K2K, Sumatra, Week 3

Week 3 - Sumatra (alias The Hello Mister Tour)

09-03-17

Ricky’s Beach House to Bungus Beach

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789559

It was sad leaving RBH and the wonderful crew, but move on we must. Farewells were had as the guys helped to load our bikes onto the boat for the trip down to Tarusan. If you ever get the opportunity to explore Sumatra, Ricky’s should be on the top of your list. www.authenticsumatra.com. Just be sure you understand how the place works before you go.

We boarded the boat on a perfect still morning and we were quickly on our way, gently cruising over a glassy sea and down through a stunning bay, that is touted as the next Halong Bay. Best you get here before that happens. This was a magical cruise, just sitting back in our little wooden village taxi boat, enjoying the serenity.

Arriving in the busy little fishing port of Tarusan, we tied up to the concrete sea wall and unloaded our gear with the help of Kim and the boat driver. Another set of farewells, and we rode out of Tarusan to stunned looks from the locals. It was another nice village road, weaving through tropical farm land until we came back to the main North South road, heading back up towards Bungus Beach and eventually Padang.

It was a good ride, the traffic wasn’t as busy as we expected, and the road condition was quite good. The road followed a strong flowing river, gently up for about the first 30k’s. Then, without realising we had gained so much altitude, we plunged down a series of switchbacks to come out on the plain that Bungus Beach sits on with only 5k’s of flat running and into a nice café for a leisurely lunch before heading to our accommodation at the Cavery Beach Hotel. Once again they upgraded us, which was really nice.

10-03-17

Bungus Beach to Padang

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789588

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789595

Another leisurely start, as we didn’t have far to go today. Only about 30k’s, and we had ridden this road the other way, so we knew exactly what was in store.

We had arranged to meet Ailee at a café in Padang on the way through. It was great to catch up with Ailee and see little Jipsi again. Poor little guy has developed a little skin problem but with antibiotics from the vet and a little paw paw cream he should be right in no time. This ended up being a very long lunch, which was really nice, before we rode up the main Padang beach and back to our hotel, ready to store our bikes and gear so that we could fly out to KL the next morning to renew our Indonesian Visa.

11-03-17

Early flight to Kuala Lumpur

An early taxi to the airport, we were travelling very light, what we were wearing and a camera bag with a few essentials inside. It was amazing to be not checking bike boxes etc in.

It’s only a one hour flight to KL. We then took the fast train to KL Sentral and decided that we would walk to our hotel about 6k’s away. The taxi drivers weren’t happy, but one helped us with directions. Naturally we didn’t have 3g service, so it was lucky I had downloaded the Malaysia map for MapsMe and that guided us well. We are so glad we decided to walk. We saw heaps, through Chinatown, found a great café called The Lokl, with an attached guesthouse that we would have stayed in if we hadn’t already booked elsewhere. The guy serving us at Lokl was a really awesome guy. He asked us about our travels and then offered us a tasting of some signature coffees they have in the café. This was really interesting and such a nice thing to offer. We thanked him so much for looking after us and said we would probably be back again soon. (I’m already thinking about tomorrows breakfast)

Then up past the botanic gardens and to our very flash hotel, The ShangraLa. Who says you can’t have a little luxury every now and again.

I must say, we felt a bit out of place, but, we are so beyond caring what people think of us anymore that we just went with it. It was pretty funny having a very nice dinner later that night to celebrate Mary’s birthday a little early. Me in my shorts, t shirt and thongs, Mary in a nice dress, but with her cruddy camp shoes. Dinner was great, and everyone was looking at how awesome we are, hahaha, hmmm?

12-03-17

We walked back to The Lokl for breakfast as we had enjoyed it so much. (I knew we would return) The guys were really happy to see us visit again. Once more we really enjoyed a western breakfast and really amazing coffee.

Off to the airport we went, catching an Uber to the train station, then the train to the airport. The one hour flight back went quickly and the view from the air in the last 10 minutes of the flight was amazing. We could clearly see Lake Maninjou and the road that we would be riding and it all looked pretty specky from the air. There was a bit of air traffic so we had to circle before our approach and the pilot took us back over Ricky’s so we were able to see the beach there from the air. Once landed, our hotel car was waiting for us and took us back to reunite us with our good old faithful bikes.

We organised all our stuff at the hotel, showered and changed and caught a taxi out to Ailee’s place. Kim had ridden his motor bike down to Padang for the day to visit his sister and dropped into see Ailee as well. It was really lovely to get to see these two beautiful people again before we set off again on our cycle touring adventure. It was wonderful to see little Jipsi again too and give him lots of puppy cuddles. He has grown so much in the short period of time and is now walking and wanting to play. He had also had his very first introduction to solids and is doing really well. His skin condition he developed is now clearing up perfectly and he is looking like a beautiful little guy. We had a great afternoon chatting and chilling and then all set off to the Bat and Arrow for dinner. On the way we stopped off at a beautiful Hindu Temple which had been rebuilt since the earthquake in Padang in 2006. We met a couple of other friends of Ailee’s at the restaurant who also are volunteers working in Padang. We all had a great dinner, lots of chatting and laughing all the while little Jipsi just slept in his little backpack on the floor next to the table and not one peep was heard from him.

We dropped Kim and Ailee off at her place before we continued onto our hotel. Another lot of goodbyes were had before we drove off to get a good night’s sleep before our big day in the morning.

13-03-17

Padang to Lubuk Basung

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789696

We were up early, bikes all loaded and completed breakfast by 8am. The weather was going to be hot today but the morning was feeling pretty good for our start. Rolling out of Padang was a bit hectic to start, but by the time we got halfway to the airport it was much better, rolling along at a great pace.

We turned off just before the airport entrance and headed up the coast on secondary roads that were peaceful and flat. This ride was really enjoyable, and we were surprised at how nice the beaches and surrounds were up here. We were setting a great pace and loving every minute of it. After about 50k’s we had to turn off at Pariaman, towards our destination of Lubul Basung.

This was a gamble, we knew this way was about 20k’s shorter than continuing up the coast, but we were going to have more climbing. This way was beautiful, but turned out to be brutal. Once we got off the coast it was much hotter and we had river valley after river valley. There were only a few spots where we had to get off and push, but they took their toll. We stopped at several small shops along the next 40k’s, topping up fluids and calories as we felt we needed it.

Finally, we came into Lubuk Basung and had to make a decision. There were three potential hotels in town, one was 2k’s closer to tomorrow’s destination, so we chose that one. We got there, found that they were full, so had to ride back to town and choose the better of the two dungy looking ones. Well, I got that wrong again. A bed that was obviously cat stained, we asked for a different room, which was organised. It wasn’t much better, but we were too stuffed to find something else. Funnily enough, we slept really well. Go figure.

14-03-17

Mary’s Birthday.

Lubuk Basung to Lake Maninjau

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789709

Today wasn’t a big day, only 30k’s, but we knew we had a decent climb up to Lake Maninjau. This lake is a volcanic crater lake, and the lake surface is at around 500 metres above sea level. So we had about 400 metres to climb in the first 10k’s or so. We actually whipped up the hill quite quickly, considering we had no breakfast.

Arriving at the lake, we were greeted by a stunning view. This lake is massive, about 14 kilometres across and 42k long. Surrounded by the towering crater rim, another 700 metres above the lake. In places there is a bit of flat ground that is farmed in the usual way, and we noticed a lot of fish farms in the lake, that didn’t seem to be used.

It turns out that this is another of Indonesia’s ecological disasters. A few years ago, with increasing numbers of fish farms, the government advised the locals that they would have big problems if they kept increasing the fish farm numbers. In the usual way, the locals ignored the government and they were not prepared to enforce their recommendations. Disaster struck. A combination of over feeding the fish and the resultant algae growth, caused an oxygen starvation event that killed all of the fish in the lake. What used to be a crystal clear lake is now a green soup. I don’t know how long it will take to recover, if ever. We did see new life in the lake, hopefully, they won’t repeat the process.

Naturally, this also killed off the tourism industry here, and it is only just recovering. We wish them well, as this is a beautiful place, with lots of potential if managed well, however unlikely.

Rolling around the lake, we arrived at a good café we had heard of, right on the lake, and settled into an awesome Birthday Brunch for Mary. We were starving by this time, and only had one k to go to our accommodation with a few hours to get there. Nice.

