Jason Lunn.com/ Surfing and life in Indonesia

Surfed Lombok’s infamous Desert Point again with friend I have made travelling from Autralia called Michael Spiteri, suprisingly we had no crowds and amazing waves. Michael kindly let me use his new camera so I have some great photos to follow.  Now back in Bali again for Ramadam as its a noisy time in Lombok and all the people working on my land are fasting so not a lot gets done.. Work on my retaining walls has made some progress the last 6 weeks and life seems all,.. ok  so far,..Had some ups and downs and some stress with some stressful people but that has come to the end,..

There has been a few new banners going up about all the sexual health risks here, and it appears nearly all the women I have met finally emerge to be compulsive liars about their past relationships and levels of fidelity, I Decided to go for a health check up, hiv and all the rest of the tests as I found a place to do so.  Kuta seems to be a cesspit of morality and hedonism to the extreme, especially in June July August peak holiday season, so if a person is at risk of getting sick this would definitely be one of the places and times to be careful. It seems at the moment more than usual everyone is in full party mode 24 hours a day and the drunken debauchery you witness is enough to make one whince and cring,.Usually all performed in a Bintang Singlet

Well my results all good body still 100% healthy, which is always great to know, the two days waiting for results seemd a bit difficult to relax, So as of now apart from a few scars hitting the reef at Desert point I am in good physical condition,..

back in Kuta Lombok, not really enjoying the wind, it is super strong, not to many available locations to surf right now, I am organising work with local tradesman to finish building the retaining walls we started 6 months ago. I would rather be somewhere else right now but I think I should have important stuff finished within the month..Mosque is so loud and has new speakers, it starts its broadcast at 4am and thats when my day now starts..

Got to finish organising some retaining walls and some more land admin stuff with land department, all seems like a bit of a hassle and I am not in the mood for a 5 hour ferry ride in big swell, i would rather be surfing it…

3 days ago and we had the biggest swell of year so far in Bali, I really wanted to try and surf some big waves and Uluwatu Bombie at high tide was heaving big sets in all morning, there were only 5 people out so I thought, might as well have a go, first time Uluwatu is not crowded. The swell measured at 13.5ft with a 16 second swell period, this day was by far the biggest waves that I have ever been in, It took me about an hour to paddle out to the back sets that were breaking biggest and about an half an hour working out what to do and also what was I doing there. I then decided to paddle for a few and caught one safely wich by todays standards was a smallish one (The one in the photos below) Then I decided to try catch a second much bigger hollower set wave but I could not paddle into it quick enough as I was on a small 6′3 board and as a result was lip launched about 15ft top to bottom and took the biggest most violent beating of my life in the washing machine of heavy white water. When I finally surfaced my board had snapped and I was left with only half a board still attached to my leg rope and ankle,. it was a very long and treacherous  swim back in,  I also missed the entrance cave however….glad to be alive,..I really felt like I  could easily die in such conditions,..

Jason Lunn Outside Bombie Uluwatu

Outside Bombie the biggest wave I have surfed so far,..

The Canon G10 has a sepia tones setting for photos, so when the colour was washed out down the beach the other day with a few grey skies this setting seemed to work a treat. These are a few shots for you to enjoy of Kuta Beach and the scenery with a few adjustments to the tone curve and contrast settings in Adobe Lightroom,…

I still like to stroll around with my small Canon G10 when I remember to take it out and take photos of the wherever I am going today similar to most days this happen to be the beach. Kuta Beach most days feels like heaven and hell at the same time, it is as though it is experienced on one breath in and the other on the breath out. My emotions feel like they are on a roller coaster ride in this place. So much stimulation for the senses yet also lacking so much stimulation at the same time. It is not so easy to articulate and harder to explain with words, however if you have spent a while here you will understand. Well this what Kuta Beach looks like in July 2010, if you choose to ignore all the building work that is going on…

Some footage of me doing my thing over the years, enjoy

In the evening a prize giving for Raditya Rondi and Lee Wilson for placing 1st and 2nd in the Reef Bali Pro surf contest and in the evening,  lots of cute hot bodies in bikinis, here are a few shots,..

This one was the winner number 9,.

cheque yourself..

