This is how they bake naan bread. They plaster the dough in a brick pot which serves as an oven. The consistency is of thick, chewy pizza dough.

An Indian restaurant I went to everyday in Tanah Rata. This dude is making roti and naan bread.

View from Father's Guesthouse at Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands. The temperature was nice and cool up here. Father's Guesthouse is actually at the grounds of an old seminary. I was up here when the Pope died, which was kind of wierd.

Cool in the Cameron Highlands

I have been in the Cameron Highlands at a small town called Tanah Rata. It's in the middle of peninsular Malaysia, around 5000 ft in elevation, so I've been sleeping under a warm blanket and enjoyed a hot shower this morning. It's about 70 degrees F up here. This town is quite touristy, in that Asian sort of way. I'm surrounded by jungle-covered hills and tea and fruit plantations, but there are multi-storied apartment buildings or hotels in various states of construction...some look like they're on permanent standby. I'm not sure what makes this place one of the most touristed sights in Malaysia. I'm surprised at why I am even here, except that it is nice not sweating, and in a pretty quiet setting. I took a five-hour bus ride up here from KL. That was a big difference from travelling in Indonesia. The bus was air-conditioned and big. The roads were paved. We still passed reed and thatched huts on the way up here, I didn't get nauseated on the windy road either. That was a nice improvement.
I went on a hike through the jungle yesterday. It was hot, wet, and muddy. Good stuff. The jungle is pretty thick and wet from the morning and evening mists. It also rains a little everyday here. I had to hop over a lot of fallen tree trunks, but I didn't get any leeches on me. The floor of the jungle is springy from decomposing organic material. Wierd.
I've still been eating Indian food. It's fantastic, but strange to be eating lots of Indian food in Malaysia. Aside from a steaming bowl of laksa soup at a bus stop, I've only eaten Indian food since entering the country. I've found a place that I've been going to everyday while in Tanah Rata. Malaysia is a surprising mix of cultures much like Singapore was. The food and accommodations have been cheap and good. I've been spending about $10 a day here in all. The people are friendly, and I haven't been harassed. The few touts are quite polite and don't mob you when you get off a bus. How totally unexpected and pleasant after Indonesia. Also, most people speak English, as they did in Singapore, for the same reasons, but as it turns out, Malay is actually quite similar to Indonesian. Most backpacker travellers fly through Malaysia, which is a shame because it is easy to travel through, cheap, and safe. Tonight I'm taking an overnight bus to Kota Bharu, on the north part of the east coast, so I can catch a ferry to the Perhentian Islands. They're supposed to be some white-sanded, turquoise-colored water island paradise with some good diving. I'm hoping this overnight bus trip is not too bad. I've been forewarned to dress warmly as the bus drivers tend to keep the interiors frosty. I don't expect to have internet access there, and I'm not sure how long I will be there. If conditions are good, I will try to get my advanced open water diving certification.

The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur

These are the twin 88-floor towers built by Japanese and Korean companies. They were formerly the tallest in the world. Inside is a huge multistory expensive mall with loads of pretty people and unaffordable goods.

Banana leaf vegetarian set meals in an Indian restaurant. The food just keeps coming and coming until you scream, "UNCLE!" When you're done, you fold the banana leaf to show you are stuffed. It costs about 80 cents.

Sun setting over a minaret in Melaka. The muezzin starts the call to prayer which is heard throughout the city -- a magical sound.

A another wierd sight in Melaka. What country am I in?

Christ Church near the town center in Melaka. Very wierd to see this type of stuff in Malaysia.

A Catholic church, leaning to one side, in Melaka.

A Chinese mosque in Melaka. Very different architecture from the traditional mosque.

View of Melaka from the hill where there was an old fort and now St. Paul's Church. This place was occupied by the Portuguese, Dutch, and English, as well as local kingdoms.

