Bright Green Future in Silimalombu

Samosir Island on Lake Toba in north Sumatra is a popular destination for any backpacker heading through Indonesia’s biggest island, and for good reason- it is a beautiful volcanic crater lake with clear waters and tranquil atmosphere.  The Batak people that comprise most of Samosir Island’s population are affable and always smiling, the food is fantastic, and the list could go on.  We got all these benefits in our time there but that’s not at all why we went there- for us it was to work on a farm.  Working and collaborating with farms has treated us very well, and nowhere more so than in Silimalombu, a small village which our host Ratna Gultom is attempting to transform into an “Ecovillage”.  Ratna herself is an inspiration in the way she thinks and acts- a great role model coming from within the community that is working to make a difference for future generations.  She frequently sponsors trash pick-ups along the lakeshore and bottom, has planted hundreds of trees, teaches the 3-5 year olds of the village, and is changing the way people think about their interactions with the environment.

Our main activities outside of the usual harvesting food for sale or for us to eat, weeding, mulching, or cooking were twofold: building a demonstration composting area and building a solar dehydrator.  While Silimalombu is blesses with extremely nice good soil, there are already signs of the slash and burn methods, chemical use of fertilizer and pesticides rapidly deteriorating the land.  Rich organic mass grows everywhere but is seen more as a nuisance than as an asset for growing wonderful soil.  Most of this project involved a lot of shoveling manure amongst other things as part of it was to clean out a out-of-use biogas unit that was full of probably 300 buckets of liquidy buffalo manure.  Most people don’t travel the world to shovel shit, but it seems we do!  And even more surprising; we love it!

The dehydrator was a really great project in so many ways.  The people of Samosir dry many things, particularly fish from the lake, but also cacao (chocolate beans), nuts, water reeds for weaving, and a host of other things.  But it’s the tropics and when rainy season attacks there is always a mad scampering of people out to the nets of things drying in the sun to cover or collect.  Bugs and animals often spoil the drying meat or run off with it for a nice afternoon snack.  With the dehydrator not only will the drying be more efficient, but it also saves space (stacking 11 trays vertically instead of having everything laid out side by side) and means you can just let things sit through the rain storm unhindered.

Traveling and meeting the people is great, but when you get to help them and have a positive impact on their lives, it is fantastic! The enthusiasm of the community for what we were doing was great!  Like every great technology, it starts with just one but I wouldn’t be surprised if a future visit to Silimalombu we would see one in every yard!  Although the entire community will not be using this initial prototype, it didn’t deter the many people who came out to work with us on it (including curious kids that sometimes made the work a bit more difficult!).  We also give a special thanks to Lena, another volunteer from Germany who was also indispensable- especially as a source of good conversation and fun.

Loveable Redheads!

 

Wild, rare orangutans swinging in the trees above our heads, that was the highlight of our time in Ketambe.  One day hiking up a stream bed we stopped to eat our picnic of avocadoes we mashed into guacamole with crackers, and a fruit you can only really eat where orangutans live since it’s up so high on forest trees you just have to wait for them to take a bite and hopefully not be too hungry so they’ll throw it down to you with a lot left!  As we ate, all of a sudden it sounded like a car crash behind us! We spun around to see an enormous limb just before it smashed against the ground.  Up above sat two orangutans staring straight at us with a look on their faces like, “Yeah, we’ve been sitting up here for like twenty minutes, you could at least look up and pretend to take a picture or something!”  In hopes that the next limb didn’t come down on our heads, we watched them swinging from limb (sometimes with their hands, sometimes with their feet) to limb like acrobats, or just sitting and munching on food, occasionally throwing us their scraps at us.  One highlight was seeing and entire family- mom, dad, and little red baby who we watched with delight as they played around the jungle gym of tree limbs.

Plenty of other monkeys and wildlife around to continue the amusement when the orangutans left.  For an authentic jungle experience I would certainly recommend a visit to Gunung Leuser National Park to anyone visiting Sumatra!

Paradise!

Paradise is no longer lost.  We found it!  Pulau Weh, Indonesia it truly perfect!  Normally we say a place is great if it has great people, or delicious food, or amazing wildlife and scenery, or is inexpensive and a good place to get some GROW work done.  Well, the small, northern most island of Indonesia has it ALL!

Great People:  Everyone says hello, good conversations, gives you that extra little helping of food because they see you like their cooking, tells you (good) directions to their competitors if they think it will better fit your needs, and are genuinely interested in you, not your wallet.








