Biking around the Bukittinggi hillside

It takes 16 long hours to bus it from Parapat to Bukittinggi, a small town in the heart of west sumatra. How or why we ended up there neither of us is quite sure. May be we craved some long distance punishment dished out all too readily by local buses in Asia. Or may be it was that we were keen to continue treading a path few westerns choose to take. Either way, Bukittinggi was a great find. Known as Fort de Kock (the Dutch have such a way with words) during colonial times, Bukittinggi started out as a market place for settlements scattered about the nearby hills. During the Second World War, when Japan occupied Indonesia, the town played host to the Japanese 25th Army which forced the locals (who's going to argue with a Japanese soldier when he's holding a gun to your head?) to hollow out a deep network of tunnels and caverns in the nearby Sianok Canyon. Nobody seems to know how deep and far these tunnels run; what we do know is that thousands of Indonesians were murdered during and after their construction without mercy or regret. Fortunately, our experience of Bukittinggi was far more positive- although the local monkeys did give us a fright with their territorial antics. We roomed at the cheapest place in town, a derelict establishment called The Raja Walli run by an overtly eccentric German who knew "everything" of Sumatra and who wasn't shy of saying so. While Uli's rhetoric could be best described as tiresome (and christ did his breath stink) there is no doubting that without his help we'd have seen nothing of note in Bukittinggi or its surrounds. Take, for example, the shithouse shack opposite our hostel. To us, it was just that, a timber shell cloaked with tarpaulin where locals noisely slurped their noodles. For Uli it provided the freshest brew of kopi (coffee) in town, and its lontong (a cold savoury coconut dish with noodles) was the best for miles around. He was right too, on both fronts! Not only that, but through the shack's owners we met Taufik, a baby faced 21-year-old who spoke excellent English and whom, when not teaching Japanese to Indonesians two years his junior, doubled up as our chain-smoking chaperone. It was Taufik who kindly steered us through the traditional market maze, where we pocketed all sorts of bargains for what amounted to less than nothing. Take for instance a pouch of local tobacco. For less than one NZ dollar we came away with half a kg of sweet smelling shag and two packs stuffed full of rolling papers (both notoriously hard to find in Indonesia). And while it can be said that 'when you've seen one Asian market you've seen them all', Bukittinggi's market trumped many that had come before.

Hiring motorbikes handed us the luxury of independence, something one finds all too rarely in Asia. Following another of Uli's tips we hired, for the princely sum of 50,000 rups (or seven NZ bucks) ourselves a fine steed of a machine and set about exploring the surrounding countryside with Liew and Juese from Toba. Regrettably, we failed to observe the state of the roads and with less than 15kms under our belt our steed pulled up lame with a flat. Thankfully, Asia is chockablock with tradesmen offering up their services for a small fee. On this occasion it was a tyre fixer, who for a couple of ciggies and 15,000 rups soon had us on our way.

Trying to avoid foot-deep potholes while dodging the oncoming traffic was hard work (there was too much of both) but after two hours of terrifying biking we reached our first port of call: the equator. Now this is no ordinary line you know. No, the equator represents the intersection of the earth's surface with the plane perpendicular to the earth's axis of rotation and containing the earth's centre of mass. What? Basically it's an imaginary line spliting the earth into two hemishpheres: north and south. In short, it's the perfect place to pose for a tacky photograph, which is, of course, what we did. Oh, and for those that care, water runs down a plug hole clockwise in the northern hemisphere, and anti-clockwise in the southern hemispshere. Try it.

We'd be told that the mighty Rafflesia flower (one of the world's biggest) was not yet in bloom so instead we headed deeper into the jungle in search of a rarely visitied village we were told (Uli again) was home to a magical instrument that produced sounds which echo around the mountains for many miles. The trek through the jungle was both awesome and frightening. Awesome because we had this wonderful place all to ourselves. Frightening because there was no tradesmen to fix a punture this time round!

