Day 74-78, April 20-24, 2013 Krui-Bengkulu (Indonesia)

Day 74, April 20, 2013, Saturday, Krui-Bintuhan (Indonesia) 120km, total 2775km

My surfing itch was satisfied, for now, and it was time to hit the road. We got up at 5, packed up, ate breakfast, said our goodbyes and headed north along the coastal road. The road had a bit of up and down, but nothing too bad.

On the 4th hill, the steepest one out of town, I came up to Andres, stopped on the side of the road with his bike turned on its side. I thought he was just resting because he’s got a hard gear ratio, but on closer inspection I saw that he had a bad mechanical problem. His rear derailleur cable got caught in his spokes, wrenching it inward breaking the cage, and bending the derailleur hanger plus opening his dropout. For the non bike inclined, it was bad. We discussed our options: 1) go back to get a derailleur 2) hitch hike to bengkulu 3) text a friend of ours that I saw heading back in to town, asking him to pick up a derailleur and fixing it at his homestay that evening 4) taking off the derailleur, shortening the chain and turning his bike into a single speed so he could pedal.

The funny thing is that we weren’t worried at all. Although Andres’ means of doing the trip was broken, maybe not repairable, we just had such a relaxing week it was impossible to get worked up. Well, shit I guess we’ve had a relaxing two months! Though, the thought did run through my mind …Shit, what happens if he does need a new bike b/c his drop out is bent? What then? At first, Andres decided to walk his bike, he pushed it to the top of the hill, coasted down and quickly after losing his momentum on the flat he took my suggestion of turning it into a single speed.

We circumvented the last hill by going on the headland, passing Jeni’s right.  I took note of the surf potential along the headland. Actually along any stretch of coast I have my radar on to see if there are waves. There seemed to be a couple spots.I stopped to take pictures of an 8ft bomb dumping onto the reed. In a few minutes, I was surrounded by 10 or 15 little kids starting at me. I approached the kids and they scattered screaming and laughing.

The short jaunt along the headland was really really nice, a quiet road through coconut tree groves, right on the beach. The best part was that cows were the main occupants, with a few interspersed house clusters. I couldn’t help but laugh how good these cows had it.

I drooled over the empty right hand reef and sand bottom point breaks I saw. No, I slobbered. I must come back to scout this stretch of coast.

The road turned inland and upward through the coastal mountains. It was a decent climb, medium grade, and a few ups and downs, the toughest part was that it was boiling hot, with no shade. We did a quick lunch and kept climbing through the heat until reaching another national park. Soon into the park we met another biker! Izak, who had been cycling down from Thailand then cutting over to Aceh making his way down Sumatra. We chatted for a bit, sent him to Sunset Beach Losmen as he was looking to converse with people, beyond the basic  “what is your name?” “how old are you?” “how much does this cost?”  We were the first westerners he’d seen in a few weeks. That’s exactly the way I want it,  but I could see how it’d be nice to have a full conversation.

We carried on through the jungle and I imagined what it would be like to be an explorer. Rough, is my guess. It is  thick with vegetation, steamy, and there are elephants, tigers, honey bears, and small cats. I saw a tiger warning sign out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t stop to read it. The jungle road deposited us back onto the coast and we went through some mild up and down.

The “hello-misters” were in full force, and we were going insane. Literally, insane. A few times every minute, someone is shouting towards us. I don’t think they really care to get a response either. And if they’re not doing that than they just shout something in their local dialect or simply just laugh at you. We are the butts of everyone’s jokes. I just wanted to be alone, in privacy.

Some girls pulled right up next to me and were taking my picture with their cell phone, I veered towards them to get them away, they pulled back up next to me down the road to continue taking photos. I surprised them by reaching out and grabbing the phone and yanking. She had a tighter grip than what I was expecting and I almost pulled the motorbike down with three shrieking girls on it. They screamed and laughed while speeding off. Turning around to take a few more photos.

The shouting etc. continued all the way until Bintuhan, about two hours, where we looked to duck into a hotel, or homestay, or anything we could be alone in. Upon asking the price at the first hotel, the lady responded with 250k. Ha! HA! Does she think we’re stupid, maybe something dumber than stupid? We have only paid 250k once, on Bali, when we got caught in a  rain storm and had no bargaining leverage. We didn’t bother negotiating and walked right out. We’re not cash machines, and anyone that sees us as such don’t deserve our time. We found a homestay off the road and they wanted 100k, I said it was too expensive and we started to leave, they asked how much I suggested 50k, they quickly agreed.

We went out for dinner, and struggled to find a fairly priced meal. At the first stop, the lady had to consult with the other staff to answer how much the chicken was. 20k for a piece of chicken, which is way off. I told her we’re not dumb and we left there moving on to the next chicken place, where she was cooking what seemed to be  good size and fairly priced. In the end, what she was cooking was multiple portions, argh,but it was still fairly priced.

