Sunday, March 6, 2016

It was finally time to load up the bike and head into the interior of Sumatra. I’d delayed so long that my tourist visa was about to expire again. It’s a bit of a pain that the extensions are for only 30 days. In a normal world, I’d just return to the Tanjungbalai immigration office to get the extension, but they’d made it pretty clear that they would make it as difficult as possible for me. So the plan was to head for an immigration office in a town called Siantar (also called Pematangsiantar). Siantar is only about 100 kilometers away. But I knew not to take those 100 kilometers lightly. You can’t just hop on the bike after a long rest and expect to ride 100 kilometers on these roads and in this heat.

Luckily, I’d gotten to know a very nice man from Singapore who was living in the nearby town of Kisaran. His name is Al, and I’d met him at the Tanjungbalai immigration office on one or two occasions. Al is married to an Indonesian woman and settled down in Kisaran. He has some kind of business back in Singapore, but he also does a few things here in Kisaran. He loves songbirds, and he has a songbird shop. He also sells chicken feed out of that shop. He also has a small plantation where he grows different crops.

I’d been in touch with Al from time to time. I thought it would be nice to visit him in Kisaran as I passed through. A couple of times, I’d delayed my departure, but this time I definitely had to leave. Luckily, Al was going to be in town, and we arranged that I would come to his bird shop to meet him there. I got directions from a Google Maps link on his shop’s Facebook page.

My departure from the Asahan Hotel was a bit anti-climactic. The problem was that I’d talked about leaving on a number of occasions, and then I’d changed my mind and stayed longer. So I didn’t want to announce my departure again. I decided to wait until it actually happened. Also, when I announced my departure before, there was a flurry of activity on the part of the hotel staff to ask me for money. It was a bit confusing because the message was delivered through another guest, and the message was that so-and-so wanted a “dollar”. I thought perhaps he wanted a souvenir US dollar, and I don’t have any US currency like that. In any event, I decided to pretend that’s what he meant, and I said that I didn’t have any dollars to give him.

I didn’t do much packing on the night before. I only had to ride at most 30 kilometers to Kisaran, and I figured I could spend the morning packing at my leisure and then leave at noon. That would still give me plenty of time to get to Kisaran. Besides, I lacked the energy to really pack. I was tired of thinking about my gear and how to pack it. I needed the burst of motivation that would come with actually leaving. I had intended to leave the day before, but for some reason I wasn’t able to sleep. I just lay there for hours and hours and I could not fall asleep. So I was exhausted in the morning, and had no energy to pack and leave. Luckily, I was able to get some sleep on the following night, and I got out of bed around 7 a.m. and started getting ready to leave.

Packing really wasn’t that hard. I put all my valuables into one pannier bag—my Survival Kit—as usual. My camera and lenses went into a second pannier bag. Everything else went into the trailer. I had to do some fussing to pack things properly, but it wasn’t a big deal. I haven’t really even used the trailer yet, so I haven’t devised a system. But the trailer is so big that you don’t have to be careful to make things fit. There is tons of room for everything. You can just toss everything in. I just have to be careful to do it so that things don’t get broken.

I’m obsessed with packing properly. I know it’s stupid, but I can’t help myself. I think about it all the time. In this case, I’m constantly reviewing my decision to buy the trailer. I gave it a lot of thought beforehand, and I made lists of all the pros and cons of using the trailer as opposed to pannier bags. But you just don’t know until you really do something. One problem is that the cons for pannier bags are somewhat conceptual. By using the trailer, I don’t have much weight on the bike, and that might mean I won’t break any spokes or bend rims or get as many flat tires. Using pannier bags puts all the weight on the bike. Add that weight to my body weight and the weight of the water bottles, and spokes can break and flat tires can occur. But this disadvantage is based on something that “might” happen. It’s not definite. Also the disadvantages are all in my mind. I have to conjure them up. The trailer is very real and sitting right there, so its disadvantages are much more apparent. I have to keep reminding myself that pannier bags also have disadvantages. The real problem is all the stuff I’m carrying—not how I’m carrying it.

