Tropical Surf Tour

I'm now back home in Wales. Its not too cold but there aren't even ripples, let alone waves. It looks like I'll be working in boring Cambridge again in about a week. Bah! Humbug! I've got the blues.

The end of my holiday was great. The swell died & I grew tired of Lombok. I decided to go back to Medewi for my last week of surfing. Good decision :-) Even though there was only a little swell when I got there it was still surfable as long as you didn't mind dodging rocks. The swell was well behaved & after a couple of days picked up to provide some decent waves. God I've improved since I first visited this place! On my last morning the waves were perfect: Glassy, a reasonable size & not crowded. I caught a great 1st wave, it was fantastic & took me about 100 yards. By the time I'd paddled back I felt like a rest but along came another wave; it would be rude to refuse & hey, I'm paddling those 100 yards again after another great wave. The third wave came along in the same manner & as I'm paddling back for the third time I think that this is too perfect, if I catch a fourth beauty I'm getting out of the water 'cos it can't keep on like this. Well, whaddya know, here comes the fourth incarnation of perfection. Somehow I mess up & eat saline solution. Try again & wo.. this is the best of the day. I ride it alllllllll the way across the bay (about 200-250 yards) & hop out of the sea. Eating my 2nd breakfast I'm totally stoked, those 4 waves probably add up to more time actually surfing than a day on most UK beaches. Of course I can't resist going back in & I catch a few more good 'uns before a double-whammy of dropping swell & large crowds chases me from the water.
An uneventful night in Kuta (except for the snake in my bathroom) & I'm off to Jakarta.

Jakarta, a city with little to recommend it to the site-seer (how do you spell that?). To a lucky person like me it can be a great place. I arrived at about 10 in the evening & checked into a guesthouse at the same time as a couple of girls. We head out for dinner at a street stall together. The grub's good, the conversation better. I find them fascinating & somehow it gets to be 3 AM & we're still talking.
Next day I go see a couple of malls (yep, that's one of things recommended to do in Jakarta, I found it dull) then the old Dutch 'Kota' (crumbling not very old or interesting buildings). On the train back to my bit of town, as I'm wondering how to fill in my last few hours, a true tropical storm breaks & the rain plummets by the gallon.

At my station I hang about rather than getting drenched. I get chatting with some local guys & share a laugh or two at the expense of others getting soaked. when they decided that they really need to get back to the office I'm left wondering if I'm willing to get soaked.
In Indonesian towns just about any space that can be occupied is occupied. In this station, under the stairs which run up to the platform are three tellys, three PS2s, a piece of carpet & many kids. They beckon me over to have a go.

Excellent! Head-to-head motorbike racing against local kids! The kids are totally chuffed to see a white boy willing to join in & I'm totally chuffed to be asked. Chuffing great! After a bit of chat about Indo music I listen to some of their MP3 players & when I say I like what I hear off we go to an Internet caff & burn some of their music onto a CD for me. Sweeeeeeeeeet.
But I have to go, I have an appointment with a French Girl to keep & a plane to catch. A tuk-tuk ride, a French lesson, a slow taxi ride & now I'm leaving Indonesia, my holiday & reality to head back to the bad dream of offices & expensive living.
Have I enjoyed myself? YES
Will I do it again? YES YES
Should you do it? YES YES YES, just stay off my waves ;-) Better still you could donate to the worthy cause of getting me out there again.

Thanks for reading, that's all for now folks. N :-)

I caught my best wave ever today At 'Mawi' (not sure if that's how its spelt). Big, powerful, hollow. Wicked

That's all folks...

I've not been feeling very inspired to write recently & for about three days I was not even feeling inspired enough to go far beyond my bed. But I owe this blog (& my dedicated public tee-hee) an update.

