Simply cycling around
Today, I visited the Harau Valley with Winda, a guy I met on the road early this morning. Then we spent some time at his home. Because his home was 20km towards Bukittinggi, today I progressed only 30km forward. At this speed I will be late in Dumai! I must hurry up a bit more or stop meeting nice people. The problem, they are everywhere in Sumatra ;-) Then I cycled uphill for most of the day and found a nice warung where to spend the night. Interesting day again :-)
This morning the rain started again. So I went with Esri to another warung close to his place where we had breakfast. This is only around 11am that the rain stopped. I could finally leave the place and start my journey. Esri kindly offered me the breakfast. I feel guilty each time someone pay for my food because I use my money only for this and the visas normally. This day was touch as I had a big hill to climb. I’ve learned today that Bukittinggi means High Hill (Bukit tinggi) and understood very easily why! All the way after Bukittinggi was flat so I could finally accelerate a bit and cycle 90km today :-) I’ve stopped for dinner in a Warung where I discover a new card game called Koa. These fancy cards are very nice. I like especially the design. This is another day with discovering and surprise :-)
A new day for a new experience. As we agree yesterday, I’ve been visited the school next door where Rahmat’s sister and certainly all her brothers and sisters have been studying. I met first few teachers and then the english one. We talked about the differences we can find in our culture and the importance of english today. The teacher invited me to appear in his classroom and exchange with the students, in english of course. I think it’s great!. I really think that the school system need to teach students how to like english. It needs to show them how important is it. Yesterday, another Rahmat’s sister (the one who loves selfie ;-) asked me to help her with her english exercises. The english books are difficult. As I said to the english teacher today, the story showed in those books are just not realistic. They talk about babies singing with angels inside flowers. How come this is going to be useful in real life?
This is the rest of the story that we finished in the street. So as I explained previously we went first to Princess Ayu’s home to have dinner and then we moved back to the direction I was originally cycling to and stay at Rahmat’s home for the night. This night is one of my best experience in Sumatra.
Bukittinggi and its famous clock Jam Gadang. When I looked online to find some point of interest in Indonesia, this is one of them which came up. I bookmarked this on google maps and it became one of my goal destination. This morning I hanged around for an hour and hit the road towards the Sianok Canyon without knowing it would be that wonderful. I’ve just seen on google map that there was a shortcut and wanted to try it. Later on, I arrived to the lake Maninjau (another point of interest) and discover another wonderful place. I’ve finally ended on the other side and continue pedaling until dark. The last surprise of this day was when I met Rahmat who follow me on scooter and asked me for a photo. I finally spent the night with his family! Warning, this post has a lot of pictures. Enjoy!
Short day today. I’ve been mainly working on my blog because I’m still late and did not have the opportunity to write since I left Kediri.a I don’t like to show my laptop in some places. Not because I’m scared but because I don’t want people think they can not afford this. And most of the time, even if the place would be right to use it, I don’t have the time because I am chatting with locals every time I stop somewhere. My bike and trailer are too rare and often people tell me that : “It does not exist in Indonesia”. I feel some people are very happy to discover technology thought my stuff when some other envy me. This is difficult to explain that I like to buy expensive things that last more than several times the same cheap thing. Most of the Indonesian people can not save money like we do with our wonderful bank system. Anyway, today I’ve got a room for myself and all the time to work on my laptop without bother anyone.
Keep it rough, this is how I enjoy life! I survived to 31 hours of Indonesian bus so I can certainly go a bit further now :-) Sumatra as started not really well like the rip off I experienced with the bus or the sad, polluted city of Solok. But quickly, everything came in place and as always Indonesian people are great! Contrary of what I’ve heard several times, Sumatra seems to be safe. I’m not going in big cities, that certainly explain one part and why I feel safe here. Nope, really it’s a bit rough here but I like it :-)