Ahoy! Civilization!

We arrived back in Perth today a full two days ahead of schedule, with 2 weeks of outback fun under our belt. Queeda held up nicely, probably because we rarely drive her at more than 60 miles per hour (100 kms, for our metric fans) and often take one- to two-hour 'rest breaks' during the hottest part of the day (although, it must be admitted that the rest breaks are as much for our benefit as for hers. You wouldn't think that a white car with the windows rolled down would incubate heat like an oven, but it does).

After a shark-free good time in Coral Bay, we turned inland and drove through the outback to Karijini National Park, which is known for its amazing gorges. It didn't disappoint. We had a wonderful few days there, and then took two days to get back to Perth on the Great Northern Highway. Only two of those three words describes the road accurately; it is a highway that runs north-south, but there is nothing great about it.

Driving through the outback requires lots of imagination to stave off boredom. Roadside attractions included a 'mountain' that got its own sign for being 300 meters tall, a single boot dangling in a tree, and a dust devil. This particular highway is the main route for Australia's infamous 'road trains,' which are your regular 18-wheelers but with more than one trailer. Three is standard, four is notable, and two deserves ridicule. As you can imagine, such traffic results in some pretty spectacular roadkill. Our Lonely Planet guidebook warned us that it was 'particularly gruesome,' so we made a game of it. We reached 12 for total roadkill, 8 gruesome, within our first few hours of driving, and then discontinued the fun. If a radio station comes up, regardless of what it's playing, our reaction tends to be something along the lines of 'We get RADIO here? AWESOME!' and then we'll listen avidly to three or so songs before we lose the signal again. These stations reach a wide audience, and are likely to play tunes ranging from the g-rated 'Grease Remix' to the slightly more adult 'You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals' song.

Gas prices rigorously follow the laws of supply and demand, so they are typically half again as much at an isolated roadhouse as they are in the Perth metro area. Roadhouses tend to operate on the airport restaurant hostage principle: 'Even if we give them subpar quality products and service and charge them double what they'd oridnarily pay, they'll still buy because there's no alternative!'

Big plans for the Perth area. Big plans. We plotted our course deliberately so as to arrive in town for Monday night's double feature and Tuesday's $5 movie deal. Easter is Sunday, and they make a pretty big deal about Good Friday around here. Best wishes to all who will be celebrating the holiday, and glad tidings to those of other religious persuasions as well. We pride ourselves on our non-sectarian blog.

A Falcon Named Queeda

We finally christened our vehicle, after a girl mentioned in a Biggie Smalls song (Bob's idea, but I didn't have a good enough name for a counter-offer, so Queeda it is). The mobile phone thus far has been a completely pointless purchase, except for the handy calculator that tells us how much money we're hemmorhaging (a lot, apologies for spelling errors). It is worthless because a) we don't get signal ANYWHERE, b) we rarely leave it on, and c) we haven't yet set up the voice mail. Sorry if you've tried to call us, and sorry to the moms if you've been worried in our week-long electronic absence.

A good title for our current travels would be 'A tour of West Australia's many caravan parks.' Local as well as international travelers seem to enjoy the lifestyle of sleeping in cars. Can't say that I blame them--our vehicle is quite self-sufficient, with its two stoves, its mattress, and its bin full of tasty but non-perishable food. The Lieutenant does most of the driving, as I think you're all familiar with my trouble with the whole right/left issue, and the Aussies motor on the opposite side of the road. We bought a couple of cassettes for entertainment(remember those?)--'Pure Moods' and 'Drivetime Love Songs' (slim pickings at the roadhouse)--but the player crapped out on us after playing one side of one of the tapes. Oh well, Bob can always use him in the LeSabre.

Logistics aside, we've had a great time seeing the many attractions on the Northwest Coastal Highway. I don't know how familiar our readers are with the western coast of Australia, but we've stopped in Cervantes, Geraldton, Kalbarri, Monkey Mia Resort, Nanga Bay, and now Coral Bay. Geraldton has been the largest city we've been to, with a booming population of 25,000. We saw pinnacles in the Pinnacles desert, gorges at Kalbarri, and Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins at Monkey Mia resort (we also sang plenty of Abba, replacing 'Mama Mia' with 'Monkey Mia'). Are hoping to do some snorkeling here once the weather clears up. The beaches are all gorgeous, but swimming is sometimes a dubious affair, what with all the jellyfish, tiger sharks, and stingrays to watch out for.