We stayed at Eka’s Bungalow which was literally right on the lake. The bungalow was really sweet with a deck looking over the lake. Here you could sit and just relax, watching the fishermen in their dug out canoes, throwing out fishing nets in such a quiet and peaceful way. Eka was a nice friendly guy and very helpful. His sister owned the bungalows next door and also a small café. We think it may have been their father who lived in a small bungalow next to ours and he was a really sweet happy old man. He spoke a bit of English and loved his dog and especially his cat.

15-03-17

Rest day at Lake Maninjau

After the big ride from Padang and yesterday’s climb we were very thankful that we had already decided to have a rest day here at Lake Maninjau. Both the legs and the body needed that extra day of rest and recovery. We chilled out most of the day sitting on the deck of our bungalow and catching up on the blog. There are two beautiful friendly dogs here and both have a litter of pups. I could hear a puppy crying under the café next door and when I peeked under I could see 5 little black and white faces peering around the corner and one little pup that was stuck in the den area. All the others had managed to climb up on a wide ledge but this little guy had no hope. I think all the others used him as leverage to get up. The mumma dog was out doing her rounds searching for food so I decided to climb on under the building and retrieve the little guy and place him with his siblings. He really didn’t mind at all and as I went to gently pat the others one frightened little fella growled at my approaching hand and then screamed blue murder when I touched him. Once he saw the others weren’t worried and he then decided that being gently touched by a human hand didn’t actually hurt and wasn’t that bad. These pups have only just come out of their den and have never seen people before. The owners didn’t know how many were down there.

Then we got to meet the other young bitch’s puppies. They were all huddled together in the corner of a shed and they too hadn’t been touched. They squirmed and a couple of them cried a little at first then they were happy to snuggle all together while I gently stroked them. There were 7 puppies in this litter and were probably 2 weeks younger than the other litter of puppies. The mum of these pups is so skinny. The pups are taking everything out of her. Poor girl she is doing such a good job and she is such a sweet girl. It’s really hard to just watch this happen, they all need a good worming, defleaing and sterilization program out here but there are no facilities, no vets and no volunteer groups that could help with the existing problem. It’s the same with the local cats too. At the café nearby there are cats with young cats and tiny kittens and all in kitten again. These cats however look in good condition but the breeding cycle is very obvious. These are just the lucky cats that get fed. So our friendly mumma dogs have had a few handfuls of food while we have been here. High calorie biscuits and some saved egg and toast from breakfast and left over dinner we brought back. They both looked pretty happy with our small offerings.

With chilling out and resting all day apart from a couple of short walks to the village and feeding our bodies loads of good food I think we will have the power and strength to tackle tomorrows crazy 44 switchback climb out to Bukittinggi. It the legs aren’t with us it is going to be a pretty long push.

16-03-17

Lake Maninjau to Bukittinggi

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789832

We were both pretty excited this morning as we had quite a challenge ahead of us to climb the famous Kelok 44. We had no idea how hard this climb would be, or even if it was rideable for 2 touring cyclists on fat bikes. Eka cooked us a good breakfast, gave us some encouragement and once packed up, we were on our way to the unknown once again. We rode up the concrete road, away from the lake to the main road of the village and turned left at Kelok 44 with only a 350m warm up. Straight into the climb we went.

The first pitch looked ominous, and certainly had our cold muscles trying hard to warm up. The first right turn brought us onto a long switchback with an easier grade that allowed our legs to spin for a while and warm up.

Someone had turned the scenery dial up to 11. We quite like a good climb. But this had everything. As a cyclist, we only heard about this climb a few days before. But we are so glad we did. This road would have to be put on the list of must do climbs before you die. Forty four switchbacks over nine kilometres with about six hundred metres vertically. Each corner of the switchbacks are sponsored and decorated with statues or some kind on beautiful theme and are all numbered. The views over Maninjau were fantastic, luckily we had an awesome day in the weather department. Starting early meant that we had most of the climb in the shade which was certainly an advantage.

With the scenery so awesome, we broke the climb up with a few photo stops, but even on loaded bikes this climb is quite doable. We got to the final turn, 44, sponsored by the pumpkin growers it would seem. We congratulated ourselves with a coffee and biscuits at a little warung that hung precariously off the side of the crater rim. Awesome view, average coffee, but we were feeling great and very proud of ourselves. We continue to learn every day, that we must not fear the next challenge placed in front of us. Each day’s challenge is different however, which makes this hard. Fear of the unknown needs to be recognised, then placed to one side while we push through it anyway. There is always a path to be taken.

For every great climb there comes a fine descent. This was gradual and long, without too much altitude lost. What we didn’t know, was that there was another climb to be done before we reached Bukittinggi. This was not a switchback climb, but a winding valley road that just went up and up. It wasn’t much less climbing than we had already done, but we stopped at a nice resto, overlooking the beautiful valley, with eagles circling around.

A little more up, and then a gradual descent down to Bukittingi, a nice town, nestled between two volcanoes, Marapi and Singgalang. Quite touristy, but a nice clean place with a great budget hotel called Hello Guesthouse, run by the lovely owner, Ling, who is very helpful and runs a very good hotel. This place is very popular with foreign tourists, and we met some really nice people here.

17-03-17

Bukittinggi to Harau Valley

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789904

Harau Valley was highly recommended to us as a must see place. We are glad we did do it, as we don’t often do side trips away from our main route. It is 50k’s away from Bukittinggi, but well worth the trip. Ling kindly offered to look after our spare gear, so we dumped our two large panniers and tent, just taking our clothes and tools, and took off for a great light loaded ride. The first 35k’s was down to Payakumbu, where we stopped for lunch. We are always hungry and were certainly looked after by the awesome owner of Tara’s Café in Payakumbu.

From here on it was flat. About 5k’s away, we could see the geological marvel that is Harau, looming in the distance. This valley, gorge is probably a better word, is spectacular. I couldn’t find out how it was formed, but it is massive conglomerate cliffs, sheer and vertical, with a lush, flat floor with waterfalls dropping in several places into the gorge. It is becoming a very popular place for rock climbing and areas have already been marked with permanent bolts. We went and explored some of the waterfalls, which were cool, really cool before heading to Lembah Echo homestay which is in a stunning setting, right in the heart of the gorge. Stunningly quiet, a bit lacking in the hospitality department, but this seems normal in so many places. Hard to get a cool drink and something to eat. But in the end, we managed. It was worth it for the scenery, as well as the architecture of the bungalows. We ventured off on foot and followed the sounds of cheering and discovered the local soccer field where young guys from the surrounding villages gather for soccer training. Most of them ride their motorbikes to training and park in a small open field. They then walk across a bamboo bridge over a river to a little hut that makes do as the club rooms with a dog tied up outside on guard. Another small bamboo bridge over a creek is crossed to reach the playing field. As you stand in the middle of the field you are surrounded by the most spectacular scenery, the sheer rock face walls, waterfalls and lush greenery all around. Twenty plus guys out training hard with a very fit looking coach and a handful of spectators on the side made for an amazing view. The team is made up of guys from many villages in the area and they play in a soccer tournament once a year to celebrate Indonesia’s Day of

Independence held in August every year.

18-03-17

Harau Valley to Bukittinggi

We really wanted a day off the bikes today, but also wanted to get back to Bukittinggi to get our laundry done and bikes checked before heading North. We arranged with Echo’s tour guy, Randik, to take us and our bikes in his truck at 11am. Randik was a very talkative guy, and it was nice to hear him talk of his future. We are sure that he will be successful in whatever he chooses to do, a natural entrepreneur.

He got us safely back to Bukittinggi via the scenic route, haha. After unloading our gear, we said goodbye and headed up to our room. At this point, the penny dropped and we realised that our panniers were still in the truck, under a tarp in the back. Once again, Ling came to the rescue, calling Lembah Echo to get in contact with the driver. Luckily he hadn’t got far and was back in a flash, full of apologies. It wasn’t his fault, but all is well that ends well.

We dropped our laundry off at Mr. Clean Laundry, where the slogan is “Laundry today, or naked tomorrow”, you’ve gotta love that. The nice lady in there said that she would deliver back to our guesthouse at 5pm. Wow, we didn’t expect that, it was already 2pm. 20000 IRP ($2) and it was back at exactly 5pm. That’s service.

