Thursday August 2, 2018
3:45 a.m. Room 15, Dian Rana Guesthouse
Beach area outside of Banda Aceh

It is far too early to be up doing this, especially as I am not going anywhere today. I’m staying put here at the Dian Rana. But I woke up, and my brain started turning over, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. So I figured I might as well go all the way and take a shower and have a cup of coffee. I can always try to go back to sleep in a couple of hours.

When I left off my story the other day, I was typing on my computer in a little beach shack behind a beach store. It was a gorgeous beach and just about a perfect setup for camping. I mentioned that it had a little store. I could buy water, snacks, and coffee there. The dude could probably even have whipped up some instant noodles, too, though I didn’t see any on the shelves. I didn’t need that though, because I had a meal’s worth of spaghetti sauce left and it needed to be eaten. I planned on cooking up some spaghetti later on before the sun went down. And best of all, this little beach platform or beach shack had an electrical outlet, and I was able to run my computer and recharge my phone. I have to say that I miss my NEO quite a bit. I left it in Kuala Lumpur. Lately, I’ve been scheming how I can add it to my bike load without gaining weight. I’d have to sacrifice something else to make up the two pounds, but I think I can do it.

Wildlife has been an interesting part of this ride, and my time in that little beach shack was no exception. I mentioned the mother cat with the kittens and how she came back with a small bird for them to eat or practice hunting with. You could argue that a cat isn’t wild, but this one was very much wild. It was friendly to me, but it was a hunter. Humans did not give it any food (at least not voluntarily). This whole huge beach was her territory, and in my time there, I saw her everywhere, patrolling her territory and hunting game.

I had seen countless snake roadkill while on my bike, including some very large snakes. And while I sat in this shack, I spotted an eight-foot snake coming out of a marshy area right beside me. It wasn’t that thick in the body, but it was extremely long and fascinating to watch. It had a very distinct movement pattern. It would stop and then raise its head seven or eight inches off the ground. Then it would move its neck (if you can call that portion of its body the neck) back and forth rapidly in a wave motion while holding its head still. I have no idea if it was meant to mesmerize prey. If that was its purpose, I can see it working because I was mesmerized. I couldn’t look away while it was waving its neck like that. Perhaps it had sensory organs in its neck. I say that because I don’t remember it sticking out its tongue to taste the air as many other snakes do. I was also fascinated by how fast it moved across the ground. I don’t count myself among the dumbest people on the planet, but I honestly am mystified by how a snake moves. It makes no logical sense when you see it. There are no legs down there propelling it along. It is just lying on the ground in an endless S pattern. And then somehow it shoots across the ground and through water. I can lie down and put my body in an S shape and wiggle back and forth, but I ain’t going nowhere. How do the mechanics of that motion work? Guess I’ll have to Google that today and see what’s up with snakes.

This beach was also home to the usual roaming cattle and goats and geese and that sort of thing. And the sand was practically overrun with crabs. They provide endless entertainment as they get startled out of their holes and then race toward the oncoming waves to get away from me. I’d love to see their legs in slow motion on a high speed camera. Their legs must move at light speed because they get across that sand at the speed of a cheetah. It’s impressive to watch. Certain varieties of these crab also look quite amusing with their eyes perched on stalks high above their bodies. They remind me of the headlights of certain old cars.

Lizards were everywhere as well. I never get a great look at the small ones. They are gone in a flash of emerald blue and green before I’m barely aware that they are there. However, I’ve come across some real monsters, too, and I’m now keenly aware of their existence, and I don’t go walking blindly through the bush here. My Google search tells me that they are probably monitor lizards. Google also tells me that they grow up to four or five feet long. That makes me wonder if there is another species out there because on the road that day, I came across one that was a solid six feet long if not seven. I may not be great with measurements of the physical world, but I’m pretty good at estimating lengths of six feet or more. All I have to do is imagine my own body lying down. And if I had lain down beside this lizard, it would have stretched a good chunk past me, and that was with its tail and body curled up.

