As we were planning our great RTW trip we figured that we would at some point like to do some water sports. The options here were basically diving and surfing and for no particular reason we decided on surfing. Since we'd already gotten all of our flights through Kilroy, we decided to look into the surfing courses they were offering. One caught our eye, the 6 Day Island Hopper course with Mojosurf in Bali, Indonesia. The price wasn't too bad and the itinerary seemed to hold a whole lot of stuff. Also, the course would take us through surfing spots on three different islands, rather than just staying in one spot.

So that's what we decided to do. Neither of us had ever surfed before (and some might say that I still haven't…), but that was completely fine here, as they could provide adequate teaching to both beginner and intermediate surfers. The course turned out to be a great way to learn to surf and also to get to see some of Bali's neighboring islands, mainly Lombok and Nusa Lembongan. We had a great time and found the trip to be worth the money, if not more. The following will be our travel journal of the trip, with additions to try to make it interesting for others looking for information about this course and Mojosurf also. As a couple of times before, I'm summing up the main things at the end under "The All in All" and "What Was Included".

Day 1

We contacted Mojosurf about a week before our arrival to Bali to ask them about the hotel pickup, which was included in the course price. It turned out that they were reluctant to pick us up from the place we had in mind in Kuta's Jalan Poppies area. Supposedly there is a whole lot of traffic in the area and the streets are so narrow that it would take an hour for the car to reach our hotel. That probably wouldn't have been quite so as we saw it, but none the less, we agreed to be picked up at the nearby McDonald's. The pickup was at 7 a.m., so we got a very early start to the day. We were then driven to Changgu area to the north of Kuta, where we were dropped at the Mojosurf's current office/hangout spot. There were about 20 of us starting one course or another and we began by going through some basic safety things and signing forms stating that we understand that surfing may pose hazards such as sunburns and cold water (there might have been something about sharks as well…). We didn't however get the breakfast that we had thought was included.

We started loading ourselves to cars at about 9 a.m. and drove to our first surfing lesson by a long stretch of empty beach. After going through some basics on the beach we were taken to the shallow water with waves coming in small but steady. I was a little disappointed in this first lesson since there were so many of us and even with seemingly enough instructors neither Sini nor I got much personal assistance. We didn't catch any waves during the lesson… Halfway through we had a short break and got small water bottles, which weren't included in later lessons. I got my first surfing injury here: falling for the very first time from the board I managed to scrape three toes of my left foot to the sand bottom, turning them purple by the end of the day…

After the lesson we were taken to Echo beach to have some lunch, the price of which wasn't included in the course. We were free to choose a place to eat, but the one recommended as the cheapest had mains for about 35'000 to 45'000 IDR. Having eaten lunch we walked back to Mojo's and looked through the pictures taken of us while surfing. You could have bought the pictures of yourself, but we didn't ask the price here. Then it was time to check in to the hotel. Having paid for and prepared for dorm accommodation we were very pleasantly surprised by being taken to the Frii hotel just across the street. The two of us had a room of our own and there was at least one girl who had a double room just for herself. There was air-conditioning, a flat screen TV with a bunch of cable channels (I spent the evening watching HBO), a nice pool and the buffet breakfast was included. That was a very nice place and we liked it a lot. The whole big group of us had dinner at a nearby beach restaurant called Le Pirate which could have had better food (the burger came with regular French fries instead of sweet potato ones as promised, the rice accompanying the tuna steak lacked the lemongrass…), but the beer was flowing so no-one seemed to mind. One guy was turning 21 (at 24 and 25 we felt old in this group) that day…

Day 2

We started early with a nice buffet breakfast on the rooftop of Frii hotel. At about 8.30 a.m. we were driven to Echo beach for our second surfing lesson in much bigger waves than the previous day, which meant that we were tossed around quite a bit. Sini fared a little better this time, I mainly just managed to bruise my abdomen by being thrown over the board that had somehow turned upside down… The foam boards have rubber fins in the bottom, but even those things can hurt a bit… A little sore and humiliated we checked out from the lovely Frii hotel and took our things to the Mojo place. We were allowed to store some of our things there so we stuffed all of our cold weather gear in a garbage bag and left it there.

