Day 63, April 9, 2013, Tuesday, Carita-Sumatra (Indonesia) 65km total 2315km
Steve and I didn’t get up super early, we leisurely packed our bags up, ate the free breakfast and hit the road for the port. It was pretty easy, flat along the coast, but a bit hot. In the process of taking off my face mask I lost an earring. I was so stoked on my mismatched hoops. I went back to search the road… there’s no way to find a 2 mm metal hoop amongst asphalt, broken glass, trash, and pebbles. I wrote it off and hit the road. #traveltip, don’t get attached to your items, they will be broken, lost, damaged, dirtied, soiled, destroyed or stolen. Steve and I got to the main junction and made our turn towards the port navigating through tons of truck traffic, broken roads and dust/exhaust.
Soon after our turn I heard a “Mistarrrrrrrrr”. Andres. We got lunch at the port, and our last Javan juice, got our tickets and waited in line for the ferry. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the girl on the motorbike next to me sneak a picture with her smartphone. I turned torwards her and she turned away quickly hiding her phone. Gotcha! I started to open my handlebar bag, started shuffling my hand through its contents, she was curious as to what I was doing. I retrieved my camera bag, she was still curious. Then I pulled out my big, full-frame DSLR Canon 5d mark II. By now(probably much like yourself) she figured out what I was going to do, I leaned in close with the camera and then went paparazzi for a minute taking about 30 pictures. She got the point. Honestly, if she asked, I wouldn’t have minded.
The ferry was about an hour and a half, I found a nice spot in the wind, on the floor and slept. We got to the Sumatran port, and someone eagerly offered to drive us. How nice, right? But honestly, he just saw us as atm machines. “No, that’s okay, our bikes won’t fit and we want to ride” He continued to offer, not listening that our bikes won’t fit in car. After a few more refusals, he understood. He did wish us luck riding though.
We hit the road and stopped at the first and only homestay near the port. I bargained her down to 100k for one room. The hostel owner wanted 50k for a sleeping pad, cause the room only had one bed. No thanks, we got one. #Traveltip, even if you don’t camp, a sleeping mat is very useful for saving money.
We grabbed dinner, discussed our plans for Sumatra and reminisced on our times in Java. Our plan for Sumatra is to get up early, not cycle all day, and to not at all cycle at night. Lets see if we can stick to it.
Day 64, April 10, 2013, Wednesday, Pelabuhan-Bandar Lampung (Indonesia) 90km, total 2405km
We got up semi-early, ate breakfast next store. The food was tasty, again, or, should I say still? I came the the realization that maskan padang places cook big batches of food and leave it in the display bowl, until its sold. No matter if it’s chicken, fish, eggs, or vegetables. The taste is fine, but it does miss that fresh-food feel; the rice is what makes it warm.
Sumatra already seems quieter, more agriculture and has more natural foliage on the distant hills. Andres and I cycled for a few hours up and down the hills. I fell behind.
About 20 or 30k out of Bandar Lampung is an industrial port, handling all the raw materials and produce being export. The road is really, really, shitty, big broken up mounds of dirt and kilometer after kilometer of trucks and cars waiting in line. It was faster to hop off the road and ride along the dirt/gravel shoulder. The road finally got better and I start pedaling up a small hill when I heard some barking behind me, kept pedaling, kept hearing; I turn around to see three angry dogs heading for me. Agh! Just as I was about to turn around and outpace them down hill, they backed off, phew.
I got near our hosts house, bought phone credit and texted him. I chatted with military men eating at the café and waited for Steve and Andres. Apparently I wasn’t so far behind them and somehow passed them up.
Desta, our couchsurfing host met up with us, and led us back to his village on the outskirts of Bandar Lampung. We washed up and then walked through the village, eating some fried snacks at his uncles shop, picked up corn and grilled it at Desta’s. We chatted away and ate the grilled corn. Desta suggested that we go to the elephant reservation, Way Kambas, the next day to do some volunteering. It seemed like a cool opportunity, so we decided to spend a day in Bandar Lampung to go to Way Kambas and help out some elephants. Probably shoveling shit… but help is help. We hadn’t seen elephants before, plus its about time we do some volunteering.
Day 65, April 11, 2013, Thursday, Bandar Lampug (Indonesia)
We got up and Desta’s sister, gave us breakfast, it was really really kind of her. After eating, Steve, Andres and I waited around for Desta to leave for Way Kambas.
Finally at 9:30, maybe later, we got Desta’s sister’s motorbike and the four of us set off. Myself on Desta’s and Steve on the back of Andres’ bike.