Here are a few photos of a demonstration of surfing by Reef International pro surfers, they were being towed into clean peeling waves on Kuta Beach with the aid of a jet ski. It added a whole new range of possibilities having instant speed and being able to hit the waves that normally would never enable you to generate this much momentum,..

lighting conditions bad and I only have a small Canon G10 at the moment so these are more to show what went down,.rather than premium surf shots enjoy,..

3 days in Singapore, well that was enough, I would have liked to check out the concrete bowls but hey maybe another time,..Staying in a dorm room was ok for 3 nights but I am glad to be getting back to my own room, snoring and scratching sounds and no ear plugs not so great for sleeping, however great internet here at Fernloft Hostel so I managed to go through and insert pics in my blog and update it. I have a new visa and am a few Singapore dollars lighter, all good.. forgotten how good a hot shower is!

Have not had a sesame seed bagel for nearly 20 months, damn almost two years, I always used to have one in cafe Gusto Bristol, One cannot get good Bagels in Indonesia, well there are no shortage of coffee shops here so I could continue the tradition once again. Caffeine always gets my brain on the move and this is what followed through,..

“Real Colour, Real Contentment”

Somewhere over this rainbow,

a light only you can touch

yes a light and life full of content

yes a contents page, long and full

as diverse as it is focused

yet this very page

has become my wage of age

yes my age, and like the list

the number is always growing

and this age of grace still flowing.

Yes, a life full of content

the more content I have,

the more I am contented.

Once a young pretender, now

a wiser aged contender

and to be content I have found,

is,..

contentment with the ground

because, it is from the ground I grew

fought gravity daily as I flew,.

and deep down, yes,

I always knew, that the ground

will one day,

yes one day that’s for sure

have my ashes too,..

and there are no exceptions,

Oh no,

not even for you

Singapore is known for being exceptionally modern, clean and well presented,.. the district known as Little India in Singapore reminds me of Easton in Bristol and Sparkhill in Birmingham, Indian culture seems to always do a pretty good job thriving in a run down area or maybe running an area down? I am not so sure which perspective I have so far, well taking a walk through here and the place is definitely full of all the character, sights and most definitely smells that I have encountered in other Indian districts worldwide,..There are no Indians in Bali that I know, andy its only coming here that I have realised that fact, but there is no shortage of them here, felt like being back in Bristol..Moustaches and curry smells, omnipresent.

This is not the new concrete bowled park I planned on visiting, yesterday. Due to rain I went on a walk with my camera downtown Singapore and stumbled across this inner city park by Somerset MRT station. Singapore is spotlessly clean and sterile but a skatepark will always be a skatepark, graffiti, vandalism and kids growing up with areal hard on for life, risks and the dangerous, yet technical challenges skateboarding provides. One good thing here no litter, or stones on the floor to spit you off onto your face and wrists

Here are some photos I have taken walking around Singapore, you can see that Singapore is very clean, no litter anywhere, chewing gum I have been told is illegal. It is very well planned and for every view of a big concrete sky scraper towering above, there always appears to be huge tropical trees and foilage camouflaging their straight, clean architectural lines. Singapore really is a pleasant mix of the straight sterile lines of modern architecture and the wild twisted, organic structures of nature. A pleasant place to walk about, however the air is warm and some of the drain and bins smell pretty bad, senses are most definitely on overload here..

Shopping malls and the MRT transit system, as you can see below there is no shortage of sheet glass, stainless steel, concrete, granite and chrome all high lighted and backlit with the most modern in halogen and led lighting systems. There are over a thousand shopping malls in Singapore and each one is as crisp in design as the crispness in ambient temperature from the air conditioning,.. every shop is presented like a boutique with products and price tags to match. I feel financially very poor in these environments and a heavy oppresion in my spirit is most definitely present. It feels plagued and confused by the comfort of the air conditioning and the eye candy provided by the clean lines and colourful lights.In these arenas everything to me all feels false, fake and as unreal as the facades people walk behind. There are so many well presented individuals here with their designer clothes,shoes,bags hiding behind a mask of skin whitening creams.

The Dark Side.

