Greetings, fellow EarthTrippers!

The circle is now complete. I arrived back in Houston
on 3 August where I had left on 7 August 2000, thus
completing a 362 day circuit around Earth. After
Singapore (from where I sent the last update), I spent
the final two weeks of my overseas journey on Bali in
Indonesia, and then stopped off to visit family and
friends in California and Colorado before my return to
Houston.

I had originally considered traveling overland through
Indonesia, but time was running short, so I bought a
ticket and flew from Singapore to Denpasar, Bali in
Indonesia. I arrived in the evening, so found a room
in nearby Kuta, a busy beach resort about 15 minutes
from the airport where the surfers and beach bums hang
out. I was not particularly in the mood for that
scene, so I moved on via a 3 hour bus ride the next
day to Padangbai, a small port town on the east coast
(from which ferries travel on to neighboring Lombok).
Padangbai is on a pretty little bay flanked by a
couple of points formed from lava flows out of the
massive Gunung Agung volcano (the highest mountain on
Bali). I walked out on one of the points and was
fascinated by the interplay of the surf and the flow
structures, such as old lava tubes which caused great
jets of water to spray into the air when the waves hit
them just right. Down in the surf zone, I spotted
small crabs and some unusual small creatures crawling
about on the rocks. The latter looked like some kind
of marine snail or leech, with slimely little bodies
and an odd form of locomotion involving swinging their
little bodies one end at a time up the face of the
rock. The surf would occasionally sweep them back down
the rock and they'd have to start back up again.

Around the corner, I happened upon a small shrine to
and from which a stream of pilgrims was flowing in
honor of some local holiday (the Balinese seem to have
more holidays than any other society). In any even
vaguely formal situation, the Balinese will wear a
sarrong and sash (both men and women). The women tend
to wear them as a dress whereas the men will wrap
them around their waist like a kilt. On top, if they
wear anything at all, it's often just a T-shirt and
then sometimes an old, worn out one, perhaps with a
Nike or Cincinnati Reds logo or other equally
incongruous western emblem.

After two nights in Padangbai, I took a bemo (public
minivan) ride north to Jemeluk, which is a small
fishing village and minor beach/diving resort in a
string of similar villages which are collectively
referred to as Amed. This was a beautiful black sand
beach with good snorkeling just offshore (I saw a pair
of very large napoleon fish amongst many other
creatures) nestled between a small mountain (Gunung
Seraya) and the sea on the easternmost end of Bali. I
stayed there for 3 nights and did four dives nearby.
The first two were at the WWII wreck of the US cargo
ship Liberty, which is completely encrusted with
marine life and swarming with all kinds of tropical
fish. The site is less than 100 yards out and
virtually all divers reach it from the shore. It's a
very popular dive and if you are lucky, you might be
treated to the sight of a group of novice Japanese
divers attempting to start what looks like their first
dive by walking through the crashing surf on the
cobble-strewn beach and getting knocked down and
rolled around by the waves. Surely unpleasant for them
and although I felt sorry for them, I still couldn't
resist sharing a laugh over it with my divemaster. The
other two dives were near a small island close to
shore at a site called Gili Salang. This site has some
of the most colorful and pristine coral I have ever
seen in 8 years of diving. The coral variety was
amazing and there were great swarms of fish in all
sizes and colors imaginable. Fortunately, this dive
site is not that well known and is rather remote (it
took 45 minutes of driving over a rough road and then
another 30 minutes by dugout outrigger canoe [with a
small outboard] to reach it), and thus there are not
so many people diving it (thus preserving the coral
from excessive damage by scads of divers).

The road east of Jemeluk rises up on a ridge, and on
two occasions, I spent a hour or two up on that ridge
at sunset, taking in the spectacular view over the bay
and off toward Gunung Agung rising in the distance
above the clouds. Several others came and went to see
the view, and one evening I met a young Frenchman who
was touring around the island via moped. He joined me
for dinner at a nearby restaurant and then gave me a
ride back to my bungalow. As he was dropping me off,
the proprietor came by in traditional dress and told
us that there was a Balinese dance performance at the
neigboring temple in culmination of a three day
festival. We wandered over to that and watched as
several young girls performed for a large crowd of
locals and a handful of we tourists.