Delicious Food:  Coconut Curries, new fruits and nuts, and fresh homemade donuts every morning.  What else do I have to say!

Amazing Wildlife and Scenery:  I am writing this from the porch hammock of our bungalow which is directly above one of the most amazing marine life habitats we have ever seen.  In the first thirty seconds of entering the water we saw over 20 varieties of brightly colored tropical fish.  After only a short time more in the water we had identified multiple kinds of lion fish, spotted sting rays, huge octopi, giant moray eels (swimming!), beautiful anemones with clown fish (Nemos), lots of bright blue Dori (blue tangs) as well, huge trigger fish, stone fish (amazing camouflage), parrot fish (enormous and all colors of the rainbow), scorpion fish, trumpet, barracuda, needlenose, lobsters, crabs, manta shrimp, banded coral shrimp, beautiful moorish idols, butterfly, flounder, grouper, jack, sea snakes, giant clams, nudibranch, pipefish, damsel, surgeon, hermit crabs, gobies, blennies, sweetlips, christmas tree worms, feather dusters, sea urchins, really cool sea cucumbers, star fish, and those are just the ones I can identify and then remember to write down.  While diving, add sharks, turtles, a school of devil rays, and some of the largest sea fans we've seen, to the list. WOW!  Also as I am writing this there are wild monkeys playing in a tree less than 10 feet away from me.  Loads of entertainment but no fun when they steal your coconuts or throw your water bottle off the porch.




Inexpensive and a good place to work:  The wonderful bungalow I mentioned above: $5.  The delicious food: we normally split a $1 meal.  The great diving is a little pricy for us at $25 so we only did it once, but the amazing snorkeling is 100% free!  When the power is working our porch is one of the best offices we have ever had.




If it wasn’t that we missed our friends and family and that there are no immediate GROW projects here, we would find a hard time coming up with reasons to leave.  Paradise has been certainly been found.

Another Country Full of Kindness

A year ago when we were “tentatively” planning this odyssey we talked about skipping Malaysia altogether.  After just one week here we are very glad we didn’t.  Whether it is the Southern Asia culture or the Muslim influence, the people of Malaysia, or a least of Penang (the only part we know), are incredibly nice, helpful and generous.  The couple at the farm we worked with was fantastic and the Iranian/Malaysian couchsurfers we stayed with were equally great.  You can’t beat getting great local advice while eating feta (yes, feta cheese! Iranian food is awesome!), olive spread and flatbread and then get the extra bonus of learning about Iranian history which is also incredibly interesting.  We also owe Adel, our CS host a special thanks for his premonition that our bus to the airport (that we had been waiting over and hour for) was not going to come and swooping in as our guardian angle to drive us to the airport just in time to catch our flight to Indonesia.  Amazing!

Did That Goat Just Pee on Me?

If we had one secret to tell travelers that would change not only there trip but possibly their lives, it would be to throw away the guide books and the checklists of places to see and work with the people in the area you are visiting.  Lots of tourists go to Penang, Malaysia but we never even took the time to find out why.   We were too busy getting our hands dirty, harvesting fruits and vegetables on Grassroots Organic Farm.  Our local hosts Meishy and Lee were a wealth of knowledge about Malay food, culture, and tropical farming and the fresh garden meals we cooked with them over discussions of Permaculture ideas were priceless.  And when Brooke looked up to see a waterfall of urine cascading down on her as we collected manure for the compost underneath a goat pen, we could only laugh.  What a vacation!  
 

Climbers' Mecca

Sikhs go to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India.  Muslims go to Mecca.  If there was a similar destination you had to pick for those that make sport climbing their way of life, you would choose Karbi, Thailand.  It only takes a first glimpse at the overhanging limestone stalactites jetting out of the clear aqua blue waters of the Andaman Sea to realize, this is truly a climbers paradise.  Four straight days of rain didn’t break our spirits and when the sun finally peeked its head out we joined the rest of the climbing community in celebrating its arrival.  The fear of not climbing for five years quickly subsided and the in the moment, meditative state while moving along these perfect rock faces was true wonderful.  For some they may be so lucky to actually start here- like Edward and Elise, our Russian Couchsurfing host, who we got to take out for their first time ever climbing- what naturals.  Or the real naturals, the monkeys who jump on tree limbs behind you or climb on the rocks right beside you in order to make fun that you need a rope, shoes, and harness.  A climbers paradise indeed!

