Good things

Twice in the last two weeks I have found myself in truly alien landscapes, looking around only vaguely understanding where I am, putting it all together very slowly, allowing myself to be taken by it and relegating the understanding to a later day.
The first was at Gunung Bromo, an active volcano in Eastern Java, which constantly spews a steady stream of sulphur and rests in the shadow of another much bigger volcano that shoots ash into the sky every ten minutes. The very lazy take a far too small horse from the base of Bromo to the foot of a staircase that carries you the rest of the way to the summit, but I, along with Anna and Joanne my two new Dutch travel partners, decided to hoof it for the twenty minutes it takes, half amused and half horrified by the fat tourists weighing down their horses. At the summit you stare into the heart of it, a very unusual chalky color flecked with deep maroons in places, then turn to view the surrounding hills and flat lowlands, giants buried in the earth with their spines exposed, colors as rich as you think possible.
The second was the very next day a few hundred kilometers further into East Java at the Ijen Plateau, a place I new almost nothing about before I came other than that it was to be something beautiful, and to some, quite amazing. What I was never told before is that you are going there to witness humanity in a form completely incomprehensible to most, to see a mountain and it's crater merely as a backdrop . As you walk the hour hike to the top of the mountain you begin to see many workers coming up the hill behind you carrying two baskets suspended between a plank of bamboo. At the moment you have no idea what it's used for. The farther you go up, the more workers you see, and eventually you notice that some of them have incredibly large pieces of sulphur rock filling both baskets. When you finally reach the summit you look down into the crater and see the small sources of sulphur leaking out, the brightest blue lake, the fluorescent yellow and dark red walls, the sand trails snaking through the water; then you see to the very bottom, a very, very long and steep way down and you finally realize what these men are doing, where the rocks are coming from, and how completely impossible it seems that men as old as 60 are carrying out loads of sulphur weighing upwards of 150 lbs from the bottom of a volcano up a steep and extremely perilous path only ever wide enough to barely squeeze two people by at the same time, then all the way down the mountain to unload, a journey they can complete twice a day working ten hours each day, being paid the equivalent of US$6 a day. Every one of these men works for 20 years or until they die, which many do from falling, exhaustion and heart and lung problems due to the fact that they are constantly covered and breathing in sulphur, sometimes so thick that you can't see a few inches in front of you, dependent upon the wind to shift to clear the path again. I walked all the way down the path to the source of the sulphur, talked to many of the workers, saw exactly how they were working, got horribly in the way, surely made their jobs more difficult by my presence but not one of them didn't smile and say hello, offer to give me a sulphur rock or ask me for a cigarette that I wished I would have bought a pack of just to give away. None of us, myself, Joanne, Anna, or Kendra and Irene my new American travel partners could make any good sense of it at the time, and even days later we are still enjoying being completely baffled by it.
I decided to follow Kendra and Irene into Bali, and they invited me to come to Pemuteran with them, a small beach village with few tourists, kind locals and good food. Nate eventually met up with us there, and we all snorkeled every day and spent a lot of time relaxing. After four days we had made many new friends and I had traded my t-shirt with Bang Bang, the cook at our favorite road side food stall.
Nate and I are now in Ubud, after a disastrous trip to Kuta to try and find a bar that played the Super Bowl but failing. It's perfect here, everyone loves art and music and the Balinese culture is evident in most everything you see. Today we played with monkeys and Nate almost got his face eaten off, tonight we'll see a gamelan and dance performance, tomorrow maybe some white water rafting then meeting back up with the girls, the next day touring the countryside, Friday to Denpasar to catch a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Sunday the Indian festival of Thaipusam, after that we have no idea.
For those of you worried, last night Nate and I finally found a bar to watch a replay of the Super Bowl, and it was only fitting that the two Arizona boys were joined by another traveler living in Seattle who was from Pittsburgh. The locals working the bar had no idea what we were watching or why it made us so happy.
Love to all,
B

