Lafeyette

Sunday 19^th June 2011

It’s 6am on Sunday morning and we walk past numerous homeless people. We are not threatened in any way nor approached by anyone but I have never seen Chris walk so quickly carrying her backpack!!

Houston, Texas to Lafeyette, Louisiana.

A couple of observations about Houston before we go:

• Many more negro people here and less Hispanics.
•   Don’t ask for a kettle or electric jug in your room – they don’t understand the question (someone arrived with a saucepan instead).

From Club Quarters Hotel to Greyhound to catch bus to Lafeyette. Three km walk down Main Street. 

One thing I have noticed is that Americans are very polite, extremely polite. Everyone will address you as sir, even the homeless people – seems very formal to an Australian.

We get a much closer security inspection here at Houston Greyhound terminal. There are armed security officers who inspect our carry-on luggage and run a scanning wand over our clothing. Curiously, they don’t examine luggage destined for under the bus, yet you retain possession of it once inside the terminal proper until you board.

Security ask about our accents and, as elsewhere we seem to get a friendly response to being identified as Australian. And note, contrary to popular myth in Australia – they all seem to know about Australia and know places like Sydney or Melbourne (perhaps not Adelaide). None have confused us with coming from Austria.

Once again the Greyhound booking system is different here than anywhere else. This time we are not to go to ticketing but to the ‘information Desk’ which is identified by the ‘Restaurant’ sign above it (there is no ‘Information’ sign at the ‘Information’ desk). There we get luggage tickets for the packs and are told to line up in the queue at the gate – we are no longer standby customers. 

Chris has to exit security to go back out and buy breakfast – egg burritos. I’ve discovered that I’m not really a Mexican food fan. It appears to be too heavy for me and often greasy (although this may be undeserved criticism as I’m sure we are not seeing the best of it at fast food outlets). In any event, I’m steering away from it where I can (but sometimes that’s not possible).

Chris got friendly with the security blokes. She even asked them for a photo which they willingly posed for. You will have to wait for that one!!!!

Mike

Trip to Lafeyette was not too long and the scenery was lovely. Lots of green vegetation and little rivers. Very pretty.

Our Lafeyette experience was not quite to plan. Bus station is downtown so we had to get a taxi to find a hotel. Unfortunately we got the "dodgy brother" who appeared to be about 90, mumbled in some accent we couldn,t hope to understand and had his radio up so loud we couldn,t hear him.....and he slugged us $12 for a mile and a half trip.

Luckily, after a bit of trial and error, we ended up in a nice motel but it was miles from any of the attractions as most of them seem to be (out on the outskirts of town near the motorways).

Rather than risk the another "dodgy brother" we opted to have a quiet night and save our partying for New Orleans.

We took a walk and managed to find a supermarket so we picked up some chicken and salad for dinner. A swim in the hotel pool capped off the evening.

Chris

Still no photos loading......will try again tomorrow.