We’ve already mentioned this on our Facebook Fanpage, but recent discoveries mean this is definitely blog material.

Mappinglife.org’s Map of Life is an amazing new resource which seeks to integrate species distribution information into that wonderfully recognizable Google Maps interface. You search for an animal, and a magical little overlay shows you where it lives. Visitors to the site can already search for terrestrial vertebrates and limited fish species using both scientific and common names.

The goal is to make the open-source project a Wikipedia-like resource which allows researchers and citizen contributors to help refine and expand upon the content. Nature.com details the development and goals of the project in this recent post.

I immediately fell in love with the Map of Life and only later discovered that one of the creators of the site was an old friend of mine from high school, Robert Guralnick. What a kick! We can’t wait for more additions to the database including plant and select invertebrate species, which should be added later this year. (I’m keeping my fingers crossed for salt-water fish and birds. And dare I wish for nudibranchs?)

Perhaps the most spectacular site in Sukhothai is the enormous Buddha in the ruins of Wat Si Chum. The Buddha’s stunningly elongated fingers are one of the most photographed things in Thailand. (There’s a picture of Thomas in the typical pose in our previous mini-pictorial.) To share this amazing location with everyone, we’ve put up a 360 panorama, so whirl around to your heart’s content.

By the way, I should mention that photographing this site without people in the picture – something which is necessary to make a 360 in such an enclosed space – was no easy task. Thomas is right outside convincing the hordes to stand back while I hurriedly snap away.

 

While there may be some debate among historians, Sukhothai is generally considered the birthplace of Thai culture. The sprawling Sukhothai Historical Park preserves what’s left of the first capital of Siam and makes for a leisurely day out biking through the ruins. The site features a series of crumbling monasteries, temples, stupas, palaces, and stunning Buddha statues as well as portions of the original city fortifications.

While not on the same scale as the Southeast Asian super-monuments of Bagan and Angkor Wat, Sukhothai is still quite impressive and rivals the grandeur of Ayutthaya. For its historical and cultural significance, Sukhothai has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it’s definitely worth a day or two on the way north to Chiang Mai.

The Phra Pathom Chedi in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand is the tallest Buddhist stupa in the world. At 127 metres (417 ft), it’s taller than any stupa, dagobah, chedi, candi, chorten, pagoda or monastic complex anywhere. So how does it measure up to other religious buildings?

Not too bad for a chedi built in the 19th century, but it’s significantly shorter than the minaret at the Hassan II Mosque (210 m /689 ft) in Casablanca, Morocco, which claims the title of the world’s tallest religious monument. It’s also quite a bit shorter than the Ulm Minster (161.5 m /530 ft), which will hold the record for the world’s tallest church until La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona is completed. To be fair, the Phra Pathom Chedi predates both buildings.

No, Buddhists worry less about the height of their buildings and more about the height of their Buddhas. The tallest Buddhist monument in the world is now the recently constructed Spring Temple Buddha in Lushan, China. The Chinese constructed it exactly one meter taller than the Phra Pathom Chedi to claim the record. In fact, the three tallest statues in the world are Buddhas, including the Laykyun Setkyar, which we visited in Monywa, Myanmar.

So what would Buddha think about all this? Somehow, I strongly suspect he wouldn’t care at all. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if some super-pagoda suddenly sprouted up in China just to make the record books.

For architecture junkies (including myself), the Phra Pathom Chedi makes a great day-trip by rickety train from Bangkok, although it might be less thrilling for the casual traveler who’s feeling templed out. The chedi itself is a relatively simple yet peaceful place to sit and stare up into the sky. We also really enjoyed strolling through the city’s markets and sampling some great street food including fantastic sticky rice in bamboo as well as the Thai take on beef jerky. For those looking for an authentic Thai experience, Nakhon Pathom is the perfect example of an average off-the-beaten-track Thai town.

During our travels, I find myself constantly making references to Alice in Wonderland. I think one of the hardest things to convey to family, friends and readers is the disorienting cumulative effect of living in a surrealistic landscape of shifting cultural and environmental norms. Every day is another page in a nonsensical narrative with characters speaking backwards, bombarding us with riddles and inverted logic. Even a simple trip to Seven Eleven can be an excursion into the bizarre. And for some reason, I suddenly seemed to notice it.

I was on a mission to buy potato chips. I always have the same options, but at that particular moment in time they seemed odd: seaweed, grilled lobster, hot and spicy crab, hot chili squid…

Can’t I just have BBQ or nacho cheese?!

A single bag of “Salt and Sour” chips drew my attention; unfortunately, “salt and sour” were the only English words on the bag. As always, I analysed the bag’s pictures for clues. A bottle of vinegar, a lemon, what looked like a glass of orange juice, and a pile of rice. Hmmm. Well, at least it didn’t appear to contain any sea life.

