Our train arrived in Surabaya on time and without a hiccup. AsiaWheeling is pleased to report, that in stark contrast to Indian trains, the trains in Indonesia run quite impressively on time.

At the station, we found ourselves badly in need of water, sustenance, and an ATM. The water and the ATM were no problem. The food issue could have been dispatched quite easily as well, but we decided we might as well make our way to a hotel before finding sustenance. As we are slowly learning is always the case, this proved a poor idea, because the madness began to descend, manifesting itself in a number of ways.

The first was that we jumped at the first hotel we came to, which was a place nearby the train station, with a glorious and comfortable lobby, where a fellow was raging on a greasy and distorted sounding CasioTone keyboard, a nice restaurant upstairs, with a big projection television displaying Indonesian daytime soaps, with free WiFi, and rooms that proved to be windowless cells, with no hot water, grungy molding bathrooms, and reeking like a cab driver after three packs of cheap cigarettes and a 12 hour shift.  The bathrooms at this hotel actually locked the visitor in once the door was closed.  Even when inside trying to pry the door open, it took a swift kick from the other side to actually break free before the cholera would take hold.

Sweating and in a compromised mental state, I began to jumble my Indonesian, turning “Makasi” (thanks) into “Kamasa”, and “Masaki.” All very nice sounding words as well, but resulting only in outpourings of laughter. I had misplaced my sunglasses, and was generally disheveled.

Allow me to make excuses for myself. One particularly pertinent factor here is that the AsiaWheeling mobile team has been experiencing quite an aggressive increase in our metabolic rates. What once was enough caloric intake to justify a meal, has since become simply too little. Also, we have been eating foods that are primarily vegetables, refined grains, and oil, so the overall sustenance contained therein is less and the half-life of the food in the intestine has diminished. The resulting state of perpetual peckishness is actually quite lovely most of the time since an affordable abundance of snacks is usually easy to come by. But from time to time we get burned.

Meanwhile, despite our generously slathered sunscreen, that was exactly what was happening in Surabaya. Traffic was dense, and the number of people calling out to us had spiked sharply. The subset of those who were literally screaming out at us in a most shrill and terrifying “hello mister!” and “Where are you going mister?” proved a sizable and quite vocal minority.

With the sun beating down on our Panama hats, and the shrieks of what was beginning to sound like ghouls and cackling witches soaring over the growl and bark of thousands of mopeds, we wheeled on toward a large shopping center that advertised all kinds of restaurants therein. We wheeled into entrance after entrance, through multiple parking garages. Each possible parking location waved us away, either deeper into the lot or out of the area completely. Each time we would dismount, a smiling fellow in a policeman-like uniform would come over to us and explain “no here,” or “cycle no.”

It is at times like these, racked by hunger, lost in the infinite that I wonder: “Where does the hope live?” Where in our battered and wind torn frames did this small flame reside, such that it could not be extinguished by the blustering wind of rejection, could not be blacked out by the acrid exhaust of an overloaded cement truck burning oil? Such questions I cannot answer, but I can bravely report that hope still burned strong in the hearts of AsiaWheeling, rejection after rejection. Why would these people not take our money and harbor our cycles? We may never know.

Disgusted and frothing with maddening hunger, we left the mall and wheeled on, finding ourselves on a giant highway, which gutted its way through the city center heading north. Cars, motorcycles, and other cyclists battled for space as flows emerged within the traffic, and were soon destroyed as other traffic piled in.

Scott called a waypoint on a street warning against the presence of bicycles and rickshaws, to consult the map, and we heaved the bikes up onto the crumbling sidewalk. It was then that I spotted a restaurant! It looked sanitary enough, and was just across the street, separated from us by a mere 100 meters, and eight lines of raging traffic. Spotting a pedestrian bridge in the distance, we made a break for it, hoisting our bikes onto our shoulders and bounding up the steep steps. And then down again, carried in a half-run half-fall by the weight of the Speed TRs.

And then we were rolling into the parking lot of the restaurant. The parking attendants rose in standing ovation, screaming at us and directing us toward a basement parking garage. Down in the garage, we found even more parking attendants, probably seven or eight in all, clamoring and suggesting possible parking locations.  They seemed to be excited and friendly, taking photos with us and asking questions about the bicycles.

The gargantuan squad of parking staff was made all the more puzzling by the fact the the interior of the restaurant was completely empty. I’d like to say the food was tasty but I was in no position to judge.

Let it suffice to say that the food was transformative. We took a moment, to relax and feel the surging ecstasy of our blood sugar uptake curve.

Then it was time for more wheeling. Refueled and refreshed, we took to the streets with new vigor. The traffic was still bad, and the verbal assault from the locals still quite banshee-like, but we were able to much more effectively channel the duck’s back and we wheeled north toward the central mosque, the Arab quarter, and the Surabaya old city.

During the wheel, we experienced the longest traffic stop for passing railways to date.  The full ordeal lasted five minutes and consisted of deafening bells, but we will spare you, our dear reader, by furnishing merely a 12 second video:

At one point, we called a waypoint to buy bottles of water from a small shop tucked into a cubby in a crumbling wall. As we transacted, a giant crowd of kids arrived.

They began to tug at the bikes, attempting to climb aboard, singing local songs in screeching pre-pubescent counter tenor, and shouting in Indonesian with the occasional western naughty word. We attempted to leave, but they were blocking our path. Executing a classic fake to the left, I dashed to the right and mounted the Speed TR, I broke free of the crowd and laid in. Tarnation! The gearing was set way too high, and she was eating road slowly. As I struggled to downshift, a number of children caught up to me and began pulling at the rear rack and fenders, causing me to wobble quite perilously. Finally, with a lower gear successfully engaged, I shouted a final taunt back at the kids, and really let’r rip.

I turned back to see Scott had broken free as well, and we were off, soaring like condors northward, asking directions from time to time, and relying on our compasses, which strangely enough, were refusing to agree in this bizarre city.  Finally we found a father and a son reconstructing what seemed to be the solenoid of a giant internal combustion engine; they pointed us to our destination, the great mosque of the city, the Masjid Ampel.

Finally we arrived in the Muslim quarter. It was crowded, with row upon row of bicycle rickshaw drivers, lazing in the sun. As we approached, it seemed, word spread and they awoke to heckle us. Finally, we saw the entrance to the inner sanctum of the Masjid Ampel.  In order to reach it, we traveled through a long meandering alley full of merchants.

We first attempted to take the bikes in, but this proved impossible and met with hoots of instruction. So we scanned for the nearest parking spot and a crowd of gentleman formed around us. One on them handed us little tickets proclaiming that parking was five cents per bike. Immediately, some others began to scold him for disclosing the price. We locked the bikes to a fence, and the crowd of men began to demand a wide range of amounts of money from us. We knew never to pay until we returned, so we repeatedly communicated this to them with words, gestures, and pantomime. Finally, a woman selling dried apricots and yoghurt drinks, dressed in full headscarf came over to scold the men and in the moment of confusion we slipped away and entered the market alley.

We looked behind us where the men were now scrutinizing the Speed TRs, ringing the bells, lifting them to test the weight, changing the gears, and tapping at the tires to attempt to determine pressure. Thank goodness they are such solid and reliable cycles.

