LOWER KITABATANGAN RIVER, MALAYSIAN BORNEO

It's a jungle out there. No, really! Which means that there's a lot to explore, so we began early this morning with a 6am wake-up call, and another boat safari on the Kinabatangan. This time, we saw a lot more proboscis monkeys and macaques, and a number of medium-sized crocodiles on the riverbank, but not a whole lot that we didn't already see last night. Regardless, the Kinabatangan is a beautiful, wide river to meander along in the early morning.

After breakfast, we did a trek on foot into the muddy jungle with a guide, and saw a lot more creatures, including cotton bugs, red-legged stick insects, and lots of tractor millipedes, plus the smallest species of frog in Borneo (trust me, it's tiny!). The coolest thing was when our guide told us to look inside the rolled-up shoot of a wild ginger plant--there was a little bat in there, using it as a sleeping bag!

After lunch, I took a nap in a hammock, and watched a funny little pygmy squirrel run up and down a tree--it was so small, it looked and acted just like a little gecko, jerky movements and all. It was probably only about four inches long; really tiny for a squirrel.

We then got word from Lan that he would try to take us downriver to see if we could spot some Asian pygmy elephants! Yes! This was what we had been hoping for--it's not really the season to see them around here, but we had heard that there was a herd moving steadily downriver for the past few days. But because they were so far from camp by now (probably about 20 kilometers or more), the Uncle Tan's staff couldn't promise us a trip to catch up with them unless they had the approval to buy the extra fuel for the boat. But apparently that came through this afternoon, so at 3pm we hurried down to the dock, boarded a boat, and headed downstream. As we pushed off from the dock, Lan asked me, "John, how certain are you that you'll see elephants today?" "One hundred percent!" I told him confidently, although of course I had no idea.

But sure enough, we had only gone a few kilometers when we looked ahead and saw a big ol' elephant on the bank in front of us! It quickly (well, for an elephant, at least) climbed up the bank and crashed off into the trees when it spotted us. Evidently this one had somehow gotten separated from the herd, and was now wandering around on its own. Which was a little sad for it, but cool for us! I had never seen a wild elephant before, so this was really an event.

As we made our way further downriver for close to an hour, we began to see signs that many more elephants had recently been in the area: big footprints, broken branches, and muddy slides down the bank and into the water. The tracks got fresher and fresher...and then finally I spotted some big grey shapes through the trees. We had found the big herd, still traveling down the river!

The trees were thick, so it was difficult to see how many there were, but we pulled the boat to shore where there was a small clearing, and watched several of them pass. Then Lan motioned for us to get out of the boat(!), so we quietly climbed the bank and crouched down in the grass right below the path where the elephants were passing! It was kind of freaky to be sneaking around in the grass this close to wild elephants--they may be called "pygmy," but they're still friggin' huge, maybe three meters or more in height, and, well, BIG like elephants! We were right below them, too, so they could very easily take a few steps to the right and squash us like tofu if they wanted to. But they just walked past us, only 10 feet or so away. Some of them startled a little if they spotted us, and others just sort of eyed us warily as they chewed on the trees.

After getting some closeup pics, we piled back in the boat and headed a little further downstream to where the elephants were headed: A bend in the river with a low, grassy bank that made for a good elephant watering hole. Apparently every evening at around 5pm they would stop their marching and choose a spot like this to gather, drink, and bathe in the river. So as we rounded the bend, an amazing sight came into view: Over 35 elephants just standing by the riverside, tails and ears flapping in the heat! Just incredible.

There was actually a professional film crew on the other side of the river filming the whole thing, so for awhile we stayed pretty far from the elephants to not block their shot. But when they gave the "all clear" sign, Lan moved the boat in right up to the shore, right next to all the action! This time we were even closer--the elephants were just a couple of meters away, pulling up grass, throwing dirt on themselves, and backing down the bank right into the river, where they submerged themselves and splashed around. It was unreal to be in the middle of all of this; just like a Discovery Channel special, only in 3-D! At one point one of the elephants trumpeted, and the others immediately bolted up and started running into the forest. That was a little scary, because they moved fast. I'm glad I wasn't in front of them then! They soon calmed down again, though, and returned to the river.

After about an hour of observing, we had to leave, so we made our way back to camp, and got there just after sunset. On the way, we spotted another monkey species that we hadn't seen so far: silver leaf monkeys. Like their cousins, the red leaf monkeys, they stayed really high in the trees; too far for my camera's 3x zoom to do them justice.

The elephant safari was more than any of us had asked for; we were all on cloud 9 after that and had to celebrate by having an "elephant party" back at camp. Well, a couple of beers, at least--we didn't want to rub it in too much, because the people just arriving at camp probably wouldn't get to see the elephants. Ah well.

But the wildlife-spotting wasn't even over: We still had night jungle trekking, where we walked deep into the jungle to look for creepy crawlies. And boy, did we see them! I learned tonight that just by holding a flashlight near your eyes and pointing it out into the jungle, you can see reflections from the eyes of all kinds of things--not just big animals like cats and snakes, but also the eyes of every spider in the forest! And thank god I'm not afraid of spiders, because there were thousands of them! The most impressive was a big tarantula in a tree, but there were plenty of others, as well. Our guide also found a huge black scorpion and let it run all over his hands (they won't sting you unless you actually grab them), as well as a harmless whip scorpion, lots of different tree frogs, and a sleeping pigeon in a tree.

People met today:

• Dan from Alaska, who quit his job as a trial attorney and is traveling the world with his wife for as long as their money holds out!

LOWER KINABATANGAN RIVER, MALAYSIAN BORNEO

This morning the Uncle Tan's folks loaded us into the back of a pickup truck and took us to the nearby Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, which was created in 1964 to reintroduce orphaned and captive orangutans to the wild. The Centre's staff provides medical care for the orangutans and helps the young ones learn skills like climbing and finding food, before slowly introducing them to the adjacent forest where it's hoped that they'll return to their natural "wild" state.

The Centre also provide food daily for the semi-wild orangutans at feeding stations, although they deliberately make the menu pretty boring to encourage them to forage for other stuff in the jungle--apparently even apes get tired of just bananas! These feedings are open to the public, and that's what we were there to see today. So just before 10am, we walked on a boardwalk several hundred yards into the forest and to the feeding station, which consists of a wooden platform in a tree about ten feet off the ground with ropes strung across to several other trees.

We then saw about a dozen orangutans emerge one by one out of the jungle and climb the ropes to the platform, where a staff member had left them bunches of bananas and sugar cane. It was really interesting to watch how each orangutan behaved differently: Some went for the bananas, some only wanted the sugar cane, some kept taking the others' food, and others seemed like they just wanted to hang out, socialize, and wrestle! There were young ones, old ones, and a mother with a baby in tow; all very cute of course, and extremely agile, too: It was funny to see one using his two hands to climb from tree to tree on the rope, with a stalk of sugar cane grasped in each foot and another in his mouth!

After watching the orangutans for an hour or so, we returned to the Centre and watched a pretty good video about the place before catching a ride back to Uncle Tan's "operations base," having lunch, and then being driven by minibus about an hour away to the Kinabatangan River and the tiny village of Batu Puteh, where Chris, Laura, Ashley, Becks, Helen, and I (plus three rather antisocial Belgians) boarded a boat for the final leg to Uncle Tan's Jungle Camp.

