Tag Archives: Indonesia

Day 196

We didn’t do squat. We attempted to do our writing for the blog but ended up doing our own “research.”

Cher, intrigued by Captain Phillips, began researching the reality of Somali pirates and I began looking into options for building our own house. Cher discovered that piracy is not just a couple of bandits, but a business involving entire communities. With financiers, hostage release negotiators, home contact businesses, which allow you to let your families know you are alive, and khat dealers, the psychoactive plant chewed by the pirates which supply the drug on loan, are dependent upon the income produced by the ransom.

I discovered that cob houses are best made for warm climates because the thermal mass transmits the cold from outside, requiring a constant source of radiant heat from inside to stay warm, i.e. a fire. And that traditional timber frame building, despite not having changed in the last 100 years is the best option financially and even environmentally, in the long run. Environmentally because of the amount of energy they can save after they are built. Stick houses are simple to build, easy to insulate, and are easier to resell after they are built. Here are two small houses that got my attention:

Rest days and procrastination. Sounds more like a work week and less like a world cyclng tour.

Day 195

Cher flew to Singapore at 7am in the morning and made me jealous by eating a burger on a croissant at Burger King in Singapore airport. She made it up to me by bring back a box of Dunkin Donuts in the evening.

I tested out our new Ukulele and mailed some postcards, and a package to my grandma. Oh and I slept in until 10. It’s funny that the habits and routines which made us the responsible people we were when we had jobs don’t just disappear without the jobs. We have regular schedules, go to bed on time, wake up early, study, read, and write. The only difference between now and then is that we have a lot less possessions, and spend 5-6 hours exercising everyday. Oh and we drink less.

Day 194

We love each other dearly and that is why we have rationalized the expense of a ukulele. Humans need diversions. I’ve read that modern society couldn’t exist without alcohol, but alcohol is expensive. As a healthy outlet we splurged and bought a uke. We both spent a good amount of time playing and singing for our own enjoyment while we were at home, and we couldn’t resist the numerous uke sightings along the way. For now we have plenty of internet diversions but with the prospect of spending the majority of next year in a tent, we invested in a musical instrument. We decided to not buy a cheap toy and found a decently priced concert ukulele with a solid body, laminate top, and quality tuners for 38 USD. If I practice enough a youtube video is forthcoming.

Serenade me!

Day 193

While western tourists are sucking down beers at mid day, surfing and laying by the pool, I got to work finishing up the maintenance on the trikes.

Cher has been wrestling with her shifters, sometimes having to use both hands to get it to shift. She has been stoic in dealing with her shifters and even suggested that she could just go with 7 gears since that all her derailleur would reach to with the current set up, and not use the two highest gears. However, having unreliable components compounds all the other day to day stresses on the road. Instead of returning the shifters, I went in search of a rear derailleur. A little research showed that Shimano rear derailleurs use a 2:1 ratio. I returned to Build a Bike, and found a Shimano Acera 9-speed derailleur from 2012 for10 USD, half the price on Amazon. It is the cheaper model but it works well. With regular maintenance it should last for the next year and longer. We will mail the extra parts back to Cher’s parents in China and I will use them to build another bike with horizontal handlebars.

In the end I replaced both of Cher’s shifter cable housings and my own fraying cables, both front and back. Both trikes are now shifting smoothly. I spent more than I wanted to, but our trikes are our sole source of transportation for the next year. More importantly as my high school Latin teacher used to remind us, if mama bear ain’t happy than neither is pappa bear. Thanks Mr. Kuprion.

Day 192

Today I arrived promptly at immigration, visited the customer service desk, filled out my form, and took a ticket to have my form reviewed. I also managed to dress more like the princess and less like a go-go dancer, obeying the official dress code for visiting the immigration office.

Official dress code for Indonesia Immigration Office: princess OK, Rihanna not OK

An officer checked my form, took my passport and gave me a receipt to return and pay 3 business days later. I misunderstood and tried to pay then and the officer at the payment counter told me to get a ticket. I got my ticket, waited 15 minutes, and was then told I had to return to pay on the 28th. I have no idea why you have to pay later. Maybe it’s a ruse to get you to opt for the more expensive expedited service.

While I filled out my form, I witnessed a man from Spain being rejected because he waited to the last day to renew his visa. They require that you renew your visa at least 7 days before your expiration date. The immigration officer politely told him, I’m sorry you have to leave. He was stunned and asked, the office? No, the country, she replied. Indonesia is quite strict on this and will fine you 200,000 IDR, or 17 USD per day for overstaying your visa and bar you from re-entering the country. We would leave at our leisure which will which gave me time to finish my repairs on the trikes.

