Trip Update #6

So, it finally hit me. I miss watching Comedy Central all the time (affectionately known as the Paraag Channel at our house). But no worries - I'm sure that Scott and Marcus are taping every Daily Show and Man Show for me. Who could ask for better pals than that? Thanks guys. To the update! During the last episode, our heroes were stranded on the desert isle of Magnetic Island off the coast of Australia... Monday, June 17th Went horseback riding this morning. Let me just say for the record right now - Ouch. I think we have found a non-surgical procedure for a vasectomy. When not in pain, we were able to enjoy a trot through rainforesty paths. We also got to ride the horses on the beach - almost like a movie or something. Pretty neat. My horse was literally a pain in the ass. He would stop to munch on grass, or run into other horses, and even bit another horse on the backside once. Good times. After the morning ride, we hiked a trail through the rainforest in search of grey bundles of joy (otherwise known as koalas) in the surrounding eucalyptus trees. Didn't find any. Very sad. Today was also clearly the hottest day we have had so far. It took all of four or five steps for me to break a sweat. At 4pm, the USA-Mexico soccer game was on. Awesome game. I think Mexico clearly played a better game, but it's goals that count. Rayman and I were going nuts. Two Coronas and a tequila shot later, we hopped on the city bus after the game to go back to the ferry to Townsville. Then we realized that we had both left our towels drying out in the sun at the hostel. So, Rayman jumped out to catch a cab to retrieve said items and meet me at the ferry. We plan to bill Mexico for the $20 cab ride. Tuesday, June 18th Woke up early to catch a 5:30 am bus to go up to Tully. In Tully, we went Whitewater Rafting on the Tully River - about 45 rapids on a Class IV river. A lot of fun, for the guide at least. This river was more technical than pure raging fury, so the guide got to tell us when to hop on the left or right side or bounce up and down to help maneuver the raft through the rocky terrain. The highlight for us was engaging in splash wars with one of the other boats, who Rayman termed "our mortal enemy". The rafting people dropped us off in Mission Beach, and we stayed at a place called The Treehouse. Now a normal everyday human being may suspect that a place called The Treehouse would be comprised in some way of a house in a tree. This normal everyday human being would be wrong. It was a big old house, located amongst trees. But it was out in the middle of nowhere - no TV, no Internet, no neighborhood, no nothing. Just calm and peaceful. Oh yeah - and there were hammocks. I need to get me one of them for the backyard. Wednesday, June 19th Earned a certificate today that says "To Paraag Maddiwar, for jumping out of a perfectly good aeroplane." Yup - we went skydiving. 14,000 feet up in the air - a 60 second freefall. Beautiful views of the rainforest and the beach all the way down. In fact, we landed on the beach. I'm not sure if there is a more perfect place to skydive in the world. Maybe Mehoopany, Pennsylvania or environs (where I did my previous skydives). After returning to The Treehouse, we spent a few hours in the aforementioned hammocks and relaxed and read. Later, we boarded a bus to Cairns. For those of you not in the know, Cairns is pronounced like "cans", as in "cans of whupass". Cairns serves as a backpackers and tourists mecca - very much like Queenstown in New Zealand. Thursday, June 20th Embarked on a 3 day/2 night bus tour north to Cape Tribulation and the Daintree Rainforest. I think that all bus driver tour guide people must be able to constantly babble and amuse themselves. Our guy Simon was a nut. Example - there are tons of sugar cane fields on the drive up, and the cane is chopped down and put into a big cart attached to a train. Every time we saw one of these trains, Simon would immediately say "sugar cane train - woo woo", even if he was in the middle of a sentence. Actually, I am often accused of being able to entertain myself with worthless babble. Perhaps I have found the job for me... We stayed at a place called Crocodylus, which was out in the middle of nowhere. Again - no TV and no Internet. In fact, there were no power lines in the area either. Everything is run off of generators. Our bunks were located in a large bungalow – really neat. Apparently, cassowaries (these prehistoric endangered birds resembling emus) often roam around the premises as well. Unfortunately, we didn't see any. After settling in, we walked down to the beach (about 4 km away) and did a short hike through some neighboring rainforest. The beaches here are very empty - making them perfect in my opinion. I can't stand places like Miami Beach and so forth - way too cluttered with people. And the site of rainforests lining the beaches is spectacular. The rainforests are pretty darn amazing as well - it's really neat to see how evolution has allowed different plants to come up with interesting ways to survive in such a competitive environment for sunlight. There's this one fig called a strangler vine, which snakes its way up an existing