You see some crazy things on the road in Indo. Yesterday, mid-way through this two-
day journey across three islands, I watched a motorcyclist swaying with a full-sized
refrigerator strapped to the back of his scooter. Also, two motorcyclists carrying
a 15-foot ladder between them, heads poking through the rungs.

It’s bewildering, but there’s a kind natural order to the chaos. It just seems to work. Nothing to do but embrace it and keep riding. On, into the dry country; every-thing, brown and mountainous, horses and goats chewing at weeds beside the wide and potholed road. I’m a long way from Bali now, in this renowned surfing area that is also a bustling Indonesian gold mining town.

Outside of the surf camps, it’s hard to find cheap digs here. Twenty-thousand workers have arrived from all over the country to build a new smelter. All lodgings are either full or ghastly over-priced, at least by Indonesian standards. Fortunately, a friend of a friend offers me a couch at his beachside house. Even more fortunately, this couch happens to be just a short walk from one of the best waves in Indonesia. Travel helps to restore a kind of faith in humanity; people really will go out of their way to help you along the way.

With a forecast typical of this woeful Indonesian surf season, there is little else to do but explore the area. This tiny beachside hamlet of three Western-owned houses offers insight into the bizarre collision of two worlds. My Australian ex-pat neighbour, Julie, is 60-years-old. She moved here after her marriage broke down and has lived here alone with her four dogs for the past four years. It’s an idyllic life at times, she says, but living in a cheap and tropical paradise like this isn’t all ...