SUMATRA - BREAKDOWNS, JUNGLE AND SHIPS

2000 KM more from Bandar Lampung up to Medan, with the ship leaving tomorrow

Before arriving on Sumatra I was promised by Java locals that I would easily average 100 KM/H all day across the island (1800 KM’s). I was pretty damn excited about this! How wrong I had been to believe...

First impressions of Sumatra shows lots of Palm trees and greenery, exciting! At first...

I left Bandar Lampung early, with beautiful weather and roads in decent condition, after several kilometres the rain began and from here it all went downhill. This days 360 KM took over 7 hours, average speed 50 KM/H. The roads were in a total state of disrepair, non-existent in locations and horrendous everywhere else (I believe the technical term is: fucked). Mixed in with the condition of the roads was the huge trucks and buses, one slow vehicle overtaking an even slower vehicle everywhere. A lot of off road overtaking was done by me that day! At night I stayed in Palembang and had an interesting experience the following morning.

This is the highway I can go 100 KM/H on??!!

As I went to leave in the morning the lock had jammed shut, lucky I had my leather-man!

The following morning I set off for Jambi, a city/region where the Javanese had said was full of cannibals! This had me slightly worried. It looked very run down with little to no supermarkets. Upon Googling I found no evidence of cannibals, maybe something was lost in translation... The ride was ‘interesting’ to say the least. With the roads similar to the following day I found myself in quite a few exciting moments – I was fuming at the time, but upon reflection it has become comical.

HATI-HATI ("take care")... the skull and cross bones was a nice touch I thought!

Road side fires everywhere, and palm oil plantation, devastation for 100's of KM's the entire day - Google for more info, it's horrendous!

Event #1: Leaving the city in the morning I was waiting at the traffic lights when SMASH a scooter came flying into the side of my bike hitting behind my legs straight into a pannier. The lights went green and I rode off leaving the scooter behind with all of his plastics broken on the front. Later I realised my bike didn’t even have a scratch.

Event #2: To set the scene... I was cruising along the highway at 80 KM/H (the road that was occasionally good with very bad sections). I started to overtake a truck when a scooter loaded with chickens decided to overtake me at the same time, once he got in front of me he noticed that there was a giant pothole (like Marianas trench) in our path... he braked as hard as he could (I had a mini heart attack, I can’t stop that quick!) but it was too late, CRASH he ploughed through the devastated section of road... bits of engine, gearbox, all sorts of metallic parts came flying out from underneath him along with chicken  feathers everywhere. He pulled off to the side of the road, bike obviously totalled while I continued on no dramas. That was scary!

Getting artsy with my photos! Yum cheese sandwich

Roughly 100 KM from my destination I noticed that my front brakes were making some strange noises and they also had a ‘grindy’ feel to them. Upon inspection it was obvious, my brake pads were gone, literally down to the metal. Not only dangerous, but also a slight problem... I don’t have spare ones. Riding with just a rear brake I made it safely to a hotel. That night I slept in Jambi falling asleep to the distant sound of thunderstorms, the brakes were tomorrow’s problem.

Really filthy and begging for some TLC... soon!

I was woken at 5 AM by a knock on my door, after opening up it was room service with breakfast... did I order this in my sleep??? Nope, just the usual 5 AM free breakfast. OK I’ll roll with it, although spicy rice isn’t my favourite morning meal. That morning the most important thing was my bikes brakes! I waited until 8 AM before heading into town and stopped at several auto, bike and machine shops each time using bad Indonesian and charades to explain my problem. By 9 AM I found a Suzuki dealer that before I could even say anything had disassembled my front brake, cool! Now they obviously don’t have the right parts for me (my bike is way too big!) and no other parts would work. So I asked if there was a way for them to cut some other ones down and make it fit, I only had 1000 KM to go and I could get the right parts from Malaysia. $7.50 later and I was now riding with cut down car brake pads on my bike, pretty average braking... but it WORKED!