Seeing this lizard was a fun experience in two ways. It was awesome just to see it and now know what kind of animals live in the jungle all around me here. And it had that typical majestic stroll that all big lizards have. It didn’t have a care in the world as it walked across the highway. Of course, I stopped dead on my bicycle to take it all in. I didn’t bother with my camera as it would just be a picture of a lizard on a road. I knew there would be no sense of scale in a picture. Seeing the lizard was also fun because of how nonchalant the Indonesians were. There happened to be a number of vehicles passing by at that moment, and no one in any of the cars or on any of the motorcycles bothered to give the lizard even a glance. I guess they’d seen it all before, and they just turned their wheels around this majestic creature and drove on.

Monkeys, of course, were everywhere, particularly in the upper sections of the mountain roads. I can’t identify with certainty all the species that I saw. There could have been a half dozen or a dozen. I don’t know. The largest group appeared to be a type of macaque. They were the boldest and the most aggressive. They were in the trees all around me, even leaping from one side of the road all the way to the other from tree to tree far over my head. Those leaps of faith were astounding because I don’t know if even the macaques knew exactly where their leap would take them. If they missed the first set of branches, they’d just somehow latch onto the next set on their downward trajectory. Certainly, none of them ever fell to the ground. These macaques would often be gathered in large groups in the middle of the road or lined up at the side on top of the crash barriers. I assume that Indonesians occasionally stop and give them bananas and other snacks, and they have now become accustomed to waiting on the road for handouts.

However, when a dumb white guy on a bicycle shows up, it is rather a startling experience for them, and they don’t know what to do. They stand their ground for a while, but their nerve always breaks eventually, and the whole troop will leap for the trees and shelter. The big males will generally be a few feet behind, and, as I said before, I quickly learned not to maintain eye contact with them. The males will watch me, and if I turn my head and watch them back, they get pretty angry. And if there is one thing I don’t want, it’s an angry macaque on my back. I have no illusions about how long it would take one of them to reach me if it wanted to. When they get angry, they hunch down their entire body in preparation for launching themselves through the air. I think the power in those hind legs would get them from the jungle and onto my back in one jump – like an angry, furry missile. And if the threatening body posture didn’t convince me to mind my own business, the display of teeth certainly did. It always blows my mind when any type of monkey fully exposes the teeth it has hidden inside its mouth. They barely qualify as teeth for me. They look like a set of curved sharp swords. I wonder how teeth that long can even fit inside when they close their mouths. Where does it all go? You’d think teeth that long would have to go all the way up through their brain and out the top of their head. In any event, I don’t want those teeth anywhere near my own brain, and I break eye contact, slump over in a curved submissive posture and pedal on. Don’t mind me, furry missile with six-inch teeth. I’m just a dumb white dude on a bicycle. I ain’t looking for trouble.

A more striking primate I came across regularly is one I’ve learned is called a leaf monkey. I think they call them kedih locally. They are striking because of their coloration. In particular, they look like they are wearing sunglasses. And they often have a black or white Mohawk. They are wild creatures with the look of a monkey on his way to the clubs to tear up the dance floor and look cool doing it. When it comes to which type of monkey takes the prize for jumping ability, I don’t know that you can do worse than put your money on the leaf monkey. These guys sailed over my head like birds on the wing. I wouldn’t think they had a prayer of sticking the landing, but they’d extend a remarkably long arm, snag any kind of branch or small twig or vine, and swing down through an arc that would carry them soaring into the next tree. It was a remarkable display of power in its grip. The leaf monkeys seemed friendlier than the macaques and more busy about their own business of finding tasty leaves to eat. They ignored me most of the time, and they would continue to munch on leaves as I cycled up to them and then past.

The final animal I want to mention is a bit of a mystery. I only saw them one time, and they were too far away to make out clearly. This sighting happened on this beach when I was rolling my bicycle to the far end to set up camp. A local man was walking with me, and he suddenly got excited and pointed ahead of us and made gestures with his hands. I looked ahead and saw two birds, and I nodded and indicated that I saw the birds. It was no big deal, I thought, and I wondered why he was so excited and so insistent. I kept looking at the birds and trying to see something interesting or unusual. I thought maybe this guy was just a bird freak. But then I caught movement a hundred meters in front of these birds. I didn’t see the animals long enough to really get a solid impression, but I swear it was a troop of meerkats. Are there meerkats in Sumatra? I don’t know. These animals moved just like meerkats I’ve seen on TV in Africa. They’d stop and two or three of the troop suddenly stood up on rear feet and swiveled their heads around as if they were on lookout. Then the whole troop made a right turn and disappeared into some bush, and I never saw them again. It was a laugh-out-loud moment when I finally saw them and I understood why my companion was so excited.