Anyway, I was ready to go by noon. I’d carried my Cyclone trailer down to the lobby, attached the wheels and tow arm, and hooked it up to the bike. Then I got my two pannier bags and brought them down and put them on the bike. That was it, and I was ready to go. On previous days, I’d cleaned the bike and checked the brakes and gears and made sure everything was shipshape. The staff members of the hotel were a little taken aback that I was actually leaving. I kind of sprung it on them, and so there wasn’t time to make a big deal out of it. Still, they ended up asking me for money. There were only two staff members there. One had asked me for money before. The other one hadn’t. The second one broached the topic this time, and he asked for a “dollar.” I deliberately misunderstood him again and said that I didn’t have any dollars. I knew he was really asking for money, but I felt weird about that. To an extent, I didn’t mind giving them money. However, they didn’t really deserve it, since they never did anything for me. I cleaned my own room. And the one time I asked for some kind of favor—permission to bring my bicycle inside to keep it safe—I was told “no” by the hotel’s unfriendly manager. Still, I was willing to give them money. The problem was that I didn’t know how much. I didn’t want to give too little or too much. I also didn’t want to set a precedent whereby they hassle every single foreigner for money. And I’m not rich. And they have a good job and a salary.

This time, they opened up Google Translate and showed me the translation for an Indonesian word that meant “reward.” I deliberately misunderstood that too, and just shrugged my shoulders and pretended I didn’t understand what they meant. I felt a bit bad, but I felt less bad when they started explaining that they wanted “many, many, many money” and said something about giving it to all their friends. The whole thing was weird, and I didn’t give them any money. We posed for a selfie and then I left.

I wasn’t thinking very clearly during this departure. I was tired, and I had a lot of things on my mind. Because of that, I forgot that they drove on the left side of the road, and I started pedaling right into traffic on the wrong side of the road. Then I corrected myself, and I rode along. It was hard to concentrate because I got so much attention. Lots of people called out greetings, and several people pulled up beside me on their scooters and started asking me the usual questions. It was hard to pedal the bike and make sure the trailer didn’t hit anything while a scooter was right beside me in the middle of crazy traffic. I’d only used the trailer on two other days of cycling, so I wasn’t used to it yet and I had to think about where its wheels were going and how wide it was. But I was really distracted.

Luckily, Al had recommended a shortcut to Kisaran that went down small country roads rather than down the main highway. Even so, there was a lot of crazy traffic to deal with. The road got very narrow and had steep drop-offs at the edge of the pavement. There were also lots of potholes and rough sections. I had to be on my toes at all times. It was not an auspicious start to the days of cycling with a trailer. I dropped the left wheel off the side of the tarmac more often than I’d like. People often pulled up beside me on their scooter and talked with me, and that pushed me to the side and I had problems. I was asked to stop for selfies a few times. People even pulled up ahead of me on their scooters, and a passenger on the back would swing around me and take pictures of me or video me on their cell phones. The driver of the scooter would slow down in order to get as close to me as possible, and I’d have to monitor my speed so that I didn’t run into them and I stayed at the perfect range for them to get their pictures. It was fun, but it also meant that I couldn’t concentrate on the road as much as I needed to.

Navigation was also a problem. Though this problem comes from increased expectations. In the old days, I’d just slap a country map on the front of the bike in a waterproof map case and then go. Navigation was largely a matter of guesswork. I’d count myself lucky if I didn’t end up completely lost. But now I’d gotten to used to the powers of Google Maps and my smart phone’s GPS. I had a route that would take me exactly where I needed to go and right to the door of Al’s bird shop. I was also heading off into the countryside down small rural roads. I would never have been capable of that in the old days. At every single intersection, I’d be left bewildered about which way to go, and I’d have to ask people for help, and no one would be able to help me. To know your position, you’d have to stay on main roads. Now I had the power to go anywhere I wanted.

