In the fall of 2013 I left home for a 4th winter, this time to complete a scuba diving dive master program with Wicked Diving in Thailand. My intention was to become a safer scuba diver, in order to become better at underwater filming. During this program I was trained on 5 live aboard trips to the Similan Islands and Richelieu Rock. After completing it, I obtained a one month Visa in Bangkok to travel to Burma (Myanmar), where I filmed Burmese dance and marionette shows, and the peacock dance in the Shan States new Hsipaw. After that I made my way back to Thailand, and on to Laos via a two day journey down the Mekong River, arriving in Luang Prabang, a Unesco protected city, and home of the Tak Bat, where the monks are offered alms in a daily ritual at dawn. From Luang Prabang you can also visit the Elephant Village Sanctuary, where elephants that worked in the logging industry are well cared for and thriving. From there I flew to Malaysia, Borneo, to dive at Sipadan, and then on from there to Indonesia, to Ubud, Bali, to film the Kecak monkey dances, film the monkeys in the Sacred Monkey Forest, and learn some batik techniques. From Bali I traveled to West Papua New Guinea, to Sorong, the gateway Raja Ampat, where you can find some of the best scuba diving in the world. Called the “Wild West of diving” because of it’s remote location, the name Raja Ampat means “Four Kings”, after the four large islands in the region. Divers there boast regular sightings of Manta Rays, the Tassled Wobeggone Shark, Pygmy Seahorses, Ghost Pipefish, incredible arrays of soft corals, schools of Giant Trevally and tornado shaped formations of Barracuda, as well as many more incredible sights.

In the winter of 2012-13 I began my travels in Madagascar, the 4th largest island landmass, located off the coast of East Africa. My intention for traveling there was to film the dances in the villages of Southern Mada, and to take film footage and photos of several species of lemurs, in particular the Sifaka, or dancing lemurs. I began by spending 2 days in Antananarivo, or “Tana”, both to acclimate and to make a few travel arrangements/contacts. I flew to Ft .Dauphin, and took the 8hr 4WD drive trip to Berenty Reserve, where National Geographic and David Attenborough filmed these lemurs. I was lucky to also get some footage of village dances. From there I traveled to Cape St. Marie to see the eggshells of the extinct Aepyornis, a bird whose rookeries lined the windswept cape beaches and grew to a height of over 10 ft. tall. Traveling north to Tulear, and then on to the reefs of Western Mada, to scuba dive and to learn about the subsistence fishing villages of the nomadic Vezo fisherman. Heading inland, I photographed and fimed the Indri-Indri, and ten traveled north to Nosy Be for photos of chameleons and Black Lemurs. From Mada I flew to Mauritius to film the Sega dances, and was there to witness the Tamil tradition of Cavadee. After this I traveled to the Seychelles, where I was lucky to film the til end of their Carnival, scuba dive with mating octopi, and visit the land tortoise sanctuary. The island is home to the Coco de Mer, an unusually shaped coconut (!), and after visiting the Valle de Coco de Mer, to a side trip to the small islands of La Digue and ——for more scuba diving and kayaking. From the Seychelles I traveled on, via Dubai, to the Maldive islands, spending one week on Embudu Island and one week on a live aboard for some of the best scuba diving I had ever experienced. I was able to film the Bodu Beru drumming dance, and to visit one village where there had been a tsunami the year before, so repairs were still being made. Next I traveled to Sri Lanka for several weeks, and visited the coastal areas near Hikkaduwa, in hopes of spotting the Sri Lankan Leopard, and take boat trips out of Mirissa to see the Blue Whales. Leopard photo by Steve Garvie. After this I flew to Cambodia, to visit Angkor Wat, outside Siem Reap, and film traditional dance in the capital city of Phnom Penh.