My first Track Day/HPDE

Running laps at Laguna Seca.  Photo by gotbluemilk.com

I’ll preface this post by saying very clearly that I am currently sitting atop Mount Stupid when it comes to driving a car on a track:

Via smbc-comics.com

I have lots of hobbies, and have passed through the Mount Stupid phase of knowledge many times.  Hopefully I’m learning to identify when I’ve gained enough knowledge to be dangerous, but probably not.

Anyway, about 3 months ago, Kristen’s sister Julie got a Subaru BRZ, which is a rear-wheel drive sports car.  She left it at our house for a week, and naturally I drove it around a bit.  IT WAS AWESOME.  I’d sort of forgotten why sports cars exist until then.  I can now say there was a sort of automotive dark ages in my life, between say 22 and 32.  The BRZ appears to have brought in the age of enlightenment.

I asked Julie if I could borrow her car to do what is called a “track day,” which is where you bring your own car to a race track and learn to drive it there (NOT in a race setting, but a controlled instructional setting with lots of safety rules).  I think she thought I was joking.  Then as I was reading about track days, Kristen and I started casually talking about maybe getting a used sports car.  Fast forward a couple months, and now we are the proud owners of a 2007 Mazda MX-5 Miata.  So my Age of Automotive Enlightenment came in an odd form – I grew up lusting after 500hp muscle cars, and now I own a 135hp lightweight Japanese roadster that is stereotypically driven by female hairdressers.  But all my research suggested that the Miata is absolutely the best bang-for-the-buck driving experience you can get.  So naturally, the Miata went to the track.

The track day took place at Laguna Seca near Monterrey, which is a very famous track.  I studied Youtube videos of people driving the track, and made flashcards to memorize the turn numbers layouts beforehand.  Maybe it was overkill, but it gave me some confidence and I knew exactly what to expect going in.

The day was organized through a group called Hooked on Driving, which I chose because they seem to have the heaviest emphasis on safety.

The Miata.  We got to choose our own #s, so of course I chose 469, which is the # of the robotics team I helped found in 1999

The day started with lectures on safety, flags, and general car handling stuff.  Then we went out to the Skid Pad (basically a big open parking lot) for handling drills.  There was a figure 8, and we were told to purposely over-drive the car.  The told us to try and get the car to understeer (where the front wheels lose traction – you turn the wheel and the car keeps going straight), and oversteer (where the rear wheels lose traction – you fishtail and potentially spin).

This is where things got interesting, and where I’m going to begin to opine from atop Mount Stupid.  My car was one of the cheapest cars in the novice run group by almost an order of magnitude.  There were Corvette ZO6s, Lotus Elises, Porsche Caymans and Boxsters, Audi R8s, a vintage Shelby Roadster, a Mercedes Benz S63 AMG, and a damn Ferrari.  Perhaps I was projecting, but the guys in the expensive cars didn’t seem to want to push them too hard on the skid pad.  But I can say honestly I did not give a sh*t – I came to the track to learn to drive, and bought a car I knew I wouldn’t have to baby.  I spun my car twice (on purpose), and lost control in every way possible.  It was awesome, and I couldn’t stop smiling.

Ferrari, Porsche 911, and Shelby Roadster in the background

Anyway, after handling drills, we had another lecture, and then it was time for the track.  The novice group is paired up into teams of 2 people + 1 instructor.  The instructor sits in one of the 2 cars every time out, and we all had radios to communicate with each other.  My instructor for the day was John Connelly, who also drives a Miata (though his is track-prepped).  They try and match the coach with students based on what kind of cars they drive, so the coach can give more precise instruction.  In my case, John was awesome – I learned a ton, and since he knows what a Miata can do, I knew I could trust him when he’d tell me things like “full throttle through here.”

John instructing me during our first track session.  Photo by gotbluemilk.com

Our first 20 minute session on the track was introductory in nature.  We went fairly slow at first and sped up toward the end as we got used to the corners.  The laps felt pretty fast to me by the end of the session.

Afterward, John offered to take me for a ride in his Miata, which of course I was excited to do.

I thought we were going pretty fast in our introductory laps.  We were not.  John showed me what fast actually looks like.  He braked hard and late.  He held the car at the edge of its grip through a turn, and I could feel him adjust throttle and steering input to keep the car at the edge.  The car was subtly slipping sideways, in a controlled manner, through corner exit.  I now know what car magazines mean when they say a car is “neutral.”

The laps with John changed my perspective on what it means to drive on a track.  During our next session, I tried braking harder and later.  It worked.  I tried to feed on the throttle while unwinding the steering after the corner apex.  That worked, too.  All of John’s comments for the rest of the day made a lot more sense.  I got faster and more confident as the day went on.  I think I’m learning to drive!

Us in the corkscrew (Turn 8) with a Lotus Elise.  Photo by gotbluemilk.com

The rest of my comments here are going to center on what I saw at the track – the impressions of an absolute novice.  Again, atop Mount Stupid.

Another term for a track day is HPDE, which can stand for High Performance Driving Education, or High Performance Driving Experience.  My impression is that some people came more for the education, and some came more for the experience (of going really really fast).

Now, the whole point of the day is to have fun.  That might mean learning, and that might mean opening up the throttle on your 600hp beast as much as possible.  I begrudge nobody their source of fun.  However, a few of these guys were doing things that the other drivers thought were a little aggressive, and at our de-brief sessions they were given talking-tos by the coaches, who seemed to take that kind of thing pretty seriously.

