The Great Escape Part 2: Australia

5:45 AM: First train leaving Tehara station.

6:05 AM: First “Haruka” limited express train to Osaka Kansai Airport.

7:45 AM: Train arrives at Kansai Airport.

8:30 AM: Check-in for flight to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

10:30 AM: Plane leaves.

2:00 PM Vietnam Time (2 hours behind Japan Time): Land in Ho Chi Minh City.

11:00 PM Vietnam Time: Flight Leaves for Melbourne, Australia.

11:00 AM Australia Time (different, somehow, from Vietnam, but how?): Land in Melbourne, Australia.

I am here to tell you- to testify, to yell to the mountains: An eight-hour layover in Ho Chi Minh Airport, voted “Most Boring Airport On Earth” by an independent committee (me and two other foreigners enroute from Japan) is NOT worth whatever money you save by agreeing to have your flight routed through HCMC. Add to that that it took over 24 hours for me to get to Melbourne, and I begin to wish I was a rich man who could afford to fly direct (check the prices on orbitz, and you’ll see why we sat for 8 hours in HCMC)- there is NOTHING to do at this place, and the only stores in the waiting area accept nothing but US dollars. No yen, and no Vietnamese Dong, as it’s illegal to take that out of the country, so your Foreign Exchange won’t even give you some before you go. In short: Don’t do it.

I ended up spending just over 2 days in Melbourne. Day 1 was “Explore the City!” day- it’s a beautiful place, but my camera was still packed away, so I’ve got only memories, and no pictures. It’s impressive how the mind functions after being so long away from an English-speaking country; it seems as if everyone you hear is talking just to you. Eavesdropping, for the first few minutes, isn’t a conscious thing, but since suddenly this vast world of effortless understanding has opened up to you, it’s impossible to tune it out or ignore it.

In the exploration of the city, I got to see the aftereffects of the Commonwealth Games, which had ended just a few days before. Got to poke around some impressive architecture- Federation Square, a big church, a few interesting train stations. Got to enjoy Western-sized portions of food. Had a kangaroo steak- tastes like jumpy beef. There are pictures, but they’re trapped on Richelle’s camera- Richelle being my traveling companion for this trip, she’ll feature later in the Vietnam pictures.

The next day, I went on a package tour out to see the Little Penguins. The Little Penguins (always in caps) march in from the sea in big packs every night to get back to their nests on Phillip Island. It’s cute- they’re tiny. The tour took all day- first, we went to an animal park, which showed off koalas, a wombat (the fat dude in the picture), a Tasmanian devil, dingoes, ostriches, wallabies and kangaroos (all of which, save for the devil and the wombat, you get to feed by hand),

followed by a long walk on the beach,

a trip to a seal nesting ground (where we saw no seals- they must have been out) and then finally to Phillip Island to see the penguins. In short, it was like an amusement park ride: fun to experience, boring to tell about, as the chances for real adventure and interesting stories were limited to the aims and directions of our guide, a jocular Aussie who played to as many Steve Irwin stereotypes as humanly possible. Sidenote: Customs in Australia has some really strict quarantine laws. Explaining these laws in a happy, instructional video is our good friend the Crocodile Hunter, who plays with the contraband-sniffing beagles and emphasizes how important it is to “Declare (pronounced: Declayah) or Beware (bewayah)”, as the fine for violating this is 30 grand Australian dollahs. Dollars. Whatevah.

So with that tour out of the way, we caught the last train back to the house where we were staying (in a ‘burb called Sunshine that looked like, frankly, a twisted Aussie reflection of a few ‘burbs I’ve seen in Detroit- no, not the nice ones) and crashed out in a tent in the backyard. The next day, it was off to Vietnam, in my mind the main attraction. I liked Australia, but it was a friendly, easy, guided, English-speaking walk in the park. Vietnam was different. Very different.