The Journey to Sumatra

Or the perks of free range, organic tourism

Feedback on my previous posts has been so kind that I got nervous about writing a new one! It’s also an absurd amount of work for me. So, we’ve mostly shifted to Instagram for regular updates, but I’ll keep using Substack for the occasional longer piece—if you feel like indulging in my creative writing practice.

I hope you enjoy this one—it’s a recap of our time in Indonesia.

Someone asked if it’s okay to share this Substack, and the answer is: yes, please! Who knows, having a bit of a following might come in handy if I ever write something more substantial.

Miss y’all! xo

Our journey to Sumatra began in a small Balinese village where I stopped to buy water. The ten-year-old girl at the checkout told me it was 10,000 rupiahs—3K more than the shop down the road. “It’s 7K over there,” I protested. She stared at me, unblinking. Her blank expression either meant “I have no idea what you just said,” or “Dude, it’s a 3K difference, have some self-respect.” When it hit me that I was negotiating $0.20 with a poor village girl, I realized in horror that I had become Jen from Facebook Marketplace, the one bargaining a $10 heater like her life depended on it.

It had taken only two weeks. With a $500 weekly budget—whittled down to $65 a day after travel insurance and Spotify (I was ready to rough it, but not without music)—our trip turned into a game of financial survival. We found $3 Indonesian buffets, bought $1 bags of coffee instead of splurging on $2 espressos, and hand-washed our clothes to avoid the extortionate $2.50 laundromat fee. I occasionally wore the same t-shirt twice. My underwear policy remains classified.

Bali was touristy and overpriced, so we prioritized free activities—surfing, hiking, walking around town. I focused on writing, while Nick, evolving into his final nerd form, started coding video games. I found it ironic: I, the engineer, reinventing myself as an artist, and Nick, the liberal arts grad, teaching himself computer science.

After my mortifying price standoff with the village girl, we decided to travel away from the Balinese beaten path towards cheaper pastures. We set our sights on Java, Indonesia’s cultural and geographical heart. There, we embraced local travel, crossing lush landscapes on old trains, their rhythmic clatter hopelessly romantic.

Our first volcano, Mt. Ijen, rewarded us with an acidic blue lake and smoky, tangerine-lit horizons. The scene was breathtaking, though swarmed with tourists wielding selfie sticks. At Bromo, another volcano, we ditched the main trails, wandering black moonscapes beneath fuming peaks stretching into the horizon. A thunderstorm flickered at dusk, deepening the otherworldly experience. Watching nature’s spectacle in solitude while others were carted to Instagram hotspots felt undeniably victorious.

Selfie sticks not pictured

The further we got from Bali, the rarer Westerners became. Locals stared, waved, and sometimes, stopped us for photos. Attempts at blending in were comically pointless. I often felt like a giraffe roaming the streets trying to be inconspicuous. It simply didn’t work. In Malang two women casually posed with me like I was a roadside attraction. By Solo, it escalated. Arriving early at a theater for a traditional Javanese-Balinese dance, we triggered inconspicuous giraffe mode when two busloads of school kids arrived. Within minutes, a teacher politely asked for a photo. Ten minutes later, we were still standing there, cycling through groups of grinning students striking cool poses. By showtime, a line of hijab-wearing girls had formed for round two. Nick and I felt like Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet (I was Timmy, obviously).

The game of independent tourism became particularly rewarding when we visited Borobudur, the world’s largest Buddhist temple, built in the 9th century. Our guidebook warned that an intimate experience was impossible, and climbing it required a booked time slot with a guide. Ours was at 10 a.m., but we’d read that dawn was its most magical hour. At first light, we rode our scooters through jungle hills, reaching an eerily empty entrance. The queue structure, designed for massive crowds, was so vast it took ten minutes to walk through. It seemed that everyone else only showed up for their allocated time much later. To our surprise, we were let in despite being four hours early—though the staff’s reaction suggested it wasn’t common. Inside, Borobudur was almost entirely ours, save for a small group of monks. The pyramid-like structure stood serene, its carvings bathed in soft morning light. Clusters of butterflies flitted between the stones, trees rustled, birds chirped in the distance. We wandered in rare solitude, intoxicated by the peace.

As we roamed, the staff continued to look puzzled. “They’re not used to seeing tourists freely wandering without a guide,” I observed.

