Day 81: Fremantle/Perth, Australia

Fremantle night club

So Fremantle is a 2 day stop, and the last before our 7 day crossing to the Maldives. We’ve made arrangements to exit the cruise and arrive at the Maldives early for SCUBA diving. The cheapest option was to go to Kuala Lumpur, but after talking with more experienced travelers, we decided to go to Thailand for a few days before arriving in the Maldives. Our flight out of Perth is on day 2 of our stop, but because of Australian immigration, we had to get off on the first day and book a room in Perth. After visiting Fremantle, I’m disappointed because Fremantle is a really cool funky vibe. Perth is much bigger but a night in Fremantle would have been a lot of fun.

We shipped a box home, and packed some bags for our trip, and spent time dealing with our face to face exit. We visited an aboriginal art gallery and a cool vinyl record store, grabbed a pint in Fremantle before boarding the train to Perth.

We booked a hotel near the train station in a buzzy part of town. It was great until we realized that there was a bar across the street that blared music into the street till after midnight. Now I know what the earplugs in the bathroom were for!

An American bartender at the hotel recommended eating in Chinatown, just a few blocks from the hotel. We found the place, which wasn’t big, but had a bunch of small restaurants. We chose one that seemed pretty busy, and sadly, it wasn’t good. Not bad, but definitely not good. I have to say that it was the first “Meh” meal that we’ve had since we started this trip. Lesson learned to not trust a young American for food recommendations!

Our flight was at 9:30, so we decided to leave before 7:00 to allow for traffic and international travel. They made us check our carryons because they were overweight. I tossed my headphones, a book and charger into a bag and headed for the gate. The terminal and boarding process were a complete breeze! We were in the last boarding group, and they let families board early, and there were a lot of families! Families with babies and small children. I’ll write more about this in the next post.

Stay tuned to hear about our Bangkok earthquake adventure.