Bagan

Along the way, while traveling here in Myanmar, I have bounced my question off a number of travelers and expats. "How come the people of this country seem so well adjusted considering their economic and political conditions?" Although unemployment and poverty rates are very high, crime rates are ultra low. Why?

The most popular answer has been Buddhism.

Buddhism was introduced to this region sometime around the 11th century. A series of kings made Theravada Buddhism a kind of state religion and put the country's resources to work along the Irrawaddy River in west central Myanmar, building what was to become Bagan, a grand center of Buddhist studies over the next two centuries.

Bagan, now a protected archaeological site about the size of Manhattan, contains over two thousand monument temples built during this period. Almost every temple is made of bricks and concrete and, after a thousand years, are still standing tall and strong. Some are the size of a one car garage - others the size of a basketball arena. Each is an operating temple open to the public to worship or explore. Many have stairs to the rooftops to check out the breathtaking views of the incredible landscape. Temple spires sprout from the plain off into the horizon like a vast sculpture garden.

It's a large area to explore. The two most popular ways to do it are by bicycle or horse drawn cart. They both have their advantages.

The first day, I shared a horse cart with Nadine, a Swiss traveler I met on the bus ride from Inle Lake. So for K6,000 we got our own personal driver for the day.

Though charming, soon after giddy up, we realized how slow this thing was going to be. An older guy on a bicycle passed us on the road with ease.

Oh well. At least we have shade.

The Bagan plain is a mostly flat area with mild weather, low lying brush, and a big blue sky. A zig zag of dirt trails connects all of the temples, the Burmese call payas.

As we rolled up to the first one, we were greeted by a friendly local man who showed us all around the temple and gave us some history.

I thought to myself. Well this is a really nice tour, and I know we paid a small fee for entrance to this place. But, there are about two thousand of these temples, and a private tour of each one just can't be provided for nothing. I wonder if he is going to ask for money. Will this happen at every paya?

Sure enough, on our way out, he asked us to look at some paintings his family did, many in the style of the ancient paintings found in the temples. They were actually pretty nice.

I remembered the lesson I learned at Inle Lake with the cigars. If I like them, I should buy them now. Otherwise I may lose the opportunity.

I negotiated what seemed like a fair price for a couple of paintings and then jumped in the horse cart to head to the next stop.

I said to Nadine, "You know, at the next stop I bet they'll have these same paintings."

Sure enough, the next stop had a bunch of people selling local art. And guess what, I saw the same paintings. Tons of them. Priced about 20% of what I had just paid.

So much for lessons learned.

As it turns out, Bagan is chock full of artists. Locals have realized there is money in selling swag to tourists. Many of them are quite talented. But it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Way too much.

It is difficult to get a moment of peace at some of the stops. Some vendors will follow you around the temples and are extraordinarily persistent.

I did buy a fair number of art pieces, but I had to disappoint scores of people who seemed desperate for a sale.

The next day, I rented a bicycle and, even though I had to battle sand drifts and direct sun, I got to see a much quieter side of Bagan. Lonely dirt paths branched off in every direction each one leading to another temple. Some are maintained by families that live on the grounds, but many are completely deserted. It was refreshing after the first day to be completely alone in such a special place.

I don't think I have ever seen so much ancient history packed with such density into one place. I kept thinking that any one of these temples would be a central tourist attraction in any other city. But this place has thousands of them.

It's nearly impossible to visit them all... but fun to try.

Inle

On the day I was to leave for Inle Lake, I met up with Michael, a German traveler now living in India, who was taking the same trip.

We shared a cab to the bus station outside Yangon that the travel agent had written down for me. When we arrived, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I thought it would either be

a simple bus stop on the side of the road, or a proper station with parking stalls and attendants. This was a chaotic dirt lot randomly lined with about a hundred buses, none having any kind of markings I could read. We had to depend on our taxi driver to drive up and down the rows looking for the bus that matched our tickets which were written only in Burmese.

Once we found it, we realized this wasn't a tourist bus. We were the lone Westerners. The driver was busy packing the seats in the back of the bus with cargo which eventually included a couple of motorcycles. The other passengers were friendly.

"Mingalaba!", they'd say. This is like "hello" in Burmese, but literally means "it's a blessing."

We noticed some clear plastic bags they provided at each seat. I wondered if these were for garbage? Motion sickness? Then it became crystal clear. They were for spitting out betel nut juice. Many Myanmar people chew betel nut, mostly men. It stains their teeth dark red, as if they had just feasted on a pomegranate and hadn't taken a sip of water yet. But their teeth stay like that all the time.

We headed out in the late afternoon for the overnight journey.

Even though Nyaungshwe, the main town on Inle Lake, is less than 400 miles from Yangon (about the distance from San Francisco to Los Angeles), the journey would take about fourteen hours.

The modern concrete highway leaving Yangon soon downgraded into a bumpy asphault road, and then further into windy rocky dirt roads.

The bus had to stop frequently to pay tolls to groups of people sitting by campfires. I'm not sure if these were hill tribes that had to be paid off for safe passage, or if it's just that each town paved their own road and so collected their own tolls. I saw regular people from villages working on paving roads all around Myanmar.

By the time we reached the peaks of the mountain range, the temperature had dropped further than I had planned for, maybe about 40F. Never did I imagine it would be that cold while I was still in Southeast Asia. I bundled up the best I could.

Around 5 am, the bus dropped us on the side of the highway and we took a taxi to Nyaungshwe.

We had to pay a $5 USD government fee to enter the lake area as tourists. During my trip, I have tried to minimize any spending that goes to the oppressive government whether directly or indirectly. But there are certain things like the Myanmar entry visa and fees like this that are tough to avoid.

Before I left Yangon, I had asked the hotel clerk if he could help me make a hotel reservation. He did make a half-hearted attempt, but wasn't able to get it done for me. So here I was again. Rolling into an unfamiliar town at 5:30 am with no reservation anywhere. I didn't know if any guesthouses would even have their doors open this early. I'd hate to have to wander the freezing cold streets for several hours waiting for signs of life.

Luckily we shared a cab with some Swiss folks who did have a reservation at Nanda Wunn Hotel, which had attendants waiting for their arrival. I asked if they had any other free rooms, and as luck would have it, they had one left. So I plopped down and slept a few more hours.

Later that day, once everyone was open for business, I made arrangements to move to Teakwood Inn, a slightly cheaper and better located family-operated guesthouse.

Outside Teakwood, I was approached by a sweet-natured, older man named Nah Se who asked me if I'd like to take a boat tour of the lake tomorrow. He said he could give me a longer tour and for less money than booking it through an agent.