19-03-17

Rest Day Bukittinggi

Wow ‘Call to Prayer’ was very long this morning, it started with the call, then the sermon, then a beautiful young boys voice singing, then more sermon and then on and on until 8am!! We were grateful that the bloke giving the sermon wasn’t as angry this morning, the other morning he was really fired up and sounded very angry about something. Today he was in a better mood thankfully.

We climbed out of bed just after 8am went down to a lovely breakfast and then headed out for a bit of a casual walk. We were very politely stopped by a school teacher and his students who came from a village 5 hours drive away to the city of Bukittinggi in the hope to speak with English tourist to practice their own English skills. They were delightful students introducing themselves and asking us both lots of questions. We in returned asked them some questions and we all had a fun conversation. As this group moved on we were approached by another group from a different school and here we enjoyed helping these young students practice their English as well. As we moved on once again we were approached a few more times by groups of these students all wanting to practice their English. We thoroughly enjoyed being able to help all of these students, and to see them so shy and then after a few smiles and laughter relaxing and keen to engage and ask many questions. During the afternoon as we walked back from the shops a sweet voice calling ‘hello Mary’, here one of the students from the first group saw us approaching. As we walked back to our homestay there were many ‘hello Mary’, ‘hello David’ from very tired but happy students and teachers. It certainly has been a long day for them all and I’m sure the bus trip back to their villages will be very quiet.

Late morning, I decided enough was enough with my out of control hair so I bravely popped into a hair salon and took the chance on getting a colour and my hair cut. This was a great experience. The lady Imelda who owned the salon spoke a little English so our conversation was quite limited. However, she tried so hard to converse and did a great job with my hair. She asked me how old I was and then asked if I was a grandma. When I replied that I would be very soon she started to call me Oma meaning Grandma in Minang.

We are now all set with clean clothes, fuel in our bodies, new brake pads on Dave’s bike and all eager to continue our journey across Sumatra to the city of Medan. Only three more weeks left of our Indonesian leg of K2K.

K2K, Sumatra, The Beginning

Week 1 & 2 - Sumatra

24-02-17

Today was a transit day. We said goodbye to our amazing hosts at Pavillion 19 in Bandung and loaded our bike boxes and gear into a little taxi truck which took us to the airport for our flight to Padang in Sumatra. We were just waiting in a coffee shop for our flight when a young guy approached Dave and said our bikes need attention. Oh no not again.  Larry has obviously been up to no good or was it Priscilla this time? Dave wondered off with the airport man with everyone looking as he passed. They were a little concerned that the tyres on the bikes hadn’t been deflated enough and asked if we could deflate them a little more. With a little psss psss on each tyre they were then happy and back Dave came.

The flight was quite quick, and we got a magnificent view of the coast south of Padang on approach. This was where we were heading for the next ten days, so it was great to see it from the air. The air looked clean, not so much dense housing, lots of jungle and the terrain was looking to be quite challenging. Another adventure awaits us.

We got to the hotel in Padang and spent the rest of the afternoon getting the bikes put back together, ready to head off tomorrow. We stayed at the New d’Dhave Hotel, which was a bit out of the city, but suited us fine as it was really quite nice, and all we wanted to do was eat and sleep. Of course, we had lots of interest and help from the staff with our bikes.

25-02-17

Padang to Bungus Beach.

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789482

We didn’t have a big day ahead, only about 30k’s, so we took our time getting going. I was still having trouble getting Priscilla’s rear tyre to seat up tubeless, so I had to make a dash up the road again, to a motorbike repair shop with a compressor. This time we got it, pheww.

We hit the road. Our route out of Padang, heading South was quite pleasant, along narrow roads alongside canals and rivers. We even passed a little stall that had homemade donuts for sale, yum what a treat. The air is so much clearer here, we are feeling like we like Sumatra a lot already. The people seem just as friendly towards us, with lots of hellos, and high fives from the school kids as we go past.

We had one bad section of road, which was on the bypass. Choking dust with roadworks, but it only lasted for five k’s or so, before the road turned into a very scenic coastal road, looking out over blue water bays, and small islands just off the coast.

We did have to climb up and around one headland, which was a good grade, but still got to us a bit in the heat. Following that though, the descent down into the next cove was a delight, and certainly cooled us down with the breeze blowing through our sweaty shirts.

There was a need for a cool drink by this time and after having passed a few small places we decided on a traditional looking place that overlooked the rice paddies. We still don’t have the guts to walk out of a place that doesn’t have what we want. No cold drinks, so we asked for two black coffees and forgot to ask for no sugar. The coffee came, but was heavily sweetened with a serious chemical after taste. Oh well. It was only 5k’s to go until our destination at Bungus Beach.

The final part of our ride was easy, flat, but with great views around every turn. We found the Cavery Beach Hotel and booked in there. They were really welcoming and upgraded our room to one with a view of the bay. This was really nice, modern, but well done, and as we will most likely be coming back this way, we will probably stay there again.

26-02-17

Bungus Beach to Ricky’s Beach Bunglows

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789529

A late start, we slept so well. Breakfast was supposed to arrive at 8am, but we didn’t even wake up till 8:30. The lovely lady who runs the hotel must have realised that we were still sleeping, and five minutes after we surfaced, coffee was delivered and five minutes after that, a nice fresh nasi goreng arrived.

We took our time packing up, as we only had about eighteen k’s to travel today. Once we got going, the roll out of town was easy. A few k’s out of town we came to our turn off the main highway to the right, and on down the coast. An old fella sitting on his porch called out to us, and he and his son gestured that we were going the right way. The old guy then proceeded to get quite animated and loud towards me (Dave) and I must say that I wasn’t sure if he was abusing me or encouraging me. Maybe he just thought we were crazy. His son was rolling his eyes apologetically, perhaps confirming the former, but at the same time made the international sign for “steep hill” with his hand.

The road to the base of the first hill was nice and quiet with views to the coast, rice paddies and steep jungle clad hills. The road became steep, and the breeze dropped, as it was a gully, and as a result the temperature and humidity skyrocketed, the sweating began in earnest. The first hill was a killer. But when we stopped at the top for a rest, we looked down after a couple of minutes to see a pool of sweat on the road under us both. This was to be the order of the day until we reached the really bad road. This had the same steep climbs and descents, but without the road surface. Mary actually got off for two of the descents, they were as brutally dangerous on the bikes as the climbs. We did get a lot of encouragement from the few passing motorbikes and the occasional car. A few of which we were actually overtaking on the flat bits as they were so rough. We finally arrived at the tiny fishing village of Sungai Pinang. This, despite only being three hours from Padang, is a remote village. Funnily, we seemed to take the right way through, across the village square and towards the beach. We came out right at the village part of Ricky’s beach house, the turtle hatchery and care centre. Funny how that happens sometimes.

We met IL, Rickys brother, and he gave us directions to get across the river and around to the Beach House. Most people get a boat from here, and we were about to find out why. I have to say that I love the network of narrow concrete roads through the villages in Sumatra. It’s a network that doesn’t support cars at all, bikes and motorbikes only, sort of, and one day they will be replaced with electric bikes, and that’s a good thing.

As we headed out of town on these concrete roads and onto the bridge over the river, we knew we were close. The gps said we were at most 2k’s away. Crossing the bridge, we looked at the road ahead, and basically said, Oh shit. From here on, yes, there was a road. But it was a newly bulldozed road, and it went straight up and over the headland, that separated the village, from Ricky’s. This means that the form was there, but no surface. Not a problem for a fat bike you might say, sure. But what the bulldozer had stirred up, was just a mix of clay and volcanic bombs of various sizes. This was going to be tough, but it wasn’t that far to go.

As we pushed our bikes up this gnarly track, we got a view back over the river mouth and smiled at each other. This was a seriously beautiful place. Yes, this was tough, and seriously, I know I’ve said it before, but we’ve never sweated so much. Was there enough Bintang at the beach house to replace the lost fluids? I wasn’t sure.

We crested the ridge, and got back on the bikes to make the descent to the cove below us. I probably made a mistake trying to ride this, but there was a path that a few motorbikes take and I thought I could ride it. I then heard a shout from behind me, I turned and saw that Mary had hit the deck. She had got off the one rideable line and payed the ultimate price. A skun knee and dented pride, we walked for a bit, looking ahead at a few beach bungalows, we missed the trail into Ricky’s. We descended too far, and then tried to see if we could get around the beach, but no, there was a headland in between. So back up the hill we went, shit. We turned up the unmarked trail, just as a guy on a motorbike arrived that Ricky had sent out to find us before we got too far the wrong way. He led us into the cove that only Ricky’s Beach House occupied, wow, what a place.

