Yearly Archives: 2015

Day 137 – Pleasant interruption

Nina spots all the cats

Nina spots all the cats

Relax and recharge, that is what we proscribed ourselves for today. The sun was out when we crawled out of our room after a decadently long sleep in our King size bed. Falling out of the bed. This was presently followed by an equally decadent breakfast.

After that, we went on a brief stroll around Tuk-Tuk to make use of the sunshine while it lasted. Truly brief though, and soon we were back at our Hotel, hogging Wi-Fi, milling about and doing some light blogging. Around 11 am two outside guests arrived while we were just finishing one of our blog posts. They had been around last night, and I could not help but comment on their rather lavish breakfast order. A brief conversation at shouting distance was sensibly brought to an end when we joined them at their table. Which is also where we spend the rest of the day!

Sorry Robin, 3/4 with eyes closed. I'd say that's a sign of inner calm

Sorry Robin, 3/4 with eyes closed. I’d say that’s a sign of inner calm

It was refreshing to be able to have an intelligent conversation with like minded people. Since Jogja, we were either missing the company or the language skills for it, but it was just the thing to get us in a good mood again. We sat with Germans Yana and Robin all day till 11 pm (way past bedtime for us ancient folk). The two are on a gap year / vacation before starting university. I must say, I was much impressed at the wisdom both of them already possessed – I am not sure if I was that good a company 10 years ago ;). It seems the FSJ (voluntary social service year introduced after the end of the draft) is good for some solid character building.

Thus, the day passed, as food and drink flowed in to keep up our discussions on traveling, politics, life and everything else. Not much to blog about really, other than to say that we had a great time. Maybe we will even meet the two of them again later on our trip.

Day 136 – Danau Toba

Having wifi for a night helped a lot with uploading our many, many pictures. So we didn’t mind too much that we had to go out and look for food. Despite our previous experience in Indonesia, many of the food stalls were actually open at 6.45am. With lontong and nasi gurih we had the typical cooked meal for breakfast, something I can now eat but will probably never really appreciate.

Back at our hotel, we got another round of coffee and tea with a plate full of sweet things…I am unsure why they told us that breakfast wasn’t included.

Rocinante had made it through the night in one piece. It was one of these rare occasion when we had to park her just off the street rather than in a private yard or behind a gate. When we had come back from dinner last night, two of the hotel staff had tried to move her which gave us both nearly a heart attack. I was quite worried about the bike throughout the evening.

And off we went. Our goal was to make it to Danau Toba today and have a rest day there, given that we have ridden for 11 days straight now and covered about half of Java and 2000km in Sumatra. This far north, we are now in the region of the Christian Batak people. All of a sudden, Christianity and Christmas are back with churches, roadside Christmas trees and the “Selamat Hari Natal & Tahun Baru”.

If you are now wondering how we can make so many kilometres in Sumatra and still have road to go: Sumatra is the sixth largest island in the world.  If you look at a globe, we are now as far away from Wellington as we are from Frankfurt.

Flo's boots after a bit with a landslide

Flo’s boots after a bit with a landslide

Roadwise, we are back on the “main road” which is still mostly mud these days (ok, the occasional but very bad muddy bit). Flo was happy that we still have the Heidenau tyres on as they give us good grip on the most grimy surfaces. Landslides occur often in the rain so today we actually gave some money to the workers clearing the way because if they hadn’t, we would have been stuck.

After lunch, it got cooler and we realized that we were at 1800m above sea level with a nice wind that reminded us of NZ. It didn’t take long and we started to have views down from the high plateau towards Lake Toba and the gigantic island in its middle, about the size of Singapore. The “island” had originally been a peninsula but is now separated from the mainland by a channel with a very short bridge over it.

Looking down on Danau Toba and the island of Samosir

Looking down on Danau Toba and the island of Samosir

Still having to go 50km around the island to its other side, we were getting mighty tired and looking forward to our break from the bike. In the village of Tuk Tuk, there are many guest houses and we had picked one to check out. When we finally arrived and it looked decent, we booked it for two nights and collapsed…for about five minutes. Then chores dawned on us. We organized some laundry as 11 days is stretching our cloths-limit quite a bit. I had ice cream while Flo (“tall and handsome”, remember?) was asked to help carry a generator which looked pretty heavy.

The only other thing we managed today: Have coffee, black tea with real milk and German cake. Yes, there is a German-owned guest house (outside of our price range) with an attached bakery so we got Streuselkuchen and lemon cake. It was sooooooooooooo good! It got even better when the residing cats decided that I was allowed to pat them. 🙂

Day 135 – Duality and decisions

Should we stay or should we go? Follow the Lonely Planet’s tips, Ulrich’s advice or our gut feeling? For the first time in months we have something of a goal ahead: Getting to Kuala Lumpur before our Indonesian visa runs out and fly up to Thailand to visit my dad for a bit. Maybe this is what makes both of us restless. Or the overwhelming size of Sumatra. Where to stop and explore and where to push through? It is too big to try to do all of it justice in the time we have left.

There are 12 days left on our visa, minus a small contingency to avoid putting us into a tight spot at the end in Tajungbalai. Two more things we both want to do for certain: spend a day at Lake Toba and see the Orang Utans at the rehabilitation center in Bukit Lawang. Getting there equals five to six days of riding. So eight days in total, with four days to spare at the end. Another day spend at a location would be on the cards, but in the end, we could not bring us to use it now.