Our arrival in the village with the all too complicated name to remember was met with much fuss: who were these four bole (foreigner) and what did they want? "Instrument", we ventured in our most polished English. "Can we see?" Cue those clueless smiles that all too often light up an Asian face, followed by laughter and then frowns. "Instrument, can you show us?" we offered a second time with the four of us systematically bashing the air with our imagainary sticks. Cue more laughter and smiles. Then, as the exchanges started to become tiresome, a breakthrough and moments later all was revealed. Remarkably the entire village turned out to greet us - and to watch us make fools of ourselves playing the most bizarre of instruments - a giant sized xylophone shaped from half tonne granite rocks. Its purpose: to ward away evil spirits. Noise travels down the vast shaft on which the rocks are perched and out into the nearby valley care of a trumpet opening that has been hacked into the steep walls.

Such is the intensity of ancient beliefs here that to step on one of the rocks is said to lead to a premature death. Whether you believe that or not is besides the by, but it was getting dark and we still had some 120kms of potholes and motorists to navigate if we were to make it back to Bukittinggi in time for tea.

The geography and landscape in this part of Sumatra is sublime: waterfalls frame the fertile green mountains, while thick mist cloaks appears from nowhere to create mystical looking rainbows. Evenings are spent devouring simple dishes like gado-gado (veggies drenched in stay sauce) and nasi goreng (mixed veggie fried rice topped with egg). And always there are a few ice cold Bintangs to see out the night. Down the road, a short 100km hop, stands the city of Padang, another Indonesian city recently flattened by the all to frequent earthquakes that rock the island. On our last night we were saddened to hear that the latest of these earthly spasms had hit the nearby city of Bengkulu; casualties unknown.

Chill time Toba style

There's not much to be said about Medan - it's all very uninspiring really. Indonesia's fourth largest city offers little to the imagination; it's just another big Asian metropolis with too much pollution and not enough to see or do.

One good point is that the airport is only a 10 minute ride from the city centre (something to do with a belief that noise keeps evil spirits at bay) by becak, a three wheel motorised death trap that has you wishing you'd paid a few cents more to get to your destination in one piece. Fortunately we did reach ours and checked into the appaulingly bad Hotel Zakia. Aside from the cess pit toilet and flea infested bed we somehow overlooked that our hotel sat directly opposite what has to be the city's biggest bloody mosque - Mesjid Raya Medan - whose resident muezzin's call to prayer happened far too often and at a volume that the rest of Sumatra would have heard. Good ol'Islam, eh!

Medan is of little value to travellers passing through, hence we'd only planned to be there one night. To be fair though we did clock up some 12kms plodding the streets, something not too many westerners undertake given the number of cat calls that greeted us. Bizarrely the look of a 6ft blond Dutchie didn't seem to work up the men like the sight of a curly haired Kris did the women - we calculated at least nine marriage proposals and one proposition of a quick "f**k"!

It was while sipping a few cold beers (Bintang is a truly excellent drop) and shouting over the mosque's deafening adhan that we met the fine Finnish quartet of Matti, Maija, Simon and Juese, and lovely Thai Lieuw, who were to become our travelling companions for the next week.

And after much Bintang was drunk we turned in for the night having decided on Danau Toba as our next port of call - no need for an alarm call, we all knew the bloody adhan would be waking us up!

Created by a massive explosion some 70,000 years ago Lake Toba sits atop a suken supervolcano and stretches over 100km long with a depth of over 500m. It can be found at the end of a four hour local bus ride from Medan on which vomiting and wafting shit smells are routine. To be fair, as far as Asian bus trips go this one wasn't too bad. There were no goats or sheep standing in the aisles, just chain-smoking locals, and christ can the Indonesians smoke!

The ride into Parapat, the main hub sitting on Toba's northen shoreline, was breathtaking. When you get your first glimpse of Toba all of the last four hours is forgotten. Steep volcanic walls rich in green tower high above the pristine blue water; in the middle sits Samosir, an island the size of Singapore that was to be our home for the next week.

If the Toba eruption theory is to be believed such was the verosity of the blast that it changed the earth's climate forever and wiped out almost all of then human life creating a population bottle neck in central Africa and India that impacted the genetic inheritance of all humans today. Amazing, eh, but not quite as amazing as the setting.