We were met by one of the most awesome human beings we have met, Sava. He was so genuinely glad to meet us, and we were glad to be here. He automatically decided that we needed shade, water and a plate of fresh fruit. He was so right. We chilled out over that for a while and were greeted also by the other staff and the very chilled out guests.  Sava then ordered us some lunch to be prepared as we got our gear to our bungalow, right on the beach, overlooking the bay surrounded by jungle clad peaks and islands out in the bay. This is a special place, I don’t say that lightly.

Ricky’s Beach House

Chilling first few days:

Ricky’s Beach House is paradise, it is the place we have been searching for. It is not a 5 star hotel, it is better than that. It is a place where you feel you have stepped back to nature. Basic, comfortable, minimalistic, grounding and gives you a sense of peacefulness and freedom. The bungalows are set right on the beach encouraging a good night’s sleep with the sound of small waves rolling in on the beach. Our bungalow has a lot of natural light from large windows and fresh air with a mosquito net over our bed protecting us from any mozzies. Looking out of the large front window of a morning at the ocean, the bay, the jungle coming down to the waters edge and the small islands in the distance is a beautiful sight when you wake. We have a private semi outdoor shower, cold water only which is all that is needed here in Sumatra. 

The crew who work here for Ricky are young lads from the village and do an awesome job looking after all of our needs. They cook pancakes, toast and cut up fresh fruit every morning for breakfast. Lunch is a choice of Indonesian dishes cooked fresh or an omelette with rice or hand cut French fries. Dinner is a feast. Everyone staying at Ricky’s share dinner together. The boys cook up a storm with a number of dishes, including a good variety of vegetarian dishes, chicken, fish and rice.

During the day the boys often hang around the communal area where we eat and sing and play music. At night after dinner this really revs up and turns into a jamming session with all sorts of songs being sung with guitar, box, bongos and even spoons come out and are played. The boys have great voices, rhythm and a great love and passion for music. We as guests, are encouraged to join in and sing as well. After a few beers, the music becomes more vibrant, louder and the energy is intoxicating. To hear the guys sing the Indonesian National Anthem gives you goose bumps and brings tears to your eyes. I have never heard an anthem sung with so much heart, soul and pride. It was a sight to be seen, so much passion, pride and energy created from this one song.

For the first few days of our stay at Ricky’s there were lots of guests and from all different parts of the world. There were two brothers from Turkey who came to stay two or three days but ended up staying for a month. Azi was a really cool guy, had the full dread’s happening and had a great skill he learnt in Nepal making beaded bracelets. He spent time helping us all one afternoon making our own bracelets, or making them for us with everyone choosing their own beads. He could whip up a bracelet in about 15 minutes and was always happy and excited to see his finished work.

Barbora and Vasek were a beautiful young couple from Czech Republic. They have been travelling around Sumatra for a few weeks and came to Ricky’s in search of some land somewhere to buy or rent to start a nature photography jungle stay business. Ricky has been helping them with prospective sites for their venture.   Vasek is a professional nature photographer and a guy with a lot of worldly outdoor experience. Some of their stories of his experiences were just amazing. We really do hope their dream does come true here, as they are just awesome people with so much passion and love for nature and the environment.

Ailee is a lovely Australian lady from Brisbane who lives and works in Padang. She comes to Ricky’s often, leaving the hustle and bustle of the city behind her to ground herself and step back into nature as often as she can. I think this may have been her 7^th visit here at Ricky’s, the boys all call her ‘mum’.

A week before this visit to Ricky’s she was on her way to work and found a box with a new born puppy inside it. He was so tiny and had wounds that were covered in maggots. She was able to take him to a vet who spent time flushing out all the maggots from under his skin and set Ailee up with milk and bottles to get him started. The vet didn’t think he would actually survive. But this little pup right before our eyes grew stronger and stronger. It was due to all the love and care that Ailee provided him with and the help that Barbora and I gave that helped him this far. Each day he changed. One day he opened one eye, the next day his other eye. The following day he started to become a little more vocal and following that he started to stand on four legs and try to walk. Sweet little Jipsi. What a horrible start to his life but all made up with so much love and care that encouraged this little one to start to thrive. The day Ailee and Jipsi left, he looked like a fat rollie pollie puppy.

 During this first five days, three guys from the UK also came to stay. They were all really good mates and travel together quite often. They were funny guys, always stirring each other up and arguing but always having fun.

Another couple from Australia stayed two nights as well, they had spent two days and two nights over on the island that we look out to from the main land. They were a really lovely young couple who were enjoying some great adventures.

Three guys from France were also here and are in their third week of four. They are on a filming project but I don’t think there is too much filming going on, they are having way too much fun. So the first few days was full of chatting and hanging out with all of these great people.

I must mention the bad cat. A little black kitten that apparently just appeared and has taken over the place. The French boys call her Bad Cat, as she is always up to mischief. The other resident cats are all scared of this little black kitten as she spits and growls at them if they come too close. She loves attention from humans and sits next to you at meal times and loves to eat rice and chips. She will always find an empty lap to sleep on and snuggles in for comfort time. She even has the local dog Ninja under control. He isn’t allowed in the food area but sits quietly watching Bad Cat do as she pleases. He is a very sweet dog, very skinny, and is often found sleeping under one of the bungalows or sneakily sits on one of the bench seats near the entrance to the communal area. Sometimes you see him wet, as he has just ventured back from the village and has to swim part of the way.

Boat to village:

The quickest and easiest way into the village is by boat. The small motor boat comes to the beach at Ricky’s a couple of times a day and you can hop on board for a very short ride to the village. There are a couple of small shops at the village where you can buy a few things like soft drink, beer, chips and biscuits and phone credit. All the extra essentials. You can walk around the village and chat with the kids and sit in one of the small shops and watch village life. There are a lot of animals roaming in the village. The usual chickens and roosters, goats with lots of baby kids, lots of dogs and cats and often you can see the water buffalo walking through.

The village has a Turtle Project operating where sick or injured turtles are taken to the centre for rehabilitation. The people involved with the project also search for turtle nests a couple of days either side of the full moon, and remove the eggs and place them in a make shift nest back at the centre. Once the turtles are hatched, they are then safely released back to the ocean. This is all part of a project that is happening all over the world to help protect the green turtles, loggerhead turtle and leatherback turtles.

The reason this needs to happen is that far too many turtle eggs are taken and sold, putting the turtles at risk of extinction. A lot of time has been spent here in this village on education and positive results are starting to show. Instead of the fishermen killing the turtles caught in nets they are now sending them to the centre for rehab. As soon as they are well, they are released back into the ocean. The centre is very basic and unfortunately the turtles have to live in quite small areas (bathtubs and plastic containers). A new centre with large tanks is now in the process of being built. This will allow more room for the injured turtles and space for the smaller turtles that are unable to be released. The children at the local school are also very involved in this project, and it is the children that encourage their fathers to bring the injured turtles into the centre. We are able to go there daily and help clean the turtles and their containers.

On one trip back from the village an old man hitched a ride back to Ricky’s beach on the boat. As we were leaving we could see two dogs running up and down the beach in the village. As we got into the surf from the river mouth we saw that both of the dogs had jumped in and were swimming across the river. They then worked their way around the headland swimming in the water. We had pulled onto the beach and the old man started walking up the dirt track and disappeared. The guys said he lives over on the other beach and the two dogs belong to him. Then we spotted them on the rocks where they proceeded to walk up the beach and reached us. They hung around for a few minutes looking for the old man. Soon after we saw them heading up the track on the scent of the old guy. It is so great to see the devotion some of these dogs have to their humans. Sometimes you see a dog or two in the rice paddies just following along behind their human.

