It was time for another Indo surf pilgrimage and time to check out what happened to Bali in the last 2-3 years since my last visit. It seems that Bali just multiplies itself every few years. Once empty roads are now full of shops and restaurants and every now and then there is a traffic jam on Bukit:)!? But the vibe, the spirit seems the same. The shops and restaurants are cute enough to live in and the people are smiling as usual. Just local 15k IDR nasi goreng gets harder and harder to find. To be honest, we didn’t look for it that much. Five days was just enough to taste some of the delicious food Bali has to offer and a good meal is still reasonably priced, just not that laughingly cheap as it used to be. The only kick was the guy at Padang that wanted 30k IDR for a coconut. Now that seemed ridiculous, thanks you can keep it :).
Then it was time to hit the wilderness again. Islands off the coast of Sumatra also change quite a bit every year. But on a much much much smaller scale. A once peaceful road in Bali turned into a shopping and eating corner would equal a few square feet of cleared out jungle, a new wall in front of one of the houses and new windshields on 3 houses. Surprisingly this year there were almost no crowds. Spots that usually had 3-4 boats parked on them when they were working were now empty. Idk where everybody were and I don’t care. The swell was perfect, medium sized long period swell from the right angle had all the walking distance spots working perfectly. And it lasted for a good week at least. It ended with a new bigger swell that slowly faded into near flat conditions. But fortunately it is never really flat around here:).
Anyway, thanks for the fun times Indo, see you soon.
Indonesia, 26.4.-20.5.