A view from the front of the bus—one of the many lakes in southern Sumatra.
Within 24 hours of completing the hot and steamy bus ride from Batam Island to Padang, Lu hustled us on to another bus. This time for a 25-hour ride from Padang to Bandar Lampung. Never heard of Bandar Lampung? Neither had we. But it was a more-than-halfway point between us and Jakarta, and a night’s stay there would give us a break in what was supposed to be a 35-hour trip overall.
This leg would take us across the southern two-thirds of Sumatra, Indonesia’s largest and the world’s sixth largest island, and put us within striking distance of the volcanic island of Krakatoa. Poor John and I were keen to take a side trip to see this historic and temperamental volcano that blew its stack in 1883 and again in the 1920s. The earlier blast, which is considered to have produced the loudest sound ever heard in modern history, actually created the island of Krakatoa. It also altered world weather patterns for many decades and caused a tsunami that travelled around the world three times. Impressive stuff. Whatever happened, our bus ride was going to be tame by comparison.
The new bus was Super Executive Class—the hot and steamy bus was merely Executive Class—and promised a toilet, air conditioning and reclining seats. The seats were permanently reclined and the air conditioning worked overtime. We were thankful that blankets were an Executive Class perk. The pillows were a nice touch too. A few used the on-board toilet, but we stopped every four hours or so at over-priced roadhouses, so the on-board toilet was for back-up only in my mind.
While not advertised, Full Music was thrown in, along with a DVD player. Most of our truck travelling companions have bought bundles of pirated DVDs in southeast Asia, so we had plenty of options for entertainment and watched three English-language movies and a selection of driver’s Indonesian music clips and slapstick comedies. We may not have understood the dialogue from any of the latter, but there were countless corny visual gags and a few hilarious moments.
But no matter how comfy things are, 25 hours is a long time. We set out at 8:35 on Thursday morning, so were expecting to reach Bandar Lampung about 9:30 on Friday. Expecting! Did you hear me say Expecting? By 11:30 Friday, the road-distance signs made it clear that Bandar Lampung was still a long, long, long way off. There really was no explaining the ‘delay’. The driver had been making good time—actually we had two drivers who spelled one another about every nine hours. Traffic wasn’t horrendous, we’d had only one 45-minute breakdown (a fanbelt that broke)
In the end, Lu told the driver we’d stay on the bus until Jakarta. He merely nodded his agreement and I rather thought he’d been expecting us to do exactly that. In fact, he never even asked Lu for any additional payment.
Lu had bought our tickets at the bus company and it was the woman there who said it was 25 hours to Bandarlampung. Lonely Planet seemed to confirm this. But now, we had no idea how long we had to go. We reached the port—for a crossing to Java—about 10:45 p.m. and were on the ferry soon afterwards. We heard the ferry took anywhere from 90 minutes to four hours, but we were pulling out of the port on the other side by 1:15 a.m.
So how much longer to Jakarta? Who knew. I’m convinced that Indonesian timetables are based on guesses and rumours. Or perhaps they have a timetable dartboard, and each throw dictates the number of hours that will be told to prospective travellers. And by travellers, I don’t mean just foreigners. The locals had no better idea than we did. One alcohol-soaked Indonesian on the ferry swore that the bus from Padang to Jakarta always takes no more than 18 hours, including the ferry. He wouldn’t believe that I had already spent almost 40 hours on said route. Another Indonesian (not booze-soaked) said it always took 35 hours. Lonely Planet says it takes 35 hours from a place two hours north of where we started. Another fellow, a foreigner, told Lu he had never known how long the trip was. Later he told me the ticket seller had told him it would take two days and two nights.
Will anyone get their story straight? Oh heck. You’re all right. You all win. Just wake me when we get there.
We finally got to Jakarta just after 3 on Saturday morning—making the bus trip a total of 42.5 hours. We never really figured out exactly where Bandar Lampung is, but I’m sure it’s not that far from Jakarta. Everyone agrees they would have super-dreaded the prospect of the entire trip had they known beforehand, but that the reality of the 40-plus hour journey wasn’t all that bad. As they say, ignorance is bliss, but next time I might fly.*
On the ferry between Sumatra and Java -- a few fellows sleeping on the top of their truck down in the vheicle area.
* Poor John and I had talked about flying from Padang to Jakarta or even on to Yogyakarta, but I said I wanted to see Jakarta (which we missed last year when we were in Indonesia) and Krakatoa, too, if possible. He dithered for a few hours—you don’t get a lot of time to decide these things—and suddenly announced he thought we should take the bus with the group. How come?, I asked, because I had been almost positive that he was going to hold his ground for flying.
