Tripping Out Alone

Thanks to the Air Asia sale I will be tripping out again to Sulawesi for the Easter break.. I have had no time to collect my thoughts, let alone the images from a wonderful trip to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.. days of dreamy poetic visions, delicious food and starry night skies. Having arrived back to Bali I ran headlong into a new job and the daunting yet audacious task of hosting a Global Youth Conference right in the middle of the APEC Summit meeting.. perfect timing! Putting this together has been one of the most rewarding and challenging experiences and I have enjoyed the mastery of my own emotions as I met with difficulties and more importantly support from unexpected places..

The adventure to Pontianak and Desa Saham was a culmination of three people's inspiration, previous experience and imagination.. Caleb had lived in Desa Saham, a Dayak village 17 years previously as a representative of Canada Youth. I had read Richard Lloyd Parry's What Young Men do and was drawn to visit the area he described, including the city of Ponitanak, Pahauman and the Dyak villages he described. Robi had been just six months previously and was keen to do further work with WAHLI to bring positive promotion through cultural links to the area. We ended up returning in June with 16 students..the adventure was written up for two magazine stories. One about Pontianak and the other about the Dayak Tribes..

Midway through a year that has been a roller coaster of changes and shifts I am back in Thailand, catching my breath in the metropolis. Here on Sesame Street, where I find myself ever more at home, I have everything I need and know where it is. And I am blissfully tripping out alone. The last trips have not been alone, sixteen students, two colleagues and three other companions were with me for the trip to Borneo and the Dayak Longhouse, and two colleagues joined me on the first trip, and this is not a philosophical blog I dont need to get in to what constitutes 'alone' or for that matter 'tripping out'..

October 2012 More adventures with friends - Sumbawa Barat was four days of really good food, sun and honey. The journey started with a quick plane ride from Bali to Lombok, then Lombok to Sumbawa Barat..super easy and almost fun.. We were visiting a friend's project, three lovely islands of the coast with a view to making some conceptual permaculture designs for the preservation of the eco-system, build up of dune protection and also give some input into the possible alternatives to cyanide bombing which is destroying the reef and leading to erosion of the islands. The days were sunny and spent on the water, the nights were quiet and the food was amazing..fresh, tasty and very healthy.. I spent fours days just decompressing, digging my toes in the sand, trailing my fingers in the sea and climbing trees. It was an adventure just to be out of routine and embracing the freedom of visiting somewhere so close yet so less frenetic than Bali. One night was spent camping out on the bea

The first day trek ended at a campsite by the river, the food prepared for our evening meal was amazing. Fresh jungle ferns and tropical fruits as well as chicken and fish..Cool. Best of all, not only was the only female I was the only non-Indonesian so when the sun went down and we ate our dinner the guitar came out and there was music under the stars. The next day I was happy to see that no one is in a hurry, things are under taken at a leisurely pace, breakfast was eaten, icy cold pools were swum in and we got to play around with face paints for a proposed photograph to accompany the story being written about our search for the last Sumatran Tiger. Two other people showed up and were curious as to why there was a man in tiger face paint crawling along the tree trunks so we chatted to them for a while before finishing the photos and making preparations for the next day's trek. Again it was well paced and at our first incline rest I sat slightly apart from the others and wa