38 DAYS LATER

6-5-13

I'm back in LA, back to work, back to writing, back to reorganizing my apartment, working out, running, visiting with friends.

In fact I've been back more than a week now.

Already the trip is fading.

Not permanently, (I'm not senile yet! :), but the intensity of it.

Sure, I look at the photos and peek through my journal and see all the amazing things I did and felt and saw. When I see Alicia back here in LA it's fun to reminisce and think of what we did. We're so fortunate to be able to take trips like this and see the world that is out there.

I wanted to type up a "in conclusion" of the trip. Something that sums up the observations... but it's strange how some of them are probably already lost to time. Still, I'm going to do my best to give some final thoughts on the Southeast Asia Odyssey 2013.

1.  TRAVEL is AWESOME!

If you haven't figured that out yet, I haven't done my job or expressed how I feel. :)

Pick your destination. Buy your ticket. Pack your bag and go.

Trust me, it's possible to find the time. It's possible to have the money. If I can do it, so can you.

It's a matter of prioritizing what's important. If your $5 starbucks a day gives you more joy than a couple weeks in Indonesia, then keep drinking the Starbucks. (By the way, they have those in the touristy spots over there so you won't be left out.:) But that $5/day ads up to a plane ticket very quickly. And the memories of those two weeks will likely be better than that caffeine fix... just a guess.

2. INDONESIAN thoughts

I love Indonesia. I never thought it would rank so highly in the cool places I've visited. Sure I only saw a fraction of the 17,000 islands, but I saw enough to make me love it. From the safe, yet exotic Bali to the wild west of Flores. It's my kind of place. So many things to do, beautiful places to see and wonderful people to meet. You can be as rough and tumble or safe and pampered as you'd like. The price is right, the place is paradise. Go.

3. MALAYSIA thoughts

Who knew? Malaysia is way more modern than I expected. Nice roads. Great food. Wonderful people. It consistantly surprised me at every turn. I would arrive someplace, think "hmmmm, this isn't what I was hoping for" and be 100% on board in less than a day. Every single time.

And the food! Yep, so good. Go. Eat. If you're a foodie you've gotta go there. Yum Yum.

4. And both these places are predominately Islamic.

And no I didn't feel unsafe. No there were no "terrorists" lurking at every corner. No Islam does not make one evil.

It baffles me from both sides of this stupid battle between Islam and Christianity. The religion does not make one evil, or close minded, or violent or radical. It's the people who choose to use religion as their war cry. Neither of these religions preach murder. And every time I visit these wonderful places with wonderful people who might believe something different than me I am grateful to see their faith. To see that they care so much about what they believe in.

And it was really interesting to see how each country embraced it differently. In Indonesia it seems like they don't just do the call to prayer 5 times a day over the loud speakers. They do the whole prayer! 20-30 minutes. I heard far fewer calls in Malaysia. In fact there was a heavy blending of religions there. Even though the country is official Muslim, all religions are welcome. Believe what you want.

Isn't that how it should be?

5. SINGAPORE thoughts

With only the 1 day it's hard to say I really saw Singapore. It was a great experience since I've heard so much about Singapore and how clean it is (true) and how many rules it has (also true) and how many strange laws they have (also true. No gum. No Urinating in Lifts. No this. No that). But again. Nice people. Sure it's a big city and things are moving along rapidly. But it was a fascinating mix of different cultures (Chinese, Singapore, Indian). And of course, having a friend there to show me around made it even more awesome. Friendship around the world. That's a great reason to travel too.

6. HONG KONG thoughts

Love it. New York meets Asia. Energy. Excitement. I love the weather: bring me a thunderstorm any day. The harbor is amazing. The trains rules. And Disneyland. Oh yeah. And I barely saw a fraction of it. So much more to see. I'll enjoy catching up on my Hong Kong cinema now that I've been.

7. Food.

Did I mention the food on this trip was amazing? I'm not a foodie. I don't get all googly-eyed over food. But damn, this was a tasty place to eat. So many types: Indonesian, Balinese, Lombok-ian, Malay, Indian, Chinese, Dim-Sum, Indian, Western, Indian... did I mention how good the Indian food was? :)

8.  Perspective

Every time I travel I like to get out of my comfort zone. (Leeches, here I come!).

I think it's important, I'd even say critical to my life.  And honestly for everyone's lives, to get out of our comfort zone.

It's easy for people to have their worlds shrink. Mine can. If I'm in LA to long I'll lose some of my gusto. Some of my free spirit. I think it's just part of how human beings are wired. If we aren't getting out there, seeing and doing new things, then what we will be OK tends to become less and less. I'm not saying we'll get in fights or run away in fear if something new happens. But we'll shrink away. We'll choose the comfortable path. I know I do it. I doubt I'm alone in this.

