Down Nun-der

I’m now in Bangkok where it’s very very hot and humid but I’ll give a quick update on my few days in Sydney.

I left the hostel in Auckland at 2am last Tuesday morning as my flight across the ditch was at 5, I didn’t see much point of going to bed that night so I just stayed up and chatted to some Germans (one was Austrian). There was a bit of a carry on at the airport as Qantas had loaded one plane with all the bags and another with all the meals and this meant a bit of a delay, we didn’t take off until 6:45! I must have had my head buried deep into the sand as I had no idea there was some Catholic Woodstock type thing going on in Sydney this past week so my flight was packed full of French pilgrims on their way to see the Pope. I’m still not sure why they were in New Zealand, surely it was easier for them to go direct to Australia rather than via Auckland, maybe they heard the Rainbow Warrior was still active and wanted to finish the job. Anyway, after an eventful few hours with the pilgrims, we landed in Sydney and it was very much a case of “Catholicism, Wow!” as the sheer number of people was a sight to be seen. They were all covered in their national flags, singing and dancing as they made their way to the city. I somehow made it to the train and made the short trip to the hostel at the railway station. I’ve got the feeling trains are going to be the general theme of my travels from now on.

With the time difference and all that, it was still only about 1 o’clock so I thought I’d have an explore of the city. I went down to Circular Quay and tried to get within viewing distance of some landmarks but World Youth Day (the name of the Catholic event, which lasted for several days) had already claimed all the prime spots in the city for their activities. The Pope obviously teaching them the old towel on the sun lounger trick – you can take the man out of Germany…

I can’t really think of anything major that happened other than the crowds of people with all their chanting and the fashionable pink and yellow bags they all had. I got talking to a guy in the hostel about everything that was happening and we thought it would have been a good idea if they brought some Protestants and Jews down here, spice things up a little but it was mostly a Catholic thing. Shame. It was impressive that there were no major signs of trouble, I’d have thought with a quarter of a million people there’d be at least something but it was all well organised and I guess the chances of something kicking off from within the pilgrim community were small. All nationalities living in peace and harmony with each other, brings a tear to the eye.

I took a trip up the Sydney Tower (the second tallest building in the southern hemisphere) for a look around the city. It was similar to the Empire State or Sky Tower in many ways, I was just looking across a big city, sure there’s the odd unique feature but mostly it was just buildings in every direction. I did see (from a great distance) the Pope arrive into the harbour with his large array of vessels, it was a somewhat more peaceful arrival than previous large Catholic fleets heading towards an English speaking harbour.

On Friday I went on a day trip to the Blue Mountains, it stopped off at various other locations too, including a wildlife park and a small town sweet shop. We even had attempts at throwing boomerangs and, much like the throwing excursions of Taihape, I failed to impress although it did at least get off the ground, unlike some. At the wildlife park, there were the usual suspects of antipodean animals, koalas looking all too relaxed, emus wandering around and some albino wallabies doing whatever albino wallabies do. The Blue Mountains themselves were amazing, although the blueness wasn’t much to write home about, the overall area was beautiful and it was good to take some rides to get down amongst the forest, which included the world’s steepest incline railway with a soundtrack of the Indiana Jones theme.

I can’t think of too much more about Sydney, I didn’t do a great deal, just had a bit of an explore, had an awkward James Bond/Police Academy style encounter with the Russian embassy and saw more nuns than I’ll ever see again in one place (I hope).

Now, after a 9 hour flight, I’m in Thailand. I’ve got no real plans as such but later today I’m going to the train station to get a trip to Singapore (via KL) sorted out so I’ll have a week or so down there before coming back up and seeing Thailand. I can’t remember what it’s called but I’m in a huge shopping centre, it’s near Siam Square, and I saw a stall selling conipizza, which is pizza in a cone. Genius.