Playing In The Mud

 

Phangan Earthworks is a beautiful and inspiring place on Koh Phangan.  We were able to visit Hubert who graciously gave us a tour of the houses and buildings they have created while discussing the benefits of using alternative building methods such as earthbags (bags of packed dirt) and bamboo.  Part of our focus in Asia is learning about these alternative agricultural and building methods, and we are excited we now have even more ideas and resources to build on.  Check out their website www.phanganearthworks.com and let the photos speak for themselves.  Now we just need to start playing in the mud, too, to create our own beautiful home!

Bowling For Coconuts

I think we would do very well on Survivor- it seems we have been preparing for it for years as we always look forward to getting the chance to forage for our own food.  Donny has been perfecting his coconut opening skills with only his pocket leatherman and so when we found ourselves on a beautiful secluded beach of Ko Phangan with towering coconut palms everywhere we were in foraging heaven.  I started on the beach, into a grove and up some kid of path, rather gutted by erosion to look for dried ones while Donny tested his monkey skills shimming up the beachside palms for the green coconuts.  Finally I came upon four good ones- huge, unbroken and with the sweet sound of water sloshing inside when shaken.  But I had a long and steep descent back down to the beach and was thinking there was no way I could hold all four when a quote from The Big Lebowski popped into my head; “screw it dude, lets go bowling.”  Never really knew where they’d land as they bounced their way down the bush covered lanes (sadly, there was nothing to block gutter balls for me and it would sometimes end up in the tall grasses along the side, or deep in a ravine and I’d have to climb in after it and retrieve it with my feet.  At one point I think I had picked up a few extra but maybe lost the originals along the way because in the end back by the water I still ended up with four.

Donny in the meanwhile had been on the beach preparing a fire to cook up the zucchini we had bought at the market.  When there is no kitchen, you make your own!  The Coconuts turned out perfect and meaty and when perched ourselves up on our picnic rock and Donny cracked them open we feasted on its sweet deliciousness while the waves splashed up around us.  Our teeth and jaws are tired from the workout of the hard flesh, but it was so worth it! We still may not have all the survival skills of Laos, but we’re getting there.

Good To Be Back Under Water!

We got to go diving! Been in SE Asia for so long and almost all of it far away from the coast- it is good to see the bright blue waters of the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea! We dove Chumphon Pinnacle off of Ko Tao where a whale shark had been seen two days before, four days before and six days before. Unfortunately on the eighth day it rested leaving one more thing on our list before we die. Still it was wonderful to get back underwater and there were plenty of cool things to see. The brilliant hues of the giant clams are now up there with nudibranchs on my favorite animals to stare at and wonder at the amazing diversity and beauty of life.


Just as exciting as the diving was the snorkeling, especially when it was black-tip reef sharks swimming around us in Sharks Bay, a place that lived up to its name (though would have been more accurately named “Sea Cucumber Bay”) Now we need to go buy some lotto tickets in the hopes of winning to get to do some more diving.

Running Down the Street Dragging a Wedding Dress Behind Me

Today we were supposed to have a relaxing day where we headed to the tailors, picked up Brooke’s finished wedding dress and my suit, walked to our friend, Ginger’s to put the clothes in a box that she was going to send for us, and then meet up with our old friends Kate and Maryellen (who we randomly ran into on a crowded street in Bangkok and knew from a hostel in Guatemala two years ago. Small world after all) to hang out before catching our 6:00pm bus to Southern Thailand. The heading to the tailors was about the only thing that went as planned. When we arrived the wedding dress was far from the perfect state we were hoping for which made seem very small the fact that the last little tweak on the shirt they were doing for me turned in to a new shirt from scratch. Start the time ticking in the back of my head. Try the dress on, adjust, painfully tear pieces apart, sow, try on, adjust, and repeat! To make a stressful story short, in the end I decided to accept my shirt without looking at it (too afraid of more adjustments) and Brooke, almost happy with her dress, settled for discounts and some extra boning (no idea) that I hope someone in the states will know where to stick it. I left early for Ginger’s sprinting down the crowded streets of Bangkok, backpack on, dragging my new suit behind me. After wrong busses, traffic, and bad choices of when to get off (which meant more sprinting), I finally reached Ginger’s only realizing then the daunting task I had of fitting every strange and abnormally sized object we could find in Thailand into a nicely rectangular, possibly a little too small, box (a rice steamer basket? Really?). Brooke arrived at quarter to five with even a crazier tale of travel and after some tape, a little more tape, a little extra cardboard here and there, a little more tape and done! 5:00pm. Oh crap!...We forgot to put in the boning! After a few cuts and tears and a lot more tape, it was 5:15 and our real adventure was about to begin! - Getting back to Khao Son Rd in Bangkok rush hour traffic before our 6:00pm bus left.