Laying down all 135 horses on the front straightaway.  Photo by gotbluemilk.com

There also seemed to be a lot to learn from many of the drivers in my novice group doing weird stuff on the track.  There is only one way to go fast around a track in a Miata, which is to take a good line and drive the absolute piss out of it.  The Miata loves this sort of treatment, and this is why it is such a popular track car.  John was clear about that, and I tried very hard to follow his instruction on braking, apex location, throttle level, and track-out.  It is a “momentum car,” meaning there is not much horsepower to cover up any mistakes.  That said, I saw many of the high-horsepower cars taking weird, sub-optimal lines, braking early, apexing early, and generally doing things that would slow my Miata to a crawl.  People don’t really post Youtube videos of themselves taking a poor line around a track, so watching the Experience people after they passed me actually seemed to be a great learning tool for a novice like myself.

Regardless, it was an absolute blast.  Learning a new skill is so much fun, and doing it in a controlled environment while going fast makes it even better.  Driving a sports car on a track is a kind of lifetime bucket list thing to do, and I’m hoping I get to do it a whole lot more.

To conclude, the track day was pretty much the most awesome thing ever.  It’s all I’ve been talking about for the past several days.  I’d like to do maybe 4-5 track days per year, and I think I may have convinced both my dad and Kristen to come out and learn how to drive as well!

Bear Lakes Backpacking Trip

We try to go on one “difficult” backpacking trip per year.  This year we did the Bear Lakes loop, with our old friend Vicky and new friend Laurel.  Kristen fondly remembers doing this trip with Steve, Matt, and Karoline when she was 16, and has been talking about it ever since I met her.

For reference, we are using a version of the trip description from the Sierra South book, by Morey & White.  We are hoping this post will fill in some gaps in detail, and set expectations for anyone hoping to do this trip in the future.

Day 0: Driving in

Bear Diversion Dam OHV road – an easy section

Our Expedition at the end of the Bear Diversion Dam OHV road

The trip starts at the end of the Bear Diversion Dam OHV road, which is a 2.5-mile off-road trail.  Basically it’s an unmaintained double track that goes over granite slabs, and has some loose, steep sections and lots of big rocks.  In the Sierra South book, they say that only high-clearance vehicles can make it over the road, and that the “typical urban SUV” cannot pass the road.  When Kristen did the hike 13 years ago, they parked at the start of the road and hiked the whole thing.  We wanted to drive the road but were a bit worried, since our Expedition is somewhere between a pickup truck and an “urban SUV.”

As it turns out, the book is completely wrong about this one.  Our truck was fine.  We did not see any other modified or raised trucks at the dam – it was mostly pickups, large SUVs (Suburbans, etc.), and there was even a Honda CRV that passed the road.  I think if you have a basic understanding of how to take a line, what types of angles (up/down/high-center) might be dangerous for your car, and are willing to move a few rocks around, it’s not a big deal.  Put it in 4-high, turn off the traction control, and away you go.  It took about 45 minutes on the way in, and about 30 on the way out since we knew what we were dealing with.

Anyway, we arrived at the dam around 5pm, and set up camp.  I went fishing in the reservoir, and caught a large brown trout!

Day 1 – Bear Diversion Dam to Hilgard Meadow (~10 miles, ~2,500ft ascent)

Us on the way up Bear Creek

Getting water at the incredible Hilgard Meadow

Day 1 was an access day.  We were packed up and off by 9:30am.  The first part of the hike took us up the Bear Creek drainage, and was mostly wooded, though with great views of the Bear Creek river.  The river was flowing modestly and beautifully over granite slabs.

After 6.5 miles, the trail hits the JMT/PCT, which is more or less the superhighway of the Sierra.  It is impeccably maintained and marked.  We saw a few of what appeared to be through-hikers.  By this point I was feeling the altitude, and we stopped for lunch to re-charge.  I took diamox, which is a miracle drug if you get altitude sickness like I do, but it doesn’t help you get up the elevation – it just takes away the migraine and nausea so you can function.

After roughly 2 miles on the JMT, we took the turnoff onto the Italy Pass trail.  After a bit of a climb over some slabs, and a bit of route-finding as the trail became faint, we made it to Hilgard Meadow.

Hilgard Meadow is really incredible.  A stream meanders through the flat grassy expanse, and the area is framed by several bare granite peaks, including Mount Hilgard.  I can’t even imagine what it is like in the early Summer when the wildflowers are out.

We camped just beyond the meadow, arriving aroung 3:30pm (so ~6ish hours on trail), and had an extremely cold night – it got down below freezing and we had ice on our tent the next morning.

Day 2: Hilgard Meadow to Vee Lake (~10 miles, ~2600ft ascent)

Hilgard Meadow as seen from the ascent to Lake Italy

The path from Lake Italy to Jumble Lake – a disaster of scree the entire way

The four of us at the saddle above the Bear Lakes

Vee Lake at sunset

Alright, here we go.  Thinking about this day still makes me hurt.  We were on trail from 9:30am until 7:30pm.  It took 10 hours to go 10 miles, so roughly 1 mph.  We are all very fit – the terrain is what killed us.

For anyone who happens to stumble across this blog, I am going to lay out the correct way to do this.  Because we did not do it correctly.  We . . . let’s say . . . learned a lot about cross-country route finding above 12,000ft.

First off, everything from Hilgard Meadow to the saddle above Jumble Lake is a complete disaster of granite debris.  Where Yosemite Park granite is smooth and flowing, Muir Wilderness granite is broken and otherworldly.  The route requires a significant amount of boulder-hopping and hand-over-hand scrambling, through talus fields, loose scree, and granite boulder moraines.  Which is way harder than it sounds with a full pack on your back.

