As we began our descent over Sinai, I saw how much desert this place is... endless sand, with nothing else. Egypt is really just a strip of civilization running up the nile, largey empty, but inhabiting 80 million people. This was my first time in an Arab, Muslim country, and touching down on the Egyptian tarmac I was sweating - wondering if I wouldbe searched for having an American passport, what if they demanded my itinerary and saw my next flight is from Tel Aviv?

Customs ended up not to be a problem, although it was highly unorganized. You have to buy your visa from a bank in the airport, and there are no signs to tell you this. I wanted in line four times before I figured it out, as the only instructions given were a grunt and a point to away from customs. Immediately the people at the car service station were curious if I liked George Bush or Obama better. Obama seemed to be the better choice but they said they were ok with Bush too. Strange.

The streets are some of the most fascinating Ive seen - rural and urban worlds coexisting... goats passing by electronics stores, a ritz carlton next to open air meat markets. Life here is lived on the street, people are out, drinking coffee, smoking sheesha... and after walking for a few hours you could feel the heart of these folks... a passionate welcoming and curious people... and for the first time I could feel the heart of the muslim people... and it was a vibe that I felt much more at home in than ANY asian country I visited. There was a authenticity and a vigor that was familiar to the streets of New York.

I got the the hostel - an eight story elevator ride to a roof with bungalows on the top, and the first guy I met was a photographer - Dan Seltzer from Tel Aviv. One brave dude - who never hesitated to tell the locals where he was from. In the few weeks he was in Cairo he seemed to carve out a lot of relationships with the locals, from the barber on the corner and the street food vendors people knew him, knew who he was, and seemed curious about him. I watched one man who worked at the hostel ask him if he was from Iran, and Dan told him he was from Tel Aviv - and the reaction was of pure shock, mouth open. Dan told me that he could be in potential danger just being who he is in Egypt... which was no joke. I never did ask him why he wanted to tell everyone where he was from... but you cant help to think that Egyptians meeting a single smiling Israeli photographer in their home town eating the local food and being at ease makes a big difference in how these folks see Jewish people.

At the end of my journey I went to see the Pyramids.  After taking 3 local busses that cost 10 cents in the wrong direction I found the place. The site is surprisingly butted up against the city, walled off with the desert behind it. When I was the pyramids as a little kid in school I figured the pyramids were far off in the desert - not on the side of an urban town. I was warned that the hustle would be worse here in Giza that almost anywhere in the world. Which wasn’t the case. People left you alone once you told them no thanks, but they there are dozens of people who downright lie to you... that the site is closed, that you need a camel to get in, that you have to get a government license to camp to go in.. wacky stuff. The sphinx at first glance was really small, and the pyramids were big, but i guess I expected them to rival the size of a skyscraper... I met a couple of Arab dudes who I drank coffee with near by who invited me to their roof to watch the light show where they project lazers with images illustrating the history of the pyramids in Japanese. The guys then took us to a perfume store... it was half hustle half genuine friendship... all kind of uneasy.

Overall the experience was great... to see the images that decorated your kindergarten classroom in real life. The pyramids were cool... and watching the folks around the pyramids I realized how many egyptians were cast for Stargate. When I first saw Stargate I just thought they cast people who looked ind of like space aliens... but the milky skin dark hair and eyes in an egyptian thing... and I’ve never seen any group look quite like it... and growing up in queens thats saying something!

Beyond the streets and the pyramids the best thing in Egypt was the food. For a couple bucks you would get a multiple course street meal - foul, some kind of friend foul that is crunchier than falaffel but similar, called felfela... greens, pickles, all kinds of salads. AMAZING. I already miss it. Another highlight was watching Survivor series 1994 at a sheesha bar drinking coffee... of yeah ... turkish coffee is my new fav. I do need to learn how to make it at home.

Ill write tomorrow about my time in Israel... in London now with the family. In a week ill be home.

We left Udaipur and got to Agra - a place where everyone says that the hustle is intense and warns that you have to brace yourself for pushy unsolicited business offers. I dont know if by the time I got to Agra that I was just used to this kind of thing or if backpackers and the writers of the lonely planet are just pussies - but the hustle was not intense at all when we arrived, we stayed just a day and saw the Taj Mahal. The thing is huge - a real spectacle that makes your mind wander just seeing the magnificence of it. Outside of teh Taj in Agra there is not so much to do, just a busy town with honking scooters and rickshaws kicking up dust that fills the air.

