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'.

It's a bit of a shock to the system, but it's also nice to have access to things we haven't seen in awhile. One store here in Phuket that caters to tourists has maraschino cherries, soft white marshmallows, bacon, ham, and lots of brands and types of food we didn't even find in Darwin. Phuket Town has a Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts and KFC within walking distance of the bay. We haven't visited them, but there are several McDonald's (the boys have said they will walk 10 miles if they can have McDonald's).

Phuket feels a bit like Bali, with the throngs of Western tourists in beach wear (even far from the beach) and the bad traffic. The local people are lovely and friendly, but they are definitely used to tourists. It is lucky for us, because almost everyone speaks English pretty well. Thai is much more difficult to learn than Indonesian and this is the first country we have visited on the boat where the primary language uses a different alphabet than English.

We have a friend on another cruising boat that says she breathes a sigh of relief whenever she leaves Indonesia because it means she is away from the bureaucracy. Our check-out process from Sabang, Indonesia was the fastest we have experienced so far. It only took about 4 hours. All the officials were friendly and everyone except Quarantine was efficient. Quarantine took longer because they insisted on coming out to the boat because a document they issued when we checked in had expired (apparently an Indonesian sanitation certificate--one of many documents that Quarantine buries you in). You can read the details here (in the comments), but essentially we dinghied 3 quarantine officials out to our boat. They inspected the boat and asked many questions. All so that we could leave the country. Indonesia remains the only country (out of dozens we have visited) where we have had to visit Quarantine to check out of the country and this is the first time they wanted to see the boat on check out. It isn't clear what would have happened if we had failed the inspection. I very briefly considered saying that 'yes' we do have rats (they asked us several times), just to see what would happen, but obviously didn't.

In contrast, checking in to Thailand in Phuket took a little over an hour and all the offices were right next to each other. It was like night and day.

Matt's Mom is visiting in about a week and in the meantime we are doing boat projects and enjoying the sights. So far, we love Thai street food. Matt and the boys are especially fond of the ubiquitous grilled meat-on-a-stick.

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.

The waterfall

There were stream crossings. We got wet.

Our guide told us that we would have to walk a few kilometers to the megaliths sites. It turned out to be 10 kilometers in total. While it wasn't quite as challenging as the previous day's adventure, there were many muddy and slippery areas.

The box for the remains of the heads of the king's enemies

These pictures are from the more accessible of the three megalith sites in the Gomo area. The villagers were so uncharacteristically unfriendly (for Indonesia), that we all independently noticed it. No one smiled and barely responded to greetings. Even the children seemed cranky. When we were ready to leave, the head of the village complained to our guide that our donation was not enough. Without any guidance, we gave what we had paid to enter Bawomataluo village the day before. The head of the village felt that over twice that amount was fair. The fee wasn't much in U.S. dollars, but perhaps a 'suggested donation' would be a better way to go.

Megaliths are good for drying lumber

and laundry

We thought it was funny that they wanted more money so they could 'maintain' the megaliths when most of the megaliths were covered with either lumber or laundry.

Matt was able to get a brief laugh out of the kids by playing the fool

We thought the next site was much more impressive. There were mini-Easter Island heads among the tables and Osa-Osa.

When you tap the solid stone tables, they make
a sound like a bell!

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.

Nearly everyone is on the grift in Indonesia, at  least when it comes to western tourists. It’s done in the mellowest and  friendliest way though, and they rarely rip you off, not really, it’s usually  just a small commission style earn. Minor, unless you are in the weird thrall of the rupiah syndrome, forgetting that the thousands you haggle over are actually mere cents, and the thought of paying a little more than some other hard case bargainer is painful to you. These ultra tight arsed travelers do  turn up, and it is bizarre how much time and energy they will devote to saving  what often amounts to 20 cents. In Indonesia, everything costs  something but nothing costs much, and sometimes I think time is more valuable  than a handful of rupiah. Its best to just shed a steady rain of bank notes and  coast along — most Indonesians earn peanuts and it doesn’t really hurt your  wallet much — and things seem to flow smoothly.

It's easy to adopt this attitude and unfortunately helps support the 'bule = dompet' outlook that pervades touristy areas like Nias and Bali ('bule' is Indonesian for foreigner/Caucasian and 'dompet' means 'wallet'). The Devil's Advocate in me would say that the overly 'generous' types don't understand Indonesian culture and don't care what effect they're having on it.

People in Indonesia don't generally tip. They bargain for differences that to us seem like peanuts. When someone wants to charge a white guy 50,000 Rupiah for bananas that are normally 15,000 (basically $3.30 versus a dollar US), it might seem crazy to haggle. But that same "white guy tax" is one reason that in Nias, a ride to the local traditional village for a tourist can cost ten times (or more) what a local would pay to go there. One Indonesian I have talked to even came right out and said that many Indonesians look down on foreigners who pay too much as 'suckers'.

It's not as simple as saying, 'Don't be such a cheapskate' or 'Never pay more than you have to'. Every situation is different and people will do whatever feels right. I will say that from what I have seen (having traveled across Indonesia on and off for a year or so), Indonesians in places like Bali and Nias generally have a very different attitude than those in less-touristy places. You definitely feel like a walking wallet and there is less friendliness and respect, if that's the right word. Even the surfer/writer quoted above, mentions an incident in Bawomataluo where he is taunted by some locals because he was a tourist. Who knows the reason, maybe it's as simple as familiarity breeding contempt. But maybe we reap what we sow.

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.


