Lombok shock
2008, not that long ago, Lombok
It was the classic bargain basement surf trip. Sharing a room for $25, no hot water, no internet, no nothin'. We had a Kijang to bump around in and a local guide making a few extra bucks riding shotgun for us when the waves were pumping. We went on the shittiest roads through ricefields to get to his favourite breaks, always firing. At the end of the session, we bought peeled pineapples cut into spirals for 50 cents and sat in the shade of a few palm fronds thrown over a lean-to. The villages were connected by dusty, potholed trails and carts were still being hauled by donkeys.
(Barry Quirk)
We did a few trips in between and noticed a few changes, not much, pretty well expected, can't complain. The Russians had moved into Grupuk, built a few gaudy villas, then pissed off back to Nusa Dua and left the locals to water the gardens, clean up the vodka empties, and patrol the fencelines.
The Euros were moving in, stretching and doing yoga on the beach, bargaining to buy a $3 sarong for $2 and taking surf lessons on soft-tops. A few cafe/restaurants were appearing, all advertising free wi-fi that never worked, but the food was cheap, and good and fresh. Bintang Besar was cold and service wasn't too bad as long as you weren't in a hurry.
Fast forward to 2019 and I'm standing outside where our humble Surfers Inn was but now it's a central part of the $3 Billion Mandalika project which will incorporate a World Superbikes circuit for 2021 with 10,000 available rooms. Well, you could've knocked me over with half a block of tropical Sex Wax. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-development, but I'm struggling with the philosophical question of where I'm going to get my Ayam Chicken and Bintang Besar for 50,000 roops anymore. Will I be catching a shuttle to Ekas and boarding a fibreglass twin Johnson to those orange cliffs with fifty others for a two hour allocated shift? Is it all over, or is it just me? Is Lombok becoming Bali? I know waves still come in at Ulus, and Canggu, and Medewi, seafood is excellent and so's the beer, but is it still the same? What do the locals reckon, are they up for the changes? I visit for a few weeks every coupla years, so who gives a rats about my entitled opinion?
Rewind
We all know the photo from Morning of the Earth with the backs of two surfers standing at Ulus in the early 70s watching a solid swell thunder onto the reef. They'd just walked through a couple of rice paddies, past smoking coconut husks outside thatched huts. Tamum Shud's 'Bali Waters' was playing in the palms. That was the dream right there. The image burned into a million surfers brains and made into that poster. It was the morning of the earth, who the fuck thought of that, was it Alby or G.Wayne ? Brilliant! Register that sucker as a business.
The forces of the universe
And the elements of space
Conjured up your being
Your size, your time, your shape
You were created
With all the beauty they could call
And earth, you surely are
The measure of them all
G. Wayne Thomas - Morning of the Earth.
Was this mellow surf flick the start of something even bigger? Was it 'The Morning of Infinite Planeloads of Surfers to Somewhere Like That' ?
Alby's 16mm pic and soundtrack with no dialogue resonated with just about everyone who saw it. The lyrics and music said it all. "They are songs of freedom and peace and waves," says Alby on his website. Well, fuck me, we all want that, I'll take any of the three, starting with waves.
And so, the migrations began. Even hoons like us from the bush were captivated. We could get a shitty job which paid well, then travel past volcanoes, lakes, through rainforests, peel back some lush dewy leaves and emerge on a virgin patch of thumping, peeling lefts and rights.
Rewind
So, there we were, sitting in the civic hall in Cooma in 1973 with a hundred other Snowy kids, shitty speakers on the stage and shaky filmspool changes. The last reel of celluloid finished and we all walked out looking for surf. We didn't have car licences, boards or even a coastline, but at least we could do the clothing bit. A few days later with Miller shirts and some jumbo cords we headed for the nearest beach, 90 minutes away. We were saving up for the boards, fuck yeah. We were Steve Cooney and Rusty Miller at Ulus. That was us if they turned around.
Anyway, enough sepia, fast forward to 40 megapixel colour
Here I am on the asphalt of the main drag of Kuta Lombok and it looks like the Campbell Parade, Bondi. Five years ago they were filling up our Suzuki APV using two litre bottles and a funnel, pumped out from the bowser by hand. My hotel air-con didn't work, the toilet wouldn't flush, and only the deluxe room had hot water or a fridge. The coffee for sale was a beautiful sweet, strong, gritty, brew.
"French construction company Vinci is expected to build several supporting facilities ranging from hotels and shopping malls to a hospital and apartments to ensure Lombok is capable of handling a large influx of tourists. The street circuit venue will house 150,000 spectators for the MotoGP championship. The supporting facilities will be built on 131 hectares of land within the designated 1175-ha Mandalika resort," says the marketing material.
WTF?
I thought I could see something coming when the near-abandoned airport at Praya was rebuilt and took over from Mataram. It's doubled in size in five years and the roads have gotten wider and wider. It's like watching your kid growing up: You want them to stay the same, when they were cute and cuddly and easy to manage. Now they're growing up, doing whatever they want.