I lied about that being the final creature I want to mention, because as I started to set up my tent and my camping site, I encountered the creature that truly, truly, truly dominated the beach, and, by extension, probably the entire world: the ant. It think it is a common thing to ponder the number of ants in the world and to consider that they certainly outnumber humans by trillions to one. But from time to time, you find yourself in a place that drives this fact home with a vengeance.

I selected as my home for the night (with the approval of my companion) the site of an old beach-side snack shack. There was an intact roof, a back room with padlocks on the door, and a range of old wooden benches and tables and stools made from whatever they could get their hands on. I assumed this place had been closed and unused for a long time, but you never know. Most of the buildings I see in Indonesia look abandoned even when they’re not. In fact, they look abandoned before they’ve even finished constructing them. It’s weird when a building looks a hundred years old with rot and wear and tear when it hasn’t even been completed yet, but that is common here.

I was delighted with my find as I contemplated the extra protection this roof would offer in case of rain. The skies were clear, but that meant nothing. There was an 80% or 90% chance, I thought, that it would rain heavily during the night. It almost always does. The main space under this roof was a little bit tight for my tent, particularly if I wanted to extend the vestibule on both sides. This is a trick that I learned early on when it comes to living with a two-wheel bike trailer with an integrated bag. The trailer is simply too big and too awkward to take inside the tent. That is where pannier bags would be an advantage because you can take all your gear inside. It takes up a ton of room, but it is doable. The trailer pretty much has to stay outside. However, even as I was planning on buying the trailer, I realized that a nice compromise could be achieved by buying a tent with double doors and double vestibules. I’d never had a tent like that, but I always wanted one, and it is a very common design now. The idea is to use one door and one vestibule as my normal way of getting in and out of the tent. And the other vestibule would contain my trailer. It was doubtful, I thought, that any reasonably-sized tent would have a vestibule that could contain the trailer fully and easily. But it still seems to work just fine with the tent I ended up with. I simply roll the trailer tightly beside the tent door. I put it in place such that the zippered opening of the trailer lines up nicely with the door into the tent. Then I pull the vestibule over the top of the trailer and stake it off or tie it to something. The vestibule material ends up touching the trailer, and that is never ideal, but it covers it up nicely, and I can put a tarp over the trailer for added water protection.

It’s not perfect, but it accomplishes many things. For one, it provides some protection for the trailer from rain. It also provides some security, as it is unlikely a nocturnal thief would be able to remove the trailer from underneath the vestibule without creating a massive ruckus and alerting me. In any event, they wouldn’t even be able to see the trailer, and I am able to tie a cord to the trailer and then run it inside the tent through the zipper and tie it to a bag on the inside. So that trailer isn’t going anywhere. Finally, and most ingeniously, the trailer now serves as a giant suitcase. I have perfect access to the trailer and its contents just by unzipping the tent door. The trailer is right there, and I can rummage through its contents whenever I want. It’s almost like it is a luggage extension of the tent. It feels like it is inside the tent but in a separate room. With this easy access, I can pack up and put things inside the trailer in the morning and arrange everything nicely without ever leaving the tent. This is similar to how I used the BOB trailer. That trailer had a separate duffel bag, and I would bring the entire duffel bag inside the tent. Then, in the morning, I could load all my gear into the duffel bag while staying inside the tent. Then I’d toss the entire bag outside and be ready to go. This system works the same way except that the trailer and the attached bag stay outside in the vestibule.

As I said, there wasn’t quite enough room inside the sheltered area of the snack shack for my tent with both vestibules extended. So I set about moving some of the furniture. In particular, I moved the two long benches that were on either side. As I did so, some young boys decided to pitch in and help, and they tried to grab a plank that went from a stump to another stump. It turned out that those stumps were just a kind of log, and they pulled them up from the ground revealing a swirling mass of angry and biting red ants. It was worth my life to place my foot in the middle of that nest, so I made sure to steer well clear. As usual, I was regretting that the locals were pitching in to help. The help usually ended up causing more trouble than help.

