You don't need the strahl to do sidequests! That's the neat thing about ff12; once you go to a place that has a gatecrystal you can go back whenever you can touch another gatecrystal, if you have the teleport stones.

I think I was around level 35 or so when I entered the salikawood, so you should be okay. The bomb king is really the only difficult thing in there, and you don't have to fight him yet. The phon coast will be a little more difficult :]