Our last morning in Borneo began at once again in darkness. It’s true our room was windowless, but at 4:45 am, it was also dark outside, so we had cheated ourselves out of nothing. We rolled around in the dark as the theme to SIM city 2000 sounded out through the depth and blackness of our room at the Sipadan Inn in Semporna, Sabah, Malaysia.  Over the course of our time in Borneo, David Miller had proven a truly capital member of the expedition, improving our experience immeasurably. He had, subsequently been promoted, and his responsibilities expanded to Chairman of the AsiaWheeling Risk-Management Desk within the Bureau of Health and Safety.

In one of his first announcements in that new official capacity, David classified that morning’s cab ride to the airport as by far the most dangerous thing we engaged in in Borneo, though we had been breathing like cyborg fish underwater, boating in dubious and leaky craft, and wandering the hardscrabble city at all hours of the night. For you see, dear reader, in our estimate, Borneo is not so dangerous a place, that is unless the man driving your cab is three-quarters asleep.

He was a small man, and drove an unmetered (and therefore, I believe, technically illegal) cab. He had been summoned for us by the front desk at the Sipadan Inn, and at 5:10 sharp, he made quite the arrival, pulling his small Proton hatchback around and backing into the spot right in front of the lobby door. The moment he engaged the reverse gear, some apparatus inside his car began to broadcast a custom sound effect perhaps best approximated by the noise made by X-wing and TIE fighters as they zip through that curious reverberate vacuum of Star Wars space.

After he had successfully docked, we managed to squeeze ourselves into the car, which has been modified significantly from its factory fresh state to include custom wheels, glitter-filled paint, a miniature steering wheel, and a thumping sound system.

The style of customization might be familiar to fans of films such as  The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift . This style was no stranger in Semporna. In fact, it seemed, quite popular among the local youth as a pastime, with many engaging in a sport I first encountered during my youth in the town of Grinnell, Iowa, known there by the self explanatory name, “Scoop the Loop.”

Meanwhile, loaded in this fellow’s street racing Proton hatchback, we were tearing down the empty roads of Sabah, as the sun began to rise over the endless fields of oil palms. The soundtrack was incredible. Song after thumping song, we enjoyed a tasteful survey of the early 2007 electro-rock and synth pop as featured on the music blog FluoKids and even a nod to the tunes pumped by our friends at LoveLife.

It reminded us of our recent favorite song “Century” by Tiesto and Calvin Harris, introduced to us by the prolific and brilliant Rex Pechler.

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

His good taste in music was almost enough for us to forgive the fact that every few minutes, the fellow would viciously shake his head from side to side, blink dramatically, and yoga breathe in an attempt to regain lucidity. I eyed him carefully, and planned what I would do were he to actually conk out at the wheel: First I would need to grab the wheel and stabilize the car. Once I had gained control, I would, while holding the wheel with my left arm, execute a kind of combo move with my right, elbowing the sleeping driver back to consciousness and grabbing the emergency break slowing the car to a stop on the side of the road.

Luckily, gradually raising the volume on the stereo,seemed to do have the same basic effect, as our man’s struggles for consciousness seemed to turn in his favor, and soon we were safely arrived at the sleepy gray Tawau airport, checking in for our flight. The place was just as ghostly as we remembered it with most of the shop fronts empty. We sat in the waiting room and I played Amy Winehouse tunes on my ukulele while we waited for them to open up security.

The coffee served scalded the mouth, but with enough practice, we were able to cool it by sipping vigorously.

Exiting Malaysia was a piece of cake, studded with big smiles, and very gentle security inspections. Three tiny chicken foccacia sandwiches later, we landed, quite hungry, in Singapore.

Unfortunately, the gods would not smile food upon us until we had exited the airport, which proved massively difficult. After many wrong turns, one attempt to exit through the wrong immigration desk, two wrong airport trains, and one long conversation about overpriced cakes, we arrived at the MRT station.

The man at the desk directed us toward the machines that promptly refused to regurgitate tickets. Though the man was skeptical, we finally convinced him to leave his post and come investigate the machine. One look at the thing and he muttered in a dark Singaporean accent, “Man vs. Machine? Machine will always win.” And with that he dove into the innards of the beast, removing trays, interacting with panels, and finally, producing for us the much needed tickets.

