Melbourne ... in a hurry

After your arrival at Melbourne (Tullamarine) airport, if the chauffeured limousine is not available today to collect you, catch a red Skybus Super Shuttle which operates a 24 hour, 7 days a week express service between the airport and the Melbourne CBD at Southern Cross Station near the corner of Little Bourke and Spencer Street. From the CBD terminal mini-buses operate between the there and over 120 hotels throughout central Melbourne.

If you just have a short time to visit, or need to park some luggage for a while, there are reasonably priced and sized luggage lockers available at Southern Cross Station, right where you get off the Skybus, or further up in the main railway concourse.

There are several ticket options available, including options with a 2 hour or daily Metcard ticket included, which you can use for public transport in the city. Check with the ticket booth for the option that suits you best. Old Fartz, check your entitlements too – ask and you may receive; don’t ask and no-one will tell you.

It is a fast and affordable transfer option, taking just 20 minutes for the journey. Buses depart every 10 - 15 minutes between 6am and 9.30pm and at 30 minute and 60 minute intervals at other times.

Melbourne is an easy city to explore. It has an excellent network of trams, buses and trains that cover the whole metropolitan area and beyond. Timetables, route maps and fares are available via the Metlink website.

http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/

The Melbourne trams are a much loved part of the city landscape. For a very modest fare visitors can spend the entire day on the trams exploring the city and inner suburbs.

National Geographic lists the 96 tram from East Brunswick to St Kilda as one of their recommended journeys; so if you have the time, travel at least some of the journey. You can join the tram just across the road from Southern Cross Station, in Bourke Street, up the hill for East Brunswick or down the hill for St Kilda is the easiest description, but ask someone to direct you if needed.

The 96 starts its travels in the northern suburb of East Brunswick, currently just about the most fashionable hipster area in the city. Stroll over to parallel Lygon Street if you want to indulge in some culinary indulgences.

On its trip southward, the 96 skims the edge of Fitzroy – previous contender for most fashionable hipster area – and if you hop off at Johnston Street you can wander through the Spanish district to its heart, Brunswick Street. Otherwise, take a look out to the right as the tram passes the Carlton Gardens, home to the disconcertingly opulent Victorian-era Exhibition Building or its contrastingly modern neighbour, the Melbourne Museum. It then travels sedately past the steps of Parliament House, and along Bourke Street, downtown’s main artery and shopping strip. I got off here for a coffee at Café Felice at 461 Bourke (nice Queensland Di Bella coffee) and a look at the Mall.

At the south end of the city centre, the 96 turns east (at Southern Cross Station) over the river and past Crown Casino, where some of your fellow passengers will alight, tempted by poker machines and cheap booze. Don’t be tempted! Stay on board and you’ll leave the city streets, past the old brick tea house and turn on to a disused rail line, a treat for public transport followers.

South Melbourne station is the stop for the South Melbourne Markets, where you can while away an hour or two tasting produce and buying ridiculously cute cupcakes.

You will rejoin street traffic at St Kilda, where you can enjoy the slightly shabby art deco buildings, take a ride on a 1912 rollercoaster at Luna Park

or have a paddle at St Kilda beach, and terminates at Acland Street, home to some of the city’s cafe and cake establishments.

Do NOT Despair

The new buzz term for old fartz goes something like this:


Fabulous, fit and fifty.


But under no circumstances forget the next one - svelte, sexy and sixty

Joys of Local Language Skills

Having skills in another language is both good and not so good.

I have vivid memories of screwing up over over the words for “wind” and “dog” in bahasa indonesian while still a beginner in the language .......it translated as “the dog coming through the window” when it should have been “the wind” an anjing [ dog] rather than “angin” [wind].

But being back on Bintan Island where Indonesian is widely spoken by the staff at the hotels, and with my now reasonably competent Indonesian language skills has great opportunities for rapport with the staff. That sort of rapport does help.

Indonesians generally seem to mix and enjoy interacting with Australians at the direct personal level. They enjoy a laugh and a joke, as well as a bit of repartee, even taking the mickey out of one another. That was quite a common theme when working in the country with my direct work contact staff.

But even at the hotel, a smile, local language exchange and they accept you more readily.

I guess the theme applies more widely, across many countries.

But Indonesia and Australia have definitely not always been such great buddies historically over the past 50 years. Yet in a wider historical context, there has been contact between Makassan traders and north Australia for about 400 plus years. The aboriginal word for white man is mostly “balanda”, a term thought to have come from the Makassans, who used it to refer to the white skinned Dutch.

But for travel around the region, Indonesian language which can substitue mostly for Malay as well, covers maybe 300 million people. A lot more than Australia.

It has been a useful skill to have acquired.......and getting a chance to practice is a lot of fun too, especially with the travel.

Out and about in the Lion City

The street furniture is really going up for the Formula 1 SingTel Singapore Grand Prix. I am sure that somewhere there will be records of the amount of concrete and steel; but let me tell you, it’s lots! There is also a new permanent pit building, 1.2 kilometres of new road, a large amount of spectator seating and the lights are on, big time - turning night into day along the route.

The photo is looking down Bras Basah Road towards Marina Square, with the lights from the corner near the War Memorial . They are very bright!

