A weekend trip to Margaret River, Lonely Planet’s top 10 regions in the WORLD.

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Estella

Can you be on a diet and enjoy Margaret River? Sure you can. All weekend long, I drank wine, ate cheese, gorged on chocolate, stuffed my face with gourmet meals and came back 1 kilogram lighter! In fact, if I were to formulate a dieting program, mine would involve a week’s stay in this food and wine lover’s paradise.

Listed as one of Lonely Planet’s top 10 regions in the world to visit for 2010, Margaret River is still as charming today as when Lonely Planet decided to alert the world to its many splendours. There are so many picturesque vineyards, gourmet producers of food, art galleries, heavily-forrested bush-walking trails, bejewelled caves and soft-sandy beaches to chose from that a weekend is simply inadequate to discover everything Margaret River has to offer.

Be that as it may, HRH and I, tagging Amanda along as usual, made up our minds to see as much as we can in the space of 36 hours, allowing for time on the road and a good night’s rest. Our first stop in Margaret River was at the ever-helpful I-site centre, where we were suggested, nay ordered, to sample Clancy’s Fish Pub.

“It’s definitely worth a visit,” said the lovely attendant at the I-site centre. “It’s got some of the best fish around.”

And boy, was she right! The fish was so fresh you could smell the ocean on it even after cooking. The prawns tasted the way real prawns should, instead of like those rubber bullets coming from China.

What a place to sit and eat your fish and chips!

Bright and cheerful furnishings at the Clancy’s Fish Pub in Dunsborough.

In front of us, prawn and crab bisque, closer to the camera is pan-fried line-caught snapper.

Only 3 prawns and 3 TBS of crab but packed full of flavour.

Heaven in every bite.

Here’s a joke for the Christians.

After lunch, which I might add was utterly delicious but not very filling for $80, we stopped by Simmo’s Ice Creamery. There, befuddled at the endless “delicious dilemmas” as Simmo’s puts it, I had a small cone of cherry ice cream, whilst HRH had an adult-sized single scoop cone of pistachio ice cream and Amanda a kid’s size cone of her regular strawberry ice cream. The total for all 3 ice creams? A very affordable $11.80.

How does one choose from so many flavours? Delicious dilemmas alright!

"All children left unattended will be sold to the circus."

Amanda oblivious to the sign “Children left unattended will be sold to the circus.”

How about a few rounds of golf after all that ice cream? At Simmo’s you can !

From Simmo’s Ice Creamery we ventured to Yallingup beach where we saw surfer dudes and dudettes suiting up to catch gigantic waves.

Miles and miles of pristine shoreline – a sight that is infinitely better in the flesh.

Bad hair due to the strong winds at Yallingup beach. Can't complain other than that.

Bad hair due to strong winds at Yallingup beach. Can’t complain other than that.

After Yallingup beach, our stomachs were growling so loudly we had to swing by Gabriel Chocolate to refuel. Ignoring the House of Cards Winery next door, we made a mad dash to the Cheese Factory to sample some of the finest cheeses and shiraz jelly made in this region before they closed their doors for the day.

A picture of Gabriel's chocolates in Margaret River, Western Australia.

A picture of Gabriel Chocolate in Margaret River, Western Australia.

Maybe next time. A picture of the House of Cards Winery in Margaret River, Western Australia.

It’s worth the $6 I paid. B far the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had.

It's a good thing she's can burn the calories. There probably 2000 calories in that one drink. It cost me another $6.

It’s a good thing she can burn the calories. There are probably 2000 calories in that one drink. It cost me another $6.

Since Margaret River is very popular on the weekends, with some B & B’s booked for weeks in advance and charging up to $340 per night, not knowing any better until we got there, we booked a quaint two-bedroom cottage in Karridale, a half hour’s drive from Margaret River proper. Our accommodation, Karridale Cottages, costing $165 per night, offered plenty of “country-living” activities for visitors but because we spent the whole day checking out the gourmet food producers in Margaret River’s north and middle, only arrived shortly before bedtime.

See all those trees around us? We could have gone bush-walking!

It's an eco-friendly hut made of rammed earth. The water coming out through taps is collected rain-water and the whole place runs on solar energy.

It’s a 2 bedroom, eco-friendly hut made out of rammed earth. The water coming out through taps is collected rain-water and the whole place runs on solar energy.

The next morning we broke our overnight fast with the $33 worth of cheese we bought from the Cheese Factory. It was such a heavy, if satisfactory meal, it lasted us our trip to Cape Leeuwin further south, where the Southern Ocean meets the Indian Ocean, through the magnificent Booranup Karri Forests and a 45 minute minute down into the bowels of Calgardup Cave and back. By which time we were glad we hadn’t signed up for the $50, 3-cave-deal, at Jewel Cave near Karridale.

Shrouded in mist. Approaching Cape Leeuwin lighthouse.

I once saw this in a friend’s travel album on facebook. Seeing it in person brings the rugged beauty of the place to a whole other level.

We’re with Mr Cow, enjoying the vistas of the magnificent Cape.

Last few metres. A picture of HRH and Amanda walking towards the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse. It costs $5 per person to tour the grounds and $17 per person to ascend the lighthouse.

It feels like standing at the edge of the world. A picture of where the Southern Ocean meets the Indian Ocean at Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia.

Karri trees are some of the tallest, if not the tallest trees in Western Australia. The Booranup Karri Forests at said to be at par with the Amazonian jungle in terms of biodiversity of plant species.

Karri trees are some of the tallest, if not the tallest trees, in Western Australia. The Booranup Karri Forests is said to be at par with the Amazonian jungle in terms of biodiversity of plant species.

It cost us $30 to go visit the Calgardup Cave. At one point, in total darkness and with the ceiling the height of my waist, I was convinced I couldn’t go on without hitting something.

This is one of the more “family friendly” self-guided caves. I recommend it for families with children over the age of 6.

A the default camera person, I had no photo.

We’re not supposed to touch even an inch of the cave as the grime on our fingers inhibits future crystal growth.

See what I mean about the ceiling being my waist height?

After all that physical activity, we felt deserving of another Margaret River gourmet experience, so we headed over to Leeuwin estate for a wine-flight and some lunch.

Beaming from all the wine sampled before lunch. Here with more wine as part of my “wine flight.”

This deck overlooks perfectly manicured lawns and Karri forests.

Line caught pink snapper on crushed chorizo sauce.

Claypot yabbies with fennel in a bisque.

With our eyes bigger than our stomachs, we went in search of desert after lunch. We found our way to the Berry Farm off Rosa Glen Road where I had a generous serving of plums poached in Merlot, served with Margaret River ice cream, and HRH had berry cheesecake. For once, Amanda preferred riding the flying fox in the playground to food. Well, who came blame her? We ate to within an inch of bursting! But rest assured, we’ll be back to visit Margaret River again. Did I mention I lost 1 kg with all this eating?

Planted in hour of the founder of the Berry Farm.

Planted in honour of the founder of the Berry Farm.

A picture of the gardens at the Berry Farm in Margaret River, Western Australia.

There was no more alcohol there but I felt drunk all the same.

The cheese was light and fluffy, yet the biscuit base so buttery. I’m sure there were 1 million calories in there but it was worth every bite.

Various shades of Oz: Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth.

