Gringos and being green - Sumatra

11^th March 2018

Starli Hotel, Bukittinggi, West Sumatra
A very pleasant 26c

Imagine walking into your local Tesco when, overnight, you have grown to 8 ft tall.  Oh, and you now have a green complexion and are wearing a Zebra outfit.  That’s how we have felt most of the time we have been in Sumatra.  As well as the shouts of “hello mister” and “where are you from?” there is a look, a gawp, that’s at first, quite entertaining, but after a while becomes rather tedious.  When you have heard the same statement or request 150 times in one day, and that isn’t an exaggeration there are a lot of people in Sumatra, it’s as much as I could do not to shout expletives back at the unsuspecting locals.  Even more annoyingly, sometimes they get the words totally wrong so we hear “who are you”, “why are you going” or “why is your name?”.  To add insult to injury, they’re not even listening to the answer, they are just saying the only words they know.  They are driving a motorbike at 30 mph, or a car, or a truck and they have pulled up right alongside you, very close, wound down the window and with their 30^th cigarette of the day balanced between their nicotine-stained talons they gawp, or say something in Bahasa that the other 14 people in the vehicle all find hilarious.  By the way, I’m talking about men, not ALL men, but a lot.  I made a decision fairly early on in our stay that I wouldn’t respond to men over the age of 13, unless they had engaged in a proper manner and were genuinely interested in a conversation.  In any case, most of the time it’s Dave they really want to talk to, so it was easy to ignore them.  Rant over!

Don't look so odd do we?

Then there are the women, who are funny, engaging, hard-working, often a little shy at first but give them a smile and they are there with me, on the bike.  They shout and wave encouragement, “hello”, “kopi”, “panas” (hot) a thumbs up or a nod, they know I’m no spring chicken and so we identify as females.  Their chances of leaving the village they were born in is virtually non-existent, unless their parents have money, in which case they could go to High School, then onto University.  Otherwise, when they are of an age they will get married and have children.  The same goes for the men.  The children too are a delight.  Whenever we responded to their “bye bye” or “hi” we would hear squeals of delight, as if there was some kind of competition going on as to who could get the ‘Orangs’ to respond.  The good outweighs the bad in my opinion.

Schoolgirls who chased us down to 'interview' us

On the way to school

We have experienced some pretty horrendous pollution on some of the roads.  I doubt there is anything called an emissions test here in Sumatra.  The pollution coupled with the potholes/landslides, or, sagging where an earthquake has caused the road to drop a metre or so, all conspire to make some of the riding here quite treacherous.  Oh and let’s not forget the eleventy billion sleeping policeman in every village in the country.  Thirty six centigrade, plus humidity of almost 100% and you don’t stay dry for long on a bicycle resulting in all kinds of personal problems;  itching, athletes foot, chafing and general tiredness.

The result of an earthquake, still not fixed

That tree is perched to come down

On the other hand some of the roads have been an absolute delight.  The 434 kms from Lake Toba to Bukittinggi went through some of the most beautiful scenery we’ve had the pleasure to cycle in South East Asia.  We wound our way up and over 3390 metres of pristine jungle and rice paddies, through villages specialising in bells or cloth woven on old wooden hand looms, or Durian fruit.  Blacksmiths making machetes and other tools of varying sizes, or fish farms.  One large village was dedicated to the education of young Musliim boys from outlying villages; Imams of the future. 

Durian detritus

Cocoa, cinnamon and other fruits drying in the sun

In and around Lake Toba live the Batak people, mostly Christian, hence the plethora of churches, sometimes every 500 metres. As we have came further south into West Sumatra (crossing the equator on the way) we left the churches behind and are now firmly in mosque territory (Minangkabau tribe).  Here in Bukittinggi we have 3 mosques within 1 km so the call to prayer appears to be a rather competitive event.  In any case, I have heard some of the most wonderfully haunting calls to prayer, and generally beautiful singing in the churches, since being in Sumatra.  Except for the young man in one hotel who insisted on trying to outrange some of his pop idols, the singing has been outstanding.  Xfactor has a lot to answer for.

