Sunday, February 7, 2010
MARCI ON BALI
Here's what I've learned about myself more than ever in the last six months....
I Love Beauty
I love lush green landscapes
I love extraordinary sunsets
I love swimming in a warm blue ocean
I love riding a motor bike with Skye holding on behind me tight in the pouring warm rain
I love long time friends on the road
I love that beauty is important to the Balinese in all their daily offerings
I admire that they celebrate life and death equally
I love that the Balinese people smile all the time
I loved going to morning yoga with Jib at the yoga barn which looked over the rice fields
I love the exotic fruits and yummy veggie meals indoor outdoor living
I love the way they look in their traditional cloths
I respect so much their commitment to their culture and family values
I love that art and music is so alive and well in Ubud
I appreciated how the elders had a strong presence in the daily work life of their village
I loved how incredibly friendly the people are
I felt at home....
In the Bali spirit
SKYE ON GILI AIR
I had an amazing time in Bali where we stayed for six weeks! A part that I really enjoyed was when we went to the Gili islands! These are three islands right off the coast of Bali. It took an hour and a half by boat to get to there.
My friends Sasha, Ruby, and I sat at the front of the boat where there was a little window out of which we stuck our heads. The thrill of the wind rushing through my hair was amazing. If you have ever skied and speeded down a really big hill, and felt like you could fly, then you sort of know how I felt!
We finally got to our destination, Gili Air! The island was really small, so small in fact that there were no cars, only horse and buggies, and you could walk all the way around it in a few hours. There wasn’t much to do besides play on the beach and hangout in the shade in the hot afternoons. But one day, we took what’s called an exploratory dive. We started in a pool and learned all the stuff we needed to know before we went into the ocean. Then once we were done with that we got all the equipment and piled it into the boat (ourselves included) and went out to sea! When we got to the right place, the captain stopped the engine and threw the anchor into the sea. We put on our equipment and in groups of three we sat on the edge of the boat and fell backwards into the water on the count of three! I popped my head back out of the water and gave a grin from ear to ear. I went back under the water with my two buddy partners (which you have to have) and we started to descend to the sandy ocean floor. We reached 50 feet! I was amazed at how deep we had gone and I loved it! At first there wasn’t much to see but then we swam around a big bulk of dead coral and came into a whole new world! It was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were sooo many different colors and shapes! There was also trillions of different kinds of fish like, Lion fish, Cuttle fish, Sea turtles, Parrot fish, and TONS more!!! I wanted to stay down there forever, but it was time for us to start heading back up.
It was an experience of a lifetime and I will never forget that trip to another world.
My friends Sasha, Ruby, and I sat at the front of the boat where there was a little window out of which we stuck our heads. The thrill of the wind rushing through my hair was amazing. If you have ever skied and speeded down a really big hill, and felt like you could fly, then you sort of know how I felt!
We finally got to our destination, Gili Air! The island was really small, so small in fact that there were no cars, only horse and buggies, and you could walk all the way around it in a few hours. There wasn’t much to do besides play on the beach and hangout in the shade in the hot afternoons. But one day, we took what’s called an exploratory dive. We started in a pool and learned all the stuff we needed to know before we went into the ocean. Then once we were done with that we got all the equipment and piled it into the boat (ourselves included) and went out to sea! When we got to the right place, the captain stopped the engine and threw the anchor into the sea. We put on our equipment and in groups of three we sat on the edge of the boat and fell backwards into the water on the count of three! I popped my head back out of the water and gave a grin from ear to ear. I went back under the water with my two buddy partners (which you have to have) and we started to descend to the sandy ocean floor. We reached 50 feet! I was amazed at how deep we had gone and I loved it! At first there wasn’t much to see but then we swam around a big bulk of dead coral and came into a whole new world! It was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were sooo many different colors and shapes! There was also trillions of different kinds of fish like, Lion fish, Cuttle fish, Sea turtles, Parrot fish, and TONS more!!! I wanted to stay down there forever, but it was time for us to start heading back up.
It was an experience of a lifetime and I will never forget that trip to another world.
JIB UNPACKED
First a bit of housekeeping. If you want to see the slideshows on the blog full screen, you can double click on the pictures and it should take you to our Picassa site.
Today we are in a rainy Buenos Aires, Argentina and Marci and Skye have written their first blog posts below. Since the last blog post, we spent almost 6 weeks in Bali and then a few days back in the USA before heading to South America. Soon we will travel south to the Futelafu River and then onto Valle Chacabuco and the site of a new Patagonia National Park.
Charles Dickens’ first sentence in a Tale of Two Cities included the phrase, ‘…it was the best of times; it was the worst of times…’ This sums up what I’ve experienced on the road so far.
We’re now about half way through our walkabout. Since the last blog entry we have roamed continents, crossed the equator twice, boated between equatorial islands, celebrated a new year with friends and family and flown across vast oceans in climate controlled metal birds.
I’ve seen how different and same people are; how happiness isn’t tied to wealth; how resilient local cultures have ritualized community service; and how technologies – like bottled water and cell phones – make it easy for people from far away places to visit, live and work (and thereby significantly influence local people and places). Above all I’ve seen the endurance, adaptability and possibility of people everywhere.
