Articles by Doug Nienhuis
I am a Canadian, and I am currently traveling through Asia with a touring bicycle. These are stories and pictures from my trip.
04 – Nantampukmas Hotel and the Road to Subulussalam
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.
03 – Downhill to Sidikalang
FROM THE TRUCK STOP TO SIDIKALANG
As I anticipated, the first part of this day involved pushing my bike up a few hundred more meters of altitude. The truck stop was about two thirds of the way up the volcano, and I had to go up the final third until I reached where this smaller road met up with a larger one. I had no idea …
02 – A Night at a Truck Stop
I woke up in my rather rough room in Pangururan with a fairly difficult climb ahead of me. I didn’t have perfect facts at my disposal, but according to the Plotaroute website, I would need to climb 1,500 meters (4,921 feet) before I made my way out of the caldera of Lake Toba. That gives another idea (if one were needed) of the vastness of …
01- Riding from Tuktuk
Yesterday was my first day of real cycling in a very long time, and it shows this morning. (I rode from Tuktuk to Pangururan on the other side of Samosir Island.) I’d forgotten, for example, that prickly heat is a big problem. It developed overnight, and I found myself unable to sleep. And this was at a time when I desperately needed the sleep.
Panic! – Phishing Emails Give Me a Heart Attack
I got an email claiming to be from PayPal saying that there was a problem with my account. They detected invalid information, and I needed to clear it up or they would limit my account. I was immediately suspicious, of course, because there was a log-in link included in the email. As far as I understand these things, official emails from large companies never include log-in links.
The Morality Police Raid My Hotel
It was a Saturday night. This hotel never gets very busy, but Saturday night is probably the busiest night. That’s the one night I might hear some noise and commotion and some rather odd characters (usually half-dressed men) might be spotted prowling the dark balcony. So I didn’t pay much attention when I heard some banging and crashing and loud voices.
Siantar Errand Run
I needed to buy a couple of things, and I took my camera with me as I walked around the city of Siantar, Sumatra. It’s a very long video, I suppose, but I wanted it to show what it feels like to just the walk the streets amidst all the activity.
Siantar Zoo Trip – Sleepy Animals
Lacking a GoPro, I used a GorillaPod to attach my tiny Canon point-and-shoot camera to my bike’s handlebars. The Canon doesn’t really focus anymore (and little else works on it), but it does capture video of a sort.
With the Canon point-and-shoot on my handlebars, I rode my bike to the Siantar Zoo and wandered around for a bit. I’d been to this zoo before and …