We gestured and called to them with smiles just letting them know that while we were relatively powerless, we were at least watching them and they replied in kind. A few more steps and they were out of view and we were into the market. People called at us from every angle, and some walked by us with very stern looks. We were asked again and again where are you from. “U.S.” we would say or “California.” Invariably these responses were met with a small frown.

We walked by a local shop that was playing a very entrancing middle eastern/Javanese type of music, and we began haggling with them for a copy of the disc. We no doubt paid enough for 12 of the CDs, but were also successful in decreasing the asking price to %40 of its original value, and for about a dollar we walked away with some of these gems:

Scott stopped to sample some dates and began to collect quite a few locals conversing with him in spare bits of English.

We wandered to the gates of the mosque, but decided since it was technically illegal for us to enter, and due the the high chance that it would be a venue for extracting cash from us in the form of admittance fees, donations, and bribes, we decided to enjoy it from the exterior.

Back in the cycle parking lot, the fellows appeared to have finally lost interest in the Speed TRs. When they caught sight of us, however, they perked right back up again, and began demanding parking charges in excess of the agreed-upon amount by orders of magnitude. We paid the 10 cents that were owed, and despite the proclamations of a growing hoard of Indonesian men, we took a cue from the headscarf-clad woman and hit the streets.

The sun was now hanging low in the sky, so we pulled an uber-rausch back towards the godforsaken hotel. The wheel back was brisk and full of interactions with our fellow traffic, which now consisted mostly of those commuting home by motorbike after a day’s work. A fellow with a giant leather jacket proclaiming “Star Rider” in sequined cursive, screamed at us to follow him, and he roared off into the distance. Needless, to say we appreciated the gesture but did not indulge in the pursuit.

Back outside our hotel we decided to relax in a nearby park, which apart from hoards of rats included a very strange walking path that included many, many sharp stones, affixed to the pavement so as to point upwards.

This allowed the park-goers to remove their shoes and walk on this bed-of-nails-esque pathway, perhaps to strengthen the feet? If you have a better idea, please let us know in the comments.

We spent the rest of the evening strolling through the city, past bombed-out looking buildings, reeking and bubbling open sewers, and piles of burning garbage.

The extremes of experience, indeed.

We allowed ourselves to sleep in a little after the intense wheel to Borobudur, and AsiaWheeling indulged in a prolonged breakfast on the sunny patio of the Setia Kawan. Slowly but surely the Indonesian fishy crackers were growing on me, though from time to time it seemed, I got a bite which tasted like some of the more ruddy parts of Providence, Rhode Island. Rome wasn’t built in a day either.

Today was to be a day of missions and waypoints. The first of which was the post office for some project K9 business.

We found the Indonesian post to be efficient, fast, and cheap, providing a diversity of services and materials. We were in and out in no time.

Next stop was the train station, where we were to buy tickets to Surabaya.

This also proved painless, cheap, and fast. Everyone in this country seemed interested in helping us, and we took to the streets feeling like kings.

The next mission was a little less straightforward. One issue that we had been experiencing with the Panama hats, so far, had been a propensity to get caught up in the wind and depart our heads, usually heading for some foul sewage-filled gutter or yawning crevasse.

Our solution to this problem was to engineer a strap that might be applied to the hats in order to attach them more securely to your humble correspondents’ noggins. When we returned to stash the tickets in the safety of our room, the fine staff at the Setia Kawan directed us to a street that was rumored to contain nothing but tailors, and as the sky oscillated between looking like rain, and brutal sunshine, we worked our way up the street.

The first fellow we talked to quickly understood the issue and indicated to us that he would be happy to attach a length of what looked like seatbelt to the hats. When we expressed that this was not exactly optimal, he frowned and and produced a kind of lacy material, which might have gone well on a pair of ladies unmentionables.

When this also proved to be not exactly in line with the AsiaWheeling aesthetic, he tried once more with the seatbelt, and eventually flagged us on down the road.

We were refining our own ideas about the design as we went, and our interactions with the next fellow were even better. I indicated to him where to attach buttons and used Scott’s sunglass strap as an example of the kind of cord we needed. He frowned and consulted his team before finally shaking his head as well and sending us on down the road.

The third team of tailors got it, and though I kept repeatedly banging my head into the jagged and rusted metal roof of his little tailor’s stall, he indicated to us that he would be able to to get the job done, but that we needed to go down the street and purchase some buttons and cords.

Luckily no more than a half block away there was a great Mecca of buttons and cords. We were able to select from a plethora of choices.

In the end we selected two stout crimson leather bands, and a pair of graphite buttons. The entire ensemble was finished off with a touch of class, when we opted to upgrade to the 30-cent brass clasp.

Back at the tailor’s shack, I banged my head a few more times, as he worked on our hats.

The end result was fantastic, and when we asked him how much we owed, he said nothing. We decided to pay him anyway, and climbed back on the cycles, for the first time fearing not for our hats.

The last waypoint was a shopping mall, where we sought sustenance.  It was complete with a booth selling DVDs, VCDs, and CDs of Indonesian and foreign pop music.  Playing on the screen was Britney Spears’ Womanizer music video.  Quite entrancing.

Also displayed at this mall were ornate traditional dresses burgeoning with sequins and silk, for all the peacocking needs of Yogjakarta’s female elite.

Dining at a Thai restaurant next to a bowling alley in the mall, we fell into the Wikireader once again, and then were sated.

On our way home to the good old Setia Kawan, we stopped at another mall on which the ground floor was an expansive supermarket called “Hero.”

We found it to be full of some very fascinating items, and laden with supplies.  Stocking up on nuts, crackers, and water proved to be an eye-opening waypoint.

We wheeled back to the Setia Kawan just in time to avoid a howling downpour which wore on well onto the night.

The alarm began ringing at 6am (playing the theme to Sim City 2000; if you know and love this tune as well, please let us know in the comments) and Scott and I pulled ourselves out of the warm, slightly sweaty, and intensely patterned comfort of our beds at the Setia Kawan. Knowing we had a gnarly wheel ahead, we ordered the house Indonesian breakfast and laid in to our piles of sweet fried rice, sunny side up eggs and fishy crackers. We had been struggling to warm up to the fishy crackers, but with the wheel ahead, we decided we needed all the calories we could get, so down the hatch they went as well. The ride was to be a little over 35 kilometers to Borobudur, and another 35 back, making it one of the more intense of the wheels of AsiaWheeling to date.

Outside our hotel, the sun shone bright, and the sky lacked even a hint of rain. Bolstered by the solid breakfast, we set out, wheeling hard northward. Part way into the ride, Scott’s chain began to squeak (all the previous day’s rain no doubt), and we began pulling over at little roadside shops, many of which, amazingly, did not have any lubricant, claiming their specialty in tires or radiators did not necessitate the keeping of such materials on hand. In the end, we found an auto grease-covered auto mechanic who was able to give us a little used motor oil, served from an old honey container, for free no less, which solved the squeaking quite nicely, albeit in a very sticky and black way.

We wheeled on through the morning, passing endless small businesses that survive from the traffic on the road to Borobudur. Most were selling either automotive supplies and services or snacks and souvenirs. The vast quantity and diversity of Indonesian souvenirs is quite amazing, perhaps amplified by the fact that, as we have come to understand, they are all made in the Jogjakarta area. At one point, we passed a uniformed group of school children out for a morning jog. Needless to say, we were a big hit with them.

