Our stroll around Semporna with David McKenna Miller was successful in a number of ways.  First, we were able to procure functional activated SIM cards with the help of two enterprising Chinese shopkeepers.

Among these successes, was the discovery of a delightful point-and-eat restaurant (which we were finding to be a common genre so far on the trip).

It brought us strolling past Semporna’s Mosque…

And the accompanying souq selling fried bananas…

Coffee…

Cassava…

Refreshing beverages…

and, of course, chilies and fish.

But no souq would be complete without a recharge station for lead-acid battery backups.

At the small port, construction raged above the ubiquitous piles of waste found in this city.

Also fascinating was an exploration of a sprawling neighborhood that consisted solely of houses and walkways on stilts (this too we were finding to be surprisingly common), and a fascinating conversation about anthropology, ecology, waste disposal, and AsiaWheeling’s mission.

Of particular interest, was a section of the stilted neighborhood that had recently suffered a fire. Underneath it, the mudflats that underlay the entire development sprawled forth. And as we peered down into the muck, we could see thousands and thousands of crabs, making a living for themselves in the black goo. Many parts of this neighborhood sported large landfills that mingled with the sea, underneath the houses. Even in the watery landfills, we could see critters making do in the rubbish. We also spotted giant monitor lizards, making homes for themselves in the more unsavory corners of the city.

In many ways, these sights brought the idea of a fundamental conflict between human expansion and the development and the health of other species. In such a lush and bio-diverse region, it seemed, at least some species were finding a way to coexist, perhaps even thrive off the presence of humans. Please don’t infer from this, dear reader, that AsiaWheeling is condoning the use of the ocean as a landfill, merely that we  have found it to be more complicated and interesting philosophically that expected.

A thirst in need of quenching brought us to the local supermarket.

There we found products to consume of curious origin and unfortunate destiny into the very waste stream  we scorned in discussion.

Another relevant occurrence on what we might call that day’s wheel (albeit a wheel completely devoid of rolling) was our encounter of a curious fellow by the name of Hassan. We were strolling near a large stilted complex, containing among other things a variety of restaurants, an aquarium, which was really just a bunch of fish in nets, visible below us, in the crystal clear water, and a hotel called The Dragon Inn. Put off by the previous day’s gerrymandering with our room, we had been interested in investigating other accommodation. It was no sooner that we had found the Dragon Inn to be full and without WiFi, that Hassan maneuvered into our life.

He was a thin and weathered man, driving a puttering wooden longboat, in a pair of blue and black velvet pants. Inside the longboat was another very tan man, who from the fact that Hassan referred to him as “Italy”, we would assume to be Italian. Hassan somewhat expertly slid his boat into a nook among the stilts and unloaded his passenger. When questioned, the Italian proved to be a man of few words, seemingly quite exhausted from his day in the sun, and remarked only that “for me, this island is the perfect paradise.” Somewhat haggardly, he  made his way back toward his room.

We then began to talk more with Hassan, discovered that he was a boatman (his card proudly proclaimed his 20 years of service), and that he had just taken Italy for a ride out to a place called Mantabuan, where he had spent the day snorkeling in the surrounding coral, and devouring a locally prepared fish lunch. We were intrigued, and decided to keep the man’s card.

Breaking for a quick refreshment, we debated the course of action for the following days.

That evening it was unanimously decided that for the remainder of AsiaWheeling, I would indulge in snorkeling as opposed to SCUBA diving. After the ghastly occurrences of the previous day, I was relieved, and once again excited to engage the underwater world, albeit with much more frequent re-visits to the surface.

Finishing the evening with some delicious soy sauce fried fish, we settled in for an evening of rest before heading to Pulau Mabul the next morning.

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The sun rose on Semporna in the same way that Lady Madonna must have looked at the children’s stockings needed mending, and the Sim City 2000 theme rang out from my cell phone, propelling us downstairs for the SCUBA Junkie English breakfast, included as a bonus feature with the accommodations. On the way down, however, we were sorry to be informed that there would be no vacancy for that night, and that we would need to unload all our belongings from the room, trusting them to a ruddy corner underneath the stairs. This was somewhat stressful, and we decided we might well mitigate the situation by eating first.

The coffee was free, hot, and strong. Good would be a stretch, but sometimes plentiful will do here on AsiaWheeling. The breakfast consisted of a mismanaged flow of fired eggs, which appeared at irregular intervals gleaming greasily in a bent aluminum pan. Next to that pan were two similar pans, containing room-temperature, cloyingly sweet baked beans, and slightly less than room temperature recently un-canned chicken franks.

The toast was hot and fresh though, as long as one was able to battle through the crowds of zombie-like 25-year-old Australian and Dutch people, freshly pried from bed and distantly working to resuscitate themselves for the day’s diving, and actually secure a slice. We did so quite effectively, probably because of our training in Jakarta traffic. We were soon quite full of this mediocre slop, our moods lifting due to the introduction of caffeine, and back in the room packing our things.

Once we had packed our stuff up completely, Scuba Junkie informed us that they had misspoken, and that indeed they would have a room for us that night. We rejoiced and asked whether it would be the same room we had just had. “No, no, sir. Please leave your things here and we will show you the room when you return.”

Scott and I silently thought to ourselves, for not the first or last time, that had we been unlucky enough to have chosen to take Malarone during this trip, this type situation would have distorted and inflated into a gut-clenching, terrifying ordeal. Thank goodness  for the doxycycline, which allowed us to simply agree and make our way to the boat to Sibuan.

Aboard, David sprang into action, outlining the skills that we would be learning. Among those important for today’s dives were buoyancy control, recovery of the regulator (the device that delivers air to the diver), breathing from a malfunctioning regulator, out-of-air drills, underwater removal and clearing of the mask, and swimming while breathing through the regulator without use of the mask at all.

The sun was shining something more like Lucy in the sky with diamonds by the time we reached a small island by the name of Sibuan.  Sibuan, we later learned, meant “sunburn” in the local dialect. The island was aptly named, because except for a few coconut trees, it was almost completely devoid of shade. It was, on the other hand, a paradise of clear blue water, vibrant reefs, and it sported a little village inhabited by a local ethnic minority which for lack of a better word, I will humbly refer to (as the locals do) with the term “Sea Gypsies.”

The Sea Gypsies are mostly of Philippine descent but often hold no passport whatsoever. They have established communities on the many small islands that dot the Celebes and Sulu seas, and make their living fishing, farming seaweed, and occasionally trafficking untaxed imported cigarettes and booze smuggled in by pirates from the Philippines.

The Sibuan Sea Gypsy settlement was small, and the women covered their exposed skin with sand, which clung to them creating a kind of gritty sun protection and perhaps even played the roll of a kind of make-up (by all means, dear reader, please let us know more about this use of sand in the comments).