However, this meant referring to my smart phone frequently, and I couldn’t keep the phone on my handlebars. I had it tucked away inside my pannier bag to keep it safe and dry and cool. To refer to it, I had to pull off to the side and get off my bike. Then I’d open the pannier bag and get out the smart phone. My face would be dripping with sweat and my hands were soaking wet with sweat, so it was hard to keep the moisture off the phone while operating it. Plus, I’d have to turn on the outdoor brightness setting on the phone. Otherwise, I couldn’t see anything. Once I’d found my location and route on the phone, I’d have to then put it away. This is FAR better than in the old days, but it was annoying to have to go through this process each time. I knew this would be a problem. I had a huge problem using my phone for navigation while riding in Malaysia. And so I’ve been thinking about buying a cheap second phone to use for navigation. I could put it on the bike’s handlebars without worrying about it. Or I could buy a dedicated GPS unit. That is probably what I will end up doing.

I arrived in Kisaran in good time. Unfortunately, the location of Al’s bird shop was not entered correctly into Google Maps. My GPS and smart phone had worked perfectly, but it brought me to the wrong location. Again, the smart phone saved the day. I sent Al a message and I included a photograph of the street where I was. He recognized the spot instantly and he hopped on his scooter and came to get me. It’s amazing what a smart phone can do.

I followed Al back to his shop. It was located on the street I was on but about 2 or 3 kilometers away. I was not in good shape when we finally got there. I was drenched in sweat. My clothes were sopping wet. The sun had been unbearably intense the entire day. I was also a bit tired from the ride itself. My hands were shaking from the effort, and I found it difficult to have even a simple conversation. It was made more difficult by the loud singing of all the birds in Al’s shop.

His shop was smaller than I expected, and I learned from Al that the songbird business was really more of a hobby. The shop made most of its money from selling chicken feed and other farming products. Plus, his main business was back in Singapore. Despite the heat and my fatigue, I had a great afternoon with Al. It’s amazing how much easier life becomes when you know a local person and they speak the local language. On my own, I’d be struggling to find food, struggling to find a place to stay, and just plain struggling. But Al’s wife gave me lunch. She prepared a plate of rice and fish plus a big bowl of soup. I had my usual trouble eating the fish. I just don’t understand the appeal of fish. There are simply too many bones. I end up with mouthfuls of small bones and I have to work hard to get them out of my mouth or I’ll choke on them. It takes me forever to eat fish. It ends up not being worth the effort, and I never get fish when I’m on my own. The fish and some other dishes were also quite spicy. We’ll see how that affects my digestive system…

The soup was also a surprise. It looked to be a simple vegetable soup, and I greedily slurped up the broth and crunched through the carrots, potatoes and cauliflower. But then I heard something really hard go “clink” inside the bowl. I investigated with my spoon and found a whole crab inside the soup. I guess this is a delicacy and considered delicious. But I really didn’t know what to do with it. I don’t know how to eat a crab when it is on a plate let alone inside a bowl of soup. In the end, I just left it in the bowl. I drank all the broth and ate all the veggies, but I left the crab at the bottom. I hoped that Al’s wife wouldn’t be offended. I was going to explain that I didn’t know how to eat crab, but the opportunity never came up.

Al helped me out in a number of ways all afternoon. Al and his brother-in-law and I hopped into Al’s SUV and we drove into downtown Kisaran to find a cheap hotel. The brother-in-law knew exactly where to go. In rapid succession we went to two hotels. They both had rooms for 60,000 rupiah—the same price as I was paying in Tanjungbalai. The second hotel seemed the better option, and we went inside to check out the room. I was amazed at how nice this place was. They had a huge underground parking area for scooters and cars. It was the perfect place to ride my bike into and then park it. Super convenient. The lobby area was modern and clean and nice. The prices were all posted. The clerks were very professional. The cheapest room (with shared bath and fan) went for 60,000. A similar room with a private bathroom went for 80,000. I said I wanted the 60,000 rupiah room, but the clerk showed me an 80,000 room first. I think they do this on purpose, and it almost always works. Once I saw the big comfortable room and the bathroom, the extra 20,000 rupiah seemed like money well spent, and I got that room.

