The snorkeling was pretty great off Palau Mejangan. My only regret was the dive master/boat captian not taking us to other spots around the island. I was out there with two French couples who were diving while I was left on my own to snorkel about. No turtles, or anything I hadn’t seen before, but there seemed to be more coral diversity. We were at a classic wall, though I obviously stayed on the upper half. The rain started earlier that day and soaked us, but when already in the water it didn’t matter much. All eyes were cast down anyway.

Later in the day I had conversations with both the French guys at various times. Jerome and his girlfirned worked for NGO and did relief work all over Africa and more recently Haiti, though he claimed it was more triage than cultural exploration. Apparently one sacks out exhauusted at the end of each day and there is lttle time for anything else. But he’d also lived briefly in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and we talked a bit over beers poolside about the difference between life in France and the USA. The other guy, whose name I never got, had a company in Mongolia for three years, and since that is a country I think about teaching in at times, I picked his brain after dinner.

Some other teachers who might have come over to do the hike with me couldn’t make it, and the weather was forbidding. Plus the cost, as you have to hire a guide to hike in the National Park, so I took a pass. But a waitress told me about a small temple in the hills behind Pemuteran, so the next morning I went up there before riding back down to Denpasar. I haven’t edited in the jump tower footage I mention yet…maybe later.

Trying to decide if I should return the way I’d come, or along the southwestern road which I knew would be clogged with trucks from Java, I comprimised and came back partly what I’d done, but a new route through the mountains, passing lots of great rice fields, and hooked up with part of the SW road, which the trucks do indeed make suck. But back in my room, I realized I’d left my mp3 player and headphones at the hotel. I called and they have them for me, but I’ll need to return, most likely next week after classes are done but before I leave for AU. Damn it, I thought about them briefly pulling out of town but was distracted by some other thought before I checked while still in the area. It’s be about a 5 hour return trip, or maybe I’ll make another overnight of it. Oh well, I love motorbiking around in the mountains anyway.

The hotel where I’m staying turned out to have free computer use, so I’ll take advantage of this time during the afternoon downpour to update on the trip so far. I had three more vacation days left to use and had scheduled for this time. And it turns out Monday is Chinese New Year, so I have a six day weekend on my hands…

I drove back up to Munduk to drop off my finished copy of Germs Guns and Steel with Mr. Budi, as it came up during our previous conversation. He was out, but stopped by my room (stayed again at Guru Ratna and the staff was most gracious in welcoming me back) later and invited me for breakfast the next morning – at his main place from the video, not Golden Valley. I was in town by noon, having driven again through Bedugal, Candi Kuning and the usual spots on the way up, so I went down the hill to the hot springs at Banjar for the afternoon. They were cool, but my awesome spot on Flores was better. It was the first of twice I felt spoiled, by chance having had a superior experience in a field already, when I sense the current one would have seemed fine without having seen the other before. There was a Hindu festival (isn’t there always?) in town and gamelon and hours of chanting ran throughout the town. I’d gotten myself a small bottle of vodka in Serit and enjoyed evening cocktails. Also stopped in to see Bayu, who is about 11, son of a woman who owns a small shop across the road from the hotel. I’d given him some improv English lessons on my previous trip, so we had another, just checking some pronunciation as he read from his flimsy text. I’m sure his local teacher can only judge pronunciation to a certain point. His mom of course loved this and loaded me up with some fruit left over from festival offerings. Women are seen all over the island carrying ornate palm wrappings and fruit baskets on their heads to the local temple during festival time, everyone dressed in their kebayas and traditional clothes.

