who knew crocodile would be my home base?

This, in ALL sincerity, from Meg. We went to a place for dinner last night that was NFT, not for tourists. We ordered three dishes, a meat and mint dish, a papaya salad and, to be adventurous, crocodile. The other dishes we SO spicy we could not eat them, and were scrambling for bites of crocodile and rice. Who knew?!

Vinetiane was fascinating but we left the city to head up the very well travelled route to Luang Prabang, and stopped in Vang Vieng. Without fail, when I am in charge of selecting the place to stay, we walk and walk and walk out of town with our bags, over a bridge, around the bend and the next bend, and I'm thinking, oh god, Meg's going to kill me, that place and that place and that place seem perfectly fine. BUT, it never fails to go as far from town as you can. Out of range of the backpacker bars and tourism offices, we have a little cabin with a porch over a creek, set in gardens, and looking directly out to the famed limestone karsts of northern Laos. The restuaraunt serves (gratefully) westernized Lao food, meaning we can eat it without burning our lips off, and is at the edge of a great loop for cycling and hiking the mountains and villages around us. Tomorrow we hit the rier for kayaking and exploring caves, and then I think this porch merits a (few?) rest days.

Vientiane

Our first 24 hours in Laos and on Mainland SE Asia are treating us well. Planning to do little today after flying all day yesterday, we've had some food, excellent coffee, strolled along the Mekong River (which the chinese appear to be developing) and stumbled upon some amazing temples with saffron-robed monks strolling about. We also found a museum with an incredible collection of Buddha statues, and unable to find it in the guidebook for a while, Meg pointed out some amazing carvings, observing..."look those things are really really old." The climate is MUCH cooler, to our great relief, and we're excited to be here.

refreshed in Jakarta, tomorrow to Laos!

We are in Jakarta right now, enjoying the apartment of a friend of mine whose husband works here for the US embassy. We've done laundry, watched some TV, taken hot showers, and enjoyed flushing the toilet! We're repacked, and fly out tomorrow mid day. Our last stop in Yogyakarta was terrific, it felt nice to be back from the rural areas of Lombok and into a city with it's own verve, art scene, cuisine and some hustle and bustle independent of the tourist dollars. The last two days we visited the Hundu temple site Prambanan, and The Buddhist monument of Borobudor, which was amazing, and one of our favorite stops so far. The monument was built in layers, and as you walk around each layer, stone carved reliefs depict the Buddha's life and teachings. I am in no way doing it any sort of justice here, but can't really. Sometimes there aren't really pictures or words, and even some experiences leave me wondering if I really took it in or if I just saw something and then moved on to something else, but it is days later thinking of walking along the same stones and looking at the same relifs that thousands of monks have come as pilgrimage that I feel what has stayed with me from each experience. That's all for now, more soon! Em

sadiket ca ca

my most useful indonesian phrase yet, "a little spicy." Indonesia continues to confound and blow us away. in Bali, the Balinese speak, well, Balinese, are devoutly Hindu, and have their own customs and dress and ways. On Lombok, the Sasak people are agreeably Mulsim loosely on tomp of aincient tradition and beliefs. They speak Sasak and Sasak food seems dominated by chilies. We we are now in Java, in Yogyakarta, where people are Muslim, of varying degrees, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, and speak Javanese, and of course, the young national language, Indonesian.

Yogya is cosmopolitan, busy but not overcrowded, arty, old and wonderful. Our first night we stumbled upon a night organized by a gay youth group promoting awareness of the gay and trans population, which is significantly marginalized and invisible. We missed much of the performances but saw an art exhibit which was really amazing.

Today we mostly walked around eating things from street carts and then went to a Batik studio to watch the process and learn about the art.

More soon!

Moving on...

All packed up and ready to head to Yogyakarta...sad farewells to our friends here! The family that ran our homestay, Minh, Jum and their 2 year old son who kept asking for us after we brought him a lollypop, could not have been nicer and more helpful. Even when we asked them to remove an enormous spider from our bathroom, knocked on their door concerned about the tsunami, and were pretty unsettled by the small earthquake off the Bali Sea preceding the big one in Japan. It woke me up but Meg slept right through. Minh even loaned us her own helmets because we didn't want to drive the scooters without them.

