Limbo In Sydney

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We couldn't fly directy from South America to South East Asia and instead of spending even more time in airports we dceided to take a few days out in Sydney before flying on to Phuket in Thailand. It gave us a chance to catch our breath a bit and get out of Latin American mode and to look ahead to new horizons in Asia. This was a funny half-time period, a bit of limbo which we didn't really have any plans for (which explains our rather odd approch to tourism in Sydney).

We were a lot more concious of how much we were spending here which you would be when you've just come from the dveloping world were you know everything is substanally cheap to what are essentially the same prices you pay at home. Suddnely £20 a day including accomidation didn't seem such a sinch. Furthermore towards the end of our time in Buenos Aires I'd received an amazing offer that would require me to extend my trip so I was consious of the need to underspend, I'd also completely blown my £20 a day rule in Buenos Aires.

We were booked into a bottom-end hostel in King's Cross and arrived there exausted, bewildered and smelly early on the Sunday morning after 18 hours on a plane. One of the first things we noticed was the amaount of ads for casual work posted aroundf the hostel. Many backpackers in Austrialia actually work whilst on their trips, one poor guy in our dorm worked 6 days a week in a DVD packing factory. The travellers were also considerably younger than we'd been used to and generally not the kind of folk we'd gotten used to throughout South America. Everything was just sudenly different.

That first day we headed straight for the CBD to check out the Opera House, Darling Harbour, the tall buildings and of course the bridge. It cost a ridiculous amount to 'do' the bridge so we just walked across it in the normal (free) way. I actually quite liked the quite little neighbourhood we encountered on the far side. It was a quite, leafy residential suburb that could have been our home town on a sunny summer's Sunday, but there, looming large was the bridge and the skyscrapers just across the water.

The second day in Sydney we took off on an urban hike in the opposite direction, our goal the Pacific via the bays of south east Syndey. Essentially we spent the day getting hopelessly lost in familiar widing suburbs. South east Sydney would be a nice place to live with its hillsided bays and quite parks but it's not really what you'd call an adventure. We never made it to teh pacific although it turns out we got pretty close. Never mind. We didn't spend a penny and that's what counts.

I slept a lot, often whsilt the youths tore around the hostel whipping themsleves into a frenzy before going out. I tried to go out once. It was as hostel wide excursion to some place close by where there was an offer of cheap booze (it was still over a pound!!). We ended up in a kind of chain club-pub, which I wouldn't go to back home so I had my cheap cider and slipped away quitely and had an enjoyable evening with my book instead.

After a few days we were off to the airport again for our flight to Thailand and we both had the feeling that the trip was starting back up again, as if the last few days hadn't really counted. I'd fully recovered from Buenos Aires though and we'd seen some nice semi-detached properties so it was kind of worth it really.

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