The air is filthy - smoke, dirt, gas, shit, piss, peoples constant cough droplets, and Ive had a about of sinus and lung infection since being here. The biggest drawback to doing an extended stay. So after Agra it was a 12+ hr train to Varanasi - the place where Hindus are cremated to go to nirvana. If you've ever seen pictures of India with hundreds of people bathing on concrete steps that was likely people bathing in the holy Ganges in Varanasi.

Stepping of the train you enter a manic, packed city of noise, far from the spiritual utopia I images, but after 40 minutes in traffic you get dropped of at the edge of the old city. The old city is an ancient labyrinth of alleys and storefronts selling legal marijuana for prayer, flowers, photo services to document your family members funeral... every building seems to have a rooftop cafe selling north indian and Chinese food. We stayed at the pink floyd hostel - because of the good review in the Lonley Planet and the extreme Kitch factor. Everyone working in the 7 floor guesthouse was stoned out of their minds - and cooked me some food that gave me the runs for three days.

The next morning Hissham and I walked down the alley from the hostel to the burning ghat, the place where bodies are burned overlooking the ganges. There is a strict no photo policy that you are reminded of constantly when you are walking around. When you arrive at the ledge overlooking five bon fires with corpses in them you are greeted by a makeshift guide who claims to work at the hospice, a very basic concrete structure next to the burning ghats with no windows where the old and sick wait to die before cremation. He tells us about the special mixture of wood used to burn a body that takes 3 hours, and that if you are a child, a priest, or get bitten by a cobra that your soul is considered pure and you dont need to be burned. After the speech and watching bodies burn for 30 minutes he takes you to the push priest in the temple above who says a prayer for you and your family and then asks for a whole bunch of money for wood for widows who die with no money.

Later we take a boat ride down the ganges and see the spectacle of daily prayer that looks like a broadway show of spinning flaming tin lanterns and chanting and lighting effects. The next day we found the same boat driver to take us to the other side of the ganges - a graveyard with bones and clothes of the dead. In hinduism once the person is dead and the soul is in heaven the body is just garbage - which can be seen by the following video. Enjoy!

It was last week, maybe more, that I left Mumbai. I wound up in the busiest, loudest city I've ever been to Ahmedabad. The place made midtown at 5pm on a friday look like Yom Kippur - the streets were packed, with people shoulder to shoulder like after an Islanders win in overtime with people scurrying to get to there cars. But here people were scurrying to get thier loved ones presents for one of the most important Holidays, Diwali.

After two days of intense urban chaos I escaped in an overnight train to the majestic landscape of Udaipur. On the train I met a very talented young photographer named Hishaam from the Netherlands, who used to work in the DEA of Holland - who knew the Netherlands had such an agency? We arrived at seven in the morning and made our way to a quaint guesthouse that charged just a few dollars for the room, overlooking the lake where you could see a palace in the distance on a hill. The place was filled with people selling trinkets, pipes, suits and the rest - but the culture of the place was one of service rather than hustle and sweetness rather than the con game - which made me feel more at home than anywhere I've been on the trek yet. I met another New yorker - Dalit, a young Jewish Lawyer from NY (please dad, no comments needed, I know what you are thinking), and together we all went to see Udaipur celebrate Diwalli.

The streets were covered in lights, and filled with songs. Horses with cotton placed in their ears to protect them from the loud horns blaring danced in the streets. Walking through the town there were dozens of performers and countless prepubescent boys lighting firecrackers, that sounded much more like bombs than anything you would find for July 4th back home. The noise the explosives made were startling, the place felt like a war zone mixed with a party. One of the most special moments of the evening was being invited to light fireworks with a local family, who fed us sweets and gave us their chairs and let us in on their great night.

After a few days It was time to leave Udaipur, even though it was time. Hishaam and I took a day bus eight hours to Pushkar, a very touristy holy town where they are getting ready to parade 20,000 camels through the village. Because prices multiply tenfold, were leaving for Agra tomorrow evening to see the Taj Mahal.

