Left and leaving*

Tomorrow, we depart Ubud, making our way to the airport and a plane
bound for the city-state of Singapore.

Leaving our quasi-home of Padangbai was difficult. Leaving Bali will
be, too. Our last morning in Padangbai was spent making the rounds,
saying farewell to our friends and the places we frequented, the
places where people knew us by name. We took some photographs with our
new friends, keepsakes to hold them and our time in Padangbai in
memory until our return, who-knows-when. Farewell Martini, and Regig,
and Made, and Nyoman, and Ayu, and Kesni, and David, and Wayan, and
Rini. Until we meet again.

Ubud, for its charms, did not quite fit as comfortably (for one, it is
far more touristy), but it too will be hard to leave. I made some new
friends here, too, especially a fabulous group of expat and Indonesian
film lovers (more on that to come). We have said our farewells to the
monkey forest, to our favorite local spots, and to a few dollars for
some clothing (though reasonably well-suited to the motorcycle
journey, I am officially done traveling in screen-printed T-shirts for
a while) and Balinese TLC (a facial for Julie and a massage for me).

I feel changed by our time here in ways I can't yet find words to
express, and also by the richness of an experience in a place that
previously had been only a blank spot on my mental maps. When I
reflect on the transitional trepidation I felt leaving New Zealand for
Indonesia -- followed so quickly by a sense of familiarity with this
place, then appreciation, then true affection -- it makes me eager to
find what awaits us in all the other unknown-to-us destinations ahead.
And it makes me eager to come back.

Thanks, Bali. Terima kasih and selamat tingal.

_______

*Thanks to one of my favorite albums of the Weakerthans for the title.

Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

This is the first Thanksgiving I've spent outside of the U.S. since my senior year of high school, on my first trip to Europe with my parents and my brother Nathan, which I celebrated with cheese sandwiches (I wasn't a very creative vegetarian back then), wandering the streets of Munich, realizing that these Germans had no idea what day it was.

Today, Julie and I find ourselves into our sixth month of travel, enjoying the Balinese hospitality in Ubud, famous for its art, its temples and its monkey forest. Wonderous though it is, leaving Padangbai was difficult, having become so comfortable and so connected to others living there. More about that later.

As is fitting for this day, I want to reflect on the abundant good fortunes that let me write you from this place. By fortunes, I don't mean money. Or, at least, I don't mean just money. (People often wonder about the financing of a journey like this one. I hope to write about that at some point in the future, but for now, suffice it to say the money part of preparing for a trip like this has been much less complex than the people part.)

As I look back on the preceding six months, or on the preceding two years (when we hatched the idea for the trip), I am astounded by how many people have been integral to our finding ourselves here. First off, it's incredible how important it was to have family and friends supportive of the idea. Give up your comfortable life? Sell your home and purge your possessions? Quit your job, doing important work with great people? Say goodbye to family and most of your friends, not to lay eyes on them for a year and a half? And not to know when or where you will land, or what you will do?

Certainly, someone could be forgiven for thinking the whole plan was a bit daft. Instead of greeting us with skepticism or mental health interventions, so many people in our lives responded with "sounds exciting!" and "how can I help?"

The friends -- old and new -- we've met along the trip have made the journey far richer, less an expedition into the unknown than a circumnavigation of our address book. We have been invited into the homes and into the lives of friends in so many places, it is astonishing:

Jon, Jen, Ruthie and Gabe (Denver)
Dan and Sheika (Vail)
Kim and Jack (San Diego)
Tony, Tara, Jennifer and Claudia (LA)
Tim and Camille (Carmel-by-the-Sea)
Carol, Bill, Nico and Paul (Berkeley)
Marty and Eileen (Stinson Beach)
Tim and Joan (Point Reyes)
Erika, Carel, Angie and Darren (Portland)
Donald (Seattle)
Tom, Emily and Shane (Vashon Island)
Linda and Everett (Anchorage)
...with Max and Mick (Wild Lake)
...and Kelly (Valdez)
Rex, Trish and Leigh (Wellington)
Jen, LJ, Grady and Zoey (Lyttelton)
Anna (Auckland)

And that's just the list so far! 

Our families have been the very definition of supportive during our preparations and throughout our travels. In addition to hosting our remaining possessions in storage, they have provided incredible moral, financial and logistical support. My family swung into action, Viking raiding-party style (but thankfully sans mayhem and bloodshed), months before our actual departure, helping me prepare my condo for sale. This was followed by my real-estate rock star brother selling it in exactly the time he estimated, letting us leave liberated and with the promise of a little coin hitting the bank account. My father has been my point person back home for the closing on that transaction, as well as all of the miscellaneous details involved in continuing to have a presence in the world (fun stuff like bank statements and bills!). My mom has been a continuous link back to news of the family, and constant support to have fun, and to be safe. (Can you imagine, what we put our poor families through, riding our motorcycles to Alaska?!)

Friends have also made our departure possible, through their encouragement and well-wishes, by staying in touch, and (is there a theme here?) their back-breaking labor. (Thankfully, Primo, I am quite sure we will never have to move my behemoth of a desk again; but I'm afraid to say, Bone, that I don't think the same is true about the roll-top.) Ann helped us get our legal house in order, Steve sent us off prepared to head into the wilderness of Banff and Jasper national parks, and Jennifer gave us some of the best tips for her beloved islands you could imagine. My friends at work gave me such a send off, I'm still amazed by it. And finally, on the weekend before our departure, Lucas hosted our final, final bon voyage party.

