Ed Would Go

Catch a Wave

2011-01-31T10:55:00.003+05:30

My blog, covering surfing in Varkal, Kerala, is now at:
http://www.edtempleton.net/
Find out more about surf in india at my site:
http://www.soulandsurf.com

From home... to home.

2010-10-31T09:34:00.001+05:30

The next post can be found at www.edtempleton.net

The Saviour!

2010-08-01T21:54:00.001+05:30

Contrary to some mis-interpretations of my recent irony-laden post on El Salvador, it was one of the surprise highlights of the trip. Surprise because of the bad-wrap El Salvador receives from all and sundry, a deep-rooted prejudice I played-up with all the subtlety of a pantomime dame in ‘that’ post in the hope that readers could see both sides of the coin. Perhaps irony and blogging are mutually exclusive or perhaps we’re are so used to hearing El Salvador maligned that negative asssumptions were made — making an ass out of u and me.

I write this in a high-back Chesterfield chair in the heart of the astoundingly beautiful Sussex countryside as I try (and so far fail) to acclimatise to the voracious consumption-driven society of modern Britain — if you’re not spending then you’re asleep — and The Saviour’s absence makes the heart grow even fonder. God, I’m missing those waves, those people, those avocados and the most valuable commodity of all, that delicious, engulfing, luxuriant time. Precious time. Even though this is, in essence, is just the UK leg of the trip before we head back to post-monsoon India to open the Soul&Surf House in Kerala, and I’m not at work there is something about this society that rips the hours and minutes from your grasp, never to be regained. How on earth I managed to hold down a job aswell as jumping through all of the hoops it takes to exist here I will never know.

Oh for the simple life — Simple pleasures.
Good food.
Good company.
Good health.
Good heart.
Good waves.

Now how do I integrate that into life back home?
Answers on a postcard please.
(Or by mail to hello@edtempleton.net)

Please Note:
This blog is slowly moving over to my site at:
www.edtempleton.net

Give us a break.

2010-07-17T17:04:00.002+05:30

Everybody needs a break.
Even those of us already on a ten month break.
We needed a break from the break.

With three surfboards and and the associated paraphernalia in tow we’re not exactly nimble travellers so we’ve tended to find a nice spot near the coast and stay put for a while. But, we’ve learned, there’s more to life than the beach so we take the occasional mini-break from our break. We leave our cumbersome baggage with trustworthy coastal dwellers and skip, fleet-footed inland with only daypacks to hold us down. Our trip has been punctuated throughout with these weekenders and because of their contrast to surf-life they remain some of our strongest memories in a trip brimming over with highlights. The long weekend in Fort Cochin, northern Kerala and a spring-break in Ubud and the central highlands mark indelibly on my otherwise moribund memory.

Leaving our boards and travel-bag with the wonderfully sweet Jani at our hotel in El Tunco we drank down the last drops of farewell with our newfound international surf-family and took a shuttle west for a bit of culture(innit). Guatemala is the only Central American country which genuinely retains some indigenous culture. Mayan villages, peoples, language, dress and customs remain surprisingly intact, particularly in the highlands, uncorrupted by the inexorable Yank-ification which, via CIA militia-funding and corporate colonialism, has already consumed most surrounding countries. It was this American colonial defiance which drew us first to Antigua, ironically to see a well—preserved Spanish colonial-town, then to Lake Atitlan for the real deal.

Despite the hordes of tourists that both of these ‘authentic’ sites attract their inherent beauty remained and enough real life weaved around the tourist-focused attractions for us to gain a sense that these were still living, thriving communities. Now they just have a $ boost from the gringo.

Hours after our departure from El Tunco a flash-flood consumed our hotel, sweeping cars and cattle down the street and out to sea. The river rose three metres within 30 minutes engulfing the ground floor in a swirling, swampy broth. Our bag had been stored in the ground-floor office of the hotel so we returned to a bag full of mud-drenched clothes, books, travel documents, notebooks, medical kit, toiletries and all the aide-memoirs we’ve been lugging around the world with us for nearly a year. As we sifted through our soiled, sorry possessions our heads and hearts dropped. The flood, and subsequent storms had scared off most itinerant surfers, the place was empty, the locals were rebuilding and repairing and our spirits were low. That evening we chatted, laboriously via google translate, with our still smiling, gun-toting, effusive night guard. He and his family of four lived a little further up stream and they, along with their neighbours, had lost pretty much everything. Their clothes, furniture TV, cooking equipment… everything. Only minutes after the water first crept under their door their two young boys were up to their necks and scrambling and swimming for their lives in the pitch darkness as the water continued to rise. Thankfully everyone in the area survived, but it put our measly inconvenience into perspective and shook us from our self-indulgent bourgeois despair.

PLEASE NOTE: This blog is moving to my own page here: www.edtempleton.net

D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-don’t do it… baby.

2010-07-05T22:20:00.003+05:30

El Salvador. The most dangerous, god-forsaken hell-hole in all of Christendom. What in Beelzebub’s name were we thinking coming to a place with such a bad reputation. Even in the badlands of Nicaragua people would lean in, speaking in hushed tones, as they told tales of hapless surf-travellers being accosted on the beach, a line being drawn in the sand over which they were forced to lie face down with their heads on one side of the line their bodies on the other as the prelude to an horrific, yet reassuringly accurate beheading. The cheery old yank on Ometepe joyfully assured us our bus would be stopped and ransacked by gangsters with AK47’s as soon as we crossed the border from Honduras, and you know he was right, damn him. Travel is mind numbingly slow in this country as you negotiate one set of gangsters after another, one step forwards two steps back, each gang taking a little more of your stuff and a little more of your time until the A23/Croydon route into London with it’s intricately mistimed traffic lights seems like a breeze.

Arriving in the La Libertad area, the beginning of the Ruta del Surf, penniless, possesion-less, naked and late is disappointing beyond comprehension. The succession of famed, long, clean right hand point-break waves are a mere fabrication — Give me ‘hotpipes’, the Power station outlet pipe near Shoreham harbour, any day.

Sunzal point is an inconsistent, short right that’s hardly worth the three mile paddle out and it doesn’t hold any size at all — I don’t remember witnessing a succession of double-overhead days in the space of a fortnight. Punta Roca, the jewel in Central America’s pointbreaks is worse. A muddy dribble of an excuse. It wasn’t fast, shallow or remotely exhilarating and the chance of getting there and back with your board and shorts are pretty slim in this crime-ridden area. KM59? Don’t even bother. Ugly, dull and lifeless with locals who’ll stab you in the back as soon as look at you.

We stayed in a dreary, drab hotel on the El Tunco riverbank. With no swimming pool, no wifi and no kitchen the $15 a night we paid was extortionate. We stayed for a month.

And the people! Don’t get me started on the people. There was never a good atmosphere in the water, the locals never smiled, never waved ‘Hola’ as you paddled out, they never gave you a wave or beamed ‘No problem’ if you accidently dropped in. The travelling surfers were worse, the Brazilians were mean and unsmiling, the Aussie’s and NZ’ers their usual dour-faced misery-guts, the Canadians lived up to their billing of the most unpleasant, hostile people on Earth and the Americans, particularly those from Utah, were closed-minded, humourless people. We didn’t hang out with any of them and we certainly didn’t have a really good party one night with Vinny, Luis, Jay & Eric involving tequila and swimming pools.

Papusas? Poo-poo-sas more like. The 35¢ maize flour patties filled with combinations of pollo, cheese, frijoles, an unidentified green vegetable and pork, made to order and griddled on road-side stoves were only marginally better than the burritos we were forced to endure. Packed with ripe avocados, beans, rice and chicken forcing one down was a real strength of will over wisdom.

So if you’re planning a surf trip to El Salvador, do yourself a favour, don’t do it.
Honestly. ; )

PLEASE NOTE: This blog is moving to my own page here: www.edtempleton.net

Blog Change

2010-06-12T00:04:00.004+05:30

From now on I'll be blogging on my own website;
www.edtempleton.net
I'll still this page for a while and for archives but please note the change of address.
Thanks,
Ed

Mana-Gwa, Nica-Ragwa with a Jag-wa.

2010-06-11T23:59:00.003+05:30

The trouble with these remote access Central American point breaks is that you can’t take a camera. To get to Lance’s Left near El Astillero, Nicaragua we took a bone-rattling ride in Johnny’s pint-sized hire-car to the fishing village. We then walked for half an hour North up the beach, fording rivers and scrambling over high-tide storm debris until we reached the headland which forms the point-break. We then had to inch our way around the rocky headland, making a dash for it between sets to avoid being dashed upon the rocks before finally reaching the paddle out spot. Even if I wanted to risk bringing my D200 on that trip I wouldn’t have like to hide it in the bushes whilst we surfed… So in nearly 3 weeks of Nica-Surfing I’ve not got a single photograph. Which begs a peculiarly 21st Century question ‘If I didn’t photograph it, did it really happen?’. With almost every appliance we own, bar the toaster, boasting a 11.1 Mega-pixel digital camera red, green and blue pixels have replaced memory and story-telling as our primary means of recounting our experiences.

So let me tell you this.
The waves in the Popoyo area are good. Popoyo reef, the areas main attraction is great but too crowded, if you aren’t local and you don’t rip then expect to bob more than you surf. Lance’s left was huge, scary and with regular clean-up sets, long hold downs, murky brown water and a rip-from-hell it doesn’t sound much like fun - but it was. I survived, I caught some great waves and the rides were 100m+ leg-burners.
The rocks are sharp and often shallow and took chunks out of my board, costing $15 in excellent ding repair.
The weather was often stormy as we caught the periphery of Agatha, the tropical storm that wreaked havoc on Guatamala, turning the ocean into frothing chocolate milk.
The isolated surf outpost of Popoyo —a 30 minute low-tide wade through a mangrove estuary and across salt flats to the nearest shop, a 2 hour odyssey to the nearest super-mercado — was galvanized by a blitz-spirit community. The power failed regularly and toward the end of our stay we were left sans-electricity for a day or more, so the few surf devotees dotted around the river-mouth congregated at the place we called home, Vaca Loca, a guest-house and pizza/pasta joint run by a wonderful Italian couple. Chess was played, guitars were strummed, rum was produced, ice was found, beers were cooled so by the time the power returned after dusk we were primed and raring to go, culminating in a midnight mass skinny-dip, which only Sofie and I translated as a ‘skinny’ dip.

But the waves are lefts and I’m a regular foot surfer and we’ve been surfing lefts, lefts and more lefts since November so the draw of El Salvadors right points within spitting distance to the North was too much for me. So we packed, again, and lugged our boards, bags and gadgets first to Ometepe, a magical island formed from two volcanoes peeking out of Lago de Nicaragua for a few days of culture, fresh-spring dips, some hiking, some bug-battling and some monkey wrangling. Then back to the featurelss, grim and downright dangerous city of Managua for our cross-border ride to San Salvador, and the rights, the rights, the rights….

Money makes you go round the world

2010-05-25T20:43:00.004+05:30

The benefits we have been exploiting of global differences in currency values — the £10k saved in 8 months of UK work would last a scant 3 months of UK living, yet translated into Rupees, Rupiahs and Cordobas it yields 10 months of the good life and global travel — throughout this trip played in reverse once we set foot on the ‘developed’ soil of Australia, New Zealand and even Tonga in a budget-crushing three week spell. Sterling has traditionally been one of the World’s strongest currencies rendering most-of-the-rest-of-the-world as bargain destinations. The descent of the £ as a result of the global Financial fiasco has reversed that trend with a vengeance. Our daily budget which in more exotic climes would give us our own luxurious bungalow, large terrace overlooking the shared pool, breakfast, lunch, dinner, scooter rental, a few drinks and the odd treat t’boot barely got us lunch and coffees in Australia. Sure, it’s becoming more expensive down-under anyway — is there really any need for a bottle of Samuel Smith’s bitter to cost £15 in a Melbourne bar? — but combine that with sterling’s plummet made living unaided here impossible for us. As we’ve meandered the globe the tumble of the pound has been a constant companion. When we arrived in India we got Rs.75 to the £, by the time we left it was under Rs.70. We kicked off Indo with a whopping Rs15,000 to a single £ but eft with a meagre Rs.13,000 in our pockets in exchange for our golden-nugget. Month by month, country by country, treat by treat we’ve had to cut out a chai a day here, a Beng-Beng there, a packet of (chocolate enrobed) Chikys over there until eventually I guess we’ll be reduced to drinking from puddles and sleeping in hedges.

The £3 Global Lunch Equation 2009/2010
United = 1x limp, soggy, plastic wrappered prawn sandwich
France = 1x jambon et fromage croissant
India = 6x all-you-can-eat sublime vegetarian Thalis incl. pickles and drink
Indonesia = 3x delicious Nasi Campur incl. tempe & sambal
Australia = 1x microwaved meat pie
New Zealand = 1x Lamb Pide sandwich
Tonga = 1 tiny sandwich incl. 1 soggy tomato slice & 1 fluro cheese-slice
Nicaragua = 2x Fish Casados incl. rice, beans, plantain & salad.
El Salvador = tbc.

In Aus we were staying for free with family and friends who (over)fed, (over)watered, clothed and (over)indulged our every whim and we still blew our budget on a few coffees, the odd lunch, a few drinks and a missed internal flight. My family and Sofie’s friends were generous, happy and willing hosts yet our poverty and the sense of impotency that accompanies it made us a little uncomfortable. The feeling that even if they had let us — which they probably wouldn’t — we couldn’t contribute was unnerving. Providing, momentarily, a tiny peek, via a miniscule crack through a door into true, genuine poverty and how debilitating and humiliating that must be on top of the physical hardships that it inevitably produces.

For all my miserly griping our Australia visit was sublime. The Brisbanians were great company, great entertainers and truly wonderful hosts, all of them from 3 year-old Bubba to 49 year-old Pappa. The simple pleasures of being with family, conversation and beach football and cricket with the kids was a highlight of our trip, so much so I didn’t even notice there was a good swell running on the Gold Coast points. My brother even arranged a radio interview for me to talk about India and our Soul&Surf venture. And the Melbourneans matched the Queenslanders generosity throwing bike-rides, booze and bands our way with gay abandon! Tonga was grey, flat and expensive.

We’re back on an even keel now thanks to Nicaragua! Once more our budget stretches to a large room with an equally large balcony, a huge four-poster bed, a swing (yes), a hammock, a view through the tree-tops to the pounding Pacific surf, wifi, breakfast, lunch and a knee-trembling dinner of home-made pasta with a putanesca sauce made by Kiara, our Italian hostess, a ding repaired, 2 surfs a day, a trip to Rivas on the chicken-bus… and still have a few Cord’s left for a Piña Colada.

Currency and it’s differences makes the world go round and has certainly helped us go round the world thus far. Fingers crossed the £ doesn’t sink any further marooning us here in the real Wild West of America.

Bali hu?

2010-05-22T02:59:00.002+05:30

Time Flies (pics)

2010-05-12T08:11:00.001+05:30

Time Flies

2010-05-11T12:03:00.005+05:30

It’s amazing how busy you become when you retire. Leaving my company and my job behind as I set forth on this journey I naively imagined the vast expanses of time I was opening up would be used to explore new vocations, skills and pastimes yet there aren’t enough hours in the day to even write this damn blog. Since I last dispatched a month ago the grand tour has taken in Lombok, Bali again, excitement and fury at Singapore Airlines as they refused to allow us to board our flight to Brisbane due to a ticketing error, family & friends time in Australia as we rediscovered sofas, tv & booze (and realised we’re pretty good at all 3), a stopover in New Zealand and a week’s breather here in Tonga before our assault on Nicaragua, a country where our meagre budget will allow us to blossom again. During this time I’ve tried (and infuriatingly failed) to buy a shipment of Kush Kush caps from India to sell back in the UK, I’ve been developing and planning an e-commerce idea and designed and launched an early-bird website for our winter venture in Kerala, Soul&Surf/India whilst continuing working on the main marketing site. Whew.

The expectation is that on an extended trip like this we leave all cares and worries behind, and that through the absence of a job all problems cease. Not the case I’m afraid. I know I won’t be attracting much in the way of sympathy from those working 50 hour weeks back home but what I’ve learned is that our usual character traits come with us. We find new ways to be busy, stressed and anxious or at least I do. Personal projects, travel arrangements, budget concerns and existential angst fill the shoes of the mundane home-life triggers which continue to swirl around the maelstrom-mind. It’s the character traits we need to work on, not their location, detail or circumstances.

But enough guff, it’s our time in Lombok that I wish to recount. I was enthralled by this wild, rugged, beautiful land. Yes, it’s well known as a destination, easy to get to and sprinkled with resorts but in most parts it’s raw charms prevail and unlike it’s westernised tarnished neighbour it feels like Indonesia proper. The roads are horrific, trees sprout from the centre of the cracked tarmac south coast road, yet traffic is almost non-existent. Villages of traditional thatched bamboo huts fleck the rolling hills which meet the ocean in dramatic crescent shaped bays and people smile and wave as you approach with genuine warmth rather than as a ploy to extract your tourist buck. Visiting, as we did, at the end of the rainy season, showed the oft arid south coast off at it’s verdant best, the grass was green, the rivers full and the roaming livestock fat and contented. And the surf… The south coast is indented and scalloped by bay after bay creating breaks of numerous variety…. Except beach-break. The easiest wave in the area at inside-Grupuk attracted 90% of the travelling surfers, despite the boat-ride access, leaving empty line-ups elsewhere for the more adventurous. Inside-Grupuk also attracted groups of Japanese surfers who pay locals to snake, block and drop-in in order to clear the wave for themselves. Is this the future of colonial-style surf travel in increasingly busy global line-ups? I hope not.

Yet despite my natural affinity with Lombok it’s lack of beach-break beginners waves left Sofie as a frustrated observer for much of the time so with an egalitarian spirit we headed back to Bali.

No parking lot in this paradise…

2010-04-08T11:56:00.004+05:30

No parking lot in this paradise…

2010-04-08T11:46:00.002+05:30

On previous visits to Bali my prejudice has kept me from visiting the Gili Islands off the North West coast of Lombok. Dubbed a travellers paradise my visions of stoned, dreadlocked, friendship-banded euro geeks gamboling about the place overshadowed the reported beauty of the 3 tiny tropical islands… and I guess the supposed lack of surf didn’t help.

Sofie really wanted to visit so in an admirable act of generosity and compromise I consented to the trip. My lips, burnt to a crisp from over-zealous midday surfing in Bali, were raw and cracked so a few days out of the water wouldn’t harm anyway. We chose the quieter of the 3 islands, Gili Meno, and from the moment we waded ashore from the shuttle boat the serene seclusion of this tropical idyll enveloped us. Time warped and heart-beats slowed whilst in stark contrast to it’s near neighbour, Bali, the sound of silence generated by an absolute absence of motorised vehicles was deafening.

Sandy tracks circumnavigate and criss-cross the 2km island, the only transport is shank’s pony or bell-jangling pony & trap cidomos. The island is fringed with white sand beaches protected from the surf by coral reefs and the pure, clear water reflects blues of every hue imaginable as the tropical sky evolves and transforms throughout the day. Sun rising over the active volcano Gunung Rinjani on Lombok, tropical squalls passing as quickly as they appear, azure clear skys give way to firey sunsets over Bali’s extinct volcano Gunung Agung. Snaffling a coconut infused carrot and bean salad-like lunch of Urap Urap one stiflingly hot lunch time the awesome Rinjani coughed and spluttered into life sending an immense plume of thick grey smoke into the atmosphere. Not a bad digestif actually.

