The Mystery Machine vs. Oz

Are you looking for heart-pounding thrills?  Want to stretch your brain and build new synapses?  Desperate to put your relationship to the test?  If you answered "yes" to these questions, let us recommend driving in Sydney!  You will love the challenge of driving on the left side of the road, while sitting on the right side of the vehicle, and shifting with your left hand.  Throw in speed limits in kilometers, some parallel parking, and plentiful roundabouts and you have a recipe for excitement. Take our word for it - the first dozen times you attempt to use your turn signal, your windshield wipers will be flailing, fellow drivers will be honking, and your significant other will be slouching pronouncedly to avoid eye contact with bystanders.

Thrilled by the prospect of the open road after many months of public transport, we rented a campervan for our month-long sojourn in The Land Down Under.  To ensure that we were not mistaken for locals (as if our driving prowess didn't make it obvious enough), we hired an ultra conspicuous and blatantly feminine van bedazzled with pink and purple flowers and emblazoned with the words "Hippie Camper".  In our spartan wheeled house, we settled into a comfortable daily routine of driving, roasting on the beach, grilling out, and sweating through our sheets until sunrise.  The perspiration stemmed not only from the oppressive summer heat, but also from the questionable legality of sleeping in a vehicle in public parks.  Despite the assurances of numerous Aussies that this was an acceptable practice, the policeman who woke us with a sharp rap on the window early one morning seemed to disagree.  Thereafter, sound sleep was hard to come by and the nightly debate regarding the merits of various van hiding spots soaked up many hours.

Since planning our trip a year ago, the Australian dollar gained 50% in value against the U.S. dollar.  Sadly, our currency hedging team did not see this coming and our budget was decapitated by the towering prices.  We had never encountered $15 six packs of beer, $27 CD's, $5 gallons of petrol, or $25 bottles of saline solution and facing them forced us into hardscrabble survival tactics.  We showered in the public restrooms provided on most beaches and ate heaps of cereal out of the back of the van.  We evidently looked the part as well - we were in Australia less than 24 hours before someone asked Ben if he was homeless, as he washed his feet in a public restroom.  Living the dream.  The hardest part for Carolyn was listening to Ben's endless shouts of "My name is Ben Opps...I am a motivational speaker...and I live in a van down by the ocean!" (accompanied by jerking arms and spectacle adjustments).

The clear highlight since crossing the equator was the unparalleled fireworks show over Sydney Harbor to welcome the new year.  A massive dose of good luck (with a pinch of smooth talking) yielded two free wristbands to witness the spectacle from the elevated Cahill Expressway, which was closed to traffic for the night.  This perch put us in the center of the action, with explosions of light and color erupting 360 degrees around us.  Our perch provided us balcony views right above the Harbor, with fireworks launching from the Opera House on the right, the Harbor Bridge on the left, and numerous sky-scrapers behind us.  The show only lasted 12 minutes, but they made every one count.  This is one of those rare events that surpasses the prodigious hype surrounding it.  On the walk back to our beach house (on wheels), we negotiated a sausage sandwich down to half price, further strengthening our faith that 2010 will be a very good year.

After months in non-English speaking countries, Australia provided a measure of linguistic repose.  This is not to say the semantic nuances between our English and their did not provide some entertainment.  For instance, when asked "How are you going?" the proper response is not "By van."  They are, in fact, asking how you are doing.  While swimming at a public pool, Ben was crouched on the edge contemplating how to enter with the greatest effect.  The lifeguard read his mind and sauntered up to point out the rules of the pool, which forbid dives and "bombs".  Relieved, Ben carried on with the impressive cannonball he had planned, displacing a large spout of chlorinated water on the deck at her feet.  Luckily, she was in a good humor, for she quickly explained with a look of disdain and many disapproving nods that Ben had just executed a strictly forbidden bomb.  Ben convinced her of the honesty of the mistake by guiding her through the various ordinance used in American swimming pools (spanning the gamut from watermelons to jack knives) and a shaky truce was declared.  As another example, our searches for key college football bowl games bore no fruit until we started asking for "gridiron".  With some effort, we watched the Longhorns make the BCS title game interesting (contrary to all expectations) and enjoyed a Badger victory.  We even sang "Varsity" to close out the game with all the other Wisconsin fans (okay, fan).

In general, we found Aussies to be some of the friendliest folk we have encountered in our travels, quick to buy us a pint or point us in the direction of a little-known beach.  Ben's second cousins were no exception.  Alyssa, Jim, Joyce, and Michael hosted us with a warmth that belied the fact that we had never met before this visit.  The notable exceptions to this welcoming demeanor were the aforementioned scoundrels who, returning to Australia's roots as a prison continent, took a crowbar to our van in broad daylight and helped themselves to most of our possessions.  Luckily they did not find our passports or the emergency credit card and we were able to forge on.

This event ushered in a two week period known as the "Dark Days", during which we slogged through the five stages of loss (with hefty focus on anger and bargaining and an acceptance stage that is still in progress).  The first week was spent near the scene of the crime, our desperate bid to recover our belongings leading us on a tour of the local police stations and pawn shops.  We logged so many kilometers slowly trolling surrounding suburbs, parks, and ditches in search of discarded items that the neighborhood watch lost interest in our creeping van.  We ran classified ads, contacted the press, went to the dump and took every other reasonable action we could think of, in the vain hope of recovering the photos (originals and backups) and journal that are priceless to us and worthless to a slimy crook.  Eventually, we attempted to force the acceptance stage by pointing the Mystery Machine north and fixed our slights on leaving Australia and starting anew. 