The boat ride down the Kinabatangan to the camp actually was the first of several "river safaris" where our driver/guide pointed out wildlife on the riverbanks and in the trees, and we immediately saw quite a lot of wildlife. This was our first time seeing Borneo's famous proboscis monkeys, which are the ones with the ridiculous Jimmy Durante schnozzes and big pot bellies. There were groups of them high in the trees, just staring down at us, and making weird honking sounds. Ha! We also saw long-tailed macaques, various herons and egrets, a rare Storm's stork, a couple of crocodiles, and some really cool hornbills (big birds that look kind of like a toucan, but with a weird horn sticking out of their beak). We also saw a couple of rare red leaf monkeys, chillin' on branches high in the trees. Just amazing.

After an hour or so, we came to a pier, where we docked, then slogged for quite a ways on a muddy trail to the camp, which is basically a series of wooden huts connected by boardwalks, plus a common area with dining tables and a kitchen, all raised a couple of feet above the muddy ground. The area apparently is prone to heavy flooding--they're still recovering from a massive flood in February that covered the whole place in six feet or more of water!

Anyway, we're talking primitive conditions here: Mattresses and mosquito nets in wooden huts, horrific pit toilets, and electricity from a generator for maybe six hours a day. (Worse even than Boy Scout Camp, haha.) Still, it's kind of a cool place, because of all the forest creatures that make themselves at home right near (or in) in the camp: Several wild bearded pigs hang around the place and eat kitchen scraps, as do huge monitor lizards and (at night) the occasional civet. Troups of macaques also come into the camp, and are actually kind of a pain, because they steal anything that's not locked up, and can get kind of aggressive, too. Ah well--it is the jungles of Borneo, I suppose.

After dinner (chicken with too many bones, rice, and some unidentifiable Bornean veggies) we were given an orientation by Lan, the chief guide, then slogged back to the boats for a night river safari. This time we saw lots of fish owls, a huge stork-billed kingfisher, and some very sleepy monkeys.

On returning to camp, I was playing cards ("Shithead," of course) with Ashley, Laura, Becks, and Helen, when a Malay civet walked up the stairs and right past us! I had to laugh, because we were told they come into camp after the lights are turned off at midnight and it gets really quiet, but this one just walked into a fully-lit dining area full of loud people playing cards! Anyway, civets are beautiful animals--sometimes they're called "civet cats," but they're really not cats at all. They have a body like a cat, but a longer face, like a fox or weasel. This one immediately ran off when we got up to have a look, but I wanted to get a picture of one, so when the generator went off, Ashley, Chris and I waited in the dining area in the dark until we saw some dark shapes move into the open. There were actually three of them in the camp at once(!), and one of them came upstairs again and stuck its head in a bucket of food scraps. I managed to take a couple of photos before it ran off again into the jungle. Cool....

SEPILOK, MALAYSIAN BORNEO

Our luck must be improving, because on the bus from the national park to Sepilok this morning I counted only one vomiting child. Yay! (Although that did make me start to wonder if Malaysians really DO throw up more on buses...)

Anyway, we rode this morning for about four hours through more palm plantations and small villages to just outside Sandakan, where we were dropped off at Uncle Tan's "operations base," really just a storefront office with a couple of dorm rooms upstairs. Tomorrow we'll be transported to Uncle Tan's Jungle Camp, deep in the... well, jungle, after visiting the orangutan rehabilitation center here. The idea is to see some real live Bornean jungle wildlife, which should be very cool.

We spent the evening hanging out and talking with some of the other people who are doing the jungle thing too (see below).

People met today:

• Ashley and Laura from Northamptonshire, UK, not a couple, traveling for a year or so like us,
• Ali (short for Alistair), also from the UK, a young lad formerly in the army, and friends of the above two, and
• Becks and Helen, two fun girls also from the UK, on a two-week Malaysian holiday.

KINABALU NATIONAL PARK, MALAYSIAN BORNEO

One of the biggest tourist destinations in Sabah is Kinabalu National Park, about two hours' drive from Kota Kinabalu. And the main reason people visit it is to climb Mt. Kinabalu, a strangely flat-topped peak that's half the height of Everest, and the tallest mountain between the Himalayas and New Guinea. Unfortunately, we won't be climbing it while we're here, as Chris' knee has still been giving him problems, and he doesn't want to do anything more to aggravate it.

All right, I guess I should admit that even if his knee was fine, I'm not sure I'd want to attempt the summit--it's a pretty grueling two-day hike straight up a granite rock face, high enough for many people to get altitude sickness on the way to the top. Still, looking up at it today kind of made me wish we were trying it. (Ah well, there's always next time.)

Our ride from KK to the park this morning was a bit hellish--the air-con express bus was nice enough, but the horde of vomiting babies was not! We seemed to be in the middle of an infant spew-fest, and it was not pretty. (Someone actually told me later, very authoritatively, that "Malaysians throw up a lot on buses," which I thought was amusing, but not necessarily believable.)

Anyway, once we got to the park, things started to improve. Chris and I did some jungle trekking on the trails near the visitor's centre, and we also took a walk with a guide who pointed out a number of interesting plants, many of them endemic to the area. We didn't see any wildlife (I had really wanted to spot a pangolin), but still it was a beautifully lush, green, jungle-y area to hike through, and it's high enough in altitude to actually be quite cool. Later in the afternoon, storm clouds rolled in and it started to rain, so we decided to cut short our trekking and check in to the park's hostel.

For dinner, the park restaurant featured a "Steamboat Special," which means that they bring a pot of broth out to your table on a small stove, give you a bunch of ingredients (vegetables, chicken, beef, fish, shrimp, eggs, etc.) and you cook your own soup! It was a most excellent dinner, especially on a cool, rainy night, and a helluva lot of food, too.

After dinner we felt refreshed enough to attempt a little night trekking to see if we could spot any nocturnal critters. Not too wisely, though, we chose an unfamiliar trail that snaked up and down the mountain for several kilometers through thick mud and boggy areas, with steep dropoffs beside the trail--and we only had one flashlight between us. Which made for a really long, wet, and slightly unsettling experience. And to top it off, we didn't even see any critters!

Oh wait, I take that back: After we got back, Chris and I took off our socks and discovered we both had picked up some big leeches, which were happily sucking the blood out of our feet (through our socks, no less!). Aiyeeeeeeeee! Getting them off wasn't so hard, but stopping the bleeding was! We were just dripping puddles of blood everywhere for hours--it was pretty funny, in a totally disgusting kind of way.

INDONESIAN EARTHQUAKE

I just read about the terrible earthquake that struck near Yogyakarta, Indonesia today. In case anyone's wondering: Chris and I are many hundreds of miles away from the quake region, and there were no effects here in Borneo that I know of. (Even when we were in Indonesia, we never made it to Java--although I had wanted to visit Yogyakarta if we had more time...)

Anyway, I know how some of you worry, so I just wanted to let you know that we're fine!

KOTA KINABALU, MALAYSIAN BORNEO

We have a few days to kill in KK before heading off to the jungle, so for the past couple of days we've visited Tunku Abdul Rahman National Marine Park, which consists of five small islands only a few kilometers offshore. Some of the islands have restaurants and resorts, some only basic camping facilities, but all are known for their nice beaches, swimming, and snorkeling.

