The call of the road seems ingrained in Americans’ DNA. We have a lot to see. We have the roads to get us there. We have the motivation of “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac or “Travels with Charlie” by John Steinbeck or, for a real twisted take on the theme, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S. Thompson. They all traveled in funky ways. Steinbeck drove around in a battered pickup truck with a cover.

Paul Brian of The Examiner.com writes about his own experiences. Read about it here.

My wife and I have gotten to the stage and age in our baby boomer lives when we find ourselves discussing not retirement but what new adventure might be ahead for us. We keep returning to the idea of possibly living somewhere in Europe.

We are not sure where in Europe because there are so many appealing places. What appeals is the idea of a culture that seems more grounded, more purposeful, more respectful.

Munich had never crossed our minds until a recent visit with friends who live near the city. Aside from my being German language-challenged, this Bavarian city within sight of the Alps seems to have it all -– music (including an outstanding opera), quaint neighborhoods, many beautiful parks and town squares, countless cafés, and people who seem to be pretty easy going even though they live in a major metropolis.

One day during our visit, while having lunch at a terrific outdoor French café, we looked at each other and had the same idea: who would have believed Munich might be a cool city to live? Now, I need to add quickly that it is out of the question for us for a couple of reasons. One is that while I can struggle with French, I find that for me, learning to function in German is impossible. My aging brain just is not wired for either the German language or the society’s propensity for strict obedience to order.

Nonetheless, Munich is a neat city for baby boomers, especially if you like surfing.

Yes, surfing! As we walked the city, our friend suggested that we visit the English Gardens in Munich to watch the surfers. I really didn’t know what to expect. Heck, only a few weeks earlier I was in Santa Cruz, America’s Surf City, and got all excited.

There’s no wide sandy beach in Munich. But there seems to be pretty good surfing.

At the mouth of the artificial stream to Munich’s 200-year-old English Gardens is a surging, standing wave. It is created as water is channeled into a more narrow tree-lined stream, creating enough pressure at times for local surfers to don wetsuits and take turns. It’s like a 200-year-old wave machine!

The area is posted with signs warning people not to get into the water and certainly avoid getting near the wave. No one pays any attention. It’s too much fun.

Meantime, spectators line a bridge over the stream to enjoy the surfing skills up close and snap pictures.
There seems to be a protocol among surfers. No one hogs the wave for long. After a couple of minutes, they wipe-out and someone else jumps into the constant surf.

We all stood there, sort of spellbound by the scene of serious-minded surfers riding the waves… just a few feet from a busy street in downtown Munich.

All we needed were some songs by the Beach Boys or Randy Newman blaring from out of the overhanging trees.

Rock on…

Amid all the diverse art and culture in California are its murals … large murals created over the last several decades, and located mostly in smaller towns. San Francisco-born art historian Kevin Bruce has traveled the state to write about its murals for a new book, “Large Art in Small Places: Discovering the California Mural Towns.”

Over the past two or three decades, the growth of murals in small-town California has been especially phenomenal. There are a few essential reasons for the strong appeal of public murals in small towns. Lacking big-city sensory overload, small towns have fewer elements that compete for aesthetic attention, and a large-scale mural becomes a focal point of the community.

The keen interest in murals has also been bred by the necessity of survival. Small towns are hubs of economic activity, but in some cases, the main sources of economic wealth have diminished drastically. A primary cause is often the failure of a core industry. Logging operations cease, mines peter out, or key industries relocate. In response, some towns have created mural programs as a means of attracting visitors and revitalizing the economy through tourism.
An added bonus is a reinvigoration of civic pride. Many murals offer wonderful lessons about a town’s past. Each town has a unique history, with heroes (and, for honesty’s sake, a few villains), triumphs, and tragedies. What better way to share, and to learn about, small-town life than through the visual history lessons on the walls.

Whatever the reasons a small community initiates a mural program, the community finds that the rewards are numerous and more far-reaching than merely beautification or tourism. Muralist Don Gray comments on this aspect:

Many of the mural projects that spring up all over are in small towns that find themselves faced with lethargic economies. A mural program is proposed as a way to bring visitors (and their money) to town. A core group of energetic folks gets the ball rolling. Then an interesting thing happens. Friendships flourish as activists rub shoulders to choose mural themes, meet artists, hold fundraisers, prepare walls for painting, and attend to the countless details that arise.

