Another World

I have arrived in Sydney. Apart from the complete joy of seeing friends and being offered the luxury of staying in a home rather than a hotel, with all its attendant joys (toast and peanut butter!; staying in to eat; sitting around reading the newspaper on a Saturday morning) I am very aware of how different a world this is, different from Thailand but also from Europe. Here I can clean my teeth without rinsing the brush, or my mouth, with bottled purified water, I no longer have to search for that little, open bin in the toilet that, in tropical heat, collects the paper and when I walk along the street none of the many forms of transport beeps me looking for custom. My colour and race no longer define me as rich or a tourist and suddenly, wonderfully, I am once again invisible. How I have missed that. There are those who complain of the lack of social interaction in the affluent West, of Tube passengers in London pointedly continuing to read rather than smile or chat but, right now, I am revelling in the quiet, the anonymity, the ability to talk, take a photograph or simply put one foot in front of the other without a bombardment of voices demanding my attention. It is something I usually take for granted; I hope that I remember not to when I return.

And Sydney is very different from any other big city that I have visited. It reminds me a little of Boston: a brick house with Georgian windows nestling under a central business district; the endless variety of bays; the repurposed colonial buildings that were once homes to prisoners or settlers. But so far (all of 24 hours so forgive my presumption) it far exceeds the qualities of any city that I have visited, whether reminiscent of it or not, for one very simple reason: its population.

I stood at the cross-street that took me from the Botanic Gardens to Macquarie Street, a very central location, and waited to see if it was safe to cross. Looking north, onto the tarmac of the expressway that leads to the Harbour Bridge, I suddenly wanted to stop, not walk, and take a photograph. For a good few seconds, in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, every lane of the expressway and its exits was completely empty. It didn't last, but even when the traffic reappeared there wasn't the sort of crush that I would expect at that time of the day, in such a location. I've been in traffic jams by Hyde Park (the London one) at 1.30am on a Sunday morning whereas here, as I crossed the road to Sydney's own Hyde Park (which is, like London's, next to some prime retail) at 5pm on a beautiful Spring day there was not one car to be seen. This isn't to say there isn't traffic: anti-shake devices for digital cameras were obviously made for anyone trying to take a picture of the Harbour Bridge as vehicles rumble past. But, evidently, since the population of Australia (which is the size of the US or most of Western Europe) is less, I think, than the whole of Greater London there isn't anywhere near as much. It was the same story on the easy, direct and cheap service from the airport to the city: in morning rush hour I had a seat and someone not only offered to carry my bag but also proferred useful tips on where to sit to get the best views. Somehow I can't see that happening on the Piccadilly line. I've been told that traffic lanes are extraordinarily narrow and dangerous here so all is not perfect; however, coming from London via Thailand, places where every form of transport seems chaotic, unsafe and crowded, Sydney is, so far, a dream of civilisation.