Paradise, thy name is Pulau Weh

Eureka! we've done it! We've, within only the penumbra of doubt, discovered the best place on Earth. That's right: paradise, the perfect place, as described in all the far-reaching fantastical literature of religions and mythologies throughout the ages. Verily, this is a land where existence is positive, harmonious and timeless. It seems that lo after these eight months of nomadic wandering we've stumbled upon the perfect community: the pristine tropical island of Pulau Weh, in the Aceh State of Sumatra, Indonesia.

First a little back story on Indonesia: This is a singular nation that defies all odds and expectations. Now this nation is composed of over 238 million people, the 4th largest in the world (after China, India, and the great U.S.of A.), speaking over 700 different regional languages spread out over more than 17,000 islands. It is very diverse. We flew from Malaysia into the city of Banda Aceh, the furthest northwest city in Sumatra, the furthest northwest island of Indonesia. Aceh State has the highest proportion of Muslims in the decidedly Muslim country and is the only state in Indonesia to adopt Sharia Law, basing their laws on Muslim teaching: no alcohol, no pork, and 100 lashings (or worse) for adultery (including pre-marital relations----good thing we're married!).

Much of Indonesia is seismically active and Aceh has received a lot of attention in the Western media for the 2004 Boxing Day (Dec. 26) tsunami. Approximately 170,000 Indonesians were killed or went missing in the disaster and approximately 500,000 were left homeless; the destruction is unfathomable, with waves up to 100 feet high! While in Banda Aceh we witnessed several huge boats that were thrown as far as 4km inland; one boat landed squarely on top of a house! But the restoration efforts over the last 7 years has been incredible and you would never know that most of the regions infrastructure had been washed away.

After dropping our passports off for "a week" at Imagrasi for visa extensions, we headed from Banda Aceh to the beautiful tropical island of Pulau Weh. After a series of curving roads, past ramshackle houses and conniving monkeys, we arrived at Iboih Beach. The beach itself wasn't too much to look at: a small rocky stretch of sand covered in broken coral, but even when we first got there the people were incredibly helpful and open. After securing a beautiful bungalow with an epic view of the water, we moseyed on down to the local dive shop and signed up for a PADI Open Water Scuba diving course.

Then we met Salim A. Salam and our lives were forever changed. He taught us how to fly and convene with the myriad magical maritime mirages as their brilliant colors and patterns surrounded us against the backdrop of the deep blue. Whereas most people learn to dive in the bland confines of a swimming poop, learning to clear your mask, recover your regulator, adjust your buoyancy, etc., we were soaring through a spinning kaleidoscope of tropical fish.

Here's my first entry from my Dive Logbook: "Woah! What an incredible first dive! Salim showed us so many animals: sting rays, lionfish, pipefish, cuddlefish, clownfish, garden eels, oriental sweetlips, butterfly fish, mantis prawn, and so any more! It was so exciting to fly weightlessly through this shimmering technicolor wonderland." The lionfish have crazy striped swaying angelic wings that are venomous; cuddlefish look like crazy cow alien spaceships; curious clownfish playing in their anenomies peak up at us; pipefish are so long and thin (like a pipe, hey!); the aptly named garden eels look like blades of grass blowing in the great golden plains, sticking only their heads out of the sand; oriental sweetlips are unreal black and white striped swishy fishies with yellow fins; and the mantis prawn is a super-colorful shrimp that can deliver a punch with its tiny front legs strong enough to break a snail shell (or a diving mask!). And this was only our very first introduction to scuba diving!

We had a bit of a scare on our third dive though: "The dive itself was awesome! We saw so many colorful schools of fish! But te current was so strong it swept us away from our departure point and we had to wait for an hour and a half for our boat driver to find us." Salim said in the 10 years he's been diving, he's only lost the boat once before----how unlucky for us! But it was a great lesson in staying calm in the face of the abyssal open blue waters and no salvation in sight. There was a fishing boat nearby but they were impervious to our calls for help, probably thinking it was just something divers did for fun.

We also went snorkeling many times (as diving is pretty expensive) and rented an underwater camera one day! We saw a little white-tipped reef shark in the clear shallow barracuda-infested waters whilst diving with a sunshiny hippie-dippie New Yorker named Rene who now teaches yoga classes (good to get loose again!) on Pulau Weh and her sweet poofy-haired boyfriend, Indra, originally from Jakarta, Java, Indonesia. Another time we were swimming with another American world-traveling couple, Donny and Brooke, and saw a crazy little undulating octopus that would shift its shape and color to match the coral it was sitting on. A little damsel-fish was coming up to it like, "Hey, what's up? You want to play with---AHHH" then the octopus would strike out at it with one leg, "GO AWAY!" Unperturbed, the damsel-fish said, "Hey, wait! I just wanted to talk! There's no need for all this viole---AHHH!" as the octopus lashed out again, "I SAID, GO AWAY!" Well this last time the little damsel-fish took the hint, "Hey man! You're crazy! I didn't really want to talk to you anyway!" swimming away.