Looking at my budget is a sad sight. Starting in Japan put me over abut one thousand dollars from what I was expecting, and with my journey ending in the UK, with not enough money it looks like I may have to come home a few weeks earlier than expected. Ill figure out my new schedule in the next few days. Beyond the travels and new friends I've been researching my documentary heros - Errol Morris, Frederick Wiseman, Ira Glass... and yes you all of my friends - finding interviews, taking notes, and have been working on a text book for students looking to transition into being professional documentary makers. Unlike most books that simply tell you how to tell a story, or which camera to buy, I want to make a book that tells kids how to get jobs, how to keep your skills growing while you are financing your projects, and how to thrive while pursuing a passion that wont always pay all of your bills. Coming from a young guy who's figuring out all of these things for himself I'm hoping to add some freshness and some reality to the current selection of books - and before I get it published I'll put it online for free under a creative commons license - so i can preview and test the chapters and lessons before it goes to a final print.

Maybe it’s the low value of the dollar so people can’t spend like they used to, maybe its the recent political instability, maybe its the low tourism, or maybe its just that the country has had it’s fill of obnoxious white drunk travelers, but Thailand is no more the backpacker playground I’ve heard so much about over the years. My general impressions of the place were that it was beautiful, but most of the people I met were trying to fuck you in one way or another, or were just cold.

Hitting the ground in Mumbai was instantly inspiring. A wild blend of different religions, culture, class, with people of all kinds living next to, and literally on top of each other. It took a couple of days to lower my guard from Thailand - people who greet you on the street, even when they are hustling, generally have something or some information of value and aren’t attempting to can you. A lot of folks approach you and just want to talk and hang out. Its crazy fast city life, but somehow people have time, and will help you buy a bus ticket, give you directions, and have a beer with you.

One guy Sunil walked up to me the night I landed and he was schmoozing and I was sure he was going to either try to kidnap me or steal my wallet - why else would a guy meet me on teh street and ask me if i wanted to get lunch? Well after hearing about Sunils canadian girlfriend and him showing me pictures of his life and texting and calling his friends with me and eating a few meals, I felt like a huge asshole because this guy really just wanted to hang out. The next day I met a woman who is a social worker, who’s been in Arizona for 4 years working, who is from outside Mumbai, who offered me help with my train tickets and we’ve been walking around and hanging out for a couple days. One thing I can tell you about making friends in India is that they will call you all the time, and will repeat call until you pick up, and will wait for you outside your hotel. At first I thought this was another sure sign I had walked into a kidnapping operation... but in reality people are just chill and friendly and don’t mind waiting and hanging to see if they can meet up with a new friend.

After buying my train tickets to my next destination I got into a can and told the cabbie where I wanted to go - he warned that it would be very busy on a sunday and suggested that if I wanted to do a tour of the city, he would take me, and sunday was a good day to do it because there is less traffic on sunday. While my NY rectum is so tight on being sold anything, this guy, a Sikh with a sailors mouth - I knew was my kind of guide and I couldn't have been more right. What was originally going to be a few hrs he, and later his father, took me around the city for seven hours and it was awesome.

First we visited Ghandis house in Mumbai, which had an incredible presence. I was very moved sitting in his library, looking out the windows imagining him having his morning tea while planning the nonviolence campaign. We drove around the city, stopped in a department store filled with jewels and expensive handbags that had a view of a slum from all of the windows. We visited the Dharavi slum where Slumdog Millionaire was shot, and the rent is about four bucks a month. My experience with very poor neighborhoods in the states is that people are just hanging out, nothing to do, with lots of teenage men looking for trouble and looking to either fuck you up or steal your stuff or both. When I was thinking about entering a neighborhood exponentially poorer than the worst neighborhood in the Bronx, I was scared, but what I found was much different than any expectation I had. People were too busy to even notice me as I peered into the  different businesses. Barbers, cell phone stores, recycling centers, potters making clay pots, store fronts and work places constructed with sticks, pieces of fence and plastic tarps. People ignored me for the most part, and the mood was that of any city - only it looked like a Mad Max post apocalypse nightmare. The poverty is real. Naked babies crawling on concrete. Hundreds of thousands of people shitting in the same river. But the hardworking spirit was here, as it is in all of the India that I’ve seen.