Catching a boat to any of the islands is a little tricky, though: Boats only leave for an island when enough people (usually eight) sign up at the ferry terminal. So depending on what time you show up, you might have to wait a loooong time before departing (and sometimes, not enough people sign up, so the boat doesn't run at all!). Luckily, Chris was able to work a few deals both days to make sure we got to our destinations. On Thursday we visited Manukan Island, and on Friday we did a two-island combo: Sapi Island and Manukan Island (again).

Both were pretty nice, although not really spectacular for snorkeling, which was our main reason for going. On both days, the weather started out sunny, but in the afternoon, the clouds rolled in and it rained a little. Visibility wasn't great, and on Sapi there wasn't much coral, but we did see a lot of marine life. Mainly it was the same types of creatures we saw in Komodo, but there were a few firsts for me: On Sapi I saw a creepy-looking snake eel in its sand burrow, and on Manukan I ran across a weird pincushion starfish. Many of the reef fish were also very "friendly" here--they would actually swim up to us as we came near, and act as if they expected us to feed them. Schools of damselfish, wrasses, and sergeant majors would follow us around as we swam, and one damselfish even gave me a little nip on the arm. What's up with that?

Malaysia Fun Fact:

• Most of the residents of Sabah speak at least three languages: Chinese, English, and Bahasa Malaysia. Which of course makes me feel really dumb in comparison.

KOTA KINABALU, MALAYSIAN BORNEO

Borneo Fun Fact:

• Borneo isn't a country; it's an island. Actually, it's the third-largest island in the world. And it's divided up among three countries: The southern two-thirds is the Indonesian province of Kalimantan, while most of the northern third is split between the Malaysian provinces of Sarawak and Sabah. (The rest belongs to the tiny kingdom of Brunei.) I had no idea about any of this before I came here, so I figured you might not know, either. Especially if you're American. :-)

After more fun yesterday with buses, traffic jams, taxis, and getting dropped off at the wrong airport (don't ask), we finally made it onto the plane for our 1:10 flight from KL to KK. That's Kota Kinabalu, in the Malaysian province of Sabah, in northern Borneo, a surprisingly large, modern city of about 200,000. Not much to look at, as almost all of the old city was destroyed by Allied bombing in WWII, but a good place to get our act together before heading off into the jungle.

For some help with this, we met today with Peggy at Sabah Divers, recommended to us by Henrik in Flores (thanks, Henrik!). She's a really chatty, funny, tell-it-like-it-is woman who's also really knowledgeable about the area and things to do here. After discussing a whole range of options with her, we ended up booking a trip to Uncle Tan's Wildlife Camp to see some jungle creatures, followed by several days of diving at Sipadan Island, ranked as one of the world's top ten dive locations.

Actually, there was a bit of drama with the Sipidan booking, as the island is kind of a political football right now--long story, but basically the Malaysian government has put some severe restrictions on dive operators, and is considering closing the island to divers altogether! At one point today we were told we wouldn't be able to obtain permits to dive at Sipadan on the days we wanted, but I think we finally got that sorted. I hope so, at least!

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA

Today we journeyed from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur: First we took a local bus over the causeway to the Malaysian border (where we had to get off the bus, go through immigration, get back on the bus, etc.), then at Johor Bahru we caught an express coach to KL, which took about four hours. For almost the entire journey all we could see from the bus were acres and acres of palm trees--not coconut palms, but the kind they use to make palm oil. These were huge tree plantations, which unfortunately have replaced much of the natural rainforest throughout Malaysia.

We made it in to KL by late afternoon. Since we're only staying one night here and because we were pretty beat from traveling all day, we settled for a ratty little hostel across the street from the bus station.

Who'da thunk there would be a Kenny Rogers' Roasters in Kuala Lumpur?

SINGAPORE

I had wanted to check out Singapore's Chinatown, which is supposed to be pretty big, so this morning Chris, Jeffrey from Maine, and I took the MRT there and wandered around for a few hours.

At one point we found our way to a huge indoor market that had all sorts of strange seafood and other slimy "edibles" on sale. Some of the bizarre food for sale included tropical aquarium fish like panther groupers and giant gouramis (I didn't know you could eat those), some big stingrays, a swarm of live snakes in a bag, and some particularly sad-looking frogs and turtles in cages. The doomed live critters were a bit depressing to be around, really, so we didn't stay too long there. (Plus there were a lot of seafood...uh, parts, everywhere, which were really spoiling our appetite for lunch.)

After walking around some slightly more pleasant Chinese shops and stalls (with the usual fans, silks, carvings, etc.), we had lunch at a ridiculously overpriced local restaurant, and Chris and Jeffrey went back to the hostel. I decided to head for Orchard Road, Singapore's high-end shopping street, which is basically one giant mall. No Gucci or Prada for me today, but I did do some window-shopping for CDs at HMV.

Later, Chris and I had dinner with Alex from France at a restaurant near our hostel in Little India--I had a paper dosa masala, which was a long crispy pancake stuffed with curried potatoes and onions. Pretty good, actually! The streets tonight were jam-packed with hundreds of Indian men just hanging out and socializing--apparently it's a Sunday thing.

People met today:

• AJ, a friendly girl from Nigeria who's staying at our hostel while she looks for a job as an accountant in town.
• Also, the German guy (forgot his name) who was on our dive trip to Sebayur in Flores is staying in our dorm room, too--small world!

SINGAPORE

Chris and I spent this morning making plans and flight reservations for our next major destination: The wilds of Borneo! We then walked a few blocks to Sim Lim Square, a chaotic seven-story mall consisting entirely of electronics stores(!), because gadget guy Chris is thinking of buying an underwater camera housing. After looking around at all the shiny things for awhile, I got antsy and decided to do some sightseeing (Chris doesn't have much of an interest in big cities, so I left him to wander in electronics wonderland).

First I took the MRT (Singapore's clean and efficient subway) to City Hall station and walked around the Colonial District, which contains remnants of Singapore's British past including impressive City Hall and Supreme Court buildings, museums, and in the middle of it all, a large Cricket Ground (of course). I also visited Singapore's memorial to its civilian victims of WWII (many residents were killed during the Japanese occupation), a solemn white spire in the center of the city.

I then made the obligitory pilgrimage to Singapore's most famous landmark: the Merlion. This is a big statue on the harborfront of a half-mermaid, half-lion beast shooting water out of its mouth like a firehose, and it's the most retarded-looking thing I've ever seen! Apparently it was the demented creation of Singapore's tourism board back in the sixties, which might explain things (they must have all been on some serious hallucinogens). I guess the lion part makes sense (singapura means "lion city"), but the fish tail is just weird. I guess it was kind of a success in that it's given Singapore a mascot, albeit a stupid one. Anyway, like all the other sheeple, I took a bunch of pictures of it.

Tonight after meeting up with Chris again, we had dinner at a pan-Asian food court near our hostel, where we met a chatty local named Ro who gave us tips on taking bus, trains, and planes to various places in Malaysia.

People met today:

• Alex from France, and
• Jeffrey from the U.S. (specifically, Maine).

Both really nice guys who we're sharing a dorm room with.

SINGAPORE

If this is Friday, this must be Singapore.... Chris and I flew in from Denpasar today, and are still getting over a bit of culture shock. Singapore (which for you geography buffs does triple duty as an island, a city and a country), is the exact opposite of Indonesia in many ways--it's modern, clean, and affluent, especially by Asian standards. And they speak English here, which strikes me as very strange for Asia! The large majority of the population here are of Chinese descent, although there are a large number of Indian and Malay inhabitants, with a few westerners thrown into the mix as well.

