Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!

And welcome South-East Asia! You’ve all read about our adventures in the middle of Australia, but how did things go on the West coast of Australia? Let me tell you all about it! Francesca and I had heard about a phenomenon called “couch-surfing” before we embarked on our trip. In New Zealand we never even thought about it, because the hostels were all pretty awesome and nicely priced. We found the prices less to our liking here in Australia, and have tried to find someone to “couch-surf” with since Sydney.

Francesca knew about this website called http://www.couchsurfing.org and we sent out a few e-mails to people in Perth to see if we could try surfing someone’s couch here. We got a few NOs, but also a few Yeses! Still not quite knowing what to expect we asked for directions and got some very helpful replies. One of the people that said yes was a girl named Prue Anderson. Her profile looked cool and she had been traveling herself for quite a bit. We chose to ask her if we could stay with her for a few days and got a positive response. We exchanged contact-details and Prue asked us to call once we got into Perth.

After our flight Francesca gave Prue a ring and we got directions to her place. With our backpacks on our backs we jumped on the train and headed for the suburb she lived. When we got to the station called Claremont we got off and looked for the right way. We were not entirely sure where to go, but asked some cops and in the end found out where to go.

Walking over to her house we already noticed we were in a nice neighborhood. Prue’s house was part of a group of houses with little pathways and back gardens dividing them. We found Prue’s spare key and went inside. Prue was still at work, so we made ourselves comfortable in our new room. The room had 2 mattresses linked together, a desk and a giant inflatable work-out ball. I dragged the bags upstairs and Francesca and I decided to explore Claremont a little. Making our way back to the train station we found the main street and walked down it. Francesca soon remarked there was not much to see and do, and she was getting pretty hungry, so we asked for directions to the nearest supermarket.

We walked around some more and eventually Francesca got very excited about a whole roasted chicken, which we duly purchased. Adding some fresh vegetables, some buns and orange juice our simple meal for the evening was done. Prue only came back after we had finished dinner, as she had just gone to a goodbye-party for her sister, who was about to move to the States. Obviously, she was quite sad, but we talked for a good while regardless and had fun doing so. Tired, but very happy with our first couch-surfing experience we went to bed early.

I’m very happy to tell you we did nothing the next few days. Prue invited us to come to the nearby ‘Claremont Hotel’ for a drink. We talked to her some more and she shared stories of her travels in South-East Asia, which was very helpful for us, since we were still quite clueless about things to do, how to get around and where to go exactly. We exchanged some of our adventures in Australia, New Zealand and Costa Rica whilst enjoying a local beer. Not too bad! The next few days we slept in and watched movies like Castaway, Sukiyaki Western Django, series like Summer Heights High and America’s Next Top Model and finally some stand-up comedy by Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey. Francesca had also wanted to play Vampire Masquerade: Redemption, a very old game that we had downloaded and she thought she had beaten in 2 hours or so. We found out she only played the introduction, and in fact it would take closer to 24 hours to finish it. Prue was kind enough to cook for us once (some delicious creamy veggie pasta), and we returned the favor the following day with one of our famous fruit/veggie/cashew pastas. Otherwise, we really could not be bothered to move too much, since we really needed a break from our crazy antics in Cairns and Uluru.

In fact, we hibernated until Friday the 16th when we finally found ourselves re-energized enough to explore Perth. We took the train back to the city center and went to the waterfront, where we found the famous Bell Tower, a rather oddly shaped structure with some information on the making of bells and how to play them. We decided not to pay money for a walk up the tower, instead opting for a read of the free brochures lying around.

Here is what the brochures said and wiki summarizes:

"The Swan Bells are a set of eighteen bells hanging in a specially built 82.5 metres (271 ft)-high copper and glass campanile in Perth, Western Australia. Taking their name from the Swan River, which their tower overlooks, and forming a sixteen-bell peal with two extra chromatic notes, they are one of the largest sets of change ringing bells in the world."



Next, Francesca and I exited the Tower, and found a pond with some cool mosaic on the floor. I tried to push Francesca into the water, whilst holding on to her arms, seeing how far she would be able to hang over the water. Unfortunately, she did not enjoy this as much as me, so we stopped after some whine from my companion. Instead, we walked around the waterfront, finally heading for the Supreme Court Gardens, and the grand Supreme Court itself.



The weather was quite nice and we decided to sit around in the adjacent park for a while, talking about our future plans. Originally, we had found 4 hosts in Perth, each hosting us for 2 days in a row. Prue had kindly offered us to stay until Sunday, so we decided to inform our other hosts that we weren’t going to make it. Perth’s center really didn’t have that much else to offer, so my partner-in-crime and I just hobbled around. We also made plans for our Saturday, since we hadn’t gone out for dinner in celebration of our 1-year-anniversary.

Saturday proved to be quite an active day: we wanted to research the possibility of going to The Pinnacles, the only cool thing that we had found to do around Perth. Francesca had scored us two free internet cards at Peter Pan, a nationwide travel agency with a branch in Perth. The agent gave us several brochures, none of which really excited us. Unfortunately, most of them included another wildlife park, more sandboarding and only a short stop at The Pinnacles themselves. Instead, we decided to look for cheaper alternatives ourselves.