Our final week of driving was shaped by Cyclone Olga, which pummeled us with a relentless torrent and inhumane humidity.  During a short respite from the monsoon, we enjoyed a crocodile-viewing cruise through the mangrove swamp and met Andrea and Dave, two affable Yankees whose gift of tap beer helped us forget our woes for an evening.  Sadly, the storm squelched our plan to dive the Great Barrier Reef, but at the time we had our sights set on relinquishing our campervan contract and bidding farewell to our flowered nemesis.  Returning the van in Cairns provided the arsenic icing on the toxic cake, as Apollo Rentals not only helped themselves to our insurance deductible, but also tacked on a $75 processing fee for their hardship due to our break-in. 

As always, thank you to our readers for the outpouring of support and offers of assistance during our Dark Days.  Your responses reminded us why we embarked on the trip in the first place and the Haitian tragedy put our minor loss into glaring perspective.  We are happy to say that leaving Oz jolted our odyssey back to life.  We are excited to share the upturn with you in our next post!

P.S.  We are sad to report that Ben's most faithful drinking buddy since 2002, his indefatigable NASA coozie, was lost in the van heist.  R.I.P. and thanks for the memories...

A White (Sand) Christmas

It is hard to say no to a legless man. Even after a day of adroitly evading the cutest and most persistent saleschildren, the book peddler confined to his wheeled cart wormed his way through our defenses. With the dubious distinction as the world's most landmined country, Cambodia is teeming with unfortunate victims missing various limbs. Sadly this delayed curse from the disastrous Khmer Rouge regime of the late 1970s is still killing and maiming innocents to this day. Sitting face to face with one of these, a father of five, made it hard to savor the 50-cent tap beers and look the other way. So we did what he asked and bought a book, which taught us more about the devastating reign of Pol Pot and the ruthless genocide that happened during our lifetimes. This was all a bit heavy for "holiday," but necessary context to better grasp what we observed.




Thankfully, there is much more to Cambodia than its turbulent recent past. We were drawn here by the same forces that pull in tourists from around the world, the astounding ruins of the Khmer Empire, most notably the Angkor complex. Covering a vast swath of jungle, over 700 Hindu and Buddhist temples testify to the power and sophistication of this great civilization that peaked in 12th century.


We quickly found that the only way to avoid being accosted by touts hawking tuk-tuks was to be in a tuk-tuk. Luckily, they are used for legitimate transport here, so we hired a driver and English-speaking guide for the day and set off to explore the sprawling Khmer ruins. In pursuit of a postcard-perfect photo (for you, of course), we set out before dawn, hoping to catch sunrise over the famous towers of Angkor Wat. The low ceiling of clouds did not cooperate with this goal, but we still experienced the magic of watching the eerie stone temple slowly emerge from the shadows in the growing light. We spent a full day wat-hopping in the steamy jungle, while our excellent guide enlightened us with historical context and divined the meaning of the elaborate stone carvings and rampant symbolism. Highlights include the towering stone faces of Angkor Thom with their subtle smiles and the spooky remnants of Ta Prohm, which appears to be losing its battle with the encroaching rainforest.

Much like the people we met in Laos, the Khmer (as the Cambodians call themselves) were friendly and genuine. They are also ingeniously efficient with their transportation, to the extent that seeing a family of five on a single moped or a wife gingerly loaded in the trunk of a car became routine. Even the local animals made us feel welcome, especially the hungry fish who gladly gave us pedicures with their mouths. Though it did not make the brochure, our hotel room came equipped with a few friendly geckos, who did their best to keep the malarial mosquitoes under control. Our only regret is that we did not have more time to spend outside of the tourist haven of Siem Reap. However, it is never too early to start adding ideas to the list for our next trip...

After nearly a month of staccato sight-seeing throughout SE Asia, we spent the final week of 2009 plopped securely on the beach. Once more, we braved the baffling she-males and cunning conmen to spend time on the enchanting beaches of Southern Thailand. The Thais were quick to point out that the animosity is mutual, as the omnipotent immigration officer awarded Ben a verbal lashing and a souvenir handwritten note in Thai that says something to the effect of "This one is naughty." Why? The officer did not like the way Ben handed over his passport. Guh.

Thankfully, the beaches delivered on our dreams of sun, sand, and chillaxing. We spent a highly unorthodox Christmas soaking up rays on the island of Koh Samui. Thanks to the Thai-made SPF 20 sun block, which actually seemed to magnify the UV rays, we can easily say we received our deepest Christmas Day sunburn to date. Our first Christmas away from home did not feel strange until we watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and talked to our families via Skype. Seeing the snow-covered yard, the decked out tree, and the anxious kiddies through the PC made us more than a little wistful for home. However, picking out fresh seafood on the beach, while candlelit floating lanterns rose skyward on all sides, made for a memorable dinner that night. It was a potent reminder of how lucky we are to get to try something new this year.

We spent our last few days in Asia on the tiny island of Koh Tao. The visit was punctuated by a two-tank SCUBA dive excursion that ranks as arguably the best dive we have ever done. Dropping into the water and setting aside the jitters of relatively inexperienced divers, we noticed that the visibility was quite poor. Thankfully the plankton responsible for this also makes great fish food. As we descended further, the sunlight -loving plankton receded, affording us views of endless schools of fish. Giant grouper and silver-sided barracuda were in abundance and we spent much of the dive flailing underwater to point things out to each other. At a few points along our circumnavigation of the columnar reef, up to four 6-foot sharks glided silently into view like toothy torpedoes. It was an outstanding way to finish our Asian adventures and a banner year of travel. Stay tuned for our next post, which vaults us into a new year...and onto a new continent!