It's quite a list!

I'm also struck by all the invisible supports, the keepers of the infrastructure that has allowed us to pass this way with so little encumbrance. I remember riding down one particularly isolated stretch of the Alaskan Highway, somewhere in the Yukon Territory. The terrain was formidable, and the road reflected its reluctance to be tamed by pavement, in undulating patches that bounced a rider from pressed firmly in the seat, to floating, feet barely on the foot pegs. What was surprising was that these patches somehow weren't visible to the eye -- you wouldn't know you'd hit one until you felt it. Or, when you saw a cone or little red flag on the edge of the roadway. We saw hundreds of these along the Alcan. I was amazed to think that in this place, such a subtle little marker -- nothing but a bit of red plastic glued to a piece of wire, posted upright in the ground along the verge -- could be the difference between enjoying the ride and skidding along the road. I felt such gratitude for the attentiveness of the highway workers, miles from their boss or supervisor, who diligently made sure these markers were in place where they were needed. It was a small symbol, surely, but a sign of civilization, of care and of human attention nevertheless.

But this is just one example. Broadening the circle of thanks in this way never really ends. The ripples of support and gratitude widen, intersect and merge, and it quickly becomes impossible to trace exactly where you should direct all of your thanks. Elizabeth Gilbert, in Eat Pray Love, said it beautifully when she wrote:

In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.

Amen, sister. Amen.

But there is one more person to thank for her role sustaining me, on this trip and in this life.

Perhaps it will surprise you (ha!) that I'm not always the easiest person in the world to travel with. Opinionated, strong willed, sometimes restless and sometimes unpredictably particular, there are gentler assignments than spending a year and a half linked at the hip with this particular wanderer. 

Julie has, time and again, amazed me with her ability to adapt to the changing circumstances of our travels thus far. She is competent, generous, resilient, funny and sincere, in the unique combination that made her such a potent inebriant to me in the first place. We have been getting to know one another better, day by day, as we learn how we each respond to the constantly changing, often compelling, sometimes difficult, stimuli. She continues to surprise me, by saying yes over and over again to opportunities that provide rewards, but also call for sacrifice. (A week in the Arctic, anyone? How about a 35-mile hike along the New Zealand coast?) And she continues to surprise me, too, by time and again saying yes to the challenge that I earnestly hope provides the greatest reward of all: that of loving each other, of building a life together. I am lucky and grateful to have such a companion, traveling or not.

So, I have no pretensions of having "earned" this experience, or to ever be able to say thanks properly for getting to experience it. I can only repeat, as often as I can, thank you.

Balinese discipline

Life in Padangbai continues to reward in its gentle, relaxed fashion. We've now spent more time here than any other place in the journey -- and our familiarity with this place is rewarded by people greeting us by name as we walk its few blocks of warungs (shops), hotels and restaurants. (Well, truth be told, I am greeted with Eric -- pronounced enthusiastically as "air-EEK!" -- and Julie is greeted as either as Julia or, much to her chagrin I'm sure, Mrs. Eric.)

I have been relishing finally taking time to dive into long-deferred projects that I envisioned dedicating my presumably abundant free-time to earlier in our trip. (That's a vision that did not contend with the demands of camping and near-daily motorcycling, to say nothing of the wonders of Hawai'i and New Zealand.)

At the moment, I'm sitting at the Buddha Bar, one of several frequent haunts, all of which provide ample shade from the intense mid-day sun. The Buddha Bar is unique in town in having a prominent salt-water pool, and a relaxed policy about patrons using it. When hanging out here, my routine is typically to order a mango juice ($1.25, and containing nothing but juiced mangoes, but so sweet you doubt it), crack open Proust (fittingly enough, I'm making my second attempt at In Search of Lost Time) or pop open the laptop and work on various coding or video projects. Might not be your cup o' fruit, but it's definitely mine. That is, when we're not spending the day snorkeling, swimming, or scuba diving.



We have several days left before leaving for Ubud, often called the cultural heart of Bali, but honestly, I am not eager to leave. Little did I know that I'd fall so completely for this routine and rootedness. Little too did I know that in so short a time I could become proficient at discerning a really, really exceptional mango from a merely really exceptional one. (It's mango season here right now, so those are the only two varieties on offer.)

The U.S. State Department -- typically, the most conservative travel advice you could find on the planet -- describes Indonesia with a tacit chauvinism that feels so unjust given our experience here. To be sure, Bali is not typical of Indonesia, but even the way our government describes traffic patterns here, namely, as "undisciplined," feels both needlessly antagonistic and inaccurate. Traffic here moves very differently from back home, but it abides its own discipline, however chaotic it might first appear to Western eyes. Drivers are attentive, communicative and frankly, quite skilled at maximizing the number of vehicles moving on the two-lane trunk roads throughout the island. In the space that two cars moving in the same direction would occupy on a similar roadway in Minneapolis, there might be a fully loaded dump truck hauling a load of dirt or lumber, a hired car straddling the center line, looking for a safe moment to pass, and a dozen scooters with an average load per bike of 2 adults, various satchels and packages, and a child or two wedged into the spaces between the rest. At the same time, there are dozens of scooters and motorbikes moving in the opposite direction, pinching without complaint down to the portion of their lane remaining which allows the hired car to stay over the center line. "Undisciplined" does not characterize the utter absence of road rage, the fact that every driver seems to view making space for every other driver on par with their objective of reaching their destination.

