Sumatra, Indonesia with Kym's old bike

During Apr 13 through Apr 25, 2000 I took a trip to Sumatra, Indonesia, here are my trip notes.

Apr 13, 2000 Go to Eastern Travel - meet Jay and Aruna - Garuda closes at 5pm so I missed my air pass. This turns out to be unfortunate since I could have gone from JKT - MES and PDN - JKT for US$140 instead of 240. Stop at Borders instead of Powells and get way-too-big Lonely Planet book of Indonesia and map. Fly to SFO, walk around, call Betsy.

Apr 15 Plane takes off for TPE - JKT and turns around after about 25 minutes, the pilot says "we're going back to Taipei, we have an equipment problem". When we land there are 2-3 fire engines at the end of the runway with lights flashing and where the airplane parks there are 5-6 more with lights flashing. They immediately exit upon our arrival. No body knows what happened. We exit from this plane to a plane parked about 50 ft away. Weird. Get ticket to Medan in JKT for US$140 stop in Batam. Find Sarah guest house - Ucho with 3 birds and unemployed. Assemble bike, missing left pedal it fell out of box from either PDX - SFO, SFO - TPE, TPE - JKT.

Apr 16 Get new pedal and 2 for Ucho, leave in the heat of the day for Berstagi, flat at first but gets steadily steeper and real hot. Stop tons of times. The traffic gets pretty bad, lots of horns and close encounters. Finally bail out at 15km before Berstagi on the back of a pickup. Meet Belgium bikers (Carlos & Luc), Aussie who know a lot about the area, 2 Italian guys, and 1 Italian girl who is a space case with very infected legs at guesthouse Wismaikut. Tell Belgium bikers that I may go with them tomorrow or I may hike up local hill.

Apr 17 (65 km) "Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head" but I didn't bring a comb! Wait around for my Belgium bikers but they are late getting up. Talk to Bob- Aussie who knows all there is to know about the area. Tells me about a small town with traditional houses only 2-3km out of the way - the road is quiet and a bit rough but not bad. Buy a comb and get accosted ty tourist assocation police for entrance fee. Make them split a huge bill to pay the tax and exit. Carlos and Luc sneak up behind me and surprise me, bike with them for a bit, stop at their turn off to traditional village and get accosted by lots of cute school children. Tell them I'll see them later at Parapat. Stop at Seribudolok and try to ask when the boat leaves for the island - on 2nd attempt he says it's 1 pm but it's 1:10pm already. hitail it anyway hoping it's late - nice ride down the hill. Find the boat, it's leaving at 3pm - meet Alazandria, a buyer/seller of onions - hop on board - cargo with mothers playing some double deck card game and chewing red stuff and spitting it into a small paint can. Grease bike on top of boat. This Island is great! No traffic and good roads. Find out in two days they all aren't this good. Tuk Tuk has pretty crummy roads though which takes 1/2 hour to traverse. Stay and eat at Tonys and chat with Brits, they TV out. Walk around, end up at bar with 2 guitars playing.

Apr 18 (159 km) Walk to get fruit and then map of Island at the library. Take trek - stow bike in womans house next to row of Batak houses. Head up on trail but miss trail across creek and go up creek bed till dry water fall, go back down and find real trail. Head up but run out of water and it's hot! Stop at row houses and have nice guys wife cook 3 eggs. Nice. Swim in Lake Toba, nice and refreshing. Play ping pong with Vancouver Girl. Go to library and meet Bernie - disabled, plus a bladder problem. Run into Luc and walk to his hotel and chat, walk around island and stop at Internet cafe and send 15 minutes email. This email never makes it out, I picked "Send Later", should have known. Have dinner at Rumbas, Carlos and Luc have pizza, I have spaghetti. Head down to cafe and have some beers. Bat flies thru cafe, cool. Carlos and I decide to ride around island tomorrow, Luc's knee is bugging him.

Apr 19 (228 km) Go to meet Carlos for breakfast but stop at library and Bernie pleads to take his wheel chair apart and fix the intermittant problem. Talk to Carlos about it and he agrees to translate the Dutch manual. Take transmission apart and find bad belt- leave with Carlos on trip around the island. The road is ok for awhile but gets really steep and rocky. I'm wondering about Kym's bike. Climb from 800 meters to 1500 meters - wow the views are spectacular! Reminds me of North part of the South Island of New Zealand. Worth the rough climb. The road ends up in Vietnam-like rice paddies. All of the people we talk to are Christan, mostly Catholic but some Protestant. Stay in basic losmen in Nainggolan. Town rolls up the sidewalks at 6pm, make one last stop at neighborhood pub - all the old guys at one table - kids at the other. Everybody drinking palm wine. It's an acquired taste to be sure.

Apr 20 Walk around Nainggolan - not much happening - no fruit - it turns out there is tons of fruit growing on this island but none for sale - except Tuk Tuk. Go the rest of the way around the island with Carlos - run into Luc a bit past Simanindo - he comes back with us to Tuk Tuk. Recover from fruit withdrawl by having 2 fruit drinks at Rumbas. Maraquesa and banana, say boodby to Luc and Carlos. Carlos reminds me of Gary Magalske. Get boat after waiting for 1 hour, try to take pedal off but give up, find later that this causes it to strip. Get to bus station at Parapat and wait for 8pm bus, kill 2 hours riding around town - some in the park - very dark. Bus comes at 9:10 but full. Air con bus is full too. Stay at bus comany Losman.

