Journey through Indonesia, Part III: Breakdowns, Robberies, Discoveries, Serendipities

Lombok: Day 9: Wednesday, June 13

                                    Today is dedicated to logistics.  Our mission is to leave this island for another.  We've spent four days and three nights here, and we've investigated a solid 40 kilometers of coastline.  It's a magnificent stretch, but truthfully the waves here are B-Grade.  There are greater treasures awaiting us.  We spend the morning looking for a mechanic to re-attach my crash-affected surf rack, and to widen my racks to accommodate my newly acquired board.  With Chris's language skills we find a genial mechanic with a contorted face and a missing eye.  The people here live with all kinds of deformities, as they are poor, they live hard lives, and their access to first rate health care is prohibitive.  Our mechanic smiles and laughs as he works, despite the clear hole where his eye should be.  For an hour of good work he charges five dollars. 

Bule Baldwin locked and ready on the Lombok Ferry

                                    We roll out of town at 12:30 into two hours of high speed, rush-hour Lombok traffic.  It's a hot, wild, and intense ride.  Everything is on the roads again: horses, buffalo, goats, chickens, buses, children, rickshaws, carts, motorcycles, all jostling through pot-holed roads with no lights to organize traffic flow. With a full face helmet covered in skeletons, Chris rips through the traffic fearlessly, and I do my best to hold a close line.  We arrive to the ferry port with less then a minute to spare.  We race through the toll booth down the runway, and a policeman stops me in my tracks.  Chris is already on the boat, calling for me to drive through, but the officer tells me to hold back.  I don't want to be left here for hours alone, so I rev my engine, and I am the last motorcycle on the boat, jammed underneath a mac truck.  We clamber to the top deck for the two hour ferry ride to the East, and settle in on top of our bags.  Sheer Mt. Anjing looks down on us from her two mile peak, as our boat churns out into the calm, island-spotted channel.  I'm exhausted by the morning's journey, and splayed out on the deck on top of my backpack, I easily drift to sleep to the rhythm of the waves.

                                    Our boat docks in Sumbawa two hours later, and we quickly rumble onto the island.  Two islands away from Bali, Sumbawa is bigger, drier, and less populated than her western sisters.  She is also predominantly Muslim, and we notice mosques blaring recitations from the Koran in every village we pass.  The drive to our destination takes some two and a half hours, but it is glorious after the urban chaos of Lombok.   We climb mountains, bank through valleys, and race on smooth pavement straightaways, heading south toward the full force of the Indian Ocean.  The sun tracks languorously toward the horizon and jungle shadows lengthen to cool down our journey.

                                    We pull into our destination at sunset.  This is a beautiful, rarely touristed, and relatively prosperous corner of the country.  A major goldmine ensures a core foundation of employment that links into the local service industries (schools, food service, amenities, entertainment).  We don't see so much of the grimy poverty that plagues parts of Lombok, or the hustlers and pushers who lurk in Kuta, Bali. 

Only the basics, but everything we need at our Indonesian hotel

                                    Chris has mastered the art of stretching out a budget for nine months in Indonesia, and he does it by mimicking the lives of locals in many ways.  Thus, we won't be staying in any of the surf camps or fancy hotels.  We race through town to the beachfront, and pull into a dusty courtyard surrounded by concrete block housing units on three sides. This is an Indonesian hotel for Indonesians, but bule Chris has charmed his way into becoming a frequent tenant.  To share an air-conditioned room with cable, an armoire, a comfortable bed, a toilet with a seat, and running water, our fee is US $150 per month, or $75 per person per month, or less than $3 per person per day.  When I run a quick comparison to my living expenses in Hawaii, I realize that I could stay in Indonesia for one month with money to spare, for the same cost as staying at my apartment in Hawaii for a single day and night. 

