(NOTE: This is my favorite blog headline so far on this trip.)

Broome is about as isolated as a town can be. If you’re driving, it’s 1473 miles south to Perth with just a few small towns — wide spots in the road, really — in between. To the east, it’s an 1150 mile drive to Darwin, a city that’s not worth the drive. If you’re flying it’s 2040 miles to Canberra, Australia’s capital city. And you really would want to fly, because it’s a 3293 mile drive across some of the most desolate country you’ll ever lay eyes on.

To the north, Jakarta, Indonesia is 1317 air miles away. To the west, Nairobi is 5822 air miles across the Indian Ocean.

In other words, Broome is not easy to get to, but Jamie and I agree that it’s worth the effort. This is our third time here and we’ll defintely come back again.

Here’s why:

We’re lounging on the town’s main beach, which stretches for miles in both directions, at 11:00 a.m. and there’s almost no one here. If I had to guess, I’d say we’re being forced to share the beautiful white sand with 50 other people. Unacceptable, I tell you. Unacceptable. UPDATE: I actually walked down the beach and did a headcount the next day: 37 people plus two lifeguards.

Last time we were in Broome we had absolutely perfect body surfing conditions. Every single wave was perfect. It’s a little choppy today, so I’m sitting under a beach umbrella and sulking. Damn it, man, my choice is either sittiing here admiring the white sands and crystal clear waters, or body surfing in conditions that aren’t quite perfect. Sad, isn’t it?

Yes, that’s a tire track in the sand. The beach is so wide and the sand so compacted at low tide that the beach has almost as many cars as it has people. The guy who rents the beach umbrellas and chairs drives his rig right down to the edge of the water. He sets the umbrellas up about 100 feet apart, so you never feel too crowded. The closest people to us are under that umbrella on the right side of this photo

We were sitting in the back seat of a cab on our way to the Perth airport this morning and the driver was a young Indian guy named Rishmal. I told him I used to have a close friend who was Indian and then asked where he was from.

“Punjab,” he answered.

“Ahhh, you’re Punjabi.”

“How do you know we’re called Punjabis?”, he asked in amazement. “You know everything, sir.”

“Please repeat that to my wife,” I said. “Because she doesn’t think I know anything.”

C’mon, Jamie, if you can’t believe an Indian cab driver in Perth, Western Australia, who can you believe?

Most people have never heard of a quokka. Let’s call it a second cousin twice removed of the kangaroo, and one of those very strange marsupials for which Australia is famous. But it’s undoubtedly the cutest of those strange Australian marsupials.

One of the reasons for the quokka’s anatomical anonymity is that Rottnest Island, eleven miles offshore from Perth, is the only place in the world where these housecat-sized critters can be found in the wild. And that’s why we’re here. To get photos of ourselves with smiling quokkas.

Mission accomplished. A selfie stick probably would have helped us get even better photos, but we’re pretty happy with these photos of ourselves with remarkably friendly, smiling animals.

Rottnest Island lies in the Indian Ocean, a mere eleven miles from Perth, a metropolis with 2.2 million people. But it feels like the city is a million miles away.

Rotto, as the Aussies call it, has a permanent population of only 100 or so, but gets nearly half a million visitors every year. We got lucky and came over on a Sunday afternoon. It seemed relatively busy during the day, but felt like a ghost town after the evening’s last boat left for Perth. It’s Monday morning now and it feels like we have the whole island to ourselves.

If my count is correct (and it probably isn’t) there are 21 bays on Rottnest. You find more boats than people on most of them.

In California these beach houses would be multi-million dollar condos. Here on Rottnest they are merely affordably-priced visitor accommodations.

This is the Rottnest Hotel, where we stayed. It was built sometime in the 1850s, originally as a summer home for the Governor of Western Australia.

I first met the lovely Langer sisters while I was hitchhiking around Australia in 1970. We lost touch for 43 years and only reconnected on our last trip down under. (If you’d care to read about it, you can go here and here.)

Jamie and I landed in Perth, Western Australia at about 7:30 Wednesday night. Early the next morning, we jumped in our rental car and drove 363 miles (about 7 hours) to Kalgoorlie, the outback town in which they live.

About four hours into the drive, Jamie said, “We must really like these people.”

Sister Chrissy was scheduled to fly to Bali that morning, but she rescheduled her trip so we could all get together for another dinner.

These people must really like us.

We went to Wendy and Tiny’s beautiful new home for dinner, laughed for hours, then went back to the hotel to catch a little sleep before climbing back in the rental car early the next morning and driving 363 miles back to Perth.

Oddly enough, despite the fact that it was 43 years ago, I can pinpoint the exact dates I met both sisters.

I met Wendy on December 26, 1970. I was staying in Perth with the family of my favorite college professor. On Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, they took me around town to celebrate the holiday with friends. At one of those homes, I was introduced to Wendy, who as I recall, was 19, living in Perth, and had just graduated from cosmetology school.

“She’s really pretty,” I thought. “I wonder if she likes long-haired, bearded, American hippie guys.” But a few minutes later I was introduced to a man who turned out to be her father, and he generously invited me to stay with his family (minus Wendy) over the New Year’s holiday at their house on the beach a couple hundred miles away.

I quickly assessed my options: House on the beach vs. hot Aussie chick who probably wasn’t interested in me anyway. I chose the house on the beach.

A few days later, on December 31, 1970, I met younger sister Chrissy. I had hitchhiked for two days to reach Esperance, the beautiful little beach town in which the Langer family lived, and arrived at their home just in time to accompany them to a New Year’s Eve party.

Odd, isn’t it, that I should recall my first meeting with both sisters 43 years later?

