Trip Update #9

It just feels like a few short days ago that I wrote you last... oh wait, it was just a few short days ago. Or at least it was when I started writing this damn thing... I've come to the realization that there is no way that I'll be able to stick to a schedule of sending out updates. There's so many places that I'll be heading to over the next few weeks that have no Internet access at all. So, you'll just have to make do with whatever and whenever I dish it out. Monday, July 8th Today, Brian and I went out in search of a dive shop, with whom to flex our scuba muscles and plunge into the depths of the murky waters below. Except that the water wasn't murky. It just sounds better calling it murky. Apparently, all the dive shops on the beach have done us a "favor" by standardizing their prices. So, shopping around will get you nothing cheaper. While this will save us time, I'm sure that in the end, the consumer is getting screwed. We ended up selecting this place called Stingray Divers, solely because they were extremely laid-back and willing to make trips whenever and wherever we wanted to. Luckily, this was not at the expense of professionalism. So, I did two dives today - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Both were pretty good dives - lots of fishees. Crystal clear blue water. Kinda like you'd expect a dive to be like off of a tropical isle. Tuesday, July 9th Did three dives today with Stingray. The first one was to a place called Temple in the Sea, where the visibility was just awesome at about 20m. We saw 6-7 nurse sharks hanging out underneath some coral (nurse sharks are the only sharks that can breath without swimming along), a few larger black tipped sharks scurrying along the ocean floor, a number of blue spotted rays, and a whole school of barracuda - every time I say or write "barracuda", that 80's song sung by some woman (Pat Benatar perhaps?) keeps popping in my head. I wish it wouldn't. Make the voices stop. For the love of God, just make the voices stop. Whoops! Sorry about that. Anyway, we saw some barra... umm.. you know. Our Canadian divemaster guy even wrote on his underwater slate "It just doesn't get any better than this". Wasn't that the slogan of Old Milwaukee beer or something? I faintly remember a commercial way back when with a bunch of cowboys sitting around a campfire drinking beer, and one of them uttering that phrase. Obviously, that cowboy guy was wrong - just ask our Canadian divemaster guy. He'll tell you. The afternoon dive was a little less spectacular. Just as we were heading off, a huge storm came overhead and the visibility in the water became very poor with strong currents. But, we did see a huge sea turtle - at least four feet in length. That's almost bigger than my sister! The third dive of the day was a night dive. I think this is the sort of thing that I want to do much much more of. Not being able to see a damn thing just increases the adrenaline rush tenfold. Not that I'm into adrenaline rushes or anything... Ironically enough, this was the absolute worst dive I've ever had. Everything that could go wrong went wrong, except that I didn't die (sorry Marcus, can't have my Alfa). As soon as I got into the water, my legs started to cramp. Had to stretch them a few times to get okay again. Later, my toes started to cramp - but there's nothing you can do about that. Then, I was having an equalization problem with my ears and had to mess with that for a while. My scuba partner Brian seemed to not know where he was or where I was, so I had to keep tabs on him to make sure that we were close to each other. Through all of these problems, I was consuming air faster than normal, so my air pressure started getting low quickly. And, as the last straw, the battery in my flashlight started fading until it was no longer working at the end, so getting someone else's attention under water was close to impossible. But I still did get to see a few crabs, a ray or two, several cuttlefish, and an eel. After the dive, it was apparent that I didn't get my equalization right, since my right ear was absolutely killing me. Sleep was difficult to come by. Wednesday, July 10th Took a speedboat back to Kuala Besut on the mainland and bid adieu to the islands. From Kuala Besut, we took a taxi to Thailand. Doesn't that sound neat? I mean, how many times in your lifetime will you be able to hop in a taxi and say "To Thailand!". Guess I can check that one off the "list of things to do before I die". The border crossing was pretty simple. Walk partway across a bridge and check out of Malaysia, like a hotel checkout ending with an additional stamp in the passport (my favorite part). Walk a little further and check into Thailand. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. In Thailand, we walked a kilometer in the blazing heat to the nearest town, and then made preparations to head up north. Our first stop was initially planned to be Ko Tau - an island off the east coast of Southern Thailand that is supposed to have great diving. But seeing that my ears were still hurting, I wasn't really up for going diving again so soon. And Rayman had come to the conclusion that he needed to cut his trip short lest he lose his sweet downtown NYC apartment (and the girlfriend that came with it). So Rayman and I booked a 21-hour train to Bangkok, and Brian hopped off the train after 9 hours to take a ferry over to Ko Tao. Along the way on the train, I inadvertently befriended some local Thais in a very interesting manner. So here's the story... You see... these older fellas started drinking some whiskey and generally having a good old time. Soon, one of them had a little too much and decided to go to sleep at the oh so early hour of 7:30 p.m.. Since we were in a sleeper car and I had the upper berth, this meant that I would be confined to a very cramped space up top way earlier than necessary. So, I retaliated by giving the guys "evil eye" and commenting loudly to Rayman that they could have been polite and had the beds made on the other side instead of bothering me, a total stranger. After a while they genuinely felt bad, and talked to me every five seconds thereafter, trying to get me to consume some whiskey with them. Finally they went away and I was in peace again. Thursday, July 11th Arrived in Bangkok at 9am or so. We took a tuk-tuk (a small open air three wheeler scooter like taxi) to Khao San Road, where all the backpackers stay. After some shopping around, we settled at this place called Green House Inn. Turns out that this place is pretty much jam-packed with Israelis. So it was me, Rayman, and a bunch of Jews. Hmm... A Hindu, a Muslim, and a bunch of Jews - sounds like a good movie title to me! Starring Gilbert Gottfried, Whoopi Goldberg, and Barbara Streisand as the Jews, Omar Sharif as the Muslim, and Jason Scott Lee as a very Chinese-looking Hindu (hey, it worked for The Jungle Book). As expected, we spent all evening singing Hava Nagila and having a grand old time. Would you believe that I learned 3-4 Jewish songs while attending Hindu summer camps when I was a kid? I remember the