Sunny Cycle - Kuala Lumpur
Monday, June 29th, 2009
posted by Simon Buckley @ 01:58:41 PM
It may seem a little unusual to be excited about a good road, but there were no potholes, no trucks heading straight for you, no mad bus drivers almost side swiping you, and street signs. Did I mention there were signs? After a few weeks driving by the seat of our pants asking for directions in Bahasa and often getting it wrong, we could navigate with arrows and numbers. First stop – the Kawasaki dealer. After asking around we ended up at Sunny Cycles.
If road signs and safe roads weren’t exciting enough, we rolled into the Mecca of overland motorcycling in Malaysia. Sunnys is almost a pilgramige for overlanders who come to Malaysia, with photos a testament to the fact. It was time to sort out the niggles and issues that we discovered in Indonesia and Timor Leste. New sprockets, chain oilers, driving lights, battery and a full service by people who had seen bikes over 110cc was like a health resort for the bikes.
It wasn’t long before we were in KL and on the accommodation hunt. The hardest thing about finding accommodation is finding a safe spot to park the bikes. We ended up in Bukit Bintang at a guesthouse that said we could park the bikes up the stairs on the balcony. As the bikes were going to be at Sunny’s for a couple of days we dropped our gear and then headed back to the accommodation.
While we were looking for accommodation Todd got chatting to a Spanish couple who were researching work that NGO’s do and were keen to catch up for a chat and a beer. We missed that meeting by an hour or two, but did the rounds of the bars in Bukit Bintang and the famous “Reggae Club”, supposed to be the most happening place in town if you weren’t interested in ‘boom boom’ or ‘special’ massages. The reggae bar was pretty much empty, but we met a few locals and ended up at a rooftop jam session. There were a couple of mad English, an equally mad swede todd myself and about 10 local guys. There was one guy on the guitar who was awesome and knocked out some great songs. A very cool ending to our first day in KL.
As hard as we tried to do the tourist thing in KL, we never made it to the towers. We did shop though, I mean, I don’t like shopping but it is hard not to. It is like the mother (and father) of shopping complexes. Buildings and buildings of floors and floors of stuff. Clothes, phones, computers everything. Absolute madness.
Most of our time in KL was spent at Sunnys, sitting around, pointing at stuff, asking questions and chatting to the never ending stream of people coming to see Sunny and check on their bikes and just having a look. An interesting way to experience a city.
After getting our bikes from sunny all shiny and new, we had to get them up the stairs for our last night in KL. Nev went first, hesitating close to the top and stalling the bike. I was pushing hard to stop the bike rolling back down the stairs, and he opened it up about three steps from the top on his second go, smoking it up and leaving a nice old black streak on the stairs, and a lovely aroma of burnt rubber in the street. It was my go next and I was actually scared. After a deep breath I got up in one go and felt the hero. The reality was that it wasn’t that hard, but I had just spent nearly $1000 on my bike and didn’t want to break it!
Indonesia to Malaysia
Monday, 29th June, 2009
posted by Simon Buckley @ 01:42:19 PM
So after a four hour fast ferry we arrived in Malaysia where everyone speaks English. The taxi touts take no for an answer and the water from the tap doesn’t smell too much like poo. What with all of this technology you would expect that getting the bikes and customs clearance should be a sinch!
Finding a cheap hotel in Pork Klang, we ran into a bunch of Indonesian sailors from Sumatra. Their wooden fishing boat had caught fire and sunk, making the crew swim 7km to safety in Malaysia. They probably had an average age of 17, but it is hard to tell with Indonesians. They all introduced themselves with superhero names and called me Jonh Howard. I am not too sure if they completely understood when I told them about the change of government and how it was now Kev the King.
Now these guys wouldn’t earn much and I am not entirely sure how many were in the one room, but it was more than 10. There were no victims from the accident, but these guys only had the pants on their butts, not even the shirts on their backs!
The next day we had to head down to the port and work on getting our bikes off the wooden vessel that they were shipped over on. We hit the office of the shipping company at 8am, and were told that the ship had arrived but they needed some time to unload and get the customs clearance sorted, and that we should relax and return in maybe one or two hours. Still being exhausted we headed back to the hotel calling the office every hour to check on the progress. After the third phone call with no result we headed back down to the port to apply a little pressure. The boss was in the office by then and told us that the bikes shouldn’t have been on the boat, that there was no insurance and that we were lucky it even made it. I am sure his regular customers would have loved to hear that news!