The rain has held to a nicely predictable pattern thus far: sunny until about 2-3, then a heavy afternoon showering. Today’s seems to be lingering…but I haven’t had to ride in it. The next morning after Kopi Luwak and pisang goreng (fried bananas) with Budi I was riding down the hill to Lovina. My map (brought a borrowed book this time) shows a logical route, but does not reveal the condition of the road, which got a bit sketchy: down to two lane track with grass middle through some steep areas and eventually to rubble I thought would pop my tire. But stopping to ask a local, he assured me it did eventually lead to Lovina. The road got better in time, and I made it, tires in tact.
I stayed at a place where I’d had lunch before, and headed down the coast a few km to where there was supposed to be good snorkeling. Unfortunately I had to pay a guy a little money to take me out in a boat to get to it. The conditions were decent, but again, I’ve been spoiled in the Gilis and Amed where you just swim in at no cost, no boat. And here of course weren’t all the turtles like around Gili Meno. But I was back in my room before the afternoon rain.
The main joy of Lovina was competitive beer pricing, and I had several in a warung before heading back for my even audio book session.

Then I rode on to Pemuteran. My room is a bit more here (still only $22) but very nice and dinner and breakfast are included, plus a pool and the computer action. Tomorrow I’ll pay for another boat out to Palau Mejangan for a day of snorkeling. Maybe hiking the next day.

Here are the precarious aqueduct near Senaru and baby turtles on Gili Meno. I’m not sure if they all start off black when small or those are another breed…

My Flickr account is currently in need of an upgrade, the picks I took weren’t super spectacular, and I couldn’t get the underwater turtle shots I wanted anyway, so I’ll try and paint this post with words.

For actual Christmas day I was here on Bali. While there are some lights and things around, it didn’t feel like Christmas at all: 82 degrees and raining. I went to an overpriced Xmas dinner at Alley Cats, Skyped my family in the States and turned in. The next morning I was packed and up, heading to Padang Bai by 9 AM. I was able to board the ferry quickly but we had to wait about an hour to depart. During that time, an Australian traveller, Michelle, showed up and introduced herself. The conversation made the four hour journey go more quickly and hopefully she’ll set me up with some tips when I get down there next month. She works for an NGO on Lombok building water tanks for small rural villages.

There was a light drizzle when we arrived at Lembar, so I did up my raincoat, fueled up and headed for the mountains. I turned East more quickly than I’d intended and was soon on the road to Praya, far south of where I wanted to be, so I cut North toward Mt. Rinjani which I could get glimpses of now and again through the clouds. As the road gradually climed, I was in beautiful rice field country, Lombok’s grain belt as it were. My “map” was a photocopy out of a Lonely Planet which lost ink in the creases and was slightly dampened each time I pulled it out. The town I was heading for, south of the mountain, was in the shadowed crease of the book anyway, negative space on a photocopy. But after stopping to ask a few times, I pulled into Tetebatu just before dusk, the rain having ceased and the sunset shooting some color into the think clouds.

Tetebatu was sleepy. I actually couldn’t buy beer in any of the stores and had to pay too much from the restaurants. Intending to save some money on dinner, I ate in a family’s home behind a small store. When I asked if they had Nasi Campur, they said yes, asked me in, rolled out a mat on the floor and I was left with the basic English of the teenage son while they fired up the stove to make a dinner for one. It was in retrospect a store, not a restaurant, but the enterprising owner saw a chance to make a profit and improvised. In the end it was too much, but under the circumstances I didn’t bitch. They also had cable Tv, which they turned to an English channel and I saw a bit of a Canadian production of Patrick Stewart in some sort of smallpox movie. Back at the room I had a few beers and listened to Selected Shorts.

Now, I am used to the pre-dawn call to prayer. On Bali, I live close to a Muslim neighborhood, and there is a large Hindu temple as well. So depending on the day, I might get morning serenades of both variaties. I’ve learned to sleep through, or to only be minorly anoyed by the sounds, then drift back off. At times I’ve actually found it soothing. But tiny Tetebatu seemed to have six mosques, all with amazing sound systems, and blasted the town not only with competeing calls to prayer echoing off the mountain, but also angry sounding speeches that went on and on. I eventually got back to sleep and woke up around 8. After breakfast and strong kopi Lombok, I headed out.

