Indonesia - Bali - Gili Trawangan - Lombok

A trip to Indonesia, Bali – Gili - Lombok

So here I am, first time in Indonesia. It is actually so close to Bangkok or Manila and I still haven’t made it to Bali till now.

First thing u encounter is the usual rip of prices the airport taxis want to charge u to get into town. Normal price to midtown Kuta would be 30’000RP but the usual taxi starts wt a price of 150’000RP. Welcome to Bali…

I made my way down to Kuta beach and was a bit shocked… I thought I was in Phuket or Koh Samui, the beach was very crowded and especially full of drinking Ozzys at 11AM. It took me no more than a couple of minutes to understand the bombings in 2002, specially when I discovered Legian street where the memorial is located. All along this street is one bar and club after each other busting the music as loud as possible.

So all I did in Kuta, was waiting for my chanchita Caro and then move somewhere else. If ur looking for Bali u want find it in Kuta or Legian, but if u wanna party, that’s the place to go.

The next day we decided to get some tickets to Gili Trawangan to find a more peaceful island wt nice beaches and as I found out, there were some Swiss friends on the way to that island too, Andreas and Fabienne.

A very early wake up, a bus transfer to the harbor and a bumpy 2h boat ride later we found ourselves on Gili Trawangan, a scenic little island north west of Lombok. I f u rent a bike u can ride around the island in about 1hour. There are 3 islands here side by side and the best thing about all of them, there is no traffic, 0 motorized vehicles. The only way to get from from ur hotel to the beach or a restaurant is by foot, bicycle or horse carriage.

Plenty of dive schools offer courses and fun dives, the good thing is u don’t have to worry about prices, they are all the same in all schools. So u can actually choose ur school by the people and the service and not by cheapest price. My fun dive was good, I’ve seen some ginormous turtles, the tiniest little shrimp a whole lot of very colorful fishes.. too many to know or list their names here.  

We climbed the highest mountain on the island to enjoy the sunset… must have been at least 100m high ;-) The sun was shining when we walked up but never showed up for sunset…. But hey we had a good workout.

The restaurants on the island are pretty good but a bit more expensive then most other places. We spent dinner mostly together wt my Swiss friends and some good chats and laughs about our travels and journeys.

After a couple of days of laziness we decided to move on to Kuta Lombok, which is a famous surf destination. When we arrived in Kuta we figured out that there is actually no real good spot right here, the next best one is in Gerupuk, about 10minutes motorbike drive away. We headed straight there and found a nice little homestay for 10$/night. This was our base now for some days of surfing and exploring.

The first day of surfing was not so successful… haven’t been on one of those boards for a long time… more used to my small kiteboards. The second time I took a longer board and caught much more waves and had more fun after all. The wave (Don don) we surfed was just a 5minute boat ride outside of our homestay and it could have been named the Swiss wave… at least 80% of all people on this wave were Swiss… and I think the rest was French.

We made a country side trip wt our motor bikes, it’s amazing how many waves u can find in the area, every 15minutes u find a new beach and the further u go the more remote the spots. Time has gone fast and it was already time to say goodbye to Carolina, we had a good time and lots of fun in the sun. For me it was just two more days over here and some good waves later I took a plane back to Kuta. This is much faster and cheaper than taking a bus, boat, bus version.

Cheap flights

I headed straight for Sanur beach this time. I found a cheap place to stay right next to the local market... which I would visit various times for dinner within the next days. The food here is great, local and very cheap. I explored the beaches around here for a few days and tried to get some kiteboarding in… but the wind was not really wt me, as I don’t really like to kite wt a 14 or 16m kite. I would say it’s a very good spot for race boards.

I took my motorbike for a longer ride up to Ubud, which is in the middle of the island. Most of the local craftsmen live and work up in this area, on the way up there u can see countless shops for furniture, wood frames, sarongs, masks…

I took a  two hour walk along the rice paddies and small canals. It’s a very relaxed atmosphere up here, perfect to enjoy nature for a while. I made up plans to return the very next day as there was a big cremation ceremony goin on.

