We used to take a lot of things for granted about how the world works before taking up the nautical lifestyle we’re now living. Buying an iPad, filling up the car with gasoline, or switching on an air conditioner are examples of things we might have done without thinking too deeply about what made them possible. We just do these things knowing that a few dollars will be gone from our bank account, and if we can keep the dollars flowing, so too will the iPads, petrol, and cold air. But that’s a simplistic and ignorant way of thinking about commerce, and things are really much more complicated than that. The reality is that we (westerners) mostly occupy a position at the very endpoint (the consumption end) of a long and complex commercial chain. Resources are first mined or harvested from the ground, then made into consumable products, packaged and shipped half way around the globe, and delivered to us for automatic and almost mindless consumption. Our experiences at sea frequently reveal this more complicated reality, we peek behind the curtain and see how the world really works, and again realize the narrowness of our own ways of thinking about the world.

Since leaving Borneo almost a week ago, we’ve spent most of our time at sea, moving a fairly large distance across the Java Sea, then across the southern part of the South China Sea. Yesterday we cleared out of Indonesia and made our way around the tiny island country of Singapore on our way to Malaysia’s port of entry, which sits just across the narrow channel separating Singapore from Malaysia. This 10 hour hop took us through perhaps the most heavily trafficked commercial shipping lanes in the world. As we crossed shipping lanes and rounded the Port of Singapore, dodging every imaginable type of commercial ship, we felt a bit like a baby chicken crossing a busy interstate freeway. And as the countless ships passed by, each one broadcast its own interesting story, quite clearly visible by its shape, features, flag and labels. Oil tankers, car haulers, cargo ships, natural gas tankers, and earth movers all went about their routine business, each carrying out a vital role in making the world work the way it does… too far up the commercial chain for us to ever bother thinking about until now.

The rest of the crossing here from Borneo was largely uneventful, which is exactly what we’re always hoping for in any of our sailing passages. We’re arriving here in the southwest monsoon season, so we’ve been getting a fair dose of foul weather as we move further north, but nothing we haven’t seen before, and so far none of the nasty 60 knot “Sumatra” squalls that this region is known for. From here on Malaysia’s southern tip it’s an easy drive across the causeway into Singapore, and the public transit system there is supposedly some of the world’s best. So so we won’t miss the opportunity to pause here for a few days of exploring Singapore before making our way up the Malacca Straits and diving into Malaysia.

So we’re finally back underway after more than six weeks of being stalled around Bali. The length of our stay there was unscheduled, but also not a big surprise, as we had arrived in Bali without a clue regarding where we were going next. Our menu of options seemed ridiculous and frankly, we were feeling a bit lost: North to Singapore, west to South Africa, south back to Australia, and even east to Japan….none of those options were off the table. The nagging problem, of course, has been the piracy related problem around Somalia which has effectively closed our desired Red Sea route back to the Med for private sailing yachts, leaving us wondering what on earth to do next. Without a plan for leaving SE Asia, we couldn’t head into it, and Bali was the final junction where a decision had to be made.

So we eventually made our decision and sailed away from Bali heading north, destination: Singapore. Implicit in that decision was a commitment to transit the 2000 mile piracy affected area surrounding Somalia early next year on our way back to the Mediterranean Sea. The details of how we’re planning to accomplish that (safely, we hope) took months to iron out, and for now will need to remain private for obvious security related reasons. Suffice to say, planning an entry into the Red Sea resembles a military operation more than it does a sailing cruise. That’s because the troubled history in the Gulf of Aden area clearly shows the only effective deterrent to a desperate group of incoming Somali pirates is the threat of immediate death. That, simply, is the sad state of affairs that every Red Sea bound mariner today needs to reckon with. And so it goes.

