We were very worried about Swine Flu. Not catching it, but being forcibly quarantined because of suspected contact with it. We already knew it was a mild flu, because our daughter had, a fortnight earlier, had a confirmed case and had recovered within days. No, paranoia was definitely our biggest fear, especially during our two night stopover in Hong Kong.

This fear snapped into sharp reality almost as soon as we arrived… we were walking up one of the labyrinthine ramps in Hong Kong airport, somewhere between disembarking and baggage collection when we found ourselves being checked on an heat-sensitive camera. Imagine my horror when the girl watching the screen leaps up, gesturing to her offsider, and shouting “bingo bingo bingo!!!”, and she was pointing… at ME! Yes, I was stopped mid stream and taken aside because apparently I was giving off more heat than everyone else. I’m sure they thought they’d caught a live one. Hard to say, but I choose to believe she was crestfallen when an in-ear thermometer check revealed the heat went no more than skin deep. Survived round one!

Next hurdle, the taxi from the station to our hotel. Very friendly and happy local with only a very little english. Seemed quite animated when we told him we were heading for the Metropark Wanchai, a lot of misunderstanding before we finally realise what he’s trying to tell us. The Metropark had just reopened after being sealed off with all guests in quarantine for a week! What can you say? We just hoped Swine Flu was a bit like lightning in never striking twice in the same spot. Sure enough, the hotel was adorned with photos and newspaper articles describing the events of the prior week. Looks like they made the best of a bad situation. Glad we weren’t there!

By this time, we were quite used to face masks. I’d say about a third of the people on the street were wearing them. Even the hosties on the plane were wearing them! It was all a bit disconcerting. In true Hong Kong fashion though, this was not seen as a downside, but a business opportunity – they were for sale everywhere – in bulk!

The other side effect of the war on Swine Flu was an almost religious cleaning regime. Hong Kong people seem to be very civic minded already – cleaning up after their dogs – holding handrails – keeping clear of the edge… there are reminders everywhere, but hygiene was the new fashion. There were public advertisements, television spots. The one we really liked though was the notices in many public places to the effect of “This button (door handle|toilet seat|etc.) is disinfected four times daily”, accompanied by an army of helpful and motivated hygiene enforcers. It was great!

Beautiful! Unlike anything else I’ve done in Sydney. There were some places which really take your breath away. It’s not just the views either, there’s constant entertainment as you pass amazing sculptured sandstone cliffs, sudden changes in microclimate, aboriginal rock carvings, brilliant wildflowers, secluded beaches. I passed a fairly constant stream of european tourists, chattering in french, german and I think even russian.

A fabulous place for a walk. Nice accurate map of it all on Open Street Map, so you can download it to your GPS

1. Soul

Sydney doesn’t seem to have one. I find it an intensely sad city – I’m sure there are exceptions, but Sydney is beautiful in spite of what has been done to it, not because of it. I’ll admit that the areas I visited probably skewed my view, but at any time you can see thousands of people rushing along and not noticing the real world around them. It’s hard not to lust after harbour views, a fancy boat and a sports car when there is so much wealth so obviously on display, but I reckon Sydneysiders have forgotten how to be happy in themselves. A shame.

2. Rugby

While I was in Sydney, there was an incredible build up to the Rugby League Semi Final between the Cronulla Sharks and (the common enemy), Melbourne Storm. I honestly don’t give a toss about Rugby – the game bores me to tears, but I was amazed at the level of vitriol and wildly biased reporting that flooded the press and airways before the game. They had totally written Melbourne off well before the game started. Of course, Melbourne trounced Cronulla something like 26-0. I went back to my hotel room and watched the last 30 minutes or so, but the commentators wouldn’t give up… with literally minutes to go and a huge deficit – they continued to call the Melbourne players slow and tired. Obviously not as slow and tired as the Cronulla players, but that didn’t seem to register.

I can sort of understand the controversial comments from Melbourne Storm’s coach and Manager, I’ll be they get thoroughly sick of listening to that sort of garbage all season. Anyway, it’s all down to a Grand Final against Manly, who also thrashed their opposition, so they seem to be a worthy opponent.

3. Coffee

It’s a long standing joke that you can’t get a decent coffee in Sydney. I don’t think it’s really that bad, but there are still plenty of fancy cafés that don’t seem to worked it out. However, I am delighted to report that things are improving and I have found at least one place where the fussiest coffee snob can get a brew that is nothing short of superlative. It’s Manly once again – hmm… is there a pattern here? no! – but tucked away, just off the garish Corso, is Scuzi Mi (sorry, I can’t remember the name exactly) in Darley Road. You really can’t miss it – amongst the franchise cafés Sydney seems to be flooded with it, stands out like a sore thumb. I chose it because it looked like it belonged in Sydney Road and the long macchiato I had was nothing short of sensational.