shocked look on my Jewish friends' faces at college when I started singing "Shalom Chaverim" one drunken evening. We went and caught some Thai boxing this evening – ringside seats. The fights weren't as bloody as they seemed they should be, but I'm not much of a fan of this stuff anyway. It was still good to see something different though. The fifth fight we saw pitted two boys who seemed to be roughly 9 years of age each. This was different enough for us, so we took off. I have no desire to see something like that, let alone watch other people egg them on and even gamble on it. Just doesn't seem right. It gets difficult at times like this to remember that things are not always as they seem to the Western eye, and the important thing is to not rush to a judgment just because this is not acceptable in our society. After the Thai boxing match, we went to the Sukhamvit area of Bangkok. As many of you may know, Bangkok is very famous for just what it's name sounds like in English - the flesh trade. Sukhamvit is one of those areas specializing in this. In all honesty (and I know you won't believe me), neither Rayman nor I really had any interest in seeing this stuff, but it's just one of those things that must be seen here. So we walked around the area, watching tons of Western guys with Thai girls on their arms, got solicited numerous times to go into this establishment or that establishment, and so forth. In the end, we just went back to the hotel (really Mom - we did). Friday, July 12th Today, we did the tourist thing. We first went to a temple with a very large reclining Buddha, where we met a Puerto Rican guy who worked for P&G in Australia in marketing for animal medicine. Go figure. Next, we went to the Great Palace. This place was just superb - no words can describe how stunningly beautiful it was. I was having a hard time figuring out what to take pictures of; there were simply too many things to photograph. I almost felt like I was doing a disservice to some buildings by not photographing them also. One of the temples in this complex contains the "Emerald Buddha". I'll let you in on a secret: it's not made of emerald; it's made of jade. Don't tell the Thais though - it's a secret. This Emerald (hee!) Buddha sits atop a very large infinitely ornate gold mounting of some sort. But we weren't allowed to photograph it. We also spent some time at a tailor getting three suits and five silk shirts for Rayman and his new Wall Street job – all custom made and for relatively cheap. It almost made me sad that I didn't need any suits for work. Okay, I take that back. All day, we were continually getting solicited for some "boom boom", which meant a massage plus a little something extra. I took this as a compliment, since you know - how worthless would you feel if even the pimps turned you down? Saturday, July 13th Early this morning, Rayman took off for the airport in hopes of securing a standby ticket to get home a week early. So, we split up, and cried a last goodbye. Parting is such sweet sorrow... I began a 3 day / 2 night trip this morning to Kanchanaburi, where the infamous Bridge over River Kwai is situated. This is an old WWII bridge that was part of a railway commissioned by the Japanese to connect Bangkok and Burma to have a way to ship supplies and ammunitions to troops trying to advance into Burma and India. This railway was built mainly by POWs from the war and by many locals under very excruciatingly oppressive conditions. About 30% of all those who worked on it died during the construction. Very very sad indeed. We saw a cemetery, rode a bamboo raft under the famous "Bridge", had an hour-long elephant-ride (baby elephants are so unbelievably cute, by the way), an area of the railway called "Hellfire Pass", rode on the famous train for a little bit, petted a tiger at an animal sanctuary, and... oh yeah, gotta tell this story. One of the girls in our group was absolutely convinced that all tigers have attacked humans at some point or another and kept on giving crap to the monk who was taking care of the animals. Truth is that tigers are more scared of us than we are of them. The monk kept on saying, "No, no, tiger is friend. See?" and put his entire hand in the tiger's mouth. She didn't buy it. Clearly she must be right since her entire experience with tigers is what she's seen on TV, and as we all know the TV never lies. Back to the story... umm… that's really about it for today.All transport around the area was by songtaew - picture a pickup with a high canopy over the truck bed. Along each side of the pickup, there is a bench seat. That's about it. For one of the short journeys, I only had one cheek on the bench, and had to brace myself with my foot against the open tailgate to make sure I didn't fall out. Good times. Our accommodations were out in the middle of nowhere – a floating little guesthouse on a lake. No electricity at all - had to use oil lamps. Rooms were very basic with just a mattress on a floor. And we had authentic Thai food for dinner, served family style. Awesome. Sunday, July 14th After breakfast this morning, we all hopped on a small bamboo raft pulled by a longtail boat. What's a longtail boat? It looks to me as though they took out the engine and driveshaft from a perfectly good automobile, secured the engine down to the back of a fishing boat, and tacked on a propeller at the end of the drive shaft (making it a long tail). I don't quite understand why they didn't use an outboard motor like most other boats in existence. Then, we entered the Erawan National Park, where we spent about 3 hours hiking and swimming around a cascade of seven beautiful waterfalls. Simply gorgeous. Unfortunately, it was too gorgeous and so everyone and their mother-in-law's pet cat were there. Still well worth it. After a fried rice boxed lunch, we saw some hot springs - which appeared to me like two little pools of water that were man-made. I didn't see any spring. Of course, our guide couldn't speak a lick of English, so we just smiled so that we could get on with the rest of our lives. Okay. Gotta run. Have lots of figuring out to do for the next few days' adventure. -Paraag Tidbits 1. It's neat to see how the American fast food restaurant franchises have adapted to the cultures in Asian countries. For example, KFC in Bangkok had silverware and served beverages in actual glasses. And, they served rice with some of the meals. They also serve ice cream here. McDonald's has a McCyber Cafe. 2. Mental note to read up on WWII a little more when I get home. There's so much that I don't remember from my high school history class. 3. If you ever read a British novel, keep in mind that lighting up a fag doesn't mean that to set fire to a homosexual (not that there's anything wrong with that, oh wait... yes, there is), rather it refers to lighting up a cigarette. Also, getting pissed means getting drunk. And you thought you wouldn't learn anything from this message... 4. Why do they call him "the Buddha" rather than just "Buddha"? I should probably know this, since Buddhism sprouted from Hinduism, so I guess I'm a bad Hindu.