When I walk around these places I am reminded of the clean, white plastic, mass produced uniforms worn by the storm troopers in the film Star Wars. The Storm troopers running around the Death Star are all in allegiance with the Dark side, working in alliance with Darth Vadar. If Singapore was a film set then it would be perfect for such a film. The Shopping Mall’s all represent the uglyness of consumerist culture and capitalism. They are spotlessly clean and sterile, yes they are exactly that, “Sterile”, feel impotent and without the ability for real life to reproduce or flourish. I remind myself that The Jedi Knights were all organic, rageddy and outwardly grubby. Singapore lacks a real hard on! The women dress like dolls and look like dolls and the men look like they are sexually frustrated. The city has the same feel and I am sure the stress of living here and the high prices of everything is ruining every bodys sex lives…The wildness of the trees  growing alongside the roads and the parks, really are the breath of fresh air they provide. They bear witness to the fact that the nature of life is not dancing to the beat of anally retentive, corporate architects spirit level.

I can feel that behind the facade Singapore must have an incredibly, incredibly dark side in its government and its people. Life is about balance and to balance all this external cleanliness out, something internally very unclean must be behind it all. It is obvious there is a whole heap of money and corporate power here in this place. Like the films of Star Wars the Dark side is a powerful force. So maybe take a quick think about this, from my experience riding around a dirty motocross track, when ever a person or maybe even a society takes a bath, trying to wash itself, without fail the “scum” will always rise to the surface, always appears around the edges when we drain away the water. This scum needs to be cleaned again and again as a constant reminder to us of everything we do not like about our nature and ourselves..

Dropped in a new Visa application at the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore yesterday, compared to Bangkok the Embassy is a lot bigger and a lot cleaner and the process is two days instead of 3. PS you need to wear long trousers I wasnot allowed in wearing shorts so I had to rent some for a dollar.  However before that  I took some great photos from the plane window of some Indonesian Volcanoes, will try and post some photos soon have so many now I want to share of the last 4 months or so.

I have had lots on my mind recently with land titles and business dealings with locals I have not been in the headspace for blog updates. Singapore is super clean and expensive however I have just discovered it has a brand new skatepark so I think I will check that out later and maybe borrow a bike or a board for a roll around. Put my old knees through their paces.. staying in a hostel for three nights called Fernloft in little India heres their site if you need cheap clean accomodation in Singapore  http://www.fernloft.com/ about 10 GBpounds a night in a dorm room which is good in this super expensive city…

Back in Kuta Bali, flying to Singapore tomorrow for a new visa, never been to Singapore before only 3 days there and back to Bali again. Still surfing with my friend Johnny but I think he is going back to England soon.

Still in Lombok, surfed Sengiggi, doesnt work very often at all, looks like a good wave but not worth the effort for a surf destination, lots of locals and a although named Desert Point’s little brother you may as well just go there. However I had to be near Mataram so I surfed here with Johnny Rad last week,  I will be staying in Sengigi for the next few days then back to Bali then Singapore for a new visa 6 months have finished all ready..

photos from the lawyers office when the balance on my land was paid, still not completed yet legally but a few steps closer, farmer and wife fingerprinting their land over,, They blew the meeting out twice on two previous occasions and after waiting for 4 hours today they finally turned up, they kept pulling over on the road and started arguing amongst themselves over the money. Well this is what 30k pound sterling in Indonesia Rupiah looks like..

We stayed for 4 days, it has been said that when all the correct wind direction, swell dirextion, swell size and tide conditions come together it is the bext left handed barrelling wave in the world. Well me and Johnny Rad went on the 2 hr trip from Mataram Lombok on our mopeds and spent 4 days here. It is a moped ride with beautiful views of beaches, islands palm trees and mountains, local cultures and new mosques in the process of construction. Situated in Bangko Bangko, the wave is remote and it is a pretty boring and desolate place when the wave is not working, we surfed about 3 hrs each day and had it good for 4 hours one morning with only 6 of us in the sea. The wave goes from mush to barelling perfection as the tide drops from high to mid then back to mush again, however this can all be different the following day. The ride is long and fast and we knew we had scored it at about 70% of its full glory. When its on there can be a hundred people in the water. Groups of Hawaiians, Brazilians and Australian barell hungry Alpha males all fight over this one between June July and August when it can be on most days.. We scored it with no aggro but there are frequent fights here over waves and drop ins galore, I will be coming back and try and get it on again between seasons… Pics below are an assortment of 4 days there. You ban see how the break tuns from mush to barrel and back to mush again as the tide turns, So then it is nasi goreng (fried rice) and sunset time until the tides turn again, Johnny Rad surfing…

Johnny Rad under the lip

Intenet here is slow,… business is slow,.. time keeps ticking and feels like nothing is moving on..