A tempting right-hand reef point wave reels down the south west coast of the island, an even better looking one off Gili Trawanagan, yet my ravaged lips thwarted all but the briefest forays into the salty water, yet to slow down for a while, rising to watch sunrise and sleeping not long after sunset and doing very little in between besides snorkelling the teeming outer reefs, lolling, lounging and sprawling sprinkled with delcious cheap local Sasak food was enough to fall in love with this as yet unspoiled tropical Eden.

Lombok!

2010-04-01T12:12:00.002+05:30

Letting one of the tiddlers go by at Mawi...

Day at the Beach (continued)

2010-03-22T14:12:00.002+05:30

A new move, perfected by me over the course of several hours diligent practice...

A day at the beach.

2010-03-19T17:25:00.001+05:30

Paved Paradise

2010-03-17T12:45:00.002+05:30

They Paved Paradise and put up a Parking Lot

2010-03-17T12:39:00.001+05:30

The inordinately long time between posts is testament to the surf-rich Bali lifestyle. We left India a month ago now and have been squeezing 2 or 3 surfs in a day cowering from the oppressive heat in between. Yesterday was Nyepi, marking the end of the Balinese year the whole country banishes demons from the land on Nyepi eve and then on the day everything stops. Everything. No cars, no planes, no electricity, no cooking, no leaving the house….. And absolutely no surfing. Government officials stalk the land, blowing whistles, enforcing the silence. Hence I’ve written this blog!

Bali’s long been a favourite destination of mine, but I must admit that this time the romance has dulled somewhat. The pace of development all over the island is inexorable, but special attention is being paid to the Bukit Peninsula — where the surf is. The thatched, irreverent shanty-town of Dreamlands has been bull-dozed and an already crumbling, rusting steel and concrete Javanese monstrosity of a holiday resort replaced it. Every clifftop or small patch of beach around the entire Bukit coast already has or is in the process of having villas, housing estates, hotels, resorts and golf courses. And the gridlock on the roads in the southern half of Bali is witness to the hordes of tourists being ferried very slowly around the areas sights and beaches.

The area still has it’s charm, Bingin is a great collection of wooden and thatched guesthouses clinging to the cliffs with higher class yet tasteful, plunge-pooled hotels lining the clifftop and Balangan, where we are staying, is a wonderful bay lined with affordable beach-front warungs, but it always feels like the bulldozers and tarmac-ers aren’t far away. What they can’t develop (yet) is the dramatic rocky coastline and the obscenely wave-rich reefs fringing this prime hunk of real estate. We’re here in the off-season yet the surf has been relentless. Not the cutting edge, life-threatening 12ft barrels of the ‘on’ season, but that’s not for me anyhow. The waves have been consistently shoulder-high at worst and we’ve had a good few days of well overhead surf. I’ve been lazy in my wave-hunting, mainly surfing Balangan. A quick check from my beachfront bedroom window and the 20ft walk across the beach to begin the paddle out is too tempting to refuse, but on occasion I have ventured further afield, adding Bingin, Padang Padang and Keramas to my surf knowledge. The crowds and and an overwrought irreverence has so far kept me from Uluwatu. I was intending to go there this morning, but the swell’s picked up and I persuaded myself it will be too big/crowded/scary for little old me, so I’m going to stumble out the front door to Balangan again…. Next time.

We’ve made forays inland when the surf’s dropped a little and become enchanted by the volcano-crammed central region with it’s huge ancient calderas filled with lakes and new-growth volcanoes. This preposterously fertile and dramatic landscape is home to less westernised and more friendly Balinese villages and the relief from the oppressive heat of the coast that altitude provides is invigorating. I never knew you could get so much joy from wearing socks and trousers!

The Dinner Party

2010-02-07T10:29:00.002+05:30

The family we rent our place from have been so warm, kind-hearted and welcoming to us since our arrival that despite the separation of language we feel like their adopted children. Every time we pass their side-door to leave or come back one or more of the family is there to greet us, like returning war heroes. Meena, the hard working plump mother greets us each time with a waggle of the head and a wide candid smile from her round jovial face. She’s taken to grabbing Sofie for a hug sometimes and giving her a parting pat on the bum. The man of the house, Sugathan, between morning, lunchtime and afternoon naps, greets us phlegmatically with a raised hand and an inquisitive gaze, often popping up to give us freshly laid eggs, and un-identifiable fruits from the garden. The two teenage daughters, Susmi and Sumi are the antithesis of western petulance. Susmi, the younger of the two has an impish quality, yet she is ever helpful and loving to her parents and Sumi, after studying Animation in Trivandrum each day teaches an after-school class for local children before helping mum cook dinner. Her wide, heartfelt smile is irresistably uplifting. When I took Sofie to the station to go to the Yoga Ashram the two daughters, distraught at their loss, waved us, tears in their eyes, all the way down the street.

However, our exchanges are limited to the moments spent passing back and forth by their door. They are poignant yet fleeting. We wanted the chance to dig deeper, to understand them, to exchange thoughts and ideas, for us all to learn a little more about our respective lives. So we invited them for dinner at ours.

The week spent preceding the dinner was one of discussion, indecision, guidance seeking and receiving conflicting opinions.
“Cook them a western meal as a cultural exchange.” “Make them local food or they won’t eat it.” “Make it vegetarian to play safe.” “Give them meat as a rare treat.” :They won’t trust meat or fish unless it’s highly spiced….”
The more we discussed the more confused we became, the more people we consulted the more bewildered. What began as a simple dinner invitation was snowballing into something much bigger in our minds. We didn’t want to under or overwhelm. We didn’t want them to feel uncomfortable and we certainly didn’t want to offend them with an insensitive choice.

The limitations of our kitchen equipped with only a two-ring hob, no oven or grill, reduced our choices somewhat. We realised how much we rely on grilling and roasting for our indigenous British food.

Still dithering up to the day of the dinner we plumped for the safe, traditional British menu of:
Tandoori Rotisserie chicken (from a bakery in town)
Garlic Sauce
Dhal
Doughy Naan Bread
Chappatis
Coleslaw
Garlic and Cumin fried potatoes

followed by
Banofee Pie

What were we thinking? I’ve never eaten a meal like that in my life!
Still, it’s the thought that counts isn’t it?

The day of the dinner was spent shopping, chopping and scrubbing. Boiling, mixing and blending. Opening, unwrapping and cutting.
I agonised for hours over the playlist for dinner. Not obtrusive, yet not melancholy, not alienating, yet not patronising…. So, bizarrely, I went for the thirty-something dinner party staple of Buena Vista Social Club. Even writing this now makes me cringe.

Where were these bizarre food and music choices coming from? What cultural insights were they going to gain from us with our Indo-America-Cuba-Mediterranean-Sussex blend of stimuli. We were both feeling nervous, and our food and music choices were testament. Nervous of some nice people coming to eat some food.

8 o’clock came and the family tentatively came to the top of our steps.
The candles were lit, the music was on and the low table on the terrace was covered and surrounded by cushions and mattresses. I invited the family to take their seats, but they didn’t. Sofie invited them to sit, still they loitered at the top of the steps. I sat down and beckoned them over but still the didn’t come. Sofie led Sugathan by the arm over to the cushions and motioned for him to sit and somewhat reluctantly the rest of them followed. We brought out the dishes piled high with the fruits of our labour and invited them to help themselves, which they didn’t. We took their plates and served them a little of everything to taste and encouraged them to eat which they did without relish. Coversation flowed like treacle. Awkward smiles. Stilted sentences. Averted eyes. To fill the Cuban tinged silence Sofie and I ate… with gusto! We offered seconds yet none were accepted except for the coleslaw which the girls seemed to enjoy briefly before they stood, leaving us eating and attempted to make for the stairs, to the safety of their domain. Sofie leapt up and headed them off at the top of the stairs.
“We have dessert,” she pleaded.
I kept them talking whilst Sofie nipped to the fridge to the lure them back with the sight of the Banofee Pie. Sugathan pointed out that the cream hadn’t set and that it would be better tomorrow, but we weren’t going to let them off that lightly. We frantically chopped the sloppy pie into slices and shoved plates into the family’s hands. We couldn’t convince them to take their places round the table, so we settled for them perching on the wall, whilst we hovered uneasily around them. Their appetite ignited momentarily and they wolfed the slices down before making a run for the stairs, Sugathan parted with a conciliatory pat of the belly and the girls tossed “Goodnight!”’s over their shoulders as they fled.

8.25pm and it was all over, bar the washing up.
Hands across the sea, and all that….

Ed's wave pictures

2010-01-27T12:21:00.002+05:30

Ed’s Wave

2010-01-27T12:17:00.002+05:30

I haven’t written this blog for weeks now, caught up in a variety of projects, articles, plots and schemes, whilst also becoming snagged on the snaggle-toothed edge of a writer’s block. I just couldn’t get motivated to sit down and write, to write the Sunday Telegraph article, to write the commissioned piece for a surf magazine, to write some business plans and to write this bloody blog. So what happened? What dragged me from the mire? What hauled me from my stupour? What prised me from my lethargy? Waves. Pure and simple, the waves returned. It’s woken me up, filled me with vigour, charged me with positivity, put some lead into this jaded writer’s pencil. Since NYE the swell dropped. It’s been waist high at best for over three weeks — January is the smallest season — and although it’s been rideable everyday the waves have been breaking shallow and fast, too fast for me to beat the curl as section after section after section dumps tantalisingly just ahead on most waves. It’s been fun on my fish, it’s always good to be in the water and it’s still great to be the only one out… but I needed something more.

Then it came.
A 3.5-4ft south-westerly swell with a 14 second period, which on this coastline produces a 6-8ft face on the sets. Much of the main beach here closes out, but I hadn’t been idle. Time spent on GoogleEarth and scouting missions on my scooter threw up some spots with potential. A potential now converted into head high reeling lefts from some rocky point headlands. I’ve been fizzing with excitement to be surfing these powerful lefts on my own, an excitement ready to burst out of me in a squeal as I arrived at a small muslim fishing hamlet on my scooter, my board shabbily strapped with frayed coconut-rope to the side. Walking down past the mosque to the beach I could see that the potential I had noted from one of my scouting trips had been realised as beautiful, rumbling lefts broke just ahead of the rocky outcrop, peeling into the scimitar shaped bay. There was a gaggle of local boys playing in the shallows on the inside, and fisherman snoozing in the shade of their boats after a night at sea, but not another single tourist for miles and miles. No resorts, no hotels, no foreigners. As I paddled out the boys became interested, and as I picked off wave after wave my backhand surfing momentously and significantly came of age, whilst the boys clapped and cheered my every ride. Some of the boys moved to stand on the rocky prominentary and whistled as sets approached. One team calling me in to waves, another team onshore applauding those rides. Team Surf. No, Team Ed. Surfing lefts had until this day been ungainly, like writing with my left hand, yet today it became almost fluid, almost dextrous, natural and joyful. Yet above and beyond even this rapture was the germination of a thought, a quiet voice from within. ‘Has anyone ever surfed here before?’ it whispered. Of course there’s every chance that a wandering surfer has snagged a few here, but this is the first time that I have ever gone completely off-piste. The Surfing Swami’s and their guide to surf in India didn’t mention this spot, the Stormrider Guide’s new India section doesn’t refer to it. None of the websites, forums, books or guides I consulted before surfing here name this place. The thought crept over my mind that there was a possibility, however slight, that I might just have made a discovery. My very own surf spot discovery.

Hmmmmm…. Deep in thought between sets, knowing that my lookouts would warn me of approaching waves I set my mind to the task in hand. What will I call this break?

Could I just call it “Ed’s Wave”? Probably not, there must be some convention to this break naming business. “Ed’s Left”? Still too egocentric for an awakened being like me. Perhaps “Templeton’s”? It gives it a certain respectability don’t you think? Does anybody know what the rules are for this kind of thing? Does it have to relate to the surrounding environment? I could call it Poop Point after the squatting, smoking fishermen amidst the rocky outcrops that I initially mistook for spectators, or is humour not allowed? Seriously, does anyone know about spot naming? In fact if anyone has any good ideas, message me on this blog and I’ll decide which is the best before I have the brass plaque engraved.

Team Ed soon got bored of my gaudy display, or had to go to school or watch a freshly painted wall or something but nevertheless I soldiered on alone. I surfed it all morning until the on-shores began for four days on the trot until the swell dropped and my shoulders ached. And in the afternoons I started writing again. And at night I slept a deep contented sleep.

“Where is Ed’s Wave?” I hear you cry. That would be telling now wouldn’t it… but perhaps I’ll take you to it if you come to my surf and yoga retreat here next season….

Surf India

2009-12-29T16:12:00.001+05:30

Real India / Tourist India

2009-12-29T16:07:00.001+05:30

Life here in our jungle fringed pink house between Varkala town and Varkala beach drifts gently by and feels more like home as each day passes. Our location between real India (town) and tourist India (beach) affords us the best of both worlds. Last night we ate Butterfish Tikka and Tibetan Momos whilst I watched Arsenal play Villa in a clifftop restaurant yet the evening before we nipped into town on the scooter and ate delicious Masala Dosas and Vegetable Subji for 30p in a locals joint. The large three day Hindu festival being assembled in town promises to be a riot of noise, colour and spectacular ritual yet we’ve slipped easily into the evening ritual of meeting friends at the beach as the sun heads for the horizon for a swim as the scorching heat subsides and the reddening sun seeps into the sea, it’s pigment bleeding into the sky.

Our two nearest neighbours maintain the homogeneous polarity. Below us live our landlords, the most wonderfully warm and welcoming local family. We share little common language yet through gestures, smiles, head waggles and regular gifts of coconuts, eggs and bananas we are made to feel welcome and completely at ease here. Behind us, across cobra and funnel-web infested scrubland and shouting distance from our terrace, is a household of assorted europeans who have been equally welcoming and accommodating helping us with the myriad idiosyncrasies of Indian living and extending invites to us whenever they ‘make party on the roof!’. With each friendship, Sadji at the local shop, Umesh and his son Abhi at the Juice Shack, Zoe and her twin boys Jem & Jelly, we feel less like holiday-makers and more like residents which was always our intention before setting off on this expedition. We would much rather get a taste of real-life in a handful of places across the globe than have ticked-off a hundred ‘sights’ before our return.

Mornings begin early with a solitary surf session in the silky smooth Arabian sea. I’ve picked the smallest surf season (December/January) to be here, but there’s been waves every day ranging from waist to head high and looking south from Varkala cliff the mass of sand-banks and small coves creates break after break — almost reminiscent of the view south down the western Bukkit peninsular — producing small almond-eyed curls up to proper lip-pitching barrels depending on swell size and direction. These super-fast lefts are exposing my backhand weakness as I struggle to race ahead of the crashing lip. When a bank produces a rare right the dissonant capability of my left and right side becomes jarringly obvious as I have the speed, balance and technique to make a quick bottom turn and to snake, for speed, up and down the sinuous mirrored walls before pitching back off the brink as it finally breaks down in knee deep water. As our next destination is Indonesia, the land of lefts, the next few weeks practice in the forgiving sand-bottomed waves of India will I’m sure pay dividends as the sand becomes knife-edged coral and the power, size and speed of the waves intensifies.

We breakfast on porridge laced with coconut shavings, bananas and doused in wild mountain honey from our friend Sadji washed down with a spicy aromatic herbal masala tea, and either begin work on one of our many plots and schemes in the offing or just laze on the terrace with a good book and contemplate lunch, or a swim or a pootle down-coast on the scooter. The heat of the day produces a languid tropical malaise by about 2pm yet my northern-european trained body-clock doesn’t usually allow me the orthodox afternoon doze but I tend to slow to crawl and wait for the relief of the receding sun and for the onshore breeze to dissipate before heading beach-ward once more.

There’s interest amongst some locals in this surfing game, but none here can actually do it. I’ve promised to give lessons to a couple lifeguards and our friend Abhi before I go, but the scarcity of decent learner-boards is a problem as is my inexperience in teaching! I’ve begun practicing for my new-found role with Jake and Lisa, our friends from Brighton who, to our delight, leapt upon the offer of our spare room and a tropical festive sojourn, yet the bruises on Lisa’s head and thigh and my egocentric tendency to nip off to catch waves leaving my pupils floundering in the impact zone exposes my early shortcomings as a wannabe surf guru.

Pics

2009-12-12T18:25:00.003+05:30

Economics

2009-12-12T18:20:00.001+05:30

Like the other great economists before me, John Maynard Keynes and his theory of macroeconomics (1883–1946) or Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) bastion of the free trade principal, I’ve developed the current era’s defining economic principal. History will show that my global wanderings during the early 21st century had some divine fiscal purpose that until now I didn’t fully comprehend. Basing myself in Brighton, the pioneering commerce centre of this New World Order was a fortuitous hand dealt to me by mother fate.

Spending time straddling this dozing tiger, India, the world’s next supreme economy, this catnapping giant has turned a light on in my mind, first illuminating stray, presumed forgotten, facts and thoughts that I’ve gathered as I’ve wandered this magnificent globe and left deep in the recesses of my mind. Then with this lights guiding, tropical warmth these thoughts have coalesced and fused into, an admittedly unexpected, global economic theory that blessed with a revelationery zeal I know to be true.

As the economic drivers of the great Capitalist era fade, dwindle then implode like a white dwarf star on it’s final yet glorious death knell, as the oil runs dry, as minerals are purged, steel becomes leaden, porky bellies slim, foodstuffs once again become localized, and the exotic lure of spices are tarnished many are placing their economic eggs in the digital basket. Bangalore and Trivandrum have established themselves as centres of the pixel economy hence most pundits back India as the future. Well, these so-called experts have their geography right but are speculating in the wrong sector my friends. My economic theory, already living and breathing in Brighton, a city fuelled almost entirely for a decade on this financial model which has established it as a centre of hope for humanity’s pecuniary fate has found it’s match in India, and in particular the future seats of power, Kovalam, Varkala and Baga .

The phenomenon I’m about to expound, like an historical cycle, once again has it’s nucleii in coastal towns. Towns which will no doubt rise to usurp the cumbersome authority of the country in which they reside to become independent city states reminiscent of 15th century city Republics like Venice, yet this time around the power centres will be chosen not for the quality of their anchorage but for the magnetism of their beaches, thereby destroying our existing, already decaying models of government. Merchants will accumulate unimaginable wealth and the Republics of Brighton, Varkala, Phuket, Kovalam, Kuta, Byron Bay and Santa Cruz will be centres of a florid decadence that our epoch has yet to encounter. The nouveau riche vulgarians will raise grotesque Palazzos to host their bacchanalian orgies in honour of the source of their wealth and the globes new currency.

The future is Nick-Nacks. The future is Now.

Indian beaches and the towns at their peripheries are rife with Nick-Nacks, most of which have over the last decade migrated to Brighton to be sold in the greatest Nick-Nack bazaar the world has ever known. Yet as many of the world’s Nick-Nack suppliers economically develop, India being a case in point, their population will begin to travel and will, of course, demand Nick-Nacks as proof of their excursion. The suppliers will become the demanders, and therefore the hitherto demanders will naturally supply creating a thriving, burgeoning, proliferating cyclic trade. Nick-Nack barons will control the circumnavigation of Nick-Nackery and with it the will of the people. Nick-Nacks as the opiate of the people? You bet.

Those with a knack for crafting a Nick into a Nack, or carving a Nack out of a Nick, those who can weave and fuse a Nack through a Nick will surely inherit the earth.