I try whenever possible to spend money directly with individuals and family businesses. Also, having an opportunity to speak with him beforehand meant that I knew how his English was and knew I'd be able to ask questions along the way. So I committed to a trip the following day. Nah Se would be my private guide and his son would drive the boat.

I hadn't read all that much about Inle Lake before I came. In fact, most of what I knew about it came from a novel I had been reading, Saving Fish from Drowning, which is set here at the lake.

I knew that people lived "on" the lake and that there were some homes on stilts in the water. What I didn't realize until Nah Se toured me around, was that the local Intha people, don't just live around the lake. They have entire floating villages in the middle of the lake. Complete with streets and intersections, these villages are built on bamboo or teak posts in the relatively shallow water. Homes, stores, and farms are arranged together the same as they would be on land. Except they aren't. You have to take a canoe from place to place.

The floating farms are legendary. The farmers collect seaweed from the lake floor and create a type of floating soil that they plant crops in. Everything from tomatoes, to beans, to cauliflower, to corn. The variety of vegetables along with the fish from the lake make for some very tasty local cuisine.

As they harvest, they take their crops to markets, some floating with shoppers browsing from canoe to canoe, and some land-based which are a little easier to navigate. The land markets also allow participation by the hill tribes, such as the Pa-Oh, that grow other crops up in the surrounding mountains.

Nah Se proceeded to motor me around to some of the favorite spots with tourists.

If I had known beforehand that the "tour" was going to have scheduled stops at places where I could buy stuff and the boat driver may benefit somehow from stopping there, I would have been cynical about it. But as it turned out, even if that was true, the sights and the stops were all very interesting and enjoyable.

One stop was at a weaving shop in a floating village where they spun thread from local cotton, silk, and lotus root, and then dyed the thread and weaved lovely clothing using hand made wooden looms. It was really very charming and impressive.

Another stop was at another floating home

where they were rolling cheroots, the local mini cigars that are very popular with the locals and visitors alike. They showed me how they made natural filters and glue to bind the wrapped leaves. They let me taste one of their mixtures of tobacco, banana, tamarind, and brown sugar. It was delicious, and so pleasant smoking it on the floating porch with my boat driver, that I couldn't help but buy a little hand carved wooden box of them.

After some other stops for lunch, and some mid-lake temples and monasteries, we called it a day.

Later after returning to town, I was wishing I had bought more of those lovely cheroots. I walked around town looking for more of those little wooden boxes of sweet cigars. But I couldn't find any.

When I ran into Nah Se on the road, I asked him if there is some place in town I can get more. He said. "No. Lake only."

I took that as a lesson. If you want it, buy it now. Because you may not have another opportunity.

The next day I was reading through the guidebook for other points of interest around the lake and I noticed there was a hot springs a few miles out of town. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a hard time saying no to naturally hot water. So I rented a bike and pedaled off into the countryside.

This was a great excuse to get out of the touristy area and see some everyday life out here.

I am hesitant to make the life of the local folks here sound too idilic. I know that these people struggle every day to make a living and stay out of the way of some of the very real political dangers around them.

But I have to say, riding through the country, the everyday life here seems peaceful and simple and downright pleasant. I know that's not true for everyone. But children laughing and playing in their school yard. A boy out for a walk with his flock of water buffalo. Kids flying kites after school.

It could be that the extra money this area receives from tourism just makes life a little easier around here than in other parts of Myanmar.

But it was nice to be able to look around and say, "everything is not broken here."

Myanmar

I really only became aware of Myanmar when I traveled to northwest Thailand several years ago.

I was taking a bus toward Pai one day, and as the bus got closer to the Myanmar border, it became clear to me that there was some tension there. Just as there are heightened patrols near the Southwestern US border with Mexico, it appeared that Thai authorities had to keep Burmese people from entering the country.

But there were Burmese in Thailand. In fact, some of my favorite local people I met in Thailand actually turned out to be Burmese.

The more I learned about the severe economic and political conditions in Myanmar, the more I wondered how such universally wonderful people could be the products of such a difficult existence.

It made me curious enough to see for myself.

It takes some preparation to visit Myanmar. You need to arrange a visa before arriving there; You can only enter the country via air travel; and you must bring pristine, unblemished, US currency. Due to international economic sanctions, there are no ATMs here. They don't take credit cards. All the money you'll have access to is what you carry in.

As my plane descended toward Yangon International Airport, I got my first look at the countryside. It was sunset and the air seemed smokey. I could see some piles of trash burning on some of the farms which were arranged near the river in a kind of organic hodge podge rather than grids. The population even around the outskirts of the capitol did not seem dense at all.

I had heard that Burmese are somewhat thirsty for information about world news since their media are censored by the government. I expected them to be somewhat ignorant of the outside world.

But my 60-something taxi driver took great pleasure in showing me just how much he knew about my home when I told him I'm from San Francisco.

"You have very tall trees that grow just outside the city boundary. You can drive a car through some of them." (of our famous California Redwoods including Muir Woods)

"California has many Jennifers and Jessicas!" (Ha! That's true!)

His English was fabulous. I later learned that older folks tend to speak English far better than younger people because they stopped teaching English in schools after the new government took over. In fact, for some generations, there was no public school at all.

I didn't have a reservation at my first hotel choice, Okinawa Guesthouse . In retrospect, it probably wasn't a great idea to show up in Yangon without a reservation. There are no legible street signs to try and follow any guide book maps, especially at night. But I lucked out, and they had a room available.

I checked in and asked the desk clerk if he could change some currency for me. He said no. When I asked where I could get some local currency, he said "A bank." I thought this was a cruel joke because my understanding was that banks offered the international exchange rate for Kyat, the Myanmar currency. But since there is no market for Kyat (pronounced like chat) outside Myanmar, the international exchange rate is about 1/100 the actual local market value. Which would make $500 USD worth about $5. That's bad.

But he wasn't joking.

I asked some other hotel guests how they got their Kyats. They said that indeed, within the past month, the banks have been allowed to exchange currency at the local street rates. But it was night time, the banks were closed, and I was hungry. So one of them was nice enough to lend me two thousand Kyats (about $2.60), enough to buy an all-you-can-eat indian food meal around the corner and still have a thousand Kyats left over.

It used to be that you had to exchange your money for Kyat on the streets even though it was illegal. There are still plenty of folks willing to do so on the street promising better rates than the banks, but I heard story after story of visitors getting swindled by them.

Bottom, line: Use the banks. If I had used the exchange at the airport, I wouldn't have had to borrow.

I walked around the downtown area looking for the restaurant I heard about.

