Six people, six backpacks, six carry-ons and three instruments in a Toyota Avanza. World record or something.

There is nothing like unloading the entire back end of a Toyota Avanza in the pitch black by the side of the road whilst wondering about snakes and whether or not there is a jack to go with the spare tire.

Tony, as ever, was calmly explaining the finer points of changing a tire to Gabe, who was point man on the flashlight and jack: “Always loosen the lugs before you lift the car. Then always tighten them one more time after you drop it back on the road,” whilst intermittently reminding the kids still IN the vehicle to be still so the didn’t knock the whole project off the lift.

How we ended up stranded in the dark on the backside of Borneo is a long story. Aren’t they all?

The day started out great. Can I just say how much we love Apple Maps? The sun was shining, the jungle provided beautiful green vistas in every direction with sharp toothed mountains for interest across the landscape. We love a good road trip.

I wrote postcards. The kids worked on writing their stories, or reading their stories, and sang along with the music. I read aloud to pass the time, The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus by Frank L. Baum. A rainbow painted the sky in front of the monsoon cloud bank and as we came up a hill it appeared to end right in the middle of the road. Perfection. This is why we rented our own car, for the freedom to go our own way.

And then… the road began to deteriorate, and continued to deteriorate until Tony was bobbing and weaving across both lanes to dodge potholes and other vehicles. It’s okay, because oncoming traffic was doing the same thing. Lanes are an illusion, traffic is a delicate dance that varies with culture. Tony, thankfully, has the ability to intuit the steps with as much grace as he spins me across a dance floor with, and he hasn’t killed us yet.

We passed an enormous inter-city VIP bus overturned in a ditch. The kids gawked. Then we passed two more in various stages of breakdown, backpackers loafing around, smoking and waiting. I congratulated myself on renting a car instead of being stuck roadside with that lot.

As if twilight and potholes, worse that the ones on the road between Kiev and Khlemenitsky, weren’t enough, clouds poured in from the hills and hung over the hot road in ghostly waves as the monsoon rain began to fall.

It was a pothole that did the left rear tire in.

A big one. An expletive was uttered. In his defense, the pothole was the lesser of two evils: we missed the oncoming bus that was half in our lane.

The kids have an amazing capacity to make the best of any mishap. Ez was almost giddy to be called upon for his flashlight, and for once in his scatterbrained life he knew EXACTLY where it was located. Gabe was keen to change a tire and hopped around like a grasshopper, following his Dad’s instructions like it was the adventure he’d been waiting all day to have. I moved gear and worried about snakes in the grass.

Needless to say, the men changed the tire and we were back on the road in half an hour. We made it to Bintulu, but whoever posted on that website that the trip would take about 5 hours was clearly making that assumption based on Google Maps and had never actually made the trip. The speed limit on the #1 highway across the north end of Borneo is listed at 90 km/hr. If one were to approach 90 km on that road at any point, he would be launched off in some wild direction by a pothole or go careening into a long house, roadside, or would become a hood ornament for an oncoming “Borneo Bus.” We topped out at 60 km, and that was at an aggressive moment while overtaking. We’ve driven a lot of miles in a lot of weird places, but the only other drive that has even come close was the day we traveled from Malacatan to San Pedro, Guatemala. If we’d had a flat tire that day, we’d have tipped the whole rig over a mountain cliff and we’d still be there.

It was well on towards 11 p.m. when we finally found the “Homey Guesthouse.” They mean it in the sense that it’s meant to feel like home, from their fliers. Tony is snickering, in the “Homey don’t play that” sense and the whole joint feels more like a prison ward than anyplace I’ve ever called home. We’re locked into two four bed cells with paper thin walls. If I spoke Bahasa I would be annoyed by the conversation next door, since I don’t, I’m just tuning them out. Dinner, which Tony and Hannah procured as the shops were closing, was a loaf of white bread, a mini jar of peanut butter and six cups of ramen noodles; the nasty dry kind, with a contraband can of shandy, in a dry hostel, on the side.

For those of you who pine wistfully over my beach afternoons, here’s your dose of perspective. There’s a trade off… this is it. Tonight, instead of counting sheep, I’ll just repeat my mantra ‘til I  fall asleep: “I love my life… I love my life… I love my life…”