Hōpara: Surfing in Indonesia and seeing the world

Wine professional and tour guide Simon Meikle says his travels - particularly in Indonesia - have been strongly influenced by his love of surfing. Photo / Getty Images

Everyday explorers recount their best travel memories to Elisabeth Easther

Raised in Hawke's Bay, Simon Meikle has lived in Australia, Raglan and in Asia, but it is the Wairarapa's rugged coast and reliable surf that have stolen his heart.

Cultural exchange

I've always been fascinated with other cultures and when I was a kid, I used to watch David Carradine's kung fu show where he'd travel around, walking the earth, having adventures. The otherness of Chinese culture was very exotic for a young boy from Hawke's Bay and that, in part, inspired me to study Mandarin and Indonesian at Victoria in the 90s.

Because the language you learn at university is very formal, one summer holiday I went to Indonesia for full immersion and to heighten my skills. I was visiting a family when the son came home. His father introduced us and the son turned to his dad and asked, "Why is it that foreigners are so uncouth?" I thought I was doing my very best to observe all the protocols and traditions so I was quite saddened to hear him say that.

Rather than tell his son I spoke Indonesian, the father kindly explained that people from different civilisations and different parts of the world simply have different traditions.

Wedding crashers

I was visiting a buddy in Seattle one Christmas, it was 1991 and there was a particularly heavy fall of snow, although people weren't always prepared for it. We were out walking when we came across a couple whose car was stuck in the snow. They were going to their daughter's wedding, so they couldn't be late.

Being good Samaritans, we dug them out, and to show their appreciation, they invited us to the wedding. Because we'd done this good deed, they made such a big fuss of us and we were really well catered for. When they found out I was a Kiwi - they loved how I spoke - I even got to make a little speech. There we were, a couple of single blokes full of Dom Perignon - when we arrived home in the wee small hours, we were absolutely chuffed.

Chasing waves

My travel has been strongly influenced by my love of surfing, and when I was living and studying in Bali I met a Scotsman called David who spoke Indonesian and Balinese. We were surfing at Uluwatu, sleeping up on the Bukit Peninsula before there was accommodation all over the hills. We were the only people overnighting out there because the locals were superstitious about the place, but a lady let us sleep in the shop where she sold fruit and tea to surfers during the day.

While there, my Scotsman friend gave me a grubby version of Dao de Jing, a small book of wisdoms gleaned from Daoism that focuses on nature. He gave me this little bootleg version, it was poorly printed and not properly bound and it looked as if a thousand people had read it before me. Thanks to that gift, Daoism has become my philosophical centre and I still get a lot of solace from it today.

It's all about putting things in perspective and is full of good advice on how to navigate life. One of my favourite sayings is: "Have you got the patience to wait until the mud settles and your water becomes clear". I often think about that.

Eyes wide open

For me, travel is more than just going somewhere and having my photo taken at an iconic landmark, it's the characters you meet along the way. It's like the old Māori truism, "He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata." What is the most important thing in the world? It is the people, the people, the people. And the people you meet on the road, through shared adventures, they sometimes become lifelong friends.

I also love people-watching and, when you travel, you take that people-watching show on the road. I sometimes think of myself as the David Attenborough of the human kingdom.

A matter of perspective

Wine professional and tour guide Simon Meikle in Bali. Photo / Supplied

I'm very interested in how people from other cultures interpret things. When I was on Nusa Lembongan in Bali, I asked a young boy to draw a map of the world and place Nusa Lembongan on it. He placed Nusa in the centre and it was this gigantic continent. I asked him, "where's America?" And it was this tiny dot etched on the side. And Africa? Another dot, but Nusa Lembongan was the centre of his universe and that always stuck with me. Wherever you are is the middle of everything.

Simon Matthew Meikle is a wine professional and tour guide. greenjersey.co.nz