Wow.  Jakarta, Indonesia’s massive capital, sits on the northwest coast of the island of Java. The mix of cultures spans centuries – Javanese, Malay, Chinese, Arab, Indian and European – and they have all influenced its architecture, language and cuisine.

Indonesia is the world’s fourth largest country in population – over 260,000,000 people – and the world’s largest muslim nation. It’s the world’s seventh largest economy but ranks only 23rd in per capita income. Five percent of the population owns 49% of its wealth. Not a recipe for long term happiness or success…..

Jakarta is incredibly dense and poor, but the traffic is mellower than in Bali. You still take your life in your hands when crossing a street, but there are openings here and there that you feel you can survive by going for it.

By the way, Indonesia makes a really good beer – Bintang Pilsner – that has been a joy to cool off with this week. Paul – it’s almost as good as Bud. You’d love it.

I walked ten miles (maybe more) today, pretty much freelancing around and throughout the city, and was overwhelmed by its grittiness and poverty. Having said that, everyone was really friendly. Calls of “Meesta” rang out everywhere I went, and smiles and small talk then ensued.

Here are some photos of what I saw:

Dinner anyone?

This floored me. These folks were cleaning out the sewers by hand. Yikes.

Contemplating the day.

Water purification in action, the old fashioned way….

This reminded me of the scenes in The Deer Hunter before the soldiers were lowered into the river….

Catnap.

This little boy was adorable, working alongside his father.

Schoolgirls after class. They were so excited to see a westerner.

Catchin’ some zzzzzs… Amazing.

Not the nicest ‘hood.

Pretty sure he was alive, but wouldn’t bet on it.

Young ladies at a little restaurant I ambled into.

The food here is absolutely incredible. Some of the best anywhere I’ve been. I just ate fantastic seafood – different fish, octopus and shrimp, for an hour at dinner, until I really couldn’t eat anymore – and the bill (including tip) was $3.70. Seriously. May have to start dieting…

Today’s lesson – be grateful. These people have so little – almost nothing – and they’re moving through the river of life with grace. I didn’t see a lot of smiles today, but I also didn’t feel any anger or resentment, and I walked through some pretty tough neighborhoods. Powerful lesson indeed.

Bali has a beautiful and very chill vibe. The Balinese people are incredibly sweet and kind, and it’s genuine – not an act. The parts I’ve seen are super crowded but beautiful, especially the innumerable temples. What also strikes me is that getting around on the road, although it borders on complete chaos, works amazingly well, no doubt because of how mellow everyone is.

I know one thing for sure – I would never drive here. Normally I rent a vehicle when I arrive somewhere and figure things out on my own. Here, the streets are a procession of speeding cars, trucks and motor scooters that all works seamlessly and seemingly without effort. The frenetic pace on the roads and in traffic appears to be a hair’s breath from total chaos, yet it somehow works perfectly. Wow.

No traffic lights, lanes or yield signs, yet no horns sound and everyone simply weaves in and out of the ever moving motorized maelstrom that surrounds and swallows them. If you’ve been here, you know what I mean. It’s very different from other third world countries I’ve visited, where chaos reigns on urban roads and you sense that a collision or accident is going to happen every second (and they often do). It must be the nature of the Balinese people to be so chill while negotiating what to me are hair-raising escapades at high speeds behind the wheel or handlebars. I was blown away. Random theory scientists would do well do stop in and check things out here.

I did something yesterday that I virtually never do – I played tourist rather than finding my own way around to the things I wanted to see. Because I said no to driving, my hotel recommended a guide and driver for the day, and he turned out to be one of the kindest, most patient individuals I’ve ever met. Gusti knew so much about the temples, forests, dances, waterfalls, wood carving shops and everywhere else that we went that I just sat back and had a grand time. Very cool.

Yesterday was a visual and aesthetic treat for the eyes and mind, so I think it best to let some photos do the talking now. Batwan Temple:

Entry to terraced rice fields (yes, they’re a tourist attraction here).

Wood carving shop. Thank you, Steve Gold, for your suggestion to check these out. Really incredible handiwork on display, all of which is done purely with the carvers’ imagination.

The way of the world.