The waters of Pulau Weh held so many amazing wonders. For our last two dives for our class Salim took us to an underwater ship-wreck-----fish flying all around the gnarly rusted coral-covered boat-----and an underwater volcano, which was actually a series of geothermal vents that made awesome relaxing warm bubbles on the bottom that smelled so strongly of sulfur that we could somehow smell it whilst breathing from our scuba tanks underwater. After these 5 amazing dives we were addicted and decided to stay on Pulau Weh for an extra 2 weeks and do another 7 dives. Very good decision.

The diving was great but I think the best part of Pulau Weh was the people. There was such a great community! When we got to Pulau Weh, we quickly discovered the gem that is Uden's restaurant. Uden is such an amazing person, with a permanent smile and great taste in world electronic music-----Buddha Bar and Thievery Corporation playing while we ate his delicious (spicy!) vegetable curries. Uden's cousin Ewan is the man. His most distinguishing feature is his full-faced blooming smile, welling up like a newborn blue whale taking its first breath from beneath his swarthy mustache. I'll never forget what Ewan told me: "You can cut your hair; you can cut your beard; but never cut your heart." Despite Ewan's calm and agreeable demeanor, a lot of drama seemed to surround him (hey, paradise ain't perfect).

On Iboih Beach they rent snorkels, fins, and life-vests and used to have a fixed price: 15,000 rupiah each (less than $2). But people in town started lowering their prices to get more business, against the rules, which made others lower their prices and was causing deflation. So our friend Ewan posted signs all over town that you could rent them from him for only 5,000 rupiah-----way under price. Then he closed his shop. People were coming to all the rental places in town and pointing out that his price was lower and asking them to match it, so people were making no money. They agreed to call a meeting and Ewan insisted that he just lowered his price to get more business, though everyone knew it was just a sly way of pointing out how fighting amongst themselves and lowering prices was hurting everyone. So they all re-agreed to the fixed price and it lead to a grand reformation. Huzzah!

Our next contestant for craziest guy we met through Uden's restaurant is: Mus! (pronounced "Moose," so Sarah gave a moose sticker to both Mus and his 3-year-old son, who wanted to be just like Dad.) Mus, in his ever-joking nonchalant demeanor, told us how he valiantly climbed a 50 foot coconut tree to pick the pile of coconuts on the restaurant floor-----no big deal, of course. Oh yeah, and he tried to tell us that it's better to smoke unfiltered clove cigarettes if you're sick because they'll make you cough up all the bad stuff. Everyone in Indonesia smokes like a freight train. They must get their obsession with smoke from the countless smoking volcanoes across their nation, which probably also inspire them to have daily fires with leaves and rubbish, including plastic-----oh the smell of burning plastic in the morning shall always remind me of Sumatra.

While we were there we revived their lost tradition of having super-awesome-fun-fire-filled BEACH PARTIES! The alcohol was expensive (so drinking was limited) but the company present were so great that no one minded. Good music too. Everyone was dancing and throwing their limbs aruond to hip-hop, funk, and dubstep around the fire-----even Bogey, the little black dog, was jumpin' up and getting rowdy! When the night got late we busted out our acoustic guitars and traded turns serenading the crowd, all sitting together in a circle. We were truly sad to leave Pulau Weh, maybe the best place ever. But we stayed for nearly 3 weeks, nearly 3 times longer than anywhere else on our whole trip. Alas, there's so much more of Indonesia to see so, like a bird that flew, we sailed across the blue.

Theivin' Monkeys and Jungle Crabs

Kuching, the capital of Sarawak (Bornean Malaysia), is known as the "Cat City". Why is this? No one is quite sure originally, but now the city has been adorned with large cat statues in various poses, and has it's own breed of street cat, a smallish cur with only a 1/2 length tail. Where most other SEA cities have packs of mangy looking dogs, Kuching has hundreds of surprisingly sleek looking cats prowling around. I guess the residents here give homage to their city by leaving their curries a little less guarded than they usually would. Complete with a rather nice Cat Museum (we quite enjoyed), this kitty capital's got class.

Only an hour away lies the biodiversity mecca of Bako National Park. After a slight transportation malfunction that resulted in us waiting for 2 hours for the bus, we arrived at the ferry to the park a little late in the day (around 3 PM). We met a group of international students also going to the park, and we caught a ride on their boat. We had Germany, USA, Kenya, Iran and Australia represented amongst the 9 of us. It was a fun boat ride to the park. We had a dorm bed booked for 2 nights so we weren't worried about time too much. On our way to the room, a troupe of macaques appeared. These thieving little monkeys saw my plastic bag full of dry noodles and fruit and wanted some o' dat! There was a faceoff and the human was the winner this time. I was the scarier primate. Only a few moments later I saw the same group of macaques run up to a girl, rip open her plastic bag and steal so many biscuits. She was terrified, it was hilarious.

