Despite practicing hundreds of times while I rode my bike, I simply could not pronounce the name Subulussalam when someone asked me where I was going or where I was coming from. That name defeated my tongue, but it was my destination for the day when I left from my tiny room in Sidikalang.
When contemplating this ride, I thought it would involve a tremendous climb. I based this assumption on how much I had descended on the way to Sidikalang and on how much the road zigzagged on Google Maps. Any map on Google Maps with that many snaky turns was sure to be going through mountains. I turned out to be right about the road going through mountains, but most of the time, I was descending.
I started the day, as always, with a fairly long ascent. That always happens. Towns and villages are always situated at the bottom of hills where water congregates in lakes or passes by in rivers. But it wasn’t a difficult climb. The grade of the road was not as steep as before, and I was able to ride my bike much of the time. After an hour or two, I arrived at what I learned was the very top of the mountain. It was all downhill from there back to Sidikalang, and it was all downhill from there all the way to the ocean. I was at the peak of that section of the mountain chain that dominates the center of Sumatra.
At this peak, I found a ramshackle but fascinating hotel complex with lookout points, selfie-stands, restaurants, and cafes. I rode past this place at first, but then I turned around and went back for a cup of coffee. I had had no coffee yet in the morning, and who knew when the next nice spot would turn up? I usually go on instinct about whether I should stop at a place. My brain does a complex calculus of dozens of factors, and I end up with a feeling about whether I would enjoy a place or not. And my brain concluded that this was a good place to stop. My time would not be a waste, my brain said. And my brain was right.
The hotel was called the Nantampukmas, and I was told by the friendly woman who served me my coffee that Nantampukmas was the name of a fairy tale character from that region. Her parents owned the hotel complex, and she worked and lived there with her own family. I think one of the reasons my brain decided I should stop there was that I heard Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer” blasting out of the speakers. A hotel at the top of the Sumatran mountains playing Bon Jovi? That seemed like a good omen.
It turns out that the woman, Tima, who ran the cafe, was a big Bon Jovi fan and loved to speak English. She sat with me while I enjoyed my coffee and we chatted about things in general. Had I known about this hotel in advance, I would have pushed on from Sidikalang the day before and stayed there instead. The Nantampukmas hotel had character whereas my place down in town had none at all.
After the Nantampukmas hotel, the road went steeply down. I try to keep an even keel when it comes to roads that go up and roads that go down. If you get super excited every time the road goes down and you don’t have to pedal, then it begs the question of why you are on a bicycle to begin with. If all you want is effortless progress, then take the bus or rent a motorcycle. I think the road and the conditions in general should be taken at face value. It’s fine to point out that it is hot or cold or windy or rainy or foggy and that the road goes up or down. That’s just description. But if you complain endlessly about that stuff, then something is wrong. As I learned long ago, when you are on a bicycle it is always windy and the road always feels like it is going up and it is always hot or cold or some other extreme. Cycling is extreme, and you just have to accept it. If all you do is complain when you are going up mountains and then cheer like a lunatic when you coast down the other side, your mental state is not balanced. You should never groan when you reach an uphill climb. Uphill climbs are just a natural part of cycling.
All that being said, it was nice to be going downhill for a while and chocking up some kilometers at a rapid pace. Plus, the scenery was wonderful. It was nice to sit back and take in the mountains and the valleys and the rice fields and the little villages nestled in them. Seeing all this made me realize that I was leaving the mountains, and soon the temperature would start to climb, so I should appreciate the cool mountain air while I was still there.
I arrived in the town that I could never pronounce – Subulussalam – relatively early, and I set about finding a place to stay. Again, I had no advance information other than a name or two of hotels that Indonesians told me were very cheap. I had even looked up these hotels on Google Maps, and the majority of the comments left behind by guests all commented on how cheap they were. I knew from experience to take this with a grain of salt. I don’t understand how everyone here thinks they are poor and yet thinks 350,000 rupiah for a hotel is cheap, but that’s the way it is.
It took me a long time to find the first hotel on my list. This was the Maulida Citra. At several points, I was even standing right in front of it, and I didn’t recognize it as the hotel. It somehow looked like a mosque, and I skipped right past it over and over again. Finally, my eye caught a sign with the name Maulida Citra on it, and I realized what I thought was a mosque was the hotel. It looked very promising because all the rooms appeared to be on the ground floor motel style, and that was great for me. However, my hopes where dashed when I went up to the front desk and saw that their cheapest Ekonomi room was 250,000 rupiah a night, and those rooms were all full. My only option was to spring for the standard room (with A/C, etc) for 350,000 per night. Sadly, that was beyond my means, and I rode away to find a different place. I asked the women at the Maulida Citra for advice on a cheaper place, but they couldn’t advise me. That is a common pattern here. Local people know next to knowing about their own towns and regions. A woman will know a tiny bit about the hotel where she works, but that is it. Despite being in the industry, she will be completely clueless about any other hotels in the city. That’s just the frustrating way people are, and you just have to learn to accept it.