Since I last wrote I have mostly been staying in Kuta; surfing Canggu (with occasional forays to Kuta beach & reef) & refusing to give in to a cold. On June 1st I flew all of 20 minutes to Lombok. The ferry takes between 5 & 7 hours & is a nightmare so I didn't feel too guilty. I checked into a guesthouse in Kuta & got knocked down by flu. Three days of doing virtually nothing seems to have put me right enough to go surfing these last two days. I've been surfing a break called 'Don-Dons' that feels like an amphitheatre of water. Its a short ride in a fishing boat from shore. The swell comes at you in a semi-circle; often has a step in it & somehow feels as if you've sunk down rather that the wave has risen up. Once you catch the wave its great: Fairly soft & peels both left & right, which helps with the inevitable crowd.

I didn't make a typo, I did go from Kuta to Kuta. Oddly enough Lombok's 'surf town' is also called 'Kuta'. Indonesian for town is 'Kota' so maybe that's where both names spring from? Anyway, this Kuta has about 10 guesthouses rather than Bali's 10,000. It has fewer people hassling you to buy things (Although after buying a sarong I got jumped by all the other stallholders to buy something from their stall... aaargh!!)& is generally more chilled out by a factor of 100. It has fantastic scenery: Triangular hills stitched together by white beaches are the coast; steep hills & ridges covered in palms define the horizon inland; waves breaking on outer reefs define it out to sea. Providing the swell holds up I think I'll be happy spending the last 2 weeks (sob!) of my holiday here :-)

Sorry if this isn't proof read quite properly. I'm having to overhear a whining Californian girl with the wrong attitude while trying to check this. See, its not quite paradise!

Life in Indo's good. I've found a couple of waves that I like & some restaurants too.

I've been hanging around with a bearded Californian for a while & I'm hoping to score a fine Dutch lady soon... we surf the same break & she's great :-) Usually when I think I'm in with a chance with a girl I'm entirely wrong so who knows but I'll try all the same.
I'm gradually getting the hang of the short board; I had my best wave on it so far this evening.

I have a motorbike with a board rack which is damn cool. I it ride while drunk & wearing flip flops..which isn't so cool but hey! Life's good.

Beginning to worry about real life which is approaching at a rate of knots. To this end I've applied to do some bar work at a couple of festivals. But seriously...I want a job at an eco-friendly design house somewhere in the West Wales - Bristol - Cornwall Crescent. Any ideas guys?

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :-)

Have the press been mentioning 'Tsunami'? If so, I think maybe they've been getting over excited. I was a tiny bit worried for a few moments at Dreamland, thinking its name doesn't exclude it from being a nightmare but things turned out OK in the end!
Dreamland is a collection of huts just above the high-tide line on a beautiful sandy beach at the boittom of 100 foot sheer cliffs. High-tide produces a vicious shore-break that rears up & dumps anything in its path hard onto the sand. Not the best place to be trapped by the new-moon tide we had on the 18th. Normally this shouldn't be a problem but the surf websites were predicting a big swell to boot. 2 hours before full-tide & the odd wave was reaching the 'terrace' of our 'guesthouse' (2 rattan walled rooms). 1 hour before high-tide & the terrace was getting regularly flooded. Never mind, we could still escape up to our rooms. 2 steps up that is! Fortunately when the seas had taken the sand from in front of us thy had exposed some gnarly rocks which saved us from the worst of the action.
Others weren't so lucky. The warung next door had its roof supports broken & its roof collapsed. The wall between it & the next place along was all but knocked over - it was demolished later. Further up the beach 'Robbie's Place' was entirely washed away - chairs, tables, parasols, gas bottles, coconuts & everything bouncing around in the surf.
We helped as best we could, moving stuff as far back from the sea as possible, propping rooves etc. but mostly keeping everyone calm & smiling.
Within 2 hours of the tide backing off the damage had been knocked straight or knocked straight into the sea & things were looking more normal.
Off we went & watched Uluwatu being surfed by crazy folk. The waves were at least 12 foot. It is an awesome place, one I don't think I'll ever be good enough to surf but one I could watch all day.
We'd already decided to move on the next day & it looked like a good decision - we left about 3 hours before high-tide & it was already looking like a re-run of the day before, hopefully no worse.
Now I'm in Ubud, away from the coast while the surf's too big for me & I'm experiencing a whole different vibe. More travllery than surfy, more German than Australian, but still the constant offer of T-shirts, taxis & motorbikes.