                                    These international price comparisons can be disconcerting, but they are the exact reason why millions of people around the world are leveraging their earnings from one country in another.  These disparities explain why Chris can eat well, enjoy comfortable shelter, and have access to transportation and internet for some $300 a month.  They also explain why I can essentially spend less money adventuring through Indonesia than I would paying my living expenses at home.  It's a crazy calculus driven by the complex relationships of currencies, purchasing power parities, and global capitalism.  Nevertheless, it's stark and real, and it's the reason why thousands of floating vagabonds can chase their dreams in this archipelago for comparatively nothing.

                                    As it happens, we're not the only bules (whiteys) here.  We meet up with a core crew of Indonesian veterans, who almost all spent their salad days in the same North County San Diego Beach Cities I hail from.   Dennis is in many ways the patriarch of the crew.  A committed Indo veteran, he has rented out a three bedroom house in Sanur on Bali for an entire year, which he shares with his Balinese girlfriend and a rotating crew of American and Australian visitors.  He has scoured all over the country for wave treasures, and his eyes twinkle with the magic he's experienced.  He may be in Indo for life.  He's found a way to pay for all this by earning his money in the First World for a season, and stretching it in the Third World for the other three seasons.  His old friend  Scotty is a smooth-surfing, fast-talking, good-natured regular footer who has traced Dennis' footsteps.  He's  moved his life far out of America, and he's striving for the same goal: Make and save money for a time, and then bring it to where it lasts and where he wants to be: Indo.  The third member of the crew is Bryce, a cruisey Leucadia-based graphic designer who has done stints on the North Shore of Oahu, Venice Beach, and Topanga Canyon.  It's the second month of his first trip here, and he's already contemplating pushing back his departure and breaking out the credit card.  How do you leave Shangri-La if you don't have to?  Rounding out the bule crew is Trent, an articulate, hilarious, and circumspect lifeguard from Avoca Beach, Australia, who has scored work in the Maldives as a surf guide at a surf camp, and then as a skipper on a surf yacht.  Trent has a yarn for every topic, and he keeps us in stitches. 

                                    We all connect and head to a fish restaurant for dinner.  As I walk into this restaurant, I choose a fish out of a bucket and hand it to the cooks in the open kitchen.  They proceed to deep fry and barbecue the whole fish into the paragon of deliciousness.  We all dive into the feast voraciously with our fingers.  We trade stories, speculations, and jokes over dinner, especially about our common friend who is roaming around the sand dunes of Southern Mexico with his brother in a souped up dune buggy.

                                    My stomach finally revolts at all the novelty I have been pouring into it, and I spend the rest of the evening paying the price. . .

Sumbawa: Day 10: Thursday, June 14

                                   

                                    We arise in the darkness and prepare for our morning mission.  In a place I can't say there is a wave I can't name, sitting a solid kilometer offshore.  I plunder into the warm morning waters and stroke for the dark horizon.  Venus and the moon watch over me from behind.  The energy of a new swell explodes on the distant reef.  The session turns out to be a disappointment, as there isn't enough swell to really light up this fickle piece of reef. 

                                    After an hour I begin the long paddle back to shore.  Alone in the sea, I begin to daydream.  I am so lost in my thoughts that I don't know until the last moment that I am paddling directly into an angry black and white sea snake!  The creature curls into a double coil and it lashes at the water.  I realize when my hand is just inches from its tiny fangs what is happening, and then I erupt into a flurry of splashes.  Adrenaline takes me the rest  of the way to shore.  Purportedly these sea snakes are docile and their fangs are small, but they may be able to deliver a lethal dose of poison.  As Dennis expresses nonchalantly back on the beach, "That could have been a life-ender!"