The CORRECT route to get up and over the saddle

From Hilgard meadow, follow the trail along the easy, flat section until you begin to climb.  The trail quickly turns to granite talus, and you’ll be hopping boulders on the way up the river valley until you’re even with Teddy Bear Lake.  Make sure and take a look back at Hilgard Meadow – the river valley is very beautiful from the trail.  The critical point will be where to cross from the left side of the river to the right side (West to East).  We crossed too late, and ended up doing far more boulder hopping than is necessary.  Instead, cross the river at the nice flat-ish section before the final ascent to Lake Italy, not too far past the Teddy Bear Lake inlet.  The trail is much easier on the right hand (East) side of the river.  We probably wasted 30-45 minutes and a good amount of safety on the wrong side.

Next big thing – I’m pretty sure there is a trail somewhere about 30-50 vertical feet above Lake Italy.  We stayed down by the shore, which is again a disaster of boulders, requiring tedious negotiation.  We did not arrive at the far side of Lake Italy for lunch until something like 2pm.

Lake Italy itself is totally otherworldly.  It is framed in nearly 360 degrees by high, bare peaks.  Broken granite lines its shores, and the buff mountainous landscape in the near distance is foreboding.  It is a place that looks as rugged as can be.  There are no trees, and very few plants.  Everywhere is rock.  It is at the same time beautiful, strange, lonely, and peaceful.

From Lake Italy, there isn’t much of a trail.  You go up the right side of the drainage coming down from Jumble, which is difficult to identify.  They key thing here is to cross to the left (North) side of the lake early.  As soon as you get up the initial slope from Lake Italy, cross the drainage and head for the left margin of Jumble Lake.  Do not get lulled into thinking you can make easy progress on the right (South) side of the lake.  There is a nice, flat, mostly boulder-free area that leads up to the lake’s moraine on the South side.  The moraine is pretty, but looked impossible to cross.  This is a dead end.

Now is where it gets tricky.  Follow the faint cairns up the slope from Jumble Lake, heading toward Italy Pass.  The route gets very steep as it approaches a bench (which you cannot see from below).  Sierra South tells you to turn South (right) off the trail just below some granite ledges.  These were fairly easy to identify – about 20ft high vertical slabs.  There are some cairns if you turn off here.

From this point, DO NOT FOLLOW ANY MORE CAIRNS.  There is a trail of cairns leading to absolutely nowhere up the slope.  We followed those damn cairns, which were hard to find, all the way up to about 12,300ft.  The intention was to climb up to the elevation of the saddle, then make our way around the rim of the bowl and over to the saddle itself.  This is not possible, or at least not possible in any reasonable amount of time.

Instead, once you turn off the trail below the granite ledges, start heading further south.  You can gain a little bit of elevation, but your target at this point is to aim directly for the pass.  The bowl has two drainages, separated by a nose in the middle.  The Italy Pass trail follows the Northern (left) drainage.  You need to get into the Southern (right) drainage.  After you exit the trail about 50ft below the ledges, keep heading south at near constant elevation, over a nose into the South drainage.

Now, you should be at a relatively flat spot in the Southern drainage.  If you’re above the flat spot, go down to it.  If you don’t see a flat spot, keep going up and over.

Now look at the saddle.  There are two clear features leading up to it: a vertical indentation (likely a drainage), and an angled indentation, which goes from upper left to lower right as you look at the saddle.  Aim for the angled indentation.  Once you get onto this slope, the going isn’t too bad, and you can pick your way up to the saddle relatively quickly.

The saddle as viewed from the top of the false cairn trail.  45-degree cut is visible to the left of the shadow on right side of the pic.  Flat area for crossing drainage at lower right of pic.

The CORRECT route to get from the saddle to Vee Lake

At the far side of the long saddle lies the prize.  The view of Bear Lakes and the surrounding area is so spectacular and unexpected, we all stopped and stared.  The labor of the last 8 hours was forgotten, worry about the quickly failing daylight was put on hold, and we just took it in (and took some pictures as well).  The view from here is one of the best I have ever seen.

Going from the saddle to Vee Lake is a pretty easy affair.  The initial drop-off to White Bear Lake is steep, sandy, and loose.  Beyond that, the terrain is quite easy.  Just make the correct turns as indicated by the map – stay to the right (North) of White Bear, right (North) of Big Bear, left (South) of LIttle Bear, and then every time you hit a fork in the road, go left until you get the Vee Lake.  It’s mostly down, but there is a slight incline in the cleft on the way from Little Bear to Vee.  It looks enticing to follow Little Bear’s drainage downhill to the right (North), but that is a road to nowhere.

Initially I was worried about the approach into Vee Lake, since the topo shows a pretty steep grade from the trail into the lake, but it’s nothing to be worried about.  Easy picking down to the lake.

Vee Lake itself is another amazing place.  It is a more personal version of Lake Italy.  Where Italy is craggy and foreboding, Vee is inviting.  There are great campsites just up the shore, and the scree isn’t too densely packed.  And of course, we had the place to ourselves.  I’d bet Vee doesn’t see more than a handful of visitors a month.  It looks like the surface of the moon, and you know you’re pretty far off the beaten path in that place.

Day 3: Vee Lake to Bear Creek/JMT (7.5mi, 2,400ft descent)

The surreal view Northeast from our campsite at Vee Lake

Kristen and Laurel gathering water at Vee

Kristen and Vicky on the descent from Vee Lake.  Seven Gables peak in the background

We had planned at layover day at Vee Lake, either for day hiking or just lounging around.  Certainly we deserved it after the feat the day before.

