The Australian Gold Coast has More than Just GoldPrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
Most people like to plan long in advance before they travel. They spend time picking their holiday destination, plan their accommodations and give thought to what they want to see and do. That is the usual scenario. This week, and for the next two weeks, I am going to give my readers a surprise. I am at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok waiting for the midnight flight to Brisbane in Australia. That is about as much as I know. What is coming is a mystery. I am on my way from Bangkok to Australia and how did it happen? I have to thank the Queensland Tourist Office.
The Tourist office was holding a promotional tour and invited journalists from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, nine people in all. I was one of those chosen from Thailand and Thai Airways International was flying me there.
I knew nothing else about the tour and what was to come would be a complete surprise. Brisbane and the Gold Coast were not altogether new to me because I had visited the area in the late 1960s. Naturally, I was most anxious to see the changes which I had heard were colossal. I didn’t know any of the other journalists joining the tour, including the lady writer from Bangkok. I would have to wait until I was aboard the aircraft to meet her. The others we would meet in Brisbane.
My first surprise was that THAI had placed me in business class. This was going to be luxury. The excitement began to build when I drove from Bangkok to Suvarnabhumi Airport, over twenty kilometres of beautiful highway lighted up like an entrance to a palace.
And what an impression the new airport gives. The airport becomes a glow in the distance like a city itself. What a far cry from the old airport at Don Muang north of the city. Still, I couldn’t help reflecting on the old airport. I feel sorry for the old Don Muang that is now closed. For anyone who has lived in Bangkok any length of time it is nostalgic. It’s like losing an old friend. Little traffic then, and perhaps a dozen cars. Even tuktuks made it all the way to the airport. Taxis were not metered and you had to bargain. You could get one for 35 baht if you were a good bargainer.
Years ago, the ride into town was over broken pavement and, if it was raining, the driver had to cross the road from one side to the other to avoid the puddles, some axel deep. If it was afternoon, water buffalo grazed along the roadside, and fish traps were set up in the klongs. I doubt if future travelers forty years from now will have the same to say about Suvarnabhumi.
Boarding time. I met my travelling companion, Nontree Vassana, a twenty-five-year-old journalist with a woman’s magazine in Bangkok. She was bright-eyed and eager for a new adventure.
Our aircraft was a B-777-200 ER. I spent the first few minutes playing with the buttons that adjusted the seat. The seats do the most incredible things with just a push of a button and I felt like I was in a spacecraft. And then there were the movie channels.
Dining in business class aboard a THAI flight is five-star dining. The first serving came: Capaccio of Marinated Salmon with Chervil and fresh cream. Then the main course, a choice of four, from sautéed prawns to a stir fried Thai fish. I settled for the Australian veal loin with pumpkin Gnocchi, gratinated asparagus and Aussie wine. I had cheese and port wine. And then the desert tray came. How can one refuse?
Our flight took us to the International Airport in Brisbane. It was lunch time when we arrived. We were greeted by Mike Ladd from Greet & Meet who was hired by the QueenslandTourist Office to be our driver. A few minutes driving with him and many of the old memories of my earlier visit to the Gold Coast came back. Mike pointed out the sights and I had forgotten that Brisbane is really a river city. A river runs every which way through the city.
Mike took us to Chifley Hotel on Queen Street, right in the heart of Brisbane—couldn’t ask for a better location. Step out the door and all the action is there—shops, restaurants, video stores, book stores, just name it. And there are pedestrians—Australians and people from nearly every nation on earth. They all come to Queen Street.
At the hotel to greet Vassana and me was Leong Pik Yin, Marketing Communications Manager, from Queensland Tourism's Southeast Asia office. PK, as we called her, introduced us to two young journalists from Singapore, Allyson Anne Klass from Simply Her magazine and Angela lee from Singapore Press. The rest of the group was arriving next day. With four women in my group, and each quiet pretty, we went for a walk down Queen Street, the main thoroughfare in Brisbane. I attempted to photograph two skinheads with tattoos and rings in all parts of their bodies but they wanted five dollars so I declined. They missed their chance to have their photos in Weekly Travel Feature.
I could see there was not going to be any wasted time with PK. It was obvious why she holds the job she does—efficiency. She took us immediatly to explore Queen Street Mall, an open-air mall that attracts 26 million people a year.
What few of us realized was that it was Australia Day. More surprises. We walked across Victoria Bridge to South Bank for dinner and a view of the fireworks celebrating Australia Day. South Bank itself is a phenomenon, a lush, sub-tropical, 17-hectare parkland. It’s the city’s recreational precinct that boasts of restaurants, cafes, a man-made lagoon complete with a sandy beach, lifeguards, playgrounds, gardens and barbecue areas. And there is even a Nepalese temple. All this, but what makes the place phenomenal is that not so many years ago it was a wasteland, a sore spot for the city.
The site where South Bank stands today was originally a meeting, hunting and gathering place for early Aborigine people. From the early 1900s until 1984, the area was a port and an industrial hub and by mid-1980 it had become a run down area. That was very much how I remembered it when I drove though Brisbane in the early 1970s. But, in 1984, the site was chosen as the location for World Expo 88 and things began to happen. Expo 88 attracted more than 18 million visitors and became a turning point in the history of Brisbane. South Bank has been transformed into Brisbane's premier lifestyle.
The fireworks display began at 7.30pm. We had dinner at The Point Restaurant before the activities began. The Point is noted for it fresh seafood. Australians are amazing people. They eat, sing and laugh all at the same time and you can’t help joining in the fun with them.
The banks along the river began to fill up with people by the time we finished dinner. Australia Day is observed as a public holiday and celebrated across the country. There are the usual formal ceremonies and some uniquely Australian competitions such as thong throwing and damper making; and, of course, community barbeques.
According to one history, fireworks at Brisbane are nothing new. On January 26, 1788 Captain Arthur Phillips took formal possession of the colony and records show that in 1808 the "anniversary of the foundation of the colony" was observed in the traditional manner with "drinking and merriment". Official celebrations began in 1818 to mark the 30th anniversary of settlement and incuded a thirty-gun salute.
It was after the fireworks, while walking back to the bridge to re-cross the river, that I noticed an Asian-type temple. I was cruious and returned the next afternoon. It’s called the Nepalese Peace Pagoda and it was hard to believe. It was carved in the Kathmandu Valley and brought to Brisbane for World Expo 88 as a symbol for world peace. No less than 160 families worked for more than one million man-hours to create the pagoda. Timbers used to carve the pagoda came from the Terai jungle in Southern Nepal. I could have sworn that I was back in Nepal. Here was another Australian surprise, one of the many more that were to come in the next few days.
Next week more about the Australian Gold Coast.
Since I am still on the road, I don’t have access to my in-coming e-mail so this week there will be no questions and answers.
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited. | 