Indian food in Malaysia

I took a nice air-conditioned bus from Singapore to Melaka, an old port on the west coast of Malaysia. Singapore is separated from Malaysia by a bridge, but once you go over it, you know you're not in Singapore anymore. Gone are the glass and steel structures. I'm back in jungle and rusty tin roofs. Okay, it's not that bad, but it's not Singapore. It's not Indonesia either. It's somewhere in between. Malaysia actually is quite modern.
Melaka is an old port, one of the wealthiest in the world a few hundred years ago. It was said that the Lord of Melaka had his hand on the throat of Venice, because it was the main trading port in southeast Asia. Melaka has an interesting mix of Portuguese, English, and Dutch architecture, reflecting the previous occupants. It also has a Chinatown and Little India.
On the bus to Melaka, I met up with a couple of backpackers from Canada and the UK. They had been eating Indian food since leaving Thailand a few days ago, so we went off in search of good Indian food. It's pretty wild to be eating curry and rice on a banana leaf with your fingers. That's how the past two days have been...one Indian meal after another.
We're in Kuala Lumpur now. It's the capital of Malaysia. It's big and modern, but not as clean and polished as Singapore. We went to the Petronas Towers, at 88-stories they were once the tallest buildings in the world until 1998.
Tomorrow I am headed to the Cameron Highlands to commune with nature. Well, it's supposed to be a lot cooler up in the mountains.
By the way, I haven't felt any of the earthquakes or seen an tsunamis.

Where did all the White people go?

Remember that old ditty from the early 80's? Neither do I... The best way I can describe this place is this: imagine the cleanest and most modern part of a metropolis in America, then replace all the White people with Asians. That's what this place is like. It's like no other Asian city I've visited. I am totally thrown off by Asians on Western-style advertisments. This has the feel of a Western city, but the people are Chinese. And they speak Mandarin and Fujianese, similar to Taiwanese. The local English dialect is a pidgin-English called Singlish. It is a mix of English with some Malay and Chinese. I find it difficult to understand, but it's neat to watch a Singaporean Chinese and Singaporean Indian speak to one another in Singlish. But if you come here, don't worry, they also speak English.
Singapore is a pretty amazing city. I have been here a week, making it the longest I've been anywhere at one time since leaving Taiwan. It is a strange mix of different cultures, mostly Chinese, Indians, and some Malays, as a result of the British establishing this place as a trading port 200 years ago. Before then, this was just a small muddy village. It was briefly part of Malaysia in the middle of the last century but then parted ways because the Singaporeans did not want to allow "apartheid-like" preferential treatment toward Malays like the rest of Malaysia. And Malaysia didn't feel comfortable having a huge Chinese population (almost half penisular Malaysia's population) within their borders. Singapore has since impressively developed into an immaculate modern city.
Before coming here, all I knew was that this city-state was known for its fascist rules (no chewing gum, no jay-walking, no rated-R movies...), and it had the reputation for being boring. Reality has proven to be quite different. There is chewing gum, just none smashed on the ground (and none sold in stores, but it's not illegal to chew). I've been jay-walking around. And there are rated R movies. But all these rules have created quite an orderly society. The metro is the most shiny and cleanest one I have ever seen. It gives Taipei's metro a run for its money. The downtown are has been renovated into a beautiful tourist area with riverside restaurants and bars. There are some enclaves of different cultures like Chinatown, Little India, and the Arab district where you can get some great food. The food courts have taken over in a culture that used to have food carts and hawker stalls. You can get a fantastic meal for $3-$5 (Singaporean dollars, which is about $1.80-$3 US Dollars). This is a shoppers paradise. There are malls everywhere, some of which are connected by underground air-conditioned mall passageways, so you never have to go outside. It's a great way to take a walk in the evenings. There are lots of electronics gear for sale, but it's also a little dodgey. I ended up not buying a videocamera, but there are great deals to be had just the same.
There is an awesome Asian Civilizations Museum which covers all the different religions and cultures in Southeast Asia. It gives a fascinating and open-minded overview of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. Singapore is definitely worth a few days if you're ever flying out this way.
I got my visa business taken care of over the Easter weekend. I am headed north into Malaysia tomorrow.

The Esplanade -- Singapore's answer to the Sydney Opera House. It looks like a big durian cut in half.

The Singapore river and the downtown area has been renovated in the past ten years into a nice area to walk and eat.

Singapore downtown at night.

Home again.

They say Singapore is a "fine" city.

Singapore's Orchard St. This is where the upscale malls and embassies are located. Air-conditioning, smartly-dress people, Border's Bookstore...I'm in America again!

Shanty towns in Jakarta. There were big buildings in Jakarta, like many huge cities in Asia, but there were still shanty towns like this.

