To the dentist

After not visiting a dentist for 8 years, I decided to make an appointment in Melaka. The medical standard is the same as in Europe, but the prices are much lower. Besides, I have plenty of time to go. The only possible problem might be that I do not wake up early enough for the appointment. As I do not have any machine that tells me the time anymore, both my camera and telephone have died, I might get up to late. When I wake up on Saturday I go into the street to ask someone the time, it only is 8 o'clock so I can go back to bed for an hour. At 9:30 sharp I arrive at the dentist to find out my appointment is only one hour later. After losing an hour I return. The dentist is a beautiful woman, who speaks impaccable English. She is assisted by a another beautiful woman. May be I should have gone more often to the dentist. The damage in my mouth turns out to be not to bad. One new cavity and some work on an old filling, with some general cleaning at the end. The work takes about 3 quarters of an hour and I am only charged 25 euro's. Next year I will try to come back here.

Afterwards I go to my regular morning coffeeshop, where I bump into Marko who already is enjoying his third coffee. Without having to order, I am served my coffee, by the woman who never smiles. Today is a good day again, like all the days. I do not mind staying here another 2 weeks.

Sama sama

After staying an extra day in Duri I cycle to Dumai, the last destination in Indonesia. I buy a ticket to Melaka, Malaysia for the ferry for the next day. When I am in an internet cafe, a girl invites me to come with her to the school where see follows an English course. After chatting with some teenagers I am put for a class of 14 year olds to entertain them for one and half hours. Afterwards the teacher and older students present, convince me to return the next day and delay my ferry crossing to Malaysia with one day. At night I watch a concert of a band from Medan in the street of my hotel. When watching I meet a brother of the girls I stayed with in Duri, it is a small world. Before I go to sleep I recheck my Indonesian visa to be sure I do not overstay, with staying an extra night. To my surprise I find out I have to leave the next day, so I will not return to school the next day.

The boatride to Melaka is fast and as the rooms are usually airconned to refrigorator temperatures, it is now quite bearable. In the port I wait till everybody has disembarked before I go ashore. I feel a bit embarrased when the officials direct me to the front of the queue straight through border control. From there I cycle to the Sama sama guesthouse which was recommended by Marko, who I met in Maninjau. The guesthouse is full, but because Marko already is there and has forewarned my arrival I am allowed to stay and sleep in the communal room.

The guesthouse is tiny, it only has 7 rooms, but it contains interesting and nice people and is in the middle of the old town. I won't mind staying here for a while. Soon the biggest decisions in the day, become when and where to eat. There is a lot of variety in restaurants. I can choose between Indian, Chinese, Indonesian and Malay food. I am fortunate that I have very inefficient digestion so every day I can eat at all the cuisines, without growing a big belly, although I would not mind getting on a bit more weight.

The day that I will return to the Europe is set now, as I buy a plane ticket to Frankfurt for the 8th of April. I have not decided what I will do until then. Most likely I will spend most of my time eating.

Earthquake

On the 5th I reluctantly leave Bukit Tinggi. My visa runs out on the 10th and it at least is 400 km to Dumai from where I wish to take a ferry to Malacca. As this ferry leaves at 8:00AM I have to be there the nineth and to not feel rushed I have to leave. First the road predominatly goes down and I can race with the minibusses, but not far after Payakumbu the road goes up. After a delicious descent, racing a black Honda car all the way down, it becomes tough. The hills are very short and steep, 200 m steep down and right after up. This drains my power especially with the sun blistering the road. When I am at a restaurant to drink some tea to rest I am invited to put my bike on a truck and go with them for the next 40 km. I am very happy with the invitation and hunp on. The big cement truck is probably slower than my bike, but I at least do not have to cycle. After an hour we are surprised by a big bang only to discover that one of the tyres is blown. The delay is an hour, but I am not in a hurry, so who cares? I spend the night in Bankinang, from where I leave early the next morning. Around noon I take a rest in a palmoil plantation, when the earth starts shaking. I check if I am not under a coconut tree and wait till the earth settles down again.
I have been told that the next town with a hotel is Duri. This is still a considerable amount of km away so I do not hang around to long. Against usual practise I continue cycling when the night falls, because I expect Duri to come in sight any moment. The last km are hard, because I no longer can see the potholes, but without many problems I manage to reach Duri. When I walk through the streets to search for fruit and dinner, I am invited by a girl to visit her house and some of her friends. Having nothing better to do I join her. It is not after 5 minutes she tells me I smell bad. She of course is right, but I am surprised she tells me. I tell her I just had a shower, but the combination of heat and dirty clothes do not improve my body odour. I am still welcome to her friends houses, but they keep their distance, which does not stop them to have me invited to marry some girls. After travelling a while I am now pretty much accustomed to these questions and I can politely decline.