Apparently this place used to be home to throngs of hippies in the late 80s before their gaze turned to the Thai islands. And it's easy to see why. The locals, or Bataks, are wonderful hosts who pride themselves in their cooking and hospitality, while the surrounding fertile slopes are adorned with "magic" mushrooms and weed. Visit for a week, stay for a month!

For a crazy 50,000 rupiah a night (NZ$1 = 7300) we lived in luxury on the lake shore, the calm lapping of the water rocking us to sleep every night for a week. When it got too hot we cooled off by plunging into the deep water. When we got hungry we dined on Batak-styled fish dishes. And we when we got thirsty we took turns gathering up as much chilled Bintang as one person could carry. Life can be so rewarding some times!

It was after too many said Bintangs that Kris our his Finnish male counterparts somehow decided it would be an adventure to take on Samosir's 1600m peak. At dawn they said farewell to the ladies and trudged off into the darkness, not quite sure if, let alone when, they'd be back. It was madness but like true boy scouts they were intent on hacking their way through the impregnable bush and scaling the near vertical slopes. It took em six hours to reach the top where, exhausted, they came upon a small coffee plantation run by a local family who, in true Batak style, took them in - slaughtering one of their prize cocks and cooking up a feast!

In short, Toba was a true Sumatran experience not to be repeated. Should you ever get the chance, go. The late night drunken laden beaches of Bali this is not. Toba is a small slice of heaven deep in the heart of Sumatra - the largest of Indonesia's 15,000+ islands; Borneo and Papua are larger but shared with Malaysia and New Guinea respectively.

While much of the island was devestated by the 2004 tsunami and a massive earthquake less than six months later it is great to see a level of normality has returned to every day life even if so much of the damage that was caused is still openly visable to all who visit.

As much as we would have loved to have followed in the hippies' footsteps and stayed on for a month the 30 day limit on our Indonesian visa (extendable these days if you can navigate your way through the red tape) forced us into action. We bid our Finnish compatriots farewell, well three of them, and headed back to Parapat to flag another local bus that would take us south to the town of Bukittinggi.

If you’re thinking about visiting Penang don’t coz it’s shit!

If you’re thinking about visiting Penang don’t coz it’s shit! The history of modern Penang can be traced back to 1786 when Sir Francis Light persuaded the Sultan of Kedah to cede “Pulau Pinang”, or Betel Nut Island, to the British East Indian Company. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Every guide book, every travel brochure, and every other honeymooning British couple will tell you “how amazing” this island is. Bollox. Penang is shit, and we thought that you should know this! It’s not often we’re disappointed when we’re on the road but Penang has won the gold medal as far as over rated destinations go. Originally named the Prince of Wales Island, the settlement that slowly grew was renamed George Town after King George III, and for more than 100 years remained under British colonial rule – and that’s how it should have stayed! Instead, as with the rest of Malaysia, Penang gained independence in 1957, and that’s when the rot set in. The bustling city of Georgetown (so many cars) is the island’s commercial and political hub, and rather inevitably the base for most overseas visitors. Sure, the island might have a colourful history and boast some of South East Asia’s finest remaining colonial buildings, but that’s not enough to warrant its reputation as a “must see” destination.

The island, from top to bottom, is nothing more than an ageing, sprawling dump. At the risk of defaming the Chinese, again, we reckon they’re the ones at fault. It seemed some 90 per cent of the locals were of Chinese origin, and some 90 per cent of the tourists to boot. As a consequence, the place stinks, with over crowding and squalor everywhere you look. To quote one Malaysian local we met, Darran, who has returned for a year’s work after a 20 year hiatus: “I’m lost. The Penang I grew up in and studied in has gone. I don’t know this place any more.” People, generally, stay in one of two areas: backpackers are drawn to the cheap as chips Chinatown area, flanked by Little India; package holiday makers tend to opt for the resort ridden Batu Ferringhi, why God only knows! At least Georgetown, home to Chinatown among its suburbs, has a few bits to offer those passing through. Little India is like a street party at night, while the top end of Jalan Penang is home to some decent bars, even clubs (Chinese style!) The capital is also home to Fort Conwallis, a former stockade, and some impressive colonial builds.

