“To travel,” Aldous Huxley wrote, “is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” It’s also a way to discover that you’re wrong about your own country.

 Sort of wrong, anyway.  Sort of right, and sort of wrong. Going in, I had a bundle of preconceptions  about Arkansas. Friends who knew about the trip hummed the theme from Deliverance (the musical equivalent, geographically speaking, of confusing Danny Boy with Frere Jacques).  And despite my own awareness that Johnny Cash, Bill Clinton and Mary Steenburgen all hail from Arkansas, I was unprepared either for the profusion of Barack Obama bumper stickers or the amazing quality of the breakfast burritos at The Oasis.

The most savvy among you will know, from those hints, that I was not in Little Rock, but Eureka Springs: an enclave of  like-minded beings in the northwestern part of the state. I’d been invited there to perform Strange Travel Suggestions at the Grand Central Hotel; itself a strange travel suggestion, kited by local residents Dawn Hagin and Faryl Kaye (owner of the stately Peabody House, which hosted my stay). Dawn and Faryl had seen me perform the show at the Book Passage Travel Writers’ Conference in August 2007, and made good on their threat to bring me to The Natural State.

  It’s two worlds, Eureka Springs: a close-knit literary and artistic community, where local band Mountain Sprout rocks the Chelsea with hillbilly porn and vans disguised as space shuttles smoke up Spring Street during the annual ArtRageous Parade; and a bastion of fundamentalist conservatism, as witnessed by the irresistible Bible park on the outskirts of town. One highlight of my trip was a visit to The Museum of Earth History, where I learned why carbon dating is bullshit, and how dinosaurs were squeezed onto the Ark (see blog title). To the left is a picture of us gaping, enaptured, at the 3rd-largest statue of Jesus in the world (right up there with Rio and Santiago).

Another terrific afternoon was spent along the Buffalo, the first U.S. river to be  designated “Wild and Scenic.” Hiking along the limestone bluffs far above its banks, I was amazed, as I so often am, by the almost inexhaustible number of fabulous parks in this great land of ours. When it comes to vouching for America’s scenic beauty, I’ll wave that flag as wide and high as any Pabst-swilling patriot.

 For me, though, the runaway highlight was the performance itself. The audience was terrific, the Q&A was a blast, and the show witnessed the maiden spins of my brand new Wheel. At 40 lbs, fitting into a 30” x 36” x 6”box, the suddenly portable prop – always the centerpiece of my show, thanks to the brilliant artist, Mark Wagner –now makes it possible for me to take Strange Travel Suggestions anywhere. And I will.
                                                                                    

 On March 18th, just before 1 pm PST, my dear friend Arthur C. Clarke died of respiratory failure in a Sri Lanka hospital. It was an event that his family and  close friends had dreaded for years, though it was of course inevitable. Aside from his advanced age — Arthur turned 90 in December — the futurist and science fiction grandmaster suffered from Post Polio Syndrome, which had confined his lanky, once tireless frame to a wheelchair.

Many of you are aware of the strong bond Arthur and I shared, ever since he generously consented to meet me, a babbling 16-year-old fan, at his writing retreat at New York’s Chelsea Hotel in 1970. Over the past 38 years, I’ve written many stories about our encounters, which usually took place at his home in Sri Lanka (and often included my utter humiliation at table tennis). A story about our last meeting currently appears on the online version of Wired, under the title Sundown with Arthur.

Words can’t adequately express my fondness for this man, or how profoundly his writing, humanism, humor, warmth, and vision — and what a vision — influenced my life. As a tribute, I hope to practice the advice Arthur himself offered me after the death of my brother Jordan, in 1990. "Don’t mourn that you lost him," Arthur wrote. "Rejoice that you knew him."

All of humanity should rejoice and honor the long tenure of this kind, brilliant man, who maintained a crazy confidence in the redemtion—and  transcendence—of the human race. He left us with scores of wonderful books, food for thought to nourish generations to come, and the most useful tool ever placed into human hands: the communications satellite. Farewell, my friend. What we owe you is beyond evaluation.