Another realization that came yesterday is that my hotel is in the middle of the chaos of the Mumbai bombings that took place less than a year ago. In the cafe below my room 10 people were murdered with automatic weapons. The main Taj Mahal hotel that was bombed was less than a block away. I haven’t seen the Chabad house but I did see a NY Kosher Deli so I can’t imagine that it’s too far. I ask about race relations with most people I meet - and in regards to ethnic tolerance this place feels like NY. While gays just got the rights to hook up months ago - there is a peace underlying the chaos and an integrity and a directness in all of the people I’ve met. Im exited to go north to Rajasthan - supposed to be the land of fairy-tale india full of beautiful sunsets castles and magic.

All the shots are on facebook here.

We arrived in Bangkok just a week ago and was excited to get away from the crazy islands and see a real city again for the first time since Tokyo. The bus got in at five-thirty in the morning and the place was still jumping with late-night Thai revelers. The first mission as the sun was rising was to find a cheap room on Khaosan road, on the far west side of Bangkok, and area set up just for backpackers. An underground capitalist circus engulfs the road with street vendors selling fake drivers licenses, college diplomas, women, pirated music, video games, movies, second hand books and likely stolen luggage. Tuk Tuk drivers, who are scooters with a seat in the back, swarm you every time you make a turn and cross a road with either 1) inflated prices for a trip that would cost several times over a metered taxi or 2) discounted prices where on the way to your destination you are expected to buy “genuine” gems or get a great deal on a polyester suit where the driver gets a discount or 3) drugs to by which after buying you are paid a friendly visit by the police and have to pay 1-2,000 USD’s to get out of jail. It is the wild west… but in the east. It’s the most fucked up city I’ve ever seen. Curious to see what scam is the most popular this week? Visit bangkokscams.com.

After getting a good nights sleep we made it up to Chatuchak weekend market that showed a much cooler way to spend some cash in Bangkok.  9,000 stalls from local sellers selling everything you can imagine, mostly really nice handi crafts, but the best was a little alley with all 20 something designers with some really great tshirts for sale. Puts the uber hip DIY flea markets in Brooklyn to shame. Hell these kids are giving Mishka and Supreme a run for their money. I later read that the Thai govt has been giving a lot of money to educate kids in design and setting up design libraries and money to help start businesses. Very smart – and the kids were the nicest people I’ve met in Thailand.

One thing that surprised me is how many Japanese are here. I would estimate that at the mall twenty to thirty percent of the people were Japanese. Billboards even targeted at Thai audiences have lots of Japanese people advertising Pepsi, jeans, glasses… whatever. The Japanese are here and the Thais seem to think they are rather foxy.

Helen left a few days ago – Still here with good ol’ Joel from LI and the Jersey Boys (English Jersey… like OLD Jersey and unlike toxic landscape you know of, its supposed to be a very beautiful island close to France). Since then I’ve gotten really bad food poisoning, sprained my foot, and got a little lung infection. At least the physical conditions keep changing every few weeks! Been putzing around the city, and am ready to leave. Working out my visa for India now, and I’m hopeful I can be in Mumbai in a week to begin my northern Indian trek trough Delhi into Nepal. I really wish I could see my friends for a couple days before though… eat at Bliss and a slice of Vinnies for desert with a pint of Blue Point Toasted Lager and get a cup of Stumptown Coffee at Brooklyn Standard the next day. MMMMMmmmm. I miss home.

The first stop in Thailand was Krabi, a town on the southeastern coast of Thailand. Krabi is usually used as a jumping off point for the east coast islands, but with the reports of dangerous tides and non-stop rain I said contained to day trips from Krabi where I saw bit of earth that were otherworldly. The landscape of south eastern Thailand is covered in hollow rocky mountains, that I was told were originally coral reefs that were calcified and gradually rose out of the ocean.

Helen and I took a kayak tour through the mangroves and mountain caves that were filled with three thousand year old hieroglyphs, and went to a small island with beautiful Riley Beach. While Thailand is famous for being the “land of smiles” the interaction with the local folks always seemed edgy and serious – the kind and warm Thailand where they praise westerners was still elusive to me.

During this time I developed a huge rash from the mattress I was sleeping on that covered my arms, hands and midsection, which was quite an omen for the next few days. The next stop was to be Koh Pangan – an island notorious for hippy backpacker parties, and after the day long journey there from Krabi Helen and I split as she went to visit her friend Elena that was on the other end of the Island from the more populated party area that I was eager to check out. The place is full of places catered to westerners – Italian food, burgers, music shops, back packer heaven. The prices were inflated from Krabi while there were still cheap eats to be had. One surprise is that Israeli’s are everywhere – they have restaurants with Hebrew menu’s and accommodations where all the signs are in Hebrew only.