Dear President Obama,

I know you have a soft spot for Indonesia. Spending the time we have here, Mr. President, I see why! I know you have a lot on your plate right now, what with the economy, and the opposition to resolve our health care crisis, to say nothing of the violence and wars you inherited, but if you and Ms. Clinton could perhaps see whether your travel advice writers could make their travel advice demonstrate a modicum of respect for the places they describe, this traveler would be most grateful.

Thank you for presenting an American face to the world we can be proud of, instead of embarrassed by.

Eric
Padangbai, Bali, Indonesia

Of course, accidents do happen. We had an opportunity to watch Padangbai spring to action during a traffic accident last week. Apparently, a small SUV was parked in our hotel's driveway, with the keys in the ignition. Someone who did not know how to drive wanted to listen to music, so turned the key to activate the accessories. In doing so, they inadvertently started the car, the manual transmission of which was engaged in first gear, at the same time that they had their foot on the accelerator (again, not knowing how to drive). The car started, and rapidly accelerated, careening across the street, over the substantial, foot-high curb, onto the beach, colliding with and shattering an outrigger canoe, pulled up on the sand awaiting passengers.

Fortunately, no one was hurt, which is nothing short of miraculous. I'd just left our hotel to head to (you guessed it) the Buddha Bar, and had just set my stuff on the table when I heard the ruckus. By the time I'd walked a dozen paces to see what had happened, it seemed that all of Padangbai had done the same, a large circle of people around the car, while its "driver" exited the vehicle, stunned and shaken. Julie talked with one of our sarong-selling friends on the street, whose stand was the closest thing to the boat destroyed by the impact. She, too, was shaken, grateful the car had not gone ten feet further down the road, and hit her instead.



As I imagine might happen with a traffic accident on Main Street in small town America, this was the event of the week. People lingered, making sure the vehicle was safely removed from the beach (this time, by a qualified driver), and conferring about what happened, what each person saw, and who was responsible for what. Interestingly, in talking to one of our drivers here about the accident, he suggested that the owner of the car bore some responsibility for the accident as well, since he should not have left keys in the car.

The big event for this week has been something on an entirely different scale, however.

Every six months, the three main temples in Padangbai host a ceremony which locals say brings "all of Bali" to this tiny village. While my estimates suggest it's a fair shot short of the millions of people that claim would represent, it is certainly impressive to watch thousands and thousands and thousands of people filter into this town, clotting the parking area and streets with buses, scooters, temporary food and festival-merch vendors and the countless pilgrims. They arrive day and night, as the ceremony continues for three days, from 5:30 a.m. until midnight each day.



The main road along the beach (where we are staying) is closed to vehicles, and filled with a continual progression of people in ceremonial attire, beautiful offering baskets containing fruit, flowers, food and incense balanced atop the women's heads, as they walk down the beach toward the temples. These before-and-after photos of the main road give some sense of the change that has come over this normally sleepy village.

 

Seeing Padangbai's temple ceremony has been an unplanned, unexpected stroke of fortune.

Comfortably ensconced in my disciplined uncertainty, I don't think of myself as a spiritual seeker, and am even less drawn to regimented religious practice. That said, I have near bottomless curiosity for how people have organized themselves around humanity's eternal questions (why are we here?, where do we come from?, what happens when we die?). I hope, in participating in the ceremony, that this curiosity expresses itself as genuine, engaged interest, and not as a kind of cultural voyeurism that is particularly uncomfortable to participate in as an affluent, western white male observer (relishing neither the role of the vulgar cowboy "Hello! Make way! Anyone seen God around here lately?" or his subtler prostituting cousin "It's just so exotic, all these fancy costumes. And the people are just so peaceful, don't you think?").

In any case, Bali's Hinduism (akin but distinct from the Hinduism I've encountered elsewhere in the world), its ability to draw thousands upon thousands upon thousands of adherents from all over the island to this tiny village, and the gentle, joyful and communal way that these ceremonies occur... well, all of this is pretty darn intoxicating. And the people do seem pretty peaceful, in fact. Hmmm.

I guess there's something elemental that speaks to me about faith practices that make extensive offerings of fruit and flowers. Where the men and women are adorned with blossoms, tucked into their hair, behind their ears, resting on their head during prayer. Where each prayer service's "benediction" involves affixing grains of rice to your forehead. Add to that a stunning gamelan ensemble featuring our friend Martini greeting us on our visits to the temples, along with a thousand smiles, friendly glances and introductory questions ("Hello, where are you from? Where are you staying?"), and suffice it to say: this ceremony has been unforgettable indeed!



Our next destination, Ubud, is famous for having dozens of nightly performances of Balinese culture for tourist consumption. Seeing Balinese culture, here, in practice, somehow feels more grounded, less sanitized. Besides, it surely can't hurt to put a good word in with Ganesha for our trip, right?

Blub, blub, I think I'm in love

It will surprise no one that a bad day in Bali beats a good day in lots of other places. Here, even the humdrum is pretty darn fantastic.

Yesterday was not just a day in Bali. It was a great day in Bali.