With uncertainty and that storm of thoughts in our minds we left Ulrich early in the morning, the Bukitinggi regions left unexplored with the intention of reaching lake Toba in two days. Day 10 of almost pure riding since we left Yogyakarta. 2500 km behind us, it feels so close. Still, more than 1000 km to go … the worlds sixth largest island is getting to us.

Crossing the equator! This calls for an excited jump!

Crossing the equator! This calls for an excited jump!

Even before lunch, we hit a mighty important place regardless of our musings. Here, pretty much in the middle of nowhere we crossed the equator. What a milestone! From Wellington! We made it! First crossing the Tropic of Capricorn in Australia and now onto the northern Hemisphere. Neither of us has ever crossed the equator in anything but a plane. We made it roughly half our way, a quarter of the way around the world (ok, 1000km short …). Nina was so excited that she justly broke our “no souvenir”-rule and bought a t-shirt (she drove a hard bargain to get it, though).

The road continued to alternate between amazing and horrendous from here on out, but the traffic was always light and made up for it. Our stop for the night was in Padangsidempuan, an un-remarkable town half way between Bukitinggi and our destination on the peninsular /island of Samosir. The room was cheap and clean, on the ground floor and the WiFi was good.

Day 134 – Shy mountains and imposing lakes

Sunlight and clouds

Sunlight and clouds

It was probably the coldest night we have had in a while. Up in the mountains with proper rain, it cooled down rapidly. I was wearing my pyjama, socks, a fleece jumper and a fleece jacket with hood on top of it. Still too cold to sleep properly under the thin fleece blanket.

The morning looked promising and the breakfast was so good that Flo even ate the rest of my omelette…something that has never been heard of before. Continue reading →

Day 133 – Sumatran Roads

This is a construction site. The cars are heading towards each other because everything off to the sides is utter shit. Timely reminder that it's the rainy season

This is a construction site. The cars are heading towards each other because everything off to the sides is utter shit. Timely reminder that it’s the rainy season

We have said of Java that it was very binary, either amazing or ugly, with little space in between. Today, once again we have found such a dichotomy about Indonesia. Sumatran roads, and I am talking mostly about the condition of the road surface, are either amazing or abysmal. The good ones have no traffic, a smooth layer of new tarmac and mostly stunning view. But from one meter to the next, this can all change and you end up with a torn up, truck infested nightmare rivalled by and sometimes on par with East Timorese roads. As a bonus, now that the rainy season has started, every bit where the seal is missing turns into a soapy quagmire of slippery doom.

Crossing the first bridge in the morning, we saw a bunch of water buffaloes wade through the river. I was just a tiny bit too slow

Crossing the first bridge in the morning, we saw a bunch of water buffaloes wade through the river. I was just a tiny bit too slow

This said, we loved today’s ride. There were good sections and bad, but the landscape made up for most hardship. The rest was covered by the heart-warming and friendly Sumatrans we continue to encounter.  The road roughly followed the coastline up to a town called Muko-Muko. Most of it through palm oil plantations, and a couple of villages. The rest of the way the road was right up the shore, with plantations and further on the horizon the peaks of Bukit Barisan covered with the rainforests of the national parks.

A word on palm plantations, rainforest and morals. Sumatra’s rainforests are disappearing at an alarming rate. Both international resource giants as well as internal population pressure play their part. Personally, it saddens me to see the incursions humans make into these beautiful habitats. But as a westerner, I have not an inch of high ground to preach from. First, because we buy the exported goods that are produced on these soils. But more importantly, because neither of my homes has much to show for with regards to conservation. Europe plain and simple has done it all already. There are no native oak forests to speak of. On the other side is a country that lost 2/3 of its remaining bush in only 100 years, with it all having been converted to monocultures to produce an exportable product. Sounds familiar? Only that we think sheep farming looks cute and palm plantations are disgusting. Cutting your own little farm into rainforest is backbreaking work. No one who is offered a better alternative will ever do so. I can only hope with education and international pressure, Sumatrans manage to stop at a point similar to New Zealand.

But then the road turned to custard...made worse by the rainy season

But then the road turned to custard…made worse by the rainy season

After leaving the coast, we cut across a “tertiary road” trough a national park into the highlands ending in Sungaipenuh. The road was fantastic, the air got cooler and we thoroughly enjoyed the lush bush in this narrow gorge in the national park. Well, until the brand new seal ended and turned into 10 km of mud and broken bits of tarmac. This did not actually reduce our good mood though. We had plenty of time and really liked the bush.

About half way through, we got rewarded with another cool little encounter. Three young guys were standing next to their Hillux in the middle of the road, staring up. One held a remote control with a smartphone strapped to it. I was intrigued, so we stopped. It turned out they were mapping the area with a FX drone and a self-mounted digital camera to plan the roadworks to upgrade this road to a highway. Apparently this is an order of magnitude cheaper than any western measurement equipment and still precise enough for the job. Cool stuff.

Clear views down into the valley

Clear views down into the valley

Our GPS, although told to avoid unsealed roads, tried to lead us down a shortcut around Sungaipenuh that was just a little bit too optimistic to take us to the valley. The road turned from single track to gravel to mud before I turned the bike around. No drop this time though.

With plenty of time still we arrived in Sungaipenuh and decide to push on 40 km more to reach the next accommodation, a homestay at the foot of Mount Kerinci. Once again we were glad to have made the call. The homestay was in a quiet little village just at the southern slope of Mount Kerinici surrounded by green tea plantations. The owner was extremely nice. We sat on the porch for a while for a chat, even though he spoke not a word of English. Google Translate did its thing where my Bahasa Indonesia and sign language ended.