However, a few things conspired to cut our stay at Vee short.  Due to the nearby fire in Sequoia NP, a thick cloud of smoke descended into the basin around 2-3am, and Kristen’s lungs were burning.  It luckily blew out by 5-6am, but we didn’t want to chance it again.  Plus, we were all too fatigued from the effort of the previous day to want to day hike.

So our compromise was: take a leisurely morning, leave camp at noon, and enjoy the theoretically easy ~7 miles downhill to the JMT and beyond.

We succeeded in taking a leisurely morning.  In fact it was really nice to hang out and drink a second cup of coffee in the spectacular Vee Lake basin.

The trip out, however, was not as expected.  Within 10 minutes, we were descending a steep, scree-filled gully down to the Seven Gables Lakes.  From that point on, there really was no consistent trail to speak of until we hit the JMT.  It was a patchwork of random cairns (which we no longer trusted), random tree blazes, and lots of scree.  The going was again slow, though the Seven Gables drainage was gorgeous – a wide, meandering river through a granite gorge, with views of the surrounding peaks the whole way.  The key to descending this river valley is to make sure you’re on the proper side of the river.  I think we crossed that river a dozen times throughout the day.  We’d keep going until it became clear we’d run out of reasonable trail, and then we’d either cross or backtrack until we could cross.

By the time we hit the JMT, it was probably 4pm, and we were thrilled to be on such an easy trail.  We did a good pace all the way to the Bear Creek turnoff, probably 3-4mph average.  The well-maintained trail felt almost laughably straightforward after the previous few days.  We made great time, and got to camp with plenty of daylight to play around at the river and cook a big dinner.

Day 4: Bear Creek to Bear Diversion Dam (6.5mi, 1,400ft descent)

Kristen and Vicky on Bear Creek

The whole group after finishing the trip

The last day was more or less a victory lap.  6.5 miles of pretty easy trail, mostly downhill.  We were out of camp by 9:30, and at the dam by noon.  We met up in Fresno for our habitual In-n-Out burger stop, where Kristen ate only one double-double.

It was a fantastic trip.  The views on this trip were as good as any we’ve ever had, particularly the view from the saddle into the Bear Lakes.

We learned a lot about cross-country navigation, and route planning to take into account terrain.  The going was shockingly slow on this trip, and I am grateful that all four of us have very good fitness.  In fact, I think it was our fitness that gave us the margin for error that permitted us to finish day 2 .  I bet we lost 4 hours that day to mistakes, which could be potentially devastating at that altitude.  But we came out of it stronger and smarter than ever, and we’re already planning our big trip for next year!

Bali–Part 2

Day 5: Pemuteran Beach

Kristen at Pemuteran beach

We wanted a beach day.  We had assumed the hotel was beachfront, or at least had beach access, but it did not, so we really wanted to spend some time in the sand.

Now, we’re not really beach people.  We normally get bored after an hour or two.  But Pemuteran has one major draw – they are building a coral reef.  Dynamite fishing has destroyed lots of reefs in the area, so Pemuteran is trying an experiment in rebuilding.  They put several metal mesh structures underwater, and lightly charge them with electricity, which apparently stimulates coral growth.  We were a bit wary that the man-made reefs would be kind of lame, but we were pleasantly surprised.  There were good, interesting corals, and a good amount of cool fish to see.  We snorkled two parts of the reef, and easily filled the day.

One other interesting thing about Pemuteran, and the Northwest corner of Bali, is how dry and pleasant it is.  The mountains surrounding our hotel looked a lot like the San Gabriel mountains around LA.  We were pretty struck by how low the humidity was.  Bali really works as a tropical paradise, versus say a place in the Carribean – the weather in Bali is really, really nice (between 65-85 every day, not very humid). 

Day 6: Tulamben

Kristen watching the sunset in Tulamben

Tulamben sunset

Next stop was Tulamben, a beach town on the East side of Bali.  It’s a straight shot from Pemuteran to Tulamben on the coast road, ringing about a quarter of the circumference of the island.  It was easy going, and we made good time, arriving in Tulamben before noon.

Tulamben is known again for its diving.  Every hotel in town has a dive center attached.  The main attraction is a wreck just off the coast.  During WWII, a Japanese torpedo took out a US Navy cargo ship close by.  The wreck was towed to the coast of Bali so its contents could be unloaded.  After sitting on the beach for years, they decided to drag it a couple hundred meters off the shore, and now it is an amazing place for SCUBA.

We put on our snorkel gear that afternoon and headed to check it out.  You can snorkel out and see a big section of the stern, starting maybe no more than 10ft below the surface.  It was really, really cool.  We saw all sorts of cool sea life living in and around the wreck.  Coral had taken over parts of the hull, and we saw stingrays and sea snakes and all sorts of other cool fish like giant puffers.  One interesting feature was that the schools of fish were not at all perturbed by snorkelers and divers.  I would free dive down and swim through entire schools of fish, and they would barely move out of the way.

That night, we decided to have dinner by the beach and watch the sunset.  It was a nice day.  We went to bed at 8:00.

Day 6/7: Mt. Agung

The early sunrise from the rim of Mt. Agung.  Mt. Rinjani on Lombok in the distance.

Agung again, maybe 5 minutes later.  The light was changing so quickly.

Kristen on Agung at dawn.

Agung casting a shadow over the land on the way down.

