I first conceived of doing this trip after stumbling upon Jan Boonstra's Singapore cycling website. This good hearted fellow completely lays out the trip with mileage markers to boot! I sent my friend Jim an e-mail with my idea and included his website. That's all it took and 2 weeks later, the day after Kelly had left for the US , we found ourselves at the Harbor Front ferry terminal. For 30 SGD a person I had bought us tickets for the first Saturday ferry ( 7:30AM ) out to Sekupang Batam earlier that week on Penguin Ferries. The ferry company lets you bring you bike onto the boat with no problem. You just have to check it through on the SG side. I made sure to watch and see that they actually brought my bike on board. They just wheeled it on after they filled the isles practically to the ceiling with golf bags. I have never seen so many golf clubs in my life and I think Jim and I were the only people on that boat not going golfing for the weekend. When departing on the Indonesia side make sure to take care of your bike yourself and don't let it out of eye sight. Customs is no issue on either end and just wheel your bike on through as you get cleared. (If you are wondering there are money changers at the Sekupang ferry terminal that offer a better rate then can be found in Singapore .

Click on me to the right for more pictures and less talk!

Well we were off! (I will mention that you need to make a right coming out of the ferry terminal since there is no mention of this on Jan's Site) Jim and I found a small place to grab some breakfast soon after. The small restaurant guy cooked us up some delicious noodle dish and was able to provide us with some of the sweetest coffee I have ever had in my life! But we enjoyed it all none the less. The guys from the small motorbike shop next door come over to see what we were about and then got to watch me fix our first flat of the trip on Jim's bike. It was the usual case of, “Well, it wasn't flat when I got off!” Jim had picked us up 2 extra tubes and we had already gone through our first after only 15 minutes of riding! Little did I know at this point that flats would be a continuing theme on this trip! Well, we got it fixed and headed off. But we only made it another 15 minutes before his tire blew out and he got another flat! WTF! Well, that got fixed and Jim was able to stash his bike lock in some bushes to reduce weight. I can't remember exactly how many flats we got but I think it numbers at least six. It truly is a miracle we were able to finish our trip. My pump was dying, our extra tubes quickly ran out, I was running low on patches, and I don't think I could have squeezed another drop out of my tube of glue by the end of our 181 km, 2 days adventure!

The traffic on the roads was pretty bad as Jan describes but the minute you get to the Barelang Highway all the traffic melts away. Towards the end of the highway we were riding for up to 30 minutes without seeing a single vehicle! The beginning of the Barelang highways has many small shops to grab some quick snacks or drinks. However, if you wait until you hit the first and largest bridge, you can grab a snack and relax in the breeze while getting a great view. I recommend grabbing a bite here as I remember the next place we found to get a proper lunch was quite a bit farther at about the 57km mark in what I think was the fishing village at the beginning of Galang after the 5 th bridge. After making a left about a kilometer after the bridge you make another quick left and head up the small road back to the fishing village you could see from the bridge. (Keep riding, make a left at the fork, and you will reach the restaurant soon after the end of the road.) At this point I had lost the directions I had printed off of Jan's website and we were running of off intuition and what scraps we could remember from the directions!

The small kampong style restaurant was enjoyable to relax at with shade and the local kids were hanging around swimming and playing chess. The restaurant is right next to the local police house and we were reassured that this was a safe place. This made me ask whether other places were then “unsafe”??? I was told that it was dangerous to be about at night. I wasn't planning on it but Jim and I made mental notes to make sure we could find a place to sleep before dark. I asked if they knew of any places to sleep but they kept telling me that the only hotels were up in Batam. The girl cooking our food was the only one who spoke any English. It took quite a bit of questioning and explaining to get her to understand that we were looking for anyplace to stay and we didn't need or even want a full hotel accommodation. When she finally understood what we were getting at she still had no idea. She did say however that we were welcome to sleep on the restaurant floor over the water since we at least would then be next to the police station. Jim and I were ok with that knowing that at least we had a backup plan. We were originally thinking that we would just crash down in the woods off the highway if nothing turned up.