Singapore has been described as kind of a microcosm of Asia itself, as the city has a number of ethnically distinct districts, including Little India, a large Chinatown, Kampung Glam, which is the Malay quarter, and an area called the Arab Street (which does include an actual street with that name, and which someone told me was the origin of the term "Arab Street" thrown around so much by pundits).

All these mini-countries, along with Singapore's obsession with order and cleanliness, its futuristic architechture, and an insane number of stores and shopping malls make the city a little reminiscent of... EPCOT Center!

Okay, it's not exactly like that. We're staying in Little India, which is definitely a little grittier than most parts of Singapore. It's fun, though, with lots of restaurants, jewelry stores, flower-garland peddlers, and tiny shops and markets, and the constant smell of incense burning. For whatever reason, a number of backpacker hostels are here, too--we're staying at the spotlessly-new Fragrance Hostel, in a six-person dorm (none of the hostels seem to have a private room). But that's been fun, too, because we've met more people--including one guy from Marietta, Georgia. Go figure....

INDONESIA RECAP

Favorite Things About Indonesia:

• Cheap Food. And good restaurants, too!
• The Gili Islands. Should be in the dictionary under "Chill."
• Taman Nasional Komodo. The National Park administration may be bogus, but the park itself is amazing, both above and (especially) below the waves.

Least Favorite Things About Indonesia:

• Hayun. Our worthless "guide" and driver on Flores.
• All the litter. Indonesia is an incredibly lush and beautiful natural paradise, but its roadsides and rivers are choked with tons of discarded plastic bags, bottles, and other garbage, and the skies are hazy with smoke from burning trash. Give a hoot, people!

Biggest Regret:

• Not getting to hear a gamelan orchestra performance.

KUTA, BALI, INDONESIA

The last few days have been pretty uneventful, really. On Tuesday we flew from Labuan Bajo back to Bali, and we've been staying at our old hotel in Kuta.

I'm a little ashamed to admit that one of the first things I did on arrival was to go to Starbuck's and order a grande frappucino with chocolate chips. But sometimes you just have to have one, you know? Especially after a week on Flores, where they don't have such things. (You'd think that with Indonesia being one of the top coffee-growing countries, you could get a decent cup o' joe everywhere, but in most places all they have is instant Nescafe', which of course is just wretched.)

Oh, this was funny: Today while having lunch at a local warung, who should walk by our table but two of the Canadians, Ed and Steph! They've been in Bali since returning from the Gilis, surfing and whatnot. Chris also ran into Smeeta, who flew in yesterday, so we had dinner with her tonight, which was nice.

Mainly I've just been catching up on e-mail, phone calls (surprisingly difficult to make from here) and laundry. I also bought some board shorts and a couple of new T-shirts, as I'm sure y'all are getting tired of seeing me in the same ones in every picture. Funny how I was able to get Etnies and Independent T-shirts for about a tenth of their usual price--I'm sure they're not pirated or anything. :-)

NP: Wendy Carlos, "Song for Bali"

FINALLY, NEW PHOTOS!

If you haven't checked out the photo galleries lately, you might want to take a gander. We've posted a bunch of photos from our time in Australia, as well as adding some more pics to the Fiji and New Zealand galleries. Click here.

There are captions for all the photos. To see a photo's caption, click on the thumbnail image, and the system will display a full-size photo. Depending on your PC's display settings, you may need to scroll down to see the caption at the bottom.

(Hey look, some actual technical writing! Gotta keep those skills up, you know.)

LABUAN BAJO, FLORES, INDONESIA

Our second day of diving with Reefseekers--this time we headed back to the Taman Nasional Komodo, and a small pinnacle of rock protruding from the sea near Komodo Island known as Batu Bolong (literally, "rock with a hole in it"). This area is swept by strong currents, and you can see the evidence at the surface, as upwellings and whirlpools are everywhere. The island is like a rock in the middle of a stream--a swift current flows around and past it, making only the "leeward" side safe for diving. This meant that we had to stick very close to our dive guides, because if we swam too far around the island on either side, we could be caught by the current and swept miles away in minutes!

There was a reason we were risking the currents--Batu Bolong is also considered one of the best dive sites in the area, and it really was a spectacular location. Underwater, it's a vertical rock wall encrusted with corals, sponges, and all sorts of marine growth going down about 50 meters to the sea floor. We started about halfway down, at 24 meters, then zig-zagged our way up the wall for an hour, to a final depth of only five meters or so.

On the way, we saw a host of sea creatures. Along the wall there were lots of nudibranchs, colorful flatworms, schools of purple and pink anthias, and various angelfish, lionfish, triggerfish, and scorpion fish. And when we turned around and looked outward away from the wall, we saw all kinds of pelagic fish: giant trevally, whitetip reef sharks, barracuda, and even a dogtooth tuna!

We had another goal today, and that was to see some manta rays, so after leaving Batu Bolong, Ernest guided us over to a nearby area called the "Landing Strip," a relatively flat expanse of coral rubble with a steady current flowing over it. Turns out this was the same area we patrolled two days ago on our previous unsuccesful search for mantas, so I really wasn't too hopeful today about our prospects of seeing one.

But as luck would have it, within minutes Ernest spotted no less than six manta rays swimming over the bottom, about 30 feet down! We frantically pulled our wetsuits back on, donned masks and snorkels, and could barely keep from jumping in the water while the boat carefully positioned us "upstream" in the current so we could drift over the area they were swimming in.

This method worked like a charm, as not long after we hit the water we found ourselves right on top of a ten-foot-wide manta that was just hovering over a small coral head below us. (And man, that's a big fish!) We soon realized that this was a "cleaning station," and the manta was having its mouth and gills cleaned by small wrasses, while two yellow butterfly fish swam over its body and pecked at any parasites that might be on its "wings."

This was great for us, because we could just tread water and watch it for what seemed like ages as it hovered, swam in small circles, and repositioned itself over the coral head. Henrik and I dived down five meters or so a couple of times to get a closer look, which actually spooked the manta a little, although he calmed down again each time. A few minutes later, another manta cruised by, and finally a third appeared, at which point the first manta swam off slowly. I followed it in the current for a few minutes, while some of the others followed the third ray, and apparently saw a baby manta, too!

We were all really happy to see the mantas, as it's not a given that they'll be around on a given day. I had never seen one up close before, so it was really awesome to be able to swim with several of these beautiful (and huge!) creatures in the wild. (I know I said the same thing about seals and dolphins, too, but it's true!)

After that, our second dive of the day seemed a little anticlimactic, but really the scenery was just as amazing as Batu Bolong. It was a drift-dive over a gradual slope along the shore of another small island, again in Komodo National Park. Ernest referred to this site as "The Orange Grove" for its profusion of orange soft corals, but we also drifted over a huge expanse of yellow fire coral and a thick forest of staghorn coral. The highlights here included a scrawled filefish, a large number of trumpetfish, some hawksbill turtles, and a couple of large cuttlefish. (A few of our fellow divers actually saw one laying eggs, but I missed that, darn it!)

Another great day of diving--It's a shame that Chris and I are leaving tomorrow, as I'd really like to do more! Ernest convinced Henrik and Smeeta to go out again tomorrow, and I'm totally jealous....

LABUAN BAJO, FLORES, INDONESIA

Before coming to Indonesia, I hadn't realized that the area around Komodo Island is considered to be one of the top diving locations in this part of the world. But now that we're here, we've decided to take advantage of that fact by basically spending the next two days underwater. Henrik and Smeeta are joining us for our scuba adventures as well, which is great.