We went to bed at 8:00 because at midnight we were getting picked up and driven to a temple at the base of Mt. Agung.  We planned to hike to the summit of the tallest volcano on Bali, with a peak elevation of just over 10,000ft.  Agung is the spiritual center of Bali.  The temples on the land are all laid out directionally from Agung.

The best way to hike to the crater rim is at night.  You have to go with a guide, and our hotel (Liberty Dive Resort in Tulamben) arranged transport and a guide for us.  We met the guide at the base, and we started the hike at around 2am.  There were probably 20 or 30 other people hiking with guides as well, mostly young foreigners.  Some were wearing t-shirts and shorts.  Guess who was shivering in the pre-dawn at 10,000ft.

They pace the hike to the slowest person.  It’s about a 3,000ft gain, up a steep and unrelenting slope.  The guides all set a very slow pace so that everyone would make it up for the sunrise. The hike was probably doable in 2 hours, but it took us 3 with a few mandatory stops along the way.  The lower part of the trail begins in jungle, then proceeds up a steep slope of loose dirt and rock as the trees thin, and finishes up on a bare lava flow covered in compressed ash.  Of course, we knew none of this because we were hiking up at night.  It was honestly pretty sketchy – there was some fairly exposed rock scrambling required, and it was unclear if there were cliffs on either side of us in the pre-dawn darkness.  Kristen was pretty spooked by the whole thing.  Again the Devil’s bargain – if you want to see the sunrise on Agung, you have to endure the super sketchy trail in the dark.

At the summit, the guide prepared us a breakfast of instant coffee, bars, and bananas goring (fried bananas).  It was a welcome treat after the hike up.

As the sun started coming up, the view was just incredible.  We could see the sky turning colors, and Mt. Rinjani, the highest volcano on neighboring Lombok island appeared in the distance.  It was really magical, and totally worth the ordeal on the way up.  I took tons of pictures, because every minute it seemed like the view was new and different.  Eventually it was bright enough to see into the crater below, and we saw we were on the edge of probably a 500ft sheer drop off.  Yikes, but oh so gorgeous.

The way down start out well enough – in the light, the going was much easier, and we made good time down the lava flow.  We saw that there were no cliffs and only minor danger.  And even better – Agung was casting its shadow across the entire land because of shallow sun angle at dawn.  I’d never seen anything like that before.

As with all hikes, the last hour or two was monotonous drudgery.  Our knees were hurting because of the constant descent, and we were going fairly slow because the loose dirt and rocks were so slippery.

Though, the landscape again was wild and totally unexpected.  There were pine trees interspersed with banana trees.  Dry climate, cool-weather plants and trees next to tropical trees.  So strange and interesting.

Finally we made it to the temple at the base, and said our thank-yous to our guide.

Day 7: zonked out in Tulamben

The grounds at Liberty Dive Resort

Kristen getting ready to snorkel after the hike

We planned day 7 as a chill day after the hike.  Kristen was feeling fine after the hike, but I had a headache, probably on account of the altitude (I have become more sensitive as I have gotten older).  Coffee helped, as did a massage ($10 for an hour!).  We went for a quick snorkel, but the visibility wasn’t great.  So we mostly hung out by the pool, and I did some work.

Dinner could not have come soon enough, and we were again asleep by 8:30.

Day 8: Ubud again

Us at Pura Lempuyang

The gates of Pura Lempuyang with Mt. Agung in the distance

Warrior dance at the Gunung Sari legong performance

The Barong!  A crowd pleaser for sure, about to fight with a Sea Witch

Day 8 was our last full day in Bali.  Originally we had planned to drive from Tulamben to Kuta, just to see the insanity (and also because Kuta is right by the airport).  But we decided we absolutely did not care about the tourist beach.  We cancelled our Kuta hotel reservation, and booked another night at Villa Sabandari in Ubud, so we could get some real coffee and go see another legong.

On the way to Ubud, we stopped at Pura Lempuyang.  Lempuyang is an important temple in Bali, one of the aforementioned directional temples.  It also probably the most beautiful temple in Bali, with the side benefit that it is so remote it sees almost no tourists.  We had until this point made no real effort to visit temples.  We had driven by and wandered by several, but apparently visiting the famous temples in Bali is a disaster – touts, scams, fake guides, hordes of people, the works.  So when we read about Lempuyang, we were set.  And it was all it was promised to be.  We had great views of Mt. Agung, which we had summited 28 hours before, and more or less had the complex to ourselves.

Lempuyang is actually comprised of 7 temples, and has 1,700 stairs leading to the top (with more views of Agung).  After our hike, our knees were still achy, and we were in no place to do the trek.  So we settled for the first temple, a modest climb up from the street, which also happens to be the most picturesque.

Once we arrived in Ubud, we went for a walk in town.  We had lunch at Warung Enak, which was by far the best food we had in Bali.  See, Indonesia isn’t really known for its food.  They mostly just fry things – rice, noodles, bananas, etc.  Every warung across the land serves more or less the same menu.  So Warung Enak was a real treat – Indonesian food done by a proper chef.  It was incredible.

The legong performances were somewhat limited on account of the Hindu holiday, but we found a famous and respected group called Gunung Sari would be playing that night, so we bought tickets in advance.  The show was great – just as good as the original we had seen a week before at ARMA.  They played Kristen’s favorite gamelan piece, the Oleg, and they even did the Barong.  In Bali Hinduism, the Barong is a good spirit who lives in the forest and wards off evil spirits.  It’s the classical image you see on all sorts of Balinese stuff – the monster mask.  We were glad to have seen it.

Afterward, we went back to Warung Enak for dinner.  It’s that good.