We were very surprised to learn that the next part of the trip was to be done by flying! We actually flew to Lombok, it's a 27 minute flight, during which they were able to hand out lunch. At the airport in Lombok we were greeted by a driver who took us to our accommodation at Kuta Baru Hotel. The hotel was pretty nice, not as great as the Frii hotel, but it had air-conditioning and a pool. There were only three of us on the Island Hopper course and we shared the room with the German girl instead of having it all to ourselves. We had paid for dorm accommodation, so we didn't mind, but it might have been a little weird for the third person… Also Kyle, our British guide from Mojosurf, had bugs in his bed. Otherwise the hotel was OK, the buffet breakfast was nothing special but there was a lot of it. The dinner on day two we had in the village. Other than the first breakfast and lunch all of the main meals were included and you could choose any item in the menu that was under 90'000 IDR.

Day 3

The third day started with a buffet breakfast, after which we were taken to our surfing lesson. The spot in Lombok was to the east of Kuta beach, in a bay with a great reef break for surfing. They had a boat to take us to the reef so we didn't have to paddle all the way there. With only the three of us we had plenty of attention from the one instructor and Sini was able to get on a bunch of waves. Later in the evening when we were looking through the photos our driver had been taking we dubbed her style "the airplane" because of her outstretched arms. My style, the "marriage proposal" with one knee down, wasn't quite what I was aiming for, but I got some waves with that. The waves were glassy, meaning there was no wind, and while being powerful enough to surf on, they were slow enough for us to catch. This was the best spot to surf on during the entire course, in our opinion.

After the surfing we spent some time on a nearby beach, we had our trusty hammocks with us and managed to find some flimsy trees to hang them on. Some napping later we returned to the hotel and napped some more, then had lunch and continued napping. In the evening we were driven to a traditional village where we had a short tour. They expected a small donation after the tour, we gave 5'000 IDR per person as our guide Kyle suggested. We continued with a longish drive to another beach (might have been Selong Belanak…) where we saw an amazing sunset before eating in a restaurant (Laut Biru?) at the beach. The drive back was a little unnerving, in the dark, with oncoming mopeds without headlights on. I'm guessing a head on collision would have hurt them more than us…

Day 4

The fourth day was a traveling day so we had an early start at 6 a.m.. We went straight to the same surfing spot, where conditions were as good as the day before. That didn't stop me from hurting my arm, though. I've dislocated my right shoulder a few times before and while my speedy paddling didn't quite manage to do that, it still crunched the joint in a way that made me call it quits for the day. So I just returned to the boat and took some pictures of Sini surfing. The guy who had been taking pictures of us the day before had later revealed his "secret price" for Mojosurf's customers: 300'000 IDR for the pictures of that one lesson (others would pay 500'000 IDR). We thought that to be a little much and made do with what I could snap with the pocket camera.

With my shoulder damaged I ate the buffet breakfast and packed for the boat ride one armed. That was about as long as I felt like holding my arm in a sling. We left for the boat at 10 a.m. and drove for 1.5 hours to Senggigi on the west coast of Lombok, where we got onboard a 1000 horsepower Scoot speedboat. We stopped shortly at Gili Trawangan before continuing on to our destination at Nusa Lembongan. Once there we checked in at Playground Resort right next to the beach where we were dropped off. The top story room was only fan cooled, but had the best view one could have on the island. The balcony was huge and had a napping bed of its own, in addition to two spots you could hang a hammock on!

We got to the hotel a little before 4 p.m. so we didn't do much that day, other than hang by the pool and take a short walk around the town. We had dinner at Smugglers restaurant, which had some nice western dishes. My arm felt a lot better by the evening so I stopped using the sling entirely. I guess I'll have to start doing my physiotherapy again. Properly this time…

Day 5

Day five was supposed to start with another early pickup and a surfing lesson before breakfast, followed by a brunch. Luckily for us the pickup was 20 minutes late so Kyle decided to take us to breakfast anyway, at a place called Reef. After that we were off to surfing the "Lacerations" (they also had breaks called Razors… we had thought we'd be going to the "Playground"!). I stayed in the boat taking pictures while Sini enjoyed herself catching the waves. She did even better than on the day before, but still preferred the break at Lombok.