                                    It's only 8 AM, so we hurry onto the next spot.  We climb the lush green mountains above town, and on the way we see banyak munet scampering around the road.  The mischievous monkeys tear at roadside plants and look quizzically at the motorcycles that pass through their mountain home.  We drop down into the next bay to the south.  This is the last major village before the steep southern mountains make populous settlement impossible.  This town has all the basics: a school for boys and a school for girls, a mosque, a smattering of restaurants, a mechanic, and some convenience stores.  We race through the end of town onto a 3 kilometer dirt road that carries us into a grove of trees on a sand bank overlooking a large keyhole bay.  This magnificent bay is the swell magnet of the area, as it gathers the full force of Southern Ocean power and organizes it into two rifling and rippable peaks.  I'd say more about the session, but I imagine it's not terribly interesting to those who don't surf, which is most people.  We had a blast.

                                    After such an eventful morning, I spend the rest of the day resting, recharging, and reading, a pattern which many of the following days would mimic.  Each day we'd return to a beachfront warung, where we would order the biggest coconuts I've ever seen, and Soto Ayam (A salty clear-broth soup with mie (noodles), shredded chicken, scallions, and other greens).  We would break out a deck of cards and play a few hands of Soy Dos before and after lunch.  Inevitably a siesta would follow.  Sweet life.

 Sumbawa Day 11: Friday, June 15

                                    There is a wave in this corner of Indonesia that has fair claim to being one of the best waves on the planet.  It spins, churns, and barrels over a 100 meter section of reef, and on its day it can engulf a surfer in a liquid tube for some twenty seconds.  This is the exact spot where I caught the best waves of my life three years ago, and I have returned to see if I can pull it off again.  Unfortunately, in order for this wave to break properly, it requires about 8 feet of long period westerly swell, which is a special occurrence that only happens a few times a year.  It also requires a precise tide that only lasts each day for a few hours, as well as a stiff offshore wind.

                                    Today the tide and wind co-operate, and the swell shows moments of promise.  Our fairly large crew paddle out, and I proceed to catch what would prove to be my best waves at this spot of the whole trip.  I pull into a few gorgeous tubes, and I even make it out of a few.  It is an awesome session, but not totally epic.  We try again at the evening sunset and score a few more, with Bryce and I staying out until the final slivers of light vanish into the sky,and the mosquitos and bats come out for their sunset meals.  This was a surf day, pure and simple. 

                                    For dinner, Chris and I join his friend George to devour skewers of chicken satay, which is chicken kebabs doused in a sweet peanutty sauce.  George is a Santa Cruz refugee in the middling ages.  He generates some income with trade work when he is in developed countries, but basically he has pared down his existence to a cost that he can largely support by collecting rent on a property he maintains in another country.   He is a mellow, peaceful, easygoing, and stoked character, another of the many bule Indonesian vagabonds.

 Sumbawa, Day 12: Saturday, June 16

                                    Day 11 repeat?  Not far from it.  As I write this a week later, the days seem to blend together into a pastiche of early mornings, mountain bike rides, friendly monkeys, thrilling waves, beachside lunches, reading, writing, and evening culinary excursions.  This evening for dinner we head onto dusty Main St. for Nasi Campur.  This is a buffet style meal, where some fifteen different dishes are laid out on display.  The meal begins with a few scoops of rice, and then the fun begins: Corn fritters, rendang (Sweet beef), green beans, anchovies and salty peanuts, chicken, fried shrimp, vegetable soup, and more.  Dinner leads to dreams. . .

                                                                       

                                   

Sumbawa, Day 13: Sunday, June 17

                                    This day was going to be disastrous.  We sojourn through the mountains for our morning surf session, soon to find that the swell is powerful and crashing ferociously in the channel.  I paddle out on my fairly expensive, reinforced, closed-cell foam Firewire, and launch into my first wave.  I free fall five feet down the open face of the wave and collapse into a foamball of destruction.  When I re-surface from underwater, I discover my board is broken!  My precious board!  Jagged shards of fiberglass stick out from my tail, and my nose has ridden a wave all the way to the beach.  I flounder in the ocean for a solid 20 minutes as I try to fight through the current, the sets, and the impact zone to get safely to shore.  When I make it there, I find that an Aussie bloke named Justin has retrieved the other half of my board.  "You don't happen to have a board you want to sell?" I venture, crushed that my bread and butter board is demolished.  "Actually. . ."  He hands over his 6'5" and I leap back into the surf to test it out.

