A Content Man is One that Enjoys the Scenery Along a Detour

OK, the title's a bit corny but still relevant.

Detour stop number two on my journey to South Korea, and this time it’s to explore the wonderful city of Sydney and meet up with the travelling duo, Ed and Amy. They departed England in September and although I hadn’t planned on seeing them over the year that followed it was great to see their well-travelled, beautiful faces.

I arrived in Sydney in early December, and like most cities that abide by the Christian calendar, it was pleasantly festooned with merry decorations. This was odd for me for two reasons; 1) it appeared that Sydney really made an effort with their decorations, they had a serious budget that I’ve never really experienced back home in England. My home town of Bedford make an effort each year which normally involve hanging flashing lights and tinsel from lampposts around the town but nothing major. And 2) I had never experienced a scorching December before, during my stay in Sydney temperatures rocketed to mid-thirties which was nice but seemed odd when standing beside a Christmas tree and carollers. Winter in England has its benefits and drawbacks; one inch of snow brings the country to a stand-still, it also brings the hours of moaning about the weather (which we’re renown for), but an Australian will never know of the joy of watching someone struggle to walk on an icy pavement and then fall over. One of life’s simple pleasures.

My first few days were troubled with jet-lag, being extraordinarily tired but not being able to sleep and then waking at 5am. Rather than waste that time trying and failing to fall back asleep I took that opportunity to walk around my surroundings. I was centrally located in Woolloomooloo (great name, I know), so my first stroll took me to Circular Quay where you can get a great view of the harbour, the stunning Opera House, and Sydney Harbour Bridge. The views were even more incredible as the sun was rising, and no one else was around making unnecessary noise, being that it was about 5:30am.

As the tourist that I am, I visited many of the surrounding tourist hot-spots. The Royal Botanic Gardens were located very closely to where I was staying so it would have been rude no to walk through them. The Gardens were OK, I was expecting more if I’m honest. These were supposedly famous gardens but to me they were just gardens. A bit of greenery and a few shrubs, a florist may have valued them higher but for me I think the space could be utilised better if all the trees were dug up and football pitches were laid in their place. With more access to decent facilities, and further involvement the Australian national team could become a genuine force.

Darling Harbour is a fun place to visit, there’s always street performers, street artists, and a great view from the many bars that have a daily happy hour. Within the Darling Harbour area is the wildlife park and the aquarium; again it would have been rude to have gone to Australia and not seen a kangaroo and/or a koala so a visit was necessary. The wildlife park was great, more than 80% of the plants, mammals, reptiles, and frogs are unique to Australia and cannot be found anywhere else on earth. Seeing the iconic animals for the first time was very interesting, seeing creatures that I’d only seen on the internet; kangaroos, koalas, wombats, Tasmanian devils, platypus, echidnas, and so many different types of snakes, spiders, and other creepy-crawlies. The trip to the aquarium was a disappointment by comparison. Don’t get me wrong, it was still pretty cool to see the sharks, manatees, stingrays, and jelly fish but there was nothing unique to Australia. I felt like I could have seen the sea life at almost any large aquarium in the world.

That's a picture of a koala sitting in a tree like it's an arm chair, and a picture of a kangaroo scratching his arse.

The city itself is very exciting. It combines a business district with the tall skyscrapers, the busy region of Chinatown, modern buildings, the many bars and restaurants, and the millions of people that pass through it every day and night. I thought it would be quite interesting to find out about the (very short) history of the city, so Ed, Amy, and I decided to take the tour of The Rocks. The tour would explain about how the first European settlers had colonised the area, and the colourful tales that would follow over the next 200 years. The tour was due to start at 18:00 but the tour was late, we waited for a full four minutes before we got impatient and went to the pub. I got the gist of the tour from the leaflet so, I’m good. It was that afternoon that I tried kangaroo steak. Not bad. It tastes very similar to beef steak just a bit chewier.

The evening entertainment in Sydney was always surprising. I had my first experience of crab racing. Yes, crab racing. A race which pitched crabs against one another to race to the edge of a large platform. Despite the premise the atmosphere was very exciting, although the bar was not encouraging gambling you could “buy” a crab and if your crab won you would win a prize, often a beer tab. It was funny to watch so many people get so animated cheering on a crab that had no idea that it was in a race, and would remain motionless for most of the duration of the race. It was a different, fun experience though.