A tip from Prue and her housemate Sarah led us to Subiacco, one of the older suburbs of Perth. We got there a little early (well before opening time) so we walked around and found some majestic architecture. Still, it was too hot to be outside comfortably, so we ducked into the cinema and waited there for a while. It seemed strange to us we couldn’t really handle the heat here in Perth, whereas it was hotter and more humid and Cairns and just plain hotter in Uluru. We couldn’t quite put our finger on it, but we found ourselves getting exhausted much faster here.

Anyway, around 18:00PM we headed for Chutney Mary’s, as we had heard ‘the best Indian restaurant in town.’ In fact, there were two best restaurants in town, as Chutney Mary's sister-restaurant 'Little Mary's' was right next door. We opted for the big sister since we liked her menu better. The restaurant certainly looked very nice! Francesca opted for a butter chicken (who would’ve guessed!), whereas I went for one of the chef’s specials: a lamb dish. We also ordered a side of Naans with 3 unique dipping sauces. The food was great, and we slowly devoured our meals whilst talking about the past year and the time still to come. Very, very satisfied with our food, and very happy to have celebrated our anniversary we headed back to Claremont for sleep.

On Sunday we were supposed to say goodbye to Prue, and meet Thomas, our new host. Somewhere in the afternoon I finished packing our bags. We gave Prue a big hug, thanked her kindly for her great hospitality and planned on meeting up in Thailand. Francesca had texted Thomas and he would pick us up from Victoria Park Station. It took us about an hour to make it to Victoria Park, and we were soon after greeted by another happy face.

Thomas took us back to his place (well, his parents’ place) and showed us our room. Wow, an awesome king-size bed for us! We sat down with Thomas and talked to him for a while about his life, and we told him about ours. Thomas shared he is currently getting ready to join the air force, with just a surgery on his knee preventing him from starting right now. He told us about his travels in Europe, most interestingly the Balkan.



Francesca and I had to head for the city again that night, because we had just found out our flight to Singapore wasn’t on the 22nd of October, as we had thought, but on the 3rd of November. Earlier that week we had found out the McDonald’s offered free wireless internet, so we went there and called AA to change our flight to the 21st of October, and also called my mother and grandmother (Hi Oma!). Francesca felt like a burger and fries, so we sinned a little and shared one of the burger-meals whilst making our calls. After dinner we headed back to Victoria Park and sat down on Thomas’ couch, watching a movie and talking some more.

On Monday we had our appointment with the Travel Doctor, where we would get our shots for S-E Asia. We found out we needed 5 shots (Polio, Hep A and Hep B, Typhoid Fever and a free Swine Flu shot) each, and got some Malaria pills as well. Francesca was not too happy with 5 shots, (especially Polio seemed to hurt as she squealed during the shot) but we made it through. With a sore arm and 5 Band-Aids we finally went to the one place in Perth everyone had told us to go: King’s Park.



Francesca and I had postponed it, because we were tired of the never-ending stream of botanical gardens that Australia seems to have. However, we could not find anything else to do, so we walked all the way to the park, and then slowly made our way through it. The park indeed was huge and we spent many hours there. We did see quite a few nice flowers and plants, as Perth is famous for its wildflowers, and it happened to be the season for it, but our main goal was the DNA-tower. We had heard it was really cool, but for some reason did not manage to find it (there was some roadwork going on!) and in the end just decided to give up and went to the supermarket to pick up some groceries for dinner. We made Thomas one of our haute cuisine dishes and he promised to cook for us the next day. Good deal!









Francesca and I had also decided to send back another box of goods we did no longer need (all of our winter clothing, which was taking up loads of space and weighed a ton!), so we had brought back the biggest box they had at the post office and filled it to the rim with clothes and other stuff. In fact, when we went to send it out on Tuesday it was too full and we had to tape it shut. We ended up taping it completely and we’re pretty sure it’s water-resistant now (and would probably survive nuclear attacks too) as we used up an entire roll of tape.



Just outside the Post Office Francesca and I noticed the ‘Western Power Solar Model Car Challenge ’09’ (quite the mouth full). Basically, high school kids had been given a basic set with a solar panel and a motor, which they had to fit in a model car, and race around a track. The fastest times would go on to a knock-out system the following day. We saw some really cool and fast creations, and some misfits that barely made it past the starting point.





There was supposed to be a free walking tour of the artsy places in Perth right after the event on the square ended. We had gone over to the kiosk and asked for some information. Francesca and I decided we would start it and just sneak off if it turned out to be boring. However, as the starting time came closer and closer we were still the only 2 people standing there. We went to the bathroom and discussed our plans, deciding we’d go get food instead. Francesca had a craving for a hotdog, and I had wanted a smoothie, so sharing both made a good meal for the both of us. Even though it was our last day, we still wanted to find out whether we could go to The Pinnacles with Greyhound or another bus company, so we asked around finding out there were no other options other than the brochures we already possessed. We weighed our options and in the end decided to stick with our flight the next day. Sorry Pinnacles, we’ll come visit you in due time!

Finally, we headed back to Thomas’ place for dinner. He made us a very spicy and tasty Thai curry, which we loved after our long day in town. I started packing our backpacks for our flight the next day and Francesca talked to Thomas. We exchanged music with him, since he shared our taste for Indie Rock & Roll. We now possess a lot of Ozzie Rock! Our last night in our comfortable bed was a good one, and became even better as Thomas offered to drop us off at the airport. Great!

We said our goodbyes to Thomas, couch-surfing, and Australia, and sat around at the airport, waiting for our flight to Singapore! Francesca will tell you what our first S-E Asian country brought us!