After checking in, we went down to the sprawling beach in front of the lodge. The tide was out so we could walk very far down the beach. We stopped to look at a tide pool. Inside this tiny pond we found 3 kinds of fish, 3 kinds of crab, a barnacle, a clear shrimp, a lizard nearby and a hermit crab. I knew for sure that this was a special sort of place. We walked further down the beach and found some more hermit crabs climbing on the rocks. I conducted a science experiment to see if it hurts when a hermit crab pinches you with it's claws, resulting in a definite "YES OH GOD GET IT OFF". After convincing him to let go by dunking him in the water, we turned around to go back and found that the tide had come in so much we had to wade back part of the way around some of the megalithic sandstone formations. Needless to say, the tide pool was underwater. I hope the animals in it didn't drown. Further down the beach we saw a crowd and we walked over to see what they were looking at. 3 huge boars had come out of the forest to forage on the beach. We watched them dig crabs out of the sand as the sun set. So romantic. 

After dinner, we signed up to do the night walk. This was a short hike in the dark to see some nocturnal animals. We saw so many spiders, so so many. Some of them were as big as my palm and others even bigger. I definitely don't want those on my face. We saw a small pool brimming with catfish, and a friendly terrapin. On our way back, we saw the coolest animal: a flying lemur, or Colugo. The cute little guy was just sitting up in a tree eating leaves and sap, not even caring about the dozen-odd people taking photos like he was Britney Spears in hotpants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunda_Flying_Lemur

The next day we decided to hike to the waterfalls, about 2 1/2 hours away from the lodge. We set off and jaunted through a mangrove forest, uphill through the jungle to the kerangas, a scrubby forest. Along the way we saw lots of pitcher plants, a type of carniverous plant that catches flies and eats them! The ones we saw were small, there is no way a human could be eaten by them, don't worry guys. We got to the waterfall, where we ate lunch and shared with the fish below us.  We walked down to the beach nearby, and then walked back, seeing even more pitcher plants and some proboscis monkeys! That night we hung out with two South Africans that we met, Mike and Adrianna, who we ended up sharing a boat ride back and having dinner with the next day.

Our last day we woke up early (kinda) and went for another hike. It was very hot this day, but as we hiked upwards there was a noticable shift in humidity (down) that made the heat more bearable. Whilst in the jungle we found some hermit crabs, which I didn't even know lived in the jungle. Seriously we were at least 2 km from the ocean and yet there he was, sitting in his little moss covered shell. Weird. The most surprising things in life are not the things you never thought you would see, but it's the things you never thought about seeing or not seeing. There are things in this world you can never even conceive of conceiving until you see them.

Anyway, we hope you are all enjoying these blogs, as much as we like we don't have time to send individual emails to everyone so hopefully these blogs make you feel a little more connected to us, as we would not like to come back and find our friends know nothing of our lives for all this time! Well that being said we know not that much about your lives excepting a few so email me back and let me know! To all the people who aren't reading our blog: YOU SUCK!

Don´t Hit Your Head on the Hanging Skulls

Well howdy there partners, prepare for another wild adventure into the Borneo frontier!


So apparently we've washed up in a little town in Sarawak, the north-western state of Malaysian Borneo, that you can only access via river. That being said, there are a surprising number of cars here (shipped up the river) and it's unquestionably more modern than many places in other S.E.Asian countries (for example: all of Laos). We've been here for 3 days just kicking it around town, mostly eating at the same restaurant (because the food and people are amazing). Our original intention for coming here, though, was to visit a longhouse: the traditional domicile for natives in Borneo in which an entire community (maybe 150 people) live under one enormous roof. As the name implies, the house is very long. We managed to make it to one today, hiring a guy named Henry, who our new friend Presca, a Chinese-Malaysian girl we met here knows, with a van who "knows the villagers" to take us (turns out he´s only been there twice).

He showed up and, unfortunately for the sake of communication, couldn't speak English nearly so well as anyone I've met at any restaurant in Malaysia but he was a nice guy. He told us that they didn't know we were coming, which can be a faux pas and is therefore unideal. The roads there were, unsurprisingly, also less than ideal: windy as a Burmese python and a lot less docile, making for a bumpy ride; pretty country though (and loads of banana trees en route). Well we arrived and they were kind enough to invite us in, though, again, communication was a bit of a problem. I asked a tattooed old man in purple shorts, sitting on a plastic chair with its legs chopped off, and he said that there are about 200 people who "live there," though many are away, working in other towns (like Kapit, where we're staying now. One girl named Agnes said her husband works 5 days a week in town, only 45 minutes away, and comes home only on the weekends).

Also, there were a large collection of human skulls hanging from the ceiling! These skulls were darkened with age but grinning wildly from a tangle of woven rattan----from the tribe´s former head-hunting days (murder was later made illegal, much to the disappointment of the Iban tribe). Henry told us that they were over a hundred years old but the old man said they brought that particular batch in when he was little (showing a hand at waist level) and he couldn't've been that old. Well we had an all right time sharing the fruit and biscuits we brought as a present and sort of talking to the adults there. But the real fun was definitely playing with the little kids! They were ridiculous and, without the drain of modern media, super easy to rile up! So we ended up alternating kung-fu fighting and dance partying, with conga lines and explosions galore!
They did charge us 50 Ringet though ($50÷3), which we weren't told about and were a bit put off, considering we just came to meet these people and see their house for like an hour and we brought them food gifts. But I've heard the tourism industry has long exploited their hospitality, bringing groups of tourists and leaving them to sleep on their veranda and giving them no pay so I can see where they're coming from. Plus they have real human skulls there, which is a big tourist attraction.