We ventured to The Soda Factory/Bobby’s Boss Dogs, a bar that specialised in gourmet hot dogs, on two separate occasions. The first was to watch a screening of Home Alone (I forget how good that film is sometimes) and the second was to binge eat as many $1 gourmet hot dogs as possible. The dogs were pretty good! The first 3 or 4 were a delight going down then the dogs became a challenge, I think I ended up forcing 6 down and Ed managed 7. We asked the bar tender if there was a record, he said there wasn’t but he said he’d be surprised if someone could manage 4. So I think without really trying Ed managed to set an unofficial record, although not such a great idea when you have a 15 minute waddle home.

Something I haven’t mentioned so far that Sydney is famous for is its stunning beaches. Pretty much the only thing I had planned when I arrived in Australia was to lie on a beach and do nothing. When you work in customer service, like I did, I worked for a bank taking call after call about complaints and charges I couldn’t think of anything better than to lie on the sand, not having to speak to anyone, pure bliss. We mainly went to Bondi Beach, but we did go to Manly Bay on one occasion. The relaxing beach experience was tainted slightly with the risk of getting eaten by a Great White Shark if you decided to venture into the water. I have a friend from England who is petrified of sharks; she has nightmares about them, so scared in fact that she talks about them almost on a daily basis. I always laughed at her fear of sharks, and rightly so considering she lives in Derbyshire, but when you could potentially be less than 30 miles from a shark I had every right to be apprehensive from entering the water. The life guards have measures in place whereby a helicopter will patrol the coast roughly every thirty minutes but even so there were 48 shark attacks in Australia in 2008, that was 1 every week. So forgive me for being slightly afraid of a man eater.

On one of my many walks around the city I decided to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Now I know the bridge is legitimately safe to cross but when a lorry, or bus would cross the bridge the pedestrian footpath would shake, this made me very anxious. But I was already half way across so I persisted. Along the bridge I noticed a couple of padlocks locked to the gridded guard rail. This is a custom that has become very popular across the world, couples will write something soppy on a padlock, lock it to a public fixture, and this will represent their everlasting love. Bollocks if you ask me, and I think this particular padlock summarised it all for me. This relationship lasted all of 2 months, Josh’s ex-girlfriend obviously felt so aggrieved that she had to go back to the padlock and scratch her name off. The padlock remains but their love isn’t quite everlasting. Utter bollocks.

During my time in Sydney I managed to tick a substantial event off the bucket list, a sky dive. It’d been something that I had wanted to do for about 7 or 8 years but every time the opportunity would arise I would bottle it. So I forced myself this time, once I had paid for it I knew I would do it, and where else is going to be better than on the east coast beach of Australia? Looking back on it now it was possibly the best and the worst experience of my life, certainly the scariest. Karl Pilkington once said “you can’t enjoy something until after the event”, and he was so right. When I was in the plane it was scary, when the door opened and I swung my legs out at 15,000 feet it was terrifying, and when I jumped/was pushed my mind was blank. It was only until my feet touched the wonderful, solid ground, and my heart began to beat again that I appreciated how much of a thrill the sky dive was. Having done one it was truly incredible and I’d even recommend it to others who have never done one but it’ll be a long while before I put myself through that again. Here’s the jump in it’s entirety. And yes, I did scream like a little girl all the way down.

Here are some other highlights from my time in Sydney.

A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step

My travels began with an ironic start, for my “last supper” my mum had made a chicken curry which I politely declined on the basis that I had a long journey ahead and could do with the hassle of an upset stomach. So I played it safe, or so I thought, and had a chicken & mushroom pie and potatoes. Between that meal and departing the UK someone must’ve spiked my consumption with a laxative as I made many movements between Gatwick and Bangkok, it almost became a trademarked calling card.

A short stop in Amsterdam was met with many stereotypes. You can’t move for tulips, wheels of cheese, clogs, and erotica. One thing that surprised me about the Dutch people is their inability to queue which, as a Brit, annoyed me. As this began to irritate me I remembered the great things that the Dutch have exported to us Brits over the years; Dennis Bergkamp, Marc Overmars, Heineken, and in return we have given them Steve McClaren, so I endured the chaos that ensued as I boarded my flight to Bangkok.