We are also sad to say goodbye to Rasta, the best surf teacher ever, who told us all about when surfing came to his small fishing village and how life has changed, mostly for the better, for all involved. The price of fish and seaweed is higher for all the tourist restaurants, the village has concrete homes now and better water, and local kids have a trade running surf boats and teaching surfing. The local kids were amazing, they could see a swell coming where none of us could, and effortlessly paddle to exactly the right spot and glide up to their feet. We got a great shot of Joe, our favorite and sweetest boatman EVER, surfing a beautiful wave.

It's far to come, but lots to recommend Kuta Lombok.
emily

Sampa Jumpa Nanti Lombok!

See you soon Lombok!
That's the best of my Indonesian, aside from hello, goodbye, thank you, good morning, good night, and "two please" We are leaving Lombok Monday morning to head to Yogyakarta, not Jakarta, as the travel agent seemed to think. After a day or so of negotiating, he booked us on to Yogya, as I will now say, to avoid confusion.

Lombok was great, the swell slowed down and I have had some really nice sun-up and sunset sessions on waves too small for the hotshots to bother with, and we've become familiar faces in this small town. Local specialties of seafood curries, chili sauces and fried noodles have fed us well, and the Bintang beer is icy. But we're ready to move on to explore a new city and the ancient temple sites of Borobudor and Prambanan.

Some random thoughts and memories from here...I did NOT report earlier that we've rented a scooter and have been driving around on roads that are more like mountain biking than open highways, past incredible rural scenery and sweeping ocean views. The kids get very excited and come running out the give high fives or shout "what is your name!" or "where are you from!" Sort of terrifying at first but after you give a high five and get by and haven't caused an accident, very fun. The indonesians have possibly the biggest smiles I've seen anywhere, and love to discuss the US, Particulrily Barack Obama "He live in Jakarta!" and for the under 15 female set, Justin Beber...who is that anyway? I'm assuming a pop star by his swooning local fans. I was climbing out of the water with my board the other day and was swarmed by a crew of 10-15 pre-adolescent girls who were at the water for the day on Sunday from their village. They laughed and giggled at me a lot, and took their pictures with me. Many people who do not live on the coast near the surf or diving areas have seen few tourists. They asked where I was from and then shrieked about Justin Beber and swooned. Cute.

Also, a brief note on Ants. We have seen many varieties of Ants on our travels. Alone and I have a whole new appreciation for thier role in our world. They are very industrious and responsible for dealing with large amounts of waste. Sadly, not plastic waste, which is everywhere. Really, everywhere. We are learning that the globe is MUCH lager than we could previously conceive, (a ferry from Bali to Lombok took 4 hours!) and MUCH more populated than we had thought, and everyone, on a daily basis, generates plastic garbage of frightening proportions. The governments, of course, do trash management in frighteningly low proportion, and burning, piling or ignoring trash is common. We are trying to minimize our impact by refilling water bottles at the guest house and declining straws and plastic bags.

That's all for now! One more day of surf, and a big surf competition with people from all over Indonesia tomorrow.

the gay question

So many people asked before we left how we thought the gay/ambiguous gender situation would play out, and I thought the report warranted a blog entry. In the Philippines we noticed several evidently butchy ladies, and out and proud "lady boys" as the local term goes. We happened to be on an island where that is particularily ok, and exchanged cultural differences with Yan Yan, the self-procalimed ladyboy who was in charge of cleaning our room. She wanted to know which one of us is the lesbian, apparently in the Philippines the more gender bending one of the couple is "gay" or "lesbian" while the gender typical one is just man or woman. On our way to Malaysia we opened the guide book and found out that it is illegal to be gay in Malaysia, so we planned to downplay the situation significantly. Not like we're super "public-y" anyway, but....Only to find SO many gay and lesbian Malaysians, rainbow belts, a visible trans population, and a gay man in a store who smiled a lot at us and then rode off on his scooter, waving and calling out "WELCOME TO MALAYISA!" Also LOTS of gay tourists in Malaysian Borneo. Here in Indonesia, the situation only gets more interesting. We are pretty much mistaken for boys everywhere we go, which is fine by us, or Meg is mistaken for a boy, also fine by us. Then the kids get up close and shriek with laughter, "I thought you was boy but you girl!!" They are so busy laughing that being gay never seems to come up! Also fine by us. Then, one guy at a surf spot was really nice, we talked a lot about Barack Obama (very popular here!) and then he asked if we were married. We decided to try it out, and said we were married to each other. He had no idea what we were trying to say, and extolled the virtues of marrying Indonesian men. huh....ok...we just listened and nodded and drank the coconuts he had opened for us. The Europeans pick us out as gay right away and that's nice, they treat us like a couple...right now we have friends from Spain, Sardinia and Germany in our homestay, a very nice bunch. We share meals and play cards and go surfing together. So far none of the people in our lodgings have asked about our relationship, leading us to conclude that they know and don't care, or just don't think about it, or just give their guests privacy. Next week we go to Yogyakarta on Java, then Jakarta for 2 days, then to Cambodia and Vietnam. More to report then!!

