Text: Tim Hain

The percussive thumps of the overdriven bass beat against your chest as you carefully pick your way down the steps that were cut from the hardened earth, with only the light of a dim moon and the multicolored flashes of laser lights poking up sporadically into the night sky. The crowd of people below on the beach move their bodies rhythmically to the beats blasting out of the huge speakers, many on an Ecstasy or some other drug induced state of euphoria. Was this really the same calmly tranquil white sand beach where just a few hours ago you hung out drinking a cold Bintang in a beach chair outside a quaint warung after a mellow afternoon surf session?

Oh the many faces of this Bukit beach they call….Dreamland. The site of controversy, greed, and corruption, but also a place for relaxation, fun and enjoying the purity of catching a nice round barrel as the sun starts to set over the greenish-blue Indian Ocean.
Many years ago, the story has it that Tommy and Richie were the first ones to go for a stroll down from Bingin to check out the waves that were breaking off the reef in front of Pantai Cimongka. It stayed a local’s spot for a time, but then (perhaps Jim Banks was the first?) some Westerner had a go and slowly it turned into one of those hush-hush “secret spots”. It became all the more alluring when images of this “unknown location” began to make the rounds in some surfing mags, captured by Bali’s first expatriate surf photographer Jason Childs. The white sand, the waves, and the beautiful scenery earned it the name “Dreamland.”
Like many other “secret spots”, access to Dreamland was the key to keeping it a secret in the beginning. The bare hill you see now was once covered with thick green foliage, and the big paved road of now was then just barren red rocky dirt covered with shrubs and trees with few cow trails weaving in and around. Walking down the beach from Bingin or finding your way through the maze from Balangan were the only ways to go. The locals soon realized that they could make a living by guiding surfers through that maze, then later that those same surfers would pay even more for easy access to food and drink! So why not put up a small warung?

But no secret remains a secret for long of course, so in the late 90’s when by various ways and means the controversial “purchase” of the land by Tommy Suharto occurred, and soon after the construction of roads and the beginnings of a golf course followed, access to Dreamland became an exceedingly simple matter. The big road led to more surfers, more tourists, more warungs, and then even full moon/ rave parties. The place began to boom, reaching its peak in 2007. Celebrities from Jakarta and other Asian cities could often be spotted at Dreamland, and even American actress Cameron Diaz got a surf lesson or two from Rizal Tanjung at Dreamland on her last visit. It was “the” place to go when on a holiday in Bali. Dreamland in the afternoon, the Dreamland sunset session.. Dreamland is the place!
But then a disturbing rumor started circulating, one that would have all the warungs razed to the ground and a major hotel constructed. What would that mean for the future of the locals, the surfers, and the holidaymakers? Would there no longer be access to the beach and the waves for other than hotel guests? Could it be the end of the Dream?
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