Sate ayam (chicken satay) with a tasty peanut sauce. You know, it looked a lot better in the dark.

Threshing rice next to the railroad tracks on my way to Jakarta.

Becaks lined up for customers at the railroad station. These are bicycles outfitted with two wheels and a bench in front. In the States, I've seen things like this for tourists. In Indonesia, this is a common mode of transportation. It costs about 30 cents, depending on how far you go.

Relief art at the Sewu temple at Prambanan.

The tallest of the temples at Prambanan is 47 meters.

Prambanan

This is the main Hindu temple at Prambanan. There are actually many temples
in the surrounding area, but this is the largest on. It was built around
the same time as Borobudur, then both were abandoned.

Singapore

The next day in Yogyakarta, I went to Prambanan, a Hindu complex 17 km away. It was also built around the same time as Borobudur, and also soon abandoned after. Then there was a massive volcanic eruption from neighboring Mt. Merapi which reduced both to ruin. While Borobudur has been pretty much restored, Prambanan is only partially complete. I think only 17 temples have been reconstructed out of the 243 in the area. The ones that are rebuilt are pretty amazing. I'll post pictures soon.

Yogyakarta is one Indonesia's biggest tourist cities, but while Kuta Beach has the Western tourists, except for a few foreigners, most of the tourists in Yogya are Indonesians. They have a sultan in Yogya, and a "kraton", a palace, where he lives. I was going to visit, but my shirt didn't have any sleeves so I was refused entry. Instead, I went to the air-conditioned mall, the modern marvel of Western culture. I also ate at Pizza Hut and McDonalds, two cultural emissaries from the States. When you order pizza at an Indonesian restaurant, you're never really sure what you're going to get, and it usually doesn't compare to pizza we get in the States. I figured, if you're going to get pizza, you might as well get it from a reliable source. It's surprisingly cheap to eat at these places. I mean, it's not prohibitively expensive, and about the same as eating at a restaurant in the tourist ghettos that serves Western food. I had a Coke & vanilla ice cream float (mmMMmm) and an "America's Favorite" medium pizza for about $4.50. The pizza was smaller than a medium in the Statesl it was maybe 1.5 times the size of a personal pan pizza. I forgot that in a Muslim island like Java, most of food is likely to be "halal" (consumable by devout Muslims), so there was no pig in their pepperoni or sausage...what was that familiar aftertaste?Oh yeah, lamb. Oh well, at least it was a nice greasy piece of pan pizza. At McDonalds, I had the Chicken McD meal #1 which was two pieces of fried chicken, a la the Colonel, with a scoop of white rice, and a medium drink. The price: $1.70. Fried chicken is the most popular dish at McDonalds in Indonesia, and it's pretty good.
Also in Yogya, I ran into Mike, one of the Brits from my travels in Flores. It's amazing in a country of 240 million people, you continue to run into the same travellers.
From Yogya, I took a train to Jakarta. I bought a ticket on "bisnis kelas", which sounds nice, but really was just a step above a bus. The only thing a bisnis kelas ticket gets you is assigned seating, which is a big plus when you consider that ekonomi kelas has people crammed into standing-room-only cars with people and limbs hanging out the doors and windows, and people sitting on the roofs. No air-con for bisnis kelas, so it was a pretty hot ten-hour ride. Like on the buses, hawkers came on board selling their wares: food, snacks, fruits, meals (served on banana leaves), drinks, and "other junk". "Other junk" included safety pins, books, pens, pencils, toys, belts, slippers, back scratchers etc. They would pass buy and just leave stuff on your seat or lap, and then come by to pick the stuff up if you didn't want it. I gave up trying to keep folks from giving me stuff. Jakarta is a massive city. I've read estimates that it has over nine million inhabitants, but I heard that during the day, it goes up to 16 million. It is similar to other industrialized Asian cities I have been to: lots of traffic, lots of pollution, noisy, dusty, lots of people, tall apartment buildings for the rich, and shanty towns for the poor. I took an awesome ride on an "ojek" (scooter) through the traffic-jammed streets to the tourist ghetto. The traffic is so terrible in Jakarta that taking a bus or taxi would take forever, but on a scooter, you can squeeze between cars, go "the wrong way" on streets, go on sidewalks, cut through narrow walkways etc... It's pretty exciting, especially when you've got a backpack on.
For dinner, I went to a street a block over from the one my hotel was on, known for its "sate" or "satay" stands. It costs about 75 cents for ten sticks of grilled chicken meat on a stick with an awesome peanut sauce, served on a banana leaf. Ah, I miss Indonesia already.
I also went to visit the National Museum which housed artifacts from all over the massive country. It was very good, but there was a power-outage (not an uncommon occurence). The cost for the ticket was about 8 cents. Yes, that's right, 8 cents.
I took a bus to Kota, the Dutch colonial area, but just ended up going to a massive mall (ah, air-conditioning!) I realized that after four weeks, I have become pretty comfortable getting around speaking in broken Indonesian and not using toilet paper (for three weeks now).

