I spent my final week on Sumatra at Rimba, a remote ecolodge on a roadless stretch of coast one hour by boat from Padang. There, I rented a rattan-and-bamboo room with beach access and a view of the Indian ocean for $18 a night, including three meals a day at the dining lodge, and full…
I think I become smitten with wherever I am in the world if I have enough time to linger and get to know it a little. This was certainly the case with the Mentawai settlements of Siberut Island, an isolated and beautiful (and, at times, uncomfortable) place that harbors some of my favorite travel memories…
My guide in the jungles of Siberut Island was a Mentawai fellow named Agus, who was a walking example of how cultures everywhere creatively adapt to a globalized word. Agus wore Western garb, had a university linguistics degree from the Sumatran mainland, and spoke great English (his fourth language, after Mentawai, Bahasa, and Minangkabau) –…
This post isn’t about the dragonfly pictured here; it’s about the joys (and challenges) of trying to take a shit in the jungles of Siberut Island. One would have to be extremely self-conscious to take a selfie while voiding one’s bowels in the jungle; hence the photo of this dragonfly, which I spotted while looking…
One of the best things about trekking into the jungles of Siberut Island was the opportunity it afforded me to become completely, refreshingly bored. Experiencing this kind of boredom – and coming to terms with it in an attentive, creative away – is, in fact, one of the time-honored gifts of travel. The rise of…
When I trekked into the jungles of Siberut Island off the western coast of Sumatra last winter, my guide, Agus, kept me busy with activities that gave me a peek into the local Mentawai culture. No doubt Agus has, in the years since he began taking travelers into the jungle, learned to balance an accurate…
This is what I packed for my three-month journey across Asia last year: A handful of clothes, books, and toiletries that fit into a 35L Tortuga Setout pack. Sometimes, during multi-day jungle or motorcycle treks, I stowed the Setout in guesthouse storage and traveled with the smaller, ultralight Outbreaker daypack. Looking at these items now,…
When I was in Kandy, Sri Lanka last year I mailed nearly 50 postcards to Deviate podcast listeners, as part of an informal Season One promo, while I was on a round-the-world AirTreks itinerary across Asia. Writing 50 or so postcards was good fun, but it made me realize how rare it has become for…
Two decades on, it’s difficult to remember how obsessively the media was fixated with the 1999-to-2000 New Year (and, in particular, “Y2K glitch” worries about computer data). I was writing my “Vagabonding” column for Salon Travel at the time, and the editor there requested that all regular contributors write a short meditation on where they…
My very first vagabonding trip – which was one of the single greatest journeys of my life (if nothing else because it was my first) – happened 25 years ago, in 1994. My friend Jeff and I spent nearly eight months traveling around North America by van, and the two of us reminisce about the…
This is the kit Amanjano uses to make Mentawao tribal tattoos, of the sort he (and shaman like him) wears all over his body. The top item is a palm-wood hammer that is used to tap the wood-mounted nail (note lower item) when injecting tribal ink under the skin. Tattoos are one of the first…