The next day, back up on the same ridge, I met a young
woman who happened to be from Boulder, Colorado (to
where I am moving shortly) and she was touring around
the island with some locals. We talked for a short
while and she gave me her name and told me to track
her down at the Boulder hair salon where she works
before she moved on with her friends. They left too
early, since as with the previous evening, the high
clouds around the volcano descended shortly after
sunset and afforded a great view of the peak rising
above.

Earlier, the Frenchman had told me of his visit to
Lovina, a region on the northwest coast of Bali, and
it sounded promising so I moved on to there the next
day, taking a public bus through numerous villages and
towns along the northern coast. The main attraction in
Lovina (besides dirt-cheap food and accommodation) is
the morning dolphin tours. I signed up for one and
went out in a dugout boat with a couple from New
Jersey who were vacationing there. Our boat driver
broke off from the main group of boats after 20
minutes of futile dolphin searching and we joined a
smaller group which had found a couple of pods
swimming about 2 km offshore. The boats scurried
around on the water chasing after the dolphins
whenever someone spotted them surfacing. At first, I
had to wonder if the dolphins were being harrassed by
all this, but then one of them started jumping bodily
out of the water and spinning 4 or 5 times in the air
before crashing back down into the water. I got the
distinct impression that at least that one was
enjoying the morning chase, and it became clear that
the dolphins could easily lose the boats if they so
chose.

Lovina was rather quiet otherwise, so I moved on to
the Gunung Batur volcano via the regular tourist bus.
This was a good choice, as it allowed me to join up
with 4 other tourists in order to defray the cost
associated with hiring a guide as is required to lead
us up the volcano early the following morning. The
volcano sits in the middle of a large (~10 km)
collapse caldera beside a semicircular lake (Danau
Batur) which occupies about 30% of the circular valley
formed by the caldera. We found accommodation at a
village beside the lake and arranged for our guide to
wake us at 3:45 am. Starting out at 4:00, we reached
the top of the volcano's rim about 6:00 am.
Unfortunately, it clouded up and we missed the sunrise
to go with our breakfast of boiled eggs and banana
sandwiches (the banana and eggs were cooked in a
steaming fumerole atop the volcano). We took the long
route down, passing into the volcano's crater, out its
blown-out side, and across a couple other fields past
volcanic cones of more recent origin. The skies
cleared up as we descended and we had spectacular
views over the caldera's lava fields to the rim and
beyond to the larger Gunung Agung off in the distance.

From the caldera rim, I caught another tourist bus
down the flanks of the mountain to the town of Ubud.
This is one of the main tourist centers on the island,
but despite the hordes, is quite a pleasant place to
spend a few days. I splurged on a $10 per night
bungalow with a nice pool and manicured grounds and
spent 4 days there. I bought some things in the
various shops around the island, chatted with a few
other tourists, toured through the Monkey sanctuary
south of town, and went for a bike ride one day. The
ride involved renting a decent mountain bike for the
day ($1.50) and peddling along a path leading north
out of town. The whole area consists of alternating
long valleys and ridges running north-south with a
fairly gentle slope to the south. The valleys all have
small streams or rivers, often cutting ravines into
the volcanic rocks beneath them and are lined with
trees and dense undergrowth along their steep walls.
The ridges are mostly cultivated with terraced rice
fields and elaborate irrigation systems. The path I
took ran up one of the ridges and provided beautiful
views of the carefully manicured rice fields
surrounding it. I rode up for a couple of hours and
then attempted to come back via the next ridge over.
Initially, the path down that ridge seemed okay, but
eventually, it petered out into the middle of a rice
field. I had come down quite a way and was reluctant
to backtrack, so I hoisted my bike onto my shoulder
and walked along the narrow edges between the rice
paddies. To make matters worse, I had been having some
intestinal distress much of the day and it culminated
at this point with an undeniable need to, uh,
fertilize  a corner of one of the paddies. Naturally,
the rice farmer's dog spotted me as I was finishing up
my business, and I barely had time to fasten my shorts
before the farmer himself appeared. He looked at me
inquisitively, but I blustered through with an inquiry
as to where I might find a better trail, and he
pointed off to the east. I had a bad half hour of
clambering down into and back out of a ravine and then
found myself back on the trail I had come up
originally. At the end, I was quite exhausted but
happy to have been back on a mountain bike after a
long hiatus and even had a bit more of an adventure
than anticipated.