He went on to explain his understanding of what we had to do to sort things out from here. He suggested that we take our paperwork down to the customs office a few km away, get a letter, then return, get the bikes off the boat, then pay for a customs official to come down and check the bikes. He would then release the bikes from the boat (so very kind of him). A query of what about the customs office in the same building, only 30m from his office was met with a shrug and assurance that they couldn’t do anything about it. It must be noted that in giving us all of this useless information he answered a few phone calls and sent a few text messages, all the while his demeanor less than pleasant.
I wanted to reach across the desk and drag him over and give a good old fashioned AFL rules clip behind the ear the way my dad taught me, but lesson 101 of dealing with useless bureaucrats and international diplomacy dictated that I shouldn’t begin the cross cultural exchange with a demonstration of how you sort out issues AFL style, so I refrained.
We took our enquiries downstairs to the customs office where funnily enough, after a short consultation with is superior, the officer was more than happy to help with stamps and get everything sorted right there at the port. He inspected the bikes, stamped the carnets (in the wrong spot unfortunately), and ordered the crew to unload the bikes.
As it happened the crane driver had just gone to lunch and it was going to be an hour (or so) until he returned. We filled that time by having a feed and answering the standard questions with the port workers.
The crane driver wouldn’t move the bikes until we had spoken to his boss in the office so Todd marched off to have a chat. It cost us a few Ringgit per bike and the ship’s crew put their hands up for a few bucks as well.
We finally got the bikes unloaded and packed.
As we were getting sorted a Sri Lankan fella was having a chat with me telling me about how he had to sell his big CBR to pay for medical equipment for his sick auntie, but that he wanted to give me his leather seat cover – I had mentioned that the ride through Indonesia had worn the skin off my nether region- as it makes the ride a little more comfortable. The meeting gave me new hope for Malaysians, because until that point every Malaysian we had met wanted dollars or was just plain useless. It also saved the monkey in the shipping office from getting an earful about just how useless he and his staff were. It’s amazing how a good experience can make everything good again. At 3pm we were Kuala Lumpur bound!
Indonesian Islands
Friday, June 12th, 2009
posted by Simon Buckley @ 03:10:08 PM
Leaving the oasis of the New Area Hotel, we enjoyed a last buffet breakfast, picked up Simons novelty oversize custom made thongs and sandals and made for the Monkey Sanctuary in Ubud. As we arrived at the sanctuary, we parked the bikes and were asked to move them to another spot where all the bikes were parked. Simon thought it would be more stable to put his bike on the centre stand on the process dropped the bike onto Todd, Todd’s bike and a couple of scooters. Lucky the barefooted rasta banana man was around to help pick the bikes up and there was little damage done that wouldn’t heal.
We picked up some bananas to feed to the monkeys, put everything into zipped pockets and proceeded in. We were about 20 meters in when a monkey jumped out of the bushes, grabbed a couple of bananas from my bunch and ran off to enjoy the spoils of his raid. Little bastard. Then monkeys jumped out of the bushes one by one to enjoy the overpriced bananas I bought for them.
We headed into the temple area were adorned with special ‘man skirts’ and joined the other pasty white tourists to take some snaps of monkeys climbing around the temple. My favourite was the monkey, who must have been quite old judging from his beard and eyebrows, who was sat next to a part of the wall licking away at the wall. When I stopped to get a closer look at what he was licking (which was just wall) he looked at me like ‘what are you looking at’ and then proceeded to lick the wall. Myst have had an itchy tongue, or perhaps it was some kind of mating ritual?
We ran into a ‘monkey Expert’ on the way back to the entrance and upon seeing the camera in Todd’s hand suggested that it would be a good idea to get some cookies and entice the monkeys onto our heads for some novelty shots. Sounds like a good idea, lets break all the rules and not only feed wild animals, lets get them on our heads. So we gave the fella an exorbitant amount for a couple of packs of cookies and proceeded to feed monkeys on our heads. Old mate seemed to have it all under control, but reminded us not to look them in the eyes as they might think you were having a go or making a proposition. The record was 5 monkeys on Simon before the dominant male came and scared the others off. It is an interesting feeling to have monkeys squealing and fighting with one another on top of your head. It didn’t take too long to get sick of having monkeys climb over your head and grab your nose and we thought it would be nice to have the Monkey Expert pose with us for a last photo. He was able to coax a monkey onto Todd’s
head for the photo, and the monkey was kind enough to bless Todd by dropping a little monkey poo on has shoulder and then biting him on the head. Not even a second later our monkey man reached over Todd and gave the monkey a decent old smack in the head. This was the funniest five minutes of our visit to Bali (SB).