Liquidate your assets and invest in all that is Nick-Nack-esque.

The last weeks have been a blur, we’ve surfed small but beautiful Arabian waves at an Ashram in Karnataka — which I will expand upon in articles for a newspaper and a magazine — and spent several exhausting days scooting about Kerala in search of a house to rent and a base to settle in for a good while. We’ve moved in to a hip pink house with a large first floor terrace overlooking a tangle of palms, betelnut and banana trees and almost immediately upped-sticks and indulged ourselves with a languid, sedate houseboat ride through Kerala’s maze of backwaters and canals to celebrate Sofie’s birthday.

India Pictures

2009-11-28T16:28:00.001+05:30

2009-11-28T16:23:00.002+05:30

Hippies are alive and well and living in Gokarna. They kindly display their renunciation of Babylon - the fascist-capitalist west - and their individuality by wearing a nifty uniform of head-to-toe Ethnic Tat® branded gear. The muted orange-brown roughly woven baggy trousers in either stripes or excessive patterns or for the executive hippy an orange longhi, well worn OM© t-shirt and brown-orange coconut fibre shoulder bag are ethnic in that they aren’t western clothes. Yet neither are they Indian, no locals seem to sport this garb, but are bought as ProppaTraveller attire from the many tourist stalls mingling with the bakeries, grocery stalls and paan vendors. The upper echelon of this Brigade are ceremonially awarded after many years dedicated service, with full military pomp, a crown of DreadlocksTM®©2009. In full battle dress these seekers of love, peace and harmony attain a spiritual ego the size of Tel Aviv and Dusseldorf combined and become so enlightened that they lose the ability to even see western scum any more as they gaze vacantly beyond attempts at good natured communication. These holier-than-thou’s are enlightened only in their own ego-driven, judgemental minds, which unfortunately is the one place enlightenment cannot be attained… Bless ‘em.

Despite this peculiar tribes bad vibes (man) Gokarna is a wonderfully bustling Hindu pilgrimage town cluttered and jumbled with temples, holy bathing lakes, revered lingams and towering ceremonial chariots adorned with hundreds of flags poking outward to form a red and white fluttering globe. A hike south leads to one beautiful crescent bay after another, temporarily populated by hippies and travelers from around the world, each one becoming more secluded and therefore less busy than the last. Roads now connect the first two, Kudle and Om respectively yet they still retain an idyllic tropical charm even if the residents of the more remote retreats farther south tend to sneer at those of us nearer town. This strictly hierarchical ‘one love’ society becomes amusing after a while and days spent practicing yoga, swimming, dozing and reading whilst staying at a £2 a night guest-house right on the beach do wonders for raising one’s tolerance of the groovy-gang, even if they are banging out insipid trance and belching and spluttering chillum smoke from the hut net door till way past our bedtimes (admittedly that’s only about 10.30pm).

Our route to Gokarna began in the overwhelming chaos of Delhi. The red-eye flight and overpriced taxi deposited us right in the thick of it near the main bazaar. The booked hotel had un-booked itself during the flight and we were lead to their filthy ‘sister’ hotel down the road. Too tired, and laden with 85kg of laptops, camera, clothes, boards and paraphenalia we took what we were given and snatched fourty winks before stumbling like rabbits caught in the headlights into the heaving throng on our doorstep, all aspects of life being lived in high contrast, maximum volume and top speed. The streets appear like a single, living, pulsating organism whose defining principle is Chaos Theory. Buildings seem to grow from the dusty earth whilst simultaneously being consumed, crumbling back into the earth, tangled webs of electric cables swamp and threaten to engulf the flimsy poles carrying them in every direction, shrouding dark alleyways with the glimmer of private candlelit shrines deep within. Every millimeter of this enthralling tableu is teeming with life; beggars, merchants, rickshaws, children, cows, packs of wild dogs, chickens, goats, a smattering of westerners, teenage boys and elderly couples holding hands…. There were too many senses being engaged and too few active brain cells to engage in speech so Sofie and I ate our 25p Thali in silence trying to acclimatise to such a culturally different environment.

We flew to Goa the following morning from the glass & metal gleaming new domestic terminal, the antithesis of Delhi’s bazaar. This is new India, the super-power de jour, the progressive, economically booming India. A 24 hour education in India’s cultural dichotemy.

Goa was nice to unwind after the flight and the hectic preparations before leaving England but the distinct lack of waves and preponderance of elderly European sun worshippers had us packing our bags to heave our caravan of equipment aboard a rickshaw, a bus and then squeeze it aboard a heaving train, causing a kerfuffle at each juncture and befuddlement at why we’d be carrying a surf board with us in India. A befuddlement i currently share...

Better late.. pictures

2009-11-20T18:51:00.001+05:30

Better late...

2009-11-20T18:46:00.001+05:30

It feels somewhat fraudulent to be posting the finale to my European van adventure from a beach in Karnataka, India. The beach is beautiful but the Arabian Sea is calm so I have time now for the first time in weeks!

The final fortnight in Portugal was a blur of surf, fishing, barbeques, bonfires, good company and good € bottles of wine, and this crowned with three days of modest drives through Spain via the medieval university town of Salamanca to stormy Bilbao to await passage home aboard ‘The Pride of Bilbao’. The five meter seas were tossing the mini-cruisers around ‘The Show Bar’, violently delaying their arrival (and thus our departure) by eight hours whilst filling the ships bowels with vomit-ballast to help steady our return voyage. Had we not met and talked to some of these “Mini-Cruisers” we would never have believed that at least half of our fellow passengers had been hoodwinked by unscrupulous Welsh and Liverpudlian travel agencies into using this RORO transport ferry as a three day pleasure vessel. Having been forced to beat a hasty retreat back to our cabin by the unrelenting ShowTune entertainment on our first night, and two rounds of cold 37p a slice toast and butter to the good the following morning an early stroll revealed pockets of Scouse fun-seekers dotted around the ships duty-free shops huddled round hastily torn-open 24 packs of Strongbow and Stella desperately slurping their hangovers away compelling the fun to begin once more.

The days travelling back to England and awaiting our onward connection to India provided time for reflection on the previous eight weeks of 9ft by 5ft van life. The peaks, the troughs, the countries and the people. For a couple to live in such close-quarters is challenging, rewarding and a journey of discovery… Discovering those traits, those foibles, those personality ‘ticks’ that we tend to cover up in our normal spacious - proximity and temporal - living. But we survived… mostly. Learning to live as one organism, Sofie, Neil and I, was tough. Having to do everything either together or in complete sympathy is a necessity of close-quarter living. We have to go to sleep and awake at the same time, eat, sit, stand, move, wash and breathe together. Everything takes five times as long to do in the van as the stowafe system is constanlty re-arranged. To use the pan you move the coffee-pot to the side, the spices back in the cupboard, the water bottle to the seating area, the ash-tray to the side table, the washing-up bowl to the back step, the lighter from the front to the stove, and so on and so on… The constant search for water, toilets and camp spots meant an unrelenting round of moving this, packing that, stowing this, folding that, re-packing, removing, unwrapping. These trials obviously irked on some more sensitive days, but were no great hardships and living in such a basic, simple way was a great life-lesson in terms of the difference between needs and wants. Whatever, these complications were more than outweighed by the luxuries of mobile living. We dined on an Algarve moonlit terrace watching sliver-crested waves wash onto fine, pale sand only yards from our feet as we ate smoky, sweet paprika tinged squid, breakfasted on cliffs high above wild rocky ocean ravaged bays, romantically celebrated on the sunset drenched dunes of Galicia and socialised at the headquarters of the world pro surf tour’s Portuguese leg.

Luxury is available for all if you’re prepared to rough it and to search beyond the beaten track, in fact it only seems to be available at either ends of the scale. The ultra-rich can pay through the nose to stay in the most beautiful and exclusive locations, or if you’re curious, mobile and independant you can find amazing places yourself. It’s the majority middle ground which is caught in the mire of packaged, developed, managed mediocrity.

Harsh Mistress

2009-10-31T15:47:00.001+05:30

I’ve had the best surf of the trip so far this morning, in fact I’m at a stage on my surfing path to be able to say I had the best surf of my life this morning! It’s coming up to five years since I first set foot on a foam-board in Byron Bay but the mix of being a late starter, with an already (too) well developed sense of mortality, and the intervening years being spent deep in the design mines of England’s south east - keeping me from surfing as regularly as I would like - means that a good surf has a fair prospect of being my best ever! It didn’t look much from our van viewpoint on the cliffs above Praia Amado on Portugal’s south west coast, perhaps similar to last nights easygoing sunset session, but paddling toward the clique I could see that at this higher stage of the tide the now submerged rock, which breaks the wide open bay here, was producing a well overhead A-frame peak offering lefts and rights to the bold and well positioned. A troupe of British kids were hoovering up everything going for the first half hour and I resigned myself to picking up the odd wave which swung wide of the take-off spot. But en-masse the Brits left the water, lured no doubt by elevenses, and there were more than enough waves to go round for those of us left. By my standards there were big sets pushing through, certainly well overhead, I might even call some double-over but then again it always looks bigger peering up from sea-level, but instead of just rearing up, faltering and closing out in unison across the bay today a distinct peak feathered, tumbled and peeled. I had countless lefts and rights, making cavernous drops which spat me down the line at speeds my board hasn’t encountered before, trailing my hand in the smooth, shimmering, carved wall of water for stability, rising to the lip before turning and dropping back down the shear liquid face again, and again….. and again, kicking up and launching myself head-over-heel over the brim before it dumps into the shallow sandbar. Every cell of my being was vibrating and alive, very much alive, reverent of the ocean’s grace for allowing me to catch those fleeting rides sharing her surging energy for a few seconds of Life.

This south western corner of Portugal feels like home, for two distinctly different reasons. To observe starched English families spending tense half-term days at some of the beaches we frequent has seemed bizarre, in a detached other-worldly way and served as a reminder of the proximity of the British tourist colony of The Algarve. Yet the wild, arid, red-earthed south western tip with it’s rugged undeveloped coastline, herbaciously pungent, sheltering herds of goats, leather-faced shepherds, packs of wild dogs and van-dwellers of all denominations feels like the place we’ve been looking for as we traced Europe’s Atlantic fringe. If only the British hadn’t invaded nearby pushing prices of land beyond it’s natural level.

Footnote [After the second surf of the day]
Don’t do your surf check from the hill above the beach, the angle and distance distorts perspective rendering judgement calls hazy at best. Don’t ignore the Swiss duo you’ve been surfing with these last few days when they come back defeated, unable to get past the cascading walls of raging spume. And, most importantly, don’t take the sea for granted, don’t get complacent and don’t ever feel like you’re getting the hang of this surfing business! I managed to get out back in a lull between sets using a rip at the north of the beach by the rocks, and when I did everything seemed more acute. The waves were not only taller, but more voluminous, more powerful, formidable. I found a position to sit out wide of the main peak in order to watch for a while, to analyse. But the peak had spread out across nearly the entire bay and this once quiet spot was in path of the relentless marching behemoths. I was in position to dig deep and go a few times but as I rose up the face, inertia giving way to gravity I pulled back as I saw the canyon-like drop beneath me, suddenly aware of the rocks scattered on the inside. I paddled up the bay navigating my way precariously over the cresting waves, and through the swirling, churning waters between as huge masses of water heaved around, but what had been the ‘outside’, the safety zone, the non-breaking belt was quickly becoming the dangerous ‘inside’ as progressively bigger waves were breaking further from shore, the gaps between sets decreasing and the faces of the handful of surfers left out more determined. My mind turned to the book I had recently finished about Mark Foo and Ken Bradshaw’s ten year tussle amongst the huge surf of Hawaii’s Waimea Bay and I began to get a sense of what genuinely large wave-riding was about, whilst gaining a humbling perspective on my pickle as I visualised waves at the very least three times this size. Walls of ferocious whitewater were unavoidable and on my buoyant fish un-duckdiveable. Numerous times I tried only to have my board ripped from grasping hands and flung about thuggishly underwater. Once I turned and tried to ride the whitewater in on my belly, yet the boiling, seething mass was too turbulent sending me end over end, head over heels, inside and out. Edging closer to shore in any discernable hiatus I was reserved to an un-triumphant exit and looked for smaller waves to shuttle me back to dry sand. Choosing my monent, and wrapping my arms around my board I hugged her as I was shot gleefully onto the beach and trudged back up the hill to the welcoming arms of Sofie and Neil, bedraggled, defeated but wildly exilerated. Two things were traced on my mind:
I loved the experience, the Nowness of the situation, the sharpening of the senses, the vitality of being.
She’s the boss.

More pictures...

2009-10-26T15:59:00.002+05:30

Signs

2009-10-26T15:55:00.002+05:30

We should have seen the individual events as omens, portents of the approaching storm, nature’s way of warning there’s trouble ahead. First a flip lost it’s flop rendering it useless except as a fly swat, whilst in the background the van’s fridge was petering out. ‘These things are to be expected on a long trip’ we rationalised. Hurtling into Portugal, making use of the first, and admittedly unplanned, toll-road we’ve savoured we heard a loud crash-scrap-bang. Scanning windows and mirrors for the source I saw the blue taurpalin that once perched comfortably on the rear roof-rack swinging and swaying behind the back doors and immediately feared that it had spilled it’s contents, a bike, a fire-pit, wood and charcoal over the motorway behind us. At this speed the results could have been disasterous, but once we pulled over to the hard-shoulder to inspect the damage we could see the reassuringly bulging tarpaulin clinging to the one remaining roof-rack bar by one precarious bungee, with the other bungees tangled up around the cargo and the broken roof bars. A close scrape, but a few minutes later we were on our way and nothing more sinister was read into it.

Pulling into Praia Baleal car park just north of the surf centre Peniche the surf looked uninspiring and prohibitively busy so we decided on lunch before a surf-scout further afield. Pouring over my Stormrider for likely quarry the calm was broken, first by the sight of boiled eggs, pan and accompanying water sailing out of the back doors onto the tarmac, followed closely by loud yelps from Sofie as she ran round the van pulling her trousers down. Now we’re a broad-minded couple but this seemed extra-ordinary behaviour even by our standards. I’m ashamed to admit my first instinct was to rescue lunch and I leapt after the eggs until Sofie’s mantra of “Cold water, Cold water, Cold water...” alerted me to her predicament. The scalding water had melted a crisp-sized layer of skin off on first contact and the spillage had reddened a much larger area further down the leg. Cold water followed by application of a burn-sooth pad from our first-aid kit gave a little respite from the sharp, incessant, deep pain of the burn and as the day passed so did the worst of it. It wasn’t great, but the feared hospital trip wasn’t necessary. So once the patient was comfortable Dr Templeton went for a little surf. And what a surf! A little north of Peniche near Ferrel are lots of beaches down winding, rutted red earth tracks and we stumbled upon one with some rocks shaping two A-Frame head-and-a-bit high peaks and a mixed crowd of locals and traveling surfers crowding it. I spent the first hour watching great waves come and go with better, hungrier, more aggressive surfers aboard until high-tide flattened the peaks and everyone left the water. I hung around looking to snag a few small ones before trudging back up the cliff to tend the sick, and to my surprise fifteen minutes later the wave started working again and it took another thirty minutes before everyone cottoned on and flooded the water again.Thirty minutes in which I had the best surf of the trip so far, carving fast across the open faces, cutting back toward the curl to gather more of the waves energy before racing the feathering crest ahead, finishing with a do-or-die off the lip re-entry and a quick paddle out to do it all again, but this time on my backhand.

That night the heavens opened and our lazy night-time preparations resulted in a drenched, muddy boardbag and chairs. Another harbinger of doom? Or just a bit of rain? We opted for the latter and headed in to town to dry off and stock-up on provisions. Pulling out of our beloved InterMarche, just as we approached a pedestrian crossing, the van lost power and ground to a halt. And wouldn’t start. And there we were, stuck in the worst possible place on a busy town centre crossing with angry locals, beeping, shouting, swearing and at one point trying to run over the silly foreigners who’d parked in the wrong place. Whilst contemplating our current plight the previous three days pickles began to press home, are we having a run of bad luck or is there something more to it? Finally some friendly faces helped push us out of harms way and my hard-fought (for a ’91 Nissan) breakdown cover kicked into gear. Within three hours we were on our way with something-that-we-couldn’t-quite-work-out-in-translation having been cleaned and still time for a little surf before dark. And another great surf it was too. Buoyed by the previous days blockbuster I charged the Baleal beach break with a new vigour and scored my fair share of waves and then a few more, taking off on and handling the monster wave of the session, as a new-found friend described it.

We drank the evening away with the new-found friend and his girlfriend, corraling our vans together against the wind yet what should have been a light-hearted evening seemed infused with something more ominous. We got too drunk, there was a crackle of tension in the air, Sofie and I concluded the evening with a pointless yet deep-felt argument, talking late through the night as if compelled by this cogent unseen force. We woke, bleary eyed, hung-over and drained to find the carpark buzzing with excitement. The storm we had disregarded, that had been building these last few days, had hit…. And BOOM! It really hit

The carpark we called home was coincidentally also home to the travelling World Pro Surfing circus for a couple of weeks as the worlds best surfers earned their transient livings, and as I stumbled to the loo the breaking news was that Fanning and Knox were readying the jet-skis to tow-in to the huge waves lashing the headlands around the crescent shaped bay. I don’t really follow the pro surfer thing, but the the excitement was palpable and we gulped coffee and rushed to the headland to join the throng watching the spectacle. It really was an amazing spectacle to observe, for these guys to not only survive, but to feel so comfortable amidst the power, fury and energy of the storm, energy created and stored at the epi-centre of a storm thousands of miles away, transferred across the ocean and unleashed on our beach for us to watch and for them to tussle with.

It felt like the previous days crosses to bear had been building toward this moment, as if nature was communing with us in abstract ways… either that or we’d had a bit of bad luck. Either way, the release of the storm energy spread a lightness over us. Our moods lifted, the bad luck petered out and we headed south again.

Hum Along

2009-10-22T15:27:00.002+05:30

The mornings are too cold, and dark. The sun doesn’t rise until about 9am and the heat from it doesn’t seep through until about midday, so beautiful as our location is we need to begin heading south, seriously south. But an inexplicable intrigue draws us first to Santiago de Compostela, the great Catholic pilgrim destination. And thank god for intrigue… or was it a calling from a higher power?

What a city! The best by far on our little journey, the stunning medieval town, centred on the magnificent cathedral is fully in tact yet it operates as a thriving, living, bohemian city overflowing with cafes, bars, restaurants and the sense that there’s stuff happening here, stuff we want to know about. Only our meagre budget forced us to retreat to our van before an evening of pinxtos and cañas blew an irreparable hole in our budget.

Stopping off the next lunch time in Afife for an unsatisfactory bumpy, high tide surf before pushing further south into Portugal coming to rest in the tourist town of Mira.