Lombok!

we left Bali's business and have landed a world away right next door in Lombok. Different languages, religions, dress, food and infrastructure make this a whole new adventure after just a 4 hour ferry ride. My favorite thing aout traveling is tapping into the world wide net of human goodness, the locals here and the other travellers we've met are so kind and generous. There is just the right amount of development and enough tourism here...enugh to have one organic cafe overlooking the bay, but only one. Enough surfboards for rent that you can get what you want, but only about 4 shacks, enough tourists that the locals have created some good business around surfing and food but not nearly enough to wash out the local flavor, and enough interest that there are boats to hire to take you to the break but few enough that it costs $3 for the day. Enough traffic that there are littl signs pointing to varius beaches, but not so much that there are water buffaloes and cows along the side of the road. I'm still mostly paddling around and trying to stay alive and out of people's way, and save enough energy to get back in the boat, which is a tricky thing, but the locals all offer advice and a push into a wave. Meg is getting the feel of the water and this promises to be a great couple weeks.

Ogoh Ogoh and Day of Silence

Hello! The night before last was the big celebration of the Balinese New Year, which is a little difficult to describe. Each temple built a huge puppet, symbolizing various things that we didn't understand, and carried it in a parade full of drums and xylophones and singing, I think to scare away evil spirits. It was an amazing thing to see. The next day for 24 hours, all of Bali was silent, and no lights on at night, which was amazing. some tourists (!) next door to us had thier porch light on, which was super annoying to us, and then some men came along with flashlights and politely told them to turn it off. The whole place was dark dark! This morning we left early to see the elephant caves, following our guidebook map. we walked and walked looking for what was on the map a trail through the fields, and is no a resort. :( We hailed a cab and were rewarded by visiting this holy Hindu site and old Buddhist hermitage with carvings and fountains and a lotus pond before the rush. amazing.

Tomorrow morning we are headed off to Lombok for 2 weeks of surfing and (hopefully) reduced stimulation. we need a vacation from our vacation before we can take in any more art or culture.

Bali!

Ooops, trying to actually write in this post. We're in Bali, and after a day or so of terrible homesickness and disorientation we are settling in. During a nap on the first day I was half asleep and trying to figure out if we had taken a boat to Bali and what time to catch the bus back to Borneo. I think the first few days in a new place we need to move slowly and just expect to feel really homesick and out of it.
We're jut wes of Ubud, having been overwhelmed by the scene in town, we walked and walked and went up a million stairs following some signs, and found some accommodations up on a hill where there are no motos or cars. We have a two story place with kitchen and a terrace overlooking the rice fields, for less than we were paying in town. Yesterday we went to see Pura Kawi, a holy temple and ancient burial site, as well as the Water Temple, where we placed our hands in water that Balinese make pilgrimages to bathe in natural springs and purify their spiritual practice. Some westerners got in the pools but we were too shy, it seemed intrusive and kitchy. Then we went to see some elephants! We were too cheap to pay the $65 to ride them, but we talked a long time with the handlers, and touched and talked to the elephants and the snuck us on for a ride anyway. The elephants were retired from the Sumatran Logging industry, and each elephant has been with their handler for over 10 years.

Tonight is a huge celebration of the Hindu New Year, and we're going to sleep with the sound of drums each night as people are practicing and preparing for the parade tonight. Tomorrow is the day of silence when all Balinese stay home silently to convince the evil spirits that Bali is deserted. We're stocked up on food and looking forward to reading and lying low on our patio.
Much love!!

Bali!

We're in Bali, Indonesia!