Well we're at the Internet Cafe now (which has turned the internet from something we "get on" to something we "go to") but our new friend Jeffrey, whose mom owns that awesome restaurant we've been eating at, is coming to take us out on the town! So nearly every meal we get a chance to talk to him about life in Malaysia and how different life is for Malays, Indians, Chinese, and the many different tribes living in Borneo. He´s a super nice guy. And yee-haw! Here he is now!

[Later:] So Jeffrey and his amiable cousin Wesley took us out for a night on the town. They showed us the Malay village, the Chinese quarters, and took us on a winding road to a hilltop view of the whole (admittedly small) city of Kapit! We then went out for some Tiger Beer (we´re getting paid for advertising here), where we met some of their friends and had a lovely evening. It´s nice to have friends again. So we´ve now departed from Kapit, with the weird vegetables in the market and the friendly faces all around, and are continuing along on our lone adventures!

Primate Heaven

Borneo: for those of you that haven't heard of it, it is an island consisting of 3 parts: Eastern Malaysia, Indonesia and the tiny kingdom of Brunei. It's name conjures up images of steamy rivers, jade colored mountains dense with jungle, and headhunters! It is a land of mystery and excitement, where strange animals roam unfettered through the untouched forest. That's what I always thought anyway. It hasn't been exactly like that, as in, no headhunters anymore, and huge swathes of the forest has been turned into palm plantations but nevertheless it is certainly an interesting and rewarding place that we have been exploring.

We flew into the capital of Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, on July 26. We chose Malaysia Airlines over Air Asia this time thankfully. We got pink guava juice and a full meal of Indian food: paneer, dahl and rice! We only ended up staying one day in KK before heading to Sandakan, a town on the East coast, for an Eco Film Festival. This event was really cool, it was a bunch of awesome nature/film lovers all coming together for lectures in the afternoon and then film screenings and musical performances at night. It was all free! A guy named Roger Munns from the production company Scubazoo gave a talk on underwater filmmaking and showed some clips of humpback whales that he filmed for the BBC documentary "Life" episode "Mammals". He told us that the most important thing about filming animals is to know your subject. He said that divers make better underwater filmmakers than trained cameramen because they understand their subject better.

On Sunday, we went to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center. This is a really great place where they take orangutans, who have often been orphaned by the pet trade (who wouldn't want a sweet little orangutan swinging from their chandelier?) and train them in their forest reserve to live life in the wild again. The Sepilok reserve is 5529 hectacres, so these apes are basically living in the wild, apart from their daily feedings, which for only 30 Ringitt (about 10$) anyone can come and see. There are around 60 apes living in the reserve, but only a few show up for each feeding. They swing and jump through the trees adroitly and onto the feeding platform, where they have bananas, cucumbers, and oranges waiting for them, and all the tourists (including us) are delighted and snap hundreds of photos! The website for this amazing organization is: http://www.orangutan-appeal.org.uk/
 

The next day we headed to Uncle Tan's Nature Camp for our 3 day jungle safari. It was a bit of a splurge for us, but when in places like this sometimes you have to treat yourself to an amazing weekend of exotic wild animals. Heading up the Kinabatangan River in a motorboat, we started spotting animals before we even got to the camp. Silvered languars, brahminy kites, macaques, and white egrets were our animal appetizers. After we got settled in, we went for a nighttime boatride, where we saw frogs, saltwater crocodiles, owls, and civets. When we got back to camp, I saw another civet only 12 feet away! Beautiful stripey weasel. We began the next day with a morning nature cruise, where we saw lots of birds, like Kingfishers, egrets, crested serpent eagles, oriental pied hornbills, and the craziest monkey ever: the Proboscis Monkey! More on him later.

Kingfisher

 All of the guides at Uncle Tan's were very knowledgeable about the animals and were really good at spotting them. They could see a small bird or a still monkey from 100 meters away, in a tree, sometimes in the dark! It was amazing. On our afternoon nature walk our guide Leo spotted a frilled tree frog sitting on a trunk that I couldn't even see when he pointed right at it with a stick, not for a few moments anyway. That evening we went on a sunset cruise on the river, where we saw thousands of flying foxes departing their roosts for the night. The sky was thick with them for around 15 or 20 minutes, these huge bats taking flight to gobble jungle fruits all night. Quite a sight!

That night, after an amazing dinner, we had the option of taking either the "hardcore" trek or the normal one. After hearing rumors of thigh deep mud on the hardcore trek, I decided to go on the normal one, while Travis, always up for a challenge, went on the hardcore one. We set off on our hike and after spotting a few gigantic spiders, a weird elephant insect, and a few colorful sleeping birds, we hit the endangered species jackpot. The other guide (of the normal hike) called to our guide and sounded really excited. We all slogged through the mud to see what was in the tree. I got mud up to my knees but I didn't even care. Up in the tree was...A SLOW LORIS!!! I was so thrilled to see one of these in the wild, not only is it very cute, it is also very endangered. Our guide said they only see them once or twice a year! I was positively glowing as we headed back to camp.