“We’re free-range,” Nick quipped. I laughed.

When it was time for our guided tour, we returned to a completely transformed scene. The once-empty grounds now teemed with tourists. Many carried umbrellas as sunshades. Some blasted music. Others took elaborate selfies. Families with small children ran about. We were suddenly herded into the system: line up, take a ticket, wait in a crowded holding area. We were caged. Nick and I made chicken sounds to amuse ourselves. Climbing the temple with our group, we were packed so tightly that umbrellas kept poking me in the head. The constant chatter was unavoidable. I tried to focus on the guide, but Sophie was busy befriending Amanda—right next to me. I couldn’t have cared less about Sophie’s Christmas plans in Kuala Lumpur, but Amanda, unfortunately, was riveted.

I turned to Nick. “Let’s hang back and ditch the poultry—time to go organic again.”

“Can we do that?” he asked.

“Let’s find out.”

So we did. As the flock shuffled forward, we stayed behind. And just like that, the temple was ours again. Was it really that easy? Could we always slip past the Instagram crowds and reclaim these moments for ourselves?

In Java, I found new ways to save money and lighten my load. I cut the mullet I had grown over four years to avoid carrying hair products. More radically, I ate flesh for the first time in twelve years. Tofu and tempeh were surprisingly hard to find, and supplements were bulky and expensive. Sardines, though disgusting and ethically dubious, were practical. I resigned myself to eating them once or twice a week. We also lowered other standards. At the start of our trip, we had one rule: cheap accommodations, never dorms. We were young at heart but not stupid. Yet in bigger cities, private rooms were out of reach, so we eventually caved. Hostel etiquette became an anthropological study. Most dorm mates—mid-twenties, lovely, utterly lacking self-awareness—treated shared space like their own bedroom. One guy emptied his entire backpack onto the floor and left it there. Using the locker was too much effort. I silently applauded his commitment to convenience. One morning, I watched him sniff his underwear to determine freshness. “Not demure,” I muttered, but conceded it was as good a system as any.

Counting every penny changed us in ways we hadn’t realized until we visited Yogyakarta’s Jalan Malioboro, a bustling shopping street recommended in our guidebook. Before our travels, I would have searched for a small treasure—something unique to take home. But now? The urge was gone. “Why are we even here?” Nick asked. “This feels pointless.” He was right. We couldn’t afford to buy anything, but more than that, we didn’t want to. We already had everything we needed. If anything, we were still trying to shed weight from our backpacks. We got some street food and sat down to ponder the psychology of buying stuff. There was a certain lightness in no longer feeling that pull.

After weeks of exploring Java’s cities and volcanoes, Nick craved a beach, and I was itching to surf again. Krui, in South Sumatra, was our next stop. The twenty-hour bus ride from Yogyakarta to the Sumatra ferry was brutal. Audiobooks kept me sane—I listened to Psychedelic Buddhism by Mike Crowley, which explored the parallels between psychedelics and meditation. He even suggested Buddhist ceremonies to perform while tripping. It made me want to try, and I wondered when I'd get the chance. After the sleepless bus ride, we boarded the ferry in the dead of night. At dawn, Sumatra emerged, bathed in golden light, phantom clouds hovering like halos. I was delirious from exhaustion, but the beauty felt almost supernatural. It was love at first sight.

We arrived in Krui after another eight-hour ride through the jungle, waking to a deserted coral beach where sea turtles swam in warm turquoise water. Our surf camp had few guests—mostly Indonesians passing through for the holidays. It was low season, so most surf spots weren’t working, but paradise wasn’t boring. We spent our days reading, riding scooters, and cooling off in the ocean. I relished going barefoot for a week straight, one of my greatest pleasures in life. After a while, though, I missed having friends. One of the camp owner’s daughters, Sierra, seemed friendly, but I didn’t want to come off as desperate. Then one day, she struck up a conversation and showed me her rock collection. We quickly became friends. It didn’t matter that she was eight—I finally had someone to talk to.

