Bali Echo Magazine Edition 52

Bump into Gde Narmada and he's sure to be surfing, on his way to see how the waves are or taking his young son down to kuta beach to teach him a few things about surfing and always with a look of contentment or delight on his face, his enthusiasm for surfing obvious an infectious. But Gde Narmada's love of surfing can seem strange, since he was born the son of a poor farmer in Tianyar, north Bali, about as far away from rideable waves as you can get in Bali. It was until 1969, at the age of four-teen, that Narmada first came to Kuta. But Gde Narmada's love of surfing can seem strange, since he was born the son of a poor farmer in Tianyar, north Bali, about as far away from rideable waves as you can get in Bali. It was until 1969, at the age of fourteen, that Narmada first came to Kuta. He had left Tianyar in north Bali two years before to enter school in Denpasar, but because he had no money he had instead to sell cakes from door to door. At the time, Kuta Beach was beginning to become popular with foreign travellers, and word about their unusual appearance and behaviour had spread around the island. The only hotel in Kuta at the time was the Natour, which then consisted of low scattered bungalows and had stood at the end of Jalan Pantai since before the Second World War.

Many of the foreign travellers, who loved to see the local fishing fleets set out at sunset, slept in sleeping bags on the sand, which then was especially white and clean. There was no electricity and almost no transport, and so as soon as the sun set Kuta became almost completely quiet and empty. One day Narmada decided to see for him-self what the "hippies" were like, and so he set off by bike for Kuta. Kuta and the foreign travellers made quite an impression on Narmada. He recalls, "l was shocked to see them they swam with nothing on! And they seemed peaceful, with their love of nature -because then, you see, Kuta was all trees, fields and streams." It didn't take long for Narmada to make riends with sorne of the foreigners, many of whom took a liking to him and started asking him to accompany them on trips . around the island. "They would come looking for me and ask me, for instance, 'Gde, can you take me to

	Ubud, to Singaraja?"' he says. "It wasn't as it is today, with the guides chasing the tourists - back then, they chased me. And with the tips my guests gave me l was able to make more than enough to live on. Kuta then was very cheap. l was happy then." In 1973 Narmada moved to Kuta to live. The years went by and more surfers came to Bali, and he was soon spending more time with them than with other visitors. "They would tell their friends at home to look
for me when they came to Bali: 'Go see Gde he'll take you to all the surf spots'. But when l first saw surfing l was confused and scared - it was so strange! With time however l came to know surfers, they explained things to me and l was able to try it myself." Surfing fascinated Narmada, and he started surfing regularly with his Kuta friend Made Darsana (nick named "Joe"). "Joe used to lend me his board," narmada recalls. "The two of us would go the beach with one board and take it in turns to surf. We wore ordinary short pants, not board short. We surfers were all good friends back then, and it was easy to get waves because there were so few of us. We got so many waves we wanted to vomit! All day, from the moment we opened our eyes until it was too dark to see anything." At the same time other Balinese boys and young men were learning to surf as well, on boards borrowed from or left behind by foreign friends. These included Wayan Budi, Ny6man Suardana ("Godfrey"), Ketut Jadi ("Big Froggy"), Wayan Sudirka, Nyoman Radiasa ("Bobby"), Gus Gina ("Ripper"), Agung Adi and Wayan Suwenda -most from the families of the Kuta banjars Pande Mas, Buni and Segara. Along with those young men and a few others from Legian, Narmada and Darsana became some of Bali's first surfers. From one point of view those young men's attraction to surfing seems strange, since for Balinese and many other Indonesians the sea was traditionally a dangerous, spiritually-charged (angker) place. Only very few local people went to the beach for pleasure. But from another point of view it seems natural, since Kuta is, a fishing village whose people were always close to the beach and the sea, and. local kids knew a form of surfing even before foreigners brought surfboards to Bali in 1970. "We called it serup (Balinese for "slip")," explains Darsana, "or another way of saying it is nyosor ombak "ride the edge of a wave"), We lay on bits of wood and caught already-broken waves to shore. We also used parts from the fishing boats that lined KutaBeach then - the lengths of bamboo attached to the sides of the boats - the pangantang. So we could understand the new surfing of foreigners." Suwenda adds, "We were beach and sea people. We played garnets on the beach and in the sea, we received lessons from the beach and. the sea. So we were quick to pick up on surfing, it came easy to us." But Bah's first surfers faced considerable obstacles, since for a long time Indonesian authorities and many Indonesians equated foreign surfers with hippies - in their regard amoral slackers and drug-users, whose presence corrupted Bali and its people. As Suwenda recalls: "The hippies didn't wear shirts and their hair was long, and. Qur parents didn't like us to associate with them.