indonesia - bali - legian 2012

Legian 2012 part 1

Me , Paul - when the grey skies turn to blue

Off to Indonesia for 2 months. The plan … surf west Sumbawa, surf Lombok, snorkel and volcano climbing in Flores, surf Sumba, meet up with the family, snorkel padangbai, surf Balangan, surf east Sumbawa, family returns home, surf Ballan. Well, this was the plan roughly with the main focus being surfing. Funny, how you think and plan a trip for ages and then it all changes.

This was one of those trips where the unexpected happened. My plans were all changed. What I wanted to do didn’t happen but I enjoyed all the changes… the bad and the good. Sometimes bad happens but it is for good reasons that unfold with the passage of time.

So what happened… in a trip the scenery counts, the adventures count and the people count… I’m still counting.

I started the trip with my friend Paul, who is an artist. We left Australia and arrived in Bali with little drama. Paul managed to have himself searched very carefully at Sydney airport. Later, he couldn’t find his visa ticket on arrival at Bali and consequentially blocked the customs exit with all his gear. Eventually, the customs offices highly amused waved him on.

Nyoman, our driver and a friend of mine for many years was there to pick us up and on we went to Legian. It was good to see Nyoman again but he was pretty stressed out. He bought a new second hand car, a house and land near Tabanan and he needed the new tourist driver license. He was in debt beyond his wildest dreams/nightmares. He asked me if he had overdone it. I tried to be diplomatic but basically yes he had overdone it. The interest rate for the bank loan was 20%. Yes he had overdone it. This story unfolded more with each visit I made back to Bali on this trip.

The following day, we went surfing at Keramis, had good waves and later changed money, bought indo sim cards, etc.

So far, everything was going well. Paul wasn’t impressed with Bali beaches and the amount of rubbish on the beaches, in the water and piled up towards the road. Oddly enough, I see it too but it doesn’t offend me.

The following day, we were off to West Sumbawa and Nomad Tropical Resort.