The World Upside Down: Australia

Happy New Year!

2008-04-14T11:22:00.007+10:00

Songkran 2008, originally uploaded by ibeepix.

I'm back in Bangkok, and what a change it is from Australia. It's very hot, about 40 degrees during the day, 30 at night. And after 2 months of being confronted with severe water shortages I seem to have arrived at the biggest water fight in the world. Yes, it's Songkran, Thai New Year, and people celebrate it by splashing water at each other.It's bigger and crazier than I could ever have imagined, especially in and around Kao San Road. Yesterday there were thousands of people there, all armed with giant water guns, drenched, covered completely with talcum powder and hardly able to move. In other parts of the city celebrations are a bit more gentile. Groups of children, teenagers and the odd granny are on the streets, dancing around on loud music or in trucks driving around and trying to get as many people wet as possible, shooting water at passers by, cars and into the open windows of buses. Even the bus drivers are joining in and are shooting into the buses of their fellow bus drivers.

Songkran 2008, originally uploaded by ibeepix.

Last days in Sydney

2008-04-08T17:30:00.001+10:00

Harbour Bridge view, originally uploaded by ibeepix.

I'm back in Sydney for my last days in Australia before I fly back to Bangkok. And unfortunately it has been raining a lot since yesterday. Today I managed to walk across the Harbour Bridge while it was dry, but I had to take the train back to the hostel because it started raining again. Hopefully the weather will be better for the next 2 days as I'd really like to visit some of Sydney's beaches...

The Blue Mountains

2008-04-05T15:26:00.001+11:00

Blue Mountains, originally uploaded by ibeepix.

This was on my list of must-sees before I leave Australia. The blue mountains are amazing!

New Pictures and more news!

2008-04-02T20:31:00.002+11:00

Harbour Bridge, originally uploaded by ibeepix.

I've just uploaded a whole load of new pictures as you can see in the slideshow on the right hand side.
And I've got some big news! Some of you already know it, others knew I was thinking about it and for others it's probably a complete surprise. I've booked a flight back home. On the 11th of april I will fly from Sydney to Bangkok so I can celebrate Songkran, Thai new year there. And on the 4th of May I have my flight back home.
So my adventure here in Australia is coming to an end very quickly. I thought I was going to stay here for a long time, maybe even forever, but things worked out differently. I'm very happy that I came to Australia. I've learned a lot. But I think I underestimated a few things before I came here. My money didn't go as far as I hoped it would, and getting a nice job here is not as easy as they advertise on the internet. And I have to say that I haven't found that perfect place I want to live either.
But god knows, maybe I'll come back some day, but then I'll be fully prepared...

friends, friends of friends and friends of friends of friends

2008-04-01T09:39:00.005+11:00

Before I came to Australia I accumulated a handful of addresses of friends and friends of friends living in Australia, who invited me to stay for a while. And it's been absolutely wonderful to be able to stay with them.
Backpacking in Australia is definitely very different from backpacking in Asia. Here most backpackers are between 18 and 22 years old, like partying a lot, go to the beach during the day and don't do much else and that's not exactly my style. Of course these kind of backpackers exist in Asia too, but there are also a lot of older people who enjoy some more interesting things.
Budget accommodation is usually in the form of hostels with dorms ranging from 3 to 30 beds. Generally they are extremely messy, smelly and noisy (even though on the websites they look clean and modern). Exceptions have been the YHA in Murwillumbah and Bellingen. So you can probably understand that it's quite nice to stay at a friends house for a few days, where I don't always have my own room, but at least it's clean and quiet.
So far I've stayed with Georgia, Sarah, Emma, Steffi and Wim & Hilde. And I can't thank them enough for opening their doors to me. Last week I stayed with Wim & Hilde in their house in Wamuran. After an exhausting week of running around looking for accommodation everywhere, it was like arriving in a sanctuary. I had my own room in their beautiful house with big tropical garden and swimming pool. It was interesting to talk to them about their experiences as Belgians living in Australia and they took me on a walk in the area and showed me Maroochiadore and Mooloolaba on the sunshine coast.