The other big surprise is that for a place that has a reputation for being very cool and cutting edge, the music that is played at the bars and clubs is terrible - on par with your cousin Michael’s barmitzvah –Brittany Spears, Kanye autotuned remixes, and Akon are blast across the island and fill the tranquil bungalow where I am staying until 6am.

I got a call from my buddy Joel that he was coming to Koh Pangan, and we met up and realized that he had taken teaching classes for the last month with Ellens friend Alena So we got a map and found the beach they were staying, rented a motor bike, and away we went. The only problem was that the map showed roads going to the beach, which was not an accurate representation when the reality was more – dirt, rocks, and ditches. The only thing that really separated the “road” from the jungle was that on the “road” there were no trees, but I think taking a scooter straight through the jungle may have been easier.

The rocky slopes were so steep and so sandy that even with breaks we skidded down the mountains – with me driving and Joel on the back. During one especially treacherous path we took a spill in which the scooter ended up on my knee and left it bleeding. Joel was alright and the bike appeared fine. It could have certainly been much worse. When we arrived at Bottle Beach three hours after our departure we celebrated with the girls with a bottle of wine in the ocean looking at the sunset in the most tranquil peace of earth I’ve found. At that point I was stung in the testicles by a jelly fish which made quite an interesting sight with a rash covering much of my body, a bleeding knee, and swollen balls. It was a lovely night – we stayed on the beach as we couldn’t get back to our bungalos on the other side of the island at night.

The next day when we returned the bike the rental place insisted that has to replace most of the parts on the bike even for very minor scratches, including the plate underneath the bike that is designed to be scratched. Word to the wise – if you are going to rent a bike in a 3rd world country – get it form a place with bikes coved in punk stickers and scratches. We found out later that on the island it’s a regular racket to rent bikes in pristine condition and send tourists out on dirt trails and charge them a lot of minor scratches.

Later in the night was the black moon party – which was a proper rave on the beach. We paid a cabby to take us there but after giving him the money he still refused to leave and when I protested and got out of the car and asked for a refund he hit that gas and drove in my direction, either trying to scare me or flatten me, im not sure. After vehicular attempted murder he agreed to drive and next to him in the cab was his son who suffered from some kind of slowness or autism, and with his son in the seat the cab charged through the small mountain roads of the island with the intent to scare us, which it certainly did. I think Helen Joel and I were all scared for our lives for a good ten minutes.

While It had been a few odd and expensive thirty six hours the party made everything alright. We danced until seven in the morning to very heavy trance music, and when the sun came up dancing on the beach surrounded by smiling faces. The tide was out and people wandered out for what looked like miles on the oceans bottom in the saturated island light.

I’ve slept well for the last few days. Going to take it easy before saying goodbye to Helen who I’ll miss very much. Its strange how close to become with someone in adventures so far away from home. To Bangkok in a few days. Beach for now. An addendum from Ms. Helen:

I'd like to think Jesse's seen Thailand's "land of smiles" but I think that went out of the window when the tourism marketing campaign ended about 10 years ago! So he's now in probably the trashiest touristville that is Haad Rin in Koh Pangan (an island on the west coast), with ear plugs firmly planted after midnight to block out Britney Spears as it rattles off the sea water from the beach sound systems. However, day time is pretty idyllic, sitting here perched up high on the rocks in a bungalow looking out to the blue water and perfect sky. Can't complain really...

We did split for a few days but after a spectacular rendez-vous at Bottle Beach with Jesse driving up dirt tracks on a tiny scootter with another boy on board, he turns up hours later, dishevelled, cuts and grazes, dust and dirt with bottle of red wine in hand to drink in the cool sea waters. I say mission accomplished! Good work Jesse...or should that be 'so AWEsome dude!"

However nice this island is, not sure beach action is so much his thing, especially if there's no WiFi involved for the techno-head that he is. Rather happy to know he'll be hitting hot, sweaty, polluted Bangkok soon for his fix of city life, wierdness, transvestites (and vegan food). Ha, he's in for a treat! Keep your eyes peeled for the photos, I'm sure they'll shock and impress, in true Jesse style.

All the pics on facebook here.

