Riding overseas: Bali

[Jaxi]

On our overland trip in 2004 / 05, the closer we got to Indonesia the more I was crapping myself about riding through the country as so many people we'd met riding the opposite way to us had said that it was worse than riding in India!

They obviously hadn't ridden a in India yet!

It was great, I loved Indonesia. The riding was a bit dicey in the heavily populated areas of Java, but the rest of the country was fantastic, especially the island of Flores, the island is about 350km long, but the road from one end to the other is about 700km!! (albeit with lots of potholes and frequent landslides and other road blocks!!)

The Indonesians were really laid back and welcoming. One funny experience was when we were in Sumatra, heading towards Parapat to catch the vehicle ferry over to Tuk Tuk. We'd just missed a ferry, but the locals insisted we could tie the bikes down on the front of the passenger ferry and go across on that as it was just about to leave. The captain roped them down so they couldn’t fall into the lake, but didn’t think about them falling inwards. Towards the end of the journey, a large wave hit the boat and Trent’s bike fell over and smashed one of the windows! Fortunately there was no-one sitting near the window at the time! We gave the captain some money to repair the damage - we figured that at US0.50cents per ticket, it would take him a long time to save up to repair the window!

We stopped in Krui one night and made the unfortunate mistake of listening to the locals – They suggested we head further south and cross the mountains at Ngaras instead of the well-known crossing to Liwa. Sounded good to us – according to our map, the crossing would save loads of time and was much shorter than the other way. As it turned out, once we got to Ngaras, the locals said a landslide had blocked the road and we should carry on south around the peninsula. “Is the road OK?” we asked… “Oh Yes… very good road” was the answer, so off we went. After a while our “good road” turned from tarmac to gravel, then a short time later turned to dirt, and shortly after that to mud. We persevered with the mud for a while until we rounded a corner and found a truck bogged up to its axels in ½ metre deep mud. We soon realised there was no way around the truck, and he wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry, so we turned around and went back the way we came. After about 5hrs riding and around 240km’s we were back in Krui again!

A "Must Ride" road in Thailand is the Doi Pukka loop in the north, it's awesomely smooth and curvy and relitively traffic free.

[kevfromcoro]

Was driving down from a place called singaraga...top of bali.it was hot and a jungle area.
Stopped the car and found a pond not far from the road.
Went and had a refreshing wash in the water...as Kiwis do
Got back in the car..and reached for imformation booklet...to see where i was
1st page read.......Do not go near the streams or estrines ,,as they are infected with crocadiles and alligators.

[terbang]

Another reason to love Bali

Hmm 'Ayam'.

[breakaway]

Top thread A++ Would read again

[Jaxi]

Here are a couple of pics relating to my post above.... The bikes on the ferry!! And the road from Krui to.... well um nowhere!

We spent some time along the coast of Java, a town called Pelabuhanrata was pretty cool. It was the furthest we could get along the coast, from there we had to head inland. We stayed at “The Green Room” a surfer hangout, it was nice to have a break from nasi goreng (although all through Indonesia it was awesome!)
We bumped into a couple of Aussies and Kiwis in the bar who lived in the town. They were surfers in their late 40’s who came over 20 years ago and never went home. Their days consisted of eating, drinking and “hanging 10 on the gnarly waves dude”. Apparently when the waves are good, “they’re very very good, and when they’re bad, they’re wicked!” We had a great time with them, Terry took us up to his “house”. It was amazing… built from coconut trees; it consisted of an open-air downstairs area with a small sleeping compartment above. The view out to the sea was awesome, and he had claimed some of the surrounding rice paddies for his own garden. (Veggies, sunflowers, grapes, “special herbs” etc) It was an incredibly serene setting.

