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Harold Stephens returns to Escape from America Magazine with another excerpt from his latest book entitled, "Return to Adventure: Southeast Asia. Stephens, an adventurer and early escape artist, is a well known expatriate in Asia having written thousands of newspaper and magazine articles and 19 books. Denis Grey, the Bangkok bureau chief for AP, describes Stephens this way, "The fires of youth may have burned down low. We may have reached mid-life or even beyond. But moments come when we still dream about it: an emerald green cove in the South Seas with our own yacht lilting at anchor; throbbing, libido-unleashed ports-of-call; a life free of niggling bosses, nagging children, and nasty bill collectors. Yes, people dream about it, but Harold Stephens does it." Additional Resources Southeast Asia Links  Articles by Stephens  Contact Harold Stephens  Buy the book

Southeast Asia is a mood as well as a place. It can be bewitching, almost magical. There's something hypnotic about the sound of tiny temple bells tinkling in a breeze, or the chants of Buddhist monks in the still light of dawn. Or the sweet, mist-laden scent of the northern hills of Thailand where the Shan and Karen, and other hilltribes, live. Or the power of the Irrawaddy, or the untameness of the Sunderbans. There's stark naked beauty of the Sulu Islands and the sea gypsies who live there. If you want to feel at peace with the world, climb to the top of a hill station, like Darjeeling, Cameron, Frazier Hill, even Penang Hill-and look out over the landscape at dawn, and stand there when the sun comes up. There are images so powerful you cannot forget them, ever. I remember a scene on Bali that will always be with me. I was visiting Ubud, the village where artists live, and decided to take a walk into the hills above. I followed a path that lead up a steep climb into the hills. Somewhere far above, I had heard, was a temple. "You must see it," the Balinese told me.

The sounds that came to me, at first, were inconsequential, until I minded them. Birds unseen in
the deep foliage above sang cryptically to one another. There were sounds of insects, unfamiliar,
suddenly breaking the stillness, loud and shrill at first, and then stopping, abruptly as they began. A
dog yapping, barely audible, was heard in a distant village. An occasional leaf fluttered earthward,
catching a ray of slanted light, disappeared and reappeared until it became lost among purple
shadows beyond.

When you sit there long enough, you wonder if your senses are deceiving you, as I wondered when I heard, very faintly, the echo of a gong somewhere far off. A gong in the forest! In an instant more, it was clearer, and louder, and mingled now with faraway voices. Then came the sound of a flute, and another, and more gongs. The yapping of the dog that seemed so distant was now closer, and grew louder. My peace and joy of the forest were being disturbed by something strange and bewildering, something mysterious and unfathomable, as Bali itself is, especially for one like me who was a stranger to the island. And as I sat there, my back pressed against the knurled roots
of the banyan tree, perplexed and uncertain, and the sounds grew more distinct, there came into view far down the sun-flecked path, a column of marchers, led by men and boys. 
 

I watched them grow from fuzzy silhouettes into focus, like a camera zooming in on its subject. I could see them clearly now, all wearing sarongs, white sarongs, and around their waists were scarlet cummerbunds fastened with rich buckles carved in gold. They wore headbands, these too all white, and pointed at the crown. Those in the lead carried towering bamboo poles, bent over in sweeping arches by the weight of flowing pennants attached to their ends. More marchers followed, boys carrying gaily colored umbrellas suspended high above their

heads on long slender poles. The music, gongs and flutes, accompanied by a chorus of singing, grew louder and louder in intensity until it became almost deafening.

Young children ran with the dogs along side the procession, laughing and shouting and calling out to one another, adding to the noise and cacophony of sound. The procession passed, the music and singing dinned, gradually, and presently a line of women in single file came up behind the marchers. Unlike the men who wore white, they were dressed in brightly colored batik sarongs, and in place of head bands like the men wore, they carried upon their heads towering pillars of food, some with tiny plated baskets, heaped with cakes and sweets, and others with tropical fruit. These I learned later were offerings to the gods, and what I was witnessing was a religious  procession heading to one of their temples further up the mountain side. It was like a stage, a play that had been conducted for me, and for me alone. No one even noticed me. Was this truly man being in tune with nature?

That same evening I was invited to dine in Ubud at the home of my friend, Dutch painter Han Snel. It was evening when I arrived. It's a magnificent house, where Han lives with his Balinese wife. He had it constructed from red brick and gray volcanic stone, patterned after the feudal palace of Prince Tjokorde Agung. 