Finally the urban sprawl died away and we were once again surrounded by rice fields, furniture workshops, and smallish compounds full of fellows chipping away at stone to create ornate garden statues, and smaller souvenirs.  At one point we called a waypoint to investigate what appeared to be a large ornate cemetery in the distance. A fellow came up to us and immediately began teaching us Indonesian at an alarming and incomprehensible rate, while his compatriots struggled to fix their truck which had developed a number of debilitating problems. The fellow had progressed to lesson 7:  how to say “Barak Obama was used to live in Indonesia. Big ups Obama!” when we began to get restless and suffer from short-term memory overload.

Back on the road, we had been directed by the fellows at the Setia Kawan to follow the buses, and so we did, taking a few turns, and from time to time stopping to confirm with a local that we were indeed headed for the great temple. Soon we began to see smaller temples in the centers of villages along the way and were sure we must be almost to that greatest of Buddhist pilgrimages. In preparation, we stopped at a little shop, and loaded up on water and indulged in some little snacks. It was only 10:00 am but we were starving.

We sucked down three liters of water, some soft drinks, and a package of Indonesian pastries, and soon we were off again.

Borobudur was incredible. Generally, AsiaWheeling attempts to avoid the touristy activities. But for this we’d decided to make an exception. I’ll let the photos and videos speak for this place, though if you are interested in more of the history, I highly recommend the wikipedia article, which we devoured on our WikiReader..

Luckily, we had coordinated our outfits such that we were both wearing the AsiaWheeling uniform.

Before we got too far into the wheel back, we stopped at the same little shop. The owner seemed happy to see us and even more happy when we purchased another three liters of water, a can of Pakari Sweat and some fake M&Ms. These calories proved just barely enough to get us back into the Yogjakarta area, and once we were about 10 miles out, the hunger started to take a very strong hold. Our reality became distorted, and we struggled not to become unhinged beasts on collapsable bicycles.

We had heard from the beautiful and well traveled Mai Mitsuboshi that in the vicinity there was a restaurant that specialized in all variety of mushroom dishes. This was to be a waypoint, and we had even gained the name of this place during our dinner with the Yogyakarta rainmakers two nights before. Unfortunately, it seems that the sweat and grit of the road had claimed this scrap of paper, leaving us with only knowledge of the theme and approximate location of this restaurant.

We began pulling off the road from time to time, attempting to communicate “mushroom restaurant.” As you can imagine, this was met with at times hilarious, but none too productive results. Finally, rabid with hunger and at our wit’s end, we pulled into General Electric’s Indonesian headquarters, the first fellow we spoke to took pity on us, in our ragged and disoriented state, flagging down a nearby driver, who questioned us some more, and then, may the angels sing his praises, related to us the location of the restaurant.

It was about two kilometers away, and we tore into the wheel. A new kind of electricity filled us at the thought of food, and we made very short work of the trip, despite the fact that it was all uphill, and the sun was beating down on our already quite burned skin.

And, dear reader, we were decidely not disappointed.

The restaurant was shady and dark, with many fountains, and the most enticing aromas wafting from the place. While the parking attendants marveled at the Dahon Speed TRs.

I ordered a refreshing lemon and mushroom drink, and Scott a honey and lime. These were followed by mushroom satay dripping with a sweet peanut sauce; crispy fried mushrooms peppered and served with a red chili sauce; herbed and curried mushrooms complete with rice topped with more crispy mushrooms, mushroom lemongrass soup, and a mushroom and egg dish wrapped in banana leaf, and toasted over a fire.

We tried as hard as we could to savor the feast, rather just inhale it, and achieved some non-trivial success. And then leaned back to relax and enjoy the rise in blood sugar.

The wheel home was glorious. It was almost all downhill, and we flew along, pedaling very little, but covering the remaining 10 kilometers in no time. We had grand plans for further missions, but after such a wheel, we could do little more than relax in the garden at the Setia Kawan and play the ukulele until the sun hung low in the sky and the call to prayer began to sound all over the city.

Our first full day in Jogjakarta began with rain. We collected ourselves and walked down to breakfast. Lacking coffee, and still somewhat asleep, we agreed to the waitress’s suggestion and ordered the European breakfast. It was fine, and certainly beat the pants off our untoast experience in Bandung, but left something to be desired in terms of volume and butter content. We vowed, after being revived by coffee to go for the local option in the future.

With the rain seemingly done, and the sun back out again, we climbed on the speed TRs and headed south. We kept riding until the city began to dissolve into jungle.

Here we discovered a truly unbelievable expanse of furniture makers and sellers. For kilometers, we rode by nothing but furniture, and we were astounded by the prices. Ten dollars for a very solid hand-built chair. Lots of cheap tables and couches, all made of deep rain forest woods, and without the use of nails or pegs. Quite unbelievable.

We wheeled on until even the furniture sellers were gone and it was just us and the rice farmers. Rice takes an order of magnitude or two more labor to grow than wheat or corn, as evidenced by the fact that there are always many people out in the rice fields, scooping mud, redirecting water, spreading various powders, and generally keeping things in line. All without shoes.  The rice farmers also seemed to be enlisting the help of a number of strange stork-like birds, perhaps for pest control? If you know anything about this farming method, please tell us in the comments.

We wheeled on past plot after deliberately flooded plot, until the sky began to threaten rain. We were just able to duck into a small local shop in time to avoid the huge pelting drops. The interior of the shop was so packed with inventory that I was almost unable to make it up to the counter to be refused access the the bathroom. Perhaps the only inhospitable event to date in our adventures in Indonesia.

The rain lasted no more than 10 minutes, and we were once again off. We caught the Jogjakarta ring road and took it part way around the city, eventually angling back toward the shopping district, where we were fixing to have lunch and conduct some operations for Project K9.

The rain began again quite suddenly as we were passing a local bank. We called a quick waypoint and dashed for cover.

This time the rain ceased to quit, and eventually the security guard at the bank agreed to watch over the cycles and lend us an umbrella so that we could go out and find some food. Huddling under the umbrella like two young lovebirds, we sloshed through the centimeters of water which ran in the streets. Luckily, right around the corner, we discovered a gigantic grocery store and mall with a vast, but none too clean food court.

We selected a place called Basko, which seemed to be a chain and also the name of a certain kind of everything but the kitchen sink soup: two different kinds of noodles, meatballs, chicken pieces, fried shrimp cracker bits, and a variety of leaves. We were famished and the Basko proved nourishing and tasty.  From there, we spent a few minutes inspecting the offerings of the grocery store.

Refueled, we exited the mall to find the rain had once again stopped.

The remainder of the wheel followed the pattern of the first half, with a cocktail of scheduled and unscheduled (rain-related) waypoints. One of which was at a stand that appeared to deal in traditional sexual remedies, and elixirs. The fellow spoke little English, but seemed thrilled to have us post up there for a bit.

With the rain continuing into the night, we opted for dinner at a nearby cafe, frequented it seemed, exclusively by foreigners, and covered with the same gecko-themed artwork as the Setia Kawan. The food was just fine, and they played Brazilian and Cuban music very loudly throughout the entire ordeal. We wiled away the rest of the evening reading about rice production on the WikiReader and discussing the fantastic possibilities associated with a South American/Caribbean wheeling. For that, however, I guess you, dear reader, will just have to stay tuned.

