Finally, the day of our first Indonesian surf trip had arrived! Emily and Daniel had stayed up late to watch Sweden in the Eurocup, so Krissy and I set our alarm for 6:30, and headed out early to pick up the surfboards and motorbikes, which we had secured the previous day. Having never ridden any sort of motorbike before, Krissy was full of nervous excitement for the short drive back to our homestay. After stopping to load up the surfboards, we had a small gravel hill to climb back to the road. Preparing for the steep but short hill, she gunned it. The back tire immediately began spinning, sliding, and spitting gravel. When she hit the road and the tire bit, she launched forward, but managed to maintain control and happily hit the road!
After a quick (but as always in Indonesia, free and banana pancake based) breakfast, the four of us set out. The morning was quite warm, and despite only being able to acquire two helmets, and renting our motorbikes without so much as giving the man our name, or filling any paperwork, we were optomistic about what a great deal we had bargained for on our rentals, and ready for fun! Previously we had heard stories about police shakedowns, and so decided to bring with us just 300,000 rp, or about $30. It was to be a 1 hour drive to the beach, and we were excited for fresh air, and the wind in our face.
As we started our journey, we quickly found that herds of cows and goats were commonplace along the main highway. Likewise, horse-drawn carriages were a common sight, and an interesting obstacle to dodge. We passed through two markets, where the entire street was crowded with people and animals. These were quite nerve-racking. Back onto the open roads and we were happy to be cruising, until it happened. We were flagged down at a police stop point. Uh oh.
In the backpacking community around Australia, horror stories abound about being shaken down for money by the often corrupt Indonesian police. They are apparently quite skilled at finding ways to squeeze some thousands of rupia out of unwary travelers. A driver we hired for a day on Bali had joked about the corruption money, letting us know that sometimes even he keeps 'corruption money' from his wife! Laughingly, he said sometimes he when he made 500,000 in a day, he might claim just 400,000 was made, so he could stash some away for car repairs and the like, preventing his wife from feeling the stress when those events came up. Not the worst thing that could be done with corruption money!
As Krissy and I, Emily and Daniel all sat on the side of the road, no fewer than five police officers of various rank and uniform surrounded us. The thought of our shady motorbike rentals quickly flashed into our heads, almost immediately followed by the realisation that not one of has had brought along any identification for the day-trip. This could turn out to be a bad day. Immediately the officers made requests for license and registration, in responce to which we meekly informed them that we could produce none of that. Meanwhile as one or two officers interrogated us, making sure to point out that we also seemed to be missing several helmets, the remaining officers were snapping photos with their cell phones! The officers questioning us rotated out periodically, while frightening at the time, in retrospect it seems they were taking turns posing for their pictures.
After several minutes of this they happily informed us that we could be along our merry way, without so much as a single rupia to encourage this outcome! How on earth that worked out, we couldn't figure. Having had such good luck and seemingly having built a good reporte, we decided to ask them for directions to our surf spot, making sure we were on the right path. They happily pointed us down the road in the direction we were headed, and off we went before someone changed their mind!
With a bit of luck, and another hour and a half of travel, we managed at last to find our way to the surf beach! The tide was on its way out, but still some good swell to catch. A quick dip to cool off and clear the road grime, then some ground training for our un-surfed friends, and we hit the water. We managed to help them catch several waves, and get them comfortable with the balance on the board, the push of a wave, and the motions of standing up. Good progress for a first day! Krissy grabbed a few waves while I played coach, but sadly by the time I put a board under me, the tide had dropped to a point where on my first wave, I rode for maybe three feet before grinding to a stop in the sand. Oh well, it was beautiful, and we were having a nice adventure. We hung out for a while more, trying for the first time one of the road-side indonesian specialties - corn grilled over a small fire! We ordered one with spicy sauce, and another with sweet (and still slightly spicy) sauce. YUMM! Now seeking refreshment, we walked down the beach a ways, and found Laut Biru - a cafe that was part of a resort consisting of five individual private villas. The place was small and very Indonesian looking with bamboo and grass, but well made and certainly of high quality. We ordered home-made chocolate icecream, that I believe to be the best icecream ever! Rich chocolate, from a coco bean rather than some pre-made concoction. The end result was smooth and chocolatey, but not super-sweet, just right. SOOOO GOOD! A bit of iced coffee to pick ourselves up after that, and we headed back for a last swim before our drive back home for the night.
Having finally figured out where the beach was, we saved a small amount of time for getting lost before dark set in, but just a small amount. It turned out that we were able to navigate the way home with no problem, and finally turned onto the last bit of highway before we arrived in Kuta. Emily had wanted to drive some, so we pulled over and she swapped with Daniel. Krissy was a bit concerned about driving with me and the surfboard, so decided to leave it to me to get us home. After having passed a patch with some water running across the road, we started down the last hill into town, when suddenly I felt our tail end sliding out from under us. We were uncontrolledly fishtailing down the hill! On a hill with wet tires, I thought I must have been a bit heavy on the throtel, so tried to let off it and coast. The back end continued to fishtail, but not so agressively, and I realised that we had a flat on our back tire!!With just enough time before dark fell to get back into town, we quickly decided to have Daniel and Krissy head back and try to find us help with the man we rented from, while Emily and I stayed on the side of the road with the flat. In the 30 minutes or so we waited, we were happy to have had several friendly locals stop to ask if we needed assistance, in what english they could muster. While it seemed longer than it was, in short time and with darkness just starting to set in, Daniel arrived with two locals and a second motorbike. We moved the surfboard over to the new bike, and Daniel set off down the road with Emily, while I followed with one local on the fresh bike, and the other took the bike with a flat tire back and drove it into town.
We were all fairly sure they would blame us, and attempt to work a large amount of money out of us for repairs. Happily, in their great friendly way, they did no such thing, and when we got back sent us on our way with smiles and waves. Awesome! Home after some harrowing adventures, we got cleaned up, and headed out for some Bintang, food, and more surf movies. The only reasonable conclusion to a very exciting day in Lombok.
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