As I got my tent and other gear out, I began to notice other ant nests all over the ground. Plus, there were thick lines of ants marching back and forth on every piece of wood that made up this structure. It made me think of that old song “The Ants Go Marching.” I sing that song all the time while I am cycling, and these lines of ants made me start humming it. The lines of ants were going up, going down, going across, going sideways, going everywhere. I was in the middle of an ant mega-civilization, and I could only hope that the zippers on my tent closed close enough that a line of these ants would not find its way into my tent during the night. I’d be eaten alive. As it was, just setting up camp was difficult, and I found myself hopping madly and swatting at my legs as a new swarm of ants climbed up me and then started biting. If there was a better location, I would have moved my tent.

In fact, I had seen a spot that would have been perfect. It was the first structure to catch my eye. It was an actual platform raised about four feet off the ground. It was brand new, clean, dry, and much bigger than anything else around. And the well with semi-fresh water was linked to this structure by a cement pathway as well. To put my tent up on this platform and under that roof would have been the ultimate in camping luxury. My tent floor wouldn’t even have to touch the ground. I pointed this structure out to my main local contact, and he shook his head no. He pointed to some rolled up objects in the corner and he said the word mashallah, which is a Muslim prayer room. And the objects in the corner were rolled-up prayer mats. So I could not use this structure for camping.

Setting up my tent among the ants was a bit of a challenge, particularly as all of the flat surfaces around me weren’t really usable. Every flat surface had a line of ants on it, so if I put down my sleeping pad or a pannier bag or my stove, it would soon be swarming with ants, angry that I’d placed a barrier on their route to wherever they were going. It was also challenging because I had an audience, and they were filming me in video on their smartphones. I like to do things slowly and think things through and make modifications as I set up camp. But with people pointing their phones at me constantly, I got a bit flustered and I started to make mistakes and do dumb things. I felt self-conscious. It was so bad that when I tried to assemble the triangular base for my Trangia stove, I couldn’t do it. It takes a certain dexterity and care to get the three pieces to click together. I’ve done it hundreds and hundreds of times, but with the phones pointed at me, I found I couldn’t do it and the stove base kept falling apart. I was also sweating really badly – partially from the regular heat and partially from the added stress of having such an interested and involved audience. So I had sweat dripping down my face and into my eyes. My hands were slippery with sweat. And my glasses (which I have to wear all the time on a cord around my neck) would get completely fogged up and dirty, and I wouldn’t be able to see through them when I put them on. I felt like a total doofus.

Plus, having an audience like that adds a security risk. When you set up camp, it’s natural that your gear gets exposed. I basically have to open the trailer and open my pannier bags to get out the tent and all my other gear. But that leaves my computer, cameras and lenses, phones, and everything else kind of exposed. I can’t put anything inside the relative security of the tent until the tent is erected. The best I can do, perhaps, is to unlock the trailer, pull out the tent, and then lock the trailer back up again and set up the tent. But it starts to feel a bit insulting to my audience when I am clearly locking up all my valuables all the time. Plus, that still leaves my handlebar bag out there either on my bike or sitting on the ground or on a bench covered in ants. If someone ran off with that, my life would basically be over. So how do I protect that? There are just so many things to keep an eye on and worry about. And a weird thing is that my helpers often create a sense of paranoia because they keep telling me to be careful about thieves. My main helper this time pointed at my trailer at one point and said that I should be careful about my laptop. I happen to be carrying my laptop in the trailer at the moment, and I had just taken something out of the trailer and left the top open. This man had seen me stuff my laptop up inside the topmost part of the trailer, so he knew it was in there, and he was worried about it. He made me understand that I should never leave it unattended.

But eventually, all the work was kind of done. The tent was up. A bunch of gear was laid out inside the tent. It would have been nice at that point to go for a swim in the ocean or take a bucket bath at the well, but I couldn’t really do that with so many people standing around. The best I could do, since the sun was approaching the horizon, was break out my Trangia and start boiling some water to make spaghetti. I wanted to have dinner and clean up before it got dark. And then, I imagined, I would be going straight to sleep regardless of how early it was.