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Estella

I was at the dentist yesterday, having my twice yearly check-up and clean like a good girl, when, between being X-rayed and scaled, the dentist and I got chatting about the many capital cities of Australia. For those of you who skipped Geography in school, there are 8 capital cities, also known as metropolitan areas, to match the 6 states and 2 territories. You might think they are one and the same, given the deep anglo roots of this country, but having lived in, if not visited, all of them, plus many country towns along the way, I can safely say that each are characters in their own right.

Darwin for instance, is the Hawaiian-shirt wearing clown of the bunch. Sydney is the primped and pedicured, brand-wearing fashionista. Melbourne is the late-twenty-something-year-old connoisseur of cafes and culture in the occasional pea coat. I see them all personified and dressed differently because as a woman, clothes are what I notice. It’s been said that women dress for each other and that is generally true.

The dentist, a terrific-looking blonde from the U.K., who’s only been in Perth slightly longer than I have, was mainly interested in Melbourne and Brisbane.

“What’s there?” I asked, after she asked me to gargle with the minty-flavoured water.

“Work for my partner. He’s in marketing.”

“There’s a lot of black in Melbourne, especially in the city on workdays. You’ll sometimes see shades of olive and grey, towards the end of the week. Somehow the weather makes the typical Melburnian dress more sedately than say, a Queenslander. Few wear red or other really bright colours.”

One of my Brisbane buddies went to Melbourne for a work conference and came back telling me she felt like a flamingo at the Hilton, dressed in red with slivers of pink.

“It’s like the U.K. then,” says the dentist.

“Is that what people over there dress like?”

“Either that or it is the U.K. influence in Melbourne.”

I wouldn’t call it that since many living in Melbourne have never been anywhere near Europe. It must be the grey skies then that convince people to dress in sombre colours.

“Queenslanders are all about the shorts - very short shorts, board shorts, knee-length tailored shorts, short skirts and thongs. Their personalities are as loud as the colours they wear. There’s plenty of yellow, red, fuchsia and aquamarine to be seen. In my suburb, the Cultural Precinct, everyone wears semi-structured clothes in a riot of prints. Some have that boho-chic thing going on. My daughter’s best friend’s mother for instance, has a knack for working 3 seemingly clashing prints into a single outfit. I don’t know how she does it, but she does. Until 6 months ago she also used to sport a head full of red dreads. It’s amazing how creative types dress.”

Arriving in Perth, I pulled out my silver-purple, leopard print kaftan-dress with salmon ties to wear and HRH said, “Advertising for Queensland, are you?”

“Queenslanders also drive a lot faster and tend to be a lot more aggro on the road.”

“It’s funny you should say that,” said the dentist, fitting together more equipment to put in my mouth. “I’ve read that Perth drivers are some of the worst in the country.”

“No, that can’t be right,” I said. “Perth drivers are exceedingly courteous. Driving around Nedlands, I’ve found most to only drive at 40 km/ph (which explains why I’ve started driving again). Almost no one horns, and at the roundabout, cars on your right, which you’ve to give way to, seem to hesitate before entering the roundabout.”

I’ve also seen many cars go over the curb in an attempt to get into a side-parking instead of doing a proper parallel park.

“If Queensland is the teenager and Melbourne the late twenty-something, then Perth is most certainly middle-aged. Here in Perth’s Western Suburbs, people tend to be chic, if conservative, dressers. On Amanda’s first day at school I noticed many mothers wearing fitted dresses and their good pearls,” I said, after gargling with the minty water yet again. “In Queensland, I wouldn’t even wear my pearls to dinner, let alone to school.”

A jeweller in Nedlands told me that’s because like most Melbournians, I tend not wear what I own. It turns out there’s still something left of Melbourne in me after so many years of living away. But I’ve since decided to do as Romans so in Rome and give my outfits a final flourish of bling because everyone from school administrators to the lady who owns the consignment store across the road, treats you better when you wear something that temporarily blinds them.

“What about cliques?” asked the dentist while loading green goo into mouth trays. “I’ve heard that Melbournians tend to be cliquish.”

“It is true but it was never a problem for me because I have family and many friends there. You just have to find someone willing to introduce you to his or her circle of friends.”

Or if you’re the kind dentists have trouble shutting up, you just make your own like me.

Hello Perth (aka finding a place to stay).

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Estella

Right. So I’ve gone and done the whole Magic Monkey thing of journeying to the West. What do I do next? I look for a place to stay of course! Months prior to coming here, HRH and I had already begun surveying the rental market. We knew that we’d be paying an arm and a leg, competing with students of nearby University of Western Australia for a place to stay near enough to HRH’s new workplace. We’d set ourselves a budget, bearing in mind we’d need money for food, furniture and to service our existing mortgages because last I checked, I didn’t have a spare organ to sell.

But browsing the for-rent pages of Perth over the internet is very different to actually being here in person yourself. For one, some, not all, real estate agents will get back to you on your voice-message enquiry about listed properties. Don’t even think about emailing them because as I’ve discovered, email is so last century; no one checks their email anymore. Or if they do, no one responds. You have to be here in Perth, in person, to hound them!

But don’t hound them too much. That’s what I did when I applied for my first property here: I called every hour on the hour because I was DESPERATE to have a lease in order to enrol Amanda into school. I don’t know about elsewhere but schools in Perth’s affluent Western Suburbs only take children in their predetermined Local Intake Area (LIA). So if your place falls outside the boundaries of the LIA, they might take your child on a case-by-case basis but be warned: if enrolments go above the school’s desired number of students, your child will be asked to leave!

When HRH was told this, he said, “That’s fine. If we ever move out of the area, we’d be going back to Brisbane anyway.”

After we failed to get the first property we applied for – a 6 year old minimalist shoebox zoned to a school where my child might get put into a class with students a grade down from her, a split class, as the school has inadequate students for that year to form another class – I decided to go for a much older property in another Western Suburb. I figured mother’s maxim of “old man’s honey and young man’s slave” must also apply to real estate so I applied for a property that looked like a dog’s breakfast in photos. Frankly, it was my third, if not fourth choice.

However, I’m pleased to tell you it was the right choice because for a start, my realtor is approachable and easy-going, instead of one of those manicured, stilettoed and power-suit wearing people who get pissed off just because you haven’t given them a full 24 hours to check with the owner of the property – as though you need a full 24 hours when presented with applicants as good as us: mature, employed, non- smoking, home-owners. This other area I’ve ended up renting in also has significantly more amenities than the first one so the rejection turned out be a blessing in disguise.

We spent the first 3 days of moving into our new home for the year, getting a DIY degree from IKEA, putting together our sofa, table and 5 dining chairs. I called Telstra on the fourth day to connect our home phone and broadband since we still have an account with them. They gave me a 3-week waiting period for the home phone and a 4-week waiting period for the broadband. When HRH called to ask them if they can speed up either, Telstra said they can’t, not even by a couple of days.

So it’s back to the middle ages for us, with no home phone, no broadband (I’m using the facilities of a cyber cafe), no fridge, no washing machine, no TV…The upside of this is that Amanda’s been doing 6 to 7 pages of the Naplan workbook we bought her for her birthday, daily, instead of dumbing down herself with television like she used to after school in Brisbane. I’ve been reading pages from the Weekend Australian to her, stories meant for a learned audience, about change in the world, coming Australian state and general elections, the odd recipe about vine-ripened tomatoes. We’ve been bonding – the only way a parent and child can - through old-fashioned conversation. I’d say the whole experience of going without technology, due to circumstance in our new home of Perth, has been good, but for having to save 16 $1 coins for the Laundrobar across the street.That gets partially fixed today with the delivery of our new fridge and washing machine from www.appliancesonline.com.au after lunch today. Which reminds me, I really must be home to open the door for the delivery man. Until next time…

5 things you need to know about driving across Australia.