Michelle had warned me about getting over the mountain pass to the North side on my automatic bike, claiming I’d need a manual, as I definitely did on Flores. Rinjani is among the ten highest mountains in Indonesia. But locals I asked seemed to think my Vario would be OK. Just to watch out, as it was the rainy season. I’d intended to try, also to see some cool valley towns on the way, but with my pathetic map and poor signage, I soon realized I could see the sea and decided to just zip around on the coastal road. I’d loose some time, burn some more cheap fuel, but it would certainly be easy on the bike. Halfway around, I passed a few guesthouses Michelle had mentioned and considered staying, the plan being to hire a boat that would take me to some small mangrove islands on the East coast which are fish hatcheries. But it wasn’t even yet noon and I kept going. I ate some lunch and turned south a bit later. Now the raod was steeply climbing, I knew I was close to Sanaru. But I wasn’t. Seeing a buleh on the side of the road, I stopped to ask where I was and he confessed he didn’t know, as he’d been hiking in the Rinjani wilderness. But he assured me he we weren’t in Sanaru, because he was just about to get a ride there. A local looked at my pathetic, deteriorating photocopy and I realized I’d turned left too soon and was now on the mountain pass road I’d missed before, only now heading south. So I just followed Canadian Tad and his driver Mr. Morris back the way I’d come, a bit more on the coastal road, then turned onto the proper road south to Sanaru. They’d got ahead of me when I refueled, and it was raining again as I pulled into town, so I stopped at one of the first few places I saw and got a room.
It turned out to not be the best choice. But after a nap I felt OK. I headed out to explore the “town” really one long road up to the mountain, eventually ending in an area that became hiking only.

Later I found Tad again and we drank beer and fooled around on his computer at the one place in town that had wifi. I ended up moving in there the next day as it was a better room at a lower price. The next morning, I went to see a local waterfall before the afternoon rain started. There is a common scam in all of these places where locals will try and convince you a guide is needed to see the better waterfall. I turned down their offer, content to just walk the easy route to the first for only the small entrance fee. I could see from photos on the displays that the second really did seem to be better. A bunch of teenagers showed up, possibly a school outing, the girls in headscarves shooting photos of one another on their handphones, which were most likely instantly uploaded to facebook. I don’t know why it seemed weird: Muslims are not Omish. But somehow the conservatism links them in my mind. They were for the most part happy, chaste, goofy kids much like any in the west, only wearing headscarves, much as a Christian kid might wear a cross. Not a big deal.

I could see where a trail ran off, obviously to the second waterfall. I didn’t intend to go the entire way, but headed down for a bit. Soon I came to a very steep concrete stairway that rose up to an aquaduct crossing the narrow valley. I climbed up and saw where the water went into the side of the mountain, and across the way it had come. A small stream crossing a narrow concrete span, the water visible through partitions in the structure thicker than railroad ties but occuring with the same frequency. This was the way forward. I wasn’t worried about the width of the walkway, every other step having to balance to the next thick area, or the height of the drop off to the right to the valley floor. But I wondered about the strength of the entire thing. It seemed a bit like those impossible stone spans in Mordor ever disintigrating as the monsters close in. So I only went out part way and turned back. I did shoot some video perhaps I’ll post later to see if my description does justice. Back at the main path I posed for some photos with still more teenagers (this is common here, “Have your photo taken with the Buleh you will never see again…”) then followed the waterway a bit in the other direction. It cut back into the mountain side again, with hollows dug out every 3 meters or so I assumed to be able to get in and clear obstructions when they clogged the flow. I saw some monkeys while heading back to the entrance. Macaws seem to be in any mountainous region of Indonesia, though it feels more like forest than jungle to me. Back at the start, I described the aquaduct to the gate guy and he sheepishly told me I was only about 5 minutes from the second waterfall. But I didn’t feel like turning back, it was getting hot and might rain any minute, though by chance it held off most of that day. So I guess the 100k guide fee was just for a local to stand there and say “be careful” as you make the perilous crossing. Or maybe he’ll go get help to haul your broken ass out if you fall…

I chilled out reading until Tad showed up again and we had the same routine, he Skyping folks back home, me checking a bit of mail, until it was timne to begin with the drink. I’d found some cheaper beers down the hill in “town” and we ended up splitting a bottle of rice wine as well. He told tales of Canadian tree planting in Alberta and his current job for a tour company working as a guide in Thailand. As a lone wolf, it’s not the way I’d choose to travel, but it seems like a hell of a job.

