TRAVEL TECH, Lightening the Load

Multitasking devices and smart accessories can help prevent gadget overload.

When you're packing for a trip there's always the Big Decision: what to take with you? Now that we have gadgets and gizmos to factor in, this process has only gotten harder. The problem if further compounded by the arrival of innumerable accessories for your electronic devices, meaning that the decision about whether to bring, say, your iPod then elicits another round of decisions about which iPod-related bits and pieces you might bring along to keep your music player company. I'm not claiming to be the most efficient packer, usually bringing too many extras or not enough, but I've got a few suggestions that may help you, whether you're about to embark on a business trip, a weekend holiday, or a round-the-world tour.

First, think weight, I recall watching a presentation by a guy who walked solo across the North Pole, and his most memorable piece of advice was not about avoiding thin ice or polar bears, but rather about packing light. He took his own counsel seriously, even sawing off the end of his toothbrush to save a dozen grams.

Of course, there are some things you wouldn't dream of bringing on a trip unless you had the services of sherpas or door-to-door porters. Wide-screen TVs spring to mind, but so do the bulkier external speakers for iPods and other music players. (Which is not to say that iPod speakers don't have their place: Logitech's new AudioStation Express has become a fixture on my desk, and will run off batteries, making it portable enough if you're just headed out to the pool or beach. I just wouldn't want it in my carry-on luggage-it's four times as heavy as my iPod). But when it comes to smaller items, deciding what to pack can be a quandary, not least because many of us are poor judges of weight. Nokia's N91 phone, for example, contains a mini hard drive and sports a sleek metal finish, making it somehow feel heavier than its bulkier but less metallic cousin, the N92. Weigh them on a kitchen scale, however, and the N91 is a good 60 grams lighter. This may not sound like much but it all adds up, particularly when you consider all the things that come with it, such as adapters and batteries. An ordinary digital camera, for example, may weigh only 100 grams, but the charger can add half that weight again.

We're still stuck in a world, you see, where gadgets come with their own unique chargers/adapters, an absurdity that is matched only by the profusion of proprietary batteries. We end up lugging a whole army of these things around with us. Thanks to battery makers like Moixa, however, this looks set to change: the British company has already come out with AA batteries (see www.usbcell.com) that you can recharge from a USB socket on your laptop, and plans to do the same thing for other sizes of battery soon, including those for your mobile phone and camera. In the meantime, arm yourself with multitasking adapters: Targus (www.targus.com), for example, offers adapters that will charge and run a range of devices, from phones to laptops. Also look for cables that remove the need for a charger altogether. For my Treo 650 smartphone, I saved myself 100 grams by buying a US$15 USB synchronization cable that also happens to recharge the phone from my laptop. Of course, I have to bring my laptop along too.

That said, laptops are getting lighter. Acer, Lenovo, Compaq, and Fujitsu all make what are called ultralights (formerly known as sub notebooks), which can weigh anywhere between one and two kilograms. Then there are even lighter units, like the OQO (www.oqo.com) model 01+, a sort of mini-tablet PC weighing 400 grams. They're still a bit pricey, though don't expect to pay under US$1,000. But for me their biggest downside is the lack of a decent keyboards; indeed, some have slide-out pads that would be more at home on a smart phone than a laptop. The OQO 01+, for example, comes with a keyboard so small that your fingers will cramp after just a few lines of typing.

This is where an external keyboard can make all the difference. As you know from past columns, I swear by using a smartphone or PDA (personal digital assistant) with an external keyboard-it's still the best way to get the job done. The same holds true for ultralight laptops. My preference would be the ThinkOutside Stowaway Universal Bluetooth Keyboard (www.thinkoutside.com), which, despite its cumbersome name and reliance on the cranky Bluetooth wireless standard, is as sleek and cool as a slim cigarette case. It also works with a number of different gadgets, including many phones. Oh, and it weighs only 140 grams.

One sure way to save yourself from gadget overload is to limit your devices to those that perform multiple functions. Your laptop, for example, makes a great DVD player; just remember to bring along the DVD drive and an audio two-for-one adapter so that you can share the movie with your companion. I'm no great fan of Nokia phones as music devices, but they'll do in a pinch if I don't want to bring my iPod with me. With an external card aboard, the Treo 650 too has enough space to include a few hours of music, podcasts, or audiobooks - and that's on top of important stuff like email, Internet browsing, and word processing.

I can understand that for some folk under the age of 21 this kind of thing makes sense - it may even be de rigueur in certain circles - but I am not sure about the rest of us. If the trend broadens, there's a danger we'll have to consider not only what gadgets to take with us, and what accessories for which gadgets to take with us, but also what clothing to take with the accessories that go with the gadgets that we take with us. It's enough to make you want to stay home.


About Writer:
Jeremy Wagstaff is a technology columnist based in Jakarta, Indonesia. He has been writing his occasionally serious "Loose Wire" column for the past five years; it currently appears in The Wall Street Journal Asia. Wagstaff can be reached on his blog www.loosewireblog.com, or write to him with your own travel-tech tips at loosewire@gmail.com

A Safe Haven for the Bali Starling

At first glance, the landscape of Nusa Penida, located to the south-east of Bali, seems to have little to offer. The hills have virtually been stripped bare of all trees, leaving behind a bizarre moon-like landscape of barren hills covered with alang-alang grass. Boulder are scattered around natural stone-walled pastures, and the tall vegetation gives off a lovely and all-pervading smell of lime. There appears to be not a great deal of adventure ahead for a true fan of unspoiled tropical surrounding.