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Estella

Okay, maybe you are very adventurous. Perchance you are just plain crazy like us and want to see how big, wide, and brown this continent called Australia really is. Here’s 5 things you should know before leaving the house:

1) Petrol stations aren’t everywhere.

In fact, as you go through the outback, you might only see what Aussies call a “servo”, as in service station, every 100 kilmetres or so. Therefore if your fuel light’s a-flashin’, I suggest you get a-pumpin’ at the nearest servo, regardless of the price. The difference in the price of petrol between capital cities and country towns can be as much as 15 cents a litre, but across the Nullabor - actually anywhere from after Port Augusta in South Australia, to 200 km outside of Norseman in Western Australia - petrol can be as dear as $1.97 a litre. That’s in AUD, folks.

2) Car service stations can be found in most small towns.

Still on the car: if you should say hit a kangaroo or get into any car trouble along the way, you can always find a workshop at the small town nearest to you. They typically have a towing facility, although I’d say that if you need towing, you’re probably in no shape to continue with the road trip as a drive like the one we’ve undertaken is arduous.

We drive a Toyota and through the many small towns we’ve been, we’ve always seen a Toyota service station. Places like Toowomba and Port Augusta, obviously the “bigger small towns” have workshops for other brands of vehicles too. Eucla had a mechanis who quite cleverly put a sign saying “NO RAC.” Meaning, your automotive club membership probably doesn’t cover these parts.

3) Food, glorious food.

Now please don’t expect chef-quality tucker while barreling across Australia’s dusty backyard. If you do, you’ll be in for the sort of surprise Weigh Watchers and Jenny Craig charge its members for: as in you’re gonna starve from all those skipped meals.

If you are health and weight conscious like me, and into rice like HRH, the best thing to do to appease your fastidious taste buds is to stock up on fruit at a supermarket before you set off and when passing through any town with a supermarket – some towns only have a petrol pump and a motel. Do please remember to throw away any fruit BEFORE entering South Australia or Western Australia as on-the-spot fines of $200 applies to anyone found transporting fruit into either states.

You may expect restaurant meals to cost between 15 and 50% more than in Australia’s capital cities. The handful of groceries you can get at places like Eucla are twice what they are in a capital city. The typical truckstop along the way only serves fried food like fish and chips, chiko rolls, and bangers and mash. Once in a way, you will find one that makes salad sandwiches (not salad), but be prepared to pay in the vicinity of $6.90 for two slices of bread with two slices of tomato, some shredded lettuce and a slice of beetroot in the middle.

4) A clean bed is a good bed.

Again, it pays to have reasonable expectations when it comes to somewhere to rest your weary head for the night. Many places claim to be “hotels” but they aren’t hotels in the regular sense of the word. Some are highly liveable serviced apartments, many are clean, tidy motels, many still are just rooms with a bed and a TV.

We paid an average of $150 a night; in every instance we stayed at either the best or second best accomodation available. There were certainly many others on our route who decided that camping was more their style and they saved a tidy bundle in accommodation that way.

5) There is no network between Eucla and Norseman.

Yup. You might as well forget about being contactable because Telstra doesn’t reach these parts. I dare say it doesn’t cover other parts of outback Australia either. While we were passing through the area, a couple of thousands of kilometres long, we had no signal on our phones; no signal also means no internet. It was good though; being uncontactable is rare in this modern world so we relished just having some time to ourselves.

Our 9-day road-trip from Brisbane to Perth (Part 4)

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Estella

Day 8

The day I’ve been dreading has finally arrived. Today we have to put in 8 solid hours of driving before we can stop for the night. Including lunch and toilet breaks, our trip from Eucla to Norseman will take us 10 hours. Yes, 10 hours. If I take over the wheel at any point, which is likely, to give HRH a break, it’ll take us longer.

” I sail lonely as a cloud…” A picture of the landscape leading away from Eucla towards Norseman, Western Australia.

As we move further into Western Australia, you can see how arid the land is. You know how people love to joke about eating grass? As in, “I’ll live off grass and sunshine?” Well, you’d better ditch your plans to dine on the green stuff because there is close to none of it around. The only plants that thrive in this part of the world are those that are heat and drought-resistant.

See how short the shrubs are? “That’s what happens when plants have no water,” I say to Amanda.

HRH overtakes road-trains and campervans the way he overtakes cars playing that classic car-racing arcade game. Playing against him, I’ve only ever won once, by a very slight margin. He calls out to Amanda who’s awake for once, “You see that juicy deer in front? Our tiger is going to eat that deer.”

No food for at least another 100 km. A picture of the road from Eucla to Norseman, Western Australia

“Go tiger, go!” cheers Amanda from the back, well aware that our car is the tiger and every other car in front of us is a deer.

“They should have a Chinese village here,” says HRH to me. “Then we can stop for some Chinese food.”

Can you eat any of this? Sure, if you’re a donkey!

“Sure,” I reply, somewhat amused. Yesterday, his road-driving-inspired idea was for all suicidal people to be shipped to Mars because if they are intent on ending their lives, they might as well contribute to humanity before doing so. Perhaps, suddenly having a purpose to live might make them change their minds.

“And who do you see as moving to this middle-of-nowhere Chinese village of yours?”

“People from China of course,” he says with a wry smile.

Don't the trees look interesting? As you can see, the top most foliage of every tree in the area has dried up and fallen off.

Don’t the trees look interesting? As you can see, the top most foliage of every tree over a certain height in the area has dried up and fallen off.

“And why would they want to live in the middle of nowhere, in a country where they can’t speak the local lingo, when they can always just move to China’s vast countryside? You’re forgetting that the average Chinese is a gregarious creature.”

We might moan about the traffic jams and the smog, and the noise and the price of housing and the cost of living, but given a choice between a big city and the countryside, most Chinese will choose the former. In fact, no one in my family can understand why we are undertaking this road-trip when there is absolutely no one to see for hundreds of kilometres on end!

HRH stops at a small roadside town called Baladonia to refuel the car. The price of petrol is $1.97 a litre. He pumps only enough to get us to Norseman – very many litres.

A picture of a summary of the route we are taking from Eucla to Norseman on the side of a building at Baladonia.

Why I’ll be damned! After so many hours of travelling, we still have another 191 km to go! Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, we swop seats and I drive for about an hour. It’s only my second time behind the wheel since this arduous road-trip, disguised as a “family holiday”, began but already my driving has improved. For a start, I don’t need any reminding to lift up the hand brake before taking off. HRH’s barking at me when I attempted to do that the last time has seen to that.

Oh Norseman, oh Norseman, where art thou? The endless straight road in front of me makes me think of Char Koay Teow and a nice big bowl of Chendol. Will I ever see either again or will this drive be the death of me?

Soon enough I see the outline of a vehicle, roughly 10 km ahead of mine. I am doing a steady 110 km/ph but I slow to 100 km/ph.

“What do you think you are doing?” asks HRH.

“Avoiding whatever it is in front.”

“If you can’t overtake here, where can you overtake?”

“Probably nowhere. Well, you did want me to drive. I’m not going to overtake,” I say, losing speed further. Now I’m doing 90 km/ph.