Being on the back of a motor bike for extended time sucks! I don’t know how people do it. I have had knee surgery on my left knee and it was aching so much, I had to let is dangle off the side every bit to loosen it up. Too much scar tissue for it to be bent for a long time. After about an hour and a half of going through dirt, deep truck ruts, mud and bumps. I tapped Desta on the shoulder and asked him how much longer to this place. “Another hour and a half or two” “Are you serious?” “Yeah” “Soooo, how much time do you expect for us to actually spend at this place, and when do you plan for us to head back?” “Maybe a few hours.” This was not thought through at all. We’ll get there after 12, and if we want to get back before dark we need to leave before 3. And that’s not counting the fact that it starts raining earlier than sunset. I was already thinking of a way that I would get back to Bandar Lampung, NOT on the back of this guys motor bike for three hours in rain, through mud, as night falls. Soon after the one and a half hour mark, we went through another rough patch of road and I didn’t see Andres or Steve trailing us. I told Desta to pull over and we waited.
About five minutes passed and I wondered how far behind they were. Ten more minutes passed and I had the sense that we needed to go back. About 300 meters back on the road, we found Steve and Andres resting at a semi-warung. Upon closer inspection, they were a fair bit dirty and had some good sized cuts on their knees and elbows. They had crashed on the mud, luckily, only sustaining surface wounds. I wanted to go into medical mode, but first aid kits are only useful if you have it with you.. .#traveltip always bring your medkit! I did a patient assessment on Steve. It was more for my own practice, as Steve only had a few cuts, but there was also the reality that Steve actually just got into a crash.
Steve and Andres washed off their cuts and the three of us decided it would be best to scratch our plans of going to Way Kambas. We might have scratched the plans soon along the ride, anyway. Desta encouraged us to keep going, we listed the reasons why we shouldn’t, pointing out that two members of our group had just crashed and might want to go back and rest. He still wanted to go, “It’s okay man, we all go, no problem” He wasn’t registering our frustration, nor was he registering the stupidity of continuing on, not to mention going there at that time in the first place. After repeating ourselves a few times, he agreed and we started heading back. Steve caught a mini bus back, and I kind of wished I joined him. The rained picked up, so we stopped to get fried snacks and wait it out
Later that evening we got mie ayam(noodle soup) and at different points the three of us discreetly confirmed with each other that we would leave the next day. Desta continually suggested that we stay for one day, and we continually answered that we needed to hit the road.
One day in Bandar Lampung seems to be enough.
Side note: Steve and I went out to sit at a warung for a bit. We were caught up in conversation which was broken up when I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. Out of the corner of my eye I read the shirt on the warung owner’s, an older, conservartive mother. Apparantely, according to her bright pink shirt “[She is too gay for my daughter]” (I am too gay for your daughter) her shirt read. I didn’t have the heart to even try and explain what her shirt meant, and OBVIOUSLY no one knows what it means if she’s still wearing it.
Day 66, April 12, 2013, Friday, Bandar Lampung-Kota Agung (Indonesia) 100k, total 2505km
We woke up, ate, said our goodbyes and thank-you’s to Desta and his family. He still suggested we stay, we gave him our same reasons for leaving. I’d actually pay to not stay one more day. There was even a wedding in the village that we were passing up. Yeah, one more day wasn’t worth it.
We got a bit lost in trying to find a main road or junction. The stop-and-ask was apparently not working as people pointed in opposite directions, literally. We used our cycling intuition and headed along the a traffic filled road, heading north. Steve stopped at an outdoors shop and Andres and I waited for him at the main junction. We went through a few rolling hills, stopped for mie ayam for lunch and carried on. Apparently, I’ve gotten a little bit faster, I was right on the heels of Steve and Andres, catching up with them at each rest; I was continually less than one km behind them. We stopped in a town along the way, priced up the hotel, but decided to push through the next 60km to the next town. It was later in the day, but not out of the question to make it, we just needed to hustle. Everyone had warned us about this stretch to Krui saying there were many thieves/robbers, especially in the jungle.
I passed Steve and Andres while they were resting and carried on. There was a medium hill-climb which ended in a very rewarding descent on medium grade, spotless, smooth roads. What a treat. I took a few pictures and made my way into Kota Agung.
Two girls on a motorbike struck up a conversation and I asked where the cheap hotels were. They told me to follow them and on the way, Steve and Andres caught up. The first hotel didn’t have any economic rooms available, and the second, cheaper option was all full. According to the locals, these are the only two hotels in town. We cycled off the main street for a bit, to no avail. People there also said there were only two hotels. Steve decided to check in to the expensive hotel and Andres and I kept cycling off the main road. Still no luck. We met Steve back at the first hotel. Apparently, now, the only available rooms are the most expensive rooms for 150k, no breakfast. No wifi. Something tells me that their rooms aren’t full.. We headed in the opposite direction in search of anything else, maybe a mosque or police station?