Rained in:

On our 5^th day here Barbora and Vasek, the Turkish brothers, Ailee and little Jipsi were all set to leave after lunch. But the weather decided that this was not going to happen. It started to rain early in the morning and did not give up. Barbora and Vasek had a 4 wheel drive and the others were all going to catch a ride with them back to Padang. The track into Ricky’s when wet, is very slippery and looked like it may be a concern for these guys to drive out. They tried to drive out about mid-morning as they had a couple of things to do in the village, and the thought was to leave the car in the village and the others catch the boat in after lunch. Unfortunately, even at this time the road was too slippery and the vehicle just spun its wheels on the greasy surface, spinning and slipping backwards and sideways towards the edge of the road where there was a steep and long drop. It was really scary sitting back here just watching this all happen. Dave and the boys, as quick as lightning ran up the hill to help them. They tried to push the vehicle and tried to put sticks etc under the wheels to help it get traction but it just wasn’t going to happen. It didn’t help that the vehicle was in 2 wheel drive as the 4 wheel drive was stuffed. Vasek was a really good driver and did everything right but all that could be done was to leave it up on the hill and wait for the rain to stop and for things to dry out. This was not going to happen today as the rain set in for the whole of the day. This meant they could all stay one more night which was really exciting. So that night another party developed and lots of singing, drinking and fun was had.  Early the next morning Vasek and Barbora were able to get the vehicle to the top of the hill and after breakfast a lot of sad goodbyes were had.

Boat to island – detour to two other main island beaches

Mary and I shared a boat trip with the three guys from the UK. The intention was for us to be dropped out to the island about 5k’s off shore while the others went fishing for a few hours.

Unfortunately, the rain closed in around the island as we left, sweeping East across the bay. The boat crew decided that it would be a bad idea to head out there, so they suggested taking us to another spot that would be protected, on the mainland, but still a pretty cool looking beach.

They dropped Mary, myself and Stuart off on the beach while the others went just a little off shore to fish. We explored the beach which was quite narrow due to the high tide and the storm pushing the waves up a bit. The jungle comes right down to the water’s edge, hanging over the beach, creating quite a lot of cool vistas to photograph. There was quite a bit of rubbish here in spots, as this was a beach that no-one has access to other than by boat, it is obviously what washes up with the currents and wind.

I found a couple of quite large clam shells on the beach, and was surprised at how heavy they are. Very strong too.

The fishermen weren’t having much luck, so they came back in and picked us up. We would head to the other side of the bay and check that out.

We were dropped on the beach again, near the mouth of a small creek that was flowing fresh water out to sea. There was a nice camping spot just here. But the other opportunity was to check out the condition of the new road heading south from Ricky’s. This was the way we were planning to go when we leave.

We walked off the beach and up the steep track that had recently been bulldozed through the jungle. The amount of damage was terrible. It is obvious that once you disturb this geology that you are in serious trouble. The ground is made up of roundish volcanic rocks that have landed and become embedded in the sandy clay soils. This is all bound together by the jungle. Drive a bulldozer through this and loosen it up without some very serious retaining work and you are going to end up with a huge pile of rocks and mud all over your new road as soon as it rains. There were land slips, and gouges out of the road. We realised here, that we were not going to be heading south by bike. Time for plan B.

Chilling out on the beach, and sitting still, we started to see some wildlife. This included a monitor lizard, an eagle, as well as an Azure Kingfisher, very cool. We have noticed an absence of sea birds, nothing, not even a seagull. Should they be here?

Looking out towards the boat, it seemed as if our fishermen were negotiating with another local boat to buy some fish. Pretty funny. They picked us up and we headed back to Ricky’s. This was a really cool and informative morning out. Now, to work out what plan B was going to be.

Waterfall – trek.

A jungle trek was available up to a nearby waterfall. We had had to delay it, due to the rain. But today was looking like the ideal day. Ricky sent a couple of guys with us as guides and another Canadian guest accompanied us as well.

The trek started off with the walk out of Ricky’s and across the large rice paddies behind the village. This was terrific, as harvest was in full swing, and it was great to see all the villagers out helping to cut and bundle the stalks. They were then taken over to a threshing box, where the bundles were bashed against a grid to dislodge the rice grains.

Water Buffalo milled around the fringes, and were always up for a candid photo.

We then crossed several shallow river crossings. We stopped in the middle of the last crossing, while our guides discussed the option of continuing up the river bed (slippery and difficult) or the jungle track (leeches). We decided on leeches, as especially I was worried about drowning the camera. There was no way, we weren’t going to fall in at some stage.

So, Leech trek it was. It was only about half an hour from here, but I have never seen leeches in this high a concentration. It was insane. I think we all pulled off at least a hundred leeches. You could see the little bastards on the track reaching up to get you. By the time we reached the safety of the rocks at the waterfalls and pulled the last ones off, our feet, both top and underneath and lower legs were a bloody mess. And we had to go back through them, shit.

The swim in the waterfall pools was amazing. The water was cool, but certainly not cold and you could go up to further levels and get under the waterfalls in various spots, while the jungle pulsed and vibrated with life and oxygen all around us. We spent a good hour swimming, before braving the leech infested jungle again on the way back.

We danced light footed through the jungle, desperately trying to evade the straining leeches, when we could see them. Life must be bloody tough as a leech. We popped back out of the jungle into the rice fields and picked the last of the leeches off. Including one that had got dangerously up my shorts.

It was fun to have a go at threshing the rice on the way back across, but I just wanted to get back to the beach and disinfect with a swim in the salt water. This was a great day out and we got some great photos. But we will remember it for the leeches. More beer please.

Trip to Padang Hospital:

My ears (Mary) have been playing up really badly the last few days. I have had to be really careful not getting water in my ears as it really sets off my swimmers ear condition. I thought I was being really careful but it’s a bit difficult to keep the water out when washing your hair. So I have tried to keep them dry with cotton buds. Unfortunately, the water here really set them off and I developed pain, swelling and discharge in my left ear so I put myself on antibiotic medication but it really didn’t help as then my right ear started to flare up too. We decided to act on this as it was worsening so we caught a lift into Padang with two guests from Canada who were leaving. Ricky organised the driver to take us to the hospital after the airport drop off and sent Kim to be our translator if required.

The drive into Padang was crazy. We had ridden it in on the bikes and thought it was rough, steep and crazy but to drive it just showed us how difficult it actually was. Our driver was very skilled and did a fantastic job navigating around all the deep, large pot holes. The couple travelling in the car with us said that in French the word for pot hole translates to chicken crater so we classed these holes as ostrich craters. For one hour we drove this road and once onto the smoother surface came the congested driving which one has to be very skilled at to avoid hitting motorbikes, cars, buses or trucks.

After the airport drop off we went to Hospital number 1. We were told at reception that we were welcome to wait but the doctor wasn’t due to come in for 4 hours and as we looked outside there was already a large number of people waiting. So on to Hospital number 2. Here I got to see a doctor straight away but she said I needed to see a specialist and he doesn’t work on Saturday’s or Sunday’s but were welcome to come back on Monday. Next stop Hospital number 3. This was a very large hospital and when we were greeted at reception and asked our reason for coming the young lady then asked if I had any animals in my ears. Oh my gosh I suddenly had a vision of leeches!!!! I assured her that I only had an infection so she called a doctor to the counter and she then took us to the surgical ward. Here a group of doctors and specialists were all standing around and we were told to go stand by a hospital examination bed. We watched the doctors and it looked like they were all trying to work out who was going to look after the Australian. After a few minutes a lady doctor threw up her hands and walked straight over followed by a guy. They introduced themselves, they were both ear, nose and throat specialists and she was also head of the interns in this department. She spoke very good English and his English was ok. They asked lots of question, looked into my ears and decided I needed to go upstairs and have an endoscope done to thoroughly check out what was going on in my ears. So up we went and here we were met by two interns. So now we had 4 medical staff in the small room plus myself, with Dave and Kim hanging outside just in case. Another specialist dropped in as well to see how things were going and had to poke and prod my ears too. The endoscope went well and showed that I had an infection in both ears in the lining of the outer ear canal. Because of the swelling in my ears they decided to put wicks covered in antibiotic and steroid creams and leave them in there for two days. Here another specialist made an appearance and she was the one who performed the wick insertion. Usually they like to have you come in and have them removed and checked but as we were a three hour drive away, the specialist was happy for me to remove them myself as long as there was no pain. Then I would need to come back for reassessment and more treatment. As well as the wicks they taped my ears shut and honestly I could hardly hear a thing.  Fingers crossed this would work. All this work on my ears which took nearly 2 hours cost 140000IRP ($14).

We had to find a pharmacy to get some prescribed painkillers and our driver took us to a nearby store. This was on a small street and it was a long row of stalls that were all pharmacy’s so we just approached the closest stall and got our prescribed painkillers 5000IRP (.50 cents) for 5 days worth of painkillers.