For whatever reason, my audience began to drift away once I set up my stove and started cooking. I think some boredom had set in. Soon, I had only billions of ants and the other wildlife for company, and I happily watched my spaghetti boiling away. Of all the gear I’ve loved over the years, the Trangia is supreme as the one thing that has never let me down. Hardcore people scoff at it. I recently spent some time with an older backpacker in Tuktuk, and he was of the hardcore variety. He knew all about the best tents and the best stoves, and he laughed at my preferences. He told a story of how one time he was camping with some other people. They had a Trangia, and he had a mountaineering camp stove that used white gas. He said that he had cooked his meal and eaten it before the food was even done cooking on his friend’s Trangia. He says that it isn’t hot or powerful enough. The hardcore may think what they like. I love my Trangia. I have no trouble with the heat output. In fact, even to boil spaghetti, I have to use the simmer ring and tone the stove down. At full and open, it is far too hot and the water boils over the top of the pot. Since it is burning so hot, I don’t see why it would take longer to cook anything. It seems to cook just fine. And if it is slower, I don’t see why that is a problem. What’s the hurry? I love my Trangia. I probably wouldn’t take it to conquer K2 or Mount Everest, but on a beach in Sumatra, it is, as my father would say, the cat’s meow.

Cooking my spaghetti wasn’t hard. Eating it, however, took some doing. No matter where I tried to sit, I was soon covered in ants. In the end, there was no choice but to stand up and walk around while I ate. I almost didn’t bother with eating. It seemed like a lot of trouble, and I didn’t even feel hungry. I figured I could sleep through the night without food, and my body could happily burn more of the extra fat around my middle. But once I ate, I was glad I did. I felt ten times better and more relaxed. I washed out my one pot and one fork at the well, and I put everything away. I was already thinking ahead to the morning and packing up in the dark, so I wanted to do as much pre-packing as possible at night. I didn’t want to leave things lying about either because an animal could make off with it or even a human. The last time I left my cooking gear out was in the Philippines, and some children came along and stole it all. I got much of it back later because I found it strewn about on the beach. The kids had grabbed whatever they could, but then they realized it was of little use to them and they tossed it aside. I never did get my favorite plastic coffee spoon back, though, and I’ve regretted that ever since.

Once dinner was over and the clean-up complete, I set about going for a bucket bath for my body. This was complicated because I would have to leave my tent for a fair amount of time unguarded. The strategy I came up with was to bring my handlebar bag with me to the well. That contains all the most important documents, money, and the camera and phone. Then I put the remaining valuable items (like my laptop, hard drives, and camera lenses) inside the trailer bag and locked it. The trailer was inside one of the vestibules and hidden from view. The bike was locked up, of course. Once all this was done, I headed over to the well.

The well was almost identical to the others I’ve encountered on this ride. There was a low cement wall around it and an old plastic bucket on a rope to get the water out. Of course, there was no convenient place to put anything. I just had to strip down and lay my clothes and towel and toiletries on the wet and moldy cement wall. It’s interesting how quickly modesty concerns diminish as your dirty state rises. All I wanted to do was drop as much cold water over my head as fast as possible. If my white naked ass was hanging out there in the wind for all to see, no problem. I didn’t have the energy to care or even notice. My only concern, really, was offending local sensibilities. I didn’t care about being seen. But I was worried that I would offend local people if they saw me. But that wasn’t a big concern, and I hauled up bucket after bucket of refreshing water with my practiced bucket toss.

Once I was clean and fresh and back at my tent, there was really nothing to do but climb into the tent and lie down. It was still pretty early, but I had no reason to sit on a bench and fight the ants. I could have gone down the beach to the coffee shack. They had lights there, and quite a large group of men had gathered. They were even playing loud music. I imagine that they expected me to show up there at some point. But security concerns again kept me close to home. I couldn’t exactly walk away from my campsite and leave all my stuff unprotected. And after packing it all away so carefully, I didn’t want to take it all out again and carry it down the beach.

So I crawled inside and with a sigh I lay down full length. I’m normally a very picky person when it comes to lying down. I have very precise preferences for how I like to arrange my body. That isn’t always easy in a tent when you are lying on a thin blow-up mattress and are surrounded by pannier bags and other gear. Luckily, after a physically demanding day of cycling and just being in Indonesia, it doesn’t matter much and I was able to simply lie flat on my back like a stiff plank of wood and just stay there happily.