We've settled into a lovely rhythm here in Padangbai, waking up to the crowing of the roosters (honestly, not an embellishment nor literary device!), lingering in bed to admire the vanes of the ceiling fan circling behind the translucent the mosquito canopy overhead. The view of the draping canopy -- with its a wooden hoop spreading the gauzy fabric to cover the mattress and also focusing its rise to a single point above us -- somehow never fails to conjure Arabian music in my head. I can observe it rocking gently in the fan's breeze for far longer, and with far more contentment, than I care to admit.

At some point, I get up (the early riser of the two of us) and migrate to the balcony of our little two-story hut to read or watch the village of Padangbai spring to life again, heralded by the sweepers in every establishment, scratching of straw brooms against stone pavers and polished tile. At some point, I climb down the stairs from the balcony, walk a few paces to the breakfast counter, and place our order. Fifteen minutes later, a pancake or egg dish, fruit salad and two cups of the tastiest coffee on planet Earth are delivered to our door. We eat, pondering how to spend the day. (Walk a block down to the fabulous snorkeling beach? Walk across the street to the main beach? Or just pick a new restaurant to try their versions of various Balinese dishes, or fruit juice, or get an early start on a Bintang, the ubiquitous local lager?)

Most days, we continue this pace until after sundown, letting our appetites for food, drink and activity be our guide. It's a gentle rhythm.

Yesterday before breakfast, I finished coding my first non-trivial iPhone application, completed as one of the assignments for the Stanford University iPhone Application Programming course I've been following, whose materials (including videos from the course) are available for free online. (You may ask, "this is what he does in Bali?" Yes. It is.) Meet Hello Polly, my polygon rendering application that I'm sure will make millions on the iPhone App Store.



After breakfast, yesterday's activities included my last two training dives. The first took us out to a wall extending to about 50 meters down, coral and countless varieties of sea life clinging to its vertical face. Hovering at various depths down to our maximum of 18 meters, a gentle current carrying us laterally along the wall, I have never felt closer to flying in all my life. Practicing maintaining buoyancy -- achieved primarily by controlling the amount of air in your lungs -- only made the experience more sublime. Want to ascend slightly? Take a deeper breath. Descend? Release more air on your next exhalation. To my surprise, this quickly becomes second-nature, require little more thought or concentration to change your depth that it does to walk down the sidewalk on the surface. Complement this buoyancy control with a kick from your swim fins, and voila, you are able to navigate the underwater world fully in three dimensions!

I was relieved and amazed to discover that, contrary to feeling like shark bait, diving (at least in Bali's waters) feels like walking through an underwater garden. Fish and coral and crustaceans and plant life abound, but none of it felt the slightest bit threatening to me. (Is it possible that Bali's underwater dwellers are Hindus, too?) At one point, we came upon a group of five squid, each the size of a terrier, hovering and darting in their other-worldly way, communicating with electric colors on their skin, raising their tentacles as if to say, "'ay, you, come on ova here!" I felt zero trepidation, and following my dive instructor's lead, held out a hand, wiggling my fingers. It was fascinating to watch their eyes pivot in their sockets, examining us, knowing that with their jet-like propulsion, they could disappear in a flash, but seemed, too, to understand that we were no (immediate) threat. And, instead of hearing the klaxons of a red alert, I was imagining the Cousteau's lovely lilt: "'ere we 'ave the squid in 'is natif 'abitat, peacefoully exploring 'is surroundings, much as we are."

(To say this experience makes me second-guess consuming squid at the dinner table is an understatement.)

Our final dive -- all that stood between me and certification -- took us out to a ship-"wreck" and an artificial reef. The scare quotes are warranted because this ship was sunk deliberately as a diving attraction, a common but to me distasteful practice in areas vying for the diver's dollar or pound or euro.

My favorite moments were finding little spots along the "reef," a cylindrically-wound metal mesh, contorted, unrolled and dropped to twist along the bottom. The metal gives coral a place to grow, and provides protection for fish, and so attracts both. In appearance, it looked less like a reef to me than an underwater roller coaster. Soaring just inches above its undulating length was great fun (as well as another good test of buoyancy control), and at several points I would spot something of interest attached to or just underneath the mesh, and would pivot to observe, often hovering head down, a floating underwater handstand of sorts. One of my biggest surprises of scuba diving is how gracefully and acrobatically it is possible to move, wearing 60 pounds of gear.

After the reef, we proceeded to the final skill check before heading back to our boat. Our last skill was complete mask removal and replacement, something our practice in the pool showed me was easier than I imagined it would be. Like most things in scuba, the trick is just to remain calm, keep your head and follow your training. After successfully replacing and clearing my mask, there was an underwater celebration of sorts, handshakes, and slow-motion high fives. As we ascended to the surface, I went slowly, looking all around me, savoring my last moments underwater for a while.



Thanks to my excellent instructor, Laura Stolzenberg, and all the staff at WaterWorxx in Padangbai for an absolutely unforgettable, fun and successful training course!

Now that my days aren't full of dives, Julie (who's been certified for years) and I are contemplating our next dive experiences. I can hardly wait to try diving with my new dive buddy.

Bali calling

We've now spent only five nights in Bali, but what a transition!

Our plan during our visit (in contrast to much of our travels so far)
is to remain relatively stationary, camped out in a comfortable,
affordable two-story hut opposite the main beach in Padangbai, on
Bali's southeastern coast.