After checking in, we piled back into Al’s SUV and went back to his shop. Once there, we hopped on scooters and drove around for a little tour. We went to the river and checked out the little non-motorized barge that ferries motorcycles and bicycles across. It costs 1,000 rupiah. We then went to see Al’s plantation. It’s interesting. He owns a large piece of land and has hired a man to plant and harvest his crops. But instead of paying him a salary, he lets him grow his own crops on some of the land. So his payment for working all the land is getting to use a portion of it as his own. It’s a good arrangement for Al. He is currently growing tapioca. I probably knew how tapioca grew already, but I’d forgotten. Anyway, tapioca consists of the roots of the plant. It takes seven months for a tapioca bush or tree to grow to maturity. Then they pull it up and get the roots. It’s kind of like growing potatoes. I snacked on some raw tapioca, and it was pretty good. Al said that people in Indonesia lived on tapioca during World War II when it was too difficult to grow rice.

While we were doing this, Al and I chatted about my need to extend my tourist visa in Siantar. Al suggested that his wife might act as my sponsor. We could print out the papers right now and she’d sign them and then I could try to use them in Siantar. That was wonderful news, and I took him up on the offer. Al had his own computer and he opened up my file with Rea’s sponsorship papers. He changed the info to his wife’s info. Then we went to a stationery shop and printed them out and bought the tax stamps. His wife signed the papers and we were done. Hopefully it will work.

Since I (hopefully) had sponsorship papers lined up in advance, I decided to stay in Kisaran for another night. I wasn’t ready to get back on the bike so soon. My first day—yesterday—nearly did me in. And I wanted a day to decompress and relax. I’ve been following the blog of a cyclist who is also here on Sumatra. He didn’t spend much time on the island – perhaps two weeks – but he never stayed in a hotel. He camped out in his tent every night. I honestly have no idea how anyone can do that. I rode for 30 kilometers yesterday and I was a TOTAL wreck. My clothes were soaked with sweat. I was burned alive by the sun. I was exhausted. I was sore. I was mentally on edge and stressed out. I couldn’t imagine how you sleep in your tent at that point and then wake up the next morning and keep cycling. I’m staying in a very nice hotel with my own bathroom, and I’m still barely holding it together. I need an entire day just to recover. How do you camp out night after night and survive? I did it long ago while cycling in Canada. It’s possible there because you remain cool and dry. But in this muggy heat, it’s really hard to keep it together.

I am currently 90 kilometers away from Siantar. My plan is to spend one day here in Kisaran relaxing. Then on Monday, I’ll ride to a town called Lima Puluh. It’s about 40 kilometers away. And on Tuesday, I’ll ride the remaining 50 kilometers to Siantar. Depending on how early I start, I could go to immigration on Tuesday afternoon. But more likely, I’ll go there on Wednesday morning. And if things work out well, I should be able to get my extension.

The hotel, by the way, is called the Hotel Cahaya Asahan. It’s a very large hotel. Much larger than I expected. It’s several steps up from the Asahan Hotel in Tanjungbalai. My room is about four times larger and has its own big and clean bathroom. There is even a TV and a telephone and a big double bed with a good mattress and nice sheets. It’s also perfectly quiet. My room in Tanjungbalai was right on the main street and the roar of motorcycle engines was non-stop. Plus, the walls only went partway to the ceiling with screen between it and the hallways and the other rooms, so all the noise came in from everywhere. And cigarette smoke. I’ve become extremely sensitive to cigarette smoke. Even the smallest amount makes my eyes burn and my throat close up and become sore. And everyone here smokes. So when they smoked in their room or on the balcony, the smoke went directly into my room and I was hit with it hard. This room in the Hotel Cahaya Asahan is completely sealed with concrete walls and no smoke or noise gets in. I’d gotten so used to the noise in Tanjungbalai that the quiet here seemed very strange.

