Travel Faces: To Erin

My beautiful friend, Erin (left).

This has been a particularly sad week, topped off for me by the news of the death of my friend, Erin Gampar.

I’m writing about him in my new blog, Travel Faces, because you could say we met while I was travelling.

He was a musician from Flores, an Indonesian island east of Bali. His family moved to Kupang in West Timor when he was young.

And later he moved to Bali, which is where I met him one hot July night in 2004.

My friend, Ollie, and I were walking home after a night out bar-hopping in Seminyak when we heard beautiful music coming from a bar across the road.

It was salsa or the Gypsy Kings I seem to remember. We went over to investigate and listened to a few songs, then met the band and chatted to them. Erin was one of them. He was a superb guitarist and singer but could play most instruments - as shown by the above photo - and anything from reggae to ballads. I loved his rendition of Redemption Song.

He also had a cheeky smile and laugh and could see the humour in anything.

He should have been a journalist - he always made sure he was at the height of the action, telling me later how he’d been in the courtroom for Schapelle Corby’s sentencing.

I’ll never forget one story he told me. It was about 2am and we were sitting in another Seminyak bar.

It was about the night of the first Bali bombing, just after 11pm on Saturday, October 22, 2002.

He and his fellow musicians had finished their gig and were having a late dinner in a restaurant nearby. They heard a loud bang and saw flames and raced to the site to help people.

He focused on one man, making sure he got him to hospital to be treated for his burns, and visited him daily until he was able to leave.

We were engrossed while he told the story. It was fascinating - and terrifying - to be reminded of that fateful night from an eyewitness, especially a great storyteller like Erin.

Whenever I went to Bali I’d call or text him to find out where he was playing and go down and see him. If it was a Saturday night, he’d laughingly tell us he had to get up early for church the next day but he'd still stay up for hours.  He had been brought up a Christian. 

He was so happy to meet his wife, Endah, and get married.

I still don’t know the full circumstances of his death but believe he had an illness he was being treated for in hospital.

Erin, I can’t tell you how much we’re missing you.