With some cute kids at the preschool
After just three day of riding in Java, Indonesia we have decided that a 30 day visa is entirely not enough time to see all Indonesia has to offer. It takes half that time just reading up on figuring out which of the nearly 17,000 islands you want to visit, then the rest of the time biking between the places on the narrow roads or via the patchwork of trains, buses, and ferries with barely enough time to enjoy what you are seeing. Anyway we are soldering on with this knowledge that the clock is ticking on our time in this very unique landscape.
With that being said let's get into the ride- Leaving Jgoja we headed east toward Surakarta or Solo as it is known locally. We arrived pretty early and met our WS (Warmshowers) host, Annissa and her family. Once again we were immediately welcomed into their home. The uniqueness of this situation was that unlike most WS hosts she nor anyone else in her family or friends were cyclists. It seems that in Indonesia Couchsurfing is the way many people get into hosting on Warmshowers. Like many others she just likes too meet people and hear their stories, the means of transit being irrelevant. This hosting was slightly different this time as we were introduced to a friend of hers that visits elementary school classrooms to help teach English and we were invited to join him on his work morning. Rasta, an endearing, friendly, and boisterous fellow made us feel so welcome and the Headmaster and teacher at the school could not have been nicer. We were treated like visiting royalty being served tea, coffeee, cakes, and lunch along with visiting 4 classes where Chiara had some time to spend interacting with the kids singing songs and teaching colors while I just sat in a small chair amongst the students fielding amazed stares as the odd bearded man. We also got to enjoy some play time on the jungle gym. As anyone who knows me might agree, this was my opportunity to shine. I chased them around, teetered, tottered, slid and climbed while the "adults" looked on and laughed and Chiara scolded me for doing thing that were probably frowned upon most days at the school. Phewy I say, as this wasn't an usual day and both Chiara and I left feeling so happy and fulfilled by our short time spent with these smiling, happy monsters and having been made to promise to return one day to the school to visit if/when we are again visiting Indonesia.
Anissa, Rasta, Bruce and myself, with the preschool teachers at the school (and a cheeky little girl on those monkey bars), Bruce probably breaking every playground rule
That night we also got a taste of some of the local foods that we had not yet been introduced. Chiaradiscovered for instance that she loves chicken "butt" sate (Sate- items skewered and grilled over coals) and I enjoyed a whole baby bird (I was told it was not chicken, and it tasted like turkey) including the head-beak, brains and all. During our visit we also learned a few more details about the customs of this primarlily Muslim country. The fact that there is call to prayer multiple times a day but most importantly at sunrise (lately around 4:30 am) and sunset (around 6:20 pm). The latter not being a problem but the former being an interesting wake-up call when over the local loud-speaker the prayers are loudly bellowed for all to hear, not that getting back to sleep has ever been a problem for me (just ask my mother) but Chiara is then usually up for a bit of time reading until she can doze off for another hour of rest. The other big difference for us being a recent law being passed in Indonesia forbidding the sale of alcohol (more importantly for us- beer) in any place other than bars or licensed etablishments, of which there are far too few. And when you can find it, the beer is disproportionately expensive in this otherwise budget travelers paradise. Oh well, this can be a bit of a "drying-out" period for us after almost daily Taiwan Beer, the cheap, ready availability Taiwanese standby that was hard to pass up.
We struck out the next morning without a hitch and made good time at the start toward our next goal, a mountain pass area famous for trekking that we were recommended, called Cemoro Sewu. The roads, however were choked with traffic as this was, as a matter of course for us, one of the biggest holidays of the whole year, the Muslim New Year. To add to the difficulty the road began to climb, winding at first at a comfortable grade but then quickly devolving into grades that made riding all but impossible. Though no marking on the roadsigns I would not be surpried if they reached >20% at times (As discussed in earlier posts this is not a simple 20 degree angle but 20ft vertical gain per 100ft horizontal, or in other words "unrideable"). Even the motorized vehicles at times had trouble surmountiing a few of the sections and we found ourselve pushing our loads at times over the steepest sections. No worries as this just gave the locals an opportunity to come walking over to us to get photos. "Mister" we would hear shouted (often used to get the attention a man or woman) and 3-4 people would crowd around us photos were snapped off and invariably uploaded to some social media platform. When you get a moment check Facebook Indonesia for "dumb western foreigners pushing heavy-ass bikes" and you may just find our sweaty, sun-burnt faces smiling on screen. The longest and most difficult 60km day we have recorded thus far ended at a lovely pass where we found all sorts of food stalls and a campground. The environment was starkly different from that we left a few hour earlier and the air was cool and crisp without a hint of humidity. A lovely change and a promise of a great night camping.
Amazing terraced vegetable and rice fields on the way up to Cemara Sewu and we ran into people we met in Solo at the top!
In thhe morning we both felt a bit nostaligic for home as the weather was more like a fall day in Oregon then anything else we had encountered in Asia to this point. Taking more time then should have been necesary too break camp we made our way down the opposite side of the pass with equally insanly steep roads and reached speeds easily around 70km/hr (about 40mph!). This, by far has been the fastest we have traveled on these little 20" machines. Our enjoyable coasting down the mountain was all too short lived and we were soon back to the hot, busy roads leading into the next small city. We decided to stop for the day, though we had only travelled a short distance, as our propects for accomodation further on were looking bleak. This turned out to be a good choice as, though we spent one of the least enjoyable nights stay to date, a result of heat, noise, and terrible beds, it only cost 110,000 RPE (about $8 USD) and we learned about a place, Pacitan, off our radar to this point. An early start riding, precluded by a street breakfast of rice and 'meat parts' (as we have come to call the unknown protein substances sometimes found floating in dark gravy at the roadside food stalls), found us climbing an appropriately graded road toward the coast. We read Pacitan was a small town known as a spot to surf and ignored by most tourists. Sounded great and it turned out to be fairly true to form. Other than at the small surfer friendly lodging point at which we stayed, Harry's Ocean House, which was almost all western travellers, the town was all locals and the roads were quiet, the thing that we really appreciated most of all after days of inhaling desiel exhaust and having painfully loud engine noise blasting our eardrums. The neat, clean, comfortable room cost us a budget friendly 90,000 RPE ($6 USD) and was light years better than any other place we had stayed thus far in Java.
Beach scenes from Pacitan