There was a reason I was making my 3rd trip in heavy traffic to an overpriced bike shop. In the past 6 months, I’ve had to replace Cher’s completely corroded cable twice, while I still have my original cables even though I regularly rode in the rain before we set off. I am using bar end shifters and Cher is using twist grips. I’ve come to the conclusion that Twist grip shifters when mounted vertically funnel water into the cable housing and dirt into the shifter. Tired of oiling, adjusting and cleaning them, I’ve been searching for another set of bar end shifters, and today I finally found a set at a well stocked shop in Kuta called Build a Bike. Without hesitation I bought them and only realized I paid about 1/3 more than they are worth when I returned to the hotel and did my research online. Then after setting them up I realized that Cher’s rear derailleur, an S-Ram X-7, has a 1:1 ratio meaning if I move the shifter 1 cm than the derailleur moves 1 cm. In short the new bar end shifter was not compatible with the old derailleur.

Balloon tire snow bike at Build a Bike

I spent all day testing whether it was the component or my mechanical ability. First testing her shifters on my trike then mine on hers. I spent 5 hours hunched over our trikes today and decided I would finish tomorrow.

Day 191

BIMC Hospital in Kuta is one of authorized penal physicians to take and review chest x-ray for Australia visa application. We showed up on time, and found a very clean modern hospital filled with only tourist patients. A local told me it costs 10 million Indonesian Rupiah or 860 US dollars per day to receive in-patient treatment there. He expected me to be astonished by this but I told him, that’s about normal for the United States, he was astonished. Our x-rays cost 560,000 IDR each (48 USD), that included the doctors inspection and communicating the results to Australian Immigration. All we had to do was wait for now. So we moved on to extend our Indonesian visas at the immigration office near the airport.

We have discovered that most Indonesian government services are not easy to navigate. The government webpage will onoy reveal a web address with nothing there and a twitter account with an incorrect physical address, (they added an extra space), which I found unsearchable. A search for “Imigrasi”, or immigration on Google Maps will give you the old location at the airport, (I added a review there to help people out). I ended up asking for directions at a local Travel Agency and we were directed to the new immigration office. The new office is listed as a government building on Google maps as “Ka 0849”.

New immigration office in Kuta

Once inside the building, you should go straight to the customer service desk. You will get your visa extension application forms here, which are in English. Then take the ticket from the machine and wait for your number being called. Cher was told that since her visa on arrival was free she can not get it renewed. Cher would have to do a visa run to renew her visa. I was told I would need proof of departure, such as an airline ticket. For expedited service the cost is 700,000 IDR, while normal service which requires 3 trips over 8 days. Expedited service fees differ depending on the location and we have read that it’s only 400,000 IDR in Mataram, on Lombok. We would have loved to go to Mataram but the location of the Hospital and the only available times for our x-rays meant we would be staying here in touristy Kuta for a while.

We originally intended to island hop to East Timor and fly from there. However, having no idea how long it would take to process our Australia visas nor exactly how long it would take to get to East Timor, since ferry schedules show that the ferry we would need from Bima to Kupang only runs twice per month. I realized it would be best if we flew from here.

Cher had to leave the country and re-enter to extend her stay in Indonesia. The cheapest flight was to Singapore and it would be a 2 and half hour flight one way. It was a huge expense and we paid for our crappy research. On the bright side our change in plans will make up for the difference in cost. We have decided to visit Gili Meno, an island off of Lombok, for 2 weeks and then fly from Bali, instead of island hopping to East Timor.

Flights from East Timor to Darwin cost 288 USD, not including excess baggage fees, while our total cost, including tax, fees and extra baggage from Bali to Darwin is just 163 USD. Cher’s round trip to Singapore was 150 USD. Our total travel costs are just slightly more than one ticket from East Timor, and this doesn’t include the long ferry ride we would have taken. We won’t see some of the least inhabited islands of Indonesia, but we also won’t have to rush before we start the next leg of our journey. Most importantly I think we were both ready to move on and two weeks on a sparely inhabited island without any mechanized travel is right about what we need at this moment. This also puts us in Australia at the right time. Any earlier and we would have ended up in the Blue Mountains, outside of Sydney in the dead of winter. Everything seems to have worked out for the best, as has the majority of our travels over the last 6 months. It’s hard to believe that we may spend as long as another year on the road.

