This Must Be the Place

And... The end is nigh. No more travel to plan. No more TripAdvisor reviews to parse for clues on commenter quality, no more flights to book, no more wearing the same thing three days in a row. In fact, there are just two things left: 1) a flight home (leaves in a few hours), and 2) culling the best pics out of the 3,000 I took for the three-hour slideshow I'm debuting at the August Family Christmas Party and taking on tour afterward.

Right before I left, my buddy and music sherpa Lee jokingly (?) predicted I'd be so homesick that I'd be seen walking around random European cities, headphones in, rocking The Mowglis' San Francisco with tears streaming down my face. And he got everything right, except for the part about the Mowglis and the crying. I was definitely homesick a time or two, and I had a pretty consistent soundtrack accessing my brain place through buds in my ear holes. 

I remembered this little prediction and it got me thinking. If I'm going to string together three hours worth of pictures into a single slideshow, I'm probably going to need some sort of soundtrack to spare my voice from telling so many stories. If the 80s taught me anything, it's that a well-placed montage is an effective diversion when you've run out of good dialogue. So while San Francisco didn't make the cut, here are a few of the songs that did.

Octopus's Garden, The Beatles

Last Tuesday, I went diving at the Murat Navy Pier in Western Australia. Ranked among the best dive sites in the world, it's in the extreme northwest tip of the continent on the Ningaloo Reef, which any Western Australian will tell you is more impressive than the Great Barrier Reef. (I'm sure that has nothing to do with regional bias.)

They call it an "open-water aquarium," because something about the pier, which extends a couple hundred feet (~75m) into the Indian Ocean, attracts an incredibly diverse array of marine life. There's a little spot on the floor called "Octopus's Garden" for very literal reasons: octopi hide among its coral and rocks, and they all continually sing Ringo's best vocal contribution to The Beatles. Which is pretty cool, I must say.

But that's not even close to the most impressive part. I'll just tell you this. I did not take this picture, but I could have if a) I had a camera and b) I wasn't busy suppressing my reptilian brain's very strong fight or flight response. I wasn't winning this fight, and, well, I wasn't winning this flight, either. So I floated there, 45 feet (~13m) deep, and watched three of these guys swim for awhile, making enormous groupers and entire schools of 25-pound cods look like goldfish. Absolutely mesmerizing.

Grey nurse shark (sand tiger shark to we Yanks)

Don't You Worry Child, Swedish House Mafia

I only include this song because Jenny O'Connor rocked our world in Cambodia by telling us we had the lyrics wrong. It turns out Sierra doesn't have a plan for you at all. "See, heaven" does. I know, shocking, right?

Which brings me to the rough silk shirt.

Siem Reap is one big commercial hub that sprung up because Angkor Wat attracts so many tourists. The most popular attraction in town is called the "Night Market;" essentially, it's a den of cheap consumer swag that's open at night, but you can get the same stuff during the day, too.

The protocol is simple: you look at something, the shopkeeper offers you a ridiculous price for it. You haggle for the sake of it. He laughs at you. Then you start to walk away and he cuts his price to 50% of the original. And if you're me, you end up walking away with a shiny blue shirt with a priest's collar and big buttons down the front, made of silk and looking damn cool in the package. 

Then I got home and put it on. We were all headed out to dinner and didn't have big plans the next day (just going to see Angkor Wat, one of the wonders of the world, that's all), which, unbeknownst to me and the shirt, sealed its fate. Out of the package and on to my body, I noticed some disturbing flaws the first glance in the mirror. I knew it was shiny when I bought it, but now it looked like a smurf with a greasy forehead. And the "big buttons" were clearly stolen from somebody's couch cushions. At least the collar still looked money. I mean, I'm sad they're not popular in the West. I'd wear them every day.

Hoping nobody would notice how ridiculous it was, I still wore it to dinner. 

Everybody noticed. 

"Did you mean to buy that?"

"Once you're done with it, you should cut off the sleeves and make it a vest."

So I did. Four hours later. At the club in town, which we decided to hit up since we didn't have to get up early the following day. I was busy imitating my friend Jill's favorite dance move (signaling "touchdown" and bouncing around with a huge grin on her face), and the right sleeve decided to rip at the armpit. Two minutes later, with help from my new BFsF Jill and Margo, I was rocking a one-sleeve shirt. Twenty minutes after that? Sleeveless.

Classy.

The buttons didn't even survive the 15-minute walk back to our hotel, and I just felt bad for whoever's couch they stole them from. What a waste.

The only known pic of the shirt: Vey thought his spell would make the shirt look better; I was too ashamed to show my face. Note: if you think you have another pic of the shirt, you don't. Right?