We'll be heading south again by this Friday, as it's the start of the Dreaded School Holidays, which seem to strike fear in the heart of every caravan park operator. So far, the Falcon is holding up nicely, although we have to treat her with a lot of love and care--after all, she's almost as old as we are. Overheating is a concern in this blistering weather, and we had a well-meaning stranger warn us about one of our tyres the other day (although a mechanic later told us 'she'd be all right'). Gas costs about double what it does back home (thanks, W!).

Anyway, hope all is well back home and that spring is springing. Much love from the both of us.

Vegemite sandwich, anyone?

Hello hello hello from 'America with an accent.' We've been hanging out here in Perth for a few days now and are getting over the reverse culture shock. Had a brief, somewhat unplanned stopover in Bali (in Indonesia) where we got to stay at a hotel with not one, but two pools, each with a waterfall. We've added it to our list of 'countries that merit further explanation.' This list grows like India's population, and I doubt that we'll even come close to covering it in our brief lifetimes, but it's important to dream.

Western Australia as a state has a population of 1.9 million people, and Perth contains 1.4 million of them. That should give you an idea of the isolation we're in for as we head north tomorrow. Perth is an incredibly clean, convenient, and modern city, with eco-friendly public transport that makes it easy to get anywhere you would want to go. Unfortunately, with contributing factors being our departure from Asia and the current strength of the Australian dollar, our arrival in the land down under has been met with a severe lifestyle cut. Case in point: our 8-bed dorm, which we share with 5 smelly guys with a penchant for drunk wrestling at 3 in the morning, costs the same as a private room with attached bath would have in Thailand. Bummer.

Our plan is to economize by...sleeping in our new (to us) car. We took the plunge and bought an ancient Ford Falcon XF today off of a seemingly credible guy named Glen. Pictures are forthcoming. With this vehicle, we plan to explore a lot of the out of the way places in Oz, and also do a good amount a camping. I could make a joke about 'flying on the wings of the falcon' here, but I won't. Oops, I did it anyway.

So that's the report here. Please comment! We love to hear from our readers.

PS. In addition to the vehicle, a mobile phone has also been purchased. In case you want to reach us in Oz, all incoming calls are free. If you're dying to talk, the number is 61 4 1675 2092 (international country code to call Australia is included).

Wake me up before you Go-Go

The past few days have held a couple of weird and wonderful events, including running into a friend of ours from India and our first Thai go-go bar experience. It's bizarre how often it happens that adventure finds us when we're least expecting it. We were leaving our movie on Friday night when we ran into Dee, one of the four Irish girls on the second half of our India tour. It was great to see her and catch up on gossip about our other friends, and it reminded us of how small this world of ours is.

We thought we would make an early night of it, but alas, the universe had different plans for us yet again, and we were out watching scantily clad girls dance until the wee hours. We caught up with a group of folks at our hostel, had some Chang beers from the nearby 7-11, and took to the streets. Unfortunately, Bangkok, though it is renowned for its nightlife, does not have much in the way of 'traditional' dance clubs. It does, however, have clubs where you can watch other girls dance. On a platform. With poles. Wearing black bras and g-strings. The music ranged from Billy Ray Cyrus (you know it's going to be a good night when the first song you hear upon entering a bar is "Achy Breaky Heart") to Jon Bon Jovi (maybe the theme was "washed-up pop artists with mullets"). The attitudes of the dancers spanned utter boredom to fun-loving goofiness. All of them wore numbers on their lacy underthings. I was told that the company of one of these young ladies was available for 500 baht (38 baht=1 dollar, you do the math). If anything other than the company of the young lady were desired, then the price for any services rendered would need to be negotiated with her as an independent contractor.

For some reason, one of the dancers paused to talk to me on her way out of the bar. She told me that she was finished with work, and I asked, "Oh, so you get to go home and sleep now?" Her response was priceless. She laughed, shook her head "no," and then made a thrusting motion with her pelvis to indicate unambiguously that she might be through with dancing, but that work wasn't over yet. The commercial sex industry continues to baffle me, and after this brief introduction, I wish I had the chance to talk to some of the women in the business and learn more. Sorry, but they didn't allow photos in the bar. It's too bad, because I think that our male readership would skyrocket if we could post those pictures.