Java
From the monkey sanctuary it was all systems go to get too the other side of the island to make the ferry to Java and make our way to Dumai and the ferry to Malaysia. The roads are pretty busy in Bali, so we decided to ride in the evening. The ferries run all night and we arrived at about 10pm took the ferry to Java and found the first hotel to get a bucket (shower with a bucket), a feed and a bed. We wanted to check out Prambanan on Java en route to Jakarta and to Sumatra. We arrived in the rain at a hotel near Yogiakarta, the cultural centre of Java island. What we had been doing for directions would be to plot the names of the towns along the route we wanted to take and stop at major intersections to clarify with locals the direction to the next town. A little bit of Indonesian went a long way here, because in a lot of these towns people had probably never even seen tourists let alone speak any English, and you wouldn’t expect them to!
We hit the Temple complex in the morning after filling my battery with fluid; it is on the way out after the boiling incident at Kakadu. We were just in time because after we walked in a few bus loads of tourists waddled into the site. Again it was time to go and we wanted to make tracks as we are still catching up on the time we lost in East Timor and Darwin. If we thought the traffic in Bali was bad, it was a Sunday afternoon stroll in the park compared to the chaos of Java. It is unbelievable just how many lanes you can make out of a two lane road. Dodging potholes as trucks fly around blind corners on both sides being overtaken by 400 scooters and little 100cc motorcycles. Then it would all stop. Clog up like a dirty kitchen sink and smell a bit like that) and we would be working our way around lines of trucks blowing smoke all over us. Wearing our full set of riding gear in 30+ heat and extreme humidity traffic in Java is not pleasant. Quite a sense of achievement to get somewhere indeed.
With the manic conditions on the road, we were never witness to an accident, the chaos seems to work. You have entire families on a little scooter, Mum, Dad, two or three kids and often a box of noodles, a bike tyre or some other obscure item. Sometimes you just want to jump off the bike and grap the camera and go nuts taking photos of all the crazy stuff you see on the road, but you wouldn’t get anywhere. The idea is that you have to have at least one passenger to hold the cargo to free you up to smoke cigarettes and talk on your mobile phone, often you would have the passenger facing backwards and one squashing them on. Any of them, or in fact all of them could be holding the cargo There was a guy with his mate carrying a huge pane of glass, some of the best were a family and a goat, three guys, the one on the back facing backwards playing the guitar, a fella with about 20 baskets strapped to his back that were wider than a car to name a few.
There was a toll highway from Bandung which was awesome, two to three hours to Jakarta and then another one to the port. We headed into the toll plaza knowing bikes might not be allowed, but hoping we might be able to bluff our way in. No luck. We had to take the clogged up ‘B’ roads, that were more like ‘Y’ roads. Don’t ask you don’t get! Our last ride through Java was a great example of getting bad directions. After a pretty full on day we were in Bogor, not too far from the port town of Melak. The end was in sight and we pulled into a shopping centre for some air conditioning and lunch (in that order). I was weak and headed to Dunkin Donuts for a large OJ, and got talking to a fella there about our trip. He offered directions to the port explaining that the roads were clearer than the highway and it would be 4 hours to Melak for the ferry. It seemed reasonable and he sounded like he knew what he was talking about so we took his advice and headed south around the bottom of the island. As it turned out we were given another underestimate, the scenic route around the bottom of west Java. It was a great ride, but we were tired and we wanted to get to the ferry. It started to rain about 4 hours in and when we stopped to clarify directions and buy some bottled fuel a guy told us that we were going to be shot at. We pushed on taking it pretty easy and stopped to fix my headlight at a small town in the hills. Just then one of the scooter clubs turned up, about 20 guys, and hung out with us for a while we got sorted. The road was great twisties, up and down and hardly any traffic (it was late) and we got into town around 1am. There were scooter clubs all over the place with airhorns and highly modified scooters, Flashing lights (red and blue) and uniforms. Really cool to be around. We rolled into a service station where there were a bunch of these guys and they actually rode us down to the port. Most of these kids looked about 16 of 17 and it was near to 2am by now. There were a whole lot of clubs and they beep and wave at each other as we rode by. Got on the ferry at around 3am, at the end of a unnecessarily long, but still pretty cool day.