It is now that I must pause the tale to recount a relevant experience that took place before AsiaWheeling was even a glimmer in Scott’s and my eyes. It took place in a cold and dark, but wondrous place by the name of Bates College in the land of Maine. I was kneeling at the bottom of a swimming pool in this place, surrounded on all sides, and for some feet overhead by cool blue chlorinated water. I was breathing from a regulator, and peering through a mask at a much younger David Miller. He had a large red beard at the time, in which he buried his regulator. We knelt together at the bottom of this pool, staring at each other, sucking in dry mechanized squirts of air, and exhaling plumes of bubbles, which quickly departed for the surface.

David signaled “OK” and I responded. He raised his hand, gesturing to me in the way one gestures to the musical guest after he or she has been introduced. I took another deep breath from the device in my mouth, and reached up to remove my mask. As water poured in, I felt in enter my nose, forcing its way up to where contact with the softer membranes of the interior began to produce pain. I began to panic, and snorted little squirts of water into my nose, and eventually into my lungs where they made me cough. By now, all alarms in my system were firing, millions of years of evolution chastised me for breathing water, my eyes burst open in the stinging chlorine, and I could see David, a blurry ghost before me. My breath through the regulator was painful and punctuated by squirts of water into my unprotected nose. With a final shaking inhale, I replaced the mask, clearing it of water in one savage snort, then commenced a furious fit of sucking and coughing into the regulator, attempting to clear my lungs of that from which I could not breathe life.

David signaled a worried looking thumbs up (the signal for surfacing), and I responded with something unintelligible, jetting to the surface, and pulling myself to the pool side. There I lay, coughing and exhausted, and under the grip of a splitting headache, brought on by the great stress of the experience I had just had below.

Five years later, at Sibuan Island, off the coast of Malaysian Borneo, I was diving again for the first time since that ill fated day, and I had just reached that very skill that had reduced me to a pain-stricken weakling on the side of a pool somewhere in Maine. I was  making progress, though. I had been able, with some difficulty, to clear a partially and even a fully flooded mask, even taken small sips of air through the regulator with a filled mask, though under significant duress. Now it was time to remove the mask. I had attempted to do so earlier in the day, and found myself unable to, each time rising to the surface, pale and shaking, struggling to control my breath and the shake in my voice.

It was now or never, it seemed, as Scott had completed his demonstration of the skill some time ago. I needed to keep the mask off for 30 seconds of breathing, followed by another 30 of mask-less swimming in order to move forward. Shaking and nervous, I plunged into the sea, allowed by self to sink to the bottom and knelt there, awaiting courage.

Scott and David looked at me, with matching tufts of blond hair waving patiently in the sea. We stared at each other and blew bubbles. And then, harnessing the most mild uptick in confidence, I reached up and first fully flooded then removed my mask. The water began to work its way into my nose, and as I sucked bits of air through the regulator, the water level in my nose would rise up to the edge of the tipping point, sending huge surges of fight-or-flight chemistry into my body. My hands were violently shaking now, and my ability to control when I drew a breath was tenuous and demanded all the focus I could muster.

I sat there, allowing the sea and the bubbles of my own breath to crawl along my face, eyes mashed shut, and praying that time would elapse with all haste toward the point at which David would tap my forehead to indicate the experience would be over. It seemed like ages. I waited at the threshold of my own self control. I coughed into the regulator, and somehow snorted and drank down a gulp of seawater though my nose. My heart hammered in my chest, and blood rushed in my ears. Then, finally, I felt a touch on my forehead.

I smashed the mask back onto my face and cleared it with a painfully intense burst of air which was something like a cough, which escaped in equal parts through the nose and mouth. I opened my eyes to see David, staring at me with two big thumbs up, miming an underwater round of applause. He signaled to me to ask if I was okay. I signaled yes, but something was wrong. My heart was beating even harder than before, and my head was beginning to hurt, beginning to hurt really bad. I felt weak. I signaled to David and Scott that something was wrong, calling a return to the surface.

As soon as my head broke the surface, I felt like someone had driven an ice pick into my brain. I had not experienced a true migraine since I was in high school, but that was certainly what was happening now, and a bad one at that. David tried to calm me down, but all I could to was struggle toward shore. “I need to lie down, I need to get to the beach,” I clamored.

On the beach, I pulled myself onto the sand, and began to roll around, searching for a position that might cause some relief from the pain. Scott and David were clearly both alarmed. And though I told them to keep going, they called an end to even their portion of the dive.

I spent the next couple of hours sprawled on a number of surfaces, from time to time struggling to my feet and wandering to a new location on Sibuan, the sunburn island, searching for relief. The ice pick burned white in my skull, and the pain was making me dizzy and nauseous. Eventually, I spotted what looked like a woodshed, covered by a slanting roof, and protected from the sun by a great patched piece of advertising tarpaulin. I stood up once again, against the pain and nausea and made my way toward the shelter. In the woodshed, I was finally able to find some relief in sleeping for a moment, but quickly awoke to David’s voice.

“You can’t just wander off without telling anyone.” He was right and I apologized. The boat with the other SCUBA divers had returned and they were having lunch on the beach. I told David to go eat, and began to search again for departure from reality when I noticed I was not alone. It seems that the children from the sea gypsy village had discovered this strange writhing white guy tangled in a half undone wetsuit in their woodshed. They did not say a word, but gathered around me in a kind way. Looking at me curiously, and smiling warmly whenever I made eye contact with one of them.

I struggled to make some small talk but the effort pushed me over the edge, and I sprang from the shed, barely able to make my way to some sandy underbrush before I became quite violently sick. I hobbled weakly back to the shed, savoring that bitter relief that accompanies such events, and rejoined the kids.

My condition improved steadily as the day wore on, but for obvious reasons my SCUBA tutelage was put on immediate suspension. I wandered the coast of the island, and chatted with a French couple that was snorkeling there, while Scott and David initiated the final dive for that day.

Back in Semporna, the mood was contemplative as we mulled over what to do. It was finally decided that the following day would be a break from SCUBA, giving us some time to plan next steps.We feasted that evening on crab, which we selected from a tank of large specimens at a local Chinese eatery, and returned to Scuba Junkie to find that we were invited to return to the very same room that we had been asked to vacate that very morning.

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Rucksack Inn Singapore Toast Graph

Toast Making at the Rucksack Inn

With stomachs full of rapidly digesting toast, we struck out toward Clementi station on the MRT, Singapore’s devilishly efficient metro-rail system. Scott and I made like locals and folded our Speed TRs, rolling them on one wheel through the crowded metro terminal.

On board we did our best to adhere to the posted signs and placards, demanding silence, respect, no transport of durians, no spitting, no eating and drinking, no panhandling, and stern reminders as to the proper way to escalate depending on one’s preference for standing or walking.