It was a bummer to have to head inland, but heading south through Bandung was apparently the best option. The traffic was rubbish, very slow moving, frequent gridlocks, and mile upon mile of city. On top of all that we managed to get disoriented (read: lost) in the city. After getting totally screwed up, we stopped to ask a guy sitting on the side of the road for directions in our very limited Indonesian. Not only could he speak English, but he also said he was heading the way we were and would be leaving in a few minutes. The next hour or so was spent weaving our way around the cars, buses and motorbikes while trying to keep up with Hamdani! He said it would take around 2 hours to get to Garut, but we were there in just over an hour! Seems he didn’t want to hold us up on our “Big Bikes”! (Strangely they seem to think big bikes can go anywhere (eg the “good road” above) and that big bikes with wide panniers (our bikes were a metre wide at the back!) can slice through the closely packed traffic as easily as their scooters!)
We stayed close to Garut in a “hot springs” town called Cipanas. The room we stayed in had a personal hot spring bath with continuously flowing hot water, the perfect end to a hard day on the road.

We followed the highway east for a short time the next morning, before taking a side road south to the coastal town of Cipatujah, then headed east along the coast to Pangandaran where we stopped for the night. We were sitting there in a bar (surprise!) when we got a text asking "were we ok" Um yes, why? Apparently there had been a big earthquake in Sumatra.... I guess that's ok for friends and family to be worried since we were in Thailand when the Tsunami hit and we hadn't been in contact for ages, they had lost track of us.

I got my first puncture, a rather large bolt through the tyre, 50000km since leaving the UK so that's not too bad. Unfortunately with Trent getting loads of punctures (13 if I remember correctly!) we had used up all our decent tubes and so I ended up with a really small tube, all we could get as spares and which would explode every 500km or so from there until we were able to buy decent ones again when we hit Darwin.

Riding in these places you have to take the good with the bad, but a couple of years later all the bad is forgotten and I can't wait to get back there for another go, sounds like some of you guys feel the same!!

[nonferrous]

I hired a scooter a couple of months ago and rode into Patong. It only came with 1 helmet so my daughter wore that. Anyway the cops set up road blocks to raise a bit of revenue. We got stopped along with a whole lot of other no helmet wearers. Instant fine of about NZ$10.00. They then give you a ticket receipt and the cop explained that I could now ride for the rest of the day without a helmet and if I got stopped again no worries just show the receipt. Only the rider needs to wear a helmet - passengers as many as you like don't need to.

[saltydog]

Cant imagine doing Indo on those big bikes. I always loved the fact mine was hired in Bali. All care but no responsibility. As it turns out the renter always got back a better bike from me than when we started.
I'm off To New Plymounth this morning to catch a boat. I'm going to be out on the 12 mile until the 18th so no more posts from this puppy.
Travel stories are great though, the reader can immerse him/herself in the words and almost experience the highs, lows and tribulations.
Merry Christmas everyone
over and out.

[Jaxi]

I hired a scooter a couple of months ago and rode into Patong. It only came with 1 helmet so my daughter wore that. Anyway the cops set up road blocks to raise a bit of revenue. We got stopped along with a whole lot of other no helmet wearers. Instant fine of about NZ$10.00. They then give you a ticket receipt and the cop explained that I could now ride for the rest of the day without a helmet and if I got stopped again no worries just show the receipt. Only the rider needs to wear a helmet - passengers as many as you like don't need to.

We were heading out of Bangkok towards Kanchanaburi and the "Bridge on the River Kwai" Trent was doing a great job of navigating us out of Bangkok when we were pulled over by some cops right in the middle of an intersection.

Usually when we were pulled over, it just seems to be a bit ofcuriosity - Where are you from, where are you going etc... This time, these boys must have been after their lunch money because they asked for our licenses, and then mumbled something about paying a fine... When pushed for the reason, we were told that we were riding in the wrong lane! They could speak English quite clearly, but were not keen to write us a ticket and wouldn't give our licenses back until we paid the "fine". Trent stood there pointing to every motorcycle riding in the same lane as we had been, but they weren't interested. We decided they could keep our licenses and jumped on the bikes and took off.

It was all a bit dodgy really. So, for all we know, our licences are probably still peeking out of the top pocket of their skin tight brown uniforms. A small souvenir from us... oops, didn't I mention they were "copies"??