Indonesia

Nate and I have been in Indonesia for about ten days now, starting in Jakarta for two days and then on to Bandung for one night. We quickly grew tired of the traffic and the noise and the general rush of both cities, so we moved on as fast as we could, as Indonesia only gives us 30 days on our visa.
Most of our time has been spent here, in Pangandaran, a sleepy beach city (at least outside of tourist season) with good waves for surfing, at least one large rainstorm a day, and food for 80 cents. I've have done almost nothing outside of read, swim, run, eat, walk, sleep.
Nate has taken up surfing, and since it's cheap to learn and to rent a board here, he has decided to stay for a while. So, tomorrow I will be taking off alone for Yogyakarta, where I'll spent a few days traveling around the area to see Borobodur, the Prambanan temples, the Dieng plateau and Gunung Merapi. Then I'll head East to Solo, then off to Gunung Bromo before reaching the Easternmost tip of Java to catch a ferry to Bali, where, at some point and some location, Nate and I will meet up again to fly back to Kuala Lumpur by the 6th, our last legal day in the country.
(About a minute ago there was a massive motorbike accident outside the internet cafe that wiped out about ten motorbikes. Everyone seems alright though.)
But, on the 1st of February I will be desperately seeking out a bar or restaurant or any place that has a television and is broadcasting the Super Bowl so I can watch the Cardinals win their first championship.
Love to all,
B

New Year

Don't have a lot of time, but a quick update that Nate and I had a very lively time in Kuala Lumpur on New Year's Eve in which we probably walked well over 15 miles all over the city to catch all the millions of people celebrating across the city.
The next day we woke up early to catch a bus to Melaka, an old historic city once taken over at different times by the Dutch, Portuguese and British, resulting in quite a mix of peoples and architectural styles. We've been here for the last five days, which should say a lot about how much we enjoy this city.
Tomorrow morning we wake up very early to walk a few miles to the bus station, then catch a bus to Singapore where we'll spend two days before catching a ferry to Batam, a small island just off Singapore that is part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, from where we'll fly to Jakarta, a short hour and a half flight away.
Happy New Year to everyone.
Love,
B

Langkawi to Kuala Lumpur

So after nearly five weeks in Langkawi, Nate and I made the rather quick decision one morning to leave Langkawi to head for Indonesia. We planned on going to Penang to catch a ferry to Medan in northern Sumatra, but the ferry was sold out so we caught a ferry to the mainland of Kedah, got a cab to Alor Setar, took a bus to Butterworth and then finally a ferry in Georgetown on the island of Penang. Once we arrived we realized that the ferry for Medan was sold out for three days, so we made another hasty decision and made a brand new plan to head south for Kuala Lumpur, to either catch a ferry from somewhere nearby, or keep moving south. Before leaving Penang early the next morning for KL, we went to our favorite Indian cinema in town and saw Silambataam, a Bollywood movie about a devoted Hindu who turns out have a killing machine waiting inside of him, only to be released when coaxed out by the violence of others. Luckily for him, he is also an extraordinary singer and dancer. Very good stuff. Three hours long.
Last night, our first night in Kuala Lumpur (KL), we met up with our friend Pitt who we had met in Langkawi, who is the brother of a good friend of ours in Langkawi named Aji. He works at an incredibly nice bar near Bukit Bintang, the main shopping district in KL, called The Social. We ended up hanging out with him as he worked for a few hours, and somehow the Langkawi trend continued and we didn't have to pay for a single drink. Nate and I figured our tab would have been close to 200 RM, nearly $60, not because we drank a lot but because alcohol is incredibly expensive in mainland Malaysia, and especially KL. Once again we were shocked by the kindness of the people here, and promised to buy Pitt a meal the following day.
Today we plan on walking around the city and finding a used book store, maybe going to the lake gardens and the city center tonight, and tomorrow we plan on waking early tomorrow to go up the Petronas Twin Towers, something I have wanted to do since I was a young boy.
And the decision we're facing right now is this: catch a ferry from Klang, a nearby city, or travel south to Melaka to catch a ferry to Dumai (Sumatra), or possibly head for Singapore to catch a ferry to the small island of Bitam and then fly into Jakarta (on the island of Java). Knowing the two of us the decision will be made on a whim as neither Nate nor I possess the ability to plan ahead, nor do we really want to.
We'll let you know when we figure it out.
Love,
B