Monkey Forest. He looked pretty chill until he chased and tried to bite me (apparently the reflections of my water bottle entranced him).

Waterfall entrance. Why would you need to evacuate here? It was a couple of hundred feet above the falls.

This little guy is gonna have to grow into those ears.

Off to meander through the streets and hit the beach today.

The past two days were spent watching the scorched landscape of Western Australia whir by. It has been over 110F here every day this week and has felt like a blast furnace when you step out of the car or whatever air conditioned building you’re leaving. The mercury has climbed relentlessly as I’ve traveled further northward, closer to the equator, and there’s a distinct feeling that if you’re not in the shade with lots of water, it won’t be a good day. There are innumerable ways to get snuffed out up here, and nature doesn’t care. Definitely not for the meek of heart.

A word about the Outback and the Aborigines who live there. Australia did to its natives what the U.S. did to its – destroyed their culture, moved them from beautiful places where they’d lived in complete harmony with nature for eons and corralled and condemned them into completely worthless and desolate places where no one else would ever want to be. It was really sad to see the level of poverty in the Outback settlements and road houses where I stopped for fuel and food – people dressed in filthy, tattered clothes, with no shoes, looking completely forlorn but, like in the States, clutching cell phones. They – the original inhabitants and stewards of this great continent – were clearly not happy campers. It’s such a strange juxtaposition, and suggests that after performing cultural lobotomies on these poor folks, they’ve been given the drug of connectivity to make them forget about just how horrible their lives actually are.

Australia is a land of immense contrasts – cool and mountainous with precipitation on the east and southern coasts, scorched and barren in the Outback and western half, together with incredibly pristine beaches set against deep cobalt seas on every coast. The difference between east and west is that you can get to all the stunning beaches on the eastern and southern coasts. In the west, they’re almost completely inaccessible because of the lack of roads and population centers. Exploring the west coast by boat would be an amazing experience. Sir Francis Drake must have had a blast.

Here’s my path since landing in Perth and heading south to Margaret River before turning north. I’m glad I took this drive even though it was not very scenic, because the Great Northern Highway is rarely close to the coast (although it looks otherwise on maps, which distort because of distance and scale) and despite the fact that the temperatures and fierceness of the landscape were mind blowing. It’s a fascinating, otherworldly spot on the planet and its scale is, in a word, immense. Overall, very cool but if you come to Oz, I highly recommend the east coast all the way from Cains in the north to Adelaide in the south. There’s so much to see there, together with incredible culture, and the grandeur and beauty of those places is truly extraordinary.

Some photos of Darwin last evening. This is a really nice town / city. I was here three years ago and enjoy being back. What’s fascinating is that 140,000 people live here now and it’s literally thousands of miles from everywhere else in Australia – just a lone outpost that the Aussies decided to build and expand for commerce and which the Japanese bombed and invaded in World War II. You’d never know you’re in the absolute middle of nowhere if you flew in. It’s lush and green, being in the sub-tropical zone, and the vibe is very laid back. The end of the road, so to speak. Here are some shots taken down on the harbor yesterday afternoon.

Well, it’s time to bid Australia adieu for now. I’m off to Bali later today. Looking forward very much to seeing that jewel.

Things have gotten interesting and I’ve experienced a bit of a revelation the past several days. I knew that the west coast of Australia was big, having driven around much of the rest of the country and having looked at maps of this side of the continent countless times, but I really didn’t fully grasp just how frickin’ enormous it really is until now. The scale of vastness here make Utah and Nevada seem crowded and cramped. Really.

I started northward in Margaret River and arrived in Broome today, 3,471 kilometers later, racking up 2,152 miles so far, and I still have 1,161 miles ahead of me before I reach Darwin, from where I’ll begin the southeast Asian part of the journey.

Most folks who know me know that I love to drive. That’s probably a really big understatement. The stories are many – and many of them are crazy – but there’ something about the open road and visiting places I’ve never been that completely enthralls me. Well, on the west coast of Oz, you drive and drive and then drive lots more. Then you gas up and keep on  truckin’. Settlements, and gas stations or roadhouses, as they’re known here, are extremely spread out and few and far between. You fill up whenever you see one so that you don’t end up like the roadside skeletons dotting the way who ran out of gas or water or couldn’t quite get out of the way of a fast-moving vehicle.

