After a hectic week of surprises, I made it safely to Sydney this morning. My flight was 9 hours on Birtish Airways, and it was luxurious compared to the bus rides and Air Asia flights that I've been taking. I watched about 6 episodes of various sitcoms from the TV database and had no problem sleeping the rest of the way.
I arrived this morning around 7 and painstakingly went through immigration and customs. Still, they were much easier than I'd been led to believe. The night I returned to Bangkok from Vietnam, I happened to check online to find that, contrary to my previous belief, I would need a visa to enter Australia! Crikey! I then found a laundry list of goods that customs does not allow into the country, including wood products and dirt that is caked on shoes (fear of disease and danger to endemic species). Then, I read that I would only be allowed one checked bag, since my flight does not cross an ocean - a problem for me, since I am continuing straight to the US and have everything with me. Also, all of this happened on a weekend, so nothing useful was open. Needless to say, I was panicked for most of my last day in Bangkok.
A hasty online ETA (alternate visa) application, two boxes of shipped goods, several phone calls to automated customer service computers, and a hefty excess baggage fine later, I made it through. Juliana met me at the airport, and we took a taxi to her dorm, where I promptly fell asleep. In the evening, we took a bus downtown to Circular Quay, where I saw the Harbor Bridge and Opera House lit up in the distance. Then we headed to an ARL rugby game between the Sydney Roosters and the Wests Tigers: Australia's version of Monday Night Football. The Roosters won, and to say that it was entertaining would be an understatement. During the 2nd half, it started pouring, and all of the fans stayed until the end (it wasn't a close game) and remained quite spirited. A far cry from home, especially UNC games where most of the golf-clapping fans leave at halftime to beat the traffic.
As for leaving Thailand, the goodbyes were tough. I had one last dinner with my Thai friends and Sara, and lunch the next day with other international students. It didn't really hit me that I would be leaving, and now I'm too overwhelmed by the fact that I'm in Australia to think too closely about it. Still, I felt like I'd left Thailand before I even boarded the plane - the waiting area was full of Europeans on a connecting flight from London, and the entire flight staff was British.
I'm definitely experiencing price shock, and I'm sure the culture shock will follow. I suppose Sydney is a good buffer between Thailand and the US - I'm still traveling and experiencing new things, but this new culture is much more similar to my own. I'm getting used to things like speaking English, drinking tap water, flushing toilet paper (which you can't do in SE Asia), and seeing white people everywhere. Not to mention the quadrupled prices.
The end of my Vietnam trip was amazing - I loved Saigon and learned a ton there, but I'll have to recap it later. The plan now is to explore Sydney this week and head to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef this Saturday. I'm sure it will fly by! (And my bank account will be run dry.)
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