Tried to post this last time.. take a look:

http://s142.photobucket.com/albums/r111/NiallDarwin/SL_Indo/

Hi folks, here's a quick update while I'm back in civilisation (Well, Kuta) for 2 minutes:

I got a bike & razzzed up to Medewi on it. Initially I hated it, dirty water, weak wave, crowded, etc. etc. Then I began to get the hang of it & stayed for about 2 weeks.

I finally left for 'Dreamland' 2 days ago. Dreamland is a picture-perfect white beach at the bottom of some cliffs. It has beach-front super-basic 'Losmen' (guesthouses), one of which I'm staying at. No electricity, shared squat-toilet, waves running right up to the door... It also has a wave that only works around low tide so I'm hurrying to get back there for today's wave!

I should write about the folk I'm meeting along the way but not today, somebody remind when I'm bored!

Injuries: Many grazes on shins, knees & ankles from rocks at Medewi; Big bruise on right wrist & graze on right shin from landing on (& cracking) my board (6' 10", Fen!); Cut toes from reef at Dreamland.

Other stuff... ummm... going to 'Kunti' for Sushi lunch. Apparently expensive by Indo standards, cheap by UK & tasty tasty tasty by both.

Cheers for your comments folk.. catch you later :-)

I'm now in the resort town of Kuta & its just that-a big resort. Its pleasant enough & cheap enough but not really my cup of tea & the beach has rubbish, crowded waves. Despite that I've failed to move on to where I think I'll find waves I'll like - Medewi. I've been feeling a bit sniffley & lethargic today which is my excuse for not having moved on yet. Pathetic I know! Hopefully tomorrow I'll rent a motorbike with board carrier & move on up there. At least the waves here have given me a chance to get aquainted with my new board in an easy environment. I like it :-)

One of my readers (probably my only reader, hello mum!) was interested that I found such a difference when I got to Jogjakarta. To explain it I'd say Sri Lanka had a very 'third world/developing world' feeling to it & also felt very 'Indian'. I know that's not the right term but I hope you know what I mean. Maybe 'subcontinental' is the right term but that just sounds like rubbish to me! Jogja had a much more modern & Asian feeling, a bit like I'd imagine a small suburb of Hong Kong or Singapore, if such a thing were to exist.

Oh, I forgot, while at Jogja I visited Borobudur & Prambanann. The first is a mass of Buddhas & the second is a Hindu complex. Both are impressive but again, having seen the temples in Cambodia they compared unfavourably. God I'm spoilt...

Jogja.. It excites me. It has a great energy. Riding a taxi at night the place feels alive. Tricked up scooters gather around you in swarms at red lights, LEDs flashing, carrying anything from trendy teens, granddads, entire families. The curbs are painted black & white like a race track. There is a combination of the familiar from home, films & computer games in the passing scenery intermingled with the alien: a horse drawn cart perhaps or a noodle vendor wearing his Vietnamese hat & pushing his cart.
Computer games. That's it, that's the feeling. I feel as if I'm watching the demo of a street track from Gran Tourismo or Need for Speed slowly rolling by, the console waiting patiently for me to hit the button & start the race. Its exilerating, I think I'll be back.

3 Gaijin; rented shoes; a middle-aged under-cover cop trying to look like a teen; funky, uber-trendy Asian cyber-punks..sweeping the floor & cleaning the toilets, 30 minutes great dance music then teen band live set performing lame pop..Tom Jones anyone?
Taxi; city streets; Western? No. 3rd World? No. Dunkin' Donuts, McD, soup carts.
Hotel, swim, sleep.