Part IV

Malam, (means evening)

After leaving the internet cafe yesterday I decided it was time for a beer so went to this cool cafe playing Bob Marley. Ran into this pommy dude Ryan who'd just got into town. Joined him for a feed and made good use of his lonely planet indonesia book. He was heading up to D'enam which happened to be my guest house. He had run into Mikaya ( the tatooed woman) at Danau (Lake) Maninjau the day before. Small world.

Went with Ryan back to Panorama park and the canyon. On the other side of the canyon is a traditional village call Kota something or other (Gador I think). where they do silver smithing. Walking our way down into the canyon, this fulla decided to be our impromtu guide. He took us on a nice little stroll through the rice paddies, then through the jungle and along the river at the bottom of the canyon. It's a truly impressive place, it's a shame that indonesians are littering b@stards so the whole river flat is like a tip. Went to a nice water fall though and got our gears off and had a shower. There was a tree full of flying foxes which all took flight (after some prompting from us) which looked awesome. Got to the village and they had this impressively intricate silver jewellery there. Walking through the village the local mosque started up its evening session which sounded really erie but particularly cool. A man spat at me on my way out, he was bitter and twisted and living the fruits of his karma. He had a growth on his face like that homeless fulla that died recently. He's lucky the dao isn't down with me throwing him into the rice paddy... It's the only hostility I have come across here. Ryan found this choice armour plated centipede in the grass with a green LED in its ass.

Went back to the Cafe whatchamacallit and had some beers and a bottle of p1ss weak contraband whiskey. It's illegal here apparantly. Spent the evening playing chess and solving little puzzles, the indonesians seem to be into those in a big way. Beat one of the locals at chess 2 - 1. He was technically a better player than me but rather rash. Met another pom who wants to climb that errupting volcano in java. A local fulla did some islamic art in my book. There was about 5 or 6 other westerners in the place... damn place is getting over run!

Spent today fanging around the province on an obnoxiously loud little motorbike, Che Guevara styles. Wasn't exactly a norton 500 but was fun none the less. . Got woken up at 5 am by the mosque. It's starting to get a little old now! Ryan wanted to hire a motor bike and go for a tiki tour which is exactly what I had planned for the day, before I met him. He knew this guide Christine that he met on the bus from Maninjau. We hired our selves some bikes and set forth. I found the picture the dude drew in my book on the wall at the bike hire place. My bike was a little red suzuki and probably one of the loudest in sumatra. I liked it this way, at least people knew I was coming. With Ryan dubbing christine and me dubbing this young fulla Abel who works at the cafe and wants to be a guide so I let him tag along, off we went. We went for about an hours trek into the jungle checking out a Rafflesia in bloom. The largest flower in the world apparantly. Was wicked. The jungle here looks not unlike the bush in NZ. We then headed to this cave which stunk of bats but had some excellent formations going on. Stopped at a penang restaurant which is where they put out a selection of tasty (and I mean really tasty) food. You choose what you want and they bill you on the empty plates. Was good timing, it started p1ssing down as soon as we got inside.

After the feed we rocked out to this village surround by huge cliffs with a waterfall. I got some airtime over a bump at about 90k while riding one handed. My other hand was holding my helmet down which had a habit of coming off at high speeds. Did well to keep that under control. Abel enjoyed it though. The cliffs were impressive. We blatted through some villages, the people didnt look that pleased to see me. I wouldn't be that pleased either if some fulla was going BLAAAAAAAAT!!! through my quiet little village at about 80 k. I have no idea what the speed limit is here. What ever you feel like I think. My speedo was busted anyway. I must have passed several hundred vehicles on the journey, but people passed me too. The roads are pandemonium here. I sussed out the rule for traffic lights. They don't mean anything unless there are police watching. My guide was good for pointing this out. Intersections are basically a merge with vehicles going in all directions and you just find a gap and shoot for it. Pass when ever you like, as long as you can get through. Trucks dont mind passing on blind conrners while driving up a narrow mountain road. Stop where ever you like too, people just have to go around you. Had a nice little cruise though this windy mountain road to the kings palace. It was an impressive wooden thatched roofed traditional affair.

It got dark and we had 40k of windy mountain road before us to get back to Bukittinggi. My light ranged between not even adequate to barely visible at all. It worked better if I stayed in a lower gear and rung the sh1t out of it so thats what I did. I couldn't actually see where I was going, was more driving by a mixture of qi, instinct and good luck, didn't hit a single pot hole. Nearly hit a cat, it stopped in time, then tried to take Ryan out instead. There were lots of pedestrians too but their white head scarves were quite visible. Ryans light was better than mine and he couldnt see either yet I was leading for some reason. He was following in my wake with enough room to go around if I fell off. Got back in one piece though. Both our speedos were shot but we must have covered 3 - 400 km today. Used a whole tank of gas but then again, I was ringing it out most of the time.

There are lots of head scarf wearing moslem women crusing round in boyed up 4x4s. Its quite a sight.

There is a french anthropologist staying at D'enam. He's been studying the maninkabao (local tribe) for 5 years. Seems to be all sorts of unusual western people in indonesia. Not the usual 20 something year old back packers you find in thailand. A weird old german has turned up now but the strange old italian has left.

Thats about it for now, wrecked. Hope that made sence Will sleep well tonight, hopefully I'll sleep thorugh the 5am sermon...