Indonesia - Sumatra, Java and Bali
With its steaming jungles, smoking volcanoes and pounding surf Indonesia is a land for adventure. Our first adventure was getting the bike over here.
click here and see the bustling port we shipped from
We had left B.O.B. (Brutish.Obsolete.Behemoth) in Malaysia with a shipping agent north of Melaka and had caught a passenger ferry across from Melaka to Dumai in Sumatra. The shipping agents operated out of a ramshackle port-a-cabin sitting beside a brown river from where small wooden boats ship onions to Sumatra. They assured us they had shipped several other bikes a few years ago but the whole setup had a third world casualness which was less than confidence inspiring especially knowing it had to be craned on and off as there was no ramp. I was relieved to pick the bike up off the dock the following morning none the worse for its sea voyage. After a couple of hours clearing customs, declining a customs officers request for a gift and getting a travel permit from the police we were back on the road. The first thing we noticed was the traffic was less orderly than what we had become used to in Thailand and Malaysia. We are back on roads where might is right and the bus is king. Frequently on-coming vehicles pull out to overtake and we are expected to get out of their way and preferably off the road, but my furiously flashing headlights, Lisas waving arms and the highly unusual sight of our behemoth usually cause them to pull back into line.
Our first days ride left us feeling rather hot and harassed after crossing the low-lying plains so it was a relief to wind up into the cooler foothills of the mountain chain that runs the length of Sumatra. Rounding a corner I noticed a very neglected looking monument a concrete sphere that in better days must have been a globe. The Equator.
click here to see equator monument
A bit over a years travel and we have finally reached the Southern Hemisphere. We celebrated with a mouthful of water each and amused the locals by taking photos of each other and the bike in front of the cruddy monument.
We spent several days checking out the area around Bukittinggi whose Minangkabau people have their own special customs and architecture. We were lucky enough to be invited to a Minangkabau wedding that had enough tinsel and glitz to rival any Indian wedding.
We went for a hike into the jungle to see the rare Rafflesia flower the largest flower in the world that can reach up to 80cm in diameter but only blooms for about 1 week each year.
click here to see Minangkabau archetecture
Heading south down the mountain chain we had an awesome ride with stunning vistas of terraced rice paddies, passing crops of cabbages and onions and numerous volcanoes. We saw cinnamon trees and their harvesters carrying huge bundles of the sweet bark on their backs. Their homes were some of the simplest we have seen on our travels and they earn only 50 cents for each kilo of cinnamon a tree they can only harvest every 8 years.
click here to see cinaamon drying
We ended up staying amongst tea plantations on the slopes of Gunung Kerinci, Sumatras largest volcano which spires to a height of 3805 meters. Here we spent time walking amongst the tea plantations, joking with the tea pickers and checking out some 2000 year old megalithic stone carvings.
The roads winding south through the hills were slow going but as we headed across to the west coast through the dense jungle of Kerinci Seblat National Park they degenerated to a hill climb. Rounding a steep corner on the gravel road that passed for a national highway we found our path blocked by two trucks abreast wheel-spinning, struggling to climb out of the holes they were digging themselves into. We left them behind and enjoyed slowly winding our way down through the jungle passing wild monkeys and more snakes on the road.
We spent several more days riding south following the coast with its huge waves crashing on the black sand shores that made the water too dangerous for us to swim. Then we headed back through the mountains stopping to check out some 3000 year old megalithic statues dotted amongst fields of onions, carrots, rice and coffee. Little is known of the civilisaton that carved them but they include shapes of squatting men with comical faces, a man wrestling a beast and the remains of their small houses, just thick slabs of stone forming a basic shelter.
click here to see Lisa in rubber
We spent just under 2 weeks in Sumatra and were the only tourists in many places we visited. Its a big island with many attractions but tourism seems to be centered in just a couple of areas. What we really noticed though was the smoke everywhere, from entire hillsides being burnt by slash and burn farmers to small piles of dry grass or plastic, people were in pyrotechnic mode. It made Lisa quite nauseous a lot of the time as there was so much smoke in the atmosphere and it also severely affected the visibility everywhere we went.
We arrived in Java on the 16th August, the eve of Indonesias Independence Day and stayed at what we thought would be a quiet beach ideal after the ferry crossing from Sumatra and a long days ride. The beach was positively heaving and it appeared that half of Jakartas population was taking the opportunity for a break at the seaside. The up-side of the celebrations was passing through villages staging their own festivities which often involved a group of very muddy blokes trying to get up an equally muddy pole with prizes in a basket 10 meters up it. Any time the ensuing human pyramid got close to their goal a bucket of water would be thrown at them and they would all come sliding down. As soon as we stopped for a photo the crowd would stop watching and turn to cheer us past.