Wrecked!

How many Suzuki mechanics does it take? Haha

My new car brake pads, $7.50 for parts... free labour and coffee!

The brakes were ‘repaired’ by 1030 AM and I set off on the longest distance I would cover in a single day in Indonesia... 450 KM and 9 gruelling hours later I arrived in Pekanbaru, soaked, sore and entirely drained... it was time to catch some z’s!

Today was a wet day...

Shortly after crossing the equator... sad I didn't take the route with the big sign!

 Waking up to thunderstorms and rain was not the most promising start when 350 KM of crappy road and biking were the day’s agenda, but I ate my cereal and packed up ready to push on. After a few hours the rain cleared and I made reasonably good time. This day was filled with close calls, on-coming, overtaking traffic had me doing emergency braking several times an hour... not nice! My bad mood after the ride was immediately cured when the hotel gave me a 20% discount, no idea why but I suspect because of my good looks and charm! After a $2 dinner I began making plans for the shipping, national parks and the Malaysia flight ahead of me.

You ride along thinking of what can happen when there is babies and children on these bikes... Absolutely sickening to see a baby involved in this one. Happened 50 m in-front of me and of course only 1 helmet out of 5!

After a hot, but reasonably short ride I had finally arrived in Medan! This was the city 20 KM from the port that harbours my ship to Malaysia. I stayed at JJ’s Guesthouse which had the absolute friendliest welcome and a pretty awesome atmosphere. Here I met another round the world rider, Matt who has been underway for over 2 years!

Legendary secured parking! This man knows how to make bikers happy

Friday morning I called my shipping agent Mr Adnan and made my way to Belawan to meet him in his ‘office’ (It’s a small house). Monday 10 AM was locked in to drop off my bike and begin the paperwork, woo-hoo! From here I started the ‘short’ 100 KM ride to Bukit Lawang, a popular trekking, wildlife and rafting location. What should have taken 2 hours ended up taking over 5! Almost halfway, there had been a huge truck collision blocking all 4 lanes of the highway, here in the stop start traffic I pulled over as my bike was overheating... after trying to get going again the starter wouldn’t crank, same problem I had in Australia! From here I pushed my bike out of the traffic and began the road side maintenance, all the while telling myself “trust me I’m an engineer” (not electrical though!)... I wasn’t completely useless and after 20 minutes of tinkering it started again, SUCCESS! By now I was drenched in sweat, hungry and totally hating everything so I pulled into an Indomart and ate an ice-cream.. happy again! After arriving in Bukit Lawang I arranged an overnight trek for the following day.

Mr Adnan's office, co-ordinates 3.78060, 98.68528 for anyone trying to find!

Break-down in the middle of a traffic jam... hot, exhausted and not enjoying electrical problems!

Bukit Lawang, the bridge leading to my hotel (right). Creak creak creak, will it hold?

I cannot recommend this trek enough, 14 wild orang-utans, toucans, gibbons, funky monkeys and many more jungle flora and fauna were seen and some awesome climbing and rafting back into the village on day 2. All with some hilarious guides and a chilled group.

Our guide holding a giant ant, seconds before putting it in his mouth

Rubber trees, harvested to make shoes, condoms, etc... pretty neat

Selfie with a wild baby orangutan!

Waking up on day 2 of the trek, first up.. swimming!

The fully grown prime apes were a little more intimidating

Rafting back to the village with this monkey, Francis!

I’m now back in Medan after having dropped my bike at the port this morning, it had been a 4 AM start to leave Bukit Lawang and make it to the ship on time. I am pretty tired and looking forward to relaxing in Penang for a few days whilst I wait for the ship. The plan is to fix my brakes and do some general maintenance on the bike before heading through Thailand and into Myanmar! Oh and it’s been over 10,000 KM since I left Perth, woo... milestone!

Finally getting some washing done again... well, letting it get done

Milestones feel great, and best of all it's the last ship for a long time!