Apr 21 Sleep late - do some laundry and hang out in back of bus terminal and discover youth hostel next door - arrange breakfast with hostel's mom. really good. ask for lunch at 1 pm. go snoop around town - get a map - Lots of tourist in town for weekend, get picture taken 5-6 times by Ache tourists. Meet creen card lottery applicant. Go back for lunch - great! give tip. Air con bus comes, bargain bike down to 10000, 55000 total. Other than the rain, smoke and washed out roads - bike and me survive, but a bit tired -especially neck because seat didn't recline (being the last one before the bathroom).

Apr 22 (340 km) Get dropped off at 5 am, 14 hours. Ride around bukatinggi - busy town. No Garuda office -head towards Maninjau - the 5 km strech of Sumatran highway to side road is really busy, glad it's only 5km. Turn off for Maninjau - nice road not too much traffic - do some roller coaster riding - up and down - finally come down the multi hairpin turn switchbacks. Weeeee. Most scenic ride. Stop at internet cafe - meet Jack - send email -buy ticket Padang - JKT. Bike around top of Meninjau the other side droips into a small dam and forms a river that is used for fish farming, and irrigation. Stop at river and shave, later get haircut just before Tiku. Wow, Tiku is nothing and isn't even on the beach! Realize that I can't make it to Pariamon, try to slither into someones house but no takers - throw bike on bus and head for Pariaman. Splurge on pricey hotel 90000 (US$11) Head out to eat - meet guy who tags along into restraunt and "forgets" to tell me he has no money. Tell him I won't pay and he explains to staff what happeded. They say he can pay later. Hang around town and meet students by light pole with guitar. Chat with them for a bit. One of them takes me to a nearby computer club and I talk to them about Linux and Internet but they aren't ready. Walk back to hotel and find big talent show going on. Slick looking girls hanging around. Talk to a guy that is with them for a bit. Everyone here is Muslim.

Apr 23 Have "included" B'fast in messy show room from big show last night. Ride North of town and check out beach - abit stirred up. Ride east on small road. Notice pedal is loose, find mechanic - opps it's totally stripped. Meet David - takes me to welder- he welds it on the end of the pedal shaft - go to David's house - meet family - we take ride toward Pariaman, pedal breaks again. Chaeck out of hotel and have lunch with David. Buy 2 new pedals but they won't go on - pedal back to welders "Limping" on one pedal. He welds it on front and back of threads, holds for now. Decide to stay at Davids house - drop off stuff and hang out- take walk to move the cows to new grazing grounds. Take another ride to the nearby town w/small market. Go back to Davids, Have fried bananas dinner, notice women missing at dinner table. - home cookin' - yumm, take motorcycle ride to town to older brothers house buy he's left to see David - go back to Davids and hang out with both brothers and sister. All the guys on the couch, girls on the floor. Crash.

Apr 24 David wakes me, have breakfast his mom is a good cook! 1st plan to ride to Padang but would like to leave bike with David so decide to take bus to Padang. Ride to town to Davids school, meet lots of curious students in lunch room then meet teacher, talk for sometime. Give 5 min. talk to students about pronunciation and my background. Notice total gender segregation. Ride over to private english course school and preach Linux, draw LAN setup - Aziz is very appreciative and wants me to stay. Take last bike ride back to David's house, have lunch, give his mom some money for all of the food. Go out for photo of us all. Bus to Padang with David. Get room at Benimin - too high at 30000 but I'm not walking anymore. David trails me on mad shopping spree- feeling like I'm waisting his time. I say goodbye. Shop till I drop, nice market! Hang out at hotel - nice staff. Go get some $ at ATM in mall then dinner. Interesting snake-looking thing but I pass - later learn that it slithers in the rice paddies. Yon & Oli sit next to me and pay for my meal & invite me for a drive. We cruise slowly the beach then hang out at river for a bit. They drive me back to my hotel. Go for a beer at a corner bar - learn some Indonesian, talk with the guys and girls admist rats and cats.

Apr 25 Get up at 6, try to get a towel but no luck, use the pillow cover. Head to bus to airport, the bus goes past airport and conductor tells me to go further. Get straightened out and go back, get boarding pass. Waist an hour by walking towards town and looking for anything to buy. Pick up a few things and bus back. Find out taxes have gone up and I need some more money. Change a few bucks. Meet ... on plane with 4 year old daughter, she lives in JKT and her husband lives in PNG, owns a plantation in Pariamon. Get to JTK and find I need yet more money to pay international departure tax. Meet Belgium hacker that was told to leave to country to escape jail for cracking. He now owns an Internet Cafe on Java. Preach Linux to him. Meet Reed college grad now studing in Paris in math logic on SFO-PDX flight. Forgot bike odometer magnet and pannier clip.