That really is about as good as it gets – unless you happen to see Everton destroy Manchester United, 3-1, on the big screen! Then Penang is simply great! Watching the throngs of locals sporting Man Utd shirts collapse to the ground when young Rodwell fired home the winner was a moment to remember, regardless of where you were! To be fair, there are a great number of temples to visit. Khoo Kongsi is by far the grandest clan temple on the island, while the massive Kek Lok Si is said to be one of the finest Buddhist temples in South East Asia (you have to run a gauntlet of hawkers and t-shirt stalls just to get to the main gate). But don’t, like us, fall for the charming way the Snake Temple is depicted in local leaflets thereby avoiding a worthless bum-numbing bus ride! Colourfully described as a temple housing poisonous pit vipers rendered harmless by smoking incense, we found no more than a few plastic imitations and two locals flogging Kodak snaps with an ageing 10ft python. Two hours wasted. That said, there’s always the “world class” beaches found further north; Batu Ferringhi is the home to package holidaymakers, wooed by glossy brochure images of golden sand and deep blue waters. Uh, no. All you’ll find here is a few swanky resorts framed by dilapidated buildings and empty restaurants. Even the beaches suck. And for Malaysia, not least South Asia, these beaches really do suck, not to mention swamped by poisonous jellyfish! Another two hours wasted. Ah, but there’s the amazing Penang Hill, Malaysia’s first hill station, its summit still fed by 90 year old funicular trains. Ironically, the day after we made the trip 830m above sea level the train was to be closed after 89 years of operation, replaced by a 21st century imitation. As for the train itself, for us British Rail now doesn’t seem such a joke. Wait two hours to board, queue for another half hour (four small carriages only and the trip takes 28 minutes), then discover what tinned sardines must feel like when finally boarding before exhaling in bewilderment on realising the views from the top looking nothing like the postcards suggested. Four hours wasted.

But surely the food saves the day. Perhaps. There’s no disputing Penang is home to some fine fare. Any one of the countless Malay, Chinese, Indian, Indonesian and Nonyan stalls we called on served us up some really tasty, often spicy grub - very cheap too. The many night food markets littering the city, too, are well worth a visit, but after a few days the novelty wears off and some dishes really aren’t all that tasty. And every where you go it’s Carlsberg or Tiger, big litre bottles that turn some how manage to turn warm even when delivered in ice buckets. Hmmm, Penang. What more can we say? Well, don’t be surprised if you’re forced to bury a dead dog on the beach terrace of a local bar, or get confused with the silly money. They’re building – the Chinese actually – a second bridge to the mainland just to add to the overpopulation. The buses are reliable and offer a cheap retreat from the exhaust fumes and smog. Oh, and it’s boasts a really well served airport, so it’s quick and easy to get out.

It's KL but not as we know it

Talk about getting great bang for your buck; the Air Asia flight from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur was something of a steal at 300 bucks NZ each. Thrown into the mix was a $40 discount for our onward flights to Penang, courtesy of Flight Centre – word of advice fellow travellers: get a cheapo airfare with a low budget airline on the internet and the company will beat it by a buck and throw in a future discount! The flight time was eight hours, the plane was half empty and we arrived 30 minutes ahead of time. What more can you ask for? Straight onto an express bus and 50 minutes later we were in downtown KL. All for the outlandish price of two bucks NZ! The fact we were arriving during Chinese New Year was always going to complicate things, but after a short stroll through China Town we found a shithole with two dorm beds left – another silly price: four bucks NZ. “Done”, we said, and waded into the sweaty, brick dungeon. KL is the hub for Air Asia, and as such the perfect place to base yourselves and take advantage of ridiculously cheap flight deals. Our flight to Penang, already booked, cost us the better part of 25 bucks NZ, and with accommodation so cheap in the Malaysian capital it was time to hit the street hawkers and roam the stalls for some much needed Asian fare. Let’s be honest here. We’d done KL before, on our way to New Zealand. This time round we had no intention of exploring the city as we did everything on offer last time around. This time around it was all about the food, and the Tiger! How ironic then that we should spend our first night gorging on wonderful Malaysian grub at the very same place in China Town when passing through with Marit’s parents. During our brief stay we were both taken aback at how much dirtier and run down the city seemed, and it had only been three years. While new buildings, most of them posh hotels, were popping up everywhere, recent additions to the crowded skyline looked tired and poorly maintained. The streets, too, seemed far busier, and the atmosphere claustrophobic. Why? Well for one thing the Asian invasion that is the migrating Chinese have descended on this city in their tens of thousands. Even the open spaces that worked as natural boundaries were gone and the countless ethnic neighbourhoods had merged into a sprawling mess. In short, KL has become “another Asian metropolis”, and the sad thing is that there’s only worse to come.

