'Round Phuket

Koh Panyi (Muslim fishing village on stilts)

After returning the rental car, the second part of Nana's visit was spent taking Perry around to some of the local anchorages. We are still getting used to how tourist-y everything is here. And there are a lot of other boats, especially charters. As soon as you put down your anchor, a charter boat plunks down nearby (many times very nearby), then another and another.

Phuket--It's better with Nana!

Ko Phanak

With all the stuff squirreled away in Nana's humongous suitcase (things we had ordered as well as gifts from Nana, Grandpa and others), it was like an early Christmas when she arrived. Of course the best gift of all was Nana herself!

What do you do all day?

Matt working on the high-pressure pump for our water maker

'What do you do all day?' is one of the most common questions we get, along with 'What do you eat?' People either have a hard time imagining our daily lives or they just envision us laying on the beach and sipping umbrella drinks.

Phuket, Thailand (a new country for us!)

Poor man's drone shot of Nai Harn (also known
as 'walking up a hill')

Even though we don't feel deprived when we're in remote places, we go a little crazy when we get back to 'civilization'.

My parents made me walk 10k...

Osa osa. Used to carry the King's bride. Luckily for the guys
carrying it, it's only made of GRANITE.

...and all I got was some lousy stone megaliths. After spending several hours on a rather treacherous walk to a waterfall the day before, we drove and swerved and bounced a couple of hours over to Gomo the following day.

When in Rome...reach for your wallet?

100,000 Rupliah is less than $7 USD

This surfer dude did an interesting write-up of the Nias area. It was mostly about the waves, as you would expect, but he also made this observation:

After landing at Sibolga, as low key a shearing shed of an  airport as you could imagine, we went with the flow of the local grifters. It  felt right, sometimes it just does.

Let's talk about the weather

It's funny how seemingly small things can make or break what you think of a place--things like weather or a friendly face. When we visited Bawomataluo village (try saying that 3 times fast), it was a drizzly day. There weren't many people out and everything just seemed grey.