Photos taken from the same place in Kuta, Lombok, ten years apart (Chris Duczyinski)
Being a Muslim island it took Lombok a long time to kick off - I think there was a bit of hesitancy about investing there. Now they're playing catch up and it's in full power mode turned up to 11. The Indonesian Tourism Development Corporation has, in a masterly marketing strategy, renamed Lombok the 'The Invest Islands' and designated it a SEZ - a Special Economic Zone. There's going to be Cable Cars, Eco Electric Trains, a Mangrove Park, and Botanic Gardens. Minimum private investment US$50,000 and a return of 15%-20% (maybe).
So, what does this mean for surfing and for the locals?
I hope the locals get to cash in as well. I'd like to see Sonya's Snapper Restaurant just near bemo corner become so famous that influencers want to take selfies there. It'd be nice for Tina selling sarongs and T-shirts from her thatched hut on the roadside twelve hours a day, to crack the property market with some canny investments. Maybe Rudi, our guide from the Sassak village, who kindly invited us to share dinner with his family one night, can start guided surfaris with wealthy entitled tourists looking for a bit of a challenge before they head back to their city towers. He could buy his kids a better education, a car, maybe sign his kids up for holidays on the mainland, or overseas, who knows, dreams are free.
As for surfing, well the waves won't change, but the number of empties passing through will. And that's the ancient philosophical surfing paradox. We find it, build it, and then complain about it. Yeah, we've all got that break we know that takes two planes, a speedboat, and a bus to get to. Old mate got there first a few years back and set up a bungalow with a gennie and some mossie nets and called it an eco-lodge. The break was right there out the front, left and right, and it pumped all day with only four of us out. Now it's rooted, with surfboats parked there every day and dozens of hooting chargers hitting it.
Is Lombok becoming that? Come on, what should I expect, that locals be happy carting water to cook rice, sending their 5 and 6 year old kids out until midnight selling wrist bands for a buck? Having a crap on the beach cause there's no sewerage? If we are the advance party for capitalism, development, happy hour cocktails, hair braiding, is that such a bad thing? Buggered if I know...
(Ian Cobban)
Last time I was in Bali, there were plenty of locals who looked like they hadn't benefited a lot. Changing scooter tyres in a small tin shed on a busy road near the airport, doing laundry for a few bucks, selling a million different types of pots with ten other shops. Though life is definitely better for some. Fuck, I had to pay for parking at Echo Beach a few years after the restaurant was built and villas stood where the paddies were. Good to see the locals cashing in. There was so few houses there first time that we spent a night letting off ball-shooters and rockets we got in a backstreet, down a lane and up some stairs, in a small room, don't tell anyone, in Denpasar. That was fun.
Anyway, there's another song that goes, 'Whatever will be will be'. I'm glad we had it to ourselves for so long. It will keep rolling on I guess. The waves will always be there, that's the thing, they don't change and neither will the feeling of riding that one wave that made the whole trip. That's what you remember, that's what you look for, another 'Morning of the Earth' like the one I saw in the hall all those years ago.
So, I'll leave them to it, to 2021 and the Superbikes, to the Cable Cars and Eco Lodges.
We're off again next year, to a little spot a mate found, with just a gennie and some mossie nets.....
//CHRIS DUCZYINSKI
Comments
Good story, thanks for writing.
I’ve seen Alby Falzon a bit recently and it got me thinking, although he seems to have been elevated to guru status by his peers , was he really as pure of thought as they believe ?
Question: If you were one of the first crew to discover a roping tropical Left in a magical location, would you immediately paddle out to surf and paddle till you couldn’t move , then repeat the process everyday till you had to leave and swear with your mates to never tell a soul ?
Or
Would you stand in the baking heat and film the joint with the intention of exposing it in a surf movie in order to make money ?
Doesn’t seem too enlightened or pure hearted to me , despite the flowery lyrics in the hippy soundtrack.
It even seems somehow blasphemous to question “ Morning of the Earth”.
Fucked if I’d have sold out Ulu’s though.
Good point about MOTE, all I can say is I wish I was there when they surfed it.
In Fairness to Alby and co. There was no possible way to predict the internet and social media boom, GPS, Google Earth and all the associated crap that has made the world such a small place. Even the planes were a gamble back then, now on the A380 I can fly for 15hrs and watch new release movies all the way and eat....food, kinda.
Tracks magazine was started to promote the movie wasn’t it ?
Tracks mag then sold Balinese tour package deals.
SOLD !!!!!
Don’t think that crew weren’t alert to the dangers of exposure back then. Some just didn’t care. Dollars to be made. So soulful.....man.
1st world struggling with changes in the 3rd world (not meant to be derogatory to the writer, I feel the same way but..)
If only the health services improve to change infant mortality rates, general health and diet (refrigerator in house clean food prep areas, toilets etc) then hard to decry development.
The Sasak are ferocious (ever seen how they settle disputes?) hopefully they will fight for a bigger slice of the cake.
Life will definitely be different and I hope they spread the cash around on services, not just make the rich richer. No Land and Environment courts over there.