Trip Update #8 - a little late

For those of you who have been counting on my updates as your Monday morning coffee break/sanity check, my apologies for this being a little tardy. But as my mother says, "it's better to be delayed than the late" (sounds much better with a thick Indian accent). Essentially, we had no Internet access from 7/5 till 7/11. In the interest of keeping this relatively short, and allowing me to get to sleep sometime soon, I'll limit this to just a weekly update (till Sunday, 7/7). I'll type up the update in a few days to completely catch up. So here's what happened... Monday, July 1st A little diddy kept playing in my head all day long. It went something like "This is my birthday song, it isn't very long" (lyrics courtesy Aruna, visual imagery courtesy Saravanan). So how did I spend my 28th birthday? Why by visiting temples of course! What else would I do? Something a tad bit unholier? Never. The morning started off with a trip to Borobudur, a very massive Buddhist temple that was constructed around a hill, such that there is no real interior to the temple - just the shell around a hill. This place is deemed by the folks who spend their lives deeming stuff to be one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. This clearly begs the question, how often is it that one of the ancient wonders of the world (Borobudur) and one of the modern wonders of the world (me) are united? Truly a special occasion for everyone involved. This afternoon, we went to Prambanan, which is a massive Hindu temple complex that was built about the same time that Borobudur was. To me, it was equally spectacular. So why isn't it an ancient wonder of the world too? I guess because they only had one spot and they had to flip a coin. That would be the only fair way to do it. Brian and Rayman were rock stars all day. Everyone wanted to take their picture with the white guy and the brown guy with blond hair. No love for the brown guy who's keeping it real. On his birthday nonetheless. Tuesday, July 2nd After about 3 hours of sleep, Rayman and I got up to go to Mt. Merapi - an active volcano just north of Yogyakarta. It was really cool because we got to see some hot liquid magma (spoken Dr. Evil style) spill from the top of the mountain and roll down the mountainside. This sight can't be seen during the day – too much steam and smoke and whatnot. Late this evening, we boarded a overnight train to Jakarta. This train was actually quite comfortable - the seats were rather wide, reclined pretty far, and they gave us decent size pillows and blankets. Better than air travel in the US by far. Except that we didn't get any peanuts, not that it's such a big bag. Wednesday, July 3rd Got into Jakarta. We quickly realized why the tour books tell people to avoid this place. There's nothing to do here. Apparently, one of the previous dictators (Soekarno) saw it fit to spend valuable country resources in constructing useless and tasteless monuments around the city. There's one in the central square of the city called Monas (or National Monument) that kind of looks like the Washington Monument with a wider bulge of an observation deck at the top. The Indonesians love it so much that they call it Soekarno's Last Erection. I guess it was the last monument the he commissioned in the city - that would explain the nickname. We spent the morning trying to figure out how to get to the harbour, since this harbour was supposed to be one of the more interesting places in Jakarta. Along the way, we ate breakfast at an A&W's. I've never eaten at an A&W's in my life, so I guess Indonesia is as good a place as any to start. But they did have unlimited ketchup. I suggested to the counter lady that they use this as a major advertising ploy. She couldn't see the light. So after a lot of trouble, we finally make it to the harbour. It was pretty lame. A bunch of people unloading lumber off of schooners. That's about it. In the afternoon, we hopped a flight to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Before I forget, during our entire stay in this city, a favorite joke between me and Brian was "Lumpur, I don't even know her". Thank you, thank you. Next show in half an hour. Immediately upon reaching Malaysia, we noticed a distinct difference. This place seemed clean and modern and orderly and all those other adjectives that are generally associated with Western nations. Apparently, Prime Minister Mahathir has a Year 2020 Goal to get Malaysia unlisted as a third-world country. They're on the right track. We stayed in Chinatown where all the backpackers go, and immediately started looking around for a place. I was convinced that we could find somewhere that didn't have all the bells and whistles and met our basic needs for cheap. And I persuaded Rayman and Brian to agree with me. So, we found a pretty good place, checked out the room and everything seemed fine. Suddenly, I see Rayman point to the bed, mouth agape trying to find words to express himself. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the object of his attention. The upper bunk was already inhabited! Let me describe this being as in a matrimonial ad: two inches, hard brown exoskeleton, six legs, carries many many diseases. Before you could say Jehosephat, I was outta there. Fortunately we stumbled upon a very nice hotel a few blocks away - it was at least twice as much as the Roach Motel, but this was no time to be a cheapskate. Rayman and Brian were thoroughly enjoying this, having finally found my weakness to not accepting meager accommodations. Thursday, July 4th I felt so fat and lazy this morning that I decided that I would look around for somewhere to run. It didn't work. I ended up jogging on streets, and having to pause to navigate through traffic to cross the streets. But it felt nice to get some blood pumping. Kuala Lumpur (also known as KL) was crazy hot and humid. So what better a thing to get for breakfast than some spicy Indian food! We're idiots. First stop on our walking tour today was Merdeka Square, where Malaysia declared its independence from the Brits sometime in the 40s, I think. Now the square is home of SE Asia's tallest flagpole. Whoopty frickin doo. Since it had been two whole countries ago since we had visited a tower (last one was in Sydney), we walked a few kilometers to the KL Tower and purchased tickets for the observation deck to get a good view of the entire city. We also got an audio tour free with the observation deck ticket, which meant that we got to wear headphones and listen to some lady tell us about KL. At Station #9, this lady also explained to us that Satay originated in Malaysia and not in Thailand. She followed this proclamation by purring a convincingly sexy "mmmmm". Rayman and Brian were fascinated by this (or turned on - I wasn't about to look), and replayed Station #9 over and over. I had to peel them away. Such children. Sheesh. Chinatown's Night Market was particularly interesting. They had DVDs on sale for Spiderman, Men In Black II, Minority Report, Blade II, Star Wars - Episode II, and other movies that hadn't even made it to theatres yet. Felt like Spaceballs all over again. Friday, July 5th Checked out of our comfortable luxurious hotel in Chinatown and took a shuttle bus north to Taman Negara National Park – the oldest rainforest in the world (apparently, it survived the last ice age). After a three hour shuttle bus ride, which included a brief stop for breakfast at an Indian place where an omelette was the equivalent of a quarter and a dosa cost 50 cents. Mmmmmm.... dosa (if you don't know what this is, ask your friendly neighborhood brown person). Anyway, after this bus ride, we hopped on a riverbus for a 3-hour journey to the park. Well, they call it a riverbus. I liked to think of it as an overgrown canoe with a roof and an outboard motor. Nevertheless, the 3-hour journey was very peaceful and relaxing, though our butts were glad when it was over. We had decided not to stay at the resort and village and instead stay at Nusa Camp 15 minutes upstream so that we could be more in touch with nature. Well, we succeeded in that – we were bombarded with mosquitoes at every waking moment, and our shared bathroom played host to all sorts of creatures, including a bunch of 1.5 inch ants - I kid you not. Saturday, July 6th This morning was a nightmare. We had run out of money and needed to change some US dollars, but Nusa Camp didn't know the exchange rate and wouldn't do it for us. We also still needed to pay for permits to be able to hike around the national park. To do both of these things, we needed to get back to the village, but the first boat back was at 11:15. By the time everything was said and done, it was 1pm before we could get started. So at 1pm we were ready to start our journey, and who did we bump into? Alfin and Christine - the Canadian couple who I hiked with at 3am to see the sunrise over Mt. Bromo in Indonesia. Go figure. So we all spent the afternoon together. The highlight of the afternoon was the 421 meter canopy walkway, which is a series of rope bridges going from treetop to treetop. Felt kinda like that scene from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, except with a rope bridge and no hottie martial arts expert trying to kick my butt. The afternoon was crazy hot and humid - we were perspiring like we had spent all day "Sweatin to the Oldies" with Richard Simmons (hey, at least it wasn't a Deal a Meal reference – How do I remember this crap?). So, we spent an hour tubing down the river to cool off. Niiiiiiice. Sunday, July 7th Caught the 9am riverbus to get out of the park. We were in a bit of a rush to get 300 km away to Kuala Besut, where we planned to catch the last ferry to the Perhentian Islands. We had arranged for a taxi to pick us up for this purpose. Our taxi was a hoot - it was a late 70s model Mercedes with an old Chinese guy for a driver, who didn't like to go above 60 kmh. After I complained that we'd never get there in time, he switched us over halfway to another taxi. This was much better - an early 70's model Mercedes with no air conditioning and an old Malaysian guy who didn't speak a lick of English driving. But he passed cars like nobody's business. We got to Kuala Besut a few minutes before the last ferry - just in luck. Aiming to learn from our Taman Negara mistake, we decided to stay on Long Beach at the Perhentian Islands, which was the most popular area. By the time we got there, it was nightfall and most places were booked. Finally, when we got to the last place on the beach, we found a suitable room. All in all, it was a bit of a nerve-wracking day. Since we all had that no-so-fresh feeling, we took turns showering and then had a bite to eat. The Perhentian Islands are primarily two major islands, with some teeny-tiny surrounding islands. The Malaysians were very selective when they named these two major islands: they called them Perhentian Kecil and Perhentian Besar, where Kecil means "small" and besar means "big". That must have been tough. But the islands are beautiful, the water is crystal-clear, and the beaches are real nice. It's not overdeveloped, so you get a nice cozy feel. Finished two more books - The Jesus Man by Christos Tsiolkas and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling. I'm a reading machine. Till 60 hours from now, when I write the next update, -Paraag Tidbits 1. No Bill, there is no city called BooBoo-akarta. 2. Quite possibly the best feeling in the world is a cool shower after a day in hot sticky weather. This might be a close second to the sensation of taking your ski boots off after a long day of skiing (what my brother calls "the best part of skiing"). 3. The first American television I've watched in two months happened at Nusa Camp in Taman Negara, of all places - a very funny episode of Dilbert. There's probably some learning in here about how I probably watch more TV than necessary and all that, but I refuse to accept this theorem.