Life takes place on the street here. Markets spill out of storefronts onto the sidewalk outside. Many people are eating in alleys on little plastic stools while someone cooks them food on a pan over an open fire. Hardly restaurants. More like street camping. I hoped this wasn't what they had pointed me to.

It also just hit me as I'm walking around, that the folks here are kind of half Asian and half Indian. That shouldn't have come as a surprise to me seeing as the Western side of the country borders Bangladesh and India.

After awhile I thought I had found the place - a dirty little hole in the wall with people watching soccer on TV. The owner beckoned me in and confirmed his K1000 menu. I told him I only wanted vegetables, and he served me some good rice and dahl with some nice little veggie side dishes. It wasn't bad.

The next day, I got a much better look at the city in the hot sunlight.

My impression as I was walked around was "This is a city that used to be."

You see, Myanmar wasn't always poor. While it was under Britain, it was one of Asia's healthiest economies. Yangon was built up as any other Asian capitol would have been at that time. But after the 1960's when everything changed, it's clear that no other investment has gone into this place. No maintenance. No painting. No building. Nothing.

The sidewalks have giant holes that you'll fall into if you're not careful. People just walk in the street instead.

Some other travelers who had been down South awhile in Mawlamyine had adopted the slogan, "Everything's broken."

One day I watched while some firemen pushed one of their broken down firefighting vehicles back into the firehouse. It seemed kind of symbolic.

But the people walking in the streets. They aren't broken.

They smile and laugh. They are clean and well groomed. They dress nicely. They seem to have a sense of pride.

To me they looked like you or I would look like if our city was broken. We'd do our best. And that's what they're doing.

I found a bank and changed some money. I had to decide how much to change. For some reason, hotels here prefer to be paid in US dollars, while every other business wants Kyats.

To make things more complicated, some travelers were telling me it is tougher to change money outside the capitol. It's kind of now or never.

So after having $250 worth of my brand new US dollars rejected by the bank tellers for not being flawless enough, I left there with a plastic sack of K225,000 in small bills, rubber banded together. I felt like a drug lord.

I'll just have to hope I have the right mix of local and US currency.

Later that day, a Buddhist monk stopped me in the street and asked if he could talk to me for a little while. I know that in the past, it was dangerous for locals to talk publicly with visitors. They could easily be arrested for it. So even though I have heard it's not quite as bad these days, I was a little bit apprehensive about conducting an extensive conversation on a busy sidewalk. So we went and sat down for some tea in a room above a restaurant.

He seemed to know English fairly well, but his pronunciation was so terrible that I had a really hard time following what he was saying. I knew that monks were among the leaders of political change in Myanmar and have been persecuted endlessly for it by the government. He wanted to teach me about the Arakan people from the Rakhine State where he is from. They are one of the many ethnic minorities that complain of mistreatment by the Burmese majority.

He asked me to follow him to a certain area downtown with a concentration of Arakan people. I thought he wanted me to see their shops so maybe I'd purchase something from them. But I should have known better. Commerce and money are really the last things on the mind of any practicing monk. He refused every offer of anything I made to him.

He asked me to come upstairs above one of the stores to what turned out to be a sweatshop full of Arakan men making fine jewelry using crude tools and foot operated blast torches. I got the picture. He wanted me to understand that while the Burmese folks were operating the jewelry shops below, his friends were kept in hot, crowded conditions producing their merchandise.

It was a great experience talking with him. His goal was to bring some awareness to me and to practice English at the same time - and it worked.

I left his name out of this post for his sake.

A few words on the name of the country.

During the weeks leading up to this trip, I had been telling people that I was going to "Burma."

I said Burma for two reasons. First, because from what little history I knew, the current government had renamed the country Myanmar after having taken control back from Great Britain. I thought the citizens might still refer to their own country as Burma in defiance of their government. The US State Department still does. Second, more people know the name Burma. When you say Myanmar, people sort of squint and say "Where?"

But as it turns out, everyone in Myanmar says "Myanmar". So now I do too. From what I'm told, it's only folks outside the country that sometimes still use the fifty year old name.

After a day of walking around the hot, congested city, my throat is feeling kind of scratchy. At first I thought I was catching a cold, but now I think it's the smokey air.

I go to a travel agent with a nice clean air conditioned office. Seven identically dressed young employees who don't seem to have much to do, all look at me as I walk in. "I'd like to buy an overnight bus ticket to Inle Lake for tomorrow." Three of them help me simultaneously.

Hopefully this first class agency will put me in a nice comfortable bus.

I'll head out tomorrow.

Erosion

There are a number of reasons why I keep returning to Thong Nai Pan Noi beach. Its natural beauty and friendly quiet atmosphere are legendary, especially to anyone that's had to listen to me reminisce about it.

But that sort of legend has a way of inviting development. New hotels, businesses, and crowds that often stamp out the very beauty and atmosphere that brought them.

I always suspected that would happen here too. So I feel the need to return as often as possible before it's all gone. Each time I go back, I don't know quite what to expect.

Traveling there from Ko Lipe, however, was more challenging than I suspected. It turns out it's virtually impossible to get from Lipe to Ko Phangan in a single day, even if you're willing to spring for a plane ticket. This is mainly due to the ferry schedules to and from both islands.

I resigned to the fact that I was going to have to stay overnight somewhere along the way. I chose to stay over in Surat Thani rather than Krabi because it is closer to the ferries in the Gulf, and I figured I could get an earlier ferry that way.

A nasty rain storm greeted me and I took cover in the only backpacker hotel nearby. When I looked at the dirty, overpriced rooms, the bell boy made sure to let me know he could call a hooker over for me, and ensured I understood by miming the whole transaction. Classy.

Just as I was about to begrudgingly hand over $14 to the desk clerk, four other backpackers approached me and asked me if I wanted to share a five bed room with them. They seemed nice and were in the same boat as me. A frenchman, an Italian, a Russian, and an Aussie-American. They had all been on the same bus and had all just met each other.

I shrugged and said, "Why not." The seedy hotel got exactly zero dollars from me. And I made four new friends.

Big win.

It's funny how sharing a hotel room with a total stranger feels so natural when there are no other english speakers in sight. Back at home it would seem preposterous.

We only had to tolerate the crummy room for a few hours while we slept, and then made our way to the ferry first thing. The others were looking for a nice quiet beach to relax, so I talked three of them into checking out Thong Nai Pan with me, though with a warning that I didn't know exactly what we'd find.

After the two hour ferry ride and the bumpy forty minute jungle taxi, we were finally there.

The first thing I noticed was that the first two bungalow resorts on that end of the beach had been completely demolished, and there was new construction under way.