We, I believe wisely, decided to skip breakfast our last morning at the Patradissa in Bandung, Indonesia, ordering just hot water to mix with powdered coffee before throwing on our packs and unfolding the cycles for the ride to the train station. We were getting better at riding fully loaded with our packs, but still there were some issues with top-heaviness and rear viewing due to all the luggage. Regardless, we made short work of the journey, in part, I would guess because two large foreigners on folding bicycles laden down with 50 pounds of AsiaWheeling gear are not a common sight on the streets of Bandung, so people gave us quite a bit of room, and plenty of honks, waves, and shouts of “hello mister!”

At the Bandung Station, as we folded our bikes, this time we were completely free from solicitations from baggage handlers, as though word has spread that AsiaWheeling was in town and determined to transport their own luggage.

The train ride to Yogyakarta, (or Jogjakarta depending on your map) was gorgeous and also quite time intensive. We had loaded up on a number of Indonesian snacks for the ride, so we munched happily on cheese and banana flavored crackers and wiled away our time on correspondence. Of interest as well were these Sundanese fried leaf snacks… very tasty.

Meanwhile, endless volcanoes and valleys full of rice paddies rolled by as we ground our way over the rusty Indonesian tracks.

We climbed off the train in Jogja and were greeted by a large statue of what appeared to be Ronald McDonald, with a large die on his head. This, we thought, must be an example of the thriving Jogjakartian modern art scene. This was more or less confirmed when we later discovered a statue of the Hamburgler sporting a bad case of the stigmata. Very progressive of the Yogjakarta municipal government, we thought.

The skies were beginning to threaten rain, and with time against us, we unfolded the cycles at the station, attracting an unprecedented crowd, and took off in search of a hotel. The first four that we visited proved to be either too expensive, too shabby, or full, but the fifth proved quite beautiful and affordable, a place by the name of Losman Setia Kawan with a lush garden courtyard, unlimited free coffee, wifi (a deal maker in and of itself), breakfast, and very clean rooms. As an added bonus, the walls of each room were painted with a giant stylized gecko, and the beds sported richly patterned Batik sheets. In short, we were thrilled with it, so we checked in.

Immediately the skies opened and we retreated into the room, knowing it would blow over soon. In fact, we had began putting on sunscreen in preparation for the return of the sun and the inaugural Yogyakarta wheel when the staff of the hotel arrived with some complimentary tropical drinks for us. A delightfully ambiguous iced juice, we drank it down and hope the ice was sanitary.  On AsiaWheeling, we take special care of the ice we consume, as it’s often frozen in gigantic chunks from tap water and hauled across the city on the backs of motorcycles covered in burlap sacks.  This particular ice turned out to be a safe bet.

By the time we had finished our beverages, the sun was back out and we commenced wheeling. Jogjakarta is a fantastic city for cycling, with moderate traffic, and beautiful tree-lined streets. We noodled our way south past endless Batik shops, and trinket markets.

By sunset, we had found our way onto the tiny and lightly trafficked back streets of the city, where we were forced to contend with many “sleeping policemen.” Sleeping Policeman is the Indonesian slang for speed bumps.

Our Dahons handled them well though, and we noodled past small community gardens, local shops, and children fishing in garbage filled rivers, all the while attracting many smiles and waves.

Soon the hunger hit and we decided to stop in a nearby restaurant. The place was mostly empty, but we had a good feeling about the waypoint, so we sat down.

We wandered around the restaurant, which sported traditional Javanese architecture, and peered into an ornate lit case, which contained various dishes, piled high in banana leaf-lined baskets. “This is a jackfuit restaurant,” one of the waitresses explained, and thus exhausting her English vocabulary began pointing out all the occurrences of the Indonesian word for jackfruit on the menu. We ordered two of the “special” plates and they proved to be absolutely delectable, with plentifully herbed chicken, crispy fried tofu, and mushy sweat shapes, accompanied of course by a steaming orb of rice. Part way through, the restaurant offered us some complimentary chicken hearts and lungs, all tied up with veins, glistening and steaming, and very interestingly spiced. They proved to be supremely tasty as well.

As we were sitting and digesting, some locals came over and invited us to join them. This occurred at about the same time as an intense rain shower began thundering on the stout clay roof overhead. Our bikes were parked safely under a corrugated plastic overhang, so we relaxed and chatted with these fellows waiting out the rain.

They turned out to all be quite interesting and accomplished gentlemen. One of them was a gregarious and ruthlessly smiley businessman in the construction industry. Another was a telecommunications contractor, whose business card sported some five different phone numbers, one for each of his telecom clients. Another fellow was a health care management consultant, well dressed and with a bright smile. The consultant was an avid cyclist, and a Mac user, who proudly proclaimed so with buttons on his backpack. The final fellow turned out to be the owner of not only this restaurant, but an entire chain of restaurants of which this was only a member.

We asked these fellows for recommendations for our upcoming wheel in Jogja, and they more than rose to the challenge with suggestions, helping us by making detailed markings on our map, and providing us with notes.

We were amazed by the startling array of clove cigarettes held by the gentleman, which all but the consultant smoked (he chose Marlboro Lights). Of particularly nice scent were the mentholated cloves in which the telecoms gentleman indulged. Clove cigarettes make up about 90% of the Indonesian cigarette market, which is one of the largest in the world by volume of cigarettes consumed. The oil of the clove acts as an anesthetic and creates a crackling noise when ignited. The Indonesian word for these cigarettes is Kretek, which is onomatopoeic reference to this crackling noise.

We also requested some recommendations of good Javanese music to share with you, dear readers. At this our new friends positively bubbled, producing multiple Discs and taking turns plugging our flip into their computers in order to give us songs. Here are two of the many fine tracks they gave us:

Traditional Javanese Gamelan Music

[audio:http://asiawheeling.com/music/JavaneseGamelan.mp3]

“Aneka Palaran”

[audio:http://asiawheeling.com/music/AnekaPalaran.mp3]

At one point, the construction fellow began expressing to us that he was torn between leaving for a meeting with the mayor of Jogjakarta and continuing his discussions with us. We joined in with the rest of the table in encouraging him to go and meet with the mayor. So he excused himself to return back newly duded up in a well pressed and flamboyantly patterned batik shirt and bid us a final farewell before dashing through the rain and climbing into a minivan that had just arrived to pick him up. It was probably 8:00 pm by this point. I guess the mayor works late here.

The rain continued to pour outside, and we continued to chat and drink tea. Finally, Scott and I felt we had to be going, so we took advantage of a lull in the downpour to ride back to the Losman Setia Kawan. Feeling quite delighted with our introduction to Jogjakarta, we collapsed into bed, opting not to set the alarm.

Our first full day in Bandung began to the sound of a morning downpour. However, when we went downstairs to breakfast, we found the sun to be shining, and the streets dry. We returned to our room, the window of which looked out directly onto a filthy brick wall about a half meter from the glass. We peered out it but were not able to locate the downpour. Eventually, we narrowed it down to the toilet in our bathroom, which we promptly deactivated by means of a grubby, rubber coated lever.