Trip Update #7

Warning!!! Warning!!! Contents of this e-mail may not be nearly as exciting as previous e-mails with similar subject lines. But the experience is better, and I'm happy for that. Monday, June 24th I lost a lot of weight today. Unfortunately, it was weight from my backpack - I sent home about 5.7 kg of clothes that I won't need for the remainder of the trip because of climate differences. Now my backpack doesn't even feel like it's there. Today is transition day (T-Day for those of you who cannot exist without some sort of acronym in your lives). We officially transitioned from a modern Western-style civilization to third world nations, where we will spend the remainder of the trip. Fortunately, this also comes with the benefit of being less costly. We arrived on the island of Bali, Indonesia at about midnight. Okay - geography check here... how many of you actually knew that Bali is an island and not the name of a city? That's what I thought. Yeah, yeah, I know. Flying into Bali isn't exactly throwing ourselves into the middle of nowhere of a poverty-stricken nation, but I wasn't complaining. Upon arriving to Bali, we were met full-force with the realization that we are in a completely different world. Since we did not have onward plane tickets out of Indonesia, we had to slip a little cash under the table to get our visa to get in. Otherwise, I'd be writing you from the airport right now. Our next rude awakening occurred moments later when a porter who grabbed our luggage asked for a 50,000 Rupiah tip (8500 Rp = $1 US). The absolute most he should get tipped is 5000 Rp, but I wasn't in much of a mood for fussing so I settled for 10,000 Rp to get him out of our way so we could get to the hotel and catch some sleep. Checked into the hotel in Kuta on the island of Bali somewhere around 1:30 a.m.. This was a much fancier place than I had actually anticipated staying at - 180,000 Rp for the two of us for one night. But it was nice to stay in comfortable bed in an air-conditioned room after a long day. Since it's so cheap in Southeast Asia, it's unlikely that we'll often have to stay in shared facilities accommodations like we did all of Australia and New Zealand. Tuesday, June 25th Woke up and met Brian (Rayman's friend from business school), who'll be with us until we get to Bangkok in late June. At that time, both Rayman and Brian will fly home and leave me all to my lonesome. Please do your best to hold back your tears. Kuta is a tourist trap. Pretty much full of beach-going tourists, everything required to cater to these tourists' whims, and that's about it. As such, it was our intent to get the heck out of there as soon as possible. So, we headed to Ubud about 40 km or so north. From here, we will explore the rest of the island and hopefully see some Balinese culture. We were aboard a so-called luxury bus for our 3-hour journey. Along the way, we picked up so many people that there were backpacks all through the aisles and people sitting wherever it was possible. Having experienced much worse overcrowded transportation systems in India, this brought back fond memories. I think Rayman and Brian were a little shell-shocked. In Ubud, we decided to stay at a local fellow's little Bed & Breakfast type place for Rp 25,000 each. Pretty cheap. Our first agenda item for the day was to walk through the Monkey Forest, where a bunch of monkeys wait for you to walk by and hand over your food. If you are dumb enough to hold onto your food, the monkeys WILL get it. They're very good at this. Rayman and Brian loved this place. But since monkeys are evil, I was a little indifferent. But I did like the forest aspect - it looked like a jungle out of the movies, complete with an ancient Hindu temple situated in a narrow crevice at the bottom of a valley where a stream flowed. I don't even know how to describe this place to you. It was just cool. So, for those of you trying to picture all of this at home, now would be the time to say "wow" so that we can continue with our story. Wednesday, June 26th We hired the owner of the place we were staying at to drive us around a bit to see the sights. Most of these sights were old and had something to do with Hinduism - an old cave temple, a Hindu relief carved in the side of a small cliff, a temple at the bottom of a very large valley, and a bunch of temples near a volcano (which erupted about 15 years ago, destroying many of the 1000+ year old structures) collectively called Pura Besakih, otherwise known as the "mother temple". I personally have no idea what "mother temple" really means with respect to the practice of Hinduism. I guess they just meant to emphasize the fact that this was a large complex of temples. Perhaps the monikers "kick-ass temple" or "da bomb" were already taken by other temples in the region and this one had to scrape by with whatever was remaining. The food here so far has been rather exceptional. Went to a buffet for lunch, where Brian apparently somehow obtained a bottomless stomach and had eight servings of food. Perhaps he just wanted to make sure he got his money's worth. I think he did. Brian is not a large human being by the way - about 170 lbs. Rayman and I immediately fell to my knees and praised "we're not worthy" to him. Thursday, June 27th Slept in today. Unfortunately, the neighborhood roosters don't quite understand the meaning of sunrise and were pretty much crowing all night long (like the Lionel Richie song). It's times like these that I'm thankful for the invention of earplugs. I got these from Rayman, and not from work, so I can't get fired for stealing company property. Brian went out on his own to buy some traditional Balinese paintings, while Rayman and I went shopping to get some lightweight pants and shorts for the remainder of the trip. At one of the shops, we had the pleasure of meeting the most beautiful saleslady in Bali. Cute face, wonderful smile, long wavy black hair, the right height (meaning shorter than me!), 23 years of age, and of course a great body. She even called me handsome! (I refuse to believe that this was a ploy to get me to buy something. If it was, she was successful.) Then I found out that she was married and my day was ruined. We boarded a bus at 6pm to leave the island of Bali and enter the island of Java. We were on our way to Probolinggo in the eastern part of Java, from where we were planning on seeing the sunrise the next morning over the Mt. Bromo volcano and surrounding mountains. Unfortunately, we were delayed by 4 hours at the ferry terminal and didn't make it there until 6am or so. Friday, June 28th In the