Last night, I took an evening flight from Jakarta to Singapore on Emirates Airlines (and yes, it is one of the best in the world). I arrived in Singapore at 1120 at night, too late for the metro system, so I went to catch a bus. I didn't have accommodations, but I called a place from the baggage area (they had pay phones with FREE local calls -- they should have this in ALL airports). At the bus terminal, I didn't have any small bills, so I was bumming. I asked everyone to see if they had change for my bills, but no one did. I walked off pretty bummed, but then an Indian dude came up and handed me about $2 in change. I am humbled by the kindness of strangers, especially if when there is no way I can repay them. So, I ask of you...do something nice for someone without expecting something in return this week.
Singapore is so clean! Yeah, there is some litter, but not much. I'm back to hostel living for a while, but there's toilet paper and hot water in the shower! And air-conditioning everywhere! I'm here to get a visa, and maybe buy some electronic equipment -- it's supposed to be cheap here, but we'll see.

Food cart selling "bakso" (meatball). Actually they have chicken meatballs with noodles in a soup. It is tasty, but they put lots of MSG in it. Where's the kitchen to wash the dishes? A bucket underneath. Yum!

Elderly woman selling stuff on Jl Maliboro. I paid her 5,000 Rp for me to take this photo; that's about 55 cents.

Yogyakarta at night. Jl Maliboro (Marlborough St.) is filled with hawkers selling trinkets and food to Indonesian tourists. Most of the tourists were from Jakarta. Indonesia is a country with large natural resources, a few wealthy people, and heaps of poor people. Java is by far the most developed and richest island, followed by Bali (because of tourism). Something like 80% of the people live in Jakarta.

Relief art on the walls of Borobudur recount the stories about the Buddha. If laid out, these tiles would be 3 km long.

Borobudur buddha statues.

Borobudur

It is difficult to get a good impression of this place in a photo. Maybe
one from the sky would be better.

Macaque eating sweet potato

In Ubud, we visited Monkey Forest. There are tame macaques everywhere looking bored. They were hilarious to watch. They were pretty bold -- jumping on tourists to look for food in their bags.

A koi pond in a temple at Monkey Forest Temple in Ubud.

Terraced rice fields

You see pretty rice patty fields all over the place. This is one of the prettiest fields I saw; it is just north of Ubud. Rice takes three months to grow, starting in deep water, and after three months it dries out.

Mt. Batur and Lake Batur

On a day trip from Kuta, we saw this view of Gunung Batur and Danou Batur. There are active volcanoes all over Indonesia. This one blew and poured lava over a town below it in 1963. You can see the lava track to the right below the volcano.