First impressions, however, are deceiving. The silence one finds on this island, the absence of noise and strangely comforting cool air in the higher regions, make the experience a special one. The views from such high vantage points as Puncak Mundi and Tunjuk Pusuh are breathtaking. One cannot help but feel elated at this sight, so close and yet so eternally far away from the hustle and bustle of mainland Bali glimmering in the distance.

Afterhaving conquered a few miles of surprisingly smooth if, at times, frightfully steep and narrow tarmac roads leading to the interior, one discovers that the hills are, after all, not that blatantly naked. There are quite number of undisturbed, pristine pockets of forest on the island. The total size of the forest on the island is 1,048 hectares, a mere 5% of Nusa Penida. Not something to boast about, but in reality there is much village forest still in good condition, sprawled out between farming areas, such as the forests near Tembeling, Tunjuk Pusuh and Puncak Mundi. The tiny hamlet of Penida in the far southwestern corner of the islands is an absolute beauty, with not only pristine forest but a freshwater pool at the beach of Crystal Bay as well. One other fine example of natural and unspoilt forest is to be found near the village of Sekartaji, in the remote southeastern corner of Nusa Penida.

Sekartaji is also the home of the lesser sulphur-crested cockatoo. At present, there are only four of these birds on the island, and three of them live in a gigantic, bright-red plowering “Stinky Sterculia”, a sacred tree just next to one of the temples. According to the local community, in the 1980s there were still quite a few of these birds around this village. However, the number of cockatoos dropped drastically since the bird was considered a pest. Scarce food crops such as corn were systematically plundered by large flocks of cockatoos.

At Tembeling, a long stretch of lush rainforest meanders down through the hills, from an altitude of around 200 meters towards the sea. One can start this walk from the back of Tembeling hamlet, where a spacious release enclosure for the Bali Starling was set up. From their home perch in a tall tree, two Rainbow Bee-eaters tumble down and nimbly snatch insects in mid-air. After a walk down through thick foliage along a narrow path, it is a true joy to bathe in the cool and shaded ‘temple’ pond fed by fresh water filtered through the limestone.

Raptors like the Brahminy Kite and the majestic white-bellied Sea-eagle are to be admired on top of the cliffs at Banah Point,on the south-west coast. The views from the steep cliffs over the ocean, with the waves down below breaking against the rocks, are spectacular. Birds-of-prey soar alongside the cliffs, virtually at eye level. In addition, there’s the Black-winged starling, once thought to be endangered, now to be found in their hundreds around the mangroves on Lembongan and elsewhere on Nusa Penida.

Amongst these birds, the Bali Starling is no doubt the most important representative of Bali’s fauna. To salvage this only Balinese endemic, and critically endangered bird, the Nusa Penida Bird Sanctuary has successfully introduced a conversation program. The Sanctuary hosts breeding facilities for the Bali Starling, and has seen an incredible rate of chicks born in captivity. Up to the time of writing, a total of 50 birds born in captivity were released on Nusa Penida where they now are breeding in the wild.

The first generation of seventeen wild birds is gaily populating their new habitat. It is a truly magnificent project that has deliberately opted for an alternative approach in protecting this vulnerable bird species against poachers, human greed and forest encroachment. The Bird Sanctuary has, in fact, chosen a radically new conservation approach.

The natural habitat of this gem amongst birds is the West Bali National Park, not Nusa Penida. Many former conservation programs have failed to succeed in preserving the Bali Starling in Bali and numbers in the wild dwindled to about five. These deploring results have inspired Bayu Wirayudha, Director of Friends of the National Parks Foundation and Begwawan Giri Foundation, with the idea of tackling the problem in rather a revolutionary way: a fully integrated approach that combines nature conservation and community development backedup by the islands traditional “awig-awig” laws.

In 2005, an all-encompassing agreement was reached between the conservation foundation, the religious authorities, the provincial government to implement an adapt law that ordains a total ban on hunting birds on Nusa Penida. The link between religion, adat and strongly felt support given to the population of the island, has, in other words, created the ideal circumstances for this project to succeed.

The Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoo and the endangered Java Sparrow both get a chance of survival of this ‘reinvented’ natural environment. All of these feathered friends find a new and safe haven on Nusa Penida, and perhaps thanks to the Sanctuary’s ’holistic’ approach, the Bali Starling is again thriving.

Presently, around 60 birds inhabit the island. Moreover, the birds are happy to see that the conservation program recently received a warm welcome by various institutions and officials, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has confirmed his personal interest in this project by releasing 12 birds last April. This way, the once ill-fated island now seems to be on its way to becoming a better place for the local community and a natural haven for the birds.

TRAVEL AND ACCOMMODATION
Nusa Penida can be reached by ferry from Padangbai, with one crossing a day aboard the ’Nusa Jaya Abadi’. It carries some 400 people and a limited number of vehicles. Alternatively, fast boats leave regularly from Sanur and Benoa to Lembongan, with further connections to Nusa Gede.

Accommodation of the island is scarce and basic with losmen in Batumulapan, Toyapakeh and the harbor at Sampalan. Alternative lodgings, comfortable if more expensive, are available at Lembongan and Ceningan. In addition, there is basic and inexpensive accommodation at the Nusa Penida Bird Sanctuary.

For more information on a visit you may want to contact the sanctuary prior to departure
They can be reached at via the Friends of the National Park Foundation
(www.northernmagic.com/fnpf)
Jl. Bisma 3, Ubud
Phone 0361-977978
e-mail fnpf@dps.centrin.net.id

The writer is a freelance writer on Indonesian culture and nature conservation based in Ubud, Bali. He began working in Indonesia in 1996 and now divides his time between Bali and Holland.
He can be contacted at g.dijkman@gmail.com