Off to Climb a Mountain

We left Lembongan on the supply boat back to Padang Bai on Bali, only 7 of us and a pile of bags, on a sailing boat about as big as a small car, but no time to think about the delicacy of this position if a big swell hit, as a wet sail carries us all the way to the mainland with the fish jumping and dancing beside us.

From Padang Bai, we headed across to the island of Lombok. I made the decision to leave the boards behind, no chasing waves, we went chasing a mountain instead.
My physiology makes me good at running fast on flat ground but when it comes to going uphill I am not really inclined (pun intended)

The people of Lombok, who are Muslim, share a laid-back approach to life similar to the Balinese, it is on the big-population centre of Java, where the central government is based, that the most extreme fundamentalist elements plot to destabilise the harmony of the Indonesian archipelago. I find it hard to conceive of this country of over 13,000 islands and around 200 million people with such a diverse cultural, ethnic and linguistic landscape but my little taste of it allowed me to experience the power that faith and family values can bring to a people whose standard of living, in monetary terms, is far inferior to our own, but whose outlook on life is far superior in many ways.

The night before leaving I suggested to my friend that we might climb Gunung Rinjani, the second highest peak in Indonesia at 3,700+ metres, and being an adventurous person, she agreed.
So off we plunged to begin this epic test of endurance and stamina, both of which we had to find along the way. We climbed to around 2,700 metres the first day, gasping for air and hugging trees for therapy, doing whatever it takes to get up there and the reward was a spectacular sunset looking west to Bali, eyeball to eyeball with Agung peak and sitting atop an exceptionally beautiful volcano crater lake.

We wake at two am the next morning and head to the summit, which is alright when you can't see what you're doing but as daylight appears we're not quite there but staring at what seems like more than a fort-five degree slope to get to the top. We pushed ourselves to a point and then sat down to take in the sunrise. My friend waits while I push on, literally hands and heels because the centre of gravity is better that way. When I reach the summit the pain in my legs and lungs doesn’t seem to matter, at this height nothing seems to matter, the world is so insignificant.
My friend gets to the top around twenty minutes later, with that true Irish spirit she says that there was no point sitting there freezing, wondering what might have been. We take a few photos, gather ourselves and make the quick descent back to camp and a well-earned breakfast. (Over three hours up and one hour down is the equation)

Sixteen hours later we finished our day having descended a long way into the crater and then out again and then down again to darkness and rest. I reckon they need to employ a special minister for trekking just so that you know what you're in for, it gave new meaning to the word 'understatement', we still had to walk out for three hours the next day, minus shoes for they were superfluous to our feets requirements. A satisfying achievement, but it took another three days of makan tidur on the island of Gili Meno to rest our battered and sore bodies and to begin to feel sane again.

We headed back to Bali again, for some time in the mountain retreat of Ubud, a great place to unwind, a motorbike trip through the volcanoes of Kintamani and up to Lovina in the north to visit the hot springs (oh so soothing for the weary body) and another run in with the law, another red light, of course I still haven't seen it and this time a hundred and fifty thousand, but at least they took my money with a smile.

We finished our journey at Bingin beach, down the Uluwatu road, almost got wiped out by a French woman lighting a cigarette, taking a corner on the continental side of the road, we were mostly unscathed. We stayed in a hut on the hillside overlooking the beach and I finally dusted the cobwebs off the board and had a few very satisfying waves at 'Impossibles', not Bingin for the line-up was a traffic jam, even a few goat-boats out there, seemingly not drilling the reef but contributing to the havoc of over-touristed breaks.

Before leaving Bali I sold the board for fifty thousand rupiah, no prospective buyer appreciated the big crease on the bottom of it from some heavy wipe-outs, I bought myself one last Bintang, contemplated the sunset and my friend and I flew out the next day on separate planes.

Unfortunately, the day before I left Bali another bomb went off in Jakarta, this time outside the Australian embassy
I was so joyed to be flying through Jakarta the day after another bomb [not] and the day before September 11.
The Balinese I talked to about the bomb in Jakarta were just as dumbfounded as me, they really haven't got the time for it, it's bad for business and they're not an angry people.

Excuse the political angle for just a moment, but I believe our little John got past the post in the October 2004 election by getting mileage out of the fear this generated. A political tactic but perhaps in the poorest taste, but then that is his style after all.

Next Stop Thailand .................

I Am Just a Humble Big Red

“Keith’s Asian Odyssey” – August 12, 2004 to February 14, 2005.

