Indonesia

"Gentle and intriguing strains of Balinese music led me to get lost in heavy traffic in the Kuta region, the summer capital of the island’s south. The Hard Rock Cafés, Club Meds, Buddha Bars and Double Sixes were in full swing as you’d expect in August. (…) Among the Australian surfers, Brazilian druggies, Parisian socialites and Javanese hookers, I came across a few young classic Balinese dancers, getting acquainted with techno trances and giving energetic performances at rave parties for an ecstatic white public. (…) I didn’t share their effusion for these caricatures of psychedelic décors, with bad techno playing on and on in the moonlight while warm beers were served in plastic glasses, probably going down really well with LSD.

So I sought out my good friend Pierre and his yacht, the well-named Kriss ('dagger' in Indonesian), docked in the bay by the greatest stroke of luck. We’d previously crossed paths in other places in the seafaring world. We decreed the extreme urgency of moving on, eastwards, to the Sunda Islands, an archipelago answering to the pretty name of Nusa Tenggara.

During this marvelous cruise, I discovered that unlike most islanders, the Indonesians are damned good sailors, and that this beautiful country made up of 13,000 islands is called “Tanah Air” in Indonesian, meaning Earth-Water. But that’s another story."

Extract from Carnets de voyage 2, 2000, Éditions Gallimard