The owner Widy and her family soon adopted us, perhaps out of pity since it was Christmas. She also had an eighteen-year-old daughter, Lala. Lala was striking, with Javanese and Dutch heritage. She reminded me of a young Zendaya—still unaware of the beauty she’d grow into. One day, she invited me on a family trip to a nearby river. As we rode through villages, boys called her name from the roadside, grinning and waving. She smiled back with her long hair flowing in the wind, oblivious to the chaos she caused. I also met a local named Wan who introduced himself and offered to rent me a board. I hired him as a guide, and he took me to the one nearby wave that was happening. The wave was small by Sumatra’s standards but perfect for me—long and empty. It was as good as Bali, without the crowds. I couldn’t stop smiling, like a cat who got the cream.

Christmas snuck up on us—we barely knew what day it was. Wan hung out with us. When I asked if he celebrated, he said no—he was Muslim, but "not a good one." People on the coast rarely were, he explained. He drank, smoked weed, and chuckled as he added mushrooms to the list. Mushrooms? Before we could say anything, Wan slipped some into our hands like Santa with a secret.

That night, Widy invited us to Christmas dinner. We ate home-cooked specialties and felt, for a moment, like part of the family. An Aussie expat told me about a remote wave called Jenny’s, a hidden gem with perfect swells. Coincidentally, Widy owned a cabin in that village. Two days later, we went.

Jenny’s was a dream. A perfect, peeling wave stretched across a reef in a quiet fishing bay. It was overhead but not too steep, and more importantly, empty. Locals didn’t surf. A lone French tourist told me everything I needed to know about the surf break, and for the first time in my life, I rode a world-class wave alone. Turtles swam beneath me as I caught wave after wave. Heaven was a place on earth. The main challenge was food: the only meals available were fried noodles or rice with an egg. No fresh fruits or vegetables, hardly any protein

Just Jenny’s & me

A month earlier, a friend had asked how we could travel so long without working. I told her we lived frugally and traveled on a tight budget. It sounded abstract—until she saw a video of Widy’s cabin: bare mats on the floor, no shower, just a bucket and tap. “Oh my god, I could never,” she commented. I understood why. She lived a sleek, curated life in Miami, posting daily outfit changes. But to me, this simple hut on the reef was worth more than a boutique hotel. The lack of luxury didn’t bother me. What mattered was the freedom. The fact that we had hacked the system, found a way to roam the world for years without being tied down.

One night, Nick and I found a secluded spot under palm trees to take the mushrooms. As the sun set, sea turtles drifted in the waves, crabs danced along the reef, and fishermen outrigger canoes sailed past. I put on Ritual by Jon Hopkins in my walkman, closed my eyes, and meditated. It was one of those dives—divinations, revelations, a journey through unseen planes. When I opened my eyes, I asked Nick how he felt.

“I feel some fuzziness in the background. What about you?”

“More of a foreground experience,” I said, ignoring the dragon that flew by.

As darkness fell, we lay back, gazing at the stars for the first time in weeks. The village lights were too bright, and we wished they'd turn them off. Moments later, a power outage plunged the region into perfect blackness. "I did that with my mind," I told Nick, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. We leaned back and lost ourselves in the stars above. That night, the sky was a beauty unlike anything we had seen before.

After a couple of days, we left Jenny’s and endured a grueling 30-hour bus and ferry journey to the Mentawai Islands off Sumatra’s west coast. The trip tested my tolerance for discomfort—filthy squat toilets, no soap, and a bus reeking of the infamous durian fruit. Sleep was out of the question.

But once again, our suffering paid off. The Mentawais were the cherry on the Sumatran cake: deserted white-sand beaches, dense jungle, palm trees aplenty. Known for epic waves, the low season left the islands nearly empty. We befriended a few fellow travelers at our guesthouse, bonding over the usual Indonesian icebreaker—current GI status. Backpackers' introduction invariably went something like: name, country of origin, destination, diarrhea or constipation. Nick and I were mostly fine—although whenever we managed a poop every three days, we high-fived. We also got unreasonably excited when we came across food that wasn’t beige. Our new friends suffered from severe constipation or full-blown food poisoning. We traded remedies and survival tips like war veterans.

We booked a snorkeling boat tour with them and explored smaller islands with water of a turquoise so bright it blinded us. Together, we ate coconuts straight from the trees, found one place serving vegetables, and discovered a fruit stand. Our nutrition situation marginally improved.

New Year’s Eve came with heavy rain, so we stayed in. No big deal—we didn’t celebrate back home either. By morning, the sky was clear, and I walked for miles along a deserted coral beach. When it got too hot, I went skinny dipping—the only thing better than being barefoot. Just me and my noodle in paradise. The year was off to a good start.