Something Good, alt-J

This song isn't really going on the soundtrack, but I wanted to brag that I'm going to see alt-J at the Fox in Oakland on Thursday night. 

And I believe I just did.

Lie in Our Graves, Dave Matthews Band

One of the best songs I know about carpeing the diem, it's made even better by DMB's classic technique of pairing Dead Poets' Society lyrics with Downtown Disney riffs. Dance, smile, laugh, feel good, and ignore Dave mockingly question why we live our lives as tiny bits of disposable tread on corporate tires.

A nagging feeling last year made me realize I had some serious day seizing to do, and in December I decided it was time to hit the road to find the reset button. I set off in March with loose plans and no official end date, figuring I'd find that damn button somewhere. 

And I did. Time and again, in very different places doing very different things. 

I found it while running six miles in Budapest with a fun and inspiring pair of sisters; carb loading with awesome new friends before running a half marathon in Oslo; in deciding to change my plans and go to Australia and Budapest and Bali because, well, why not?; while scouring this picture in a bar late one night in Hanoi with a few Limeys trying to figure out who that familiar face is right behind Joe DiMaggio (see below. And please help. I'm stumped.).

She's got Bette Davis Eyes. But who is he?

I found it with all the new people I met, including incredibly cool Brazilians in Copenhagen and Krakow (Brazil is definitely going to take over the world), Turks in Istanbul (a week before the shit went down, sparing my mother's blood pressure), Oklahomans, Jerseyans, Minnesotans, and Texans in Positano, Germans in Bali, and, in Eindhoven, an Israeli who heard I was from San Francisco and immediately assumed I was that thing everybody in the world thinks all San Franciscans are. A raging...

...stoner. 

They all spoke English, of course. Well, except for the Texans, but we didn't have much in common anyway. To keep up my end of the bargain, I learned how to speak the metric system, Celsius, the 24-hour clock, and attempted to use local pronunciations, which was the least I could do. Who am I kidding? It was the absolute most I could do. Balls, there are a lot of languages out there. It's hard not to feel like an atrocious stereotype when exchanging stories about how many languages you speak. My new German friend speaks five. I claim one and a bit, but my Spanish and French probably don't really qualify as "and a bit."

Nonetheless, in the last five months, I learned how to say "cheers" and "thank you" in a dozen languages; my favorite being, as always, England, where they mean the same thing. 

Aaaaaaand I've forgotten most of them by now. Whoops. 

Never Mind the Strangers, The Saw Doctors

I've had a very strategic adulthood, making sure to plop good friends throughout the world; it keeps the hotel bills down and all. And my trip has been full of them: Jay Malihoudis in 'nam; Jules, Gina, and Vern in various European locales; Nicky Carter in six different countries; the Donger in Bali; Al, Nat, and Ro in Tonbridge and Al and Nat again in Oz. (They're tough to shake.) I saw the Hans to my Franz, Mr. Evan Aydelott, and his lovely bride Crystal for dinner on Lake Zurich. I drove from The Netherlands to Switzerland with Tommy Ten Bucks; Ian Young and I solved all the world's problems in a four-hour drive from Zurich to Lake Geneva. (Don't ask. I forgot to write them down.) I had lunch with Liam Carroll and Jason Holowaty right after landing in London five months ago. And my old roomies, Ryan, Loni, and I rekindled our traditional roommate dinner night in London, being that they're still living together all these years later… since they're married. And I saw a shining example of how love and commitment can still look in 2013 while getting ice cream with the Lindberg family in Ahous, Sweden.

How did I spend the last two weeks of my trip? Partying hard, raging against the dying of my early retirement, refusing to accept my pending triumphant return to corporate life? Nah. I sat in Western Australia and made the same jokes about vegetarians that I've been making since I met Alex Malihoudis in 1997. Every night, I watched about 15 minutes of a Disney movie with his daughters before they went to bed (usually Sasha's choice...honest), and then Alex, Natalie, and I sat up and talked about everything and anything while half-heartedly watching a movie. 

It was absolutely perfect.

What's a great friendship if not one long conversation over several years between two people whose brains are somehow cosmically connected, conveniently interrupted by the other stuff they have to do so they don't get bored or, you know, go hungry? If they're lucky, they keep picking up those conversations where they left off, even as they start new ones. And I've been extremely lucky.

This Must Be the Place, Talking Heads
also: This Must Be the Place, Kishi Bashi cover (I couldn't decide)

And now I'm headed home. Tomorrow night, I'll be a zombie playing softball in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge Anchor Steam Brewery (unless the damn fog has other ideas) and in a week I'll trade in the five t-shirts I've rotated since March for buttons and collars in my cubicle at the end of Pier One. 