Yogyakarta

I made it back to Kuta Beach on Monday, but instead of leaving after one night, I ended up staying for four. That pretty much sums up a lot of the trip planning I've been doing; plans go out the window, and I've been going with the flow. I caught up with a couple of Brits that I had met on my first day in Bali three weeks ago (they were on the same flight from Auckland), and I also met a cool Canadian couple, and we all hung out in the evenings. Good company.
We took a day tour around Bali, which satisfied me enough to know that hanging around poolside in Kuta was not so bad. We saw Mt. Batur, one of many volcanos on the island. And we spent a couple hours at Monkey Forest in Ubud, the other big tourist town in Bali. Ubud is known for its artsy-fartsy boutiques, while Kuta is known for its surf, beach, and nightlife. The macaques (monkeys) at Monkey Forest were very entertaining, jumping on each other in their little pond; very human behavior. But, returning to the pool at the hotel in Kuta Beach was the best. After the trip through Nusa Tenggara, I really can appreciate Kuta, much more than when I first arrived a couple weeks ago.
I was going to go to Mt. Bromo on Java a few days ago, but I really didn't feel up for a 12-hour overnight bus trip. Today I flew to Yogyakarta for a little more than the price for a 16-hour bus ticket. I should be here for a couple days, but then again, you never know.
Today I went to Borobudur, a 9th century Buddhist step pyramid. It is massive and amazing. I've never seen anything like it. In Taiwan, the Buddhist temples are rather garish in colors, but the dark gray stone of Borobudur seemed just right. I was careful to walk around each of the levels clockwise before ascending a level through the East gate. To walk counter-clockwise is to speak with the spirits of the dead. But other the tourists didn't seem to care; they're mostly Muslim in Java.
I took the public bus system to get to Borobudur, which meant taking changing buses, and then taking a tricycle-rickshaw type of thing to the temple. On the way back, the guys on the bus tried to overcharge me, but I didn't even budge. I paid the same price I paid for getting up there. I was feeling pretty ornery from the heat and the early morning flight. Then, as I was getting into town, I think a couple of guys tried to steal from me. One guy kept distracting me by saying this was my stop, constantly tapping me urgently for about a minute, meanwhile his co-conspirator got up to squeeze by me in the aisle. I realized then, that my backpack had mysteriously opened up. I quickly zipped it closed after an inventory and got away from them. I was warned by the taxi driver to be careful in Jogja.
Tomorrow I will try to get to the Hindu temple Prambanan at dawn. Or not. I had to wake up at 0400 this morning to catch my 0600 flight.

Welcome to the Six-foot-plus club. The Brits and Canadian and the surfboard.

"The Morgan show" during a break on our bus ride from Moni to Maumere.

Village kids dancing and watching the "Morgan Show". The Canadian was great entertainment for all the locals across Flores. Definitely a good attitude for meeting people. Some people are disarmed with the persistent staring, but Morgan would talk to people and touch them. If you needed to find him, you just needed to look for a circle of Indonesians.

A cool sunset on a village road. Music filled the air in stereo...a good day.

A good quiet black sanded beach at Waiara, 13 km east of Maumere. Clean, quiet, and no tourists. The water was warm, but no surf on this north-facing beach.

The Bermuda Triangle of Flores. A traveller can get stranded for days here. Flores was colonized by the Portuguesed, so they have afternoon siestas, and Catholic churches. It looks like what I imagine places in Latin America look like.

There's a goat under the luggage. This is the typical long distance bus in Flores. It seats about 98 people.

The terraced rice fields at Moni. The hot spring was somewhere near the man in the red shirt.

This was so amazing to be soaking and having locals descend upon us in such a pretty setting with the rice patties. A good day.

Villagers bathing at a hot spring in Moni. The water very clean surprisingly.

The turquoise lake at Kelimutu (1600m) and sunrise. You can make out the brown lake in the background. My hair is pretty long now, exaggerated, by the big winds at the peak. "When God painted the world, he washed his brushes in the lakes at Kelimutu." Okay, somebody else said that.

Day market in Bajawa.

The port of Sape where I was stranded for a day. I thought it had a dirt road, but it only looked like dirt from all the horse poop. They use these horse-drawn wagons ("dokars") for their public transportation system around town.

The Fins I met up with in Sape.

View from Labuanbajo toward the islands.

An Asian squat toilet. Don't miss a chance to use one!

