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Published: March 22nd 2012
Unusual road hazards
Stopped by a village party in Sumatra.More things that begin with B
Bintang, beer, bucket, beach. As I write this entry I am sipping a Bintang beer by the beach that the restaurant staff have helpfully placed in an ice bucket. Reminds me that this trip ‘is not a holiday’. Although, speaking of buckets, earlier today we were rubber gloved up and hand washing batches of laundry in a bucket; so it’s not all relaxation and pleasure.
Onion boats
Our bikes survived their short journey across the straits of Melacca on an ‘onion boat’ – so named because it occasionally carries onions. I suspect when it does carry onions, the onions pay a lot less for the trip than our bikes did. The onions certainly don’t have to argue as much with their shipping agent about prices at the other end; but such is the nature of motorcycle shipping. As Damo said, shipping motorcycles does not bring out the best in people.
Welcome to Sumatra
If we thought Thailand was hot, Sumatra was putrid. After we retrieved the bikes from Belawan port we had a short ride of about 30km from there to our guesthouse in Medan. 30km that
took an hour! By the time we arrived we were soaked in sweat. Everything was wet, our helmets, t-shirts, armour, trousers, socks and boots.If this was a taste of what riding in Sumatra was going to be like, it didn’t look promising.
Unfortunately, it was a taste of what riding in Sumatra was going to be like. Our average speed through the 2,000km we covered in Sumatra was probably just over 40km/h. Most of it was done in either 30+ degrees and 100%!h(MISSING)umidity or 30+ degrees and rain. In fact, that’s Indonesia so far: hot, sweaty and rainy. Hence the buckets full of laundry earlier today, which included items such as bike jackets, gloves etc. And not for the first time either.
Sumatra
However, riding in Sumatra has its good points. It is wild, jungley, covered in volcanoes and at times spectacularly beautiful. It is also a proper adventure. Next to crossing the desert in Pakistan it has been the most adventurous feeling part of the trip. The reason for that is partly the road conditions, which in a word are ‘unpredictable’. Well in two words, windy and unpredictable. In 2,000km probably only 50km of
Top of the muddy hill!
Actually, top of the hill and around the corner a bit. She was too fast! it was straight, and most of that was from Belawan port to Medan. Much of it was full of potholes, like properly big potholes. The sort of pothole you can put a whole car tyre in (we saw that once, I guess it passed for ‘road repairs’). We also came across a bridge that had collapsed, a road by the sea that was completely washed away, another road that had partly collapsed into the sea and a 200m long slippery, muddy, unsealed and very steep hill. Fortunately, we made it around the bridge, over the non-existent and collapsing roads, and up the hill! My first thought on seeing the hill was “sh*t, I’m glad Tanja got some off road experience in the UK before having to tackle this”. Actually, that was probably my second thought, my fist thought was “this is going to be tricky, I hope I don’t fall off in all that mud”. Actually, Tanja was so good at going up the hill that when I’d stopped and was running back to take a video of her in action she’d almost got to the top!
On the subject of unpredictable road conditions…
Why did the chicken cross
Trans Sumatra Highway
More of a low-way at the moment. the road?
Actually, in my case, the question I was asking was: why
didn’t the chicken cross the road?? All was going well for me and the chicken, I was riding along at a steady 50km/h, it was happily doing as chickens do and crossing the road. It even had a friend to keep it company on its short journey from the right side of the road to the left. To assist it on its travels, I had slowed when I saw it. It was a good half a metre past my front wheel track, its road crossing expedition nearly complete, when it suddenly changed its mind. Squawk! Flutter. Chonk. My handlebars twisted for a moment, my suspension compressed, my heart fluttered (a bit like the chicken); but then I was still happily sailing along the road. The chicken, however, was not fairing so well. It was now a black, twitching lump in the middle of the road. Sh*t! I stopped. Tanja pulled up “I think it’s still alive! It was still fluttering”. I looked in the mirror, someone was wandering out to the chicken. Hmmm… still, all was not lost. My poor chicken, although it had failed
to fulfil its road crossing destiny, was at least fulfilling a different chicken destiny and becoming tonight’s tea. Actually, after my first chicken ‘encounter’ I had a bit of a bad run with chickens. Although, at least the next ones were near misses. One chicken I spotted had a wee chick, ‘oh’ I thought, ‘how cute’, ‘but why has it only got one?’ Mad flutter, sudden braking, chicken missed by millimetres. Answer: it had three or four more, but they were still back on the other side. At least I found out the answer to why that chicken crossed the road!