I am so, so glad we went back to Ubud instead of Kuta.

Day 9: off (and Kuta)

Kristen and I had a gap in our flights on our last day, so after I checked in, Kristen went off to spend a few hours in Kuta just to see how awful it was.  Apparently it’s just as bad as we thought.  Yes, the beach is very pretty, but everything surrounding it is a disaster.  She left after like an hour or two – she would rather sit in the airport than on Kuta beach.

Bonus videos of driving in Bali

Driving in Bali #1

Driving in Bali #2 - Narrow Road

Driving in Bali #3

Bali–Part 1

Kristen and I spent a week in Bali.  I’ve been in Hong Kong/China for work for the past 3 months, so it seemed like a great time to travel to a place we’ve always wanted to visit.

This entry is going to be a tome.  We experienced a lot in Bali, both good an bad, and I’m writing this soon after the trip, without the benefit of memory blocking out the bad.

Day 1: arrival and travel to Ubud

First, I’ll lay out a couple of things about this trip.  Bali is most famous for its beaches in the South, namely Kuta, Legian, and Seminyak.  We did not plan to go to any of these beaches.  Apparently they are a complete disaster, and we heard only awful things.  In fact, I believe Australia has a TV show called “Tourists Behaving Badly” or something that is based in Kuta.  These areas are basically the Myrtle Beach of Southeast Asia – a bunch of people trying to sell junk to sunburned drunk people in an uncomfortable setting near the beach, plus a Hard Rock Café.  I guess they have good surfing, though.

Anyway, we decided instead to venture further afield.  We rented a car.  Bali is a former colony, and they drive on the opposite side of the road, so I was excited to get the change to learn to drive like that.  We had intended to rent a manual transmission car, but apparently that vehicle was broken down, so instead we got an automatic.  I didn’t know it at the time, but thank god for that.

The drive from the airport to Ubud (about a 1-2 hour drive) was harrowing to say the least.  Driving on the other side of the road is fine, getting used to the location of the turn signal and mirrors is fine.  But I was unprepared for the lack of spatial awareness.  I had no idea how much room I had on the left, or how close I could comfortably be to the center line of the road without smacking into something.  This is fine if you’re in a place with good roads, but Bali is The Land That Infrastructure Forgot.  The roads are insanely narrow in many places – in fact sometimes one car has to pull off the road to let oncoming traffic by, and the rules of the road are insanely foreign.  There are probably 10 motorbikes (scooters really) to every car, mostly carrying entire families including babies, people just walk out into the street, and cars just go wherever they want.  Plus it was night time for that first drive.  Kristen was yelling at me that I was going to smash the car into the trees at the side of the road, and I was yelling at her that I had to keep to the side to avoid nailing oncoming traffic.  We arrived with nerves completely frayed, regretting our decision to rent the car.

Good thing the hotel – Villa Sabandari – was amazing!

Day 2: Ubud

Us by the pool at Vila Sabandari

Rice paddies up on Campuhan Ridge

Ubud is the “cultural center” of Bali.  They have performances of local music and theater every night, and the best museums and arts scene in Bali.  It’s a somewhat quaint place, a collection of villages really, but with good restaurants and transportation.  It’s in the center of the country, away from the beach, so the town and surrounding rice paddies are the main attraction.

Ubud is also one of the settings in the book Eat, Pray, Love.  Which means the streets are full of Western women wearing weird pants and Namaste shirts.  You can see the counter-culture vein in the town – the best restaurant in town is called Locavore, they have yoga classes advertised all over, and there are many tattoo parlors (yoga hipsters love tattoos).

On the docket for the day was to wake up early and walk up Campuhan ridge.  The ridge has a nice brick path leading right from the edge of town, through some nice open-air art galleries, and on up to some terraced rice fields.  It was a very nice walk.

Afterward, we puttered around town, checking out some of the local shops, before heading back to the hotel for a dip in the pool and a shower before dinner.

Dinner was quick and easy, at a warung (small restaurant shop) by the hotel.

Afterward, we went to a legong show at ARMA, the largest museum in town.  Legong is a form of Balinese performance dance, often telling a story.  The movements are quite flowy, supplemented by subtle finger and toe wiggles, plus eye movements to convey the story.  The dancers are complemented by a gamelan orchestra.  Kristen played in a gamelan called Galak Tika at MIT (one of the few gamelan in the U.S.).  When I first heard gamelan, I hated it – it sounds like a cacophony of noise to the western ear.  But I have come to really love it over the past several years.

The gamelan shows were frankly a major part of the reason we came to Bali at all.  I did a ton of research to find the best gamelan orchestras in town, so Kristen would see the masters at work.  The Arma group is known as the Peliatan Masters, and masters they were.  I was totally enthralled by the performance.  The players in the orchestra were clearly having a great time, and the dancers were super engaging.  Sometimes, when the dance was synced up with the music, it was unclear who was leading whom.  Kristen confirmed that the gamelan was top notch as well.

This show at ARMA was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Day 3: Ubud to Pemuteran

The Jatiluwih rice terraces

Jatiluwih again

Day 3 was mostly a travel day.  It was also the day I learned to drive in Bali.

The plan was to drive from Ubud to Pemuteran.  The trip would take us up through the center of Bali, to the North Coast, and then to the far Northwestern tip of the island, within sight of Java.  People said the drive would take 4 hours or so.

