Days 80-95: Java, a Taste of Bali, Gili Trawangan, and Lombok

The Skinny - if you're just here for the highlights: Traveling in Indonesia is in all honesty pretty intimidating. It's amazing to me that this collection of roughly (yes roughly) 17,000 to 18,000 islands (the exact number can vary depending on the surveying method, with the official Indonesian government gazette recording exactly 17,024 named islands) is even considered one country to begin with. So figuring out where to visit, while seeking good but manageable surfing, minimal crowds, and access to safe food and water is quite the undertaking. With a little over two weeks left in our trip, determining how to spend them was not an exact science. Not even close. We had some conversations with people in Rote, referred to Sean’s notes from before the trip began, and ultimately decided to head to East Java to a beach known as Red Island (formally known as Pulau Merah). The same website that led us to our beloved Maldives spot recommended a surf camp here. We elected to stay at a local surf stay called Hendro’s, which was the best big mistake we could have made. It opened the door for us to experience G-Land before continuing on to Medewi, Bali; Gili T; Ekas, Lombok.

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The NeverEnding, Cursed Travel Day to Red Island

After a very long, jinxed travel day that began with an hour+ car ride to the airport, plane tickets to Kupang and Kupang to Bali both for the wrong day (but we miraculously managed to get on the flights anyways) a long layover in Kupang that was extended by a fire bordering the tarmac, and an 8+ hour car ride from Bali, including a trip on the local car ferry across the bay to Java. All in one day. The car ferry was such an experience. We had one guy harassing us about going with him to visit his hometown, 'the colorful village'– deep in Java. We also had incredible views of the still hot pink strawberry waning moon from the boat deck. Hendros himself picked us up in the jankiest car I have ever seen to drive us the final hour. His place was a total mess; I don’t think it had ever been cleaned. He offered us a quiver of surfboards that had all been partially or completely split in half and glued back together, for rent. And to cap off this very unlucky day, after not getting in bed until 1:30 AM, two hours later very loud music began playing, and never stopped. As it happens, this is the one day every year that Indonesians celebrate the Ocean and all it provides with a massive (alcohol free as they are mostly Muslim) beach festival. It was neat to experience but we would have appreciated it much more on literally any other day. So while this was the first 5th of July in years that neither of us woke up to a hangover, we did get out of bed extremely sleep deprived.

Still, we headed out to surf the beach break. It was a pretty nice wave and relatively uncrowded. The views from the bay of the thickly forested island mounds rising out of the deep blue water were spectacular. We were no longer in the desert-like south tip of Asia. With the festival going on, the beach itself was packed with about a thousand people, many of whom had bussed into Red Island for the celebration, but very few of whom were swimming. Red Island was a really cool experience; a super local town, but with really only one restaurant that we felt safe eating at, and the atrocious excuse for accommodations at Hendro’s place, we needed to get out of there. Luckily our heavy travel day was not for nothing, as the famous G-Land and its gentler neighboring wave Tiger Tracks were less than two hours away, back towards Bali.

G-Land and Glamping in the Indonesian Jungle

G-Land breaks on the peninsula of a national park rainforest. It was discovered by a Californian who saw it from the air on a flight in the 70s. When he went back to surf it, the local fishermen would only take him so far towards this wave, as legend had it this rainforest was cursed with black magic. Not long after discovering the wave and opening it up to the world, he drowned from an epileptic episode while surfing Uluatu. Today, there is a gravel road through the forest that ends just past G-Land where 3-4 scrappy surf resorts are situated. We stayed at a glamping spot called Jiwa Jawa for three nights that felt like we were on safari. The property grounds were crawling with (aggressive and very sexually active) monkeys, wild pigs, deer, a Javan Rusa buck, and various lizards and birds. The monkeys stole food from our table twice and made a habit of baring their teeth at us. Luckily Sean found a big stick that helped keep them at bay.

To get to the surf break, we would hop in a safari style truck. One morning, our driver drove straight into a man riding a moped after taking a blind curve a little fast… he was fine and just rode off; we were stunned. We never surfed G-Land itself, but spending four days here was a really happy accident. The surf was great, super chill, not crowded for the most part, and unbelievably beautiful on the edge of this park.