 

The village was unique and interesting. It is elevated so it feels like you're in the sky. The buildings are made with massive timbers and modeled after boats. They are constructed without nails and have survived the many earthquakes in the region better than more modern buildings. But we skipped the famous stone jumping, partly out of concern that the jumpers might slip, and the mood was less than festive.

Coffee 'grinding'. They make strong coffee here.
Just skip the fine grounds in the bottom of your cup.

The King's House

After a few days of rain (this is the rainy season), the sun finally showed its supercharged face. We don't normally visit touristy places more than once, but when Mark on Field Trip wanted to head back to get some drone shots on a day with better weather, Matt was happy to tag along. They were fortunate enough to be present at the same time as an honored 3-star Navy Admiral. This meant that there would be lots of stone jumping (without the normal 200,000 Rupiah fee) in full traditional costume.

Drying rice

Drying laundry

Of course, this being Indonesia, there was also a long wait and several speeches before the show could start. In the interim, Matt, Mark and Kate (guest crew on Field Trip), were whisked away to the King's House so they wouldn't hear a brewing argument: The villagers were taking advantage of the sun to dry their rice and laundry. The organizers of the festivities didn't want their scenic village to be covered in laundry and rice. Eventually, they worked it out but the discussion did get quite heated.

Batu Lompat (jumping stone)

Boys become men by vertically jumping over this 2 meter stone

When you live among historic artifacts, they cease to be interesting and
simply become a place to hang your laundry.

Careful what you wish for...

After many days of sun and a busted water maker, we kept hoping for some solid rain and were glad when it finally arrived. We happily traded a gloomy, wet day for not having to buy and lug water jugs to the boat. The rain filled both our water tanks, all our 5-gallon buckets, and all our water jugs, as well as anything else that would hold water. But it kept coming and coming. And on day 2, it was still coming. By day 3, the day that we were scheduled to leave Tello, the downpours were so heavy we didn't even venture out from the boat for most of the day. 

It's hard to know exactly, but we probably got over 24 inches of rain in those 3 days. We also had an all-time low on solar power production--only 12 amp hours for the entire day (a good sunny day can produce about 400 amp hours). A typical overcast day will still net us 100-150 amp hours, so the 12 hours is a good indication of just how dark and thick the clouds and rain were. 

We took advantage of a short break in the rain to buy, lug and filter 400 liters of diesel. The winds have been light so we have been doing a lot of motoring lately... and there always seems to be a current against us.

On the plus side, our fishing drought seems to have been broken. We caught our first mahi-mahi and Spanish Mackerel in a long time, as well as getting a big hit that took a lure. These days we get to see a lot of dolphins on our passages (the ones lately have been very small). Today we saw a sailfish jump about five times in a row and another one swimming around the boat with it's sail sticking out of the water.

The area along West and Northwest Sumatra where we have been traveling lately is renowned for its surfing. So far, the weather and surf spots haven't been very welcoming for our beginner crew (e.g. Conrad and Matt). But now that we are in Lagundri Bay, both the weather and the surf seem more promising.

We did get to do some diving in The Playgrounds area of Mentawai. It was no Raja Ampat, but we were usually able to see something interesting on our dives.

The clown fish in front of me are a bit perturbed by my closeness

A blue variety of the Crown of Thorns starfish

Lots of fishing boats

Sorry I blew up

I'm pretty sure that's what the volcano Anak Krakatau would say if it could talk. As we made our way south towards the Sunda Straight and Krakatau, we had heard that it was erupting. A quick check on the internet showed it was a '4' (out of 5), and that a 2 kilometer exclusion zone had been established.  That meant that we wouldn't be able to actually land on the island. We also knew that volcanic ash is nasty stuff to get on the boat. We decided to visit anyway because the prevailing winds should have kept the ash off our boat and even if we couldn't get on the island, the sights would hopefully be worth it.

It turned out to be an amazingly memorable stop.  Anak Krakatau performed non-stop while we were there. We were treated to fantastic views of the erupting volcano--especially overnight. We weren't able to get any good pictures from the boat of the night eruptions, but they were spectacular as glowing lava and rocks were flung over the entire mountainside every few minutes. We were so close that we could feel the rumbling. One time one of the explosions sent out such a shock wave that it made everyone's ears pop. There were truck-sized boulders rolling down the side and every so often a chunk would make it on the fly into the sea. 

Unfortunately, when you anchor next to an 'ash hole', you shouldn't be surprised if you get dumped on. After behaving all day as forecasted, the wind shifted for just a few minutes, but it was enough to cover the boat in heavy ash.

As it turned out, we got plenty of rain to rinse the boat on our passage up the west coast of Sumatra. We had so many thunderstorms that seemed to pop up out of nowhere (usually in the middle of the night) that it was hard not to take it personally. Our three-night voyage stretched into four as we spent hours and miles dodging and running away from the especially lightning-ridden storms that appeared to cling to us like that smothering cartoon dog. Some of the blinding, gut-shaking lightning would hit the water and bounce spectacularly back up into the sky. After several nights of this, we ended up taking a breather and enjoyed a good night's sleep at Sikakap Town on Pagai-utara.

That left just a quick 60 miles to get to the next island north and hopefully hook up with our friends on Field Trip. After a pre-dawn departure, we caught our first mahi-mahi (about 20 pounds and three feet long) in a while. This was after losing something big that almost spooled the reel before breaking the 150 lb test line. As the sun was getting ready to set, we rolled into the anchorage on N Sipura and had the hook down just in time before darkness closed in. We could hear the thunderstorms in the distance and were glad to be at anchor for the night.