Tuesday April 22, 2008
the calm before the storm
Today we will have the dubious honour of getting back to Medan by public transport, a mini bus or taxi. It’s about 350 kms of inter city and provincial roads that we have avoided, by cycling lesser roads. My mind and body has set aside 7 hours of tolerance for this, 8 at the most. And we have our back ups in the boot, just in case. I feel better already.
Erase last sentence. It took 15 minutes short of 12 hours. 9.15 am to 9 pm. We are alive and that’s what matters. Bikes survived too. Hilarious delays and one very sleepy driver, initially nick named Al Pacino, with profuse apologies to the real deal. We’ll stick with Sleepy Al for now.
Name later changed to ‘Sial’ or Malay for idiotic or damned, with some near misses with an oncoming police car of all things, and a couple of trucks. Jerky gear changes to go with his half opened eyelids and nodding head. The grand finale was the last 3 hours in the dark, wondering if any 2 oncoming headlights was a car or 2 motorcycles, side by side. Or if a single headlight was a motorcycle or a car with one good headlight.
Then there are cars and motorcycles without any lights. Lastly, the grim reapers of the road, inter city buses and trucks, with enough lights to light up the Starship Enterprise.
We hired a nice new Suzuki APV for Rp 700,000 or $75 for the 350 kms back to Medan. Mainly backtracking to Siborongborong, and then through rubber and palm oil plantation roads. Boring for cycling but a trip that should take about 7 to 8 hours, on a ‘normal’ day with an alert driver.
Rubber time dictates that our scheduled departure from the lovely Pasar Baru Hotel in Sibolga at 9 am, be stretched, like rubber to 9.45 am. Packed the bikes and drove to the taxi office 2 minutes away. To wait for the cashier to arrive. She starts work at 9 am it seems. At 9.45 she arrives with Sleepy Al, they rib and tease each other. We pay up and get a reciept. OK we have lift off, but Al heads south to the bus station, to drop off a letter. I get some bus station mayhem pictures. Fine.
We drive into the mountains to Tarutung, with Al gingerly taking each bend and pothole at cycling speed. What a careful driver, it was as if this was his very own car. We like him, and speculate that he might have gotten into a crash recently or just not this week.
After a nice lunch stop with a few sweet nothing calls to his girlfriend, and a few cigarettes, Al’s driving skills fell on par with Mr Magoo’s.
We asked him to stop and take a nap, sure, he says, but at the next view point and rest stop an hour or two away. I told him in my best threatening Indonesian that a split second of diverted attention could change our lives forever. He smiles and turns up the music. The music was pretty good, a slow rock compilation from the best of Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Scorpions and Bad Company. Repeated 20 times over 12 hours.
our hearse / taxi
To show off his other skills, Al lights up, drives, opens peanuts, works his cell phone with either one or two hands. He even clears the peanut shells off his jeans and too small a black tee shirt, by looking down of course. He drifts into the opposite lane a few times and traffic behind us does not over take for a while.
Meanwhile, the other Al, Alvin that’s next to me demonstrates the best brace position in the event of a head on collision at 100 kmph.
Just for fun I ask if he would let one of us drive. He agrees immediately! Inda Taxi couldn’t affford our rates, just as we couldn’t afford the ‘tax’ at the police roadblock that appeared 3 minutes down the road, but Al was awake for that.
Finally he takes a long siesta at a great viewpoint facing the lake’s southern shores. After a few good shots, the rain came pelting down as if to say, it’s time to move on or go keep Al company for a while. We slam both rear doors as we got in. Talk loudly like the country bumpkins we have become. I ring a bike bell. Al’s still out like a light even with Stairway to Heaven at max volume. 30 minutes of this.
Al’s phone rings. He wakes up, takes a quick glance behind and starts the hearse. As he accelerates, I tell myself to be more positive and trust in the Lord.
Maybe we should just drive of without Al when he uses the toilet at the next stop.
Just when Al turns into Alert Al, (more sweet nothing phone calls at rest stop No 3) we come across one of Inda Taxi’s Kijangs in distress. Helpful Al struts out of his hearse like the real Pacino going into a gunfight. The Kijang’s got a flat and has some rusted and dead bolted nuts that wont budge. Some passing cars and vans stop, but none carry the elusive ‘pipa’ or a long pipe, needed for more leverage other than the puny and worn out tools they had.
If not for the nice 20 deg C temps in this wet jungle near Prapat, I could be fuming and harbour thoughts of driving off without Helpful Al. It was an entirely workable idea. The Kijang wans’t going anywhere. It would take too long to catch up with us, even after it had a tyre change. We could leave at some 5 star hotel in Medan, give the Sibolga office a call, while we check in somewhere else. The taxi company would probably have look outs on the road into town, waiting to bash us up once they spot us. We wont stoop to their level.
Even Helpful Al was getting agitated when the Kijang’s driver, Ol Chubby tried in desperation, again and again to force and let the tool slip for the umpteenth time. He was really flogging a dead horse or rather Kijang, or deer in Indonesian. Lighting a cigarette, Ol Chubby had this great idea of removing our bikes and locking them in his Kijang, and yeah, all 8 of us could proceed to Medan 175 kms away. I prefer my hearse less crowded, thank you.
Gobloks !
I had a better idea. Be a man, drive that flatted beast to the next town. Ol Chubby took me seriously and managed about 20 feet of Sumatran jungle highway before grinding to a halt.
That must have loosened up some bolts, as a bemo with a small pipa stopped, Ol Chubby did the job, and yes, we might see Medan tonight.
Traffic got very heavy close to Medan, but that didnt deter Al from barreling down the road in total darkness, passing 5 trucks at a time while squeezing aside any God forsaken oncoming motorcycle. He did slow down and even stop for fleets of Battlestar Gallactica sized trucks and buses approaching us.
At our hotel in Medan, a sob story poured out that he had just drove the Medan Sibolga route last night and got zero hours of sleep. That explains it. Back to back 12 hour Sumatra highway driving. As he eagerly awaited a big tip, Alvin relieved him of his slow rock CD for Rp 10,000.
My tip for Sleepy Al was : GO GET SOME SLEEP!
Rubber time dictates that even in the most trying of times, and if you’re not on a stretcher or in an ambulance, it’s better to just grin and bear it. Jokes aside, this seems the ONLY way of coping with delays, breakdowns and life on the road in Sumatra.
On the flipside, you can get cold, hungry, horny or donate all your blood to the mosquitoes, in the jungles of Sumatra, but If you’ve run out of cigarettes, you’ve only got yourself to blame.
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