By this stage it was well after lunch and everyone was feeling really hungry. We let the boys decide where to go for lunch and they said we should stop off at a warung at Bungas Beach. So off we drove. Just before the warung our poor driver hit a big hole in the road and once we stopped at the warung we realised he had done some damage to the front left wheel. Kim took us inside and we sat down to lunch while our driver organised the changeover of the tyre. Plates of food came out and we chose what we wanted and had a lovely lunch. Our driver soon had the tyre all changed and sat down and ate his lunch.

After lunch we had to stop at the nearest tyre repair shop to have the tyre fixed as it really was not going to be a good idea tackling the bad section of road on the spare tyre. The damage was minimal, and fixed in just a few minutes so we were not long on our way once more where our driver drove the bad section very skilfully once more.

Stay a few extra days:

We had booked to stay at Ricky’s for 8 nights and had planned to take 5 days to ride back along the coast heading south and then hook up with the highway and ride north back to Padang. But after looking at the state of the road further on from Ricky’s we decided that it was a ridiculous plan. We spoke with Ricky and he suggested that we could take a small boat down south of the coast to the harbour (about 1 hour away by boat) and then ride from there as the road is all sealed and very good. This would then only be a 2 day ride and we would then get to stay at Ricky’s for an extra 3 days. Perfect plan.

Monday lunchtime was when I had to reassess my ears, take out the wicks and see how they were. The night before I had no pain so that was a really good sign. Monday morning, again I had no pain, and once the wicks were removed everything felt good. No swelling, no redness, no discharge and no pain. And I could hear again. It was so loud for the first few minutes after the wicks were taken out. I am going to have to be extra careful to make sure I don’t get any water in them again.

Our last day:

The picture perfect day today with sunshine, warm waters, beautiful views and topped off with a lovely gentle cool breeze. We caught the boat to the village at about 10am and spent the morning helping with the building of the new turtle house. The French boys were there too and were completing the art work on two of the walls that they had started yesterday. It was all really starting to look fantastic and nearing completion. We helped cut the timber slats to length with an old not so sharp saw, used an axe to indent holes in both ends to place the nails in and then one by one secured them to the fixing rails with nails. While we worked we also watched the locals drag in the fishing nets from the bay to retrieve the fish. Adults and children all help in this process and Dave headed down and gave one small group a bit of a hand.

We had a great chat with four young boys who were hanging around watching the art work being completed. These boys, the youngest being only 7 and eldest 12 years old, spoke quite good English and asked our names, and then were really keen to see some of my photos of Prambanan and Borobudor. They knew about these places in Java but have not had the chance to visit yet. They were really sweet and very polite young kids who also loved bikes and rode BMX’s. We all shared lunch together at Ricky’s house in the village where the turtles are temporarily kept. By the time we had finished lunch and had a bit of a chill it was time to head back to the beach house. The normal boat we use was held up somewhere so another boat was called in to take us all back. Three very young lads operated this boat that was very basic, loud and a whole lot of fun.

It was the classic straight drive propeller off an old four stroke honda motor. The external fuel tank was a cut off ten litre oil drum with a hose running straight to the carburettor. There was no exhaust, so this was the loudest, slowest, most dangerous boat in the village. But shit, it was a lot of fun. It just made me remember some of the home made go karts I made with some of my mates as a kid, just awesome. Yes, it could have gone boom at any moment, but it didn’t. Live to ride another day.

We spent the rest of the afternoon checking over the bikes and packing our gear, ready for an early night and early start tomorrow.

The only problem with that was that I had asked the guys if I could record some of their music, so I could put it with a trip video later on, when we got home. This led to a full blown recording session that didn’t finish until midnight. It was a lot of fun though, and everyone was quite happy with the results, considering we only recorded it on the laptop.

K2K, Java, Week 4

JAVA – WEEK 4

15-02-17

Borobudur to Kebumen

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789096

We said goodbye to our lovely hosts and a sleepy village that we felt we could spend more time in. What we thought was going to be a pretty quiet road tuned out to be anything but. The scenery was grand however, with all sorts of rural and mountain scenes blending into one another.

We knew we had a climb early on, but didn’t know how bad. It turned out to be a pretty tough one, but manageable as we just spun it out in low gear. We crested the top after about thirty minutes of solid climbing in a lather of sweat, again. The descent was long, much longer than the climb. We were losing all the altitude we had gained yesterday. We spun on into Purwojo and looked for a coffee shop.  We found a cool little café in the back streets. Had a snack and a coffee and continued on. This had been a nice little town too.

Our average speed was pretty good today and we had our intended 50k’s done well before lunch. It was a sunny day and didn’t look like rain anytime soon, so we kicked on as it looked like there were more accommodation options in Kebumen, about 25k’s further on. This didn’t take us long, although the road surface was deteriorating in a lot of places. Pot holes were a real problem if you were the trailing bike, so we had to give each other a bit more room.

Kebumen turned out to be a really neat town with some reasonable hotels, even hot water. So we picked one and headed in. The hotel we stayed in, The Grand Putra, was pretty grand. So we chilled out for a couple of hours and then hit the street looking for food. No resto in the hotel.

Back to Indo food. We came across a small street cart making ice cream on a very cold plate in his cart. These guys were cool, and it was quite a show watching, so we told him we would be back after dinner.

We found a little warung and just had something very basic, and then headed back for our ice cream, which was lots of fun, and very nice.

All in all, a great day.

16-02-17

Kebumen to Who knows where.

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789130

We couldn’t cope with a fully cooked Indonesian breakfast this morning so took the option of toast and jam. Not a really good start to the day but at least it was food in the belly. The ride today was along Highway 3 which once again was busy with traffic of all sorts. The road surface didn’t improve from yesterday as it was still full of large pot holes and lots of large areas where the bitumen has been pushed up into mounds. Careful riding was required all day.

The morning started off pretty warm and by mid morning,  it was getting really hot. With the continuous effort of concentration our brains were starting to feel over heated as well. My rear, not tubeless tyre, decided today was the day it would cause a slight problem. It had picked up a small nail and was in deflating mode. Dave pumped it up on the side of the road hoping it would give me enough air until we found the next Indo Mart so we could sit in the shade, have a cold drink and fix the tyre. Our plan worked out well. Just a couple of k’s down the road we spotted an Indo Mart and pulled in and got straight to work. I grabbed a couple of nice cold drinks and Dave started on the repair with the help of a couple of guys and three kids all bending over watching the work in progress.  We put the spare tube in with the idea of repairing the other one later and started pumping it up. Nothing happened. We took the tube out and discovered that it had perished badly for some reason and was shot. Ok now we had to go back to repairing the one we just pulled out of the tyre. All fixed, nothing to worry about, all pumped up and ready to go once again. Just took quite a bit longer than we first anticipated.  We got the grand wave from all of our on-lookers as we set off once again.

By about 1pm we were shattered. We were both really feeling the heat and felt exhausted. We were hoping to do another day of 75k’s today but had to pull the pin at 50. We found ourselves in between two towns, in a place that wasn’t really much but it did have a couple of hotels. We found a place to stay, had a shower and went searching for some food. We found a warung across the road but wasn’t really tempted by their food, so both of us settled for a fresh mango, apple and orange juice. Surprisingly it was the most amazing juice we have had. We went back to our room and made a couple of good old peanut butter sanga’s.

Dinner was interesting. The resto at the hotel wasn’t open, so we ventured across the road again to the warung and settled for their smorgasbord option (which actually was the only option). Feeling wary of eating food that has been out on display for some time Dave thought he would play it safe and like me only chose the rice and vego dishes. Ok everything was too hot for me, so plain rice it was for my dinner, plus a juice and a banana.

Early night tonight and hopefully with the rest this afternoon we will have good fast spinny legs tomorrow.

17-02-17

Who knows where to Majenang

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789236

Pretty ordinary breakfast this morning, I managed to eat half a fried egg but couldn’t deal with the rest and the rice was too spicy so I had a coffee and a banana. Those bananas we bought last night sure did come in handy.

The riding first up was really good, it was a cooler start to yesterday and the traffic wasn’t as crazy. The road surface however was still pretty bad with pot holes after pot holes. Along our travels we crossed a large bridge with a lot of fast moving water flowing underneath. A little way down stream we could see small boats, original wooden canoes with 2 men in each. They had large poles with nets on the ends and at a more detailed look we could see they were scooping up sand from the bottom of the river. We think that the fast moving water must push sand down into this area. The sand would be used for bitumen as just up the road from the bridge was a bitumen plant. This plant must be in high demand with all of the roads needing so much repair. We did ride through a couple of areas where road works were actually happening and that experience is quite hilarious. Traffic control is just a couple of guys with a little flag and lots of hand movements. We approached the end that was stopped, and as the traffic control guy saw us he just waved us through and we got to ride on the side of the road that they were working on and passed the roller at arms length away from us. The driver just waved, smiled and said ‘Allo’. Bikes just seem to have the right of way where ever and whatever the situation.