At Clementi station, we were instantly met with the problem of finding My Bike Shop. Strangely enough, the locals that we asked seemed somewhat baffled about the correct direction, though we thought we were using reasonably well known and large roads, such as the West Coast Highway.  Still baffled after a number of queries, we took a break to drown our sorrows in a kind of Shwarma that was being sold in the vicinity of the train station. The Shwarma ended up consisting mostly of iceberg lettuce and thousand island dressing, but hit the spot nonetheless.

With renewed energy we made our way, albeit somewhat circuitously, to My Bike Shop. Tan was once again thrilled to see us, and greeted David by name, having already familiarized himself with the AsiaWheeling advisory team using our website.

We were all set with a zippy little cycle for David and were invited to relax and cool off in the shop. We allowed ourselves to indulge in another delicious cup of coffee from the My Bike Shop Nespresso machine, and allowed the folding bicycle enthusiasm to wash over us.

Now positively bursting with energy, we laid into the day’s wheel. First order of business was teaching the esteemed Mr. David McKenna Miller the rules of wheeling and the field commands.

“The first rule of wheeling,” I explained as we meandered our way through sleepy Singaporean residential neighborhoods, “is to always signal your intent.” We practiced our Rausches and Lichts until David became reasonably comfortable following the bishop, and even taking the lead himself from time to time before striking out onto the streets.

Our first waypoint was a local park, where we meandered our way past the docks and over to a section called the “bicycle obstacle course.” This seemed a good place to cover some of the more advanced wheeling maneuvers.

Below, Scott demonstrates the “Rough Rider” position on a demanding section of bumps.  Such position requires the midsection of the rider to be placed behind and below the bicycle seat, as if to sit on the back bumper of the bike.

David follows, executing the command with a champion’s fervor.

The obstacle course certainly did not hold back. Most of the obstacles seemed to be variations on the theme of slaloms, huge bumps, and downhill segments that dumped the rider out into a sandy gravel pit where balance and steering were almost impossible.

Well, David, we’ve seen better and we’ve seen worse, but you’re not bad for a rookie .

We also had to call an extended waypoint and dismount when we discovered an interesting playground, filled with fantastic geometric structures, and Singaporean school children who appeared to be using the playground to learn some rudimentary physical principals. David, who is among other things a school teacher by trade, remarked quite positively on the use of experiential education in this strange and gleaming city.

In a rare occurrence, AsiaWheeling stopped at a McDonalds adjacent to the park for a much needed refueling.   The fare consisted of 20 McNuggets, two Milo McFlurries, and two glasses of ice water with ice.

Back on the cycles, we struck west, ducking in and out of residential neighborhoods, retirement centers, shopping malls, and the like. The more we rode, the more we became amazed at the sheer number of retirement communities that we passed. Each one was a large compound with towering housing complexes and sloping manicured lawns.

Next stop was a Chinese grocery store nestled into the side of one of these cookie-cutter concrete communities.

The grocery was chock-full of goodies that would have no doubt been thrown in our basket if the hunger demons had been rumbling.

We purchased copious amounts of water and cloudy apple juice, purported to be one of the great undiscovered natural wonders.

We continued on exploring the Clementi area, which brought us to overpasses and underpasses of the West Coast Highway.

Soon we found ourselves on a newly paved exercise path, which followed one of Singapore’s canals.  It was a surprise to find, and a joy to wheel.

The canal snaked onward as we passed the many healthy joggers of the city.

It was nice to be out of the traffic, and we followed this until the sun began to set, and the imminent closing of My Bike Shop called us to return.  We made our way back, through the many urban obstacles of Western Singapore.

After an unsuccessful attempt to cut through the United World College Singapore (the guard here was cold at first, but soon David was able to warm him up enough to chat with us, but not to let us onto the campus), we rolled back into My Bike Shop tired and sweaty, but happy as clams.

Allen, from SpeedMatrix, was waiting for us, and in an unexpected and humbling gesture, offered to fund the repairs to our cycles. He also provided Scott, David, and me with a set of fine biking jerseys sporting his company’s logo.  Looking at the forthcoming selection of folding kayaks really got the gears in AsiaWheeling’s heads turning.

We warmly bid Tan and Allen goodbye, and sadly parted with the Speed TRs, which would be repaired while we were diving in Borneo, and piled into a cab.

We were already quite late for a dinner engagement with some Indian colleagues of Scott’s from when he was living in Pondicherry. Rajesh and Pappu were in good spirits, and not put off by our tardy arrival.

We made our way toward a local fish head curry restaurant. It served a kind of Singaporean Indian food, which was delightful.

We feasted on fish head curry (of course), along with some fried chicken, a buttery curry, and some knock-your- socks-off biryani. By the time the jet lag began to hit David, we were all quite full and completely smitten by our wheel in Singapore.

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The sun rose in Singapore but was unable to find its way into our room at the RuckSack Inn, namely due to the lack of windows. But what it lacked in windows, it easily made up for in silence, cleanliness, and sweet smells. In preparation for our arrival, the management had placed a bowl of fragrant water over a tea candle, which kept the room smelling faintly of sandalwood. We slept like the dead, and when I awoke, I was quite surprised to the find the day well underway and the other residents busily making piece after piece of toast in the common room. We followed suit. And with stomachs full of toast and precious muddy Indonesian coffee, which we had imported, we took to the streets.

Traffic was certainly different in this country, and we rode between large shiny cars and buses that hummed by. As a general rule, we found the traffic to be very polite, changing lanes when possible to give us space, and providing us with little toots of the horn alerting us to their position.

The city itself was large and vertical. Huge structures of glass and concrete loomed all around us as we wheeled through the financial district toward our first waypoint: CitiBank. We were very excited to use some much needed currency services there, and were sorely disappointed when we discovered that Citibank in the U.S. is an entirely different operation from Citibank in Singapore. The very friendly women at the front desk were unable to even pull the current balance on our account. With regret, they explained that for the whole of AsiaWheeling, deposits would be an impossibility. And with meek apologetic smiles, they showed us to an ATM, from which we would be able to withdraw cash and do nothing else. Of some consolation, however, was the presence of complimentary cookies and coffee in the lobby. “Don’t mind if I do…” I thought to myself.  It will have to be HSBC for AsiaWheeling III.

Back on the cycles and freshly laden with cash, we were beginning to get the hang of this city. It was a place for highway speed calls, to be sure. Traffic was quick, and mopeds were almost nonexistent. Cycles were a little bit more common, but those too were rare. So we wheeled on through canyons of metal and glass amidst a light traffic of trucks, vans, and cars.