But with Somalia still months away, we’re free, for a while anyway, to get back to what this journey is really all about: exploring. Borneo is Indonesia’s largest island and is most famous for its large population of orangutans. Borneo also happens to be directly in our way as we move towards Singapore, so naturally we’ve decided to take a quick stop to investigate the orangutan situation here. There’s a 40 mile orangutan river ride starting from Kumai where adventure-tourists take three day orangutan tours through a protected national park with nature walks, orangutan feeding stations, and lots of wildlife to see along the way. Short on time, we’ve found some locals to take us up the river on their speed boat, so we’ll hopefully get the full orangutan experience in a single day, and will use the time we save to make progress towards Singapore in coming days.

So with Bali finally astern, the next leg of our adventure now begins. At just three degrees south of the Equator, and with lots of north in our compass heading, we know this is the end of our time in the Southern Hemisphere, a fact that brings mixed emotions. We’re leaving this half of the globe greatly enriched by our experiences, with new friends and countless unforgettable memories. Mostly though, we depart with a new-found respect for the islanders of these southern oceans and the simple and unspoiled way of life that’s so native to them and was so foreign to us as westerners. As we move north and west from here into more developed parts of the world, we’ll be trying our best to remember their simplicity and make it into a part of who we are.

Jason has been slacking lately on his blogging responsibilities, so it’s Piers here filling in. We’re well aware that an update is long overdue but there has been a lot going on in our department. The reason is because we both took a two week hiatus from our yachtie lifestyles to return to the ‘real world’ to catch up on some business, see family and friends. However, it was returning to Bali and Tamarisk again that brought back the feeling of home which makes us ponder where or what ‘home’ really is. More than a physical place, home to us has become a comfort we get from a sense of adventurous uncertainty of what lies ahead. As we plan our itinerary moving forward, and as our time in Indonesia winds down, our focus shifts to planning our route through East Asia.

Our time in Bali has treated us well and we continue to be amazed at the rich culture and diversity, and we will leave with a deep sense of satisfaction. As well as the having the Italian cousins aboard, Desi also managed to make it out to visit again for a few weeks to enjoy Bali, soaking up the holistic lifestyle with some fresh juices, massages, views of rice terraces, and temple visits. Being the only Hindu island in a predominantly Muslim Indonesia, there is a unique character and personality to the people which is heartwarming and inspiring. The daily offerings, frequent celebrations, and multitude of temples and shrines demonstrate a way that personal spirituality and religion is so integrated into daily life… something that seems foreign in most western religions which tend to make the church and clergy an intermediary between oneself and God.

We are spending our first days back in Bali exploring the southern beaches of Uluwatu and Padang Padang, made famous by amazing waves, surf communities, and sheer cliffs where we are again reminded that there is something here for everyone… not just the drunk Aussies that infiltrate the bars and alleyways of Kuta Beach. We’ve been joined by our friend Antra who’s come to explore Bali with us for our final days here. From here, we’ll head back to the Gili Islands to finish our SSI dive certification with our final two open water dives, then begin our northerly charge towards Singapore and Malayasia nearly 1000 miles north.

For a western person who’s never spent any time exploring Asian cultures, the principles of “eastern philosophy” are elusive and foreign such that it makes little sense to try to understand them or embrace them. It’s possible, maybe even normal, for a westerner to go through their entire life without ever considering that their thoughts and perspectives about human life, their mental models for how the world works, and their fundamental assumptions about cause and effect are all distinctly minority views on the world stage. In reality, a majority of the world’s people operates on a completely different mental operating system that can loosely be described as “Eastern Philosophy”. As our voyage now takes us into parts of the world where Eastern Philosophy dominates, we notice the challenges it presents to our own western mental models… a shaking of our mental foundations and a realization that our thinking up until this point has been narrow minded, maybe even brainwashed in some ways.

Because Eastern Philosophy relates to every aspect of human existence, it isn’t something that can be summarized in a few paragraphs, or even an unlimited number of paragraphs for that matter. Instead it’s something that has to be experienced and studied through years of immersion in Eastern cultures to be understood. Our short time here has been just enough to force the issue upon us, to appreciate the differences between Eastern and Western views, and to bring to the surface countless questions about what we observe: Why the simplicity? Why the individual sacrifice? From where does the patience come? Where is the materialism? And the list goes on and on….