Cita cita

After more than a month at Lili's homestay I finally take the incredible steep road to Bukit Tinggi. To my surprise I am able to digest the 44 hairpins quite easily. I just take the outside of the corner which saves me 10% of incline. Only corner 25 and 30 are a bit hard. My new bike's lightest gear is much lighter than the old one, which also helps. When climbing out the canyon near Bukit Tinggi Herman, Lili's owner overtakes me and invites me to put my stuff in the van and join him to Orie, the bass-player in the Cita cita band. I already met a few of the band members and at Orie's place I see Teddy the singer and Mande, guitarist and singer again. Also Marko, the German I spent most of my days hanging out with in Bayur. In the evening the band was to play at an art gallery, but in the end they play in a cafe. Afterwards most of us go to Orie's place, his parents have a huge house. The next day we tour around the countryside in Orie's van. It is very nice to hangout with the band members and I hope I will see them again in a not so distant future.

A lazy month at the lake

Februari 1 I cycle to lake Maninjau, to do some resting. In Bukit Tinggi I got a bit of feever and I intend not to leave before I am feeling 100%. In Lili's homestay, which is more like a guesthouse, I find just what I need. At the lake, nice people and an amazing scenery. In the cupboard I find "It" of Stephen King and I am all set to do some resting.

Teaching them

After leaving Tuktuk January 24th I head south in the direction of Bukit Tinggi. After a few km it becomes clear I should have stayed longer on Samosir, I have no idea how to sit comfortably. Stuborn as I am, I ofcourse continue. Still the enthousiastic cheers and greetings make me sometimes forget I have a row with my saddle. In the afternoon it starts raining, hard. After a short break to put on my raincape I proceed. I always like cycling in the rain, only today it is sometimes hard to look in front of me as the rain comes into my eyes. Around 16:00 still in heavy rain I reach Tarutung. Although the small city has quite a few hotels, I cannot find a place that suits my wallet. At 17:00 finally I find a room I think is cheap enough. The fungus is on the wall and it is rather dark, but I can park my bike in the room and hang my wet clothes to dry. I really like these small towns, the people are not that used to white people and everywhere I go I am spoken to. I am invited by a couple of old guys to share their can of tuak. A nice company, two christians, two muslims and one who is neither. Although one of them speaks a litle bit English, it becomes more interesting when the daughter of one of them, Mona Lisa, joins us. She loves to watch football and is beautiful as well, sounds like the ideal woman. Two days later I stop in Penyabungan to spend the night. I am eating some food to wait for the rain to stop, when a beautiful girl invites me to come to her house. Although it is still raining I do not mind following her. It turns out that she takes me to a school where they teach English to highschool kids. After a brief introduction by the teacher I take over the class and tell about me and answer questions. 15 minutes after I have started, I am invited to take my class to the other room, as the other students want to talk/listen to me too. The class ends after 1.5 hours but I stay a while longer to talk with the teachers and other people who have come in. I am in vited by the father of the beautiful girl to have dinner at their home, but I decline, I am tired and I feel a throatpain coming up.