The ceremony was amazing, no sign of sadness and grieve. It is a happy, crazy ceremony where the body got transported through the streets inside a big black cow. The body and soul gets into a better life reunited wt the 5 elements water, wind, earth, fire and universe. It takes hundreds of helpers to carry the up to 15tonnes structures along the road. If u have the chance to see any of these ceremonies, it’s a must do.

From here on I went down to Uluwatu, which is one of the most famous surf spots in Bali. Thx to my friend and surfer Samia I found a very good stay. 20$/night. There is a big Brasilian community over her, and especially in my hotel. They all come over to surf for a couple of month usually. The swell was not very big, so perfect for me to rent a board and have some more fun out there. I surfed Padang-Padang for a day and went to check out the other spots as well, but due to the full moon the tide was only high enough in the morning... if u don’t like to get washed over the reef.

So this was pretty much it… a very nice trip wt loads of good people, a lot of fun and stunning nature and amazing beaches all around.

Back to Bangkok now and off to Japan before I will head back to Switzerland for a couple of weeks.

Read Full...

Red Bull island hopping

 

Red bull kitecomp in Sri Lanka

after the cook islands I had to fly straight back to Sri Lanka, so no time to see a bit of new Zealand, but it will be on my schedule next time ;-)

The guys from KSL, kitesurfing Lanka kiteschool in Kalpitiya, asked me if I have time to come and organize the red bull downwind race from Kappaladi lagoon via Kalpitiya lagoon to Dream spot, a 25km downwind race.  It fit into my schedule so I said yes and booked flights to Sri Lanka. I went through a few time zones and back over the date line again. So I checked in just before midnight on the 2^nd of July, took a flight to Auckland 4.5h, had a layover of 5hours, a flight to Bangkok for almost 13h, another 3h layover and 3.5h flight to Sri Lanka… but not enough yet, there was a 3-4h drive up to Kalpitiya waiting as well… so finally I arrived at about 5AM on the 5^th July in the KSL camp.  Just to have a good, cold beer and a bit of sleep.

I would feel the time zones for the next couple of days… waking up every morning around 5AM, not my normal schedule.

When I woke up, the wind was blowing, as it was every day for the last 7 weeks… that’s when I left here last time. The camp has improved it’s look, more hammocks, lazy chairs and chill out and it was still fully booked, since the day it opened. Dil and Leo are doin a great job here.

I had a couple of good kiting sessions and a few meetings and site check ups wt Dil during the next two days. The Red Bull crew has arrived as well and we had some meeting wt them as well.

The whole event should be fun and free for all. Our main thing to organize was to get the limited photo and video crews to the right spot at the right time and to guarantee the safety of the 45riders that were registered.

The competition day started off wt and early morning drive up to the starting area. The guys set up the red bull tent and we got the final registration done. I made a short briefing about the route that we will run, the flags used for the start and making sure everyone knew about the pack down and safety procedures.

So the 11AM start was set and ready to go. We set a downwind start line, which was the best we could to wt the resources we had. Surprisingly it was a clear start., except for one guy who didn’t listen to the flag instructions… but I’m used to that by now 

As expected Fabio Ingrosso took an early lead and crossed the checkpoint on the sandbar at Kalpitiya lagoon in first place few hundred meters ahead of every one else. He managed to win the race one minute ahead of everyone else. The second part of the race was then a upwind leg back to the lagoon. which was attended only by a handful of crazy kiters. It was a straight 10km upwind along the mangrove channel back to the red bull tent. This time local hero Mowfil was o top of his game and made it back up in just a bit over 45minutes.

The price giving was held shortly after on the beach before everyone went home for shower and party nap, to get ready for the red bull after party. I had way to many vodka red bulls but the party was good fun for all.. till the next morning came and the hangovers kicked in.

I think there was a bit too much dancing during the night so that we did not have any energy left for a wind dance on the beach. Believe it or not it was the first day in Sri Lanka for almost 2month with no wind… so if u need a rest, just organize a competition and u will be blessed wt no wind… murphy’s law I guess.

The event was still a full success and hopefully will be continued next year wt a bit more difficulty added to it.

Thanx to Red Bull Sri Lanka, to Dil and Leo from KSL and to all the riders who made this event a great happening.