I had heard before I left for my trip that my favorite bungalows at the opposite end might not be operating either. And sure enough, they were closed down for repairs. But the same family operates the Thong Tapan resort next door, and had some beautiful, comfortable bungalows up the hill for 500 baht. So we moved in.

I noticed the I-Sea bar on the beach wasn't open. It seemed vacant with no bottles on the shelves or music playing. It's a favorite spot of mine, so I asked Boo, our guest hostess, "Does Stefano and his wife still operate the bar?" She said no, not anymore.

Sigh.

Little by little, I noticed things were missing from the little beach community. The Bamboo Hut, a great family restaurant, was shut down, though only temporarily. But other little spots that had held fond memories for me had been torn down entirely.

Asking around, I learned that the luxury Rasananda resort, which opened a couple of years ago, has actually always owned the majority of the beach front here and was renting the land to the backpacker bungalows that have dominated the beach until now. They have decided to take back the land and expand their $250 - $1000+ per night hotel.

As you might imagine, the type of clientele that spend one hundred times more to stay at the same beach might tend to change the atmosphere of the tiny village. These are folks who tend to stay in their resorts, use its spa, and eat and drink at its top notch restaurants. They don't go out for $2 noodle plates or patronize the little pancake dessert cart on the road, nor do they play pool at the expat bar on the beach.

So as a result, those businesses have largely closed, or moved elsewhere.

In the past, I had always been worried that the beach would be ruined by ugly development and annoying tourist merchant shops. But I had it wrong. The beach is as quiet and beautiful as ever. But the people changed. And that turned out to be just as distressing for me.

Beauty alone doesn't make a place feel like home.

I also learned something else about Ko Phangan. I had always thought Thailand had a single "high" tourist season from November to February. But that's not the case. There are three distinct climate regions in Thailand. And even though the Andaman coast is indeed in its high season, the Gulf region has an entirely different climate. And I had unknowingly chosen the rainiest month of the year, November, to come to Phangan.

Luckily, the days I spent here were mainly sunny and beautiful. I had planned to stay up to two weeks, but I knew I'd be pushing my luck with the weather if I stayed much longer and I felt a sense of sadness that so much of what I always liked about this place was gone.

I knew it wouldn't last forever. And I was right. It's still a lovely place to visit, and I expect I'll be back. But I'll come in January or February. And I'll bring some friends to hang out with.

My new friends decided to move on to a more lively part of the island. I considered following them, but decided it was time to see something new.

It's time to head to Burma.

Lipe

I have only a modest knowledge of geography.

When I imagine traveling to a country I have never visited, I tend to envision one particular city I know of, or some scene from a movie. I think that's pretty common.

Then I might pick up a guide book, or surf the web looking for more stories, descriptions, or pictures.

But then when I actually arrive, it hits me - how much more to this place there is that I will never see or never even hear about. All I can do is keep my eyes and ears open for new places to check out.

One day I was sitting at a hot springs back home, and I was chatting about Thailand with a guy I met. He was raving about this island Ko Lipe on the west coast near the Malaysian border. He said it was a beautiful, quiet place, and a great escape from the more crowded tourist beaches.

He seemed like the sort of fellow I'd like to meet out on a beach somewhere. We probably have similar sensibilities in such places. So I made a mental note to check it out if I was in the area.

That's really all it takes for me to choose a destination sometimes. A good tip.

So sitting in Railay, plotting my next move, I figured I wasn't likely to be any closer to Lipe any time soon, so now is the time.

I took a bus to Pak Bara, the nearest pier town, and headed over.

Ko Lipe is a small island in the midst of the Tarutao National Park. The only reason that construction is permitted on this island is that it has been the home of some sea gypsies since before it was even part of Thailand. Those gypsies retained their rights to build here, and in the grand tradition of other indigenous people exploiting their land rights (e.g. Native American casinos), Ko Lipe tourism was born.

As the ferry pulled in toward the island, it hit me that this place is just slightly bigger than I expected. I'll need to make a decision about which beach to stay at while I'm here. So I took a quick poll around the boat to see what people knew about the different spots.

I learned that the sunrise side of the island has cheaper bungalows and is quieter than the Pattaya Beach side where we landed. That sounded good to me, but required a sweaty 300 meter walk to the other side, where I promptly dropped my pack next to a very relaxed looking woman in a hammock and walked the long pretty beach to find my next home.

I found a place with some nice bamboo bungalows and asked for one right on the beach facing the water. It had a little bed out front with some pillows for enjoying the spectacular view of the white sand and turquoise water decorated with a few colorful long tail boats waiting for maintenance by the sea gypsies next door.

When I first heard of these gypsies, I imagined slim folks with long scraggly black hair and bandanas and jingly clothes that made them sound like Santa's sleigh while they danced around their camp fires at night singing pirate songs.

But actually, they pretty much just look and act like other Thais. Oh well.

At 900 baht, the bungalow was pricey for bamboo, but I decided to splurge since the spot was so beautiful. There were other cheaper huts around if I decided to stay longer.

I threw on my swim suit and jumped in the warm blue water for a much needed swim after the long journey.

I looked forward to laying on my little veranda afterward, but just as I got out, some clouds moved overhead and the wind started to blow.

For the next two days the wind kept blowing against my little hut, and woke me up early each day from the noise.

Suddenly, this expensive little hut didn't seem so awesome anymore. Especially when I noticed that if I walked inland just 50 meters or so, the wind completely stopped. It's only the sunrise beach that's windy.

Hmph.

So I looked around the island for a new home and found Sunset beach. It required a bit of a hike down a jungle road, but there was no wind, and the beach, although smaller, was very pretty as well.

The bungalows there aren't anything to write home about with their pink linoleum floors, and dingy easter egg interior, but it was quite functional and much cheaper at 500 baht to have my hammock hang just over the shore.

There were only a couple of places to eat here and one bar, so anyone with an interest in socializing would likely want to walk the twenty minutes into the village to do so. Just remember your flashlight.

I established myself as a regular at Mom's Tattoo Bar on the main walking street. I noticed it as soon as I arrived to the island because it plays a revolving list of easy listening covers to popular songs. Mom, who's actually a man, is a well known tattoo artist who also runs the bar and keeps the atmosphere lively.

I enjoyed my time on Lipe. It's a good atmosphere with some very pretty beaches. I also hear the diving is amazing around here.

But I knew this wouldn't be my new island paradise. My mind was on one place. One beach I always return to when I'm here. I figured I'd spend a couple of weeks there at least. So I had better head over if for no other reason than I could stop daydreaming about it.