                                    Then, disaster strikes again!  I wipe out on my first wave, the leash breaks, and I am once more marooned at sea.  I swim again for shore for another 15 minutes.  Argh!  I finally redeem myself with a few decent rides and come in exhausted.

                                    After the disaster session, I discover that some local ruffians have broken into my motorbike and slipped away with 60,000 rupiah.  This is not my day.

                                    I spend the afternoon negotiating a purchase of Justin's board for $140 and re-charging.  Sunset at the Bay is festive, as all the townspeople are enjoying soccer, a mini-carnival, and tide-pool exploring.

Sumbawa, Day 14, Monday, June 18

Wee!!!

                                    My misfortune continues a bit today, but this time it is self-inflicted.  The morning begins at our go to wave Yo-Yo's, the slingshot power center that always delivers.  We awaken at 5:30 AM today, as the tide is racing in quickly, and the high tide will drown out the reef and make the waves soft and fat.  It turns out to be an excellent choice, as after an hour of wave riding, two ships come steaming from the sea into the bay.  One is the standard Bali Budget square wooden ship with two outriggers, and the other is an elegant fiberglass private charter.  As the boats approach, we know what's about to happen.  Within minutes, dinghy taxis begin to ferry boatloads of surfers toward us and into the line-up.  It's inevitably awkward when sea-going surfers meet land-based surfers, as everyone is male on the hunt, and everyone is competing for the choicest parts of a limited resource: waves.  I take it in stride and make small talk with some of the guys, but the crowd pressure has increased to the breaking point.  Chris and I call it a wrap and head back to shore.

Who needs AAA?

                                    On shore, I create a problem for myself.  As I'm storing my gear and preparing my motorcycle, I drop my key into the sand.  It's gone!  I search intently for twenty minutes, but it's gone. The solution?  First we rummage for a long bamboo stick.  Chris and I get on his bike and I hold the stick out to George, who grabs the stick while riding my bike in neutral.  We basically have jerry-rigged a motorcycle tow truck, but my arm is the tow hitch, and whenever we climb or descend a hill, my arm has to compress or expand to accommodate the change.  It hurts, but I'm laughing hysterically as we tow the bike three kilometers on a gravelly, pot-hole filled dirt road to the nearest mechanic.  I hang with a merry group of Indos for an hour while the mechanic installs a new lock system.  An hour of labor plus a new lock system costs me 12 dollars, and the mechanic won't accept a tip.  Creating and solving problems in Indonesia. . .

What are those bules doing?

                                    In the afternoon, Team America +1 returns.  Dennis, Bryce, Scotty, and their Australian mate Trent had returned to Bali for 48 hours of visa runs and girlfriend visits, and in anticipation of a new swell, they're back.  As I think about it, all the Americans are California refugees, including Chris and me.  This is an avid surf crew from sun-blessed San Diego, and every one of the five has left for Hawaii, Australia, or Indonesia.  It would be slightly too easy to write us off as hedonistic escape artists looking for somewhere to live easier, cheaper, and freer.  There is some element of that, but there are push factors in California that have sent all five of us in search of other pastures.  It's not one factor, but somewhere amidst the confluence of intense development, soaring living costs, heavy taxation, population explosion, the expansion of surfing, cold water, and small waves, all five of us have emigrated somewhere else.  Even Aussie Trent is putting together work in Indonesia and the Maldives with the hopes of settling here semi-permanently someday.

                                    Then again, this is a self-selected group.  In order to arrange to have the amount of time necessary to travel to a far-flung corner of the world and wait for the ocean to come alive, you need to have a certain freedom in space and time.  California remains magnificent, all of us continue to have roots there, and maybe we'll even choose to or be able to return.  It is interesting though, that in the midst of a national shift to the southern and western regions of the country, many natives of San Diego are moving south and west as well. . .