A few minutes after leaving the hotel, one street over, some late teenager types called us over to chat. They told us we could stay at their house/café. We got into conversation and then another guy zoomed up saying we could probably stay at his mom’s house “She has an extra cabin, for free, I just need to ask.” I introduced myself, his name is Wandi. It’s much easier to connect with someone once you actually know their name. He sensed our hesitation and tried to dissuade our worry, saying “Don’t worry, I’m not the mafia! Don’t worry!” We decided to take him up on his offer and he went off to ask his mom if we could stay in her spare cabin. We waited at at the restaurant and then they invited us into their home. Apparently, Wandi is their brother, so that must mean we are staying here tonight. We started unpacking our things and were going to sleep in these guys small living room. It’s better than an expensive hotel. Wandi came back to the house and then said his mom said it was okay for us to stay in his mom’s house. Huh? I though we were here?
Apparently the word “brother” is used very loosely, they’re more like family friends. We asked him if his mom’s had a proper bed available, it did. We then turned to our other friends and explained that it might be easier to stay in a room with a bit more space, they understood. We repacked our bikes and followed Wandi to his mom’s house. There we were supplied with a simple room, one tiny cot and a mandi. We don’t have high standards, and any hospitality is much appreciated. We thanked his parents profusely; we all agreed we were spending our karma points. How great to be given a room for the night.
After showering, Wandi offered to pick up dinner for us, but we told him we like walking around, so we all headed down the road to a small warung. We chose our items, mie goreng(fried noodle) and a canned drink. Wandi ordered for us. We chatted and finished our meal. We all three went for second dishes and second drinks. But this time, Steve and I asked them to hold off on the chicken innards on our mie goreng. We offered to get Wandi something; he was okay with a drink. Once we were sufficiently full, we got our bill. 62k for me, 62k for Steve, 65k for Andres. We were getting screwed. I asked for them to give us the breakdown of the bill. 20k for the first mie goreng, 20k for the second mie goren, leaving 22k for the two can drinks. It was all total bullshit. We always ask for prices beforehand to make sure we they couldn’t slam us with a high bill at the end. This time, we didn’t think we needed to ask considering Wandi, a local, was ordering. Not the case.
Usually, if we don’t ask how much first, we bite the bullet and pay whatever price comes. But, not this time, these prices were ridiculous. We told them we have never ever paid that much for mie goreng, ever. They claimed it was “special, just for us.” That argument doesn’t hold too much salt when we asked for them to hold off on the “special” for our second dish, though they remained the same price. And 22k for drinks? Cans range from 5-7k. When we turned to Wandi he just said “I don’t know, it’s not my business, sorry” I took the receipt book from them and started flipping through looking for the same menu items on previous orders. Boom, nasi goreng, 9k. “Why isn’t ours 9k?” “Because it’s special” okay, well if its special why isn’t it 15k, like the other nasi goreng price listed nasi goreng just below the first?” Because ours is “very special, just for us” We told them we aren’t stupid, and settled at paying 40k. We didn’t want to put Wandi in any tough position, as he seemed to know the warung owners and staff, and apologized, but we explained to him how unfair it is that people try to treat us like atm machines. He agreed and his only response was simply “it’s not my business” Thanks, dude..
I watched a bit of indoor soccer next to his mom’s house and set off to bed earlier than later, we were planning to hit the road very early the next day. Apparently the next day’s stretch is full of criminals, especially hiding out in the jungle. After our experience tonight, I guess it’s true.
Day 67, April 13, 2013, Saturday, Kota Agung-Krui (Indonesia) 150km total 2655km
We got up at 4:30 and started going about our morning routine before sitting down for breakfast. In the midst of our our hustle, Wandi’s brother approached Steve and told us we needed to pay for the room. Steve nodded his head and relayed the information. At first, I was okay with putting some money towards Wandi’s mom, depending on how much, maybe… Maybe. But as we continued to pack, the idea of giving anything went from maybe to absolutely not. It is just unfair to switch a situation around like that. It’s not how it works. Shit …I should let people here talk to me and then charge them for my conversation at the end, or something! Giving them anything is giving in to their tricks and allowing myself to be taken advantage of. The only circumstance I would give money is if they were asking for a little bit for the water we used and to tidy up the room. So we’ll see.
After our breakfast, we talked with Wandi’s brother. Grand total: 100k. HA! Even 50k is pushing it for this place. For perspective, Andres and I paid 100k for a private bungalow, with free breakfast and wifi, in Bali. We explained that Wandi told us its free and that its unfair to cheat us. It was hard to get the message across, because they didn’t speak a lick of English, and this was a bit beyond our conversational Indonesian. Prior to the conversation I looked up some extra words to use, like cheat, mislead etc. When I used the word mislead, Wandi’s brother asked “where?” aha, damnit, wrong context.
