a critical note

[picture stolen from Mark Pynn]

After all the positive messages and my great travel-adventures, now I have some critical notes on my travels, just to share my thoughts with you. ‘Cause not everything is here ‘rozengeur en maneschijn’ [smell of roses and moonlight].

TRAVELLING
First, some note on the traveling. I must say that traveling is sometimes quite tiring. I have met soo many people over the last 4 months, and many of them were very interesting. However, often conversations don’t get much further then: “hey where are your from? Where’ve you traveled? Where are you gong? Blabla.” And that everytime, over and over again… gets a bit tiring. Furthermore, most people are typical ‘backpackers’… I would say, rather young boys and girls that don’t really know what they want in life. And that’s all fine, offcourse, it’s great that they came here to find that out, but I don’t have very much in common with them, for I know very well what I want in life. Also, they seem very happy to not live under their parents supervision, sometimes for the first time in their lives. In their joy that seem to forget however that other then their parents there are other people on the planet who’s needs and wishes one should respect aswell- that is to say: if you want to secure yourself a spot in heaven after this lifetime.

Hostels are very funny things. Sometimes you are in a 8-bed dormitory, while in one of the beds, in the middle of the night, two people are ‘having fun’ with eachother. Or you have gigantic snorrers- people that chop down the entire ‘Swarzwald’ in a night’s sleep. These people snore so badly they should have a red stamp in their passport or hostel-card so that they can all be put together in one room… it’s just insane that these people come and sleep in a dormroom and then prevent 7 people from catching any sleep at all! And then there are the sanitary units. Sometimes showers in hostels are so, freakin dirty, or old and falling apart, that after showering you just don’t dare touch anything. I remember sometimes not wasting my towel on my feet- I would just walk along barefoot until they had dried up… really people, some hostel-showers are amazingly dirty! And, somehow, most people seem not to really care about others: the sounds of people clearing their throats, or going to the lue, is sometimes simply horrific- especially when you've just woken up.

One last traveling thing that is quite annoying is that since Australia is so gigantic, and because some areas are either only accessible by 4WD or because it is to dangerous to just go their by yourself, many things-to-see in Australia are very touristy. They are “small” pockets in gigantic deserts of nothingness, so it’s the place where everybody goes. And sometimes, one can only visit these [national parks] only along the tourist-tracks. These tracks are the only ones there, the rest of the parks is plain inaccessible [accept if you are the Crocodile Hunter], so again: this is where everybody goes. You don’t have deserted beaches for you alone to dip-in [sharks, jellyfish, croc’s] as Titi and I had in Greece, or small river-pools to relax in [snakes, croc’s]. It is really difficult to be alone and enjoy things in your own way.

AUSTRALIA
Then, Australian culture has some strange things. I mean, off course I look at the world through the eyes of a critical architect, but still.

For example, I think there are no people on the planet more dependent of car-transportation. To get around in Australia, one just needs a car, and preferably a 4WD. And then they complain about the gasoline, but one liter here cost’s about 0,70euro! The reason for this car-dependency is the space-use. All Australian families live in gigantic houses, that are all detached 1-floor [bungalow] houses. This not only means they use a lot of resources [four facades to keep the sun+heat out or the heat inside] but it also means Australian cities are incredibly stretched out... very very big cities. I think Melbourne is bigger than Paris, but has only 1/3 of it’s population! One of the problems of these kind of cities is that public transport is very difficult to maintain and quite expensive [km’s commuted per user]. Which off course means- more car-dependency. Stretched-out cities also means traveling by bike is time+energy consuming, and you don’t just walk here or there… I read that Australians are the fattest people in the world, even more so than Americans, and regarding their car-dependency and their amazing craving for fat-food [anglo-saxon cooking] this might be true.

The food thing is also something that stings: they have the most marvelous stuff swimming around- huge quantities of scallops, crayfish, lobsters, crab, crustaceans, mussels, clams, etc. But I guess 75% of it is fried like fish and chips!! Even scallops! That’s just sacrilegious!

The last thing before I stop complaining [hahaha] is the weather. Melburnians complain “it’s cold” when in the middle of the winter, daytime temperatures might vary between 5*c and 20*c! But in general, most places in Australia have very nice weather year-round. I mean, most of the east coast has year-round 20*-35*, even in winter! That might seem very nice at first glance- but aren’t autumn with it’s chilly and frsh mornings and colouring leaves, or spring with it’s crisp rain showers and blossoming trees very nice sometimes? Or the white landscapes of winter and cookies+tea at home?? Well, they don’t have it! It’s the same; sunshine and palmtrees year in year out, day in day out. It gets boring- believe me.

So you see, eventhough the amazing landscapes, the stunning wildlife and the fantastic endless nothingness are great to experience, every place but home has it’s drawbacks…

But I am loving my trip so don’t count on me complaining much more- I will stay here for a while longer!

PS By they way, the aboriginal people’s position within this culture is shocking. I learned that the difference in life-expectancy between native people and the new settlers’ [people of western decent] is the greatest in the world! Bigger than for instance in South-Africa or North-America or even South-America. This says a lot about their socio-economic integration.

Aboriginal people are very much struggling with fitting into the new Australian culture while at the same time adhering their own, older culture. It is simply shocking to see, that after all those years, there seems to be no understanding, no solution, no dialogues to resolve this problem… aboriginal people are are very poor, marginalised and helpless culture, on a deserted island in an ocean of white Australians.

Bas.