A nice reflection on the passing of time Chris.I took a ferry over to Lombok in late 1979 and headed down to Kuta Lombok with a mate .Had to ask the Kepala Desa (15 year old Village Chief) if we could stay the night - he offered us a bamboo hut on the beach .The locals were following us everywhere and just staring in our face , and wanted to know
what the weapon (surfboard) was for !
That ferry ride is something hey, take your lunch and your own dunny paper. We did it in 2008 and took 5 hours, then someone drove over a couple of our boards when we were getting off. All part of the deal I guess.
first trip to Bali I slept at the first warung at Ulus with monkey and rats, or went back with Ketut to the farm just behind there - there must have been 20 people sleeping on the floor- waking up with the old man to water the cattle and then head out to Ulus.
I just can't go back there now.
Tourism, development, infrastructure. It's what the people want.
The biggest change in our lifetime: there are just so many more people on the planet, and the third world is modernising.
I wish I could get my head around it but the reaction is visceral, not intellectual.
You can still score pumping outside corner with less than 10 guys out, it’s not all bad
All still good on the Outside
The monkeys and rats are still there, just better fed
Staying with Lucy back up the track from ulu's they are my best memories. Ball's fucked now what a shit hole
They definitely not gearing up for the surf travel trade
https://www.thejakartapost.com/travel/2018/12/14/indonesia-makes-lombok-...
It's gonna be BIG !
Personally I don' think the surfers do a lot to a place per se as they are a bunch of tight arses. Maybe the road might get a bit wider, a spray of asphalt, another warung or 20, as there is no money in surfers. It is the ones that follow who don't surf and want the luxe for a holiday in an out of the way spot. Look at the boom up and around Ulu's and Padang Padang, it is all Euro's and Brits who get a good exchange rate and 99% don't surf but want a bit of luxe in an exotic location. I don't have a problem with the development, however the lack of planning is a disaster. Zero planning and infrastructure by government but max profits. I saved up for a big anniversary (not telling what number) a couple of years ago and stayed at Suarga which was an impressive effort as sewer is all treated on site and they have massive tank storage underneath for collection of rain water (which saves those pain in the arse water trucks which destroy the roads and pump the diesel out - you reckon they would have piped water up there by now). It was megabucks (I got a discount deal because it hadn't been open long), but it is the only one I know which went to this sort of effort. All the timber was recycled (pilfered from another island from old disused bridges as were the workers). I think there was one or two other surfers in the whole place. Would be great to see an Environmental Impact Statement prior to construction of anything up there but that is not the way Indo works. Real shame.
The advance parties are definite tight arses, but good waves are hard to keep secret. Good to hear you got it pre-luxe.
Sigh...first world problems....AND we're showing our age complaining about stuff like this. Imagine the complaining that I'd be able to do if I was a "first Australian" from a tribe that used to live (say 200 years ago) near Torquay or Manly or Noosa?
Yep first world problems are pretty insignificant. If I was a First Australian theres a lot I'd be pissed off about as well
i don't surf the points any more too many people, had to find some lesser wave and get up before dawn to get it to myself. everything gets busier with age.
There's still a few, come on. Try 8:30 after the dawn crew heads in :} thats what I do.
the weird thing is, it's not so much the crowds in the water that get me so much as the rampant over-development on land.
but yeah, agree with GarryH, it's all a matter of perspective and you can imagine how the blackfellas felt.
Black Emu by Bruce Pascoe is a great read - a history not taught in many schools.
+1
+2
ps ~ the title is Dark Emu.
The agricultural and farming practices described are illuminating.
Personal opinions aside, the pace of devlopment over there is concerning. I don't think it's healthy for any society to swiftly transition from agrarian to digital deluxe, because, at the most basic level, institutions to nurture and protect the citizens just aren't there.
Were they there before the transition? What speed would you be happy with? More importantly, what speed would they be happy with?
Funny thing with these types of articles and comments is the complete lack of local opinions and perspectives.
Fuck, really mate?
If you think the locals will be fine when their village goes from mud hut to Manhattan in the space of a few years with Jakarta money at the controls, then I'll take your word for it hey?
Too true Stu, there's development as opposed to a blitzkreig of clearing and acquisition. If anyone thinks there's development regs like here they're deluded.
Fuck, really, mate!
Re-read what I wrote. I never stated what level of development they would be happy with, nor the rate of change - I wouldn't presume.
Just noting - lots of outsiders stating their views on what they would rather. No comment or perspectives from local locals, or any Indonesians at all.
We're an Australian site writing editorial for Australian surfers, and this was an op ed piece about a place Australian surfers have traditionally travelled to that made numerous references to the writer's "entitlement" and concern for the local's welfare. It wasn't trying to solve a problem, just sharing some observations while wrestling with conflicting emotions.
White Man's Burden it ain't.
Speaking of white man’s burden.....remember the days when the Balinese used to carry your gear down to Uluwatu for a couple of cents ?
Those were the days ....
Now , where was I ? You there , boy !! , another Singapore Sling and show some liveliness! That’s a good dusky !