Two hours later Travis still hadn't returned from the hardcore hike yet. I was just going to ask the cook if everything was ok when I heard the hardcore group come back. Indeed there was mud involved. From the looks of it, lots. Apparently they had gotten a little lost in the swamp. "What did you see?" I asked. "Oh, a lot of kingfishers" said Mr. Travis. "How many?" I said. "Around 5 or 6, but some of them were the same one. Also a baby tarantula." Mud up to his thighs, Travis sat with me in the dining area drinking by candlelight with some of the other people at the camp. Erin, a fellow yank, was so sad that she didn't get to see the slow loris that she went out with one of the guides after midnight to try to find it, but no luck. "The animals wait for no one" said Lon. I mean, he's called a slow loris, not a stationary loris. On my way to bed, the palm civet frightened me again in the dining room.

This wildlife camp was so much fun, surely one of the highlights of my trip. Who knew Borneo would be so good for me to see animals? I had a sneaking suspicion...Today was another epically awesome day. We were so excited about seeing the proboscis monkeys at the Kinabatangan that we decided to go to the Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary. We arrived and it was heaven. There were wild monkeys everywhere! Proboscis monkeys are one of the strangest species I have ever seen. The males have huge noses, they use them to attract mates. We got to be so close to them too! And some of the silver languars that were hanging around had cute little orange babies clinging to them. We also got to see some hornbills up really close.

Proboscis Monkeys: #1 Weirdest Monkeys

Sabah, Borneo: paradise for nature lovers. It has been wonderful seeing so many animals in the wild. I have never been on a safari before. Maybe next time: Africa! What a dream for us to get to go to Borneo. This is a place of my dreams, and I am here now!

Rough in the Jungle

Tea Plantation in the Cameron Highlands

Malaysia is an interesting confluence of cultural factors, with a variety of languages, food, landscapes, and religion. Actually it's largely Muslim, which might surprise some of you out there. Indeed, as we walked through the beautiful explosion of brilliant colors at the Penang Island Butterfly Garden we passed numerous couples, buff Malay guys in jeans and polo shirts with [fake?] brand name logos with their wives in full black burkas, showing naught but dark eyes. (Also notable experiences at the Butterfly Garden are holding giant centipedes and----brace yourself----scorpions. Our guide said they were a harmless "level 5." I asked afterward, "So how bad is a level 5 scorpion sting?" and he said, "Oh not so bad, only fever and chills for a couple of days. Like a bee sting." Woah!)



As you can see from the attached map of Asia, we've come quite a long way (actually Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Malaysia don't look too far away on the map but we've got the psychic wounds of poor sleep on long buses to prove the distance). This map also reveals the location of Malaysia as directly between India and China on the sea-trade route. As such, Malaysia has been of strategic importance to global trade since the 1st Century CE and bears the diversity to prove it.

Early on Hinduism and Buddhism reigned supreme but Arabic and Islamic Indian traders brought a new religion in the 10th Century that came to dominate politics and economy by the 14th Century. The Portuguese decided in the 16th Century to wrestle control of the spice trade from the Italians, who got their spices from the Arabs, who got them from the Indians, who got them from Malaysia! So they took over a port in southern Malaysia and were followed shortly by the Dutch. The English came with an eye for trade but eventually took over the whole of Malaysia by 1824, leaving profound influence. Notably, nearly everyone here speaks English. It's been really great getting to understand people when we ask for directions or ask about some symbols (like the swastika: "may you prosper and have good fortune").

Also, the British facilitated enormous immigration from India and China, to the point that native Malays became the minority at one point. During WWII Malaysia was commandeered by the ruthless Japanese and it became clear that the British could no longer hold them and they became an independent nation in 1963. Since then they've experienced rapid growth, which brings us here to this towering city: Kuala Lumpur, home of the tallest buildings in Asia, the twin Petronas Towers.

But mostly we've spent time in the jungle.

After a few days in the cool of the mountains (imagine being closer to the equator than I've ever been and shivering in my sweater at night!) of the Cameron Highlands, eating sweet mountain-grown strawberries, we headed into the wild: Taman Negara (Malay for "National Park"). After three hot hours in the sun chugging along up the river, we arrived at a string of floating restaurants, where we later found we would eat dinner every night, each time with another (usually French) couple because there were no free tables. That night we had our first encounter with unexpected jungle insects: NIGHT BEES! AHHH! They only come out at night and they love the light so they swarmed our little bamboo bungalow (and our amiable host assured us they sting and they hurt).

Our first full day we headed into "The World's Oldest Rainforest" (as Sarah's souvenir t-shirt proclaims, along with a picture of a tapir)----130 million years old, untouched by glaciers and volcanoes----and made a *bee-line* for "The World's Longest Canopy Walk," over 500 meters of walkway suspended on cables from 30-50 meters above the thick jungle foliage below. It was so scary! The thick jungle extended above us as well, mind you. Some of the trees there are unbelievably enormous. We saw huge vines as thick as my torso winding up and down these monoliths and often had to climb over gnarly tree roots as if they were huge fallen trees.