It's been a different kind of exhilaration to adjust to the temps
consistently in the upper 90s Fahrenheit, perpetually blue skies, the
equatorial humidity, the consistent tropical equinoxes. Balinese
culture -- literally, an island of Hindus in an Islamic archipelago of
17,000 islands -- is intriguing, complex, and incredibly, incredibly
friendly.

As Elizabeth Gilbert describes in Eat, Pray, Love, there are a
bewildering array of stunningly beautiful ceremonies that take place
seemingly every day among the countless temples. Little Padangbai,
alone, has three temples (for Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva), and transit
on every road way takes you past so many others it is difficult to
keep count. Every day, our hut is adorned with beautiful offerings,
typically in a tiny woven basket containing flowers, rice or fruit and
a burning stick of incense. The sidewalk is... (to say littered would
be unjust) decorated with these offering boxes, and during various
times of the day, the air throughout town is perfumed with incense. We
arrived on the day of the full moon, and many of the nearby temples
are celebrating this fact (the full moon's, not our, arrival) every
night for this whole week.

For a westerner like me, these rituals seem mysterious, intoxicating
and somehow impenetrable. I have repeatedly found myself imagining
what I would experience if I arrived from Mars and stumbled into a
Christian Christmas service. Surely, I would be no less bewildered.
The striking difference here, I suppose, is that these rituals of
faith are so much more pervasive, so much more frequent, such a felt
part of life in these communities.

We spent our day yesterday visiting a number of major temples on the
eastern part of the island (the Mother Temple and Holy Spring Temple
stand out as perhaps our most meaningful glimpses into Balinese
faith), which attests to the depth and breadth of the spirituality (or
spiritualities) practiced here. It's a gentle and joyful -- if
nevertheless unsettled -- experience, drifting in a sea of belief that
I don't really understand. The journey is the thing, right?

We have planted ourselves in a somewhat out-of-the-way port town,
visited mainly for its ferry connections to other islands, and
secondarily for its diving and snorkeling. Despite our explicit intend
to get away from the tourist towns, it is clear that tourism is a
major driver of the economy here.

And the economic imperatives of tourism put to shame our modest
attempts to learn a few critical phrases of Bahasa Indonesia (thanks
to the Learn Indonesian podcast) before arriving. Most of the Balinese
people we interact with can be heard in the space of a few minutes
switching between passable English, to French, to German and then back
to Indonesian as the language of their interlocutor suggests.

Bali also marks our first real encounter with the social economic
disparities that will accompany us on many of our travels. From our
few conversations with locals about it so far, it seems that most of
the gracious Balinese who are making our stay so gentle here can
scarcely afford to leave the island, much less contemplate a round-the-
world trek. I sense that many people are content in this place, but it
does not change the irresolvable tension from the inequities of
personal wealth between the typical Balinese and the typical tourist
or traveler, here on holiday.

While I want to be conscious of this aspect of our travels -- the
contrast between sometimes unfathomable luxury of so many months of
travel and the daily needs of many of the people we meet -- the
solution is surely not to disengage from the world, or to opt not to
experience this gulf (a gulf which will widen substantially along our
itinerary). It, too, remains unsettled and unsettling.

I'll be (begging your forgiveness) diving into this fray in a
different way today, as I begin my PADI open water SCUBA certification
courses. (No pressure, Riley!) Even when swimming in fresh water, I
can all-too-easily conjure that iconic image from Jaws, two bare legs
dangling appetizingly from the surface of the water, as the shark's
mouth opens... So wish me luck, 'kay?

More to come!

One post to rule them all

When our dear friends Susan and Greg described their first visit to New Zealand, they said something remarkable and surprising. They said they'd considered not returning home. Shucking their comfy life, in their comfy home, in comfy Minneapolis, to set up shop anew in NZ (which the Kiwis pronounce "en zed").

At the time, still getting to know the two of them, I thought perhaps they had a wild, spontaneous streak I'd not previously detected. I knew them to be avid, enthusiastic travelers, but come on. Who decides never to go home? After only a month in a place?

Spend a month in New Zealand, seeing it as we have anyway, and the soundness of their reasoning becomes more apparent. I've lost count of how many times, in the last month, that Julie and I have begun conversations speculating about the lives we could create here.

Each day has been so full, a chronological treatment of our visit would be neither svelte nor sufficiently illuminating. Here, then, is a different kind of account of this place, populated with our personal examples of why New Zealand is a place you ought to visit -- or hell, contemplate relocating to -- if you haven't already.

HOSPITALITY

If there is a theme emerging from our travels around the world, it is surely the staggering hospitality of our friends, old and new, as well as total strangers. We have been hosted and shown such wonders by so many kind-hearted people, I don't think I will ever look at traveling the same way again. In addition to making our voyage-on-a-shoestring possible, our time in people's homes, listening to stories of local color, and seeing places through eyes that know it far better than we do has enriched our journey beyond measure.

The Kiwis, and our friends old and new who call this place their home, have only added to that experience.

Julie has described the people we've met as attentive. It's apt. Hospitality -- whether in a friend's home or interacting with someone in a service industry -- feels engaged, but also notably relaxed. Absent are any sense of servility and any of the fuss that sometimes is associated with being of service to another person.



