Get your signed copy of Phil’s new book and join him, Dick Hoole and Richard Harvey while they reminisce about Bali in the early days. Phil will also present a video documentary of his book. Here Phil describes the making of the documentary: ‘The short film we have been making in Bali this month is based on my book, Bali Heaven and Hell, for which I interviewed more than 60 people, but mercifully I had trimmed this down to about 20 – still a lot of work when you have only three days to shoot it, and you have to deal with Bali’s chaotic traffic to get from one scene to the next.
With the help of long-time expat Michael Little, we managed to locate the Windro compound in Suluban on the dusty Bukit, where 40 years ago we would leave our motor bikes and pay the young boys to carry our boards to the cave at Uluwatu while we jogged ahead. In those long-ago days there was nothing but dry and rocky fields surrounding Windro’s, but now it has been surrounded by out-of-control tourist development.
I had a bunch of Dick Hoole’s black and white photos from that time on my laptop, and at a roadside warung we managed to find Wayan, the pretty young girl pictured walking down to the beach with a bucket of cold drinks balanced on her head. Now in her late 50s and still beautiful, Wayan led us to the compound.We walked down tracks and along stone walls to a paddock that I recognised immediately as the place where Dick had shot a picture of me in 1975, laughing uproariously while the film-maker Jack McCoy gave the kids joy rides on his motor bike, pretending to be out of control. Wayan shouted out a name, and another lovely woman emerged from behind some shrubs. I showed her the series of photos that had been taken right where we were standing, and she pointed to little Nyoman, my favourite board-carrier for several years, and said: “That my husband, he no look like that now!” She and Wayan laughed until they cried’.
Doors open at 6.30pm for a 7pm start. For more information contact Surf World on 55 25 63 80
Photo: Phil Jarratt on left, Jack McCoy giving the lesson. There were no motor bikes at Windro’s yet. This was a pure novelty