Finding Moksha: Indonesia

It's Australia's own version of "South of the Border", people love the fact that for under $1000 they can have a flight, and accommodation for a week paid for, and have a grand old time for ridiculously cheap. They also love the fact that they can board a plane that morning in the middle of a freezing winter, and a few hours later they will be watching the sunset on the beach in their swimmers with a 60c beer in their mitts.

It's no wonder this place has become popular.

I have graced the shores of Bali a number of times, the first being in 2005. However it wasn't the cheap booze and liberal lifestyle that attracted us there. It was the waves. Spending up to a month there at a time, every trip was, as they say "Same, same, but different". From the wide-eyed virgin trip myself and Ben did the first time, the wild nights when Noel joined us the second time around, as well as our jungle adventures to G-Land. Then this time around, the 3am motor bike rides myself and Troy did looking for "potential waves".

Due to work, we only had two weeks to get our fix in 2009, so I joined Shane, Jono H, and Troy at the airport with the aim of getting as much out of the trip as we could. Discussing this over a few beers in the airport lounge lead to us sprinting for the plane and making it by the skin of our teeth.

Having a real dislike for Kuta these days a.k.a. "Sin City", we were lucky enough to only have a couple of nights there. Our arrival night, Jono H's birthday night, and one more night one we arrived back from Nusa Lembongan.

Nusa Lembongan is one of those places I call my happy place, not too popular with the tourists yet, a beach lined with $3 a night accommodation each with their own restaurant out the front. Not to mention it is home to one of the funnest and most extraordinary surf breaks around "Shipwrecks". Due to tide in the strait between Bali and Lembongan, this place only breaks on the high tide. Knowing this from past experience, we made the 30minute walk/paddle out there at low tide whilst the surf was only 1ft. An hour of swimming the reef, followed by 30min of 2-3ft fat waves, followed by 1hour of perfect empty 4-5ft waves meant was probably one of the funnest surf i have had over there. By the time the circus was onto it we were well and truly content with what we had and our 4 hour session was joyfully reflected upon over a few beers whilst watching the now 50 strong circus fight for the days last waves from our bungalow.

The next few days, with the surf small, were spent motorbiking around Lembongan, swimming the reefs and caves, and cliff diving, not to mention building such a rapport with the bungalow owners that they left us one night with a fridge full of beer and letting us use the honesty box.

Back in Bali, the rest of our time was spent in Bingin, making daily pre-dawn 90min motorbike trips to east coast Keramas for morning waves before spending the afternoon on the western Bukit basking in the offshore trades and the endless lines synonymous with this island.

Breaking up the day with watermelon juice, beng beng bars, Dreamlands shorey sessions, nasi goreng as well as countless episodes of The Office, lead to an all round fun trip.

The biggest shock for me was the crowd compared to 5 years earlier. Cheap airfares has really allowed everyone to get there, surfers and non-surfers, and the amount of europeans in the line-up had increased five-fold.

Ayo!

Music: The Beautiful Girls - La Mar. I chose this vid as it is all Indonesia, G-Land at the start, then Keramas around 1:30 into it, then Shipwrecks and the Bukit make an appearance towards the end.