Back in Langkawi

Nate and I made it back to Langkawi a week ago and realized very quickly that the tourist season was in full bloom. Apparently Malaysian students all across the country get "summer" break during December and January, and many of them, along with Europeans and Australians and all manner of white folk, flock to the island at the same time. So, with a little help from our old landlord from our last time here, we got what may have been the only room left in Langkawi. She had to spend an hour just getting it ready for us, and she charged us a ridiculously low price in accordance with it's quality (there was no water). The worst news, however, was that she no longer had a room to rent us out for the month.
So for the few days we stayed there, we started thinking of moving on, back to the mainland to see what the rest of Malaysia was like. But then we met Lan and his girlfriend Joanna, who own the only local art gallery right on the main road. We initially just stopped in and started talking to the two of them, with no intention or motive, but somehow the topic of us looking for a place to rent for a month came up, and within half an hour we had been invited to come and live with them for 200 RM a month, 150 Ringgit less than what we were willing to pay for a guesthouse. The next day Joanna took us to look at the house, which is set back from the main road, about a five minute walk from the beach, and secluded nicely by palm trees and local families. We loved it right away. We have our own large room, a big kitchen we can use to eat for cheap, a living room with cable tv and dvd player and a separate space for the shower and the toilet, something I've learned I greatly enjoy. We moved in on Monday and have been busy settling into life in a home, buying groceries, pillows, sleeping bags.
We also rented motorbikes for the first time, and spent two days riding all over the island. We rode to the top of the highest mountain on Langkawi (890 KM). We saw many small fishing villages as well as the five star luxury resort beaches where they told us we couldn't sit in the chairs or swim in the pool before we were anywhere near either of them. We watched monkeys tend to their children. We saw a Chinese man crash his motorbike into an SUV and flip. Nate road on the wrong (right hand) side of the road a few times. We have made a firm decision to rent a motorbike for the entire month we'll be here, and with the help of Lan who gives us all the local inside information, we found a shop that will rent one to us monthly for 250 RM. Most bikes are rented daily for 20-35 RM, so this would save us tons of Ringgit.
Life has definitely slowed down. We don't have to think about moving or how to get to the next city or when to catch the ferry or the bus or the train and it's a nice change of pace for a while. We've watched a little television, which is very different when you haven't watched one in a while. Luckily Lan only likes to watch National Geographic and Discovery, so at least we're learning. We cook at home now instead of eating out every night. We went out for Joanna's birthday and met even more great people, like Vladimir the Russian, Johan the Swede, Wan the Malay artist, Zool the Malay husband of a very rich local German. Nate met a Malay girl that he likes. Lan very quickly told him she was bad news. People are very good to us and treat us like old friends. We can't walk down the street without seeing people we know and having a conversation. I can't say I've ever felt that way anywhere I've lived.
All is well, more soon.
Love,
Brent

Pictures

I uploaded some more pictures from Nate's camera to Flickr, and hopefully Kinsey will able to upload the thousands that we took on her camera from back home in Austin at some point in the future.
So, if you'd like to see them, head on over to www.flickr.com/photos/whales-were-deers.

Also, happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and family back home. We love and miss you all.
Hug a Native American.