Day 190

If we thought that Ubud was crowded, then we were little prepared for Kuta. The little 2 lane country road soon became a 4 lane highway when we got close to Kuta. But in some ways it was better. The highway is divided so there is less chance of cars and motorbikes swerving head on into traffic and for much of the road there is a shoulder. For the first time we were seeing fast food restaurants, big grocery stores, and shopping centers advertising name brand surf ware. Many of the streets are lines with bars, massage parlors and restaurants catering to westerners. Just like that, 30kms away, we were in a different world.

Searching for a hotel near the hospital where we would get chest x-ray for Australia visa and the immigration office for our Indonesia visa extension, we stopped at a couple of places that also catered to western surfing clientel and found that they were overpriced fan rooms. Wandering a bit farther into a maze of streets off the main drag, we wandered into a hotel called Zuk, with mainly local guests. Since we were staying for 4 days, we got a room with air-conditioning, hot-water, very good wi-fi and buffet breakfast for 250,000 IDR (about 21 USD). We also have a little pool. Some healthy competition really drives the price down.

Star fruit tree

One of the difficult things about cycle touring in a vacation spot is that most things you would love to have become too expensive for the tight budget. Burgers, beers, and drinks are only a couple dollars each and people are wolfing them down. They are on vacation, throwing caution to wind, worrying about their diets and wallets another day. It’s a lot of temptation. We broke down and splurged on some pizza today, 2 USD for a 30 cm pie. We got two pizzas, plus 2 sodas for 60,000 IDR, 3 times as much as our regular meal from local warung. After all, we can’t watch Game of Thrones where grizzly men wolfing down legs of lamb with mugs of ale and flagons of wine, while we eat fried noodles and sip hot green tea.

Ready for GoT

Day 189

At our friend Topi’s advice, we decided to move into an extremely cheap hostel 10km away. In a shared bedroom with 10 bunk beds, a bed only costs 50,000 IDR. Two of us could share a bed since the bed is big enough. It’s even cheaper if you stay long term.

This place is perfect if you are a young traveler in your early twenties or younger. The location is great. It’s off the beaten path, with easy access to cheap local food and groceries. On either side of the building is a local village and behind it is just jungle. Inside the building there is a communal kitchen and several spaces dedicated to making art. They do offer programs and work with the local children making chocolate or crafts, so there are many positives.

However, it’s not exactly filthy but it’s not really clean by any standard. I’m not exactly a clean freak, and just 2 years ago I used a “communal towel” – a random towel that some one left in a mountain hut in France. But there are places where I have to draw the line. Our sheets were clean, but our comforter smelled like sweaty clothes left in a locker, and the same with my pillow and mattress. It was bad enough that we decided to skip the comforter even the night was cold. Although we really couldn’t complain when they only charge 50,000 IDR per bed.

Cher is generally not keen on hippies. A sign in the common room next to a bottle of antibacterial shampoo and body wash reads, “who is using this shit! It not only kills bad bacteria but good bacteria too. It is forbidden in this house!” This sign coming from someone that smokes cigarettes, drinks beers, and not really cares about logic. The last straw for her was a slogan painted in the shared bedroom which reads “Imagination is better than knowledge.” It annoys me too.

The owners are extremely gentle people. We met the 9-year old son of the owner, and I said that his uniform for school looked comfy, not realizing it was his gym uniform. He casually informed me that he had to wear it because his regular uniform was still in the laundry pile, and that sometimes he had to takes “holidays” from school because he didn’t have a clean uniform. It reminds me of a quote from The Dot and the Line. The dot falls out of love with the squiggle, “And suddenly she realized that what she thought was freedom and joy was nothing but anarchy and sloth.” We may be too much line and not enough squiggle.

Cher and I discussed the great potential that place has. They have a lot of nice space and the house is very well built. With very little money they could hire a local cleaning crew, or offer residents a discounted rate in exchange for cleaning duty. That’s all they would need. Then again that might be too capitalistic and not jibe with the communal free spirit. We decided to leave it for the free spirited twenty somethings and moved on.

Day 188

With a little research online I found a bike shop in Ubud. Cher and I walked the 2.5 km to get there, hoping that this wouldn’t be another false lead. The bike shop was there. It was a local bike shop and a hive of industry. In the small gated entryway, 3 men were assembling, disassembling and painting bikes. With heaps of used parts they allowed me to scrounge around until I found an old mountain bike tension shifter. They found another one and for 22,000 IDR I had some parts to at least give Cher more than 3 gears.