The enthusiasm is contagious. More and more volunteers jump in. Suddenly, all this shared energy blossoms into a renewed sense of community pride that can’t be measured simply in economic terms. They are revitalized in spirit as well.

Many observers consider the small town of Chemainus in British Columbia, Canada, to be the birthplace of what is called the mural town and Dr. Karl Schutz to be the chief architect. The Chemainus mural program began in 1982, and now this historic lumber-mill town boasts more than thirty large-scale murals. As a measure of the economic potential of a mural program, this town of three thousand residents attracts more than four hundred thousand visitors each year.

Schutz’s credo is “Never let those who say it can’t be done stand in the way of those who are doing it.” Acting as a consultant to small-town mural programs, he has been instrumental in spreading the concept of the mural town, especially to receptive places in California.

California has its own strong mural tradition that began in the 1920s and ’30s. It was spearheaded by los Tres Grandes (the Three Greats): Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Their influence led to flourishing mural programs in large California cities, especially those with a sizable Hispanic population. They were closely followed by the Great Depression–era WPA murals in public buildings, and the tradition flourished through the social-action murals of the 1960s and ’70s to a wide variety of mural projects being carried out today.

This is especially true in the small mural towns of California, where there has been an explosion of mural projects in the last ten years. Mural towns grow in many ways. Some small-town mural projects are the efforts of eager and prolific local mural artists. Although they become the core contributors, a project may expand by inviting out-of-town muralists to participate. Some mural towns begin as the work of a dedicated and inspired mural society, which raises money and commissions murals.

However the mural program begins, it invariably incites community involvement and pride. One event designed to include the community in a hands-on manner is called mural-in-a-day. A master muralist is selected and given a theme, then researches the subject matter, designs a mural, creates a sketch on a prepared wall, and mixes the paint. Early on the appointed day, volunteers execute the mural in a paint-by-numbers fashion. At the end of the day, sometimes after sundown, the scaffolds are dismantled, the mural is signed by the participating painters, and the dedication is made.

Photos are taken, T-shirts and certificates are handed out, and everyone celebrates a job well done. This collaborative process not only reduces the cost of the mural through the use of volunteer efforts, but also fosters enthusiasm for the mural project within the community. Trompe l’oeil muralist John Pugh has firm ideas on the effect of public murals on small-town communities:

Murals help to create a sense of community pride and enthusiasm. Murals also help to establish a community identity. They unite people . . . bring people together. Public art can provide a sense of common history, common culture, and heritage. People underestimate the power of public art. It is an art that people can participate in and interact with.

The growth of small-town mural projects is not limited to California. An increasing number of towns in the United States and Canada have embraced the mural town concept, and flourishing mural towns are found around the world, from Prestongrange, Scotland, to Sterling, Tasmania.

As this book defines a mural town, it is a place where the town intends the murals be all, or part, of a plan to attract tourism. Therefore, the murals are an economic drawing card as well as an aesthetic novelty. Several “mural towns” have only one or two murals. These are budding mural towns in the first stages of their growth. They have mural societies in place and are planning to build mural collections as an integral part of their tourism appeal. They may not merit a special trip but are certainly worth a look if you happen to be nearby.

In selecting murals for the book, I have chosen murals by both amateur and professional artists and works offering a wide range of artistic appeal, from skillful narratives to expressions of pure whimsy. Masterworks of the genre include the trompe l’oeil narrative illusions of John Pugh, the larger-than-life epics of Wei Luan, the expressive portraits of Don Gray, and the dramatic historic tableaus of Art Mortimer. Countless murals by other artists add local flavor, unique perspectives, and individual styles.

The captions are meant to give not only information about the mural, artist, and location but also a sense of the significance of each mural—what it contributes to the town and what makes it special. The standard medium for outdoor murals is acrylic paint, as it is the most durable and weatherproof medium. It is also less expensive and quicker to dry than oil-based paints. By their very nature, murals, placed on the sides of buildings, are generally large, some over one hundred feet in length. Whatever the medium, size, and inspiration, one thing is certain: these muralists have truly taken the museum to the streets.

Your Guide to Artful Adventure

The mural towns of California offer a treasure trove of history and art. If you find art and history both enlightening and entertaining, this combination travel guide, art reference, and history book is the perfect resource—whether you make a weekend tour to several mural towns or visit just one mural town en route from one place to another.

