Archive for the travels category
I spent yesterday creating a book for the Photography Book Now competition. The book is called The Faces Of Asia, A series of spontaneous portraits taken on the streets of Bali, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and India. The pictures were taken on our travels through Asia from Dec.’06 to Feb.’07.
I created the book using Blurb.com’s slightly clunky but easy-to-use BookSmart desktop app. Blurb has a funky little flash preview, so go take a look.
The book is super simple, 128 pages, one portrait per page. I designed it as a 8×10 portrait format soft cover. I personally think Blurb’s prices are a little high, printing on demand is definitely still a luxury. The book runs $42, which is way too high. I’m not really expecting anyone to be able to afford a book at that price, but if you want a book, it’s there for the taking.
In México, the “sweet 16″ birthday celebration is actually the “sweet 15″, it’s called the “quinceañera”. My wife’s sister (mi cuñada) recently turned 15 and rather than throw an insanely lavish and expensive party, as is the norm, she opted for a nice simple dinner at the local sushi joint and a little backyard lip-sync and foosball action with close friends. add a large camera and everyone’s a star.
We’re slurping about in Guadalajara at the moment, revelling in the slightly crisp air and brilliant nightly thunderstorms. back in a minute…
Impromptu, silverlake, backyard photoshoot with artist/director/psychic-plainer/soul-brother-from-another-mother Isaiah-oner.
Check out his Burma spot featuring Matisyahu, shot in the days just before these photos were taken. Super tight (with AK Girard on the hand-drawn type).
I see he’s been adding high quality quicktime versions of the Burma spots he’s directed to his portfolio site. nice, big, juicy versions. There are people in your life that you are compelled to tell other people about. Isaiah is one of those people. Go stop by his blog, Ninja Pleaze!, and say hi.
Magic still happens.
Case in point: stars aligned and we were lucky enough to be in LA for Maggie Marsek’s show at Shelter Surf Shop. I’m lying a wee bit, Maggie’s show was actually a large impetus for the timing of our trip. It was wonderful seeing her photos up-close and personal. Large, yummy prints made from real film. And it was equally awesome to finally meet up with Maggie and her man Rob (70 Percent.org). Rob and I have been talking back and forth, across the internet tubes, for a few years now and it was super nice to put a smile and a face to the legend.
Along with Maggie’s work, I was fortunate enough to meet Ryan Tatar (Shakas and Singlefins) and to peep his photographic work that coincidentally is also hanging in Shelter. I’ve written about Ryan’s work before.
I have to give it up to Graham at Shelter for being such an ardent supporter of local surf photogs. It’s easy to rely on established talent to coat the walls of your shop, but Graham is really pushing the edge. Finding new, untapped talent and giving them a podium to show their stuff. keep it up Graham!
To top off a very very cool night, I got to meet JP of Moonlight Glassing and Surfy Surfy fame. He is one of the most down to earth, humble cats I’ve ever met. Heart of gold. I resisted the urge to (over-enthusiastically) get him to sign my tshirt. I know the boards he glasses are shaped by other people, but his work is truly a work of art. Reading Surfy Surfy, seeing a visual diary of all the new boards coming through his family’s shop, coming in as shaped foam and leaving as pieces of realized art. It’s a daily education on classical surf craft form.
It was super nice to meet all these people from the surf blogosphere, putting faces to blog header graphics. Living in a small mexican town can be a wee bit isolating sometimes (offset by multiple uncrowded surf breaks) so it was nice to have a night of Tecates, photography and new friends all in the name of surf culture.
Thanks Maggie, Rob, Graham, Ryan and JP for a wicked night.
Photos from our recent trip to the United (relatively speaking) States of Corporatocracy*. Our week was spent hanging out with old friends, meeting new friends, hitting up every museum in town, gorging on tastes unavailable in our little mexican beach town. We partied hard, or as hard as we generally like to party. Highlights included:
Multi-day museum crawls. Lawrence Weiner and Allan Kaprow exhibits at the Geffen Contemporary (of course my camera battery runs out after taking three pictures). Philip-Lorca Dicorcia’s exhibit at Lacma, amazing, the work included huge, gorgeous prints from several different projects and 1000 polaroids from his everyday life (the polaroids were fantastic). The two Richard Serra sculptures. The Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement including the work of Rubén Ortiz-Torres, Shizu Saldamando and Rubén Ochoa. Incidentally, we totally screwed up and planned our LA trip during the same time that a lot of these artists were showing at a killer art festival here called Puerto Vallarta Arte Contemporáneo 08 - of course we leave town when something that cool happens.
