Indonesia During the Pandemic

It’s a testing time for all at the moment, the vulnerable to illness, the susceptible to economic hardship due to the mandatory shut down the whole world is going through. I guess the main questions on my mind are; is it ethical to force the whole world into lock down, force people to give up their job and ruin millions of people’s income? Is it unethical to keep everything open and let the virus run its course? Does the lockdown stop the spread of the virus or prolong the issue?

The Loan

While my heart goes out to the people who have suffered from both incompetence of their government and the spread of the virus, I consider myself to be rather lucky and optimistic given the fact that at the beginning of the year I took a loan and invested a whole bunch of money into a surf camp in Indonesia (which of course relies heavily on tourism).

The Camp

As of March the surf camp has been dormant, trying to hold the space for those wandering travellers who found themselves taking a risk and ultimately making what I would now consider a wise decision to stay in Indonesia. While some may think that this be a foolish remark, if it wasn’t for the news and lack of tourists on Lombok and throughout Indonesia, you would swear that the virus didn’t even exist. Specifically, here on Lombok there has been very little influence of the virus.

Mandatory mask wearing is enforced in the major city areas but in the smaller villages no one really wears one. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months, trying to wait out the virus and hope for the best outcome, again, emphasising the fact that there are many businesses out there suffering from this pandemic. Luckily ours is well established and saved for a rainy day, so we managed to pull off two camps, back to back, with a few daring nomads who decided to stay and wait out the virus.

With empty line ups and a heavily discounted price, they surely got the deal of a lifetime winding back the clock to a time when Gerupuk was just a small fishing village and surfing hadn’t made its introduction yet. Needless to say, if you were a surfer that stayed in Indonesia in 2020, you scored big time

The Future

Who knows what the near future holds, with the world in dismay and a rampant virus, life will unfortunately never be the same. Will it be better or worse? Only time will tell.

Let us know your thoughts on what the future holds for the traveling surfer.