This is a Special Bulletin! If you happen to be in the Bay Area between now and March 22nd, you have the amazing good fortune to see two of my  favorite performers. Prince Gomolvilas and Brandon Patton are staging their fabulous Jukebox Stories: The Case of the Creamy Foam in the intimate but non-threatening confines of  Impact Theater in Berkeley. Gomolvilas is a high-octane story-teller who blends Asian angst with universal pathos; Patton an absolutely brilliant guitarist, sort of an R-rated cross between Alan Sherman and The Shins. This show has a couple of things in common with my own Strange Travel Suggestions (see Events!!): every show is different, and it’s always a trip. Check it out!

I’ve been bad. Very bad. It’s very bad, and rather sad, when a travel writer goes off on long, interesting journeys, and fails to blog. How could  this be? Am I getting lazy? Have I lost my spark? Wasn’t it Yours Truly who created the very first international blog, in 1993/1994, with my Size of the World dispatches for GNN? (Hey, if you don’t believe me, see Wikipedia!)

Truth is, I prefer writing live blogs when I’m not on assignment – writing them from places like Kathmandu, where I can spend a lazy morning eating mango pancakes and pondering 10-rupee bills (see previous blog). In Tasmania, it was non-stop action: from tripping over fairy penguins (in Stanley) to picking off leeches (Cradle Mountain). This happened in December, which is summer Down There, for Islands, in a Lost Ozzie World that amazed me with its chaotic coastline, exotic star clusters, and scrappy wildflowers.

But the detail was in the Devils. That’s what I love about this profession: in the space of a couple of weeks, distant points of abstraction  become visceral reality. Before my visit to Tassie, the only Devil I’d seen was Taz, the voracious dervish of Bugs Bunny fame. Never dreamed I’d meet—and come to  adore—the actual item.

Real Tasmanian Devils are fierce, charming marsupials the size of small pit bulls, jet black with white markings and pink ears. My desire to see one took on a quasi-mythical intensity: as if it were a tiger, or unicorn. I’ll never forget the night I spent in a coastal shack with Geoff King, a rancher-turned naturalist on the island’s west coast. King had scraped a dead wallaby off a nearby road, tossed it in his pick-up truck, then staked out the road kill behind his cabin. We drank chardonnay inside, and waited. At about 10 pm, a gutteral snarl alerted us to a visitor. Sure enough, a Devil had appeared, and was tearing apart the carcass. Hey – if There Will Be Blood, I’d rather get it from a dead wallaby than Daniel Day-Lewis.

Like so many charming things on this planet, Devils are in trouble. A strange and mysterious cancer, Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD), threatens to drive the indigenous animal to extinction within two decades. In November 2007, Devils were officially listed as an Endangered Species. If you’d like to learn something about these amazing animals, and the efforts to save them, check out the work being done by Wade Anthony at his Devil orphanage: Devils at Cradle. Look for the May 2008 issue of Islands, too.

No one wants to read a blog longer than 600 words, so I’ll stop soon. More in a week or so, with a report from my very recent trip to Peru. Meanwhile, let me recommend a book I’m reading. She sort of came out of nowhere — writing, directing, and starring in the effervescent indy film, Me & You & Everyone We Know — but Miranda July seems to be everywhere these days. In 2006, she did a terrific solo performance at San Francisco’s Theater Artaud, and she turns out to be a captivating writer, as well. I’m halfway through her first book, No One Belongs Here More Than You. (Which, as readers of my 2004 ThingsAsian blogs may recall, is the travel slogan for Israel.) I have no idea (yet) why Ms. July chose this as her title, but her short stories are brilliant and haunting and dreamy, and she writes like… well, no one else, but think Richard Brautigan on estrogen.

If you want to know what the Nepalese think of their king, you don’t have to look any further than  their 10-rupee notes. The sage-green and pale brown bills – worth about 16 cents – show the sunken-eyed, scowling monarch glancing off to the right, as if wary even of the portrait artist (as well he might have been). On the new bills, the portrait of the king is printed over with a bouquet of red rhododendrons, the national flower. But locals delight in holding the revamped bill to the light, proving that the monarch is still hiding behind the scenes.

