Conversation on a bus

We're on a Wellington city bus, riding back downtown from the excellent zoo in New Zealand's capital. We're having a typical conversation.

"Dad, I wish 1066 had never happened," my son says to me, with a dead serious look on his face. Waiting for me to challenge his opinion on the Norman Invasion of England.

"Whatever, son. It happened," I say. We've discussed this a hundred times. Maybe 200. "You have to get over it."

"They destroyed true English," he persists. "We speak a bastardized version of English." He says 'bastardized' like it's a curse word.

"Bastardized version. Bastardized." He rolls the word off his tongue, tasting its bile.

The stop bell rings, some passengers get on and off. We accelerate, the parade of small storefronts that is a New Zealand cityscape resumes. The boy thinks for a while.

"Dad." Another subject is coming.

“If Disney has just bought out Marvel Comics, and Warner Brothers bought out DC, do you think Fox should buy out Dark Horse Comics”?

“I guess, son.” He waits for more. “I suppose, but Dark Horse is owner-created work. They don’t have the ownership of the titles the older companies have. That makes it less of an attractive property for the big companies.”

“Why do you think no one’s bought out Archie comics?”

“Not sure, son,” I say. “You’d have to look that up on the Internet.” That seems to satisfy him for a moment.

"What do you think the impact on the Abrahamic faiths if Hannibal had gone ahead and destroyed Rome during the Second Punic War?"

I look at him. Not getting a rise out of me, he continues. "The area did have two other empires... the Seleucids of Persia and the Ptolomies of Egypt. What do you think they would have done with those two empires if there was no Rome?

"Dammit, how should I know?" I snap, while trying not to attract attention from the other riders. "I'm not an expert on biblical religious/political development!"

"Okay." he says, crestfallen. I know what he’s doing. He's looking for new material for his alternate history timeline, a document he's been working on for over a year. The two dozen or so paragraphs he's written are constantly reviewed, rewritten and edited as he learns new information on the subject. Or if I learn new information.

"I think they would have had a harder time spreading out from the Holy Lands if Rome wasn't there. There'd be no structure to ease its spread without Rome," he says, a little hurt.

He looks ahead and mutters to himself about Seleucids. I sigh.

"Look son,” I say, giving in. “The iron-age Judeans found themselves in the unfortunate position of being in the front lines of territory disputed between two powerful neighbours.

"In your timeline, for over two centuries the empires would have fought a back-and-forth war that devastated the Jewish lands and decimated their populations. Many tribes found themselves having to adopt the faith of their conquerors to survive."

"Yeah, so what can I say in my timeline?" he asks.

I think for a moment.

"How about this: while some tribes remained monotheistic, the religion was never the basis for the sweeping spread of the Christian faith of the 1st century and on into Rome. Any information about the historical Jesus, and the subsequent Gospels, were lost in the battlefields and to history. A few converts came here and there as word spread about Jesus, but these populations were small and eventually died out.

"That ok?

"Yeah," he says, deadpan.

"What do you think of that?" I ask again.

"It's good," he replies. "AIso, but now I've come to the conclusion that maybe It would've been impossible for Hannibal to destroy Rome during his initial assault, it would've taken years. Maybe he would've marched on to Rome, severely damaging the city, then retreating only to come back after a while to finish it off completely."

 "It sounds like you are thinking the same thoughts Hannibal must have had two millennia ago about Rome," I tell him, trying to be encouraging. It's not a bad hobby to have, after all, and he learns a lot of history.

"He thought it would be too hard and costly too, which is why he didn't attack," I continue. "But he was unable after two years or longer to defeat Rome after they got their breather. In fact, it took almost a decade, and he lost in the end. So if that's the case, Carthage would have lost. So I think it's just best to say, for the sake of the timeline you've written, that he did decide to attack, and he was successful doing it. That way the rest of the history makes sense.

"I think Carthage would have lost to a Celtic Empire," my sons says, referring to another branch of the timeline.

"It's possible son," I say. I'm repeating myself for the tenth time, but for him, sometimes just hearing the words brings him comfort. "The Celts would have been gaining more power from their trade with Carthage, they had a healthy population. Perhaps they would have taken some land from Carthage when it was declining."

"Do you think a Celtic Empire would have fought the Seleucids eventually?" he continues.

