Cycling At 50 Plus: Perth, My Old Friend

"Morals are paintings on the wall and scruples are money they use in Russia"- Sabrina speaking of Linus in "Sabrina"

Perth and I, we had been acquaintance for a long time, ever since I was a twelve year old in Sultan Ismail Primary School, Kota Bharu, Kelantan in the mid sixties. The headmaster was Mr. Durbara Singh, Class teacher Mr. Mohd Ali and English teacher Mr. Sarjit Singh. The head boy was Awis Pedik and the deputy Chan Boon Hoi. In the class I sat next to Zulkafli who splashed his ink on my white shirt and I then sat next to Bakri and together, we spent all our time drawing combat figures. One day, during English class, the teacher announced we were going to have pen pal from overseas, this one from Australia. Letters from school children of the same age in Perth were randomly distributed and I ended with one from Alan Plester who lived in Mount Pleasant. I remember writing to and receiving a few letters from this pal and I think it ended due to my inability to finance the purchase of postage stamps, which then was too expensive for me, and took a lot out of my pocket money. Even though the correspondence stopped, the names of the boy and the city were etched and stayed in my mind until today. This is a part of the childhood memories that lurk below the surface of our consciousness and that can be retrieved at will. Another event that I could easily recall was the Kennedy assassination. One early morning after I had just woken up, in our rented house in in a small kampong in Jelawat, Bachok, my father asked me who the President of America was, and I proudly displayed my knowledge to impress, saying "President Kennedy" and next I heard from him was, "Son, he had been shot and died" or something to that effect. I could not remember my reaction, I was too small to be horrified by the killing, but the substance of this early morning conversation was already permanently imprinted in my filing system.

This trip to Perth was to translate the dream stuff into reality. It had been done in my virtual world and now I had to know whether this Perth was something that could be touched and sensed, whether the building up was equal to the punch line. Applying for visitors' visa was easy as it could be done on line. There were frequent flights between Kuala Lumpur and Perth, both on the low cost and normal carriers and one fine afternoon, after a five hour flight I arrived at the Perth international airport. No adjustment in time was necessary as Perth and Malaysia were on the same clock, though it felt strange because normally after flying for such a duration a traveller would had been transported into a different time zone. We were forewarned of the prohibition of importing food stuff into Australia, and so it was an anti climax when we were let through the custom and immigration without any questions, although we were innocent of any wrong doing for having any of the proscribed items. I liked this laid back approach and wished it could be practiced in other airports such as Heathrow where even a senior citizen such as I, was treated like a potential overstayer. I always disliked the manners of the immigration guy, for instance, double checking me in a suspicious tone whether the owner of the apartment which I had booked for my stay, would be staying together, as though I would be squatting in a rent free place while waiting to disappear in the country for good. Come on guys, give an old man some slack, no sane person wants to start life in a cold and strange place at fifty plus.

PERTH

I had been to a few airports before and I had taken it for granted luggage trolleys were part of the service that were due when we paid the airport tax. Admittedly there were airport liked in Bali where we had to be smart to get one of the scarce trolleys but we never expected to pay for the use as in Perth. Carrefour supermarkets would at least gave refunds if the trolley was returned. Here it was slotting the coins, and lots of them, and not seeing them again. However I was tipped to get the trolleys that were lying around without any claims over them and I was happy to score one against this rip off.

Next surprise was the cash machine did not cough out the local notes that I wanted. This was a bit of a bother as I had intended to rely on these machines for my supply of cash. Later on I made the phone call to my banker and the matter was immediately resolved. It was just a security precaution as I had not informed them about my use of the card in Australia.

Going to the city from the airport was a breeze. We purchased the transfer tickets for the bus ride to the city and even though it was a bus, we had sort of taxi service when we were dropped right in front of our apartment. For money value, and if you are willing to wait for the hourly schedule, I would say it was worth the price. It was evening when we settled down and feeling peckish we walked to the town center and surprise surprise, found a food court where I had beriyani rice, which I graded an an "F" as it was gruel impersonating as a gourmet meal. But I should not be too critical. If I were in Australia, I should be sampling Australian food not Indian. So for the remainder of the stay we threw away the self imposed diet restrictions and opened ourselves to the grandeur of Aussie culinary delights. No, I did not indulge in the harams. I just allowed fish to my list of vegetarian diet.