The next morning I was ready to head out for Bangsal and catch the boat to first Gili Air to pick up weed, then Gili Meno where I would stay. But I saw Mr. Morris who was going to give Tad a ride, so I waited a bit and rode with them, stressed I would miss the early boat out. But there turned out to be several. Tad and I parted ways there, he heading for Gili T (the party island) to meet friends and I on my own mission. On G. Air I turned down one offer, to seek out the guy I’d scored from before. I was pleased to learn his son had been born healthily since last I’d seen him six weeks ago. He was sick and I gave him some cold medicine. But he still wanted a bit more for what turned out to be around the same amount of weed as before. Well it’s hard to tell without a scale, so many stems and seeds. I was cleaning it in the restaurant, behind the counter, nervous as hell already, when he came over to quickly through a bunch of stems away when some older guys approached. They didn’t have uniforms exactly but matching shirts. I turned out they were the tax men, and he just laughed as I nervously shoved it all into baggies and got the fuck out of there. “It’s Ok brother, no worries”, as they all say there. But of course, this would be one of the last things you hear before getting thrown into the hellhole of an Indonesian prison, where the death penalty for such offenses is definitely on the table. I managed to roll a pinner despite the absurd wind and sucked it down while waiting on the boat over to Gili Meno. I listend to some Sasak music I got off a guy back in Sanaru.

So the next four days were bliss on Gili Meno. I pondered how I might lure Michelle, who has never been out to the Gili’s, out for New Years eve. But how charming can I be via SMS? I went snorkelling several times each day and blazed epic joints. Luckily I wasn’t as overwhelmed as I had been before and enjoyed myself more than stressed. It got to the point I would spot a turtle within ten minutes of getting in the water and would follow him around a while. They are so utterly gracefully, slowly glidding through the water, much like birds. I was tempted to reach down and hold the shell for a ride, but they usually stayed just out of reach, turning slightly with the potential of a bite, or shooting beyond reach when I did make contact. It’s not good to touch them anyway, I think for bacterial reasons, more harmful to them than you, but locals do it. I didn’t see lion fish this time, but another of the evil yellow eels and another black and white striped one. I heart stoned snorkeling. Unfortunately the strap on my mask broke and I had to get another over-priced one, but I’ve had the thing for 9 years so I can’t bitch. The only issue was not having more money for drinks, which were expensive, and lead to mostly going to bed by 9 each night, including NYE, though I did have a tasty fix-priced feast and watched some fireworks over Gili T early.

I made it back without incident, though the ferry seemed much longer without anyone to talk to, and a singer and keyboardist set up in what would have been the comfortable interior area to belt out four hours of Indonesian pop and Dangdut hits. It always feels good to get back to Bali. The “urbanization” which bugged me when I left feels like “convenience” upon return. As much as I didn’t give myself over completely to this place upon arrival, I’m getting quite sad to realize I’ll soon be gone.

I wasn’t high while filming Chichak ballet but found it facinating nevertheless. Chichak is what they call the “house lizard” here, different than Geckos, which get much larger.

And the reveal of the Golden Valley coffee shop. It’s interesting how the color settings were so off I appear to be in black and white. But I sort of like the effect.

And some more stills from the Art Zoo, which is much closer to Singaraja but part of the same trip, and huge Banyan tree.