Descriptions of each town and its attractions will help you plan your trip, but be sure to contact the local chamber of commerce (using the addresses, phone numbers, and websites provided) for current maps, calendars of events, restaurant and accommodation listings, and other information. The chambers can also provide you with additional background on the artists. Individual muralists’ websites are another good source of information.

This book encourages travel at a slower pace. Mural towns are places where you can take your time and recharge your batteries. You will meet new people and enjoy leisurely small-town life out of the fast lane, and you will find much to learn.

Kevin Bruce’s new book -Large Art in Small Places: Discovering the California Mural Towns
- is available at Amazon.com

Learn about the life of watermen and the seafood industry of yesteryear in the Bay Experience Center that is housed within the area’s last remaining oyster packing plant, McNasby’s. Board a boat and take a 1.5 mile trip out to the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse. Tour the last remaining screw-pile lighthouse in its original location on the Chesapeake Bay. 723 Second Street, Eastport, Annapolis, MD 21403; 410-295-0104. www.annapolismaritimemuseum.org.

Click here to read more.

With the full spectrum of winter weather about to be history for another year, I cannot help but look forward to summertime bliss and start making plans for my next getaway. Having recently moved from sunny Southern California back to the wintry chill of Washington DC, the doldrums of those dark months just past have beckoned me to seek sand, surf, and water. I know I’ll want to escape to a tropical paradise.

Not that I am high-maintenance (though my wife may suggest otherwise), but I want a vacation that reflects my tastes for the best of everything, yet does not require a second vacation to recover from the first one. In other words … I want it all. After speaking with some friends and researching online, I’ve found it close to home, no passport required, in Palm Beach, Florida. I’ll share with you what I’ve learned and what I’ve got planned.

For us, it’s as simple as flying from BWI — Baltimore airport — directly to PBI — Palm Beach — on a Saturday. We’ll take a week and stay at the most famous resort in Palm Beach, The Breakers. It is the classic classy retreat: it has a 20,000 square foot spa and a luxury shopping concourse (for my “low maintenance” wife), and is situated right on the beach with restaurants, bars, and most importantly, a seaside golf course for me. It’s important for me to have everything I want right there at the resort itself (including an aquarium bar that’s world famous), but there’s also a lot for us to do in the surrounding community.

After playing golf by the seaside at The Breakers, I’ll take my sticks out on The Links at Boynton Beach, which Golf Digest rated as one of the best places to play. Palm Beach is home to more than a hundred courses, so I am looking forward to spending time working on my short game.

We plan to visit the cultural venues in Palm Beach: the award-winning Norton Museum of Art’s exhibits of Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams, the Kravis Center for a ballet performance, and the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens. We even heard that a fairly new upstart theater company called Palm Beach Dreamworks has some fantastic local actors.

On Sunday of the week we’re there, we already plan on taking a lazy afternoon sightseeing drive in our rental convertible. We plan to drive south on the coastside highway A1A, singing “Margaritaville” from Palm Beach’s own Jimmy Buffet, and enjoy the saltwater pines and ocean breeze. Then, we’re thinking of heading inland to see Palm Beach’s other coast on the 700-plus acre Lake Okeechobee.

For dining away from the resort, we’ve heard about Worth Avenue — it’s the Rodeo Drive of the East Coast — where we’ll probably grab a bite to eat (a friend told me about a Cuban restaurant to die for) and my wife will probably grab some gifts for friends. We’ve also heard there is always something going on in CityPlace and that if we haven’t had a full Cuban meal, we have to catch a Cuban sandwich at Havana Restaurant and a bagel at Flakowitz Bagel Inn.

Leaving behind my memories of Winter in Washington, I want to spend as much time outside as we can. Besides golf, beach, and sightseeing in the convertible, I want a little adventure. There’s a huge park where my wife can take Yoga classes on Thursday morning, while I can kayak the estuaries to see the tropical habitats of native wildlife. Later that same day, we plan on going deep sea fishing on the Sea Mist III, which leaves from Boynton Beach. On another day, I can’t wait to go out into the Everglades and see alligators in one of those airboats they use on the Loxahatchee Everglades Tour.

I found all of this information through a new web site called Beach Vacation Fun . That’s where I found my perfect match, and some valuable free offers and information.