One of many churches, Lake Toba

Looking down on Lake Toba after the climb

Accommodation and food have been a rather hit and miss affair.  Outside of the tourist areas the standards of accommodation have been disappointing.  I find these days my tolerance for ‘grottiness’ is quite low.  I don’t care how basic somewhere is as long as it’s clean, so I don’t consider myself fussy.  Often, in small towns or villages, we have a limited choice, if there is a choice at all, and that can be a bit depressing.  The road and scenery in between the places we stay might be beautiful but the towns and accommodation themselves are not; It’s not always possible to find a camping spot either there’s no flat ground, or there are just too many people around.  I occasionally find myself asking the question ‘why are we doing this?’.  But then we hit the road again and it’s all clear, till the next grotty hotel.

A particularly horrible bathroom

At least it was clean!  

As far as food goes, I don’t consider myself a picky eater, but I have definitely become one in the past month.  We have both been ill, not food poisoning just a low level feeling of nausea that simply puts you off your food, which is a problem when you have to cycle.  My go-to meals have been nasi or mie goring (fried rice or noodles), or, to simply have noodle soup that we do ourselves.  Now we’re in Bukittinggi we’re pigging out on fruit, Mangosteen, Melon, Watermelon, Pineapple and Rambutan – my teeth are jangling with the sugar already!  We’ve found a lovely little café that does fab guacamole and potato wedges, oh, and very cold beer.  We will be going back there again tonight.  I’m hoping ‘normal service’ in the appetite stakes will resume soon.

Mangosteen

Lake Toba – such a beautiful place, so relaxed, great climate it’s possible to spend a couple of weeks there, bird-watching, walking and generally sightseeing.  Accommodation is plentiful, there’s something for everyone’s budget and the quality is high.  The only busy months are June, July and August, the rest of the time there are very few people around.  Most of the tourists at the weekends are Medanese, looking for a bit of coolness out of the city.

Tuk Tuk, Samosir

Bukit Lawang – we didn’t trek here but it’s still a lovely place to visit and we saw a Thomas Leaf Monkey by the river.  We met others who had gone to Ketambe to trek and had really enjoyed the experience, but it’s a hell of a place to get to.

Thomas Leaf Monkey

Despite everything I’ve said previously, the people have been amazing.  Tourism has slumped in Indonesia (Sumatra particularly) over the past 15 years (I’m still trying to find out why, the Bali bombing and the general economic climate perhaps, also Indonesia’s neighbours are possibly perceived as better value) and so I do understand the novelty value of seeing tourists, particularly older tourists on bicycles, but it’s difficult to shake off my knee-jerk reaction. 

We’ve met some inspiring teachers who are so keen their students learn English (because they recognise the importance to raise themselves out of village life) they stop tourists on the side of the road and beseech them to tell them how they can make teaching their 8 year olds English more interesting and to make them see the importance of such a life skill.  Another, who brings his students once a month, on an 8 hour round trip, to find tourists so that his students can practice their English, having only done theory in the classroom.  Such dedication.

A teacher trying to find ways of inspiring his young students

Seventeen year olds practicing their English

Sumatra is not for the feint-hearted, it’s certainly not a destination for new tourers.  We didn’t cover much of Sumatra as we wanted to spend time in the places we visited, however, the places we went to we loved.  Sumatra is HUGE and unlike a lot of SEA the going is difficult overland so people tend to fly everywhere, a bit like South America in that respect.  The overland routes are difficult because most of the roads are through mountainous jungle.  If the route is busy (Medan to Lake Toba) the pollution is terrible plus, the roads can be narrow and therefore dangerous for cyclists.  I fell off on the road to Berastagi, straight into the middle of the road, luckily the traffic stopped to allow me to get up but they used their klaxon horns to good effect while I was doing it.  I’ve heard people say they think Asia is ‘boring’ and ‘samey’, and to a certain extent I understand those comments having spent the last 4 months cycling here.  But Sumatra changes that perception completely.  We’ve heard from others that the north (Aceh) is interesting culturally and if you are looking for great surf the west coast is supposed to be superb.

On the road to Bukittinggi

Indonesia needs lots of rice

In the spirit of trying to keep it ‘real’ I’ve tried to be as honest as possible.  I’m not a man-hater, honestly, but these are my observations based on my own personal experiences.  Would I recommend Sumatra?  Yes, in a heart beat.  What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, as they say.

Laters