We've booked our dives through Reefseekers, a local dive shop recommended to us by the guys at Trawangan Dive. It's owned by a Scottish expat named Ernest who lives on an island a few minutes offshore from Labuan Bajo, where he and his wife are in the process of building a dive resort. He's a really interesting and personable guy--"a real character," as mom would say. And in addition to being knowledgeable about the dive sites in the area, he also has a background in marine biology (his area of specialty: crustaceans), which he puts to use by giving pre-dive "briefings" in various areas of marine biology and ecology. (Today's lesson was on the various types of symbiosis, with an emphasis on the relationship between certain gobies and shrimp. No, really!) I also talked for quite awhile with our other dive guide, an enthusiastic Indonesian guy named Nourdin, about Indonesian tourism, terrorism, education, religion, and conservation. Oh, and diving, too.

Thankfully, the Reefseekers dive boat is about twice as fast as The Slowest Boat in Maritime History, so it didn't take us too long to get to today's dive site, Sebayur Kecil. Our first dive was at an area called "The Horseshoe," where for the first time I got to see a forest of garden eels swaying above the sand. Very cool. Ernest also pointed out (surprise!) some symbiotic gobies and shrimp, and he even opened his mouth for a couple of yellow and red cleaner shrimp, which actually hopped inside and started picking his teeth! We also saw some bright little nudibranchs, a giant bumphead parrotfish, and some lobsters, and I also spotted a little yellow striped pipefish and a juvenile pinnate batfish--a strikingly beautiful fish, and pretty uncommon, too.

After a lunch on the boat of fried chicken and rice (which must be the national dish of Indonesia), we did our second dive at "The Wall," which not surprisingly featured a nearly-vertical wall of coral, sponges, and gorgonians. Highlights included more nudibranchs, a juvenile sweetlips, and a couple of extremely rare robust ghost pipefish, which were so cleverly camouflaged I thought they were two bits of seaweed!

All in all a good diving day--the water was clear, and we saw lots of creatures. As Ernest later explained, this rather "tame" location was sort of a test in preparation for tomorrow's dive, which is in a site with some potentially dangerous currents that we need to be aware of.

Indonesia Fun Fact:

• You might remember the island of Flores from news reports in late 2004, when it was the site of one of the most spectacular recent finds in paleoanthopology: Scientists discovered the remains of an entirely new species of human that grew to a height of only 3 feet tall. Immediately referred to by the media as "hobbits," it was also discovered that even more incredibly, these little people lived on Flores as recently as 18,000 years ago.

LABUAN BAJO, FLORES, INDONESIA

Sleeping on the deck of a boat can be fun, but not so much when 1) no one gives you a blanket, and 2) your boat is in the flight path of a bunch of incessantly chirping flying foxes returning to their roosts before dawn.

The only bright side to being awakened so early was getting to see the sun rise over the jagged landscape of Komodo Island, which I have to admit was pretty striking. Our boat then made its way (slowly, of course) to the national park entrance, where we disembarked and again found a guide to take us trekking on the island.

Komodo, or at least what I saw of it, seemed to have more of a variety of habitats than Rinca, with more forested areas and a great variety of birds. We encountered screeching sulfur-crested cockatoos, imperial pigeons, a black-naped oriole, and a mound-building megapode, which looks a little like a chicken. Our guide also pointed out some neat tree snails, and a number of wild deer that immediately ran off into the woods when they saw us.

And about halfway through our walk, we came across a huge male Komodo dragon, sunning itself right in the middle of the path! Our guide actually grabbed the end of its tail and lifted it up, which made the dragon none too happy--it immediately whipped its tail around, stood up on all fours, and shambled off down the path. (I could almost hear it thinking, damn tourists.)

After our trek, our captain guided the boat to an area on the east side of Komodo Island where there are supposed to be lots of manta rays--if we were lucky, we'd try to snorkel with them. But although we circled around for about an hour, we didn't see any (well, the captain saw some fins or something, he said, but by the time we got there, whatever it was was gone. So a little disappointed, we turned the boat around and endured the loooooooooooong boat ride back to Labuan Bajo. (We did see a couple of jumping dolphins on the way in, which was nice.)

After cleaning up, Henrik, Chris, Smeeta and I had dinner at a restaurant a few doors down from our hotel, then came back to the hotel restaurant to find the power off. (What is it with this town?) Chris retired early, while the rest of us played cards for awhile.

KOMODO ISLAND, INDONESIA

This morning Chris and I met up with Henrik and Smeeta and walked down to the pier to embark on our two-day trip to the islands of Rinca and Komodo. It's just the four of us, plus a crew of two, our captain and his first mate (who creeps me out a little, because he has crazy-person eyes).

And as soon as our boat left the dock, it became evident that we'll be traveling for two days on The Slowest Vessel in Maritime History. No, really--at first I thought the boat was idling because we were in a no-wake zone, but then realized that that was as fast as we could go! Oh lord.

Consequently, it took us over three hours to reach our first destination, the island of Rinca (pronounced rincha), which couldn't have been that far, because we could see it from the harbor before we even left port! I'm sure would have taken less than half the time in a proper motorboat, but whatever. I have to admit, though, that it was a perfect day for a mind-numbingly slow boat ride, with glassy seas, blue skies, and scores of green island peaks surrounding us.

When we arrived at Rinca at noon and jumped off the boat, waiting to greet us at the end of the dock was a seven-foot Komodo dragon! It was just sitting in the shade, watching us, which frankly was a little creepy. Our first mate had a forked walking stick for protection, but I'm not sure if it would have done much good against a big beast like that. (Hmm, creepy vs. creepy--who would win?)

After carefully walking past the dragon "guard" to the Komodo National Park office, we filled in some paperwork and paid our entrance fees, guide fees, "conservation" fees, and god knows what other small sums of money to visit the two islands. Later I was told by a number of people that this is basically a scam--the National Park is actually run by a private American company that collects a good deal of money, but hasn't been able to show any evidence that these "conservation fees" are being used to "conserve" anything. A real shame, but not exactly unusual in a country where government corruption is more or less the rule.

We then walked to the ranger station, a group of cabins on stilts where several guides were having lunch. And below them, three huge Komodo dragons, two males and one female, were just laying on the ground! A minute later, we saw a fourth one (a three-foot juvenile) scampering around in the bushes. Seems they're attracted by the smell of cooking food, and even though the rangers don't feed them, they still like to hang out by the ranger station at lunchtime.

Something seemed a little wrong about standing around at ground level with the big lizards with the guides up in the air out of harm's way, but the dragons didn't really seem aggressive, so we relaxed a bit, took a bunch of pictures, and eventually our assigned guide came down to take us on a short trek around the island.

In contrast to Flores, which is very lush and tropical, the landscape of Rinca is mostly dry grassland dotted with tall palm trees, with a few areas of denser vegetation along the riverbeds. We started in one of these, where we saw some wild pigs, a troop of monkeys (long-tailed macaques, like in the monkey forest), and a water buffalo cooling down in a muddy pond. (All of these make up the primary diet of the dragons, by the way.)

We then climbed to the top of a grassy ridge where we could look down on the west side of the island, and across to Komodo, before heading back to the boat. When we got to the pier, there were now two dragons "guarding" it--eep! But again, they were just sitting there looking rather lazy, so we got a little brave and quickly took some photos of each other with a dragon in the background.