I say my goodbyes to the Tattoo Bar staff and regulars.

Tomorrow, Phangan.

Asok

Normally, when it's time for me to head to Bangkok for some reason, I stay in the Khaosan Road tourist ghetto. Although it does contain a number of products and services tourists need, like visa assistance, travel gear, and information - it is also dirty, the rooms are expensive, and worst of all, you can't walk five feet without someone trying to sell you something.

So even though I suspect there are cool things to do in Bangkok somewhere, I don't really know where to find them and so I usually minimize my time there.

But on this trip I got an invitation from my friend Leah to stay at her apartment in the Asok neighborhood. I'm not sure that's really the name of the area. Asok is the nearest Sky Train stop, which Leah shares with another popular tourist destination called Soi Cowboy, one of the city's red light districts. It's actually a single alley that is right on her block. We cut through the alley once so I could check it out. It helped that she was with me, otherwise, as a single guy, I would have had a hard time making it out of there without a lot of harassment.


Her apartment is lovely and made a huge difference to the quality of my time spent there. Being walking distance from good public transportation (unlike Khaosan) made it much easier for me to run errands around town like getting to the Myanmar (Burma) embassy for the visa I'd need later in my trip.

While exploring her neighborhood, I wandered into a brand new shopping mall called Terminal 21. It's themed kind of like an airport. They have signs that appear to be pointing you to different world destinations. At first I actually thought it was some kind of train station.

It's about eight stories high, and when I got to the fourth floor, I had one of the most surreal experiences I have had during this trip.

As I came up the escalator, there is a giant scale replica of the Golden Gate Bridge. It actually spans between the fourth and fifth floors.

Both floors are themed to look like San Francisco, my home city.

Everywhere I looked, there were details that reminded me of home. Some of them are obvious, like a giant full-sized replica of a cable car on tracks made into a coffee shop you can sit inside. And some are less obvious, like the signs of real stores, street signs, and public artwork, most of which no one who didn't live there would really associate with the city.

Everywhere I walked, I'd snap a picture of something that made me laugh. I know I looked funny to the other shoppers in the mall. Why did I care so much about the decorations?

The food court of the mall was called "Pier 21", and completely themed after Pier 39, the major tourist ghetto of San Francisco. It even had a Bubba Gump Shrimp sign above a Chinese restaurant.

That's what kind of spun my head. A fake sign for a real restaurant in a fake tourist part of a real city.

Mind. Blown.

One night, a few of Leah's friends and I were out at her favorite sushi restaurant, In the Mood for Love. After a number of drinks, Leah made the proclamation, "We should go to Railay tomorrow for the weekend!"

I don't think this is a rare proclamation for her. She has made no secret that Railay is her favorite place on Earth. She is an avid rock climber, and besides having a gorgeous beach, it is a climber's paradise. I have no solid itinerary for this month, so of course I say "I'm in! I have the perfect frisbee!"

So the Thailand beach combing portion of my trip began the next day. Only this time, rather than the grueling overnight bus from Bangkok, we just hopped a plane - she with a round trip ticket - me with a one way. Normally after dark, you'd have to stay overnight in Krabi and take a boat over to Railay beach in the morning. But Leah has a number of friends there, so we got the VIP treatment at the airport. A van ride to the dock and a boat waiting to motor us over in the dark. I can see why this is a favorite weekend activity for her. I'd do it too if I lived in Bangkok.

After a solid weekend of frisbee and paddle ball, Leah returned home, and I mulled my next move.

I could fly back to Bangkok and start my Burma trip.

But as long as I'm already in South Thailand beach mode...

Kyoto

On the early side of Sunday morning rush hour, I made my way to Tokyo Station where I planned to jump on the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. Luckily, Sunday morning rush hour is somewhat lighter than weekdays, but still an impressive showing of suits, briefcases, and school uniforms.

Once in the station I started to make the mistake of following any sign that pointed to "Shinkansen". That's a little bit like going to an airport and following any sign that says "airplane". There are actually more than one company and multiple parts of the station from which the trains might leave.

Although the train ticket price rivaled that of an airplane fare, I have to say the experience is much smoother. Just like all trains, you just show up at the right time and walk on, throw your bag over your seat, and away you go.

The interior of the train is more comfortable and spacious than the coach cabin of an airplane. The seats are more like business class seats. I was anxious to see what the ride was like. Would it feel like a rocket? Would the passing scenery just look like a big blur like I was in warp drive on the Starship Enterprise?

Well, not exactly. I'd say it feels more like being on an airline jet zooming down the runway right at the moment before you lift off. Except you never lift off. You just stay at one constant speed except for the occasional stop every half hour or so.

In a little over two hours, I arrived at Kyoto Station.

As soon as I walked off the train and into the station I instantly felt a whole different energy than Tokyo. People walked slower, dressed more casually. I just felt more of a peace about them. And mind you, this is still in a crowded train station.

Outside, I got my bearings and walked the several blocks to K's House Kyoto guesthouse. As backpacker hostels go, this one kinda wins. Very modern, spacious, and clean with lots of handy things like bikes for rent, cheap laundry machines, and free wifi. But the staff is the best part. Their English is just ok, but the service is top notch and super friendly. They even gave me a double room for the price of a single person in a dorm. Maybe it was my winning smile. Or maybe it was the grey whiskers which gave me some extra juice. Half the price of Tokyo.

My room wasn't ready yet though, so I rented a bike for a couple hours to explore the nearby neighborhood. Bikes are widely used here. It's a super flat city, which certainly helps. But a couple things took some getting used to.

For one thing, bikes aren't welcome in the street for the most part. I immediately got honked at when I ventured into traffic. I had noticed before how annoying it was that so many people rode their bikes on the sidewalk, even in Tokyo. But now I realized that's where you're supposed to ride. The bike lanes in the crosswalks should have been my first clue.

The other crazy thing about biking Kyoto is that parked bikes are not appreciated anywhere. The guesthouse clerk made me read a statement and nod my head in understanding that the police may remove bikes that are illegally parked on the street, especially near busy buildings, but really anywhere.

When I asked where I could park, he smiled and said "Nowhere."

Biking around for a couple hours, I got a feel for what a Kyoto neighborhood looks like. A few large avenues a mile or so apart, with each square mile containing it's own neighborhood with lots of tiny streets that wind around and dead end in a way that makes it fun to explore and get lost in. The little streets are lined with densely packed brownish wooden townhouses sprinkled with little shops and restaurants. Very charming. Lots of kids walking and riding bikes. It seems like a very pleasant place to live.