 As Nepal bides its time, caught between a lame monarchy and a failed democracy (not to mention a despised, splintered Maoist movement), tourism remains an important revenue source. “Welcome to Magical, Mystical Nepal” declare banners strung across avenues choked with diesel-spewing trucks and crowded with ramshackle, earthquake-bait buildings. I have to laugh, imagining how ludicrous this must appear to first-time visitors. The banners are right – there’s still magic in Kathmandu — but getting to it involves frequent transits of hell. Traffic and pollution are so bad that the high-end department stores do a booming business in particle filter masks –though the good ones cost the equivalent of a week’s salary.

So why do I love this place? Because as soon as I get out of the city – and it doesn’t take long –  I’m reminded of where the magic really is.

 Just an hour’s drive north, the hamlet of Nagarkot faces out toward the middle hills and the central Himalaya. The lights and smog of Kathmandu are out of sight. My old friends Tom Kelly and Carroll Dunham – check out their books and films –  have built a small house here, and from this base (and the nearby Vajra Farmhouse) I’ve been taking short treks into the countryside. It’s mid-autumn, and every village is busy with the harvest: wheat, potatoes, cauliflower, bright red chili peppers, popcorn, tangerines, apples. Though the festival of Dasain is over, high bamboo poles –which served as scaffoldings for home-made swings — still stand in the village squares.

The changes in these villages since my first treks, 27 years ago, have been huge; there’s  electricity now, and motorcycles are parked outside some of the shops. Aquifers are channeled through brass nozzles (instead of carved naga spouts), and gush onto cement platforms. There are more schools, and trucks carry 50 kg sacks of produce to the markets in Asan and Kupondole. But it’s the little things that get me: men taking pictures of local pujas with their cell phones; writing pads emblazoned with Spider-man; porches decorated with glittering CDs, which dangle and turn in the breeze.

I cannot believe that I’ve got just one day left in Kathmandu. Two an a half weeks seemed like a  long time, but it’s been the shortest eight months of my life. Equally hard to believe is that this Fall marks the 20th anniversary of my “Shopping for Buddhas” trip (and that, after all these years, I’m still shopping). If the blessings I’ve collected here bear fruit, 2008 will see the publication of “Snake Lake” – a book as close to my heart as Nepal itself.

I’m in Kathmandu. Five years have passed since I’ve set foot in this Valley, which has been my spiritual home and point of inspiration since 1979. It’s a beautiful time to be here. The bloodthirsty Dasain festival is over, and the Moon is nearly full. In two weeks – just after I leave – Diwali, goddess Laxmi’s Festival of Lights, will begin.

Like so many other places in the developing world, the Kathmandu Valley changed profoundly, almost  unrecognizably, between the mid-1980’s and late 1990’s.  Most of the changes were for the worse. But the process of  degradation seems to have reached a plateau; aside from the political chaos, and the portrait of the unsmiling King Gyanendra on the newly minted rupee notes, the Himalayan capital is not very different from my last visit. Beyond the brick wall of Chrissie’s little garden, a street vendor totes a cloud of toy balloons; they pass like a giant white-and-pink rhododendron bloom. The air is filled with dust and butterflies, scooters bounce down pitted dirt lanes, the eyes of Buddha gleam from the gilt temple harnika of Swayambhu, and the ground-level shops in Asantole and Indrachowk overflow with bangles and incense, prayer flags and goat heads, spices and rope, silver cups, sarees, yak wool sweaters. I’m overflowing, too. It’s good to be home.

 Arrived in Nepal in mid-October, after taking my mother to India. She recently turned 75, and had never been to Asia before. I wanted to show her a few places while she’s still fit and sharp. We toured Delhi, and the forts and palaces of Rajasthan; we wandered among the startlingly modern astronomical sculptures in Jai Singh’s 18th century Observatory. And I brought her to the Taj Mahal — a place that, even after several visits, fills me with overwhelming admiration and awe. And so did my mother.

My premonitions for the trip had been dicey, to say the least: She’d get violently ill, she’d freak out, she would hate  the  food, she would tire quickly, the heat would be too much, the dust, the crowds, India. Wrong. We rode rickshaws into Delhi’s mobbed Old City, and an elephant up to Amber Fort. She developed a taste for papdam, masala dosa, and fresh lemon sodas. Her health was perfect, and she kept up with a punishing schedule that included hours – too many — in a bulbous Ambassador cab.