After being on my way to Thailand from Indonesia, I expected my stopover in Penang Malaysia to be just that, a stop over. But what I found in this industrial tourist spot for Malaysians and Singaporeans was a really cool cultural cocktail with wild  super friendly people and some of the best food I’ve ever eaten with four vegetarian restaurants within a fifteen block radius.

Along the way I found my now weeklong travel buddy Helen from the UK. Being both Persian and French she was a great companion with my own mutt self to explore the lovely pluralisms of Chinese, Indian, and Malay culture in Georgetown, the urban center of Penang. All of the cheap guesthouses in Georgetown are located on Love Lane Inn – which you would think by its name would be the red light district, but instead a line of cheap guesthouses inhabited by backpackers, rickshaw drivers, transients, wanderers, and drug addicts alike.

Helen after traveling southeast Asia for seven months was more attune to the dodgier of accommodations, and we chose the cheapest  place we could find, The Han Wai Guesthouse. While we were warned that crack fiends and glue sniffers inhabited the place it ended up being a good deal at 9 Malaysian Ringits each. There were a couple of other white people there but its was mostly local families, a single Chinese mom who was going to art school who stayed at the guest house with her son, an Indian family who owned the rickshaw parked out front, the very sweet inn keepers who looked after us, and slept on the reception desk during the day and watched discovery channel documentaries at night.

The first restaurant we were recommended was the Sri Ananda Bahw Restaurant, serving only vegetarian grub, a north Indian thali consisted of nine different small dishes, and the garlic naan was accompanied by an absolutely mind blowing sample of their tandori soy chicken.  It’ts not often I get to taste vegetarian and vegan food that is a COMPLETLEY new taste, I don’t even know how to describe it. Somewhere between barbeque and Indian clove wonder. A little lime made the favor complexly electric. I returned several times, and then I ordered the soy fish, and got sick for a day. Don’t order the soy fish!

There were several restaurants we visited, but definitely one of the best was the food court we were invited to by our new Malaysian dad, Wong who we met along the polluted beaches. After chatting us up, the seventy one year old retired watch dealer, who lost his wife to cancer three years ago  invited us to dinner and drinks at a food court that represented Panag quite well. Food from all over the wold, expensive beer because its taxed by the muslim government and cover band playing top forty songs. We talked and drank talk and drank, and then I got sick from the soy fish poisoning and beer.

The biggest disappointment of Penang was the “Snake Temple”. When I saw snake temple on the map I got glimpses of a snake worshiping Buddhist cult injecting themselves with viper poison to achieve nirvana, but what we got was an ordinary Chinese Buddhist temple  with a poorly run snake farm on the side of it with monkeys chained to trees and in cages. Very very sad shit.  Don’t go to the snake temple.

We did get to cruise through all kinds of 3^rd world malls, wonderful fruit carts, meet crazy sweet people everywhere, and did get our prayer on in a great temple situated on a hill. I’ll definitely miss Penang. On the bus to Thailand now where the first stop is Krabi, apparently a rock climbers paradise. I think it may take a bucket of PCP to get me up a mountain using my bare hands, but being in the place that inspired me to take this journey is exciting.

Follow the week's pictures on Facebook here.

I got an email from Dan my partner in crime and editor on the My First Time series and he asked me if I had any new thoughts on the world. Well not specially the world... I've had the thought that I used to know a lot about Japan and now know I know nothing except japan is crazy and overwhelming and that getting a hooker in Bali is just about as easy as seeing a magical hindu temple. I have had some insight into MY world, the trip has given me some objectivity. Its clarified the kind of filmmaker I want to be, how big my dedication is to my craft, and how important it is for me to keep my goals set to the sky for me to be happy, to stay focused and to be able to be free. I've gotten to think about my amazing circle of friends and family and realize how lucky I am that I'll have them my whole life, and have had them so long already.

Part of the freedom of being in another country is that I arrive with the mindset of a guest, without judgement, only there to learn and support. When I travel I don't blame or make wrong or say these people should be doing this or that, I gracefully accept that I'm on someone elses ground and honor that. I look forward to bring more of that to my friendships and partnerships. I want to treat your life as the sacred space like any native territory there is in the world where its an honor to be paid.

