Canggu

Notes from Indonesia...

I’ve been wanting to share some especially fond memories written down in my journal from a surf trip I took to Indonesia recently with my good friend Fischer.

What follows is one of our first nights.

…It seemed like the bar was filled with prostitutes. One girl asked me to dance, then for sex and $100. Another girl was very cute, French, and seemed to be a fellow tourist. We talked, danced, and in the back of my mind I tried to come up with a polite way of asking if she was a hooker, which I couldn’t. She was. At this point I felt ready to go and found Fischer, who had linked up with some locals—a small girl he was into and her gay friend. I introduced myself and we spent the rest of the night with them.

We left the club and walked to the beach. The gay best friend and I kept messing with one another. He’d point to a girl and say “go talk to her!” I’d attempt, but even if it went good I’d turn around and walk back, throwing my head in my hands in an exaggerated way to make him laugh hysterically.

Sand Bar opened, which was sort of a locals’ spot on the open beach that simply consisted of a cooler full of Singarajas and loud music. Our little crew quadrupled with other locals. They were wild. I don’t know if this is common for Canggu, but the entire night between bouts of dancing they’d run up to each other and dry hump their friends eagerly, as well as pretending to do oral. Seemed like the horniest sex-crazed people I’ve ever met.

I started dancing with one of the girls, with red dyed hair. I asked her her name and she pointed to her breast, where the name “Natalie” was tattooed in large gothic lettering. It was all quite mad, and Fish and I kept laughing to ourselves about it all. It was 4 or 5 AM. More Singarajas. Dance circles. Locals humping each other wildly.

We eventually left to the street where I became lost in the crowd of drunks. I attempted to walk home to our hostel but stumbled upon Fish and our two friends. “I’m starving,” I told them. The girl said she knew a spot and we followed, coming upon a 7-hungry, Indo 7/11, at the next corner, along with the crew we had just left at the bar. We sat and squatted on the curb outside. Someone got waters and chips. Our new bar friends kept telling us things to say in Indonesian, which made everyone laugh, whatever it was. Fish and I couldn’t understand any of the 100-mph Indo talk but kept laughing to ourselves. All we knew was the conversation was mostly about sex. Who’s going to fuck who. Who wants to have group sex with the Americans. Who has a big cock. That sort of thing. Fish leaned close and said “look at the sky.” The sun was coming out. Morning runners and workers started coming by. We all got up to leave and I turned to Fish. “Want to surf?” The question amazed the Indonesians. “Surf now?” They said. “Yes, if it’s good,” I said.

We sneaked around the sleepy hostel, waxing boards, finding board shorts, slamming water, then walked down to the beach and paddled out. We were both completely out of our minds, feeling very high from sleep deprivation, but surfed great. There was no hesitation to our surfing, pure flow, simply because we were unable to mentally think. The waves were firing, but eventually we called the session out of pure exhaustion, returning to the hostel. We slept for an hour then packed and checked out. Called a Gojek to take us to a small village a few hours away.

Battled sleep on the drive to watch the country turn from urban sprawl to rural rice paddies, jungle, and temples. The roads were terribly tight and bumpy. Even our driver was worried at times, stopping here and there to ask locals if we were on the right track. Our wheel base must have been just a few inches narrower than the concrete slabs we used to drive over flooded rivers. But we made it to the village. Paid our driver and shook his hand for the heroic driving.

Sat in a cafe for internet access and found our homestay. Stayed in for the most part that night. Heavy rain storm and consistent thunder and lighting preventing much else. But we enjoyed finally resting in the air conditioned private room, happy to have escaped to the jungle…