A Tale of Two Islands

After being on Pulau Weh for close to 3 months both Roel and I were keen to make progress. I would set off a day before Roel and we would keep in touch aiming to meet somewhere along the way to Bali.

I left the island early one morning and there was only just enough room on the ferry for my bike.

The plan was to ride down the unchartered west coast of Northern Sumatra which had been previously devastated by the Tsunami. We expected bad roads and incredible scenery. Not long out of Banda Aceh a landslide had half blocked the road. As I passed through the boulders my bike died completely. No electrical power, nothing. I faffed around in the intense heat for 20 minutes trying to figure out what had gone wrong and then discovered that the negative terminal on the battery had simply become disconnected. I reattached it and set off again.

The road soon became bad. There was about 70km of dirt roads crisscrossing across the landscape with no road signs and inundated with cows and water buffalo. None of the towns or vilages I passed through were on my map so  had to rely on a GPS bearing to head Southish. I took a wrong turn and ended up at a dead end on the wrong side of a river. Some local people becconed to me and the next thing I knew I was on a tiny canoe ferry on my way to the other side.

Later that day it started to rain. My map got wet and the ink ran so it didn't matter that the towns weren't on it any more.

Everytime I stopped for a quick break, locals would turn up in force to ask the same questions I've been asked for 10 months. Where are you from? Where are you going? What make? How many cc? How fast? How many km per litre? I might write the answers on the side of the bike or make leaflets in future.

I took shelter in a hut whilst it got dark. Soaked and cold I wasn't in the mood to camp so pushed on into the night through the torrential rain to find a hotel. Upon arrival I dripped my way across the lobby and was immediately handed a towel. I fell asleep almost instantly after having ridden close to 400km.

I was woken by the call to prayer at 5am and decided to set off. The road took me inland towards the mountains and Lake Toba, a large volcanic crater lake which I considered visiting and waiting for Roel. It was raining again so I decided to push on South rather than detour to the lake.

That evening I found a hotel in a cool mountain town where they had never seen tourists before. The girls all asked to add me on Facebook.

The Trans-Sumatran Highway, a mighty engineering accomplishment still in progress.

Local fisherman. All they seemed to catch was a used condom though.

I set off the next morning before dawn and accidentally stole the key to my room. Today would be a big day. I would finally be crossing the equator and entering the Southern Hemisphere after 9 months. I almost missed it and rode straight under the bridge where some random Indonesia bank welcomed me to the South. I turned round and headed back to take a photo and get harrased by a man trying to sell me a T-shirt. Upon inspection of my GPS to verify my location I found that the equator bridge was in the wrong place. Apparently the Dutch had built it in the wrong location. I blame Roel.

It rained again but I made it to an earthquake prone town called Bukkittingi where I found the Hotel Rajawali owned by a German called Ulrich. He noticed my GPS and asked whether I would like a map of Sumatra for it. He has spent the last 5 years creating a GPS map for Sumatra which has incredible detail upon it and wanted an evaluation. The map is far better than even the official Garmin maps I had previously used for Europe. He's happy to give a copy of the map to anyone who visits him in return for feedback. That evening I found a place which served steak sandwhiches. Since my illness on Pulau Weh I had all but lost my appetite but now with decent food I was able to regain some strength.

After 3 days of wet boots my feet didn't look too healthy either and I was still only half way across Sumatra.

The next day I passed some nice scenery and as usual had the hectic traffic to contend with. Busses and trucks lurked around every corner waiting to make an attempt on my life.

The consequences of Indonesian roads. I have no idea how the driver managed to tip the bus to the inside of the corner.

Road rules in Indonesia are similar to India, only the roads are better but still full of potholes. Undertaking scooters are everywhere and red lights are seemingly optional. The most dreaded foe are the night busses who flash their lights at you the overtake straight into oncoming traffic. My way with dealing with them is to slow right down whilst flashing my lights, honking my horn and giving them all manner of obsence hand gestures. Sometimes it works, other times I have to swerve into the gravel at the side of the road. Scooters with no lights on at night using their mobile phones for illumination can also take you suddenly by surprise.

Imagine driving across Europe on country roads full of potholes, busses, trucks, scooters, cows, goats and chicken. That's sort of the same scale as riding across Indonesia.

Road signs for Jakarta also started to appear, despite it being on the next island and well over 1000km away. To my mind that's like advertising Berlin from Birmingham.

It was pretty much the same story the next day only the roads got a bit better. As I rounded a corner a goat was stood politely waiting in the middle of the road. I clipped his back legs and he made a pathetic little bleating noise then staggerd off into the undergrowth whilst I swerved across the road. He probably ended up as someones supper that night.

I managed to ride over 600km that day and pushed on into the night to find a hotel. It was raining for a change but I had the cunning plan of using full beam to dazzle the other motorists out of my way. Sadly they all had the same idea.

Again the call to prayer awoke me the next morning. In Iran and Turkey the call was often hauntingly beautiful but I've had enough of religions. They all just seem to be competing to get you to give them money and make as much noise as possible at ungodly hours.

I finally made it to the port to get the ferry to Java at lunchtime. Incredibly Roel arrived 10 minutes later having taken a shortcut because he could read his map. I had crossed Sumatra, over 2000km, in a terrifying 6 days. Roel had done it in 5.

We boarded the ferry to Java, expecting it to take an hour since it's only a 30km crossing. It took two hours since it stopped halfway across for no reason whilst it started to rain. Our fist impression of Java was a wet one.

At a petrol station we asked how long to Bandung, the town we planned to get past. They said 10 hours. We thought we could make it in 5. It actually took us closer to 16 after we rode into the night to make progress in the holiday traffic as everyone left the cities and headed up a mountain. It was also raining for a change.