Indonesia has the worlds 5th largest population and 60% of them (120 million) live on the island of Java, roughly 8% of the land mass of Indonesia. Consequently there is a ludicrous amount of traffic vying for a very limited amount of space on narrow two-lane roads. Further, as most of the cities do not have a by-pass we spent much of our time weaving through dense traffic trying to get the better of the buses and would generally finish our days with faces blackened from disgusting amounts of diesel smoke. We think the traffic pollution in West Java is the worst weve encountered yet, worse even than India. The roads are inadequate for the amount of traffic leading to much dangerous overtaking but Indian roads are still the craziest.
click here to see Indonesian bikers
Cut down scooters seem to be all the rage.
Away from the madness of the main roads Java has some great beauty spots. We spent a couple of days relaxing at an idyllic beach on the south coast, pigging out on cheap seafood and watching the locals surf before heading up to the Dieng Plateau.
The Dieng Plateau is an area with plenty of geothermal activity bubbling mudpools, steaming turquoise lakes, more smoking volcanoes and some ancient Hindu temples. We were lucky enough to be there for the start of a week long festival. Lots of friendly welcoming people letting their hair down and watching the local dance troupes groups of young blokes or girls wearing shades and white gloves doing Michael Jackson style dance routines. Unfortunately we missed the day the young dreadlocked children had their hair cut.
click here to see festival goers
The old Hindu temples up on the Dieng Plateau did not impress us having seen so many in India, but the Buddhist temple of Borobudur a couple of hours ride further east blew us away.
click here for view of Mt Merapi from Borobudur
Borobudur was built approximately 1200 years ago and was abandoned soon after completion when Islam became prominent and as power and the population shifted to East Java. It lay forgotten under layers of volcanic ash until the 20th century when first the Dutch and later the Indonesian governments tackled the mammoth task of restoring it to its former glory. US$25 million was spent in the second restoration effort a fortune in a country where most people earn only US$30 a month. We have seen plenty of temple complexes as we have crossed Asia and have grown rather blasé about them but Borobudur is exceptional and we happily spent the morning wandering around the site taking silly amounts of photos.
click here to see Lisa at Borobudur
We stayed several days in the historic cities of Yogyakarta and Solo, visiting a Sultans Palace, batik factories and silversmith villages, seeing shadow puppet and gamelan performances and a classical Javan ballet depicting events from the famous Hindu epic, the Ramayana.
click here to see Lisa and friend
In East Java, Mounts Bromo, Kursi and Batok all rise from the vast crater, 10km across, of Mount Tengger. Watching the sunrise over this supernatural landscape with Mount Semeru (3676m) in the background has been, for me, one of the most evocative sights of our journey.
click here for view across Tengger caldera
We trekked down into Mt Tenggers crater and across the sand sea picking our way through volcanic rocks recently and violently ejected before climbing the cone of Bromo. The sight that greeted us was both fascinating and disconcerting. Billowing clouds of sulphuric smoke rising from a rent in the floor of the crater several hundred meters below us.
Click here to see Lisa on the edge
B.O.B. (Bloody Orrible Bike) decided to play up on us when we arrived at Bromo dropping large amounts of oil when we parked up and when I hit the starter button nothing happened! After spending hours trying to sort out what was up I found it was nothing worse than dirt and crud building up behind the starter button from all the miles we have covered and the Scottoiler (the chain oiler on the bike) turned up far too high.
After Bromo we rode across to the Ijen Plateau and stayed at a coffee plantation amongst the volcanic peaks that comprise the eastern extremity of Java. Weve drunk gallons of Indonesian coffee in the last month so it was interesting to tour the fields and factory and see the workers picking, sorting, drying, and packing the Arabica beans.
click here to see us crushing coffee
Many Indonesian families have one or two coffee plants of their own and their approach to crushing the beans is more primitive than the plantations drying beans on the roadside then placing them on the road to be crushed by the passing traffic.
Its only a 30 minute ferry crossing from Java to Bali but a rough stretch of water and the boat had a bit of a roll. I hadnt tied the bike down and at one stage it fell against the adjoining vehicle thankfully not damaging that but snapping Lisas footpeg and bending the side stand. We were able to get these fixed very cheaply but Ill be tying the bike down for future crossings.
Bali is such a contrast to Java. Everywhere we turn there are Hindu temples and local people in traditional dress on their way to ceremonies. There are also thousands of tourists.
click here to see temple procession
We stayed our first night at Medewi, a surfers hang out in the west of Bali far from the mass tourism of Kuta, but even here we encountered many more tourists than weve become used to. We then rode up north to the beaches of Lovina, inland to the cultural tourist hotspot of Ubud smelling cloves drying by the roadside as we went and then into the thick of it just up the beach from Kuta.
click here to see Legong dancers
Here we have met my parents again on their return from the UK to NZ and now we are spending 5 hedonistic days relaxing around the swimming pool, spending some quality time catching up and behaving like normal tourists. Lisa and Mum have been enjoying the shopping while Dad and I have enjoyed a few cold ones at the poolside.
click here to see the Parkinsons
Lisa and Richard are on holiday.