Big Trip Day 103: Escape from Nias
Hello friends,
I write to you from an airplane that is flying far far away from Nias with the predominant feeling of sweet relief. We will not be returning there ever again. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that we are outright banished from the island. But let me back up a bit before I recount the story of our narrow escape.
As Dory described in the last newsletter, the Indonesian island of Nias has provided us with some wonderful experiences, excellent surfing, and fantastic new friends. In the last two weeks there, we continued the good times, in large part due to our decision to move to a much nicer accommodation called KabuNohi, owned by Mark, an Aussie surfer, and his wife Debbie, who comes from Medan, Indonesia. Our new place of residence was built as a surfer’s dream home, with a beautiful deck overlooking Sorake, the world class surf break. With such a perfect lookout, it’s essentially mandatory to do multiple surf checks per day and surf anytime conditions look excellent, which is often. In fact, there is a camera mounted on the deck that broadcasts a livestream of the wave onto Surfline, the surf forecasting app.
Mark Flint has been residing in Indonesia and surfing the Sorake point for over 40 years. Even after all this time, he can still be seen doing surf checks multiple times a day, even on days when the waves are small and he has no intention of surfing. I have never before met anyone so passionate about one particular wave.
But it does make sense; the wave is just about as perfect as it gets. Sorake is surfable in virtually all conditions: big and small swells, onshore and offshore wind, low and high tide. And when there is a proper swell (which is often) Sorake is a barrel machine that draws people in from all over the world hoping to experience those 6 seconds of tube time bliss. Mark was one of the first people to surf this wave, long before there were checkerboard steps leading out to the break to protect your feet as you cross the reef. Back in the 80’s, the only way to get to the wave was to hitch a 10 hour ride on the cargo boat from the mainland, then take a speed boat with several days of supplies down to the southern coast, which was still void of any roads or inhabitants, then set up camp and pray that you don’t get malaria.
Mark speaks perfect Indonesian, which he picked up by working as a fixer and middle man for oil drilling projects around the Indonesian coast. He was skilled at making friends with and greasing the hands of local village leaders in order to gain access to do oceanic surveys. He typically organized local fishermen and utilized local boats to conduct the surveys, creating a win-win situation for everyone involved. He earned a reputation for being able to make projects happen for a fraction of the budgeted price. It’s no surprise that the true incentive for Mark in this line of work was that he acquired access to countless undiscovered surf breaks all over Indonesia. But once Mark laid eyes on Sorake, he knew that he need not look any further.
Mark is an absolute legend, and Sorake is the love of his life. He is always ready with an epic tale to share with whoever happens to be hanging out on the surf deck, and he is endlessly stoked for anyone he sees preparing to make the 2 minute walk out to surf his favorite wave. Check out an interview with Mark here.
KabuNohi was not just a surfer’s dream house; it also became our safe space. As Dory mentioned in the last newsletter, our experience volunteering with the English school was less than ideal, and we no longer believe that it is a legitimate operation. We ended our time volunteering and staying at the school, but unfortunately, the drama continued.
To make a long story slightly less long... you may recall that Aprianto is the head of the English school. We let Aprianto’s brother Herman borrow $12. When I asked over the phone for him to pay us back, he pretended he didn’t remember ever borrowing the money. The phone call became heated, he hung up on me, and then minutes later, he showed up at KabuNohi and started an argument with Dory, who happened to be out in the front getting some water. Fortunately, Debbie, Mark’s wife and our indomitable host, was also there, and instantly became the mediator, telling Dory, “I am your mother now, everything ok”. Herman eventually left without returning our money, then sent me an angry text message, and followed us on his scooter to harass us the next time we were in town.
Looking back, I would have paid a lot more than $12 to avoid the emotional trauma of this experience, but it was impossible to predict that someone could act so irrationally, especially given that he was connected to the English school, which is completely dependent on tourist volunteers who are hoping to have a positive experience. After that, we were on high alert that we would see Herman again somewhere, and we were only truly comfortable when we were within the grounds of KabuNohi. After the incident, Debbie and Mark felt obliged to tell us that there are a lot of people living around Sorake that are greedy or dishonest, but that we were safe with them. It’s hard to tell how much of the disconnect was cultural, and how much of it was just a function of Aprianto and his family being unpleasant people, but the end result was still a general feeling of dis-ease.
Still, we carried on, keeping a low profile and enjoying the simple routine of surfing, eating, and sleeping, never needing to stray further than 100 yards from our bungalow. Throughout a 10 day window when the waves were small to medium size, I practiced my backside barrel stance and Dory honed her wave selection and turning skills. It felt like we were running our own self-directed surf camp.
For our last few days on the island, Poseidon blessed us with a bump in the swell, and I was determined to get some more big waves before we left the island. Due to the swell direction, the biggest waves to be found were at another surf break called Rockstars, which was a 45 minute motorbike ride up the coast. I surfed Rockstars for a few days with a couple friends. Since it was a bit of a drive to get there, there were only a few other surfers out in the water whom we quickly made friends with. The wave was a bit more consequential than Sorake because it broke on a relatively shallow reef, but the benefit to the reef is that it causes the wave to break very predictably into a peeling barrel. Fortunately, I managed to get my fair share of tube time and walked away relatively unscathed; my companions, on the other hand, left with some battle scars. Rest assured, this level of injury is not normal, but it did make for an incredible photo op!