After a lunch of rice and noodles on the boat, we motored sloooooooooowly on to Komodo Island (with plenty of time for a long nap on the way). As we traveled between the islands, I could see that the ocean currents in this region are really crazy--we crossed huge areas of roiling water, whirlpools, and upwellings, which could definitely make things interesting, if not outright deadly, for divers (and possibly mariners)!

We finally made it to Komodo Island around 4pm, where we anchored off a place called Red Beach (named for the red bits of sand there, although that wasn't really apparent from afar). We snorkeled there for an hour or so, over the most incredible variety of hard and soft corals I've ever seen--every inch of space was covered by something growing, and the corals reached right to the surface of the sea. There were thousands of fish swarming there, too, and sea anemones over a meter wide! Just amazing scenery, and a shame we couldn't stay longer, but we were running late, thanks to our slow boat.

After snorkeling, we came aboard to find that while we were gone we had been boarded by pirates! Well, actually, souvenir sellers, who had their wares all laid out on deck: necklaces and carved wooden Komodo dragons and such. I thought that we'd be free of these pests once we went out to sea, but this is Indonesia, I guess! Anyway, we told them we weren't interested, and they got back on their little boat and went to bother some other tourists, I suppose.

Our next stop was to see Rinca's flying foxes, which leave the mangroves every night at dusk to fly around and look for food, so we anchored in a sheltered bay and waited. It ended up being a little disappointing, though: I had been expecting thousands of shrieking bats swarming across the sky, but all we saw were a handful of 'em flapping rather aimlessly over the boat and across the bay (which is pretty much what you see in Indonesia every night when you look up, anyway!). Oh well. We did get to see the full moon rise over the high hills of Komodo, though, which was pretty cool. Then we brought out the arak and played cards--Smeeta and Henrik taught Chris and I how to play "Shithead," which apparently is all the rage among the backpackers. It's a pretty fun game, too, although remembering all of its rules is a bit tricky, especially if you've been drinking!

Indonesia Fun Fact:

• Komodo dragons are the largest lizard in the world, growing up to ten feet long. There are only about 6,000 of them in the world, living on Komodo, Rinca, and a few other islands in Indonesia. They can run as fast as 18 km/hour, and although they're not venomous, they have bacteria in their mouth that will kill any animal they bite if left untreated. They eat large animals like pigs, deer, and water buffalo, and have been known to kill and eat people on occasion--several years ago a Swiss tourist disappeared on Komodo Island, and all the rangers recovered were his hat and camera!

LABUAN BAJO, FLORES, INDONESIA

This morning we left Ruteng and drove the final four hours to the coast, stopping at Ndaru to climb a steep hill and take a few pictures of the rice fields there, which are laid out in an interesting spider-web pattern.

The drive across Flores was beautiful, to be sure, but after four days I'd had about enough of those winding mountain roads (and enough "hallo mistahs" from everyone we passed). And at this point, Chris and I were really anxious to get rid of that little weasel Hayun--last night we found out he overcharged us for the park fee at Kelimutu, and pocketed the money! What a right bastard, as the English say.

And perhaps just as bad, he's been subjecting us to the same two CDs for four straight days (an Alpha Blondy CD and a country music compilation), which wouldn't be so bad if he didn't keep playing his favorite songs 3 or 4 times in a row. So when we finally pulled up to our hotel, it didn't come a moment too soon!

Luckily, Labuan Bajo seems like a good place to spend a few days--it's a little fishing village set in a picturesque harbor, overlooking about a dozen mountainous islands, including the islands of Rinca and Komodo. The town itself is kind of decrepit--from the hillside it's a sea of rusty tin roofs--but it has a certain run-down charm (a little like the town of Sweethaven in the Popeye movie).

And our hotel, the Gardena, lives up to its name--it's a well-kept cluster of bungalows in a lush garden of bougainvillea, hibiscus and papaya trees, set on the hillside above the town, with a great view over the harbor.

Not long after we arrived, Chris and I noticed some familiar faces in the hotel restaurant: Henrik from Sweden and three girls he's been traveling with, Megan and Sarah from the U.S., and Smeeta from the UK. They've been working their way westward across Flores, too, and since there's basically one road, we've seen them at just about every hotel we've stayed at.

So after talking with them this afternoon and comparing travel plans, we've decided to join forces for a few days and do a few activities together to save some money. (Well, with Henrik and Smeeta, at least--the two American girls are only spending a day here before flying to wherever they're going.)

So in the afternoon, we walked across the street from our hotel to a "Tourist Information Centre" (really a tour operator) and scheduled a two day, one night boat trip to the islands of Rinca and Komodo. We then went to the Reefseekers dive shop a few doors down (recommended by the folks at the dive shop on Gili Trawangan), and after getting some information about dive sites, booked two days of scuba diving after we get back from Komodo. Diving here is really cheap--only about US$40 for an all-day dive trip consisting of two dives, plus lunch and drinks. Not bad!

At about 2pm the electricity went out, and didn't come back on until just before 7. Apparently this is a regular occurrence in Labuan Bajo, due to the high cost of fuel. It's kind of inconvenient, though, especially in the hottest part of the day! The only thing to do at that point was to sit on the porch of our bungalow, watch the sun set over the harbor, and drink some of the arak we bought yesterday, while listening to the sunset Call to Prayer from the local mosque. A pretty relaxing way to end the day, really.

After the power came back on, we ate at the hotel restaurant with Henrik, Megan, Sarah, and Smeeta, then we all walked to Labuan Bajo's only internet cafe', at the other end of town. There's only one PC there, though, so the four of us had to take turns checking our e-mail.

RUTENG, FLORES, INDONESIA

After a couple of days it's become fairly obvious that Hayun, our "English-speaking driver and guide" 1) is a pretty good driver, but 2) doesn't speak a whole lot of English, and 3) really isn't much of a guide. Half the time when Chris asks him a question (I've pretty much stopped doing this altogether), he either misunderstands it, gives a frustratingly incomplete answer, or just sort of laughs and ignores it completely.

Which is really not that big a deal--he's at least getting us from point A to point B, and stopping at all the sights so we can take pictures.

But he's also proving to be a little shady about trying to make more money off us, which given the local economy isn't too surprising, but it still pisses me off! Last night, for example, he suddenly gave us the option of reaching our final destination of Labuan Bajo a day early. Which would have been fine with us, except we're paying him by the day, and had already paid him for four days. If we finished the trip in three days, would he give us back the money for the unused fourth day? Uh, no, evidently that's not what he had in mind!

So out of principle, we're sticking to our original itinerary and staying in Ruteng tonight, even though we apparently could have easily made it to Labuan Bajo today. Grrr....

Other than that, day three of our trans-Flores trek went pretty well, but talk about your twisting and turning mountain roads--I don't think there was one point today where the road ran straight for more than 20 meters! I'm kind of surprised I haven't gotten carsick. On the road, we passed a number of places where we could see evidence of recent landslides, including one place where Hayun told us eight people died three months ago when a big chunk of the mountain slid off and buried the road. Yikes.

At one village we passed, it was market day, so on a whim, Chris and I got out of the car, walked down to the market, and bought some oranges. It quickly became clear that rural Flores doesn't see too many western tourists, because everyone there was staring at us like we were from Mars or something. It was a little disconcerting, but I guess they were just curious.

