Road trip today over to the other side of the island. On a map it doesn’t look to far, but there aren’t a whole lot of roads (and even fewer that are straight) on an island made up of two volcanoes, so there’s easily two hours of drive time between our hotel and our first stop of Hilo. Going over the pass between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea is marginally faster than driving around the coast, so even though the car rental companies frown on it, we head up and over. Hilo is one of the rainiest cities in the US (yes, even worse than Seattle), so we don’t have high hopes for the weather, but to our pleasant surprise, it is as sunny and clear as Kona.

There isn’t actually much that we want to see in Hilo, so we stop primarily to grab some lunch (and for Nick to try some rambutans at a local market). From a fairly small handful of choices, the kids picked Mexican, and we sat down to is easily the worst burritos we have ever eaten. The rice was clearly scraped from the bottom of a pot sitting on a stove for at least two days. I felt like I had an eating disorder, chewing mouthfuls of food a few times before spitting them back into a napkin rather than trying to swallow. To rub a little extra salt in the wound, two blocks down the street we saw another Mexican restaurant that was packed 🙁

After lunch, we headed north about fifteen miles to see another of the places from Nick’s report, Akaka Falls. These are the highest falls in Hawaii, and have been something the kids have asked about since we got here (I think more because the like to say Akaka Falls than because they actually care that much about seeing them). It is a small hike from the parking lot to the actual falls, and they are quite impressive, but looking at them, its hard not to see the difference between seeing something like this in the US versus a country like Thailand. Overseas, we would have hiked right down to the bottom of the falls and swam right up to them. Here, the closest you can get is a fenced overlook about 300 yards away. I’m guessing at some point there was a trail to the bottom that someone twisted an ankle on before suing the state, so now, this is as good as it gets.

Now what we really came to see here was the volcano, and according to all that we have read, the best time to see it is when it gets dark, so after the falls, we head south to the national park where it is located, figuring we could see some things like the lava tube and steam vents while it still light.

When we arrive at the park, the first place we stop is the information center, which has a few displays about volcanoes and the native flora and fauna of Hawaii. There is also a pretty interesting video that talks about how the islands were formed that we take some time to watch. This is also the place to stop and find out where the can be best viewed from on that particular day. Sadly, the news on that front is not good, as the park ranger tells us where we can see some activity, but aside being another hour away (partly going back the way we just came), he tells us we’ll be lucky if we can even see some glow, much less actual lava or the explosions that occur when it hits the ocean. After coming this far (not just the two and a half hour drive, but the 2,500 mile flight), it is not what we really wanted to hear.

Nevertheless, things are what they are, so we try to make the best of it. We drive to the lava tube and walk the full length (props to Ang who didn’t even freak out much when we turned off the flashlights), visit the steam vents, hike up to the caldera, and in the last moments of daylight, walk to a spot where sulphur is coming out of the mountain, which the kids have dubbed “the wall of farts.”

If there a silver lining in not seeing the lava, its that we get back to the hotel much sooner that we expected. We stop for dinner at local chain called L&L Barbeque, and for $30, get a dinner that could probably feed 12. It includes short ribs for Nick, fried shrimp for Sam, and chicken fingers for Joey, so they boys think it is pretty much the best meal ever.

We decided to mix it up a little today (from our regular regimen of morning at the pool, afternoon snorkeling) and spend some time in the nearby town of Kailua. We breezed through a few days ago on our way to Boss Frog’s, so found our way much more quickly the second time around and parked the car in a lot with a small market set up. Of course that made the first order of business to poke around the stalls and see what kind of trinkets the kids could find (or at least that’s the spin Ang put on it so she could be the martyr having to help them shop).

In several of the stalls they were selling fresh fruit, including coconuts, which the boys deemed a must have. Having never seen a coconut other than at the supermarket, it was quite the novelty to see the top hacked off and a straw stuck down the center to drink the liquid inside. Nick was also fascinated by the starfruit, so picked up a bag of those (which he loves), a few of the obligatory pineapples, and a couple of mangoes the size of a small child.