We were careful to obey traffic laws to the best of our ability, knowing that fines would be steep for any infraction we were convicted of. For instance, a simple case of jaywalking would result, if caught, in a $5,000 fine. Not to be taken lightly, dear reader.

Scott had purchased a Singaporean SIM card, and called a radio waypoint outside an overpriced Italian steakhouse, to get in contact with the local Dahon distributor. This was an operation by the name of Speed Matrix. We had been put in touch with it thanks to Dahon’s California headquarters, where we had picked up the Speed TRs.

We were badly in need of a tune-up, and Speed Matrix responded enthusiastically. It turned out that the demand for folding bicycles in Singapore had grown so much that Speed Matrix had recently transitioned to the role of wholesale distributor, supplying folding cycles and parts to no less than eight retail shops. The owner, a fine chap by the name of Allen, gave us directions to one of his top shops, and we immediately set it as the next waypoint.

Bottles of water in this city, unfortunately, proved very expensive — 10-20 times what we had paid in Indonesia — perhaps because here, in a land where one can drink from the tap, bottled water is a luxury, a form of conspicuous consumption. Regardless, our regimen of strict hydration was hampered by its burden on the budget.

The journey to the shop, known by the unassuming name of “My Bike Shop” was somewhat longer than expected, in part due to circuitous routing reliant upon directions from pedestrians and the mistaken assumption that streets might continue in the same direction for any appreciable distance in this most logical but somewhat difficult to navigate city.

We found ourselves forced to call a number of waypoints on the wheel. The first was at a 7-11 kiosk outside a posh mall, where we purchased some barley lime drinks, swearing to refill the bottles with tap water. Outside the 7-11, we engaged in lengthy conversation with a Greek man. The Greek fellow regaled us for some 30 minutes with stories of Greece during the second world war, and his experience working in the merchant marine, visiting America during the 1950s, and other wild ports of call from his youth.

After we bade goodbye to the Greek fellow, we quelled the urge to spend the next hour reading about WWII on the Wikireader, and took to the streets. We had made some significant progress westward when the hunger hit. Luckily, directly on the other side of the highway we were on was a roadhouse type restaurant called the Union Farm Eating House. It looked reasonably down-home, so we parked the bikes and strolled in. The specialty, it seemed, was paper-wrapped chicken, and we simply asked our waitress to emulate the order of the adjacent table, which contained two Singaporean gentlemen, positively raging on their paper-wrapped chicken, oscillating between scarfing down large pieces, spitting bones, and slurping noodles from nearby plates.

Unfortunately, the food turned out to be lackluster. The chicken was flavored in a way startlingly similar to Jimmy Dean Sausages, and the greens and noodles proved to be cold and uninspiring. There was some slight redemption  in the fact that they provided us with a huge dented aluminum can to deposit our bones in, but then we were hit with the bill, which proved even more uninspiring. An important lesson about Singapore: things are not cheap here.

While we were finishing up the meal, Scott got a call from Allen at Speed Matrix. It turns out they were actively expecting us, so we quickly paid the piper and hit the road.

Here I must take a moment to disclose that SpeedMatrix and My Bike Shop are partners of AsiaWheeling and have underwritten the cost of bicycle maintenance for this leg of the journey. The views expressed below, however, are those of AsiaWheeling alone.

The remainder of the ride was straight forward, with frequent calls of “highway speeds.” We arrived at My Bike Shop sweaty and triumphant, and strolled through the door into a frigidly air conditioned wonderland. Surrounding us on all sides were folding cycles of every shape and size. From folding full suspension mountain bikes, to hyper-light custom-built folding racing bikes, they had it all. We introduced ourselves to the owner, Tan, a fine gentleman, Scuba instructor, and folding bicycle guru.

He gave us an indepth tour of the store, introducing us to the newest models and technologies, detailing his personal modifications of some of the bike’s gearing systems, and offering us coffee (he obviously knew the way into AsiaWheeling’s heart). Tan agreed to help us in realigning and tuning our cycles, and to provide us with a spare tri-tool, to replace one we had lost in Candidasa.

Tan provided best practices for checking the Speed TR in cargo when flying with it.  This included some low-cost foam surrounding the rear transmission, bound with cable ties.  Removing the black Sram component, which clicks onto the planetary gear shaft was also a brilliant innovation we had not yet considered.

We also arranged to rent a cycle from him to to be used by the illustrious Mr. David Miller, Dive Master for AsiaWheeling on the following day’s wheel. Feeling quite delightful after our warm welcome and nicely caffeinated after the espressos that Tan had quite graciously offered us, we took back to the street for a very high voltage return to downtown.

We covered the distance in about half the time aided by our renewed energy and Tan’s superior directions.

Back in the city, we slowed our pace, and gaped in awe at the immensity of the structures around us, while we patiently waited at stoplight after stoplight.

The sky was beginning to light up orange and purple and by the time the hunger hit, we were back in Chinatown. We settled on a return to the same market that we had explored the previous night. We indulged in a meal of street food, sampling items from the hundreds of food stalls that clogged the streets.

Our dinner consisted of fried squid on a stick, freshly steamed pork buns, sausages with pickle and mustard, and a few plastic bags of dried coconut and mango. Truly delightful.

Scott then left to meet some friends from his workplace in Japan, while I prepared for the arrival of Mr. David Miller. It was not until well after midnight, clogged with exhaustion from the day’s wheel and strolling back from the corner store where I had purchased some modest provisions, that I heard a familiar voice call forth from a nearby cab. I was quite surprised to find none other than Mr. Miller himself, waving me over. I was quite overjoyed at our reunion and for a brief time forgot completely about my exhaustion, filled with a renewed excitement for all that lay before us.

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Aboard AirAsia flight QZ 8496 to Singapore, we were starving. The morning’s wheel in Legian coupled with the savage ride to the Denpasar Airport had set our metabolisms into over-drive. Furthermore, through some error in the booking system, it seemed that had we ordered only one meal for the two of us. We were able to purchase more food at exorbitant prices from the beautiful but somewhat cold stewardesses, and landed in Singapore quite hungry and badly in need of a drink.

Singapore was clean as a whistle, easy to deal with, well organized, and completely in English. We waited in a long but swiftly moving line for passport control, and chatted with a charming, but quite obviously exhausted woman behind us who was moving to Singapore to work with International Bridges to Justice, an organization that aids in South East Asian legal and humanitarian strife. A noble mission… we tip our hats to you.

We had read horror stories about Singaporean customs, mostly having to do with the gargantuan size of fines in this country, but we made our way through with no issues and in record time. We collected our baggage from the strangely shaped baggage counter, where the fellow sternly reprimanded Scott for improperly packing the cycles. We could hear some pieces jangling around in the bags, and small stones appeared in each of our stomachs. We decided we should make our way to the hotel, and deal with it from there. If there was damage, we were at least in a place where repairs to folding bicycles are as simple as a swipe of the MasterCard.