But, then, anyone who knows me has come to expect odd.

Jamie and I were checking our email in our room this afternoon when she hollered, “Monkey!”

Sure enough, a big honkin’ monkey had wandered out of the jungle and was walking along the top of the wall enclosing our courtyard. We eased out the door with our iPhones in an attempt to get photos.

The big guy didn’t seem to care that we were there. He took a seat up on the top of the roof and scratched himself much like I had been scratching myself when she hollered “Monkey”.

I hope he enjoyed it as much as I did.

When we returned to our hotel room after dinner, we found that they had scattered rose petals on our bed and left us each a traditional Balinese night gown. Jamie donned hers and then used her considerable powers of persuasion to convince me to put mine on, too.

When she stopped laughing, she told me I looked like Star Trek’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard in his dressing gown. I think she thought that might embarrass me, but c’mon, that’s just about the coolest thing you could possibly tell a Trekkie like me.

Here for your viewing pleasure: Rose petals. A traditional Balinese dressing gown. And the sexy bitch.

And, of course, here is Jean-Luc Picard, my inspiration. That Star Trek dude ain’t got nothin’ on me, if I do say so myself.

The Monkey Forest is a nature reserve and Hindu temple in Ubud, Bali, which is, of course, in Indonesia. It’s called the Monkey Forest, but its official name is the Padangtegal Mandala Wisata Wanara Wana Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary. I think they shortened it to Monkey Forest because couldn’t find stationery big enough for the full name.

More than 600 Balinese long-tailed monkeys live here. Their scientific name is the Crab-eating Macaques, but based on what we saw they should be named the Banana-eating Macaques.

The park staff supposedly feeds them sweet potatoes three times a day, but bananas are for sale in the park and damn near every tourist is feeding them to the monkeys. Except Jamie. She saw the greedy little bastards jumping on people to get their bananas and wanted no part of it.

The people in charge don’t want the monkeys to end up looking like me, so prominently-posted signs announce that visitors are prohibited from feeding them snacks such as peanuts, cookies, biscuits, and bread.

Turns out monkeys really aren’t that different than man. They’ve split up into five different tribes that occupy and defend different territories. They often get into territorial disputes, especially when one group has to pass through another group’s territory to reach the stream during the dry season. Secretary of State John Kerry, still desperately seeking any achievement worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, is rumored to be heading to Bali to begin a marathon peace negotiation process between warring factions of Crab-eating monkeys.

But let’s move on to the monkeys.

This is your basic crab-eating Macaque. Oh, my, they look like such fun-loving, gentle creatures.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not convince Jamie to get any closer than this to these gentle little things.

I saw this monkey sitting on a wall, so I sat down next to him and asked Jamie to take a photo of me next to the monkey. Next thing I knew, he hopped onto my back. Isn’t he the cutest little thing you’ve ever seen?

What an utterly charming little jackanape. How utterly precious. I’m certain he’s tugging on my shirt because he loves me. I wish I could take him home.

Hey, wait just a minute. The little shit is trying to steal my pen. Cool it, Cheetah.

My eye! My eye! I’ve been blinded by this filthy, diseased little son of a bitch. Why didn’t I listen to Jamie when she warned me?

I could have avoided this situation if only I had realized that this carving just inside the entrance to the Monkey Forest symbolizes a blind man screaming in pain.

NOTICE: No eyes were harmed during the making of this blog post.

Everyone comments on the fact that the names Jim and Jamie are so similar, but that similarity pales in comparison to our new Balinese friend Budi and her husband Budi.

Yes, they have the same name, but for entirely different reasons.

She’s named Budi because her grandfather gave her that nickname when she was a baby. It had something to do with Buddha and her being born on Wednesday, but I didn’t quite follow the story. He’s named Budi because it’s the shortened version of Budiyasa, his full name.

Budi’s a long-time employee of the Komaneka at Tanggayuda Ubud, our hotel on Bali, and we struck up a conversation with her during dinner. Last night was a full moon, which makes it a major Hindu holiday, and one of the foods eaten at the festival is babi guling (suckling pig). She was shocked that we’d never eaten this porcine delight.

“Do you have plans tomorrow?” she asked. “My husband and I will take you to the best babi guling restaurant in Ubud.”

That invitation quickly evolved into much more. They picked us up at 10 a.m. and drove us all over town — to a great little restaurant for a traditional Balinese breakfast (Mmmmm, babi guling), to the Monkey Forest, to a shop where Jamie bought gifts for all our god daughters, all around the crazy busy town of Ubud — and then dropped us off back at the hotel. And, perhaps, most amazing, they did it out of the kindness of their hearts, not for money. (In fact, they refused to accept any cash when we tried to give it to them.)

Thanks, Budi. And thanks other Budi. Next time we’re visit Bali we’ll take you up on your invitation to visit your home and meet your family.

It’s wonderful people like you who make travel so much fun.

Good God Almighty, what the hell is that thing on my plate? Everyone knows ordinary beef hot dogs are made out of cancerous eyeballs and left-over hooves and diseased entrails, so I ordered a chicken hot dog on our Air Asia flight between Singapore and Bali. A chicken hot dog just sounded so much healthier than a regular hot dog.

Unfortunately, the hot dog they delivered looked like the chicken was either anemic or albino and it had the consistency of oatmeal with skin. And the bun. What can I say about the bun? How about, it might have been ok if it hadn’t been left in the microwave for about ten minutes. It literally crumbled when I attempted to eat it.

It tasted like crap, so I put some ketchup on it. Which only made it taste like crap with ketchup.

We’re flying Air Asia again from Bali to Perth. Mmmmmm. I can’t wait.