The flight was uneventful, a few hours of Football Manager made the flight rather enjoyable and despite my pleas to do a circle of the airport so that I could finish Blackburn’s summer transfer-window I had arrived in Bangkok.

My first introduction to the Thai culture was the lack of Health and Safety. I left the terminal and got a taxi to my hotel. As we set off I reached for my seatbelt only for the driver to say “no, no, no”, I was rather confused at this which I therefore ignored, and then attempted to put on my seatbelt again for the same thing to happen. “No, no, no”, I finally understood what he was trying to say, there were in fact no seatbelt plugs, deeming the seatbelt useless. As we joined the highway my desire for a seatbelt grew as the journey pursued, as tuk-tuks, motorcycles, and other road users ignored every law of the Highway Code, I feared for my life. My attention was diverted from the road dangers, for it to focus on the vessel of disease that was the taxi driver. He was truly the most disgusting man I have ever met, belching and flatulence started the proceedings, followed by phlegm splutters. Luckily we were able to test the car’s brakes as an emergency stop was required when the driver focused his attention on exploring the cavities of his nasal passage rather than the road. The brakes worked just fine. It appeared that he had more diseases than Lindsey Lohan’s tampon. I gladly arrived at my hotel.

My initial thoughts of Bangkok are that it is homage to Manchester United, it was a good thing I was only there for two days. Very hot, humid, busy, and I was often left thinking ‘what have I stepped in?’ when I realised they are the typical smells that you become accustom to in the city.

I started with a visit to the floating market, a mediocre experience. I was expecting the hustle and bustle of a market place with the smells of different spices, foods, instead I found myself to be the only punter in the entire market, hardly the bustle I was expecting. The objects for sale ranged from fridge magnets, shot glasses, miniature models of tuk-tuks and other tat. The most common items for sale were knob related tat; knob bottle openers, knob key chains, and apparently the best seller was a knob ashtray. There are more statues of knobs in Bangkok than there are outside Old Trafford. The best and only purchase at the market was a beer.

On the way back I from the floating market I rode an elephant which was nice but I couldn't enjoy it fully as the Thai elephant tamer poked it with a sharp stick every time he wanted it to change direction. Then the chap revealed a box containing real ivory which ruined the entire experience for me. It was nice to see the elephant up close but it was a shame about the circumstances.

I made a second stop en route back to the hotel from the floating market, this time it was to visit the train market, an open market which literally trades on the railway line. The trains are infrequent and they normally pass through the market twice a day. My travels had coincided with seeing the train pass through the market, the stalls are withdrawn from the track for a few minutes and normal business will resume once the train has departed. Interesting to see but the smells were horrendous, fish, poultry, and crustaceans that have been out in the heat all day with no means of preservation, only for the train to cover the meats with exhaust fumes and soot, and the Thai traders carry on as normal. I didn't buy anything. But whilst I was there I was interviewed for British television for a show called The World’s Most Extreme, slightly ironic that they interviewed the world’s most mediocre man. It was a nervous interview, from which I offered very little insight, which will definitely not make the final cut of the show.

The evening’s entertainment was Thai boxing, and some sight-seeing took place the following afternoon. I was told that Khaosan Road was the best destination for a night of drinking in bars, so I hailed a tuk-tuk to take me there that evening. Before I left England my father, a previous visitor to Thailand, gave me some advice which was to haggle with everyone from market traders to taxi drivers, always negotiate the price to avoid the locals taking advantage of you. When I asked the tuk-tuk driver to take me to Khaosan Road he declared it would cost 200 baht (£3.80) for the 4-mile journey, I began to try barter with him and said I would not pay any more than 100 baht (£1.90), I was arguing over £1.90, I’m not sure why I was so tight. The driver wouldn’t do it for 100 baht but offered an alternative. In broken English he said “5 minute diversion, 100 baht”, I struggled to understand and what I thought he was saying was saying that due to the traffic he would drop me 5 minutes from Khaosan Road and I could walk the rest, so I agreed and got in the tuk-tuk.