The next hour or so we spent jut walking through town. It turns out there really isn’t a whole lot to see unless you are desperately seeking a coconut shell bra or Quicksilver t-shirt (although the boys did find a shirt the wanted to buy for Grandpa with a dog skeleton and “In dog year’s I’m dead” emblazoned on the front), so after a quick lunch (kudos to Nick for going local and trying the Loco Moco) and dessert of shave ice we decide to head a few miles down the road to a beach we read about in one of our books.

Unlike the “beaches” we have been to so far, Magic Sands beach is much more in tune with what we envision a beach to be. It’s not that big, but what is there is powdery sand with regular waves rolling up on the shore. With the temperature hovering around 80 degrees, it is the perfect place to cop a squat for the afternoon.

The boys quickly hit the surf, and after getting wiped off their feet a few times, start to get the hang of getting through the waves and out to where they can try body surfing (Joey stays a little closer to shore, but has a blast jumping over the incoming waves and throwing his hands in the air like a rock star every time a big one comes in that fails to knock him over). I still remember learning to body surf the hard way on my first trip to Hawaii, and after getting tossed around like a rag in the washing machine, sympathize when they come out of the water for a break, covered in sand and looking like sugar cookies. Before the after is out, they will both catch a few waves, which has them feeling pretty good about themselves, and Nick will take on a monster that beats him down pretty hard on the sand.

All in all, it was a good day, and by the time we get back to the hotel, we’re a pretty tired crew. The plan tomorrow is to head out early for the other side of the island (about a two hour drive), so the kids wind down with a little TV and its lights out.

True to our plan, we set out this morning to the beach we tried snorkeling at yesterday. It was definitely calmer when we arrived, but the waves were still quite high, making entry into the water a bit interesting (when I say beach I use the term pretty loosely, as instead of nice white sand, think baseball sized lava rocks). I finally manage to get past the surf line with Nick where he excitedly puts his head in the water to see…..sand. We kick around a bit, but in every direction there is nothing but flat sandy bottom, with only the odd, clearly lost, fish swimming by.

The water is fairly clear, and our books tell us there are things to see here, so we’re not ready to give up. There are a handful of boats anchored at the far end of the bay, so we go cross country to see if we can walk down that far (we can’t). Finally, trying again from the beach with Sam, we find a direction that takes us to a small reef. Not one for subtlety, as we return to the beach, he let’s Nick know that he saw all kinds of fish when he went.

While this location proves to be less than stellar, we do get advice from a few local people about a spot a few miles down the road where there are much better reefs and the water is calm enough that Joey can get in as well. It does not disappoint, as right off the rocks where you enter the water (again, no sand, just lava rocks) there is healthy reef and clusters of tropical fish. For the kids, this is the best place ever and they snorkel for hours, before finally wearing both Ang and I down to the point we just can’t go anymore. When he’s not in the water, Joey goes from tide pool to tide pool counting up all the fish (240), shrimp (70) and crabs (6) that he sees.
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Back at the hotel, it’s movie night, on a big inflatable screen they set up near the pool. They are playing Prince of Persia, so we spend the next couple of hours parked there before turning in for the night.

The first few days here we have stayed pretty low key. As part of getting ready for the trip, we asked the boys to do some research on Hawaii and put together a report to give them some ideas on things they wanted to see and do. Nick wrote about a place called Snorkel Beach which is right near our hotel, so after some pool time we headed out to go there. At the airport, we had picked up a few “things to do” magazines and in one of them found an ad for snorkel gear rentals at a place called Boss Frog’s. At $9/week and a 2 for 1 offer it seemed reasonable, so we headed into town.