Then comes the big jungle adventure: wending our way through beside the river for 11km of quite hilly trails. Hilly isn't exactly the right word. We often had to grip lattices of tree roots to climb up the insurmountable slopes. We also had to trudge our way through streams so clear and clean (untouched by the filth of human civilization) that we were able to fill our water bottles from them and stay hydrated all day long. Oh right, and we saw an enormous MONITOR LIZARD! It was a good three feet long and barely moved its eyes as we passed it on the trail, very unsettling. Once while scaling one of the endless ascents Sarah nearly knocked me back into a stream when a swarm of bats exploded off a tree branch beside the path! There weren't many people around.

Seven thigh burning hours later we got to the hide, which was a big cabin high on stilts overlooking a watering hole, about ready to collapse but the small assembly turned to us and adamantly said, "SHHHHH...." (some welcoming party) and pointed out the window to............a TAPIR! Magical. It's like a mixture between a little hippopotamus and a panda bear, split black and white down the middle of their back, but with a big floppy nose that bounces around as they walk. It made the whole walk worth it.

All the same, Sarah insisted that we take the "easier" trail through the heart of the jungle, which was admittedly much flatter. But I found it much more challenging, at least mentally, due to the enormous population of LEECHES squirming on the path, reaching like skinny little demon fingers from the muddy depths of the jungle inferno for our blood! Well, I managed to get out without a bite, although one did manage to make it to my wrist, which he probably aimed to gorge on and then slit up the vein to leave me writhing in the tangle of vines and spiders (truly villains, leeches). Sarah, however, was not so lucky. She got hit in the ankle with two brown squirming bullets and is now in critical condition in K.L.Advent International Hospital. Just kidding (bad one, I know), leeches are actually harmless, transmitting no diseases and incapable of draining sufficient blood to floor you, but they still freak me out...vile creatures.

Well now we're couch surfing with a wonderful family in Kuala Lumpur, the big city. We get to play silly games that involve lots of animals and explosions with Rica, our host's, 7 and 10 year old kids. Tonight we're meeting up with our friends who we met trekking in Myanmar who live here, Iga and Matteos! In two days we shall be flying to Borneo to get off even the not-so-beaten paths of Taman Negara and into the really deep untouched jungle.

Additions to Happy Trails

On June 23, at 10:50 PM (Thailand Time) we acquired 2 temporary additions to our adventure! Travis's mother and sister flew all the way from the USA just to meet us for 2 weeks of crazy Thailand adventures! It worked out perfectly as we had just flown in from Yangon, Myanmar 2 hours before. After our happy reunion we taxied it to Teresa's (alas not present) swanky apartment and stayed up late talking, all of us excited despite our long day's travels.

The next day we all went to the Grand Palace. It is the King's house, and looks rightly so. Every surface encrusted with colorful tilework or shimmering with mirrors, I just enjoyed myself so much with Katy and Mom's exclamations of "Oh Wow!" and "This is the most beautiful place I've ever been!". It really let me see this marvel in an even more fresh and delightful light, through two fresh arrivals and their wonder rubbing off on me. It made me remember how much everything pops when you first get to a place. The mundane is so interesting and delightful, like the spirit houses: tiny houses that stores, hotels, offices, and family homes put in their main areas as little altars covered in fruit, flowers and little statues. They are each unique and have their own flair, but I have seen so many of them I hardly notice them now. Katy and Mom were so amused by them that it made me think about how awesome they were again.

One day since they have arrived sticks out in my mind as one of the best that I have had since we have been on this trip. We began in a songteaw (a pickup truck with seats and a cover installed in the bed) that we hired for the day, in the rain. That's right folks, it's the rainy season. It rains almost every day, and the foliage is so lush for it. By the time we got to Erawan State Park the rain had abated, and the humidity started to climb. We walked down the red dirt path, skipping over rocks and vines with the drops forming little jewels all over the leaves beside. Soon we arrived at the attraction: some of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen. Since it had rained that day, I guess most people had decided to skip the waterfalls that day, so we had the place to ourselves. We dove into the water and swam underneath the pounding falls. We had like a little room underneath, where could sit underneath and look out at the jungle. The little fishes nibbled our legs when we we swam back. There were actually 7 of these waterfalls but sadly we only made it to 3, as we had another appointment.

Our next destination was one that I had been looking forward to since I began planning this trip, and I am so so happy that Mom and Katy (and of course my beloved husband) could be there to share it: The Tiger Temple! We paid 600 Baht (USD$20) to get in and oh how the fun began. On our way in was an open forest type area with wild pigs and deer roaming freely. We spotted up ahead the animal of our goal: the tigers! A few older tiger cubs lolled about with monks on the other end of their leashes, and we approached excitedly. The beautiful orange and black coat, the alert, inquisitive eyes, oh what power and awe it was to touch this rare and sacred animal. Never in my life will I forget the surge I got that first physical connection I made with this feline.