Amazing pho from Silver Lake’s Pho Cafe. A trip to Tone-Dog’s newly purchased condo (first time homeowner). Plenty of beers and nachos at the Fairfax Farmer’s Market and first attempts at Guitar Hero. Thai Green Papaya salad, slurp. random ass cars on fire. In-n-Out, nuff said.
The extensive photographic work of Bernd & Hilla Becher and August Sander at the Getty Center as well as the California Video exhibit (which if you don’t plan on going to L.A. anytime soon, is available to watch online - now that’s cool!). Not to mention the grid and curves architecture of Richard Meyers’ Getty city on the hill.
Maggie Marsek’s wicked photo show at Shelter Surf Shop, the place you should be buying your gear at. Wonderful to finally meet Maggie and Rob as well some new friends whose work I’ve admired.
A night baseball game, Dodger’s vs Rockies. Marcia’s first. Nothing like $12 beers and veggie Dodger Dogs. Killer seats up in the infield reserves. the game went to quickly though and the Dodgers killed ‘em. Meeting up with Isaiah and Jesse and capturing an impromptu photo seshin with Isaiah. Hanging with the Crawfords, and the Felix-Sankarans.
Making the pilgrimage to Mollusk Venice and heavy-petting their stock of classic, educational surf stokage. Catching a brief glimpse of Venice beachfront and on and on an on …
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We’re finally back in Nayarit, after a nice, semi-relaxing trip to the city of Lost Angels. We ate ridiculously too much good food and now it’s time for double surf/elliptical exercise sessions to wear down the newly enlarged spare tire. I took a ton of pics and one of these days I’ll get around to processing them. We met a ton of really cool people along the way which was surprising and unexpectedly awesome.
While in LA, I picked up a wicked dark cherry Michel Junod Pumpkin Seed 6′2″ Singlefin with glossy finish. Big thanks to Chad at Mollusk Venice / Gonz! for the killer advice, true to my earlier post it came down to the Junod and a 6′2″ Andreini Vaquero (both amazing pieces of surfcraft/art). I took a few pics of the new board, for posterity’s sake, before I futz it up with wax, sand, saltwater, southwesterlies, knee pressure dents and concrete-wall dings. Peep the pics.
Today, I woke up early (for no particular reason) and got to Burros at 7am in time for the sunrise. The tide was the lowest I’ve ever seen it, with most of the rock reef sticking out of the water for a hundred feet. The beach covered with brown, dead seaweed and foot deep pools of beige/brown foam. Whatever swell was coming through was being blown out by moderate winds and highly unusual currents. Lots of movement, nothing worth riding. I surveyed the beautiful (but ultimately futile) scene for a half hour or so. Some intrepid groms showed up and I watched them wallow around for 15 minutes, waveless, and then headed home.
It’s good to be back in orbit, but truth be told, I’m weary of NetNewsWire. I have it open, but trying to resist the urge to read all those unread feeds. Yes, checking surfing/mac/myfeeds/politics folders but staying away from everything else. Hopefully the wind will die down and I’ll be able to get in a good sunset slide on the new singlefin.
Here, presented to you, the viewer, 40+ photos from last week’s trip to the mexican coastal state of Quintana Roo, nestled on the Caribbean side. Photos taken in Puerto Aventuras, Akumal, Playa del Carmen and Cozumel above and below water.
I got the chance to put the new Canon G9 through it’s paces with the underwater housing. Overall, it’s just really nice to be able to bring a camera into that underwater environment. Getting in to the water at Akumal, for a snorkel, wondering to myself why I had brought the camera and being presently surprised at the site of 10-12 sea turtles, huge schools of fish and 3-4 different kinds of manta rays. In Cozumel, we dove two amazing spots off of chankanab reef in the columbia area. Huge coral formations with spacious swim-throughs and rolling underwater sand dunes.
I have a few ideas floating around my head on the theme of tourists. you can see the beginnings of this project in the photos above. enjoy!
