Archive for the bali tag
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.
click image to launch slideshow
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.
slideshow | photoset
Flickr user Cody is Rad, has some pretty, uh um, rad photos of empty tubes and waves. Some are so clear + crisp, I wonder how he does it. Some of the photos were taken in Bali and Sumbawa, Indonesia. note to self: win lottery, buy underwater housing for Canon 5D. got it?!
Flickr has a new feature called Places, check out Bali and search for surfing. such a nice and easy interface to view surf pics. and don’t forget to peep the insane HDR work of flickr user Manolinlao, while you’re there.
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.
slideshow | photoset
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.
more surfing footage, this time from Uluwatu.
Today, December 1st, is our one year anniversary. Marcia and I got married exactly one year ago, on a relatively small beach in a small town in Mexico.
I love my baby.
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.
While we’re in Bali, I thought I’d leave you with some Bali-inspired posts. I cranked out as many as I could, while keeping the content at least semi-interesting. So this is the first in a series:
Video taken at Padang Padang and Dreamland. gets my heart racing and the music is entrancing. I wish the waves would be this size while I’m there. note to self: don’t book another trip to Bali, unless it’s July-Aug.
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.
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.