The luggage scanners did ask me to play the ukulele pitch pipe (perhaps to prove its function was benign), so it might have been that same intoxicating note that lubricated our traversal. We also may be particularly non-threatening, in our Panama hats and with folding cycles and the ukulele. Whatever the reason, we quickly found our way into a gargantuan, but frighteningly fast moving taxi-cab line. Before we could even get through even 50% of the Wikipedia article on Singapore, we were at the front of the line, stowing the WikiReader, and loading the cycles into a truly crackerjack cab, piloted by a crackerjack fellow, ready and willing to attach bungee cables to a trunk that would not close, all our luggage loaded therein.

He gave us a tour of the city as he drove, and we marveled at the quality of the roads and the lack of rubbish in this place. Outside the Rucksack Inn, Scott leaned over to the cab driver and quietly articulated, “I hate to ask this, but… should I tip you?”

“Not required!” the cabby flashed back, and promptly unloaded our stuff, and, with a slight bow and a grin, was on his way.

The Rucksack proved to be a pleasant and comfortable place. Our room, though windowless, was sweet smelling, startlingly clean, and very comfortable. 24 hours of free coffee, tea, and toast were a pleasant find as well. And the Internet was… luxuriously fast. We set hundreds of megabytes uploading, and grabbed the cycles to go find some grub.

Wheeling in Singapore was certainly different. The speed of the traffic was three or four times what we had experienced in Indonesia, and the signaling of one’s intent was vital to survival.  Conscious of corporal punishment that might have ensued in case we violated any of the traffic laws, we kept vigilant of signs and posted directives.  We wheeled toward Chinatown, and as we got closer, the smell of food and concentration of cyclists on the gleaming night streets increased.  For you see, dear reader, we were approaching one of the many sacraments of  AsiaWheeling held close to our hearts:  The Eating of Chinese Food.

Eventually, we parked the bikes and struck out into Singapore’s sprawling Chinatown. It was all refreshingly new and refreshingly Chinese. Scott was able read the characters, and I was able to pick out familiar words like the telltale shriek of “Fuwuyuan!” (waiter).

We settled on a seafood noodle joint, which proved delightful. Soon two bowls of noodles, accompanied by boiling broth filled with various types of seafood arrived. We feasted hungrily, amidst Chinese businessmen just leaving work and cooling off with a beer.

Rather than return to the hotel, we decided to delve deeper into the neighborhood, finding our way into a gigantic night market, already heavily festooned with decorations for the upcoming Chinese New Year.

By this point, we were both becoming quite exhausted, but the spectacle was such that we could not stop walking.

You, dear reader, might best understand by simply looking at the photos.

Our night at the Hotel Sayang Maha Mertha in Legian, Indonesia droned on at a snail’s pace, as we tossed and turned, attempting to sleep over the roaring laughter and screeching conversation of drunken Spaniards courting similarly intoxicated American women around the nearby pool. Our fan buzzed and creaked overhead, while the coil of mosquito repellent incense which we had lit smoldered apologetically amidst the late night din.

Needless to say, we were happy when the sun began to rise, and though the aforementioned noise seemed to switch seamlessly from crazy hour carousing to young children splashing and yelling in the pool, we were at least free now to get up and wheel a little.

The breakfast at the Hotel Sayang Maha Mertha proved quite tasty. Though we were forced to pay a little extra to flesh out the free breakfast with an egg, the addition of infinite cups of coffee was quite welcome.

In good spirits despite our lack of rest, we initiated beach mode and took to the streets, arriving in short order at the sea.

Though in the sunset it had been glowingly idyllic, we could see in the light of day that Kuta Beach too was a fascinatingly post-apocalyptic sight. We made our way across refuse blowing in drifts in the sand, waving good morning to the many fellows who made their living wearing Coca-Cola and Billibong branded shirts while raking up the evidence of yesterday’s defilement of the beach. We entered the surf to find that with each wave, we became entangled in rubbish, plastic bags mostly. We waded out some waves, and body surfed for a while before the sight of what looked like medical waste in the water turned us back toward land.

Back on the cycles, we explored the north of Legian. We worked our way along a surprisingly Sanur-like beach path. This one was about five times as wide, sporting the same gray brick and barriers every kilometer or so, which required us to hoist the speed TRs up and over before continuing on.

After we reached the end of the path (where we found a large tower advertising sunset bungee jumping), Scott called an Uber-Rausch and we worked our way back toward the Hotel Sayang Maha Mertha along the meandering back roads of Legian. One of our missions for the morning was to find some kind of protective system for our derailleurs. One lacking of the Speed TR is its vulnerability to damage on the derailleur during transit. So far we had been lucky, but from the scratches and damage to the bags that held the bikes while they rode in the belly of the airplane, we knew we were playing with fire.

We tried a number of solutions, including a variety of local wooden hats. Finally, we found a couple of plastic bowls (Melamine Ware brand) and a ball of twine that we decided would serve as a stopgap in our search for a better solution. Armed with this equipment, we checked out of the hotel, and after picking up our laundry, we decided to wheel to the airport.

Though this was our longest trip to date on the cycles while fully loaded with our inventory, it proved surprisingly easy, in part due to the flat terrain and in part to the friendly nature of the local motorists. This is not to say, however, that we did not make quite a sight arriving at the Balinese airport by cycle. The guards at the front gate, sported looks of 50% grin and 50% befuddlement as they flagged us through the bomb check station.

We arrived at the international terminal, and quickly began to disassemble our cycles, struggling briefly to attach the plastic bowls, attracting a small crowd, receiving reprimands for attempting to use the wrong kind of baggage cart, briefly alarming the security guards with the ukulele, and finally making our way toward the Air Asia counter.

At the counter, we were somewhat furious to discover that we would need to pay an extra $15 dollars each to transport the cycles (sports equipment charge…). After quickly recovering from that unanticipated expense, we were hit with another, when we learned we would need to pay approximately 30 bucks each to get out of the country. Luckily, we had, in anticipation of the unsuccessful trip to the Gilis, taken out a fair bit more money than we had spent. But it is worth noting, dear reader, that had we been out of cash, this might have become quite a sticky boarder crossing.

On the other side, we found many small shops, and restaurants, where food and drink was valued at 500% to 1000% greater than the normal Indonesian level, and at the end of the terminal our gate, which required another complicated security check. We had loaded up on drinks for the plane, which we were now forced to consume on the spot or discard. As the snaking security line for flight QZ 8496 to Singapore wore it way down, we engaged in the bizarre and fraternalistic practice of consuming as much liquid as possible in the shortest amount of time, upon which we had to submit our bottles to the recycling for security reasons. With my belly expanded to full capacity and glugging with our prematurely purchased beverages, I thought about a scene from the movie Charlotte’s Web, with which my sister had quite the affinity during my youth.