As you can see, I’ve come to the conclusion that Palm Beach has some of the best beach vacation activities anywhere, and that’s what I’m looking for: fine dining, spa, golf, a historic elegant resort, shopping, and adventure for a connoisseur like me, who wants the best of everything. I am excited. Come Winter 2009-10, I know that I’ll be climbing the walls to feel the warmth of the sun, the gentle ocean breeze, and the smells of nature’s rebirth. At least I’ll have my pictures. And my memories. And whatever we bring home from Worth Avenue.

Despite some overcast skies, wind and rain this year, the blossoms are radiant. Here’s a slideshow of the blossoms at their peak, with images taken Thursday, April 2, 2009:

Click here for Diana’s full story.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Český Krumlov is famous for its Old Town, with 300 protected medieval buildings, and its castle complex that dates back almost a thousand years, to the mid-1200s. Surrounded by rolling hills and the Vltava (or Moldau, in German) River, Krumlov’s cobblestone streets wind past centuries-old houses, inns, shops, and cafés. This scenic village is in the southwest part of the Czech Republic, about two hours south of Prague and not far from Vienna, Austria.

You will find me returning to Krumlov one day… hopefully a warmer day. It is one of those rare medieval gems that reflects Old Europe, too much of which has disappeared. Ideally, Krumlov never will.

I came to Indonesia to shoot a program about water, and once you’re here and you see the way so many people in the world’s fourth most populous country live, (fourth after China, India, and the USA), it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out that the water they cook with… and bathe in… and clean their teeth in… and drink… is less than ideal. Less than totally clean; less than totally safe.

But before I tell you about it, I’ll tell you about the one thing that can kill you here even quicker than the water: the roads. A cameraman and I landed on a flight from Malaysia in the grimy teeming industrial city of Palembang, on the island of Sumatra. We were met by our hosts (from the World Bank, with whose water specialists we are working), and immediately boarded two cars for a four-and-a-half hour drive to the northwest, to three rural villages near a small city by the name of Muara Enim.

Do you know how many times in four-and-a-half hours your heart beats? I do. Or in the case of this drive, how many beats it can skip and still be ticking? I think I know that one too.

Words can’t even adequately describe what driving here is like. Because the words stand still on the page, while in reality you never stop moving, weaving sideways and careening forward, all at the same time, while the oncoming traffic is flying in a beeline right towards you. And even if I can describe in writing what happens to you, I know I can’t describe the sheer terror as it’s happening. Indonesia isn’t the first Third World country in which I’ve been driven. But it may be the most frightening.

For starters, when passing another vehicle, you begin from between one and two feet behind it. No kidding. You’re barreling down the road at 50, 60, 70 miles per hour, close enough to spit on the taillights in front of you, then suddenly without any view of the road ahead, your car pulls out to pass. But once you’re out there, no one else gives way and no one slows down. In our long drives to and from Muara Enim, I can say with unexaggerated honesty that I didn’t see anyone give way or slow down. Not oncoming motorbikes, nor busses, nor trucks. Nor the slower vehicles you’re passing, with only a foot or two between them as suddenly someone’s coming at you head-on from the other direction and you need to squeeze back into the line. Nor, to be fair, did we give way ourselves, even once. NOT ONCE.

For the length of the drive it’s a two lane road, and there’s probably not a single straight section longer than a couple of hundred yards. Yet you’ll get behind a slow truck, or a slow line of trucks, and you’ll pull out to pass. The trouble is, when you do, you give the guy ahead of you the idea that he ought to pass whoever’s in front of him, until you’ve got two, three, four vehicles in a row, passing two, three, maybe four others going in the same direction.

The other trouble is, the very same thing is happening with the vehicles racing toward you in the other direction. Which means everyone but the lead vehicle going each way is passing in the blind. Absolutely blind. A curve in the road, the crest of a hill? They mean nothing. These drivers leave themselves a margin the width of a human hair. And sometimes barely even that. I truly believe that here in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, sometimes they think the only margin they need is the good grace of Allah. It’s enough to make your hair curl… which already happens soon enough anyway in this hot and humid climate.

My very worst moment on the drive to Muara Enim came as we started to pass a long convoy of identical dump trucks, maybe twenty of them. It was my worst moment because we had already passed them earlier, in clusters of three, four, sometimes five, each cluster a test of one’s courage. But we made a rest stop and they got ahead of us, so we had to do it again. Be still, my beating heart.