Sumatra
We made the decision to smash Sumatra and get over to Malaysia to get back on schedule. We were also pretty keen to get a service for the bikes organized and have a hot shower. Looking at the map is not a great way to plan a route in Indonesia. Asking locals is not a great way to plan a route in Indonesia either. It doesn’t matter how convincing someone sounds when they say 6 hours or 300 km, the reality is that they have probably never been past the next town, and have no idea how far the place you are going is. Lesson learned. It took a while but after a three hour trip took 12 hours, and 20 km was really 180 we realized that no one actually knew, they just didn’t want to look stupid when we asked so they made it up. No worries, they will never be back, kelliling dunia. The maps we had didn’t shot the detail of the roads either, so a straight line on the map was more often than not a 2000m mountain pass. Right turns are straight ahead and straight ahead is a right turn. All part of the adventure.
So we made the’ 3 hour’ trip to Palembang after 16 hours and crashed in a hotel after having another go at fixing the headlight fuse on Simon’s bike. Although a guy at the ferry terminal said it was a three day trip, we were determined to do it in two. We headed at sunrise from Palembang, and after a number of disheartening incorrect estimates of distance and time, the 9 hour trip turned out to be 24, we arrived at sunrise the next day. Somehow we passed the big equator sign and monument (we were convinced there wouldn’t be anything because no one knew what we were talking about). After consulting the Tom Tom we headed back a couple of km to find it. It wasn’t long before we had the locals around us again (still don’t know where everyone comes from) and took a few shots, then moved on. A long night, but we were determined to make it. Todds 2008 KLR has a fantastic wiz bang bright and safe halogen headlight. Unfortunately the trucks coming the otherway think he has his high beams on and were constantly giving us the old flash ‘hey your headlights are on high beam’ followed by the big flash as they pass, just as your eyes are readjusting from the first flash ‘I SAID YOUR HIGH BEAMS ARE ON!’. A test for the patience which had us thinking up ways for getting retribution like eggs, steel bars and caltrops.
Shipping to Malaysia
Arriving into Dumai at about 7am, we set about looking for the port to sort out passage to Malaysia. In our normal way we stopped to ask a local. This time it was a fella riding a little rickshaw with another guy aas a passenger. Fauzi (the passenger) helped with directions (in English), but it didn’t stop there. He came with us to the ferry office to help us sort out getting the bikes on the ferry. After finding out that we needed permission from the coast guard, he came with us down to the coast guard office to help go for permission. All the while the rickshaw driver pedaling his heart out with us in tow on two motorcycles. Fauzi originally from Sumatra, was in Dumai to help set up a textiles business with a friend, and couldn’t get things underway until after 9 and was happy to help.
We pulled every angle to see if we could get around the rules and onto the high speed ferry with the bikes to no avail and as it turned out we needed to ship the bikes on a wooden ship and take the ferry ourselves. The next step was to find an agent and get things underway with finding an available ship. There were phonecalls being made furiously, with the coast guard guys making calls to connections at ports and at agencies. As it turns out, the team there come to Melbourne to undergo various training courses, and so were happy to go the distance and help get us to Malaysia.
They found an agent to help us out, this guy spoke no English, and as it turns out it was his first gig. The coast guard guy was explaining the process to customs, the agent and to immigration and in a couple of hours, trips to customs and to the Directorate General of Sea Transportation we were sorted. Neither of us had any idea exactly what was going on, but the bikes were loaded (by hand) onto the boat, and we were driven to the high speed ferry and escorted around the back through immigration and customs and delivered to the boat by Suratno. Rock star exit from Indonesia.