Those of you who know Poor John should be able to envision the sheepish look on his face as he confessed. He said he had just remembered that one of his plans for our retirement was to travel around a lot of Indonesia by public transport. Oh really, thanks for letting me know. Guess we can tick that box. Any other plans I should know? Hmm, no. Yeah right.
Chicken, chicken and more chicken.
Food is everywhere in Indonesia and much of it is sensational street food.
Preparations begin in the early hours of each day and it’s fun to walk down the road and take in all the activity. This morning in Jakarta, Poor John and I came upon a few fellows preparing literally hundreds of chicken skewers. Actually Lu saw them first and, as she didn’t have her camera, asked me to take a few snaps if I saw them.
Perhaps 20 minutes later, we came along and they were still super busy dealing with 20 kilos of chicken breast. They’d already finished trimming and dicing all the meat, and were threading the bite-size pieces onto wooden skewers. The skewers were then bundled into lots of 40 or 50. Later these would be marinated and finally grilled over charcoal.
Trust me, these little morsels are wonderful and extremely moorish. I dare you to eat just one.
One photo is from a different food stall where cooking had already begun. Lu said she saw the first stall later in the day and by then they were threading lamb onto skewers.
Sardines in the can—looking cheerful at the start of the trip. That flash of red in the aisle is the motorbike.
Oh wow! What a night we had earlier this week. It will stay in my mind forever as a true sign of all that an overland journey can be. Of course you must keep in mind that the overland creed dictates that what happens on a trip, stays on the trip, but in this case I really must share. It was that memorable.
So how hot was it? The sweat poured off us for hours. I could be ladylike and call it perspiration, but it was sweat and lots of it. But that happens when you are engaged in a contact sport.
So how steamy was it? For starters, the windows fogged up almost immediately and stayed that way for the rest of the night. But that happens when there’s an excess of heavy breathing.
So how kinky was it? You can’t imagine. Poor John was on my left and some other guy was on my right. I never learned his name, but heck it was only one night. And the number of different positions we tried—most were awkward and all were challenging. But that happens when you’re trying to be a contortionist.
So what are you thinking?
All of you, get your minds out of the gutter! I’m talking about the fact that 40+ of us were packed like sardines into a bus meant for a lot fewer people and a lot less baggage.
We were travelling from Batam Island to Padang in Indonesia, and this unexpected bus journey arose because the ferry we were supposed to take from Batam to Jakarta was broken.
We were trundled into the ‘torture chamber’ about 7:30 at night. We were supposed to board earlier, but it took ages to cram in all the luggage—and a shiny red motorcycle. I can’t for the life of me figure out why the motorcycle wasn’t strapped to the roof, which would have been the approach in Africa.
But the bike was planted in front of Johnny (our other John) and Megan, who were planted just in front of us. As we boarded, the bike owner came back to proudly inform us of his purchase and, I suppose, we could have been more gracious in our responses.
Poor John and I were last to board and, not surprisingly, scored the worst seats in the bus—right behind Johnny and Megan. They weren’t the problem! Because of the bike, their seats seemed to be moved back about six inches and we lost all our legroom, so our knees were wedged against the back of their seats. Not fun for us, or them either.
Cramming in the bags.
If you check the main photo, you’ll see that Lu, Sarah, Poor John and I were together in the back row. That would have been fine until two more Indonesians boarded and were told to join us in the cheap seats. That’s when the big squeeze began. In the end, one of the fellows draped himself over the motorbike. He slept, or pretended to sleep, most of the night draped over the bike seat like a lion in a tree in Africa.
Not many of the rest of us slept. The bus—touted as Executive Class—boasted, in big letters on the side of the bus, that it had Full Music. Spare me. The Full Music was all in Indonesian and delivered at Full Blast. When they finally turned off the sound about 4 a.m., the fellow sitting next to me filled the gap of silence by turning on his phone, FULL BLAST, so the music never stopped for a moment.
Martin quite rightly points out that not one vehicle has any tread on the tyres, but they have every sound system element imaginable—woofers, subwoofers, graphic equalisers, bass bins (which put the oomph through you) and tops (which deafen you). Be nice if they bloody well bought decent tyres.
In addition to Full Music (and now we understand the meaning of Full), the bus claimed to have air conditioning (provided by windows, some completely missing and others permanently open) and reclining seats that wouldn’t budge.
This memorable trip lasted for 14 hours, and it will probably take me 14 days to work out all the kinks I gained that night.
P.S. Twenty-four hours later we boarded a Super Executive Class bus for another longer, memorable journey. Stay tuned.
Sorry about this brief and unexpected intermission.
Think of me for the next 35 hours — on a bus from Padang in Sumatra to Jakarta in Java. Actually it will be on two buses over three days. I’m sure it will be a form of torture.