Talk about timing!

Touch down, and another handful of days to go nuts in Aussie's coolest city. Once again, the wonderful Pim and Yvonne played hosts - the beer was ready and waiting when we knocked on their door! As was good'ol Ray, so our first night back was a late one as we all stayed up drinking and catching up.

To be frank, this time around we had no intention whatsoever of plodding the streets. With only three days it was all about getting out there and taking in the nightlife. So what a bonus to hear that our arrival coincided with the 30th anniversary of the St Kilda street festival.

A record turnout had seen, according to the newspapers, more than 250,000 revellers going bonkers in the south Melbourne beach suburb, and with Sunday the end of a week long party some 400,000 were expected to descend - and they did, and we made a point of being among them! There was live music everywhere - tram stops were besieged by bands eager to play to the masses. Food stalls everywhere you turned. Then there were the bars. Hundreds of bars packed to the rafters. Oh what an atmosphere. Oh what a laugh!

What we hadn't banked on was catching up with Kirsty (a long story, but Kris and Kirsty used to play together in the sandpits as kids) and her fella James, recent arrivals in Melbourne from the UK intent on making the second biggest city in Aussie their new home. It was great to catch, albeit quick, and great to hear that their settling into their new way of life, with good jobs and an appartment in the chic suburb of Toorak.

It was a late night, you can be sure. But not as late as the next! Once we learned good ol'Kasper from Amsterdam was due to land on the Monday there was no holding us back! All those months since we'd last shared a beer disappeared when we met him off the airport bus and headed out for some well overdue beers! Kasper, I'm not sure how your head was on Tuesday, but shit were we hungover as we hailed yet another taxi and bid this great city farewell.

Tassie hospitality at it finest

Neither of us really knew what to expect of Tasmania. Both of us left humbled and inspired. This tiny little state, forgotten and overlooked by mainlanders, offers all who visit an unforgettable experience. Sure, it’s devoid of bright lights and late nights (Hobart aside) but that’s not what this place is about. Tasmania is about embracing the great outdoors. It’s about camping and tramping, fishing and fires. It’s about diverse landscapes and the weird and wonderful wildlife. It’s about forgetting the outside world and revisiting our roots.

True to their word, no sooner had we pitched up in Hobart than we were swept up by the wonderful Troy and Toni and packed off to their Lindisfarne home. During our brief night together besides a fire at Top Camp, two weeks earlier, we clicked, both Marit and I felt like we’d known them for years. And the feeling only intensified during our three night stay, during which we were made to feel like royalty – Troy, Toni, our door is always open, where ever we might be. Kangaroo on the bbq greeted us after our first hot shower in a week. Our dirty stained clothes got the wash of their life and were hung outside to dry. Cooked breakfasts, a double bed with pillows, internet access and music were just a few of the home comforts thrust in front of us. A great night out in town with their friends suppin local beer and wine culminated with a fantastic Thai feed – oh how good it was to chow down on food we hadn’t had to cook!

It’s an often used adage that “time flies” and so it proved as we wiled away our final few hours in the state capital. For a second time we absorbed the atmosphere of the Salamanca market, strolled along the wharf eating fresh fish and chips, and ended the day in style with a visit to the brilliant Lark Distillery, Tasmania’s award-winning whisky distillery. Unlike Hellyer, this place entices the visitor to sample whiskies from around the world in homely surroundings; the bar brimming with hundreds of bottles, not to mention over a dozen of its own offerings. Time for us to go Tasmania, thanks a bundle for everything, it has been emotional!