On our fourth morning, after an early surf, we hit the road back to Bali. Our driver had his kid with him, which was a first for us, and was driving like he didn’t care for the boy too much… When we drove onto the ferry, this time in the light of day, we noticed a beggar swimming in the water in between the boats. His schtick was to get people to throw money at him, and he would swim for it. The performance was a hit. On this return journey, instead of driving all the way back to the south tip of Bali, we planned an overnight stop in Medewi, and liked it enough to spend two nights.

Medewi Bali, But First a Quick Rant

I had a misconception about Bali as well as Lombok prior to this trip. I had imagined both were small islands, the entirety of which had blown up (Bali more so) with out-of-control tourism. This idea was actually reinforced by the non-stop dialogue we very quickly tired of in both Rote and G-Land from people who had lived in, visited, or just hear other people talk about Bali– “Bali is just not what it used to be” “its such a tragedy what has happened to Bali” “Bali in the 90s blah blah blah.” Are you tired of the word Bali yet? Me too. Nothing has happened to Bali that hasn’t happened to countless beautiful places once people, especially Westerners, discovered them (unsurprisingly it was only ever westerners complaining about this spoiled land). But what’s more is that this ‘tragedy’ hasn’t even happened to the whole Island of Bali, which is just about as large as Delaware. Several towns that were popularized by expats blew up and became super touristy. Shocker. But our drive along the whole west coast was completely through local villages. Of course its more built up and accessible now, time doesn’t stand still so that wannabe hippies can feel vindicated…

This brings me to Medewi, which certainly attracted expats, and in fact, since the swell was quite big, it limited the portion of wave surfable for many visitors, making it feel extra crowded at times, but there were only a handful of accommodations along this stunning black sand bay, and fishing seemed to be a much more prolific part of the economy than tourism. Driving through the main road, you would never know it was a tourist destination. We had the absolute pleasure of staying at Batu Kayu Surf Lodges, which was probably our favorite straight up accommodation of the entire 100 day trip. It was a beautifully designed bungalow that felt like a tree house in the middle of a tropical rain forest (and somehow only $50 a night). Here we were once again greeted every morning by the Islamic call to prayer, and for dinner, bought fresh seafood straight off the fishing boats in front of our hotel prepared with simple indonesian sides.

After two short days in Medewi, we had our sights set on diving, so we hit the road again back to the southern coast of Balu to catch Eka Jaya Fast Ferry (this time an air-conditioned tourist boat) out of the Padang Bai port– the fastest, non-stop route to Gili Trawangan, which lies within the coral triangle and is known for having really beautiful, unbleached coral. Unbeknownst to us at the time, it is also well known for partying.

Gili T-- Not What We Expected

My friend Helen’s boyfriend Gus is Australian, and when we first got to Indonesia she mentioned how jealous she was; Gus won’t go to Indo with her because it's ‘Australia's Jersey Shore.’ Hearing this while in Rote, I was confused and suggested maybe Indonesia is like Mexico and Central America– there are of course spots like Cancun, but those areas are the exception not the rule. I stand by this analogy, and from the moment we stepped foot on Gili T, we understood where Gus was coming from… All we really knew was that it had great diving and motorized vehicles were not allowed so there were horses and bikes, so we thought we were going to a quiet, idyllic island. Well, the horses are obviously and tragically mistreated, pulling heavy carriages full of overweight people with their overpacked luggage, and locals claim loudly from the streets to sell ecstasy and weed, and got unreasonably aggravated when we said no thanks.

In any case, for our intents and purposes, Gili T worked out. We finally had a big hotel room with strong AC that allowed us to spread out and get some work done. Because of the extreme tourism, there were more restaurants than we could visit that served up safe, cheap, healthy western food. We ate lots of salads and smoothie bowls, though one night we indulged in a really amazing pizza dinner at the Pondok resort restaurant, with a very fresh grilled lobster and some fun cocktails. I had sworn off cheap asian beer at this point in the trip, so I was thrilled to see a drink menu again. We biked, went for runs, and most importantly, did some truly incredible diving. There are probably 100 dive outfitters on this tiny island, and many of them are Padi certified and even offer a full array of dive courses. We went with a shop called Trawangan Stingray that specializes in personal, private dives. And while still a Padi, 5-star, the prices were hard to beat. We went two different days, doing two dives each time. There was such a diversity of vibrant and colorful soft and hard coral. It was otherworldly. We also saw more turtles in a single dive than I have seen collectively my whole life, and they were absolutely massive– as big as me. There was a bit of a current so we were drift diving, Sean’s first time doing so, and our final dive of the trip was at a wreck site, where coral was absolutely thriving even atop this rusty sunken boat.

