Are you sick of your treadmill and the bull that has taken your wings? Really, you don't need Ganja, Coke, caffeine or Red Beans, just a 747 will give you wings. Sit up and take a deep breath, shape your lips and chant … "Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Timor, Roti, Neeeas". Once is enough because you'll hear ringing and clanging and not from a lack of oxygen. I carried on with Uluwatu, Impossibles, Nyang-Nyang, Balangan, Bingin, Kuta, Canggu, Medewi. The "ersatz" frying pan, accompanied by some profuse shrieks, was eddying my way from the kitchen. Quite reminiscent of the experience I have recently recovered from when two years ago I intoned Waroora, Gnarloo, The Bluff, Cowaramup, Margaret River, Strikos. Then I hid the cast iron frying pan so as not to suffer a repeat. Well, I locked her in the kitchen and ducked with my surfing buddy. Dream on!

We're on the cramped plane with unrelenting roar of the jet engine, we hurtle into the sky. The dream is coming true, the ringing stops, my head regains its shape and the abused pan is just a memory. Endless hours of discomfort trickle past. 439 Other faces become just blurrs as your eyes hone in on every curve of all the lovely stewardesses. The lights go out and you're alone with aches and pains, insomnia, bad movies and video games. Thank heavens I remembered the odd book. I absorb every word of the description, fact and advise, memorise all the maps and pictures of "Surfing Indonesia", a search for the World's most perfect waves.

Another meal served with a hinting smile and just before I make a fool of myself with an airborne love affair, I come down to earth with the most tender of jolts. It's a touchdown.

Airport Lefts, Airport Rights - bloody hell, Pete, it's flat! Formalities and reality - we are on Bali. I think I've done my homework and know the ropes. Reality hits us a second time with the intense heat and humidity. It's dramatically different, chaotic, certainly smells and is often unexpected. There is a crisis - our waveskis don't arrive. They weren't loaded in Cape Town. Xavier, Malan and Peter are smiling, they've gotten theirs. Pete and I have to return the next day for ours.

"Baggage, transport, money, rooms" was being nudged, tugged and shouted at us. If you're a first-timer and smart you've got advance accommodation and are being collected. Otherwise, you'll be be at the mercy of the airport touts and taxis or you can schlep off the airport proper and hitch a Beemo to town for a shaky baptism. We were fetched by the Sandi Phala 'fairy' with his Buzuki. Second and fourth was all he could find and slipped the clutch all the way into town because he couldn't keep his eyes off ready and rugged Pete.

This "town" is different. City planning is an alien science. No municipal sewerage, water, garbage collection, logical street plan, traffic and sidewalk etiquette common to western genes. Wobbling tourists, jabbering locals, smoldering garbage, every building seemed rundown or collapsing. Narrow, winding, un-demarcated, potholed streets, collapsing, overgrown sidewalks - This must be the wrong side of town. Unperturbed, our 'fairy' carried on hooting, scooting and slipping the clutch to Pete's dismay, past the Holiday Inn and onto the beachfront and Kuta Reef.

A pervasive sewerage smell from the street gutter streaming across the beach, next to the Holiday Inn, is etched as is the lovely turquoise sea and breaking reefs in the Balian mosaic of my mind. Days and nights, land and sea have no defined temperature boundaries. It's hot and humid year round. Unbelievable throb of traffic, hooter manic daredevil drivers, cajoling hawkers, placid dogs, sidewalk vendors, temples and rituals, milling tourists, endless alleys of clothing shops cloud our minds the first days. We fall into a routine of surf, eat, surf, eat until we acquire equilibrium and peace of mind with warm waves and surfed-out bodies. 'Our fairy's' interest in us is waning as waitresses are gaining. Seeing a lost cause, he offers to organise us jiggy-jiggies! We move out!

Slowly we have acclimatised. Don't need air-conditioning and mosquito nets anymore as the Bintang and Bali Hai beers pour into and out of our very souls every night. The hectic streets and bargain alleys, suntanning tourists, irritating vendors, partying bimbos, devious money-changers, feral Ausssie surfing mates, bottled water and strange foods are hurdles fading in significance. Our focus is returning to enjoying the adventure of surf travelling in a foreign land, experiencing the culture and unraveling the intricacies of this society while coping with Bali-belly. Now we had a grip on the ropes.

More pictures and the rest of the Bali experience in Episode 2..... Go to the next page!

Read episode 2

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