Meanwhile in the Denpasar airport, a uniformed man was intently scrutinizing my ukulele case, which turned out to still be holding the bike tool from our last wheel. The fellow explained that we could not take such a tool on board (perhaps for fear we would loosen all the Allen bolts on the aircraft?). We frowned at each other, and I tried to explain the importance of this tool and the mission of AsiaWheeling using sign language. He still frowned and refused, plunging his hand into my bag and removing more materials that he now seemed to consider forbidding. He then held up the ukulele pitch pipe and sternly questioned me as to its function. I began to blow into the pipe, producing a sweet note, which appeared to temporarily transport the fellow to a distant and dreamy place. He began to walk slowly away from me, still clutching the bike tool, with the distant gaze of a moth approaching a candle. Then suddenly he snapped around, and without a word replaced the tool in my bag, smiled a large and very Indonesian smile and bid me safe travels.

It’s a magical world we live in, dear reader. A magical world.

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According to our map, the journey to Kuta should have been very short, but for one reason or another the drive took quite some time. Upon finally arriving, our driver was very kind in indulging us as we drove from hotel to hotel comparing rooms and rates. Finally we selected a very cheap place, by the name of Hotel Sayang Maha Mertha with a nice pool and the welcome return of free breakfast. It seemed to be frequented primarily by rowdy Spaniards and overweight Australians. Our kind of people.

With our debts paid, and our belongings safely stashed in the room, we took to the streets. Our first waypoint was a laundry joint, where we dropped off some truly foul and rankly sopping articles of clothing. In exchange for a few pennies per article, we would be saved the labor of hand washing and attempting to line dry in the foglike humidity of this boiling land.

That done, we headed for a cafe that might provide Internet and sustenance. Both we found to be available in moderate quality. As we awaited the arrival of fried noodles, boiled greens, and a kind of seafood soup, I booted up the MacBook and waded into a sea of unread email. As always, this process began with a scan for fires that might need to be put out. This time the scan pulled up a fierce bogie, necessitating the hasty scarfing of our food when it finally arrived.

It seemed AirAsia had canceled our flight, and as best we could determine from the poorly worded piece of computer-generated communique, our flight to Singapore had been moved to the 28th.  Looking at the email below, would you know exactly what was meant to be communicated?

This was some three days in the future and well overshot our plans to meet AsiaWheeling Dive Master and Instructor David Miller in Singapore. Obviously, we needed to speak with AirAsia and understand how they intended to get us to Borneo in a timely fashion.

Back on the cycles, we rode furiously toward the local AirAsia office, hastily locking our bikes to a telephone pole, and dashing into the relatively freezing and stark interior of the AirAsia office. A woman sat behind a large red plastic desk, quietly typing away. We were relieved to find she spoke English quite well, and even more relieved to find that our flight could be easily moved forward to the following day at five, leaving us time for a morning wheel. It would get us to Singapore in time to run our personal errands before meeting up with the esteemed Mr. Miller.  It turns out that the email was actually trying to say that for three days, the given flight would depart and arrive at a later time.  Either way, now it was aces all around.

Much relieved, we returned to the same cafe, and feasted like wild beasts on the Internet connection. Before we knew it, the sun was sinking low in the sky and we had not even visited the beach yet. Rumored to be quite beautiful.

So we packed up our things, grabbed some bags of our favorite local crispy-snack-shape called “Taro Net” as the convenience store was blasting swooning eletrohouse music.

Dave Darell – Children (Club Radio Mix)

Pushing off, we pedaled for the beach. We got there just as one of the most miraculous sunsets of my life climaxed on the horizon.

We parked the bikes and sat down in the sand to watch bright oranges flash against purple and blue clouds in an evolving and shimmering light show. Really, truly, something to behold.

Indonesia had treated us well.  And at this moment, watching the beautiful pastel painted clouds pass over and young merrymakers frolic on the beach, we knew it was time to leave these islands.  The next morning we would be bound for Singapore, and whole new array of challenging pleasures.

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The sun began to warm our room at the Rocky Bungaloes and we were confronted for the first time on AsiaWheeling 2.0 with the challenge of acquiring breakfast.

Rocky was hard at work outside on a restaurant for this place, but in the meantime, we would have to fend for ourselves.  Workers were perched on this restaurant frame, assembling it piece by piece.

We achieved finding an already fabricated a restaurant with little difficulty, hanging a Rausch outside our hotel and pedaling the short distance to Uluwatu Beach proper. There we found many restaurants all catering to the foreign surfing crowd, and selected one with a view of the water.

Refueled by two wicked cups of coffee, a plate of honeyed banana pancakes, and one very salty omelet, we decided to head down to the beach. Once again, the beaches in the area proved significantly stranger than the paradise we had found in Candidasa. The beach itself was more like a small inlet, into which giant waves of clear blue-green water crashed.

In order to access it we had to make our way through a number of concrete ledges, filled with clusters of surf shops and eateries catering to surfers, and serving burgers, pizzas, spaghetti, and beer. We finally reached the beach by way of a very steep collection of differently shaped concrete steps. The sand was clean, and the place seemed deserted. We attempted to wade out into the sea, but when strange currents began pulling at our lower extremities, we headed once again for dry land.

In climbing up out of the sand and into the rocky area surrounding the inlet, we saw a number of wooden ladders and walkways, all in varying states of disrepair and offering access to unknown regions above.

Exploration of these areas uncovered a number of observation platforms , some ruined and one still standing, from which one could see surfers riding the large  and pounding waves that were forming in an area of water separated from us by a shallow reef. Certainly, we thought, this is not the place to learn to surf.

We took a moment to ponder the global spread of surfing. It was due to young men with a similar spirit of exploration and adventure that brought surfing from its origin to the western world, and then east again.  Surfing began  in Polynesia, where the most talented surfer was named the tribal chief, and first witnessed by Europeans during an expedition to the islands in 1767.  From Polynesia and Hawaii, it spread to southern California and then to Australia, where it held a relatively small following until the 1960s.  With the release of the film Gidget, it grew from an underground fad to a mainstream cultural phenomenon through films, music, and fashion.

How does this relate to wheeling?  As the movement grew, the beaches of Oahu, Santa Cruz, and Huntington became crowded, motivating adventurous surfers to explore.  This brought them across Asia and Africa, putting surfers in contact with indigenous people in a relatively happy-go-lucky, non-combative fashion.  Such an exploration is detailed in the classic and influential 1966 film, “The Endless Summer. ” An excerpt plays below of the two travelers embarking in their suits to be the first surfers on a break in Ghana.

