Day 123 - finally, I get somewhere - Unfinished Business

August 31, 2023

Day 123 - finally, I get somewhere

I've learnt something about cycling in the past couple of days. The average gradient of your ride can be less than 1% - eg, 750 m of climbing in 100 km, and you can still have a very hard task. This is how it works. Every time you climb, you gain just 25 m but at a gradient of 10-12 %. Thus, in going 750 m you climb up 30 little pinches. Well, I did 145 km today in an attempt to get well under the psychological barrier of 500 km to Dumai. I averaged 18.5 kmh and thus was in the saddle for about 8 hours, and soaking wet all day. There was hardly a hill I climbed in anything but first gear.

Apart from being a long day of hard cycling, with all of the usual annoyances- loud vehicles, plumes of diesel smoke on the climbs, trucks hindering my descents, etc, the scenery was abysmal. But before I get to that, the day had a highlight that I heard before I saw: siamangs, the largest gibbon species, often referred to as the singing acrobats of Asian forests. I watched them for 15 minutes and that's exactly what they were.

It may surprise you that, in Sumatra, there is a huge trade in gibbons. Basically, poachers kill the parents and then abduct a baby, for which they already have a buyer.

A couple of siamang in some roadside vegetation that bordered a palm plantation.

The air was overcast and smoky. The palms went on forever, and I found nothing to inspire a photograph.

Home among the palm trees - John Williamson

There are small palms on all of the terraces

Wouldn't you think that it's a good idea to leave decent blocks of original forest with corridors joining them? I'm thinking here of the welfare of the poachers and their families.

The endless palms make for a very boring blog. When I did see something to inspire me - a fellow named Muliana, who had ridden his single speed bike from Jakarta to Medan, and was on his way home, my phone screen was black. That was a battle that could wait. I got a lovely photo on my camera.

I had eaten a large number of bananas with bread for breakfast and they kept me going for 70 km, at which point I dropped in for Masakan Padang. I passed a guest house where I should have stayed last night if all of my kms had been in the right direction.

I passed places of importance and was somewhat relieved when brickworks appeared alongside the palms.

I knew what I had to do with my phone and that was to find "settings" and "display", but how do you do that if you can't see anything on the screen. I took the opportunity to duck into a phone store to seek advice. In that light, however, I could just see the screen and attend to it myself. I enjoyed chatting with yhe fellows in the store and exchanging photos.

I did another 10 km and decided that a tea and a coffee was what I needed to squeeze more out of the day.

Vendor of the day - it's a simple job, but the ladies nailed it.

I took the opportunity to look for nearby hotels. There were a couple of "lodgings" nearby and a hotel in a town 20 km away. These ladies assured me that the hotel exists, and so I gambled on getting a room. On the way I took the odd photo.

Sir, would you like garbage with your palm trees.

This is big! I have reached my final province.

I got to an appealing and bustling market town as the day got long and the mosques droned on. I pulled up at Hotel Wisma Raja, only to discover it full. There seem to be other hotels relatively close, so I asked about them. The fellow assured me that there's nothing nearby.

I headed off towards one five km away and on my way I saw a police station. My thinking was that if there wasn't anything around I could probably stay. An officer assured me that Hotel Wisma Wirda exists and he phoned for me. They had rooms.

And so, after 145 km, I reached Wisma Wirda. I got the usual grotty room and felt that it deserved a few photos.

I crossed the road to a restaurant that served Masakan Padang. There was the usual request for a photo and then I took a couple of random shots on my way back.

I did the night's spoke inspection - all good, and then pondered two questions: first, is there anywhere in Indonesia that doesn't offer Masakan Padang? Secondly, has anyone ever called out "I want to eat here; they've got Madakan Padang"?

Today's ride: 145 km (90 miles)
Total: 9,043 km (5,616 miles)

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John GrantWe'll have to go into the city to get Madakan Padang if you stay here on the way home. No Indonesian Warung in Newtown Ian.
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