bus were two other tourist couples who were planning on doing the same thing as we were. So, the seven of us pooled our buying power into getting larger discounts for everything in the area - transportation, hotel accommodations, jacket rentals, everything. This was fun. We headed up to a small village at the base of the mountains where we checked in and took a nap. Buses are not the easiest places in the world to catch some zzzzz's. I thought it was rather interesting that this bus had more legroom than I have ever had in a bus, especially in a country that was full of short people like me. After napping, we walked around and enjoyed the scenery. Being that we were already about 1000+ meters above sea level, it started getting really really chilly outside. Pretty amazing considering how warm it has been otherwise. Saturday, June 29th Woke up at 2:30 am to hike up a mountain to a lookout point to see the sunrise at 5:30 am. Okay I lied. Since I napped for so long the previous afternoon, I couldn't sleep at all. So I pulled an all-nighter. So, here we were, 5 of us hiking up a hill in the middle of the night. Surprisingly enough, we didn't need a flashlight - the moon was directly overhead and was radiating more than enough light. This made for a rather surreal hike along with a clear sky and stars that went forever. With me were a Canadian couple that we had met on the bus and two British girls that I had never met (Rayman and Brian decided to be driven up the mountain by jeep). Turns out that this Canadian guy, who happened to be half Indian, was born on the same exact day as me - July 1st, 1974. (By the way, that means that for most of you, today is my birthday. So get sending me those e-birthday cards already.) This guy told me that July 1st is Canada Day, and so he was bragging that the entire country celebrates his birthday. Entire country? What - all 18 1/2 people? That's not a country, that's a suburb. I topped him by explaining that the entire world celebrates my half birthday every year by going to parties and getting drunk and lighting fireworks and even making resolutions that they will never keep. (For those of you not well versed in the art of using a calendar and basic 2nd grade math, my half birthday is on January 1st, otherwise known as New Years Day.) The sunrise was spectacular. No other words to describe it. Just a lot of pictures. This digital camera was an excellent pre-trip purchase. After getting back to the hotel and packing up, the three of us began a 9 hour journey in a minivan to Yogyakarta. This minivan had air conditioning. But there was a minor technical issue in that this air conditioning didn't work. So, we had to leave the windows open the entire trip, during which passing buses and trucks gave us large presents of toxic gas to breathe in and irreparably damage our lungs. Gee. And you thought New York City driving was bad. Our driver was nuts, but he got us to our destination in one piece. Rayman even refused to sit on the right side of the minivan (the side facing the oncoming traffic - yes, these people drive on the wrong side of the road) because he was scared that we were going to hit another vehicle. The roads here have one very simple rule – size is king. If you are in the larger vehicle, you have the right of way. No ifs, ands, or buts. Lane demarcations mean nothing. They should really just save the paint and leave the road blank. But in the midst of all this seeming chaos, I never saw a single accident. And the overall volume through these roads is far greater than any road in the US because of the lack of enforced rules. Makes you wonder if we got it right or if they do. Checked into a place in the heart of Yogyakarta. We've pooled our resources and got the VIP poolside room with an extra bed for about Rp 170,000 - still less than $8 per day per person. Can't beat it. Actually, we could stay in a room as little as Rp 20,000 per person if we wanted to. Sunday, June 30th Hung out in Yogyakarta all day. Walked along the streets a little, rode in the bicycle rickshaws (as little as Rp 1000 for 1/2 km), visited the sultan's palace grounds, and checked out a local Batik art gallery - where all three of us made some nice purchases. And, of course, we watched Brazil beat Germany in the World Cup finals. Great game. Wish you folks at home were actually awake to see it. We've decided to go directly to Malaysia from here. The initial plan was to go west and explore the Indonesian island of Sumatra before heading over to Singapore. But because of time constraints, we're just going to cut out Sumatra and Singapore. Supposedly, there's nothing really that great about Singapore anyway - other than the zoo. But certainly it cannot compare with the world-class zoo we have in Cincinnati. This also means that I'll get one less visa stamp in my passport. What a shame. I can't believe that my trip is half over already. That sucks. Somehow it still feels like an extended vacation. On the other hand, I can't imagine having to go back to work anytime soon. Thank goodness that I have almost two more months to come to grips with this reality. Tidbits: 1. Everything is negotiable here. Nothing is really a fixed price (with the possible exception of postage stamps). We even bargained down the price of a buffet at a restaurant. To newcomers, this bargaining thing can become addictive quite quickly. Brian met one person who has been buying things that she didn't need just because of the thrill of getting a much much lower price than initially quoted. Something tells me that she's not the real winner in these transactions. 2. The rapid Westernization of countries like Indonesia has left its mark. The government is ill equipped to deal with things like the overcrowded highways, excessive pollution from vehicles, and litter lining each and every street and highway. Indeed it makes you wonder whether or not it is truly in the people's interests to rapidly Westernize these societies, or is it in the corporations' best interests. The two are not the same. You get the real sense that the rich just got richer and the poor just got poorer. 3. There are hawkers absolutely everywhere. You can't walk down the street without someone walking up to you trying to sell you something. There are even hawkers shoving things through the windows while you're at the gas stations. Just like India. In a strange way, I feel very much at home here. So much at home that it feels weird not being able to converse with the locals in my broken Hindi or my parents' native language of Marathi.

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.