Viet Nam! – Myth to Modernity

I am sorry to say that I felt that the exhibition was very disappointing, no even more so……a tad underdone. Yes, there was quite a lot of artifacts, from earlier eras, but little to tie them together and cover the ebb and flow of the great dynasties, rulers, regality and the reach of kingdoms across what is now Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia even into Thailand and southern China in the period 1200- 1600, before the arrival of Christian missionaries. After all, one of the ancient rulers of Vietnam beat the great conquering mongol, Genghis Khan. Some of the artifacts are quite stunning, especially the bronze and porcelain, and the statuary.

There was little on the modern period, even the 19th and 20th centuries – little on the French period in the late 18th and 19th centuries, little on the nationalist era of the early 20th century and the removal of the French colonialists, little on the American war [the Vietnam War of the 1960s- 1970s] except for a small photo of the Ho Chi Minh trail, nothing on the heroin trade of the 1970s and 1980s [see the book - The Politics of Heroin in SE Asia by Alfred McCoy] and really nothing on the period since 1980, when most of the current citizens of Vietnam arrived in the world.

All of a sudden the exhibition just stopped, with nothing but a few propaganda posters of the 20th century and a picture of Ho Chi Minh made of postage stamps. Not a lot that extended the exhibition in name ie the modernity, and the rapid industrialization of the past 30 years was also conspicuous by its absence.

Even the Ho Chi Minh trail, a key element of the so called American war…….if you have seen it, you marvel at the effort to move goods and munitions along the trail. It is tough going in monsoonal weather, of the character of the WWII Kokoda trail in Papua New Guinea, and a powerful tool that boosted nationalism and effectively operated through, and survived the US bombing. Where is all this stuff???? You can learn more of the pre 2nd world war period [1930-1940] by reading The Quiet American by Grahame Greene, or seeing the movie. What an opportunity squandered!

On the road again … oops, that’s in the air again, first.

We are on our way to Asia; first stop Singapore, and lucky for us, or our bank balance anyway; we will be there just over a week before the vroom, vroom of very expensive, very loud and very fast machinery hits the city streets of Singapore for the first ever night Grand Prix. Who would have thought that Singapore would close down its streets for a loud crowd of expensive, fast, Formula 1 racing cars. This is the city that had “encouraged” travel by (admittedly a very good) public transport system, by making ownership of cars out of the financial limits of most of the population, by its pricing of the cars themselves and the “on road costs”, plus city road congestion charges. I guess money talks as loudly there as it does anywhere else. If pricing of hotel rooms during the event is anything to go by, the hoteliers are definitely not missing out on the starting gun. $160 per night to $900 per night in just one day; and that’s not even at a front row seat establishment – you will need a lot more shekels for that type of genteel place to rest your head before and after the roar of the Ferrari’s and McLarens flexing their muscles. With three day passes ranging in price from $168 to $1388 there will be plenty of cash changing hands as there are expected to be 90 000 spectators attending. At least some would appear to be going Aussie way as Melbourne architect/engineer firm Kellogg, Brown & Root have been involved with construction.

So we plan to have a look at the Vietnam! From Myth to Modernity exhibition at the Ancient Civilizations Museum, do some street wandering with camera’s again and enjoy the beautiful street food of the place. And, I guess we will wander through Sim Lim Square and the Funan Centre, just to see what the latest and greatest electronic must haves are for the whiz kids.

Then we might go for a boat ride, not a slow one; but rather, a fairly fast one to Bintan.

But more about that later.

One of things that rather annoys me about travelling is the excessive cost which hotels charge for internet connection. One day charge can be as much as a two to three month charge for the average provider. Is it that they don’t want too many people using it – must be I think. Oh one of the joys – take up thy laptop and walk … to the nearest reasonable priced internet cafe or wifi powered venue, have a couple of coffees and upload and download. Wouldn’t it be nice to just sit at the desk in your room, which one has paid a reasonable amount for, and do it from there. But I refuse to “waste” that amount of money, so it won’t happen. I will just have to look a bit harder and move a bit further out of my comfort zone … again … and find a place which has the lot.

Christmas Dinner at Le Meridien Kuala Lumpur

Just as we were arriving at the restaurant for our Christmas Eve Dinner, the carollers arrived at the entrance, providing the right ambiance for the evening. They sang quite a few traditional carols and then moved on to entertain other guests in other venues. We were settled at our beautifully decorated table, which was placed right beside a window so that we could enjoy the night lights of the city. We were brought a very nice glass of wine and invited to help ourselves to the buffet. Well, it was more like buffets; as there were several “live kitchens” set up around the edge of the restaurant with chefs to prepare your requests. Separate areas for Malay, Japanese, Chinese, Indian and European foods were set up plus seafood, salads and the largest dessert buffet I have seen in a long while. Death by chocolate is a phrase which flows to mind.

All the while we were entertained by a wandering minstrel group singing carols and other music from around the world. They were ably assisted by a small group of children who were delighted to be asked to be part of the entertainment.

The presentation was magnificent and the food tasted excellent too. Any apprehension we may have had about celebrating Christmas in a non Christian country was definitely dispelled.

For some photos of the dinner at the Le Meridien Hotel click on the thumbnail photo below.


by oldfartz99