I soon even fell asleep, only to be woken up by an extremely bright light. For a moment, I was baffled. There was so much light that it felt almost like daylight. I knew I hadn’t slept through the night, but it was bright enough to be ten in the morning. I heard someone calling my name, and I unzipped my tent door to find the owner of the coffee shop standing beside my tent, and he had brought me some kind of high-powered battery-operated light bulb. I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know how it is charged up or anything. It was basically a big light screwed into a tiny base with a hook on it. When you screwed it all the way in, it completed a circuit and the light bulb turned on. To turn it off, you just unscrewed it. And it was bright. It was blinding.

I didn’t need this light at all, of course. My tent actually has built-in LED light strips, and that is perfect for making the tent feel like a lit room. And failing that, I have my flashlight. But I thanked him profusely and hung the bulb from a convenient hook at the top of my tent. It was so bright it was laughable. There was no way I could look at it directly. It blinded me. I couldn’t look around the tent at my stuff either because it hurt my eyes. Plus, I didn’t like the way it would certainly light up my tent for everyone to see from miles away. I like it dark and hidden and quiet. I left it on for a while out of politeness while the shop owner walked away. Then I turned it off and lay back down.

The night passed nicely. I woke up constantly, and I had to leave my tent two or three times to take a pee under the moon. My tent did get quite warm with the full fly in place, so I had to open the fly door on one side and tie it back. That would let people see into my tent through the mesh, but it allowed a nice cool breeze to come inside, too.

I don’t remember what time I called it a night, but it was early enough that I felt rested and fresh at four the next morning. Breaking camp and hitting the road was a pretty complicated process, particularly because I had some digestive problems, and I had to deal with that in the rather primitive and scary latrine nearby. Walking around that area in the total dark was a risk because of the large number of wild animals and snakes and lizards plus a greater number of piles of cow shit. I was not in the mood to step directly into one of those ankle-deep plops as I was getting ready, so I kept my flashlight in my hand on the lowest red-light setting and walked carefully. In the dark like that, you start to see threats everywhere. It reminded me of all the horrific bathrooms I experienced in Ethiopia and Guinea, and I resurrected a few techniques, the main one being to resist the urge to look around. When you go into a latrine like that, you know it is full of spiders, cockroaches, and other creatures. You know they are there, and you can’t do anything about it, so what’s the advantage to shining your flashlight around and looking at all of them? I know there is a giant spider lurking in every corner of the ceiling, so it’s best to simply pay them no attention. Don’t look around. Don’t look up. Don’t look down. Resist the urge to shine your flashlight into the corners. No good can come of it.

I went through a full shower routine at the well in the dark. I washed my hair and I even shaved a little bit. It went very well all things considered. I didn’t drop anything down the well. More important, I didn’t fall into the well. That’s a joke, but not really. I kept losing my balance in the dark as I stepped around in the assorted debris around the well, and at one point, I hit the well’s edge with my knee and felt myself going over. It really wouldn’t have been that hard to trip over the well’s edge and go down head first. So after that first time knocking my knee against it, I stayed well away.

Packing up my tent and getting everything ready was the usual process. I remember in Ethiopia I was constantly joking about the sound of all the zippers being opened and closed as I packed up all my pannier bags. It was a long and complex process. At the beginning of any trip whether you are staying in hotels or camping, it feels almost overwhelming. There are just too many things to pack and too many things to do. But in a short time, it becomes second nature. I’ve been dealing with this gear for so long now that it doesn’t feel like anything.

Since I had woken up so early and done so much pre-packing the night before, I was on the road long before the sun came up. I think it was about 5:30 when I rode away from the beach. I think my new friends on that beach would be disappointed to see that I was gone already, but I really didn’t want to wait around the whole morning to say goodbye. I just stopped at the closed coffee shack to leave the fancy light bulb the owner had lent me, and then I was back on the highway.

All the lights on my bike have long since been smashed or stopped working. Nothing ever lasts. So, just to be safe, I took out my headlamp, which with some coaxing still sort of works, turned it on, and then put it on backwards so that the light was pointing behind me. This would make me visible to the cars and trucks coming up from behind, which was the most important thing. There was enough light coming from buildings and the occasional street light for me to see enough of the road ahead of me.