Trip Update #5

I think I'm getting addicted to this all play and no work thing. Any chance I could do this for a living? It'd be nice. Before I continue, I wanted to clarify something that I'm getting many questions about. Thank you all for your concern over our safety in Indonesia, as apparently in certain regions there are Islamic militants sweeping out Americans. But fret not, we have a plan. If we are confronted by these fundamentalists, Rayman, being a Muslim himself, knows the secret Islamic handshake and will be able to get us out of any hostile situation we may encounter. As a back up plan, we will shackle Rayman's friend Brian (who is joining us in Indonesia) and tell people that we are trying to find the highest bidder for this white capitalist pig. We may even be able to pay for the entire trip from the proceeds of this black market sale. Monday, June 10th. Took a bus to get to the train to get to the bus terminal in Brisbane, where we took a bus to get up to Hervey Bay. At the bus terminal in Hervey Bay, we took a bus to our hostel. Needless to say, we traveled a lot today. Not too much to report. There's a hair stylist staying at the hostel we were at, so I resolved to bleach my hair, and Rayman resolved to cut his really short. To make a long story short, I ended up with a trim and Rayman ended up with the blonde hair. Apparently, my hair loss has been very uneven, particularly in the front of my head. This hair guy (Juhani from Finland) insisted that bleaching my hair would make this stand out like a sore thumb. Oh well. So much for that potential experiment. I guess I'll just have to get multiple piercings on my face. I wonder how many I'd have to get before it'd affect my job performance. This could be an interesting test. But not for me. My mom would shoot me. I think Rayman now looks like Justin Timberlake (from N'Sync), and have spared no opportunity to point that out to him and everyone we encounter. For some reason, he doesn't seem to appreciate this. Tuesday, June 11th Started a 2 day / 1 night tour of Fraser Island off the eastern coast of Australia. Fraser Island has the distinction of being the world's largest sand island - roughly 120km by 15km. Pretty nifty. With this in mind, Rayman and I expected to see something resembling a huge sandbox. We were wrong. Apparently, trees still find a way to grow in sand - not cacti and the like, but actual tropical forestry. In fact, much of the island is classified as sub-tropical or tropical because of the abundance of trees. At one point, there was a major logging industry cutting down the timber on the island. I don't get it. Where's the dirt coming from for the trees to grow on? I guess the trees are just growing from nothing - alas proof that Newton's conservation of mass theorem is a joke. Along with doing a rainforest hike, we also floated down a fresh water stream. Since there are no rocks on the island, there were no rapids and the water was crystal clear. The highlight of the day was an airplane ride above the island - nothing like really getting a feel for a place by getting a bird's eye view. We were also able to see a couple of whales, dolphins, rays, and even a shark in the ocean. Pretty neat. There are a whole bunch of sharks very close to the beaches because apparently it is fish spawning season and they like to spawn here, making it a feast for the predatorial sharks. Meals are included in the package tour, so it's all you can eat. This is a bad thing, considering my relative lack of exercise. Walking unfortunately does not count as exercise for me. Funny thing is with all these meals - they will only let us have one roll per meal. Chicken? - all you can eat. Fish? Pasta? Salad? You guessed it - all you can eat. Apparently there is a shortage of flour on the island and they have had to revert to rationing out the rolls in a Soup Nazi type fashion. I don't get it. We finished off the night with a bit of Karaoke, during which I sang both the male and female parts of Summer Loving (from Grease) in different octaves. Got to be a bit difficult after a while. Capped off the karaoke with Jungle Boogie (from Pulp Fiction) - this has got to be the easiest song in the world. Two simple lines repeated randomly: Jungle Boogie (go figure) and Get Down, Get Down. Intersperse some grunts, groans, and moans, and all of a sudden you have a hit single on your hands. Before bed, we hopped out to the beach to catch a glimpse of the stars. Absolutely beautiful. It's a shame that we have to have streetlights all over our cities ruining this free vision of beauty for people across the land night after night. Wednesday, June 12th. Got up early to see the sun rise. The sky was clear, mostly. Apparently, God thought it would be funny to place the only cloud in the sky right on the horizon where the sun was coming up. Hardy har har. I'm not amused. But I find what I claim to be a comet, and being the discoverer of said comet, promptly named it Paraag's Comet, which the astronomy people promptly misspelled. Went for a hike up a large sand bar - felt like we were walking in the desert, but without the oppressive heat. Kinda neat. Got to Lake Wabby (yeah, dumb name) and took a swim. A few of our new-found friends decided to make the largest man-made sand pile known to man. Quickly, this degenerated into a breast, and then into a pair of breasts. Then, this further degenerated into the likeness of Jennifer Lopez' backside. Men. Can't live with them, can't shoot them. Sheesh. In the afternoon, we went to Lake MacKenzie. This has got to be one of the most beautiful places we have seen so far. Perfect soft white sand (almost 100% silica). Perfect crystal clear fresh water at the perfect pH of 5.5 or so. This actually could pass for paradise. After we returned to Hervey Bay, we boarded a bus and rode for 13 hours overnight to Airlie Beach. Sleeping on a bus is very easy to do. I recommend that you all get up now and try it. Really. Thursday, June 13th - Saturday, June 15th Got off the bus in Airlie Beach and within one hour we were booked and boarded on a 3 day/2 night cruise on a racing yacht with 24 other people around the Whitsunday Islands. These 3 days were by far the most relaxation we've had since we started. We just got to lie in the sun all day, beer in hand. Each day, we snorkeled and saw some gorgeous tropical fish surrounding the coral reefs. We also attempted to do some real sailing, but unfortunately the winds were not so cooperative. I went through a lot of sunscreen, and of course, to no avail. I am now the owner of a nice farmer tan. Although not quite to the level of my co-worker Keith, who will blind you by the paleness and contrast of the skin beneath his shirt. But still, there's a marked difference. Oh well. We played some soccer and cricket on the beach, neither of which I am very good at. Damn Brits. Watched the sunset over the ocean - highly recommend this if you've never seen it. Beautiful colors. Being in the ocean, we were now truly away from all the city light and were able to see the stars in all their glory. We could even see another galaxy - I can only presume that it was Andromeda. Saturday night, we got back to Airlie Beach and hung out with our new shipmates to watch the soccer matches. Then hit the clubs for a few hours, before calling it a night. On the way back to the hostel, we came across a foam party. So I said to myself, "Self," I said," have I ever been to a foam party?", to which I quickly responded, "No, self," I said, "I don't believe I have." Picture a tub of soapy suds complete with rubber ducky. Now expand this picture to include a whole bunch of people in a nightclub setting and no tub, and you have the basic premise. Minus the rubber ducky. Who came up with this idea? I don't know. He or she was probably high. Sunday, June 16th Woke up three hours later and boarded a bus for Townsville. I kid you not. Townsville. Whoever named this place was probably some boring engineer-type from the middle of nowhere with no sense of imagination and sans personality. Upon reaching Townsville, we hopped the ferry over to Magnetic Island, where we are staying at Maggie's Beach House. This island it pretty peaceful - not overcrowded in the least. We just hung out all day and relaxed. Watched the sun go down from the beach in the bay, just outside the hostel. And now I'm writing this e-mail. The weather has most certainly taken a turn for the hotter. It was crazy muggy hot yesterday and today. I'm sweating just sitting around. I don't know how I'm going to survive the hotter temperatures as we move north. Tidbits: 1. No one in Australia drinks Foster's. I haven't even seen it at any bars. Australians claim that they keep the good beer for themselves and export the crappy beer to the silly Americans. Nothing like some friendly humor from descendants of convicts. 2. England is actually pronounced with 3 syllables. Or at least that's how all the England soccer fand pronounce it in all of their fight songs. 3. It's a little known fact that Greyhound in Australia is required by law to play the dumbest movies ever made to further bore their passengers to death. You try watching Legally Blonde and Coyote Ugly. It's not easy.

