“Dude, we’re fucked,” says Webby.
He looks ahead at the rough track running along the ridge line, then down at the scrub fires in the empty savannah plains below. He starts throwing off all the gear strapped to his rented 150cc trail-bike – camera bag, two surfboards, snorkelling gear, sleeping bag, pillow – and jimmies the taillight up to get a better look at his broken surf-rack. Both bolts are sheared, clean.
“You’re kidding,” he says. “There’s no way we’re going to get down to the beach now.”
I’ve been with Webby for one day and already I’m beginning to regret inviting him. I was suss on him from the moment I met him just a few weeks ago, when both of us were freeloading at a friend of a friend’s place in West Sumbawa. Within five minutes he was spilling his guts to me about the five months he spent in prison in Banda Aceh, supposedly for overstaying his visa by five days. He really wanted me to write a story about it, but I didn’t buy it.
Why was he so keen to share something so humiliating?
And really? Five months in an Indonesian prison and $17,000AUD to get out for overstaying your visa by five days? Yeah, nah. That doesn’t quite add up.
Still, he’s here to film, and with his company I feel bolstered in pushing the limits of this adventure into one of the wildest and most remote parts of Indonesia.
We take the strap Webby had holding his bags to