We spent a week staying with our friends Jen and Linda Jean and their two adorable, happy, curious kids, Grady and Zoey. Five minutes after arriving, we felt like part of the family, and the subsequent week only continued to reinforce that sentiment. They made it clear that we were to make ourselves at home, and indeed, we did, happily and with gusto!

Out for a stroll through a Saturday art market, we met one of Jen and LJ's neighbors, Greg, selling his remarkable, iridescent jewelry. Five minutes later, he'd invited us out for spring skiing at Broken River, 90 minutes from Lyttelton into the central mountains. I ski whenever I can, especially if it's in the mountains, and Jen grew up skiing in Colorado. Some discussion later in the afternoon, and we decided to accept!



Greg arrived the following morning, precisely on time, and equipped with a complete line of ski gear and outerwear so that we'd have everything we needed (and which, as you might expect, might not be among the accoutrements of a 'round-the-world traveler). Greg drove us to the ski field (a project requiring his expert navigation in four-wheel drive up windy, snow-covered roads), and oriented us to the rather technical demands of riding the steep rope tows, using a contraption called a nutcracker. (More on that, later.) He was a great ski buddy, leading me into off-piste terrain that offered some of the best tracked powder skiing available, but which would have taken me a while to reach on my own.



Describing the hospitality of friends of friends -- now friends directly! -- wouldn't be complete without sharing the experiences we had courtesy of Rex and Trish, friends of Greg and Susan's in Wellington, who took us under their wing during both of our all-too-brief visits to their lovely city.



On our first encounter, Rex took us on a tour of Wellington's sites, with an insider's point of view. We visited a storied pub across from the nation's Capitol complex, which houses three-dimensional caricatures of its politicians. We saw the city from the peak of Mount Victoria, the Botanical Gardens, rode its famous cable car and prepared our list of other spots to visit (especially the magnificent Te Papa national museum).



Our first visit occurred after just a few days in New Zealand. Our next pass through Wellington occurred at the very end of our trip, with a quick afternoon and overnight before bee-lining for Auckland and our date with a plane bound for Bali. Hoping to help us make the most of the time we had available, Rex cleared his calendar to give us a guided tour of the beloved Martinborough wine region, an hour from Welly. We visited vineyards for tasting (some of the best stuff I've ever had), met the creators of the (who knew!) New Zealand olives being produced and marketed domestically and internationally, including in our own home town, as the ilove olives sold at Lunds and Byerly's. John and Helen took time to talk with us and give us a tour, despite ostensibly being closed at the time, and having just returned from some travels themselves.



There are so many more examples, I simply couldn't list them all, so I'll limit myself to two more.



Julie took over Jen & LJ's kitchen, and we were joined by their well-travelled, quick-witted friends Dorji and Keryn, who spent the evening filling us in on great options along the West Coast, and for other destinations on our trip, over a delicious feast (thanks, darling!) of New Zealand's unique and gigantic green-lipped mussels.



Back in Auckland, Anna hosted us (along with two other couch surfers), and welcomed our participation in any number of events that this multi-talented woman undertakes, including dancing, choral singing, sword-fighting and, oh, making her own chain-mail armor.



Suffice it to say that Kiwis, from our experience at least, seem to possess a deep-rooted understanding of how to help folks enjoy and experience this amazing land.

NUMBER EIGHT WIRE

Homemade chain mail also seems a fitting segue to the remarkable Kiwi ingenuity. Greg (a guy who has at least three lines of work that keep his talents and interests engaged at any point in time) put it well, I think, when he told me that Kiwis have a knack for doing things creativity because "no one told them they couldn't." I see it as an interesting intersection between an island economy and something of a frontier ethic. If your truck breaks down, mate, you best figure out how to fix it, because the nearest mechanic's shop is likely to be a long way away. But take your time, and no worries.

This ingenuity is often mentioned with reference to "number 8 wire," the ubiquitous gauge of metal strung between fence posts to keep the sheep in their paddocks, but often employed for all manner of other purposes. It is the Kiwis' version of duct tape and baling wire, perhaps, but used (metaphorically, at least) by the Kiwis even more prolifically than duct tape by MacGuyver.

SCENIC BEYOND MEASURE

I recall Peter Jackson, discussing the making of the Lord of the Rings films, saying that he grew up thinking that he lived in Middle Earth, with all of New Zealand's stunning and varied scenery.



It's little wonder the films were so capably set in these landscapes, since they defy superlatives: mountain ranges that appear as the frozen waves of a churning ocean, beaches evoking every archetype of tropical postcards, fiords (the NZ spelling) that evoke the fjords of my people's homelands in Scandinavia, glaciers reaching for the ocean with their broken azure fingertips, volcanic peaks and geothermal wonders (and spas!) as other-worldly as Yellowstone, forests full of birdsong that stretch seemingly forever, and the mightiest oceans wrapping the whole package in a fierce embrace.



New Zealand, indeed, has a lively continent's worth of scenery packed into each of the two main islands.



Part of what is so surprising, too, about this density of scenic beauty is that you can, in the space of a day, pass through so many biomes that one begins to think you've entered an overgrown Epcot exhibit. One wonders, "are the waterfalls cascading over that cliff part of the painted backdrop, or are they really there?"



On our five-day hike along the Abel Tasman track on the north end of South Island, Julie joked that with the well-marked walking paths, the amazing views and the total absence of any predators (for humans, at least), it's hard not to think that Disney had a hand in creating this place. It is stunning in every way you'd want your landscape to be, yet unthreatening in the way that many amazing landscapes aren't.