It’s surprising how busy one’s days are in this transient life, driving, blogging, photographing, finding camp spots, surf spots, food, toilets, water and the occasoional wash. The time and space, to reflect, contemplate and work on the various projects I have in mind has hardly materialised so far, but recently I have noticed a subtle background hum of unease sitting beneath the chatter of my mind. My initial reaction on noticing this just-perceptible anxiety was of disappointment and a sense of unfairness. Leaving the maelstrom of work and life at home, with the 101 things to do in a day which will only allow 74 to be done, was an attempt to leave such feelings behind. But then I realised three things.
The fact that I can notice this ‘hum’, like feeling a distant generator vibrate, is due to some time and space opening in my life allowing me to observe the phenomena. Since deciding to do this trip the level of activity-induced adrenaline to make it happen has been so high and stress- producing that I couldn’t even detect what was going on within me. The unease is a positive sign of slowing down.
Noticing this ‘hum’ is to be distinct from it. Being distant enough from it to observe it is proof that this unease is not actually ME. At overly-busy and stressful times I don’t notice it because I am consumed by it. This mind-made anxiety is just that, mind-made and is not the deeper, inner me.
Time in the water quells the hum. There’s no dwelling on past events, now worry about the the things I ‘have’ to do in the future. The generator, splutters out of fuel and stops for a while as I am content with the hear and now.

Onwards and inwards.

Time and Space (pictures)

2009-10-20T16:46:00.002+05:30

Time and Space

2009-10-20T16:40:00.004+05:30

Over a week and probably 1000 miles have passed since my last rambling, time which has seen Spain, my first published piece in the Guardian and my birthday come and go. After Zarautz we swung by San Sebastian to find it was (pretty much) closed for winter, and then we hoofed it across the top of Spain, speeding by Mundaka, Rodiles and other world-class waves as the drizzle descended appearing to take the swell with it. Overnighting in a damp Tapia de Caseirega(??) we crossed into the wilder Atlantic outpost of Galicia, a land more soulful for the lack of European Union ‘cleansing’ funding which has seemed to over-sanitise Northern Spain into a land of newbuild bungalows and grandiose yet empty motorways and viaducts.

The rugged, ragged Northern coastline was gratifyingly reminiscent of other Celtic bastions, Cornwall and Brittany, similarly ravaged as they are by the vigor of the North Atlantic Ocean. We settled in bay near the village of Pantin for a couple of cloudless days surfing the amazingly clear waters, lush with seaweed so green you could almost hear it singing the joys of life and spending the evenings in a secluded, almost separate section of beach at the eastern end watching the sun set whilst drinking wine and plotting the next chapters of our lives. On the third day the swell rose with the wind, closing out across the bay with sonic-booms that shook the very suspension of our Neil so we pushed on further to the highly recommended Razo further west. The expanse of open beach didn’t take kindly to the north-easterly wind and the town’s caretaker had already locked up for the season so we carried on to Galicia’s west coast heading for a secret camp-spot shared with us by a friendly Austrian couple a way back down the trail. As evening approached a mediterranean mirage literally stopped us in our tracks, we found a campsite and wandered down through pine trees to a soft white sand beach lapped by a gentle turquoise sea. This gentle landscape seemed incongruous to our rugged Atlantic coast journey and provided welcome respite. This coastline is riven with fjord like Rias, the interiors of which are protected from the harsher ocean borne elements. As we drove South hugging the coast the following day, rounding the headland marking the entrance to Ria de Muros y Noia brought us back to an Atlantic coastline and my all important waves. The dropping swell left waves with enough punch to have some fun and enjoy sharing the squeaky clean Galician waters with a pod of 30 or 40 dolphins racing, leaping and gamboling down the long Praia Furnas to the delight of the much smaller pod of surfers.

Driving back from the Atlantic to the Med we found our dingly dell, a small pine-wood bound clearing behind the dunes on an empty, but alas unsurfable, white sand beach. The next morning, my birthday, we arrived early at Noia market and enjoyed the hubbub of buying fresh caught red mullet, squid & prawns and local sweet delicacies from the bakery before spending a long, languid sunny day in the privacy of our glade decorating our camp, and preparing a bonfire fueled feast atop the dunes soundtracked by beautiful music spanning the genres. As much pleasure was gained in the preparation as the event yet the drunken, gluttonous sunset revelry that resulted aptly concluded a truly magical day. Thankyou Sofie. x

Timing

2009-10-12T18:04:00.004+05:30

Turquoise turned to jade green which merged with a deeper grey-blue sliding into seafoam green fragmenting into golden yellow, duck-egg blue and a cool fathomless green, Pantone numbers swimming round my head as the eternal dance progresses as light particles penetrate the pulsating water. Mesmerised yet mindful of my locale I keep an eye on the horizon for the tell-tale darky, inky smears which bleed from the horizon warning of approaching rogue sets. As I scrambled down the rocky hillside from our campsite the beckoning, shimmering waves rolling in to the wide sandy bay were unruffled by wind and peeling left and right from several distinct peaks yet as I paddled out I realised the distance from which I had originally been bewitched was deceiving. These waves were bigger than anticipated, probably four to five feet, and powerful. On the outer rim of limited capability and experience, but if you time your paddle out with the lulls between waves and sit just seaward of their breaking point waiting for your moment then it’s no problem… except, that is, for those sly sets of waves which emerge at irregular, unpredictable intervals a foot or two bigger and harnessing even more of the latent storm energy than their more disciplined cousins.

As these six, maybe seven, foot waves, with faces soaring almost 12 feet above the prone surfer, pitch beyond vertical and the seething apex is launched out beyond the face the explosion as the two water masses collide impacts on all of my senses combining to produce a solitary survival emotion - fear. At the first signs of these deliquent undulations the skirmish begins. I paddle toward the horizon hoping that my timing is fortunate and I manage to scrabble over the back of the beasts traveling in packs of 4 or 5 increasing in size. To be caught just inside the breaking wave with it’s tumbling, towering, impenetrable wall of whitewater is to be spun and tumbled underwater, limbs flayed in unfeasible directions like a rag-doll until it releases it’s grip allowing you to surface 30 yards back toward shore gasping for air. Worse still is to get the timing absolutely, utterly wrong and for the pitching lip of the wave to smash onto you at the point of impact adding a wind-ing body blow to the mix….. But sometimes, and to be fair to myself more often now than not, the timing of the paddle out combines, to quote Hansen, with “Pace, power & technique” and I dive the nose of the board under the water a few feet before the lip crashes down, I dig deep enough with all the might I can muster to get under the impact turbulence and the centrifugal forces which are pitching the lip forward work in my favour and suck me under the wave and out of the back, to momentary safety before the next wave approaches…

The next few days the ferocity of the ocean subsided but we stayed on in Zarautz in the Basque region of Spain and Sofie and I played in the calmer waters together and enjoying the warm, still evenings and the awesome widescreen sky’s created as the ocean meets the mountains.

Poor old Neil

2009-10-08T20:24:00.001+05:30

Before leaving Gers we squeezed a Hatha session in, breakfasted then saddled & watered Neil and headed South to the Pyrenees. It’s a momentous day today, we threw caution to the wind and had our first non-van dining experience as we ordered Steak Frites in Eauze town square as we broke the journey toward Oleron in the western Pyrenees.
Arriving late we found a place to park by an Auberge on the side of a mountain and had a cowbell-symphony accompaniment to our omelette making.

We woke with the light and a striking reminder of our location as we drew the curtains back and the Pyrenees slid into view. The ever-changing bedroom window view that defines campervan life is a joy to behold. We’ve enjoyed dunes, ocean, forest, mountains, panoramic countryside vistas, cornfields, widescreen epics and errr…. carparks.

We gathered provisions in the local village and drove up the valley to Borce, the home of the last few remaining wild Pyreneean bears. Parking by the church we walked up winding tracks and found a picnic spot looking up the valley and shared a couple of hours lunching and snoozing with some mountain eagles in the heat of the sun.

After lunch we headed west again ambling towards the Atlantic once more as the promise of waves were on the Magic Seaweed horizon. The route we took was much steeper, treacherous and breathtaking than we had imagined, and the sharp, winding inclines were almost more than poor Neil could take. Dragging his weary frame over these peaks left him hot, bothered and smelling unwell. I can’t quite put my finger on it but the burning, metallic smell reeks of worry.

Our unplanned destination that evening, St Jean pied-de-port, was aptly an ancient pilgrims rest and recuperation site and we followed tradition and recharged in a carpark on the outskirts of town throwing caution beyond the wind this time as we purchased two alcoholic beverages in the towns hostelries, another first for this trip!

Karma Yoga

2009-10-08T20:15:00.003+05:30

The flyer that Tom, Danuta’s son, thrust into my hand at Natstock a few weeks previously whilst discussing our impending shoestring tour of Europe focused understandably on the full-board, full-price Yoga retreats on offer. Tom’s insistence that his mum invites people to stay on-the-cheap if you’re prepared to work was enough to arouse our budget-conscious curiosity though, and I had an inkling that mention of ‘Karma Yoga’ might be the key. All we knew for sure was that €10 a day would cover us for whatever was in store.

We set up camp in the former central square of the 18th century farming hamlet, our van’s door opening out onto that five-star Provence-esque view, and were invited to join our hosts and the guests for dinner whilst the Karma Yoga concept was explained. The Radha Yoga tradition that Danuta teaches uses the concept of self-less service as one of it’s core tools. Radha practitioners will work but focus on the process of that work rather than the outcome and use this focus in a meditative way, as a reflective process in conjunction with their other introspective Yoga practices. The ‘meditation’ offered to us the following day was to help Steve move fallen sandstone building blocks from their land beneath the terrace back up to the house level for use as building materials in their ongoing renovations. It sounded more like hard labour to me than cuddly-sounding Karma Yoga.

After a dinner of dhal, coconut rice, raisin chutney, wine, figs & grapes from the garden, concluded with a regional-classic cheese ‘Bleu de Bavier’ a surprise Yoga session was offered and so began our three day crash-course in the ancient Indian Kundalini system and an introduction to Radha yoga’s contemplative, note-taking, emphasis.

Frankly we were both a little overwhelmed to be contemplating the meaning of our existence within three hours of arriving, particularly as our expectations had been little more than a nice morning stretch and a bit of help in the garden, but it was all voluntary. I’m no Dalai Lama but I do have a spiritually inquisitive side and Danuta’s warm, welcoming manner and the small retreat group we joined - a couple from San Francisco - made for a comfortable and supportive environment so I rolled up my spiritual sleeves and got my metaphysical hands dirty.

The next morning began with a gentle Hatha yoga session easing us into the physically daunting Karma Yoga session ahead. My healthy skepticism paradoxically combined with an open mind and I reveled in the hard work. It was great to spend time helping Steve who’s dogged passion for renovating these beautiful sandstone farm buildings was contagious and I found the work to be physically and mentally satisfying. In the group reflection period afterwards I was heartened to realise that the simple joy’s of physical work and problem solving — shifting stones too heavy to lift using logs as rollers, planks and teamwork — not only had a meditation-like quality but also provided surprisingly relevant lessons to the other yoga sessions. Alas, this spiritual insight did nothing for my freshly calloused hands and aching back.

The morning before our departure our Karma Yoga treat was to shop for produce at the weekly market in nearby Lectoure, a handsome hilltop Spa town. We bought some amazing local produce and yet all of our karmic-budgeting efforts were ruined as we were duped, wide-eyed, by the Frenchest man believable resplendent in beret and D’Artagnan moustache, into buying the most expensive yet deliciously sweet, nutty artisan cheese in the market.

Sunset

2009-09-30T15:51:00.002+05:30

Sunset in the comfort zone.
Five days of surf, sun and sand have brought a calmness back.
This morning we head inland for a few days.
A bientot.

Hmmm...

2009-09-29T17:59:00.002+05:30

It was an unwelcome six hour drive from The Dordogne heading south west to the European surf capital of Hossegor and the promise of sun, surf and plenty of free camping spots behind the dunes. As we approached Landes a sea-mist enveloped the flat, pine-forested land and a coastal gloom descended. Arriving in Hossegor we cruised up and down the coast looking for surf —way too big and stormy for me, and camp spots — the dune-side car parks had prominent, well tended signs banning ‘camping cars’ from overnighting and local enquiries confirmed there was zero tolerance. I settled for an unsatisfactory high-tide surf at the sheltered Plage Sud before overnighting in the charmless, toilet-less, government sanctioned, €8 ‘Aire de Camping Car’ along with two or three hundred other hapless souls whiling away their retirement.

The continuous driving of the previous week compounded by the constant listless search for a camp spot, a toilet, a shower, somewhere to call home for at least a few days began to take it’s toll. Neither of us wanted to admit it, because this trip is about embracing the romantic idyll of life on the road, freedom and a simpler life yet here we both were feeling anxious, unsettled and cabin-fevered by the heavy weather, the expensive jammed car park camping and one too many ‘baby-wipe’ baths in the van.

The truth, uncomfortable to admit, was that we both held a resistance to this transient life borne of our familiarity with routine, order, deadlines, disposable income, comfort, space and home. The undesirable irony is these are the things we left home to escape, yet their hold is strong and this new, basic, budget-pressured lifestyle is difficult to embrace. I’m so used to the safety of a salary which, though never huge, over last five years or so allowed me to do pretty much what I wanted.

I always knew this trip was going to be much more than a holiday. Yes, we’ll see amazing places and enjoy the absence of work, but the underlying essence of this trip is about life-change, it’s about not only embracing but forcing change, it’s about release from dependency — on possessions, on income and the familiar. It is about facing challenges and learning from them. These last few days cheek-by-jowl with the retiring and retired, motor-homed community with surf that scared me was the first lesson of the trip.

The next day the sun shone, the wind calmed, the surf dropped to a perfect 3ft and we decided to throw caution to the wind and invest an extra €4 a night on a campsite in Vieux Boceau with toilets, showers and wifi. We’ve been here four days now, right back in our comfort-zone like pigs in muck.

Nb. The photographs were taken once we were safely tucked inside our comfort-zone.

Inland

2009-09-27T19:57:00.003+05:30

Six hours of road and ferry - across the mouth of the Gironde Estuary - delivered us to the lake, pine forest and sand-duned landscape of the Gironde region. Perhaps it was the damp weather, the slightly dour toilet-less Aire de Camping-Car we stayed in, the ‘Marie Celeste’ air of a recently busy yet almost entirely deserted region or the disappointing combination of a beautiful steel-grey-gloss yet waveless sea at Hourtin followed by a stormy grey-brown slosh down the cost at Lacanau reminiscent of a winters day at Brighton marina, but our attention turned to the plight of our dwindling budget. We’ve spent over €200 of €250 weekly budget on fuel and an extortionate €45 5km ferry crossing with the rest (and more) going on food, supplies and campsites. Yet we feel the compulsion to keep moving. With the weather forecasted to continue in the same vain for the next few days we head inland, through the beautiful city of Bordeaux to visit Sofie’s family friends Graham & Carol in their newly acquired home near Angouleme.

Emily guided us through the winding, rolling, charmingly rural French countryside delivering us stress-free to our exquisitely isolated destination. We ran a few miles in the rain to forget the drive and take in the beautiful surroundings, arriving back at our hilltop refuge to find our hosts returned from their day in the city, and a wonderfully warm welcome to their magnificent new abode complete with an achingly beautiful southerly vista over rolling fields of corn and sunflowers. Hot showers, good food, delicious wine, great company and a level, free camp spot beneath an accommodating walnut tree gave us the impetus to spend the next morning shifting boxes and furniture from the creaking old barn into the house making a very small but appreciated dent in our hosts task of moving in. Tea and cake fortified us for the drive South into the Dordogne region and Christopher Timothy spurred us on by reading All Creatures Great and Small to us as we drove past decaying farmhouses, derelict Chateaus and a landscape that was almost too French to be real … Ahhhh, the rock’n’roll lifestyles we lead!

La Roque Gageac, the venue for many a Radecki summer camping holiday, is a town apparently carved by the Dordogne river into the sandstone cliffs which tower above. The next morning we get a lift 20km up the valley and in our rented canoe we glide, slide, sunbathe and picnic our way lazily downstream as villages, Chateau and ancient fortifications drift by, the sun shines and our sprits lift. The slurp (splosh) gurgle as the water eddy’s from the paddles is as soothing a soundtrack as one could wish for. Inspired by such an enchanting day we go wild and find ourselves an under-used carpark right on the Dordogne’s banks and fine-dine on a candle-light terrace of our own making, drinking champagne as the sun sets. If life is a series of interconnected events, why not try to make each event as indelible as possible?

Early Days

2009-09-26T19:43:00.001+05:30

Late September, the air is cool and heavy with moisture. It’s either just stopped raining, it’s just about to start raining or it is raining. Take your pick.

Life with Neil (our Nomad) is a little more condensed than expected as the combination of weather and location doesn’t allow our living space to spill outside, yet the childish excitement of being in our four-wheeled home is galvanising. From the ferry at St Malo we head South toward Saint Gilles Croix de Vie on the Atlantic coast of Vendée guided through the torrential rains by the soothing presence of Emily our GPS companion. We arrived mid-afternoon as the weather broke and a small clean swell nuzzled the town beach. Wetsuits negotiated we both went in, to wash the road-miles away as much as anything else. Although the waves were small the angle of the beach had them breaking right on the shoreline and Sofie snapped a fin and got out before breaking something less replaceable, but the few waves I rode soothed the soul and gave me the energy to drive on to the deer-farm, our home for the night courtesy of the France Passion scheme. Waking to the smelly bleat of an over-furred goat and the realisation that we were parked in someone’s back garden, we breakfasted, packed and headed off, the cool damp air driving us southwards down the Atlantic coast to the Gironde.

Preface

2009-09-26T19:38:00.002+05:30

“Remember how long you’ve been putting this off, how many extensions the Gods gave you and you didn’t use them..... there is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return.” Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome), Meditations AD171

Our Itinerary:
16th September 09 — 10th November
France, Spain & Portugal aboard ‘Neil’ the ’91 Nissan Urvan Nomad

14th November — 31st January(ish)
Karnataka, Kerela, Tamil Nadu - India

1st February — 1st April(ish)
Bali, Java, Lombok, Sumbawa - Indonesia

1st April — 15th April(ish)
Australia

16th April — 1st May
Tonga

1st May — 3rd May
Los Angeles, USA

3rd May — 30th June
Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua

1st July
Brighon, England

Our Mission:
Do less, but do it better.

Our Crew:
Ed Templeton & Sofie Radecki

Isle Exploration 290109

2009-02-11T14:34:00.006+05:30

When travelling to far-flung places we often forget the island gems on our doorsteps. A fortnight after touching down with a bump in a grey winter-veiled England SR and I headed for the Isle of Wight for more sea-faring adventure. The interlude of the ferry crossing on the 3 hour journey from Brighton to Ventnor is enough to feel the loosening of attitudes and conventions that exotic travel brings. With a spring in our step and a song in our hearts we arrived at the lodgings of the Isle's premier celebrity entertainment couple, our hosts for the weekend.

Having surfed the Isle's perfectly groomed 4ft azure walls of water all morning, with the sun beaming down and the offshore breeze tickling the faces of the waves, teasing them to stay vertical for a moment longer we retired to a local hostelry for refreshment and recuperation. It was here that the true prominence and renown of our hosts became apparent. Immediately upon sitting down staff rushed to cordon off the area with a burgundy velvet rope to keep the hordes from spilling our cider, skulking in dark corners of the tavern paparazzi disguised as common Isle-folk were poised, ready to strike when a front-page opportunity presented itself. The attention was flattering, yet oppressive so we retired to our hosts lodge for a private dinner-dance away from the baying throng.

The following day we sought respite in a secluded folly, and then, disguised as normal, unexceptional people we took lunch in a craft-village before boarding a vessel sailing for Englands wintery snow-bound shores.

It really is the Isle of Alright.