Now if you work in a store serving tourists, there can’t be a better sight than a pair of pasty white parents with three kids in tow coming your way. We ask about rental gear and the clerk shows us their basic set up for $20/week, something a bit sexier for $30/week, and just in case anyone needs corrective lenses, they have those too for $35/week.

“What happened to the $9/week in the ad?”, we ask.

“Ah, yes, that is for this set right here,” the clerk tells us, pointing to some WWII navy surplus gear. I consider for a moment trying to snorkel with what looks like a glass dinner plate strapped to my face with a thick rubber band, and just turn around and walk out, humbled by my lack of foresight in seeing the bait-and-switch coming. Since we are already in town, it is a short drive to the local Costco, where for about $30 each we pick up brand new sets that we’ll keep for our entire stay here and somehow try and jam into our luggage to use at the cabin.

We finally make it to the beach (which by Hawaii standards is pretty scrappy, but it is the Big Island so we’re not expecting wide swaths of powdery sand) and set the kids loose. They have all snorkeled a bit before in lakes and such, but this is really their first chance at seeing anything resembling a reef, and despite it being pretty beat up by waves of tourists, they are hooked. The visibility isn’t great, and its possible there are more Japanese legs under the water than fish, but to them, it is all amazing. And to its credit, there are more sea turtles at this beach than anywhere I have seen, and they swim so close you could touch them (or try to pick them up as one tool near us did).

After a couple of hours, we decide to head down the road a ways to another bay that supposedly has some great reefs. By the time we get there tough, the wind has picked up quite a bit and the waves hitting what is a very rocky beach make getting into the water pretty much impossible. We decide to try again in the morning and head back to the hotel, making a quick stop for some Donkey Balls (there’s a joke in there somewhere at Ang’s expense, but I’ll leave it be).

The rest of the evening the boys snorkel in the pool, with Nick and Sam working out a bunch of hand signals they plan on using to communicate under water.

For an early, early day (our 8:40 flight meant leaving the house by 6:30), things actually went pretty smoothly. The kids were very excited to be going to Hawaii, so hopped out of bed and into the car without any of the moping or slow motion movements that are a staple of school days.

The flight was direct from Seattle to Kona, and the iTouch batteries held up through pretty much the whole thing, making it an infinitely more pleasant experience (not only for us I presume). When we landed, Nick saw all the lava rocks outside the window and asked if we could stick around the airport for awhile so he had a chance to walk on it. I assured him he would have plenty of chances to walk on lava rocks over the next 10 days 🙂

With the early start and the two hour time change, by the time we get the rental car and check into the hotel, it is still not that late. The hotel has a big pool with a waterslide, so that’s more than enough to keep the boys engaged for the rest of the afternoon.

One of the last things we do before calling it a day is head out to a viewing platform the hotel has set up to see manta rays feeding in the evening (there are snorkeling and diving trips to actually go out with them which I am sure I will be writing about before this trip is over). On this evening, there are three that we can see swooping in towards the shore with their mouths wide open scooping up plankton. Having always wanted to see mantas, to have them be so close to shore is absolutely amazing and not something any of us are likely to soon forget.

Now this is more like it. I flew from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast in the morning, arriving just after lunch. Despite the name, it was overcast, but still warmer than it was in the south, which is a definite improvement. A 15-minute shuttle ride later and I am at my hotel to check in. This place was recommended by one of the locals and is much more a condo than a hotel (so no maid service, but a full kitchen, bedroom and living room).

Just across the street is Coolum Beach, and as beaches go, it is amongst the best I have ever seen. Its at least eighty yards wide and stretches for miles towards Noosa in the north. I can’t resist taking off my shoes to feel the sand, which is the fine powder sort that squeaks under your feet. Even though it’s Sunday, there are only a handful of people as far as the eye can see.

Over the next few days (all of which are sunny and warm), I get to mix some business with a bit of pleasure as one of my business partners offers to show me around the area. Compared to the bigger cities I have come from, this area is downright rural. It swells a bit with tourists in the summer, but in the off-season, the whole area totals less than a half million people. I’m told though that it is the fastest growing area of Australia as the general population ages and retirees leave the cities in search of warmer climes.