What’s even more interesting is that in order to hit the extremely infrequent beach towns, you have to drive a hundred to two hundred miles off of The Great Northern Highway, making the journey that much longer.

If the scenery is interesting, or better yet, compelling, I’m good with doing that. Here, so far however, it has been bleak, vast and incredibly hot and inhospitable. The air feels like a blowtorch all day long. No doubt that’s why so few people have settled here compared to the east and southern coasts, which have mountains, forests and cooling precipitation.

Western Australia has been a resource extracting asset for the country for centuries, and a number of the largest natural resource and mining companies on Earth are Aussie. In a sense, it’s a good thing that the natural resource-rich areas here are in places that you’d never want to live. The unspoiled parts of Australia, and they are countless elsewhere, including Tasmania, would be very difficult to rip apart and tear up in order to extract and sell Oz’s resources to the world.

Someone driving a very big rig needs new tires….

So there you have it – a long and circuitous journey with some beautiful and very remote beach towns tucked away like hidden jewels on the Indian Ocean and hundreds and hundreds of miles in between all of them.

Broome, where I arrived today, is in what’s known as The Kimberly Region – way up north and filled with national parks. What I’ve found is that the natural wonders  here are pretty much canyons and caverns. They go down, not up, and my strong preference when thinking of scenery is mountains and the sea, preferably both together.

OK –  I’m off to take some photos. Be back in a bit.

Early evening on the beach:

These folks were having their own private party, complete with lights:

Then it got interesting.

Give up? Here’s a closer look.

Camels on Cable Beach at sunset are a long-standing tradition here in Broome that was started by a chap after converting to Islam and crossing the Outback by camel. Whoa….

Anyway, I’m off to The Kimberly en route to Darwin. Supposed to be filled with adventure and amazing scenery. We’ll see about that…

Today marks day four (I think) since taking FLIGHT. Commotion and haste have transformed into powerful forms of chill and relaxation.

Here’s the gravitational pull and mantra heading north out of Margaret River:

Right now I’m in Shark Bay at the minute outpost of Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort. Beyond the beyond, so to speak, and quite warm  for late spring here – 96F.  The nearest town is over 200 miles away. It’s really out there, mate. North to south on this rendering is over 600 miles…

I’ve pushed north from Margaret River and Perth through a vast space that toys with scale and measurement. Clicking off a hundred miles up here means passing no towns or settlements – or gas – just meandering on the coast, then inland, then back to the dazzling sea.

After reaching Geraldton, the largest town between Perth and Darwin that prides itself on exporting local grain and seafood, I decided to push further north. Several hours later I managed, through a bit of luck and a last minute recon, to catch the sun setting on Kalbarri National Park’s sandstone cliffs. Sublimely beautiful.

Last night was spent in Kalbarri, a delightfully small fishing and tourism town next to the national park. It’s really nice that I’m in the shoulder season of mid spring now – almost all places to stay have vacancies and the beaches and restaurants aren’t crowded. The beach and reef there in Kalbarri are pretty darned colorful. Shades are a must.

Priorities matter in life. What more might you need when chillin’ out here?

Colors and shapes bend the mind:

What I’m finding is that it’s all about vastness and space here. Very different from the eastern and southern coasts I visited last trip, where millions live and towns touch each other almost everywhere. Different is good, and decompressing into the zeitgeist here has been fun. No rushing, just deep breaths and being very  much in the moment. And I though Marin was chill…..

Tomorrow morning will bring up-close connections with the bottle nose dolphins who call this place home. In the mean time, it’s happy hour here, so a bevy is most definitely in order…

The FLIGHT from San Francisco to Hong Kong was fourteen hours, but leaving just after midnight made sleeping pretty easy. We landed in Hong Kong at 6 am local time, and I hopped the MTR express train into the city.