Perth in spring was beautiful. The weather was balmy and we took long walks without feeling washed out. There were many cyclists moving around, they took their rides very seriously, in fact too seriously, and they looked frighteningly like cyclists in a grand tour time trial. In Perth, I saw riders all wearing helmets with proper cycling attires, riding expensive road bikes, and gritting their teeth, looking like giving the maximum efforts. Nobody was cycling for fun or pleasure, every body was trying to squeeze the most out of this activity. It was like hammering and blowing away at full speed ahead with heads down. After this, I was not surprised Cadel Evans was Australian. There were exception though, in places like Freemantle train stations where cheap bikes are left in the station. The cyclists in this group would be tired commuters on the way to and from work and consequently the rides were short and brief, and done in formal clothing.

We did not try any cycling, there were cycling shops offering bikes for rents but we decided this was going to be a walking holiday. I loved cycling, but my better half did not think much of exposing herself to the elements and out of deference to her life style, I compromised on the mode of transportation for the duration of our stay. We walked and walked all over Perth. We walked through the Central Business District, we walked to the end of King's Park and we walked all over the places. We stopped when we got tired and when we were hungry and thirsty we stopped for food and drinks. Indeed Perth was a walking heaven. Daytime was not too hot and the breeze that came from the sea was cool and refreshing. The evening was cooler and after the sun set it could be a little chilly, but one extra layer was more than sufficient to keep the body warm.

FREEMANTLE

After one week we had to check out of the apartment in Perth. Before we came we had been advised that it was not possible to extend our stay and therefore we had inquired and booked another apartment, this time in Freemantle, a sea side town about half an hour by train. Freemantle was much smaller, it was so small that the town centre could be covered by merely an hour of strolling. At five in the afternoon everything shut down and the streets became deserted making the town appeared ghost like. It was definitely not a place to rock and roll

Once a week, for 3 days on the weekend the quiet atmosphere was disturbed by the happenings at the weekend market. Vendors and purchasers met at the improvised market and for the first time we heard loud and enthusiastic voices from the sellers hawking their wares. This was Freemantle with its hair let down. There were buskers entertaining the crowd but like everything Australian there was order. Specific site was marked for the busking and they, the buskers, had to register before hand as there were even schedules for the order of appearances. There were a few good ones though the majority were just passable.

On other days we spent our time walking the streets. For a small town of this size, Freemantle had a disproportionate large number of book shops. It was a delight to browse in these bookshops, the books were not sealed in plastic covers as in MPH or Kinokuniya, neither was the sign "No Free Reading" anywhere to be seen. One type of bookshop that was a delight were the ones that offered discounted prices on their books. The selections available were very wide and did not at all reflect their reduced prices. They were new publications in mint conditions, not the dog eared copies you would find in second hand outlets. It was a pity my purchase was limited by my baggage allowance, as I would had bought the entire store.

As a foreign tourist, I found the historically high Australian Dollar intimidating. The news of the exchange dampened my spirits and depressed my purchasing will power. The real rise was not much really, something like 5 % for the last 12 months, but psychologically the decision to defer the buying was already made up in the mind. I suppose this was how free market worked. When the price rose we bought less, resulting in lower demand which would cause the supplier to reduce the price to keep in business. This current position would not last, there were opportunities to be made. Go short on Aussie Dollars would be the advice of the sage.

LAST

One common thread I found consistent in this trip was the wide and extensive usage of internet. The visa application was done on line, ditto for the airline ticketing and the reservation for the apartment. My expenses in Perth were paid either through the credit card or cash from the cash machines. Before the days of the internet I had to be physically present to do all these things. I would have to go to the embassy to apply for the visa to travel and it would take more than one attempt to secure the document, first to file the application and second to collect the passport and this did not include the waiting and travel time. For the ticket I had to go to the airline office to book the seat. For the money I had to go to and wait in the bank to buy the travelers' cheques. The reservation of accommodation could only be confirmed by writing, and this means going to the post office to post the letter. It was indeed marvelous that a lot of time was saved by sitting in front of the computer terminal and having all the business of pre-travelling done at the key board.

Would I return ? Perhaps, but for only a shorter duration.