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We just got back from a micro-trip to Guadalajara. Jetted out of town mid-day yesterday (fri) and returned this afternoon (sat). Your author had to go to Guadalajara for allergy studies. Turns out I have polyps in my nose and an on-going sinus infection caused apparently by house dust and dust mites. I had to endure a cat scan so that the doc could see if the polyps have spread to my deeper sinus cavities (possibly necessitating surgery). If you can’t tell, I get overly doom-and-gloomy when it comes to health related issues. While I had my noggin jammed into the big donut of death, listening to the nasty/horrible/scary sounds cat scans make, I had a strike of utter brilliance. I thought to myself, why doesn’t someone learn from Apple and create/design medical equipment that has apple-esque attention to detail, design and user-experience. #1 on that list would be not scaring the fuck out of the patient. So I’m now in the process of redesigning all major medical equipment to be more user friendly. and I’m patenting the designs. so back off, copy cat.
The upside to a cat scan in Mexico? The price tag: $150 bones. schwing!
While in the big city we hit up Funicula, our favorite pizza joint. I’m surprised to admit that it wasn’t as good as it usually is. The pizza had too much cheese, not enough tomato sauce and the crust wasn’t as delicious. I’ll reserve judgement til next time… Marcia’s family were out of town so we didn’t really want to hang around GDL for too long. hence the short trip. I can now do the 3 1/2 hour drive between Vallarta and Guadalajara in my sleep, facile.
Other random observations: of the two Apple certified repair shops in Guadalajara neither carry the slim/metal keyboard (bluetooth or otherwise) nor Sata I or II internal drives. I thought Cloverfield was great. If the camera work had been a little more stable, the movie would have been brilliant. I’m gonna call it and say that Cloverfield redefined the monster movie category. Now, let’s see someone make the same movie, where the audience doesn’t end up getting seasick.
Ok, so I haven’t updated in a while, I know you’re all asking yourselves what’s up with Ed, what happened in Bali, did he kook out* on the surf scene, where have I been and why aren’t I updating per usual. quick update:
Bali was incredible. I took about 3000 photos over the course of the trip and I’ve been slowly editing them down to a viewable mass. I’ll probably write more about the trip as the photos make their way on to Flickr. We fell in love with Ubud, Bali’s cultural center, all over again. We’re totally addicted to Legong dances now, going so far as to know the names of each different dance troupe and recognizing their main players. We literally ate our way through Ubud, I think I gained five pounds on this part of our trip. I’m gonna learn me a good Mie Goreng recipe.
Surfing was simultaneously wicked awesome and frustrating at the same time. I totally kooked out. The first four days we stayed at Nick’s Place in Bingin and the ladies there took very good care of us, I gained another five pounds eating their home cooked feasts. Nick’s is the perfect setup, right over the main break. First coupla days I borrowed the longboard for Bingin and caught a moto ride down to Uluwatu (with this bloke from Cornwall, England) to catch some three footers with my shortboard. Everyone talking about a six foot swell on its way. Met an aussie couple and we did a day trip over to Nusa Dua, a lagoon/reef break (half a mile out) you grab a boat to get to. Locals were calling it 2-3 feet, I called it 6-7 with outside sets of 8-9 feet. Totally hollow, fast, powerful and getting bigger. Nusa Dua kicked my ass, royally. My indo-reef-break cherry was popped in no uncertain terms. When I wasn’t fighting the current dragging me down the reef, I was fighting to avoid getting pummeled by the never-ending incoming crushers lined up 10-15 deep like corduroy, to whupp that ass. We stayed on at Nick’s for an extra day in hopes of catching the big swell and when it never came, we headed out to Candidasa on Bali’s eastern end, to enjoy some diving. Big mistake. The waves started to hit later that day and by nightfall I could tell the swell had begun. At this point we were two weeks into the trip and we both simultaneously came up with the idea to cut the trip short by a few days, for logistical reasons having to do with crap we had to get done in LA and just a general feeling that we were over the beach scene and needed some big city vibe. So we cut out of Candidasa the next day and spent our last two days in the Kuta/Legian area. The swell had definitely arrived and Kuta was playing host to 6 foot hollow shore dump. Heavy. We could see Kuta reef break, in the distance, easily overhead to double overhead and after my experience with Nusa Dua, I decided to stay on the beach. The following morning I followed an Adonis looking old guy with the big log, up the beach to Legian’s beach break. Easily overhead and heavy. Didn’t catch a single wave and spent an hour just trying to get back out of the water. Way past my experience level. In fact, that’s kinda what sums up my experience, when Indonesia is big, it’s way above my experience level. I had a ton of fun and surfed some great waves, but I was definitely humbled. IMHO, if you decide to go seeking waves in Indo, go with your surf homies. Be careful and be safe.
