…Smells a lot like Balinese incense these days. That’s what I’m immersed in, along with the
bathyspheric strains of System 777’s Fire+Water CD, as I prepare for a November 10th departure to Indonesia and beyond. It’s the longest semi-open-ended trip I’ve taken in a while, and though it won’t compare with the 16-month odysseys that defined my younger days, it promises to be an amazing series of adventures.
The expedition will begin in Sulawesi, an Ichabod Crane-shaped island north of Bali and east of Singapore. I’ll be 
working with the Berkeley-based Seacology Foundation, writing about their ingenious environmental projects and sending dispatches back to Salon, Islands, and the Seacology site itself – not to mention my own party, Ethical Traveler. (Visit the Events section for web links.)
Among Seacology’s efforts in northern Sulawesi is a project to protect and rehabilitate the coral reefs around Bunaken Island, at Sulawesi’s northern tip. My story about diving that spectacular area (where Charles Wallace did his research) appears in the current issue of Outside Adventures. But words can’t do justice to the experience of diving in those warm, pristine waters, whose residents include the elusive and amazing ghost pipefish. Because
the Bunaken reefs are above a sheer wall 10,00 feet deep, cool upwellings have prevented coral bleaching. In my opinion, Bunaken ties with Palau as the world’s best dive spot.
After Sulawesi my travels will take me to Bali’s Tirtagangga Water Palace, where Seacology has helped build a system to recycle the popular shrine’s wastewater. Maybe that doesn’t sound so romantic, but hey – make up your mind AFTER you read the dispatch.
From there it’s on to Singapore (for a Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo), and then all the way to India, where I will spend a week visiting my beloved friend Anna Jahns (née Sally Knight). Sally, some of you will remember, was my traveling companion in Size of the World, until she bowed out to bask in the beatitude of the incomparable Papaji. Anna now lives in Goa, with her noble husband Sudama and their two frisky kids. I’ll be arriving with a big Care package of books, including The Golden Compass and Limony Snicket’s first four tales.
And then I turn 180 degrees and start back home, via Thailand, for a few days of foot massages
and dental work in my favorite corrupt Kingdom. By late December, I’ll be re-immersed in the familiar scents and sounds of my Oakland flat (to the soundtrack, I hope, of terrential rain). Come January, everything leans into heightened prep mode for the February run of Strange Travel Suggestions at the new Berkeley Marsh. So it’s déja-vu all over again, shakin’ out that Matrix like a dusty old sheet. Stay tuned for those dispatches, Cyberpals, and Happy Thanksgiving!