It was the most time I’d spent with my Mom since I was a teen, and her  open-mindedness was a revelation. The only aspects of India that panicked her were the aggressive vendors, who swarm around tourist sites like the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort. And though she hated taking her shoes off in the crowded, frenetic temples, my mother – an observant, kosher-keeping Jewess who arranged her own Bat Mitzvah at 68 – was a spiritual sponge. She bent her head for a sadhu’s blessing in the mobbed Kalkaji Temple, tied a wishing string to the marble lattice of Chasti’s Tomb, and – pinch me — took home a small, modernist carving of the elephant-headed god, Ganesh.

Back in Oakland, I sometimes dream about being in Kathmandu. The dreams all share a sense of urgency – so much  to do, so many friends to see, so little time.  I suspected when I planned this trip that 18 days was going to be a little too long — or way too short. What was I thinking?  Returning to Nepal is like falling back into a familiar embrace. Life here may be tough, but it’s life on a human scale. From this perspective, there an amazing awareness of the many levels that surround us – from the sacred snake-gods in the  subterranean pools to the toxin-choked Bagmati River; from the ravens screeching from the tree-tops to the eyes of Buddha atop the Boudha dome. On every level, every level. That’s why I love Nepal. That’s why, even after five years, I call it home.

As I walk along the beach at the Point Reyes National Seashore, a head pops out of the ocean. Fifty feet away, a harbor seal – an adolescent male – watches me from just beyond the swell. By the time I pull out my binoculars, he’s gone.
 
This beach has been part of my life for 32 years. The adjoining campground, Coast, is the first place I ever camped overnight. The fallow deer and raccoons that awakened me that long ago weekend are here still, two or three generations removed from the fauna that inhabited this lush seashore when I was a teen. Even then, in 1975, one or two  seals always appeared when I found a spot on the beach. They’d emerge from the surf and study me, seeming to wonder what I’d do next—or why I was doing anything at all.
 
In my life away from Point Reyes, I’ve watched plenty of kids grow up, and
plenty of people grow old. Some of the creatures I’ve known for years – my godson, my goddaughters, my co-workers and friends – didn’t even exist when I first walked down this beach. My brother Jordan, on the other hand—as well as well my father, and my grandparents —were alive back then. I remember writing my brother and telling him  about waking up in the middle of the night, and seeing a stark white deer standing right outside my tent, framed by the horns of Cassiopeia. Jordan’s gone now; so are many of my dear friends, claimed by accidents or disease.
 
The bluffs and rocks and cliffs of this beach have aged and crumbled during
those years as well, shaped by wind and erosion and tremors. Point Reyes is a lively place, where the ragged edges of the North American and Pacific plates scrape and shift in a perpetual renewal of the planet’s crust.

 But though I love this seashore—and have marked its changes—I don’t measure time on a geologic scale. I do that by the people who’ve come and gone in my life, during those 32 years of beach fires, day hikes, and bobcat- sightings.
 
The  seal surfaces again, keeping pace with my stroll along the shore. Quicker with my binoculars, I see his face. The pinniped seems genuinely curious. “Do I know you?” I call out, because alone on the beach we often speak without expecting an answer. “Did I know your father? Your uncle? Have we met before?”
 
He disappears, exquisitely adapted to water that has already numbed my feet.
I didn’t recognize him, of course. But it’s not unreasonable to think that,
when I first visited this coastline in 1975, one of his kin watched me
spread my blanket and open my book, just as I’ll do today. For all I know,
the seals themselves have kept track of me, as well: that tall guy with thin
legs, who used to have dark hair.
 
Each life on this planet is a continual coming-of-age, performed with a cast
of characters engaged in similar activity. We grow up with everyone, and everything, around us. For that reason I’m willing to consider these seals, and bobcats, and pelicans, and elk, part of my circle of friends (or at least my network of acquaintances). Even a fleeting moment of non-verbal contact with a  seal feels strangely comforting – like spying a former classmate, or their daughter, from atop a Ferris wheel at a crowded fair.

They may not see you wave, but it doesn’t matter. The sentiment is what counts. We’re still around, you and I. The world’s still spinning. I wish you well.