Only a few moments later we were standing in line to have our photos taken with the big tigers. A small Thai woman led us around by the hand individually to get a chance to touch 6 or 8 more adult tigers. These huge, beautiful beasts slumbered away as oodles of tourists timidly stroked their paws and grinned nervously for photos...such an unforgettable experience when it was my turn. Katy, Mom and Travis were all equally amazed as me at their incredible luck at getting to visit this special place. I was there and I can assure you, these tigers were not drugged. Only a few minutes after laying placidly like huge kittens they were batting at their toys and rolling over one another during "exercise time". This was a very professional establishment and there were many trainers and safety precautions implemented. Ok, there is a tiny, tiny chance of getting mauled, as tigers are wild animals, but 500 tourists do this every day and there have been no problems that I've heard of (and I've done research on this place) so I figured the potential benefits would be greater than the risks. And how right I was.

Now we are relaxing at a beautiful resort on Koh Lanta, in South Thailand, on the Andaman Coast. This place is swank. A pool with an infinity edge overlooking the white sand, palm fringed beach, a cute dog to greet us every day, and the best pad thai on this side of the Indian Ocean, is making doing nothing at the beach a something sort of experience. Yesterday Katy and Mom rented motorbikes and Katy had her first try at driving the bike, and she did great, even down a steep and rocky hill. Tomorrow we are going kyaking at some nearby uninhabited islands. We are so happy that they are here, and they have made the last two weeks like a vacation from our vacation. Haha you need those sometimes, and the beach is just the place for it.



Family Fun Photos!
Tiger Photos! Oh my!


---
Originally written on 3rd July 2011

Bagan's Myriad Magical Monuments

Slowly rising up the cracked brick stairs, still solid after a thousands years, in the darkened temple; stooping under the low brick archways; stepping out into the beaming Burmese sunlight, we exalted at the unimaginable bounty of beauty springing forth before us. Oh glorious majesty, thy name is Bagan! The myriad magical monuments that blossomed under the endless swirling clouds inspired such awe as to strike the heart with furious devotion to the enthralling aesthetics of the human mind and will. Gazing in unabashed wonder at the unimaginable tableau of temples that grew up before us, brick by brick, rising towards the searing brilliance of the sun, spreading out across the vast plains to the mountains beyond. Thousands of sharp-pointed temples, immaculate despite their ancient conception, bombard our contemplative complexes and surge a shiver of awe quaking through our bodies.

Alas, lo these mere lofty incantations prove utterly insufficient to disclose the lustrous celestial wonder imbued in this magnificent ancient city. Let's shift: THOUSANDS of temples, people. Thousands. Over 4,000 temples were built over the last thousand years, largely in the 11th and 13th Centuries, under two particularly fervent kings. Time, wear, and a harsh earthquake in 1975 has left some 2,500 temples standing in this city only 16 square miles in size, smaller than Manhattan. Everywhere you look there are more temples. We would bike down the road and pass hundreds of temples that we'd definitely go to if there weren't even bigger and better temples to come!

Our first day in Bagan we ran into a couple of German girls, Carina and Magdalina, we had met a few times in Mandalay. It's amazing how few tourists are in Myanmar. You run into the same tourists repeatedly. In fact, we shared a flight back to Bangkok with Carina. We hired a taxi (the back of a deli-mustard-yellow Toyota pickup truck from the '80s) with another couple of women and headed for the strange site of Mount Popa! On the way we stopped in a village to use the toilet (an outhouse with a squat toilet that has a tube that disappears mysteriously into the ground below) and the family showed us how they use palm for everything: fruit, juice, wine, whiskey, sugar, tables, chairs, little baskets, their entire house! Near the thatched-palm-leaf roof supported on palm branches a huge ox walked in endless circles crushing peanuts for their oil in a giant mortar and pestle.

Mount Popa was a strange sight to see: a huge temple perched high atop a really steep flat-topped hill---very bizarre! A flat-topped, steep-sloped hill is called a butte, as I just found out on a landforms vocabulary site, and this one was particularly steep. As we climbed the 777 stairs of the hill we skirted monkey droppings on the stairs, tipping the guys with mops.

Then, surprise, MONKEYS! Sarah was thinking about buying "monkey food" packets when a monkey jumped right up on her head! As I was snapping a shot of that stunned stunning beauty another monkey jumped right up on MY head (not photographed). The view from the top was lacking due to indelible cloud cover but the whole path was lined with shrines to Nats, traditional animistic spirits, 37 all told.

On the way back pulled up a rutted gravel road to a "petrified forest" and marvelled at the cement tree stumps that we at first thought were immaculately preserved trees. Turns out that, as many things in Myanmar, the "forest" was greatly exaggerated, as only a few fragments of pretty cool chunks of rock greeted us, the lines of the grain frozen in time.

