From the moment they watched Steve Cooney slide across a shimmering Uluwatu wall in ‘Morning of the Earth’ in the early 70s, Bali has had surfers under a spell. Since then the wave-blessed Indonesian Island has evolved into a travel metropolis, visited by an estimated average of five million people a year.
Despite the crowds, the traffic chaos, the threat of earthquakes and the scars of terrorism, Bali still remains a version of paradise for many. On an island where the sensory overload has always seemed like a constant, Canggu has emerged as a kind of black sand Bohemia, where surfers and travellers can lose themselves in a heady mix of fun waves, surfboard pluralism, trending philosophies, yoga poses and alluring night life.
This issue, the colour and dynamism of…