I want to thank all four of you for reading my ramblings while I crossed the globe. It's been fun to write about some of the stuff that happened, and I hope you chuckled a time or two reading about it. I also hope some day you'll get on a plane (or 32!!) and see a slice of the world and write about; I can't wait to read about what you find. I know the list of places I want to visit got longer in the last five months, which tells me I'll never stop hitting the road.

Until then...

"If someone asks, this is where I'll be"

Where I went. Lots more to do. Africa? You're next. Unless South America beats you to the punch.

Eat, Pray...

I haven't kept an official tally or anything, but I'm fairly certain I've heard somebody make an "Eat, Pray, Love" joke about my trip something between 200 and 248 million times this year. And, frankly, I've done a pretty decent job of making it seem like I was fishing for them. Two weeks ago, I went and made it worse: after spending 11 glorious days eating my way through Italy earlier this summer, I ended up in Bali, where, according to the book/movie, I was supposed to find a four letter word spelled with an l, o, v, and e.

Didn't happen. Worry not, though, I found several other four letter words on the way to a very good time.

1. D-o-n-g

For those of you who don't know the Donger, I regret to inform you that your life isn't quite complete. For those of you that do, you probably don't need this disclaimer, but I regret to inform you that I can't provide much detail in this space about our two weeks in Indonesia. This is a family site, after all.

Mr. Dong W An

Dong's a buddy of mine from SF that I've known since the late 90s; he runs operations for a hedge fund, but he's about to embark on a new career in the East Bay. In order to prepare himself for a daily commute across the Bay Bridge, he decided to bolt to Asia for a few weeks and become a better surfer. He did all the legwork on planning the trip; all I had to do was book a flight that got me to Bali on July 27th. After getting scammed by a few guys in official-looking clothing at the airport, I was picked up by a few locals who whisked me away to our first stop: Kimasurf, an awesome surf camp full of very friendly people, 95% of whom were German. Throw in a few great people from the Netherlands, and we not only had instant friends, but we got to hear a lot of people talking in languages that strongly emphasize the loogie-hocking muscles. Which is always nice.

Dull moments are in short supply when you're hanging with Dong. He doesn't do mundane; he makes the mundane hilarious. Example: instead of learning campers' names, he pulled a classic Dongerism and assigned nicknames to everybody. Here's how he (and eventually we) referred to various luminaries:

Lars, the German manager of the camp - Hans Gruber

This girl who "showed up" on Wednesday but had really been there all along and he just didn't realize it - the self doppleganger

The group of insular Germans who didn't invite us into their circle - the nihilists

The way to say "good morning" - "Where's the money, Lebowski?"

One camper who happened to be incredibly attractive - Dreamweaver (and he sang her theme song aloud every time she walked by) 

To be completely honest, nothing crazy actually happened in the whole fortnight. Our 25-year-old selves would be ashamed. We did, however, go scuba diving at an old US WWII shipwreck, which was awesome.

Darling, it's better..

...down where it's wetter...

...take it from me

2. S-u-r-f 

My first surf experience was more existential crisis than exhilarating high. In my defense, I assumed that a "surf camp" would include instructions for beginners, but here was day 1's "lesson:"

Grab board

Walk to beach

Check out diagram in sand of safe spots to surf

"Have at it!"

Whoa. At this point in my life, the only experience I had holding a surfboard was the eight-minute walk from the camp to the beach, and I even screwed that up by accidentally swinging the backend into two very unimpressed French women. And it only took me two minutes in the Indian Ocean to realize that I was going to be very good at two things and very bad at a third: 

Good:

1. banging hard plastic on soft tissue (mine, luckily)

2. Drinking salt water

Bad: 

3. Surfing

In fact, halfway through my first hourlong "surf" session, in order to stave off the rapidly unfolding cascade of ego damage, I started to compile a list of things I'm naturally good at. Here's what I came up with.

Note: not an exhaustive list

After three more sessions of really bad surfing, I decided to enroll in a surf school, which I should have done on Day 1. And while I'm probably not going to enter the pro circuit anytime ever, at least I know how exhilarating it is to stand up on a board in a wave, even if the board is 15-feet long and we're only 5 meters from the beach. 

Bali's Volcano

3. G-i-l-i

The southwest coast of Bali shows all the signs of a major tourist influx. Large construction projects are underway on every vacant parcel along the beachfront, soon to add thousands of new rooms to the already substantial resort hotel inventory. A new terminal is under construction at the airport, designed to process 25MM new visitors a year, doubling the current capacity. And many streets feel more like a Hollywood set for "International Beach Resort City" than an actual foreign place, with most of the unique Indonesian experience stripped away by Western convenience, save for the locals sitting outside souvenir shops offering you a good price on something you don't need or cab drivers pulling over to hail you. Even the Indonesian restaurants promote their western options over local fare, usually involving some take on "Australian" beef. If Bali is the Australian Hawaii, the southwest beaches (Kuta and Seminyak) are Waikiki. 