tree to get to the above canopy and get some light. Often the host tree will die off and wither away, leaving a hollow shell of the strangling fig vine. Hard to describe, but neat to see. Have pictures. Will travel. In the evening, we did a night walk with the resort people. Since many of the animals and wildlife in the rainforest are nocturnal, we can sometimes see more stuff at night (with lights of course). So, we saw a couple of spiders, a tree frog or two, a few birds, and three forest dragons (a reptile of some sort - they all look like iguanas to me). Friday, June 21st For a change of pace, we decided to rent mountain bikes and ride around all day. Can't quite bike through the rainforest unfortunately, but we figured we'd ride up to Cape Tribulation. Little did we realize that Cape Tribulation was approximately 25 kilometers away. In total, we rode approximately 60 kilometers today. Our quads were not happy muscles and they let us know about it too. Yes Marcus, we wore our helmets at all times.Aching and sore, we limped into a pub a few kilometers away from the resort to watch the soccer matches (Brazil-England and Germany-USA). I think Brazil is awesome and should win the whole thing. The US team looked really good, and in my opinion, outplayed the German team. But of course, goals being what matters, we lost unfortunately. How unlikely would it be to have both South Korea and the US in the semifinals? Crazy, I tell you. FYI... Similar to Fraser Island, Daintree Rainforest is World Heritage listed as is the Great Barrier Reef. This area is the only place on earth where two World Heritage places border one another. What I want to know is who determines what is World Heritage? The UN? Must be some multi-national conglomerate of tree-huggers. And then how do they decide? Majority vote? 2/3? Do I get a vote? Can I be listed as a World Heritage person? After all, as my mom is quick to point out, she does only have one son named Paraag. Saturday, June 22nd Thanks to the miracles of Ben Gay (no I haven't - thanks for asking, not that there's anything wrong with that), we weren't too sore this morning. Nevertheless, we were pretty beat and decided to spend the morning reading at the resort until nutcase Simon and the bus picked us up. On the way back to Cairns, we did a short cruise on the Daintree River looking for Crocodiles. Saw two, but they were both very very small. Back in Cairns, we decided to check out the nightlife for a change. Ended up staying out till something like 5am or so. But, as my friend Saravanan would put it, many women here just weren't down with the brown. Or maybe it's because I'm ugly. :-) Sunday, June 23rd Woke up three hours later to go take a boat over some very very choppy waters and go scuba diving. And I mean very very choppy - Rayman lost his on the way out and I lost it on the way back. I'm sure there's a tidbit in here somewhere regarding staying out late and diving, but I can't seem to figure it out. Don't worry - I drank plenty of water and was more than fine. Just tired, that's all. There were a ton of fishees, and some were just huge! The reef was really nice too. Kinda hard to describe stuff, not knowing any real terminology. Just a bunch of pretty pretty fishees, in fashion colours. Saw a big ass turtle. Oh yeah - there were these two large fish that followed us around everywhere, so I named them Fred and Barney. That's it. Rayman insists that we should go out again tonight, but I'm a little exhausted. Oh well. Guess you'll have to wait till next week to find out. Tomorrow evening, we fly out to Bali, Indonesia. So today is the last vestige of Western civilization that I'll see in two months. Thank God for the secret Islamic handshake. In case you're interested, I have now completed reading 4 different books: The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy, Cry of the Halydon by Robert Ludlum, The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart, and Ogg by Bob Jones. I can hear my mother's words now... if only he would have read books before he took his SATs so that he would have gotten into Harvard. (just joking mommy) Toodles, -Paraag Tidbits: 1. It would be a good idea to secure the frank and beans in a nice tight-fitting pair of underwear prior to horseback riding. Swimming trunks don't cut it. 2. After careful experimentation, Rayman and I have positively verified the existence of the Coriolis Effect. The toilet water does indeed swirl down in the opposite direction as home. With that knowledge, your life is complete. 3. Most world maps here have Australia in the center – the Atlantic Ocean is on the ends instead of the Pacific Ocean. 4. The Australian welfare system is ridiculous. Met a guy who gets AU$225 a week for welfare. His wife gets the same, and they get a little more for each kid that they have. No disability or anything like that - he just doesn't want to work. Apparently, this is quite common. 5. Better planning is required when embarking on marathon bicycle ride. Don't wear jeans. Clear backpack of all non-essential items to the ride (batteries, eyeglasses, books, etc.).6. The board game Clue is known as Cluedo everywhere else in the world. No cluedo as to why.