Travelling across Nusa Tenggara

Nusa Tenggara is the name of the set of islands east of Bali. I set off last week from Mataram, on the west side of Lombok, headed for Kelimutu on the island of Flores. The first 17 hours took me across Lombok by bus, a ferry to Sumbawa, and a 12-hour overnight journey across Sumbawa to Sape, the port on the east coast. I was supposed to catch a ferry to Flores from Sape, but the ferry didn't show up, so I ended up stuck for a day in a small town. Actually, I would call it a village with a ferry terminal. The ferry ride to Flores was about 10 hours long, and I arrived in Labuanbajo, the western port on Flores, on a rainy night. I was pretty exhausted and had a runny nose from the overnight bus trip. I rested up in Labuanbajo for a day, missing out on an opportunity to go see the Komodo dragons on the islands of Rinca and Komodo, just a couple hours by boat from Labuanbajo.
After a day's rest, I took a hellish ten- hour bus ride to Bajawa. It was a windy trip through mountainous terrain with spectacular scenery, that I couldn't be bothered to enjoy as I struggle to keep from vomiting. Bajawa was a small village in the mountains (it was actually kind of cool at night, a big change from the wet heat on the coast) surrounded by other smaller traditional villages. I didn't get to see any of these villages, because I got on a bus for a seven-hour trip to Moni, the village next to Kelimutu.
Kelimutu (1600 m) is a volcano with three lakes in its crater. The lakes are all different colors due to soil composition. They are currently brown-black, turquoise, and dark green. Apparently they change colors over time and with the weather. They are pretty spectacular to see at sunrise. The weather started off windy and rainy, but an hour after sunrise, the clouds and mist blew away I had good visibility to see all three lakes. Kelimutu is the main attraction on Flores, but the journey there, was the best part.

Shacks and farm animals
It was rainy weather off and on all week, starting with my bus trip across Lombok. The bus terminal in Mataram was full of hawkers selling their wares (books, clothing, and snacks). I saw these guys balance huge sacks (as large as an adult) on their shoulder and climb up ricketty ladders to the roof of the buses. Like I said, Indonesians are hardworkers (like the Hasty-variety).
The bus passed ramshackled villages on its way through Lombok. Outside of the city, folks live in thatched or tin-roofed shacks, with walls made from panels of woven fiber and flax. They have dirt floors and no running water or electricity. People light oil lamps in the evening and cook over fires. There is no indoor plumbing, and their running water is a stream, which is sometimes pretty murky, but that's where they bathe and wash. They have goats, pigs, and chickens running around. There is an occasional cow that is tied up to a tree, which I am told, like the goats and pigs, is meant to be sold for celebrations or festivals. A cow is worth about 900 MRp or $1000. I've seen some wild stuff they do to the animals. At a midday market, I've seen them throw a pig on to a truck, by its ears and a rope around its hooves. It'll be a while before I forget the sound of a squealing pig. We were on a bus, and someone said there was a goat under our luggage on the roof. I didn't believe until four hours later, as we watched the bus pull away, a huge goat wobbled to its feet, standing on a moving bus. You will see enormous sows roam the streets looking for food during a midday siesta on Flores.. I watched chickens peck each other while tied together at a morning market. This place is totally wild. You know, it's uncomfortable to watch, but when you eat meat, you've got to face reality.

Indonesian "corruption"
On the ferry from Lombok to Sumbawa, I spoke with a Sumbawan living in Lombok. We talked about the economy of Indonesia. I have heard from Indonesians, that the thing holding them back from getting out of poverty is government corruption. The Jakarta Post has a few articles on corruption everyday. I couldn't get a sense of how this was different from any other country in the world. I'm of the opinion that the entire country operates with kickbacks and under-handed deals. Maybe it's because Indonesia is so poor and has so little in reserve that the waste and inefficiencies of corruption are felt much more. Many Indonesians point at government corruption as their biggest problem, but none of them bat an eye at charging foreigners more for goods and services. This is an accepted fact for tourists coming to Indonesia (and, I expect, most countries in the region); you have to bargain for almost everything from bemo rides to accommodations and sometimes even food. It is sort of fun going around bargaining for things, but I've come to accept that as a tourist, I will be paying more than Indonesians (I just don't want to be paying too much more). I learned from a Chinese-Indonesian dude (born in Indonesia of Chinese ancestry) that he never got to pay the local's price, even though he was from Indonesia. I believe in capitalism, but without fair prices and business practices, how can a country expect their government leaders to behave any differently?

Travelling through Indonesia for a Taiwanese-American
So anyways, if Indonesians can tell that a Chinese-Indonesian person is not of Indonesian heritage, then they certainly can tell that I'm not Indonesian. In fact, the only people that confuse me for being Japanese are tourists. And I don't just mean Westerners, because even Japanese tourists confuse me for being Japanese. I remember hiking at Mt. Cook, and passing a bunch of older Japanese tourists, each one greeting me with a "konichi-wa!" which I happily returned. A problem with this is that the Indonesians don't expect the Japanese to bargain with them. I think many Westerners, can't tell the difference between myself and an Indonesian local, but I haven't been at any resorts where I could be mistaken for the hired help (this happened to me once in Thailand).

