Saturday, February 17, 2007

Byron Bay (World Tour, Stop 3)

I stayed at the Arts Factory Lodge, which is located right outside of the town on swampland. There were turkeys and 1.5 ft long lizards wandering the lodge, and everything was very outdoorsy and down to earth. A lot of the visitors were the dreadlocked shirtless barefoot types that carry their guitars around with them everywhere. There were campsites, bungalows, teepees, and normal dorms. One of the residents/lurkers was this crazy nature guy who always had his cockatoo on his shoulder and knew which plants to eat and which will kill you and which leaves are good to use when you run out of toilet paper. He also performed as a one man band and played the drums, guitar, and didgeridoo all at once.

Byron Bay seems to survive on selling hippie clothes, magic crystals, aura photos, and holistic medicine and yoga classes. I didn't partake in any of these activities except for a yoga class held on the beach which was actually well worth the $15. I also went sea kayaking to try and spot the dolphins that live in the bay, but we didn't see any :(

Most of the visitors were German or English, but I did meet one sort of depressing Irish guy who was very very drunk and told me he was 39 and asked if it was wrong for a man of his age to make love to a woman in her 20's. He then confessed he likes asian women because they have "small bottoms". He also claimed to have a PhD from UT Austin in Theoretical Physics. One of the other guys staying in his dorm told me that he downed 3 or 4 glasses of red wine in their room, and told everyone that he had to either drink like that or commit suicide.

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