I still had to buy a return ticket to Tokyo, so I returned to Kyoto Station, which as it turns out is a stunning piece of architecture. It's fifteen stories of transportation, shopping, hotels, and entertainment. I'm not normally a big fan of malls, but I a saw a set of escalators rising and rising out of sight, so I took a ride. I kept going up and up and up, amazed at how enormous the indoor space was, until I looked around and realized I was now outside on the roof in a little garden with fake cricket noise and a rad view of the city.

Outside, I stumbled on a kind of school dance competition going on. It looked like high school kids probably from different local schools, each with a high energy choreographed dance in traditional Japanese outfits and painted faces. The music seemed to be a hybrid of traditional and modern. The kids were having a blast.

And that wasn't the only community festival going on around the station that evening. I could tell this is a town that fosters art and culture. Being the historic center of so many components of Japanese culture (e.g. Shintoism and Zen Buddhism), I bet there's a festival of some kind just about every week. I saw posters advertising cultural events all over town.

Over the next couple of days, I set out to see some sights and eat at some everyday restaurants.

• Shoren-in Temple - It's kind of hard for me to understand all of the history, what with so many sects of Buddhism and generations of priests and emperors. Something about Jodo, Tendai, and Shin sects. But I gathered that this was a temple for the emperor, one of who's sons studied traditional arts here and became a high priest. What really impressed me though is the architecture of the interior spaces and how they were incorporated with the beautiful surrounding garden. Inside were simple mats and decoratively painted sliding panels for storage and privacy. The walls all opened up into the garden so that it felt like the same space. Very peaceful and lovely.
• Heian Shrine -I randomly rode my bike past this place and it was really big and orange, so I checked it out. I didn't really know what went on here normally. But on this day, the place was bustling with families. Each family had one or two little kids around four years old each dressed in traditional garb. The boys looked like little shogun warriors and the girls where in colorful kimonos. Apparently this is a popular place to take family photos when your kids are a certain age. It was super cute, but I was a little bit self conscious about snapping too many pictures of their kids, so I just stole one or two.
• Kyoto Imperial Palace - For the one thousand or so years before 1869, this was the residence of Japan's emperors. After that, they headed for Tokyo. But this place is still fairly well preserved, especially the lush gardens. You have to register with your passport to take one of the relatively few daily tours. By this time, I was getting a little tired of just gawking at buildings, but my favorite part of this tour was standing at what was, for those thousand years, the back porch of the emperor - where he would sit in his quarters and look out over his exquisitely manicured landscape. I guess it's kind of like sitting in the president's oval office chair. Neat.
• Fast food - The guesthouse gave me some tips of where to eat like a local. One was a fast food joint that sold rice bowls. It was a good place for me because they had pictures of all the food I might order. I just had to point. So I pointed. Then he asked me a question. Uh oh. I pointed again and smiled. At some point he said "beeh?". Oh I have a choice of meat. "Yes beef."
• Ramen - Another tip was a local ramen house. I brought some other folks from the guesthouse there with me. When we got there, we weren't sure we were in the right place. It was a tiny little space with bad fluorescent lighting. But there were some people waiting outside for a table. Good sign. The colorful proprietor came out and grunted some stuff at us and gave us an English (like) menu. Basically our choice was big noodles, regular noodles, or small noodles. We chose the noodles. They were delicious.
• Gion - This is the historical center of geisha culture (they say geiko here). I took a tour around the neighborhood where schools, dormitories, tea houses and theatres teach young trainees called meiko and showcase their talents. But it's not as if they are walking around everywhere greeting tourists. Sightings of them are actually kind of rare. The tourguide from my guesthouse, Miku, tried to give us the best chance of a sighting outside an exclusive tea house. People were waiting outside like paparazzi. But nothing. Then on our way back, Miku and I spotted a real life meiko in the subway of all places. Miku was certain she was legit, and seemed kind of star struck. The young girl did indeed look like a painting. Hardly real. Her expression was fixed into a mysterious expression I can only describe as fascinating.
  

All in all, I really enjoyed the vibe of Kyoto. It's a little upscale, but in a crunchy, cultural way. I could see myself living here.

But only after I learn Japanese.

Tokyo

I had four days off work before heading off on my next Asia trip. Somehow I managed to fill up all four with packing and shopping for various travel needs like a proper frisbee for Thong Nai Pan, or fresh new US currency suitable for trading in Burma.

Also, for the past few weeks I've been checking the news daily to see whether downtown Bangkok was expected to be flooded when I arrive there in a week. I was excited to meet up with some friends there after Tokyo and get my travel visa to Burma, but I had no intention of wading around in dirty chest deep water to do so. And the chances of that hovered around 50/50 for weeks.

But now it was time to board the plane for Tokyo, and a great time to finally crack open the
Japan guide book a friend lent me.

Although the flight is a mere eleven hours, you still lose about two days on the calendar to get there. My flight out of SFO left around 10 am Wednesady, and I landed in Tokyo 4 pm
Thursday. At least I'll get a day back on the way home.

By the time I cleared customs and took the hour train ride from Narita to downtown

Tokyo, It was around 7 pm, right at the tail end of rush hour. I've heard about how they physically cram people into crowded trains during peak periods, so I was crossing my fingers I'd miss that.

The first thing I noticed was that I was the only man on my train car that wasn't wearing a suit and tie and holding a briefcase. I rarely see men in suits in San Francisco where I work so this was definitely a curiosity to me.

The two trains I took weren't too packed, but when I arrived at Ikebukuro Station, I saw what urban hustle and bustle is all about. Even after 7 pm, the station was gushing people from one corridor to another.

The next thing I realized was how out of place I was. Besides not being in a suit, I was the only caucasian in sight in a homogeneous sea of Japanese. At home I'm used to seeing a melting pot of faces and races, but this place didn't seem at all diverse.

Tokyo is an international city, but it's not really a big tourist destination. At least not for foreign tourists. So I realized quickly, this place was not going to accommodate me as an English speaker the way so many other destinations seem to.

As out of place as I felt, no one seemed to notice me. I'm not sure whether it's because they are too polite to stare or that they are so intensely focused on their own destinies. But I felt fairly invisible.

I barely remembered to write down detailed directions to Hotel Sakura before I left home. I even felt a little silly when I snapped a picture of the website's map on my iPhone. But thank god I did. After following my written directions and walking through town at night with my heavy bags for twenty minutes or so, I realized I had no idea where the hotel was. But the iPhone map got me oriented and I found it. That's one point scored in favor of travel paranoia.

I was pleased to see that my ultra budget room ($80/night) even had a private bathroom, although it was comically small. Kind of like something you'd see in an RV. But I like RVs. So I was happy.