While here, I asked a couple of people to explain the rules of the road to me, but never got much of an understandable answer. Which leaves me to theorize: in our society, we’re taught not to drive dangerously. In this society (and others in the Third World), they’re taught to avoid dangerous drivers… while driving dangerously themselves. If anyone’s got a better guess I’d love to hear it!

Our drives to and from Muara Enim took place by the way in a cheap little Toyota station wagon, with the pickup of a lawn mower; the best it could do was kind of gather momentum. There were a few moments when I’d have given my house for a stronger engine. And just for good measure, when we stopped for gas, the cameraman noticed a thick twig, maybe an eighth of an inch across, apparently stuck to the side of the left rear tire. But it turns out it wasn’t stuck to the side; I bent down and fiddled with it and sure enough, it was being used as a plug, stuck inside a hole!

And I haven’t even mentioned the suicidal motorbike drivers who hug the center of the road and no matter how big the vehicle bearing down on them from behind or how loud his horn, don’t budge. Or the little kids in the countryside who have a dirt shoulder to walk along but instead walk on the already narrow pavement. Or the goats alongside them that could dart out without warning. Or the idle motorbikes that should be parked well away from the asphalt but instead stand atop it.

I also haven’t mentioned that on our drive back from Muara Enim, most of it was at night. In the rain. Dodging motorbikes with no lights. And trucks broken down, just sitting in the dark along the side of the road… but not actually off it. No cones, no lights, no warnings. You can only pray that the driver sees the apparition of a broken truck better than you do. And preferably, before you do too.

This is why, when I go to places like this, I alternate between thinking, “What the hell am I doing here?” and “I can’t believe I get to do this!” If you’re going to do the kind of work I do, sometimes you have to take drives like these (although I think next time I’ll find a good story in, like, Wichita). You also have to accommodate a few other things that might seem pretty unappealing at home.

Like eating. The food’s quite good here, in fact. And plentiful. But when for dinner the first night we went to the best restaurant in Muara Enim with nine-count-em-nine local Indonesian water executives and World Bank officials, I knew I was in trouble when the Indonesians themselves took every glass, every plate, and every utensil in front of them, and thoroughly wiped them down with napkins the way we’d wipe down a sink after guests go home. Then, after taking some local officials’ cues and ordering fried rice with fish, I walked off to the toilet and passed over a muddy and plainly polluted creek from which they catch the fish we’re eating. Wichita’s looking better and better.

Plus, they have a couple of funny habits here. One is, in this country that sits right along the equator, they like to leave their food out all day. Another is, within my experience they are tied with China for serving more things I’ve never seen before than anyplace else I’ve ever been. Or maybe things just look different without refrigeration.

Then, there’s Durian fruit. There was a sign in the room at my one-star hotel in Muara Enim — the best and only in town — which says, “Please, do not bring durian to our hotel.” Pets are okay, but not this fruit. Why not? Because its nickname is “stinky fruit.” Each is about the size of a large pineapple with squishy golf-ball sized chunks inside, and people sell them all along the road. In fact you know when you’re coming up on a Durian fruit stand, even if it’s around a curve, because half a minute before you reach it, you smell it. Why in God’s name these things are popular here (and elsewhere in Southeast Asia) I honestly don’t know, but I was determined to get through this trip without finding out. I failed. When we finished shooting in the first of the three rural villages near Muara Enim, the village chief invited us to sit and enjoy a treat: Durian fruit. It doesn’t taste half as bad as it smells … but that’s kind of like saying, slugs aren’t half as slimy as they look.

To be fair though, later that same day at the end of our shoot in another village, a second village chief took us to the land in front of his house where his wife had set up a little table with dark brown slick-looking slabs of— yes— Durian fruit. But this time it came in a different form: crushed and mixed with a little raw sugar and ground gummy rice. I don’t know why but somehow the sugar and rice mitigate the Durian. In fact it was one of the tastier things I’ve had here.

Then, there’s rice itself. I can only say, I sure hope it’s good for you. Lots and lots of rice. Because it’s not just part of every meal here, it is the foundation for all food— breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You eat it with your hands— pour curry and chilis and some sort of meat chunks or fish and green leaves over it all, then grab a glutinous lump with your fingers and go crazy. It’s even sold wrapped in waxen paper at the local McDonalds. Unless I’m forgetting something, I had rice with every single meal here. Come to think of it, Vietnam too. Note to Carol: no rice for dinner please, until further notice.