In my original schedule, I had left a full day empty to try and do a short excursion, debating between Steve Irwin’s zoo and Fraser Island (a 90 mile long island a bit north of here comprised complete of sand that is supposed to make for an interesting). The Great Barrier Reef is still a bit north of here so that one has to wait for a future trip for sure. Unfortunately, this are a little chaotic back at the office, which appears set to keep me tied to the laptop instead.

With my flight back to Seattle starting on Friday, for the most part I’ve seen pretty much all I’m going to see here. It’s not a lot, but I guess will be something to start with when I have the chance to come on an actual vacation. From the limited time I’ve had here, there is enough to let me know I need to come back one day, and with my regular travel partner back in the mix (the word on the street is that we might also have some bushy-haired company) we can definitely get a little further off the beaten path.

Following a day of meetings and an early morning flight, my next stop is Melbourne. I have more meetings the day I arrive, but the next day is Saturday, so a free day to take a look around. My only exposure to Melbourne is an episode of No Reservations, which hasn’t given me a whole lot to go on, and of course, it is further south so a bit cooler even than Sydney.

I found a hotel called the Charsworth a few minutes south of downtown in an area called St. Kilda. It is near the pier and the beach, so close to a lot of cafes and restaurants provided you walk the right direction (which I didn’t the first night and ended up eating at McDonald’s). The hotel itself is a converted manor house, part of an eclectic mix of old Victorian buildings and new glass and steel construction that co-exist side by side throughout the city.

With my internal clock still a little off (and I admit I’m not trying too hard to convert completely to Australia time since I am not here that long), I am wide-awake a little after 5am. After catching up on a bit of email, I jump on the tram that runs in front of the hotel up to the Victoria Market. This is one of the few open markets I have seen outside of the third world, and is like Pike Place on severe steroids. There are hundreds of stalls selling fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, clothes, and most interesting to me, tasty snacks. I partake of a breakfast bratwurst and spend an hour or two just wandering around the market.

The rest of the morning I pick my way slowly back to the hotel, watching the rowers on the river, passing by the old Olympic stadium, and cutting through the gigantic botanical gardens. Like Sydney, Melbourne seems like a fairly pleasant city, and even on a Saturday, nowhere I go is very crowded.

After a few hours recharging at the hotel, I head back into St. Kilda to see the beach and find a place to eat. Down by the pier, I learn that Australia has penguins (who knew?) that have built nests in the various crevices in the rock seawall. I try to get a few pictures on my cell phone, but I suspect they will look like pictures of holes than anything else.

I’m back to the airport again in the morning to fly up to the Sunshine Coast (near Brisbane). It will be my last stop before heading home, but is also the one place where I have built in a few days to just enjoy some time here.

Much to my chagrin, this trip to Australia isn’t for vacation, but given it is my first time here, I figured it was worth dedicating at least a little ink to. I am without my faithful travel buddy as well, something she is not thrilled about since Australia is high on her list of places to visit. I did try to sell it as an opportunity to check the place out so I knew what places to see when we came together, but I don’t think she really bought it.

The flight over was on Qantas on an A380, my first experience with both the carrier and the aircraft. Aside from the length (about 15 hours), all was good and we touched down in Sydney around 6:30am, just it time to see the sun rise. The early arrival works out in my favor as passport control is pretty much empty and I sail right through.

From the airport, the metro train connects right into downtown Sydney, and having not been to a big city yet where that option doesn’t prove far quicker are more cost effective, I hop on for the 15 minute ride to the central business district where my hotel is. Since Ang is not with me, my accommodation choices extend a bit further that Sheraton’s, and I come up with a place called the Great Southern Hotel, which ends up being about 2 blocks from the main train terminal. It’s way too early for check-in, so I leave my bag and decide to explore downtown a little.

