Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

By Tom

Wellington, New Zealand

       As Americans, Julia and I are no doubt familiar with the role that fear can play on the psyche of a people. We may have left behind the Homeland Security’s very useful and colorful “terrorist threat level” but we’ve still experienced our fair share of latent fear on this trip. People told us horror stories of eating the wrong food in India and experiencing “Delhi belly.” On our overnight bus to Kathmandu (still the scariest event of my life) I read my Lonely Planet Guide saying “Do not under any circumstances take an overnight bus in Nepal. Drivers frequently use amphetamines to stay up overnight and use the empty roads to do some serious speeding. By riding on a bus in Nepal, you are already 20 times more likely to die in a highway fatality than in any developed country.” At the exact moment I finished reading this, they turned the bus lights out for the night.

       Using public transportation in developing countries is always a hair-raising experience. I’ve found that the level of danger you are in is directly proportional to the amount of religious paraphernalia used to decorate the bus. If the driver has a little rosary or Buddha statue up front, you’re probably okay. If the entire outside of the bus (including, frequently, parts of the windshield) are covered in colorful paintings of Vishnu kickboxing with Jesus while Moses cheers them on, wait for the next bus. I sometimes wonder if the drivers do this because with the way they drive, they expect to meet their maker any day now.

       Our families have been of little help keeping us calm. Before we went to Thailand, Julia’s dad Rich sent us a NY Times article about how Thailand has the highest rates for American fatalities abroad, and the biggest way they die is being hit by traffic while crossing the road. Somehow we made it safely out of that country, through the gauntlet of poisonous snakes, in Australia to New Zealand. After telling my dad on the phone that we would be driving on our own around New Zealand, he mentioned “Be careful driving on the left. I knew a couple who were vacationing in Australia a few years back. They pulled out in front of oncoming traffic in their car because they looked the wrong way and it was the last thing they ever did.” Thanks Dad.

      New Zealand has been experiencing their share of fear mongering this past week. After correctly ‘predicting’ the last horrific earthquake to hit Christchurch, New Zealand ‘scientist’ Ken Ring predicted another big quake on or around March 20 based on the position of the moon. Despite the fact that every other geologist in the world has refuted him that there is any correlation with major earthquakes and moon phases, many people in Christchurch panicked and fled the city. (The quake didn’t happen, by the way.) And on the ferry into Wellington, I picked up the local daily newspaper and saw this headline about the city we were about to enter:

       The writers were generous enough to include a computer-generated picture of what the city of Wellington would look like as it was swallowed up by a devastating tsunami. Wellington is referred to as the San Fransisco of the South, not only because the two cities look so much alike but also because it lies on a major fault line and also has a tsunami-creating fault line just off-shore. So while we strolled through the downtown streets and visited Wellington’s incredible Te Papa museum, we were sure to keep a watchful eye on the ocean, and to note our nearest ‘tsunami safe zone.’

       We even asked Julia’s kiwi friend Aaron, with whom we are staying here in the city, whether he thinks his house is earthquake safe. Like most houses in Wellington, it is probably forty years old and is built on the side of steep hill. His answer was a firm ‘no.’ As a result, we’ve decided that the safest place to be is probably in the rooftop hot tub above his house, because in the event of an earthquake we figure we’ll probably just surf the tub down and end up atop the pile of rubble. Although the hot bubbly water and the incredible view may have been luring us up there also.

The view of downtown Wellington from Aaron's hot tub

Julia and Aaron and Bill and Megyn