Sumatran highlights
In the end we really liked Sumatra, even if we did have to ride a bloody lot. We stayed by the shore of the biggest volcanic lake in the world (Lake Toba). The following day, when were soaked through from the pouring rain, we stopped at what looked like a rubbish road side hotel. When being shown the rooms I spotted a cloudy looking swimming pool out the window, and thought “errr who’d want to swim in that?”. Then I noticed that behind the pool were small travertine terraces, a bit like a small
The biggest pothole yet!
Actually, this was where the road was undercut by the sea and collapsed. scale Pammukale in Turkey. The pool was actually being fed by a hot spring! The perfect place to end a soggy day’s ride.
After another long day’s ride through the jungle we ended up in an absolute dump with an ant filled tub and a bucket to use as a shower. A bucket that also served as sink and toilet flusher! But the next day we stayed in a flash hotel by the sea with a swimming pool for only €35. We met three really nice young English blokes running a surfing camp by the beach in Krui (Hi to the Mandiri Beach Club boys), who made me my first cup of ‘cat poo coffee’ (the beans get eaten by an animal called a palm civet, pooed out, collected and roasted!)
A cup of Java?
First impressions of the next island, Java, were not so promising. Deciding to avoid the notoriously bad traffic of Jakarta we tried to skirt around it to the south. My GPS, true to past form, found us a road that was barely a road. What little tar was left only served to give the potholes in between a sharper edge. Still,
Smoother going
Smooth surface, lots of corners, volcano in the distance. It wasn't all potholes in Sumatra. I kept thinking, ‘this is better than being stuck in traffic’. Then we got back on the main road, which was pretty much the same potholes, except now it was full of slow moving traffic. Then the real traffic started! For over three hours we crawled along, baking in the sun and barely moving. Finally we broke free of the traffic, and had a lovely ride up the side of a volcano covered in tea plantations. Unfortunately, on the trip down the other side the rain started. We took shelter in a petrol station, and were joined by some locals (Hi Benjamin - the fast talking local with the American accent). Sadly, the worst was yet to come. The last few hours we were back in standstill traffic, only now it was pouring with rain and the last 20km were in the dark with the finish up and down steep narrow hills. 270km we covered on our first day’s ride in Java. 270km that took over 11 hours!!! Great. Still another 1,000km to go.
More my cup of… coffee!!
To the east of Jakarta road conditions did improve, even if the weather didn’t. Little did we
know we were riding east at about the same pace as a cyclone that was tracking our progress in the seas south of Java. The cyclone was throwing off strong winds, storms and some pretty torrential rain.
Our next stop after passing Jakarta was the ancient Buddhist temple at Borobudur. Quite an impressive sight, towering out of the surrounding jungle. We didn’t make it for sunrise, too expensive. Ok, I know there’s some of you out there who are thinking ‘well that’s not the only reason we didn’t get up early enough for sunrise’. Well actually, in true ‘this is not a holiday’ form we have been having to get up at around 6:30am most days just to allow ourselves enough time to cover the distances! So we could have made it for sunrise.
