Deer Park

Another beautiful map from Sandalmelik. Malaysia to the right

Preamble: We have a visa expiry date to beat. This is a little complicated because we have to get Lucinda cleared by Customs, at which point they need to see my passport, otherwise we could be late and pay a daily fine of about $20. If we get it wrong, all hell breaks loose. So it’s a firm date, and there’s only a little slack. We have to ride methodically with only one day of dallying (today). A bee-line, unfortunately, but not on the major highway.

Plus, the below is scary given the distance ahead. Thrashed by hard braking on Java, but some life left. How much, who knows. We’ll be keeping a close eye on it, not using our front brake except in emergencies, and keeping our fingers crossed since there’s no choice and as yet no back-up plan

Features of riding in Sumatra: They have what they call ‘pirates’ here. So no riding at night. The robbery-or-worse rate is high. If you’re solo. Because of this, we’re sticking to a specific destinations plan which makes for some short days and some long. The roads are supposed to be very rough. Although after 5 days of riding them we’d say they’re fine, just not great at times, so they must be bad ahead. Lastly, despite the rainy season being over, when it rains here late afternoon it’s an apocalypse. So we’re planning accordingly.

The first short day out of Java, across on the 2 hour ferry and into Sumatra

Then to Kotabumi

Nothing to write about today, a fairly busy day of traffic through continuous towns. ‘Sumatra’ sounds nice and countryside-like, but the latest headcount in 2010 was 50 million, so maybe 55 million now, on this island with so few roads

Lots of chickens around

The next day to Lahat

After the first few hours, this was a beautiful and interesting day. There are still trucks continuously. You can see an overtaker here coming down the open lane. This is what it’s like whether you’re riding at him or not. You just have to get out of the way, off the road if need be, but 99% of the time there’s just enough of a gap on the shoulder, often never more than inches. I have no idea what people do with panniers wider than their bars

Into the country for a while

Through our first traditional village. Very creative

Wow!

So most of the houses are drying things out the front. We stop and ask these ladies if we can get a close photo, in the usual charades way. There’s a misunderstanding. Or my riding suit smells. Which it does, but I thought I was far enough away

But we get a close shot anyway. Coffee. Or copi, here. I eat one and it’s a bit tasteless

We think they lay them out and rake them daily, taking them in at night

Through more towns

Riverbank

An imposing avenue, not sure of what

Wild banana. The fruit are about 4″ long

There are loud explosions going off in the distance, sometimes many at once, very interesting. At the next town there’s a large military exercise going on somewhere in the valley beyond we can’t see from here. People are gathered in groups watching the troops and trucks

Cool

As we ride out-of-town a half-dozen gunships pass overhead going in our direction!

I recognize them at once

Soviet MI24 or MI35 Hind. Wow, nice! A fierce gunship. I’ve played this helicopter a lot in C.H.A.O.S., an MMO, often remotely with my eldest daughter

The Indonesian Wiki. They have 6 and they’re all here! Must be a major exercise

But now we play World of tanks Blitz, a much harder, very sophisticated, MMO. Below is my favorite tank, the tier 10 Soviet IS-4. My game name is wages_of_sin, so if you friend me on the Asian server we can platoon a game if you see me online! Notice my clean, stripped-down HUD

We’re in Indonesia so we can play when we want to. They have free fast wifi everywhere, even in darkest Sumatra. Kind of the opposite of New Zealand and Australia, where the internet is like debt is to Greece: they kind of understood the critical importance of not cocking it up, but cocked it up hugely anyway, and are now on the knife-edge of being banished from the modern world until they get their shit together. Which nicely ties into this photo. I guess cable hasn’t made it this far quite yet, so every home has a huge dish. Go Sumatra!

Then miles of this

At about the midpoint we climb twisties up and over some mountains for an hour

And more miles of this

We think these are rumah gadang but without the spires (later), traditional homes owned by the women and passed down to their daughters

The next day to Sarolangun

Lovely, though very hot and humid

Ox cool off in the water. They can sort of swim with just their nostrils showing

More dredging, this time for rocks, possibly the same rocks as come up here in a sec

This is a fish farm with the most enormous water lilies we’ve ever seen

The blooms are at least a foot across, the whole plant maybe 15 or 20

A couple of locals who we think own the farm

Later on we see these guys with troughs full of rocks and water, next to a river

The rocks

They make jewellery from them. So I bought a small rock from them for 10,000 rupiah (about 90 cents, I got ripped off but whatever) which if we don’t loose it we’ll make three things out of one day

Another big town. We never stop at towns for lunch because of the crowds Lucinda draws, really

This was a water break and look what happened, arrggh. Except they’re the nicest kids you could ever meet

Another town. Tiring, because they’re big

And back into the country. This looks just like El Salvador

To Muara Bungo

A horrible day. No scenery to speak of, tons of traffic. A bus off the road. We’ve seen a few of these. The buses are the fastest vehicles and are the most aggressive. To be feared

But on the main street of Muara Bungo, an orchid in a tree

Up close. A beauty

Then to Bukittinggi

A difficult first half, then through some hills for about 30 miles

Gassed up with a nice view

Rice in spaced rows, we haven’t seen this before

This building is the classic Sumatran spired rumah gadang. For more on this, here’s the wiki

Then it flattened out to this

Along a lake for about 10 miles. There are very few lakes in Sumatra relative to the amount of rainfall. We haven’t found out why yet. It just drains out via the rivers without gathering anywhere. But this is a big one

People stopped

to see a truck that shot off a corner into a field. Lots of these

And into Bukittinggi