Monday February 6, 2023
7:07 a.m. Travel Gulamo Campsite
Sumatra, Indonesia
I’m writing these words from a fairly unusual location. I rode forty or fifty kilometers out of Bangkinan yesterday, and I arrived at the place I had picked out in advance. It’s a small village at a large bridge going across a kind of water reservoir. I learned yesterday that a hydroelectric dam had been built on this river, and that created this extended section of connected lakes that I saw on Google Maps. I was curious about these bodies of water because they have extremely crinkly edges. The edges seemed unnatural. But now they make sense. This whole area used to be a long and crinkly valley. And when the dam was built, it was flooded and the water rose up the sides of the valley, essentially up the sides of the mountains. And now the shore of the river and the lakes consists of the sides of mountains.
I say this is an unusual place because I spent the night inside my tent. And I was able to put my tent up next to a large building and underneath a sheltering roof. And the area around my tent has a table, two chairs, an electric light, and an electrical outlet. And with access to all that modern technology, I woke up this morning, packed up my tent, and then unpacked my laptop and camera gear and my kettle. And I am sitting here, essentially at a campsite surrounded by trees and lakes and mountains and valleys, but with all my gear around me as if I were inside a comfy hotel room. The great thing about this place as a campsite is that there are next to no mosquitoes. Normally, I would expect such an idyllic setting to be ruined by a never-ending attack from clouds of vicious mosquitoes. But as I hung out here last night after the sun went down, I think I was bitten twice and that was it. And I see and sense no mosquitoes right now. So I can enjoy my morning coffee in peace.
It was raining when I emerged from my room in Bangkinan with the idea of beginning the ride to Bukittinggi. And because of that, I almost decided to stay for another day and night. I probably would have done so except that I have begun to feel the urgency of the date of my flight sneaking up on me. I’m leaving it quite to the last minute as it is, and I can’t risk a single thing going wrong on this trip, or I won’t make it to Padang in time. As it is, I’ve already started to reconsider my plans. Instead of riding my bike all the way to Padang and storing it there during my trip to Kuala Lumpur, I’ve pretty much decided to leave it in Bukittingi. And the more I think about that option, the more it makes sense.
I had a nice chat with the brother and sister at the Tek Nong Homestay before I left. They gathered around my bicycle as I was getting it ready, and we talked and took some pictures together. I was surprised when the sister took an active interest in my camera gear. She asked in particular about the microphone that I was using, and she understood instantly that it was a wireless system. Most people don’t come to that realization. And then she took it one step further and understood that there must be a microphone somewhere, and she asked me where it was. I showed her that I had it on a cord around my neck and underneath my shirt.
Once again, the brother and sister compared me to their mother, who is my age. They had mentioned several times before that they were surprised to see someone my age living and behaving as I do. Their mother looks and behaves like a very elderly person. She looks to me like an elderly grandmother, certainly not a woman of my own age. And she is physically frail. She has reached that point in her life where, as is her earned right, she simply sits in the sun and does small household tasks and enjoys her days and her family. The thought of her riding a bicycle across Sumatra is preposterous. As they pointed out on that last morning, she has no idea how to use a smartphone, let alone how to establish a YouTube channel and record and edit videos. All of that is completely unknown to her. And that is considered the natural way of things. Someone of her age in Indonesia, they told me, is expected to be like that. And it was quite surprising to them to see someone from Canada of that age acting and speaking as I do.
I was disappointed at the beginning of my ride yesterday to feel an uncomfortable twinge in my left knee. I had gone on twenty-kilometer rides around Bangkinan while I rested there, and I started to feel that my knee was healing. But the moment I started actually riding for real with the pannier bags and trailer attached, it felt like the pain and problems were starting to come back. Based on my earlier experiments, I stopped at the side of the road and switched from my sandals to my flip flops. It’s a bit ridiculous to think that my new sandals were causing my knee problem, but I thought it was at least worth a try. And I suppose I could be imagining things, but once I started cycling in flip flops, my knee appeared to feel better. I played around with my foot and leg positioning, and it did seem that adjusting the angle of my leg and knee relative to the pedal made a difference. And the flip flops allowed me to position my foot better. The long, wide, and thick sandals appeared to push my leg out of alignment. This sounds like nonsense, but once I switched to flip flops, the building pain receded, and I was able to cycle most of the day with little pain. Only towards the end did I start to feel some soreness below my knee. But that was on both legs, and it was centered in the bones, I think.
And to feel some tenderness could be natural and expected. I ended up cycling for long distances going uphill while pulling a quite heavy load. I haven’t quite made up my mind about this but there were moments yesterday when I started to think that this new lifestyle I’ve chosen has led to an absurdly heavy load. I could be imagining things. It’s possible that what I’m carrying now is the same as what I carried before. I’ve added some things, of course, compared to before. But a lot of things have also been removed. It’s possible the weight evened out and equals my past bike trips. In any event, there’s no question that riding my bike fully loaded is quite a bit different than riding it with nothing, as I did on my test rides.