Anyway, I was panning around the Gulf Country of far north Queensland when I noticed the blue line didn’t go all the way to Normanton. Odd – so I dropped the little yellow guy as close as I could to the end of the line and saw in the distance what looked like… yes, I think it is… water! Ha! that’s the Gulf Country for you.

No wonder they never got to Normanton

Obviously, they’ve had access to the service for a little while now and have implemented a slick tab method of switching between street view and map view. In fact, I think it’s better, or at least more intuitive than the default ‘balloon’ that most google maps use.

With this release, Australians are entering a whole new dimension of real estate and travel. Without even thinking about it, I have already checked out a hotel I am hoping to book in Adelaide (confirmed easy access to the Torrens and gardens), I also poked around a couple of interesting properties in Fitzroy ad noted that while the real estate pages mention nothing about graffiti, the street view shot clearly shows that the property is regarded as a bit of a ‘canvas’ by locals.

What I can’t quite fathom about Street View in Australia, is the incredible coverage. I can understand the Google investment in cities and tourism areas – there’s an obvious commercial return there, but I am completely puzzled (and delighted) that they seem to have driven from Jamieson up the Woods Point road to Gaffney’s Creek! That’s impressive!

I’m sure we’re going to hear a lot about this in the coming weeks. My congratulations to the team at Google for such an impressive launch and also to Domain for an excellent commercial implementation. Go check it out!

One of the features of this conference, however, is that it is always in rather nice beachside locations. This gives the poor old academic a welcome break from the humdrum of campus, but I suspect it has in some ways cheapened the message being delivered.

Anyway, this one, as I said, is in Ballina. The location is just a few minutes walk from the beach, the venue is comfortable, but – and this is a big but – why do conference venues think it’s OK to serve such god awful food? I’ve had bad, but this is utterly woeful. The breakfast this morning nominally cost $20. What I got was a choice of: toast with peanut butter and jam; some basic cereals; a bain-marie which was mostly empty but occasionally topped up with some greasy bacon, and rubbery scrambled eggs; no decent fruit; no pastries. Totally pathetic, when you consider that just up the road in Byron Bay, there are creators of some of the best coffee, jams, spreads, muesli, and organic foods in Australia.

The most pathetic breakfast ever!

It’s not all doom and gloom, however. Before the conference program kicked in and I was able to choose my own food, we found some absolute gems. Thai by Night, on the main stret in Ballina served up the best Thai food I’ve had since I left Chiang Mai. Then we had breakfast at The Harvest Cafe in Newrybar just a few k. north of Ballina. Sensational… utterly beautiful. Oh, and after that we went on the the Byron Bay Sunday market – more great food and snacks. While I’m stuck in the conference my travel partners have sampled the excellent food at the local RSL. So there’s plenty of choice if you look around – just don’t even think about eating at Ballina Beach Resort… they don’t deserve a second chance.

The evidence is everywhere you look. There were posters on every available wall, in every taxi and tuk-tuk. There was yellow bunting on every light pole. The papers and magazines all run articles praising the king. At least half the population seemed to be wearing a yellow ‘king’ shirt. His birthday is celebrated with a public holiday that was described to us by one Thai as like father’s day, “because he is father to all of us”. This was said in all honesty and without a hint of the irony we Australians would attach to such a statement. It all gets a bit unsettling.

So, who is this king? From his Wikipedia entry:

Bhumibol was born in the United States and educated primarily in Switzerland. Bhumibol is also an accomplished musician, artist, and sailor. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world and has received many honours.

OK, he seems pretty benign.

Much is made of the projects he sponsors, though I have to say they have that sniff of ‘publicity stunt’ about them. Don’t get me wrong, they are worthy projects, targetted at needy areas of Thai life – it’s probably my cynical side, but they always seem to be well photographed… excellent publicity material.

Then there are the awards, and again, I’m copying from Wikipedia:

Bhumibol set a world record for receiving the greatest number of honorary university degrees (136) in 1997. Most of his degrees came from Thai universities: for instance, Kasetsart University awarded him ten honorary doctoral degrees at once.

you gotta wonder, don’t you? Isn’t that just a little bit like fawning?

He seems to be a modestly talented musician, playing jazz clarinet sweetly and composing some pretty catchy tunes. He also has inherited his father’s skills in boat design and sailing. All very nice, but you’d have to agree that things like learning music and sailing boats are made just that little bit easier by application of vast sums of money. Something he seems to have in ready supply.

He is, sadly, not photogenic. You can’t have everything. I won’t stoop to personal criticism, but he is not your classic good looker. On the other hand, and I applaud him for it, he doesn’t hide behind a facade of stylists and image makers – the photos you’ll see around Thailand are very simple, real snapshots… including one cracker of him playing the saxophone. I wish I’d got a copy of that one!

So, why is it all so unsettling? I can’t believe that everyone is happy with the king, but you won’t hear or read a single word against him anywhere. He is completely untouchable. That’s not natural.

