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...
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