Stepping out of the Seven Eleven, the everyday atmosphere seemed noticeably strange. A group of Nigerian gigalos eyed me from across the street. The little Thai dwarf who plays the leprechaun at the local Irish pub was noticeably absent. An army of Thai women sang a nasal chorus, “Massage, massage, massage.” Wawa birds and a boopboop insects backed the chorus.

In one of those slow-motion moments of total clarity, I strolled back towards the apartment taking in everything around me. Women haggled over feather dusters. Taxis honked in rage and desperation. A transsexual prostitute batted her eyes; her comic book lashes looked like spiders attacking her face.  A pack of flying foxes flew above. I took a second to watch one land upside-down in a tree – suddenly, I was under attack.

An absurdly minuscule chihuahua wearing a rainbow sweater shot out from underneath a roadside table and made a beeline directly towards my feet. Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, the mini-beast squeak-barked; it appeared determined to eat my toes. I danced all over the alley trying to avoid the needle teeth of the demonic toy dog. I swatted at the creature with my bag of salt and sour chips. Two Thai women standing across the street laughed hysterically at my dance. I escaped from the beast and ventured back through the No-Poop Zone – the chihuahua would never dare enter – to the security of our apartment.

Every day is totally different, and yet somehow the same. I guess I just noticed it for once.

Indonesia has so much to offer, I have no doubt that we will return in the future to explore more of its unique cultures and adventurous offerings. It is truly one of the world’s greatest destinations.

Interestingly, just as I was sitting down to design a graphic to sum up our time in Indonesia, the online service Pixlr and its associated Chrome app came to our attention. Pixlr offers a free, relatively advanced online photo editor, which can be quite useful for travelers – especially those without a laptop – who wish to work with their photos while on the road.

Easily used from Internet cafes, Pixlr works like a pared-down version of Photoshop, enabling travelers to alter photos, resize and crop photos, add interesting filters, and reduce photos for web use. What really distinguishes Pixlr in my mind is the inclusion of layers and layer masks. Nice.

Intrigued by a completely web-based photo editor, I set out to create the collage above to test Pixlr and its features. To be fair, the collage design would not push any limits in a powerhouse editor like Photoshop, but it does require cropping, layers, lines, opacity options, and borders. Moreover, I like to reduce images for the web. All of these processes were a breeze in Pixlr with the odd exception of adding a border; I had to add a layer and crop out the center leaving a one-pixel border. (I reduce opacity to 60% just to give a hint of definition around the image, so the border is very subtle.)

Pixlr is definitely the best web-based editor I have found to date; please let me know if you have found anything better. What’s more, Pixlr is available as a Google Drive app, which means that you can store your processed images in the cloud as well. That’s perfect for Contemporary Nomads who want to leave the computer at home, but need to process, edit, or store images from Internet cafes!

As a follow-up to our previous post, we wanted to draw our visitors’ attention to a petition to save Kutai National Park started by our friends Sarah and Pete. The petition encourages the Indonesian government to save Kutai National Park and its orangutans from land claims by Churchill Mining, a British company which seeks to mine within the boundaries of the park.

As you can see from the Google Maps shot below, such mining is devastating to the local environment. The red dot marks the approximate location of where we photographed the orangutan mother and baby shown in the picture above. Many locals we spoke to in the area, who indeed expressed an interest in saving the park, felt powerless when confronted with the overwhelming wealth and influence of the mining industry.  Please support this effort to save Kutai National Park as well as other efforts to preserve orangutan habitat in Borneo and Sumatra.

We are thrilled to write that our posts on Kutai National Park have caught the attention of national park authorities in Indonesia. We were contacted by representatives from Kutai NP who asked to use our photos in educational materials that they will be distributing to schools and government offices across the country. How exciting!

My post titled The Orangutan Experience was translated into Indonesian and included in a 34-page educational brochure which also includes articles from researchers and political figures concerned about the park. As you can see in the first image above, the title of my post was chosen as the title for the brochure.

Thomas’ and my photography of Kutai and its famous orangutans are shown on many pages throughout the brochure (other photographers are included as well), and our pictures are used for the front cover as well as the back cover.

Perhaps the most exciting development is that Thomas’ fantastic video Orangutans of Kutai National Park will be included on a DVD distributed along with the brochure to help educate the Indonesian public on the remarkable beauty and value of their spectacular natural heritage. What an honor!!!

We are so excited to hear that our posts and video will be included in educational materials which just might help to save this precious piece of Kalimantan’s wilderness. We are also very impressed that the national park system of Indonesia is taking steps to educate the public on the importance of saving orangutan habitat.

I’m including the Youtube version of  Thomas’ video below for those who didn’t see it the first time.

Those who know us well – especially fellow nomads – have expressed surprise that we spent so much time in Bali, a destination they associate with package tourism and sprawling resorts. In all honesty, I avoided Bali on my first trip to Indonesia ignorantly dismissing the island as little more than tourist central. But guess what, Bali is beautiful.