Toilet training in Sape
I arrived at Sumbawa at night. The remarkable thing about my trip across Sumbawa at night was the darkness. Except for a few villages we passed through, the island was dark, and I could only see the looming silhouettes of mountains nearby. When the bus stopped, hawkers would come through, selling snacks. When I got to the big city of Bima at 0330, they ushered me off the bus (but wait, I'm supposed to go to Labuanbajo!) and put me on a shuttle to Sape, the eastern port on the island. Two hours later, with drifting sleep, breathing secondhand Indonesian clove cigarettes ("kreteks"), I arrived at Sape. Jam berapa bakal? (what time is the boat?) jam tujuh (7 o'clock) Tiga puluh minutes? (30 minutes?) Tidak, duapulus jam (no, 12 hours) Doh! (Doh!)
I met some Finnish folks also stranded who spoke Indonesian and found out that the ferry didn't show up for one reason or another. We were stuck in Sape. We all checked into a guesthouse next to the ferry terminal, so we could rest from the sleepless bus ride.
At the hotel, I had my first encounter (at least on this trip) with the Asian squat toilet. I have seen them before, in Japan and Thailand, but I have never used one for, um, number two (if you don't count the outhouse in Mongolia). I knew I would be faced with the squatter eventually, and that day had arrived. The squat toilet is sort of a toilet bowl sunk into the floor, with two grooved foot steps on either side. You basically squat to use the facilities. The complicating factor on top of this is that there is no toilet paper, but there is a spigot of water with a bucket and a scoop. This is why some cultures don't shake or eat food with their left hands. Awwwwwwesome. After a week of travelling, I can say I am comfortable with the squatter. I feel like someone who just got potty-trained.

Cultural Realities
There was nothing to do in Sape. I had dinner in a warung and spoke with a Taiwanese dude who had been living and working there for the past year. He told me that Indonesia was basically like Taiwan thirty years ago.I also spoke with some Indonesians who had been stranded in Sape too. Where I paid 120 kRp to get from Mataram to Labuanbajo, they paid 60 kRp. Tourist prices. At least I didn't pay 200 kRp.
There was also a tranvestite at the hotel. It was wierd, to say the least. There was a wierd looking woman watching tv in the lounge, and she had too much makeup on, so I thought she was just an old prostitute, but then some Indonesians told me she was a he. Yikes. Even though, I was freaking out of my skin, sitting five feet from he/she/it, the Indonesia guys sat down next to the he-she thing, like it was no big deal. Ha! And we think we're so open-minded in the States. We are lead to believe a lot of nasty things about Muslim cultures. They are oppressive toward women because they wear burqas (is that any different from the latest Cosmo or teen mag making American women and girls feel fat and inadequate?). Would it surprise Americans that Indonesia had a female president from 2001-2004? (I was surprised.) I don't see a woman in the White House any time soon.

The Finnish
The Fins I met were pretty interesting. They were still working in Finland, but they spent their holidays in Bali. The couple actually spent up to five months each year in Bali, where they rented a five-room apartment for about $50/month. Apparently in Finland, to battle unemployment, the government will pay a worker 30% of his or her salary to take a leave of absence so someone else can work his or her job temporarily. I'm not sure how smart that system is, but it's great if you want to spend your time away in Indonesia where you can still live like a king. These Fins actually learned to speak and read Indonesian. They were not your typically travellers. They were grandparents, and they had not travelled much elsewhere, but they liked Indonesia and adapted well.
So, anyways, the next morning, we all got on the ferry for a ten-hour trip through rain and rough seas. That was fun. I didn't eat or drink very much because I didn't want to visit the toilets. One of the dudes, got splash-back on his arm. And no running water or sinks to wash it off. Nice.
I met up with a Canadian dude on the ferry. He ended being one of folks I travelled with through Flores, but not for another couple days.When we got to Flores, it was dark and rainy. I spent the next day resting and getting over a runny nose. If I had felt better, I might have gone to Komodo or Rinca islands to see the Komodo dragons, but it was not to be. Next time.