Back to the hotel, I hooked it the new shifter and was only able to get 7 speeds out of it. But 21 gears is better than 3 and Cher seemed quite happy with it. Even though it was probably from the 80’s, it was easier on her small sweaty hands than her twist grips. I would really like to find a pair of bar end shifters for her, but I had been in at least a ten shops and haven’t seen a pair.

We also met a lovely couple, Joe and Marilyn, from Christchurch who were attracted by our trikes, they assured we would have no problem in finding local people hosting us for the night. We walked around the town together and coincidentally ran into a royal wedding ceremony.

Our friend Topi, whom we met on the ferry from Batam to Jakarta was also in Bali, and he was staying at a hippie community boarding house right around the corner from us. Cher spotted him on the road as we walked back to our hotel from the bike shop and flagged him down. It was good to see him again. Some people you just met somehow feel like you’ve known for years and Topi falls into this category. He had just returned from Gili Meno, a small sparsely populated island off the coast off Lombok that Cher and I will visit as soon as we get our Indonesia visa extension. We invited him over and utilized our porch and finally got to be the noisy tourists sucking down big cold beers. Much to my relief, the Finnish can get loud when they drink, so I wasn’t the only noisy American.

Day 187

A long climb always means a long descent. Since we were still in the crater of the volcano we would have a short climb out before our long descent.

Ready for the downhills ahead!

On our way out Cher’s rear shifter locked up again, and I had to manually tighten her rear derailleur into the highest gear, leaving her only her 3 front gears. Fortunately for almost 30kms we descended.The scenery is this regions as we made our descent and crossed over to Ubud was beautiful. Terraced fields that although man made gave a feeling of organic evolution. I imagine that many of them have occupied the same area for hundreds of years, slowly bending and rising to their current configuration.

We passed multiple fruit stalls and stopped for a durian. When I first tasted it 5 years ago I was repulsed by the smell. When I met Cher in NYC she had stored some in our fridge and I thought it was rotten chicken, now I become to love it. As we ate it I asked if this was something different. It couldn’t be the fruit who’s smell almost made me wretch. She assured me it was the same. After 4 years of living in Hong Kong and smelling it regularly I have become accustomed to it. It was juicy, fruity and full of flavor.

We eventually had to cut east to reach Ubud and we we met some lightly rolling hills and flats. Cher had to peddle like a maniac to maintain a speed of 12 kph. In support I pretended my trike was afflicted with the same problem, but after 10 km of spinning I couldn’t keep up with Cher and I had to cheat by shifting gears.

Making our way into town we hit a traffic jam, not even a scooter could squeeze through. We never imagined that this town would be so crowded. We were in the low season and many people give this town a glowing review. Being the art and culture center of Bali, the streets were lined with art galleries, fashion stores, wook carving workshops bearing local culture signature.

Soon we turned off on a side street, and Cher’s research paid off. The hotel she chose, Rumah Roda Homestay, was a quiet little sanctuary off the beaten path. Our room had a lovely little porch with a large couch to lounge on. Our bed was a large 4 poster with a bug net stretched over top. The large tiled bathroom looked out over the rooftops and was open to the outside. Although there was no air-conditioning we were able to open the windows at night and since the room was in the shade most of the day, the concrete kept the temperature cool even in the afternoon. This was the most homey place we had stayed in a while and our deep sleep that night confirmed it.

Day 186

My original plan for crossing the island was through Lake Batur then heading south. However, after reading many negative reviews on the region (accommodations are pricey, the lake water is murky, etc.) we decided to cut across from Singaraja, which will take us to Lake Buyan and Lake Beratan. From Lovina, Ubud was only 80 km away.

As soon as we started heading south, it was continuously uphill. We were inching forwards in the heavy traffic, hoping it would be less crowded once we were in the mountains. I was in high spirit, enjoying the tropical garden view along the way.

Before noon it was hot, but later we climbed towards a rain storm. Unfortunately my twist shift gear decided to go on a strike and refused to give me the easiest gear anymore. We made several stops trying to fix it, but in the end I settled for not shifting once I managed to get into the easiest gear. Good news was the uphill was not gonna end anytime soon.

It started raining soon after we put on our bag covers. The rain provided temporary relief from the heat, but before long the gentle cooling rain turned into horrendous downpour. The climb was unreasonably steep, at several points I couldn’t help but cursing the engineer who planned the route. And much to our dismay, the traffic didn’t lighten up at all. So here we were, peddling on a very steep climb at the speed of 3kph in a storm, with cars, scooters, trucks trying to go around us on narrow roads. When we looked back, we could see the sunny coast where we came from. How I miss the sun now!

