For some reason, I was still pretty tired on the plane but it was so difficult to find a comfortable position to sleep in and the lady seated behind me kept pushing on my seat. Thankfully, it was only a two-hour flight so the ordeal was over pretty soon.
Cairns is a lot warmer, probably because it's higher up North, and I was wearing 3 layers of clothing since I had to remove things from my bag to make it meet the size requirements for carry-on luggage. So I quickly removed my jacket and sweater and grabbed a cab to the hostel where we're staying - The Jack Backpacker's Hostel.
The place was alright. It's really simple; our room was basically just the bed and a fridge. There's a ceiling fan that rotates so slow that you barely feel a thing, and the air-conditioning only works from 6pm to 12pm. Amos and I decided that we won't spend too much time in the room since it was way too warm inside.
Since the girl at the check-in counter (who we both thought was kinda cute) recommended that we visit Rusty's Markets, we did. Rusty's was filled with people selling local produce. There were stalls selling other stuff as well - iPhone cases, jewellery and other knick-knacks. Apparently the coffee there is really good, but I didn't try it. The cafe looks really cool though.
We did manage to get a whole lot of fruits for like $7. Prices were being cut because the market was going to close in an hour and the sellers were just trying to get rid of as much of their products as they can. I was pretty pleased with the purchase; the fruits were going to be my lunch and snacks for our stay here in Cairns. When it comes to food, I'm trying to limit my spending so I decided that I'm going to try to survive on bread, peanut butter, fruits and tap water. Amos probably feels sorry for me but I really don't mind it at all. I really like bread lol.
After changing out of my jeans and shoes, we explored the city a little bit. Jamie was telling us that Cairns is kinda run-down and stuff, and it can be a little scary. It's not even that bad, really. Sure, it's not like a super modern city or anything - it actually kinda reminds me of Malaysia - but it's got a lot more colour and character than Brisbane, in my opinion.
We walked towards this place called The Esplanade. It's basically towards the water, where there was a really nice boardwalk from which you can see mountains, the sea, and a whole lot of yachts and jet-skis. It was a really pretty sight.
We kept walking along the boardwalk and we came across The Lagoon. It's like a public pool that people can swim in for free. Amos told me that The Lagoon was built so that people won't swim in the sea; apparently there are crocodiles in the water lol.
The Lagoon was also surrounded by lots of grass patches where people would just lay down and get a tan or read a book while enjoying the free music. It was really nice; Singapore could learn a thing or two from Cairns.
As we kept walking along the boardwalk (it eventually loads to the Botanical Gardens). we passed by lots of exercise stations. It looked a lot like the beaches in Miami or California - not that I've ever been to those places lol, I just see them in movies and TV shows.
We found out that here are free fitness sessions held at The Esplanade everyday. There was going to be an aqua aerobics session the next day at 6:30am, so I decided that I was going to get up early and jog along the boardwalk and check out the aqua aerobics session. I was hoping to maybe enjoy the "view" or something lol.
We got tired of walking after a while and I decided to turn back sine the Botanical Gardens was probably going to be all trees and flowers; nothing special.
While waiting for the free dinner that The Jack provides, I spoke to two guys while having a smoke. One guy was from France or Canada (or was it both?) and the other was from The Netherlands. They told me that they were travelling around Australia as well, and that they had rented a caravan so that they can drive from state to state. The caravan kinda burned out so they ditched it somewhere and now they're heading to Noosa where the Dutch dude has an aunt who can give them a job. They have to come up with $2500 to pay for the broken van. Ouch.
So after the dinner, Amos and I just hung out on the balconies and talked over some cigarettes for over 3 hours. It was really relaxing; I finally felt like I was on a holiday. At one point, I realised that I didn't bring my key out and so I asked Amos for his. He said that he thought I had brought my key out. So we both laughed at the fact that we were both stupid enough to lock ourselves out of our room. Good thing we could call someone to open the door for us (it was this nice guy who served us dinner and tried to pronounce "Chow", and I thought he was trying to speak Mandarin).
We got into the room and could only find one key. Turns out, they other key was in Amos' pocket all along. So we laughed even more, and had a few more smokes before turning in for the night. I went to bed really late, so the chances of me actually waking up for a run was gradually becoming zero. It was all good though, at least we had a good time.
Fun fact: It's my first time backpacking and staying in backpacker’s hostels. To be completely honest, though I expected backpackers to be friendly and sociable, I thought that there would be a “survival of the fittest” mindset thing going on; people will take other people’s food and clothes if they had the chance. I was proven wrong today when I realized that I had left my iPod in the common TV room the night before.
As I made my way there, I was fully prepared to see that it had already been taken by someone else – but I was surprised to see that it was right where I left it, completely untouched. I don’t know if this kind of honesty applies to backpackers in other countries as well, but I’m glad that the ones staying in our hostel were honest enough to not take something that doesn’t belong to them.
End of fun fact, lol. So while at Cairns, we took the Kuranda Scenic Railway to Kuranda. It was my first time on an “old-school” train and the view during the trip was as good as promised. It was a good first-time experience for me.
At Kuranda, there wasn’t too much to do. We walked around and looked at some stores there and I bought a Kangaroo Scrotum that I eventually used as a coin pouch since I hate carrying coins around in my pockets. Amos didn’t quite like it though; I think the idea of carrying around a real scrotum bothers him a tiny bit.