Capitalism has clearly become the dominant economic model globally. Increasingly human life on earth all hangs together. And the ability to be somewhere and transmit information far and wide instantly – like on this blog – changes everything.
In the coming years, winning business people and the companies they run will be guided by three simple principles…
They will:
• Seek Transparency – understand who is helped and who is harmed by your business, suppliers and industry
• Help Many – serve your customer, shareholder and employees and as many others as possible
• Harm None (but your competitors) – do the right thing, remove risk and sleep well at night
I believe that this holds as true for the woman selling boxes made out of recycled bottles on the Skeleton Coast of Southern Africa as it does for the $500 billion Walmart.
Today we are in a rainy Buenos Aires, Argentina and Marci and Skye have written their first blog posts below. Since the last blog post, we spent almost 6 weeks in Bali and then a few days back in the USA before heading to South America. Soon we will travel south to the Futelafu River and then onto Valle Chacabuco and the site of a new Patagonia National Park.
Charles Dickens’ first sentence in a Tale of Two Cities included the phrase, ‘…it was the best of times; it was the worst of times…’ This sums up what I’ve experienced on the road so far.
We’re now about half way through our walkabout. Since the last blog entry we have roamed continents, crossed the equator twice, boated between equatorial islands, celebrated a new year with friends and family and flown across vast oceans in climate controlled metal birds.
I’ve seen how different and same people are; how happiness isn’t tied to wealth; how resilient local cultures have ritualized community service; and how technologies – like bottled water and cell phones – make it easy for people from far away places to visit, live and work (and thereby significantly influence local people and places). Above all I’ve seen the endurance, adaptability and possibility of people everywhere.
Capitalism has clearly become the dominant economic model globally. Increasingly human life on earth all hangs together. And the ability to be somewhere and transmit information far and wide instantly – like on this blog – changes everything.
In the coming years, winning business people and the companies they run will be guided by three simple principles…
They will:
• Seek Transparency – understand who is helped and who is harmed by your business, suppliers and industry
• Help Many – serve your customer, shareholder and employees and as many others as possible
• Harm None (but your competitors) – do the right thing, remove risk and sleep well at night
I believe that this holds as true for the woman selling boxes made out of recycled bottles on the Skeleton Coast of Southern Africa as it does for the $500 billion Walmart.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
here today, gone to bali
Much action since last posting; in chronological order:
• November 4 – 9: time at the TEDIndia conference in Mysore, India where Jib shared about the future of business, and we all connected with old friends, met new ones and began a temple and sacred-spot visiting regime that hasn’t begun to slow
• November 10 - 30: After a night in Calcutta, a wild flight into high mountain kingdom of Bhutan. Nestled between the economic powerhouses of China and India, the Himalayan country is the world’s youngest democracy and home to the only real political attempt to define an alternative development model, which they call Gross National Happiness. Here Jib met with the Prime Minister and rowed a boat on the first raft descent of the Drangme Chhu River, a 7 day class IV-V gem through the heart of pristine lowland forest all the way to the Assam, India border. If you look close at this short video from Bio Bio Expeditions you will see me tumble out ass over teakettle out of the cataraft. During this time, Marci and Skye braved wild, one-lane twisty mountain roads filled with Buddhist drivers, roadside water-driven prayer wheels and cliffs as tall as Half-Dome to visit the Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries, Temples, Zhongs, Festivals, Pray Wheels and Stupahs that make up the daily life of this country of 600,000. They also did a small rafting trip of their own and got to visit the reserve of the Black Necked Crane, considered one of the world’s most endangered species.
• December 1-7: from there we traveled to visit our friend Ajeet Bajaj and his family in Delhi, India. The ‘Sir Edmund Hillary of India’, Ajeet met Jib on the banks of Siberia’s frozen Chuya River in 1988 and they have remained friends ever since. Ajeet is founder and owner of the best adventure travel company in India, Snow Leopard Adventures and is one of the countries’ top explorers having been the first Indian to ski to both the North and South Poles (among many other accomplishments). During our short stay with the Bajaj’s we traveled to the holy city of Rishikesh on the banks of the upper Ganges River, where we rafted and stayed at the Snow Leopard camp. Here we saw Puma tracks on the beach and Sadhus galore in their orange robe ascetic wildness at and around the daily sunset Ganges worship session at the local ashram.
• December 8 - Now: we’re in Ubud, Bali and have unpacked our bags, done laundry and will settle in through the new year with our friends who live here. Skye will continue her home school routine and spend time at the innovative Green School, Jib will review and compile and share his notes on the amazing people and projects we’ve seen, Marci will do yoga and consider the merits of sourcing, and we will all reconnect with friends and family over the holiday season, while we begin to make plans for the next half of the trip.