Everything in Hong Kong appeared very sleek and very tranquil. The city boasts a million millionaires out of a population of seven million. I’m guessing that it’s the highest ratio in the world other than in the Gulf countries, but in Hong Kong, most folks earn their fortunes rather than being born into them. Eight months of protests and the end game posed by China have created a dangerous situation in the former British crown colony, and it’s hard to see how it will end well. All was well while I cruised around, which was a great way to start the trip

Umbrella Protesters’ Statement:

I was rather shocked that this statement of defiance hasn’t been removed by the authorities, as I’d seen it photographed several weeks ago.

Early morning skyline:

My breakfast before being plated. Poor guys.

I only spent the day in Hong Kong, and it was surprisingly quiet for a Saturday during the past eight months of increasingly violent weekend protests. Perhaps the cat and mouse game that’s being played out each weekend is entering a new phase.

I left Hong Kong for Perth late afternoon and was really excited to get back to where my last trip ended – there and in Freemantle / Freo. By the time I landed and found my hotel, I wasn’t sure what day it was (I had no idea what time it was). I awoke to light this morning and realized that it was 5 am. Yikes – I think I slept four hours after hurting through space for twenty one in steel tubes.

Although it meant heading south out of Perth only to have to retrace my route northward, I decided to check out Margaret River, which is about 180 miles down the coast from Perth. The drive south was really nice, and getting used to driving on the left (wrong) side of the road again took a bit of focus, especially when entering the countless roundabouts on the drive. Natural instinct guides you right when approaching vehicles get close, so it’s a brain tease to prevent yourself from doing what you do at home in traffic.

Roadside art on an industrial building en route to Margaret River:

I pulled into Margaret River, world famous for its wine and surf, early this afternoon. Having driven from Perth without a map or GPS because it was too late to buy a SIM card at the airport and no stores were open till 11 am today (Sunday), I kind of followed the sun and directional instinct, which worked fine. After arriving, I met Keith downtown at his bookstore and ended up chatting with him for quite a while. Great guy who was extremely knowledgeable about the west coast of Oz, and he sold me an excellent map and gave me the lay of the local land, drawing his own map to get me on my way.

I love the serendipity of travel. Keith was, by coincidence, wearing a Sausalito T shirt, and when I told him that I lived fifteen minutes away, he proceeded to tell me about his one year trip to the States in 1968, when he landed in San Francisco and was invited to a concert and ended up watching Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company tear the roof off of the Fillmore West.  Talk about perfect timing…..

Margaret River is a really charming small town that teems with Perth residents in the summertime and holidays, which is right around the corner, as summer starts here in a matter of weeks.. Today it was quite chill, and after I found a place to stay and had lunch, I decided to hit the beach. Cowabunga, dude:

Aussies’ reverence for the beach is all consuming. If you’re not out on your board catching rides, you and your family are camped out watching the fun. Aussies are inextricably connected to the sea. It infuses them and its love is reflected in everything they do.

Surfer’s Point, on the coast where Margaret River meets the Indian Ocean, is a legendary and religious shrine to Aussies. It breaks left and right over a reef, up to 15′ in giant tubes, year round. Hanging out there this afternoon was an incredibly special treat. The scene was so cool because the folks on the beach watching the surfers were having just as much fun, and were just as serious, as those in the water. It’s an amazing yin and yang energy flow that completely drew me in and was really hard to step away from hours later.

Looking northward:

Are Aussies serious about surfing? You betcha, mate.

Late afternoon:

Long but really fun day. Time to chill and get some sleep. Tomorrow starts the northward-ho trek, 2,700 miles along the west coast to Darwin, a fantastic town on Australia’s northern coast that I’m looking forward to seeing again. Lots to see on the way, and I can’t wait to start poking around.

Parts unknown beckon once again. Since my last trip to Australia, I’ve been daydreaming about getting back and seeing many of the places I didn’t visit but wanted to. That would be the west coast, from Perth and environs, including Margaret River, northward to Darwin.

For reference, here’s my route on the last go-around:

This will be a 2,700 or so mile jaunt over three weeks. After that, I’ll be meandering through Southeast Asia for five weeks. Lots of places and ideas, and it will pretty much be a free-form adventure through Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

Here’s the planned route for Oz, hugging the west coast until the road pushes inland towards the top of the continent:

The journey begins October 31st. Looking forward to getting back on the road and blogging the trip.