At a petrol station close to midnight we met some Indonesian bikers who helped us to find a field to camp in. When we awoke the next morning the locals told us we weren't allowed to camp there because it was in front of the Presidential Holiday Home. After a man brought us some pastry things for breakfast and another tried to sell us some Spongebob Squarepants baloons we set off and finally made it to Bandung.

Before facing the onslaught of the traffic we stopped for some food. As we were ordering we heard a mighty crash from behind. I turned to see an old man standing next to my bike on it's side looking sheepish. They have to touch everything just to make sure it's real. My brand new right pannier was smashed so I gave him lots of verbal abuse and he ran away. I fixed it with some good old gaffa tape.

I asked a policeman for directions after accidentally riding onto the toll road and he jumped on his bike and indicated for us to follow him. He rocketed through the solid traffic with his sirens blazing, sometimes driving directly into oncoming traffic whilst we struggled to keep up. It was some of the most insane riding I've ever managed to do.

Once again it rained and once again we rode into the night because we couldn't get used to the fact that it got dark at 5:30pm. Can you see a pattern emerging?

The roads became steeper and steeper as we rode into the highlands to Borobodur, a big Buddhist temple that was supposed to be impressive. Local people came out onto the steep flooded roads with lights to guide the trucks and try to prevent them from crashing into their houses. A few had failed to stay on the road.

We found a very posh looking hotel which had cheap prices for staying in a dormitory. There were 4 beds in our dorm and we were the only ones in it. Bargain.

We took the next morning off from the bikes to visit the temple. Local people pay about 1USD entry fee. We were expected to pay 15 because we're white and have ATM stamped on our forehead. I made lots of fuss as only a Northern Englishman can and kept trying to give them the local price. In the end we gave them nothing and left. I took a photo of what I could see of the temple from a distance. In Europe one would be branded rascist for charging foreigners more. The Indonesian tourist industry is already collapsing, I can see why.

The temple is over there. It looks nice.

Instead we visited a local Saturday morning football match. A man chanted and banged a drum whilst men with funny hats on fell over in the mud. It was quite amusing. Roel enjoyed the dutch colonial influence and bought a pancake.

Upon our return to the hotel we were interviewed by the local press. Keep your eyes peeled for the article in a local Indonesian newspaper near you!

We set off late and once again it rained as we rode into the night and finally camped in a field.

In the morning we were awoken by someone shouting on a megaphone from a temple nearby. As I loaded my bike I was unable to disengage the alarm. I thought this was because it was wet from the constant rain so covered the electrics in WD40. Nothing worked. I was crippled and had visions of having to put my bike onto a truck. I honestly felt like the trip was over as I had no idea where the tangle of wires went. In frustration I removed the alarm and cut all the wires. I had 16 wires, all black, that led off to various parts of the bike. I tried connecting them all together out of desperation and ended up short circuiting something and setting a wire on fire, burning my finger in the process.

I tried to calm down and think rationally. After two hours I had traced all the wires to where they came from and found that only two went to the starter motor relay. The rest were insignificant. When I connected them together, the bike fired up. The bane of my existence for the entire trip had finally been removed. No more crippled bike everytime I had an electrical fault and no more annoying beeping.

We eventually began the ride to Mt Bromo, a volcanic national park at 2000m+ altitude. The road up was covered in mist and I was optimistic about being able to see anything. Typically at the entrance to the park we were expected to pay double the local price. We kicked up a big fuss. Even Roel was angry.

'It's only $2.50' the woman in charge told us.

'Yeah' I replied, 'Which is ONLY twice as much as locals pay!. Do I have ATM written on my forehead? Do my clothes say sponsored by Mastercard? Have you ever heard of rascism?'

She had not surprisingly. I think we should introduce dual pricing in the UK for anyone not white. But 'no' I hear you cry, 'that would be rascist!' It doesn't seem to bother anyone in any of the South East Asian countries though.

We did pay eventually but they could see we weren't happy about having to pay to visit something which is completely natural and isn't even maintained by them. Not even the roads. I think travelling for so long is making me extremely cynical.

Bromo was worth it. I set off straight across the black sandy desert whilst Roel moaned about breaking his bike. We took lots of motorcycle magazine photos then rounded a corner and visited Scotland.

We asked some locals for the best way to get to Bali and they showed us a small, ill-maintained road that wound through the jungle as it descended. There was no entry booth so we now know how to sneak back in.

That evening we camped on a football field. A man on a scooter rode up to us, shouted something, seemed scared to approach then rode away. Roel expected him to bring the police back to move us on so we waited 15 minutes before setting up our tents. They didn't arrive so we went to sleep. An hour later I was awoken by bright lights and the sound of a diesel engine revving outside. People were talking loudly. I waited and listened. The police had turned up, carrying big guns, and were telling Roel that we had to go to the police station because it was dangerous here. He was dealing with them politely. I, however, stormed out of my tent in my underpants and shouted at them then went back into my tent and tried to get to sleep again. They left shortly afterwards. Roel thinks they were offended because we didn't take them up on their offer to go to the police station to sleep. I was offended because they had woken me up in the middle of the night and if it was dangerous, then now the entire town knew we were there.

In the morning 3 very dangerous young children came and curiously watched us pack our tents away. I was fearful for my life.

Another hour of riding in the dawn light saw us arrive at the ferry port to get to Bali. Men instantly tried to sell us sunglasses.

And so we made it to Bali, around 4000km from the most Northern tip of Sumatra. I in 9 days, Roel in 8. It must be some sort of recors. It had been exhausting both mentally and physically but we had both seen what we wanted to see. Once again we can both relax and maybe do some diving whilst figuring out how to get to Australia since East Timor has apparently changed the visa regulations which may make things tricky. Not far to go now.