I actually took another long weekend last month and went over to the Gilis. But that trip essentially entailed getting so baked I didn’t know if I could snorkel. I.e. “What if I see a shark?”…well he most likely won’t mess with you, it’s just another animal on the reef. “What if I have a heart attack?”…you’re in much better shape than you have been with the working out. “What if the shark has a heart attack?”…how high can you get? Though I did see turtles, lion fish and an eel who was larger than I’d like it to have been, but thankfully stayed in his hidey hole. I’m going back to Lombok the week after Christmas so maybe I’ll say more about the area then.

But this past extended weekend, I drove back to Amed. My usual place was full so I tried a cheaper spot. It was fine, not right by the great snorkeling, but I drove on to Tulamben after dropping my stuff at the room to snorkel around the wreck of the USAT Liberty. It was the first time I was envious of the divers and wanted to be “down there” closer.

The next day I rode on around the NE coast, stopping twice. Once at kookie Symon’s Art Zoo, though he was away in Ubud. And again near Singaraja to find the actual Pura Dalem with the naughty carvings I though I had seen before. Confusing as there is another Pura Dalem nearby, also with some carvings, but I think this is faulty linguistics on my part…again. The carvings aren’t in very good shape, but now I know for sure.

At a traffic light in Singaraja, a guy pulled next to me and urged me to see his place in nearby Lovina. I followed him, and declined to stay, stomached his lies (“Why go to the mountains? Only raining! You should stay here…”), though it was about lunch time so I ate there. A while down the road I turned left into the mountains and had soon climbed to Munduk, a town some other travelers told me about.

I am essentially more of a mountain person than a beach one and the cooler climate definitely agrees with me. I got a room at Guru Ratna and the guy dropped the price without my asking. I was worried about the budget for the trip, resigned I’d come home early when the money ran out, saving the majority for the after Xmas trip, but cheap rooms were there for me all three nights. I went to check out a waterfall. Then to try my first Kopi Luwak and have a lengthy conversation with Budi who runs the co-op. He’s a really swell guy. Unfortunately I thought you’d be able to order Civet coffee from the site but I’m not sure that’s the case…

The next morning, a guy at the hotel drew me a map and I went to check out the ancient Banyan tree, rice fields and another waterfall near Budi’s coffee plantation. The map was good, but at first I passed the tree and went way up into the hills, eventually realizing my mistake and returning. Even though you can see it from a distance, it’s easy to pass on the road.

The thing is thought to be 1,000 years old, the oldest on the island. Back when locals were fighting the Dutch, the story is 300 warriors once hid inside. I went in myself…sorry about the mouth breathing.

I’ll post some more pics and vids later. The only rain was very light Sunday morning as I headed back down to Denpasar, through familar Bedugal. Another great getaway! Had I a job up there, I’d be much more tempted to stay and do another year on Bali.

*spoilers herein*

So let me begin my admiting my bias and sharing a story that has amused parts of my family for decades. I am solidly Gen X, and in 1982, when I as 11 years old, with my Dad and little sister, then 6, on one of the weekends he had custody by the divorce decree, killing time as we often did in a movie cineplex, we slipped into a screening of the original Conan. It had already started, the scene where Conan’s mom is decapitated. And we only made it as far as when, as a grown barbarian he meets the woman who is to turn into a lycanthrope during their intercourse, when my sister piped up, audible throughout the mostly empty theater, “Dad, we aren’t allowed to see full frontal nudity!”. Classic hilarity. Soon after of course I saw the entire thing, and would say over the years I have done so at least a dozen times. Friends and I at various times have described it as pehaps the the ultimate fantasy film. For those too young to remember, let me point out there were many in that era, some, like Beast Master, blantantly trying to cash in on Conan’s success, others from Krull, Dragonslayer, Excalibur, and LadyHawke taking things in other directions. So one must ask why one would want to fuck with a classic… But alas, we live
in an era of remakes. And after James Bond, Batman, Star Trek etc. I guess Conan the Barabrian was about due. And it doesn’t completely fail, but there are a few points I must harp on.