Hayun then took us to a village known for producing arak (palm wine), where we got to see one man's crude backyard still. He lit some on fire to demonstrate its high alcohol content (yep, it burns just like gasoline!), then let us taste some--which we already had last night, of course. Speaking of gasoline.... Nah, it's really not that bad, although it is pretty potent, especially before 10am! I would have to say that it's really nothing like wine, though--more like whiskey or scotch.

Our one other stop of note was just outside Ruteng, at the traditional village of Ruteng Pu'u. In some ways it was similar to Bena, with huts arranged in a circle around a raised stone ring, although the thatched buildings here weren't quite as dramatic. We did get to walk inside one here, though, to look at its construction, and to see some buffalo-skin ceremonial drums. We were followed around the whole time by dozens of friendly village kids, who were all about getting their pictures taken. The one English phrase that all the kids in Flores know is "hallo mistah!" so we heard plenty of that! (I think I also heard a few "konichiwas," too, which was kind of funny.)

Travel Tip #6: Did you know that roosters don't only crow at dawn? That's right, they "cock-a-doodle-doo" at EVERY HOUR OF THE GODDAMMED DAY AND NIGHT!! And there are a LOT of roosters in Indonesia. Seriously, I am eating chicken from now on at every meal.

BAJAWA, FLORES, INDONESIA

At 5:00 this morning, I found myself halfway up the side of a mountain, standing in a pitch-dark parking lot, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a pancake in the other, listening to Alan Jackson blaring from our driver's Toyota Kijang. Only in Indonesia....

We were there to see Flores' main attraction, the colored lakes of Mt. Kelimutu. Supposedly they're best viewed at dawn, so we left Moni at 4am, drove most of the way up the mountain, and then climbed the final 20 minutes to the top to look down upon three volcanic lakes, colored black, brown, and green from various minerals in the water. (Strangely, the lakes keep changing their color--a few years ago, they were red, blue, and green.) It was a little overcast, so the sunrise was less than spectacular, but as the dawn broke I was just grateful to be able to see all three lakes, as they're often completely obscured by clouds.

We returned to our hotel for breakfast, and then zig-zagged west through high mountains, terraced rice fields, villages, and thousands of banana trees, coconut palms, and stands of giant bamboo. We stopped to take pictures at several points of interest, including the blue stone beach near Ende, where the locals gather and sort pastel-blue and purple beach stones for export (they're used in landscaping), and the traditional village of Bena, featuring high thatched-roof huts and weirdly angular stone altars.

We eventually made it to the hill town of Bajawa, where we found a room at the Hotel Korina, ate dinner at the Lucas Restaurant next door, and somehow ended up in an impromptu singalong outside our hotel with a few guitar-playing locals and some visiting French Canadians, getting drunk on arak (palm wine) and belting out tunes by John Denver and CCR.

Lord, what's become of me? :-)

People met today:

• Henrik from Sweden, just finishing a year of studying in Singapore, and traveling for several weeks in Indonesia. Chris and I met him at Lake Kelimutu this morning, but I also recognized him from the airport at Denpasar a couple of days ago (there aren't too many western travelers to Flores).

MONI, FLORES, INDONESIA

After stopping by the Merpati office and unsuccessfully trying to change our flight back to Bali (we wanted to give ourselves an extra day in Flores to see some more sights), we were forced to revert to our original four-day plan. No biggie.

So at 9:30 am we left Maumere (which frankly is kind of a hellhole, but I'll give it some slack since most of it was leveled by a 20-meter tsunami in 1992), and headed west along the Trans-Flores Highway, which winds its way through the mountains toward Labuan Bajo, on the west coast.

Well, "highway" may be a little optimistic, as it's really a two-lane road with quite a few potholes. As we passed through numerous local villages, we saw rice, cacao beans, and coconuts laid out on the roadside to dry, as we attempted to dodge the usual island road obstacles: cows, chickens, goats, pigs, dogs, and the occasional water buffalo. Oh, and pedestrians.

We arrived in the tiny mountain "town" of Moni (really a handful of rickety buildings in a rice field) by around 2pm, and settled in at our hotel, run by a ridiculously talkative but nice Dutch expat.

Having no plans for the rest of the afternoon, Chris got the crazy idea to rent a motorcycle (if you've ever seen Indonesian roads and drivers, you'll know why I call this "crazy"), which I wanted no part of, so while he rode around the area and went to a local wedding reception (don't ask), I walked the entire length of the town, which took about 10 minutes, came back to the hotel, and took a nap.

Things I don't think I've ever seen on the road before today:

• A dozen cabbages strapped to the front bumper of a bus
• Three dogs sleeping on top of a moving minivan
• A five-foot tuna fish tied to a motorcycle

MAUMERE, FLORES, INDONESIA

Today we began our second side-trip from Bali, a nine-day journey that will (hopefully) take us across the island of Flores in East Nusa Tenggara, and then to the islands of Rinca and Komodo.

This afternoon we flew on Merpati Airlines from Denpasar to Maumere, in the northeast of Flores, and met up with the guide we hired, a good-natured but quiet Indonesian guy named Hayun, who took us to our hotel. The plan is for him to drive us westward across the island over three or four days, to Labuan Bajo, on the west coast, where we'll hire a boat to take us to Rinca and/or Komodo to see the famous dragons, and hopefully also to do some diving, which is supposed to be fantastic there).

Indonesia Fun Fact:

• What I know so far about Flores: It's lush and mountainous, less traveled than much of Indonesia, and was colonized by the Portuguese, who named it Flores, meaning "flowers." In contrast to the rest of Indonesia, which is overwhelmingly Muslim, Flores is predominantly Catholic (that Portuguese influence again).

KUTA, BALI, INDONESIA

Well, after five days of relaxation in the Gilis, we're back in the crazy chaos of Kuta.

Our last night on Gili T. was "party night" at Rudy's, where we we're staying, which made celebrating all the more convenient. So while Chris tried to ignore the thumping beats from the bar and get some sleep, I had a few vodka tonics with the Canadians and some local surfers, then cruised over to the bar and met up with Patrick from London and these two sisters from Austria (sorry, forgot their names) before stumbling the dozen or so yards back to our bungalow and crashing.

This morning, Chris and I made the same journey as we did getting to the Gilis, only in reverse: Boat to Bangsal, minivan to Lembar, ferry to Padangbai, and minivan to Kuta. (Whew.) The Canadians followed us as far as Padangbai before we parted ways yet again--although not for long, I'm sure.

Chris and I (well, Chris mostly) spent much of the day talking with a really nice British gal named Kim, who entertained us with some great stories about her travels to the wilds of Southeast Asia, South Africa, and Orlando, FL.

People met today:

• Kim from Southampton, UK, backpacker extraordinaire, on a short Indonesian holiday with some girlfriends (see above).
• Peter from Austria, on a six-month trip with a friend. They both wanted to learn how to surf, so they bought surfboards in Hawaii and have been honing their skills for the past six weeks in the breaks at Kuta, Lombok (not to be confused with Kuta, Bali). Next they're off to Singapore and Thailand, same as us.
  

GILI TRAWANGAN, LOMBOK, INDONESIA

For some reason, dogs are banned from the Gilis, but cats aren't, making this place total kitty nirvana! Of course, this means that whenever you sit down at a restaurant (which are all outdoors, and most of them have little raised platforms with pillows to sit on), one or more skinny little mewler will hop on up and start its sob story.