I was tempted to crash out. But no way. I'm in Tokyo, man. Time to check it out. I had a few hours before the subways all shutdown around midnight, so I ventured.

I rode the JR train to Shinjuku where I heard there was some nightlife. My first mission was to find some tasty sushi.

I followed the crowd out of the station to the first major intersection where everyone split off in different directions. I chose to walk straight across the major street into a wide, brightly lit, promenade. There were some young men in light grey suits standing around with bleached blonde heavy metal haircuts. One of them approached me and asked me in very broken English if I was looking for a good time. He said I had wandered in to the red light district.

Well that was quick. I had no idea. It didn't look all that seedy. There were no girls in sight. Just a lot of drunken business men and regular looking restaurant facades.

He pointed me down the street to find some food. But before I got too far, a very friendly African man seemed very happy to see me, and w

ouldn't leave my side unless I let him lead me to a nice hostess bar. His car salesman style turned me off, however, and only resolved me to resist doing anything he suggested. He followed me for several blocks before I convinced him he was wasting his time.

As it turns out, Nigerian men have begun to infest Tokyo streets touting for such places. I would have thought Japan would have demanded more discretion. I guess they are fine with sleeze as long as it's outsourced.

I actually have no objection to hostess bars, and might have gone to one with friends if it weren't for the seedy touting.

I found some sushi which I happily slurped down, and wandered around a bit more. I found some cool little hole in the wall bars and restaurants. I was actually surprised how few sushi places there are here. It apparently isn't any more prevalent here than it is back home. There are lots of other types of food Japanese eat that we just don't see much of in the West.

Unfortunately, I don't have any idea what most of it was. Walking by restaurants, I'd see many pictures showing bowls of randomness with Japanese scrawl next to them. No clue. Good thing I know how to order sushi.

I spent the next day or so exploring neighborhoods and seeing some sights.

• Mori Art Museum - At the tippy top of the Roppongi Hills Mori tower is one of Tokyo's newest and best art museums. It was raining pretty bad one of my days there, and a museum was a perfect escape. The exhibit was on Metabolism, an architecture movement that started in Japan in the early 60's that focuses on large scale, extensible structures.
  
• Imperial Palace East Garden - To me, the remarkable thing about the Imperial Palace is mainly its longevity. It has been there in the center of Tokyo (formerly known as Eno) since something like 1100 and is now surrounded by highrises. Mainly the palace area is a giant ancient fortress. There are still structures, huge walls and large moats that used to keep the royals safe from the angry masses. As an ornate garden though, it doesn't hold a candle to Golden Gate Park.
  
• Akihabara - Also called Electric Town, this is gadget central. I didn't see much here that blew me away except that I was fairly creeped out by the baby doll touts, girls dressed in french maid outfits, and shouting something like baby talk, promoting nearby businesses.
• Harajuku - Known for its young, ultra stylish crowd, I wanted to see what this place was about. From what I could tell, it's mainly about shopping. There are tons of big brand and boutique stores here lining the boulevards, kind of like a more stylish union square. Honestly, my impression of Tokyo is that it's mainly about shopping and making money. They seem every so style conscious. Go, go, go. Earn, earn, earn. Shop, shop, shop. Faster, faster, faster. I'm certain that I missed on huge chunks of what the city has to offer, but for the most part, Tokyo seems pretty darned superficial to me.

On my last evening before heading off to Kyoto, I met up with my friend Kristen, a blogger and a kind of professional traveler. On this trip, she and her newlywed husband Scott were working on a semester at sea program which had stopped in Japan that week.

Kristen's friends Tracey and Andy both live and work in Tokyo, and happily took us out to a couple of cool restaurants in Roppongi. One was kind of a fancy chicken grill, and the other was a stylish hole in the wall Ramen house. Both very good, and both would have been near impossible for me to navigate myself. This is clearly the way to see Japan. With a knowledgeable guide.

We made it a pretty early night.

I wanted to see some of the legendary Tokyo late night scene, but I was plagued my first few days in Asia with some wicked jet lag. So the perfunctory all nighter was not to be.

Tomorrow, Kyoto.

Bali

Bali surprised me with it's size and depth. I expected a small island with limited sightseeing opportunities, but I was pleasantly mistaken.

Bali is roughly twice the size of Oahu, but home to four million people, with a delta of roads that wind their way up the sides of the multiple volcanic mountains with many small villages along the way. Not many big highways, not a lot of clear road signs. So travel can be tricky and confusing. Most people hire a driver or a tour bus to take them anywhere substantially out of town. But I'm not most people. I rented a motorbike. And I used it.

Points of interest are abundant, from ancient temples, to tropical bird sanctuaries, to hot springs. I had a happy hopelessness that I certainly wouldn't see nearly all of it.

Here is a rundown of some sights I managed to lay eyes on:

Ubud Monkey Forest

I didn't have to travel far to see some wildlife. My villa was located on Monkey Forest Road which is named for the cool monkey preserve located smack in the middle of Ubud. There are no cages. No fences. The monkeys, Balanese long-tailed macaques, just roam free in this park. I'm not sure why they don't wander off into town. Nothing's keeping them from doing so, except the constant supply of potatoes and bananas getting handed to them in the park. I guess that's enough.

I've never really been surrounded by monkeys before. I was a little uneasy at first. There are a lot of them. Everywhere.

They are sort of human-like in their facial expressions. It was a little eery. But they were pretty docile for the most part. As I walked by them, they would look me up and down to see what I was carrying. This is because ladies sell small bananas to tourist on their way into the forest.

They didn't, however, appear to be warning people that those bananas are like crack to the monkeys. If they see you have some, they will bum rush you. They'll ask nicely for about three seconds. If you hold out on them, they'll take matters into their own opposable-thumbed hands. I saw one girl get mugged. First a monkey climbed onto her back trying to grab one. She screamed, but for some reason she wouldn't give it to him. Probably just too shocked. I yelled, "Give. Him. A. Banana!" It worked. But soon after, another monkey held out his had demanding another one. She gave it to him. But he didn't leave. He pocketed that one and demanded the rest. She hesitated briefly, then capitulated - and the bully scampered off with the whole mother load.

But it was all in good fun. If you were banana free, they more or less ignored you and went about their monkey business: grooming their friends for bugs, playing king of the dirt heap, eating, or napping.

Lake Batur

Anytime someone says "hot springs," I pretty much have my pen out scribbling directions before they finish their next sentence. Chad said he had been to some volcanic hot springs at the lake just below Mount Batur after he had done a sunrise hike there a couple weeks before. He wanted to head back up there again with me, but the day we were supposed to go, something came up and I was on my own.