On thursday I left them and returned to Brisbane to pick up some things I left at Sarah's place and then I moved onward to Bellingen. When I was doing the yoga course in the beginning of my trip somebody recommended Bellingen to me and I can see why. Bellingen is probably Australia's best kept secret. The hostel is probably the best hostel in Australia, small, friendly, quiet and clean. The town is very relaxed, with lots of little cafes, a view of the Bellinger river with a backdrop of the Great Dividing Ranges. At night hundreds of flying foxes come out and fly over the hostel. And yesterday we made a trip to the rain forrest and waterfalls in the Dorrigo National Park. I could easily stay a lot longer, just relaxing, but my train ticket to Sydney for today is booked. Tonight I'll be there...

Happy Easter!

2008-03-24T16:34:00.002+11:00

Cape Byron Lighthouse panorama, originally uploaded by ibeepix.

I spent a few days in Byron Bay last week. Byron is a nice little town with a beautiful beach but I had to leave because it was too busy, for Easter and the Bluesfest. Because I didn't really knew where to go next I went to back to Brisbane as I thought it would be a bit quieter. But I was wrong, it was just as busy. The first night I was lucky to get a bed in a 30 bed dorm (horrible as you can see on the picture (in the slideshow)), but every single hostel was full for the next day. But thanks to Steffi, a Belgian girl living in Brisbane I didn't have to sleep on the streets :-))
I'll have to remember next time to book a hostel ahead...

WWOOF

2008-03-17T13:21:00.002+11:00

Mt Burrell, originally uploaded by ibeepix.

Last monday I started my first wwoof experience. My hosts Rico and Tomo live on a beautiful piece of land with superb views of Mt Warning, Mt Burrell and the Border Ranges. On this big pice of land they have a house and 2 separate dwellings, a vegetable garden, a lush subtropical garden, a large piece of rain forrest and a few meadows for cows and horses. I stayed in one of the separate dwellings, 'the studio' and had my own balcony and hammock with ever changing views of Mt Burrell. As a wwoofer I was expected to work 4-5 hours a day and my work there was mainly pulling out weeds. Weeding here is on a totally different level from weeding at home though. It seems that almost every single plant that was introduced by the white man in Australia, like morning glory and blackberry bushes, has adjusted to this climate so well that it is growing like some kind of monster plant. Many of these plants look beautiful but threaten the survival of local plants. But I have to admit, working in a garden like this, even for only 4-5 hours a day is quite exhausting.
And as enchanting as this place may look, it is obviously not easy to live here. The area around here is known as a place with lots of alternative communities, many of them professing right livelihood, love and peace, but according to my hosts in reality it is more like a war zone. Apparently under the surface a lot of power games are being played. And it has disappointed my hosts so much they are considering to sell everything and move somewhere else.
The centre of the whole area is Nimbin, and that's where I am right now. Nimbin is a small village, a few hundred people live here. After Byron Bay, which used to be the alternative capital of Australia, turned more and more mainstream, commercial and touristy, a lot of the alternative people moved into the hinterland and some declared Nimbin to be the real alternative capital. My wwoof hosts called Nimbin the centre of the circus and compared it to a wild west town, and I can understand why. Nimbin is a very colorful little town, all the facades of the shops have these flower power murals and many of the people here are freaks and low lives (I'm sure there are some really nice people here too, but it seems that these communities with lots of freedom and no rules attract a lot of weird people) . They look like they are stuck in the 60's with their rainbow colored clothes and bare feet and for some reason it's very fashionable not to wash your hair for at least 2 months. It only takes 3 minutes to walk through the town, but you'll definitely be offered to buy weed at least 4 times. When the receptionist of the hostel I'm staying at showed me around the property he told me that 'off course people are going to smoke weed here, but we have a little space in the back where non-smokers can sit', which somehow sounded so surreal and completely wrong to me.
Anyway I'll be out of here as soon as possible as this is not really my scene. I was kind of stuck in Nimbin for 2 days because there was no public transport to Murwillumbah in the weekend, but tomorrow I'll be heading back to normality. It was interesting seeing Nimbin, but it has left me wondering if it is impossible to have an alternative community that is not stuck in the 60's or 70's, but lives in the now.

View of 'the studio' with Mt Warning, originally uploaded by ibeepix.