If I can keep the laptop battery charged, I plan to write a few blog items. Just wait til you hear about our hot and steamy night in Indonesia. I promise to share all the juicy details. 🙂
Stay tuned.
A small slice of Singapore's skyline complete with ferries and cable cars.
Just when you think everything is going according to plan, something unthinkable happens and it’s time for a complete rethink.
That happened today—big time.
We left Singapore this morning, heading to a ferry that would take us to Indonesia. It was a short run—only an hour—to the island of Batam, where we would spend the night before boarding another, longer ferry to Jakarta. When I say longer, it was supposed to be a lot longer—30 hours to be exact.
But ‘supposed to be’ is the operative phrase here. Soon after we arrived in Batam, our tour leader, Lu, went off to buy tickets for the next leg. Quite a while later she returned looking rather shell-shocked. Turns out the ferry—the only ferry—is ‘broken’ and won’t run again for two weeks. Lu spoke to them only last week and everything was fine then. Of course, two weeks is an outrageous and impossible delay for us. This surprises the Indonesians who are, I suspect, used to life moving slowly and erratically.
So the question is, what next? Batam is in the extreme west of Indonesia. It’s large but remote, and there are limited options for ‘escape’. This is an overland trip, so flying is out—well not out, but definitely a last resort.
Our fall-back plan is to take a six-hour ferry tomorrow to Sumatra, and then a 36-hour bus across that island, so we can travel on to Jakarta’s island of Java. Lu says we won’t do the 36 hours in one hit, but now we’ll be figuring out things as we go.
Poor John and I have no problem with this change of plan. We’re not thrilled about 36 hours of bus, but we weren’t thrilled with 30 hours of ferry either. But Sumatra is a bonus. Last year, we spent five weeks in Indonesia and never got to Sumatra. So we’ll make the best of a hiccup.
It’s late now. I need sleep. Wish I could find a way to turn off the hotel’s karaoke bar that’s going full-tilt just outside our room. That, or if they’d let me pick the songs.
At the yurts in the early days of cold weather. Personal thermostats are already in transition with some wearing shorts and shirt sleeves and others in coats and wooly hats.
If you are like most people, you’ll find your tolerance for different temperatures will change over the duration of an overland trip. Your body will acclimatise to what’s going on around you and the hots won’t feel quite as hot and the colds won’t feel quite as cold.
Just recently, we’ve spent enough time in the steamy heat of Southeast Asia that, almost without exception, my fellow travellers and I are feeling the chill in the hostel in Singapore. The air conditioning, which is turned completely off for half the day—seems to be permanently cranked up to high. Every time someone enters the dorm room, they say ‘Gosh it’s cold in here’. I’m doing the unthinkable for me—reaching for a lightweight long-sleeved merino when I’m inside and even outside in the evenings. I’ve even taken to wearing the merino tied around my waist so I can pop it on in shops are that über air-conditioned.
In a couple of places recently, we’ve had the option to upgrade to rooms with air conditioning and hot water in the showers. We figure, why bother. We’re just not that hot. Sure, it’s hot walking around outside all day, but you cool off when you stop.
Today I forgot to take off the merino before we set out to catch the ferry for Indonesia. I’ll admit that I was a tiny bit too warm with it on, but not so much that I rushed to take it off. And it’s now tied around my waist because I’m expecting the ferry to be chilly.
Our personal thermostats changed in the cold of the Himalayas, too. The longer we were in the ‘refrigerator’, the easier it was to cope. Although for a couple of weeks, my hands never really warmed up except when I was tucked into my sleeping bag and wool merino liner. By the way, I have no idea how cold it got outside, but several nights it got down to near 0°C in the tent. We were fine.
Our rustic bungalow in Koh Samui, Thailand. Amenities—bed, mozzie net, bathroom with cold-water shower, table, light bulb, powerpoint, two chairs (one very flimsy). It was more than enough. We didn't upgrade to the air conditioning and hot-water option.
If you’re counting on five, four or even three-star accommodation, don’t do an overland trip. A lot of the time, you’ll find that your tent is the cleanest, comfiest and quietest place around.
Overland trips are budget adventures. When you aren’t bush camping or staying in campgrounds, you’ll be in budget hostels or hotels. This accommodation will usually be in the cheaper (and often the cheapest) range. Occasionally it is the only place in ‘town’.
This is not surprising. The 5000–6000 pounds you pay for six months of travel, food and accommodation doesn’t go very far.
We’ve had a lot of very basic accommodation on this trip. There have been dorm rooms for up to 30 people, and plenty of hotels with rooms for three or four people. You just have to be adaptable. In some cases, you’ll be able to upgrade from a dorm room to, say, a room for two. We’ve upgraded a few times (usually out of huge dorm rooms), but mostly it’s not been necessary or worth the extra expense. But then we’re pretty daggy (look it up) which is why, I suppose, we enjoy and do this kind of travel.