De Luz

2009-01-16T03:37:00.002+05:30

My few remaining days in Panama have been filled with as much surf-time as my aching body will allow. I’ve surfed my biggest — but not necessarily best — couple of waves , having made the drop the wave’s were curling above and ahead of me well overhead. I’m never very good at judging wave heights, they always seem bigger to me than they probably are, but these were definitely 10ft+ faces and very nearly barreling (curling right over the surfer enclosing them within a tube of water). I took one smaller wave which curled began to curl over me and instinctively I ducked under the lip of the wave as it pitched out over me but it hit my head an knocked me head over heels. Next time eh?...

Spending so much time in the sea this last week I’ve observed some really spectacular light phenomenon. The brooding, stormy Caribbean weather has often been overcast but bright, and no wind the polished surface of the sea reflects the grey of the sky through it’s aqua lense creating a silvery green shimmer which makes it very difficult to distinguish between sea and sky, above and below air and liquid merging. One of the stormier days produced a light show that took me a few moments to comprehend it’s existence outside of the Photoshop realm. Off the northern tip of Isla Bastimentos on the waters horizon was what I can only describe as a setting rainbow, but rather than a ring-like rainbow this was a solid circular spectrum of light dipping below the skyline.

Another feature of surfing so much is the thinking time it affords between sets, in which time I’ve come up with a universal analogy between relationships and surfing. Both begin with a leap of faith, conviction, effort and determination to catch a ride on an inexorable wave of energy. Once aboard momentum takes over as an exhilarating freefall occurs but if you’re passive at this point then the freefall runs it’s course and it fizzles and dies or you tumble and crash. Once the initial buzz is under way you need to work to read and ride that energy to keep momentum going to stay ahead of the crumbling breaking wave, you need to use experience and intuition to understand and react to that energy, to flow with that energy and you have to keep opening up to the energy , to let yourself go in order to keep riding it for as long as possible.
Oh – here comes another wave…

Mi Nuevo Amor

2009-01-13T21:10:00.002+05:30

After bumping down on Bocas runway I found a place to stay thirty minutes walk down a swampy road to Playa Punch, a shallow reef break with lefts and rights that I didn’t get to surf on my last visit. Staying in walking distance from my surf spot saves the $20 return trips water taxi fee and being out of town in Big Creek suits me just fine, I just want to surf, eat and sleep my way through these remaining days in Panama. Having orientated myself at El Alma I waded through the morass up to Playa Punch with the admittedly cumbersome GG under one arm — she’s definitely putting on weight. Keen to surf I innocently strode out across the reef until it was deep enough to paddle and stroked hard to clear the white water. The waves were fun, fast and head to head-and-a-half high so I had a fine old time of it despite the excessive crowds in the water. With my arms/shoulders burning and energetically bankrupt I began to look for my exit point, hoping to follow someone else back in — the reef was sharp and the tide had dropped exposing even more of it. Most folk were getting picked up in water taxis and taken back to Bocas so after half an hour of waiting my patience gave and I caught a wave in toward a randomly selected spot. I let it wash me in until it was too shallow to paddle and I slid off my board to walk the rest of the way in. The wave that had delivered me thus far washed out revealing a reef covered with more sea-urchins than I believed possible. There were urchins nestled in between the spikes of bigger urchins having a sea urchin jamboree, their spikes swaying in the water in anticipation of the fun to come.. A quick scan in all directions confirmed that the whole coral shelf was covered in the pesky blighters. I couldn’t go back, I couldn’t go forward. The scene resembled a WW2 minefield, in miniature, and I the ship’s captain had to negotiate safe passage back to shore. After a few minutes of physical and mental inactivity, standing there like a right ‘nana I figured I had to take what was coming to me and I stumbled onward through the calf deep water aiming my feet at light–coloured spots where possible. On examining my reef boots once on dry land they had absorbed most of the damage, but the more tenacious spikes had found their way through and I knew I had a fun packed evening ahead — just me, the iodine, the needle, the tweezers and a whole lot of wincing.

I have a terrible confession to make. After such a heady, whirlwind romance I have forsaken GG for a smaller, lighter, more petite model. The following morning I just couldn’t face carrying GG for thirty minutes across difficult terrain — water retention from the knocks and scrapes we’ve been through have left her bloated and heavy. The smaller board I have with me which I’ve only used sparingly until now — the smaller size and volume make it less forgiving to ride and I’d judged it a step too far for me in more challenging waves — took a walk with me up to Punch. GG has been in dry-dock ever since. My new love is fast, light, agile, nimble and her duck-dives are obscenely satisfying. She doesn’t quite have the looks of her rival but she makes up for it in performance, in these waves anyway. I’m not proud of the way I’ve behaved but to be honest things had been a bit tense between me and GG for a few days previously. We just weren’t having fun any more.

There’s a great Hotel up at Playa Punch called La Coralina run by a wonderful host called Stacey. I had initially tried to stay there when I got to Bocas this time but they were full, but I have been hanging out there between surf’s, eating, drinking and enjoying the antics of Edgar the monkey riding Sugar the dog around the place like a pony. Her dad was arriving a day later than expected freeing up one of the expensive suites for a night. She let me have it for the price of one of her budget rooms so I’ve just spent a day in the lap of luxury enjoying a deliciously comfortable bed and an amazing multi-directional mist spray shower room. La Coralina overlooks Punch so at dawn I paddled out — through the urchin-less key-hole in the reef that Mike from the hotel showed me —and had the waves to myself for an hour before the boat’s unloaded their town-dwelling cargo. Between sessions today I took the first surf pictures of the trip. A combination of difficult access to the waves, water taxis and breaks being too far out to sea to photograph has handicapped me until now. Better late than never.

Café con Leche

2009-01-12T04:52:00.003+05:30

Back on my own again — they call me the lone wolf, the dark raven, the bringer of light, the wizard’s cup, the crab botherer…. Oh yes, the open road beckons and the sea whispers (one of) my name(s).

Two features consistently epitomise my various global wanderings. Coffee is the first. At home I don’t really do any caffeine so hot drinks tend to be pond-water derivatives. Yet once I leave the motherland’s shores letting my hair down and drinking coffee must act as some kind of emblem of freedom for me. I’ll only have one or two cups a day, mind. The second is The Age Game. I meet a lot of folk and they tend to be younger than me, typically early to late twenties. The meeting banter tends to take the following course at some point: What do you do? > How long have you done that for? > [a puzzled look crosses their faces] > Errr, so how old are you ? > What! > I thought you were in your late 20’s, 30 at most! > {I try to suppress a smug smile}. My decaying ego’s fire is fuelled once again and my account for eternal youth is put down to over two decades of hard slog at the coal-face of disco…. That or good genes. My sprightly 75 year old paragliding father is testament to that.

The car hire place at David airport cocked up once again, but this time in my favour. I got a top-end 4x4 for the price of the cheapest one they did and felt like the king of the road as I headed down the InterAmericana (Panama’s primary road and the one with the least potholes) looking for thrills and danger. A quick nose at Playa Las Lajas was disappointing so I hoofed it back down to Santa Catalina to catch the end of the swell. I surfed the point and the beach break at Estero until the swell had pretty much said farewell at which point I saddled up and headed for Los Santos province to 4 hours to the east. This state has been almost completely deforested yet the infinitely undulating verdant landscape is spectacular. I arrived at Playa Venao an hour before sundown and leapt into the sea for a surf before dark in this wide crescent shaped bay. It’s a really great beach-break with plenty of room and a range of peaks to choose from and the surfers I met over the following couple of days told me it holds size when the swell’s right and yet it’s almost completely undeveloped… thus far. There is so much surf potential in this region with beaches facing from due east to south west with points and reefs dissecting them and there’s even talk of an outer reef with 100ft monster waves for the foolhardy. Yet despite this there’s not much surf development, perhaps because the U.S. grey dollar invaded the area a while ago pushing land prices up. I really like it in this province yet the lack of challenging waves and my impending departure persuaded me to surf my remaining time out in the consistent Caribbean Bocas del Toro. A pre-dawn departure from Pedasi enabled me to catch the 10am land-hopper from David to Bocas. The Caribbean surf forecast predicts it to build and hold until my departure. Let’s hope I’ve got my surf pants on.

Hasta Lluego

2009-01-12T00:41:00.005+05:30

We greeted New Years day watching the sunrise followed by a leisurely breakfast with the monkeys before a grueling eye-bleeding 10 hour drive East across Panama back to Santa Catalina — I like it there. The combination of a new swell pushing through to the Pacific coast lighting up the main point for the first time since I’d been in Panama with the end of the holiday season meant town was full. We found a room on the bluff between town and the point, ate at Viankas and slept, the sleep of a thousand monkeys. Having shown SR all the sights, the next morning I made the 20 minute paddle between the rocks to the main attraction and inadvertently found myself right in the takeoff spot and caught myself an overhead right which walled up ahead of me growing in size and getting hollower as I shot down the line. A few instinctive top to bottom S-turns and a cutback kept me in the game until my final top turn just happened too quickly for me to control and my board shot off without me… my best wave ever!... Again!

We wandered in to town with the vague notion of getting a fish for dinner and arranging a snorkeling trip to Isla Coiba, one of the world’s premier dive sites and a nature reserve who’s only rival in terms of diversity and species numbers is the Galapagos. On the way to Rolo’s to arrange the Coiba trip we bumped in to a man, still dripping from his dive, with a spear gun skewering all manner of sealife. Our eyes were drawn to the enormous Snapper which we secured for $2. You don’t even see Snapper that big in the UK but it must have been £30-40 worth of fish in our sweaty mitts. A makeshift barbeque from a tinfoil cooking tray and a metallic washing up drainer and SR’s preparation, care, attention and garlic & ginger marinade provided me with one of the best meals I’ve had.

Isla Coiba is home to all manner of wild beasts from anacondas to sharks to crocodiles to whales to rays to prisoners — this island was a former prison colony and an unknown number of prisoners still reside in this wild island. The discernibly raw and untouched flora and fauna of these islands prompted a feeling of regressing millions of years as we approached. As the boat passed between two outlying islands we could see the submarine topography with absolute clarity beneath the limpid sea. Our excitement was palpable.
On signing in with the park rangers we saw a saltwater crocodile hanging about waiting for breakfast to slip by and then headed off for a tiny postcard-based desert island for us to snorkel around. We saw a kaleidoscopic array of colourful fish and coral in these pristine waters but the appearance of a gang of 4ft white tip sharks had SR scrambling for the safety of the rocks. With a little acclimatisation to the grey suited presence we continued and saw 2ft wide head of an indeterminatebly large shark lurking beneath some rocks and another 6ft white tip alongside huge shoals of fish in their brightest attire. The sheer magnitude of life around these rocks was breathtaking. When a cruise ship anchored nearby about to unload it’s cargo of 100 passengers we scuttled off to another nearby island with the most pristine white sand beach imaginable, clear turquoise waters backed by dense, dense jungle. A set-designer would have trouble coming up with a more perfect tropical beach.

A dawn surf on Sunday provided even bigger, double overhead sets but it was chock-a-block with locals guys demonstrating their skill and intimate knowledge of their wave. I caught what I could on the inside sections which wasn’t much but it was worth getting wet before our drive back to the city of David for SR’s trek back to San Jose, Costa Rica to get her flight back home.. A cursory check of the tickets when we arrived at the hotel in the early evening struck panic among the troops, we’d erroneously thought her flight was 4pm on Monday, allowing enough time for the 9hr journey the next morning and a fond farewell for us that evening. Oh No! It’s only bloomin’ 7.45 am. It was late already, there are no buses from La frontera after 9pm, it takes 1-2hrs to get to the border and 1-2hrs to get through the red tape at the busiest Panama-Costa Rica crossing and about 6 hours bus ride from there to San Jose. A quick bit of mental arithmetic determined that SR was in the shit. We booked a taxi, clothes were flung in bags and a wide-eyed stressful hug later and she was gone. Three hours later I was startled by the room phone ringing. SR was clearly in distress. The border crossing was a confusing nightmare and the last bus refused her passage and she had to watch it disappear without her. Endorsed taxi’s were quoting $300 but she found someone willing to do it for $200. But of course the cashpoints weren’t working that evening in the wild-west-like no-mans-land! The vulnerability of SR’s position was made manifest when the unlicensed cab took her down unlit streets into the countryside. With no common language between them her fears were only alleviated when he took her back to his house, wife and kids and allowed her to use his phone to call me. A midnight dash in a taxi to the badlands, my pockets stuffed with filthy lucre enabled SR’s 30-hour home-bound journey to commence.

Feliz Año Nuevo

2009-01-08T19:05:00.001+05:30

With the swell dropping and the Caribbean rainy season living up to it’s reputation we decided to head over to the pacific side to the remote peninsula Punta Burica where Panama borders Costa Rica on the Pacific Coast. On the Costa Rican side of this peninsula is Pavones, one of the most renowned left breaks in the world, yet the Panamanian side is relatively undiscovered and must receive the same swell as it’s Tican neighbour.
We planned to fly from Bocas to David having heard that the road had been closed for the last few days due to continuing landslides but the flight we wanted was full so we braved the water taxi to the mainland and then the bus from Almirante to David. Whole sections of the mountains had succumbed to rain-sodden gravity carving great earth red scars into the otherwise lush green forested hillsides, sweeping car sized rocks, forests and roads away. There were some pretty precarious sections that had been patched up using piles of rocks and gravel to allow one lane of traffic through and our driver didn’t seem very confident at some points as he got out of his cab to have a closer look. Still, we made it and headed straight for the airport to pick up our booked 4x4 from Thrifty so that we could make down to the wilds of Punta Burica. Blanks faces met our arrival - they didn’t have a 4x4 free until the next day which scuppered our plans. A systematic sweep of the car hire places at the airport furnished us with a 4 wheel drive Daihatsu hairdryer with a dent in every panel and a careworn interior. The delay in securing our off-road coiffure-machine meant that by the time we reached Puerto Armuelles it was nearly getting dark and we’d missed our low-tide window to make the 2 hour beach-drive to Punta Burica. The portless Puerto Armuelles is a one-horse kind of town, and we were very lucky to find that horse. We had nowhere to stay and the very friendly boy in the restaurant we randomly pulled up outside warned us off the only hotel in town. A drink and a site down proved fruitful. The only other gringos in town, an American couple in real estate took pity on us, because we reminded them of their beautiful children, and put us up in a colonial style mansion for the night.
We pottered around Armuelles for a couple of hours in the morning buying supplies and browsing the multitude of Todos Dollar shops that made up the town centre before the tide would allow us to begin our mission to reach Mono Feliz, a jungle lodge, on the remote peninsula. We were worried that we weren’t 4x4’d up enough with our tinpot Terios so we tried to tell everyone we could that were driving to Mono Feliz in ‘this’ car. Everyone just smiled and said we’d be fine…. But watch out for the tide…. And the rocks… Having found access to the beach it was surprisingly good fun driving through sand, shingle, pebbles and rivers. Where we nearly came unstuck were the expanses of lava fields and rock pools that we had to traverse and the rivers which were deceptively deep. With huge crashes, bangs and wallops we bounced our way over rocks, logs and forded streams and rivers. We waved and smiled and checked the way to Mono feliz with everyone we saw in case we might need their help when the hairdryer finally ran out of steam, but two stressful, yet exilarating hours later we saw the sign, off the beach, to Mono Feliz – Happy Monkey. Pulling up and finding our open wooden cabin at this deserted jungle fringed beach made it all worthwhile particularly as whilst the kids who were looking after the place showed us around a gaggle of Squirrel Monkeys came down from the trees to see us, and with our fists-full of bananas they lept all over us to feed.
Juancho an American, grizzly adams type, runs the lodge with his local-born wife Luzmilla. He has bought 2 plots of land which he has left as a natural wildlife habitat whilst the encroaching ranchers devour the rest of the peninsula. His land is home to monkeys, as you might expect, particularly a troop of maybe 50 Squirrel monkeys which make up a good chunk of the remaining 2500 global population of this model. There are also Capuccino monkeys, Howler monkeys, Wolf Spiders, Jesus Lizards, Toads, Sloths and a whole lot more besides. Our open-side and fronted cabin sat on the jungle ledge only feet away from what was effectively our own private beach. Punta Burica’s 180º vista allowed us to watch the sun rise and set right on our doorstep. We did Yoga, run by the delectable Instructor Von-Stretchalot SR’s guru, on the beach at sun rise and built beautifully elaborate driftwood bonfires on our beach at sunset to cook on and lie by as we gazed at the ridiculous number of stars someone had spattered the sky with. By day I surfed one of the many point breaks along this coast either with two of the boys from the lodge or on my own. The swell was small so I didn’t get to see it in it’s full glory but it was just amazing to be riding decent waves in a tropical paradise without a crowd. After surfing a quick dip in the spring water plunge pool was a good bracer for either a jungle walk, a beach walk or some hammock time.
On a guided jungle on New Years Eve morning Junacho took us to one of his gringo neighbours places even further down the point and therefore even more remote. The American guy David is doing something similar to Juancho by returning his land to natural habitat but his Environmental Fundamentalist attitude brings him confrontation at every juncture. He’s fighting the poachers, ranchers, farmers, hunters, drug smugglers, gangsters, environment agencies, press, corporations and the government which has resulted in numerous fights and death threats and him carrying a pistol at all times and his wife being too scared to live there. Juancho’s philosophy, conversely, of doing his bit for the environment but also by integrating with the local community, working with nature and with the local people has endeared him to his neighbours and he leads a beautifully peaceful existence. I think the adage that you get back what you give out, that the world is a mirror to our own attitudes rings true here. Still, his heart is in the right place and his dedication has many benefits. He invited us into his wild cat cage, he rescued a baby Margay after hunters had killed it’s mother. This ferocious feline was a little bit bigger than the biggest domestic cat (yes, even big Jeffrey) and was an incredible beast, with leaopard-like spots, immaculate fur, huge nocturnal eyes and disproportionally large paws she was definitely not tame. She nearly bit our hands off when we tried to play with her, but to experience a wild feline so intimately was an indelible memory. As a parting gift David gave us a bag full of newly hatched sea turtles that he had incubated in a purposely built sand pit, having bought the eggs from the poachers for 10¢ more than they get from their contacts, for us to release into the Pacific that evening.
As the last sun of 2008 sank beneath the watery horizon SR and I drank chilled Bollinger in plastic beakers around a particularly ostentatious bonfire before coaxing, cajoling, tapping, flicking, encouraging and cheering our turtle friends to make their first steps into their ocean home. And all of this at about midnight GMT. What a way to spend our New Years Eve.

Nochebuena! 241208

2009-01-05T19:44:00.003+05:30

My my, I'm behind on this blog. A combination of Christmas cheer, surf, remote wilderness and SR time has kept me away from the blog, but I'll begin to play catch up right now.

One of the most striking things about the Carribean side is the music. Music of all kinds and generational appeal booms out from peoples houses day and night like the oil in the Bocas del Toro machine — the Bocas Crew car creeps through town with it's blacked out windows, huge spoiler at the rear, UV lights underneath and a very fast looking "Bocas Crew" logo in gold down each side booming Ragga & Reggeton – A genre of latin music mixing hip-hop, reggae, and ragga, salsa and merengue. People of all ages throw open their windows, face their huge soundsystems to the street and sit on the porch to listen to anything from ballads, to reggae, to dancehall & ragga to reggeton to straightup salsa and merengue. On the far less touristy and therefore genuinely carribean Isla Bastimentos was the biggest soundsystem of them all.Coming from the murky depths of the most ramshakle and rund own looking stilted wooden house came the bone vibrating, blood jiggling bass from the meanest sounding ragga I've heard. The whole of Old Bank — the main town on Bastimentos — vibrated quite happily to this sound while the owner sat nonchalantly on his porch. A few brave souls tried to compete but to no avail.