ADRENALINE-LOADED

But it would be a mistake to think that the comparative serenity of this place makes it sedate. Rather, it's a spot jam-packed with hair-raising experiences. Whether it's exploring those picturesque landscapes or the surprising joy of catching sight of some rare fauna, New Zealand's natural wonders shine here in a way that touches a chord. (A short list of unforgettable fauna from our visit: glimpsing the world's rarest penguin or, later the same night, watching rafts of the world's smallest penguins storming the beaches of Oamaru; a pod of bottle-nosed dolphins following the wake of our water taxi after our hike on the Abel Tasman track; or the innumerable, convoluted bird songs heard in every woods.)



Julie's birthday fell about midway through our visit here (the first time she's celebrated her birthday while flowers bloom), and she decided to make the limestone caves of Clifden part of her birthday experience.



The Clifden caves consist of a network of dozens of underground passages, with three openings out to the surface separated by about forty-five minutes of exhilarating caving in between. Sometimes down on all fours scrambling through a tight passage, sometimes craning our necks to take in the scale of enormous underground caverns, we traversed the caves from their main entrance as far as possible until our progress was blocked by a large (and we later learned, deathly deep) pool. Along the way, we had the caves entirely to ourselves.

Well, that's not completely true. We shared them with countless glowworms. Glowworms are tiny creatures which, like a spider, extrude sticky filaments from their bodies, and glow with a star-like bioluminescence. Their light in the largest caverns reminded me of being in a planetarium. And, apparently, for their prey, too, since insects drawn to the light will end up mired in their sticky web, and then become lunch.



One of the most striking aspects of this natural caving experience was how different it might have been in our (more litigious and safety-conscious and lacking-universal-health-care) homeland. Here, there was simply a sign saying, in effect, "you best know what you're doing, mate" and off ya go, underground! This, despite the fact that as we were talking to locals, researching the caves, we met a volunteer firefighter who told us how they were frequently called upon to rescue under-prepared cavers, some of whom risk running out of air by entering the caves when they fill with water after heavy rains. Suffice it to say, we travelled cautiously forward, and with multiple sources of light.

We also came across the round boulders that give California's Bowling Ball Beach its name, at Moeraki Beach, the only other spot in the world these particular formations exist. We have joined some strange fraternity, I suppose, by being two people who have seen both of these places on a single trip.



There are plenty of UNNATURAL ways to pass the time at your own risk here, as well.

The nutcrackers we used while skiing at Broken River -- consisting of two metal flanges attached at a hinge with a bulbous end for pinching the rope -- allow you to affix yourself to a rope that passes directly over metal pulleys, without running your fingers or gear between the pulleys and the rope. (Accidentally doing so resulted in several rips in Greg's loaner jacket, and confirmed viscerally that one's fingers would fare far worse.) The nutcrackers are attached to a climbing harness, which also functions as a place to sheath the device when skiing. This entire arrangement, from one point of view, is an elegant, low-impact and simple way to ascend a mountain on skis. From another perspective, it is a series of accidents waiting to happen, with some extra potential for danger sprinkled on top. Without even mentioning the physical challenge of using these things for a full day of skiing, let's just say that the nutcracker may have gotten its name from its similarity in general appearance to the familiar culinary gadget, but having a heavy piece of metal dangling on a rope between your legs while skiing suggests some other naming inspiration, as well.

But what could be more unnatural, more counter to instinct, than leaping from a great height to jagged rocks below?



It's been said that Queenstown, New Zealand is the world capital of recreational thrill-seeking. The bungy jump was invented and popularized here, the skies are... peopled, I suppose would be the term, with paragliders doing pirouettes that make spectators on the ground dizzy, and there are more ways to pass time here prefaced with the word "extreme" than any other place I've visited.

My parting gift after twelve years at Hearth Connection was a gift certificate for not one but two jumps in Queenstown. Including the highest in New Zealand (and third highest in the world), the Nevis Highwire.

On the shuttle to the Highwire, our bus driver noted a respectable bungy platform cantilevered over the river we were following to our own appointments with fate. His timing was perfect, pausing so that each of of us wanna-be superheroes aboard could size it up, steel our resolve and don an expression of nonchalant curiousity. "The Nevis Arc is two and a half times higher than that one, and the Highwire is seven times higher," he said. Boom. Silence from the full bus, punctuated only with brief outbursts of nervous laughter.

Once arriving at the Nevis gorge, we were shuttled out to "the pod," where the big plunge takes place. Suspended on cables across a gorge, river coursing beneath, the pod is only reachable by an open-air cable car that holds no more than seven passengers. The floor of this shuttle is steel grating, perfect for experiencing the distance to the water below.

From one hundred and thirty four meters -- a third again longer than a football field -- a bungy-corded object hits 80 mph during the free fall. Dropping takes eight seconds. (Try screaming full volume for eight seconds. It's longer than you'd think.)

We traverse across the cables aboard the shuttle, unclip our safety lines and step aboard the pod. With the jumpers, three crew and Julie as an observer, there are about two dozen people aboard, but it manages not to feel too crowded. By the time we reach the pod, Joe, an Irishman from the sound of his accent, and the heaviest in our group, has already been the first to take the leap into the abyss. I notice that, with the reference point of a suspended Irishman for scale, that chasm is a lot deeper than it looked, and he dropped a lot further than I imagined possible.