Schwarzenegger vs Jason Mamoa

At first look at least, the new guy measures up. I’m no huge Arnold fan, despite seeing him time and again in classic roles of my adolescence. But I would argue he was BORN to play Conan. His Austrian accent adds to the plausibility of his barbarism, as does the stoicism that might be the reult of inferior acting ability. It’s not completely Mamoa’s fault: the writers gyped him trying to add romantic dimensions to the character. After some inital cliche chauvanism, he has a tender “make love” scene with the heroine. Barbarians don’t make love: they fuck. True, old Conan had real emotion going for his thief woman, but only because she was so outlaw, 3/4 masculine and still hot. A barbarian knows when he wants something, and will definitly open case after case of vengence when it is taken from him. But he lacks a certain emotional vocabulary. If he is tender it is almost accidental because has has unintentionally crushed fragile things in his past. Hell, Momoa is a better barbarian in Game of Thrones, where all he does is glower, kill, eat and butt fuck! (Ok so it was most likely only “doggie style”, but I’m taking license for the sake of a comedic line.)

The soundtrack is complete shit, I assume Tyler Bates is a hack, though he did do Matt Dillion’s City of Ghosts which I think is underrated. One cliche “action movie” melody and musical attack after another. You can hear a sample from Basil Poledouris’ superior soundtrack here.

Stephen Lang is completey played out as a villian. The scenes of his scrawny frame fighting Conan without the use of magic or minons are absurd. That having been said – the mask of evil power as a device was superior to the James Earl Jones in a Betty Page mullet snake cult motif. And I liked the idea of the wanna be incestuous witch daughter character, and Rose McGowan seemed to be having fun, though by the end she came up short. The Freddy Cruger nails were just stupid.

What’s with Papa Smurf on the hookah lording over the Tai Chi madiens? He added nothing. Nor did Conan’s black pirate buddy. The character comes off as token pandering. And while I’m on that – there is nothing essentially wrong with Conan doing time on a pirate ship, but the way they did it just seemed like the writers going “Ok, we need a little Pirates of the Carribean vibe here”. As did the fight in the court yard feel “we need a little Prince of Persia/Scorpion King vibe here.”
Also, the only time magic is used. The theif buddy is also a throw away. A quasi-middle eastern guy with a ring of skeleton keys, nothing plausible about him as a theif.

AND WHERE IS CROM? You cannot have Elric without Arioch, and you cannot have Conan without his “God by default” Crom. Conan’s tribe is described as specifically atheistic. Perhaps he mutters “Crom” a few times in moments of surprise, but there is nothing of his shaky faith in the war god who mostly delivers for him.

The sets started out Ok, but eventually had to do the LOLR CG fest, the most absurd being the skull mountain, or I should say the crumbling of the skull mountain as they ride away, straight out of King Kong. Have some rocks fall maybe, not the entire thing crumble.

I don’t want to hate on Ron Pearlman, who does as best he can as Conan’s father, but since when does Conan have a father? I see him as the child of rape, or maybe an absent father off fighting with the horde and ghost writing half-assed lyrics for Robert Plant. Conan’s mother dying here, right at the beginning, and his ersatz cesarian birth are laughable. I’m not sure how Robert E. Howard laid out Conan’s father originally, but see now from IMDB, ’82 Conan did have a dad – but I didn’t find him memorable.

Evil Henchmen

And there are many here. “No nose” is fairly original, as is his demise. But none of the henchmen carry the heft of “Molly Hatchet” and the other dude from the original. The one guy, far too orchish for my tastes, with the face tattoos being sent back as a message on a giant boulder which lands perfectly in the middle of giant ship which is inexplicably being hauled everywhere is cartoonish. Thank Crom they didn’t get too “Burning Man” with the costuming which I could have seen happening. I didn’t appreciate the snarling snow Mohicans in the beginning either, though the concept of the race around the mountain with the eggs was a nice touch. I thought it would have been more bad ass if Conan had showed up with the three heads but had acted penitant because his egg had broken, truely feeling his father might think he didn’t measure up.