Heading into the storm.

Mountain stream? Looked like a perfect dumping spot for me!

20kms in, every turn started to look like the end of ascent, but we were disappointed every time. We were completely drenched, cold, tired and hungry. We stopped at a roadside snack shop, and all they had for a meal were instant noodles. I was ready to settle for the cup of noodles, but Chopper insisted that at the price of 5,000 rupiah it was a ripoff. So we were back in the rain, with empty growling stomach. Another hour passed and 3km further, we stopped at another snack store. Again, Chopper claimed everything to be overpriced, but I insisted on having a sprite soda for 5,000 rupiah. Either the overpriced soda or I drop dead on the spot, I threatened. We finally settled for some buttered bread and some pastries, and of course I shared my overpriced soda with Chopper. She did try to charge us 10,000 for a 3,500 soda, and even though that’s only a difference of 50 cents in USD.

Another hour later and 3km further, Chopper had to make a coffee stop at a coffee stall. I was not in the mood for stopping in the rain again, but the hot coffee was good for the moral on a climb that seemed never end. (From Chopper point of view: initially Cher didn’t want to stop and refused my offer to buy her her own coffee, but she willingly accepted my offer to share. As long as I served it to her while she moped on her trike in the rain. It was a hard day for both of us.)

At the 28km mark, we finally saw the light at the end of the ascent, which was marked by a mass gathering of fluffy monkeys, it was already 4pm.

Almost there!

Monkeys begging for food.

Luckily the rain stopped, but we still needed to put on our rain jackets to block the wind on the downhill. As we shivered in our wet clothes and our fingers went numb, we swore we would stop at the first hotel with a hot shower and not care about the budget. The first hotel we stopped at was cheap, but had no hot water. We turned to the other down the road, which upon initial inquiry was 1,000,000 IDR per night. After some bargaining, we could get a discounted room for 300,000 IDR. When we were showed the room, it was a fancy cottage overlooking the lake. In the hot tropical weather carpeting was a bad idea and along with an indoor fireplace, the room smelt like wet burned wood and mould. We turned away and kept on searching. It was getting dark and another hotel sign lead us onto an unpaved bumpy road. It didn’t take us long to give up searching and go back to the cheap hotel without hot water.

Most of the time, the cold water is warm enough to shower with in Southeast Asia countries. However, this was not the case with the cold water on the mountain top. The tap water was icy cold, and we were already shivering and numb from our wet clothes we had been wrapped in all day. We went to bed that night without a shower and neither of us had the energy to wash our clothes. What happened to our swearing that we would find a nice hotel with hot shower? We are more dedicated to our budget than we know.

Day 185

Waking up fully rested, we were served our breakfast on our porch. We were very glad that we stuck it out after the struggle in Java. Now we were eager to press on and see more of Bali.

We were treated with more stunning views on the road again. We only encountered heavy traffic when we were getting closer to Lovina, apparently a touristy destination.

We stopped at a guesthouse to check out the room. A simple but clean beach front cottage cost only 150,000 IDR, but when we looked at the beach we understood why the place was empty – garbage scattered around on the narrow beach, sewage pipes sticking out the adjacent building; the watered was scattered with garbage and covered with a sickly coating of algae along the shore. How could they build so many “romantic” beachfront getaways but have no time to clean up the garbage?

When I went further to find another cheap guesthouse, Chopper was harassed by a local who tried to sell him tour packages. After his overly nice greetings, the local then went on boasting how fun the snorkeling off the coast could be. Chopper first responded that we couldn’t afford the 400,000 IDR per person snorkeling tour, but then guy wouldn’t have none of that kept on selling trying to convince him he could snorkel in front of the hotel. Eventually Chopper had to drop the sugar coating on the matter: “We saw the water and it’s filthy. All the sewage and garbage go directly into the water.” Knowing this was a fact, he ceased his sales pitch and walked away .

After we settled in a cheap guesthouse, we went out to find some grub. Restaurants were so expensive that one dish would easily cost as much as a meal for two from a local warung. We decided to walk further away from the tourist trap, and found a road side stall selling nasi bungkus (originally wrapped in banana leaf packages but nowadays wax brown paper, it is a mixture of rice and various dishes such as chicken, vegetables and roasted coconut) for 10,000 rupiah each. Later we found out we still got charged with tourist price for the nasi bungkus, as the usual price is only 5,000 rupiah for one package. It was very hard to be mad, since the meal was very tasty, and two over charged packages cost exactly the same as 2 fried eggs from a restaurant.