HRH shakes his head. We pass through a small town where there is a police vehicle hiding in the bushes.

“Good thing your mama is driving, Amanda,” says HRH. “If it was me, we’d have a speeding ticket.”

Afraid of overtaking, law-abiding citizen that I am, our tiger is only doing 60 km/ph at this point. I heave a sigh of relief when the vehicle ahead of me turns off into a caravan park. However it isn’t long before I come across other motorists. Wanting us to reach Norseman before nightfall, HRH gladly resumes driving once my hour is up.

Hallelujah! It' Norseman! A picture of a summary of the route we are taking from Eucla to Norseman on the side of a building at Baladonia.

Hallelujah! It’ Norseman! A picture of Norseman’s famous metal Camel sculptures.

Day 9

“Oh no. Not another 9 to 10 hours on the road,” I wail as soon as we pile into the car.

By now, even HRH is over seeing Australia’s big backyard. Since we set off at 9 am, we hope to get into Perth before sun down.

Just like the last couple of days, the road stretches on into the horizon. On either side of us is scrubland, alternating in heights and density every hundred kilometres or so. There is a huge metal pipe running parallel to the road, carrying what we were told by the innkeeper at Norseman Railway Motel, is Norseman’s supply of water, coming directly from Perth. From Norseman, the water is transported by road to towns like Baladonia.

Can you see the end? I can’t either. A picture of the road after Norseman towards Perth.

“You can tell that no vegetables will grow here,” I say, noting the hard, reddish soil.

“So now you are an expert on soil, are you?” asks HRH, teasing me.

“It’s only common sense. What farms have we seen since entering WA? You need rain to grow grass and grass to raise cattle; so no rain means, no cattle. No cattle means, no manure to fertilise crops. Even if there was manure, the ground looks just too hard to grow anything in it. Rich soil is always black in colour.”

A picture of the shrubs growing along the road to Perth, just past Norseman.

“Yes, but I’m sure you can put a Chinese village on it.”

What’s with HRH and this Chinese village? “I’m not moving there,” I say. “You can move there if you like.”

As we near Perth, the road widens to two-lanes on either side and snakes downhill. Unbeknown to us, we are travelling through the Perth Hills.

“Oh look,” HRH says excitedly to me. “Petrol is only $1.32 a litre.” And five seconds later, “Oh look. This place is even cheaper. It’s only $1.26 a litre at our good friend Gull.”

After dragging our sorry arses through the Nullabor, any servo selling petrol for less than $1.50 is our good friend.

“Oh, this one is even cheaper,” says HRH. “I’ll come here to pump. Where are we on the map?”

We are somewhere on the Eastern Freeway rolling towards the Central Business District.

“And see what big shopping centres they have!” exclaims HRH, like one of those people from his proposed Chinese village. I imagine this is what mainland Chinese say when they see Hong Kong for the first time.

“It feels like Adelaide crossed with something else,” I say.

“You and your Adelaide,” he says then accuses me of having an unjustified fixation with the capital of a state that has foul tasting water.

Thanks to Tom Tom, we find our home for the next seven days, Perth’s Fraser Suites, without any difficulty. After our many days on the road, all I plan to do is veg out.

Home sweet home. A picture of our apartment at the Fraser Suites in Perth.

Our 9-day road-trip from Brisbane to Perth (Part 3)

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Estella

Day 5

Thankfully yesterday’s mother-of-all-heatwaves has subsided and Port Augusta is a cool 19 degrees C this morning. After reloading the car (it was HRH’s bright idea to “reorganise”), we set off down the road for the famed “Nullabor Plains.”

Now, why is a 1400km stretch of arid, definitely inhospitable, land famous? I suppose if you can survive the boredom of seeing absolutely no one and nothing for hours on end, then you can lay claim to having very good mental concentration and perhaps sign up to be a pilot or a long-distance truck driver. For everyone else there’s the rugged beauty that is outback Australia.

“It’s my birthday today,” says Amanda from the back, for the umpteenth time.

“Yes, I know,” says HRH. “I’m taking you to see the desert, like I promised you.”

“Lily (Amanda’s best friend) had a disco-party. How is this better than a disco-party?”

Trust a newly turned 8 years old to ask all the right questions. There’s no hoodwinking them with promises we adults lap up every time a general election comes around.

“I’m taking you from one end of Australia to another, Amanda,” says HRH, in a tone that implies the magnitude of such an undertaking.

“How is that better?”

HRH shakes his head in disbelief. From Amanda’s viewpoint, it can hardly be better since she was made to give away many of her prized possessions – clothes, ribbons, knick knacks that little girls like collecting – leave her school and say goodbye to all her friends.

“She’s too young to appreciate this never-ending road-trip,” I say to HRH. To Amanda I say, “We’ve gone from Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, to Moree, a small country town in Queensland, to Dubbo, a small country town in the state of New South Wales, to Broken Hill, another small country town in New South Wales, to Port Augusta, where we stopped the day before yesterday, a small country town in the state of South Australia. Today, we’re off to Ceduna, a border town, still in South Australia. How many classmates of yours can say they’ve seen so many places?”

“And how many states does Australia have?”

“6 states and 2 territories. 1 Queensland can make 5 of Peninsula Malaysia. That’s how humongous a country Australia is.”

“People have died trying to find their way out of the desert,” says HRH.

A picture of the countryside outside Port Augusta, South Australia, heading towards Ceduna.

See how low the clouds hang? A picture of the road leading away from Port Augusta, South Australia.

A picture of the landscape leading away from Port Augusta, South Australia.

Did you say “melancholic”? I did too!

While we were in Port Augusta, we heard on the news of a South Australian man who’d gotten lost in the bush. Rescue police were still out looking for him when we left.

A picture of the landscape leading away from Port Augusta, South Australia.

“I once saw this programme about surviving in the wilderness and it says that a) you must build a shelter to keep yourself warm during the night b) search for a source of drinking water…You can get water from leaves by tying a plastic bag around a bunch of them in such a way as to collect the condensation, presuming you had the good sense of bringing along a clean plastic bag and a piece of string before getting lost…c) search for a way of signalling to rescuers. Apparently my lipstick is very handy. If our car should get lost out in the middle of nowhere, we stand a better chance of being spotted by rescue choppers if we use the lipstick to mark a huge X on the roof of the car.”

“I once went for this Aboriginal wilderness survival tour,” says HRH. “You can get water from these plants you see around us.”

“How?”

“I’ve forgotten. It was some 10 years ago.”

“That’s very helpful,” I say, changing the discs yet again. We can’t possibly be listening to Jay Chou another 20 times.

Soon enough we come across one of those towns that seem to exist only to extort petrol-thirsty travellers like ourselves. The price at the pump is a $1.90 a litre. Across the Nullabor, petrol prices go as high as $1.97 a litre. You can either fill up your tank or be prepared to walk until your legs fall off.

A picture of a giant bird between Port Augusta, South Australia, and Ceduna.

I know the name of this bird but have forgotten. Excuse me. I’ll let you know at a later time. A picture of a giant bird between Port Augusta, South Australia, and Ceduna.

The sign says everything: we’re half way across Australia! A picture of a shop between Port Augusta, South Australia, and Ceduna.

Amanda was in heaven seeing this. A picture of a locally mined gems in a shop between Port Augusta, South Australia, and Ceduna.