What else did this version get right? There was a respectible amount of breast footage (lots of eastern europeans if you look it up…), essential I feel for the genre, though somehow it could have been sexier. And despite my earlier complaints about the scene, I did appreciate seeing Rachel Nichols’, or her body double’s. It’s not that the film is a complete failure. They have to make everything so over the top for modern autistic audiences. But you should understand downtime when you’re trying to make something epic. The plot continues to move forward, but write in scenes where the characters have a chance to grow, or reveal themselves in subtle ways. Scenes for example of characters wandering around a foreign city unsure of the next step, until eventually a camel is punched in the mouth for comic relief. Or a crucifixion. In the new version, Conan rushes from “Slave Island” to “Theif City” to “Skull Mountain” and none of it is really cool, none of it has true ambience.

And more magic. When she started to turn into the dead wife they were trying to summmon, I thought “OK maybe now we’ll see something worth those absurd acrobatics on the wedged wheel we just had to endure”. But no, he falls into the lava and she’s back to normal with no ill effect. The word necromancy was absurdly overused here, with no serious extraction of essenses, animation or the canal violation of corpses I equate with a heavy term like necromany. Either only say it once, or go ahead and show, or at least infer, corpse fucking and fight it out with the censors.

There were no classic lines here. “Conan! What is best in life?” Followed by his O SO METAL answer. Here we actually have the head villian saying, “Conan, I don’t think I like you any more.”

And sadly, not knowing what the box office has taken in so far or ultimately will, I sense this film might go on record as solid for this generation. They will mock the bad Snake metamorphasis of the original and consider the battle won. But just maybe, some teenager will read these words, watch both versions again in his mature years and think “gee, that crotchity old glory days fucker was right.” Maybe not…

My parting complaint: whomever came up with that “omnipus” monster of whatever the fuck that tentecled mess was supposed to be should never be allowed to work in film again.

So I have a ticket to Darwin from Denpasar on Feb. 3, and despite some of the impressions afforded by the Bingtang sleeveless clad Aussie masses swarming around Kuta, I’m going. My general plan is to possibly take The Ghan down the middle of the country to Adelaide, then with gumtree.com/au rideshare make my way east, hitting Melbourne, and most likely fly back to the US from Sydney later that month.

Sometimes, with this blog, I don’t know… I’m proud I keep it up, and it’s rewarding in it’s own right, but I wish I got more meaningful response. From strangers I mean, the kind of strangers I’d like to meet. Of course I appreciate the old friends who follow along. That having been said, I have had two pleasant comment encounters in the last few months. Once from an old friend of Patrik Keim who found me via his small image archive here; and another, a reader who put me back in touch with an amazing woman I met in southern China in 2010. He claimed instantly to know who I was talking about and had no doubt from my description. Now, much of that is a testimony to the power of her personality, but it was also “good to blog” validation for me.

So as I try and build my itinerary for AU, I’ll go ahead and put this out there: where do you think I should go? Unfortunately the West is out on this trip. I will have a finite amount of time, and some financial resource, but as I’ve been earning RI Rupiah for the last year…not THAT much. And their economy is doing well compared to the rest of the world, in part because they seem intent on mining up all that China will buy. Beers are $10 each at the moment, ouch!

All I know are Grinderman dates don’t currently extend past Dec.; I’d like to have some bizarre, quasi-Star Wars via Tatooine experience in Cooper Pedy; I must go to Melbourne; and might try and swing Tasmania. So give me all other recommendations for the Central and SE areas, oh Darwin too, though I don’t plan to linger. Band dates, film festivals etc that might overlap the time I’m there – essentially February 2012.

I summon thee, o dark and mystical forces of the Interweb! Speak! Er, I mean… Comment!