Trip Update #4

Monday, June 3rd - Wednesday, June 5th Rayman and I took a trip to the Blue Mountains, just outside of Sydney. What is this Blue Mountains that you speak of, you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked. You see - these are very curious mountains in that the oil mist created by all the eucalyptus trees leaves a blue tint, or hue if you will, over the mountain range. The mountains would actually look a lot like the Grand Canyon without all the trees. So, we spent the bulk of the three days hiking up and around the cliff sides and valleys and such. No overnighter trips though - our backpacks are just too heavy for that! God forbid that we actually used our backpacks for their intended purpose; this would be a travesty. On the last morning of hiking, we walked down the Great Staircase of 910 steps, which were as straight down as possible. This was pretty easy. Then we realized that we'd have to get back up. Since the escalator was out of service, we cajoled ourselves up an impressive 1310 steps in about 17 minutes. This is probably the most exercise I've had since I've gotten here! When we got back to Sydney on Wednesday night, Rayman and I watched the USA-Portugal World Cup game in it's entirety on a jumbo screen. It was awesome. USA won... and there was much rejoicing. The commentators here are ruthless - at one point they were making fun of the Portugal goalie saying that he had his non-stick Teflon coated gloves on since he couldn't hold on to the ball. But, if nothing else, this game seemed to prove without a doubt that Jeff Agoos on the US squad sucks. Someone pull a Colombia (or was it Ecuador?) and shoot this guy for scoring on our own goal. I did meet a fellow from Germany named Mario (yes, I also think that Mario was a very unlikely German name) who just graduated from business school who is interviewing at P&G in a month or so. So, I talked the company up of course. If he signs, I expect the standard commissions fee of one month's salary bonus. Please start working on this immediately, Andrea. Thursday, June 6th Did a walk around Beautiful Manly Bay today (not to be confused with Beautiful Mt. Airy Lodge). Called "one of the greatest scenic harbour walks in the world", we could not afford to miss it. Manly is a suburb on the northeast side of greater Sydney. And indeed, it was actually a pretty nice leisurely 10km walk around Manly Bay. Not really too much else to say here. When we got back to Sydney, we walked through the Royal Botanical Gardens. This actually was pretty nice. It was free also, which is completely not typical of the standard royal botanical gardens that might be found in OTHER countries. Rayman actually had to bow out of the gardens early and go see the Opera House - apparently he felt it was a really nice romantic stroll and kept attempting to hold my hand... not that there's anything wrong with that. Friday, June 7th - Saturday, June 8th Flew to Hobart, capital city of Tasmania, Friday morning to visit my friend Simone. We drove down to the southeastern of Tasmania to an area called Port Arthur, which is now a national park to preserve its past. You see, Australia was initially a dumping ground for convicts from Europe (much like the US was before the American Revolution as I have learned). Port Arthur in Tasmania was a prison for second-offense criminals. It was amazing what small offenses people could commit and the sentences they would be given (14 years for stealing 5 pounds). Above all else, Tasmania was very beautiful - not over-populated at all, beautiful rolling hills (much like my old Eastern Kentucky home), and some spectacular cliff sides dumping out into the ocean (much unlike Eastern Kentucky). Didn't really see any Tasmanian devils though - sorry. Saturday was a dreary ugly windy rainy cold day. So we went to see a movie. Unfortunately, I had already seen Star Wars and Spiderman and could not convince Simone to see either of these again. So I succumbed and we watched Catherine Gray, a movie about some woman from Ireland in World War II who agrees to go to France incognito to help relay information to the French rebellion faction attempting to stave off the Germans. Normally, you would think that a movie about this would have some amazing ending like "Courageous lady risks death and single-handedly thwarts Nazi plans to ...", but no. She does a couple of tasks, flees back to Britain, and then decides to go back to France at the end of the movie because she liked it there better. Could you come up with a dumber movie? I think not. Sunday, June 9th Left Tasmania and flew up to Brisbane (via Sydney). From Brisbane, Rayman and I took a train down to Surfers' Paradise in the illustrious Gold Coast region of the eastern seaboard of Australia. And it confirmed our worst fears, this entire place is essentially Atlantic City down under. I took pictures for proof. Being an overcommercialized area, the standard backpacker avoids this place like the plague. However, the standard partygoer hangs out here for days and even weeks. Thus we are at a crossroads where we must choose how to toe the line. We must look deep into our souls and examine the root of our traveling existence. Then we looked deep into our wallets and decided that we'll leave tomorrow lest we be tempted by the gods of luck at the roulette wheel. By the way, in case you are interested, Rayman and I flew separately to Brisbane from Sydney on Virgin Blue airlines (part of the Virgin empire from the UK). Both of us on our own separate accords decided that Virgin Blue is the Southwest Airlines of Australia. (Ed. note: This is good stuff here. You can't peel your eyes away if you tried. Just please remember to blink every once in a while to prevent oculatory dehydration.) Thankfully it is warmer here, so I plan on offloading most of my cold-weather clothes in a box to be sent home. Then I can load up the vacated space with souvenirs for all you people... imagine strutting around in your very own randomly-coloured T-shirt emblazoned with the randomly-coloured cheap iron-on lettering "My friend Paraag went off to New Zealand, Australia, and most of Southeastern Asia for a 3.5 month escapade, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt". I can feel the anticipation from here. Please let me know in advance if you want extras. Tidbits: 1. A bit of automobile trivia... the GM car is here under the Holden brand name. Ford's are still Ford's. And Renault is still alive and kicking here. So is (brace yourselves for this one) the El Camino, or at least modern-day versions of this half-truck half-car vehicle. It's like the sausage of automobiles - pretty much made of a little of everything. Don't worry - I'll take pictures. 2. Australians also think that the Crocodile Hunter guy (Steve) is an idiot. 3. In Australian Rules Football, there's a scorekeeper guy who gets to signal like the Fonz whenever points are scored. Face it - this has got to be the coolest job in the world. 4. Koalas and Wombats are in an official two-way tie for the title of "cutest animal on the planet". Well okay, the koala wins. 5. In fast-food restaurants or cafes here (similar to some in Europe), you have to pay for additional packets of tomato sauce (aka ketchup), mayonnaise, mustard, etc.. Rayman and I have decided to put his new MBA to good use and become entrepreneurs in a condiment export business. The basic business plan is as follows: send out runners to request extra ketchup packets from local McDonalds and Burger Kings, said runners will deposit collected extras in inconspicuous drop locations (potentially resembling mailboxes or parking meters), the drops will then be collected and shipped via airplanes at precisely midnight each evening, flying at low sea levels to stay below radar, and deliver the goods to the Eastern bloc, where communism has kept ketchup from the masses for years. In Year 1, we expect an infinite % profit jump over Year 0 (since Year 0, profits equal 0). Sounds like a sound plan to me. By way of this e-mail, we are also soliciting for runners to collect the condiment packets. You can get in on the ground floor of this lucrative business and even own part of the company in a few short years.

