Southern Sumatra, Indonesia

Indonesia
The Republic of Indonesia is a country composed of more than 17,000 islands with a population of over 210 million. Indonesia is comprised of more than 300 ethnic groups speaking 200 distinct languages and dialects.

Jakarta to South Sumatra

August 22, 2006

Dragging my board bag out of the terminal, the first thing I noticed was the small of clover cigarettes. Gunter was leaning against the terminal wall smoking his kretak. "Hey boss, you need bemo to west Java? Very cheap boss."
Gunter stood about shoulder height, his formadible belly stretching out his tattered white t-shirt, his face scared from a bout of teenage acne. He cracked a big smile revealing his clove stained teeth, his silver capped incisor reflected the dim orange glow of the streetlights above.
We haggled out a ride straight to our destination in Sumatra, 16 hour ride leaving at 5 am. Gunter shook our hands and let out a huge laugh like the happy Buddha he resembled.
With his jolliness and calm deminor I figure we were in good hands. Little did we know that Gunter had a dark side.

5 AM, van loaded, we were off into the labyrinth of Jakarta and its streets of 12 million people. The sun began to rise somewhere high above the layer of pollution that engulfs the city, but we couldn’t see it. The city was already abuzz with people heading out to their daily existence by car, bemo, becak, and of course motorcycle. We drove down a main boulevard lined with food stalls.

As traffic came to a standstill, Gunter would turn down a dodgy side street, up an alleyway, down a dirt road, parting a flock of chickens before muscling his way back into traffic on the main road.
It soon became apparent that the larger vehicles rule the road here (a motorcycle will loose to a bemo in a game of Chicken).

Gunter's death machine









Looking towards Sumatra










Soon we reached the ferry station in Merak bound for Sumatra. Gunter pulled us into the belly of the rusty beast of a ferry. With the thick gloom above, I spotted small islets and imagined perfect waves peeling around both sides, but the bay was as flat as a lake. If the sky was clear we would have been able to catch a glimpse of Krakatoa in the distance.

We rolled off the ramp and onto Sumatra, the sixth largest island in the world, home to 40 million people. Sitting in the front seat and stressed out from Gunter’s crazy driving, I close my eyes and drifted into a deep sleep......I was back in my classroom and I was a teacher again.......

"Mr. B, did you learn to speak any Indonesian while you were there?"
"Why yes little Billy, I certainly did. Class, can you say Korupsi?"
School kids reply in unison, "korupsi!"
"Ok, now back to work kids."

Gunter continued to hall ass until we entered the city of Bandar Lampung and traffic forced him to slow. Up ahead was a police checkpoint. The second they spotted our boards on the roof their eyes lit up and they waved for us to pull over. "Yo, Karl, wake up! The police are pulling us over!" The cops taxed us 100,000 Rupia ($10) claiming that it was illegal to have boards strapped to the roof. Meanwhile, they waved a van through the checkpoint with a chicken coup on top, held in place by the hand of the driver. This was our first experience with Korupsi (corruption) in Indonesia, but it wouldn’t be our last.

Gateway into Sumatra
As we headed west towards the coastal mountains, the landscape became more rural, fields of rice padi, water buffalo wallowing in the mud, mosques, and small villages all looking the same. This is when Gunter's driving really hit the fan.

Gunter would pass trucks and buses, even with motorcycles coming head on. He would wail on the horn as if to say, "get the f*%$ out of the way or die!!" The motos would pull over to the side as much as possible, some coming within inches of being hit. One pair of riders had to veer of the road and into a rice padi to escape Gunter's fury.......he let out his trademark Buddha-like laugh and charged ahead. We called him the "road warrior" and he seemed quite pleased by his well earned title.

Gunter appeared to subsist on clove cigarettes alone. For 16 hours he smoked filterless kreteks, one after another, pack after pack. He never drank a drop of liquid, and when we stopped to eat, he just waited by the bemo and smoked away.

Soon we were high in the coastal mountains, then decending into thick, tropical rainforest. Gunter claimed to have seen Sumatran Tigers here. As the sun lowered we decided to lather on the mosquito repellant. Even though it was almost dark, Gunter rode without his headlights. He was clearly exhausted and we had a couple of close calls with logging trucks rounding the tight turns.




Forest gave way to openness and what remained of the sunlight. We had reached the coastal town of Krui, but still had 45 minutes of driving left. Gunter drove down the one lane road at 60 MPH, regardless of the children playing on the side of the road.


We finally made it to our destination as the last light began to fade, giving us a small glimpse of the waves before darkness. Gunter had just driven 16 hours and was planning to turn around and drive 16 hours back to Jakarta. I figured that he was delirious, that no one in their right mind would attempt the impossible. I offered to buy Gunter a room for the night, and when he refused I told him that he should pull over and sleep in his bemo if he needed to. He just laughed, lit up another Kretek cigarette, and drove off into the night.

We stayed at an Aussie run surf camp in front of the most consistent wave in the area, Ungon Bocur. Ungon Bocur is a fun, long left, but not the type of wave you come to Indonesia for. During our stay the surf hit the 8-10 foot mark, but unfortunately for us Ungon Bocur was out of control and unsurfable. At the same time, a typical catch-22 situation, the surf in Krui was only 2-3 foot and crowded.



Tropical coastal forest
To the south lay a spot known as Way Jambu. We headed down through the coconut groves and on to a bemo with our friend Ross from Australia. Ross had been waiting patiently for the right conditions to come together for Way Jambu. The winds, the tide , and the swell direction all had to be just right.

We walked down a small path past a mosque and two small houses, reaching a dirty beach. We watched slack-jawed as an eight foot set broke on the horizon, a radical top to bottom peak breaking directly in front of a coral ledge. Out past the breakers, several fishing vessels were waiting for a break in the sets, the perfect moment when they could sneak into their safe anchorage. Suddenly there was a lull, and the first boat went for it. Their timing was bad, and as they realized that another set of waves were approaching, they retreated back to the deep water.

Southern Sumatra was engulfued
In a thick layer of haze due to
uncontroled burning by farmers
and the logging industry. Sometimes
the haze would clear just enough
to reveal 10,000 ft. volcanic peaks.
In the meantime, we watched the waves in amazement. I was a little skeptical, but if Ross called it a go, I was ready to follow him out. Well, Ross new better, even with his helmet in hand, and called it off. Beautiful to watch, but not a single surfer was up for the challenge that day. The huge swell eventually subsided and we had 3 great days of head high surf before we decided to move on.



This monkey was trained to collect
kalapas (coconuts). For every 10
collected, the owner of the trees
would keep 7 and the owner of
the monkey would keep 3.
This area of Sumatra was once an uncrowded retreat for surfers in the know. In the last few years an all out land grab has taken place with international surfers buying up cheap lots, following the semi-twisted dream of owning a piece of their own surf paradise.

At least four separate surf camps have opened up, and the area has been heavily publicized and promoted by surf guides and surf travel websites, hyping the place up as an uncrowded surf paradise. Now any kook, from anywhere in the world, can dial up their surf travel agent and book an all inclusive package to Lampung including transfers.

Animosities between surf camp owners, rumors of skirmishes, fistfights, and sabotage. Another domino falls, another surf ghetto is created, a result of what I call the surf-travel-industrial complex (STIC). It's true that the local community will eventually benefit from the surf tourism economically, but at what cost? Our next stop was Sorake beach on the Island of Nias, the oldest surf ghetto in Indonesia after Kuta Beach. We were about to see the effect of 20 odd years of surf tourism.