The 27th I expect to have a long cycling day as no big towns are en route until Lubuk Sikaping. I do not know if it is the beautiful surroundings, green paddi's with coconut (kelapa) trees dotted around them and low green hills on the back, but my ever complaining ass keeps rather quiet. Unfortunately it starts raining again, this time I do not stop, maybe my clothes get clean this way. I have just bought a pancake (mertabak) with black rice in it, when I am overtaken by two boys on a scooter with the request to stop. I ask them why and I keep up my nice pace. The driver, Johan, tells me his mother saw me passing by and had told him to invite me to stay with them. This is an offer I like and I quickly turn around and cycle 5km back with them. When entering the house I bump my head to the doorpost, not for the last time. When I enter 20 people follow, all want to see this strange white fellow with his big nose. The halfparalyzed father indicates that the people who have no business here have to leave the house. Unfortunately for them they can not take their place outside at one of the windows, because they already have been taken. Also bothered by the people peeping in, the father has the curtains shut. Johans brother who has braindamage since his birth is very happy with my presence and climbs in a coconut tree to ge me a young coconut, the milk tastes delicious. After that, I play football on a rocky patch of ground. I get several little wounds on my feet, but I ofcourse am a representer of all Dutch football players so I can not forsake, I leave a good impression I think. After bath (mandi), throwing scoops of cold water over me, dinner is ready. Johans uncle is an English teacher and I am going to his huge place after. There I am expected to have dinner again. Fortunately I have a big appetite and without a problem I eat all that is offered me. The uncle invites me to come along to his school the next day on Sunday. To the disappointment of Johans mother I am already picked up when I am just starting my breakfast. The uncle asks me if I do not have any other (more decent) clothes, with a big smile I deny.

As these are not the first classes I visit I get a bit more experienced in it. I do not tell to much about me, because half of the time they will not understand anyway, I let them come up with the questions. Sooner or later the question is asked if I am married and when I answer a lot of noise comes from the class. Next questions usually are if I would like to have a girl from this country, what religion I am and if a girl of different religion would be a problem. In the second class a girl even asks me to be her boy friend. Trying to be careful with her feelings I say, that if she has a bike she is invited to join me. Later when I ask someone to write an Indonesion word on the board for me she is fighting with another girl over the marker, she looses. After the third class, my last for the day, I am taken in to a photoshoot and autograph session. The whole class, well especcially the girls, want to be in a picture with me. Even the headmaster wants to be in a picture with me. In Rao Johan is already awaiting me and he and his friends take me to a nearby village to get Rambutan and play in the river. At night we play chess. First I beat Johan, without much effort, then I am invited to play against a kid who can not be older than twelve. I should have been warned. I am not and underestimate the little fellow and am kicked off the board in no time, a big blow for my ego. Later we watch Italian footbal on tv. This night I put autan on, so that I can sleep, the previous night I have not slept a wink.

After a big breakfast I leave the hospitality of Johans place and head for Lubuk Sikaping. In the evening I stop at a coffeeshop to have a tea and talk with the father, daughter and the other guests all night. The next morning I have a huge breakfast here too and am not allowed to pay. Then only a short trip to Bukit Tinggy the tourist centre of Sumatra. I do not really like it, to many tourists.

Tuktuk

The 21st I cycle to Lake Toba. Because it is Sunday and this area is predominantly Christian I pass a lot of long lines of beautifully dressed people going to church. As usual all people are very enthousiastic when I pass. The first 15 km I go lightning fast, slightly downhill and wind in the back. The mini-busses cannot keep up with me. Until I reach the lake cycling goes smooth and fast, after the road goes up and down and I am glad when I reach Parabat, where I can take the ferry to the island in the lake. The ferry drops me at the place I want to stay. I get a nice little bungalow with view over the lake and it costs me only 25,000 IDR. At the reception I find a book of Dan Brown to spend some relaxing hours reading. When I am eating a banana pancake in a restaurant overlooking the lake I see Tom cycling by. Apparently he has rented a bike. I stop him and invite him to join me. He told me he had seen me cycling yesterday. I find out it took me only 2 hours more to do the 100 km by bicycle than he by bus. The rest of the day I spend reading in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, now and then ordering "the manis" and food. At night when I take shelter for the rain in a restaurant I am persuaded to take some snake soup. The snake tastes a bit like chicken but is more tender and the meat has a slightly different texture. It is nice to see what the bone structure is like as well.

The next morning I have a pancake at the same restaurant just outside tuktuk as yesterday. Here I meet Tom again, who prefers the cooking of this woman to that of his hotel. After that I head of north by bike to do a little of touring on Samosir island. This was not a smart idea, my ass has not recovered and by this little trip I open the old wounds. In the evening it rains hard again. It is a beautiful sight to see the rain coming in over the lake. Later I visit the python restaurant again for another soup. This time the owners oldest son is around and he plays the guitar and sings with it all night. The womans sister is living in Delft in the Netherlands and she asks me to take some letters home with me for her, although no problem for me, it is probably better to post them as they than will arrive faster in Delft.

On the 24th at 8:00 I am picked up from my hotel by the ferry to cross the lake again, I will head south.