Jalan-Jalan
on Really Out There Experience (Indonesia), 14/Oct/2009 00:14, 34 days ago
11 October 2009I decided to try to explore the north of the island today– so far I haveonly gone south and west on the bike. I loaded up with water and food and set off on the bike. The first thing was to get some fuel. There is not a petrol station on the island but lots of kiosks and stalls sell it beside the road. The larger kiosks buy in barrels and decant the contents into various bottles and containers of 1, 2, 4 and 6 litre capacity. The smaller stalls buy the 6 litre containers and decant these to 1 and 2 litre containers. The fuel is poured into your tank via a funnel which is covered by cloth to filter out anylarge particles– if you are lucky the proprietor will not be smoking.Although riding around the island much of the land is arid there are a few areas of green with crops growing. The first hour of riding was on a good quality tarmac road– by this I mean that the surface was generally in tact and that the areas of subsidencewere not to extreme so that a steady 30 - 35 mph could be maintained. After that the surface deteriorated– initially with areas where the surface was broken or very bumpy but soon the tarmac ran out and I was on unpaved road but initially it had been graded so was relatively easy going but even this deteriorated and I was soon bouncing up and down and the wheels skidding around on loose stones. Progress became much slower and my shoulders began to let me know they were feeling abused. The unpleasantness of the ride was rewarded by finding an area of traditional housing.