One of the best things about shooting a documentary here is, everyone’s warm and hospitable. I’ve been plenty of places where, when you stick a camera in someone’s face or even set it up from afar, either they wave you off, tell you to get lost… or they get lost themselves. But not here. Frankly, if it were me, I’d probably run you off if your camera was catching me in my worst moments… but for most of the people in the villages here, and millions in the cities, worst moments are the only moments they have.

Yet everyone, and I mean everyone, was cooperative and helpful. Before we’d leave a shooting location, there’d even be a little “thank you” ceremony for us. Maybe because they know we’re trying to bring attention to their bad water, which ultimately might help make it better. However, these ceremonies bring their own little challenges, because inevitably there’ll be some food and drink, and I can’t help but wonder whether I am about to cross into their food chain. But protocol makes demands, so I swallow, and chew, and pray to every god I know.

These thank you ceremonies take place just about everywhere we go. Paul, the cameraman, hates them; he’d rather be out somewhere looking through the camera. So when we arrive someplace, inevitably no matter how poor they are, people have something to eat and drink waiting for us. When it’s time to start, Paul disappears, and I shake hands all around (although if a woman doesn’t extend hers, I don’t offer mine in this Muslim nation), say thanks in the local tongue, holding my hands together as if in prayer, then sit at a table and begin to eat and drink. The funny thing is, nobody sits with me. There I am, sitting in the middle of the room or the field all alone, usually with at least a dozen people just standing there watching me. While the capital of Jakarta and a few other places in Indonesia are used to tourists, westerners really stand out where we’ve been. So much so that I’ve had children scream and cry when I gently patted their heads. But the grownups honor us. A few told me that they’ve actually never seen a “white man” before.

The fact is, just about anywhere I’ve ever gone, people are friendly to you if you’re friendly to them. Here it’s especially important for two reasons. First, they’re just plain nice people who smile back if you smile first. In the past I’ve always felt that people in North Africa, from Egypt to Morocco, are the nicest on earth. Even in Libya when I used to go down there in the 70s and 80s, while our governments didn’t see eye to eye, the people would give you their right arm if you needed it. Now I’ll add Indonesia to that list. The second reason to be friendly is, right now this isn’t the safest place for people like us to be— and by “us,” I mean the Australian cameraman, and me.

That’s because of the terrorist bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali six years ago. More than two hundred people died, mostly Australians, and just last month, three Islamic terrorists convicted of the crime were executed by a firing squad, which Australia urged Indonesia to do. The U.S.? We just get swept in. But the result is, Washington has issued a travel warning which says, don’t come. The result for us is, take an extra look around you when you walk out any door, be a little more wary when you’re on the street, and act extra nice with everyone you meet. That might go without saying, but there’s another reason beyond the obvious one: the people to whom you pay just a bit of special attention might be, in a hard situation, your most important allies.

Anyway, let me get to why we came. People in many parts of this country — which means across its more than 17,000 islands — use the same water for their toilet, their tub, and their tap. I could be more explicit but probably don’t have to be. That seems gross to us, of course, because we know how bad it is. They don’t. The cost of clean water is one problem. Public education about dirty water is another. Using the side of your home to deposit your waste is one problem. Having anyplace else to do it is another.

We spent our first day in rural villages, and from one of them, we followed people along an undulating muddy path to their only source of water: a well the color brown. As they carried their buckets, we carried our television gear, climbing and descending the better part of a mile (and coming close to slipping more than once). When we got to the well, others who preceded us were washing clothing and bodies and filling buckets to take back to their village. When you look at the filthy pools of water on the ground all around the well, you see that it seeps into the earth and eventually back into the well itself.

In another village, we went down a muddy bank to the river, where men and women have separate bamboo rafts tethered to the side. That’s where they go to refresh their bodies and their buckets. They’re brushing their teeth and washing their dishes and taking their water for cooking and drinking, all from the same place. When you look at the surface of the water flowing toward them, it’s already foul before they foul it more.