Since then, surfers have been discovering breaks all over Indonesia, such as breaks on the southern point of Nias Island, where one can also spend time with one of the last remaining Megalithic cultures.  By wheeling these many new places on land, we felt a connection to the surfers that had come before us and plied the waves of Uluwatu.  AsiaWheeling may not have the same infectious style of dress, which has now been adopted by the youth of Indonesia from their Australian  neighbors, but we’re at least trying to educate the world on the utility of the Panama hat.

Heading southward, we mounted the cycles and began to ride the rolling hills of the Bukit Peninsula. It was to be the southernmost wheel of the entire ten-month trip. We worked our way on the meandering steep roads, through Balinese farmlands, low-laying salt jungle, and many, many roadside stands selling water at up to 10 times the average price we had hitherto experienced.

Lunch took place at a roadside rooftop restaurant that clung to the side of a hill.  The food was tasty; the view was spectacular.

The clientele were mostly Australian surfers, tolerating the relentless cycle of Avril Lavigne records which the proprietors chose to broadcast.

At one point, near the southern tip of the island, Scott’s planetary transmission failed, and we pulled over to the side of the road to do some repairs to the mechanism. The moment we stopped wheeling, the immensity of the sun and the heat fell on us in a thick and sticky blanket. This was below the equator, and is the southerly most point of the entire trip. Since the month was January, we were in the depths of summer. Without our motion through the air to evaporate our sweat, we were soon drenched. Though the repair took no more than five minutes, we remounted the cycles with our clothes pasted to us and eyes stinging from the salty mixture of sweat and sunscreen.

We spent the rest of the day wheeling from beach to beach. None of them were able to come close to the wonderland we had found in Candidasa, but each proved unique and fascinating in its own way. We even found ourselves revisiting some beaches, using different entrances.

By the end of the day, we were tired, hungry, and in high spirits, only dampened slightly when we discovered that in Uluwatu, the Internet was not working, so correspondence (including a large load that I knew would be waiting for me, since my birthday had since transpired) would have to wait.

Instead, we relaxed in the hotel pool, conversed with some Dutch university students, and watched the sun set shimmering gold and purple across the glassy surface of the sea.

We awoke our last morning at the Beautiful Kalepa Mas, free of mosquito bites, due a late night investment in a “coil” – a locally popular type of mosquito repellent. The sun was shining beautifully, and it was not without some pulling of the heartstrings that we departed from our luxurious and most affordable accommodations.

But depart we did, and loaded the speed TRs into the back of a shiny Kijiang bound for the unknown land of Uluwatu. What did we know of this place? It was a mecca for surfers, renowned for its beaches and waves. Scott was interested in surfing, and an investigation of maps suggested a hotel that was well positioned in the midst of a number of well known surfing beaches.

As the sun beamed outside, we snacked on Indonesian crackers, watching the signs for the many places we had already seen fly by outside. Soon, the city dissolved into farmland, and we turned off the main road onto a smaller, quite winding, and notably hillier bit of road. Then, quite unexpectedly, the driver pulled off the road, and announced we had reached our destination.

It turned out that Uluwatu was not a town, per se, but just a region of beaches, farms, and scattered hotels. Our hotel was quite beautiful, though, and had an expansive view of the ocean. The rooms were spacious and the hotel had a very clean and new-looking infinity pool.

The place was called Rocky Bungalows, as we later learned not for the rocky nature of the landscape, but for the owner, a simultaneously friendly and rather tattooed fellow by the name of Rocky. At $20 a night, we decided it would do for the next two nights, so we unloaded our belongings and took to the streets.  The hotel also featured a fearsome creature caged for security in the drive up roundabout.  We call him killer.

The subsequent wheel was good but hard. The destination was a beach known as Dreamland. Once a secret, it was now well known and rumored to be quite stunning. Not long into the wheel we found ourselves tackling one of the most difficult uphills of our lives. My ears popped and my legs burned as we struggled up and over a mountain. The sun burned hot and bright and in the stifling humidity the sweat poured out of us. Lack of blood sugar and water whipped our backs like a cat o’ nine tails. Finally after one false positive after another, the hill ended, and we descended into the cooling breeze. The beautiful west coast of Bali was laid out before us. And from the summit, it seemed it might all be accessible now without even pedaling.

The hunger hit as we were entering the first established city of the ride. And we passed a place by the name of de X-treme Culinare,  and something about it called to us (besides from the brilliance of the name). We feasted there on fried noodles, chicken satay, and fish stew, while chatting with the owner, who had made his fortune as a cook on a cruise liner.

In addition to the grub, he gave us much needed directions to Dreamland, which we had inadvertently passed on our way to de X-treme. You see, however, we had passed it because we assumed it to be either a resort hotel or a posh housing development. And it turned out to be both, so it was a more complicated kind of mis-navigation that caused the error. Now on the correct road, we found the approach to be a long, wide, and newly paved downhill, with opposing lanes of traffic separated by a wide and grassy median, lined with palm trees.

After a number of long and fast descents (thank goodness for the modification to the Panama hats), we arrived at the entrance to a number of compounds. One of these, we knew, must be the beach, but which one? We were turned back from our first two attempts, one of them proving to be a nightclub, and another a golf course. Finally we found the right entrance, and locked the bikes to a telephone pole.

We strolled down a steep and crumbling approach, across a newly built concrete walkway, and out into a scene of pure post-apocalyptic glory.

The tide was in, and waves were breaking right at the shore. Only a thin strip of sand separated the breaking surf from the steep rocky cliffs that backed the beach. From time to time, a large wave would close the gap completely and crash against the cliffside. A large group of souvenir and apparel merchants had been forced to erect their umbrellas on the small bit of land that was protected from the unpredictable surf, and the beach goers were trapped in a decision between enduring the harangues of the hyper-concentrated souvenir merchants, or braving the dangers of the frothing and angry sea.

Despite large flags proclaiming the deadliness of choosing the sea, most beach goers decided it to be the lesser of two evils, and were picking their way carefully down the beach. The water was blue, but littered with both sea plants torn loose by the violence of the surf and garbage deposited there by humans. The sand was littered with wrappers, bottles, and rotting seaweed. We spotted enough broken glass to cause us to re-don our shoes.

All in all, it proved a fascinating waypoint, and after climbing back over the hill toward  Rocky Bungalows, we were quite exhausted. We relaxed part way back at another local surfing beach, by the name of Padang Padang beach, still quite dirty but not nearly as dramatic as Dreamland.

It proved good for relaxing and playing the ukulele, but after the virgin beach we had so much enjoyed in Candidasa, we were beginning to develop a bit of a discerning taste for these places, and before the osmotic pressure to purchase sarongs for project K9 became too great, we departed for home.

