Hi all,
I'm here in Perth, Western Australia, flew here from Sydney a couple of days ago.
I can't quite get a handle on how I feel about Australia ... I know that I'm not liking it as much as New Zealand and obviously it can't match up to my Latin America experience. I decided a while ago that enjoying travel has as much to do with the people you meet as it has to do with the places you go. If you don't meet people you click with then it affects the experience.
It appears that "backpackers" here in Australia are a different breed to that in Latin America .... predominantly blokes from either England, Ireland, Canada ... all English speaking anyway, all working on the casual job market. Not really backpacking per se, just working, earning money and drinking that money away. Because they are working they tend to have been in the hostel a long time and so it's a bit like walking into a private party. I have yet to meet anyone who is travelling around with any hints or tips of where to go or what to see. These blokes probably fit well into what I've seen of Australian culture as it seems to me that drinking and being loud in general is what it's all about.
I'm probably being unfair to Australia - the hostels (or backpackers as they call them here) tend to be located in "backpacker areas", I can only afford to go in hostels and any sort of tour is out of my price range. I really want to go to Alice Springs and Uluru but the price is prohibitive.
Sorry, sounds like I'm whinging and not having a good time, I am but I'm just doing the keeping myself to myself bit at the moment. I've booked myself into a different hostel now (Governor Hostel) to see if that's any better. Tomorrow I'm going to get a train down to see a beach called Cottesloe and that will be my first ever view of the Indian Ocean ! I remember when I got to Samara in Costa Rica and had my first ever view of the Pacific !
So, life in hostels ... I'm sure many of my friends back home will not be able to imagine me in a hostel, you get used to it if you can deal with ...
Sharing a room with up to 10 strangers in extremely close proximity.
Your room mates coming in at all hours, drunk and loud and turning the lights on.
You, getting in late and all your room mates in bed, trying to quietly (and with dignity) getting into the top of a bunk bed.... impossible!
Living in a room approximately the size of 15ft square with no floor space and 8 backpacks spewing personal belongings everywhere !
Arguments happening in the corridor outside your room by 3 drunk Irish men at 3am.
The people who decide to pack their bags at 8am when they had bloody plenty of time yesterday so why the hell didn't you do it then instead of waking us all up now !
The people who are rooting around for something in a plastic bag at 6am .... impossible to do quietly !
However, you do meet some great people aswell and share some good times but I'm looking forward to Thailand where it is so cheap I can have my own personal space again ! Until then I've got plenty of books to read and apparently some great beaches 15 minutes away, the guy who contacted me through my friends in Ecuador has emailed me his number so when he's back from working away next weekend I'll give him a ring - apparently he's a biker so I'll be back among "my" people !!!
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