almostfearless.com

Posted: 22 May 2011 02:47 PM PDT

This post is part of the ongoing Sunday Travel Selection series. Every Sunday, a new travel story is featured. This month's theme is Breaking the Law. This week, Colin Burns is our selected contributor.

One of the joys of travelling is experiencing things that you can't see, do or taste back home. Usually they're simple things like trying new foods or seeing another country's religious festivals. But sometimes you get to experience activities that would be of dubious legality.

We had hired an old jimny jeep to drive around Bali for a few days and had reached the middle of nowhere on the opposite side of the island when we were pulled over by two police officers for driving a rental vehicle that didn't have rental vehicle license plates. We were supposed to fly out of Denpasar Airport in 2 days time and the police officers were threatening to take our passports away for 7 days, so needless to say we were panicking.

After the first couple of minutes of discussion though it became painfully obvious to both of us that they just wanted a bribe. Even knowing that though, it's a terrifying thing to actually offer a bribe in a country where crimes were taken ridiculously seriously. Thoughts were flashing through our minds of 'what if they are legit and take offense at this?' We kept looking at each other whispering what do we do? Will we end up in even more trouble if we offer a bribe?

After another 20 minutes of discussion I finally channel my inner Qatari World Cup Bid Official and ask the Police Officers "How can we make the problem go away? Is there an 'on the spot fine' I can pay?" I didn't want to come right out and say 'look can I bribe my way out of this?' just in case. Their English wasn't very good (and our Indonesian was pretty much limited to ordering beer, hello and numbers), so it took 5 minutes of heart stopping repetitions of 'is there something we can do to make the problem go away' before finally the police officers understood what we were saying and asked for equivalent of $30USD.

We negotiated down to $20. Problem solved.

Last year a man in Australia was charged for carrying a barbeque on his motorbike (he saw it left on the side of the road and thought a free BBQ was too great an opportunity to miss). When the story broke we were in Vietnam watching a thousand crazier things on bikes whizz past thinking "Just one BBQ? What's the big deal?" In the space of ten minutes it's not uncommon in Asia to see people carrying queen sized beds, cows, or entire families as well as livestock and beds. Heck, we actually saw two men carrying two sheets of plate glass on their bike, with the driver wedged in between the two sheets.

In fact, we'd just had the four of us on a motorbike riding around pot-holed roads in Laos and Thailand. Putting four people on a motorbike in Australia would have us in prison and vilified on every current affairs program as the worst parents in the world. (Note: At this point in time we aren't completely ruling out whether or not we may be the worst parents in the world, the jury is still out but thankfully the jury is an ocean away).

But was it amazing? Yes, it has been one of the highlights of our journey.

We have a tendency to think of ourselves as boring, old travellers. We're not backpackers, we're in our thirties and the parents of young kids. When others are out partying, we're putting the kids to bed. We didn't even go tubing in Vang Vieng – we visited a local school for a community movie night. We didn't have 'happy' pizzas in Phnom Penh – we ate naan breads and played jenga. We haven't been to Taman Negara or climbed Mt Kinabalu despite spending over 6 months in Malaysia last year – but we have seen the best museums and playgrounds Malaysia has to offer. Apart from occasionally cramming us all onto a motorbike, we usually make safe choices for our family. But then we started thinking about the days before we had kids …

Over our years of travel we've actually (although we'll deny it) partaken in some dubious acts that could have potentially landed us in some pretty hot water. Like the time in the US where my friends and I may have outfitted a whole camper van with items that may not have rightfully belonged to us that were acquired from our the Ski Resort we worked in — including a queen size mattress and a complete set of pots & pans.

Or what about the time we skipped a country and a job in the middle of the night. We were young and arrogant enough to think we deserved a better job and only considered the impact of our decision on ourselves, not our employer. We now count it as one of our biggest travel mistakes but at the time we felt like ninjas keeping our decision from friends for months, sneaking off to the airport and calling our employer from another country to tell them.

Hmmm, maybe we're not as boring as we thought we were…

About the author

When we started to travel over 16 months ago everyone we knew thought we were crazy. Leaving behind a pretty cushy life to travel the world with your wife and two young children under five is, in hindsight, a pretty big deal.

Fortunately for my family and I, introspection isn't one of my strong points and I was able to convince my lovely wife that this was the best idea I had ever had (and I have had plenty). So after almost 500 days on the road, life is fantastic.

Occasionally, when I have to, I spend my time building websites for clients back home in Australia. I work building medium to large business websites and my clients are almost exclusively in Australia. This is how we have able to fund our travel lifestyle. Given our new lifestyle I am lucky enough to spend an inordinate amount of time with my children, much more than I ever was able to in Australia. I am able to watch they grow and learn each day, helping them grow into the young people we want them to be.

A lot of our time is now spent travelling around South East Asia, but towards the end of this year we are headed to Europe and then who knows where…