The day passed very pleasantly. I knew there was a steep climb or two ahead of me, but I had only a short distance to go to reach the outskirts of Banda Aceh. After the first major climb and descent, I stopped at a pleasant spot to have a cup of coffee. I learned before not to order the regular coffee they make here. They just put coffee grounds in a cup and pour in hot water. There is so much coffee grounds it is like chewing your way through a bowl of coffee cereal. Plus, the usual coffee cup is very small. I prefer the big Canadian coffee mug. So I switched over to ordering white coffee, which is one of those coffee mixes in an envelope. Purists would scoff, since it isn’t real coffee, but I far prefer a sachet of that in a big mug over a tiny slurp of real black coffee and crunchy coffee grounds. A lot of these shops also have displays of my favorite snack out on the tables – roti cacang. It’s a kind of baked good with different pastes on the inside. I buy entire boxes of it and stuff it into the trailer.

Then came the second major climb, and I powered up it without too much trouble. There was no pushing of the bike required. I was able to ride all the way to the top no matter how steep it got, so that was encouraging. More and more, however, I believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with this bike combined with my body. Maybe it was a poor choice dating all the way back to 1998 or whenever I bought it. I watched a couple of bike touring videos from a very famous cyclist from Australia. His website and YouTube channel are called CyclingAbout. He is a true cyclist. His gear is perfect. It’s all state-of-the-art and perfectly sized and calibrated and he carries nothing but the essentials. He cycles hard and can cover over two hundred kilometers on any given day. One thing I noticed is how hard he pedals. And I think that has the effect of lifting his butt off the saddle. That might be why real cyclists don’t have sore butts. They cycle much harder than I do. I go so slowly that all my weight is resting on the saddle and very little on my feet on the pedals. Plus, I noticed that when he goes uphill, he stands up on the pedals completely and rides like a Tour de France racer, flinging the bike from side to side as he does so. I can’t do that on my bike. Whatever the reason (maybe it is too short), it’s always been impossible for me to get up out of the saddle and pedal standing up. I end up too far over the handlebars and I feel like I’m going to just fall over. When I rode ten speed bikes in previous periods of my life, I was able to stand up on the pedals just fine and power up steep hills. But I’ve never been able to do that with this Route 66. Perhaps it is the wrong size for me and has been the wrong size all this time.

This is turning into a very long story, but my day was far from over. I stopped at a few beaches along the way, and I noted that each one would be perfect for a night of camping. But I wanted to reach Banda Aceh. As I planned this trip originally, I saw myself staying in a hotel in Banda Aceh or with a Warm Showers host family. But as I got closer over the last few days, I realized that I didn’t really have to do that. Why be in a rush to leave this glorious empty, scenic coastline for a busy, crowded, dusty, hot major Indonesian city? And when I looked at the maps, I saw that there were some bungalows and resorts in an area just a few kilometers outside of Banda Aceh. I thought it would be better to stay there until my flight. I might even be able to leave my bike at one of these places during my visa run.

I eventually settled on a place called Dian Rana to check out first. Once I had selected it, I remembered that my cousin had stayed there before. And he likes to stay at really cheap places, so I thought it would be great. Just before the turn-off on the road going to the beach resorts, I saw a water purification center, so I stopped there and filled up all my water containers. I rode away with fourteen and a half liters of water, weighing an additional thirty-two pounds.

On my way to Dian Rana, I passed signs for another place called Joel’s Bungalows. It seemed to have a backpacker vibe, and I went down the rough and long access road to check it out. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the place. I didn’t like the people running it, and the setting didn’t seem that special especially when compared to what I read online about it. Plus, the bungalows were quite cheap and rickety, and they wanted 400,000 rupiah a night. I quickly got back on my bike and continued to Dian Rana.

