Day 12 - Darwin
The Day started after a long strong shower, the water pressure was out of this world. Today I was going to relax at the pub around the block and watch the Mayweather v. Mosley fight, it was going to be nice to watch the fight without having to pay 60+ for the PPV back in the states. The fight began at 1030 AM, after watching back and fort between the undercards and the AFL (australian rules football) games that were on, i finally settled into the outside part of the bar where i could see the game, as well as smoke, eat and drink. Of course this being australia, I have to order all drinks and food from the bar...this i'm not so fond of, but i can only guess that this being a drinking culture, its probably very likely that any other type of payment other than at the time of service, or before food is delivered, would result in a lot of dine and dashes.
As the fight drew closer the bar began to fill, and being the nice guy that i am, i offered to share my table with two guys who had been sitting there previously. I snagged the table after htey didn't come back after a few minutes, that, and the table had a perfect view of the big screen tv on the outdoor patio. It seems that Aussies know a little about American boxers, and world boxers for that matter. This made for good conversation for the fight at hand, as well as fights that were not to be. The chap that sat to my right, was quit knowledgeable, we discuss cst of goods and services, as well as recent changes in the cost of consumer goods, such as cigarettes and basic staples like milk, bread and eggs. It appears that the cost of a 25 pack of ciggarettes is 15+ AUD, and given that the the AUD is currently running like 0.97:1 thats a pretty expensive pack of cigarettes. a pack of drum, or roll your own, similar to what we in the US would compare to a pack of bugler, or Kite is at 30+ AUD, thats frackin expensive.
Even the cost of eating out was expensive, it seems everything is still priced for when the AUD was at 1.30 to the USD, so lunch in a resturaunt was at 20+ AUD, and a beer, at the lower end of the scale was 5 AUD.
I was able to find a Yiro stand the night before, with 10 dollar yiro's that were really good, so for supper i ate in a bar, and had a personal cheese pizza and potato wedges, these were good, they were served with sour cream and chili sauce, not a ccombination i would have tried perviously, but very good after seeing the two guys who sat next to me during the fight eating them that way.
After eating, i swung by the yiro place again to get a late night snack, and boy was that a good snack at around 10.
Now for a bit of a Rant. those who know me, know that I rarely bitch about anything, but i was apalled at the hotel i stayed at in darwin, the Mantra on the Esplande. Now, I rarely go Posh when it comes to travelling abroad, but knowing that what i was budgeting for hotels was going to be far under what it could be on this trip, i doubled my budget for Darwin knowing i wouldn't have to pay anything for my time in Korea.
- only positive part of the hotel was that the room was clean, and the AC worked
-hotel staff was daft, unresponsive and acted as though they could give a shit less.
- the bar/resto was a joke, i sat for 10 minutes waiting for the waitress or bartender to even awknoledge that i was sitting 5 feet from them, i got up and left
- went out to smoke first night (requested smoking room, they had rooms available with balconies that were in my room rate), night clerk locked the door as she passed me in the lobby (seeing me go outside) after i had walked outside for a ciggarette....my thoughts were really? you couldn't wait 5 minutes for me to finish?
- check in; my flight arrived at 5 AM, i arrived at the hotel at approx 530, knowing that it would be next to impossible to get a room at that hour, or that my room would even be ready, i wanted to make sure the hotel knew i was there, find a place to do laundry, and find some plae for breakfast. The hotel didnt have a laundry facility, so i was told to mooch off the hotel next door, as for getting a room somewhat early, i was told i would need to come back at 2, that would be the soonest a room would be available, no effort whatsoever to attempt to accommodate me, no, "sir check in isn't till 2, we will see if we can find you a room sooner than that", or "sir, check out is at 10, as soon as the room is available we can notify you"
- impolite staff, not once...i repeat ONCE, was I greeted in the hotel with a "hello", "How are you" etc.
I found out later, after arriving back in singapore and chatting with a Darwin native that the Mantra hotel i stayed at was in fact the worst for customer service in Darwin, not that customer service strives there, but i had as they said in Indiana Jones....Choosen Poorly
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