We had done about 30k’s before the hills started to appear. Here the environment changed significantly. We started to leave the hussle and bussle of the continuous villages and entered more open space, farming land and jungle. The road surface surprisingly improved to the point it looked like a brand new road. The climbing was good, nice rolling hills and a nice grade for most of the 30km’s. Riding through the jungle also made it so much cooler, even though we were sweating. The shade and slight breeze acted like an air conditioner. Just towards the end of the climbing section today it got a bit steeper, the legs were getting tired and we were starting to feel really hot and hungry. We found a spot on the side of the road to pull over and make ourselves a peanut butter sandwich, have a drink and a bit of a rest in the shade of some lovely trees. There was a pile of logs on the ground so we were able to sit and have a little picnic. Just as we finished our lunch, two guys appeared from a path leading into the jungle carrying a large log each. They dropped them on the other pile, looked at our bikes, looked at us sweaty bikers, smiled and walked back into the jungle.

A couple more hills were climbed, then we were back on the flat and here the road went back to its holey self. We really felt like we had done a hard day’s mountain biking today as on the pot holey roads you have to concentrate so hard, find a line to ride and be prepared to ride the gravel, the uneven mounds and the holes at any time. At this stage I also realised that the motorbikes, the cars and the trucks coming the other way on your side of the ride as they pass someone else doesn’t actually worry me anymore, as they always seem to give us just enough room or seem to squeeze back into their line of traffic. But having said that we will never let our guard down.

We got into the village of Majenang at about 2.30 and had clocked up just under 75k’s for the day. One pretty good effort considering the climbing we did. We found a hotel, got cleaned up, found a coffee and relaxed until dinner. The hotel had a restaurant, but it wasn’t open as we soon discovered, so we walked over the road to a pretty flash 3 story shopping centre. They had a big sign in there that they made pizza. Nope no pizza. Ok we will just buy fruit, so we grabbed the fruit and walked to the checkout. Oh woops, we seemed to have caused a little bit of chaos in the shop. When we were discussing the whole pizza thing, Dave just picked up the big pizza sign and pointed out pizza to the guy who then said, no pizza with his arms crossed and all the girls working in the shop just shrieked with laughter. Then at the checkout, we must have done the wrong thing as the checkout girl grabbed our fruit and disappeared and then the security guy rocked up. He shook Dave’s hand with I’m your best mate grip and smiled and laughed. Ok what the…. The checkout girl then reappeared with our bananas in a plastic back grrrr and our red dragon fruit in a plastic bag grrrr grrr with price labels on both. Oh now we get it, we were meant to weigh them first. Ooops sorry.

So with no restaurant open, no pizza and came out of the shop with 2 bananas and 1 dragon fruit and feeling hungry we decided to go for another walk and see what else we could find to eat. First thing we saw was d’wendis ice cream. This looked good but maybe for dessert. As we walked the road we found a warung that cooked your food outside on a charcoal grill. They had chicken, tofu and tempeh and fresh fruit juice. So we ordered some food to be grilled and a mango and pineapple juice and sat down, legs crossed at the short tables. The juice came out and it was really good. The grilled food came out with rice, water spinach, cucumber, and a bowl to wash our fingers as this was the real deal here where you eat with your fingers. The food was amazing, we both loved it all and we walked out of there with full bellies and only costing us 40,000 IRP ($4.00).

18-02-17

Majenang to Ciamas, whoops, nup, Tasikmalaya.

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789299

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789308

David ate Mary’s Dragonfruit. The End. He’s really sorry.

And then we rode our bikes.  We took a secondary road out of Majenang that re-joined highway 3 after about 10k’s. It was neither shorter or longer, but we took it because it should be quieter. There was one really big hill, but not too bad. The day was shaping up as quite hot. And some serious sweating was happening. We feel like our bodies have acclimatised really well now. As long as we keep up our fluids and energy up, as well as get good sleep, awesome things are possible.

I have been musing a lot on our gear list going forward. Not so much for the rest of Indonesia, but KL to Kathmandu. Our tent that hasn’t been used this trip has been bugging me, as well as our sleeping system. We need light stuff at the moment, but progressively as we head towards Sikkim and Nepal, that will change. And our winter gear is too heavy and too warm for early on. We need to change over for a layered system, there are some good things available.  One of the odd things is, that cheap hotels and hostels only give you a bed and bottom sheet, so we need our sleep system to work in a hot hotel, as well as a cold one later on. As well as in the tent. We have bought two large sarongs while in Indo and they are working quite well, and are light.  We might just sew them together and continue to use them. We can’t take our light sleeping bags next time as they won’t be up to it, but our heavy sleeping bags are really heavy, 2.2kg together, despite being reasonable quality down. This is where the other problem occurs, mostly, we use our sleeping bags as quilts, but neither is big enough to cover both of us. There are some awesome lightweight double hiking quilts available now, but to get a weight saving, it has to be down, and Mary has a real problem with down, being Vegetarian, fair enough. Synthetics are available, but they just don’t cut it in the weight department. A -1deg down quilt would be 560 grammes, vs 2100 grammes for a synthetic of same thermal rating. Plus, it also has much larger packing volume. And then there is the tent, do we need it? If we only need it occasionally, we could have one that weighs 800grammes rather than our current 3800grammes, as well as the packing space.  See all the things I have to think about while I am riding along. Don’t get me started on cooking equipment and dare I say Visa applications? Needless to say, we are about at the limits of our weight loss potential, Larry and Priscilla would like to lose some weight too.

Meanwhile, the riding continues. While this was going on, in my head, I nearly had a stack when a motorbike pulled in and stopped right in front of me. Ummm, I had my phone in my right hand checking the navigationals, and only had my left hand on the rear brake. Larry was awesome, despite the ladies at the bus stop across the road screaming, as they could see it coming. Rear wheel locked up, weight back to get some more weight on it, modulate the brake to stop the skid, little shimmy to the right, through the frickin big pothole and out the other side, “pheww”, the bus stop ladies said.

It wasn’t the last incident of the day.

We stopped for a coffee just before Banjar, no problems, but a couple of k’s down the road there was a police car that went screaming past in the opposite direction, then an ambulance, then a bunch of big motorbikes, like Harley Davidson road tourers with blue flashing lights and police sirens, like the ones in the tour down under. All different sounds. And they were seriously motoring. WTF. Was there a big incident? A riot perhaps? We were pretty concerned. Then another bunch of bikes, but then we realised that the riders were plain clothed, and the bikes weren’t all the same. And as a few of them went flashing past, they gave a big wave to us and made big fists, to say, yeah man. We came to realise that this was a tour. With police and ambulance escort, front and rear. And of course, why can’t you have blue flashing lights and a siren when you’re not a cop? WTF again.

At Banjar we took another secondary road that followed the main road, but just to the south a bit. This was nice, a bit hilly, and as it headed back towards the main road about 10k’s later, we had a nice descent down through a river valley and then a punishing climb out the other side. We didn’t make it up a very steep pinch and Mary bailed out to push, just by an old lady who was walking up the side of the road with a basket. She decided to help Mary push. But she wanted Mary to get on the bike, and she would push. Mary didn’t think that was a great idea, but was grateful of the help anyway, it was really steep. She helped all the way to the top, what a lovely lady.

We just started motoring along again and thunder started cracking all around us, so we ducked into a bus shelter to wait it out. A few minutes later an older couple pulled up on their motorbike to do the same. The lady had a woven shopping basket with a live chicken in it. She spoke very good English as she told us that she had been to Australia many years ago, in fact she had been to Newcastle. Meanwhile her husband checked out our bikes.  They were on their way to Ciamis to visit relatives. And it was at that point that we realised that she must have said something along the lines of, “Yes dear, I’ll bring a chicken for dinner”. We couldn’t stop laughing for quite a while.