There was one hill in particular that was as steep as any of the very steep hills I’ve encountered in my life. And I had to stop halfway up the hill to rest. I couldn’t make it to the top. And while I was resting, a man on a motorcycle stopped to chat with me. While speaking with him, I began to feel lightheaded and weak. I think the effort of breathing and speaking after that hard climb led to me hyperventilating. I had to get off the bike and sit down for fifteen minutes before I was able to complete the climb.
There wasn’t much left of the hill as it turned out, and I got to the top easily after that. The place was called Pukatan Peak Malintang Mountain, and there were lots of places there to get something to eat while enjoying nice views of the nearby lake. I had lucky timing for a change, and I arrived there and got under shelter just before it started to rain. I ordered some nasi goreng and two iced teas and two glasses of ice water. A husband and wife and their daughter were there. The husband spoke to me initially just as I rode up, and it was his friendliness that got me to go into their restaurant. He was on his way out to his farm to work for the day, but the rain delayed him, and he chatted with me a bit as I enjoyed my lunch. I had the feeling they overcharged me for my lunch, but I’m not sure. Perhaps the view from their restaurant comes with a premium price. In any event, the simple nasi goreng cost 20,000 rupiah, and the ice teas cost 10,000 each. Both prices seemed double what they should be. But I don’t know that for sure.
My meal there ended on a funny and annoying note. As I was sitting there, the family’s son dropped by on his scooter and then rode away. And when he was gone, the father apologized and said that his son had taken my flip flops by mistake. And I would have to take the son’s as a replacement. Of course, the son’s flip flops were not as nice or as new as mine. The soles were thin and worn and the toe straps were stretched. And they were not the right size. It was not a good trade for me. I treated it with good humor, but I am quite particular about my things, and it did annoy me. Though, as I discovered, he didn’t actually take both of my flip flops. He left wearing one of mine and one of his. And that left me with the matching mis-matched pair. I now have one of my flip flops on my right foot and one of his on my left. In the long run, it won’t matter, I’m sure. They are just flip flops. But I had just come to the conclusion that wearing my flip flops was preventing my knee from collapsing. And now I had to adjust to a completely different flip flop on my left foot.
Using Google Maps, I had picked out a spot in this village in advance where I thought I could camp. But as I crossed the bridge, I spotted another area on the lake side that looked promising. There appeared to be a building there with a roof that I could shelter under. I decided to check that place out first, and I rode down the dirt access road. I eventually learned that a local travel company called Travel Gulamo was using the dock there to run tours of some nearby scenic attractions. A young man was sitting under a tree near the dock, and I used Google Translate to ask him about the possibility of putting up my tent and camping there for the night. He seemed open to the idea. But then he said he knew about a better place. And it turned out that this better place was the same place that I had picked out myself in advance. I didn’t know that at first, and I asked him when he could show me this place. He had offered to take me there and show me. I wanted to know if we could do that right away or in an hour or at least somewhat soon. And, in a suitably strange twist, he said that he could show me tomorrow. I had to explain that his offer was wonderful, but showing me this place tomorrow wouldn’t do me much good. I wasn’t sure how he couldn’t understand through our conversation that I was looking for a place to camp right now, tonight. Tomorrow is tomorrow, and I will be leaving tomorrow.
It all worked out very well, however, because another man showed up, and I think the suggestion came from him that perhaps I could camp right where we were. And to my delight, they walked me over to a large white building and showed me an expansive area with lots of floor space with clean white tile underneath a sheltering roof. And they said that I could put my tent there. I eagerly took them up on that offer. And then things got better and better because I was eventually shown that this space had an electric light and it had electrical outlets. And there was a nearby outdoor bathroom that had running water. It isn’t running this morning, but last night it was running, and I was able to take a shower and use the squat toilet and fill up all the water buckets for a shower this morning. You could not ask for a better place to put up a tent.
I spent the whole afternoon to the tune of three or four hours chatting with these guys through Google Translate. And at one point, a boat returned to the dock with a group of eight women from Pekanbaru who had come here to do the Travel Gulamo tour. This tour costs 700,000 rupiah ($46 US) per boat. And I got to chat with them and take pictures with them as well.
Once the sun started to go down, the guys left, and I was on my own to set up my tent and relax. I had two cups of coffee during the evening as I relaxed here and got all my gear organized. The night passed quite well. I used my clothing bag as a pillow, and I spread out my sleeping bag, my sleeping mat, and my sleeping sheet underneath me to make as soft a sleeping spot as possible. I was awake constantly, of course, but by the time I emerged to greet the world at six this morning, I was feeling quite rested.
And today, I am planning a somewhat relaxed day. I’d normally be on the road long before now. I will probably regret hanging out so much to an extent. It’s going to be hot on the road if the sun comes out. But the plan is to ride forty kilometers and hopefully spend tonight in a hotel called the Wisma UD. I am feeling under time pressure now, and I had better pack up and get going. The day is passing.