While it’s true that portions of Bali have embraced the dark side of tourism and a visit to Kuta can leave you cringing as hordes of drunk Australians stumble their way through the streets, the larger island provides plenty of room for off-the-beaten-track exploration. There is much to discover here: Bali’s unique Hindu culture and architecture is visually stunning; colorful festivals and parades occur throughout the year; the sand runs the spectrum from powder white to glistening gold to charcoal grey to jet black; and the lush tropical center of the island provides for great walks. Perhaps the greatest discovery for us was that the scuba diving is absolutely world-class (and I don’t say that lightly.)

We liked Bali so much that we decided to put together a pictorial to share some of the island’s unique beauty. (I’ll admit the pictorial is a bit culture heavy, but – hey – how many more pictures of rice terraces can we post?)

Indonesia used to be one of the cheapest places in Southeast Asia. But in recent years, prices in the large archipelago have caught up with those of other countries in the region. Especially areas such as Kalimantan, eastern Nusa Tenggara as well as Papua can be painfully expensive, with transportation and accommodation often being the main culprits.

I know, I must sound like a broken record. Haven’t I complained about rising costs in every other country? The fact is that prices in the developing world are shooting up at lightning speed which makes backpacking on a budget increasingly challenging. And Indonesia is the poster child for such change.

One interesting oddity is the price ratio between Coke and gasoline. Indonesia has the most expensive Coca Cola but the cheapest gas we have seen anywhere in Asia. You would think that the low gas prices would be reflected in transportation costs – but as I mentioned above, this is not always so. In addition to that, Tony’s Coke addiction has set us back quite a bit (as we all know, Coke is to Tony what gas is to a car).

Fortunately, there are plenty of affordable things to go around. Here’s what you can get for 9,000 rupiah or around a buck:

• 1 load of laundry (about 3.5 kg)
• 1 creamy avocado shake
• 2 km taxi ride
• 4 liters (1 gal.) of drinking water
• 1 pre-cut pineapple on touristy Seminyak beach, Bali
• 1 hour of Internet access
• 1 vegetarian meal in a typical warung
• 2 liters of gasoline
• 0.5 liter of Coca Cola
• 3 packs of local cigarettes
• 1 mandatory donation to enter traditional Sasak village, Lombok
• 7 Yakult probiotic yogurt drinks
• 4 angkot rides (public minibus covering city routes)
• 1 sleeping mat rental on overnight ferry

Monkeys (and Russians) just want to have fun. But when this unsuspecting Russian tourist graciously offered a Balinese macaque a lit cigarette to clear his primate palette, ultra-radical environmental activist Thomas had to put the kibosh on the poor tourist’s Slavic fun.

Alerted from my perch atop a nearby temple by the booming echoes of Thomas’ enraged voice, I just had time to snap a shot of the exact moment he stamped out the cigarette. You could clearly see the disappointment in the poor monkey’s face… and the Russian’s. (Oh, so sad.)

Let’s just say, I’ve never been prouder.

 

A massive cloud of laziness descended upon us in Ubud. I guess even nomadic souls need some downtime every now and then. Luckily, the motivationally challenged can find plenty to do within a few minutes of the center of town. Check out our mini-gallery above for some ideas.

One great thing about Bali, and probably what makes the island so popular, is the Hindu influence and the associated culture and cuisine that come with it. Ubud, in particular, offers many different foods I’ve come to miss while traveling in the Muslim regions of Indonesia – the number one being pork. And not just any old pork.

Several restaurants around Ubud offer babi guling or roasted suckling pig (my mouth is watering as I write this). The pig is usually stuffed with chili, ginger, garlic, turmeric and other secret Balinese spices, and roasted over an open fire for hours while basted with coconut milk.

One restaurant Ibu Oka, located opposite the palace in central Ubud, currently stands head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to babi guling. Ever since Anthony Bourdain raved on his TV show No Reservations about the restaurant’s take on Bali’s signature pork dish, the eatery  has become increasingly popular. Of course, we didn’t know this at the time and simply followed the crowds into the lunch-only warung. We ordered the “babi special plate” for 30,000 rupiah (US$3.30). The dish included several slices of tender pork, savory pork sausage, crispy pork skin, a mysteriously flavorful paste, collard greens and rice, all topped with a tasty sauce.

As you can see in the top picture, we weren’t the only ones digging the food at Ibu Oka. The scraggly street dog in the background hung out there every time we went. Oops, I guess I have to admit that we had lunch there three days in a row – it was just so delicious. Who’s the pig now?

If you want to read more about specialty foods in Bali, make sure to check out the New York Time’s article The Flavor of Bali, at Roadside Stands.

After Sumba, Thomas and I needed a break in Bali. A few months of adventure in eastern Indonesia will leave even the most intrepid traveler inspired yet exhausted. What better place to relax a little than in Ubud. It’s not exactly off the beaten track, but there’s great food, some nice galleries, great walks in the surrounding countryside, and loads of culture.

Bizarrely, despite the fact that we spent almost a month in Bali the first time, we realized we hadn’t really explored many of the temples. Well, there’s no better place for Balinese temples than Ubud!