For my search, I had only whatever Google Maps would tell me and what I saw with my own eyes. One or two other hotels were listed on Google Maps, and I set off on my bike to find them. On the way to the first one, however, I passed an unlisted hotel right on the main street. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to check it out. It looked like it had some character, and if the price was right, it would do just fine. It really didn’t matter where I stayed. More important to me was finding a place sooner rather than later. I would rather check into an average or even poor place earlier than spend two hours tracking down the best option. The best option is not much good to me when I have no time to enjoy it.
This hotel was called the Khairulsyah Subulussalam. It had a distinct Islamic tone to the decor and furnishings, but I felt right at home and welcome. The people at the front counter weren’t able to deal with me in English, but my basic Indonesian and sign language was more than enough to get us through the formalities, and I was soon the proud renter of quite a nice large room with two beds, a fan, a desk, windows, and a private bathroom all for the sum of 100,000 rupiah. Had I known about it, I was also entitled to breakfast in the morning. This, however, was not written down anywhere, and no one mentioned it. When breakfast comes with a room it is just something that people know through instinct here, and they never think to mention it to a clueless visitor like me. The first I knew about it was when I was leaving the next morning. I was going downstairs to get on my bike and leave and I passed the hotel clerks on the stairs as they were carrying the breakfasts up to the rooms. Oh, well. Live and learn.
The one problem with the room was quite a large one, and unfortunately I knew nothing about it until much later. I had already settled into my room and unpacked and gone out into the city to find a cold drink and other supplies. I then returned to my room intending to take a blessed bucket bath and rinse out my dirty and sweaty clothes. But when I stepped into the bathroom, I found that the large water tank was empty and the tap itself bone dry. There was no water to be had in my newfound paradise. Even my famous quiet temperament was shaken by this development. No water? Not even to rinse the sweat and dust off my tired bones? This was not making me a happy man.
Luckily, while going up and down the stairs carrying my gear, I had noticed a common bathroom at the end of a hallway. I stuck my head in there, and I saw a few precious inches of water in the water tank. The bathroom smelled foully of years-old urine and shit, but I hoped the water was largely uncontaminated. As quickly as I could, I stripped down to my bathing shorts, grabbed my towel and soap, and went down to the shared bathroom for a quick, though brief, bucket bath. It was heavenly.
After that, I went in search of someone who worked at the hotel, and I informed them of the lack of water. The reaction and aftermath was all kind of amusing. For one thing, this lack of water came as a complete surprise to everyone. Yet, it’s not like this was a tiny place. It was a large hotel with many short term and long term guests. It was bustling in its way, and even had a popular cafe and restaurant and kitchen attached. How is it that of all these people, I was the only one to notice that water was not flowing through any of the taps?
I tracked the activity my pronouncement caused, and from up on the second floor, I saw a bunch of hotel staff fiddling with various pumps and things in the back. Apparently the water came from a well there. The water was pumped from the well up to a large water container on a platform. When this was sufficiently full, another pump then moved the water through the pipes into the rooms. I never knew for sure which part of this system was broken, but it looked like the fault lay with the pump at the well. The manager signaled this to me, and he pointed at the large water tank and indicated I would have water in five minutes. I knew better than to take him at his word, but I had hopes that water would eventually emerge.
As it turned out, the water never did make an appearance. The tap in my room stayed dry the entire evening and through the night. That annoyed me to a certain extent, but not terribly. I can usually adjust to difficult circumstances. In this case, I returned to the shared bathroom during the night, and I saw with sparkling eyes that the water container there (a medium-sized plastic garbage can) was half full. So at some point water had flowed through that pipe or someone had brought water up. I decided to steal it, and with no little effort, I picked up that garbage can of water and waddled down the hall back to my room with it. I then scooped all the water out of that can and into my larger one. Once it was empty, I returned the garbage can to the shared bathroom. I at least now had enough water to get me through a morning bucket bath and perhaps even a rinsing of my clothes.
It’s always amusing to note how one’s values and actions change in other countries. Back in Taiwan or in Canada, water was just there. It was taken for granted as much as we take for granted the air we breathe. But in Sumatra, when you are deprived of this steady flow and yet your need for it is much greater, the water becomes more valuable than flawless diamonds. Here, I find myself always thinking about water. How much do I have? How much do I need? Can I carry more? When I see a supply of water, my eyes sparkle, and I get greedy. I want to take it and hide it away for later. I was so happy to be trundling down that hallway, all bent-legged and wobbly with my stolen treasure trove of water.