So getting out to see the world is my way of forcing myself to expand. To open up to all the amazing things the world has to offer. To interact with people that I might shy away from in normal life. Sure, there were times on this trip that I was uncomfortable. That boat ride with 25 people. The first afternoon I was not feeling it. I knew it was going to be cramped and their was no place to sit and chill... but a strange thing happened. By the 2nd, and 3rd and 4th day I was suddenly fine. It was okay to be in such close quarters with people. Sure, there were times with a bit of annoyance or need for space. But it's awesome how I could find my own space when there wasn't any. How we got comfortable being right on top of each other. Sure, by the end of it I wanted to get the heck off the boat, but now I know that I will be fine if I'm in such close quarters with people.

And the leeches. The jungle. The nasty.

It was dirty. Wet. Stinky. Awesome.

Very quickly the jungle makes you it's bitch. And being able to adapt in that environment was great. If I'd had another day I think I really would have gotten comfortable with that level of uncomfort. :) Yes, it's nice to have a perfectly climate controlled house and car and have everything clean and a shower. But its surprising how important dry feet become when that's all you can get. Just dry feet. It's good to be aware of how little I need to be happy...

That's always a great lesson I learn and relearn. When I'm backpacking I have so little with me. So few clothes, so few items. I always, on every trip, feel like I have too much stuff. When I'm packing I think "I'll need this and that and this and that", but once I've got my See Legs and am on my way, I think I could get by with half the items. And I only have a small bag to begin with. :)

Maybe travel isn't your way to find perspective. Maybe you like to cook, or draw, or play sports, or meditate, or... But listing off all those things. None of them do for me what Travel does. Not even close.

So I will urge you to try it. Push you even. Do it. Get out there. Don't be afraid. And if you are... face your fear down. Stare it in the eye and tell that fear to kiss off. Your confidence will grow. Your heart will grow. Your mind will grow. YOU will grow.

See what you're made out of. Likely you'll be surprised.

This is Craig Ouellette,

Last surviving member of the Nostromo

Signing off.

Flores.

I’M GOING BACK TO BALI

 May 9, 2013

For the finale of Indonesia it's time to return to where it began: Bali.

But first some scuba diving in Komodo National Park. Supposedly some of the best in the world, and I can tell you that it's really great. The coral was perfect. The fish innumerable. And we had turtles swim withing a meter of us. I just watched the dude and he was checking me out as he cruised by. Now the currents are really strong here, so you really have to pay attention to your guide, and when he says to stop and turn around, you best do it. Or you'll be pushed down into the deep.

On the second dive it was a drift dive along this coral wall. And I have never been on a ride like this. The current is so strong we were FLYING over the coral. There was no way to slow down and if you drifted away from the wall you got pushed along even faster. It was pretty wild.

To leave Flores Island we took a flight. It was a propeller plane, that was actually pretty good sized. Maybe 45 passengers. A/C. Comfy seats. Much more elaborate than I thought it would be. The airport in Labuan Bajo is an old cinderblock building, but it fortunately had an air conditioning unit which we stood by for 45 minutes to cool down. They're building a new one right next to it, so things are changing. The dive master said 2 years ago there were 5 dive shops. Today there are over 20. My suggestion would be to get your ass to Flores now. It's an amazing place with the sweet balance of tourist services and local flavor that is hard to come by. It's really a wonderful place. The islands are impossibly beautiful. I stood outside our room on our last night and watched the sunset and every single direction was a postcard for tropical perfection. This place rules. I wish we hadn't already bought our ticket. I wish we had more time.

But the time has come to go back to Bali... and we did.

Bali is an entirely different animal with all the tourists and traffic and people. But it's wonderful as well. We headed up to the "mountain" town of Ubud. This is where Julia Roberts found "Love" in "Eat, Pray, Love". And it's a cool town. TONS of stores selling art of every conceivable kind. The art represents all the villages from all around. Wood carving. Bone carving (very cool). Kites. Textiles. Dresses. Penises.

Yep, I wrote that. There's a strange amount of phallises all over. Some small. Some HUGE. (Like 3 feet huge). Some on kites. Some on dragons. Some as ashtrays. Not sure what the fascination with the cock is. But hey, what you gonna do?

We saw a "fire show". It involved 50+ men chanting in a circle as folks in costumes danced around. There was a crazy monkey-man. Burning coconuts. And it even rained during the performance, which was really cool. They performed it at the temple where they've done it for hundreds of years. It was cool.