After a very long train ride, much lamenting over our having not simply taken a cab, and  a walk through a labyrinthine underground shopping center, we finally feasted at a local Chinese restaurant, digging into a few plates of dumplings, steaming bowls of spicy noodles with duck and crab, and stir-fried greens. Our waitress was quite a gem, and indulged in some schtick with us about AsiaWheeling and our shared affinity for a particular Chinese vegetable (包菜), before putting a rush on our order.

David and I had just enough time to stroll the city for about an hour, while Scott napped, showered, and drank a RedBull shot. We got the chance to try a very interesting Singaporean style of ice cream, from a street stall. The ice cream itself, was cut in vast chunks from a foil wrapped log and wrapped with a slice of cheap white bread. The combo was quite tasty, and David indulged me by sampling the Durian flavored ice cream which was tasty but maintained a certain flavor of old gym bag that I found endearing and David found at the very least interesting.

Back at the Rucksack Inn, we had only a few moments to freshen up before we had to climb back on the MRT for our much-anticipated meeting with our newest AsiaWheeling partners, Speed Matrix, at the My Bike Shop in a part of town called Clementi.

Speed Matrix was throwing an event to celebrate the launch of its new folding Kayak series in conjunction with announcing its new relationship with AsiaWheeling. Members of the local folding bicycle community were to be there, and your humble correspondents were to be interviewed by some chaps from a local cycling magazine by the name of To Go Parts. All that aside, we were going to get our Speed TRs back, returned to us, no doubt, nipping at the bit for the rest of our riding in Malaysia and on into India. Needless to say, we were thrilled.

We arrived at My Bike Shop where our Speed TRs were waiting for us, gleaming and looking better than ever before. The wheels had been trued, transmission re-tuned, and a quick spin around the block promised superior wheeling ahead.

Thrilled at our good fortune, we spent the next couple hours sipping ristrettos, and hobnobbing with Singapore’s finest folding bike heads, many of whom proved to also play prominent roles in the international business community.

The hunger was just beginning to hit when Tan began closing down shop, and we retired to a nearby cafe by the name of “Leaf” for a scrumptious meal of Indian-Chinese-Malay fusion food, served on large banana leaves.

After dinner, we bid farewell to our new friends and were just about to hail a taxi, when the owner of Leaf came over to us and invited us to sit down for a drink with him as well.

Such a warm welcome had endeared us to Singapore quite strongly and we were none too thrilled to wake up the next morning once again at quarter to five, bid farewell to not only this city but our dear Mr. David Miller, and catch a train to Butterworth. But, as you have no doubt already gathered, dear reader, AsiaWheeling is not a sport for the weak of heart, or those prone to lingering. New, untold wonders lay before us, and somewhere inside us was the rekindled awe of the road ahead.

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So once again we awoke at Scuba Junkie in a different room. Of course, there was no room for us again that night, but we were fed up with all this switching of rooms, all these false positives, and decided perhaps it would be better to just stay the night at another hotel. That would be a challenge for the evening, so we slumped our belongings underneath the stairs once again and headed out to meet with Hassan. We found his weathered face grinning and beckoning to us from the across the street, where we followed him to a local Chinese restaurant.

He had placed three orders of fried rice for us. According to the menu at the restaurant the cost of these rice dishes was about 9% of what we had paid him for the island lunch, and you, dear reader, had better believe that we were keeping track. We sat down with him and drank sweet creamy coffee while David attempted to engage him about his life’s story. It was here that we first me with one of Hassan’s communication issues. He answered most requests in very quick and bursts of murmur, with either “yes” or “no” and followed, if we were lucky, by a one-to-five-word qualifying phrase.

Do people live on this island we’re going to?

“Yes”

About how many people live there?

“Not Many”

David was able to glean that Hassan had entered the Borneo boat tour industry in the mid 1980s just as this place was becoming a tourist destination. He had learning English from his guests; it seemed he catered largely to Italians, though why we could not be sure, or how exactly he used the word “Italy”.  Maybe this was his word for Europe? He certainly did not speak any Italian.