"The Celts were forest people, though," says a young man, turning to face us from the seat ahead. He's tattooed, has long hair, thin.  "They may have not gone that far south."

I look at him for a second. Wondering if to engage.

"Sorry to interrupt," the young dude says. "But I was listening to you, and found what you were talking about fascinating."

"No problem," I say, and my son continues to converse with the stranger on the bus. They discuss strategies and tactics, Iron Age geopolitical realities and what-ifs. They compare notes on Celtic armament and resources.

It's rare there’s someone else to pick up the ultra-detailed conversations, so I have no problem letting hipster dude engage for a while. With autism, you never know how and when you'll connect with someone. You take advantage of the small windows that open up for the boy to have real-time conversation.

I happily gaze out at the passing shops and houses of Wellington, silently appreciating the world of the here and now. Travelling with autism means rarely being in that world.

Soon enough, we'll be discussing the evolution of synaptic reptiles. Or more on corporate ownership trends in Hollywood. Or Muslim extremism. You never know.

Art Deco Heaven

 We architectural photographers (ahem) know that the early morning is the best time to take pictures. So that (and a congenital inability to sleep in) gets me up early Saturday morning to shoot the buildings of Napier.

Fate has left Napier, a town on the east coast of New Zealand’s north island, with an unusual legacy.  In February 1931 a massive earthquake leveled the town. The subsequent fire finished the job.

The rebuild the townsfolk faced was massive, and Napier could have just vanished. But thanks to the Depression, there was little work elsewhere, so builders flocked to Napier. They rebuilt in the style of the day- and the result is a living Hollywood period studio set.

Napier calls itself the Art Deco City. Buildings features smooth lines, stepped or curved facades with relief or recessed rectangles, diamonds, and swirls; radiator fins and san-serif typefaces on protuberances complete the deal. It’s like a gas station advertisement or Astounding Stories pulp magazine cover come to life, all in the downtown business district.

With a perfect cobalt sky above, sharp shadows bringing highlights to the architecture, and palm trees, you could be forgiven for thinking you’re in southern California. On the empty early-morning streets, I wait for a plaid-capped newsboy to hawk me the morning edition.

There’s a large residential section of art deco homes as well, about a kilometre from the downtown. Later in the day I take a stroll through that area, a little saddened- only a few have been kept up in top condition. The rest slowly fade as time marches on.

It’s the same downtown. Shopkeepers have to move with the times. While the second stories of the buildings retain their character, the street level is decidedly 21^st century: fancy coffee shops, accountants’ offices, and adult bookstores have replaced the more innocent business from the period. Streets have been blocked off for pedestrians, repaved with cobblestone and featuring public art.

I pass by a worker watching a demolition in progress. A building is being gutted, an excavator works inside the skeleton. He tells me the building, which isn’t that old, will be torn down later in the day. I ask him why.

“Earthquake regulations, most likely,” he says. He explains that new rules, set after Christchurch’s downtown was decimated two years ago, have placed strict new standards for building owners across the country. They can either spend tens of thousands reinforcing their buildings, or tear them down.

 “Much of the CBD (central business district) will come down,” he says. Heritage building owners find themselves in a Catch-22. They can’t tear down their buildings, but many can’t afford the repair work. The future for them is uncertain.

It seems improbable Napier’s citizens would destroy their heritage- and really, their only international tourist attraction- because of the chance of another earthquake. But just down the road, a new building is rising. It's a modern structure, but the owner has retained the façade of the old Art Deco building that stood there. An architectural compromise that’s not likely to satisfy anyone but the insurance adjusters.

“You can’t live your life walking on eggshells,” says the contractor watching the demolition. “It’s crazy.”

It may be crazy, but time, tectonic plates, and insurance regulations wait for no man.