Which is what we tried to do at our next stop, Mt Bromo. After riding for 10 hours, on bad roads, and ending the day soaked by torrential rain we pulled up just short of the volcanic crater where Mt Bromo sits. The next morning was a 4:30am alarm to make sunrise over the crater. We made the crater rim before sunrise. The sun
Boli Boli balcony view
As a swimming pool it wouldn't quite cut it. however, had other plans and was somewhere out behind the mist. In fact, if Tanja walked more than 10 metres away she would also disappear ‘out behind the mist’. No sunrise for us, despite our painfully early start. Riding down the treacherous road dropping off the edge of the crater was also quite an adventure. The treacherous, wet, obscured by the mist road. We made it down, and arrived safely on the sand sea… somewhere we weren’t supposed to be! Apparently no private vehicles are allowed there, but no one told us to leave, so we rode back and forth twice and then climbed Mt Bromo in full boots and riding gear, even carrying our helmets. Much to the surprised looks of the other tourists on their 300,000+ rupee (about €30) jeep safari tours.
After dropping down off the Mt Bromo volcanic plateau we headed for the Ijen plateau. Having finally dried in the better weather at sea level, but not having learnt our lesson about the weather on volcanic plateaus, we ended our day much as the day before: back in the mist and torrential rain. On the upside, we stayed at a coffee plantation!! A fact that
Boli Boli hot spring!
Hot spring, cool rain. seemed to bring me significantly more happiness than Tanja. I even picked a green bean… which was in fact red. Well, the ‘coffee cherry’ it grows in was red, the bean turned out to be more of a light brown/cream colour. Tanja tells me this is not interesting, but ‘tis a spiritual experience to visit the home of coffee… even if it’s not really its home, because the Dutch introduced it when they colonised Indonesia.
Speaking of Dutch colonists, the house we stayed at on the coffee plantation belonged to some. Sadly, little had changed inside the house since the Dutch colonists lived there. Actually, to be more accurate, little had changed for the better; some things had clearly got worse, like the musty smell. Still, the room was better than the breakfast, which consisted of some dubious looking bread with a bright yellow substance and some chocolate sprinkles!! (
Hagelslag I believe they’re known as). We asked for something else, and had fried rice (nasi) instead.
Next stop Bali!
Another early start and we were off to climb Mt Ijen to see the sulphur lake, before heading on to Bali. Except we could barely see the
A perfect end...
to a less than perfect day's ride. sign to the sulphur lake, such was the mist. On the upside, it turned out the Ijen crater was closed as the sulphur fumes were too strong, so we had two excuses for not going. Onwards it was, next stop Bali. Until flat tyres intervened…
Fixing a flatty (or two)
The next stop was not Bali. The next stop was in fact a short distance down the side of Mt Ijen to fix a flat tyre. Fortunately, it was not a flat tyre on our bikes. As we were riding down the rocky and treacherous road (bit of a theme developing with these volcanic plateaus), we came across a gaggle of lil bikes parked around. "pomp, pomp" they were saying in unintelligible English, pointing to a back tyre. Well what could be seen of a back tyre, which wasn't much because this bike was properly loaded under a mountain of rice crackers and other nibblies. What could be seen of the tyre was very flat. 'Hmmm' I thought to myself, it's probably going to need more than just a 'pomp' - should we stop? Deciding we should do a good deed, we stopped. My hand pomp did
Middle of the world!
Crossing the equator (evenaar) nothing. My electric pomp did nothing. We discussed the situation, we wanted to be on a ferry and this was going to take time to fix. We decided to give something back to the community, and so I got out my tyre patches and levers. It was not enough. Next, I got out my tools and pulled the back wheel off. As we were fixing the tyre more bikes arrived to watch the spectacle. We had almost finished, when chokka, chokka, chokka, down the hill came another lil bike... with a flat front tyre! His eyes lit up, and pretty soon he had my tyre levers and was pulling his tube out. "Fucken'ell we are never going to get the ferry to Bali at this rate", "If another bugger turns up with a flat tyre I've given enough" I thought. But, we soldiered on and within about two hours had fixed both tyres, packed all the tools away and waved everyone a good bye. I was feeling pleased with myself for the rest of the day, 'I say’, I said (to myself) as I rode along, ‘if we only have to fix two flats for this trip, and they’re
Bucket shower
Without ants at least. on other people's bikes, we've done well!'