He told the shop in Malay, to put his coffee on our tab. Asked us to pay the bill, and then asked us to pay him in advance for the day’s adventures, reportedly so that he could purchase fuel for his boat. This we did, and with some mounting worry about the value we would receive in exchange for them, handed over our hard-earned Ringgit.  At least we knew we had a sumptuous feast of barbecued fish waiting for us on the island.

We walked with Hassan to the dock, and he signaled to a man, who was puttering offshore in his wooden boat. Hassan’s driver rammed his way into the cluster of boats that all struggled to use the tiny strip of wooden dock, until he made it close enough that we could hop on. Then, with a grin, Hassan, carrying all the money we’d just given him, disappeared into the crowd. His man turned the engine back on and backed away from the dock out into the murky and trash-filled water.

We certainly outnumbered them, and had grown quite strong over the last few months of daily wheeling. So long as he did not carry a deadly weapon, there was every chance that team AsiaWheeling would prevail in a physical struggle. So with this, we released our fates into this stranger’s hands, and to the great chagrin of all passers by in this overcrowded fishing port, we began to apply sunscreen.

Eventually Hassan returned with what David estimated to be four to eight times the amount of fuel required for the day’s journey. And we helped to steady the boat, as Hassan loaded some 50 gallons of petrol on board and then we were off.

The water quickly turned from oily gray to deep blue, and the fresh sea air invigorated us. We soared over the water, the wooden hull of our boat slamming violently against the surf, stopping only to remove the occasional plastic bag from the rotors, but mostly just soaring.We all began to relax, and grin as we sped by communities sprung up on stilts over shallow sections of water, and glorious islands, sporting just a few palm trees and a single hut.

Soon we made our way into a protected area of very shallow water between two larger islands. Here it was so shallow that Hassan climbed forward to the bow of the boat, where he sat, peering into the sea, and directing his driver as to avoid large outcrops of coral and rock.

We crawled through this section, and with the engine only quietly chugging, we were able to easily hear the sounds of life coming from the islands. Large flocks of birds, and millions of chirping insects sang in the distance. Steep cliffs and thick jungle backed tangled mangrove swamps, which came down to meet the sea. We saw little sign of habitation inland, but off shore, we saw a small villages on stilts, connected by walkways made of wooden planking.

Then we were through the opening between the two islands, and flying over the chop again. Straight ahead was Mantabuan, and, dear reader, it was a paradise, a small white sand island sprinkled with coconut palms, surrounded by a large shallow reef. We powered our way through a section of churning current, where water from the protected interior of the shallows poured out into the sea, and then Hassan’s man ran the wooden boat aground, under the shade of a gnarled mangrove.

Hassan began to remove his pants, and shoes, then slipped into a pair of nylon track pants. “Town Pant,” he explained gesturing to the thick blue corduroy trousers he has just shed. “Island Pant,” he proudly referred to his black track pants.

“First we must visit the police,” Hassan explained. So we followed him up the beach. “No need for shoes on this island,” Hassan added. He was wearing a pair of dark blue wool socks, which were encrusted now with sand. He noticed me eying them and grinned. “No need for shoes!” he reiterated. Out of pure laziness, I left my shoes on, but Scott and David dutifully removed theirs, but instantly were forced to turn back by the razor-sharp grass that sliced into their bare feet. Hassan waited patiently while they tended to their wounds and re-applied footwear.

The police, it turned out, were not on the island today. Good news, Hassan explained, because the island was a marine park. And with the police gone, we would be able to fish. We were uncomfortable about fishing in the Marine Park, but Hassan assured us that he would be happy to do so himself, or to simply buy fish from the locals. We decided we would be happy with the fish lunch and looked forward to drinking from the abundance of coconuts that Hassan also had assured us would be available. “We must go talk to the army now,” Hassan reported, and we continued to follow him around the island. Soon, we were staring at a net of razor wire, behind which there was a Malaysian infantryman in full camo, crouched in a little concrete hut piled with sand bags and peering out over the water. A large mounted machine gun sat by his side.

“Salaam aleikum,” Hassan announced, but the soldier did not stir. He cleared his throat and crunched his way off the grass and onto the gravel walk which lead to what we could now see was a very large military base snuggled into the island foliage. The soldier lazily turned around. Hassan and the man began to talk in Malay. Soon a number of other soldiers appeared, and we entered the base. Most had large smiles on their faces, and Hassan began to mime a signature at them, at which the smiles became larger, and the group of soldiers began to laugh and shake their heads.