That's the shower tent hanging off the back of the truck. It takes a bit of adjusting to get the gravity feed just right.
Whether you’re overlanding through Africa, Asia or South America, you’ll find that water can be scarce and showers can be even scarcer.
Twice in Africa, I went 13–15 days without a shower. On this trip, I think nine days is the longest stretch I’ve had.
This hasn’t been because I want to torture my travelling companies; it’s because there simply hasn’t always been a place to have a shower. Oh, heck, I take that back. This truck does have a shower tent, but I’ve never used it—mostly because the water has been ice cold in spite of the fact the water bag has been in the sun for several hours. I don’t have to have hot water, but I don’t do cold, cold showers either.
So staying sort of clean can be sort of a challenge. Bucket showers were common in African villages. They haven’t been so available on thir trip, but you can concoct your own option. I’ve also brought two small bottles of waterless handwash liquid, and by using it a drop at a time, I’m just finishing off the first bottle. Moist towelettes are handy, too, but I reserve them for ‘critical’ body parts. My feet, legs, arms and neck can stay dirty. 🙂
I have to admit that since we reached Vietnam, I’ve been able to have a shower almost every day. Most budget hotels and hostels have cold-water showers only, but when the temperature outside is blisteringly hot, it doesn’t matter. In fact, it’s quite refreshing. Although I recommend having your shower later in the day, after the sun has done a bit of a warm-up job.
The main issue in these bathrooms, which I’ve mentioned before, is that the shower head usually hovers over the toilet seat.
When one more shot is one too many.
If there is such a thing as reincarnation and if it happens that I score a return trip, I want to come back as a wedding photographer in Vietnam.
I have no idea whether the job is well paid, but it is certainly in high demand.
I thought weddings were big business in Kazakhstan, but they’re amateurs compared to Vietnam. The enormity of it all was most evident soon after we arrived in Hanoi and went for a walk in the park beside the West Lake. It was a Wednesday, but every 10 metres or so was another couple being photographed ‘on’ their special day. By a temple, by the lake, on the grass, amongst the flowers, against a tree, on a bridge, on a park bench. Then I started seeing the same couples a second time—in different clothes, but all still in wedding get-ups. Then I started seeing these same couples changing clothes behind trees and bushes. And in every case, there was a young woman (in skin-tight pants and stilettos) mincing around somewhere with bags and armloads of bridal clothes and accessories. She and her entourage were helping the couple to choose settings and wriggle into the next outfit.
Good grief? What’s going on here? How many wedding dresses does a girl need? For that matter, how many wedding photos do a couple need?
This puzzled me for a few days and although I posed the questions to Poor John, I’m positive he didn’t think about any of them for even two seconds.
Fortunately we were booked for a two-day boat trip on Ha Long Bay and one of our travelling companions was a young Vietnamese woman—with answers.
Turns out that Vietnamese couples get their wedding photos taken as much as six months before the actual event. They hire an array of wedding clothes in a rainbow of colours and have pictures taken in as many settings as possible—especially someplace with a bit of grass or water.
Over the two weeks we had in Vietnam, I saw couples being photographed in gardens, museums, historical sites, art galleries and more. One image that will always remain in my mind’s eye is of a couple who’d had enough. It was late in the afternoon, she was in a gold number and he had a white suit. They were both exhausted. She was so over it all; lips like string and sitting vacantly on a bench while the photographer explained the next shot. The photographer didn’t get the shot, but I did.
Some children of the Himalayas.
I’ve already posted photos on Himalayan scenery (see the Tibet category), as well as some shots of the haystacks that hover above the snow line.
But I also said I would post pics of the daily life I saw there.
We’re travelling on a truck so, unless we stop, it’s hard to get amongst the people, but I see a lot from my elevated perch.
Here are some scenes of people, their villages, their homes, their crops, their livestock and the like. Lone people working in fields are collecting dung—as winter fuel—which is then carried to the village in small vehicles powered by what are essentially lawnmower engines. The rounded plastic buildings are greenhouses, and they go a long way to explaining how this massive nation feeds its huge population.
A few pics are a little fuzzy, but I’d rather leave them in than out.
To keep files a manageable size, I’ll also do separate entries on long shots of villages and cliffside villages, actual towns, and road and proper bridge construction in the region.
As an aside, there has been some friendly ribbing and discussion here about the fact I took 800+ photos in one day in the Himalayas. That’s the most photos I’ve ever taken in a day—probably the most I’ve ever taken in a week. I should point out that when you’re bouncing along in a truck for hours on end, you’d better be taking three shots of every scene on the off chance that at least one of the photos has anything other than sky in it. 🙂
Where to next? 