Being a beginner — at anything — gives you the best and worst of times in close proximity to one another. On Christmas Eve I had my best surf ever, doing my first cut back, proper top to bottom turns and this all on my backhand! Christmas day was good but the point at isla Careneros was way too busy so I didn't catch too many waves and then I had my worst ever surf on Boxing Day. With a bit of a hangover I stumbled up to the point to see that the predicted new swell had arrived and it was absolutely firing. The waves were another foot or two bigger but more significantly they were hollower and seemed to slam into the reef with much more power and therefore much more noise. I paddled out, finding a convenient gap between sets and found myself in position pretty quickly. I managed the take-off and the drop OK but was immediately aware that the increased speed of the waves left little margin for error. I had taken off with too little angle so this fast breaking wave overtook me pretty quickly and I realised I wouldn't make it round the section ahead and kicked the board away to take the tumble in the whitewater before trying again. The tumble was much more than I'd bargained for as my limbs were flung about in every direction and I was spun head over heel for what seemed like an age. I'd had enough and tried to make it to the surface but the surging water was holding me down against the reef. Don't panic is the golden rule in these situations but every atom of my being was screaming "PANIC!". It was over relatively quickly and I came up for air only to realise in my haste I had taken the first wave of the set and I had another 6 of these beasts to come. My board's pretty floaty and the water was shallow so that incombination with my being an eedjut meant I couldn't duck dive deep enough beneath the oncoming waves to avoid the turbulence so I wrestled-the-crocodile and hung on to my board as I got pushed and pulled about underwater for the next 3 waves. A quick look up and I realised I had been washed nearly all the way down the point by now and the rocks at the southern end were looming perilously close. with one last push I summoned all my energy and paddled hard away from the rocks and managed to punch my way through the last couple of waves narrowly escaping being dashed on the rocks. That episode set the tone for the rest of the session, I was too timid and surfed without conviction taking off eather too early or too late but either way I missed most waves and pulled out fromsome perfect take-off spots as I watched people getting barrelled left, right and centre. The next day I wasn’t afraid but just lacked the skill to surf comeptantly in these kind of conditions. I caught a few waves but took missed out on a whole lot more. On one particular wave I dug my inside rail in as I was making a bottom turn and got sucked up the face of the wave and over the falls, me and my board getting slammed with the full force of a Carribean storm nose fist into the reef. I smashed the tip of my board into something hard, i think it may have been my ankle because I gouged a chunk out of my ankle too. Surfing is a great teacher; the lesson learned in these few days was that if you do or act with fear and too much caution then things just won't work out, and if you're not very good at something things don't work out. If you're not very good at something and you're afraid then be very careful!

SR arrived on Cristmas Eve, dazed and confused after a mammoth trip from Sweden via Stanstead, Heathrow, Houston - Texas and San Jose - Costa Rica! We had an hilarious and beautifully sweet Christmas with silly hats, presents, rum, champagne, hammocks, tequila, palm trees, crabs, beaches and our local pub on stilts over the sea!

Heart of Darkness 221208

2008-12-23T09:59:00.002+05:30

I’ve had a couple of days surfing the pretty solid lefts of Careneros. The first few sessions I went barefoot, like the big boys do, but a foot full of sea urchin spikes has put paid to my early bravado and I’ve donned my reef boots since. A full hour digging and hacking at my feet with tweezers, a knife and finally a sewing needle to get the beautiful yet poisonous purple shards out extinguished the remaining desire to be a cool barefoot reef surfer. It’s not like I’m trying maneuvers of such skill and delicacy that only my highly dexterous soles in direct contact with my board will suffice. My Bocas surf buddy has been with a 9yr old local kid who’s hitched free water taxi’s with me – I think that illustrates my level perfectly.

The swell dropped in the last day rendering Careneros too small so I headed for Isla Bastimentos, the next island in the chain and one who’s north coast is exposed more directly to the prevailing wave direction. The water taxi dropped me in the small town of Bastimentos on the south side of island. I was heading for Wizard beach on the north side and had been told there’s an easy 20 minute saunter across the island on the one clearly marked path from town. I asked some kids for directions in my finest Spanglish and was pointed down the path which served as the town’s high street. There’s no cars or roads on this island and it’s conspicuously less developed as a tourist spot than it’s neighbours. With chickens, goats and ponies wandering up and down the High Street(path) and not a gringo to be seen it’s unequivocally authentic. I followed the main path hugging the coast through the town until it veered inland and up the hill through the town graveyard, weaving it’s way through the graves until it stopped abruptly leaving only a small track leading into the dense jungle. This easy, clearly marked path kept splitting and splitting into equally insignificant and equally muddy one-person width tracks. As the mud got deeper and the jungle denser my flip flops (Inappropriate Footwear) stopped flipping and just flopped as the plug incessantly got sucked through the sole by the sloppy mud. Not long after I had to use my gorgeous new board as bridge to cross a stream whose banks were knee deep in mud I began to question the veracity of this path. I continued further taking a few left forks and a few right forks using my primeval hunter-gather’s instinct to guide me… Yes, I was lost and alone in the jungle. The twenty minute skip over the island had turned into an hour or so’s hacking and wading through almost impenetrable foliage and impassable mire. It was here and now that those innumerable hours spent worshipping at the televisual altar of the Almighty Ray Mears and my tireless, meticulous study of The Book — ‘Ray Mears World of Survival’ — kicked in. These years of Mears-conditioning had brought me to this point. My mind was alert, my body taught and keen. Preparation is the key for survival in this kind of terrain. My calm, calculating mind instinctively surveyed my kit list: Shorts, T-shirt, nice green surfboard, flip-flops (I.F.), sunglasses and a flimsy plastic bag containing a novel, a latin-american phrase book and some zinc sun-block for my lips.
What would Ray do?... What would Ray do?... The question rolled over and over in my mind for a minute or so before instinct, a sixth-sense if you will, possessed me as I reached for the phrase book and swiftly mastered the phrase “Where is the beach?”.
I stumbled onward, accumulating mud, sweat and tears as I went. Through sheer good luck, a favourable breeze, an indeterimate number of left turns and some right turns later I triumphantly staggered out of the jungle toward the topaz, lapping sea,. I had slightly missed my destination and had gone full circle back to the eastern end of the small town I’d been dropped in. To add to my already swollen sense of self-worth I had to shuffle past the kids who’d pointed the way an hour or two earlier — now a sweaty, sun-burnt gringo covered head to toe in a baby-diarreah coloured mud, wearing flops that had lost their flip, bearing a heavily mud-camouflaged mint green surfboard, muttering “ Dónde esté la playa”. Thanks Ray.

I did finally make it to Wizard beach, using the OTHER main path out of town. It’s a beautiful, secluded, palm-fringed beach but the solid 3ft waves were blown out by an onshore breeze by that time in the afternoon. I was exhausted and just had a 30 minute paddle out, as much to wash the mud off my self and my board as to catch a wave.

SR’s arriving in just over a day — woohoo!
Just in time for a new swell pulse to hit, which if Surfline is correct should be producing 12ft waves on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! A classic case of the surfers eternal dilemma. I’m really looking forward to spending tropical beach time with SR but can I ignore the best waves of the trip so far? Greater men than I have stumbled upon this quandary before me, so what can I learn from their accumulated wisdom?

Get up early and get a couple of hours in before she wakes up and then try not to fall sleep over dinner.

No quiero vomitar morado 191208

2008-12-22T06:14:00.002+05:30

As I passed the anchor line through my hands descending metre by metre beneath the surface my ears wouldn’t equalize properly and I began to feel some pain. This reminder that being, and moreover breathing, underwater isn’t normal for us homo sapiens was enough to unsettle me and I began to breathe quicker. Then I became all too aware of my breath and then breathing seemed like the most difficult problem I’d ever faced. I signalled to Claire, my instructor, that I wasn’t happy by which stage I was taking too many short shallow gulps of air but her experience showed as she looked into my eyes and calmed me down, directing my breaths like a conductor would an orchestra. From that point on, although never fully relaxed, I was much calmer and able to enjoy my first ever scuba dive. The rocks we were diving around were teaming with technicolour fish of all sizes, shapes and denominations and corals of all colours. It truly is another world down there and one I was privileged to visit for 45 minutes. We weren’t able to go to Isla Coiba, which is reputed to be one of the best dive spots in the world, but it was an unforgettable introduction to another water sport I can enjoy when the waves aren’t working.

Too many days with too little surf prompted me to make the move to the Caribbean coast, to the archipelago Bocas Del Toro. It’s not too many crow-miles away, but travel in Panama is mas lento. So two buses, three taxis , eight hours and no food later Kurtis (the Canadian) and I rocked up at The Purple House in David to break the journey. Everything about this place is purple, the walls, floors, furniture, books, cupboards, plants, air fresheners, the owner Andrea, the cleaning products…. Damn, I even inadvertently turned up in purple t-shirt. I’m not a major fan of purple, particularly not the sort of wishy-washy lavender purple that infected every molecule of this place. The cuteness of it all was cloying, overwhelming in the scorching heat of David and when the lovely poodle snuffled up to me and was introduced as “Cute-Si” by Andrea I think I had a little bit of lavender scented sick in my mouth. There was only a dorm-room bed available so I hardly got a wink of sleep before heading to the airport the next morning.

I arrived in Bocas on a funny little plane which skimmed and bumped it’s way over the highlands over to the East coast. The atmosphere, the smell, the rickety wooden architecture, the people and the prices definitely have a Caribbean flavour. Bocas del Toro is the name of the archipelago and also the main town which is on Isla Colon. It’s a ramshackle maritime town nudged up against the water with a few upmarket hotels catering for the rapidly increasing tourist boom. Bob Marley & Che Guevara seem to be the heros to the local mestizo looking rastas. I dumped my bags in my room, waxed her up and got a water taxi to the neighbouring Isla Caranero for $1 and surfed a nice left point break which reels down the coral reef on the east side of the long thin island. It was pretty fast and shoulder to head high with some real power behind it. It was breath of fresh saltwater and I had the first real surf workout of the trip which exposed the shabby shape I’ve fallen into. I’m pretty rusty on my lefts aswell (that’s assuming I was ever actually metallic enough to go rusty) but I had a couple of good rides in the pocket getting a few top to bottom turns in. I’m still not exactly at home on GG but damn she looks good!

El Lujo 171208

2008-12-20T06:59:00.002+05:30

(Luxury) is the reward of those who have no fear of discomfort - Jean Cocteau

We woke early and waded across the river to catch the 7am bus to civilization. Civilization comes in the form of a wild one-street town , how I’d imagine a wild west, frontier town to be complete with rancheros on horseback wandering down the street. The joy and jubilation of the ATM working ensured the trip had a positive slant. My breakfast of Jamon omelette, patacones (fried plantain chips) and Panamanian coffee was just reward for the grueling trip to town. My silly coloured hair attracted the town’s attention; an old man laughed and reached out to grab a lock that was peeking from beneath my cap and a beautiful young English student requested an interview with me. She took me aside, produced a Dictaphone, shook my hand and began the interrogation. I think her hormones must have gotten the better of her when she strayed off course and asked if I liked Panamanian women and then asked why. I think I blushed and shuffled awkwardly in true Templeton-gigolo style. These Panamanian mestizo women can be incredibly beautiful, a mix of afro-carribbean, Spanish and indigenous Indian creates strong proud features, perfect skin, almond eyes that dance in the light and physiques born from an active lifestyle, though to see them married to or hanging out with old, fat, ugly gringos has the rancid reek of a nu-capitalist imperialism where the dollar wins all.

I surfed the next day at Punta Brava, the swell magnet of the region with Kurtis my Canadian room-mate — Paula was afflicted by the Playa estero lurgy sweeping the beach. Itolo, a warm, amiable Brazilian ex-pat who wound up in Santa Catalina in 1979 and now runs a guest-house gave me the tip and talked me through the set-up. A twenty minute walk down the beach brings you to the rocky outcrop of Punta Brava , then a scramble through rocks and pools leads you to a channel from which you can begin paddling. No-one else was out and I found myself the most experienced surfer so I lead the tricky 15 minute navigation through the rocks and out to the break. The reward was about 45 minutes of fun 2-3ft lefts and rights breaking over rock and sand before the tide came in too far and softened the wave too much. I took a few drops and made the odd turn, but not enought to know whether GG is the dream-machine I hope her to be.

I really love the simplicity of this place… it’s an uncomplicated, simple, slow, raw, natural way of life here, with the added bonus of year round surf and perfect weather. The Real estate hawks are circling so it will not be long before the place is concreted over and golf courses are hacked from the land — prices have gone up from $5/sq.mt to $50/sq.mt in the last 5 years and investment groups from the states are busy buying up all available beach front land. Everything’s an investment opportunity in our wonderful exploitative western world.

No-one made any money, however, from one of the highlights of my stay so far. A heavy, tropical afternoon downpour stimulated an impromptu game of football in the rain on the beach followed by a rain-soaked swim in the sea. Why was such an ingenuous activity such a pleasure? Here’s a thought. We are made of water, saline water. We’re born into a womb with a saline solution almost exactly that of seawater, and our blood is similarly saline hence our attraction to the ocean. Whilst others ran for cover because of the rain we embraced it. The water in the air and the ocean, above and below relates to something primal taking us back, in evolutionary terms, to our aquatic origins.... Or maybe it’s just quite nice to be in warm rain?

The Cast

2008-12-15T21:18:00.004+05:30

So back to the Green Goddess, as I prepared her for her maiden voyage she drew admiring glances and prompted conversations with all passers–by, she’s a real show stopper. I still haven’t been able to put her through her paces because I haven’t really found much power in the ocean yet. Not for lack of trying though. My surf–buddy so far has been Paula, a very cool girl from Asturias — where I'm looking to to buy a village — via Madrid who I met whilst priming GG. We’ve wandered up and down the coast, scrambled over rocks, paddled out to rocky prominantaries day after day with little luck. There’s either been not enough swell, too much water, too little water or we’ve just been to the wrong places — our joke has become that we’re actually not surfers, we just like taking our boards out for a 'lovely walk' — and end back at the weak beach-break out front.

Another significant character in the Santa Catalina story is the wonderfully warm, charismatic and incredibly funny Mikael from Israel. He’s so unlike the typical dour Israeli traveler to be almost unrecognizable. Paula, Mikael and I are going for a family day out to Soná tomorrow on the bus and we’ve resolved to sing all the way there, entertaining the passengers and thereby saving our $2.50 fare. We’ve been laughing lots together. They are good people.

Another interesting character is Lee from Hull who I met on the plane into Panama. His typical northern machismo persona masks a sensitive, deep thinking man. Some of the conversations we’ve had he’s said he could never have with his best friends at home. He’s been a Saturday night pub fighter in his youth and has razor blade scars all over his body to prove it. He’s been hilariously funny in a very loud, northern way, but what’s been equally amusing is the American, Dutch, Canadian and Spanish speakers trying to understand a word he’s saying. At the beach bonfire last night he got soppy-drunk and called me an oracle and that our conversations had stimulated thoughts which had changed his outlook on life. He said I had a 'pure soul' which is one of the nicest things anyone has said to me, but means even more coming from a stranger, a stranger from Hull. There's nothing stranger than Hull.

I’m thinking a lot about another pure soul I know and that makes me happy…

The Mission

2008-12-15T21:09:00.002+05:30

I now have a mission. I don’t know why but having a seemingly insurmountable feat to perform gives shape to our days. I think we’re conditioned to think that life is about solving problems, beating this, winning at that, achieving the other… I think it will take a few more days for me to stop ‘needing’ these missions.
Anyway, my mission is this; I need to get some cash from the ATM.

It’s tougher than it sounds. I’m in Santa Catalina, Panama’s surf city, so you would imagine it would be geared to getting & keeping the surfers balboa (dollar), but this place is remote, really remote. As I write this on the porch of my concrete cabana on Playa Estero beach I am a 30 minute walk — across a river mouth which at high tide you have to wade through neck deep — from the centre of Santa Catalina. The centre has a restaurant, a small barely stocked shop, a couple of hostels, 2 scuba diving shacks, 1 telephone box (the only international call place in town) and a bus stop. The bus can take you the 2.5 hours over roads which are 3 parts pot-hole to 1 part road up to Soná, the local conurbation, which has 1 internet computer (the nearest to us here), 1 ATM, a couple of shops and a bus stop. Luckily my mobile phone doesn’t work in Panama (it seems all European ones don’t) and with a stroke of sheer good fortune my bank stopped my card as I tried to get money out in Panama City.

Still, I have money enough for a couple more days, the beach is on my doorstep, the waters warm, my board — the Green Godess — is waxed, finned, leashed and built for fun, the food is good, the beer is cheap and having ditched the penny-pinching dreary career-backpackers I accidently fell in with on the bus ride over here I’ve found good company in the Brits, Spanish, American, Canadian & Israeli folk that I’ve been hanging out with. The surf is small and weak, but that will change, the sun I shining, the landscape and beachscape is heart-achingly beautiful — I sometimes have to add a little skip to my step as a surge of excitement runs through me at how god damn incredible life is!

Touchdown

2008-12-11T19:53:00.002+05:30

I began my journey aboard the unwelcoming and cheerless Continental Airlines flight to Newark, NJ churned up with feelings of loss and yearning at leaving the wonderful SR behind combined with the palpable anguish of a situation with potential to upset ‘our’ apple-cart whilst I am far away. These thoughts were then jumbled, shaken and stirred together thoroughly with 4 hours of teeth chattering, bone-shaking turbulence. The resulting cocktail from this blend of ingredients was, surprisingly, one of wind…. A mighty wind. The diversion of finding opportune moments and localities in which to parp brought with it enough space to allow my thoughts to settle and with it a wonderful, almost Biblical sense of peace and clarity. The kind of clarity that only distance and flatulence can bring.
By the time I was passing the hours in Newark airport eating bad fast food (or was it just bad food, fast) I felt calm and open enough to embrace the journey ahead. The five hour hop down to Central America was almost consistently turbulent (and yes, a little but windy) the food didn’t really deserve the moniker and it was way too hot but the feeling was different. People struck up conversations easily, offered sweets around… smiled even. By the end of the trip I’d met enough people to fill a cab into town and whisk me to the ‘rustic’ palace I find myself in now after some well needed but short-lived sleep.
I’ve just had an early morning wander around the Havana-esque old city of Casca Vieja which has got me really excited about being here, there was loud latin music blaring from the crumbling colonial facades and kids protesting in the streets about something and deals being done in alleyways and people spitting joyfully in the gutters… but much as I love it I’m heading straight out to the beach today I think. I need the water in my gills.
One other point of note; the rave pustules I gathered from the weekend’s party have made a seamless transition into travel boils and a couple of cold-sores have come to join the party too! Here we go…

Panamania

2008-12-09T17:28:00.002+05:30

It's with a mild sense of panic that i find myself packing for Panama today. As usual I've procrastinated until I've left myself too much to do and obviously I'm trying to take way too many things (despite promising myself last time to go light). Of course I can depend on my furry faced friend (that's my cat, not her-indoors) to help in such a situation. He's parked himself on my board bag and looks so cosy and comfy I don't have the heart to move him. He's also generously donated little bundles of his fluff on my towel and clothes as mementos whilst we're apart.

