The next couple days we spent surfing Mawi. It was only about 16 km's away but the drive took just under an hour. I thought I'd seen bad roads before, nothing like this. I honestly don't think you could have taken a car on this route. Kent and I cruised out one day with Anja and Courtney, and the next just Courtney. Here they are stopped at a local gas station:

 

 Although the road itself sucked, there was some pretty awesome scenery, and the kids from the villages were awesome, yelling "Hi, Hello Mister," or running out to give you a high five. 

Mawi is located in a pretty beautiful area, there's a crystal clear lagoon you paddle through at high tide to get out, or if you're waiting for waves you can hike 5 minutes over a tiny headland and have a massive beach to yourself. 

Here's a shot of Courtney and one of Kent. 

We would usually leave early morning and be back early afternoon, either have a nap or hang out with Thomas and Pablo, then get out for an evening surf in Grupuk. Followed by dinner and then peanuts, garlic peanuts. At least one bag per day. One evening Ajna, Courtney and I had a sunset beer from a pretty cool lookout point. The sunset wasn't too amazing, the beer was good though. 

All of the girls left the day before us except Courtney, our last day there we all surfed Mawi, then cruised to Grupuk for a skate in the surf camp's bowl. I'm bringing my shoes next time! We had a nice dinner, said good-bye to our local friends and hit the sheets. 

Kent and I left at 6am, this time we took the right roads and made it to the ferry in an hour. The lack of traffic helped with that. We caught a pretty nice sunrise on our ride. 

 We ended up having to wait a while for the ferry, so we were forced into buying nasi campur by the local sellers, then we drove a bit out of the way for a coffee. It wasn't until we were done that Kent started laughing and pointed across the parking lot. There were some guys working out, just using what they had available for weights. We joined in on the workout sesh:

Ah just kidding. 

I guess they just overloaded the truck a little...

 

We both stopped and took this same picture right before we boarded. Kent had mentioned how priceless it would have been if the horse flipped up at this moment, hahaha.

Off to Lombok - Part 1

 So a day or two after the last of my friends left, and I got sick of the book I was reading I decided to go to Kuta Lombok. I ran into a guy I'd seen a bunch staying at the Sandat, Kent, and it turned out he was planning on heading there as well. Long story short we were on the road at 4 am the following day. 

Leaving Kuta at that time was more intense than I could have imagined. There was still a full fledged party going on and traffic was backed up on Poppies 2 all the way to our street. With some skillful maneuvering we worked our way down the tiny sidewalk and eventually out of town. One wouldn't think to bring a hoody or jeans to Indonesia, but both would have been handy that morning, definitely shivering on the drive. 

  We got a bit lost on the drive to Padangbai, but made it after all, Kent had to bribe some fake looking cops to get his bike across to Lombok, and soon after we parked our bikes on the boat and rented a couple mattresses upstairs. We both got a couple hours of sleep, then sat around eating nasi campur, peanuts, and cannon balls for the remainder of the ferry ride.

We drove off the ferry and it almost felt like a different country. There were horse drawn carriages ripping down the highway, the landscape was a lot different, and the overall vibe seemed different, for the better.

 

Of course we took the longest route possible to Kuta, but made it, and stopped for lunch at a random cafe. Met an old Aussie couple who gave us some tips on where to stay, then we drove around to all the surf breaks and checked them out, all blown out by the afternoon. 

We made our way to Grupuk and met a rad dude named Sudi, who owned a company that makes surfboards, Banyu. We looked out over the bay, but couldn't see any waves. 

 Sudi told us we had to hire a boat to get to the bay where the waves were, we decided to get a hotel then come back for an evening surf. How nice it was to surf a right again...

 The following day we started off at Grupuk again, then rode out to Mawi in the afternoon.

 

The roads were an absolute shit show, 16 kilometers took about an hour. Here is what we had to deal with: I know Duncan misses these roads...

We pulled up to the beach, and we were the only ones there apart from the local vendors shouting, "Bintang Time! Beng-Beng!" And other random items that could be bought. Kent went out for a surf. 

 

I stayed onshore and shot photographs. There was a little kid hanging out there with the locals who wouldn't leave my side the whole time we were there. He was interested in everything I was doing, so I set him up with one of my cameras and he took some photos as well.

This is Kent and the local vendor that was yelling things. He was an absolute gem, pure comedy.

 

That evening we were on the hunt for a chicken satay, when a couple bracelet selling kids, and there are lots of these there, came up and tried to sell us bracelets. We chatted with them, they introduced themselves and Thomas and Pablo. Over the next few days we would become quite good friends with these two. They were awesome little kids with sayings like: "Long hair long life, big banana happy wife."

  They showed us to a decent restaurant where we could find satay, then continued trying to sell bracelets to other tourists.

Over the next couple days we would try and get up early to surf Grupuk, but somehow it never happened. Either the alarm was set wrong, or I'd wake up and shut it off, or we would just get lazy and wait until after breakfast. 

When we would show up (somewhat early) the locals would be on the beach gathering little fish from nets, they would take their insides out and dry them on tables near Sudi's shop. I don't know what they were used for but the local stray cats sure loved them. 

For a couple evenings I would go and try and find a new spot to shoot the sunset, here were the first two nights:

One night Kent came back to our hotel and said I'd be stoked on what he found earlier that day. The next day after a surf he brought me here:

Unfortunately I left my shoes and skateboard in Bali, but there were a couple spare boards laying around that I cruised on. I think I found my paradise, super fun waves with much less of a crowd, streets you can walk on without almost being run over 40 times in 50 meters, and super friendly locals with a laid back vibe.

The next night I went on another photo mission, I started shooting in this cool little mangrove forest at the end of the beach, but was soon after chased out by wild dogs. I had to walk backwards out of there because every time I would turn around they would shorten the distance between us. I would have to swing my photo bag at them to back them up. Our friends Thomas and Pablo said it was because the mangrove forest was located at the base of a hill where many monkeys lived, and they would torment the dogs. Hopefully they learn to throw big rocks soon..

 

I'm going to leave it at that for now, part 2 will tell the rest...

Hangovers and Goodbyes.

Well it has been so long since I've posted, plus the fact that I'm so far behind I can barely rememeber what happened. I'll try my best.

Keri, Alex, Duncan, Eddy and I surfed a bunch, Canggu and Airport reef. Nothing fantastic, actually one day Keri ended up dropping in on a local and getting swarmed by about 6 of them, full on punching him in the head and pulling his hair. He got out unscathed but probably doesn't wanna surf Padma anymore. Another day Alex, Duncan and I surfed an onshore Canggu and Julian Wilson was out, pretty cool to see one of the top pro's surfing in real life. 

Keri had a flight home first of the bunch. Somehow he got 2 last nights out of the deal too, he told us his flight was one day so we all went out for a big one, then when he checked the internet the next morning he realized he still had one more day. I think on the actual last night we kept it mellow. We saw him off one evening from Sandat. 

Alex and Rory were to leave next, they had under a week left, we pretty much hung around in Kuta, surfed a bit and partied a bunch. Duncan introduced us to one of his friends from home who joined the Sky Garden festivities, Tom was his name. 

Here's a hungover Alex just before heading home:

The crew continually got smaller. Bye Alex and Rory. 

 It seems Tom was hit the hardest in the morning. 

Here he is about to puke, and then after a beach nap. Classic.

 

A few days later Duncan, Kirsty, and Tom head to Gili, and that was the last I saw of Duncan and Kirsty, until next time guys..