JayD stoked for ya!, but wow, 6 grand. Man times have changed. Did a 14 day boat trip in Mentawais in '01 on a pretty decent boat,crew,food, etc, and it cost me $2500. That was including airfare! Never got below 2 foot overhead until last day. Would love to go back and stay at NoKanduis. Rifles wasn't doin it when I was there, and that wave looks insane. But did catch all the other big name spots with no crowds.
Sooo right. One day at Lance's Rights a sailboat pulled up and 2 guys jumped out leaving their girls on board. They said they sailed all the way from Cali, and hit up everywhere in between.
Thanks Mitchell. I was a bit bummed at first about missing Nias...it was not that good and crowded and a fresh deep south was coming so we headed straight to Banyaks. Your right about the sounds from the uninhibited islands. We did a little excursion to one of the empty beaches and it was surreal. Only sounds of the jungle...I felt like any minute some indigenous dude was going to jump out of the bush or a tiger or something. yeaaa...the hot towels. I had Asahi's before meals and finished with Whiskey on the rocks. "Seriti"
Times have changed. Was $2500 all in? I basically could have done the trip for $4800. once you add in photo package, massage in Singapore, Sushi in Tokyo etc etc, that sh adds up quick.
Yep. Included hotel in Padang, beer stockpile for boat and banana massage back in Padang after 14 days of mind numbing perfection. No photo package. Two guys got raked badly across reef first 2 days, and didn't surf at all rest of trip. They were more than happy to film.
Not at all. Only boat at Lances for two days. In fact the only place that had more than 2 boats was Macaronis.
God damn guys you are making me STOKED. My ticket is punched... 3 weeks from today, I leave for 35 days of Indo awesome. Thanks for the reports and anecdotes. I'm planning on being land-based, since my GF will be there, and she can't do much besides make it down the line. Though I must confess... after hearing of all this boat-awesomeness, I'm tempted to hop on a boat for a week (1K? I will already be there...). My ticket is into Jakarta. Plan for now is to go there, meet my GF, take the train east through Java, exploring temples and surfing where possible. Then over to Bali for a few weeks of dedicated surfing. Then check out the Komodos before coming home. I definitely don't want to travel around the world only to paddle-battle frothing Aussie Bogans while dodging Euro-Buoys. So I'm considering Lombok and Sumbawa. Maybe 1 week Bali, 1 week Lombok, 1 week Sumbawa? What do you guys think? Better off staying in one spot? Hit it all? Ditch Bali for an island further East? I'm going the opposite direction of Nias, so I realize you dudes may not have even seen that part of Indo, but if anyone who has would wanna chime in, it would be much appreciated. JayD, you are a lucky and smart bastard to drop coin like that on such an experience. Cheers to you. And Archie, you're a lucky motherf*cker for catching it when you did. Between Google Earth and the exploding popularity of surfing, the days of scoring like that are coming to an end.
How much was your ticket? I checked out San Diego to Jakarta and found round trips for $775-900 Talked to my boss today about potentially missing 2 weeks of work mid September.
Damn! Sick deal.... DO IT! I paid $885 from Newark to Jakarta, 23.5 hours, one stop on the way over (Tokyo) and two on the way back (Tokyo & Chicago, woof). $50 of that was the 'CSA travel protection' in case I need to cancel it due to injury/emergency. ANA airlines (Japanese) through Kayak/Justfly.com. Thankfully I can take off whenever I want for however long I want. The problem is that I don't get paid during that time haha. $775-900 is great though. Tried to get my bud to pull the trigger for $1100 in August but I doubt he'll do it. My ticket to Germany a month ago was $850 so I'll gladly drop that for Indo. As long as it's not a Chinese airline .... yikes.
G-Land!!!!!!!! I've seen guys with their non surfin girls there. If you like nature it's beautiful. There's a temple kinda thing that's like an hour hike, accommodations are nice. But I'm goin off my experience in 1999. Don't know the situation now. I'm sure it's improved, and the trades blow offshore all day, and due to its geographic location it picks up more swell than Bali. Also it's a national park accessed by boat only, so you won't have to deal with any kind of local population annoyances. Have fun Slash and be safe. Btw the reef is a mile long with numerous sections that spreads the crowd out, and if there is a swell running, people tend to get surfed out. So a solo sesh isn't out of the question.
Right on Slash...35 dayz is sweet! Sounds like you got a deal on tickets...I guess my ticket was a bit more flying in to Medan versus Jakarta (cost $1600). I gotta say I love being on a boat so to experience it and surf was killer. I was surfing with a guy from another boat (Aussie...which you are right, everyone traveling there besides our crew were Aussie), he booked at the last minute and was able to get a deal. The boats post up their schedules and availability on their sites. I would play it as a last minute thing and try to score a week on the boat for cheap....some of them are 10-12 days). I did some research on Lombok and that place looks insane! Your stoked and good luck!