• November 4 – 9: time at the TEDIndia conference in Mysore, India where Jib shared about the future of business, and we all connected with old friends, met new ones and began a temple and sacred-spot visiting regime that hasn’t begun to slow
• November 10 - 30: After a night in Calcutta, a wild flight into high mountain kingdom of Bhutan. Nestled between the economic powerhouses of China and India, the Himalayan country is the world’s youngest democracy and home to the only real political attempt to define an alternative development model, which they call Gross National Happiness. Here Jib met with the Prime Minister and rowed a boat on the first raft descent of the Drangme Chhu River, a 7 day class IV-V gem through the heart of pristine lowland forest all the way to the Assam, India border. If you look close at this short video from Bio Bio Expeditions you will see me tumble out ass over teakettle out of the cataraft. During this time, Marci and Skye braved wild, one-lane twisty mountain roads filled with Buddhist drivers, roadside water-driven prayer wheels and cliffs as tall as Half-Dome to visit the Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries, Temples, Zhongs, Festivals, Pray Wheels and Stupahs that make up the daily life of this country of 600,000. They also did a small rafting trip of their own and got to visit the reserve of the Black Necked Crane, considered one of the world’s most endangered species.
• December 1-7: from there we traveled to visit our friend Ajeet Bajaj and his family in Delhi, India. The ‘Sir Edmund Hillary of India’, Ajeet met Jib on the banks of Siberia’s frozen Chuya River in 1988 and they have remained friends ever since. Ajeet is founder and owner of the best adventure travel company in India, Snow Leopard Adventures and is one of the countries’ top explorers having been the first Indian to ski to both the North and South Poles (among many other accomplishments). During our short stay with the Bajaj’s we traveled to the holy city of Rishikesh on the banks of the upper Ganges River, where we rafted and stayed at the Snow Leopard camp. Here we saw Puma tracks on the beach and Sadhus galore in their orange robe ascetic wildness at and around the daily sunset Ganges worship session at the local ashram.
• December 8 - Now: we’re in Ubud, Bali and have unpacked our bags, done laundry and will settle in through the new year with our friends who live here. Skye will continue her home school routine and spend time at the innovative Green School, Jib will review and compile and share his notes on the amazing people and projects we’ve seen, Marci will do yoga and consider the merits of sourcing, and we will all reconnect with friends and family over the holiday season, while we begin to make plans for the next half of the trip.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Vietnam
Vietnam. A cacophony of the senses. Old Town Hanoi, our first stop, is a maze of alleys all filled with food vendors, tiny $10 hotels, knock-off stores, and motorbikes, motorbikes, motorbikes. Gas powered two-wheeled vehicles moving every which way, everyone in a peripheral vision flow state, somehow avoiding the inevitable crash (most of the time) due to everyone using their horns all the time. It makes one wonder what it was like when it was only bicycles. It must have been very quiet.
From Hanoi, we visited the World Heritage Site of Halong Bay. Thousands of limestone cliff faced islands off the northern coast. Like everywhere we went in Vietnam - in fact all of asia - a clear day is one filled with a fog-like haze. The sun and stars are nowhere to be found. Nonetheless, our overnight ride on a Junk Boat entertains: kayaking, cave walking, and odd boat mates, all make this a worthy venture.
Then we meet our friends Melany and Duncan Berry and head to Thich Nhat Han's Root Temple (aka a nunnery and monastery) near Hue in the central part of the country. For 5 days we are their guests. Dharma talks, singing, meditating, silent meals, helping build a rickety robe rack, walking meditation fill our days. The nuns want to keep Skye - she is their size; taught a great english class (the highlight being a rousing round of 'twinkle twinkle little star'); and impressed them with her badminton skills. The mutual adoration between Skye and the nuns is heartwarming. Skye is very clear that as of today she's not becoming a buddhist nun. Just in case you were wondering. They sleep on desk tops, wake up at 4:30am for morning meditation and eat all vegetarian meals in silence.
Now we're in Bhutan after a week in Mysore, India. Tomorrow we head to the far east of this small country.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
TEDIndia Conference
We're in Mysore, India. Just finished the TEDindia conference where I had the privilege to speak on day 2 (yesterday).
Entering the TED world felt like landing on the moon after Africa and 2 weeks in Vietnam where we spent the majority of our time in and around a Buddhist Root Temple in Hue.
Photos and more coming soon.
Entering the TED world felt like landing on the moon after Africa and 2 weeks in Vietnam where we spent the majority of our time in and around a Buddhist Root Temple in Hue.
Photos and more coming soon.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Out of Africa
We have arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam after a wonderful and enlightening road trip up the West Coast of South Africa, into Namibia; followed by a small plane flight into the Okovango Swamps, Botswana; onward to Victoria Falls and then to a remote village in Malawai; before time on the beach in Plettenberg Bay and a couple of days in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia en route to Asia...
along the way we've seen amazing wild animals, met with inspirational people, experienced inspirational examples of positive deviance, and reconnected with Africa the place where Marci and I met 24 years ago.
Its beauty, tragedy and uniqueness is astounding.
along the way we've seen amazing wild animals, met with inspirational people, experienced inspirational examples of positive deviance, and reconnected with Africa the place where Marci and I met 24 years ago.
Its beauty, tragedy and uniqueness is astounding.
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