After another hour and a half on the road, we reach our accommodation for the night, the Ceduna Foreshore Hotel and Motel. Known as the “Oyster Capital of Australia”, Ceduna boasts some good fishing and correspondingly, seriously tasty seafood; HRH and Amanda have a couple of battered banana prawns and fresh scallops and I, on my new cholesterol-lowering diet have marinated octopus for tea. Allowing our stomachs an hour of rest before the onslaught of more food, we return to our hotel room to watch Spongebob Squarepants on Nicklodeon.

At dinnertime, I get a bone lodged in my throat from eating locally caught pink snapper and thus spend the next forty minutes trying to dislodge said bone by chowing down on 2 crusty bread rolls. That doesn’t work so at HRH’s advice, I have only my second coke for the last 2 years, while watching a gorgeous Ceduna sunset. Oh, and I’m still producing nose wontons.

A picture of Amanda giving me attitude in Ceduna, South Australia.

Now tell me that ain’t a beauty! A picture of a Ceduna, South Australia, sunset.

Day 6

It’s official: my nose has eloped with my make-up bag. We set off for yet another of HRH’s beloved “short drives”, this time to Eucla in Western Australia. It’s a teeny tiny dot on HRH’s travelling map, so I’m not expecting much other than a clean bed to sleep on at night.

It’s another day on the road. A picture of the road leading away from Ceduna, South Australia.

Where have all the animals gone? A picture of the landscape leading away from Ceduna, South Australia.

A picture of Amanda fast asleep at the back of the car.

I have to smell Amanda’s feet as she decides to put them up the entire way.

Almost every road-train we meet on the road West is considerate of other motorists, especially smaller vehicles like ours transporting an entire family. But along comes this guy, who you can’t see because I belatedly decided to take his picture from my side-view mirror, who tries to PUSH US OFF THE ROAD when we attempt to overtake him. Before that he’d been careering from left to right. Lucky him, I hadn’t taken down his vehicle registration number if not I’d be placing a call to the relevant road transport authority.

A picture of the road train that tried to push us off the road just outside Yatala in South Australia.

Most road-train drivers are considerate of other motorists but this one was a menace. A picture of the road train that tried to push us off the road just outside Yatala in South Australia.

Since we are still celebrating Amanda’s birthday (like the Queen, her birthday goes on for a whole week), HRH detours for us to see the Great Australian Bight. Just what is a Bight? Beats me, but you are supposed to be able to spot seals, whales, sharks and other marine life when they are in season. Whale-watching season folks, is in October and November. We are many months too early and instead, only have rugged coast to admire for the bargain price of $5 per adult. Children visit for free with one paying adult.

A picture of HRH lifting Amanda up to view marine life at the Great Australian Bight, Yatala, South Australia.

Sorry, no animals folks. They go elsewhere to spend the summer. A picture of The Great Australian Bight.

A picture of a poster about the Great Australian Bight.

This poster tells you about the marine life visible from the Great Australian Bight.

A picture of me and Amanda on a deck overlooking the Great Australia

Yes, there is no point dressing up when only absent marine life are going to see you and your runaway nose. A picture of me and Amanda on a deck overlooking the Great Australia

Yet more driving follows. We pass through the border of South Australia and Western Australia where we are stopped for a routine fruit-check. Just so you know: you are NOT allowed to bring fruit into South Australia or Western Australia, if travelling from other parts of Australia. This is to prevent fruit fly from damaging the citrus-growing industries of either state.

Once again, we arrive at our destination in time for tea. But instead of stuffing our faces with hot chips from the one and only café in Eucla, we check out the pool for houseguests and picturesque gardens, which the hotel’s restaurant looks out onto.

From our hotel room you can catch a glimpse of the sea.

It’s not the Ritz-Carlton or the Shangrila, but it is clean and comfortable. A picture of our room in Eucla, Western Australia.

You can catch a glimpse of the sea. A picture of the view from our room in Eucla, Western Australia.

A picture of father and daughter moseying down the rocky path in Eucla, Western Austra

Trying to walk to the beach; never got there as it was a lot further than what it seemed from our room window. A picture of father and daughter moseying down the rocky path in Eucla, Western Australia.

A picture of a giant whale in the kids playground at Eucla, Western Australia.

So far from civilisation. A picture of HRH and Amanda at the “Traveller’s Cross” in Eucla, Western Australia.

A picture of the swimming pool at our hotel in Eucla, Western Australia.

Can you see the sliver of sea in this photo? It’s a different blue to the sky.

A picture of the gardens at our hotel in Eucla, Western Australia.

The restaurant looks out onto this gorgeous garden. You’d appreciate the effort it takes to establish and maintain such a garden if you saw the hard, clay-like soil. A picture of the gardens at our hotel in Eucla, Western Australia.

A picture of Amanda having another plate of spaghetti bolognese in Eucla, Western Australia.

Amanda wanted spaghetti even for her birthday.

Our 9 day road-trip from Brisbane to Perth (Part 1)

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Estella

Now what would possess someone to drive 4800 km from one side of a continent as vast as Australia to another? Well, for starters there is madness and for another, it’s to show young un’s the sheer size (and it is bigger than anyone’s backyard, believe me) of Australia.

We’d been warned to take fuel and water with us but our car was crammed to the hilt with all our treasured personal belongings so there was place for neither. It was either that or one of us would have ended up sitting on the roof. No prizes for guessing who, since HRH was planning to drive and it is still illegal for children to be in the front seat of the car, let alone strapped outside to a vehicle travelling at 110 km per hour. Perhaps, as HRH pointed out, we’d be travelling along a major highway for all of the time, so worse comes to worse, we’d hail down a passing road train for help.

Day 1

We plan to set off at 10 am but due to the nature of packing up an entire household full of stuff, end up leaving at 5 pm instead. Tania, who I’ve had dinner or lunch weekly for the last 5 years, helps us to reposition some of our bags in the car so that I won’t have to ride for 4800 km with my knees tucked under my chin.

She, who knows everything there is to know about road-trips, says, “You are very brave to be doing this.”

Blowing my hundredth nose-wonton (I have the flu, for crying out loud), I say, “There is a very fine line between bravery and madness. If you were to do this 9-day, 4800 km journey, I’d call it brave. With us, it’s more likely madness.”

With that I hug Tania and bid her farewell. We set off in the fading light of Brisbane for Moree 5 hours away. Due to the lack of light and my continuous production of nose wontons, I have no pictures to show you. Suffice to say, I am suffering, wondering aloud where among all our bags I put the Codral Cold, Flu and Cough tablets. Then I remember the bag that mum packed for me, with Aerius D, a similar cocktail of time-released nasal relief. Mum also packed me panadol, something for phlegm, sanitary pads and 2 boxes of tissues, just in case I should need any of these things. Thanks Mum.

Day 2

At the insistence of HRH, I take a few snap shots of our motel. It is a brick oasis in the middle of the desert; the place even has a swimming pool, which would be great in this infernal heat, but we have no time for that as we must travel another 5.5 hours to our next destination, Dubbo. HRH, slightly sleep-deprived from me coughing up a lung for most of the night, between blowing nose-wontons, tries to cheer me up by saying the trip is “only 5.5 hours long.” Oh yippee skipee.

Our Motel in Moree, New South Wales. It cost the same as the Intercontinental Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. No, I’m serious.

Outback New South Wales, past Moree.

We drive and drive and drive some more, past hay fields, along a mostly straight road. Occasionally we come across a dead joey, being picked at by crows and the odd eagle. After what seems like hours on the road, the hay fields give way to bushes.