Keiths Biography

My name’s Keith, the red kangaroo, I was born on Australia Day (January 26) 1970, I stand over two metres tall and can put a man on the ground with one good hit, not that I get into it, we’re pacifists really, us big reds.

As I like to say, ‘the world is Keith’s Oyster’, and recently I left the country on a travel in South-East Asia and India. It is a real eye-opener for me to compare and contrast the Asian culture with our own fundamentally euro-centric and conservative lot.

This is the story of my “Tour of Duty”, surfing the breaks and climbing mountains in Indonesia, tracing the war histories of Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam and Laos on "the great eastern grand prix circuit" and generally crossing paths with a cast of thousands, I hope you enjoy the read.

With a little trepidation I was loaded onto a Garuda airlines flight bound for Indonesia, though we weren’t flying Qantas, I had literally become the flying kangaroo they talk about in their advertising and quite honestly it was a little scary to be lifting off the terra-firma, more than the average bounding step I usually take. Though I was stuck in the cargo hold I could feel every one of those 30,000 odd feet as we rose above the ground, and the exhilaration of anticipation kept my nostrils flaring until we touched down again.

The first stop on my tour of duty was Bali, where I landed on a hot August day, to be greeted by a thousand unfamiliar faces and a scene unlike anything I had witnessed before.

Bali as you might know is a Hindu outpost in a Muslim-majority country, which makes it distinctly different in its take on Indonesian life. As a major tourist destination since the 1970’s for Australians in search of sun, surf and cheap everything (call it our Hawaii), the relationship we have with the Balinese is based on a shared sense of humour and an easy-going approach to life.

The bond was strengthened, all-be-it under tragic circumstances, by the bomb blast which ripped through two nightclubs in the tourist drag of Kuta on October 12, 2002.
This act of terror by Muslim extremists galvanized the vast cultural differences in Indonesia and most tellingly it increased the paranoia about the agenda of terrorists who showed no mercy in killing not only non-Muslims but their fellow-countrymen.
To the credit of these people they have worked through the trauma of such an event by getting on with business, which they are exceedingly good at, though I found it hard to witness my fellow people grinding them into the ground to save fifty cents on a pair of thongs, etc, etc, but this is all part of the deal I suppose.

The surf at Kuta is as flat as a pancake mostly, hardly a surfers paradise. So I headed out to the mythical break Uluwatu for a surf. This spot is infamous for a difficult paddle through the rip, which plagues the steep cliffs of the area. I actually managed to catch some waves in the gentle 3 to 4 foot conditions, and better still managed to paddle back into the cave without being pounded on the rocks. On the way out there on a scooter I copped a fifty thousand rupiah fine for running a red light, I swear I didn't see it, still haven’t, but try telling the traffic cops. They love a few tourist dollars to line the pockets particularly as the locals don’t slow down for anything.

Also went down to Jimbarran Bay, the seafood capital of Bali, where huts rub shoulders on the beach, as the fishing fleet, in a blaze of lights, is doing much the same out at sea. The spread is sumptuous and all for next to nothing, while the highlight is the wandering troubadours that drift up and down the sand entertaining the punters with some scintillating interpretations from the classic rock canon.
Since that night another bomb went off on this beach killing people from my hometown of Newcastle. This tragedy highlighted the rather arbitrary and callous pattern of the terrorists; they pick tourist targets but their not averse to killing their own people to make their point

My travelling companion for the Indo journey wanted to learn to surf. Being from Ireland, where water temperatures are, shall we say brisk and the waves of a considerable size, Bali is much more inviting as a school playground.
We headed over to Nusa Lembongan to stay with Ketuk and Sons in their Warung (small restaurant) and home; the fish they cook is a special, and their hospitality a pleasure. We took the executive suite and settled in for a week of Makan Tidur, Makan = Food, Tidur = Sleep, it literally translates from Indonesian as 'to do nothing', and is now firmly entrenched as my new mantra.
We found a good spot down on the beachfront for beeroclock sunset and peanuts each day, had a great time snorkelling on the reefs around the volcanic island Nusa Penida and caught the festivities of the Barong Dan festival which is like a Christmas for the gods, where the locals dress in traditional costumes and celebrate with music and dance.

I am not a fan of the wave at Shipwrecks [a.k.a. shit-fights] and unfortunately, in my capacity as surfing mentor to my friend I was most negligent in letting her out near the break where she was unceremoniously pounded by the sets and I managed no more than a few half waves. Thankfully with some coaxing she forgave me for my indiscretion as teacher. Needless to say the boards were parked for the rest of our time on the island.


In the next instalment read about my experience of climbing a mountain on Lombok ...................