I saw the same phenomenon in Thailand - in Phuket, Koh Samui, and even Chiang Mai - the more tourists come to see it, the more Western companies try to get their grubby little hands on the money that's escaped their homeland, invariably stripping away the local flair with over-processed foods and half-baked smiles. McDonalds, Burger King, Dunkin' Donuts, KFC, Starbucks, W Resorts, Four Seasons…when they flock, you've both arrived as a tourist destination and become the kind of place tourists ironically call "too touristy." Vicious cycle, that.

And then there are the Gili Islands.

If you pull out a world map and look for Trawangan, the largest of the three Gili Islands where Donger and I spent three nights last week, you either won't find it or will mistake it for an extra speck of ink the mapmaker dropped off the coast of Lombok. The "road" around its perimeter - mostly sand, brick, or sandy brick - is just 4.5-miles long (~7km), and is only used by three modes of transport: horses, bicycles, and feet.

It's the kind of place that teems with tourists but somehow doesn't feel touristy, managing to maintain its rustic, old-world charm. There's something so unique about it - so small, untarnished, anachronistic by choice - that it feels like a different world that happens to have a few foreign visitors dropping in to say hello instead of a soulless tourist trap.

Plus, it has a silent disco and some of the best seafood in the world. If I could choose my own setting for a sequel to Groundhog Day, starring yours truly, I'm pretty sure it'd take place in Trawangan. 

Representing Turkey in Trawangan

Horse taxi

4. U-b-u-d

Ubud is another soulful respite from the bustle of Bali's southwest coast. Tucked into the interior of the island, it's surrounded by terraced rice paddies, a forest full of monkeys, and easy access to the nearby volcano that remains active today.

I imagine it's something near Mecca for the yoga retreat set. Though I never got official confirmation, I'm pretty sure there's a local ordinance requiring every cafe to use the word "organic" in its name. And if you're ever stuck in Bali looking for an organic avocado and kale smoothie with bee pollen, green tea extract, and lecithin, go to Ubud. There's no better place to find Balinese oil paintings you'll feel tempted to ship home, price tag be damned; no better launching point for overnight hikes to the top of the volcano, white-water rafting trips, or rides along the two rivers that meet in town. And, say, for example, you have six nieces and four nephews at home? Ubud is an excellent spot for gifts.

MFT and Lotus Pond in Ubud

Organic cafe, Ubud

Coffee and tea tasting. Best thing ever.

One thing it's not great for? Two dudes who don't particularly love shopping who didn't book any yoga or outdoor excursions. So we only actually spent about three hours in Ubud. #Fail.

5. S-n-s-t

Okay, okay, I know I'm cheating, but if the crazy kids these days can shorten words to "cray" and "delish" and "ridic," and if I have to accept that "lol" is not a fad that the world will collectively come to its senses and reject (even though "ha!" has same number of characters), I can totally spell "sunsets" with four letters so it fits my story. Bali puts a huge magnet on the beach everyday at 6 PM, making it impossible for any breathing human creature not to find their way to the shore to watch the sun dip below the horizon. Here. See for yourself. There's a reason most ancient societies worshipped that spirit in the sky. I wonder how many of the world's problems could be solved if we just made everybody stop what they're doing and watch the sun set everyday.

Seminyak

Single Fin Club, Uluwatu

Gili Trawangan

Seminyak

And now we're sprinting down the homestretch. I keep reminding myself that most Americans would kill for a two-week vacation, so having two weeks Down Under until I go home is still quite the indulgence. I'm at my friend Alex's house just outside Perth, Australia, reconnecting with modern conveniences like safe tap water and toilets designed so that you can flush toilet paper, and the guy I spent so much time with in college that my cousin Emily wondered if we were getting married. Luckily, Al has much better taste than Emo gave him credit for, and his wife Natalie and their daughters have already made it feel like a family reunion. Sasha even wanted to wake up Uncle Kevin at 6:00 AM yesterday before going to day care and couldn't understand why daddy thought it was a bad idea. "Daddy lived with Kevin for two years in college, Sweetie. He's not exactly a morning person."

One last thing. Something about my last post struck a nerve, because it got the most pageviews since the first thing I wrote. If you've just stumbled upon this blog or checked back in after a few months, I'd love for you to check out the story about my week in Cambodia, undoubtedly the most memorable week I've spent on the road in a year of memorable weeks.

Oh yeah. I'm going home August 26th. Crazy.

Until next time...