It was our last full day on the island that things really got interesting. Dory accompanied me to Rockstars on our final afternoon, so between us and the surfboard, our scooter was at full capacity. I finished surfing just before dark, and we headed south back towards Sorake -- we knew we had to be in our airport taxi at 6am, so we were hoping to make it an early night. As we wove along the twists and turns of the coastal road, the night sky crept in and opened up to a torrential downpour, heavier than any rain we had experienced up to that point. Within moments, we were soaking wet and for the first time in Indonesia, a little bit cold. I slowed our speed to account for the decreased visibility. As we moved along the lengthy stretches of road devoid of any street lights, I strained my eyes to avoid the multitude of potholes and cracks in the pavement. We cruised towards what appeared to be a small puddle -- but then suddenly bottomed out and bounced out of a hula-hoop sized pothole. We were jolted, but otherwise completely fine.
We continued scooting along, but noticed the bike was making a strange noise. Fearing that the tire had gone flat, we pulled over to investigate. The tire was fine, but the entire back end body and tail light of the scooter had come loose and was hanging down, dragging against the top of the back wheel. After quickly considering our options while sheets of rain relentlessly dumped on us, we decided the best course of action would be for Dory to hold the back of the motorcycle up with her hand while we drove the remaining 11 kilometers home.
On the drive home, I contemplated how this was all going to resolve. I thought back to when the motorbike we rented from the English school was constantly breaking down, and how I was blamed for not knowing how to operate a bike and given no sympathy when I got stranded on the side of the road; I hoped this would not turn out to be a similar situation. It was now 9:30pm, all the mechanics were closed for the night, and we were desperate for help. We arrived back at KabuNohi and were relieved to see Debbie sitting there finishing up some paperwork.
As we rolled up looking like a couple of wet dogs, Debbie was immediately concerned. After quickly explaining to Debbie what happened, we all started checking out the damage under the light. The first thing we discovered is that the motorbike’s exterior body was full of broken and unbroken zip-ties, indicating that this certainly wasn’t the first time this bike had fallen to pieces. The jolt from hitting the pothole must have been just enough force to break a couple of the key zip-ties holding the whole backend together. Debbie became visibly enraged that someone would rent us such a piece of junk scooter. “Scooter already broken before!” she announced, dismayed. She went and grabbed a pack of zip-ties that she had stashed away and suggested that we tie it back together so that it looks good enough to bring back to the owner, just a block down the road. She instructed us not to say anything about it because it wasn’t our fault and we shouldn’t have to pay to fix it. Debbie was the only local on the island that we felt we could completely trust, so we took her advice without hesitation, knowing the alternative was what would likely be a massive argument that ended with us paying 4x the actual cost of the scooter’s damage.
Our repair job ended up far from perfect, but it was good enough for us to drop the scooter off at the owner’s home under the cover of darkness, along with the key and helmets, and keep our fingers crossed that tomorrow’s escape went according to schedule.
We woke up early the next morning and jumped into the airport taxi, our escape-mobile. Upon arrival at the airport three hours later, we learned that our flight had been canceled. Stricken with panic, we feared our escape plan had been foiled and we would have to stay another day on the island, where despite our best efforts, we now had a few people that were quite upset with us. After a few nervous minutes standing at the check-in counter, the agent told us that he could put us on another flight leaving a little earlier. An hour later, we were airborne. With a sense of relief washing over me, I looked over at Dory in the seat next to mine and said, “We did it! We escaped Nias!”
A little while later, we touched down in Medan and made our way through the airport to catch our next flight to Kuala Lumpur. Dory connected to the wifi and saw that she had a Whatsapp message from an unknown number that said “Hello you broken my scooter!!!!!”, along with 8 missed calls. I couldn’t help but think that this was the reaction that we expected and were actively running away from. For the rest of the day, we felt like fugitives on the run, staying just one step ahead of the corrupt scooter police.
We are still trying to figure out what we could have done differently to have had a more harmonious relationship with the people of Nias. It’s always our goal to learn from the people in each place we visit, contribute to the economy, make local friends, and leave the place as good or better than we found it. This was not our greatest success story, and we have mixed feelings about it. We both experienced incredible success surfing the waves on Nias, and had moments of real joy and delight. We also left feeling like we had left a hugely negative impression on the locals, which neither of us is happy about.
If we could do it again, I think we’d try to have a shorter memory, and work harder to never disagree with locals, no matter how seemingly minor the issue. How someone conducts themselves within a disagreement can vary widely among different cultures; we’ve realized that the safest bet is to avoid any conflict at all costs. Our Belgian friend Lio seemed to have it all figured out: he made friends with everyone, even when he wasn’t sure he could trust them, and treated every day like a fresh start. He never held a grudge, and never demonstrated loyalty to anyone, tourist or local -- if there was a drama playing out at Sorake, you could be sure Lio was Switzerland. Uninvolved, no opinion, nothing to contribute, no matter how outrageous the wrongdoings.
Traveling isn’t all rainbows all the time, but there is something to be learned from every experience. Nias was our first stop in Indonesia, so we are looking forward to finding more success when we make it to our next destination within the archipelago. We are currently doing an extended visa run in Hoi An, Vietnam, and will soon be headed to meet Dory’s parents in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, where we will be sure to stay out of trouble.
Until next time,
Justin and Dory