Countries – Page 37 – Simply cycling around

Lubuk Basung, day off, visiting Tiku with Rahmat

This morning I planned to go. My visa expires in 11 days. I should have enough time to get to Dumai and catch the ferry but we never know what could happen. The rain season is now coming and I won’t cycle under the rain unless I am really late. Firstly we took some more picture with the family, then I had some breakfast, then more pictures, then I was invited by one neighbour. I had a drink plus some snacks at his place. This is hard to leave a nice place like here. Everyone is so kind. Rahmat offered me to stay one more night and maybe visit around. I was hesitating until I found a deal. You guys stop smoking for the day if I stay with you. That way I am doing something good for you as you do something good to me :-) Deal?

Lumbuk Basung, Meeting Princess Ayu and Rahmat’s family

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 > Lubuk Basung (70km)

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!

Bukittinggi, day off

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.

Solok > Bukittinggi (76km, 5h30)

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 :-)

Step, Kediri > Solok (354km + 1117km by bus, 7 days)

[wpgmza id=”101″]

2 months is very short to visit the whole Indonesia (especially when I spend many days with people here :-). I’ve stopped nearly a month around different places because I’ve enjoyed the time and what I was doing. This is why I had the catch a bus for about 1700km across Java and Sumatra.

Bakauheni > Solok (1117km by bus, 31h)

[wpgmza id=”70″]

How is 31 hours travelling by airplane? Painful? Scary? Sooo long? Okay, so I will tell you how is 31 hours in an Indonesian bus! In fact, I don’t mind the time. Normally I just sleep the whole way like I’ve done between Kutoarjo and Merak. But this trip was kind of different. The traffic in Indonesia can be seen as crazy compare to modern countries. People drive everywhere even on the wrong side of the road but everything is going slow and fluent. The dangerous one are the buses. They always go as quickly as they can like they are doing a race! They have a copilot who wave his arm out of the bus to clear the road when needed. I think during that trip, the bus drove more on the right side than on the left haha.