From Bali, we flew back to Los Angeles and spent a few cold, rain soaked days consolidating a storage space full of my old crap from my pre-mexico days. Regrettably, I sold my entire record collection, 1500+, it was a hard decision but ultimately the right one. We packed what was left and a whole bunch of IKEA crap into the truck and lead-footed it back down to Mexico in time for the holidays.
We’ve been back for just under a month now and I have admittedly, only been surfing twice. We’re experiencing a crazy cold winter, probably some records broken I’m sure. I pulled out the spring suit but I still froze my bells off. My New Year’s resolution was to kick the RSS habit and my copy of NetNewsWire has been lonely ever since. I’m still checking up on a handful of blogs, mostly mac/surf/photo related. but for the most part, I’ve been keeping my recreational computer time to a minimum.
A few days after New Years our dog, Lola, was hit by a car and died in our arms. we buried her in a mango grove on an old road behind Bucerias. Her unexpected passing left us shaken and our home with a slight case of empty-nest syndrome. We still miss her like crazy. A few days later I started to get some heavy sinus trouble from allergies which developed into a nasty sinus infection. A trip to the ear, nose, throat doctor in Guadalajara and I’ve got polyps in my nasal cavities. A full month of anti-histamine treatment later, and a radiological exam and we’ll see if the polyps have spread to my deep sinuses… To top it all off, I’ve been working on spec house project in Sayulita for over a year now and it looks like it’s not going to happen, big bummer. Time for Ed to get a real job! [Ed, you're starting to depress me.]
Back in Bucerias, a big swell came through town earlier this week and I was too busy to get in the water. I’ve been helping my sister more and more each day and fussing around with some other stuff. I have a bunch of daily links posts I’ve been putting off, so hopefully in the next day or so I’ll get those out for your reading pleasure.
After a killer, relaxing trip to Bali and some pretty good holidays, 2008 started out on a real downer and things are totally in transition right now. Fluctuations usually lead to interesting opportunities, but they always make my guts churn with nervous energy. Here’s to a new and different 2008, optimistically, it can only get better.
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Monday, Dec 17th, 2007
Categories: travels
We’re back in Los(t) Angeles, enjoying the cold city life. never thought i’d say that about LA, but shizz is it cold here. We’ve actually been back since Wednesday. For one or another reasons we decided to cut the trip short a little early, so that we didn’t have to rush it to much in LA, getting all the crap done that needed doing, before heading back down to Mex, in time for the holidays. This way, we’ve been really enjoying ourselves and not spending the entire time in the car.
All is well. we should be pushing off from here wednesday or thursday depending on our whimsy.
Bali was amazing. the culture is gorgeous and the swell that hit town while we were gone was legendary. updates to come. stay tuned…
Baliwaves.com is a killer daily surf report site, with series of photos from each report. The updates are local sensitive and way in depth on what the winds,, tides and swells are doing. These guys have heads all over Bali keeping an eye out for breaking spots. A resource like Baliwaves.com is especially useful in the off-season when the waves are less reliable and swells more fickle. If you’re going to Bali for surf action, this is a great place to start.
Ding repair signs are classic.
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Bemos are like miniature mini-vans. Sometimes they come in slightly larger sizes, but for the most part they’re super tiny. Bemos are Bali’s version of a taxi and they whiz you around island paradise for less then pocket change. Usually found on ‘bemo corner’ in each town or city, bemos congregate like colorful flies, each with their own distinctive color and hand-painted logo. They all manage to follow a similar signage style, so there must be some sort of unwritten ‘bemo’ style guide. Unremarkable by themselves, their logo styles are just quirky enough so that when you see a handful at rest on some corner, you can’t help but stop and smile, each one with it’s distinctive color and logo. Different but the same. When these funky little 4 cylinder mini-mini-vans get replaced with yellow, generic 4 cylinder nissan taxi cars, someone will be smart enough to publish a coffee table book on the lost art of the ‘bemo’ and it’ll sell like hotcakes. you heard it here first.
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Indo Surf and Lingo is the best surfing info source I have encountered for Bali and Indonesia. They say it’s the #1 guidebook for surfers. I say it’s the #1 source of surfing info for Bali and Indonesia, period. It’s like a Rough Guide but written by surfers specifically for visiting surfers who need the insider info.