The road from Moree to Dubbo, New South Wales.

HRH decides to stop in a town called Mendooran to refuel the car. The town is so small, it only has the one street featuring the requisite supermarket, gas station and post office. Locals around these parts are cattle farmers. The gas station attendant informs us that our next destination, after Dubbo, is “pure nothing through the desert.”

I blow my thousandth nose-wonton despite the Aerius D.

The Mendooran post office in country New South Wales.

We arrive in Dubbo mid-afternoon but I feel like I’ve been travelling the whole day. HRH has us booked into Cattleman’s Country Motor Inn, the best accommodation there is in Dubbo. We are given a new two-bedroom apartment with tasteful modern decor.

HRH crossing the road in front of our motel in Dubbo, New South Wales.

After checking in, we go in search of food. We wind up at one of the town’s two Vietnamese eateries. The food is authentic, if substantially more expensive than what it is in Brisbane. For dinner, we opt to dine at the Cattleman’s restaurant. You can see Amanda pigging out on the first of 4 bowls of spaghetti bolognese she has throughout the trip.

Amanda at the Cattleman’s restaurant in Dubbo, New South Wales.

Day 2

We exit Dubbo straight after our 10am checkout. We have to, even though Dubbo Zoo is purportedly worth a visit, because we have another 9 hours on the road until our next stop for the day: Broken Hill.

The landscape after Dubbo, towards Broken Hill in New South Wales.

The black thing is the railroad. The landscape after Dubbo, towards Broken Hill.

2 hours into our journey, HRH says, “I was told that some people count the road kill to keep themselves entertained.”

So there goes 1 dead joey, 2 dead joeys…the alternative is dead rabbits. They road signs keep saying to watch out for suicidal kangaroos, emus and wombats, but I can see none of them around.

The road after Dubbo, towards Broken Hill.

In case you didn’t know (and I didn’t either until HRH told me) mining giant BHP gets it’s name from the area, the oldest active mine in Australia. It stands for Broken Hill Proprietary. The town is the only one we’ve ever seen with an active mine forming part of it; most mining towns conduct their activities beyond the main streets.

Our room at the Red Earth Motel in Broken Hill, New South Wales.

A civic guide to Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Advertised eateries are KFC, Macdonalds and Hungry Jacks. We locate a cafe nearby to enjoy a simple western meal.

Broken Hill, New South Wales, at dusk.

Sprinkling on the cheese. Amanda having a bowl of spaghetti bolognese in Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Food and accommodation is priced well above what you’d pay in any of the major capital cities in Australia. The town’s only Chinese restaurant does a rousing business. Locals are friendly; surprisingly many can afford to eat out on a weeknight. I don’t suppose there is much else to do. We see many families at the cafe we’re at.

My Malaysia: meeting the locals.

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Estella

HRH’s sister takes us to her regular coffee shop, a place like countless other coffee shops throughout Malaysia. There are blue Terrazzo tiles on the floor, large framed mirrors facing each other on walls for good feng shui, old marble tables with 4 or so fragile-looking wooden chairs each.

The sign that greets me before I enter says, “Beware of snatch thieves.” I ask HRH to take a commemorative shot, my face oozing enough oil to fry Indian roti.

We take a seat at one of the square tables.

“What is this place?” asks Amanda, her eyes as wide as they can be for small peepers.

“A coffee shop,” answers HRH. “Your mum and I grew up visiting places like this.”

Our coffee shops in Oz sell Continental cakes and babycinos. This place, according to a board on the opposing wall, advertising specials, sells wanton mee with soup or tossed in black sauce, all sorts of roti, nasi lemak to be sure, and to my amazement Roti Babi.

Roti Babi is a Nyonya dish. My mother says it’s made by stuffing a thick slice of bread with a mixture of cooked onions, pork meat (hence the name, “Babi”), crab meat and spices, dunking that bread into egg wash and then frying it.

Since I’m on holiday I ignore her admonishments to stay away from it because it’s unhealthy, and order myself a serve from the Cantonese-speaking Malay waiter. I discover that even the other Malay waiter understands Cantonese; phrases pertaining to food anyway. HRH, now eating less post-surgery, has a wanton mee to share with Amanda, HRH’s sister 2 half boil eggs with coconut jam on toast. We order an assortment of local beverages.

Returning to HRH sister’s car, I notice a rojak stall directly behind the restaurant. Closer inspection reveals a whole back lane full of hawkers. How delightful! I must have some rojak! So even though already full, I order a portion to go along with HRH’s order of sliced jackfruit and watermelon. HRH has suddenly become very health conscious, constantly insisting on fruit.

The stall holder, a granny with surprisingly good teeth (or could they be dentures?) asks us to take a seat at one of the tables while her husband, an old man with gnarly hands to match hers, whips up my sweet, sour, hot and spicy Malaysian fruit salad.

Perched at the table, we have an uninterrupted view of the kitchen to the restaurant we frequented previously, plus their wet, squatting loo. A swarm of fat house flies hover around us as the granny brings us our fruit and Rojak.

“Eeewwww…this place is disgusting,” announces Amanda, sitting on HRH’s lap.

I tuck into my Rojak, unperturbed by the flies or Amanda comments, as long-forgotten conditioning takes over. I want to point out to Amanda the mee seller in the corner, frying up plates of noodles without lighting or running water, but am caught up in the realization of being home, even if I am in a back alley teeming with vermin and a view of a wet, squatting loo.

Upon hearing that we’re back from Oz, the granny, who will never visit such parts in her life, banters with us as though we are her most loyal of customers. She waves to us later, as we drive off to head back to the Intercontinental Hotel.

On our walk to the car, Amanda stops her father with another wrinkled-nose look of disgust and says, “Why is there so much rubbish there?”

She points to a row of derelict single storey houses strewn with rubbish-filled plastic bags and empty drink bottles. In my Malaysian mode, I had not noticed any of this, alighting from the car. Now I can see it as clearly as she can.

“People are not as civic-minded in Malaysia,” HRH explains to her. “Almost everyone has to earn a living, many have hard lives. When people have hard lives, they don’t have the chance to think about things like public cleanliness or the impact their lifestyles have on the environment. Here, the rich are very, very rich and the poor are very, very poor.”

He left out the pretend rich and the pretend poor. I’ve been accused by HRH numerous times of trying to pass off for the latter.

“What about in the middle?” asks Amanda.

I’m glad that they teach her to question in school. We were encouraged to be quiet when I was growing up in Malaysia. From what I hear, little has changed.

“There is very little middle here, Amanda,” I say. “You can either be very, very rich or very, very poor. Those are your 2 options living here.”

“That’s why you must study hard,” says HRH.

“Mummy and daddy studied hard, that’s why you have the life you have. Nothing comes without sacrifice, Amanda,” I say. “Nothing.”

Reaching the hotel, we choose to sample the couches nearest to the hotel gardens. Thanks to a huge glass wall, we can see man-made waterfall, sculptured gardens and all, in air-conditioned, mosquito-free comfort. A hotel staff comes up to ask us if we’d like any drinks. Juice is priced at RM17 per glass. At the coffee shop we were at, it was only RM2.50. As before, I’m referred to as ma’am.

“See, this is how the rich live,” I tell Amanda, waving the hotel staff away. “When you are rich in this country (actually any country in Asia), people treat you like a king.”