After a bit of a late start (we wandered back into town that morning to get some coffee from Anomali, the best shop in Bali), we began the drive.  I had planned a stop at the Jatiluwih rice terraces.  These are the terraced rice paddies you see in pictures.  It’s a UNESCO world heritage sight, and well, well off the beaten path.  We got lost twice going there.  The final approach road was a narrow disaster you can barely even call a road.  But once we arrived, wow.  The terraces are unbelievable – a vast complex built onto the slope of a volcano.  We hiked down and into a terrace, and then had some babi guling (suckling pig) at a local warung.

The rest of the drive should have been beautiful, but it was pretty horrendous.  Narrow windy mountain roads, suspicions of getting lost (we learned the limitations of the Garmin), traffic, and several near-misses.  We wondered many times why we were even going to Pemuteran.  We both had doubts that I had done a good job planning the trip.

Oh, and also, people were burning trash everywhere.  This is again a symptom of Bali’s struggle with infrastructure.  People buy stuff, or use stuff, and there is not really any place to put the trash.  So they either litter (many temples, public places, and roads are strewn with litter), throw it in a heap on a hillside (we saw many garbage heaps), or simply burn it.  It seemed to be a daily ritual to burn trash at every house in every village we traveled through.  I’ve seen it blamed on culture – the Balinese historically ate out of banana leaves which could be discarded easily – but what we saw is far more extensive than that.

We finally arrived about 5pm, giving us a total travel time of about 7 hours, and were totally exhausted from the drive, though I felt like I was getting the hang of the language of the roads by the end of the trip – when to pass, when to pull off, when to honk, how to turn into traffic, normal traveling speeds, etc.

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant and went to bed early.

Day 4: Menjangan Island

The boat to Menjangan Island

Selfie in the boat to Menjangan

Kristen on the boat from Menjangan after snorkeling

We awoke that morning to the sound of roosters calling at around 5am.  Apparently there is a chicken farm right next to the hotel.  The plan for the day was to go snorkel at Menjangan island.

Menjangan island is the main draw of the Pemuteran area.  It is an island in a nature preserve that is about a 30 minute boat ride from town, and it borders the only national park on Bali.  Menjangan is known for its massive coral reef system – probably the best in Bali.  It is quite remote, so the island doesn’t get very crowded.

Kristen and I “learned” to snorkel in Belize in January, so we already have all the gear.  We also learned to ID tropical reef fish, many of which were also present in Menjangan.  It was good that we were experienced, because the tour set up by the hotel was sort of a mess.  The guides didn’t speak English, and it was unclear what was going on the whole time.  There was no briefing, no buddy system, and no fish ID help or anything.  Some people were standing on the coral and breaking off chunks.  It was horrifying to watch.  It was not clear if we were supposed to snorkel near our guide, or even who our guide was.  So Kristen and I kind of did our own thing.

Luckily, Menjangan island is incredible.  None of the disorganization mattered.  The reef was absolutely jammed full of coral of all different colors and types we hadn’t seen in Belize.  Some of the fish were the same, and we were excited that we could ID some of them.  But there were some new ones, and way larger ones than we had seen in Belize.  We did two snorkels, and had a fantastic time.

Afterward, we went back to the hotel and went for a swim in the pool.

As we reflected on the past few days, we realized a pattern had emerged – Bali is a bit of a Devil’s bargain.  There are truly amazing things to do and see, but they mostly require some degree of horror or hassle to do and see them.

Beijing

A tower on an unmaintained portion of the Great Wall, above Jiankou

The forbidden city

Another view of the unmaintained section of the wall

I’ve been spending a lot of time in Hong Kong and China.  One weekend, a couple of team members and I decided to do a weekend in Beijing.

I did the planning.  We had time only for the highlights:

- The great wall.  Saturday was great wall day.  I had done some research and found that the more touristy areas were supposed to be pretty jammed up, restored Disneyland-type places.  So instead we booked a car service to take us out to a remote town called Jiankou, where we would hike up a hillside in a forest to reach an unrestored section of the wall.  This was . . . incredible!  It was a good hike, and the first view we had of the wall and the valley below was breathtaking.  We saw the wall stretch over a ridge in the distance, and were able to climb into and on top of a crumbling old tower.  From there, we trekked a couple of hours back to a restored section at Mutainyou, where we did indeed see hordes of tourists and hawkers (there is even a tram that takes you up to the wall from the parking lot).  Our driver met us at the bottom of the hill (we walked – no tram for us).

- Peking duck.  Saturday night, we went out for some famous Peking duck.  I found Siji Minfu.  We knew there would be a wait, so we put our name in (nobody there spoke English so we had no clue what was going on or how the system worked), and strolled around town for an hour and change.  The duck was absolutely amazing.  They served it a bit differently, with the skin separate.  It was of a different level – even better than the (otherwise excellent) duck we get habitually in Hong Kong.

- Summer Palace.  Sunday morning, I woke up early and took a taxi to the Summer Palace, which is a complex surrounding a lake that apparently a former empress spent time at.  It was horrendous.  It was just a big park that was not that nice.  It was so jammed with people I could hardly walk around.  There weren’t even nice buildings or anything.  I spent 15 minutes fighting the crowds to higher ground, 15 minutes trying to figure out why this place was popular, 2 minutes deciding there was no explanation, and 15 minutes walking out, finding a taxi, and going someplace better.

- Hutong.  Hutong are tiny alleyways near the center of Beijing.  They are a mix of old and new – streets so narrow you can’t really drive cars through, with a mixture of cool local shops and modern restaurants.  Some Hutong were quiet, and some were jammed with people.  But there were few tourists to be seen, which was a relief.  I ducked into a café and had a nice coffee and piece of cake, then ventured onward.  The Hutong were a highlight of the trip for sure.

- Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City.  Yeah, we had to do it.  I met up with my co-workers Shaun and Alex after walking the Hutong (they had been out late the night before and slept in), and we got tickets to go into the Forbidden City.  Yes, there were tourists, but the scope of the place was so vast, shockingly vast, that it didn’t matter.  We wandered around awestruck.  One of the most amazing things was that the courtyards did not have any trees.  They were just huge open spaces paved with stones, so you had panoramic views of the huge buildings all around.  And it was seemingly never-ending.  We wandered and walked and wandered from one courtyard to the next.  Eventually we made it to the museum, which had some pretty cool artifacts (though the majority of the collection was taken by the KMT).  A friend had told us to visit some of the other exhibits, but we were pretty gassed from being outside in the hot sun for so long, so we walked out and on to lunch instead.

Beijing was a nice city, and we got very, very luck to go at a time when there was almost no pollution.  The food was great, and there were cool things to see.  I’d definitely go back.

Bangkok

Shanty town on a small creek

Temple visited on our bike tour

Long boat crossing the river

I visited Bangkok for a work meeting in May.  I decided to fly in a couple days early and spend a weekend there.

I arrived Saturday evening without much to do, so I ate in the hotel.  At the time I didn’t know that in Southeast Asia, some of the best restaurants are found in hotels.  So I had one of the best Thai meals of my life that night.

The next day, some colleagues from Mattel had invited me to do a 3-4 hour bike tour of Bangkok, with ABC Bangkok Bike Tours.  It was fantastic – we didn’t spend much time in traffic, and instead rode through some cool local neighborhoods.  We then crossed the main river in a long boat (powered by a horrifying bare car engine hooked up to a long driveshaft with a propeller on it).  On the other side, we rode through the Thai jungle on a raised concrete path, and stopped in a tiny village for a snack.  It was really amazing – I felt like we saw another side of Bangkok that day.  Later that night, we went out for dinner and drinks in the neighborhood of the hotel.  We had a peek of the seedy stuff that night – drunk foreigners hitting on ladyboys in the street, callers inviting you in to sex shows, and so on. Bangkok is weird.

If I had one additional day, I probably would have done maybe a temple tour and gone to a night market.  On the drive to the plant, we saw some pretty ridiculous huge elephant statues and stuff, and I heard good things about the insanity of the night market.

Belize

Seats in paradise

Kristen looking out over the shallow reefs and sand flats

Kristen learning to roll a kayak

Jeff learning to windsurf

Kristen and I took an “anniversary trip” to Belize at the start of January.

For a while now, we have been trying to find a way to do a warm-weather vacation in Winter that wouldn’t be boring.  And by boring I mean that neither of us can sit on the beach for more than 45 minutes without going crazy.  As it turns out, it’s hard to find a beach vacation that is also active, and so we’d more or less given up on the idea of going to the beach.

But sometime over the Summer, Kristen stumbled on Slickrock Adventures, which owns a private island way off the coast of Belize, called Long Caye in Glover’s Atoll.  The island has no internet, no cell service, no electricity save for lights in the mess hall, no hot water, rainwater for drinking, composting toilets, and a 3 hour boat ride over rough open ocean to get there.  It also has a fleet of sea kayaks, surf kayaks (which you can take into the break to ride the waves), windsurf boards, kite surf gear, stand-up paddleboards, and countless coral reefs within a 1-mile radius.  In short, it’s perfect – you get to do tons of activities without ever having to travel – so no packing up and moving from place to place.

Basically it was adult summer camp.  There were about 10-20 guests on the island, and 4-5 guides.  Each day, the guides would lay out ~3 activities we could do in the morning, and 3 more after lunch.  There was almost always a guided snorkel, plus lessons on one of the wind-related sports.  The instruction and guiding was absolutely great.  And of course you had the option to do something else, but the guides were giving instruction on the pre-determined activities, so we just about always did those.  You also had the option of skipping the activity to lie in a hammock, but almost nobody did that.

Which brings me to my next point: the people we were with.  The island is very self-selecting.  The rustic living conditions and remote location, coupled with the focus on activities rather than relaxation, means that only a particular type of person is interested in the trip.  Just about everyone there had outdoors experience, and didn’t mind being dirty for 8 straight days.  So of course everyone else was super nice and friendly, and we got along great with all the guests and guides.

We were on the island for a total of about 8 days (Saturday-Saturday).  I took 1.5 kite surfing lessons before the wind died out, and also got decent at beginner windsurfing.  Kristen did a ton of open-water swimming, and loved kayak surfing.  And we snorkeled every day, and did SUP whenever the water was calm.  It’s hard to say what we liked the best, since we were having fun with all the activities every day, but the snorkeling was honestly probably the highlight.  The water was crystal clear and warm, and we saw tons of cool stuff – gorgeous fish like parrotfish, angelfish (the queen is the best), fairy basslets, jacks, damselfish (the juvenile is the best), pufferfish, hogfish, blue tang, chubb, grunts, trumpetfish, barracuda, spiny lobsters, octopus, bonefish, grouper (big ones), nurse sharks, scorpionfish, butterflyfish, triggerfish, filefish, spotted moray eels, sea urchins, squirrelfish, wrasse, jellyfish, sea cucumber, conch, yellow rays, southern rays, spotted eagle rays, and of course, lionfish.  Plus a bunch of others I can’t remember, and super cool types of coral as well.

In all, the trip was truly amazing.  We want to go back next year.  I can’t really imagine any other way we’d want to take a “beach vacation” in the future.