Murwillumbah

2008-03-10T10:00:00.000+11:00

Saturday I took a bus from Brisbane to Murwillumbah, a little village in the Tweed valley, about 2 hours south of Brisbane. I'm staying at the YHA hostel here, and it's a really nice hostel. It's quite small, in an old house overlooking the river and Mount Warning. And the woman at the reception offered me a deal I couldn't refuse, I could stay here for free in exchange for sweeping the floor in the kitchen and wiping down the benches yesterday, and today I had to clean the bathroom and vacuum clean the hallway, all together about an hour's work. She said she already decided that she would offer me this exchange when she heard me on the phone the day before, apparently she liked my voice, ha ha. Anyway, this is great as it saved me about 58 Australian dollars :-)
Murwillumbah is a very quite little town. It seems al the shops are closed on saturday afternoon and sunday and there are only a few restaurants and cafe's and they all have very strange opening hours. There is a wonderful little place where they have thai food and pizzas, I think that's kind of a strange combination but nevertheless the red curry I had was possibly the best ever.
And this afternoon I'll take the bus to Twin Bridges, a stop in the mountains between Murwillumbah and Nimbin, where I will do some wwoofing. I will stay there for a week to begin with, maybe longer if it's really nice. I'm very curious how it will be.

Going WWOOFing

2008-03-07T09:17:00.002+11:00

After almost a week in Brisbane I realise that this is not a place I want to stay for a long time. I tried getting I job here, but according to the recruitment office (a special one for graphic designers) they would not be able to get me a job because I don't have enough experience :-( (2 years is not enough). And since the city is not that great either, it's just big in the sense that there are a lot of buildings, but there are not many nice restaurants and shops and cultural things happening, I'm leaving.
I'm going south in the direction of Byron Bay. It's supposed to be the alternative lifestyle capital of Australia. It's also quite touristy, but there should be a lot of nice little towns in the area. I got myself a WWOOF-book (stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms) and there are lots of places around Byron Bay where I could stay for a while. When you wwoof you can stay at an organic farm / Community / retreat centre for free accommodation and food if you work 4-6 hours at the place. There are a lot of places in this area with owners that are into yoga, meditation and art. So I think it's a good way to meet some interesting people.
This morning I phoned one of the hosts and I'm going to go there this weekend. Tomorrow I'll take a bus to Murwillumbah, a village not too far from the farm, I'll stay there for a day in a hostel and the next day I'll go to the farm.I'll stay there fot a week to begin with and then I'll decide if I stay longer or not. I'm not sure if I'll have internet there, or any reception with my mobile phone. But I guess I'll be able to go to Nimbin once in a while to give you an update.

Brisbane

2008-03-02T18:08:00.002+11:00

Yesterday I left cold Melbourne and flew to the sunshine state, Queensland, Brisbane to be more specific. My flight arrived around 5 pm, and it was still pleasantly warm outside. I took the train into town to Sarah's place, a girl I met in Thailand in January. I will be staying with her for the next few days.
Today we took the ferry to the CBD and had a nice walk around town. Brisbane feels a lot more relaxed than Melbourne, there's probably a lot less to do here and the skyline doesn't look as interesting, but it has a nice atmosphere. I think I will visit some employment offices tomorrow to see if I can get a job here. And I will meet up with another Belgian girl living in Brisbane in the next few days to see how she likes life here...

The Great Ocean Road

2008-02-28T19:40:00.002+11:00

12 Apostles, originally uploaded by ibeepix.

Sunday I discovered Gert, a Belgian guy I met in Thailand a few months ago, was in Melbourne and that he was planning a 2 day road trip along the Great Ocean Road with 2 other friends, Maree and Trevor. So I joined them. And yesterday morning we took off. We had some major delays in the morning due to a.o. the difficulty of the traffic in the city (they have these weird rules to turn left when you really want to turn right at a crossing with trams). But by 11.30am, about 2,5 hours later than planned we finally found ourselves on the highway to the Great Ocean Road. We drove all the way to Port Campbell by a faster but not so interesting inland road. And when we finally got to see the Loch Ard Gorge and the 12 Apostles we could only agree that it was worth all those hours sitting in the car. The colors of the ocean and the cliffs are just amazing. We ended up staying the night in Apollo bay, a beautiful little town along the Great Ocean Road. And this morning we drove further along the Great Ocean Road back towards Melbourne. We stopped in a few places like Lorne and at the lighthouse in Fairhaven. And arrived back in Melbourne in the early afternoon.

