To all my faithful readers

Dear Friends,

I have returned! No not from death but from a place where too long of a visit would certainly result in it-- England. After spending 30 days on the tropical islands of Indonesia i was welcomed to the British Isles by the first October snow in 70 years. More on that later, let me catch you up on my travels chronologically (because that's how the images roll off my camera).

Bukittinggi, Sumatra

As with most of Indonesia, Western Sumatra has it's own distinct culture. Two of the most interesting features of the Minangkabau are the architecture and their matrilineal society. The latter doesn't make for very good photos but the architecture is a highlight and I hopped on board with a tour to see some of it. To the Minangkabau the Buffalo is the holiest of all animals and is seen symbolized in nearly everything-- check out the rooflines.

While on the tour the guide pulled the van over to show us this guy. At the end of his rope is a monkey about 40 feet up pulling the coconuts down.

Walking through the paddies to see the coconut-harvesting-monkey.

This a rice storage building. All roofs look something like this, designed to resemble the horns of the Buffalo.

My New Best Friend
The lines between business and pleasure are not very distinct here. One evening I went out to enjoy the after dark activities (for it was still Ramadan and people like to celebrate nightly) and I met a local guy with whom I made arrangements to see some local sights the next day. Among them, the largest flower in the world, a local valley where there is some good climbing, and a large bat species known as flying foxes.

Without me grabbing one, there is no way to capture the size of these things but there bodies are about the size of a cat and wingspan approaching a meter.

On the way to see the Rafflesia Arnoldi. Here rice dries in the street. I wondered what kind of traffic delays this caused. I later found out that it is perfectly acceptable to drive across the rice.

From where we left our motorbike we walked about 2 miles through paddies, jungle, and ravines to this dying bloom of Rafflasia Arnoldi. Blooms only last a few days and then decay quickly. The flower looks and smells more like an exploded pumpkin than any flower I have seen. It is actually pollinated by flies that mistake its odor as rotting flesh.

My whole trip I had really wanted to do some camping. Opportunities aren't really that plentiful though. Volcanoes seem to be the exception where locals hike up to the top either for spiritual renewal or lucrative sulfur scavenging. After leaving Sumatra I made my way to Cibodas in West Java, home to Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park. I set out early afternoon to hike the 6,000 vertical feet to the upper lip of the crater. Rain drove me into my tent before the top. Surprisingly there were lots of of other people hiking it-- and all local. In Central America I remember noticing how the national parks are largely utilized only by foreigners. And while a lot of the locals hiking here were loud and messy there were also some toting garbage bags and cleaning up what others had left behind.

The sight from the volcano summit (3019 meters). The clouds below extended as far as you could see, only broken by the volcano Gede next to Pangrango.

Crater of Pangrango, Gede in background.

Javanese Edelweiss

Buffalo making me a little nervous.

Bamboo.

No Scratching. Borobudour, Java.

Buddhist Relief, Borobudour

My daily dose of calcium. That's a good lookin ice cream cone.

Tempe!!!! My favorite vegetarian food, fermented soybeans.

Some fellow hikers and I at Gede Pangrango National Park. I forgot to look tough. At the request of every group of young people I passed, I posed for a lot of photos.

Prambanan. Hindu temples from year 850.

Borobudour, Buddist Temples from the 8th century

Gili Air, an island off of Lombok. The reef around the island is mostly dead and broken from years fo fish-bombing but the sea life is still plentiful. I saw 3 turtles while snorkeling just 50 yards offshore.

Prize fighters, Bali.

Morning offerings at a Hindu shrine, Bali.

Waiting for a beard trimming.

Prambanan, Java

I believe this guy is harvesting Palm Oil though I can't be sure. Bali.

Tulumben, Bali. The USSAT Liberty lies beneath the water here. It was torpedoed by the Japanese in WWII and taken in tow and beached on Bali to salvage the cargo. An eruption pushed it offshore 50 years ago and now it is a superb dive site. I did 3 dives here.

Ferry from Lombok to Bali. Bali and Mount Agung (right, above the clouds) in the background.

Captain

Sunset at Gili Air off Lombok.

One evening in Ubud, Bali I went for a walk though the rice fields. It was a designated route, I had a map and a compass but I still got lost. Right in the middle of the trail I found this guy. He was about a foot long and beautiful. The next day i came across a group of local reptile enthusiast (I could identify them as this because they were holding an 8 foot python). They told me it is known as a Pitbull Gecko as they are known to bite human handlers and don't like to let go until you either suffocate them in water or take a blade to their neck.

I know it looks like i am hitting this lady with a handful of rice stalks but I am actually helping to remove the rice.

Rice terraces, Bali.

My plan to get home was to just pick up the cheapest airfares I could until I landed back in the States. My first leg was a flight on Etihad Airlines from Jakarta to Abu Dhabi. Etihad flies dozens of routes to less-developed countries to maintain the flow of migrant workers into Dubai. After booking my flight to Abu Dhabi I checked on hotel rooms. The cheapest one I could find was 200 dollars a night. There was no way i would pay that for a room. I was fully prepared to sleep in the airport or pitch my tent in the desert, but upon leaving the airport i saw a rental car desk and i did what any budget-minded person would do-- slept in the backseat of a Toyota Camry. Fuel is cheap enough there that I probably should have kept the car on with the A/C running but I didn't. The next day I drove the 100 km to Dubai. I found most of the city to be somewhat sterile, like Singapore. The exception was Old Dubai where the Dubai Creek is packed with boat traffic, mostly wooden freighters from Iran.

Dubai Creek, Old Dubai, UAE

That's Malik Riaz. He's Pakistani. He lives on this floor with over 100 Indians. Must be tough.

Persian Gulf. Tallest building in the world barely visible in the background.