I spent the last two nights on Bali back in Kuta,
where I spent the days shopping for souvenirs. On my
last evening, I hired a driver to take me out to the
westernmost point of the Bukit Peninsula (which hangs
off of the south end of Bali, below Kuta and the
airport). There are high cliffs above a crashing sea
along that point and atop the cliffs is a Balinese
temple complex with stunning views over the sea and
the cliffs below. I wandered around for a couple of
hours, being careful to hold onto my possessions
tightly as the place was crawling with monkeys which
have a bad reputation for stealing things from
tourists. On the temple grounds is a small
amphitheater with wooden stands around a circular
stage set back from the edge of the cliff, and that
night there was a Kecak, a Balinese dance performance
in which a tale from the Hindu Ramayana is acted out
to the accompaniment of a chanting circle of men and
boys (instead of the usual gamelan accompaniment). I
bought a ticket early and sat up in the stands with a
few other people to watch the sunset and write in my
journal as I was waiting for the show to start. Just
as I was starting to write, I was startled by a fast
moving object flying over my shoulder. When I had a
moment to recover, I realized that the monkey I now
saw before me had jumped onto the back of the stands,
leaped over my shoulder, and snatched my glasses right
off of my face! After stowing the rest of my gear, I
gave chase with the help of a man seated next to me,
but the monkey ran down to the cliffside trail and up
into a tree. The man who was helping me went off to
find one of the vendors at the entrance and they came
back with a boiled egg. The vendor tossed it to the
monkey who dropped my glasses in order to catch it,
and the vendor hopped over the wall to retrieve my
glasses, which were severely bent and chewed upon,
although the lenses were still intact. I gave the guy
a little money as a reward, but had wonder how many
times this scene had been played out (having witnessed
a similar exchange earlier that afternoon). I started
to suspect that the monkeys were trained by these
guys, but decided I was getting a little too paranoid.
Certainly there's at least some positive reinforcement
going on, as the monkeys end up with a treat after
stealing some item from a tourist.

The performance that followed was quite captivating
despite the fact that I couldn't understand a word nor
follow the story being portrayed. The colorful
costumes, intricate dancing, and enchanting singing
was enough for me, and the beautiful setting made for
a really pleasant experience. It made for an ideal
closure to my time on Bali.

The next day, August 26, I caught a flight to San
Francisco via Taipei and, with crossing the
international date line, experienced the longest day
of my life. Sleep was difficult to find on the plane,
although on the second leg of the flight, I was able
to stretch out on the floor between two middle rows on
a 747 for a few hours. Arriving in San Francisco, I
breezed through immigration and customs and was
overjoyed to be greeted by my brother John and his two
kids, Zach and Alex. I spent four days with them and
John's wife Marian, during the course of which we met
my friends Meredith and Steven for dinner one night
(finally, Mexican food done right!) and went on a day
trip to the Pallisades National Monument south of San
Jose. Here, we did a bit of hiking in this fascinating
park which centers around an extinct volcano split by
the San Andreas fault. The rockfall from the mountain
forms an intricate dry cave system complete with a bat
colony.

On the 30th, I flew on to Denver, for another reunion,
this time with my sister Clara and her kids, Kimberly,
Rachel, and Nicholas. Clara took me on a quick
reconnaissance mission through Boulder and then up to
her home in Evergreen where we were shortly joined by
her husband Glen who works in Denver. I spent the
following three days driving down to Boulder each
morning and searching for an apartment as well as
checking in with my academic and research advisors and
other staff at CU. For those not already informed, I
will be attending CU starting this fall in pursuit of
a PhD in Geophysics with a specialization in planetary
studies. I'll be supporting myself with a research
assistantship and will be working with data from the
thermal emission spectrometer onboard the Mars Global
Surveyor, starting August 20.

After finding an apartment near campus, I departed the
next day, August 3, at 4:00 am in my Jeep, driving
straight through to Houston, where I arrived at 11:30
pm. The next day was the party (see earlier message)
which was a most excellent time and perfect closure to
my journey, Chris and I having had a sendoff from
there one year ago. Thanks to all of you that made it
to the party and especially to Sandra, Ian, and Mike
who threw it.

This journey has been quite an incredible experience
for me and I feel quite privileged to have been lucky
enough to have had the ability and resources to carry
it out. I want to thank all of you for your
encouragement and I hope that these messages which
Chris and I have sent out allowed you to share in the
experience with us. Please stay in touch!

Than Putzig
than@putzig.com

address as of 18 August:
2950 Bixby Lane #A305
Boulder, CO 80303
U.S.A.

August 7, 2001 from Houston, Texas.