Back in Melbourne

2008-02-24T21:22:00.003+11:00

This afternoon I got a lift from the ashram back into Melbourne. I was sad to leave the ashram, as it had been a great experience and I met lots of wonderful people there, many who were staying to do a 3 month course, that just had started. But it was nice too to get back to Melbourne. I'm staying at Georgia's house, a girl who stayed at the ashram the first week. She lives in Richmond, which lies close to the CBD. It's a nice little place with a garden. Her friend is living in the same building and we had a nice dinner together. And I'm quite happy that I can sleep in tomorrow after 2 weeks of getting up at 5am.
And I'll try to do my best to take some pictures this week...

Deze namiddag heb ik een lift gekregen van de ashram naar Melbourne. Ik vond 't toch wel spijtig om de ashram te verlaten want 't was een hele goede ervaring en ik heb er een hoop leuke mensen, waarvan er velen langer bleven om een 3 maanden cursus te doen. Maar 't was ook fijn om weer terug in Melbourne te zijn. Ik logeer nu bij Georgia, een meisje dat de eerste week in de ashram was. Ze woont in Richmond, en dat ligt niet ver van 't centrum. 't Is een leuke studio met een tuintje. Een vriendin woont in 't zelfde gebouw en we hebben vanavond samen lekker gegeten. En ik ben ook wel blij dat ik morgen nog eens lekker kan uitslapen na 2 weken op te staan om 5 uur 's morgens.
En ik zal deze week ook mijn best doen nog wat foto's te trekken...

More yoga and plans

2008-02-20T09:57:00.006+11:00

I'm still at the Living Consciously yoga retreat in the Satyananda Ashram in Rocklyn. The second week here is a bit different from the first. A lot of the people who where here last week left in the weekend and a lot of new people arrived. I also had to change rooms. But other than that it's very similar. Today is my day off, which means I don't have to do karma yoga (working in the garden or kitchen), but unfortunately it started raining this morning and it's getting colder too. The weather has been really nice over the weekend, but I think it will be cold and rainy for the rest of the retreat.
The weather was actually one of the main reasons for my decision to move to Brisbane, where it should be warm and sunny almost all the time. I booked my flight there yesterday, and I will fly on the 1st of march. Which means I have 5 full days in Melbourne after the retreat finishes to visit some museums and parks and to go on a Great Ocean Road day trip. And this time I will not have to stay in an awful hostel, I can stay at Georgia (a girl who was doing the retreat last week) 's place.

Ik ben nog steeds op het Living Consciously Retreat in de Satyananda Ashram in Rocklyn. De tweede week hier is een beetje anders de eerste. Een hoop mensen die hier vorige week waren zijn tijdens het weekend vertrokken en een hoop nieuwe mensen zijn er bij gekomen. En ik ben ook van kamer veranderd. Maar voor de rest is het nogal gelijkaardig. Vandaag is mijn vrije dag, dit wil zeggen dat geen karma yoga moet doen (in de keuken of tuin werken), maar helaas is 't vanochtend beginnen te regenen en 't is ook een stuk frisser geworden, en ik vrees dat 't weer zo gaat blijven voor de rest van de week.
En 't weer is een van de hoofdredenen waarom ik toch besloten heb om naar Brisbane te gaan, daar zou 't voor 't grootste deel van 't jaar toch warm en zonnig moeten zijn. Ik heb gisteren mijn vlucht naar Brisbane geboekt, ik vlieg de 1ste maart. En dat betekent dat ik nog 5 volle dagen in Melbourne heb na mijn yoga retreat, om musea en parken te bezoeken en een trip naar de Great Ocean Road te maken. En deze keer zal ik niet opnieuw in zo'n vreselijke hostel moeten blijven want ik mag bij Geogia, een meisje dat ik hier vorige week heb leren kennen, logeren.

Yoga Retreat

2008-02-13T10:38:00.000+11:00

I came to this yoga retreat last sunday and I'm really enjoying it. It's in a small ashram/yoga centre close to the town of Rocklyn, about 2 hours from Melbourne. The area is very beautiful, it's located in the hills, there are a lot of eucalyptus trees, a nice garden, a pond, where the kangaroes come at night to have a drink. The people are nice and the food is great.
And I've decided that I'm going to stay here for 2 weeks. And I have decided to go to Brisbane (or Byron Bay, which is not that far from Brisbane) after a few more days in Melbourne. I still want to see a few things in Melbourne, but I think after doing that it's better to go to smaller city, and Brisbane sounds good to me. I still have to do some research about Brisbane, but I have the feeling it's going to be better for me.