Back downstairs at breakfast, we had already sent our “toast” back once in an effort to achieve some toasting, but it seemed the humidity of Bandung and the lack of a toaster at the Patradissa were conspiring against us. I made an effort to combat the lackluster nature of the toast by over buttering. Unfortunately that too proved ineffective when my maneuvers were foiled by the presence of some petroleum-based butter substitute that refused to melt in my mouth, instead coating the interior with a thin, Vaseline-like substance.  I attempted to counteract this by applying vast quantities of ambiguous jam, which merely sweetened the toast to a cloying and terrible shape in my mouth.

And then there was the coffee that accompanied the breakfast. I can’t hope to do it justice, but perhaps we might get within a stone’s throw by visualizing the boot scrapings of a horse stall mucker, dissolved in lukewarm water, and left out all morning long in a rusting kettle. But this is not a website for griping. So please, dear reader, accept my apologies. I merely encountered the most distasteful breakfast of my life, and am now finding myself griping.  You know there are few things we take extremely seriously here on AsiaWheeling, and coffee is one of them.  So onward, we reviewed the course of the day’s wheel.

Griping aside, and still somewhat in need of sustenance, we began our wheel. Our first waypoint was up in the north of Bandung, a place called Dago, where we were to climb up into the foothills overlooking Bandung. It was rumored to be a very beautiful view, and we were excited to get out of the bustling inner city.

The sun shown bright as we wheeled up a steady but manageable incline towards Dago. The wheel was brisk and invigorating. Somewhere near the top of the current foothill, we called a lichtenstein at a random tree lined road. The road turned out to meander its way to the courtyard of what appeared to be an elementary school. From where we called a waypoint, we could just barely see an open pagoda full of little children all dressed up in what appeared to be Tae Kwon Do garb, practicing semi-graceful kick routines.

To the right of the school was a tea house that had at one point charged about 10 cents admission just to see the view. Now the ticket stall lay long unused, so we locked our bikes to it and proceeded into the establishment. Inside we discovered why. What must have at one point been a stunning view was now dominated by a number of large hotels and a power station. Still the area was rich with foliage and the air was sweet and clean, so we decided to settle down for a cup of coffee.

The coffee was an improvement over the first day’s cup by a factor too large to express without serious use of exponents, and served with what appeared to be a quarter of a cup of sugar stuffed into a small plastic bag. When they want something to be sweet here, they pull out all the stops. We lingered for some time, enjoying the screams of the Tai Kwan Do kids, which mingled well with another group of children who seemed to be learning Solfège.

A 15 cent bottle of water later, we were bombing down the hill on the Speed TRs,. blasting by traffic, and receiving all kinds of shouts and whoops from the locals. At the bottom of the hill, Scott called lichtenstein and we found ourselves in bumper-to-bumper stand-still traffic. In an attempt to avoid it, we pulled onto a side street. The pavement there was disintegrated to the point of near unrideability and we thanked the powers that be at Dahon for the wide and Kevlar-lined tires.

This crumbling avenue dumped us out into a vast market, where it truly was impossible to wheel, due to thousands of people haggling over all kinds of goods. So we dismounted and began to wander through the market, in hopes that it had been the source of the traffic, and on the other side we might find an operational thoroughfare. We stopped in the market to buy a wrench, giving us now the ability to change tires on the Speed TRs. We paid about 50 cents. Robbed blind I am sure.

On the other side of the market, the traffic was only marginally better, and we were forced at times to dismount and walk the bikes, taking our chances on the also teeming sidewalks. Eventually the traffic thinned and motion resumed. By now we were quite hungry, with the un-toast attempting to make peace between the good and evil cups of coffee, which battled for supremacy in our guts.

The next waypoint was to be a musical instrument factory, recommended to us by the illustrious Mr. Fu. Upon our arrival, we made a beeline for the restaurant. It served traditional Sundanese food, like we had had the night before, and was disarmingly delicious.

I might take a moment here to digress about Indonesian chickens. There are two kinds of chickens here: imported chickens that look much like those you might find at Safeway or Whole Foods and village chickens, which are little scrappy things that look much more like, well, birds. We have been sampling the village chickens and I might dare say they taste more flavorful and provide a more texturally satisfying meat, compared to the many chickens I have eaten in the U.S. Perhaps, and I invite speculation in the comments, this is due to the fact that village chickens spend their lives wandering around, actually getting exercise. Although just thinking of what they must eat while wandering around Indonesia is somewhat terrifying. Well, we’ll report back to you if we experience any village chicken-related liver toxicity or the like.

After another splendid Sundanese meal, and a few bottles of water, we strolled back to find a group of music students practicing some sort of jazzy exotica on traditional Indonesian instruments. We paused to watch them noting this interesting costume.

We toured the rear of the compound as well, where the instruments are produced, and wandered through the gardens and the store. Prices were very reasonable, and I found myself tempted to buy a very nice sounding drum. But the illustrious Mr. Fu had explained to us that these were all made in Jogjakarta and we could likely get them cheaper there, so I held off.

In the meantime, we cornered a student for a tour of the Anklung, the instrument that seemed to form the backbone of this place. He played us a little ditty. Bear in mind this fellow is a student, so please go easy on him.

Coming back into town from the Anklung workshop, we found what we thought at first was a mirage.  It was Dunkin Doughnuts in the middle of Bandung, just waiting to serve us a cup of coffee.  At the same prices as Boston, it was one of the more expensive encounters of the day.

Back on the road, we pedaled south, through entire neighborhoods devoted to different goods and services: motorcycle repair, signs, key copying, pets, and a fantastic one for fish.

All very interesting.

Badly in need of a refreshment, we pulled up to the hyper square, an interesting geometrical idea, and also a mall in Bandung. We over payed for bottle of halal water and took a breather.

With rain once again threatening, we high tailed it back to the Patradissa. In no time, it was pouring, and we were huddled at the tables in the common space, humbly working on this very correspondence for you, dear reader.

The Bandung train station was filled with bright sunlight, and we attracted quite a crowd as we unfolded our Speed TRs outside the main entrance. Children gathered in droves, causing the local police to shoo them away and maintain order, or so that they themselves could get a closer look.  During the next few days in Bandung, many, many local men were to approach us and compliment our bikes in a language we could not understand. In fact we were to engage in quite a number of lengthy conversations in which we would speak English, and the other party would speak Indonesian, or even a Sundanese dialect. While very few of the actual sentences could be translated, these conversations somehow moved forward. A very strange occurrence, this communication by willpower, but very powerful and the connection undeniable.

Riding the Speed TRs with our packs proved to be feasible, but we certainly had room for improvement. As we pedaled across the hot pavement of Bandung, we found ourselves to be less maneuverable, and at one point, on a brief uphill, my front wheel actually lifted from ground under the back-heavy weight distribution of the pack.

Riding with the packs also proved to make us a bit of a magnet for solicitation from the locals. As we rode, many people came up to us on motor-bikes and in cars and asked us questions in Indonesian, or broken English. “where are you from?” “good bicycle!” and “hello mister, where are you going?” formed the lion’s share of the English queries. All comments were posed with smiles and in a very unthreatening manner, though some of them certainly were bait for scams.