I’ve scoured the web for info on wet-season surfing in Bali and there’s precious little. It has everything you’ll need to know: write-ups on each surf break, info for all surfing-ability levels, dry and wet season specific info (bali’s swells switch coasts each season), how to use wind speed, swell height and tides to figure out where the best waves will be, hotel information for each break and tips on how to reach less accessible breaks, charter boat info for smaller indonesian islands like Nias and Mentawais. Indo surf is very cultural sensitive and goes out of its way to respect local surfers and the lesser known breaks. It’s a very practical guide to learning the indonesian language as well as.
Basically, if it ain’t in this book, it’s probably because it’s so new they haven’t had a chance to update the book yet. IMHO it rocks, big time. So If you’re going to Bali, Indo Surf and Lingo is the indispensable, definitive guidebook on surfing in Bali and Indonesia. pick it up, yo.
Gamelan is technically a musical ensemble made up of metallophones, xylophones, drums, and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. But what it really sounds like is a highly orchestrated junkyard symphony of oddly melodic mix of banging and clanging. and I love it. It usually accompanies the Legong, Berong and Mahabarata dance performances. Back in the CalArts days, I’d sit in my design crit room, zoning out during a critique to the sounds of the clanging instruments floating in from the Gamelan classroom down the hall. I will always associate graphic design with Gamelan.
Here are a few of my favorite Gamelan tunes, right-click to save: one, two, three
Today marks the first day on our Bali trip that we’ll be at the beach. If all goes correctly as planned, we should be at Mick’s Place in Bingin, Dec.5th-8th. Mick has a pretty killer surf cam and daily surf report summary. So go check out the webcam and if there’s any swell at all, I’ll be out floating around in the water. Please do a little ocean goddess swell dance for us, I could use a little wave juju right about now.
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On my first trip to Bali, I was in college (’96). I was decidedly anti-photo at the time. I think my reasoning had something to do with not wanting to see Bali through the lens of a camera. To want to experience everything, soak it in and not have that process debased by the process of looking through a lens (can you tell I went to art school?). Needless to say, as the years passed, I’m remembering less and less about that first trip. Being in design school at the time, the one thing I did manage to photograph was Bali’s plethora of signage. Hand-lettered, hand-painted, spray paint, stencil, etc… Every conceivable sign (minus traffic/street signs), done with pride and love by hand. Bali seemed to have missed out on the cheap vinyl sign printing revolution, thank god. I still have those photos, in a shoe box somewhere and on our trip to Bali last year, I was decidedly pro-photo, this time, and well prepared to capture the glory of Balinese and Indonesian signage. I’ve put together a pretty good sample of the signs I found during our stay. enjoy.
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Right about now, I’m probably sipping a Bintang. I say “probably” because I actually wrote this on Nov.19th at 12:42am and I had no idea what I’d doing at the time you read this. So if I could picture myself doing something at the exact moment you read this, it’d be sipping a Bintang, on the beach, watching a balinese sunset. Go ahead and assume this photo was uploaded in realtime. thank you, yes, I will have another Bintang.
The Katchek Monkey Chants are a transcendent experience to see/hear. It’s one of the main reasons we keep going back to Bali. Marcia and I are madly in love with balinese culture and the Katchek is an important part of that culture. Check out the Katchek scene from Baraka. and then start planning your next trip, to Bali, stat.
Wednesday, Nov 28th, 2007
Categories: travels
Last night in Los Angeles, we met up with the homiez for some killer thai food. Hung out with my good friends before we take off later tonight. Red Curry, Spicy Basil Noodles and a few Changs later, I woke up this morning to a nasty throat itch and throbbing sinuses. Marcia with a temperature and fuzzy white tonsils. A morning trip to the clinic and a penicillin prescription later, one full day in LA and we’ve managed to catch one of them nasty northern crappy gringo colds. Now we’re taking it easy, watching Galaxy Quest, and we can’t wait to spend 24 hours on a plane, with a nasty head cold and sour throat. oh, the fun.
… But everything in LA ain’t always what it seems.
Well, we rolled in to Lost Angels last night at around 7:dirty. Only one encounter with Joe-Law along the way (in jacked up Riverside country, no less). Seems my registration was in “non-operable” mode. big oops. We spent basically the entire days today, visiting various different branches of the California DMV to get my registration and license in order. A fine, sunny california day wasted on horribly designed interiors of bloated state government agencies.