Yep, 4000 rupiah to carry your board up and down the stairs at Green Balls, and he had a Coke for you to drink when you got out of the surf
I just enjoyed the "personal opinions aside" and next sentence "I don't think"
Geez I thought south lombok was a beautiful place when I went 15 yrs ago.
Still is matey, plenty about and will be for a while I hope
Cringe worthy piece for me.
Has the gall to complain about the crowding of an area and then suggest to the reader to keep looking.
Paints a picture of perfect health in the past and disdain for the future.
A new comer bargaining like its faux par and then complaining about prices.
No hot water like it’s a hardship?
Read as though the writer is hypocritical and ignorant. Maybe that’s the point? But doesn’t sound like anything has been learned from 2 weeks travel, twice a year, for ten years.
Read it again Champ and relax
Indo is changing so much so fast, but even without surfers or even tourism much of it would be happening, its just progress, new roads, better roads, new transport links, electricity, concrete, ATMs etc
Much of it is good for locals, much of it sucks as a traveling surfer though.
Even in my wife city far inland it blows me away how fast the urban sprawl spreads one year rice paddies a year latter concert jungle.
Rising cost of things in Indo is also crazy, wages and goods just rise so quick.
Yeah it bums you out at times, but you just have to accept it and enjoy what you can, or just keep moving and searching....
There’s only one Indo on this planet.
Nothing else comes close.
and if there is, I'm saying nothin
Yep happening everywhere, but so, so quick with the Superbike setup.
It might be a bit out of context... But Tina is the nicest woman out! I once thought my scooter was stolen (turns out the bar I was drinking at put it out the back for safety) and she came with me looking for it and reassuring me and my feeble adolescent mind at the time that it would be ok. She was genuinely concerned about me.. me a stranger from Australia from all places.. I've had some negative experiences with the locals in Kuta Lombok but Tina is a great woman and if anyone bumps into her just buy a damn sarong off her because I'm sure she could use the $$
Tina is a legend hey - best Sarongs In Lombok !!
If you ever get to score one of these places before the rush, be happy and enjoy it, it will never last. Then when it blows up, be happy for the people who live there, who now have opportunities that didnt exist when you were scoring empty barrels. You get your good old days and they get thier future. Its how I feel about a bunch of places in Indo.
100% agree and not just surfing locations. Try getting a seat on the tube in London after 2pm, a quiet dawn pic on the Great Wall or getting home on the M5 - mayhem.
got a dawn pic at the great wall with just myself and my girlfriend a couple years ago. We had an 8 hour beijing stop over. had a guide lined up (bloke my parents had used) who took us there direct and got us on the gondola before official opening and had the place to ourselves for an hour. didnt realise how lucky we were.
Good article but very depressing. Capitalism and its need for endless growth tends to makes a mess.
I don’t know if Alby Falzon was thinking he would be making a fortune from his film at the time or envisaging the growth in middle class income and cheap air tickets that would enable the millions of tourists that have hit Indo since. Wonder if he has any second thoughts about it now though.
I'm going to ask him if I see him - maybe there's a sequel.
Id have to agree with Blowin on his Ulus and Albs F angle, maybe just an early version of Tim bonythong with a camera and an entourage and off to exposure land goes a surf spot, exponential growth as we have all seen.
I went to Lombok first trip overseas in 1990 when I was an apprentice, rented a car in mataram from Tommy Ho a dubious Chinese-Indonesian businessman and then stayed in Kuta Lombok at Mata Hari bungalow which was the only accommodation there at the time (from memory anyhow) with the constant and very exotic mosque music pumping throughout the village at all hours orf the day and night.We surfed grupok, ekas (b grade waves at best) , mawun (is it maui? different names same place I think) where we had to buy cigarettes which we used to pay the old men to look after the car and the kids with to push us across the river in a dugout canoe before walking over the hill, ok surf again but not epic , felt like what we went there for as far as exotic and untouched Indonesia, drove to deserts (banko banko) on a very hairy track (don't remember an roads being sealed anywhere except mataram) and got skunked a couple of times and got great surf also (long before forecasts just go, drive and check) .havent been back since mid 90,s so cant imagine it becoming like Bali but also couldn't have imagined back then that Bali would become what it has become these days. Paradise lost and getting more lost every day...
I'm glad Alby didn't have social media to blow out a spot. Not much is kept secret for too long these days. Fuck you see the cars on the beach in Namibia now. Subway and Maccas will be there soon. Hopefully they'll be paying award wages and shift penalties for the desertburger. But yeah Lombok was and still is really something hey
My first trip to this area was 1989 and Grupuk had maybe 50 people living there. We ended up sourcing a bunch of iodine tablets for the locals because most people had goitres. I was still a teenager and saw some medical shit that is very hard to forget.
So while you can bitch and moan about mass tourism in the area, it has brought a huge number of people out of poverty. People are no longer dying from malnutrition in Southern Lombok.