We continued on south. You can't but wonder when riding along why the highway and its' huge bridges are there. There really isn't much of anything besides some small fishing villages anywhere along the highway. And yet you have 5 large four lane bridges connecting the islands. I am sure the whole thing is a result of another case of Indonesia's classic con artistry. Some poor foreign company probably completely lost its shirt over a sour deal to put high class resorts on the southern islands. There are huge erosion problems that can be seen as you are riding by. The soil in this area is completely void of any nutrients. I am actually amazed that vegetation can grow there at all. We also witnessed substantial amounts and signs of standard slash and burn techniques.

We continued on and soon passed the right turn for the beach which is obvious thanks to the large billboard. We both thought that Jan's site had said there was going to be a restaurant and place to stay on the right at about the 65 km mark (it was actually 73km). We did find one dirt road matching the description but there was just a small house and a concrete dock. We never found the place despite our best efforts. When we reached the end of the highway my odometer read 81km and we followed the seafood sign to the small village to the left. The kampong restaurant has added quite a long pier out to edge of the deep channel. We wanted to jump off the end but the locals fishing there said there are bad undercurrents so we opted for the shallower water further in. We weren't very familiar with the kampong style and in retrospect I would have thought twice before jumping into the same water that also serves as their sewage disposal system!

There was an older devout Singaporean there who over sees the small community and he could not have been any more welcoming and giving. They don't normally rent out rooms but a couple living there had just left and they had an empty room they gave us to crash in! Not only that but they had just celebrated their uncle's birthday and he gave us beers with our dinner! WOW! The whole community welcomed us in and we had a great time conversing with those we could and relaxing. The group fishing off the end of the pier invited us to go out on their boat to fish later that night. We thought it was a great idea until we realized they were going to be out fishing until dawn! The Singaporean let us pick out our crab and grouper from the fresh fish they kept in nets hanging from the dock for dinner. It was really good and we got to watch this girl bludgeon the poor fish and crab to death! Definitely never seen that before! It was a spectacular sunset that night and they were playing a guitar until late. They all get up and do a morning prayer to the sunrise on the docks and invited us to join in. Neither Jim nor I slept that well due to having only a pad and no sheets but we still managed to get up and see the sunrise come up over the horizon. When were getting ready to head out the night fishing group came back with a large styrofoam box just chocked full of fish they had caught! I was amazed seeming I can never catch anything! They told us they drive up to the fancy resorts in Batam and sell the fish to the restaurants there. We decided to give the community 400,000 rupees for the stay, dinner, beer, 5 liters of bottled water, and most importantly for welcoming us into their home. I think this works out to about 35 SGD or about 21USD. I am fairly certain this is a substantial chunk of money for them but that's ok because I am sure they could use it more then me. Of coarse, we could leave until I fixed a flat that had appeared on my rear tire over night! God damn it!

We rode on until we reached our lunch place from the previous day to get some breakfast. We almost got turned away because the cook girl kept telling us she didn't have any breakfast because there was no bread there. We almost left when we decided that it just wasn't possible she had no food at all. Once again we managed to get it through to her that we didn't need a proper English breakfast and that any rice, noodle, crab, whatever dish would be fine for us!

It was quite hot under the beating sun for the first half of our ride back, but we got lucky with a good amount of cloud cover rolling in later on. We arrived back a Sekupang a little after 3PM and caught the 4:00 ferry back to Singapore . We were exhausted and both fell asleep during the hour long ferry ride. I actually awoke to the sight of uniformed men with assault riffles walking by me! The Singapore Navy had stopped and boarded out ferry looking for some body particular they had printed out on pieces of paper. I decided to let Jim sleep through this seeming he would have been fairly nervous knowing that as a US Navy personnel he was technically not supposed to be in Indonesia !

We both split up at Harbor front went home, showered, and passed out! A fabulous trip! I would like to thank Jan (Even though I have never met him) for taking the time to put so much valuable information up on his site!

© September 6, 2008