I don't know what we were thinking, but we decided that it would be a good idea to trek through the jungle trail despite the fact that we were wearing jeans, sneakers, and T-shirts. It was fun at first, until the mosquitoes started swarming us. It's alright though, at least I managed to get a couple of good photos.
After the visit to Kuranda, we headed to the airport where we spent the night. For those of you who intend to do the same, just know that Cairns airport closes at 11am and re-opens at 3am. I knew this and was prepared to spend the night outside. We even set up a little “fort” using some chairs and tables. What I was not prepared for was my body deciding to play a little prank and give me a terrible stomachache right when the airport closed.
As I sat quietly, trying my best to focus my mind on something other than the pain in my abdomen, Amos was happily listening to the songs on his phone which was playing at full blast. He noticed that I was acting strange after a while and I told him about my uphill battle against the forces of nature.
So here’s a tip: there is a “secret” spot which has a toilet if any of you go through the same thing as me. We tried asking the cleaners in the airport to let us use the toilet but 2 of them just shooed us away. The third guy was really nice and pointed out a little white shack about 100m from where we were, and told us that if the door is unlocked, we could go in and use the toilet. Thankfully, the door was unlocked and I was never so glad to see a toilet in my life.
Yeah, there's a useful tip for those of you who plan to go to Cairns someday. Hopefully it comes in handy!
#aussieadventure: Cairns
Oh, and it was crazy sunny and warm outside today. Since most places were closed and it was too warm outside to explore the city, we decided to just kick back and relax at the pool and hot-tub at the hostel and boy, was it good. I’ve been coughing the past few days but I think the warm water kind of opened up my lungs or something because I could breathe easier and I wasn’t coughing too much anymore.
We also met a few other travellers at the hot-tub. There was this guy who’s staying in Australia for about a year to work and do a little bit of travelling. He told us a few interesting stories about his travels – like how he ran out of money at Mexico and had to hitch rides and sleep at shady places where he was once surrounded by a pack of stray dogs that he managed to chase away by making “bear noises” and throwing coconuts and driftwood at them.
He even pretended to be part of a film crew so that he could help himself to a nice buffet spread at a beach that he walked past. He also shared about his friend who made $600 in 3 days selling shots in Panama – the alcohol was bought in Costa Rica for like $2 a bottle.
Such interesting stories just made me want to travel the world even more – hopefully without the wild dogs and lack of money.
The next day, we checked out of The Bunk since we only paid to stay for a night. Good thing backpacker hostels have storage areas; we left our bags in the lockers and off we went to meet Hamdi at West End. Hamdi was my classmate back in TPJC and it's been years since I last saw him so I was really looking forward to meeting him.
Hamdi brought us to this market place. It reminds me a little bit of pasar malams (night markets) and the Thieve's Market back at home. The place definitely had more character than the city side in Brisbane. People sold food, art, clothes and all sorts of interesting knick-knacks.
We had Gozlemes for lunch. I guess you can call it a Turkish version of a Murtabak. It was deceptively small. I say that because when I saw it, I was thinking, "That's not a lot." I've been eating a lot in Australia so I thought that the Gozlemes wouldn't really fill me up.
Once I started eating it though, I realised that it really fills you up. After the Gozlemes, we had some Dutch pancakes for dessert and boy, were they good. If it wasn't for my cough, I probably would've had more food at the markets.
Since it was still pretty early and we had quite a lot of time to kill, Hamdi brought us to his campus. University of Queensland (UQ) is pretty big - similar to the size of NTU, I would say. I thought that Bond University was cool since they had their own bar/club, but UQ pretty much has a whole shopping centre on campus. Their lake was also a lot bigger and nicer, with ducks so big that they freaked Jamie out a little. It's just a little out of the way though, we had to take a ferry from West End to get to UQ. Yes, a ferry. Ferries are a form of public transport in Brisbane - how cool is that?
Since Jamie had to catch a flight to Perth in a few hours, we left Hamdi and took a ferry back to the city area so we could grab her bags. After seeing her off, I googled for "Free things to do in Brisbane" since Amos and I weren't heading to the airport until much later. Google told me that the Museum of Brisbane was open to the public for free, so of course we had to go there.
The museum was pretty cool. It covered the history of Brisbane and we finally learned the story behind the "Story Bridge". We first saw the bridge when Jamie pointed it out to us while we were looking for food yesterday. She didn't know the story behind the bridge, and neither did Hamdi. Turns out, the story is that it was the first bridge built that used Australian-made materials, so it's like the epitome of the term "Made in Australia".
After the museum, we checked out a mall that resembles Orchard Ion and chilled for a while. We finally made our way to the airport in the evening, where I had to repack my bag because it exceeded the weight limit by 3.5kg; probably because I'm bringing McLovin' along. I had to throw some stuff away so that my bag would meet both the size and weight requirements for carry-on luggages.
Once we were done, we settled down at some couches in the Brisbane International Airport. We were 12 hours early for our flight. That's probably the earliest I've been for anything in my life.
Surprisingly, spending the night at the airpot was really comfortable. I can now say that I've slept in an airport, and I'll be doing that a few more times during this trip. Mmm, exciting stuff.
Edit: It turned out that nobody checked our bags when we got on the plane. All of my things that I threw away and the things that I made Amos throw away to get his bag down to 10kg could've been saved. Oh well, at least our bags are lighter and a little easier to carry now. Off to Cairns we go!
#aussieadventure: Brisbane
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)