That isn’t to say that it is all peaches and cream. One weird thing about buildings in Indonesia is that they rarely have windows. They build them with solid concrete walls. The only ventilation to the outside world comes through tiny round portholes. My room has three such portholes. Each one is about five inches across. The problem is that these hotels are designed with air conditioning in mind. So the rooms are completely sealed. When you get a room without air conditioning—mine has just a fan—it’s very hot and muggy. There is no air flow at all. Another problem is that the air conditioned rooms are the best ones, so they are on the first and second floors. When you want a fan-only room, you are relegated to the upper floors. So I had to walk up very long and very steep and very narrow sets of stairs to get up here. No elevator, of course. Carrying my Cyclone trailer up those steps was not easy. It started me thinking again about the relative advantages and disadvantages of pannier bags. It would be easier to carry pannier bags even if it meant taking more trips. But maybe not. Here’s how it went:

I left from Al’s bird shop around 5:00 or 5:30. It was an easy straight shot of 3 kilometers to downtown Kisaran and my hotel for the night. But it was not that easy just getting out of Al’s driveway. This is something I’ve noticed about the trailer very quickly. It’s like having a camper trailer on your car. Suddenly, backing up and maneuvering is not so easy anymore. I had pulled into Al’s driveway front first. In the meantime, a bunch of scooters had parked around and behind me. Now I had to back out of that position. And I had no idea how to do it. I guess it will get easier over time, but pushing the bike backwards and making the trailer go where you want it to go is not easy. You also can’t make very tight turns. It was pretty awkward.

When I got to the hotel, I was able to ride right into the underground parking lot. That was great. Then I unhooked the two pannier bags and carried them up to my room on the third floor. The stairs were so narrow and steep that even that wasn’t easy. Then I went back down for the trailer. In theory, you can unhook the trailer with one hand easily. But that’s assuming everything is clean and your hands are dry. My hands were drenched with dirt and sweat, and one-handed removal was impossible. I had to use both hands, and even then it wasn’t easy. Then I had to move the wheels to the back position. This turns the trailer into a fancy luggage cart and you can wheel it around by hand. Unfortunately, I had one of the axle holes blocked with the mounting system for the flag. I didn’t use the flag, but the mount was still in place. And this mount is not well designed or something. It is extremely difficult to remove it and then get it to lock back into place. I really had to struggle with that. So the easy and quick moving of the wheels from the middle position to the rear position wasn’t as easy as it was supposed to be.

Then I rolled the trailer through the doorways and down the hallway to the bottom of the stairs. That, at least, went smoothly. And it was much easier than it would have been to carry pannier bags plus the tent and sleeping bag. Also, when I went up to the room with the first set of pannier bags, I wasn’t worried about the trailer. No one was going to steal it, and the bag was locked with one simple padlock. Had I been using pannier bags, I would have been worried about the safety and security of the bags I left behind.

I suppose I could have picked up the entire trailer with the wheels still attached, but I decided to go slowly and I removed the wheels and the tow arm. Then I carried the trailer bag up the stairs. I went back down for the wheels and the tow arm. That meant I had made three trips up the stairs instead of two. So the trailer didn’t have an advantage in that. Anyway, it’s not clear yet whether I prefer the trailer or pannier bags. The trailer seemed to cause a lot of trouble yesterday, but pannier bags would have caused an equal amount of trouble if not more trouble. That trouble could have gone up to and including the bike falling over, the front wheel spinning around from all the weight, snapping the kickstand from the weight of the bike and bags, the hassle of attaching all those pannier bags and other bags with bungy cords, broken spokes, bent rims, flat tires, and theft.

Another big advantage to the trailer is that I could put in oddly shaped items. While in Tanjungbalai, I purchased a lightweight plastic kettle. It is extremely useful for making coffee and instant noodles and instant oatmeal. I love it to pieces. With pannier bags, I couldn’t bring it with me even though it is so light. But it was no problem putting it into the trailer. There was lots of room for it. So the debate goes on.

Once I settled into my room, I took all of my clothes off and gave them several rinses in fresh water to wash out all the dirt and sweat. I didn’t bother to use soap. Just rinsing it was enough. I strung a rope across the room to use as a clothesline and I hung up all my wet clothes to dry. I was still full from lunch—my crab and fish lunch—and I just had a cheese sandwich for dinner. I wasn’t in the mood to go outside and look for real food. An hour or so reading a book on my Kindle, and I was ready for bed. I was exhausted by that point, but I had had a good day. It was a stroke of luck that Al was in town, and he helped me out so much that it made my day extremely nice.

 

 

Tags: Sumatra Part 01