Brent

Malaysia

The first thing different that we noticed about Malaysia, at first struck us as something similar. Getting through customs we encountered the same throng of desperate men hawking taxis and guesthouses and foot massages and snake oils and, as we've grown used to them, we now just push through the group to find the honest people on the other side. But this time we met a man who looked as shady as any we've seen, who tailed us and kept offering help. As I often do, I kept walking and let Nate get ensnared because he is often too kind to tell them to fuck off with his body language. This man followed us for a few minutes, guided Nate to a money changer and Kins and I to an ATM, then passed us on to his associate. This new man then followed us for a few minutes, answered a few of Nate's questions about the city and how to get to the Pantai Cenang beach, and then did the strangest thing. He wished us luck and walked away. He was only there to help us, which we had not yet encountered at a ferry terminal, bus station, train station, taxi terminal or anyplace where travelers arrive.
This was our first impression of Malaysia, and it would prove to be very telling.
We caught a cab to the beach and found that since it was the weekend and there was a school holiday, everywhere was booked. We eventually found a guesthouse that rented us a room that was not meant to be rented, as it had wallpaper on the floor, was dirty, small and had a secret room built into the side of the wall and covered by a curtain that looked fit to hide stolen children in.
So the next day, Sunday, we set out to find a better room, and since the weekend was winding down we found a place right next door with two big beds, a nice shower and even a large piece of furniture that we couldn't really figure out what to do with. The next day we moved to a different room in the same guesthouse that was just as nice if not better, and this is when the landlord informed Nate and I that she would rent this room out to us on a monthly basis for $350 RM (almost exactly $100) total. This is the moment when Nate and I began to think differently. We had planned on spending a few days here then moving on south to another island then to the mainland. But if we took this offer we'd be paying $50 each a month, less than $2 a day to stay in a perfectly nice room. She also told us she was opening a Rasta Bar in the next few weeks and that she was looking for a cook and a waiter, so we might be able to work as well. So, we decided to spend a few days in Langkawi to see if we liked it before we made the decision.
This is what happened while we were deciding.
One night we stumbled upon a bar called Submarine (so named because the bar right next to it is called Yellow) and we met some really nice guys that happened to be the house band. We all sat around playing guitar together, and when it was time for them to perform they invited us to play with them. So Nate and I fumbled our way through a bunch of cover songs, from the Beatles to Radiohead to U2 for about an hour. After we played, one of the guys in the band, Saiful, sat us down and paid us 20 ringgit for playing. It was the sweetest thing anyone has done for us yet and this led to Saiful and I spending the next five hours talking about music and religion and politics and to us becoming good friends. He teaches music to children and cooks at a restaurant, and when he's not working he plays in three bands. After the show we ended up going to a dance club called Sanba (still don't know how I was convinced to go to a dance club) with some friends we met at the bar. A.C. cleans yachts and looks like Jack Sparrow if he was a boxer (he's missing teeth). He's offered to see if he can get us jobs with him and wants to take us to South Africa with his company. He's also normally drunk, so I'm not banking on it. Mi sings in the band and has a great voice, and he can speak English very well (most people here can) but he can sing it fluently. His girlfriend Atti also plays music and sings, and Kinsey thinks she is the most adorable girl in the world. Yen plays upright bass and djimbe, and sings like John Fogerty. Matt and Lisa are from Canada and are brother and sister and somehow have found a way to travel with each other without killing one another. Brooke and I would never survive. Jevin is from Melbourne and gave us great advice on getting jobs in Australia. Jack is the employee at the mini mart where I go to buy beer and snacks and last night I found out that he is a tattoo artist who moved back to Langkawi to help his family run the store. He showed me some of his tattoos and they're remarkable. Jai and Bet are from the mainland in Kuala Kedah and they are our neighbors at the hostel. All the employees at our favorite Indian restaurant in town live a door down from them, and we're hoping to become good friends with them in the hopes of getting free food or cooking secrets.