But this isn’t just a problem in rural villages. Far from it. Just today as I write this, in the city of Palembang, I stood on a bridge and looked down upon ramshackle wooden huts with tin roofs, built along the Musi River. The water is a nauseating shade of mud, and every form of debris is floating on the current. But even worse is what’s down below. We saw a man come out of his hut, for instance, and squat in a small half-open enclosure, which was built over the water. It was his toilet. We saw naked kids bathing in the water, women scrubbing their clothes and brushing their teeth and washing their vegetables and filling empty plastic water bottles— incredulous, we even watched a teenage boy doing back flips into the river from a wooden beam outside his house, as if he was on a diving board at a pool in Beverly Hills— all in this putrid cesspool whose smell alone was almost too much to bear. (That’s the other photo in the email: the kid was jumping from one of the huts on the left… while part of the time we were there, a man was over on the right, using the same water as his toilet.)

We also went to two homes where people have, for the first time in their lives, clean water coming into the house. One was a middle class home— poor by our standards but middle class here— and the water comes from a newly installed tap protruding from the wall right over a dank brick tub and right next to the home’s squatter toilet. The whole family was there for our arrival, and when the father marched me into this damp, dark, diminutive room to show me the tap, he had pride on his face like he was showing me his first born child.

The other was a lower class home, built on stilts because it stands atop a putrid pond where the mother used to put chlorine because that was her only water supply. Just two months ago she got a tap installed just outside the house with a short hose through which, intermittently, water slowly flows. As we sat on her rudimentary couch near the front door, we had two kids squeezed in with us, and the mother explained how happy she is to have clean water because the boy had often had white spots on his skin, which a doctor told her was some sort of skin disease from washing in the fetid water, and the girl had just been hospitalized for ten days with a serious case of diarrhea. Yet when we were outside watching the woman use her new tap, a huge rat appeared about five feet away. That’s because although they now have the tap, they still haven’t learned that the kind of standing water that surrounds their house, especially when every kind of rubbish is deposited in it, still breeds disease. You see those conditions almost everywhere.

The World Bank is trying to help Indonesia’s bigger cities improve both their capacity and their reach, to put clean water into more homes. It’s part of a pilot project which, if it succeeds, can be duplicated in other parts of the world where the quality of water we take for granted is only a dream. In fact the idea for this story came from a friend who’s with the American Water Works Association, a big alliance of U.S. water treatment plants, which is helping the World Bank. The thing is, we went to Palembang’s main water treatment plant, where water from this horrible Musi River comes in disgusting and goes out clean. What I learned was, water treatment isn’t high tech and doesn’t have to be. There only has to be a will, and the money to put it to work.

Just one more “third world” story to tell, and it’s not about water, or driving; in fact it’s not even all about Indonesia. But it’s emblematic of societies where somehow, they just don’t think like we do.

To get here from Vietnam, we had to fly late one night to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where we would go through Customs and enter the country to overnight before our morning flight to Indonesia.

There are two airports in Kuala Lumpur, including a spacious shiny new one. We weren’t there.

We were at an aging airport mobbed with people in funny clothes who didn’t look like they’d have a penny in their pocket. Too little space for too many hordes. No signage and total confusion about where to go and how to queue. It’s probably a part of the culture as it is in other countries, but these people all just crowd forward as if there’s no one else waiting in front of them or trying to get past them.

Our arrival was funny, if nearly disastrous. It’s just the cameraman and me, and on arrival we had seven cases altogether, which we piled onto two carts. We got outside the chaotic terminal into a solid unmoving mass of humanity, and when it was obvious no one was going to clear a path, we shouted, tapped people on shoulders, eventually physically pushed people out of our way. No choice.

We were headed for the taxi rank, which had so many people around it it looked like they were fleeing a tsunami. But the taxi rank is adjacent to an “island,” as at any airport where there are different “islands” for catching the shuttles to parking and hotels and so forth. But this island was different. It was sloped. I mean, it’s maybe three feet from curb to curb but if you can picture this, the curb on one side is a good foot higher than the curb on the other side.

You might see where this is going. With the cars bunched so close together, it’s impossible to push the carts along the roadway. So you’re trying to negotiate them through crowds (everyone’s struggling with their own carts) along this steep sloping island, which means you’re always fighting gravity. At one point, with the high side of the island on my right, the cart I was pushing, which among other things had our $80,000 camera balanced on top with my right hand gripping the handle, began to tip to the left. Suddenly the whole cart was going over. The trouble is, not only was the camera going to hit the ground, but it was all headed toward another cart a foot away piled high with luggage. I caught mine just in time and struggled with my one free hand to get it upright again, but the cart next to mine didn’t survive; it went into another cart, and altogether four carts full of baggage tipped over. Into the roadway, in the middle of the crowds. I didn’t stop and take my toll of the damage. I just got out of there fast as I could.