All was forgotten with the first few slurps of some damn good Pho, from our favorite little vietnamese pho joint on Sunset and Silver Lake Blvd. Pho is perhaps my favorite thing to eat, ever, and today’s soupy, herbie action was the bomb.
Nothing else was really accomplished and I managed to screw up the zip code on two different packages that were to be delivered tomorrow, in time for our flight, tomorrow night at midnight. I suck. I managed to iron things out with UPS, but we’ll see if the packages come in, as the customer support says.
Unrelatedly, my new H2 fins got here and I can hardly control myself. these things weigh mere onces, where my normal fins way pounds. they’re freakin sick and I can’t wait to fuck ‘em up on some hard ass balinese reef. i’m such a kook.
We’re midway through our drive up to Los Angeles, holed up in a killer little hotel called Hotel San Sebastian in Hermosillo (it’s the perfect hotel for a midway point between Vallarta and LA). We took off at 6am and managed to cover half the total driving distance. roughly 13 hours of driving. This, after one crazy-ass night.
Our friends Fer and Yanen got married on the beach in Nuevo Vallarta, last night. While getting ready, I slammed my foot in to the base of our bed and crunched my pinky toe. I screamed my brains out for five minutes, finished getting ready and I hobbled to the car and we were off to the wedding. During the ceremony, I could see the toe turning purple as it blew up and started turning over sideway. After the mass and vows, but before communion (classic catholic beach wedding), Marcia and I “done r.u.n.o.f.t” and went to a private emergency room in nearby Mezcales. One Xray later and the on-duty doctor was saying I had broken my toe and needed a full foot cast. I was less then confident and pissed about the prospect of having to cancel our trip to Bali, on the advice of doctor who has no real experience with foot trauma. We high-tailed it outta there and a few phone calls later, we were off to San Javier, a well regarded private hospital, to meet a trauma and foot specialist recommended by my good homie Pato. Second opinion doc said the toe wasn’t broken and taped it to the next toe and all was well again in the world.
By 9:30pm we were back at the wedding. We grabbed some food, hung with our tribe, gave the groom and bride our best wishes and were back home in bed by 11pm. On the way home, Marcia started to get some kind of allergic reaction, assumably from the pesto she had eaten at the wedding, so we stopped for foot wrappings and anti-allergy med. Mexico is great like that. Nothing like self-diagnosis and being able to buy meds without a prescription.
After two ominous omens, from last night, we got a good early start today and covered a crap-load of miles in good time with little stress. Tomorrow, we’re off at 6am again and we should be in Los Angeles by 8pm.
So we’re taking off for Los Angeles tomorrow and then on to Bali, on wednesday. Things are getting down to the wire and we’re packing up as we speak. For the past month I’ve been researching off-season surfing in Bali (october to april). I’ve compiled my research into a quick guide that could possibly start as a jumping off point for people following in the same foot steps.
Bali off-season surfing summary: where to look
From my research so far, I’ve learned that Nusa Dua, Sanur and Keramas are the three main off-season surf spots. Canggu, Legian and Medewi also get some swell and Bingins is the place to go if there’s any swell at all on the right side of the bukit (southeast Bali). Bingin and Dreamland are good bases for off-season surfing, as they are located close enough to Nusa Dua to make quick trips to the break, without having to pay ridiculously expensive hotel fees for staying in Nusa.
General Surfing info
Bingin / Impossibles
If there’s no waves at Bingin, you’re hotel / guest stay will usually get you a lift over to nusa dua.
- Suara Ombak - great guesthouse ($40-60/night)
- Mick’s Place - pool (really nice - $60-110/night)
- Bali Retreats - web booking for several guest stays and villas in the Bingin area
- there are plenty of cheaper warungs in Bingin, so you can most likely just roll up and stay for around $15-20 USD/night. the same is true for Dreamland. but watch out for the bed bugs!
Canggu
Canggu is near Seminyak, north of Legain and it gets real expensive up there, you can usually catch a bemo up to canggu from kuta/legian. superb right break over lava rocks. bring the booties.
- Desa Seni - very cool hotel (but too expensive for my budget (starts at $135, but price includes airport pickup, breakfast, yoga classes, etc…)
Sanur
They say that swell is unreliable in Sanur. 2 breaks, bring booties.