At 5:30 we were still on the street being turned down left and right from taxies that were saying it was impossible or they didn’t want to go that far. At 5:40 we were begging a moto driver to take us and finally for 100B a piece (expensive $3.00) he and his buddy agreed. The next 15 minutes were a blur of passing stopped cars (stuck in traffic), dodging oncoming traffic (I don’t think this is our lane!), popping the moto over curbs and medians, and evading pedestrians as we took a shortcut through a park. At 5 min to 6:00pm I pried open my ghost white knuckles and handed each driver a sweat drenched 100B note. I really hope our moms do not read this one! We were safely at our bus stop. Kate and Maryellen were also there prepared to stall the bus with whatever tactics were necessary until we arrived. They are wonderful people and I am glad that they are the last sights we saw we finally escaped the big city!

A Simple Life

One of the more unique places we have come across in all of our travels (and that’s really saying something, we’ve been around a lot!) is the Asoke communities in Thailand.  They are Buddhist communities where we were lucky enough to spend a week and a half, part at Santi Asoke and part at Sisa Asoke.  We only wish we had more time at each and to be able to visit the rest since each sounded so wonderful and different it its own way.  They are so pure in their thoughts and practice- hard work and simple living, and the practice what they preach.  The food here is vegetarian, both out of respect for all sentient beings and to tread more lightly on the Earth, and they grow almost all of it themselves.  They pride themselves on hard, self-less work, and it is in their work that they do their meditation and grow as a community, by working together.  No words can describe the wonderful hospitality they showed to the two of us during our time there- we feel we have made life-long friends in some of the people that helped us along our path for knowledge and understanding.  We only wish we could thank them more adequately, but they certainly do not do it for the thanks- when we left it was with hugs and the open invitation to return, plus a bundle of food for our journey- they would not even take a donation from us if we tried.  True generosity of giving without the hope of anything in return, just to be good human beings and maybe get some good karma in return.

To see our album on life at the Asokes, go to picasaweb.google.com/GROWinitiative/AsokeLife

Down on the farm

Daruma Farm might only be 2 acres, but they are 2 beautifully maintained and thought-out acres that have inspired us as we move along our path of sustainable agriculture.  While we only got to spend a week there we had a wonderful time thanks to the hospitality of all- Neil, Troy, Nang, Choat and Am!  We shared all of our meals together and got to try many new Thai dishes like morning glories.   Am taught us how to make them and now they are our new favorite, and so easy!  While work on the farm is not all glamor (like the rock hauling) we did get to get our hands dirty initiating a new composting system, watering, mulching, harvesting food, and helping with the building plans.  We learned from their experiences and shared our own and filled the nights with our nose in their great library or with great conversations with Troy and Neil.  We wish you guys the best! 

Bright lights, big city

Bangkok, thriving metropolis, and the first time we saw it we were coming from India and so thought it was the cleanest city we had ever seen. We’ve hit the streets of Bangkok quite a few times now heading in and out as it is jumping off point to most places, and while roaming the city streets we did what many tourist do: got a custom made suit, and while we were at it something probably no tourist ever does, I’m getting a custom made wedding gown! We also stayed with a Buddhist community in the city, but that deserves its own whole blog so more on that later.

And while in the city we have realized yet again what a small world it really is. Being almost exactly half way around the earth from our home in America you don’t usually expect to see familiar faces. So when we ended spending time with a friend of mine from Colorado (who I hadn’t seen in seven or eight years) and a friend of ours from Peace Corp Jamaica in the same week, we had to do redo the math on figuring how small the world really is. Our linking with Ginger (CO) and with Lauren (PCJ) were both wonderful, but very different if you were to compare the two. Lauren, like us, has caught the travel bug and I am not sure I can name a country she has not been to. Our time together was spent eating street food and hula hooping with locals in the park.

Our time with Ginger was more like a scene when the Beverly Hillbillies role their dilapidated wagon into Beverly Hills for the first time. Ginger is the Secretary to the US Ambassador here in Thailand and her plush apartment in a skyrise building in the center of Bangkok is a little bit off from the open air, bamboo mat huts were we stack our dirty clothes underneath our head when we lay down to sleep for the night.