Other travellers
From Labuanbajo, I parted ways with the Fins and took the hellish journey to Bajawa. In Bajawa, I met up with the Canadian and a couple of British dudes. They were all solo travelling across Flores, and we sort of teamed up to continue onward to Kelimutu. In Bajawa, we had a dinner conversation, I could only imagine on the backpacker circuit. They were all finishing with their Southeast Asian travels and headed to New Zealand and Australia in the next week, and I was just starting that portion of my trip. They talked about places they had each been to in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. They spoke of these places with the familiarity you would use for your home town. ("Where did you stay?" "Oh, that place with the blue elephant? That was a cool place." "I was in Hanoi for ten days." etc.) It was awesome to listen to.
The Canadian had been travelling and working in Asia for the past 14 months since graduating from university. He had worked in Seoul, Korea teaching English (an apparently lucrative gig with no experience or formal training necessary) to save up some money, and was going to find work in Australia in a few weeks. One of the Brits had spent the last eight years working in the computer industry (five years with IBM) before quitting and hitting the road two months ago. He too was headed to Australia for a year (actually to Cronulla, where I stayed south of Sydney). The other Brit had been travelling off and on since he was 18. He had been to South America twice, Africa twice, Australia, the States, and Southeast Asia twice. He had just finished saving up money for the past four years, before setting off on his current trip. And this is normal amongst the travellers I've met on Flores. They are folks who have "taken the red pill", so to speak, "to see just how far the rabbit hole goes." It is amazing.
So anyways, the four us headed off on a seven-hour bus trip to Moni, the village at Kelimutu, where we stayed for a couple of nights. We chilled in the quiet mountain village, happily dumping money into the local economy (it's the slow season around here). We met up with a couple of Dutch guys and a Quebecois at Kelimutu, and we all hungout at a hot spring in the middle of a terraced hill of rice patty fields. It was awesome. The weather was hot, and we were trading travelling stories when a bunch of locals wandered down to share the spring with us. They washed their clothes, and themselves, and the two groups sort of just looked at each other. It was pretty amazing.

Maumere is a traveller's Bermuda Triangle
From Moni, we headed to Maumere, the biggest city on Flores, to find a flight back to Bali. The airline booking system is horribly inefficient. No one knows what the actual schedules are, because you will get a different answer from everyone from the ticket office to travel agent to the airport. I bought a ticket to leave in a couple days, but the guys went to the airport and were able to bribe their way on to a flight for the next day (I think some people found themselves cancelled). Good on them, for doing so, but it started a whole black market ticket sale, where all previously sold tickets were disregarded, and you had to bribe your way on to the flight. Angry customers had to bring the airport police in to intervene. So it goes in Indonesia. (And they complain of corruption. It all starts with the individual.)

Hello, Mister!
Anyways, we spent one of the days in Maumere wandering around looking for the beach. The town is on the north side of Flores, but as with many port towns, the water is pretty nasty. We wandered around through villages with throngs of kids screaming and laughing, "Hello, Mister!" I have found Indonesians to be some of the friendliest people I have ever met. They are full of smiles and ever non-threatening. There have been no anti-American threats or demonstrations or graffitti. Are you sure this is a Muslim country? Even when I was travelling with three six-foot-plus white dudes, I never witnessed anything but cheerful greetings. Sure, sometimes your "new friend" at the hotel or bar might be angling to make some money on the side, but that's to be expected. These people are poor and they look at tourists as money-bags. But certainly the rebel activity in the northern state of Aceh in Sumatra is real, as is the paltry two-year sentence the purported leader behind the 2002 Kuta bombing received, but to use this as a representative of a nation and a culture is to equate the Ku Klux Klan with Americans and Christianity. Crime and extremism exists in a lot of places, and they make good newscopy, but it's easy to make the mistake of treating the news as something it isn't. If it were "new", it wouldnt be in the "news". Just like people don't write about the nice folks in Biloxi, Mississippi, people don't write about the friendly Muslims in the, well, world. To not travel the world, in fear of anti-American terrorism, is like like not swimming for fear of shark attacks.
Speaking of swimming, we eventually got to a nice beach with clean water and soaked in the perfect temperature. The sun was setting behind the mountains. It was perfect. As we headed back to the main road, the sky turned an red-orange, and there was music coming from the shacks on either side of us (of the bongos and guitars-variety). Some kids had followed us, and we started dancing, which cracked the kids up. Pretty soon there were about twenty kids all laughing and giggling. The sky was orange. The music continued playing. Flores is a magical place.