This is the last post from Thailand. Our flight to Oz includes a twenty-three hour layover in an Indonesian airport, so that should provide fodder for interesting tales. Take care. We'll write again from the sunburned country.

Musings

I'm meant to provide an end for Bob's post about the bus since he has run off to see 'Constantine.' (Yes, I eschewed the eye candy of Keanu Reeves willingly...what have I become?) So here goes. He got to the point about us stopping for dinner. After a tepid serving of sub-par fried rice, we boarded our luxury coach, expecting to embark at any moment and return to our napping. But it was not to be! The universe had other plans for us.

We had been sitting on the bus for a few minutes, festering in our own sweat, when the driver came on and told us that we had to change buses because the air-con was broken. Fair enough. I know that most of our readership is currently living in chilly conditions and would welcome some warmth, but the heat in humidity in Thailand rivals an Alabama August, so air-con is pretty important. Our next bus was quickly forthcoming; unfortunately, it was a serious downgrade. The seats were significantly smaller and didn't fully recline, and after 5 minutes of riding, we noticed a not insubstantial vibration. After 10 minutes of riding, an older Italian woman approached the driver with a problem. Apparently, when we made the switch to the other bus, she didn't see any need to transfer all of her luggage, and now a painting of hers was on the other bus.

Our bus driver, when he went to sleep the previous night, hadn't planned on being woken up at one in the morning to do a drive. And his English language skills were non-existent. I don't fault him for this, but it did make it difficult for the Italian woman to communicate her needs. We pulled over at a petrol station to resolve the issue. The players involved a Canadian named Imran, an Aussie bloke named Gordo who told us he 'likes to party,' and an American girl scheduled to catch her flight home out of Bangkok at nine this morning. We never caught her name, but called her 'Japan to LA,' after her connecting flights. Clearly, she had the most invested in making sure that the painting was recovered in a timely fashion, but she never flipped out, as I would have certainly felt justified in doing.

Imran had been doing relief work in the south of Thailand for the previous two months, so he had a helpful spirit in addition to a limited Thai vocabulary. He attempted to mediate. Gordo went and got a beer, in true Aussie fashion, and seemed to be either consoling or hitting on Japan-to-LA; we couldn't tell as we watched the drama outside unfold from our seats in the bus. A small crowd started to gather. Cell phones were pulled out. Some passers-by were enlisted, I believe, to chase down the rogue painting. Keep in mind that it was, at this point, about three in the morning. Sleep deprivation and the lurid glare of neon lamps contributed to the surreal atmosphere. One of the gas station attendants started riding a child's bicycle around the parking lot, wearing a cowboy hat and smoking a cigarette. Gordo, who was enjoying some Valium in addition to his beer (smart lad, that one) suggested that we pay the guy with the bicycle five baht each and all 'have a go on it,' maybe even make a competition out of it. Unfortunately, it didn't happen.

Instead, the passengers who weren't asleep, ourselves included, piled out of the bus to join in the fun. Bob went and got beer, adding much to the situation by pointing out to everybody that the big Chang beer, which is twice the volume of the small Chang, costs only 10 baht more. Since we sat in the gas station parking lot for at least an hour, some people got 'right pissed,' if you will.

The rest, as they say, is history. The painting was eventually returned, and I guess we'll never know if Japan-to-LA made her flight. We arrived at our hostel in Bangkok (luckily, Imran is staying at the same place) around 8 AM, and have been re-acquainting ourselves with this glorious city.

It's funny, because if the event with the bus hadn't happened, there would have been little, if any, fodder for a new post. As we travel through progressively civilized countries, we have to look for adventures ourselves instead of counting on them to find us. We're prepping for our trip to Oz, that bizarre country that brought such an unlikely pair as Mel and Bob together for the first time.

I want to thank some commenters publicly. Max, your comment the other day was so sweet that it nearly brought tears to my eyes. To Jenny Coleman and Gene and Kathy Gibson, I thank you for commenting more than my own family typically does. It is always great to feel support from our friends and family, no matter where we are. As home gets closer and closer (and e-mails from UAB grow more frequent, reminding me of the slightly more arduous life that awaits), I think of how fortunate that we are to have such wonderful homes to return to.

Speaking of home, I will conclude with the quote I saw on a t-shirt in Ko Pha Ngan, further confirming that the reputation of my great state has spread far and wide:

'ALABAMA: So many recipes, so few squirrels'