Scott, David and I decided now would be as good a time as any to introduce ourselves, so we shook hands around the circle. The soldiers spoke reasonably good English and were happy to chat. It turns out they were posted on this island in direct response to the occurrence of a dive boat being been kidnapped in 2001 by Philippine pirates of the Sulu Seas. So, in essence, they were here to protect us. The base was substantial, with a few buildings, some trucks, a couple of machine guns, plenty of razor wire, satellite Internet, playstation and X-box gaming consoles, a badminton net, and plenty of bizarre hand crafts which spoke volumes about the boredom of the soldiers.  We commended a wind-driven pinwheel that had been fashioned to look like an airplane with a rotating propeller.  “Maybe if you spend three months here,” they chuckled, “you can make something better!”

We spent the rest of that afternoon snorkeling in the surrounding reef, which was rich with life, and sported some very strange currents and temperature changes. We swam into the current, though jets of bathwater, and dove down a meter or two into frigid water to investigate schools of brightly colored fish gathered around coral and sponge.

We were returning to the beach when a large military boat arrived, filled with the next crop of 20 soldiers that would be spending three months on the island protecting visiting tourists.

The men struggled to beach the boat on an outcrop of coral as we watched from the water, hoping that our presence would not cause too much embarrassment among the new soldiers. They, however, appeared just as chagrined about the affair as we were, and flashed bright white smiles once they had finally run aground enough to throw down an anchor made from a piece of corral slathered in concrete.

We came back to the beach quite hungry, and Hassan greeted us with the $1 dollar rice dishes that he had bought.

“What about the local fish lunch?” we asked eagerly.  Of course, we thought, this must also be at the top of his mind.  “Maybe 2:00 pm, when fishermen back. Right now no fish.”   Hassan hailed a fisherman in a dugout canoe by shouting “Come I give you money” across the water after we continued to inquire.

The man had caught two  beautiful fish that morning, but according to Hassan was asking outrageous prices citing the fact the fish were still alive.  And of course, Hassan noted that this would be something well above the threshold for the included lunch, and that his footing the bill was totally out of the question.

Defeated and suspicious, we dug into the rice, which was, to Hassan’s marginal credit, not bad. We then embarked on a tour of the island, which turned out to be easily circumnavigated, and only about twice as large as a baseball diamond. We then settled into the shade of the mangroves for a nap.

David awoke to Hassan’s voice, “I am feel very sick.” He then cracked open one of the bottles of water that we had brought with us, and drank deeply. “Do you want some clams?” A strange request, but “yes” David replied, we wanted some clams. Hassan then wandered away for a while, returning with a bowl of freshly harvested and opened raw clams.

He removed a rusty box cutter from somewhere in his island pant, and sliced open a nearby lemon. He rinsed the clams with some more of our water and then squeezed both halves of the lemon on top. We ate the clams with some ambiguous sweetbreads that Hassan had also produced from the island pants. They were quite good, but were also an indicator to begin worrying whether or not the island fish lunch would occur.

We asked Hassan if there was any fish, and he paused for a moment. “No.” he replied. “Coconuts, then perhaps?” He paused again in what was quickly becoming his signature delivery, “No.” “Why is this?” David asked. “The men have been fishing all day and they are too tired to gather any coconuts” Fair enough. “But what did they catch?” “No,” was the only reply.

Somewhat frustrated, we wandered over to the small village, where we found the locals to be cooking vast pots of fish.Hassan appeared after some time, and began haggling with a local woman over a number of small dried squid. All over the island, we had seen squid and octopus, drying in the sun, covered with flies.

Hassan finally tired of his bargaining and selected a single squid, for which we witnessed no payment change hands, and began to busy himself making a small fire with scraps and coconut husks. He than grabbed a large wok-like bowl, and placed the squid inside.

Tiring of waiting for the wok to heat up, he removed the thing and finally, just threw the squid into the fire. The squid was not quite dry enough to fully ignite, and in frustration the fire extinguished itself.