And FWIW, the plans in this article have been around for about a decade, and development is way behind schedule. There's a basic plan in Indonesia to spread the tourism crowd out Beyond Bali. South Lombok is just one of 10 areas being pushed. others include Lake Toba, Bintam, Minado, Yogyakarta.
Southern Lombok has natural advantages over most of the other areas. Indonesia is predicted to be the 4th largest economy in the World by 2050, so steering the boom into something sustainable is the best option.
I really do hope like you say they can "steer the boom into something sustainable". Maybe when they relocate the capital to pristine Kalimantan they can take into account your words. Or maybe West Papua is a better example.
Grow up malibudutchie.
Indonesia was a tin pot dictatorship 20 years ago and there's been a remarkable transition to a functioning democracy. It's not perfect but it is improving. I actually have more faith in the Indonesians than our government. The signs of improvement over there are obvious while Australia is heading more towards a Suharto-style Kleptocracy with limited press freedom.
You seem to want to retard their development. Maybe keep it cheap for travelling surfers on $50 a day? Tell that to people living in Kampungs with no electricity or fresh water.
You shit me to tears. Condescending western fucker with no ability to see how things are for the locals. Just as long you get a cold cheap beer eh?
Come on, don't go all Mother Theresa on me. You actually have more faith in the Indonesian Government than ours - thats a big call. So I guess you're living there making a difference.
I have no problem with progress and thats why i balanced the story to include fact rather than opinion. TBH I don't know whether this will be a good thing, neither do you. You keep tapping though big fella, even self serving fuckwits need a voice
Whatever dude, You've written a really poor and very dated piece here with zero understanding of the tourism industry in Indonesia while harking back to the good old days of 2008 (you're a real old hand in Indo!!!).
I'm not kidding in saying that detailed plans for mass tourism in this area were probably around in 2008, so your article is 11 years out of date. There's an international airport 19km away. Did you not see this coming?
Surfers who kicked around Indo in the 80s and 90s were forced to do the budget travel thing, staying with the locals, learning the language and travelling on crowded buses and ferries. You needed to have your shit together to access the waves. Any money spent went straight into the bellies (and lungs) of people struggling in real third world conditions. Most travelling surfers back then had the nous to recognise the harsh conditions and did whatever they could to be responsible travellers. My wife and I fed a family for 10 days in the Mentawais because they didn't have any food. Ended up doing a few more canoe runs to the "general store" because supplies ran out and eating in front of starving people is a fucked up thing to do.
That's all changed. Any Tom, Dick, and Harry can now fly into surf areas and get an AC car transfer to the waves. So too can other tourists.
What shits me the most are the young travelling surfers who expect 3 star + "luxury" at 1 star pricing, or complain when the Indos start chasing the high yield / high employment luxury end of the market. Those people are no better than the bogans who go to Kuta solely for the cheap beer and accommodation. Swap a mullet for a board, and it's the same beast.
Well said Vic local,spot on mate.And as Indo dream said above there's development going on all over the place surf or not.Has been planned for a long time.It is what it is.Anyway ,got a bus to catch to a place that has surprisingly fun waves,not the best in Indo but the crowds are good for an old boy.Cheers.
Agreed.
The current govt/leadership in Indo have a much better sense for, and genuine appreciation for, sustainable development when compared to the current AUS govt. Sure, it's not perfect, and most notably they're dealing with some significant legacy issues from not all that long ago, but they are genuinely trying. Much to DFAT's credit (on the civil service side) they have been assisting their Indo counterparts in getting robust governance systems established to ensure rule of law has some genuine teeth, is founded of principles of fairness and integrity, and that policy and regulations do start working for the common folk (more than they have been).
When "the common folk" outnumber ya wealthy Suharto-dynastic-folk 10,000:1, you'd be foolish to not ensure the needs of the former are catered to first. This is why Jokowi has good support from younger folk and those, let's say, less religiously-inclined. This sort of thinking has underpinned the plans in the Asian Tigers for decades now. And now the ASEAN nations have looked at that model and gone "fuck, we can give our people a better life, take a bigger slice of the global economy from the whities, AND still enrich our upper class. LET'S GET CRACKIN". And why wouldn't you. Prabowo is all about a return to the 80s "glory days" (in his mind).
Well said mowgli.
You actually know what you're talking about, unlike the author of the article who writes about Pristine (East) Kalimantan (the coal capital of the freakin world).
"The current govt/leadership in Indo have a much better sense for, and genuine appreciation for, sustainable development when compared to the current AUS govt"
Have you been to Bali, or Jakarta, or Medan or anywhere else in Indo lately? They have an appreciation for development, certainly. Sustainable? Not even close. Those in Southeast Asia shrouded in haze from the fires burning out of control in Kalimantan and Sumatra would confirm this.
Indeed I have. At current pace I've been heading over every other year. And I lived there for a few years as a kid.
What you're (likely) looking at is 30 years of development legacy, with only a small portion being recent development. If you plotted it on a graph, you'd see that the rate of development in those cities has massively declined compared to the 1990s.