I need to leave a record of my beautiful new surfboard before I relinquish control, throw it in the hold of an aeroplane, cover it in wax, and dash it on some panamanian rocks, so here's a few pictures of her in her immaculate, virginal prime.... mmmm!

The essence of life

2008-06-02T23:23:00.004+05:30

You don't have to go away to 'find' anything, it's already here within you, but the break from routine and giving yourself time does help. We fill our lives with so much 'doing' that we never have time to 'be'. Various pursuits throughout my life have allowed me a glimpse of joy of presence – those moments when you are completely at peace within the moment, without thought, without mind-clutter, not dwelling on the past or worrying about a future that hasn't happened.

These moments spent wave-riding are just such a pursuit, but i've had moments dj'ing when for hours on end the records seem to choose themselves and everything 'comes together', privately listening to music can connect to the timeless as can sex, (some) drugs, yoga, dancing, the awe inspiring enjoyment of beauty.... These glimpses show us how we can be all the time, and that's worth pursuing, it's what humanity has called at different times and in different places God, Allah, Krishna, spirit, soul, holiness, enlightenment, the divine... More please!

A surf trip to tourist backwater like the East coast of Sri Lanka is a good place to contemplate such matters.The surf is good (not windblown) from sunrise til about 10am and then from about 5pm til dark at about 6.45pm leaving a lot of hours with nowt much to do. I've clocked up some serious hammock time and have been reading (amongst other things) the eminently sensible Eckhart Tolle who talks about this kind of stuff with such clarity and ease without any airy fairy California-isms that it's hard to ignore. So this in combination with several glimpses of 'Life' a day through wave riding is a recipe for getting deep!

"Don't think, Feel!" as the Karate Kid once said.

In summary:
1 dislocated thumb
1 sliced hand (by an oyster)
4 reef scrapes
67 Mosquito bites
10 Sand fly bites
4 jelly fish stings (3 mild, 1 electro-shock therapy)
6345 new freckles
1 sun-bleached mop of hair
2 hangovers
3 monkey raids
1 snapped fin
5 dings (1 severe)
280 waves ridden
87 games of shithead
4 books read
18 yoga sessions
15 new friends
12 blog posts
53 amazing meals
14 snoozes

Fear

2008-05-31T08:36:00.001+05:30

The paradox of the Bay is that the reason it’s so peaceful, sleepy and detached is through fear. Fear of the LTTE related troubles in the region, fueled by western government warnings, has kept many tourists from visiting this season, yet this enclave seems nonchalantly unaffected by the bombs, landmines and battles going on within earshot. The firecrackers I wrote about on arrival transpired to be a battle between the Tigers and the government troops in nearby Yala East national park and every day we hear the sound of gunfire. Is it a training maneuver? Is it a battle? Another game of shit-head? Oh, ok, one more before a snooze… The soldiers that cruise the strip on their tractors smile and wave, damn even the guy on the machine gun turret of an armoured vehicle gave us an stiff yet genuine wave despite his heavy flack jacket.

We’ve been without power, internet and associated western conveniences a lot this last week allowing the mind to focus on the more palpable fear that has been rising in me as the waves have risen these last few days. The crescendo was yesterday morning as waves pushed over the reef with twelve to fourteen feet faces at some points. Stop for a moment and look around the room. Work out a spot that’s over twice your height from the ground and imagine a wall of water looming over the horizon and pitching forwards over itself with the fetch of the Indian Ocean behind it, powering it, as you lie at sea level looking up at it. Tell me there’s not a little drop of fear in you…. These waves aren’t big in surfing chronicles and seasoned surfers will laugh a macho laugh at my mention of fear, but I certainly have the fear of God within me as I frantically scrabble for the horizon amongst the surfer ‘pack’, me desperate to just make it over the beast without being driven into the reef like a pin into a steel plate, they desperate to get their spot at the peak, where the wave curls and begins breaking so they can ride it. The fear, as I name it, or the buzz/stoke/excitement as the veterans name it is tangibly crackling. The atmosphere has shifted to alertness, aliveness, the moment, certainly in the water, but is also residual for a time back on land. I may be a chicken, but I love it!

On big Wednesday as I’ll now call it, I was the absolute greenhorn in the water. Usually there’s a few more down the pecking order from me so I didn’t get too many waves in that session. Survival was my primary aim, from the big set waves, but also making sure my inexperienced decision making didn’t put me in the path of a six foot lump of sharpened fiberglass with a person leashed aboard. But the handful of rides I did get were intense. There’s no real memory-record of those rides as the moments were devoid of thought… frustrating as I try to replay the thrill in my mind, but I guess that’s what makes it so special.

[this was written a good few days ago but we’ve been without power and internet since then. I’m sending this from Colombo airport as I prepare to depart. The digital equivalent of posting your postcards at the airport]

Band of brothers

2008-05-23T18:51:00.003+05:30

I like the company of men as much as the next man, but it dawned on me after a few weeks that I do miss the softness, beauty, wisdom, care and openness of female company…

Why don’t women surf? Well, of course they do, but not in the numbers that men do, and there certainly aren’t many here… in fact there’s only 1 Japanese woman who is surfing here, and the only other females I’ve met are Mel, Rosie and Flora who were all here with surfing boyfriends. In fact the same was true of Bali when I was there unless you were in Kuta with it’s ‘resort’ facilities – beaches, bars, restaurants, shops etc. – the female count was disturbingly low. I know women are different, but why isn’t there a comparable urge to surf between the sexes? So here’s the theory I’ve come up with: Women are more naturally connected to their Self and are less driven by their ego therefore they don’t have the physical urge that men do to find complex ways of suppressing the ego to glimpse that true inner self by surfing or engaging in other ‘danger sports’… still they’re missing out, and so are we!

As many travellers in Arugam Bay have gravitated to Sooriya’s for Ram’s hospitality and culinary skills the evenings are spent round a communal table, playing cards, eating, drinking, smoking, and telling stories & jokes… which is all well and good but some of these young men are here to party aswell as to surf an getting desperate to just see a woman. My needs aren’t quite so primal as my intention for this trip was more as a retreat than a rave but A-Bay is beginning to seem like borstal-with-a-view but with more beer, surf and better food.

I’ve learnt to exist well in these testosterone fuelled environments from my school days but I’m not entirely comfortable . As evenings progress and otherwise decent aussies show their deep seated bigotism and racism – I haven’t met an Australian man who isn’t racist yet – I’m disappointed to find most others at the table laugh and join in with the “abbo” jokes, except perhaps Panu, a warm and gentle Finnish man. It must be born of ignorance over contemplation because on every other level I really get on with these people.
As we all get to know each other better the sessions at the point are getting more and more convivial. The brotherly concept of surfers calling us ‘tryers’ into makeable waves and pulling out of waves to let us get the tail end is a beautiful thing. Whoops go up when a good wave is ridden and there’s genuine shared joy as the learners improve.

The Point

2008-05-18T18:43:00.003+05:30

The point of me being here is the point, Arugam Point. Twice a day I make the fifteen minute walk from my hut, up the south end of the bay to the coral prominentary jutting into the Indian Ocean which causes swells from the south to form into waves as they hit the shallow reef and then refract around the point into the bay giving long surfable waves which peel from left to right.

The evening I arrived I threw my bags into The Nest and made straight for the point to get half an hours water time before dark. The set waves were 8-9ft on the face and barreled in one section. I paddled out in the lull between sets but my timidness amongst a pack of seasoned locals and travellers ensured I didn’t snag one of the big fellas, but I snuck onto a couple of smaller waves on the inside. Since then the size has dropped to not much beyond head-high but I’ve surfed the best waves of my life. I’m really getting to know the wave, and surfing with the wave like never before. I’m paddling into position, making the drop and immediately taking a high line along the wave to gain speed in order to make it round the fast breaking section 20 metres down the line, after which the wave slows so a cut back gets you back into the curl of the wave to begin generating speed down the line to make the next section. You can connect these sections up from the point down into the bay, probably one hundred metres or more, but as the season progresses and more sand is pushed over the reef these sections connect up to give rides of nearly eight hundred metres! I’ve by no means got this wave dialed and continue to get tumbled over the reef as waves close out on me or I completely misjudge a turn but the simple joy when it all comes together, as all thought disappears and you exist purely in the that moment with that wave is pretty special…. then Crunch! You snap a fin plug out of your board and begin a satisfied trudge back to the A-Bay board repair shack.

There’s a laid-back and friendly atmosphere in the water with the same faces - Aussie, American, Sri Lankan, English, Japanese, South African, French, Finnish, Spanish and Israeli – appearing day in day out. I would guess there are about twenty five surfers in town but there’s usually no more than 10 out at any one time and apart from some sour faced israelis there are smiles, waves, chats and the waves are shared by all.

The Nest

2008-05-14T20:15:00.002+05:30

I’m living in a wooden shack on stilts, like a tree house, called The Nest at the bottom of Ram Sooriya’s garden. I have a veranda on two sides with a hammock and a chair and table. Inside I have an electric light and a Tilley lamp as a bedside reading light, I have a bed with a mosquito net and a large lockable wooden box for keeping my things away from prying monkey hands, some large spiders, a huge centipede, some geckos, a few cockroaches and a bat. About 20 metres away is a well with an electric pump which draws water up through a stand-pipe and acts as my shower, and the banana tree leaves surrounding it are my soap tray. The nearest toilet is a couple of hundred metres walk towards the main building so I’ve been taking a leak in the surrounding flora and fauna. In fact in the spirit of going feral I’ve felt compelled to mark my territory with strategic urinary deployments about the perimeter. Such bestial instincts weren’t effective enough to save me from the devastation that greeted my return from breakfast this morning. Having changed into dry shorts after an early surf I left The Nest to see an upside down monkey face peering at me from under the apex of the roof. “Good morning” I waved as I headed for eggs and fruit salad thinking nothing more of it. That cheeky money had obviously been casing the joint whilst waiting for my departure before whistling his firm in to do the place over. As I walked back towards home I saw the porch light was on and swinging slightly, as I neared I saw my erstwhile drying boardshorts strewn on the sandy floor beneath the hut, approaching further I spied some of my toiletries and other nick-nacks dotted around the area. As comprehension dawned on me I opened my door to the full carnage within. Anything and everything that was accessible had been ransacked. There was kerosene from the lamp mixed with citronella all over the floor and walls, forming a nice paste where it had merged with my soap powder. The bed was covered with incriminating muddy paw prints, the mosquito net torn down, my pillow nowhere to be seen. Luckily my muji wash bag was sturdy enough to save most of it’s contents but my coconut after-sun tube was riddled with tiny teeth punctures, it’s contents sprayed across the walls looking like the scene of a coconut massacre. Bizarrely my photocopied yoga sheet had been removed from it’s plastic wallet and sat neatly in the middle of the floor… But the icing on the cake was a monkey poo-present at the foot of my bed…

Luckily I heeded Ram’s advice and stowed anything of value in my wooden chest so the damage was peripheral, but caution is the operative word until I can figure out how to keep the buggers out.
Monkeys -1, Ed -0.

things come and go

2008-05-12T21:56:00.006+05:30

the internet is at best intermittent here in crazy lazy aragam bay - so this post may have a long gestation period. a nine hour, two hundred mile drive from colombo through the hill country navigating horrendous roads delivered me to this bizarre enclave of peace in a crazy civil war ridden, election frenzied (the first in twenty years!) eastern sri lanka. the sound of gunfire and bombing whilst out surfing this evening turned out, of course, to be fireworks at a local buddhist festival!

it was sad to lave the ashram family, they made me very welcome and unusually I felt at home immediately upon arrival which is testament to the spirit of the place. I'd love to see them again, and my imagination has been captured by india. wouldn't it be great to do a road trip around the coast finding surf spots along the way... anyone interested?

having spent two weeks in lacsidasical coastal karnatika I got an intense blast of what india can offer a rooky when I transferred from mumbai's domestic terminal to the international one for my flight to colombo. it was a thirty minute ride but it packed in a middle-england's lifetime's worth of sound, colour, traffic, dirt, poverty, mayhem and all round sensual overload. there's almost too much life happening there for my tiny mind to comprehend!

i only managed to get my camera around the lagoon in mulki to the beach for one morning's photography - that's a damn shame as we had much better sessions than the one recorded here but on reflection i realised i've only put one surfing image up so here's a few more...

Super Glue

2008-05-08T18:25:00.003+05:30

Over these last couple of weeks I’ve surfed 4 or 5 spots either side of the Shambhavi River mouth, all within paddling / walking distance from the Ashram. We did venture to Mangalore jetty one afternoon when there was some transport available. It’s reputed to be about a foot bigger than Mulki and with more regular form as the groundswell wraps around the jetty… alas when we arrived the 3ft waves we’d been riding earlier in Mulki were non-existent. Another of life’s harsh lessons: don’t venture too far from home - you’ll only be disappointed.

I’ve had some really fun sessions every day, and as my energy drained after 8 days on the trot the swell conveniently dropped so I’ve been taking one of the Ashram’s longboards out for some easier bouts. I’ve been surfing mainly with Dustin who’s such a lovely bloke, really fun to surf with and great to chat to on the long paddle to and from the waves – he’s a good man. Pre & post surf confabulations have been easier these last couple of days as we’ve timed the tide to perfection, taking a ride on the outrushing tide as it drains the lagoon to the sea beyond and taking the incoming tide-expressway on our way back. That’s living alright!
I managed to slice the palm of my hand open on one of the many oysters lurking on the lagoon bed. They are razor sharp and as I paddled toward shore it cut me deep. As I reached the shore upon examination i could see my inner-workings, straining to get a better look I stepped back, onto another oyster and cut my foot… thank goodness there wasn’t a mop & bucket, a rake and two men carrying a sheet of glass nearby or the farce could have taken on Frank Spencerian proportions. After dousing the wound in salt water (for a couple of hours as I surfed) Dr Dustin hydrogen peroxided it and then super-glued it up – apparently super-glue is or has been used as a battlefield wound sealer – and it’s really done the trick.

I keep meaning to go in to detail about the amazing food I’ve been gorging on here, but keep getting sidetracked by other trains of thought…. Maybe tomorrow…

The Simple Things

2008-05-06T07:32:00.003+05:30

I’ve been having a good time, relaxing, surfing, diving in to ‘lake me’ and whatnot but the really special moments so far have been a couple of afternoon cricket games with some boys from the village. India is cricket crazy at the moment with the multi-billion dollar IPL but the grass roots passion for the game rather than the corporate dollars are what make it so.

Shyama Kunda, Rassica, Diki and I took a stroll to the village cricket field a few days ago as the scorching sun was beginning to cool. Word got round that a foreigner was in town so some of Kolechi Kamla’s finest soon emerged and everyone agreed that I was the spitting image of Ryan Sidebottom (which I can’t see myself – I guess we look all the same).

Conjuring up the spirit of a Flintoff-esque all rounder I hit some 14 year-olds for six and bowled some un-playable in-swingers – partly due to the high moisture content in the air and partly due to the tennis ball bouncing wildly off the recently ploughed pitch – arousing cries of “bowl, bowl!” on occasion, but even that herculean performance wasn’t enough to save us from losing both matches. To be frank, the local lads were pretty darn good!

About ready to collapse in my own personal sweat-lagoon, we retired to the lagoon proper for a post match sunset bath. Walking back for dinner I was exhausted with an aching bowling arm and cut feet, but I felt a tangible sense of contentment having connected with village life in a small way.

The Ashram Aspect

2008-05-04T18:49:00.003+05:30

The place I’m staying is a Krishna Temple / Ashram. The Krishna Consciousness devotees who live and run this place are part of a bigger organization lead by their guru Bhakti Gaurava Narasingha Maharaja and they have another Ashram in Mysoor and are opening one in Switzerland and are looking to do another surf-oriented one in the Seychelles – and it’s no coincidence that it’s a tax haven over there, these guys are businessmen. The Ashram has many businesses to generate income to support it’s activities and the elders in the community (Americans predominantly) tend to have their own business interests ranging from farming to mining, from import/export to surfboard manufacture, from web development to property development. There’s no conflict between earning money and being spiritual in Hindu life, rather the opposite. Krishna is, after all, the wealthiest, prettiest, strongest, most powerful entity and boy does he like to show it!

They get up at about 5am and meditate privately from 5.30am till 6.30am at which time the conch is blown and the fun begins. We meet in the small temple room and various melodic chants are sung accompanied by a mrudanga drum, bells and cymbals all culminating in bellowed rounds of Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna as the swaying sometimes spills over into dancing… at 6.30 in the morning! I’m slowly becoming more comfortable with all this strange, dazzling ritual. My body is softening to it as it becomes less alien to me. From my stiff, awkward, repressed-English-male demeanor to begin with I’ve loosened from uneasy stock-still silence to a sort of mumble-hum and a sway. At times now when I know the words I’ve sung my little heart out accompanied by full on Uncle-at-a-wedding style dancing…. Sweet.

I figure if I’m staying in this kind of environment I should live it, so I join in most morning’s and evenings. I haven’t broken free of the shackles of my false-ego to live forever with the divine… yet. But chanting Hare Krishna is apparently the fastest way to achieving this breakthrough in the current era, so we’ll see. If you notice a funny glint in my eye when I next see you, you’ll know the source.

The surf has picked up over the last few days – head high, fast and hollow peeling down the sandbanks deposited by the river with the surface almost unnervingly smooth making it hard to judge the pitch of the waves as they sweep toward shore. It’s breaking in waist high water and sometimes barreling, sometimes closing out so a mouth & shorts full of sand is a regular occurrence. I haven’t been able to take my camera across the lagoon to capture any of this magic so you’ll have to take my word for it.

The schedule

2008-04-30T14:44:00.003+05:30

The surf has been picking up steadily all week. We tend to make the paddle across the lagoon at about 7.30am to either Baba’s left or Water Tower and get back for a very late, well-earned and heartily appreciated breakfast at about 11am or even 12pm. At about this time the land heats up and the pressure difference draws the air from cooler sea to land creating on onshore breeze which messes the surf up a bit.

This morning we paddled down the lagoon to the river mouth to the south and crossed over to a spot called Swami’s (the Ashram have named all these breaks a couple of years ago as no-one else had previously surfed them ) where we had a good session in shoulder high, but pretty powerful waves which without even a breath of wind were as clean as they come. The paddle back, against the river current , took thirty muscle-burning, energy sapping minutes after a two hour session, but the lure of lopping the top off a fresh coconut to drink the cooling brew within kept us focused. It’s amazing to be the only people on this 60 mile stretch of picture postcard tropical beach aside from the odd heavy goods vehicle wandering by with a load on top of her head. It’s also great fun surfing with the kids from the Ashram: Satya, Shyama & Diksheet as they whoop, scream, sing Hare Krishna and bizarrely make meow noises as they take off and wipe out, consciously aware that they are probably amongst a handful of Indian boys – most of whom they know – surfing this whole sub-continent.

I finally succumbed to the lure of the longi (?). I cast aside my prejudices, quelled my cynicism, conquered my English reserve and bought the 2m strip of cloth and learned the wrap-round technique to keep it from falling…. And boy does it feel good. So much cooler than shorts clinging about your thighs, to have a bit of erm... freedom in that area encouraging a breeze about your bits is a joy to behold.

First Taste

2008-04-28T15:23:00.004+05:30

Here I am in my room at the Ashram with the fan furiously blowing hot air around me. I'm lucky that I arrived in a cool spell after the first rains of the approaching monsoon season. Still it's 32º and humid all day and all night. The Ashram sits on the shores of a lagoon which promises respite from the swelter but a leap off the jetty is rewarded with a slightly warmer, slightly wetter sensation than on land. The better recourse is to draw a bucket of water from the well in the garden and douse yourself in it's invigorating contents.

