International Escape Artistry

Do I owe anyone an apology? I must. At least myself. I told myself a post a week- a post a week.
Well I've got plenty of excuses, that's for sure.
C'mon Chris get it together.
Sorry.
I forgive you.

So for my first post since I've been back, a little story of international escape artistry. My last day in Bali was pretty rad. I went surfing at a place called Airport Lefts. It's a break you have to take a boat out to. As you're surfing overhead waves, big airliners are sailing in and out of harbor right overhead. Not much like getting shacked with both the rumble of waves and of twin-turbo jets echoing in your ears.

After my buddy and I scored some good waves here for a couple of hours, and incidentally with a couple other guys who were from San Francisco and Santa Cruz (pretty much the only Californians I surfed with my whole summer), we had to hustle. I had to strap myself to one of those twin-turbo jets. So we caught the next boat back to shore, and threw our boards and selves on the seat of his little motorbike.

Now I forget what the rule is in America, but in Indonesia, the law is that both people riding a motorbike must wear a helmet. Especially if they're Western. Especially if they have money in their pockets. Espeeeecialllly if they're in a hurry to get to the hotel and need to pack all their things up so they can fly. Even if his name is Chris and he manages to get away with many things he probably shouldn't get away with in life. Or especially if his name is Chris and has life hand him some ridiculous punishments for his risks taken.

So I hop on the back of the bike, consciously unhelmetted. Florian at the helm, properly helmed. We're jamming down the Indonesian roads back to my hotel about a half-hour away, when halfway home we suddenly get veered over to the side of the road by a rudely ridden motorbike. This turned out to be an Indonesian Polisi. "No Helmet" he says. Of course.

While I'm wondering how much it's gonna cost to pay this guy off, he motions us over to his little police shack. He pulls his bike in next to the shack and motions us to do likewise, not seeming to understand either Flo or me as we ask "How much?" or "I have to go to the airport." It's almost as if the law is more important than what we're saying. I don't get it.

Now I start noticing this Polisi didn't really do much to cut off our exit. Nor did he make a chase an easy next motion for himself, having parked his bike pretty much behind his shack. We teeter between pulling in behind the officer, as he is currently motioning us to do, or hitting the open road. About ten seconds of indecision that seemed like an eternity. I lean forward and quietly say "Flo, gun it!"

So off we go, weaving around traffic, surf boards shaking from the wind, me constantly looking behind us, expecting to see a whole battalion of officers with guns drawn pulling out from behind every car or side street we pass. The scooter's throttle is wide open. A scooter laden with two dudes and their surfboards probably doesn't go as fast as one man's. The only two things in our favor is our considerable head start and the fact that the road has lots of cars and motorbikes on it. We're managing to put quite a few of these between us and him.

I pay my respects to the afore-blogged Nicaraguan freedom fighter as we fly by him. He had a wistfully proud gleam in his fiberglass eye. I knew we would be alright. We turned a fifteen minute ride into about 8 minutes. We both knew that if we managed to even get close to the hotel without him visibly behind us, we would have taken enough side streets for there to be no way for him to find us. Pulling into the hotel, we begin nervously laughing for about a minute. Safe and sound.

Now I just hope I don't get an email from a friend of Flo asking for $5000 to help bail him out of prison cuz the cop traced the license plate back to him. I'm a big dummy.

Grandpa Diatribe

Sooo, seems like sometimes things are made just to fall apart. The wheels of capitalism are oft greased by the fact that some people just don't wanna make quality goods. Take for instance this here surfboard. Over the course of this summer, this thing has received about 15 nasty injuries that another board would easily have avoided. Bad glass job. Hey, just keep sending it to the ding guy, or buy another one...





This one shown here was probably partly my fault. Notice the crack right across the middle. Pretty much can fold the board in half now... makes for better travel I suppose. When you paddle out at a spot where no one else is, you can bet there's a reason it's empty. And in my case heavy surf kills crappily glassed boards. Me so sad.
The lesson I would like to preach- if you make something, don't be greedy- make it to last. Cuz they just don't make things like they used to.