Being more of a "cat person," Chris is extremely susceptible to this sort of behavior, and since he usually orders fish, they're always right there beside him, just workin' it. Usually about half his dinner goes into some cat's belly--you'd think with all the tourists doing this (okay, myself included) that they'd all be fat by now, but most of the little beggars are pretty scrawny.

Adding to their pathetic look is the fact that nearly all of them have bizarre little crooked tails of varying lengths, or no tail at all. At first I thought they all must have been run over by cidomos or something, but then I realized that they couldn't all be that careless. One person I talked to had heard a rumor that the locals chop off their tails for good luck charms, but I don't buy that! I haven't seen anyone carrying around a cat's tail, and anyway Chris talked to one woman who said she's seen kittens born that way, so I think that's the more likely scenario--just lots of inbred mutant kitties! Must be an island thing, like all of those five-toed cats in Key West....

GILI TRAWANGAN, LOMBOK, INDONESIA

After talking for awhile with Carl from Dive Indonesia, who's taken the Canadians on a few dive trips, I decided to join them all last night for my very first night dive.

Before doing so, though, we all had to read the "Night Diving" chapter of the Adventures in Diving textbook and answer some questions in order to obtain our PADI night-diving certification. Once that was accomplished, just after sunset we took a boat out into the channel, got our equipment in order, and jumped over the side. We then descended to a depth of 20 meters and drift-dived for close to an hour along the channel, past an artificial reef that's recently been created there.

I have to say that night diving was a really amazing experience--not frightening at all, but in fact very calm and peaceful (and a little surreal). I had thought it would be pretty dark down there, but there were eight of us with torches, and the visibility was really good, so we could illuminate a decent amount of the sea floor.

Most of the reef fish that are active during the day were either hiding in holes or "asleep," which was interesting to see. For example, we came across several really big porcupine fish just resting on the bottom, apparently snoozing, and when we shone our lights on them, they would groggily shuffle off.

Nocturnal species like cardinal fish, squirrel fish, and bigeyes, on the other hand, were out and about, as were sea urchins and crabs. I also saw dozens of lionfish roaming around, and lots of banded coral shrimp. We also encountered a annoyed-looking octopus, a miniature cuttlefish, and a blue-spotted stingray, along with a cluster of really cool-looking shrimpfish, two banded pipefish, and a big multicolored nudibranch (sea slug).

Not having done a night dive before, I really wasn't sure what to expect, but it turned out to be one of the most interesting dives I've been on. I only wish I had the underwater camera for this one!

GILI TRAWANGAN, LOMBOK, INDONESIA

After just one day on Gili Trawangan, Chris jokingly suggested abandoning the rest of our trip and just staying here for a year or two--and right now that seems like a reasonable suggestion to me! It really is an idyllic place, with white sand beaches, crystal-clear blue waters, lots of coral and fishes just offshore, and an amazing view of the mountains of Lombok in the distance.

All the activity on the island happens along its one main road, a sandy brick street running the length of its eastern shore that's lined with several dozen restaurants, bars, dive shops, and bungalows, all offering cheap food and cheap alcohol (and magic mushrooms, which is pretty funny). There are no motorized vehicles on the island; just bicycles and cidomos, colorful horse-drawn carts. But you can walk pretty much everywhere in a few minutes if you need to.

Of the three Gilis, Gili Trawangan is known as the "party" island, although for Gili Meno and Gili Air to be any more laid-back than this, they'd have to be deserted! I'm sure part of this is due to the recent drop in tourism, but it's also the off season (things pick up in July and August, and at Christmas). Anyway, there are just the right number of tourists here to be fun without it being annoyingly crowded. Out of necessity, "party night" switches off between several of the bars, so basically the same people drink at a different place each night. We've mostly hung out with the Canadians, and that guy Patrick we met on the ferry, who eventually decided to spend some time here rather than tackle Lombok's volcano just yet.

During the day, there's not much to do except swim, snorkel, or scuba, so that's what we've done! In the channel between Gili Trawangan and Gili Meno (the two are almost close enough to swim between), there's a fairly strong current, but it's also a great place to snorkel. Chris rented an underwater digital camera for a couple of days, so we've taken some pictures of sea turtles and fish and such. We also scuba dived today at Halik Reef, on the north side of the island, with an outfit called Trawangan Dive, run by a nice South African guy named Rob. I got to see a cuttlefish for the first time (outside of an aquarium or fish market), which was very cool, and a ton of other critters as well.

GILI TRAWANGAN, LOMBOK, INDONESIA

We were only supposed to be in Bali for a week, but Indonesia is a fascinating place, and Chris and I thought it would be cool to see a little more of it. Turns out it doesn't cost us anything to change our ticket, so we've decided to extend our stay for another two weeks, and take a couple of side trips.

Our first destination is the Gili Islands (which is a little redundant, since gili just means 'island' in Indonesian), three small coral cays off the northeast coast of Lombok, the island to the east of Bali in the Indonesian archipelago. The Gilis--Gili Air, Gili Meno, and Gili Trawangan--have been described as "Bali without the crowds," which after a few days in Kuta is an appealing option.

Getting there from Bali is cheap (about US$30 round-trip!), but it involves a 12-hour journey across sea and land. We began this morning at 6:15, when a minivan picked us up from our hotel and took us to the east coast of Bali and the port of Padangbai. It's a picturesque little tropical harbor, and apparently a nice place to stay, too, although we just had time for breakfast at a local restaurant before we had to board the ferry to Lombok. The ferry ride across the Lombok Strait took around four hours, but was pretty relaxing once the hawkers left the boat and we motored out of the harbor. The seas were very light, almost smooth in places, and we had some great views of the high volcanic peaks of Bali and Lombok, and crystal-clear blue water below. At one point our boat cut right through a large pod of dolphins, which didn't seem to notice the boat at all as they swam off to wherever they were headed.

We arrived in Lombok at the port of Lembar, where we boarded another minivan that would take us north to Bangsal. On the way there, we drove up winding roads into the mountains, and through another monkey forest--here the monkeys were just sitting on the barriers at the side of the road, watching all the vehicles pass. An Italian woman in our van had brought a bunch of bananas to snack on, but ended up tossing a lot of them out the window for the monkeys to catch. Which they did pretty expertly, so maybe that's why they hang out on the side of the road in the first place! It was pretty amusing.

At Bangsal we had to wait for another busload of passengers before getting in a small open boat that would take us to our final destination, Gili Trawangan, the island farthest from the mainland of Lombok. Unfortunately, sitting around for a half-hour meant having to run a gauntlet of local boys trying to sell us stuff, including necklaces and unnecessary protection from mosquitoes ("You need mosquito coil for malaria--really expensive there!"--which is not true!) We could see all three islands from shore, which made the wait even more frustrating.

We finally made it to Gili T. just as it was getting dark, and after looking at a few places, settled on a bungalow behind Rudy's Bar (every establishment here seems to multitask as a bar, restaurant, hotel, and sometimes dive shop).

Oh, guess what: The Canadians are here, too! A full day's journey away, and we had no idea they'd be here. Pretty funny.

People met today:

• Patrick, a really nice, talkative guy originally from South Africa, who now lives in London. We met him on the ferry from Padangbai to Lembar. He's been traveling throughout Southeast Asia, and gave Chris a lot of information about what to expect in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. He's thinking of climbing Lombok's big volcano, but is considering heading to the Gilis to relax for awhile first.