Week 9 - Indonesia
Timor Leste to Bali
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
posted by Todd Barry @ 07:09:00 PM
After spending 2 weeks in Timor Leste it was time to continue on our way, but it was no ordinary departure, our friends in the Timor Leste Ministry had organised a special farewell for us. We arrived around 9:30 in the morning at the Ministry of Sport where we were greeted by the Minister for Sport and his staff, a few members of the local media and as well as about 7 members of the Dili Transit Police who were to escort us out of town. With a wave of the flag and a cheer from the crowd we took off being led by a police transport vehicle and 4 police bikes, we raced through the streets of Dili, in a city where traffic travels at a top speed of 40km/h we were trying to keep up with the Police who were blaring sirens, beeping horns and pushing back the peak hour traffic while traveling at around 80km/h through the city. We zig zagged through the city in an almost tour fashion, the direct root would have been dull I guess, instead we were paraded to the people of Dili, through the center of town, down around the beach and then out past the airport to the city limits where we pulled over to say goodbye to our Police friends and Mario our friend in Timor who had been helping us out with all our needs.
We rode off from the city limits bound for the Indonesian Border, after a few hours ride we reached the border, it was very basic and as expected after a step by step process of paperwork and stamps we were in West Timor, Indonesia. From the border we made our way to Kupang, a port town at the western end of West Timor, we stopped for dinner then found the port, which was no easy mission, upon arriving we found out that the ferry to Flores left at mid day the next day so we slept the night in the waiting room of the ferry terminal.
The next morning we awoke early to the sounds of vehicles getting off another ferry that had just arrived, we got on the bikes and headed back into town to sort out money for the ferry and to have breakfast. We got back to the ferry terminal to sort our tickets, there we met an Indonesian lady Yevone, she worked in West Timor for an Australian owned company doing humanitarian aid work and spoke English well, so we asked for her assistance and a short time later we had our tickets and were on the ferry. From Kupang it was an overnight ferry arriving at around 8:00am the next morning at Endie but that was not our stop, we stayed on the ferry which continued to Amerie, another port closer to the end of the island, after another 6 hours we arrived at the port and set off for the next port. We arrived late that night in Labuhanbajo and after being directed to the ferry terminal we found a Hotel for $10 for 2 people and went to bed.
We awoke early the next morning and headed to the ferry, it left at 9am that morning and arrived a 4pm that afternoon in Sape, from there we decided to get to the next port at the other end of the island to find out when the ferry was leaving, we arrived at around 2am where we made it just in time for a ferry that left 30 minutes later, it was only a short 2 hour trip to Lombok where we then headed to the next port at Lembar, we again arrived about an hour before the ferry to Bali was due to depart so we got our tickets and got on the ferry. By this time we were absolutely stuffed and slept a couple of hours on the ferry.
We arrived at the port in Padangbai on the island of Bali at around 4pm and we headed straight for Denpasar as we had been told that Kuta Beach was the place to go. After a stop at the international airport to pick up a map we went in search of accommodation. We found a few hotels which were around $100 AUD per night and then after Simon went for a walk down a nearby alley we found the Hotel New Arena, a very well kept, tidy hotel with secure parking for the bikes and a pool, for only $20 AUD per night, we checked in and went to our rooms which were really cleen, with a private bathroom and all the comforts of any hotel, what a find.
We booked in for 3 nights to rest and catch up on the web site and do laundry, it was a crazy 4 days to get to Bali with winding roads that climbed to some pretty high heights and crazy on coming traffic. But it was worth the trip to relax in Bali for a couple of days.
4 Day Adventure in Timor Leste
Monday, June 1st, 2009
posted by Todd Barry @ 05:37:03 PM
On Thursday 21st of May, the day after the celebration of Independence for Timor Leste, we set off for a 4 day ride around the eastern end of the island. It was 4 days of hard but fun riding, along the north coast the roads were not too bad by Timor Leste standards, but after reaching the eastern end of the island the roads became gaps between trees, with large pot holes, stones the size of grapefruits, large muddy rutted sections filled with water and very sudden changes in altitude.
We spent our first night in a village called Com, shortly before arriving we took a break in Lautem and went for a walk up to some ruins of an old Portuguese garrison perched on a hill above the village, looking out over the ocean from it's buildings it must have been a tough job being posted to this fort.
On arrival to Com we went in search of accommodation, the big hotel is owned by an Australian and is popular with UN staff that travel there every weekend to relax, but it was very expensive, you even had to pay $5 USD to use the communal showers. After finding a somewhat cheaper guest hose we had dinner at the Com Hotel Restaurant then headed down to our accommodation to check in and relax by the beach.