Alone In The Pool

When my son was a little boy I could always find him at the swimming pool. I just had to look for the kid who was farthest away from any other child, playing by himself.
He was perfectly content, and the other kids weren't being mean. He just didn't connect with them, didn't play the games, didn't form those automatic play relationships we take for granted.
He was always alone.
Now, some 20 years later, I'm in the kitchen of an old hotel along the beach in Napier, on the east coast of the north island of New Zealand.  Eighty years ago, a massive earthquake levelled the city, started a fire that burned it to the ground, caused massive landslides, and pushed the land up so far the shore receded several dozen metres.
Somehow this old hotel, being wood, survived. Napier's known for its art-deco architecture- it was rebuilt in the trendy style of the period. That's why we've come here- to see the 30's style buildings. But this aging spinster of a hostel we're in pre-dates that era. Once a trendy spot for Edwardians, it's now creaky, cramped, and smells a bit funny.
But it's got a well-stocked kitchen, tool-wise, and we've bought some steaks and fries at the local grocery. We'll barbecue.
At another table in the lounge, a group of 20-something European kids are talking and laughing. They're young, fit, blonde, nordic-types. A couple of tattooed guys, some girls with short dreads.
My son's surfing the web, a table away. Every once in a while he'll giggle, or rub his hands excitedly. The young people glance over every so often but take little notice of him.
He's not always oblivious to others. In Wellington he wanted to go to the hostel bar by himself, and talk to people. "But they're young people, like me," he pleaded. "I won't drink, I'll just have a Coke."
As if that was our worry. It was late, and we convinced him to come up to the room with us instead.
So now it's us  pulling him away from other kids in the pool. It's shit that like that breaks your heart as a parent of a kid with autism.
But we have to be wary. In a Christchurch hostel, he wandered away to the TV room where two girls and a guy were hanging. I went to check a few minutes later and he was sitting on the floor, with his head resting on a girl's lap. Living his dream. I pulled him out of there and read him the Riot Act.
The three young people were great, very cool. But it could have gone very differently. He never really gets out of my sight now. Not when there's other people around.
So it's actually easier like this, watching him in his own little world. Perseverating about fantasy heroines and Old English syntax and the mandibles of synaptic reptiles. Smiling to himself in the glow of the laptop. Alone in the pool.
But at least I can join him.
"Any news about the new Godzilla movie?" I ask, as I serve him his well-done steak, crispy fries, ketchup.
We talk about the latest production rumours from Hollywood, until it's time to go to bed.

Bus Travel in New Zealand

"Buy a car in New Zealand," said most everyone who heard we were going there. "Then sell it when you leave."
Everybody does it, we hear. There's a great used-car market in New Zealand. Car-sales and rental websites tailored to the market abound.
We looked at the numbers, but it wasn't for us. First, you have to be prepared to put up anywhere from 1,000 (for a clunker) to 8,000 dollars (or more)  for a used car. Then you have to worry about insurance, and maintenance. You really want to be dealing with a mechanic on your trip? Can you trust who you're buying from? Have you flipped a lot of cars before?
And sure, you can recoup your money in the end. But that's assuming it sells fast. And just when do you plan to sell it to get your money back-before you leave, or after you've gone? You're potentially tying your money up for a while, we felt.
And you still have to pay for hotels, hostels, or camp.
We looked at rentals. It's pretty expensive (still cheaper than short-term car rentals, though). A few camper-vans looked pretty good, but that could be touch-and-go with the boy's particular ways. And don't even look at how much the car ferry costs.
It all seemed like too much bother for marginal savings. We ended up renting a car for about two weeks. After that, we caught the bus.
It was a great choice.
New Zealand has an excellent inter-city bus system. It's convenient, on time, and cheap. It goes most everywhere and there are some fantastic circle routes. We went Naked Bus on the south island, Intercity in the north. Most fares were 10-20 dollars, or less.

Admittedly, there was also a lot of this view.

Most of the time the buses weren't crowded. There were three of us, so we usually nabbed the back seat, if the bus wasn't full. The boy had plenty of space to stretch out and sleep, and we could too.
We only ended up on one uncomfortable bus- though it was a doozy. Six hours, Dunedin to Christchurch. The scenery was beautiful but we were on hard plastic seats, in a vehicle just one step up from  a school bus. But stuff happens, and if that's the worst travel experience we have, great. Most of the buses were those nice, upscale coaches with padded, reclining seats.
The bus ended up being a great way for us to see the country. Cue the tune of  "I've Been Everywhere, Man" in your head:

Dunedin, Timaru, Waimate, Omaru,
Christchurch, Washdyke, Temuka, Waipukurau,
Christchurch, Kaikoura, Blenheim, Rolleston,
Picton, Levin, Porirua, Hastings,
Paraparamu,  Peekakariki,
Dannevirk, Palmerston...

You get the point.

An aside: Actually, there is a New Zealand version of the song, by John Grennel, done in the sixties. Easiest job ever, considering Kiwi place names. The Maori called this country is Aotearoa, which I think means something like 'no consonant shall be vowel-less'.   