Ski Dubai. I watched from the window.

Galway, Ireland

London

Getting to Bukittinggi, Indonesia

When my plans to head south overland from China into the Southeast
Asian peninsula were held up by my poor planning and China's
American-hating visa regulations, I found myself at a crossroads--Hong Kong. I could either fly to Thailand, or go somewhere else altogether. Ever since my scholarship application to study Bahasa
Indonesia in Jakarta was turned down 2 years ago, I have had a burning
to visit this diverse, enormous, and somewhat forgotten country. So I
walked down to the YMCA's English bookstore in Hong Kong hoping to find a guidebook. Luckily, in addition to 100 or so Joel Osteen
get-your-ass-in-gear motivational guidebooks to life, there was one
single overpriced Lonely Planet guidebook for Indonesia. I bought it
and immediately went and bought a ticket to Singapore-- my gateway to
Sumatra.

In
deciding to go to Indonesia, I never really considered where in
Indonesia I would go. It is an absolutely monstrous country, with land
scattered
across 17,000 islands stretching from Sumatra in the Northwest (a
stones throw to mainland Asia) , all the way Southeast toTimor
(100 miles shy of Australia). I planned on starting out in Sumatra and
making my way down to Java, possibly beyond. I tired of Singapore after
a few days and hopped a morning boat to Batam , an Indonesia island 10
miles from Singapore. I ended up having to spend the night there and
made arrangements for a taxi to pick me up at 5:00 the next morning.

As soon as I stepped off the dock in Batam
I was bombarded by cries of, "Hello Mister!" and, "Where are you
going?". The latter is actually a typical Indonesian greeting, much
like "What's up?" in the States or "Have you eaten?" in China, but it
is often used to insert oneself to provide a service that is not really
needed. Thus was the case early the next morning.

Me: "I am going to the boat."
My new best friend: "I will help you."

He
shuffled me through a maze of docks, onto the boat, through the cabin,
to a poop-deck where a dozen men sat smoking clove cigarettes-- my home
for the next 6 hours.

"You give me tip. 50,000 rupiah."

I pulled out 7,000 to give him (about 80 US cents) for his 5 minutes. This would certainly buy him dinner and maybe lunch too.

"No, 50,000."

I
grabbed his hand and stuffed the 7000 into it. He took it and walked
away. One of the things I have learned is that it is good to be
generous but not good to be pushed around, people lose respect for you
when that happens.

The boat ride was horrible: a cocktail of
diesel and cigarette smoke, and the early morning sun hitting us from
behind. My ticket included a bus from the port to Pekanbaru , an inland
city and transport hub of sorts. The bus, in addition to being crowded
and slow, got two flat tires, the second of which required hitchhiking
into town to get it repaired. Great trip so far.

Things started to turn up for me though. I made a friend on the bus, Afice, who invited me to stay with his family in Pekanbaru.
Of course, I accepted and we were picked up by his sister at the train
station. She owns a gift basket business and this is the busiest time
of the year for that sortfo
thing-- Ramadan. We spent about an hour driving around town delivering
baskets, which I thoroughly enjoyed. At times, the recipients were more
amused by the strange white guy in the car than they were the baskets.Afice
treated me to dinner and an avocado shake and then took me to his home
where at least 3 generations were living. It was grand house though. I immediately fell asleep. Like most Indonesians, Afice's
family is Muslim and when I woke for a tinkle at 4:15 A.M. I found
about 6 of them eating a feast that rivals Thanksgiving. They were
gorging in preparation for the daytime fast. (During the month of Ramadan, Muslims
fast during daylight from food AND DRINK.)

Afice took me to the bus station in the morning and refused any payment for his hospitality. I was bound for Bukittinggi,
a small town at the foot of an active volcano.

No flat tires on this trip though, just one half-hour stop at the mosque to pray.

Photos!!! (Xi'an and Chengdu)

City Wall. Try climbing that with crossbows pointed at you. On the topic of crossbows, when I was passing security at the Chengdu airport they had a large plexiglass container where passengers were to drop prohibited items before passing through. The container had hundreds of lighters and small pocketknives.... and one single homemade crossbow.

Xi'an

Hot Water for All! My father told me about these hot-water heaters they were using in China a few years ago. A basic convection design with the tank at the top moves the cooler water through the solar tubes. Dad was right, they are popular in China.
Looking in toward town center.

While in Xi'an I also visited a university where my former student went. I wish I had some photos as it reminded me some of FSU-- canopy streets, classic buildings, and cheap, tasty food.

Chengdu, Sichuan

These first photos are from Sichuan University where I visited my friend and former student Shi Shou. For those of you familiar with FSU, Sichuan U campuses are much the same-- a historical campus in town and also a modern campus just outside town. These photos are form the latter. There were some really nice buildings at Sichuan U.
And for tasty food they had "stinky tofu"-- Chairman Mao's Favorite!!!!

Check out the Tupperware tub inside the glass. That's tofu, covered in mold. Without exaggeration, that little bit of tofu makes a stench that would shame 2 dozen goats. The smell is absolutely atrocious but I ponied up and tried it anyway. Turns out, the smelly tofu isn't that bad once you get past the stench. It was hardly a treat though. I ate 3 out of 4 pieces before passing it on to a native.
It was Mid Autumn festival when I visited Shi Shou and one of the traditions that accompanies the holidays are moon cakes. They were so kind to include me in their celebrations. Moon cakes are a heavy pastry filled with some gooey filling. Here they are trying to determine which one has the beef in it. (They also gave me a good taste of spicy Sichuan cooking. I shed a tear or two.)

Buddhist Temple

Lotus flower kneeling mat.
Ping Pong!
Apparently, vegetarians have a reputation.

"Don't pickup hitch-hikers, vegetarian restaurant nearby."