We rode on in search of a hotel, applying the old and relatively reliable Indian method of asking many people for directions and averaging the results. As the sun beat down onto our Panama hats, we began working our way through a list of possible spots, assembled for us by the illustrious Mr. Jackson Fu.

A Halal Hotel

Soon, a deep and gnawing hunger began to lay in and we became sweaty, thirsty, and exhausted. Traffic in Bandung was very thick, and locating hotels was becoming quite tiring.  The first place we had in mind seemed to no longer exist. So, though it was not the cleanest, cheapest, or most well lit place in the city, we decided to settle at the Hotel Patradissa, not far from the train station.

As Scott put it, the place was “totally halal.” With a giant back-lit, foil-embossed photo of the largest mosque in the world (in Mecca) playing a central role in the lobby, and a special prayer room, located, coincidentally right next to room 11 (ours). The entire establishment appeared to have been decorated thirty years ago by someone of my grandmother’s age, and never dusted.  The beds were soft and springy and the bathroom marginally terrifying.  The room had an odd funk of ripe jungle, but the common outdoor spaces were clean and filled with sunlight. The staff was uncompromisingly friendly and hospitable. Of course there was no beer for sale in the locked teakwood armoire that may have once stored prized crystal.

With our packs safely locked in the room, we took to the streets. Since our map of the city was not yet well developed, we headed back to the section where we had wheeled previously. We rode and rode, through thick smog and the racket of hundreds of poorly muffled engines, searching in vain for an eatery that looked as though it might not wreak havoc on our digestive systems. These seemed few and far between. We wheeled and wheeled, and the hunger began to clutch our reality, distorting our behaviors and clouding our judgment. The city streets were a choking mess of dusty motor-bike jams and inconveniently-placed truck deliveries.  Our blood sugar was bottoming out and both of us became singularly focused on acquiring calories without the accompaniment of deadly bacteria.  We continued to sweat.

Safety at Last

Eventually, we decided that a giant garment trading mall might contain a food court that might contain a sanitary restaurant, so we negotiated a parking spot for our cycles with a nearby lot attendant, chained the steeds to a load-bearing pole, and entered the fray.  We prayed that in this country where underwater torch-wielding scuba divers remove re-bar from bridge pylons to sell the iron, our beautiful pump-enabled seat-posts would not be stolen.

The mall was quite large, with seven or eight packed floors. Each floor contained hundreds of small stalls selling lengths of fabric, batik, and finished products like shirts and jeans. Like all malls, we thought, this one must have a food court atop it.  We took escalator after escalator, climbing skyward in search of sustenance. Finally we found the snaking hall of restaurants. This court contained a great number of stalls, many of them selling traditional Sundanese food, which looked delicious, but at least in our altered state, seemed too dangerous.  Cooked village chickens hung splayed from the rafters and purveyors called out to us to sample their dishes of dubious hygiene.  Quite a few of the vendors were burning charcoal, so the room was filled with a stifling and acrid smoke. Gripped now by hunger and wandering forlornly through crowds of shawled women, we finally arrived back where we had started. None of the places looked sanitary. And the smoke was beginning to cause our eyes to water.

We decided that the safest bet was noodles, due to the heavy use of very hot water in their production and we finally settled for one of the many stalls that looked marginally more sanitary, but still a gamble. The noodles were luscious; glorious; and refueling.  A pleasant surprise. As the sustenance entered our systems, we felt our entire reality morphing, becoming more manageable. We began to grin like fools, and even to laugh aloud.

We spent another hour or so strolling in the mall, investigating the textiles and manufactured oddities therein.

We returned to the exterior world to find it had rained quite hard during our time in the inside.

Outside the Mosque

The cycles were safe and sound, and we re-entered the traffic very much new men. We made our way back through the fuming traffic toward the city center, where there was a very large mosque, and a large grassy brutalist square. We paused there to relax and take in the scene. However, it was no more than five minutes later that we were joined by a small army of children, poking at our bikes, and calling out to us “hey mister” and “where are you going mister?”

One of the children had a large guitar, certainly longer than he was tall. Had he simply played an entire song for us I certainly would have given him a princely sum or 30 or 40 cents, but instead, he was unable to play more than a few chords, before his urges to touch us or our cycles overcame him, or he dissolved into bouts of uncontrollable giggling at the bizarre nature of the situation he found himself in. We were also joined by a number of high school- to college-age men and women, requesting photos with us and the cycles, one of whom presented us with her business card. Scott looked at the card, astonished. “You sell equity futures?” The pretty young school girl blushed, nodding her head.

The extremes of experience, indeed.

We bid our goodbyes to the small entourage of doughnut salesmen, wandering musicians, and curious children that had collected around us and hit the streets. An hour or so of wheeling later, the skies began to threaten rain again, so we made our way back to the hotel Patradissa.

Finally a Feast

Though our room was dank and musty, the common space of the hotel proved a glorious and luxurious space wherein to collect ourselves, and consult the WikiReader, in order to better acquaint ourselves with the town. While we were sitting, a Dutch couple arrived and looked at the Patradissa, then left in search of somewhere better. As the rain continued to fall, in sporadic bursts, we saw them reappear and finally purchase a room for the night at the our hotel. They had been traveling for some time, but had just arrived in Indonesia. We enjoyed chatting with them, and briefly entertained the idea of journeying up the volcano together the next day. We eventually came to our senses upon council from the illustrious Mr. Fu and decided wheeling was a better investment of our time.  After all, we were here to wheel.

As they retreated to rest inside, we climbed back on the cycles to explore the glistening streets of Bandung in search of more food.

As though transported there by divine providence, we found ourselves parking the bikes at a quaint and auspicious looking Sundanese place by the name of Dapur Ku.

Sundanese food is served in a kind of buffet hybrid style, which involves approaching a large bar that displays to the eater the full array of menu items, laid out in baskets lined with Banana leaves.

The eater then selects a number of these items, and they are brought back to life by a brief visit to the grill, the firer, or the steam bath, and presented at your table. We selected a number of glorious items: a grilled fish on a stick, chicken in a bamboo tube, fried tempe, a hot bean mush, and a variety of fresh cucumbers and cabbages. And proceeded to enjoy them all thoroughly. Sundanese food is spicy enough to wake up the taste receptors, while remaining manageable enough to experience a diversity of flavors without excessive cleansing of the pallet.

So, once again full and happy, we locked our cycles to a lamppost retired to a local cafe to compose this communiqué for you, dear reader.

AsiaWheeling has a few classes of penpals at the Cherokee Trail Elementary School in Colorado.  Here, and periodically throughout the journey, we will answer some of their questions about life on two wheels.

We received a few questions in the comments of a recent post, the answers to which are below.

Q: Do you feel safe around all the people there?

A: Not all the people, but most. Indonesians are in general very friendly and welcoming. Every once in a while we encounter someone who is trying to trick us into giving them money for nothing, or over-charging us. On a very rare occasion we might meet someone who does not like Americans very much, or does not want us to photograph them or their stuff. In these cases, we try to be as respectful as possible. There are many reasons why people don’t like America or tourists in their country and we understand that.

But on the whole, we feel very safe, and enjoy meeting new people both locals and other travelers.

Q: How far do you ride on the cool bikes every day?

A: We ride between 10 and 70 km a day. It really depends on the weather, the traffic, and the way points that we chose.