The next day we headed off bound for Jaco Island and the village Tutuala, against the advice of some of the locals who advised we ride to Lospalos and take the ‘good’ roads, we set off over the mountains on the most direct route, there were sections of difficult road but for the most part the roads were sealed and you could travel comfortably at 60 – 70 km/h without too much difficulty. As we traveled through the small mountain villages the children playing along the road side would come running to the edge of the road to yell and wave to us, not seeing such large motorcycles covered so much gear they were a little confused but amazed and whenever we stopped the locals would mob us to say hello and check us out.
Upon arriving in Tutuala we stopped for a break and chatted to some of the locals, one of which offered to show us to some local caves that were used for celebration and to sacrifice animals. We were led down the road with our guide running along the rough cobble stoned road trying to keep with the pace of our motorbikes, after a few kilometers travel we arrived at a parking area which had previously been cleared by the Indonesians when they used to visit for tourist reasons. After consulting with his father, a local elder, we set off walking down a sometimes difficult path to the caves, when we got there not only were the caves amazing but the view over Jaco Island was excellent, to get to the actual caves themselves, there was a small ledge barely wider than your foot, with little to hold onto and over a 100m fall to the bottom we decided that it was best not to continue any further, instead we handed the guide our camera and with little care or effort he climbed across the ledge and took a few snap shots for us. We then returned to the bikes and continued down to the beach where we found the eco hotel and checked in, we pitched our tents before dark and then headed down to the beach to catch a boat across to Jaco Island for a look and a swim. We stayed on the island for a couple of hours until the sun went down then the boat men came back to pick us up. That night we stayed at the eco hotel grounds and had a traditional meal of chicken, vegetables and of course rice!
The next morning it was time to hit the road, we were heading for Viqueque and again against the advice of locals we took the path less traveled, it was a very mountainous route and the roads were really bad, it could best be described as a gap between the trees rather than a road, the signs of what was once a sealed road were almost no longer evident, but for a motorcycle it was a fun challenge and it really put the bikes through their paces. There were a few spills along the way, all fairly minor, one of which put a large dent in one of my panniers and a few scratches. Halfway along our journey we were confronted with a large river with no sign of a bridge, a couple of locals turned up and when we told them we wanted to cross the river one began hacking a path down to a section of the river that looked promising, we got down to the water and the man who cut us a path crossed the river to test the depth and show that we could get across, once on the other side he turned back to us pointed down the river and started making a snapping motion with his arms, that was his way of telling us that he could see a crocodile, after he crossed back over we decided that is was not a good idea to cross the river there. We pulled out the map and showed him where we wanted to go, it was then that we discovered that we had missed a not so obvious turn off that would lead to a bridge over the river, we set off again and made our way to the bridge. It was a difficult track and after a few spills we made it to the bridge, from there we continued, the journey took a long time and finally at 10pm we arrived somewhat tired in Viqueque. Upon arriving we found that there were no hotels but a local led us to a building where some Australians had been staying in while on humanitarian work, they had only recently left and so we were offered there beds.
We slept in the next morning, we needed the rest after such a trying day and the next stop was only 20km away. We set off around 10am and headed for Ossu where we would stay at the Timor Village Eco Hotel, part owned by a mate Tony who we met in Dili, he insisted we stay and check it out, around the relaxing atmosphere of the hotel is the swimming hole in the river that makes for some great relaxation and not far away a cave where the hotel staff can take you on a guided tour, this time we were actually inside the caves, it was spectacular and well worth the long walk up the mountain to reach it’s entrance. Inside we were led through the caverns to view the amazing beauty of it’s natural features, stalagmites and stalactites everywhere and some really beautiful rock formations. After checking out the caves we headed back to the hotel for dinner. At dinner we were treated to an amazing meal, possibly the best one we had in Timor Leste.
The next day we set off back to Dili, with some amazing mountain top views along the way we arrived in the city 5 hours later. It was a spectacular journey, one which any avid motorcycle rider would enjoy, but not only was the riding fun but the people we met along the way were so friendly and helpful, it is almost hard to believe that only 10 years ago there was so much violence and pain for the people of East Timor when you see just how friendly they really are.