline back to the USA… Americans need a visa to enter China, which I knew, unless they are making a connecting flight in which case, they can stay for one day… I did not realize that to take advantage of this one needed a confirmed space ticket rather than a listing on the kind of employee passes we travel under, so when we got to the airport, we found that without a visa, we could not go through Shanghai… fortunately, I had a backup plan so with some quick work on my phone, I was able to get us listed on a Korean Air flight that left in two hours to Seoul (where Americans do not need visas) to make a very tight connection to our favorite airline and a direct flight from Seoul to MSP… well, after we got to Seoul a half hour early, we made a run through the airport and got on the flight to MSP and so, 11 hours later, after a great circle flight over Japan, the Kamchatka peninsula, central Alaska, the Yukon territory and down across Canada, we got to MSP several hours before we left Seoul (due to the date line and the time changes)… tired and jet lagged, but glad to be back in Maplewood… from 88 degrees to 35 degrees in about 20 hours all told…
my take away from this trip is that as Americans, we need to step up our game a bit…