Sports in Indonesia

Sports in Indonesia are nearly always things you are taught rather than things you watch, and taught cheaply by people who do them every morning. Surfing sets the tone. Bali's west coast runs from the sand-bottomed breaks at Kuta and Legian, where most visitors take their first lesson, through Canggu to the reef at Uluwatu, Bingin and Padang Padang, which are for people who already know how. South Lombok is gentler, and the serious pilgrimage is still Nias or a boat through the Mentawai islands. Rivers are the other half: the Ayung above Ubud is the wide forgiving one, the Telaga Waja in the east runs faster and ends with a drop over a dam.

What is bookable sorts by how wet you intend to get. Surf lessons come as a group of five to one instructor, a semi-private, or one to one, and the extra money buys attention rather than a better wave; two hours with the board included costs about what a main course costs in a beach restaurant. Rafting is a half day with transport and lunch attached. Tanjung Benoa, beside Nusa Dua, holds the motorised end of the market: parasailing, jet skis, banana boats, flyboards and the helmeted sea walker, sold singly or in bundles. Snorkelling goes out by boat from Padangbai and Amed, and cave tubing near Ubud asks the least of anyone.

Practical. the surf season is not the one people assume. From April to October the wind blows offshore on the west coast and the Bukit works; from November to March it swings round and Sanur, Nusa Dua and Keramas take over, so there is no dead month, only a different coast. The sea sits near twenty-eight degrees all year and nobody wears a wetsuit. Reef cuts are the usual souvenir of a first session over coral, and reef shoes beat sunscreen, which is gone in ten minutes. Rafting runs year-round, higher and browner in the wet months, and operators cancel after heavy rain. Boat days are called off for swell, usually with a refund.