The next day was the Eco Bike Ride. I think they say "Eco" cause that's what all us traveling hippy tourists give a shit about. Not sure what's Eco about it, but it was super awesome anyway. You ride in a van up to the crater rim of Mount Batur. The view is awesome. Apparently it blew it's top in 1963 and created the lake there and knocked the top 1000+ meters off the top of the mountain. Nutso.

Then we hit a coffee plantation. You get to sample beans, chilis, and shit coffee. Not that it's bad, but it's literally made with shit. Yep. There are these little ferret like animals that eat the beans, which are fermented in their stomach and then they crap out the bean whole. Then some brilliant Balinese person decided to roast the beans and make coffee. And sell it for a shit ton of money (pun intended). It cost $6 for a cup there. $12 for a cup in Ubud. And you know what...

...it's bitter like coffee is. I'm not a coffee conneseur, so I'm not the best judge. But the other samples were good. Some much so.

Then it's no the bikes for a 25km downhill ride where you stop at a traditional village, where we take pictures of people making bamboo mats. And it occured to me how weird it is that we come into peoples homes and take pictures. That's weird. It would be like someone coming into my room while I"m editing and taking pictures, going "wow, that's so cool and different." Not sure how I feel about it. But I did learn alot about traditional Balinese family life and beliefs, so in the end it's probably okay. They do get paid as well.

We stop at rice paddy's and other cool spots. It was fun.

The end has an optional 8km uphill portion, which me and a gal Jennifer from Germany went for. It wasn't to hard, but it was hot as balls. And the last 1 km was on a busy main road with big trucks.

A great trip.

This is a car road too, not just for bikes

The rest of the time in Ubud was spent eating, seeing shows, enjoying the swimming pool at our totally awesome tree house temple homestay. Homestay because it indeed is someone's house. However, it's like the coolest multilevel, temple, castle place ever. Our room was at the top and looked like a treehouse with ornate carvings of Hindu scenes and swastikas.

Um, what?

Yep, swastikas. Lot's of them. Some vertical. Some at the 45degree Nazi angle. What's up with that?

Well, turns out the swastika was and is one of the oldest symbols in history. It means all sorts of stuff and was only corrupted by the Nazi's during the 30's and 40's. So for much of the world it still means peace, prosperity, good luck, good fortune, good health etc etc etc.

And so ends the Indonesian portion of the trip. I can tell you, it was awesome. Alicia was a great travel buddy and the country is an awesome place. It's so cool how each island is different and unique. The people are wonderful. The terrain spectacular. It really is much cooler than I even thought it would be. It was a place I always wanted to go, but didn't know much about it. Very little in fact. Now I know enough to recommend it. I definitely say GO.

Bali is the most tourist friendly. And parts of it are challenging. But overall Indonesia is a wonderful, fascinating, beautiful country.

So we both left today. Alicia is on her way back to LA. I flew a few hours and landed in another land. A place that already feels very different. Malaysia.

I rode a bullet train from the airport. I saw the Patronas towers in the distance. I ate beef balls at a stall in Chinatown at 10pm. I'm staying at a hostel. I'm on my own and ready to see where the road takes me...

Craig O

PS: I appologize for the lack of emails, but I've been having big issues with Gmail security. Often when I log in from a new computer the security locks me out and the ONLY option they give me to verify myself is through a text message. Guess what? My phone is in LA. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know as I'd like to keep the updates coming.

I’M IN FRICKIN’ INDONESIA!!!!!!

That's right Team,

I'm in Indonesia.  Gili T to be precise. A small island off the coast of Lombok (itself an island) located near Bali (also an island...). In fact, all of Indonesia is 17,000 + islands of awesome.

This is the first BIG TRIP since Morocco in November of 2011, and I am glad to be on it. In fact, I've already extended the trip by almost 2 weeks!  (Thank you frequent flier miles for free flight changes!).

Ready to go!

I know some of you have been to Indonesia (notably Bali) and said it was one of your favorite places. It really is cool. Though it may be a bit overrun with tourism in the south, as we made our way to the east coast and Amed, things thinned out and it became much more the legendary "Bali of old" (Which seems to get brought up a lot. In fact, Lombok and other islands get mentioned as what Bali was like 10 or 20 or 50 years ago. So far they all seem cool to me, though different...)

For instance, Indonesia is the worlds largest Muslim nation. But Bali is not a Muslim island. It practices it's own unique religion found nowhere else in the world. A mix of Hindu and many other things. It also has it's own language, Balinese. Though they speak Indonesian and many speak English. 60 years of being a tourism hotspot will do that to you I guess.

So this trip is the first time I've been back to Southeast Asia since the massive 2005 Thailand/Laos/Viet Nam/Cambodia adventure...