Unless your surname is Packer or Rinehart, your riches won’t buy you the sort of life you can have in Asia down under. Sure, your life will be comfortable, but only in select 5 star hotels will you ever be called “ma’am” or “sir.” The average Aussie establishment is too egalitarian to accord you any special titles or treatment. We’re all mates, loves and darlings, in Oz.

At the prompting of HRH, I go to check on our room. Front desk staff, different from that which greeted me at 6 am, claim to not have our booking. While polite, the man delivering the news has a decidedly frosty demeanour. I go to fetch HRH who irons out the matter. When I next see the man to get out key-cards, he is all warm and welcoming.

“Oh I’m sorry. It was our mistake,” he coos. “You will find the new rooms utterly lovely. The bed sleeps 4, the bathroom has a view of the bedroom.”

Suddenly we are best friends, eh? HRH, his sister, Amanda and I take the lifts up to find a uniformed hotel staff outside our door.

“I brought you your bag,” he says in Malay.

I open my wallet to fish out a RM5 note. Passing it to him, I instruct him to bring my bag inside.
He brings it in and places it on the platform for luggage so that I have easy access to it. He thanks me and takes his leave.

Amanda marvels at the room, perhaps not expecting to see anything like it outside of Oz. The tub is huge, the toilet has a bum-washing function, all surfaces gleam so brightly I think I might go blind from the light reflecting off surfaces. Minutes later, house keeping comes by to check if I have adequate bottles of water. Unlike Oz, we can’t drink from the taps.

Housekeeping passes me 3 bottles to add to the 3 we already have, thanks me and leaves. While HRH and his sister catch up, I give Amanda and myself a shower.

“We’ll try out the bath tonight,” I promise her.

When I come out, the door bell rings. It’s a different man from housekeeping. Without me inviting him in, he comes to fold up the excess bedding and places that in the wardrobe. Then he proceeds to pick up my discarded towels. Without any explanation, he zips out of my room with them and returns with 3 new fluffy towels.

Holding the door open for him to leave, I can see him giving me a once-over (actually many times over) with his eyes, as his hands go about hanging up the new towels. After what feels like forever, he comes out and standing before me asks, “You Malay?”

“No.”

“Thai?”

“No,” I say, wishing he’d just leave me alone. I have been on a very long flight, am dog tired. What I am is tired.

“What are you?”

“Cheena.”

“Oooh…you lawa,” he says. Lawa is Malay for beautiful. Then he looks me up and down again.

I feel ill.

“Thank you. I’d like to rest now,” I say, excusing him.

“Do you have enough water?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He steps out of the room and I close the door. Minutes later, my door bell rings yet again. The same house keeper returns bearing 3 bottles of water and several small packets.

“For you,” he says with a sheepish smile, handing me small packets containing cotton pads and nail files. “This,” he says pointing to the nail file, “will make you more lawa.” Then he disappears into my bathroom.

Oh? What now? I am left holding the door open, waiting for this person who clearly doesn’t know a guest is a guest is a guest, to leave.

When he returns from an extended tour of my bathroom he holds out his hand. Unable to comprehend what this is about, since his Malay is broken at best, and I can’t speak whatever he speaks, I hold out his small packets to him.

“Shake hands,” he says, looking at his extended hand.

I reluctantly shake his hand. He looks like he is about to die of rapture.

“I have to rest now,” I insist.

He steps out of my room and I close the door. I settle between HRH and Amanda on our super-sized King bed and recount to HRH what just happened. HRH’s sister has long left. HRH is mildly amused. I am on my way to beddy bye land with thoughts of all the delicious food yet to come when our door bell rings again.

I look up at HRH. No words are necessarily. He gets up to answer the door. He returns bearing another 2 bottles of water, grumbling about “my new admirer.”

I am once more off to beddy bye land when the door bell rings yet again. HRH looks annoyed, gets up to check it and returns with yet 2 more bottles of water.

“Same guy?” I say to him with sleep-heavy eyes.

“Yes,” fumes HRH. “He better not bother you or I will speak to management downstairs.”

I fall into a deep sleep to the sounds of our wall-mounted 40 inch flat screen TV.

TBC

My Malaysia: arrival in the country.

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Estella

Our Air Asia plane arrives on schedule. Because of HRH’s gall bladder surgery 4 days earlier (he was the patient instead of the surgeon), I forbid him to touch any of our hand luggage. Since we are at the front in business class, we are the first to alight from the aircraft. We follow our exemplary head air stewardess, who attended to our needs well throughout the trip, down the metal stairs, across the tarmac, into the building. There she bids us a fond farewell.

While HRH relieves himself in the loo, I keep a look out for our big black bag holding all our clothes and gifts for various family members. I, who have never lifted weights, manage to drag the thing off the conveyor belt. God bless my back. Now, to use the loo.

HRH waits with the big black bag, as I, laden with all our smaller pieces, lead Amanda into the nearest women’s room. It is surprisingly clean. And there’s toilet paper too!

Washing my hands, I take a look at my un-made-up reflection; I look like what the cat dragged in! Well, there is nothing I can do about this as all my make up is with HRH in the big black bag outside. We exit the toilet, ignore duty free (some, but not all things are cheaper than Oz) and proceed to the passport check-point. There are few others ahead of us so we seen immediately.

“Good morning. How are ya?” I say to the counter lady, employing some of my Aussie charm.

She returns my smile and chops our passports with deft hands.

We proceed on to the customs, but seeing no one there, we sail right through.

“God bless Malaysia,” I say with a cheeky smile.

“Aiyah. Like that people can brings drugs into the country,” exclaims HRH.

With me pulling our big black bag and carrying 3 pieces of hand luggage, we amble into the arrival lounge. HRH cranes his neck for his sister.

“Do you have her phone number?” I ask him.

“No,” he says, craning his head further. He starts to pace outside while I take a seat with Amanda.

“Does she know we are here?” I ask HRH.

“She should know. You wrote to her, didn’t you?”

At 4.30 am you can barely recall the day of the week, much less what you wrote to whom. HRH reluctantly takes a seat next to me and we observe the ebb and flow of passengers and those there to greet them for the next 10 minutes.

HRH’s sister saunters up to us. After exchanging greetings, she leads us to her car. Between she and I, we manage to get the big black bag into the car. HRH piles into the front passenger seat. We climb in at the back. So far so good.

At that hour, the only lights visible are from street-lamps and other motorists. As we approach KL city, close to an hour later, a thin sliver of light appears on the horizon, bathing the surrounding steel and concrete jungle in a greyish glow.

We are now blocks from the Intercontinental Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, where we will spend all of today and some of tomorrow to spare my parents from having to accomodate us so early in the morning. HRH’s sister pulls into the Intercontinental’s driveway and while they wait in the car, I go in to enquire about our room.

I tell hotel staff attending to me about HRH’s surgery, hoping to find a compassionate soul willing to allow us into our RM488 room early.

“The earliest we can let you check in is at 10 am, ma’am,” says one of the men at the front desk.

“How much to check in now?” It’s almost 6 am.

He taps into his keyboard. “Half a day’s rate,” he says.

I report this back to HRH, still seated in the car with his sister.

“We’ll wait,” he says. “It’s not worth paying 50% extra for 4 hours.”

I return to the front desk to deliver HRH’s decision.

“Come back at 9.30 am,” says the same man. “We’ll have your room ready for you by then.”

