out of the darkness and into the light

This afternoon Maya and I begin the long trip home. We have a 12-hour flight from Auckland to Bangkok, then a 2-hour layover, and a 5-and-a-half hour flight from Bangkok to Tokyo. Our original itinerary next had a 5-hour layover in Tokyo and then a 12-plus hour flight back to NYC in store for us, making for a absurd total of 30-plus hours straight traveling time. Fortunately, we were able to reschedule our flight from Tokyo to NYC and sneak in one last day in Tokyo, where we plan to, well, eat sushi. That's the extent of the plan, really - eat sushi and shake off some of jetlag cobwebs from our heads. Maybe the strangest thing about the trip home is that we'll be traveling backward in time - our flight from Tokyo leaves on the evening on January 5th, and even through the ride is over 12-hours long, we'll be arriving home on the same date and at almost exactly the time that we left Japan. Visiting Tokyo feels something like visiting the future anyway, so maybe it makes sense...

Yesterday we drove back to Auckland from Waitomo, an area best known for its insane cave systems and its flourescent biomasses of glow worms. The Kiwis, as their driving suggests, are total maniacs, adrenaline junkies bar none, which makes New Zealand a great place to engage in all sorts of extreme activity that a layperson off the street just wouldn't be allowed to partake in Stateside. For instance, on the caving trip that Maya and I took while in Waitomo, after an almost ridiculously cursory rappeling tutorial, we found ourselves rappeling (or "abseiling," as the Kiwis call it) down two separate long, narrow cave tubes plunging down into the earth. The first channel must have been, at least, 20- or 30-feet deep; the second, no less than twice as long. I had the dubious honor of rappeling down first - even before our guides - which meant I was lowering myself all alone into utter darkness with only the lamp on my helmet to light my way. It was truly amazing - and I was too busy focusing on my rappeling technique and on the twisted formations and tiny passages I had to navigate through to think about the movie, The Descent, which might have made me slightly more hestitant to proceed if I had.

Once inside the cave, we tightrope-walked over a log bridge across a subterranean chasm, were led by our guides through various squeeze-spaces and claustrophobic chambers, and then rode a zip-line (or a "flying fox," as the Kiwis call it) through an unlit cavern hall full of stalactites and stalagmites!

The only thing that wasn't awesome about our spelunking adventure? The totally dorky blue-and-orange jumpsuit coveralls and white rubber boots that we had to wear.

Other highlights of our four days in Waitomo include:
- Walking by flashlight along a nature trail in the middle of the night and occasionally turning off our lights to see thousands of glow worms in the darkened foliage around us.
- Exploring a small but surprisingly deep and winding cave by ourselves and discovering a wall covered in ginormous Wetas, a gnarly prehistoric insect native to New Zealand.
- Taking a boat-ride cave tour and drifting along a subterranean river beneath dense constellations of glow worms.
- Discovering that the goat living next door to our Bed & Breakfast had broken free from its chain and stationed itself outside the door of our bungalow, where it was bumping its horns against the glass, holding us hostage inside.
- Eating our New Year's Eve dinner at the Huhu Cafe, the one good restaurant in tiny Waitomo Village (population: 45), where we were staying - it was our second time in two days eating there, and the place is really amazing, with a totally delectable tapas menu. We had lamb medallions with toasted cous cous and mango chutney, green-lipped mussels with bacon and baked cheese, goat cheese tart with an amazing salad of pears, walnuts, and something called "rocket," to name a few of the dishes sampled.
- Stopping at the Otorohanga Kiwi House & Native Bird Park on the way back to Auckland and seeing the Kiwi bird in the flesh. We felt like we couldn't leave New Zealand without actually seeing one of the creatures, since they are such a part of the country's culture (such as it is) - not only do the locals call themselves "Kiwis" but every native brand's logo seems to feature the bird in some way. And what a strange, silly (and surprisingly big) bird it is. When we first saw the female Kiwi (the House has two birds - a male and a female) running inside her pen with her awkward loping gait, Maya and I both started laughing outloud.

But for all our adventures, in many ways, driving around New Zealand reminded us of being in small-town America - except with crazier accents, crazier driving, and many, many more sheep. It also reminded us of why we live in New York City - which makes coming home just a little less difficult.

batu caves

The day after the "canopy walk," we went to see the Batu Caves, one of the most important sites of Hindu worship in the world. Every year, during the end of January/beginning of February, thousands of devotees make a pilgrimage to the caves for the Thaipusam festival, where they engage in various acts of devotion, notably, carrying/enduring various types of kavadi or burdens. As good ol' wikipedia explains, "at its simplest this may entail carrying a pot of milk, but mortification of the flesh by piercing the skin, tongue or cheeks with vel skewers is also common. The most spectacular practice is the vel kavadi, essentially a portable altar up to two meters tall, decorated with peacock feathers and attached to the devotee through 108 vels pierced into the skin on the chest and back. Fire walking and flagellation may also be practiced. It is claimed that devotees are able to enter a trance, feel no pain, do not bleed from their wounds and have no scars left behind."

Unfortunately, we were a month too early for the fest, but the caves site was pretty fucking spectacular nonetheless. Here's Maya outside the main gate - you can see the stairway of 272 steps leading up into the darkness of the main cave, the Temple Cave... as well, of course, as the 120-foot-plus gold-painted statue of the Hindu diety Lord Murugan.

As you walk up the 272 steps, there are wild monkeys everywhere, playing in the nearby trees; leaping, sitting, and sliding down the stairway railing; and some, even crawling around the steps themselves.

We saw this one enjoying a flower garland left as an offering inside the cave.

And we saw another monkey taking a completely unprovoked and unexpected swipe at an Indian dude walking down the steps not far from us. So yeah, they may be cute but are not to be trusted.

The temple cave, as you can see, is fucking huge, and - as you can't see - is full of colorful tableaus depicting a variety of bizarre dieties in a variety of equally bizarre interactions (blue multi-armed women standing on little baby-sized men with handlebar moustaches; cows with the heads, and boobs, of beautiful women, etc.).

Me, below some of temple cave's many drippy stalactites.

After the temple cave, Maya and I took a personal tour of another Batu cave, the accurately-but-not-so-creatively-named "Dark Cave." Here we are before the tour in our spiffy spelunker's helmets. The highlight of the tour was probably when, about 10 minutes into the cavern, the walkway came to life with all sorts of creepy-crawlies - it was like something out of an Indiana Jones movie - most of which turned out to be cockroaches that live off of all the guano (bat excrement) dropped on the cave floor.


Finally, here I am standing in front of a big statue of an insane-looking green monkey-faced dude at the bottom of the temple cave. Can't pretend to know much more than that (Maya says that she read that he is the most rarely worshipped diety from the Hindu pantheon - can't imagine why).

Our visit has only made us want to come back during Thaipusam and see all the insanity for ourselves - if not actually "mortify our flesh."