The journey began to confuse me, I’m no expert on the Bangkok roads but we spent a lot of the journey off the main highways and were going down many back-streets. About 10 minutes later he pulled over down a side road which did not seem safe, in an area which you would hardly call “touristy”. He told me to get out of the tuk-tuk and kept on saying “5 minutes, 5 minutes”. Considering the situation I was in I remained in the tuk-tuk, questioning why I was arguing over £1.90. The driver began to get a little irate, and then he tried to re-explain the situation, in further broken English he explained that tuk-tuk drivers get some sort of commission from local businesses if they bring in customers, these businesses often range from tailors, shows, and other places of entertainment that Thailand has become famous for. The local business that he wanted me to go into was a tailor, luckily. He carried on by saying “go in, look around, no buy, we go Khaosan Road”. I was considering just paying the extra 100 baht so that I didn’t have to pretend I was interested in buying a suit, but I’m not made of money so I went in.

I was welcomed in the tailors; I went into a private room where they began to measure my dimensions for a custom fitting suit. I had to pretend that I was interested in buying a suit for long enough for the driver to get his commission but also had to think of a reason not to buy one, as I didn’t actually want a suit. All-in-all I was reasonably confident as I was acting with a lot of self-importance, feeling the materials and asking about the thread-count and textile content, like I actually knew what I was talking about or indeed cared.

The first hurdle that I threw at the tailor to not buy a suit was the colour, I thought that if I asked for a ridiculously coloured suit, he would not have the material and therefore could not match my demands and would give me that elusive excuse to leave. I announced to the tailor that I must have a pink suit, only a pink suit will do for me! To which he replied “that will not be a problem, sir”. Shit. Out came this bright, luminous, pink material which he started to drape over me. I said “this is fantastic, exactly what I wanted!” The hole I was digging was getting deeper.

I then had another brainwave, the price. If we cannot agree on a price then I have an excuse not to buy such a ridiculous suit. I announced again with even more confidence “before we go any further, I think we need to work out a price, how much will this suit cost?” He informed me that he could make this undesirable suit for 15,000 baht (£287). Here was my chance to get out, I was going to negotiate a price that he couldn’t do, and then leave. I had to make sure the negotiations didn’t start too low otherwise he’d know that I was just there to “scam” him for the benefit of the driver. So I said “ooh, that’s a little out of my price range, I’d be able to stretch as far as 10,000 baht but that’s my limit”. By taking a third off the original asking price, I was sure he’d say no, unfortunately for me he said “that will not be a problem, sir”. Shit. He asked me to stand so that he could continue to measure me, so I did. Now I’m all out of excuses and will be paying 10,000 baht (£190) for a pink suit that I didn’t want when I could have avoided all of this for the measly fee of £1-bloody-90!

Now I’m panicking a little and my confidence has run a mile. I struggle for the next excuse, but I draw a blank, so I tried to re-negotiate the price again. I said “you can’t possibly make this suit for 10,000 baht”. He replied “I can”. I tried to act all moral, “I feel like I’m taking advantage of you and your good nature”, to which he said “but it was your price, if you feel like you’re taking advantage of me then pay me more money”. Shit. I told him I had a confession to make that in fact, I could not afford to pay the 10,000 baht that I had negotiated, and in fact could only offer 7,000 baht. He looked shocked, and in this moment I decided to just walk out rather than try to talk myself out of the situation. I’m not sure what he must have thought of me as I walked out the door, a confident man who asked for a pink suit, negotiated a price, was overwhelmed by morality, said he was taking advantage of the tailor’s good nature but then offered him less money than originally agreed and then left. The driver was waiting for me outside, I asked the driver “did you get your commission?” he said that he did so I told him “well, let’s get the f*** out of here!”

I laughed about the situation on the journey to Khaosan Road, and it turned out to be a good night. The following day I met up with some uni friends who happened to arrive in Bangkok at the same time. We went for lunch then I left for the airport. An interesting few days, I’m sure I’ll go back to see other parts of Thailand, Chiang Mai and Phuket are meant to be worth a visit.

Here's a montage of my short time in Bangkok.