Boats and bumps
Two hours later than planned we arrived at the harbour, and were directed on to a less than promising looking ferry. There was a hotch-potch of brown paint dabs, presumably covering rust repairs. What hadn’t been repaired looked like it needed to be. What had been repaired didn’t look like it had been done well. Still, it was only a 45 minute crossing. Three hours into our 45 minute crossing and we were getting a bit annoyed. For the last two hours we’d been sitting in the same spot, waiting for a dock or something. Finally we approached the dock. Then they pulled in the ropes and we were no longer approaching the dock, we were doing some strange circling thing. A look of horror appeared on the ‘rope throwers’ face. Something large, and ship like loomed up very close. Crunch. Grind. The sound of large bits of metal scraping. Our less than seaworthy looking boat had crashed into another boat. Not ideal. Neither of us sunk, yet. We went around a bit more. Then we crashed into the dock. We were happy to be off our less
Cat poo coffee
Thanks Mandiri Beach Club guys!! I found out later how bloody expensive cat poo coffee is! than seaworthy boat. We found out later that they had closed the harbour for three hours, due to the treacherous conditions. Thanks tropical cyclone Lua.
Fixing another flatty!
Turns out my little “I say, if we only have to fix two flats for this trip, and there on other people's bikes, we've done well!” was a bit presumptuous, because several hours later when we were pushing to get to the other side of Bali Tanja noticed green stuff oozing out of my tyre. It was the “Slime” substance we had in that stopped our tyres going flat. The fact that it was coming out meant a good sized hole in my rear tube somewhere. Yep, now I had a flatty! We managed to stop just before the rain started, and I got to spend the rest of the evening fixing another flat tyre.
Off to Lombok!
Except it was not off to Lombok, as the ferries weren’t running. Thanks again tropical cyclone Lua. Fortunately, the Balinese port of Padang Bai is a lovely little place, with a great bay for snorkelling in just around the corner and a very pretty beach. We spent three
days there waiting for the seas to calm down. It gave us a chance to catch up with three other bikers we had been shadowing through Indonesia, Bea, Hella and Paul. Two Germans and one Englishman/Kiwi. Actually, Paul had ridden with Damo in Thailand. It’s a small world, the international adventure biking community, but a surprisingly busy one. Hopefully we’ll all share a shipping container from East Timor to Darwin (for the bikes that is! We’ll fly).
When the ferries did start running it was a pretty choppy ride, and a four hour wait first to get on one.
Where we are now?
Disappointingly, our first four days in Lombok it rained, steadily, constantly and at times torrentially. At least we weren’t riding in it! I guess it hasn’t been too tough, eating pasta and pizza by the beach. Apart from the washing that is. We’re a bit sad also that we haven’t been able to visit the Gili islands for any snorkelling, yet.
But, as it’s my birthday tomorrow, and no small one at that – 40 in fact – for the next two nights we are staying at a flash little boutique hotel. We’ve
Hanging with the locals
Sheltering from the rain (again) just had cocktails, a beer (for me) and a delicious burger. Tomorrow we’re off to go snorkelling and then it will be more cocktails and a delicious dinner. After that, three more islands, two more countries and then we’re in Darwin!!
Don't forget, more photos at the bottom, and on another page (page 2).
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vanetroamoto
non-member comment
Very well written!!
Hi, I really enjoyed reading your blog about Indonesia, it is very well written, well done. We will also ship from Penang to Medan in a few days inch allah (any tips on this, it looks like prices went crazy...) and I am looking for info on road conditions in Sumatra and more generaly in Indonesia. We have two 25cc city bikes (Yamaha YBR) and road conditions have to be watched carefully with this kink of bikes! Did you take the trans-sumatra highway all the way? Is it in ok conditions (from your blog it does not look good at all)? From what I read above, you had a decent amount of rain, when did you travel in Indo? Are there any portion you would advice to avoid (if avoidable)? Thanks a lot for your help, Vanessa et Romain www.vanetroamoto.com