On the pod, each jumper has a number written in blue magic marker on the back of their right hand and a number written in red, their weight in kilograms, on the left. Jumping proceeds from the heaviest to the lightest. (Fight-or-flight survival instincts apparently trump any reservations or vanity people may feel about having their weight telegraphed in Sharpie.)

A number of people precede me. I note the variations in their form -- how committed was their swan dive, how much occilation in their bouncing, how dilated their pupils upon being hoisted back to the mothership.

About midway through the pack, a crew member taps me on the shoulder, signally that it's time for the ankle harnesses to go on. That means I'm on deck. I watch the guy ahead of me, as they pantomime for him what his actions over the next several minutes are supposed to be. He steps up to the platform -- appropriately, it looks a lot like a high dive -- and the countdown begins. "5-4-3-2-1-bungy!" and he is gone.

I'm summoned through the gate, and the crew begins those same instructions again. Closer, now, to the pod's open doors, I feel the wind whipping through the canyon. The crew member's voice begins to sound like the teacher's from Charlie Brown. Wah-wah-wah-third-bounce-wah-wah-pull-red-cord-wah-wah-jump-out-and-away.

My harness now fastened to the bungy cord, which twists vertiginously in the open air below, and my ankles fastened together, I must waddle -- a full-on duck walk, which I perform as... confidently as possible -- to the edge of the platform. The end of my harness is now also hanging over the edge, taunting gravity. I look out straight ahead and hear the countdown begin. "Oh shit, this one is for me!" I think.

I barely hear him say "...2-1-bungy!"

Focusing only on the initial act of launching myself outward, I suddenly find myself in open air.

My god, it's too late!

Half a second after leaving the platform, some deep mammalian instinct is screaming for a tree branch. None to be found here.

I am dropping so fast, half-formed, preverbal signals -- panic battling exhilaration -- flicker through my awareness. An awareness dominated by a big earth that keeps getting bigger.

Something must be wrong! I...

...am...

...WAY...

...TOO...

LOW!

And then I feel the elastic start to pull.

It's a surprisingly gentle tug, and although it's slowing me down, I'm still dropping at a good clip, the features of rocks in the river becoming more and more distinct.

And then I'm bouncing. Bouncing, dangling like a carcass in a butcher shop.

Pulling on the ankle release strap, there's a sickening sound of tension in metal being released, and then all at once I'm sitting upright. The view is stunning. Survival is stunning.

Before I know it, I'm being reeled in, and find as I ascend to the pod that I'm clinging to the rope with both hands. My left brain is telling me that the harness is carrying my weight, and that I should just let go and enjoy the ride. My body is telling my left brain to fuck off.

I imagined screaming all the way down, and was surprised to find myself silent during the drop, apart from the deepest gasp for air I think I've ever taken, right at that half-second mark, when my body realized that gravity had me in its clutches. The whooping and shouting (okay, and cursing, too) started only once I was assured the cord had saved me from certain doom.

I returned to the pod exhilarated, adrenaline drunk and utterly grateful to be alive.

And then, I got to do it again.

My second voyage into thin air, the Nevis Arc, sends its lucky passenger out swinging over the same canyon in a harness, like the ultimate turbo-boost on a 100-meter playground swing you could imagine. It shared many common elements to the bungy jump, but one noteable difference: with the bungy jump, you launch yourself into the air. With the swing, you are suspended in the air and the staff release you. Once I was in place, the crew asked whether I wanted to have them surprise me, or to count down from five.

Well, guess what a control freak would choose? So, he started the countdown. 5... 4... Click! The cables release -- those bungy guys can smell fear! -- and I'm falling! There's a moment when I'm negotiating with gravity, tugging on the harness as if to climb it to safety. I drop and drop and drop and when my stomache is finally back in its proper location, that, too, was a hell of a lot of fun. Completely unnatural and terrifying, but in a good way.

(I don't feel compelled to try every extreme fill-in-the-blank activity, but this is about the best send-off gift I could imagine, so befitting the significance of this departure for me. Leaving family, friends, home and Hearth Connection's important work was an incredibly difficult thing to do. It was the biggest leap I've ever taken.)

RIGHT-SIZED

As I've struggled to put words around our New Zealand experience -- which has come faster than my attempts to describe it, and THAT'S saying something! -- the words that I return to are that New Zealand seems somehow right-sized.



In many other places, for instance, one-lane bridges would be a major detriment to the flow of traffic, to safety, to commerce. Here (where, in some parts of the country, one-lane bridges outnumber two-laners), it somehow just works. The place has enough people to find pockets of cosmopolitan city life (mainly in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, the country's three metropolitan cities), but also abundant and accessible wilderness. Its priorities are progressive ones, and whatever debates ensue, every Kiwi has access to health care, higher education and the economic resources to survive. It's a place that prioritizes caring for its incredible environment, and also, making investments (such as the Department of Conservation's huts along the innumerable hiking tracks) to help people experience and enjoy that environment.


As we prepare to leave (I'm writing this as we are about to board our flight to Bali), I recognize how easy it would be to romanticize this place, or to suggest in all the amazing experiences we've had that we have found a bit of utopia here. The truth is not far from that mark, but I would invite you not to take my word for it, but to come and see for yourself. Hope to see you there!