- ‘Tanjung’ break is directly in front of Tanjung Sari hotel ($175/night - way out of the budget)
- ‘Hyatt Reef’ break is 1km off of the Sanur Hyatt beach (big reef)
- ‘Padang Galak’ is a reliable rivermouth beach break north of Sanur, get a bemo from Sanur
Lombok
- Heaven on the Planet - eco-resort in Ekas, surfing destination ($15-60 USD). Supposedly breaks all year round in Ekas.
- catch ferry from Padang Bai
Nusa Dua
Hotels are too expensive. So stay in Tanjung Benoa or Bingin/Dreamland/Balangan.
- Catch a boat out to the break, from boat dock, south of golf course passed Bali Hilton
- Sri Lanka break is in front of Bali Club Med
The best advice I can give to anyone who is researching surf in Bali off-season (or on-season) is to buy the Indo Surf + Lingo book. It’s worth its wait in gold. bullion. It’ll tell you where all the breaks are, how to get to them, how to navigate them, where to stay, what to do and what not to do. Don’t waste too much of your time online. Surprisingly, I’ve found very little valuable online resources. Obviously this may change, but realistically, Bali is a very popular place. So information is guarded well, as it should be. The folks behind Indo Surf + Lingo book do a great job of educating first-timers and protecting locals. Buy it, trust me.
Sunday, Nov 18th, 2007
Categories: travels
Ok, so we’re going to Bali in a week and change. Got an email earlier today about a United Nations Climate Change Conference which is scheduled for 3-14 December in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia. Yes, that Nusa Dua, the one that is one of the three regularly breaking surf spots in off-season Bali. Dua is like a public version of Punta Mita. All the hotels are dumb expensive, so I wouldn’t wanna stay there anyway. But Dua is gonna be a mad house. The entire bukit might be a mad house (southern tip of Bali). Basically, it’s like having a UN conference at the hotel that’s near Burros, if Burros was the only place that had breaking waves. Getting anywhere near it is gonna be a chore.
I’m ok with axing Nusa Dua from our trip, I just hope it doesn’t affect the other places we had planned on staying. It’s really hard to tell how big of a show it’s gonna be, if this will affect other areas like Dreamland, Bingins, Sanur and Legian. I really don’t think so, since most of the places we had planned on staying at are surf-related anyway. The problem is that Bali isn’t really all that big of a place. I’ll have to get in contact with some of the local gringos and see what people are expecting. Oh well, if worse comes to worse and all of lower Bali is a mad house, we’ll just hop on a ferry over to Lombok.
OK, I’m off to go pre-book our hotels, bummer, I was hoping to just roll up…
December 1st marks our 1 year anniversary and what better way to celebrate then by returning to paradise on earth, Bali. Yup, we’re ditching Vallarta just as the waves are coming back as are the gringos. We’re driving up to L.A. and then on to Bali for two weeks, return to L.A. to handle some of the last remaining remnants of my pre-mexico life and then hot-footing it back down to Vallarta in time for Xmas.
But I’m digressing.
Bali. yes. paradise. wonderful culture. Ubud for 5 days. The ketchak dance. rice fields. incense and relaxation. and then on to the beach scene to chase waves. Surfing is on my mind. Uluwatu, Dreamland, Nusa Lembongan and Kuta last time. This time? not so sure. Maybe Padang Padang, Impossibles, Jimbaran Bay, Medewi and possibly even a day trip to G-Land (if that’s even possible). Yes, it’s the surfing off-season but unperturbed, I’m a mission to enjoy some beach time and some surf time.
So I implore anyone who has good knowledge of Bali (particularly with regards to the off-season), to hook me up with some info on where to find reliable surf. I’m posting to Wannasurf and a few other places and I’m hoping that I’ve stored up enough karmic goodness, to receive some genuinely good advice. Our last trip to Bali was excellent and we found our way to several of the killer surf spots (unfortunately no real swell to speak of), but I read that there is plenty of off-season surf in Bali, if one knows where to look. I’m hoping that the ‘one’ that knows where to look, can drop me a line, cuz to be honest I’m a little clueless. Sure I’ve studied the map and can identify a hefty percentage of the surf breaks in Bali, but I could use some good advice for sure. drop it on me, puhleaze.
Ok, enough groveling, I’m off to scour the Bali-gringo surf blogs. I’m hoping to encounter one or two spiritual cousins of this blog.
Edmundo at town waterfall | Fritz at upper waterfall
I love my morning coffee