Q: Do you like the food?

A: We love trying new foods, and whenever we can be reasonably sure that it won’t make us sick we try new things. Most of them we like. For instance, a few nights ago, we had some chicken hearts and lungs that were incredible, all wrapped up with veins and very well spiced. Sometimes we have things that are strange, but not so tasty, things like some very fishy crackers that are popular in Indonesia, or some fried cows lungs, which I think had sat out too long.

Q: Have you met anyone new (not a part of Asia Wheeling or their families) there?  How did you meet them?

A: We meet new people all the time. We meet lots of fellow travelers in hotels and on the streets. We also get to meet many locals. Since there are not many white people here (did you know that being a white person is actually quite rare and special on planet earth?), people come up to us and ask to take their picture with us, so we make friends that way. We also need to work with locals to buy tickets and get food and shelter, so we are constantly meeting new people.

Q: Have you seen any other people that you knew before (like the plane trip)?

A: Nope so far all new people. Soon we will have some other friends come join us, though. So stay tuned.

Q: Where are you sleeping and how long do you stay at each place?

A: We stay between 2 and 7 days in your typical place, depending on how good the wheeling is there. We try to stay at all kinds of places except expensive. So we stay at youth hostels, business hotels, and family-run inns. Later on we might stay at a few super-fancy places, but those are few and far between due to the high cost.  Our favorite places to stay are old hotels with lots of character at affordable prices, such as the Hotel L’Orient in Pondicherry.

And now for the postcards.

Hey There Aiden,

Glad you’re studying about Asia in school.  It’s an interesting place.  Here, we drink a lot of water every day.  Because we’re out in the sun, riding bicycles, and taking medication to fight malaria which needs lots of water due to side effects of skin sensitivity.  On an active day, we consume about 5.7 liters of water.  Do you know how many gallons that is?

However, in most places in Asia, you can’t drink the tap water, because it will make you sick.  We either drink bottled water, or tea or coffee which is so hot that it kills the bacteria.  Bottled water here is not very expensive compared to in the United States.  In Indonesia, India, and China, a normal 600ml bottle of water may cost around 17 cents.

Staying hydrated by drinking water is important no matter where you are or what you’re doing.

Best,

AsiaWheeling

Greetings Garrett,

Thanks for your letter.  Our favorite colors are Ivory, Graphite, and Avocado as you can see from our website.  You’re lucky to have so much school and go on Ski Trips as well.

We’re so glad that you’re a math geek.  We are too!  In fact, we wear calculator watches because we do so much math every day.  Doing it in your head is good practice too, especially because you can’t use a calculator watch on tests in school.

Keep it up,

AsiaWheeling

你好，Ilka, 你的名字中文可以叫爱卡，很好听的名字，相信你的人长得也像你的名字一样美丽。中国地大物博，有很多好吃好玩的东西。 祝愿你好好学习，好好学习中文，将来有机会到中国来 看看。也欢迎你多上我们的网站，里面可以看到各个国家的奇闻趣事。最后，祝你越长越美丽。

高洁

大中华高级顾问

全球自行车探险 (AsiaWheeling)

Good Day Trevor,

Great to hear that you do so many sports.  We like Indiana Jones too.  In fact, our favorite activity is exploring the jungles like he does.

We also like doing math, drinking coffee, and understanding better ways to stay safe while traveling.

Your Friend,

AsiaWheeling

Hi Jake,

Nice stussy.  Those are all great sports. Stay active and be safe.  Our favorite number is 23.

Cheers,

AsiaWheeling

Howdy Austin,

We’re glad to hear that you like hockey and biking.  The most important thing is to be interested in things and do them as much as possible.

Keep riding that bike, and when you’re older, you can pick any part of the world to explore.

Wheel Safe,

AsiaWheeling

Rain poured from the sky in Jakarta as Scott, Jackson, and I diligently worked on correspondence. As the sky began to clear, we loaded the cycles into the back of the Kijiang and headed toward south Jakarta.

We were scheduled to have lunch with a Dr. Sharon Eng, a musician and globetrotter, who had developed a relationship with Jackson during his time touring Asia playing the viola. The morning’s rain had caused the city to descend into madness and gridlock. As we drove, we saw large parts of the road had been completely submerged. And as we made our way into south Jakarta, the flooding grew worse, and the traffic ground to a stand still.

In desperation, we exited the Kijiang and began on foot across mud and crumbling pavement toward the restaurant.

We entered a building and were suddenly transported to somewhere outside of Salt Lake City. Inside was a jumble of very high-end home goods merchants, with fancy bamboo flooring, and many signs in English advertising the fact that all the products were made with organic materials and a portion of all sales went toward protecting Indonesian rain forest wood.  It was a diamond in the rough of Jakarta’s soaked streets.  Walking into the restaurant, we chose a table toward the back.

The clientele of this restaurant, Koi, were a curious and varied breed, but all clearly well moneyed.  To our left, two Dutch women, one of about 34 and one of about 59 had recently been been seated across the table from each other, sandwiching a young boy with curly blond hair.  After we were presented with the chalkboard menu, the younger of the two women with her hair pulled smartly back came over to inspect it.

At our adjacent table, sat two ethnic Indonesians in their mid-twenties sporting British accents and refined, considered clothing.  The man wore facial hair and had his new MacBook on the table, complete with a Supreme sticker featuring Kermit the Frog.  The woman, strikingly beautiful, wore hair down to her shoulders and a blue blouse with white lace trim and black slacks, which buttoned well above her waist.  At the corner near the door, five women in ornate Muslim headscarves and silk, cassock-like dresses picked at duck-confit salad served in a crispy, edible bowl.

The restaurant itself proved to be, while expensive by Jakartian standards, quite delicious. Dr. Eng arrived shortly after she had completed her own battle with the traffic. We found her to be a fascinating, intelligent, and quite friendly woman.  Conversation ranged from a recent orchestral trip across China she had participated in, specifically the rabble-rousing caused by the Polish members of the tour.

While shocked that Jackson, her cerebral and talented music student, had gone into banking, she excitedly discussed potential joint-ventures.  If you can’t beat em, join ’em.  Sharon, any time you decide you are interested in a position on the AsiaWheeling board of advisers, just let us know.

With full stomachs and minds freshly opened by quite a few cups of coffee and pleasant conversation, we unloaded the bikes from Jackson’s Kijiang and hit the road. South Jakarta certainly had a different feel to it. Smaller structures, and 1 1/2 lane roads. We snaked our way through the city, following Jackson’s bishop. As we rode, the sky began to once again darken and a strong wind began to shake the overhanging jungle trees. Jackson suggested a revision to the waypoint roster, but it was already too late. The skies opened, and we were quite suddenly wheeling through a torrential downpour. We called a waypoint at the most proximate small store, and hove to in order to wait out the rain.

Our shop turned out to be across the street from the Ministry of Education, and we had the pleasure of sharing the overhanging awning with a number of employees who had ducked out for clove cigarrettes. At their current rate of consumption, it seemed to us that the bureaucrats would need to duck out again for more kreteks before the rain had even ceased.  We took a gander at the modern little market’s inner workings and pondered its many offerings, wondering how many isles of rhino-branded flu cures, lethal insect “bombs,” and muscle-enhancing powders we would walk through before the deluge halted.

