Bali's first surfers

[Tom]

Hey Headmount, did you see this:

http://www.surfersjournal.com/bali-first-surfers-kuta-hotel

[headmount]

Wild.  Didn't know that.  That was a totally different world back then before WWII.  The islands were still a Dutch colony.  WWII and the counter coup of the mid sixties was a severe dark age where anything previous was wiped away.  When my brother first came there in 1968 all visitors were shuttled away to the Bali Beach Intercontinental on the Sanur side of the island.  But my brother had heard a rumor and slipped away to Kuta.  He slept on the ruins of that hotel mentioned in this article when he first arrived.    That ruin is gone now as well as the house my brother had that has been replaced by a Starbucks in the corner of the Hard Rock Cafe. 

Surfing my have caught the eye of a few locals back then but by the time I brought boards down there in 1969 any memory of surfing had been erased in the trauma of WWII, independence war from Dutch and the communist counter coup of the mid sixties.  All the older people were afraid of the water and it was only the young kids who saw us doing it and figured out those fears didn't need to belong to them.

I liked the image of getting there on a steamship rather than a jet plane... well it was a prop plane for me the first time I went from Djakarta to Bali.  Surabaya SUe... loved it.

[surfcowboy]

Great read. Thanks for posting. Amazing how much good a war can wash away.

[supthecreek]

Thanks Tom... that was a good read.
Very poignant ending, with Tom carrying the jar into the waves, unnoticed by the surfers.

[eastbound]

thx tom--nice lil read

[surf4food]

Pretty interesting.  I always thought the first surfers in Bali were Americans/Australians in the 70's. 

[JimK]

What a story and such an ending
Thanks for posting

JimK
Extreme Windsurfing