The first thing I notice about Sydney is that it is much colder than I had expected. It’s going into winter of course, but somehow I still pictured it being fairly warm and pleasant. It turns out that the temperature this time of year is really not much different than Seattle, and while that means I’m still quite comfortable in a light coat, the locals have broken out the wool coats and knit caps. Logically I can get my head around it, but still, in my vision of Australia I never imagined they even owned such things.

The next shock to my system is the cost of things here. It’s probably less noticeable if you have lived here all along, but with the weakness of the US Dollar of late, prices have far more in common with Europe than North America. After checking in, I stop at donair stand for lunch, with the only real difference between the meal I had here and the one a week ago in Cairo being the 1,000% increase in price (oh, and this one came with fries).

With nothing on the agenda for the day, I spend the rest of it wandering through town, seeing the sights like the Opera House, the bridge over the harbor, and the old town. Of the parts I see, it is a very pleasant and walkable city. People seem generally healthier (for a Wednesday afternoon there are a tremendous amount of them out running or exercising in the parks) and in far less of a hurry to get anywhere than the US (it only takes me a couple times jaywalking by myself before I realize that regardless of how little traffic there is, locals are fine just waiting for the lights).

Down around the harbor, there is a bit of a buzz with preparations going on for the arrival of the 16 year old Australian girl returning from her solo sail around the world. I recall a small bit of coverage back home about it, but here it is BIG deal. Unfortunately, I’ll be gone by the time she arrives, as it appears there will be quite the celebration.

By the time I get back to the hotel and get some dinner, it is a little after 8pm. I try focusing on a little work, but all the jet lag from the past week is taking its toll, and by 8:30 I am out like a light.

Well, we’ve been back in Redmond now for a few days (sort of anyways, as I have actually moved on to Australia for work), and I have been a little apathetic about putting together the usual post mortem for our trip. My body is on some crazy, mixed up time zone, so wide awake in the middle of the night in Sydney seems like as good a time as any.

In a nutshell, Egypt exceeded our expectations. Feedback was all over the map when we told people where we were going, so I’m not sure we knew really what to expect. We knew we had to go at some point in our lives, if for nothing else than to see the pyramids, but I think we were prepared for the trip to be more about history and less about enjoyment and relaxation, similar to how we felt about China. And if that was all we would have gotten out of it, it still would have been well worth it.

The words and the pictures are great mementos, but neither can really convey the impact of being there. Standing at the bottom of the Great Pyramid and tilting your head back to see two million blocks, each as tall as a person, stretching skyward is something that only works in person. That the same can be said for dozens of other things we saw, from the Ramses statues in Abu Simbel to the Burning Bush on Mount Sinai, to the coral reefs at Ras Abu Gallum only reinforces why we pack our stuff up ever year and head off somewhere new.

Ask us though what we remember most about this trip, and the answer may be a bit surprising. For Ang, I know it was the colors. No matter where we went, she always noticed how blue the sky was, or how blue the water looked. And I can’t count how many pictures we had to wade through of pink sunsets and red mountains to winnow them down to the still overwhelming number we kept. For me, it is a picture I took in Philae Temple where Ang is running her hand along the hieroglyphic carvings. These are everywhere, and its impossible not to reach out and touch them, letting your imagination go back 5,000 years ago to picture the workers creating them.

That said, like anywhere, there are things about Egypt that are unpleasant – the endless requests for baksheesh and vendors always trying to rip you off being near the top. And in the back of my head, when the voice that asks whenever we go somewhere if I could ever see myself living there, the answer comes back no. But would I recommend it for a trip? In a heartbeat.

