It’s bewildering, but there’s a kind natural order to the chaos. It just seems to work. Nothing to do but embrace it and keep riding. On, into the dry country; everything, brown and mountainous, horses and goats chewing at weeds beside the wide and potholed road. I’m a long way from Bali now, in this renowned surfing area that is also a bustling Indonesian goldmining town.
Outside of the surf camps, it’s hard to find cheap digs here. Twenty-thousand workers have arrived from all over the country to build a new smelter. All lodgings are either full or ghastly over-priced, at least by Indonesian standards. Fortunately, a friend of a friend offers me a couch at his beachside house. Even more fortunately, this couch happens to be just a short walk from one of the best waves in Indonesia. Travel helps to restore a kind of faith in humanity; people really will go out of their way to help you along the way.
With a forecast typical of this woeful Indonesian surf season, there is little else to do but explore the area. This tiny beachside hamlet
