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.
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.
click images to launch slideshow (33 photos)
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.
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.
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.
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.
If there’s no waves at Bingin, you’re hotel / guest stay will usually get you a lift over to nusa dua.
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.
They say that swell is unreliable in Sanur. 2 breaks, bring booties.
Hotels are too expensive. So stay in Tanjung Benoa or Bingin/Dreamland/Balangan.
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.
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
Hi, my name is Ed. I’m a graphic designer who lived in L.A. I quit my job, sold my car, rented out my house and moved to Mexico. Along the way, I learned how to surf and fell in love. This blog is my story. In these pages I write about and photograph my daily experience. I also post about things I find interesting: art, design, photography, music, tech, etc...