We sat and had a drink on an open pavilion, where long shadows from torches crept out over the carved stone walls. We talked about Balinese life, small talk, about the procession I saw that
day, until dinner was announced. A servant led us to another pavilion at a lower level, also lighted by torch. Somewhere in the deep darkness a gamelan orchestra played. So softly and finely did they perform that I could not help wondering if they were not part of the night. The meal was excellent, native dishes, a rare delight, and occasionally I had to glance about to remind myself that my host was not a myth, that this was all real. The meal lasted until the late hours. The music continued; the wine flowed; the mood was like I had never known before. It was real, and this is Southeast Asia.
 

The very first travelers to Southeast Asia were spellbound by it's strange mood. Seamen who visited the area called it "the land below the winds." Technically speaking, with the exception of the Philippines, it is free of typhoons and other such violent tropical storms. This doesn't mean, however, that tropical Southeast Asia is without natural calamities. It is a land of monsoons and dramatic volcanoes, both of which can be devastating at times. And both which create a mood. What power a volcano has, especially one that sends up clouds of ash 10,000 feet into the sky and looks like its about to explode.

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Perhaps nature's most spectacular, and awesome, sight is that of an exploding volcano. I witnessed one such volcanic eruption from the deck of my schooner Third Sea in the Santa Cruz Islands. It was a terrifying experience to watch it the way we did. It happened at night, on one of those black, evil nights when there is no moon. It was impossible to tell where the sky and sea met. For all practical purposes, we were traveling through a black, velvet void. The only light was the dim, red glow of the binnacle reflected on the face of the helmsman. It's eerie sailing on nights like this, when the sails are set and the schooner heels into unseen seas. The only sane thing, it seems, is the compass, which points out the course.

We knew we were nearing the Santa Cruz Islands in the Western Pacific, and that out there coming up on our starboard was a small dot which on the chart read Tinakulu Volcano. We gave it
a wide berth by several miles. Suddenly in the blackness of night there was an explosion, and
shortly afterwards the sky turned crimson and then a fiery red. Belching clouds of smoke bolted skyward, followed by a rumble that seemed to come from the core of the earth. Those of the
crew who were below deck scrambled topside, and we all stood dumbfounded, uncertain. Was the earth disintegrating before our eyes? Twisting balls of fire hurled upwards like rockets out
of control, and sparks and flames spewed umbrella-like into the surrounding sea.
 
 

Only when we saw the white-hot lava flowing down the cone-shaped slopes did we realize we were witnessing a volcano erupting. In those few brief moments we felt the god-awful fury that would certainly prevail if the earth did explode. It wasn't a satisfying feeling.  For the next twenty minutes we lined the deck, not knowing if it was the beauty of the spectacle or the fear of it that kept us spellbound at the rail. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it ended.

When dawn came and we looked astern at the still silhouette of Tinakulu, it all seemed strangely unreal. Had the volcano really erupted? There were no other islands about, no other ships. We
were the only witnesses. Then, as we sailed ever so slowly away, and Tinakulu vanished into the blue of the sea and sky, we wondered if even the very mountain existed at all.

The incident deeply impressed me and it made me realize how we who live in Southeast Asia also live in the shadow of volcanoes, and more often than not we are only dimly aware of them.
Most of my life I have been chasing these wonders of nature.

I fell in love with the first one I ever saw, climbed it, and thereafter had to climb those that crossed my path. There is something challenging about volcanoes, which makes one want to climb them. They have a magnetic force, a force that draws you towards them, that makes you want to stand on their summits and perhaps become akin with nature. Maybe they satisfy our need to conquer, not nature, but fear. Volcanoes are often beautiful, but they are always awesome-simply by virtue of their existence.

This informative article on adventure desitinations draws on excerpts from our friend Harold Stephens' newest book Return to Adventure: Southeast Asia. Stephens, an adventurer and early escape artist, is a well known expatriate in Asia having written thousands of newspaper and magazine articles and 19 books. He is currently writing travel articles for the Bangkok Post, and we can assure you that you will not find better, more interesting writing anywhere. Denis Grey, the Bangkok bureau chief for AP, describes Stephens this way: "The fires of youth may have burned down low. We may have reached mid-life or even beyond. But moments come when we still dream about it: an emerald green cove in the South Seas with our own yacht lilting at anchor; throbbing, libido-unleashed ports-of-call; a life free of niggling bosses and nagging children and nasty bill collectors. Yes, many people dream about it, but Harold Stephens does it. Stephens says, "How few of us ever stop to realize that adventure is not something in the past. It's now. It's happening all around us, all the time. The problem is knowing where to look. We turn to new horizons. Adventure awaits in SE Asia." To order this book directly from Amazon.com - Click Here -