Sunrise over the Pyramids! Sunrise over Borobudur! Sunrise over Mount Bromo! Sunrise boat ride on the Daintree River! We have been deluged everywhere by fellow travelers, tour guides and brochures promoting this whole “sunrise!” phenomenon. Finally I thought, "OK, maybe there’s something to this." So, (are you ready for this?) two days within one week I got up at 4am to see the sunrise: once at the 9th century Buddhist monument Borobudur, and again over the smoking caldera of the active volcano Mount Bromo, both on the island of Java.

4am.

Twice.

I’ve got a news flash for you: This whole sunrise thing is way overrated. I didn’t get it. You crawl out of  a cozy bed after, what, maybe 4 hours sleep, to drive 20 kilometers to see the sun come up. Yeah, great. Pretty colors. It goes from dark to light. Great shadows and details.  But - stay with me here - doesn’t this whole thing happen 12 hours later, in reverse, when everyone is already awake. And you know what, the same colors, same shadows and, better yet, no damn roosters squawking and ruining the quiet. So give me a sunset over anything. With a beer, a loaf of bread, and thou. I’ll bring the mosquito repellent.

We are in Australia now, rolling in the indulgent pleasures of the “first world.” Important things, like ice that won’t poison you, air conditioning, and movies in English. And our most pleasant indulgence, by far, is the opportunity to stay with our friends Cedric and Shirlene while here in Sydney. Cedric and Shirlene are friends from Dallas who've recently moved - courtesy of Shirlene’s job - to Sydney and are living in a great house with a drop-dead-gorgeous harbor view.

We spent a little over a month in Indonesia, traveling from the island of Java to the island of Lombak, which is just east of