The fifth day wasn't supposed to include a lunch, but since we had the early breakfast instead of a brunch, we got meals at the Smugglers place anyway. Then we were free to hang around at the pool, go to the town or take out an inflatable Stand Up Paddle (SUP) board. We tried it and liked it some, but since it was missing the biggest fin in the middle, it wouldn't really go straight. In the evening we were driven to a nice little fish restaurant where they were serving the catch of the same morning. We all ordered the "jacket fish" and got a whole grilled fish each. Very tasty and filling.

Day 6

On the final day we got up nice and early to go snorkeling with the manta rays. Apparently they are morning people so we took off at 7 a.m.. The boat took us to a spot where the huge bats of the sea like to hang around at and we hopped off with our snorkels, masks and fins. It didn't take too long for the first animal to appear and in the end we saw a total of four of them. I got some nice video and pictures with my action camera.

After the manta rays the schedule of the course was changed a little from how it normally goes, since the following day would be the time for the peculiar Balinese festival called Nyepi day. I'm writing another blog about that but putting it short, everything on the island stops for 24 hours, meaning that nothing or no-one was allowed to move around on the streets. Not surprisingly that would also affect traffic on the previous day as well, so Kyle figured it best to skip the last surfing lesson and to continue back to Bali already in the morning. That was fine by us, since my arm was still a little sore and we got vouchers for a "free" surfing lesson with Mojo that we could use later in Bali or even in Australia.

Our trip back turned out to be a short one however, so we might have had time to do the lesson anyway. We got on the boat at roughly about 10.45 a.m. and 30 minutes later were on Bali. There we met a driver who took us back to Mojo's place in an hour. Once there our course was pretty much done and there wasn't much else to do than to sit back on the bean bag chairs and wait for check in time at the Frii hotel, which we had reserved for Nyepi day (that wasn't a part of the course anymore, but Mojo's guys helped us with the booking). The final bit included in the itinerary was a dinner at the rooftop restaurant of Frii's, after which we were off to enjoy the festivities preceding Nyepi day!

The All in All

All in all the trip was great, we enjoyed our time with Mojosurf very much and felt like we got a whole lot out of the money we spent. All of the hotels were nice, almost all of the food was paid for, we got to see three different islands and the transportation between them went smoothly. And we learned to surf too! Or at least Sini did… My many injuries were my own fault, I'm prone to them, and they had nothing to do with anything Mojo's people were doing. It wasn't about not listening to the instructions either, surfing just happens to have some risks, as any sport does. And the major problem I had, the thing with the shoulder, that's an old injury that happened to come back to haunt me while paddling too hard, I didn't fall or anything.

We would highly recommend this trip to anyone interested in trying to learn to surf for the very first time. Even if the main event doesn't go that well (as in my case), there's still a whole lot of value in this trip. We saw the islands, had great food, relaxed by the pools and at the beach, went snorkeling with manta rays… We all had a good time, much because of our guide Kyle. He took good care of us, was very well informed and could figure out all of the small difficulties with relative ease. I'm sad to say that he's apparently quitting the tours and taking a desk job at Mojo, but hopefully his replacement will be up to the job as well.

What Was Included

Day 1: - pickup from Kuta

- - surfing lesson

- -dinner

- -accommodation in double room at Frii hotel

Day 2: - buffet breakfast

- -surfing lesson

- -transfer to Lombok

- -dinner

- -accommodation at Kuta Baru Hotel, a double room with extra mattress for the third person

Day 3: - buffet breakfast

- -surfing lesson

- -lunch

- -visit to a traditional village

- -dinner

- -same accommodation as the day before

Day 4: - surfing lesson

- -buffet breakfast

- -transport to Nusa Lembongan, via Gili Trawangan

- -dinner

- -accommodation at Playground Hotel, large room with beds for three people

Day 5: - breakfast

- -surfing lesson

- -lunch

- -Stand Up Paddling

- -dinner

- -same accommodation as the day before

Day 6: - snorkeling with manta rays

- -breakfast

- -transport back to Bali

- - dinner

Notes: - no breakfast or lunch on day 1

- -on day 5 we were supposed to have brunch instead of breakfast and lunch

- -day 6 would have had a surfing lesson without Nyepi day festivities, we got vouchers for a lesson to use later with Mojosurf

- -transportation back to another accommodation would have been included, but we stayed within a walking distance