I erupt into a burst of terima kasihs (thank yous). Perhaps unaccustomed to such a display of gratitude from house guests, the man blushes and says, “Just come here at 9.30 am. I’ll make sure it’s ready. We’ll put a rush job on it.”

I go back to the car to relay this news to HRH. Then I return to enjoy one of the plush couches in anticipation of our check in. As soon as my behind comes in contact with the sofa, I am offered a bottle of mineral water by an attentive staff. HRH, his sister and Amanda emerge minutes later with our big black bag. I take our big black bag to the counter to be kept until check-in.

“We can deliver it straight to your room,” the bell-hop informs me in Malay.

I return to HRH, Amanda and his sister, seated on various arms of a circular, custom-made-of-course, couch. HRH’s sister, a professional, is soon telling us about her latest foray into the world of Multi Level Marketing (MLM).

“We are part of a very good group,” she says. “We have a very effective leader.”

“Don’t tell me about it,” says HRH. “Your sister-in-law was in this last time.”

“10 years ago,” I say, “The person who recruited me said the same thing; he left within a month to pursue other business opportunities.”

“Oh, our branch is different,” HRH’s sister says. “We aim to build a passive income, to be financially independent.”

“That’s what the people who recruited me said too. 10 years on, they still have day jobs, are still trying to build a passive income and be financially independent.”

“Maybe it’s because they didn’t have a system,” she says.

“They had a system all right. They had 2-hour presentation, tapes to give out to strangers, conferences, motivational speeches…I even became an executive, if only for a month. At the end, I put all the material outside the door and told my recruiter’s recruiter to get them or else they’d be binned.”

“All this MLM is like snake oil,” asserts HRH. “So much goes into giving the 6 layers of commission so what do consumers really get for their money? When you join these organisations, only those at the top benefit. Look at your second cousin, she’s been with various MLMs for years. Has she gotten anywhere? Is she financially independent?”

“You can do this in Malaysia but not Australia,” I say. “Aussies stress the importance of work-life balance, spending time with their families, enjoying their leisure time. Only the very rich have maids.”

When I was growing up, almost every Tom, Dick and Harry had an Indonesian or Filipino maid. Today, only those with an income above RM5k (AUD1.8k at the current exchange rate of 3.2) is allowed to employ one. Indonesian maids are available from RM 800 per month (AUD250), as of 2013, whilst Filipino maids, RM1800 (AUD562.50).

“Everyone thinks that Aussies are rich but the average Aussie only earns AUD50k. A significant chunk goes to the tax department,” I add. On top of which, foreign domestics are barred from entering Oz, to protect the local labour market. After all, if one can hire a full-time maid for AUD562.50 a month, who would pay AUD20 an hour for a cleaner or AUD25 for a nanny? Even the kid who babysits Amanda while I go swimming every Friday gets AUD10 (RM32) an hour. She gets more working at Macdonalds.

“Malaysians are more willing to strive for a better future,” HRH sister says. “I will make establish my business before coming over.” She plans to move to Oz.

“Malaysians have no choice,” I say, aware that this is too hard a topic to broach on an empty stomach, especially at 7 am. “They have no one to care for them if they are out of a job, become disabled, or lose everything through the death of a breadwinner, or divorce.”

A week on, the Malaysian government will announce the disbursement of BRIM, a one-off payment of RM500 for households earning less than RM3000.

In Oz, the government gives around AUD1340 (RM4288) every 4 weeks to each non-working, single parents with one child under the age of 5. It reduces thereafter until the child turns 8. After that it gets cancelled altogether. Some manage to get government housing. At any rate, extra payments are available for households earning less than AUD90k per annum (it tapers off around AUD80k) to help with the cost of raising children. Low-income households also receive subsidies towards their rent, bus and rail travel, gas and electricity bills and pharmaceutical purchases.

In Malaysia, people will say, “It’s just too bad. Who asked you not to be born in the right family?” Malaysians, I am to be reminded later, equate financial hardship with laziness, poor choices, immorality…mostly with laziness. Therefore hardship, where most are concerned, is justified. “You can’t fail to get ahead if you try hard enough” is the motto around here.

“Good luck with your endeavour,” I say to HRH’s sister. “Aussies live long enough as it is. The average woman lives until 86, the average man 81. With a combined income of AUD1800 from the government in the form of a pension, none of the oldies can afford the pills you are peddling, no matter how good you say it is for them. They can barely afford to eat as it is.”

Glancing at her watch, HRH’s sister offers to take us to breakfast.

TBC

A very unusual Christmas present.

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Estella

Me and some of the mums from school were discussing Christmas presents.

“I’m going to Garden City to buy Lego,” one announced. “I’m getting my sons Batman Lego.”

“I’ll be getting Amanda intensive Kumon lessons for after the new year,” I said.

They all turned to look at me.

“Amanda has got between 5 and 10 years to thank me,” I joked. “I’m very patient.”

“It’ll be one of your family stories,” said another mum with a laugh. “Remember the time when mum got me intensive maths lessons for Christmas?”

“Have you told Amanda yet?” asked the first mum who was going to buy Batman Lego.

“No, I just told her I have a very special surprise for her waiting in Malaysia,” I said, unable to suppress my glee at being able to deceive my seven-going-on-eight year old for that long. I plan to get her a few other gifts to sweeten this one; a couple of new outfits should do the trick.

“You know what I reckon would be the best present?” said the mum who wasn’t buying Lego. “Going abroad to see the world. Just being in Malaysia will teach Amanda so much. Children here are so privileged, so sheltered.”

“You’re right. She’ll get to see hardcore poverty first-hand; the kind that is inherited, not the result of drug or alcohol abuse.” Although Malaysia has poverty resulting from and reinforced by alcoholism in the rubber estates. “She’ll see children younger than her serving her massive bowls of hot soup, working – my mother used to point them out to me all the time and say, ‘How lucky are you when you could easily have been born that kid?’ She’ll see the limbless begging at the sides of the roads, some trying to sell packets of tissue as we eat. She’ll be shocked out of her system all right. Already I’ve been talking to her about thieves and robbers, kidnappers, molesters, drug and human traffickers; of children abducted from schools, shopping centres, at the night market, never to be seen again. I’ve prepared her to meet the dredges of society we don’t see in our sanitised world.”

It’s a land where parents still spank, if they don’t belt, whip or box, many among the uneducated brazen enough to do so publicly. It’s also a land where we don’t help the old, the young or the invalid, basically anybody, at airports in case they are drug traffickers. We ask to see what’s in the bag before agreeing to carry it even for family or friends.

“Many of our kids get the shock of their lives when they go overseas,” she said.

“I bet they do.” I hear Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz saying to Toto, her dog, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

Here in Australia, it is so safe. Barring very few areas, you can walk down the road during the day, decked out in bling like a Christmas tree without fear of being robbed or molested at knife point. These are things that never even cross your mind, living here.

I highly recommend families in first world countries take their children to see what lies beyond their 5 star resorts when on holiday in Asia. It will open their eyes to the hardship and human suffering beyond our privileged shores and make the next generation of what might be potentially spoilt-brats, thankful for living here. Privileged Asians in Asia, cloistered in their rarefied affluence, should try living without the maid and air-conditioning for at least a week of every year to get a perspective of how the other half live. Perspective is the gift that keeps on giving long after the season’s decorations have been taken down. You can’t find it in any store and it’s bound to be one the kids remember for years to come.

By Estella

Parenting, Relationship and Lifestyle Stories for Every Person, Everywhere.

Category Archives: Travel