But that was child’s play compared to the airport at our penultimate stop, the city of Makassar on the island of Sulawesi.

Once we gathered our cases there and put them on two carts, we made our way out to the “greeting” area. But our landing coincided with a lot of chartered flights, bringing people home from the Haj. That’s when Muslims who can, make their once-in-a-lifetime visit to Mecca. So probably a thousand people were packed into the fenced in greeting area, all smiling and waving and screaming and women yelping to meet their loved ones coming home from the Haj. It is a great honor to do the Haj, because it indicates both religious obedience and financial prosperity. (Once someone has done the Haj, their name in print is preceded here by the letter “H.” So if it were me for example, in writing I’d be referred to as “Mr. H. Greg Dobbs.”)

Once again, we and our carts were foiled by islands and curbs. We had to push through the excited crowd to get from the terminal to the first curb, but thankfully it had a nice little ramp onto the roadway which let us easily reach the island on the other side. But the curb on that side was a good twelve inches high, with no ramp… and the taxi rank was three identical islands away. So every time anyone reaches an island, including us with our 187 pounds of gear, we have to unload everything and move it manually across the island, then physically lift the cart itself across, then set it down on the next roadway and load it again and cross to the next curb and do it all over again. Madness. When this place was built, what were these people thinking?!

But I don’t want to leave on a negative note, so let me praise the airlines in Asia; they make up for what the airports miss. In the course of my travels on this continent, I took one flight on Cathay Pacific Airlines, two on Air Asia, three on Vietnam Airlines, and three on Indonesia’s Garuda. Not once did a plane leave even five minutes late, all but one served mints and a meal, free, and I never waited more than five minutes for luggage, in fact twice it got to the carousel even before I did. Like the auto industry and the banking industry and the electronics industry and others, it kind of makes me wonder what’s gone wrong at home.

I’m ready to be home, and shall probably send this as I start the trip. I won’t miss the heat and I won’t miss the roads and I won’t miss the sad stories to which we were witness … but besides very nice people everywhere we went, I will miss one thing in particular: standing in a room, or an elevator, or a field, with a bunch of Indonesians, or Vietnamese, and having to drop my chin to look down upon them. Now I know how it feels in the States to be six-foot-plus.

May your new year bring blessings.

The poll, conducted for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans in the midst of market turbulence Oct. 20-23, found:

• Nearly two in three boomers (63 percent) expect to cut back on overall spending now and for the holidays due to market worries.
• One in three boomers (33 percent) expect to cut back on giving to charity.
• One in five boomers (19 percent) expect to cancel holiday travel plans.

“Our survey suggests that retailers, nonprofits and the travel industry just might find a lump of coal in their Christmas stocking,” says David Heupel, a senior equity portfolio manager with Thrivent Financial. “Consumers seem to be motivated to make short-term sacrifices to protect themselves against further market and economic worries.”

Female boomers are slightly more apt than their male counterparts to report they will be cutting back on holiday spending (66 percent vs. 59 percent), giving to charity (37 percent vs. 29 percent), and holiday travel (21 percent vs. 17 percent).

Children living at home magnify respondents’ Grinch-like attitude. Boomers with children still in the household were more likely to report they planned to cut back on holiday spending than were boomers without children in the house (71 percent vs. 60 percent).

Boomer holiday travel plans were influenced by household income. Roughly one in four boomers with incomes less than $50,000 reported they had canceled their holiday travel plans (26 percent of those with household income of less than $25,000 had cancelled travel plans; 27 percent of those with income of $25,000 to $49,999). In contrast, roughly one in seven boomers with incomes of more than $50,000 reported cancelling their holiday travel (14 percent of those with incomes of $50,000 to $74,999; and 15 percent of those with incomes of $75,000 or more).

“Short-term financial adjustments can be helpful and necessary at times,” notes Jane Zilch, vice president of distribution strategy programs for Thrivent Financial. “But even decisions around issues like holiday spending, giving and travel should be weighed with a view towards one’s values and long-term financial goals. Having a formal financial strategy in place can help.”