I’m off to Bali now… changed my plans a bit in the last minute but that’s coming up in the next blog.

Read Full...

Aitutaki, Manureva international kiteboarding competition

So after ten days on the island it was time to head over to Aitutaki, to the spot where the competition was held.

I met a pilot on Rarotonga, his name was Ianis, and it happened that he was also flying the day I went over to Aitutaki. When I entered the plane he called me right up into the cockpit, so I could spend the start, the whole flight and the landing up front, it’s very different from the normal seats in the back.

My first project on Aitutaki was to build a kicker, which should last for a while, so the locals can use it till long time after the comp.

Our hotel was at Maina landing, it is run by Lawten and Aunty Marie the most amazing people around here. Both of them are really good at what they do and very helpful at any moment.

The boats leave from here to the honeymoon island (Motu Maina Iti), that’s where all the kitesurfer go to play. I have seen the spot already from the airplane, it looked like paradise.

The first morning I was able to grab a ride over to the motu and got to ride this paradise spot, the water is clean and all kind of blue and green, there is plenty of fish and corals but also some spots wt sandy bottom.

I have seen lot’s of kitespots around the world but this one is out of this world, flat turquoise  water, warm weather, good winds, pregnant coconut trees, smiling people all around u and a lot of space to play.

After a couple of days here, the rest of the team arrived. They were overwhelmed by the picturesque of this place.

The wind forecast was a bit shaky for the week, but we managed to pick the best day out of it and held the whole comp during one day. We started of wt freestyle expression session followed by two around the island races. Then the wind dropped a bit and we changed the format to downwind slalom. This format was a lot of fun for all competitors. We started wt a reach start went around a couple of buoys along the south side of the island and finished underneath the island. The competitors could just walk back across the island after the finish to get back up for the next start. The races were short and a lot of fun for all competitors. We managed to get 3 races in the bag before the wind went further down and the day came to an end.

The next days was not too much wind and we did some no wind activities. We spent a morning at the local school and judged a recycle kite building competition. We had a about 60 to 100kidds running around the grass field wt their kites up in the air, amazingly some of them stayed up for almost and hour even though there was no wind on the ground.

It was amazing to see all the efforts the kids put into the building of the kites, it was probably the most difficult decision to find the best kites.

The afternoon of the same day was action filled wt local kanu paddling for all competitors. It was a big local fight goin on between Paka and Ijanis, both choose their teams and battle it out on the water… and I guess the result will bring up many more discussions… since these two guys were also responsible for the most crashed on the water during the kite races. So next year we will organize a one on one race between these two ;-)

Then we came to the final price giving night, which was held at the wharf wt a local night market. No one knew the results and so the tension was high. The winner of the kite comp was a combined scoring of freestyle and race and also the kids were waiting to know who build the best kite.

All the winners got local shell medals, which were the best medals I’ve seen in all the comps I’ve been to and the girls got some local black pearls.

We had a buffet dinner afterwards and a after party local style till the early morning hours as usual... the unusual thing came the next morning wt a 9AM flight back to Rarotonga, surprisingly everyone made it out of bed and onto the plane… hangover.

We all agree that we had the best time in the Cook islands and it was well worth the long travel. What a great end of the 2012 season. This spot has a lot of potential and we will be back for more. More competitions and kitesurfing education projects.

 

 I like to send my special thanx to all the warm, welcoming, big hearted people of Rarotonga and Aitutaki. Specially Paka the main organizer, Conrad and Serena and kids and JT and his wife for the hospitality, as well as Lawten and aunty Marie for the help and hospitality, Ianis the pilot and MA MAN and all the local boys and girls, kitesurfers and dancers.

Keep up ur good spirits and u will go a long way.

We will do our best to send u all of our friends ur way and we will tell the world what a great peace of paradise u have out there.

So now I’m sitting in the plane to Sri Lanka and looking back at a very good time.

2012 was a hard start and a blast in the end; 2013 will be even bigger and as much fun for everyone.

Next stop Sri Lanka, Australia or Bali :-), Japan and finally Switzerland…

Read Full...