You also missed my point. I said it's the leadership at the top that are approaching things from a new paradigm. Indonesia's power structure is much more distributed than here in Australia - a product of it's geography, political and cultural/ethnic history. Jokowi and his crew have been gradually trying to change this. But progress of this type, on this scale, is always (frustratingly) slow. But that's how the world works.
Most people are under the incorrect impression the black civil rights movement was begun and won over several years in the 1960s. When it was actually begun a century earlier. Some might even say it's an ongoing fight. But that's another story.
Unfortunately that's the kind of timeline we're looking at for Indo and many other rapidly developing nations. It takes a very bloody long time for land use policy changes to come into effect in a measurable way, and for new modes societal thinking to become the mainstream....like, generations. Which is why whenever you see western nations "condemning" (what a joke) civil unrest in some other country it is totally laughable. At worst it is purely for a strategic narrative and at best smacks of historical amensia, given all western countries went through similar things only a few-to-several generations ago (100-300 years). Again, that's another story for another article/thread perhaps!
Can confirm the haze from the Sumatran fires...
I was in Penang (Malaysia, accross the strait from Sumatra) a couple of weeks ago and the air quality was abysmal - much, much worse than I've seen in that part of the world before.
Alby lit a fuse that would have been on fire soon enough anyway.
We have all spread the word on various spots the same in our own little way by a story here, a photo there, talking surf with mates, buying surfing magazines that exposed spots or simply being seen driving down a dirt track or parking off the side of a main road near some secret spot.
If you caught some magic years ago it can be best to not go back. But some places still offer great experiences if you go with a different perspective.
A few mention how pissed off First Australians would be. Surely 230 years after the First Fleet they can't still be genuinely pissed off? Bennelong had a case but not so the current generation who has benefited beyond doubt through European arrival.
I'm inclined to disagree with you on that.
Captain Cook noted that the locals he met up where his boat was being repaired seemed to have to spend only a small portion of the day on sourcing food and had an extraordinary amount of leisure time and seemed pretty happy.
Many cultures he visited in the Pacific were the same. Hawaii before Cook seemed to be an amazing lifestyle - food aplenty and SURF as well.
Other cultures on some islands were in a state of constant war and payback almost to the point that the sheer boredom of baking in the sun on small islands drove them to war as a sport or a means of alleviating the boredom.
One cannot generalise too much but many descendants of original inhabitants would trade places with their distant ancestors in a heartbeat.
Yeah but did they have access to mortgages? ;)
You're in T-Rex territory on this one, D-Rex.
Do you have any idea about indigenous issues and comparative life expectancy, wealth, standards of living, property ownership, civic participation and every other social/economic indicator known to western civilisation? "Benefited beyond doubt..."?
We've butchered the landscape they hold sacred, killed off the natural resources which underpinned their wealth, introduced a whole raft of diseases which decimated their populations, engaged in outright genocide and massacres to get rid of the few who were left, enslaved people, done a fantastic job of obliterating their languages and cultural practices, took kids away from their parents by force, deliberately exposed them to radiation, introduced them to the wonders of alcohol and petrol, and continue to discriminate against them at almost every turn.....fuck me...do I need to go on?
The current generation might be glad for penicillin but I'd be surprised if they didn't wish the lot of us, and especially those who share your opinion, would just fuck off back to where we came from.
Albie's piece was art then and still now. Just like artists before him he portrated what he saw, expressed in film and a musical score that matched perfectly. There's a beauty in that film that not many other surf flicks have achieved and I don't believe at the time he thought he was overtly taking advantage of Indo or Hawaii or Oz to the detrement of the locations, the times then were far different from today's instantaneous scramble of internet 3 minute clips.
My Slightly off topic but definitely relevant POV. Too many of us stinking humans on the planet. Thats your number 1 problem right there.
3rd world or developed countries alike still use the clapped out old idealism of 'growth is good'. At 55 years of age there's roughly 3.5 billion more people on Earth than when I was born. That can't be sustainable for much longer.
The powers that be need to be addressing this problem right now......but they won't of course.
What are you suggesting here ringmaster. A Eugenics style movement or mass sterialization? Cos I reckon a bonking ban might not work out.
Ironically, Indonesia has just imposed a bonking ban! Unless you're married.
So has my wife regardless of marriage,
Your wife obviously cares more about our planets future than the potential impact of short term gratification.
Give her a pat on the back from me!
No Charlie Brown. Indonesia just drafted a new criminal code with that provision. It hasn't been voted on, will most likely be amended and in a worst case situation, not enforced.
Knock yourself out over there mate.
For those wanting to get the gist of the "near" future for humans, have a read of Jared Diamond's book 'Collapse'.
I spent some time travelling in Lombok in 1987. Haven't been back since. It was a really cool place. We stayed in a losmen next to a beach on a large bay and I think it was on the west side because we could see Mt Rinjani in the late afternoon. The mode of transport was these small horses that pulled wagons. Once a week there was a market where you could buy all sorts of local produce including different types of tobacco. There were local Sasak villages back from the beach where the rice paddies were. One night a local guy that we knew took us to his village where a wedding was to happen. To get there we walked along the paddy banks by moonlight for a fair while. We were introduced to the head man and they invited us to join them for dinner. I think the headman also asked me whether I wanted to marry one of the village girls. Truely amazing place.