It would be a bit more of an adventure heading up the mountain alone, but I didn't have many extra days to wait around, so I went for it.

I bought a road map, but really the only directions were: Take the road out of Ubud that heads uphill. Keep going uphill until you get to the rim of the volcano. Then look for the big lake in the crater. Find hot springs near lake.

Heading out of town I noted all of the homes and business displaying their wares along the road. It became clear to me how much of the local economy is based in arts and crafts. Each building had a different specialty. Some had hand carved furniture; some had big wooden cats; some were galleries with paintings hanging; some made ceramics. It appeared this was more than just an island of rice farmers and hotel folk. Art is a real part of their culture and economy.

After an hour or so of driving uphill I realized my super-fuel-efficient scooter was likely to run out of gas, and I hadn't seen any gas stations for awhile. It was getting more and more rural. I began to realize why many homes had glass bottles of yellowish liquid on display. They are the country gas stations. Convenient ones too. The Absolut Vodka bottle of unleaded gasoline proves that it's exactly one liter. Fifty cents, and I had bought myself another hour on the road.

As I neared the top of the mountain, a man frantically waved me down to stop. He yelled, "Police! Police!" He wanted to warn me that there was a police roadblock ahead. They are known to cite tourists for driving without a proper international driver's license. I told him it was ok. I had a proper license. But he insisted that I follow him on a shortcut around the roadblock. I figured it couldn't hurt so I went with him. I wanted to trust him, but after a half mile or so I thought maybe it wasn't such a great plan.

He didn't bring me to an ambush - just a tourist restaurant where he'd presumably collect some kind of commission for my patronage. I went into the restaurant but didn't really feel like eating there and headed out. He got upset, but I wasn't interested in anything more he had to say. I just headed for the lake.

The road down the rim of the caldera toward the lake was super steep and full of hairpin switchbacks. I had to be careful of my speed, careful of sand in the road, careful of other cars and trucks. But it didn't take long to get down to lake level where I hit a T in the road. I didn't expect a choice here. There were signs pointing in both directions and some men sitting under the sign. I hesitated just long enough, before riding off to the left, to indicate to them I might be lost... and so picked up another interested local who caught up to me on his bike and asked me to stop.

I knew if I stopped for him, he'd probably want something from me. But I kind of needed his help. Indeed, he whipped out a small box filled with drawings. He said he is an artist and he'd like me to check out his work. He wasn't super clean and seemed like he could use some money. He said he knew the hot springs and would take me there.

Normally I'm not big on buying lots of things when I'm traveling. But in this case I had a reason. We could help each other. The drawings were actually very nice. I wasn't totally convinced he really drew them, but considering the artisan culture here it seemed entirely possible. I picked a drawing of two characters, Jayaprana and Layonsari, from a Romeo and Juliet-type story I heard from a local that week. He packed it carefully and lovingly into a torn piece of cardboard so it wouldn't get bent up in my bag, and then escorted me to the Toya Devasya hot springs.

The hot springs are developed, not the natural kind I found in Washington. The warm water feeds into some small pools in a resort-style pool area with a view of Lake Batur. Soaking in that mineral water was a relaxing way to recover from the long ride up and the resort seemed like a good place to stay if one wanted to spend a few days exploring the volcano.

Me. I'd just be happy to find my way home, which I did, and I only got lost three or four times.

Green School

I met Stara in Ubud. She's a teacher from California and had come out to Bali to see about possibly working at Green School, an experiment in high-quality progressive education with green values and architecture - or as our tour guide put it, "more than just a hippy school in the jungle."

They give guided tours twice a week after school hours, and Stara, who had been volunteering there, invited me over to check it out.

I had lost track of time that afternoon and didn't really leave myself enough time to make it considering I hadn't been there before. But miraculously, I remembered enough of the directions and just barely arrived in time for the tour.

The kids were all just leaving for the day and all seemed very relaxed and shiny. I signed in and Stara ushered me into the already-started presentation.

I felt like I was going on a tour of Jurassic Park. The grounds were stunning. Towering bamboo structures surrounded by green jungle. Everything is made of bamboo, including all of the custom made classroom furniture. It is one of best green building materials because of its strength and how fast it grows back after harvest. The beautiful main building is the largest bamboo structure in Asia. It's no surprise that they have won some prestigious architectural awards.

We checked out their zoo where they are protecting endangered species, and the gardens the students maintain to provide their own daily lunches. They have a water vortex, an ingenious way to harness electricity from the river running through the school. Even a mud wrestling arena.

It's an impressive show of motivation to make all of that happen in such a remote place.

I was pleased to see what happens when you combine lofty ideals and tons of human energy.

Tirta Gangga

Chad and I managed to get one road trip in together. He wanted to check out Tirta Gangga, a water temple built by a former king in the northeast mountains. On the way, we'd swing by a nice little-known beach he had seen once before.

After about an hour and a half we somehow found the lovely little beach and bumped our motorbikes down the rocky, muddy road to the secret place .

It reminded me of my beloved Thong Nai Pan Noi, but it was a little overcast, and the beach was lined with warungs waiting for us to sit down and patronize their businesses.

I was happy to sit down and have a refreshing drink and a swim after the long ride. We took a dip and then plopped down on some some lounge chairs. But then... drip... drip... drip... uh oh.

We ran for cover, and so did the stray dogs, as the sky opened up and poured down rain.

It stopped after a bit, but the day was flying by, so we headed back out to get to the water temple.

Tirta Gangga is another example of Balinese building prowess. If there is one thing they know, it is how to sculpt a lush landscape to maximize the use of water and create an enjoyable space. Kids were playing and swimming in one section while Chad and I walked an in-pool labyrinth and admired the exotic plants in the garden.

But the journey was so long to get here that the day was already almost over. We had to start thinking about the ride home.

A guy from the beach had tipped us off to a scenic ride back to Ubud. I kind of suspected it would take even longer than the ride up. But what the heck. Why not see some new scenery.

I'm glad we did. Because this was one of the most spectacular rides I made during my entire stay. We weaved through small villages and up along winding mountain roads; through unimaginable jungle valleys carved into rice terraces; much of this while the sun was setting over it all.

We relied heavily on the kindness of strangers. Every time we came to a fork in the road and stopped, a local person would approach us and ask where we wanted to go, and point us in the right direction. Sometimes they'd say "follow me!" and lead us out of the maze.

It was a great experience for me and galvanized my appreciation for the Balinese people and their lovely home.

Terima Kasih to the Balinese, my new favorite people.