On our final morning, we got massages before hopping on a very short boat ride to Lombok, our sixth and final Indonesian island.

Heaven On The Planet Resort-- Ekas, Lombok

From the port it was a beautiful two hour car ride, mostly along the coast, to a town called Ekas. Sean had marked Ekas in his original itinerary outline, and the family we bonded with in Rote further recommended it. Based on their experience as well as our brief research, we were under the impression that there is really only one place to stay here, called Heaven on the Planet. People boat in to surf this wave from the much more touristy town Kuta, but outside of the boating hours the wave is essentially private to Heaven guests. This was not exactly accurate.

Over 25 years ago when Ekas was a remote fishing bay, New Zealand oceanographer Prof. Kerry Black spent time in the area for research and conservation efforts, and surfed the wave in his leisure. Eventually he purchased this beautiful section of land up on the cliffside and founded Heaven on the Planet, a low-key resort with a focus on eco-tourism, introducing Ekas' world-class waves to an international surfing audience. Ekas remained a pretty well-kept secret for a while, and it seems that up until a few years ago, Heaven really was the only resort in Ekas. But driving in we saw plenty of smaller hotels and surf-stays. The property has a pretty big quiver of surfboards that are free for guest use, and meals are covered in the nightly rate, as are traditional Indonesian massages every other day, but generally speaking the facilities were pretty basic.

There were two things that made this place unique and worth staying at over the other options. First of all, the lushly forested property (densly populated with more monkeys) and views of the beaches and bays below were absolutely unbelievable. We had incredible views of the burning hot pink sunset every night from either our surfboards or our cabin deck, and also clear shots of the sunrise. After dark, you could look up and see incredible stars, and look down at the ocean to see what looked like a reflection of the sparkling sky, but was a sea of boat lights– Ekas remains a flourishing fishing village. We got to sample the local seafood during our dinners, including a pile of spiney lobster that would have probably been considered too small to eat in the states. The second exclusive feature of this property was they offered night surfing, solely to guests.

There are more or less three waves to surf here: Outside Ekas– a fast breaking wave over a shallow reef, Inside Ekas– a more mellow, not too shallow reef break, and then a very small very cruisy beach break. The beach break is very well suited for long-boarding, and when the waves are not too too big, so is Inside. So for the first time since graduating from a foamie, I grabbed a longboard and spent some time in the kiddie pool beach break to practice walking before joining Sean at Inside. I had an absolute blast. Longboarding is so chill and a really fun, concentrated exercise in balance and footwork. Inside is situated in front of the resort, and is where the night-surfing magic happens. East of the accommodations up on the cliff, the resort (somehow) had two massive stadium lights. How these got there, and more so how they are powered (in a place whose neighboring village didn’t have electricity until 2015) remains a mystery to us. But for guests only, night-surfing is available from 8pm-4am every night.

On our third and final night, we decided to give it a whirl. It was helpful to have surfed the wave several times in the light of day before going out, but we simply could not leave without trying this very atypical experience. They turned on the lights, gave us waterproof armband flashlights, and took us out to the wave in a boat, from which a boatman watched us with a spotlight. It was absolutely bonkers. We were the only two people in the water, and looking towards the incoming waves we saw the scattered pattern of fishing boats off in the distance. The water was perfectly glassy, and you could see right down to the reef, especially when you caught a wave– the lights illuminated the ocean floor as if there was no water beneath you, and with the moon a sliver of a crescent, the sky was richly dark. Surfing under this collection of circumstances was truly extraordinary. It felt like a simulation, but in a good trippy way. It was a perfect sendoff.

It's pretty incredible to think that after all of the traveling around we did in Indonesia, the planes, ferries and automobiles, we only saw a very small fraction of the country. Call it 6 of 17,000 islands, that’s conservatively 0.035% of Indonesia. Turns out there's still an awful lot of country left once you venture beyond the places everyone complains about...