Hassan grabbed the squid, burning his fingers a bit, and then announced “We go back to the boat now to relax.” We nibbled some bits of the squid with Hassan as we wandered back to the boat, but still uncomfortable about the lack of fish lunch we soon made our way back into the village.

We spoke for a while with the military fellow, who explained to us that the town there was actually just one family – a single fisherman with many wives, and even more children. They attributed his great manliness to the consumption of a local brew made from some type of rigid sea life boiled in water.We refused the opportunity to try some, but did secretly speculate about whether or not some of the local military were not also to blame for the proliferation of children on Mantabuan. The military, it seemed, took pity on us, and though they were no more able than Hassan to produce a fish lunch (it would by this time have been more of a fish dinner),  a few of them wandered off into the jungle to find us a couple of oldish coconuts that had fallen from the trees.

After Hassan had chopped them with visible experience, we enjoyed them thoroughly, trying to squeeze every last bit of joy out of our 100 Ringgit lunch.

We gladly accepted these, and drank deeply. The meat, however, proved almost too brittle to eat, and we soon grew sore in the jaw, and ready to head home.

As we pounded our way back across the waves, a kind of strange satisfaction overcame us. It was no doubt one of the strangest days AsiaWheeling had yet experience, but fascinating in the extreme. Who was this man Hassan who had just charged us for an extravagant fish lunch, and pulled a bait and switch supplying some tiny portions of fried rice, and an old burned squid? What was this polygamous military base paradise on which we had spent the day? Was this really the doom of those tourists who dared to travel without bicycles? Regardless, it was an important data-point in our study of the extremes of experience, and as the sun set over the stilted shelters of the Sea Gypsies and we pounded our way through the surf, AsiaWheeling adjourned for the day content in our ability to get lost even without a bicycle.

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Our night at the Hotel Sayang Maha Mertha in Legian, Indonesia droned on at a snail’s pace, as we tossed and turned, attempting to sleep over the roaring laughter and screeching conversation of drunken Spaniards courting similarly intoxicated American women around the nearby pool. Our fan buzzed and creaked overhead, while the coil of mosquito repellent incense which we had lit smoldered apologetically amidst the late night din.

Needless to say, we were happy when the sun began to rise, and though the aforementioned noise seemed to switch seamlessly from crazy hour carousing to young children splashing and yelling in the pool, we were at least free now to get up and wheel a little.

The breakfast at the Hotel Sayang Maha Mertha proved quite tasty. Though we were forced to pay a little extra to flesh out the free breakfast with an egg, the addition of infinite cups of coffee was quite welcome.

In good spirits despite our lack of rest, we initiated beach mode and took to the streets, arriving in short order at the sea.

Though in the sunset it had been glowingly idyllic, we could see in the light of day that Kuta Beach too was a fascinatingly post-apocalyptic sight. We made our way across refuse blowing in drifts in the sand, waving good morning to the many fellows who made their living wearing Coca-Cola and Billibong branded shirts while raking up the evidence of yesterday’s defilement of the beach. We entered the surf to find that with each wave, we became entangled in rubbish, plastic bags mostly. We waded out some waves, and body surfed for a while before the sight of what looked like medical waste in the water turned us back toward land.

Back on the cycles, we explored the north of Legian. We worked our way along a surprisingly Sanur-like beach path. This one was about five times as wide, sporting the same gray brick and barriers every kilometer or so, which required us to hoist the speed TRs up and over before continuing on.

After we reached the end of the path (where we found a large tower advertising sunset bungee jumping), Scott called an Uber-Rausch and we worked our way back toward the Hotel Sayang Maha Mertha along the meandering back roads of Legian. One of our missions for the morning was to find some kind of protective system for our derailleurs. One lacking of the Speed TR is its vulnerability to damage on the derailleur during transit. So far we had been lucky, but from the scratches and damage to the bags that held the bikes while they rode in the belly of the airplane, we knew we were playing with fire.

We tried a number of solutions, including a variety of local wooden hats. Finally, we found a couple of plastic bowls (Melamine Ware brand) and a ball of twine that we decided would serve as a stopgap in our search for a better solution. Armed with this equipment, we checked out of the hotel, and after picking up our laundry, we decided to wheel to the airport.

