A Bowl of Stupid

(Kuta, Bali, Indonesia — Advertising SOME Fucking Surfer-Tourist Thing)

Transcribed/Modified: Tuesday, June 19, 2007, 2:59:40 PM

Once again, I’m backdating some of my entries because I’ve only just returned to a locale with electricity access, allowing me to recharge my laptop batteries.

After leaving Banco Banco (Desert Point), I’m currently on Gili Trawangan, one of 3 of the small “Gilli” partially self-governed islands right off the coast of Lombok, Indonesia (Trawangan, Gili Meno, and Gili Air). The afternoon call to prayer is going off in the background, and I’m enjoying for the first time in a week the pleasure of sitting in a hotel room with electricity, a a fan, indoor plumbing, and running water.

(A view looking into one of the various bars on Gili Trawangan, one in which they only serve Bintang, not Mushy shakes … thank god).

There is no surf here, but I’ve taken up with several Australian surfers traveling the area who decided to come here for several days to “wait out” the surf forecast, which shows no surf in the area for at least several days. In the meantime, I figure I’ll write about the hellhole that is Kuta, Bali.

Kuta, Bali

As I noted earlier, I typically like traveling with little to no prior preparation. However, I’ve never been to Bali before and didn’t want to be stranded at the airport asking a random Cabbie to “take me to a surf spot on the island.”

As such, I chose to make arrangements to get transport to, and stay at, a relatively cheap hotel in Kuta/Legion Beach, in south Bali, just south of the Denpasar Airport. Although I wasn’t keen on it at the time, in retrospect, it was a good idea.

South Bali (which includes Denpasar and Kuta) is an absolute shithole.

It’s not a shithole in that it was dirty and “third–worldish” (which it sorta is). It’s more of a shithole because of the ungodly number of tourists there, the corresponding shops, hucksters, cabbies, bebos, drug dealers, bars, and restaurants there to cater to the tourists every wanton desire. Blatant commercialism has taken over the area for apparently a very long time.

Shit, I’ve not even seen that kind of mayhem in some of the more crowded areas in Central and South America. Kuta, Bali was simply a mess.

Regardless, I stayed at a reasonable hotel several blocks away from Legion (leg-ee-on) Beach (which is known for having an “okay” beach surfbreak).

The first day in Bali, out of sheer necessity, I paid about US$20.00 to the same driver who picked me up from the airport for him to drive me to some of the good surf spots on the island – “Airports,” Padang-Padang, Medawi (Med-aye-wie), Nusa Dua, etc.

We only wound up at one – Dreamland.

Dreamland is a very beautiful place located at the bottom of sandstone cliffs encircling a southern facing “half-moon” bay.

Dreamland is a beach break with two decent and distinct peaks – one going left, one right. However, once again, driving up to the point, there were about 40-50 cars, vans, bebos, and taxis parked at the top of the cliffs – all there carrying other surf enthusiasts and sightseers to the area.

At the bottom of the cliffs, there is admittedly a very beautiful, and large, hotel spread out for about 2/3 of a kilometer set along the cliff-faces. And logically, the large hotel accounts for a large number of tourists on the beach – and in the surf – at Dreamland.

Undeterred by the crowd, I went out for my first surf in Indonesia.

It wasn’t bad. It was quite similar to several California beach breaks I’ve surfed, only the water was obviously much warmer. After sitting out for about an hour at the “left” peak crowded with Japanese and German tourists who were learning how to surf, I paddled the 100-200 meters over to the “right” peak, which had only 5-6 people surfing.

I caught a few nice waves for another 1.5 hours before heading back to the hotel. It was fun.

Note: The breaks Bingin and Impossibles are about 1- 1.5 km. over to the left of Dreamland. If you look on the above pic, you can see them. However, Bingin is even MORE crowded than Dreamland, and most times Impossibles … well, it generally lives up to its name.

The next day, I went out in the beach break in front of my hotel on Legions, where I had some decent surffor about 2 hours or so. However, by the time I got back to the hotel and had the ever-ubiquitous banana pancake for breakfast, I had already made my decision.

I had had enough of Bali (and especially the tourist hell that is Kuta). I was getting the hell out of Dodge.

From Bali To Lombok – Excitement Entails

At 10:45 a.m., I made arrangements to catch an 11:00 a.m. bus heading north from the southern tip of the island to the eastern port of Padang Bai, where I would catch a ferry to the next major Indonesia island to the east – Lombok.

Unlike Bali, for my trip to Lombok, although I was told there was great surf on Lombok, I had no idea even where on the island I needed to go to catch some, nor did I make any arrangements for any accommodations on the island, or stock up on money (Indo Rupees) before leaving Bali.

It was only when I showed up at Lombok at 10:30 at night with absolutely no direction or plans that I realized I had made a huge mistake.

But, at the end of the day, mistakes such as those lead to some of the best adventures of your life (and they also make for some good fucking stories).

P.S. Despite the tone of this post (my disgust with the overcrowding in Bali, the potentially dangerous situation in which I found myself, etc.), there has not been one minute where I have regretted my decision to leave the States and the legal practice. Although I miss my friends and family greaty, I’m happier now then I’ve ever been in my entire life. And for that, I’m grateful beyond words.

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