So it was pretty easy to love this place, and we had all but made up our mind when the following day, Yen passes us on the street as we're taking a walk. He asks us to get in a then drives us out to a beautiful new restaurant right on the water. He tells us his band is playing there tonight, and since it's the grand opening there will be free food and drink. We tell him we'll meet him there later that night, and continue our walk where we eventually veer far off the main road and find ourselves in a small village apparently populated only by children who want to smile and wave and yell "Hello!" and "Goodbye!" at you over and over. At one point there were probably twenty kids yelling hello at us. On the edge of town as we walked by a small house we hear a very desperate sounding hello coming from behind us. We turn around to see this gigantic child (seriously he was less than five feet tall and weighed at least 160) running after us wearing nothing but his bath towel which he is fighting to hold up, and when he finally comes face to face with us he simply says, "hello", then takes a moment to catch his breath and triumphantly announces, "goodbye".
We arrived at the restaurant at seven and found Yen and his band mates eating before their performance, and we were instantly encouraged to go get as much food as we could handle. So we loaded our plates then sat down to watch Yen cover everything from CCR to Pink Floyd to Robbie Williams. Apparently the only music people in Malaysia want to hear is classic rock or pop, because that's all every band around plays, and they can make good money doing it. While eating we met Adam, and Australian who started the restaurant with another man with the help of some locals and a connection to a powerful politician. We attempted to sweet talk him in hopes of getting a slot to play at his restaurant, which pays a few hundred RM (ringgit) a night. Nate and I live off of 35 RM a day, so that would be quite a bit of money to us right now. Later in the night Adam smuggled Nate and I free beer which endeared him to both of us. Some of the more strict Muslims expressly forbid alcohol, and since there were some rather powerful people in the Malaysian government (which is comprised mainly of Muslims) in attendance, we had to be careful for Adam's sake.
So we spent a few hours eating and drinking for free, watching our new friend Yen play music, and when he was done he offered us a ride back to town where he was performing at another bar on the beach. This was basically the same band but since they play on the beach they are allowed to play at a much higher volume and use electric instruments. As seems to always happen now that people know Nate and I play music, eventually we are called on stage and told to start jamming. So, I picked up a guitar and Nate picked up a bass we started playing something very random and thought up on the spot. Of course, Nate and I thought it was total rubbish, but the crowd would explode into applause at certain points, and there was a very drunk, very white, very just-graduated-from-college-and-I-miss-my-frat-buddies dude about our age that danced very badly and very near to me the entire time I played. He loved it, so I guess we succeeded.
After the show we sat down with Yen and talked to him about his life and family and how he liked living on Langkawi, and like everyone before who we asked the same question, he thinks it the best place in the world and has no desire to ever leave.
At this point, Kinsey was pretty sure that she was going to fly back home in a few days from Singapore, since it was much cheaper than flying out from anywhere else. To get there, she needed to take a ferry down south to Penang to get back to the mainland and catch a bus to Singapore. So, Nate and I had planned to go with her to accompany her as far as Penang to see her off, then return to Langkawi. We told Yen about our plans to catch a cab to the ferry the following day and he would have none of it. He had a car and the day off, so he would wake up to drive us there himself.
And he did. The next day we came to his house and woke him up and he drove us all the way across town (a taxi would have cost 28 RM, $9) to the jetty, then had lunch with us and hung out until our boat left.
At this point our minds were well made up, we would stay in Langkawi for the near future. We had already made some great friends, found an outlet for music, could live for incredibly cheap, maybe work, swim in the ocean every day and stop moving for a little while.
Right now, after spending the last week in Penang, a loud, congested, busy city of over two million people where beer is more expensive than it is in the states (I haven't had one the entire time I've been here) and the people are noticeable less friendly (except Durai, who after ten minutes had invited us to stay at his house and use his car and his motorbike), we are even more certain of our choice.
Kinsey left us on Sunday to catch a bus to Singapore and a flight back to Austin in time to be with her family for Thanksgiving. We all had a great time together and we wish her the best as she now faces the very scary world of working for a living. Oddly enough, since she left, Nate and I have been to three malls, one of them the biggest in Southeast Asia. She probably would have enjoyed them more than we did, as we were trying, unsuccesfully, to find guitars. We did have a chance to catch the new James Bond movie, which we both thought was great, so it wasn't a total waste.
We head back to Langkawi tomorrow.