So we’ve been exploring around the central part of Bali where many westerners come to learn about the Eastern way of life, to relax, and to achieve a level of personal balance and harmony that, for whatever reason, seems impossible in western cultures. We arrived in Bali with three cases of acute conjunctivitis (aka “pink eye”), and because we’re all westerners we of course opted for an expensive course of antibiotics before heading to Ubud in the heart of Bali’s mountainous interior. This is a place that caters largely to tourists, but where the overwhelming number of temples, villages, rice fields, and nature walks makes it easy to escape the crowds and forget you’re in a touristic place. As has been the case everywhere we’ve been in Indonesia, most of the locals are overwhelmingly friendly and welcoming, not because we’re tourists or because they want money, but rather simply because we’re humans sharing a moment with them.

It’s sadly just about time for our Italian friends Lisa and Mara to head back to the west while we continue our adventures in Bali. We haven’t even touched the beach areas here yet, and that means Kuta Beach will probably be next on our agenda. But for today, after several days of running around like lunatics, it’s a day of rest and Balinese massages, which means the time for blogging is officially over.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve grown accustomed to the quiet anchorages and rural villages in the undeveloped parts of Indonesia that few people ever think about, let alone visit. From our new position here on Gili Trawanga, one of the rapidly developing touristic islands just east of Bali, we have to remind ourselves we haven’t actually left Indonesia, because pretty much everything else about our daily experience has been flipped on its head. In the Gili islands, the tourism trade dominates the local economy, meaning the place is filled to the brim with beach bars, dive centers, Balinese clothing stores, and water taxis, mainly shuttling people among the islands and to Bali, just 50 miles away. And with the arrival of our Italian friends, Lisa and Mara, we’ve found ourselves here with all the ingredients for a little break from our normal routine…. we’d call it a “holiday”, but we’re afraid some people just wouldn’t understand.

Ever since we began free diving as we crossed the Pacific with Tarzan last year, there’s been a little seed planted in our minds that going deeper below the surface is something we’d like to start doing. In a freedive, you’re limited to a single breath, which for us keeps us within 10-15 meters of the surface and less than a minute underwater. Scuba divers enjoy dives up to an hour and can easily go to 30 meters or more, where things often become much more interesting than near the surface. But Scuba diving requires training and certification – you have no chance of renting equipment or filling a tank without proper certs – and we’ve never taken the time. Our time in the Gilis gave us a perfect opportunity to fix that deficiency. And even though we didn’t need any more hobbies, our first few dives were enough to get us addicted.

We were lucky to choose to do our certification course at Dream Dives, because the staff there came to feel like family after a few days, and the training pool slowly morphed into a swimming pool and our favorite hangout spot on the island. Once the Italians showed up and began mingling with the Dream Dives crew, they couldn’t believe their luck – they’d been looking for models for their new ad campaign, and apparently the Italians were exactly what they were looking for. So as the sun went down behind Bali’s volcano in the distance, we enjoyed our fifteen minutes of fame as the cameras flashed and we pretended to know what we were doing. Just another experience we won’t soon forget.

So with time again limited and lots to see in the surrounding islands, we’re pressing on from Trawanga but planning a return stop here before leaving Indonesia – the dive locations are simply too good, and we still need one more day of training before we’re fully certified for open water dives. But for now, it’s next stop: Bali.

It’s not easy to imagine a city without land – go ahead and try. Yet that’s exactly what we’ve stumbled across here in Bungin, a small fishing village on the north coast of Sumbawa. Instead of land, Bungin has just a coral reef that becomes fully submerged twice each day at high tide. 200 years ago, this was just a place where local fishermen dried their nets, but today it’s become the most densely populated place in Indonesia. The whole thing, by necessity, is built on stilts with elevated wooden platforms and raised concrete foot paths connecting each shack-like home to the others. For a man wanting to start a family, the village rules require him to first stack more coral on the outside of the reef as a foundation for his home… there’s simply no space left. Goats eat from garbage piles because vegetation is of course just a fantasy in a place like this.

