Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25248
panache, just a hefty dose of third world reality. Everywhere there are vendors, scrapboard shops, people selling every worthless plastic trinket imaginable. The main street through Kuta makes an LA freeway at rush hour seem downright civilized. Horns blare, motorcycles whine, cows moo, and tourists try not to get run down on their way to the next shop or bar. Yet the Balinese carry on without a care, and you rarely see a hot temper. I, on the other hand, was feeling as though my head were about to explode, and needed an escape desperately. The boat left early the next morning from Sanur. We negotiated a price right there on the beach with a skinny, bespectacled skipper who assured us that he was taking us to a distant island where very few other surfers traveled. When we protested the price, he added that we would be the only people in the boat, and hence he could not settle for less. We tossed our gear on board the small, weathered wooden vessel and settled in for the journey. As the diesel engine coughed and roared to life, enveloping us in a plume of toxic blue smoke, a troupe of Balinese people scattered out of the jungle and down the beach, piling into the boat and quickly occupying every last bit of deck space. We set out over a calm ocean, with neither a breath of wind nor a hint of swell to hinder our journey. Nevertheless, twenty minutes into the trip, half the people in the boat were doubled over the side, or sitting in misery clutching their stomachs, and a familiar putrid smell surrounded us. Angus adjusted his straw hat in the sun. "Looks like we brought a bit of Kuta along with us, eh Seppo?" He looked around the boat. "Go figure. " The island was as promised: a tropical paradise. There were no Hiltons here. Only rickety wood and concrete structures haphazardly strewn along the white sand beach, the dense green jungle, and the turquoise blue, shimmering ocean. We found a los men in which to stay, a concrete room with two beds and no electricity, and one open, unscreened window. Our first night was eventful, to say the least. The local dogs barked and fought with incredible persistence, with one snarling melee culminating in the alley outside our room. We threw rocks in the direction of the noise and eventually both dogs ran off howling. A few more hours of fitful, chloroquine sleep were interrupted again by a cat in heat, a piercing, howling whine that sounded a lot like the cry of a human baby on helium, and once again we were both at the window hurling objects into the night. It was about that time that the roosters started crowing. And crowing. "It's the middle of the damn night," I whined. "Dawn's not for another three hours." "So much for peace and quiet," said Angus, laughing. I heard a rustle, then the distinct sound of a cap being removed from a bottle. "Cheers, mate." he said in the dark. The days passed slowly, some filled with surf, others flat. We had the waves of the island to ourselves, which consisted basically of one reef break: a long, tapering left wall that wrapped along shallow coral, before finally closing out in a shore break on the beach in front of our losmen. On the other side of the small bay was another reef, too shallow to surf, a vicious, tubing cavern that broke over near-dry coral. We stayed for many weeks, slowly slipping into island mode, speaking less, reading more and eating like hungry baboons. Angus surfed like a madman, always pulling in deep, always slashing the most vertical turns in the most critical places, and always ending up with the most reef cuts at the end of the day. After a few weeks, his feet looked like Swiss cheese, but he remained as surf-stoked as ever. We became accustomed to the sounds of the night and from Kuta Hell, as we called that nightly whirlwind of bars, " we would flee happy milkshakes and disco lights that was inevitably followed by horrible Arak hangovers and bodies unfit for surfing. befriended a few villagers. What few words of Indonesian we knew were of no use to us here. The small islands to the east of Bali contain myriad native tongues, many quite different from the others, so our communications were reduced to grunts, smiles and simple charades. Angus seemed to have a knack for communicating in any tongue, at once both firm and flexible when negotiating prices. His manner was always filled with humor, and he had a way of making the villagers laugh even though they didn't have a clue what he was saying. Our main duties were procuring food for our bellies and firewood for the makeshift pit in front of our losmen. We bought fish from the boats that came in the afternoon, if it was available, and fruit, rice, and coffee at the local store which had little else than that except candy bars and five brands of Cigarettes-all prices negotiable. The children in the village, a rowdy bunch of half-naked revelers, provided us with the most entertainment. They ran amok all over the beach, unburdened by responsibility. Quite often they would follow us down the beach and tease us, trying to coax us into a game of chase. If we pursued, we inevitably lost, collapsing on the beach in a panting and sweaty heap in the sticky tropical heat. Most of the villagers' activities and daily life revolved around the sea. In the early morning the families of fishermen awoke before first light, cooking food to sustain the warriors on their fearful journey into a sometimes hostile ocean. The women of the family made the required offerings of incense and blossoms, a tradition in their Hindu-influenced animist culture. They set the offerings out on the doorsteps of their palm-thatched homes to please the gods, to beg them to allow their men a safe return and a plentiful harvest. As the first hints of sun played upon the horizon, the boats solemnly entered the water, their engines sputtering to life, and filed out through the reef pass disappearing into open water. Other men donned their machetes and headed off into the jungle, perhaps no less brave, to face the tigers that inhabit it, to collect coconuts, fruit, and firewood. At low tide most of the women walked out onto the exposed, multicolored reef and collected a special seaweed that continued on page 79 59