July 3-11
Indonesian Rupiah: US Dollar – 14,500:1
Surf’s Up!
“You don’t surf? Why are you here?” was the most common question people asked us. Nias is a surfer’s paradise – the west coast of the island faces the Indian Ocean (and the area of Sorake Beach was one of the places devasted by the tsunami in 2004) with steady swells of 10-15 feet (and often higher after a storm). The little bay is surrounded by surf camps and guesthouses.
To get here, An drove us 11 hours (including stops) from Lake Maninjau to the city of Sibolga to catch the ferry. We tried to get a ferry ticket online the day before, but the site didn’t even take most Indonesian cards, and definitely no US ones. Steffi and Dave gave us the contact for Chris, a travel agent in Sibolga in case we had any issues. When we arrived in Sibolga, An didn’t remember where the ferry port was located, so we drove around a bit, and finally pulled over. We were told the ferry for today was sold out so went onto Booking.com and got a room at RedDoorz Inn (recommended by Steffi) for 300,000 rupiah. We checked in, and John called the travel agent to try to book for either Tuesday for the northern ferry to Gunungsitoli or Wednesday for the southern one to Teluk Dalam. Chris said “oh, there are a couple of 4 person cabins left, you need to come right now” – so John and An went to the travel agent and I stayed in the room. And yes, John was able to get us a 4 bunk “cabin” for that night (800,000 rupiah through the agent, would have been 600,000 if we could book ourselves). I checked with the front desk, with An helping to translate, to make sure we were OK and we didn’t owe anything. The front desk guy said “You’re OK – in the booking”. We let An use the room to rest for the night after he dropped us at the ferry.
A nice gentlemen met us in the ferry parking lot and escorted us through the check-in, to the luggage drop-off (the big pieces couldn’t go to the room) and to our “cabin” – yes, 4 beds, but no door – just a curtain, and a matt but no sheets.
The fabric on the matt for the beds was similar to that of a rough couch. We’d read over and over how late the ferry tended to leave, but left only 30 minutes later than the posted 8PM. The canteen on board had tea and coffee with some snacks. The weather was good, and the rocking wasn’t too bad, but people were noisy most of the night. It didn’t help that the door to the main deck was missing a handle so any time someone went out, the door would start banging until it was latched from the inside. I did manage close to 4 hours sleep – John not so much.
We arrived at 8AM, but couldn’t get our luggage until all the trucks were offloaded. For 45 minutes several large trucks either backed out or did a 3 point turn in the middle of the ferry (including a truck filled with pigs – Nias is Christian, so no prohibitions against pork).
We got our luggage and John negotiated with a motorcycle tuktuk driver: a surrey-like conveyance attached to the side of a motorcycle which provides most short-range taxi services in the area.
It took a little over 30 minutes to get from the ferry at Teluk Dalam to our lodgings at Aloha Surf Camp (AirBNB, $101 total for 7 nights).
The lodgings provide a room with a lovely view, a/c (most of the time), wifi (ish – it was glitchy and not a very good signal) and a western toilet! No sink in the bathroom, so when you brush your teeth you spit either into the toilet or into a drain in the floor and rinse the floor with the sprayer next to the toilet. (Honestly – you can’t drink the water or use it to brush your teeth, so in this situation, if you’re not going to install a washroom piece – the sink makes the most sense). Also, there’s a large bucket for water since when the electricity goes out, so does the water, and you can still flush the toilet. One night the electricity was out until 11PM, so the window was open. Very few places in Indonesia seem to screen in their windows, so the mosquitos came in and attacked my feet. When I woke up I had well over 30 bites on my feet (and yes, I am taking malaria prophylaxis).
Although primarily Aussies, this is definitely an international surf destination and we met people from Brazil, South Africa, Germany, Canada and a few fellow Americans.
There were even a couple of restaurants that had beverages besides beer, and another 2 that had a beer selection besides Bintaang! Food was OK, and more expensive than Maninjau – but still very cheap by US/European standards (dinner for 2 including beer was about 250,000 rupiah). Our favorite restaurant in town was one run by an Australian former surfer named Shane and his local wife, Floria, who had learned to cook in Hong Kong. She made the best (and healthiest) fish & chips (the fish wasn’t fried – red snapper pan-grilled in olive oil) and the fries were the best we’d had in a long time. They were at the far end of the village, so didn’t get a lot of traffic – I added them to Trip Advisor.
John spent a day on the motorbike running up the west side of the island to check out some of the other beaches. Some were lovely, but hard to get to with minimal lodgings (like how some of the “old timers” described Sorake Beach in the 1980’s – some fishing huts where the locals would let you stay with them or camp out and surf).
Interesting fauna included the tiniest hermit crabs I’d ever seen
, kingfishers, a weird little fish called a periophthalmus (mudskipper) –
which has little flippers that allow it to cross very shallow pools and mud. We hiked through a palm forest, and saw the remnants of an old resort.
Overall, it was a pleasant place to spend a week, even for a non-surfer.
Next stop – Medan, Sumatra!