Most of our week in Bagan we spent riding bikes on bumpy roads up and down little hills ("Mountains!" Sarah insisted) but one day we hired a horsecart. Now I've always thought that horses were evil incarnate, giant mutant hell-beasts bent on crushing the skulls of the innocent but Sarah loves them so we hopped up in a covered (and comfortably cushioned) cart). Our horse's name was Santa and she seemed very nice at first, as we rode across the wretched sandy paths through the thorny scrub. Cullon, our driver, led us through endless clusters of little temples, which we occasionally demanded to explore, eventually leading us past a government-owned expensive-hotel-tower to a big temple, which we climbed. Even in the pouring rain the view is incredible. I was constantly blown away by the sheer number of these huge temples in this city!

Each individual temple is pretty amazing, too. The nextdoor temple had original Buddhist murals from the 11th Century. It's interesting how diverse the murals in different temples are, changing in colors, styles, and even religious content. Cultivated deep in the complex soils of the verdant Myanmar collective culture, Buddhas, Hindu gods, and animistic spirits intertwine in complex symbiotic relationships to dazzle the mind and eye. There's also a painted story about two bird-people lovers who are separated for one night and cry every day for the next seven years---"Romeo and Juliette," the temple caretakers all say.

At many of the temples we had to fend off vendors, who are ravenous for business in the rainy season, with fewer tourists about. We did end up buying a ridiculous number of fetching paintings from skilled local artists, many of which were copies from the art on the temple walls. We got a seven-headed elephant, some happy fish, scenes from the 11th Century monarchy, temples at sunset, and more (though some are for my Uncle David and Aunt Kim, who commissioned us to buy art and handicrafts to support Myanmar artisans). At a couple of temples vendors would actually hop on bikes and follow us to the next temple to try to sell their Buddha-head statues or laquerware coasters.

We ate lunch under the corrugated aluminum roof of a little village restaurant, pinging loudly in the rain. We were talking to another tourist, the first we had seen all day, and it turns out he teaches in Bangkok and is friends with Teresa (who we stayed with in the big city) and heard through the grapevine that we had arrived. Small world! We hung out with him the next day when both he and Sarah got flat tires and I magically lost them for 2 hours after taking an inescapably blurry photo of a temple at twilight (only after I had given Sarah the only proper working bike---chivalry is not dead!).

After lunch we walked around the village and saw their colorful looms and bamboo handicrafts. We didn't bring enough money to Myanmar though and you can't get any more because there are no banks US and EU have embargoes against Myanmar due to the atrocities of the despotic military regime so we had declared it a "souvenir free day" but the people were kind and welcoming anyway, showing us around their bamboo-walled homes.

When it rains it pours in the rainy season and we could always seek sanctuary in the temples but poor Santa, our pony, was left out in the torrent. The roads turned into rivers and ankle-deep puddles and Santa was so unhappy she started kicking the cart! Each time she kicked it would ring out in a thunderous boom and chunks of wood went flying! It was a little scary and we decided to walk after we saw the stream of blood running down her leg, cut from kicking.

On our last day our whole Bagan experience seemed to come together. We ate our daily delicious local breakfast in the kitchen of our guesthouse, the leftovers from the extremely kind family we stayed with. We then hopped on bikes and proceeded to see nearly every local we've met in Bagan. A guy named Mumbay loved my little 4-faced Avalokiteshvara statue so much I gave it to him (he gave us pineapple smoothies and taught us weird traditional massage techniques atop a temple) and showed us how he had a silversmith turn it into a necklace. I played guitar for a kid name Lelean who sold us George Orwell's Burmese Days a few days prior, with much applause from his friends. Pupiew, who sold us the 7-headed elephant painting, later seranaded us with Burmese ballads and his animated wife smeared tanaka on Sarah's cheeks---bark paste the women use as beauty cream and sunscreen. A curly-haired Buddhist named Quality who showed us his clicker meditation counter (instead of the old-fashioned rosery beads) sold Sarah new pink sunglasses and showed us around a huge white-walled temple.


An extremely kind and charismatic fellow we met (who shall remain unnamed) even invited us to his house for lunch! We were running late but happened to run into him on the road there and he took us the entire confusing route (our plan was to ask around, the old fashioned way). His wife made us an incredible lunch: rice with tofu, watercress, potato curry, broad beans, and other Myanmar delights. We all sat around a low table on the elevated platform of their house where they eat by day and sleep by night and talked about the culture of Myanmar, among other things. Our kind host delved deep into the injustices of the government, stealing land without compensation, robbing businesses, and killing or imprisoning even minor dissidents. He teaches English at a monastery school in a village an hour away and we gave him enough money to buy 50 new books for the students (yes, he's legit). He is writing a book about the political situation in Myanmar and asked if we could have someone who was coming to Myanmar bring an audio recorder for him. Now I happened to HAVE an audio recorder on me, which I use for recording songs, and he was so happy when I gave it to him that he gave me the stone around his neck that he got from a monk who said it would bring him luck and protection. It was an incredible encounter with him and his whole family.

We saw half a dozen rainbows arching over the endless fields of towering magestic temples in the week we were in Bagan. We'll never forget it.





More pictures from this magical ancient city: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.936452534635.2408981.18403674&l=c1df66ad12