There is a law against criticism of the king, with quite severe penalties, but I don’t know how vigorously it is applied. This last quote from Wikipedia gives one pause to reflect, though:

Frenchman Lech Tomacz Kisielwicz committed lèse majesté while on a Thai Airways flight in international airspace, and was jailed for two weeks after his flight landed in Bangkok. He was acquitted after apologizing to the King.

I would have thought that was pretty vigorous application of the law! Long live the king!!

Our first introduction came right outside our hotel. We walked out onto one of the busiest streets in the old city area of Bangkok – hoping to get across. It was one lane in one direction, but about four in the other. Being a fair distance from any intersections, there were no real breaks in the traffic, just a steady stream of roaring tuk-tuks and taxis.

No problem – just half a block away we spied a pedestrian crossing and headed over, confident of success. A minute or so later, we were still waiting. It seems stopping, or even slowing down, at a pedestrian crossing is completely optional.

We had struck this sort of thing in Beijing. There is a technique for negotiating traffic, which involves launching yourself into the traffic without looking… you just trust that it will be alright and more often than not, it is. Beijing traffic, however, was a good deal slower and more gentle than the torrent that swept before us now, there was no way I was going to simply trust them to miss us, so we completely failed to convince the traffic that we were really going across… and they in turn ignored us.

Just when we were about to give up, a local came to our rescue. The helpful lady pointed out a bucket of flags nearby. Apparently, holding a flag in front of you as you cross renders the traffic helpless and they part like the waters of the red sea as you stride across… or not! Despite the flag, traffic simply sailed on by, though emboldened by the weapons we now held and the presence of a local, we did finally manage to cross. I think the flags’ only use would be to whack tuk-tuks that came too close.

Now, all of this is highly amusing, and similar tales could be told by any visitor to Bangkok, but it’s a serious problem. Consider this:

The road toll over the week-long New Year travel period, which ended on Wednesday, exceeded last year’s record levels in all categories, Deputy Prime Minister Kosit Panpiemras said yesterday. This year saw 449 people killed and 4,943 injured in 4,456 accidents, higher than the same period last year by eight deaths, 171 injuries and 262 accidents, he said. (Bangkok Post, Jan 5 2007)

… yep, you read that correctly – 449 road deaths in seven days! In a country with just over three times the population of Australia they exceed our road deaths by about nine times.

You definitely need that travel insurance!

The biggest difference is the humidity – phew! +95% every day. It’s also a ‘resort’ island – Chiang Mai is a much more rounded and sophisticated experience. Here, there are far too many westerners and the economy is slanted towards relieving them of as much money as possible in the shortest possible time. Repeat business doesn’t seem to be a priority.

We had dinner last night at Lamai Beach – a thoroughly gruesome and crowded little strip of bars and bespoke tailors all clamouring for attention. We did find an excellent feed at Mr Phu’s Seafood restaurant, but overall the experience was not a positive one. There are often reminders that the Thais prefer modesty – covering knees, shoulders etc. is regarded as more respectful. The justification on religious grounds is good enough, but I wouldn’t blame the Thais at all if it was just a ruse to get overweight, sunburnt foreigners to cover up the more obscene and lurid bits of their anatomy! Far too much of that to be seen in these parts.

Seems almost the whole island has been overtaken in the pursuit of the foreign dollar. The environment is a disaster – dead coral – beaches grossly degraded by encroaching development – forest trees cut for building… everywhere you look you see pressure on the island. Really a bit sad.

It’s not all like that! We’ve found two very different little hilights.

Firstly, the south and west coasts are still ‘less’ developed than the north and east. So there is still a chance you can take a bike or a 4WD down a muddy track and come out on a palm fringed beach just like the postcards (with a little more rubbish!). The main town on the west coast is a busy fishing port, so it’s not totally focussed on your wallet. We had a sensational lunch there the other day, then wandered along the docks taking in the sights… very pleasant.

Secondly, there is Laem Set Inn, one of the oldest resorts on the island. Sure it is a resort and there is a bit of gouging, but the philosophy of the place is very much to give the visitor a good, stress free time. So far, they have delivered that in spades. We spend our days wandering from the pool to the beach – snorkelling, paddling canoes, or just reading books in the hammocks strung along the foreshore. The food is roughly twice the price we were paying at street markets in Chiang Mai, but the quality and setting mean you still have to regard it as very good value. Sadly, the reef here is pretty much as dead as everywhere and the Laem Set development is just a guilty of pressuring the beach as anywhere else. On the other hand, it is a lot more established than most and therefore feels more like it belongs. The gardens are spectacular!

If I had a criticism, it would be that can get a little bit boring, but one step out to the rest of Samui quickly convinces you that the resort is definitely the best place to be.

We’ve got three more days here – a total of nine luxurious nights – will we be glad to leave? I don’t think so!