I've been on Samosir island for five days now and can say its one of my favorite places I've ever been, where 75,000 years ago it is theorized the supervolcano it sits on top of erupted with such might it created the ice age. In the 60's it was a popular place with the hippies but since backpacker tourism took off in Thailand, the place has become almost a tourist ghost town, with huge resorts with 50 rooms only occupied by two or three guests. It creates a really intimate and cozy vibe as small groups of people gather in restaurants and guests houses with small parties everywhere with a playground of beautiful mountains and small private resorts to be had all to your own. The swimming is awesome with only small occasional boats passing by, and is calm as can be.

The local people are Christian and don't speak Indonesian much. They speak their own language - Batak, which almost sounds like spanish. There are smiles everywhere and the most relaxed atmosphere that makes Fire Island feel like midtown Manhattan. The workers though work all the time, all year, without a day off. The children just a mile away are poverty stricken and have no shoes - but seem much happier playing in the street than most young Americans. Everyone has fairly advanced cellphones - that are Hong Kong knockoffs of blackberries and Iphones. You will see groups of kids huddled together exchanging MP3's through bluetooth. In a poor country with no computers, cheap cell phones become their computers - and they do email, Facebook, photos and music all on their phones.

The girls treat you like a rockstar. Walking by any group of girls will get you a "Hey Handsome!" or "Come talk to me." But the other side of that seems to be that they want to marry you. Now.

One group of girls invited me to hang out, swim, eat, drink - it was a good time, for about 15 hrs then it got strange. After what could be considered at MOST innocent flirtation one girl professed her love for me and later yelled at me for going out with other girls when her friend saw me at a bar hanging out with a couple of backpackers from England. After this event I got dirty looks from just about every local girl in a 100 meter radius from where I was staying. It was definitely time to leave.

An invitation to join a party with a local couple and a couple of very proper chain smoking raver ladies from England invited me to a party to sample some of the local "magic" omelets and dance the night away with a small group of 6 or 7. I had my "magic" minus the omelette in tea - and soon after eating - I had to excuse myself from the party do to complete and total amnesia for four hours.  Id never had an experience with mushrooms like it before - be careful when dosing raw freshly picked mushrooms. Stuff is intense. I couldn't even remember who I was, where I was, what my legs were for, or what the hell I was doing as a conscious being on this planet.

After about four hours tho my memory returned and I danced in the hotel lobby with the party looking on until the roosters started to crow. The English backpacking ladies introduced me to a whole slew of new, inventive, sweet electronic music. I cant wait to get to Europe and dance now.

Click here to see all the pics on Facebook.

"Don't Follow the green follow the dream." - Puffy

“In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.” - Coco Chanel

Being on the road I'm watching a lot of flicks. In Indonesia dollar bootlegs of tons of movies are everywhere. The suprising thing is that its not just the recent action flick. They have really good indies, docs, and tv specials... I recently picked up Steven Soderbergh's 2 part Che series, The Notorious movie, and the Coco Chanel movie. Very cool to watch three stories who changed the world in very different ways, but in common they all had an amazing dedication to do something completely unique and always had their eyes on the prize and didn't let the immediate and overwhelming difficulties keep them from their dreams.

So in continuing with my little dream of circling the globe I left Bali about a week ago on Air Asia to a 5 hr stop over in Jakarta, to an overnight in Medan to a bus to take me to Lake Toba.

Arriving in Medan I first got a vibe kind of like mexico city, with streets bustling and car mechanics and hustlers everywhere. Th ehotel the taxi driver took me too was only 6 bucks, but is easily the most fucked up looking place ive ever slept with holes in the walls, electrical sockets with wires exposed, a padlock on teh door because the door lock was destroyed (and was not fixed, there is still a hole there).

As the sun want down I realized my hotel was literally in the middle of a parade for the first night in Ramadan, and my waiter at the restaurant warned me to keep my hands on my wallet and to watch my bag. I got that lost and drunk in bedstuy at 3 am in august kind of vibe, where EVERYONE was noticing me and it seemed like if they tried to mug me nothing too bad would happen. People calling "Mister! Mister" little kids, dudes in the street... I feel like a space alien. As someone who usually likes to chill in the background it was def a little uncomforatbale. On a footbridge some teenagers took out their money and gestured for me to take out mine. Didnt know what that was about but I didnt stick around to find out. I'm back in the hotel room with Islamic prayer music blasting from across the street. Look forward to being on the island tomorrow.