Trip Update #3

It's already been three weeks! Somehow it still feels like a normal vacation - probably because the majority of my vacations since college have been 2-3 weeks long. I've received numerous complaints from Canucks telling me to stoop making Canadian jokes and to back oof, eh. I'll try. Promise. Monday, May 27th Had a slow day today in Queenstown. We kicked off the day with Fly By Wire. What exactly is fly by wire, you may ask. Well, here's the recipe for the ride: 1. Find a steep valley bordered by two mountains that are relatively close together. 2. Attach two cables in and X pattern to said mountains across the valley. 3. The cables cross in the middle of the valley. At this juncture, hang a long thin flat piece of metal with a nose cone from another cable. 4. Attach large motor with a large fan blade to the back of the piece of metal. 5. Get some idiot to pay you lots of money to fly the piece of metal around. Not having had enough death-defying stunts in yet, I decided to follow this up with a bungy jump (Rayman opted out) - not a normal bungy jump by any means, though. This one was called the Nevis: the highest bungy jump in New Zealand at 134 meters (roughly 400 feet). I jumped off a suspended cable car. It was awesome. The best part is looking over the edge of the platform just before you go - simply terrifying. I almost paid to jump again. Rayman and I ate exclusively at this little Turkish Kebab place on Beach St. (pronounced with two syllables) our entire stay in Queenstown. The best food we've had so far. Couldn't get enough. Next, was the real ride of the day. Driving to Mt. Cook in the snow in the dark. This was lots of fun. The snow was awesome. Rayman and I had a little snowball fight. I would tell you who won, but Rayman is on this distribution list too and I wouldn't want to make him feel bad. Tuesday, May 28th The roads were completely iced over this morning, so we figured that attempting a full day hike per plan would not be the smartest thing to do. We also received a nice present from the ice in the form of a flat tire (known as a tyre here), which we promptly replaced with something we found in the trunk resembling a bicycle tire. We settled on a hike through Hooker Valley. I wonder what this place was named for... probably some guy whose last name was Hooker. What were you thinking of? Throughout this hike we got some spectacular views of Mt. Cook (which we named Pointy Peak, until we found out it was actually Mt. Cook). The sun shining on snowy mountainsides is truly a beautiful site. After the walk, we confined ourselves to the luxury of the Corolla for a nice 7-hour drive to Kaikoura, after we got the tire repaired thankfully. On our way out of Mt. Cook (the town), we noticed that for most of the drive, Mt. Cook (the mountain) was directly behind us. Had we driven into Mt. Cook (the town) during the day, we would've known this. Another site of beauty is watching very large waves crash into the mountainside at night. For these two reasons, it was very difficult to keep my eyes on the road. Some would say that this is no different than normal. Wednesday, May 29th Went whale watching on a catamaran in Kaikoura. They warned us that the seas were a bit choppy, but I had no idea. The boat ride was almost more fun than the things we did in Queenstown. We hit the jackpot with this trip - saw three sperm whales, including their spectacular dives where they flop their tailfins up. Also got 3 orcas (also known as Free Willy whales), and somewhere close to 200 dolphins. Wonderful day. Got some wonderful shots of all of this, since I figured out how to work my camera to take multiple shots. Drove down to Christchurch afterwards for our last destination in New Zealand. Thursday, May 30th Drove out to Akaroa in the Banks Peninsula, which is this little peninsula that juts out into the ocean right next to Christchurch. Here we did a 3 hour hike up a large hill through pavement, gravel, pasture (complete with sheep and droppings), and forest. It was very relaxing and comfortable to hang out in a cute little town. That's really all we did today. Sorry to let you all down - get used to it though, since the rest of the travels will probably be more sedate like this. Friday, May 31st through Sunday, June 2nd Woke up early to go to the airport and fly to Sydney, Australia. Short flight on Qantas. How they manage to get away without a 'u' in Qantas is a mystery to me. I thought it was a law to have the 'u' in or something. We've been staying at this place called the Pink House. Ironically, it's a big house that is painted pink. These Australians are simply too smart for me. Little did we know that the Pink House is situated smack dab in the middle of the red light district. No, I have not partaken (honest!, okay Mom?). Perhaps I should've omitted this detail... Spent these days just wandering around the city. We've also spent a considerable amount of time planning the rest of our trip and buying some plane tickets. Also, apparently many countries require something called a visa to get in. Something we don't have at the moment. So, if these messages stop coming, you can use it as an indicator that Rayman and I are being held captive somewhere in Indonesia. Last night, Rayman and I experienced a bit of the nightlife. The hostel was sponsoring a 70's night, so we went to a second hand store and got some groovy clothes. Bars and clubs around here don't really close because there's no curfew - so you get to leave whenever you want to. A few years ago, this would have been a really really bad thing for me. I probably wouldn't leave Sydney at all. Sydney is really a very beautiful city. It has lots of neat little neighborhoods with their own distinct flavour. It's really a lot like New York, but without the overcrowdedness, the crime, the rudeness, and the stench. Okay, so I guess it's not like New York. So, I've decided that after Shania and I get married, we're going to move to Sydney. It's settled. Wow - can you imagine Shania in a sari? Lllllolalleol(how do you spell the sound of drool?).... settle down now Paraag. Take a deep breath... Okay, so I gotta run and do some laundry. Have a splendid week. I'll try my best to trudge on. -Paraag Tidbits: 1. Never explain to your mother just how fast 164kmh really is in mph. Bad idea. 2. The truly beautiful things are unfortunately impossible to capture adequately on film. 3. I actually know the words to songs by those annoying boybands, such as N'Stync and the Backdoor Boys, not that there's anything wrong with that. (Work people – please disregard this tidbit, lest it get me downsized for inappropriateness). 4. Quay is pronounced 'kee', not 'kway'. Why? I do not know. Yet another indication that English is a very dumb language. We should just start speaking Spanish instead. It's so much simpler. The only rule in English is that there are no rules. 5. The Sydney Opera House was initially supposed to cost $7 million to build. It wound up at $102 million. I guess they forgot to figure in the actual cost of the building and not just the cost of the opening ceremonies. 6. The guy who repaired the punctured tire was telling us about his trip to the West Coast of the U.S. Now, how many car mechanics do you know at home that have ever left the country, or even the state? He didn't like the U.S. very much - reason: too much time wasted standing in line for things!