Lombok development is way bigger than surf tourism..years before the international airport went ahead a friend told me Lombok had already been mapped out as the new aeronautical center/hub of Indo.money from the middle east,jakarta,hong kong is going to develop expensive hotels and half million dollar villa$$$ were on the way??i thought he was full of it!
I have an uncle who eats n breathes money.back in the 90's he always said with gloBALIzation you will see the 1st world dip a little and the 3rd world will rise to become one level playing field.
Note to the author;you touched on an very important subject and not just for Lombok.well done!but your 20posts in the comments afterwards makes you look overbearing.you need to accept criticism.when you tell people who challenge your perspective 'to read it again n relax'.or comments like'bring your own lunch n dunny papper!'make it sound like your missing that 3rd world experience that we all love
I had crew trying to sell me land in Kuta , Lombok in 2007 with the promise that it was next to the international airport and hub being built there.
"Tina is a legend hey - best Sarongs In Lombok !!"
Careful fellas, my bro is already giddy with excitement.
Ringmaster is right. We need a cull.
A marvellous world we live in, where wonders never cease.
Whilst civilised people are fighting there are savages living in peace.
The elephant in the room? Uncontrolled expansion in population of the most destructive species on the planet.
How much can this planet take.
I worked with an aussie married to a Lombok local back in 2002.
Ball had already started rolling back then.
I am guessing machete wielding locals have calmed down somewhat since then.
I remember a friend of a friend who ran a local business committed suicide in Lombok complete with police report, pity he didn't know until the local mafia threw him off a cliff.
I'm glad someone had the gall to raise the unique ...errr ...culture of that region. machetes etc. are big around those parts...
The landscape for Bali is about to change and not in a physical sense. Visitors will most likely be going to a country where the odds of being flogged and jailed for holding your GF's hand in public is higher than getting a root on off pay week. The tentacles of "Sharia" are flexing and the bill introduced this week should make people sit up and take notice. All that racing infrastructure, Billion dollars of development, and they are expecting to get 150,000 punters in for the race.
https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2019/02/23/indonesia-to-host-2021-mo...
There is some interesting language in that article, it talks about "zones". Maybe that new law will not apply to the "tourist zone" outside it and there is hell to pay. Much like Saudi. Watch that space.
I reckon you might be overstating it a bit there feralkook, you might not be too... definitely might not be had prabowo got in. Either way jokowi is going to be on for the fight of his life to keep this shit in check.
I really can't see bali changing, the locals won't let it happen. No chance. The religious nutters fire up from time to time, porn, alcohol, whatever their little pet cause is for the week. Java etc. goes through fits and spurts, but not much changes in bali.
Lombok may be a different story though, especially considering that muslim tourism push. Unfortunately the indo muslims idolise the middle east muslims, hence the total inaction in regard to their women being exploited by middle east pigs, both as slave servant labor, and as, well, ... slaves generally.
All those big buck middle east, unchallengable, supposedly pious, tourists probably will not be a good influence. Especially considering the huge disparity in wealth. That shit is bad enough with the tight arse tourists.
I hope the oz embassy knows what they are doing supporting this ten zones thingy. Maybe too much jakarta embassy bule bubble going on and not enough time with the real people.
I actually think the bike race is a good thing. I was just thinking the other day I'm surprised indo doesn't have one. The indo's live and breathe bikes, and the racing seems much more popular than you'd think.
However, dumping it in the middle of lombok may not be the smartest idea. Not sure the villagers there are quite ready for that, as stunet points out, you've got some serious different worlds and interests colliding going on there. That never seems to end well...
....as much as everyone likes to bag the stingy surfers and their influence, the stingy surfer and the model of development they bring (or did) isn't all bad. Slowly slowly seems to be an easier model of development to absorb. It also gives the locals a lot more autonomy, and a lot more of the cash stays local.
Fair dinkum feralkook, if you were trying to win a prize for ignorance and bigotry with your comment, mission accomplished.
Christ I hope you don't travel to Indonesia in the future. You too Skypan.
Sorry mate, might have laid it on a bit thick. No bigotry agaist islam intended. Maybe a little bigotry towards certain oil rich nation cultures that don't seem to have a problem with slave labour though...
just for a bit of context...
https://www.equaltimes.org/despite-migration-ban-indonesian?lang=en#.XYW...
Everything I noted is based on information from various sources.
Including discussion I have had with people who live in that country and others who are not of the dominant ideology and struggling under it's impact. However, I will let them know you consider their thoughts and concerns bigoted and ignorant.
So your aware, I am more than happy to have a discussion but if your gonna come at it with abuse and insults your response is invalid.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/18/indonesia-draft-criminal-code-disast...
The sex out of wedlock ban has been postponed ( killed ).
If that was the morning of the earth, then maybe this is just the hot part of the day,
it might lead to an afternoon glass off, and then maybe things will get dark, really dark.
but rest assured, the sun will come up again tomorrow. and the next day and the next day...