One would think a landless village of shacks like Bungin, just one storm surge away from complete annihilation, would be a recipe for lifelong misery. But one would be very wrong. That’s been the biggest surprise of our tour through Bungin – the people, especially the kids, are perhaps the happiest we’ve ever seen anywhere. The city behaves as one big family, impossible to tell who’s related and who’s just friends, and perhaps it doesn’t much matter which way it is. Visitors like us are welcomed like honored guests – with the density of people in every direction, it’s impossible to reciprocate every smile and every greeting, no matter how hard we try. And all of this has forced us to think a bit about the places where we’ve lived, and why it is we don’t see relationships like these and such effortless happiness and friendliness anywhere in western countries. Once again we’re leaving with only new questions about life and not a single new answer. We never possibly could have imagined this cobbled together village of nearly-sinking shacks would leave us pondering such fundamental questions.

With all the excitement this morning, it’s easy to forget that we’re emerging from a few amazing days in one of the most scenic parts of Indonesia. As the pics hopefully show (because words cannot), the motorcycle ride from Labuan Aji to the Mata Jitu waterfalls on Pulau Moyo seemed more fictional than real, even though we were standing right there in front of it, and swimming right there in it. For some strange reason, the most amazing places we find still seem largely undiscovered by the tourist masses. This is one of those times where pressing the “Publish” button will probably happen only after a few seconds of hesitation.

We’ve just lifted the hook and are now continuing west towards Lombok, sadly nearing the end of this incredible string of “8th Parallel” islands, but approaching what most people say are the best destinations in Indonesia. We’ll be very impressed if that turns out to be true.

Komodo is one of those places that almost everybody’s heard about but almost nobody’s been to. It does make sense when you think about it, given that the island’s fame comes from its large population of giant man-eating lizards, a cheap thrill only attractive to a certain type of tourist…. like us, for example. The Komodo Dragon isn’t just the biggest lizard in the world (around the size of an adult human), it’s also the most poisonous. The dragon sneaks up and bites its prey, then waits for the poison to slowly kill the victim over several days before eating every morsel. There was no evidence left of the last tourist killed here, other then his camera and sunglasses.

But like many of the more exotic threats to human life (great white sharks, falling into a volcano crater, etc.) the danger is easy to avoid with a bit of prudence…. if you die from being eaten by a Komodo Dragon, it probably means you were being stupid. The truth is that the Komodo Dragon is endangered, and the Komodo National Park exists more for the protection of the lizard than for the human prey. A fork shaped stick and a keen lookout is all you need to safely explore the trails.

It’s mating season now, which often keeps the dragons busy behind the scenes, so we were lucky on our visit to find several of them strolling around and seemingly in a good mood. We were even luckier to be invited into the Komodo village a few miles away where we found dirty water wells and an opportunity to deliver clean water filter systems to each of their four main water wells. As the lucky filter couriers, we receive most of the credit from the locals, but the truth is that our mission was enabled entirely by donations from readers of this blog. We hope the pics here serve to relay the messages of thanks we received from the Komodo village and directed to the supporters of our filter mission. We provide more info below for those interested and for other visitors that may be coming through here later with more filters.

So we’ve seen enough of the Dragons, and with so much more to see and do along the 8th Parallel we’re gonna pull the anchor and just “keep on keepin’ on”. Sumbawa and Lombok are next in the chain, and what we’ll find there, we haven’t a clue.

With its population of 270 million, Indonesia has more people than all but four of the world’s nation states. That factoid is an easy one to forget when you’re sailing here, partially because there are more than 17,000 islands in this country and few big cities, meaning the population density is low, and evidence of any human habitation is often difficult to find. With so much to see in this country, our route, by necessity, is more or less random – we don’t really know where we’re going, and it probably doesn’t matter much. We’ve chosen to hop down the chain of islands that runs roughly along the 8th parallel because a few of the “must see” landmarks lie further along on this route (Komodo, Bali, etc.). But right now we’re still in the “undiscovered” part of Indonesia where tourists are few and far between, and where many of the locals we meet have never met face to face with the white man before. We suspect this won’t last much longer, but for now, “undiscovered” Indonesia is still an absolute gem for those of us addicted to off-the-beaten-path travel, and we hope that never changes.