Our accommodation options in Ciamis bombed out, everything was full. This was a first for us, as nothing had been busy. There must have been a big event on. Hotel after hotel was full. There was one we found on Google maps a few k’s out of town in the direction we were headed, so we went there. Ummm, turns out it was still under construction. Next option Tasikmalaya, 15k’s further on. That’s ok, we had the time.

It turns out that we found a good place, had a good dinner, and all was well. What a day.

19-02-17

Tasikmalaya to Garut

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789400

We decided to take a secondary road to Bandung via Garut in the hope of exposing ourselves to less traffic. Highway three was getting much busier now. The price we were going to pay was in climbing however, we just didn’t know how much. The day started off with a fairly flat ride through the back streets of Tasik, this was a pretty dirty place here, and had a bad vibe about it.  But as we got out onto the road to Garut, it became busier, but friendlier. Oh, and did I say steeper?

In reality, the road gently climbed and we were spinning up it at a good pace. We saw quite a lot of bikes going down the hill, and got the impression that they had been getting a lift to the top. The most popular style of bike seems to be a 26” hardtail mountain bike with road slicks on. A pretty good combination for the terrain, light and fast.

We came into sight of a group of cyclists ahead of us on the climb, by this time we had probably been going up for about 12k’s. Larry and Priscilla got a bit excited seeing bikes ahead and the pace picked up just a little bit.

Friendly waves and chats were had as we passed them, they stopped for a rest just as we caught them. All in Sunday morning roadie ride team uniform. This has been very common here.

Not long after that we stopped for a cool drink, by our reckoning we were about halfway up the climb. The group went past us while we rested. So we just had to catch them again, which we did. This time we stopped for a chat, not that the language barrier made that easy, but we tried and as always, they were really friendly guys. No girls. We haven’t seen any, other than older farming women on their old farm bikes.

Despite being in a beautiful scenic valley, we were starting to feel the effects of quite heavy smog, presumably from Bandung and or Jakarta, given the way the wind was blowing. Despite the way it makes you feel, it sure ruins the view.

The climb went on and on. A couple of pushes up some steep sections close to the top saw two young boys jump down off a wall and give Mary a push up the grade. They wanted to go really fast though and the three of them were running up the hill with Priscilla.

Then with about 1k to go, Mary’s rear tyre got a flat again. Anyway, that’s just another interesting thing for various people to come and have a look at. We really have to get this tyre back up tubeless.

We finally topped out at the 32km mark and at 1005 metres elevation. That’s continuous climbing for about 25k’s. Luckily, then came the downhill into Garut, which as you can imagine, happened much quicker than on the way up. We weren’t descending all that far, as Garut is at about 750metres, the same as Bandung.

It started raining again, with a few k’s to go to our accommodation, but it was slight, so we just kicked on. The guesthouse we had booked was quite strange. Another example of a guesthouse with a café attached that was not open, and didn’t look like it was going to be any time soon.

A young guy was inside, he showed us in and made us a nice coffee. And then remembered that he had to show us how to turn the toilet on as it was broken. First warning sign. Then a shower, no hot water, to be fair, they only promised warm, but nope, none of that. Anyway, we decided on an early dinner and went out looking for somewhere to eat. As we headed out down the side road to the main road we looked behind us and we were being followed by a group of sweet little girls and the further we went down the road the bigger the group became. They all just smiled, giggled and just kept following us until we got to the main road. We had seen some nice places on the way in on the bikes, and found a cool new café, where they were trying really hard to get it right. The food didn’t quite live up to the vibe, but was ok. Then as usual, the rain poured down, just as we were ready to head back. And we still haven’t learnt to take our rain coats with us when we go out to eat at night. Lol.

20-02-17

Garut to Paris Van Java (Bandung)

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789460

After the worst night sleep ever, we got up early and prayed that today wasn’t going to have as much climbing as yesterday. Our room was ridiculously noisy from the traffic outside. It was hot, the promised aircon was just an evaporative cooler that just made the room more humid, if that was possible.

We crawled out of bed, loaded the bikes and got the hell out of there. The promised included breakfast was nowhere to be seen.

 The sky was extremely heavy, smog and low cloud and humidity. We were very thankful to have our front and rear lights on as visibility was extremely poor. The first ten k’s of today’s seventy was very fast. Slight downhill? Or was it that we wanted to put the town of Garut behind us. Then the climbing started again. We’d had no breakfast, more importantly, no coffee. Mary made the mistake of saying what my brain had been telling me. “Fuck, I can’t do this today”. We had two slices of bread in our bag and a jar of peanut butter, so we slapped it on really thick and ate one each. We would have to climb, to find coffee. Luckily a few k’s later, we did find a warung that actually had nice coffee, I told the nice girl that she was a lifesaver, and she laughed. I wonder if she understood me?

The map hinted that we would have two serious climbs today. And after descending to a large bridge over a very furious river at the junction with Highway 3, up we went again. The final two k’s of this climb was like an open topped tunnel, huge, with three lanes in each direction. It was filled with smog, fog and truck exhaust, totally choked with no breeze. But of course, it was obviously a cool spot (?) to stop said motorbike, bus, truck, car in the tunnel and have a cigarette break. WTF. 

Finally clearing the tunnel, and the hill, we began a very long descent onto the plain that Bandung sits on between the mountains, (a city of eight million people). The run in to Bandung was really very good. A wide concrete road with a side lane for bikes (sepeda) and motorbikes to travel in, mostly separated from the larger traffic. Of course all the mini buses just park in it too, so you are constantly weaving around them all the way.

The closer we got to Bandung, the clearer the air became, it seems that a light westerly was blowing all the smog of West Java back to where we had come from in the last few days. It started to rain lightly for the last ten k’s or so, but we arrived to our little Airbnb, Pavillion 19.

This was a cute little room, in a vibrant street with lots going on. But contrary to last night’s stay, this was friendly noise, and we knew we would sleep well here. We ventured out for a walk to find some dinner and came across a restaurant called ‘Hot Pot’. Here we enjoyed lovely fresh food that we cooked at our own table.

21-02-17 to 24-02-17

Our stay in Paris Van Java.

Our hosts here at Pavillion 19 are a lovely family, our room really sweet and comfy, and breakfast awesome. We had a great night’s sleep and felt really refreshed, it’s amazing what good food and a good night’s sleep does for you.

Our first job was to search for some bike boxes as we have decided to fly from here in Bandung to Padang in Sumatra. We are able to get a direct flight out of Bandung which will make everything a lot easier. The decision to leave Java now, is so we can make up a bit of ground and allow us the time to discover more of Sumatra.

We started walking in the direction of a bike shop that our host family recommended. Google maps once again led us a merry dance, but we finally found it, but unfortunately they only had some road bike boxes. They recommended another shop further away, so we decided to get an Uber, which worked really well. There was a really nice coffee shop next door, so at least that made the first stop worthwhile.

The next shop was massive, and our hopes were high. We did manage to get a couple of mountain bike boxes, that were barely bigger than the road bike ones, so we were going to have to make do with that. Having said that though, this shop was three floors high and had everything, including a full size pump track on the roof. Cool. So here we were at the largest bike shop we have ever dreamt of that had absolutely everything you could possibly imagine to buy and we walked out with two empty bike boxes. Haha I think we are now positively hard core minimalists.

We checked out a couple of outdoor stores nearby as we were looking for some minor things and were sadly unsuccessful. But it was a pretty funny sight, seeing Dave walking around the streets with two large bike boxes under his arms. Maybe a little homeless – what a vagabond.

Later in the afternoon, Diana our lovely host took us for a drive into the city centre and showed us the government buildings. They were built by the Dutch and were large, white buildings that stood with a look of elegance. Opposite the Government buildings is an athletic park. The Mayor of Bandung put a lot of effort into clearing this area of stalls etc, and made it into an open space surrounded by trees with a running track and large areas for people to exercise and for families to come and have fun. There are other parks scattered throughout the city and all have their own theme, like: singles park, elderly park, athletic park, looking for a date park lol.

Food, is plentiful and of great quality if you look for it. Good Western and other cuisines are readily available, yes, expensive by Indonesian terms, but worth it when you need a change. So for the next few days, we washed and maintained the bikes, packed them up, it was a tight fit, and explored cafes and restaurants before heading to Padang. We are just going to ride south for a couple of days to a beach bungalow we have booked for a week for a chill out. Then we will head back to Padang and on for a further four weeks until we need to make it to Medan. We are hoping this stage of our journey can be a bit more chilled out, which looks entirely doable. It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.