Leaving Melbourne

2008-02-09T17:15:00.000+11:00

After a few days of wondering around in Melbourne I have decided to leave Melbourne, temporarely, to do a yoga retreat about an hour from Melbourne.
I was having trouble meeting interesting people here in Melbourne and decided this would probably be nice way to meet some nice people. I'll go to the retreat tomorrow and stay one or two weeks. And while doing the retreat I'll decide whether I really want to stay in Melbourne.
Melbourne itself is a really nice city, I especially like the CBD. It's obvious that they like good food here with hundreds of eateries and restaurants. They sell cheap sushi on every street corner. And there lots of cultural stuff going on. But it would be very hard to find a place to live in the CBD and at first I thought of living in St-Kilda, but after walking around there I'm not so sure whether I would like to live there, and it seems pretty far from the centre anyway.
And I've also been thinking that maybe I would like it much more in a small place, maybe Byron Bay, which is known to be quite an alternative place. The only problem about moving there would be that it's probably much harder to find a job there, because it is so small...
Anyway nothing has been decided yet, everything is still possible, maybe I'll decide to stay in Melbourne after all, we'll see...

Arrived!

2008-02-05T16:37:00.000+11:00

I can finally say that I have arrived in Australia! I arrived this morning in Melbourne after a 9 hour flight from Bangkok. My very first impressions of Melbourne were not that great. The weather was grey and not that warm and the views from the bus into the city centre were not that great. And the hostel were I'm staying is huge, and the kind of people staying here are not exactly my type...
But after a very nice shower and a walk down Clarendon street I'm happy to say that my impressions are improving. I don't think that this hostel is in the nicest area of Melbourne, but even so, there seem to be a lot of nice cafe's in the neighbourhood.
My plan for the next week is to find a room in a shared house, hopefully as soon as possible, to get to know the different area's in Melbourne and to start job hunting...

Why Australia? Why Melbourne?

2008-01-22T14:30:00.001+11:00

so melbourne, originally uploaded by alandot.

These are questions I get asked constantly. Why do I want go and live for a while in Australia, and why Melbourne?
Australia has always been kind of a dream destination for me. Ever since I was still very young. I'm not sure exactly why, maybe I watched to much 'Neighbours', maybe it is because it's so far away and it seems so adventurous. But the more I research about Australia, the more I like it. Somehow all Australians I've met seem to be extremely friendly and relaxed people. The weather is a lot better than in Belgium (even in Melbourne, even though Australians claim Melbourne has the worst weather ever). The nature is incredible, with plants and animals that you can't find anywhere else on the planet. I recently read the book 'In a Sunburned Country' by Bill Bryson. And reading this wonderful and funny book about everything in Australia, I only got more and more excited to go to Australia.

And why Melbourne? Well, at first I wasn't really sure where to go in Australia. Sydney seemed like a good option, but the more I got to know about Melbourne, the more I liked it. It doesn't have any big monuments, like to harbour bridge and the opera house in Sydney. The only thing I knew about Melbourne was that the Australian Open (tennis) is held there. But it's slightly smaller, slightly cheaper, there's a lot of cultural things going on there and many Australian people tell me it's an awsome city. And I've also discovered that Melbourne, together with Vancouver in Canada, was the best city in the world to live in. Off course I'll have to see it when I get there. If, for some reason, Melbourne turns out to be not so great I can always move to Sydney, Perth or Brisbane...

New Lay-out

2008-01-19T19:10:00.000+11:00

And the blog is officially open for business :-)
I finished the lay-out today. Kept it easy for myself, in the same style as the South-east Asia blog. So I only changed the header and the color of the titles and since I'm publishing on my own webspace now, I added a personal favicon (that little star next to the url) instead of the blogger favicon.

Online at last!

2008-01-18T15:38:00.000+11:00

And the new blog is online. Right now I'm stil using my South East Asia Blog template, but I'll try to customize it soon into an Australia template. I'm happy that I managed to get it published onto my own webspace. There's a blog publishing tool that comes with the webspace, but it doesn't use labels, and does't ping technorati automaticaly. So I decided to keep on using good old blogger.