Sure, it'd be great to fly sometimes. And god knows, in other countries (I'm looking to you, Laos) the bus can be downright brutal. But compared to the alternatives, and for ease, price and convenience, the bus system in this country is pretty darn good. And the traffic, winding roads, and unpredictable weather are someone else's problem.
Here's how I'd break it down:
If you're a young couple, a group, or retired; are staying over three months, and wandering the whole time; have a maintenance/insurance budget; and don't have to worry about tying up your money, then by all means buy a car.
If you're staying for just a month, and want to travel a lot, have a family, and want to economize on hotels, rent a camper van. Remember though, going between the islands will cost you.
If you're travelling alone or are on a budget, even if you're staying an extended period, take the bus.
If you're staying at particular places for significant length of time (as we were, house-sitting), then rent a car short-term if you have to. Otherwise, take the bus.
In the end, we were quite luckily, and our wonderful house-owners in Whangarei lent us their beater truck. We got to travel the North Island's northern peninsula pretty thoroughly, at our own speed and pace. Best of both worlds.

Travels with Che

Every resort and island restaurant  in south-east Asia has a book shelf; novels tourists have polished off on the beach, and don't want to haul all the way back home. Most of it is trash, spy thrillers and romances. And very little of it is in English. It's amazing how many Tom Clancy novels have been translated into Swedish.
Sometimes it's not a matter of what you want to read. It's more what there is to read.
The Motorcycle Diaries was the only book in the tiny island resort collection that didn't have a gun or flower on the cover. Sounded like a travelogue, which mildly interested me. Then I read the back: it was Che Guevara's travel diary.
This could be pretty random, I thought. And I wasn't really in the mood for revolutionary diatribe. But it was either that or an eight-year old book about the future of the Internet. So I bring it back to my room and start reading.
"This is not the story of heroic feats, or merely the narrative of a cynic," the book begins. "at least I do not mean it to be. It is a glimpse of two lives running parallel for a time, with similar hopes and convergent dreams."

One of these guys is Che Guevara. I think.
He didn't have a beard then.
 The guy with the hat is Alberto, his travelling buddy.
 That I'm pretty sure of. (Stolen from a website that stole if from the book.)

What unfolds before me is the story of a young doctor and his friend. It's 1951, and they're at the cusp of their careers, completing their education as doctors. Their specialty is leprosy, still a frightening and mysterious disease back then, especially in third-world South America.
It's the story of two young men on a travel adventure on a beat-up, failing old motorcycle. They start in their hometown in Argentina, leaving behind girlfriends, drinking buddies and worried parents.
While I sweat through the heat of a muggy tropical evening, they freeze through the Andes and up the mountainous west coast of the continent. They drink mate, an Argentinian tea, scrounge for food, and suffer from altitude sickness. They stowaway on ships, beg for beds at distant relative's homes and gladly accept invitations to get royally drunk. They make friends playing soccer, sharing blankets, and treating lepers like human beings.
They are simply young men on an adventure. It's impossible not to look for foreshadows of what Che would become (at least, what I think I know what he will become) but they are few and far between.
He didn't know his future when he wrote this diary. He was just Ernesto, a young med student with a poetical streak, far from home. While on a ship, working his passage up the coast:

"There we understood that our vocation, our true vocation, was to move for eternity along the roads and seas of the world. Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes, sniffing out each corner but only ever faintly- not setting down roots in any land or staying long enough to see the substratum of things, the outer limits would suffice."

In the end, I got what I wanted to read after all. A travelogue from the past. The book offers fascinating glimpses of long-gone Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and Venezuela. It's about travel before there was on-line booking, Lonely Planet guides, ATMs. When the kindness of strangers still counted.
The book is composed of just short passages, a few notes from this place, or about that funny incident in another. If he was that age today, The Diaries would have been a blog.
I finish the book the day I leave Koh Kradan. I hop on the speedboat. Across from me is a young man, in dreads, with his girlfriend. On his t-shirt is Che Guevara.
I see Ernesto time and time again after that, on t-shirts and posters, his face co-opted into a meaningless symbol. I still know next-to-nothing about the political Che, the revolutionary Che, the 39-year-old killed by CIA-backed counter-insurgent forces in Bolivia in 1967.
But it's like I knew him when he was young. We traveled together, for a while.