The surf, not epic but building day by day, is reached by a 20 minute paddle across the lagoon then a short walk across a sand spit to the Arabian Sea to Baba's Left. The sea is warm and the only crowd in the water, or even on this huge sandy beach, are the crowd you go with from the Ashram – which so far means Dustin (a SoCal devotee living at the Ashram), Krishna Priya (wife of the top dog – i think that's the correct Hindu term...), Satya & Shyama (two krishna kids from the Ashram) and David (the only other guest here, from San Fran).

The most profound, spiritually rousing thing to happen so far on the sub-continent (at least to me) is the stealth upgrade bestowed upon me by Jet Air from Mumbai to Mangalore. As I checked in at 4am on Saturday morning I could pay no attention through my sleep(less) encrusted red-eyes to my boarding pass. Only as I climbed aboard the plane and prepared for the usual traipse down the aisle to the cheap-seats at the back did I glance down to read the numbers on the pass, numbers of lottery winning magnitude:
4
B

The seats, with cloth of finest cobalt blue, were wide as the Serengeti, the legroom as bountiful as the Grand Canyon. As I eased into my seat I checked my ticket again... surely there's been a mistake, someone will notice in a minute and manhandle me through the curtain-of-plenty into the cattle class behind. But as the hot towels and complimentary mineral water arrived, with a smile of recognition, I relaxed into my new found, yet richly deserved, status... yes, this was how it was meant to be...
The food was an inedible concoction of boiled egg in marie-rose sauce with a bizarre sausage and the flight was over in 45 minutes... The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away...

here i go again on my own...

2008-04-25T03:17:00.000+05:30

... going down the only road i've ever known... or something like that...
I'm in a mild state of panic as I throw the last few thongs into my holdall, but i figured I should add something new since my last visit here.... so here's a picture from my recent Icelandic adventure.

See you in India

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2007-11-15T01:35:00.000+05:30

I’ve been back home for nearly 2 weeks now. After a respectable 36 hour journey from Brisbane to London involving delays, flight cancellations, lost & found baggage and as much standing up as I could muster Ma and Pa were at Heathrow to greet me and ferry me home. The fact that I entered the arrivals hall under my own steam was almost a disappointment to my distraught mother, who despite my protestations half expected me to be wheeled prone atop an airport milk-float-mobility-vehicle(MFBV) with a gaggle of wretched neuro-surgeons weeping at my side. But I was glad to see them and in surprisingly good fettle despite my confusion at having endured two airport bound halloween’s in both Australia and the U.S. without the tonic of a trick-or-treat.

The last fortnight has been a whirlwind of nhs doctor’s appointments (I can see a specialist within a year they promise), endless prone calls to insurers (they have been no help whatsoever), standing, prostrate cancellations of various trip components, sofa-based laptoppery, horizontal lunch visits, sit-down dentist appointments (bad), stand-up meetings at work, lying down, swimming, physio appointments, lay-down reflexology, more lying down, planning, plotting, scheming, a stand up buffet dinner party, an evening standing in a pub, more standing, a very expensive sit down in a private neuro-surgeons office, odd lie-down business meetings at home, pilates instruction, intra-city walking and stand-up/lie-down house husbandry (which I really rather enjoy…hmmm, one day…). Resting is exhausting.

I’ve enjoyed coming back to the crisp clarity of autumnal England, and I think it’s the luck of my celtic ancestry which imparts an affection and enthusiastic anticipation for the rapidly approaching winter — but I’d still rather be bobbing about in Bali.

Towel Throwing

2007-10-25T11:58:00.000+05:30

"Well, I've come to the end of the road.... " as Boyz II Men so poignantly opined.

I've been in Brisbane since Tuesday with my Brother, Sister-in-Law, 2 Nieces and Nephew–which has been great— but the majority of my time has been spent enjoying the facilities at the Royal Brisbane Hospital. I've had X-Rays, Blood Tests, The Glasgow Coma Test (though not as a result of a Glasgow kiss) CT Scans, Reflex Tests, MRI Scans (shown below)and even an anal probe.

On arrival I was upgraded from the Emergency waiting room to the Fast Track assessment room and had my case referred to the Neurological department — this still took 9 hours, straight after a 17 hour journey from Bali with little sleep. I've got to know the Emergency department pretty well since then and everyone seems genuinely concerned except me. The debate is whether to operate on my severely herniated disc to remove some of it from my spinal column or whether to leave it and hope the dangerous bit of loose disc disintegrates over time. I should be in excruciating pain with the problem I have and it's only the fact that I'm not that's keeping me from the surgeons knife. I'm seeing them again on Monday for a further assessment, but they're keen, as am I, to avoid surgery if possible.

With or without the operation I shouldn't be surfing again for a few months, in fact I can only lie or stand, no sitting, for the next few weeks at least so I'm coming home. It's a terrible shame, but it's the right thing to do. There's a chance I may never get the use of my foot back properly, but more importantly if I exacerbate the problem I could easily do much worse permanent damage.

The silver-lining is that the Neuro-doctor recommended I get my insurance people to fly me back business class to allow me to stand and lie on the flight home.

Sick Bay

2007-10-19T12:28:00.000+05:30

Time drifts by hear at the aptly named Dreamland, although not for much longer. I’m flying to Brisbane on Monday for an MRI scan on my back in order to properly assess the damage, and the Dreamland warungs are being demolished in December to make way for a 5 star golf resort. “The fat cats whacking balls have pushed out the surf rats whacking bowls” to paraphrase my cowabunga stomach-churningly naff surf guidebook.

I hung out with a ‘spunky’, to use the colloquial, Aussie woman called Polly for a couple of days. She owns a villa in Bali and when she lets it she holidays at Dreamland or Bingin donw the coast. She surfs as badly as I do so we watched out for when another in the bigger swells we’ve been experiencing recently and the night before last we walked along the beach to Bingin for a drink a new bar down there. We had a good evening in the usual U.N. congress kind of way with Yanks, Aussies, Kiwis, Balinese and a Colombian fella eating some good food and drinking beers, timing our return to beat the incoming tide which would strand us in Bingin. Having never made the walk before I was relying on Polly’s judgement that 10pm was our curfew, but during the evening I talked to an older Kiwi gentleman who did the walk at 9 that morning and the tide then was pretty close to making it impassable. I managed to lure Polly from the clutches of an All-American Huntingdon Beach surf dude by 9.30pm and we set off bare foot and with my head torch illuminating our way. The higher tide meant that much of the easy beach sections of the walk were submerged so we had to resort to more rock scrambling than on our outward journey, and someone had been busily sharpening the rocks whilst we were eating and drinking. Yet we made good progress and all seemed well until we rounded a rock to be confronted by a 3ft green and black striped sea-snake in our path. Both snake and humans froze trying to assess who was in the greater danger and we made a slow retreat. Once out of the torchlight the snake disappeared and we proceeded with haste. From here-on things became critical. The rapidly incoming tide was compounded by the growing swell which sent waves crashing in to the coves we were trying to traverse. Timing our progression between wave sets we edged closer to Dreamland aware that a retreat was now more difficult than an advance. We just made it round promontory after promontory each one promising and then failing to deliver us to the safety of home until we both recognised that the cove we were in was definitely the one before safety. By this stage we were literally clinging to the cliff face as huge rollers crashed in to the rocks below and a delirious panic had set in. Spying the opportunity of a rare lull between wave-sets we lept from the cliff to the beach below and made a run for the final promontory making it round just in time for the next set to wash us up the beach to the safety of Dreamland. Crikey!

Last night I surfed (or rather, bobbed about) until I saw the large flame-red sun melt into the watery horizon. In this last hour of the day the wind drops completely leaving a mercurial quality to the ocean. It’s a magical time; even as the waves roll in there’s a tranquility about this transition zone between ocean and land. I hope my back, nerve and foot combo recover in time for me to fully experience the incomparable pleasures of surfing before returning to work.

Dreamland

2007-10-13T18:33:00.000+05:30

I can’t remember when I last blogged. That’s the effect ‘Dreamland’ beach has on you. Everything slows to the pace of the waves metronomically rolling on to the beach. There’s absolutely no way I could squeeze breakfast, lunch, dinner, two surfs, a snooze, a bit of reading AND write a blog. Never mind having to leave the suspension-of-reality that is Dreamland to embark upon the 10 minute slog up to the main road where the internet lives. I’ve only just managed to prepare myself for that expedition.

On the second night here I joined a beach bonfire party and began generating my first hangover since departure. The party’s instigators where some a-whoopin and a-hollerin american frat-boy types who despite being in their mid to late 20’s displayed the full gamut of intoxicated masculine emotions I thought had been confined to my mid-teen forays into the magical world of booze. We were treated to arm wrestling, fire-jumping, chase-me, and other such acts of bravado deigned to alert the local females of their presence, followed by cringe-inducing awkward jerky shuffle-dancing to gangsta rap whilst following no discernable rhythm before the overly desperate lunges at anything remotely feminine culminating in a brother on brother fist-fight — the result of which was their heartfelt vows to disown one another — and the rest of the fraternity passing out in the sand.

Backdropped by this diversion I met some funny, well-balanced English lads, a Swiss man, an Austrian, some French folks, 2 German girls and a gaggle of English traveller-trail girls who almost equalled the americans in ther national stereotypical displays and were therefore equally entertaining to engage; the pretty one who was desperate to liase with an equally attractive other, despite gary-back-home, who frowned and stropped and needed attending to by her courtiers when her advances on a french surfer were rebuffed. The chief courier, a plump, older geordie lass who was actually very nice and some assorted other girls from the Isles clinging deperately to the diminishing dregs of the wine box.

I’m staying in an amazing bamboo-built losmen at the south end of dreamland beach, terraced into the hillside. My room is open on two sides and if I prop myself up n my elbows after one of my naps I can see all the way down to the southernmost prominentary of Uluwatu, a temple site and the most famous surf break in Bali. Before that is Padang Padang, Bali’s Pipeline, Impossibles, Bingin and closest to home the fast shorebreak right of Dreamlands. If my foot was alive I would be dangerous.

By the way, do any medical types out there know what I can do to help regain feeling and movemenet in my foot. The action I can’t do is drawing the foot up towards the shin. I have no control or power there so I can’t stand on my heels, for example. Any ideas greatly received.

I’m moving up the beach today by about 250 metres which will be a bit of a struggle but I’m sure I’ll manage it. It’s a bit of a shame because this place is spacious, the views are jaw-droppingly good and I know a few of the local residents, but it will be a bit like going home moving to Eric’s place. Some of the English inmates and I are going up to the ‘big road’ to watch the footall this evening in a bar which should be fun. I’m now off to mentally prepare myself for the big move.

(btw - i surfed Uluwatu today for those who know)

Broken

2007-10-06T09:27:00.000+05:30

I’ve been in Bali a few days now, but I’m not quite having the beach-bum existence I had planned.

The sweet intoxicating smell of incense welcomed me back as I took a taxi from the airport to my hotel in Legian. My left sciatic nerve/back/leg/foot issue was still debilitating as I tried a surf on Legian beach the following day which left me annoyed and frustrated. A cut on my toe, which I thought had healed, turned septic swelling and discharging a beautiful sherbert-yellow ooze and I discovered I had left my bank card at the airport when I withdrew cash on arrival, although lost-property yielded nothing.

After a day of wallowing in a mire of self-pity I changed my frame-of-mind and began some positive action. I, using the proverbial, was going to kick some ass.

I checked myself into a beautiful ‘boutique losmen’ down the road from the perfectly nice hotel I was staying in and have sheathed my surfboards until I sort my sciatic nerve out (pesky blighter). Antibiotics have sorted my unruly toe out and a Chiropractor has diagnosed a recurrence of an old slipped disc injury as the cause of my buttock/leg pain and semi-paralysis of my ankle. He’s cricked and crunched my back and neck around and done some pretty deep, discombobulating massage combined with some electric current therapy. I’ve got a chiropractic appointment every other day until I get the use of my ankle back, meantime I’m going to lie back and relax.

Those waves can wait just a little bit longer for me to teach them a lesson…

In transit

2007-10-01T10:48:00.000+05:30

As i sit in my sanitised, air conditioned, westernised, safe hotel in singapore on route to Bali I look back on Aragam Bay with fondness. It took a while for me get over my middle-class shock, fascination and squeamishness with Si Lanka's extreme poverty and was on edge for the first week or so. But once I got used to that I realised they're not all there to rip you off. Most are trying to make rupee or two and that's fair enough, but many are just going about their business — it's not all about me!

My walks up the beach to the point for a surf were peppered with shouts of "hellowhereyoufromgoodwavetodayno?" from the fishermen mending their nets in the shade of their bamboo huts. My pre or post-surf warm up/down took the form of helping drag a fishing boat up the beach beyond the reach of the high-tide.

I gravitated towards a nice geriatric crew of westerners: Jason (43) an Aragam Bay veteran of 7 years does 6 months in Sydney and 6 months in Sri Lanka and Mark (42) does 2 trips a year to Sri Lanka from the Gold Coast. Both are great surfers and have an almost comatose dryness about their humour which seem typically Australian and very funny. And then there was Tim (50) an Hawaiian surfer with a surprising, rich musical past taking in part time membership of Throbbing Gristle with Genesis P Orridge, producing dancehall and Dub with California's Jamaican ex-pats and making records and playing live on San Francisco's early rave scene.
Finally I feel relaxed in the place and the next phase of my travels beckons.

My overriding memory of Si Lanka is the locals pride, practice and proficiency in the ancient art of spitting. They are truly world class. I'm talking a loud, rolling, guttural drawing up of all the throats phlegm followed by a spit which could knock a bird out of the tree.
Aaaahh...

Aragam Bay

2007-09-26T10:06:00.000+05:30

I’m only 5 surfing-days into this trip and my decrepit old body is already giving up. My sciatic nerve has become painful again and the bodily contortions I involuntarily do to protect that area has pulled a muscle further up my back. I stayed out of the water yesterday in order to recover and am having some physio this morning to help loosen things up. Fingers crossed that this doesn’t become an extended sunbathing holiday. I’m not very good at sunbathing.

In this small sleepy village you get to n ow the characters pretty quickly. Derek, the reluctant caretaker of his brothers tsunami ravaged Siam View hotel, holds court every evening. His casual colonial-style racism can’t mask the warm heart within and he really does love Asia and the Asians having lived in Hong Kong, Thailand and Sri Lanka for the last 25 years or so. He just doesn’t like Sri Lanka. His trusty monkey-keeping German sidekick Wolfgang prepares food and lures newcomers to his safari tours, whilst quietly despising Sri Lanka too. It’s more amusing than it sounds and many an hour can be whiled away in their company. On some evenings when there’s a couple of Aussies, an American or two, a couple of Germans, an English contingent, some surly Israelis, the odd Sri Lankan driver and some UN and NGO folks in I can imagine myself holed-up in a Baghdad war correspondents hotel.

The polar opposite of the Siam View is the place I tend to eat every evening. Sooriyas is presided over by a wonderful Tamil Hindu man called Ram. This slight, unassuming bare-chested man has a long grey beard from which regularly emerges an infectious almost toothless grin. His quiet, caring, generous, open-minded character is the antidote to the cynical ex-pat westerners and his cooking is sublime and at £1 for a meal and 50p for a beer it’s embarrassingly cheap. Ram was in London during the 60’s hippy revolution, in New York for part of the 70’s and in Berlin after the wall came down so his ego-less innocence is born of practice rather than ignorance.

Right, I’m off to be cured by a Danish woman. Wish me luck…

Surf... of sorts

2007-09-23T12:27:00.000+05:30

I’ve surfed every day since I got to Aragam Bay, in fact I’ve surfed 3 times every day, although surfings probably too strong a term for what I’ve been doing. I trapped my sciatic nerve a couple of weeks ago. The pain in my lower back has gone but the ball of my foot and the my toes are still numb and I have limited ankle movement. It just doesn’t do what my mind is telling it to. This all adds up to a pretty good excuse for why I’ve neen so useless out in the water.

Aragam Bay is set up with a pretty good reef/point break at the southern tip (which I’ve been avoiding so far), the wave then wraps into the bay providing a much weaker ‘beginners pool’ wave close to shore and full of local kids. I’ve been thrashing about down in the kids section, swallowing my pride to get some waves. It’s a bit weird because I’m having to learn a new technique for standing up on the board. My limited movement and sensation below the knee means I have to kind of throw my left foot from the knee to try and hit the board, and if I do get it in the right spot I don’t have the flex in my ankle to turn easily. But I’m getting better, I had a really fun session this morning, and I’m enjoying being in the water.

Aragam Bay is an intriguing place which I haven’t really worked out yet. But more of that later…

Shaggy!

2007-09-21T12:21:00.000+05:30

My drive from Hikkaduwa to Aragam Bay was remarkable for two things.

Firstly it was remarkable how the climate changed from winter on the west coast to summer on the east coast. As soon as we crossed the mountains running down the spine of Sri Lanka the sun shone and the temperature increased by 5 degrees. It’s only 300 miles from coast to coast yet the difference is more like travelling from the northern to southern hemishphere.

The second transformation on this crossing was more profound. The journey began brightly enough with Udara my driver pumping the sounds of Shaggy at full volume. A couple of hours in it became apparent that the van was only equipped with one Shaggy tape. My smile faded as I endured rotation after rotation of sunny ragga-pop, the imbecilic choruses and banal lyrics grating deeper and deeper into my mind. After the 10th rotation, however, a remarkable thing happened. The braided nincompoop’s lyrics begin to reveal hidden depths. The, once tinny, digital reggae began to resonate on an altogether more spiritual plane. By the 20th repetition Shaggy revealed himself as a true shamanic guide for the modern-day male. “It wasn’t me” recalls ancient Sparta’s testosterone fuelled code of ‘take no prisoners, give no quarter’ — admit nothing, deny everything. The rhythmic pulse lifts the soul, on a molecular level, up to a celestial plane to become one with the very fabric of the universe. By the 21st listen this farbic is thrown over the table of consciousness and nirvana is close.

Once my ‘self’, my ego, had seeped into and become consumed by the omniverse the once distinct boundaries between ‘I’ and the ‘other’ had been broken down by the hypnotic, mesmerising pop-ragga beats and Shaggys bewitching mantras, then and only then did Udara drop the bomb… BOOOM! — UB40.

The world exploded in shimmering translucent shards of joy. It was then I realised Udara had been leading me on this ‘journey’ as my spirit guide. Opening my eyes to that which adolescence closed….

The drive was otherwise uneventful apart from seeing an elephant by the side of the road.

Rice and Curry

2007-09-19T07:57:00.000+05:30

With curry's strong associations with weekend treats back at home yesterdays curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner was a good way to get over the no-surf blues.

I had a traditional Sri Lankan breakfast of string hoppers and curry (potato and dhal), a standard rice and curry lunch (beef curry, dhal, mixed vegetable and beans) rounded off by gthe most amazing one yet at my hotel: a sweet brinjal bhaji, spicy coconut fish curry, fried potato curry, juicy green beans with deep fried ginger and chilli, an unidentified vegetable in coconut sauce, rice and poppadoms. And all rounded off later on with a spicy Sri Lankan omelette and a bottle of Arak, the coconut based spirit, shared with 'the lads' watching the 2020 cricket.