We’ve probably mentioned before that as we gain more experience, the enjoyment of our travel is more defined by the people than the places. To some extent you could say that a beach is a beach, a reef is a reef, and volcano is a volcano – that’s all true, more or less. But if you went further to say that a culture is a culture and a people is a people, you’d be wrong. And although it may be the idyllic places that give some people an initial urge to get out of their comfort zone and explore, it’s the people that keep them addicted to it for life.

So the highlights out here are mainly the thousands of small villages that line most of the shorelines and dot the countryside. We try to visit as many as we can and catch a glimpse of their organic lives, and almost always we’re welcomed and greeted with warm smiles and treated like royal guests. The people here are “poor” by the western definition but rich in every other way…. bank accounts, expensive homes, and corporate brands appear totally unnecessary for their happiness. These islands are volcanic, meaning the views can be stunning, and the coral reefs surrounding them offer some great snorkeling and diving. Fish are still easy to catch, whales and dolphins seem safe here and playing all around us just like they’ve done for thousands of years. History tells us that none of this will likely survive once western influence takes hold and the corporations move in, so we’re grateful to be seeing Indonesia as it is today instead of twenty years from now.

The distances we need to cover remain large, so we’re resisting the temptation to stay anchored in any one bay for more than a couple of nights and, as usual, wishing we had a few more lifetimes remaining so we could slow our pace a bit. But continuing on with our single-life assumption, at least for the moment, it’s next stop: Komodo.

Asia at last. And such a huge cultural change that it’s difficult to believe we were in Australia just 500 miles ago. Here in Kupang we’ve found all the obvious signs we’ve arrived back in the developing world: wooden outrigger fishing boats, busy roadside street markets, strange smells, cows and monkeys seamlessly integrated into city life, and scooters buzzing around the like swarms of bees. As westerners are a rarity in these non-touristic Indonesian cities, we get lots of attention and “hello Mister”s from curious locals asking us where we’re from and sometimes even wanting pictures – truly some of the most friendly people we’ve found anywhere. All of the chaos and activity can be intimidating for tourists new to developing countries, but the adjustment is easy to make if you keep an open mind, and often times people become addicted to this kind of more adventurous travel and no longer see the point in traveling around the boring old West.

But like most developing countries, Indonesia is affected by severe poverty, meaning problems exist here that are difficult to imagine from the vantage point of a North American or European metropolis. Malaria, poor sanitation, and a lack of any public education system are some examples. Some problems, though, are particularly easy to fix and there’s no excuse why we (humans) haven’t yet produced a universal solution. An obvious example is dirty drinking water – how can it be that we have billion dollar mega-yachts and rovers exploring on Mars, yet people in Indonesia still sick from drinking contaminated drinking water. So with the generosity of our friends, family, and blog readers, we’re here with 50 clean water drinking filters and have been visiting remote villages where clean water is a problem. The filters are invaluable for the villagers, and it’s a great experience for us too that brings a whole new dimension to our voyage. We provide a more detailed writeup below for anyone interested in our filters mission so far, including information for anyone who might be coming through here later with more water filters – the need is still huge.

We’ve been particularly lucky during our first few days in Indonesia because we’ve met an amazing crew of locals, expats, and other yachties. Frenky (our agent for guiding us through the bureaucratic mess here in Indonesia), and Richard (an Aussie expat now living here in Kupang) both volunteered, on the spur of the moment, two days of their time for helping us reach villages with the clean water problem – ‘onya mates! We’re also leaving Kupang with a solid plan for the next few weeks of sailing through the islands towards Bali, and we’ll be exploring along with Trevor and Kristy (aboard Rogue Brit), our first “buddy boat” experience since Tohora in the Galapagos and Frency Polynesia.

So with some of the greatest diving and snorkeling spots on the planet awaiting us, and 27 more water filters in need of some dirty village wells, it’s time for us to say goodbye to our new friends here in Kupang and keep moving west.