The other guests at my hostel asked if I had dollars, I couldn’t tell what they were getting at. Selling me rupiah, looking at the dollars, me simply giving them to them?  I said I only had $20 bills, and he said that was okay, but I think he wasn’t understanding. I then drew out a picture, saying 1 $20 bill not 20, $1 bills. The whole “or” thing is lost in the Indonesian psyche. He wouldn’t answer which he was referring to, simply agreeing. Finally he said “untuk coleksi” (for collection) Okay, I get it. Then he’s not going to want a $20. I showed him the bill, it was too much for collecting. Instead, the owner of the homestay bought my $20 from me for a really good rate, a true 10k/$.

Day 75, April 21, 2013, Sunday, Bintuhan-Tais (Indonesia) 150km, total: 2925km

We got up at 5, hit the road by 6 and continued through the coastal hills, eating bubur ayam two hours into our ride in some random town.

A few more hours of riding brought us to a main junction where I waited for Andres.. right in front of a wedding. Lunch? I think so. I conversed with some of the guys as I waited. After a few more short exchanges, they asked if we wanted to eat and drink. Yes. Andres caught up, I relayed the invite and  we decided to scratch the idea of going all the way to Bengkulu. We chatted with the guys and encouraged to take photos. Then we were ushered to the food line where the crowd focused in on us and the next hour was a continuous flow of people taking pictures with us. I felt a little bad, like maybe we were taking attention away from the bride and groom. In the end, the bride waved for us to go over for pictures and we happily obliged.

After the wedding, the road went up and down and up and down. And then more up and more down. We stopped in Manna for juice but the only juice cart we found, wanted 8k for a tiny tiny cup. I kept my eye on how much the other customer paid for his couple juices, we deduced from his change that he wasn’t paying 8k per juice. We tried to get the true price from them, they still said 8k. It was really frustrating. We found a restaurant, to drink a decent sized juice for 7k.

Andres was thinking about staying in Manna and catching the bus to Bengkulu, but I was going to continue to Tais to knock out more miles. Andres decided to keep going as well.

The road continued up and down and up and down, all the way until Tais. If the hills weren’t enough, the shouting, Hello’s, misters, poor English and misc. phrases continued all day. Around sunset we got to Tais and found 100k as the cheapest accommodation. We held off on checking in to pick up some fruit, eat dinner and discuss our options. The first guy wanted 50k for apples, we thought that was way to much and told him we know the price cause we’d been traveling all through Indonesia. He said again that was the price and we went to the next fruit stand and the guy wanted 10k for a small bunch of bananas, we told him the same thing and requested 5k, he agreed. Nice try. (It turns out that our apple prices were a bit off. We  were fortunate enough to buy them where they are all grown, in Malang. 50k is the normal price.. Sorry first fruit salesman!)

We got dinner in the restaurant next door and the fruit stall guy came over to chat informing that our warung owner also rented out rooms when he learned we needed a place to stay. The options were 20 or 50k. We chose the 20k option: an empty room with one mattresses and no fan. It was shabby, but price is our only standard. It’s not our Andres’ and my honeymoon or anything, and we just need a roof over our heads for 7 hours.

Day 76, April 22, 2013, Monday, Tais-Bengkulu (Indonesia) 60km total: 2985km

We got up early, and cruised out of town, making our way for a few hours through the last of the peanut gallery harassment. It eased off as we entered a urbanity. Second breakfast in Bengkulu and then we looked for a bike shop. We got some leads on potential bike shops from couchsurfing contacts. Luckily we found one with decent components and a good mechanic. He fixed up Andres’ bike good as new. At first the owner was quiet, even dismissive, but then he came over to talk, telling us about his cycling group and asking about our trip. He even had us take pictures in his shirts, we got to keep them.

We went down the street and had juice at a small food shop where we met Rini, a transplant from another part of Sumatra who runs an English teaching program. She shared advice for traveling through Sumatra and translated some words for us. We ate lunch and then headed off to our couchsurfer host’s house nearby. Our host, Evan, is a city planner, who attained his master degree in the Netherlands. He was super kind and it was cool to discuss his job(spending so much time seeing how cities are laid out, their roads, and different rules etc has put studying city planning as a potential future path). Evan ensures that Bengkulu’s city plan fits with the regions’, the state’s, and the nat’l gov’ts.

That afternoon we went to the beach to watch the sunset and then out to dinner. Earlier I asked if there is surfing in Bengkulu(I’d seen a tiny bit of information on the web). He said he’d text his surfer friend and hook us up. After eating, he brought us to the “Surfers hangout” where Yadi and Vivi live and manage a restaurant. This is the central hang out for them and their surfing friends. I met the small surfing community and made plans to surf the next morning at long beach, near their restaurant.

Day 77, April 23, 2013, Tuesday, Bengkulu (Indonesia)

Evan dropped me off at Yadi’s on his way to work and I went out surfing with Yadi, and Danny, from Bandah Aceh. We drove a few kilometers up the road to Long beach and were greeted with clean, glassy, beach beach. We got in the water and Yadi and Danny stopped about 20m out. I paused and waited with them for a bit, unsure if it was bad luck to paddle out right away or something. After a bit of wading, I decided to keep going, broke through a few waves and made it to the outside. Yadi and Danny stayed inside to catch the white water, which is cool, as long as they’re enjoying the ocean.

