Cairns: stingers and steep prices

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I leave Semporna, take a minibus to Tawau airport, fly to KL, then to Bali, returning to the hotel I'd previously stayed at on Kuta Beach. I'm only here for a couple of days before flying on to Australia. It's the way I'd originally scheduled my around-the-world ticket because I thought I'd just hang out in Bali for a month. If I had it to do over again I'd schedule this flight differently, flying out of Singapore, perhaps, or KL.

At Denpasar airport, during check-in I ask for the exit seat. It's my habit to ask for this as it gives me extra leg room, which I appreciate. The guy managing the check-in counter tells me no problem...so long as I pay an extra AUD 60 for the seat. There's no way I'm going to pay a low-cost company an extra 60 bucks for a seat they're obliged to have according to airline safety regulations. What happens on flights that are full yet no one has requested one of these seats? Do they pay more or is it simply assigned at no additional cost?

Blame Qantas for this. My ticket is with the One World alliance of which Qantas is a member, but it seems they've subcontracted this route to JetStar. Sure they save money, but associating a good name with a company that tries to stick it to you in this way will probably damage Qantas's reputation in the long run.

The flight is delayed and I hear an employee complaining about JetStar. They're always late, he moans, the quality is poor and they charge you for everthing. I can see a passenger ragging this way, but an employee? Says volumes about the company. We finally take off a couple of hours late and get to Sydney mid-morning. I have to take a bus to go from the international to the domestic terminal on the other side of the airfield and it costs me AUD 5.50. That's expensive for something the airport ought to offer for free if they haven't provided a way to walk, which they haven't. It's my introduction to what lies ahead.

Cairns (pronounced Cains, you drop the r) is a pleasant little town of about 100 000 people fronting the blue blue blue Pacific Ocean and it reminds me a little of pleasant little Canadian towns like Kelowna or Penticton. They have a waterside lagoon where you swim instead of the ocean. This is because of jellyfish and another submarine beastie called irukandji whose sting is incredibly painful, requiring hospitalization and resulting in permanent scars that look like huge welts. Beaches have big bottles of vinegar handy to treat the sting, just in case. Vinegar will neutralize the toxic chemical left by irukandji, which are tiny and nearly invisible.

Along the waterfront there are also public gas barbeques, known as barbies, where you can cook a meal. Handy, that. It seems you find these damn near everywhere in Australia wherever the public might congregate.

Australians use shorthand for a lot of their words. You take the first syllable and add ie (or ies for plural). There's a supermarket chain here whose name I recognize: Woolworth's, known as Woolies. In Canada I'd known it as a five-and-dime store, not a foodstore. I suppose the fish-and-chips place is the chippie and Melbourne is Melbie (likely shortened to Melb in cell phone text messages).

I run into my friend Steve Strickland whom I'd first met on Perhentian Kecil in Malaysia and we hang out. I stay for a couple of days in Cairns, but there's not all that much to do (except party like crazy in the evening with all the 20-year old backpackers and I don't really feel like doing this) and I don't take many photos. You can visit Cape Tribulation or the Daintree National Park or go snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef. All of it costs a lot. Australia is EXPENSIVE. I suppose that if I'd flown directly from Geneva I'd find prices roughly similar, but I've just spent six months in Asia where things cost very little and your money goes a long way. I'm going to have to study my budget and choose my activities very carefully...or get a job...or leave Australia ahead of schedule.

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Photos

Aboriginal danceers
These people were in front of a travel agency, drumming up business.