Dian Rana looked good at first. The grounds were very nice – about ten times better than Joel’s Bungalows. The bungalows themselves looked much nicer. Best of all, the beach area was fantastic. It was drop dead gorgeous featuring wide white sandy areas, crashing waves, and massive rocky cliffs. The attraction here was clearly the scenery. The attraction definitely wasn’t the rooms, because the cheapest room they had was 200,000 rupiah, and that was for a shared bath. And the bath was very dirty and old. As I’ve said a million times, I don’t mind old and dirty. But it has to come with a price to match. I’ll pay $5 a night for a room in an old and dirty hotel. But when you pay $15, and the bathroom is a smelly torture chamber, it feels like you are being taken advantage of. I found out later that my cousin was paying 50,000 for a room at this same place, so I don’t know what happened. Maybe they cheated me.

I wasn’t happy, but I paid the 200,000 and moved into my room. I did only the minimum amount of unpacking because I was eager to walk up and down that gorgeous beach. I took a quick shower in the disgusting bathroom (at least there was plenty of water in the tank), and then outfitted my daypack with camera and phone and other essentials. I also kept my computer and handlebar bag inside the trailer which I zipped shut and locked. I was still suffering from stomach cramps, so I didn’t go as far along the beach as I wanted, but I had a great time and snapped some great pictures – almost all with my phone. I took out my camera at one point, but that was only because I felt like I should. But I quickly went back to using just my phone. If I dump all my Olympus gear and pick up a Nikon D5600 with an 18-55 kit lens, I could save four or five more pounds of weight…

Things got a bit complicated in my life after that because I reached out to a guy named Aan that I’d met in Meulaboh. He actually lives in Banda Aceh, and he said that I should look him up when I get there. He also offered to store my bicycle while I go on my visa run. Aan quickly got back to me and he said that he knew Dian Rana and he would come out and visit me. Later, out of nowhere, I get a message from him saying that he was down on the beach with a beer, and where was I? He said he spoke to the girl at the hotel, and she said that I had gone to the beach. And that’s true, but that was four hours ago.

Anyway, I quickly got dressed and went out to meet him there. We hung out on the beach for a while and then we returned to the Dian Rana and sat at a table and talked. He had come out with a friend, but this guy didn’t speak any English. I had a good time chatting with Aan. His English is pretty good and he is somewhat westernized. I didn’t learn a lot about him, but his main work appears to be in the world of television. He is something of a TV personality and does a lot of freelance work as a presenter and show host. And that makes sense. He is a good-looking guy. He’s got an outgoing personality, and he is stylish. He clearly has money. When I saw him in Meulaboh, he was driving a nice motorcycle, but he said he would drive his car back to Banda Aceh. And he and his friend were on another really nice bike to come to see me. I think it was a BMW.

Aan and his friend were observant Muslims. When we left from the beach it was because they wanted to return to the Dian Rana and pray at the mashallah at prayer time. And, later, when we heard the call to prayer a second time, they both fell silent. They said it was respectful to be silent during the call to prayer.

I think I talked a lot of foolish stuff. I hadn’t had the chance to talk to anyone that could even remotely understand me for a long time, and I was tired, and I had eaten nothing but a couple roti cacang all day, so I babbled a little bit. Said some dumb things. I always have these viewpoints on my life as a foreigner in a place like Indonesia, and I want to express them, but without a sense of the context or some appreciation of the nuance, it comes out wrong.

Aan seemed quite willing to have me store my bike at his place, and after we worked out some logistics, I decided to take him up on his offer. The idea we settled on was for me to ride my bike into Banda Aceh on Saturday, the day of my flight. I’d ride straight to his house, arrange my bike and gear there, take a shower, change clothes, go out for a coffee with Aan and then he’d help me get a Grab or Go-Jek car to the airport. It seemed like a good plan, and I agreed. But I’m thinking now that it might be better to go into Banda Aceh on Friday, the day before my flight. I can stay in a hotel in the city for one night and then go straight to the airport. I’d have to pay 200,000 for this room anyway. So I might as well spend that money on a nicer room at an actual hotel. And who knows? It might be pouring rain on Saturday morning. I might get ten flat tires. I might have an accident. A dozen things could go wrong. And even if it works out perfectly, I’m still combining cycling into a big city with a flight out of the country. That is too much to do in one day for a guy like me. I like my journeys one step at a time.

And that, at long last, brings my story up to date. I skipped a lot of encounters and a lot of events, but that’s unavoidable. A lot happens in a day over here.

Tags: bike tour, Bike Trip, Indonesia, Sumatra