This turned out, however, to merely demonstrate our ignorance of Indonesian weather, for no sooner had Jackson purchased us a few startlingly sweet Indonesian yoghurt drinks, than the rain had stopped and we were once again tempted to wheel.

The next waypoint was a haircut joint. Both Scott and I were in need of a little tidy-up. Jackson recommended a place by the name of Pax. This was an old school Indonesian barber, and the fellows there were all about professionalism. For about four US dollars, Scott and I received top notch AsiaWheeling haircuts on the spot.

These easily eclipsed the Agra cuts from the pilot study in terms of style and precision.  Points were also scored for cleanliness, and avoiding the “Desert of Flesh” which can often be found extending behind the ears after an AsiaWheeling haircut.

Newly shorn, we commenced meandering our way back to the city center where Jackson’s parents waited to take us out to a farewell dinner.

The dinner took place, not surprisingly, at a local mall. The food was incredible, and Jackson’s parents, who have been so generous and warm to us, proved to be quite pleasant dinner companions as well.

We feasted on delicious Italian fare and drank from specially requested ebullient burgundy glasses with a wine brought from household’s private collection.  Below, a ravioli topped with crispy ham is served.

As the clock ticked closer and closer to the departure of our 9:10 AM train to Bandung, Jackson switched into overdrive. Having dropped his parents off back at the house, we piled into the micro-SUV and began a whirlwind tour of Jakartian nightlife, visiting no less than nine establishments in five few hours.  Considering the driving required in between each waypoint, and the traffic which ground the city to a halt, this was no small feat.  After a final nightcap, we lay down for a final brief yet fitful night of sleep at the household.

Our second day in Jakarta began as the muggy heat worked its way into our luxurious room at Jackson’s home. We had disabled the AC (AsiaWheeling likes it hot) and as my sweat glands engaged, so did my mind: we were in Indonesia, hosted by the illustrious Jackson, and we were about to begin the first full day of AsiaWheeling. The immensity of what lay ahead lit up my system and Scott and I sprung from bed to indulge in a little correspondence. Word from Maui Jim had come through, and our new sunglasses were to be waiting for us in Singapore. Thank goodness. Those will come in handy.

A beautiful breakfast had been laid out for us, and we dug into a scrumptious meal of Paraherbs, Corn flakes, milk and toast.  Soon Jackson appeared as well, having awoken some time earlier and broken fast on his own. We took a moment to inspect the cycles and then we were off.

Jackson had prepared an aggressive itinerary for today’s wheel, and we were excited to begin. We mounted our Dahon Speed TRs and Jackson his Wim Cycle mountain bike and we were off. We quickly curled our way out of Jackson’s neighborhood and into the boiling throngs of Jakarta’s center.

I marveled for not the last time at what a welcome breed of chaos is to be found on these streets. It is true that the Jakarta traffic is thick, at times stiflingly so, but your fellow quanta of traffic are also quite understanding. I might even at times say curteous… but I’m prone to romanticism.

We whipped through the traffic as the sun beat down. Twice our Panama hats were whipped off in a sudden bits of steamy wind, or by the foul breath of a large city bus, burning a mixture of diesel and coconut oil. But each time we were able to recover them unharmed. As we pedaled on, we quickly became accustomed to the ways of the road, ringing our bells, ignoring lanes, and doing our best to signal our intent. Jackson was a fine bishop and took us through the financial district, north into the realm of government offices, and eventually through Chinatown to the old city.

In the old city we stopped for a refreshment at the Cafe Batavia. “Batavia” is the old Dutch name for Jakarta, and the cafe was definitely a throwback. The walls were almost completely covered with photographs of western movie and music stars from the 1940s and 50s. A jolly rendition of Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree. We sipped lemon tea and looked over the plan for the day. We had already accomplished a lot on the wheel, but there was still more to come.

We left the Cafe Batavia and took a quick stroll through the large courtyard outside. There were fellows positioned all around renting large Indonesian steel cycles. Each rental came complete with a bamboo pith helmet, which we could only assume passed for a head protection in these strange lands. They seemed to be quite popular among the local merry makers, who rented the cycles and the hats, and used them to pull long lazy figure-8’s through the open square. Across the square was a museum, and for 20 cents, we entered and perused imperial furniture and some decidedly unpleasant dungeons. This had been the old seat of power during colonial times, and has since fallen into a public disrepair. As we strolled through, we could hear an alarming popping noise from above, and at times little showers of plaster fell from the ceiling. We navigated around a number of Indonesian school groups in tapered jeans and a few more showers of crumbled plaster to get back to our cycles.

The next waypoint was the docks. Other than some outcries from the gatekeepers for “parking fees” we road encumbered into the fray. It was an old port, which was now catering almost exclusively to old wooden boats, which were being loaded via crane and human back with all manner of materials, from large rusting oil drums, to brand new motor scooters, still swaddled in plastic wrap.

As we rode, the workers waved and smiled, some tried to sell us no doubt deadly snacks and drinks, and others, worked to conduct traffic.

The deeper we got, the more we found ourselves joined by fork lifts and skid loaders, and even mopeds carrying frightening loads. But thanks to a little vigilance and some direction of traffic, we made our way out of the docks no worse for the wear.

By this time we were nigh on starving, so we retreated to a pleasant little chain restaurant which Jackson proclaimed to be his favorite chain in Jakarta. It was Indonesian Chinese food, and quite tasty.

We could not idle long, however, since we were already late for a meeting with the illustrious  Denise Hartono, accounts receivable agent for NLG. She met us at her office, and presented us with some sports drinks. We diluted them half way with water and sipped them wile perusing the company products exhibit and discussing the water pump and diesel generator business in Indonesia. Fascinating stuff.

The next waypoint was a grubby electrical components market in a part of Jakarta called Glodok. We strolled through the market, poking our head into various shops and speculating as to the purpose of this sea of strange gnarled second-hand electromechanical devices. At one point, we stopped to photograph a man soldering circuit boards, and he offered to teach us his craft. We attempted to graciously take a rain check and soon we were wheeling again.

It was beginning to get dark and look like rain, so we stopped at an Italian cafe only briefly before returning home. The cafe had been started by an Italian who married an Indonesian woman. The place was quite interesting with Indonesia-fied gelato and a fellow singing Buddy Holly covers on a fractured guitar. His voice was amazing, and we tipped him well.

We joined some of Jackson’s family for dinner, which was incredible Indonesian fare, followed by a most intense and caloric dessert.  The food is called Murtabak and we drove across the city to the purportedly finest stand producing it.  The stand was clean as a whistle (save for the absence of flooring) and had laid out all the ingredients to show their quality: Kraft cheese, huge cans of butter, Ritz brand dutch sprinkles, and cooking oil.

After retreating to a rooftop lounge and ordering beverages, we laid into the sweet and heavy murtabak like condors on carrion.  It was the kind of food I imagine ultramarathon runners or extreme long-distance cyclists require after a race.  Luckily, it was just enough to quell the final remaining pangs of hunger that had hit after dinner.  From there, some of the troops continued on into the night, but Scott and I were somewhat embarrassed to find ourselves in the clutches of some none-too-subtle jet lag, so we returned home for another very fitful night of rest.