  In memory of Jordan M Greenwald, who would have turned 50 on June 6th. Written at the Mesa Refuge, Point Reyes, California, on the beach and in my writing cabin. My gratitude to the Common Counsel Foundation for the opportunity to spend two weeks at this extraordinary retreat.

My Pal Elliot met me in the Steam Trains parking lot at 4:40 on January 9th, half an hour before sunset. We often hike the East Bay Hills together, but this time was different. We had a mission: to catch a glimpse of Comet McNaught, (aka C/2006 P1), the celestial visitor darting briefly through our solar system.

McNaught was discovered on August 7th, and no one knew how bright it would be—comets are often mysterious and unpredictable—but the stories we’d been reading (“one of the brightest comets of the past century”) were irresistible.

We walked up the road to the microwave tower, and sat on a log as the day ended. It was one of the loveliest sunsets I’d ever seen, as the solar disk flattened across the Pacific with the Golden Gate Bridge and Mt. Tamalpais silhouetted in the foreground. The lights of Oakland and San Francisco glittered below. As the sky’s glow faded, and brilliant Venus came into view, we scanned the western horizon in vain: no comet.

We were baffled. How had we missed it? Had we totally blown the time, the dates, the direction? Finally, after a few slugs of Mekong whiskey, we began our retreat to the parking lot. Halfway down the hill I stopped at a break in the trees, raised my binoculars for one last look – and gasped in amazement. Two fingers above the horizon, just north of where the sun had set, I saw it: the brilliant white coma of McNaught, trailing a long, gossamer tail that curved in the solar breeze.

Once we knew where to look, McNaught was clearly visible with the naked eye: an absolutely gorgeous sight, like a comet out of a fairytale.

McNaught will soon disappear behind the sun, re-emerge for viewers on the Earth’s southern hemisphere, and swing off toward the reaches of deep space. For the next few days, though—through January 13th—those of us in the northern hemisphere, with a clear view of the eastern and/or western horizon, will have a chance to see this beautiful apparition at dawn and sunset. Catch it if you can. 

God, that is. We had a very interesting conversation. Where? Where else but the Black Rock desert, where the Divine Essence and I enjoyed a rambling, 10-minute chat on Friday morning. Not metaphysically, but in a phone booth (while Superman waited patiently outside).

I asked if She’d read “The End of Faith,”an enormously provocative and important book by Sam Harris. Indeed She had. (Interestingly, the woman who spoke to God before me described Him as a man.) “The problem isn’t faith,” She said, “but organized religion.” When I wondered why there wasn’t more divine intervention, given the current state of affairs, She replied by answering that age-old question: Yes, we do have free will, and no, there isn’t much She can do about the little foibles, the microcosmic inanities, of creation.

So what of the Bible? The Old Testament is the source of much of the modern world’s conflict and turmoil, and I wanted to know once and for all whether or not it was, in fact, God’s word. When I asked that final question, She laughed with dry amusement: “Come on," She insisted. "I’m a much better writer than that.”

And speaking of free will,
one of the most outrageous examples of national hysteria in memory unfolded on August 12th, at a JetBlue boarding gate in New York. Raed Jarrar, an architect of Iraqi descent on his way to California, was forced to remove a black T-shirt inscribed with an anti-war slogan — “We Will Not Be Silent” — in Arabic and English. The phrase, ironically, is borrowed from the White Rose group, formed in Munich in 1941. White Rose members believed that the young people of Germany had the potential to overthrow Adolf Hitler and the Nazi government. How’s that for irony?

As fate would have it, I’m scheduled to fly to JFK on JetBlue next month. In a perfect world, every freedom-loving passenger traveling on that airline would pull a Spartacus move, and show up wearing the very same T-shirt. Can you imagine? Two hundred JetBlue passengers, all wearing shirts saying "We Will Not Be Silent" in Arabic and English. Imagine the open mouths of the baggage checkers; the consternation of the ticket-takers; the giddy pride of belonging to a nation of people with the courage to stand up for the First Amendment.

Oh, for a perfect world.

Just back from Fiji, where there was scant chance to upload my latest stories … but it was so  refreshing to be in a place where I couldn’t check my email! Anyhow, the dispatches are going up — there will be two of them — and you can find them, as ever, on the Seacology website.