drifting across the Indonesian tourist Metropole
After leaving Australia I thought this
would be my last time on a Surfboard for very long. Almost a whole
year I spent almost every day at the Pacific Ocean and faced sharp
reefs, the fear of sharks and heavy slabs.
But as soon as I was about to leave I
had a job offer as a Teacher for a whole year. That was the beginning
of my believe of making enough money to come back to Australia and
New Zealand for good. But it also meant that I was about to have
school leave as often as I had as a student. So I began immediately
to plan my next trip. After looking for a cheap and warm destination
that also serves decent waves, I stumbled over the fact that I havn't
been in Indonesia for almost 4 years. It was about time and my first
wage went straight into a ticket to Bali.
About one hour after I finished working
on a Friday, I was already on my way to Munich and took several
planes to Abu Dhabi, Jakarta and finally Denpasar. I got there in the
very early morning of a Sunday and got already a little annoyed by
Kuta and its busy streets. Well there is nothing good about Kuta
besides cheap souvenir shopping. I rented a scooter and made my way
up north west to Canggu. It used to be a secret spot, but that is
long gone. The line-up is very busy in the morning and even non
surfing tourists are travelling there a lot. But for the next 4 days
this was my home. The beach breaks are average to ok, but the real
treasure are the reefs at Old Man's. Long right and left handers
peeling down even when the wind made it very choppy to stay on your
feet after lunchtime. The vibe was still quite all right, although
there is already a kind of a hassle in the water with all those
Aussies and local surfers.
On my last trip I never made it to the
Tanah Lot temple, so this was the right place to tick it of the list.
It was just a 30 min ride with the scooter and the entrance fee is
about €2. But that day I was probably better off surfing, because
there was no wind, so it was boiling hot. The temple itself is built
on a big rock about 50m offshore and only accessable during low tide.
I can only imagine how it looks like when the waves are crashing
against the high cliffs and the sun is setting. Appearantely most of
the tourists come right before sunset. But I didn't want to drive
back in the dark on a scooter. It's already pretty dangerous.
After having enough of Canggu, I went
further up north along the most dangerous road of Bali. All the
trucks and buses going to Java take the ferry and the most western
point of Bali, so they shared the busy road with me. Beeing on a tiny
scooter and having huge trucks overtaking in and before turns is no
fun at all. I mostly had to stop breathing because of the high
pollution while driving. When I got to Balian, I booked in at a
bungalow right on the beach. It had everything including very
freindly staff and a first class view from the doorstep to the surf
break. The Balian Surfcamp is owned by the whole village to gain
profit and block it off of some potential resort. The reef was about
150m away from me and there were peeling lefts and rights as far as
the eye can see and as long as the onshore didn't kick in. That
usually happened around 10, so 4 hours of surfing garanteed. The most
amazing thing was, that I went to Bali to practise on one of those
famous lefts and ended up surfing this uncrowded righthander for
hours with only a handful of friendly guys. You can imagine that I
didn't want to leave. Every night I went to tha local market and had
dinner at one of the Warungs, which only cost about €1,50. I love
Indonesian food and the whole atmosphere is so unique. Well, if you
think about it, it is a shame, not having a single rubbish bin
anywhere and smelling burning plastic everywhere at night. But on the
other hand, it is part of it and the infrastructure does simple not
allow a waste disposal system due to the fact it still is a third
world country.
I didn't want to leave Balian, but the
Indian Ocean went quite flat, so the only place with workable waves
would be the busy Bukit Peninsula in the south of Bali. But I crashed
my phone and lost all maps, GPS, contacts and Wifi. Well I made it
anyway. But don't ask how. I was actually going to surf some spots
near Sanur. But there are only expensive resorts and finding the
spots is actually difficult. Then I was going to look for some waves
on Pulau Serangan. But I also never found waves, only dirt tracks.
Next would be Nusa Dua, but by the time I got there, I remembered
that there are only very expensive resorts and no Homestay or a way
to get to the beach without staying in one of those ugly hotels. So I
also went on and after driving the whole day, it began to become
dark. Next oppotunity would be somwhere on the Bukit close to
Dreamland. This would be the only beachbreak around and I would be
able to check all the shallow and gnarly reefs from there. I found a
reasonable accomodation close to Padang Padang. The waves were still
very small for the next 3 days, so I had to surf some of those reefs
with having only just 2ft of water underneath my board. For the
reason all those waves a ridiculously fast and I had to surf them on
my backside, I didn't really enjoy myself.
More than one week was gone by and I
choose to go to the most famous and most crowded spot Uluwatu. It is
the most southern spot, so it picks up the most swell. But the reef
is the tricky and dangerous part. Shallow and sharp as I can remember
from my last encounter that gave me a bruised foot and scarry
moments. So it was all about facing fear and catching at least a few
without getting hammered into the reef. Not only did I succeed, but I
surfed better than I thought and almost made it to pull into a
barrel. Almost. On my final day at Uluwatu we had about 7ft swell and
way over double overhead wavefaces. I still went and made it out
surprisingly easy. But paddling into those monsters and feeling the
raw and unforgiving power that the waves gathered since it left the
anarctic cirlce, was making me think twice every time. Also most of
the waves were closing out, which is a nightmare having it that big.
I went for 3 waves and the last one was the biggest. I gained speed
and by the time I was about to make a turn, I realised, I was just
about to close out while I was at the bottom of the wave. That was
it. I got rolled over, tumbled dry and hit the reef with my reef
booties twice. While catching oxygen, I saw the next one coming down
on me. All good so far, but I would never make it back out.
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