The world wont stop spinning just because of the events of the day.
take a step back, think about your perspective. open your mind a little and realise your just a little speck. even if you think your not... your just a little dot.
Your alive. that's worth smiling about.
Not just happening to Lombok, closer to home we've been Vailed:
https://www.willyweather.com.au/news/10507/alpine+property+in+hot+demand...
D'oh.
One thing that seems to come through in the commentary on issues like this is "who am I/we to stop development/complain about development if it means old mate/lady doesn't have to sell paw paws on the roadside for AU$0.05?".
I think these comments can be overly simplistic, because there are good aspects of development such as better healthcare, improved utilities/infrastructure, cleaner water, etc. Those are things people seem to have front of mind when talking about "lifting people out of poverty". Though what they tend to not sufficiently consider is "what are the downsides?". I'm talking loss of community, loss of agency, loss of culturally/spiritually important land rights, etc. Things that exist at the community-scale, but manifest at the individual-scale. Often not talked about in the same breath, and when it is it's by countering parties in a disjointed way.
This all plays out in different temporal scales. In the short term, there can be quite a lot of individual losers when development comes to town (almost guaranteed the old Ibu you care so much about is not going to be a winner). Survivorship bias definitely seems to be clouding a lot westerners' judgement when drawing conclusions about development success.
But in the longer term, what are the costs to these communities at a larger scale? Why are we so happy - with the best intentions of course! - to lean back and say "how dare you, you westerner, you should be happy they're developing like us!?".
For those missing the point - this is a critique of those who criticise those who complain about the development from the potentially overly simplistic/partially-naive angle of "you should be happy for all the gains".
A good comment, I'd just like to add my grandmother used to sell Paw Paw by the roadside during the Great Depression and was known locally as the 'Paw Paw' lady. Ie 'poor, poor' lady. Some of the stories they handed down, like lard on bread for dinner, pretty rough. Grandad worked cane, fished and dived, and they took a leap of faith and bought a farm sometime during the 1920s/early 30s - that helped. Grandad continued to work the land until he passed away, as SE QLD turned from what it was to how it has developed today. So 5c Paw Paw, Grandad used to get sixpence a ton for his cane, seems a lot of work for not much. At least there was silver in that sixpence. The result is they were extremely frugal.
And yes to add to your comment, nearly everyone in the community was in the same boat, it was a pretty strong community with Aunts, Uncles, cousins, Grandparents strewn everywhere over the landscape between the towns. How is this model going? The farm's been sold and descendants spread all over the country now. Not quite the same community. The towns are overtaken with retirees. Hi rise. The Big Pineapple was pretty awesome though, like a giant religious monument.
My predecessors very similar to yours VJ. Australia was a much different place back then.
But, how good were those parfaits!
Delicious. And, we've got Tom Kha soup now. Tom Kha soup. So maybe it was all worth it. Latest swap has been our whole auto industry for urban decay: make sure Japan keeps theirs, Zen.
What white man has done to Bali is disgraceful, locals have benefitted fa from the mess. Do there kids get to experience education, entertainment, sport & life standards like we aussies. We do truly live in a wonderful country but even us level headed peoples are finding a way to wreck our once considered "among the greatest places on earth"
Mankinds ingenuity and lust for travel have caused problems worldwide-but we rarely look in the rear view mirror.
Capatilism & democracy work all well n good however when related to surfers, collectively we have surfed, travelled locally & worldwide, but what really have we contributed to the local environment, markets & education.
Do love the MOTE analogies, lived through that era. Brilliant movie in a time past.
Population has a lot to do with it if you think about your local town & surf breaks. Man just gotta keep his pecker from woman when there fertile-contraception is often not an option in these less developed countries. Loads of tourists rarely see the less developed parts of the contry sides when travel is off the beaten track, where peoples lives are still lived much the same way as for generations, sure there lives have been impacted but there standards of living propably not improved relative to our wonderful internet filled lives in good ol oz.
But I remain eternally optimistic that hopefully surfers have and will continue to travel the world and genuinely make a positive impact on the environments they interact with-land and sea.
Well written and considerd article Chris
Bassnake ....your inclusion of blame upon white man is inappropriate, unfounded and fucking wrong.
No one has done as much to debase the island of Bali as the Indonesians themselves. Their corruption and greed is theirs alone , irrespective of its parallels in other societies.
Any land that their feudal princelings didn’t develop themselves they sold to foreign interests . Only their nationalist instincts have saved them from complete loss of their home.
Enough of the evil white man shtick. It’s disingenuous, it’s rude , it’s old and it’s got zero basis in reality. If you want to create a mental fantasy of a utopia populated by noble savages then fine , just dont unnecessarily slander others to support it.
Go tell the former villagers at Dreamland that Tommy Suharto is the victim of the white devil. And maybe you’d better not take a look at what the Chinese are doing to Benoa Harbour , despite the express wishes of the Balinese locals , if you intend to further your innocent Asians fiction.