Apparently Wandi texted his brother telling tell him to get money from us. We told the brother to call Wandi. Andres tried to talk to him on the phone but he was clearly asleep. (It was about 5 a.m. now) Wandi hung up. We told them we weren’t paying and it’s unfair to cheat us. We finished packing our bikes and started leaving. We would have been happy to pay a small small bit(a fair bit) for the room if that’s what we agreed on, but it wasn’t and we didn’t want to set a bad precedent for future travelers. On our way out the gate the dad caught up with us and tried to get money from us, telling us to just give 50k. But that’s not how it works! We hit the road.
It was nice and quiet on the road, but the rain started early. We stopped for breakfast after an hour or two of riding. Apparently, there are elephants and rhinos in these parts, and tigers! We were going to go through virgin jungle, something non-existent on Java. We needed to pass over the coastal mountian range to get to the coast; 100m past our breakfast spot, the hll climb started. It was tough. Narrow roads and decently steep. Oh yeah, it was in the pouring rain too. I put on my rain clothes, which was useless. It was like wearing a sauna. I was still soaked, just not by rain. The climb was hard, if you put one foot down, then you had to stop, and walk your bike to the next semi flatish spot in the road, because its impossible to start pedaling a fully loaded bike up a steep grade. Even pushing our bikes uphill was a struggle. Push for three feet, hold on the breaks, take a few breaths, and then repeat.
We climbed for about 3+ hours. At the top I caught up with Andres and waited with him as he replaced his brake-pads. Truck drivers at the top were tightening up their rims etc and got some pictures with us. They were nice. They were transporting concrete electrical poles. We passed them while they made deliveries and then they would catch up, honking and giving thumbs us as they passed. They reported 30 or 40km to the next town and then we have 60km and another hill climb to do before Krui! Aghhhh! I was considering splitting this day into two if I am to tired later. We made our way down and caught up with Steve. Andres was pretty tired from the hill and he needed to replace his rear shifter as his broke on the way down the hill… #touringtip don’t use integrated brake/shifter levers on a touring trip.
Steve and I carried on and stopped for lunch at the coast. This was supposedly a crime ridden area, but we barely saw a sole. I was sooo hungry, I wasn’t sure about going all the way considering there was another hill climb back through the national park. As I ate, I got more energy and the idea of carrying on grew on me. We asked about the road to Krui and they said it was totally flat. I went on my phone to re-read a blog post for this area and found I had misread the blog, I got the days mixed up.
I was refreshed and we hit the road, cruising along, the ” hello misters” continued. Every ten or twenty yards in a village, “Hellllooo!” “What is your name?” “Where are you from?” I don’t know how, but kids would spot us from 100 meters off and then sprint from the street back to their house shouting “tourrrrrrist”, summoning 10+ friends/siblings. Then there’d be a chorus of broken English and hellos. I’m guessing not too many tourists pass through here.
Steve and I stopped 30k away for a snack at Indomaret. Soon after Andres caught up and all three of us stopped at Mandiri for a drink and looked up accommodations. We made some calls, didn’t find anything too cheap, and decided to just look on wheel(I would say “on foot” but..).
I saw a sign for “Palm something” down a side street. Andres waited on the road for Steve and I checked it out. No one at the front. I went through the gate and walked to the back only to find a protective dog growling as he approached. Ayay! I slowly turned around and walked calmy to my bike, turned it around and fumbled out the gate. Phew.
I checked next door… 100k for a small room, no wifi, nor breakfast. Steve and Andres met me down the street and we headed to a guesthouse owned by someone Steve met on the road. On the mountain climb, a couple, Emmy and Renaldi, stopped their car to talk with Steve, finding out he was going to Krui and encouraged us to stay at their guesthouse, offering a special discount. We checked it out, “Sunset Beach Losmen” It was a cool hang out spot. We got our own room with a some deck chairs. Plus free breakfast and wifi. All for 100k. AND it was 15 yards from the beach. Score.
We washed up and set out to find dinner and maybe a backpacker spot to meet people. We took a walk through town. There wasn’t too much beyond the usual options for dinner, and no backpacker bar. We decided to check out a masakan padang warung. As I was asking how much the beef dish was the warung owner not-so-discreetly whispered into the servers ear. It was easy to see that they were going tell us some untrue, unfair price. We turned around and left. Before we did, Steve held out his hand and said “harga”(price) and then held his other hand two feet above it saying something like “harga bule, tidak mau” (Bule price, we don’t want) and then continued in English “if you try to cheat us, you get no money” and we walked across the street, where the price was fair and the guys friendly.
P.S. Today is my birthday. So, Steve and Andres treated me to dinner. On our way back we picked up chocolate, a martabak and I patronized Steve and Andres by drinking a beer. There were no other backpackers in town to hang out with, but we still had a nice time sitting on the deck at Sunset beach and chatting into the night.