On our arrival Ginger and Doug were open to trying our vittles and sticky rice (although they used fancy chopsticks to eat the rice instead of their hands) that we brought from the countryside and in exchange added in delicious wine (made from grapes) and a magical heating contraption they called a stove. The next day we hours marveling at their washer and dryer and even more time trying to figure out how a little light in the closet automatically turns on and off each time you open the door (light goes on…light goes off…light goes on…light goes off). Is this heaven?

Really though, a couple friendly faces and short escape from the developing world was just what we needed to refresh us and prepare us for our next projects and adventures. It was great seeing you, Lauren and Ginger, and thank you Ginger once again for the wonderful hospitality!

Karma:

(noun) the cosmic principle according to which each person is rewarded or punished in one incarnation according to that person's deeds in the previous incarnation.


So we apparently did something good at some point in our lives since our karma seems to be pretty great. Or perhaps it is just how wonderful the people that we encounter are in gaining good karma for themselves. In any case, our second big hitch hiking success since getting back to Thailand came right after Koh Chang when we met Pata. She knew the obscure forest monastery we were trying to head to and took us out of her way to get there, only to find that it didn’t so much exist in the way we thought it did for us to go and stay for meditation. Ooops! (and thank goodness she picked us up or we would have been trying to find it for hours and hours it was in such an obscure place with only Thai alphabet signs!) But when one door closes, another opens and at her suggestion we went and stayed at a wat near to her house where she has a rubber farm. The monks at the wat where we did stay were so warm and welcoming, I think we were the first foreigners that had ever been there. The Wat itself was still under construction and we slept on the marble floor with a thin reed mat for “cushioning,” got up at 4am with the monks for meditation, took our meals with them and enjoyed the tranquility and novelty of it all (as did they as one monk took pictures of us while we were meditating one morning- interrupts the tranquility when you see a bright flash through your closed eyes!).

After a few nights with the monks we moved next door to Pata’s who turns out used to have her own Thai restaurant in Canada where she lived for 20 years and she taught us to cook! Cultural exchange, cooking lessons and great conversation, doesn’t get much better than our time with Pata and her wonderful hospitality. She certainly has some very good karma coming her way.

What a Thumbs-Up Will Get You

While we understand that standing on the side of a dirty, desolate road waiting for the awkward meeting of a complete stranger to pick you up and take you to who knows where is not for everyone, it is amazing what just putting yourself out there sometimes will bring you. The start of our trip back in Thailand was one of these times. Not to mention other rides by wonderful people, the crowning jewel of this trip was getting picked up by a smiling Thai local named Toat. At the time we were heading to a forest monastery for meditation about 100 km past where he was going- which was to Koh Chang. Koh Chang is a beautiful island we had read about and originally planned to go to, and when he said it was where he was going we decided to utilize why we keep ourselves flexible and told him we’d love to go along with him if that would be ok. He not only said OK but included in the trip a wonderful visit at his mother’s house first where we were given heaps and heaps of delicious fresh fruit to gorge ourselves on, then keeping on going in his truck a ride across the ferry to the island and down to a secluded little tip aptly named “Dead End” where he had 2 bungalows, one of which was generously given to us for the 3 nights we stayed. It was on a quiet cove of crystal clear blue water and snorkeling right off the shore, meeting other locals, waterfall hikes, sharing delicious meals and learning to cook some of them. All of this and never even asking us for a dime, though in the end we offered a nice “donation to the cause”- I guess that cause of being hitch hiking friendly travelers that are looking for an adventure and real cultural experience. Thanks Toat, Chang, and everyone else we met on Koh Chang, it was incredible!

Angkor Wat

There is a lot of hype about the Temples of Angkor- and we are happy to report that it is well deserved! Our travels are more about helping people and working on projects than a tick list of all the wonders of the world (Angkor Wat is the 8th apparently) but we do get the occasional chance to check out some remarkable places. The trip started with a sunset visit at the crown jewel of the temples, Angkor Wat itself). The next day it continued with riding bikes from Siem Reap at 4:30am to catch the sunrise over the ancient ruins and didn’t end until the sun had set over the majestic Pre Rup temple (about 75 biking kilometers and 16 hours later). We climbed the impossibly tall stairs of Ta Keo and had the entire place and view over the rainforest tops to ourselves, we ate our breakfast in Ta Prohm watching a mammoth tree slowly breaking apart a beautiful structure of stone that must have taken years to build and has lasted over 800 years, we held the stares of the enduring 54 faces of Bayon as we weaved through the corridors, we stood on the backs of elephants at the Elephant Terrace, and that’s just to name a few highlights. Truly an amazing place! Let the pictures do the talking.