Ubud shined brightly in the relative cool of the morning, as we munched on fried eggs at the hotel restaurant. Allow me to explain, dear reader, if it is not already obvious, that we would certainly prefer to be eating Indonesian breakfast foods (rather than Jaffles and the like), but that here in Bali breakfast was (as, it seemed, in all of Indonesia) included with a night’s stay. So we felt pressure to break our fast in the hotel restaurant, which offered only western choices that among many lackluster qualities featured significantly smaller portions than the Indonesian equivalents we had enjoyed in Java.

Some shopping around secured us a car and driver to Candidasa for a few dollars, and with that we were off.

We asked the driver if he had eaten lunch, and he assured us that he was just as hungry as the two travelers in his 1990’s era Toyota Kijang.  He suggested suckling pig.  Being Hindu, Balinesians do not restrict pork from their diet.  This was a fantastic  blessing, as it led us to a delectable meal eaten right on the street of a small town outside Ubud.

Candidasa had come to us on recommendation of a French Canadian network administrator turned Balinese photographer, and a highly respected member of the court at Naughty Nuri’s.  The ride was about an hour and 40 minutes, and took us out of the mountains and through coastal rice paddies and coconut plantations. Candidasa proved a gorgeously sleepy little hamlet, and we quickly found amazing and quite affordable accommodation therein.

Our hotel, a place by the name of Kelapa Mas Home Stay consisted of a number of small duplex bungalows set in the midst of an ornately manicured and somewhat sprawling Balinese garden, complete with multiple stone temples, curling tiled walkways, and a private beach in the rear.

We were to be staying that night in a beach-facing bamboo bungalow, complete with private porch, two large beds, and the most delightful outdoor bathroom, which was quite clean and sported a cold-water shower that was no more than a large jug, cemented into part of the roof, which when activated, overflowed through a spout and down onto the bather in a refreshing deluge.

Though the urge to linger was strong, we decided to mount the cycles. There was much to do this day, and the first order of business was the beach. This, of course, demanded that we switch into AsiaWheeling beach mode.  AsiaWheeling beach mode is a simple transformation characterized by subtraction.  Only a small pouch of  cash and keys are brought.  Mobile phones, wallets, and sadly the WikiReader gets left at home.  Swim trunks and a light shirt with sunglasses and sandals makes beach mode complete.  The camera is the only piece of digital technology on the better side of the beach mode cutoff.  Assembling ourselves, we climbed onto the Speed TRs.

We had read of a hidden and secret beach about seven km from town and were tearing out of town. The scattering of shops that constituted the city were quickly replaced by thick jungle, dotted with small wooden,pig and chicken farming operations.

You see, dear reader, the city of Candidasa was a boom town during the 1970s, sporting a number of developments and a large swath of white sand beach. Unfortunately, a miscalculated government project harvested a large amount of stone and coral from the surrounding reef, which had the unintentional effect of completely wiping out the white sand beach, and plunging the region into an economic and ecological doomsday.

The beach toward which we rode was the last stretch of virgin beach in the area, and was rumored to be quite glorious. We climbed over a small mountain, and began to snake our way down the other side. Traffic was light, the roads were relatively free of hazard; and we were feeling great.

On the other side of the mountain, we came to a number of temples and an even smaller townships, where we were able to purchase water and gain directions to the beach.

We now rode on an even smaller and more winding path, which switched between gravel and concrete. The path had plenty of Indonesian “sleeping policemen,” however, most of these had been broken in one place or another and excavated to create a clear path for those on only two wheels.  We slowly descended to sea level on a gravel path of rugged terrain.

Eventually the road dissolved into packed red jungle earth, and descended steeply. After paying a fellow the 25-cent entry fee, we found ourselves at the beach.

It was far from secret, but also not overly developed and crowded either. The place was about 300 meters of meandering white sand beach, with bright blue surf energetically lapping against it. The first third of the beach was lined with identical grass huts, from which the locals we selling everything from fresh green coconuts to back massages.  A team of men rolled concrete piping from one side of the beach to the other, evoking the myth of Sisyphus.

Further down the beach were lines of fishing boats and the beach became scattered with discarded puffer fish (which, being poisonous, are no use to the net fisherman after being caught.)

We swam in the ocean. lazed on the beach, and generally rejoiced in our good fortune.  Generously, a French couple offered to share their loungers with us because we were almost completely out of cash.  Luckily, the cost of two coconuts to drink was within our budget.  After we had drained the milk in our state of beach-induced dehydration, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that the service included a slicing of the young coconut and the fashioning of a spoon.  It was exactly what we needed.

When the sun began to lay low enough to indicate afternoon was well underway, we remounted the cycles and headed back into the city to deal with our primary problem: we were down to about two dollars in cash.

Back at the hotel, we wiped the sweat out of our eyes, and consulted the front desk about the location of an ATM.

It seemed the closest one was some 10-15 km away in the nearest large settlement. We would need to either ride it, or charter a cab for the round trip. In many countries to which we will travel on this trip such a situation would be cause for assessment and calculated maneuvering to avoid being over-charged or ending up between a rock and a hard place short on cash.

Here in Indonesia, however, we found the entire experience to be relatively stress-free. Feeling tired from the long wheel and the sun, we decided to splurge on an only mildly over-priced cab, and in no time a jolly fellow in a blue Kijiang appeared to drive us to a local grocery called Hardy’s which sported among other things an international ATM. We loaded up on cash wandered through the store with our driver. He recommended a number of interesting snacks, and we suggested he throw a few in to share with his family.  Below, at this supermarket, is the most Pocari Sweat one may ever see in a single place.

And the coffee aisle.

The snacks were being purchased for consumption on tomorrow’s boat ride to the Gili Islands. The Gilis are a small cluster of three tiny islands in the sea that separates Bali from the neighboring large island of Lombok. Our main reason for the visit was the fact that the islands have no motorized traffic, and reportedly run on only bicycle and horse cart.

Among other interesting attributes, a theft or occurrence of misconduct on the Gili Islands is handled by the village elder, as there are no policemen present. So as you, dear reader, can no doubt imagine, we were none too thrilled to learn that rough seas and need for repairs had canceled our ferry for the next day. Stripped of our plans to visit the Gilis we were forced to re-chart the last few days in Bali.

Retiring to the beach in front of our bungalow, we recalled classic alternative rock tunes from the mid to late 1990s and nestled into some books as the twilight rolled out to the horizon.

With such a beautiful and affordable hotel, and the finest beach I have visited in my entire life only a glorious seven km wheel from town. We decided to spend another night at the Kelapa Mas in Candidasa and chart our trajectory from there.  As the ukelele continued, the sunset overlooking the Indian Ocean eased us calmly into an evening of rest.

And, believe it or not, dear reader, the next day we did something that has never happened in the rich and meandering history of AsiaWheeling Global Enterprises: we did the same thing two days in a row.