I stayed outside and went for the various peaks that popped up; 4ft-7ft hollow beach break. I repeatedly went for this long hollow left breaking along the sandbar, I would drop my knee, hold my hand in the wall and bank left, making it into the barrel, but not making it out.

After a while I floated up the beach and saw a nice right-hand wall lining up so I paddled over. I caught a nice workable wall, allowing for a couple small turns. Just inside of the right was a stretch of bumpy flowing water, it looked like a rip tide. The swell wasn’t big enough to make me worried about it. If it brought me into it, I’ll just paddle the long way around out of it. After a wave or two, Yadi and Danni were on the beach waving their hands in the air, hm, must be time to go in. I caught a wave and went to belly board in against the outgoing current. It wasn’t a full on current, it was water bouncing over shallow reef. Ohhh, that’s why they were waving.Each wave I bellyboarded lost steam. I stood up to walk and went for another wave to bellyboard. That wave lost steam too. The water was bit murky, too hard to see the bottom, within about two steps I felt a strong pain and a sort-off crunch. It wasn’t terribly painful, just really sore. One particular spot at the bottom-front of my foot was very sore to put any weight on. I hobbled back to our basecamp shack and we had a closer inspection. There was a small black dot on the surface of my skin. I though maybe I had been stung by something, how could this marker-sized dot on my foot be so sore? Yadi took a closer look, the black dot was the bottom of sea urchin-spine embedded straight up into my foot. Agh. Yadi got a safety pin and a some water and washed the sand off.

This is one of those time I should have listened to my gut instinct, I know better. A safety pin? Come on Chris! But I also figured he’s the local and has done this 100 times, plus I wanted this shit out of my foot. He used the pin head to hook the edge of the spine and pull upwards, the spine chipped off at the top he went for it again and it chipped off more. Great. Now there was nothing to grab to get this thing out. I decided to go to the hospital. Yadi and Danny drove me to the nearby “mini-hospital”.

I hobbled into the small complex and then it was all eyes on me. I checked in and waited for them to stitch up some man’s finger that got caught in machinery. Ouch. After waiting, it was my turn, Yadi and Danny got out the gopro camera and started filming. First came the anesthetic and ironically it hurt like a bitch. It was a super super thick needle right into the meat of my foot. After ten seconds the pain wore off and they got the tools ready. Some dull tweezer/pliers, a scapel end(not attached to a handle) and some gloves (only on about half of the women’s hands working on my foot.) Before they started I said “wait wait wait! Are these clean?!” “Yeah, they’ve been rinsed in alcohol.” “Is that enough?” “Well, it’s better if its heated, but this is a small public hospital. Alcohol should be enough.” I wish I were being facetious about what she said, but she spoke pretty good English and told me straight up. At least she was honest.

They sliced a couple millimeters deep in a cross pattern on my foot and started grabbing at the end of the spine. Ten minutes went on and they couldn’t get it. They got out the scapel end and sliced deeper. They tweezed and tweezed, never getting enough purchase to pull the spine out. Ten more minutes passed and they cut again. The anesthetic didn’t get that deep, I let out a yelp and they put that big-ass needle in my foot and numbed it up more. After another 10 minutes of picking, squeezing, agitating and angling they got a hold of it and pulled out a few millimeter piece of sea urchin spine. Ah, now that’s over, I just need to worry about the hep-c incubating on the end of their tools. They bandaged it up, gave me a tetanus shot and some antibiotics, and some tetanus medicine. The cut was really, really deep, bright red and juicy when looking inside. I will have to be very very diligent about keep this clean and dry to avoid any serious infection.

I got lunch at Yadi’s and Steve and Andres came over to join us. We headed to the old British fort that afternoon and watched the sunset there, then mie goreng for dinner.

Day 78, April 24, 2013, Wednesday, Bengkulu (Indonesia)

We had our usual early morning start and my cut was still wide open and much more sore after the anesthetic wore off. I got suited up in my biking gear, hopped on the bike and went down the street. I decided that I might as well give it one full day off to give it a head start on healing. Steve and Andres happily went back to bed and I hopped on wifi and did internet for the entire first half of the day.

In the afternoon Yadi picked me up and we went back to his restaurant. We had a semi meeting where Yadi and Vivi asked for advice as to how to get more surf travelers to come and surf. I did my best to give them good guidance, suggesting to try to pull traffic from people already going to other places like the Mentawais or Krui and get them to make a stop before or after. It will be hard to get people to fly to Indo just for a place that isn’t known as a famous surf spot. The hardest thing about giving them advice was that I really didn’t know how the surf was in Bengkulu. I got a good session in, sure, but I still don’t know the true potential.

We went to the beach and I took some pictures of the surf. I would have gone out if I could’ve, but I don’t want to open up my foot in this water.

That night the surfer crew had a big barbeque at Yadi and Vivi’s. We ate fresh fish from the port. It was so tasty. Vivi went to culinary school in Jogja, and her cooking is very, very good.

My time in Bengkulu was short, but Yadi, Vivi, and the surfing crew were so warm, I really want to go back and spend more time with them, to surf Long Beach, help out in the restaurant and hang with these kind friends, one of my Indonesian families.