Cambodia, 2005. Boo-yah!

 

...and I can say that it is every bit as awesome as when I left. There is something really wonderful about this part of the world. The people. The cultures. The places. The food. It was special then and it still is. Even though I (likely) won't return to any of those countries this trip, it still feels like the awesomeness is present here in Indonesia.  (Hopefully that will carry over to the other destinations for the trip).

This trip is also the first time in a long time that I'm traveling with a friend. Alicia was actually 2 weeks into her 3 week trip when I got here. We'd planned on overlapping for 4 days at the end of her trip and the beginning of mine.  Now we'll be traveling Indonesia for 2 1/2 weeks before she heads home and I'm off to the next countries. (This way you know who the "we" is when I type it.)

Ridin the donkey cart!

As for adventures so far...

15 hours flight from LAX to Hong Kong. 4 hours in Hong Kong airport. 4 1/2 hours to Denpensar, Bali. 1 hour in customs/visa. 45 minutes in a cab

which cost 100,000 to go 45 minutes!!!!!!!  (That's about 10 USD. :) (I love all the zeroes on the money, it makes me feel like a billionaire!).

And check into a hotel in Sanur. Had a pool (thank god, cause it's hot), and was close to the beach.

The next day it was off to Amed. A 3 hour drive. We hired a driver for 450,000 ($45) who took us to a Bat Cave temple (which was closed because there was a religious ceremony). We did get to chat with a nice family about the offerings the bring in and listen to

some traditional Balinese music. It's tonal. Hammers on metal. Flutes. Klanging and bonging. (Tom, you'd love it!).

We ate overlooking the ocean (which is pretty much what you do here. :). I had Manta Ray for the first time. Tasty, spicey, a bit

rubbery and I actually felt kind of bad because Manta Ray's are so cool!.

We headed to Tirta Gangga, which is this water palace built by the last Bali king in the 1940's. It looks like it's 1000 years old.

There are all these fountains and pools, some you can swim in. There were stone pillars you could walk along out in the water which

felt very much like Indiana Jones. (Don't worry, no flooded caves on this trip... yet!). It was a great place to chill out.

Tirta Gangga, palace of water pleasure

The next day we went SCUBA diving on a sunken World War 2 freighter, the USS Liberty. It was really cool. It's a walk in dive,

right off the shore, only 9 feet deep at the shallowest, maybe 70 at the deepest. Really fun to dive around. And there were ladies and girls

here who carried the tanks in and out of the dive sight on their heads! Nuts! Unfortunately I couldn't equalize my ears on the second

dive, so I had to miss out on swimming through the ship itself. Sucked. Never had that problem before, but I couldn't get 6 feet down

before the left side of my head was peircing with pain.I tried 6 or 7 times and had to call it. Oh well, there will be more dives.

For $40 a night we have an air con room with a pool right on the beach. This is a nice place and honestly much more than we have

to spend. We could do $30 or $20 or even $15 a night (though you wouldn't have a/c or a pool). But the cheaper place we stayed the

first night had a rude awakening of... ROOSTERS.

Lots of them.

Like, maybe 20.

Yeah, it was loud.

From 4am until... well, they never really stopped.

Thus the move to the $40 pimpin pad!

2 rooms. infinity pool. sweetness.

Our last day in Amed we rented scooters and zipped along the great coast road. It's barely a lane and a half wide, but is a 2 way street.

And you drive on the left.

And there are dogs and chickens that run out in the road.

And people.

People sort of hang out by and on the road. You can stop anywhere you want. Anywhere. Block half the road. That's cool. No one

honks. They just zip around you. It's pretty wild.

We cruised up this valley and found a random set of 5 holy springs in this village. A guide showed us around for $5. (The average

daily wage in Bali is 2 to 5 USD a day. )

Love me the scooters!

This is actually the first trip that is WiFi crazy. It has made it's appearance for the last couple journeys (Costa Rica/Panama and Morocco), but here EVERYPLACE has Wi-fi.

Your hotel. Wifi.

The restraunt. Wifi.

The food stall on the street. Free Wifi!

For me I don't love this, because it makes the temptation to use my iTouch to check email or whatever be present. But I resist.

It also makes it much less likely to find internet cafes. They're here, but they seem much less present than when I was here in

2005. Or in Africa in 2008. Guess the times, they are a changin!

Today it was the fast speed boat to Gili T. An island with no cars and no mopeds. The only vehicles are boats and the occasional

horse drawn carraige. Sort of like a horse Tuk-Tuk. There are lots of tourists here. (Very few in Amed). All of them seem to be blonde

and from Scandinavia... not a bad deal. :)

It's great to be on the road again!

Rock on

Craig O