The Mentawais

The only disappointment was the surf. The best breaks were either too remote or required chartering a boat. I didn’t mind much after the waves at Jenny’s. Instead, we rented scooters and explored. One day, caught in a downpour, we were invited into a jungle cabin by Min, a woman who had grown up in a tribe but now worked in civil engineering. She was retreating into nature to escape the stress of her children and boyfriend. “I’m waiting for my boyfriend to leave,” she said. “Then I just want to find an old, rich white husband and be done with it.” She spent her days fishing and picking coconuts, radiant as a tough-loving aunt in a Miyazaki film. When I asked her secret, she simply said: “If you love nature, nature will love you.”

On a tip from our friends, we rode three hours south to a luxury surf resort promising good waves and healthy food. The journey through jungle roads and muddy paths made me expect something rough. Instead, we found a pristine, exclusive oasis straight out of an ’80s surf postcard—everything neon and more perfect than anywhere we’d been, and far beyond our means. My narrative of budget tourism offering the best experience was shattered.

The resort guests looked to be sophisticated, handsome, fit and well dressed—like they belonged on a shelf at Erewhon. They were fragments of the lifestyle we used to live and I stared with envy. It was not so long ago that we spent our disposable income on fancy clothes and paraded in trendy clubs. Yet that world seemed so distant now. I tried to remember and pictured us staying at this resort. But something was off.

The cafe menu nearly made me squeal with joy. Fruits? Yogurt? Hummus? Broccoli? We stuffed ourselves with colors. When we were done, I felt like Nicole Kidman in an AMC commercial—not just entertained, but somehow reborn.

The surf was sublime, but surfboard rentals at the resort were for guests only. It didn’t matter that we had just spent a lot on breakfast and lunch. I wandered the beach looking for a board. Nothing. I sat and stared at the perfect waves I couldn’t ride. An artificially exclusive surf break, protected by wealth. Locals only, indeed.

That afternoon, a woman ran up to me on the beach yelling, "Mister, photo!" I wasn’t in the mood but didn’t want to be rude. Half-joking, I said, “10k.” She frowned, confused, and walked away. I wasn’t sure if I was turning into a mendicant or a prostitute. What I knew is that even Jen wouldn’t have dared.

When we left the Mentawais, the ferry broke down before departure. Divers were in the water trying to fix a propeller. No announcements—just murmurs spreading like bad gossip. The Indonesian passengers remained calm. The white people freaked out.

The most frantic were, predictably, the fancy resort guests. One woman—early 40s, polished, commanding—stood apart. She looked self-important yet out of touch, like an old Blackberry. She worked her contacts to charter a private boat, eyes skimming over us commoners. When we approached, she mumbled something and turned away, securing an escape plan that didn’t include us. She reminded me of high achievers I once worked with—people who climbed by stepping on others. I could have nearly pictured her being a first class passenger elbowing her way onto a Titanic lifeboat, except she lacked the refinement of old money.

I overheard that she was stressed about catching a flight home. I imagined it was a flight back to her desk job—back to making money with important decisions about unimportant matters. Back to the cage she had built for herself. And while her money had bought her an escape, it occurred to me that what we were left stranded on was paradise. We didn’t need a ticket on her gilded ship.

That’s when I realized why I no longer envied the resort. It wasn’t about the destination. The Instagram-perfect beach meant nothing without the journey. The memories that mattered weren’t the ones money could buy. They were the waves I earned after a 40-hour bus ride. The bucket showers in a barebone cabin. Getting stuck in the rain and meeting Min. The ancient Buddhist temple at sunrise, sans guide. The quest for fruit stands. The toilet hole in the ground. The train ride through emerald rice paddies, crammed with locals curious about where we were from. Taking photos with schoolgirls in hijabs.

There’s a lot of beauty lost to the shortcuts money can buy when you’re poor in time.

Sumatra had been the most precious of the three islands, the most raw, the most real. We barely scratched the surface, but our visas were running out. As we boarded a ferry to Malaysia, we fantasized about all the ways we’d venture even further off the beaten path. We wanted to get lost. We wanted to make mistakes. We wanted organic, free range adventures. We were ready to let time take us.