After a short flight (about an hour) from Sharm el-Sheikh, we find ourselves back in Cairo. We have a really early (5:30am) flight back to Redmond in a couple of days so are staying in Heliopolis, which is much closer to the airport. It is a bit more higher end of an area (as higher end goes in Egypt), and is where many of the embassies and the presidential palace are. We don’t really have anything pressing on our list, so figure we can use this last little bit of time to try and find a few more things to bring back with us, including some cotton things like towels and such (what better place for Egyptian Cotton than Egypt goes the thinking). Other than a handful of souvenirs, we really haven’t found much to buy here (which is good both on the pocketbook and on my back, as my pack is still fairly light), leaving a bit of room yet in the budget.

Ever up for a challenge, Ang quickly rings the till in one of the shops in the hotel lobby, buying silver cartouche bracelets for the boys with their names in hieroglyphics. That’s just a warm up though, as the real target is an area of downtown where we’re told we can find good cotton. We figure we’ll just take a cab to the subway, but the doorman puts the hard sell on taking the cab all the way downtown and we finally relent. We find out later that cabs picking up at the hotels have to kick back 10% of the fare to the hotel staff, which certainly explains why getting somewhere from the hotel is always more expensive than getting back. On the upside, we end up with a hilarious driver, who ends up being out entertainment for most of the day.

Omar drives one of the typical beat up old Fiat cabs, this one about 31 years old. He calls it his Jaguar, and on the way downtown points out some of the buildings we pass like the presidential palace (where his cousin Hosni lives), the soccer stadium (where his cousin Mohamed Zidan plays) and the local Jaguar dealer, where he gets his car serviced. His English is quite good and he seems to have a fair amount of information on the history of Cairo, so sign him up to be our driver for the rest of the day, and to mix in a bit of sightseeing with our shopping.

The latter ends up being a bust, as when we say “we don’t want to go to the places the tourists go and get ripped off so take us to the places locals buy their cotton goods”, this translates to “we’re looking for dirt cheap stuff, so take us to the Egyptian equivalent of Wal-Mart.” We take a look to be polite, but its not really what we’re after so return to the car empty handed. A shopping district downtown is a bit better, but still off the mark (although we find some fantastic ice cream which makes up for it, at least for me).

On the sightseeing front, we spend some time in the Coptic area of Cairo, which is one of the oldest parts of the city and where many of the religions that came with various conquerors of Egypt co-exist. In the span of a few blocks, there are Christian churches, synagogues, and mosques, each hundreds of years old. The churches are the most interesting in terms of decoration (they are filled with artwork and stained glass), but the highlight is mosque, where Ang has to put on a fetching green loaner outfit to get through the door.

All this pales however to just sitting in the backseat of the Jaguar listening to Omar. Between destinations he tells us some of his philosophies on marriage: “all women in Egypt are fat, or waiting to be fat when they get married”; tourism: “Sharm el-Sheik is where the women who are 50 and 60 come from Europe to have the sex with the young Egyptian man who doesn’t care that they are old and fat”; and romance: “I buy my girlfriend presents from this store because the cost is low, but I will take them out of this bag and put them in one from a nicer shop before I give to her.” We also learn from him things that interest us like how their religion works, how difficult it is for Egyptians to leave the country, and how strongly the system in Egypt favors the wealthy.

As an example of the latter, he breaks down for us how his job works. For the full day he drives us around, we agree on a price of 300 Egyptian Pounds. From that, he has to pay the hotel 10% as their kickback. He then needs to pay the owner of the beaten up old Fiat 75% of what is left (the owner provides the car, maintenance and gas), making his gross about 68 Egyptian Pounds. From that, he also needs to pay the bribes to the police officers to not give him a ticket while we waits for us to go into stores and churches. At the end of it all, he finishes up with around 50 Egyptian Pounds, or roughly $9 for the effort, while the rest goes out the door as payoffs.

Our last stop with Omar is a restaurant for one final shawarma and one final falafel. Back at the hotel, we take time out for a drink, before packing up and turning in. Our wake up call is set for 2:15am, and shortly after, for us, Egypt will be just the memories.