One thing I recently discovered is that going back to a place can sometimes be a big mistake - some things change for the worse, and what doesn't change is usually improved by the mists of time. Returning can also generate a bit of lament for the loss of institutions, and in the last two months I saw the death of two big ones.
Anybody who has been to Penang and not had much coin would have spent a night in the Hotel New China - a former grand old colonial house turned in to a rat warren/guesthouse. The old chinese folks running the place looked as old as the advertising on the walls - apparently from the 19th rather than the 20th century. The dorm was a couple of bits of plywood blown together by the wind and if the bed bugs hadn't got you by the morning the rats should would have. I once left some things in the stored luggage room, and I swear I saw a single fin surfboard that had been there since at least 1985 !! Most suprisingly of all it has been replaced by a boutique chocolate shop - the rats must be in heaven !!!
The second was two great waves in the Hinakos, small islands off Nias. These islands bore the full brunt of the earthquake in March, 2005 (hot on the tails of the tsunami in December, 2004) The earthquake pushed the islands up further out of the ocean, so much so that the tide line at Bawa is now about 20 metres further out than it previously was. This has had a disasterous effect on the waves. Bawa no longer has a wave and Asu breaks only when the swell comes from just the right angle, and it is shallower than it was before.
I returned to Bawa for a week in December, and stayed in the one remaining hut on the beach. Each day I would stare out the window watching the point reminiscing about the good old days, from when it was 15ft and a washingmachine too big to surf, to the last 30 days of perfection that I spent there in 2003.
RIP
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