Though this was our longest trip to date on the cycles while fully loaded with our inventory, it proved surprisingly easy, in part due to the flat terrain and in part to the friendly nature of the local motorists. This is not to say, however, that we did not make quite a sight arriving at the Balinese airport by cycle. The guards at the front gate, sported looks of 50% grin and 50% befuddlement as they flagged us through the bomb check station.

We arrived at the international terminal, and quickly began to disassemble our cycles, struggling briefly to attach the plastic bowls, attracting a small crowd, receiving reprimands for attempting to use the wrong kind of baggage cart, briefly alarming the security guards with the ukulele, and finally making our way toward the Air Asia counter.

At the counter, we were somewhat furious to discover that we would need to pay an extra $15 dollars each to transport the cycles (sports equipment charge…). After quickly recovering from that unanticipated expense, we were hit with another, when we learned we would need to pay approximately 30 bucks each to get out of the country. Luckily, we had, in anticipation of the unsuccessful trip to the Gilis, taken out a fair bit more money than we had spent. But it is worth noting, dear reader, that had we been out of cash, this might have become quite a sticky boarder crossing.

On the other side, we found many small shops, and restaurants, where food and drink was valued at 500% to 1000% greater than the normal Indonesian level, and at the end of the terminal our gate, which required another complicated security check. We had loaded up on drinks for the plane, which we were now forced to consume on the spot or discard. As the snaking security line for flight QZ 8496 to Singapore wore it way down, we engaged in the bizarre and fraternalistic practice of consuming as much liquid as possible in the shortest amount of time, upon which we had to submit our bottles to the recycling for security reasons. With my belly expanded to full capacity and glugging with our prematurely purchased beverages, I thought about a scene from the movie Charlotte’s Web, with which my sister had quite the affinity during my youth.

Meanwhile in the Denpasar airport, a uniformed man was intently scrutinizing my ukulele case, which turned out to still be holding the bike tool from our last wheel. The fellow explained that we could not take such a tool on board (perhaps for fear we would loosen all the Allen bolts on the aircraft?). We frowned at each other, and I tried to explain the importance of this tool and the mission of AsiaWheeling using sign language. He still frowned and refused, plunging his hand into my bag and removing more materials that he now seemed to consider forbidding. He then held up the ukulele pitch pipe and sternly questioned me as to its function. I began to blow into the pipe, producing a sweet note, which appeared to temporarily transport the fellow to a distant and dreamy place. He began to walk slowly away from me, still clutching the bike tool, with the distant gaze of a moth approaching a candle. Then suddenly he snapped around, and without a word replaced the tool in my bag, smiled a large and very Indonesian smile and bid me safe travels.

It’s a magical world we live in, dear reader. A magical world.

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On the morning of our second day in Ubud, the skies opened, and torrential rains fell on the city. In the hotel restaurant, we decided to experiment with a dish known as the Jaffle which was served as a breakfast food in our hotel. It proved to be a very well buttered grilled cheese sandwich cooked in a kind of a press –which might for lack of a better word be called a Jaffle press. The coffee was tasty and fresh, but milk was served in the form of a strange and insoluble powder, which just floated throughout the cup as a kind of roiling particulate, like snowflakes in a night blizzard.

We responded to the rain by setting up the mobile offices in a nearby restaurant with a beautiful trickling water garden, large tables,made of minimally processed rain forest trees and a number of small sweet smelling flowering shrubs, one of which contained, notably, a large bat, which struggled voluminously to sleep in the small and exposed tree amidst the downpour and the sounds of the restaurant.

The Internet was, unfortunately, more like a thin trickle of information that would dry up from time to time, and we struggled to operate. The coffee on the other hand was stupendous, and served in a vast steaming kettle, just brimming with a thick fragrant brew, a bowl of deep brown local sugar and real honest-to-goodness milk, which easily balanced out the poor data flow.

And then suddenly the sun was out and we were off again, wheeling south, back to the monkey forest. When we saw a local looking fellow on a scooter take a small side path into the forest itself, we followed suit.

Inside the forest, we found ourselves pedaling along a slanting and coiling path of interlocked stone plates, immersed in an entirely unprecedented concentration of monkeys, fighting amongst themselves, harassing passers by, and generally creating the kind of ruckus that only primates can.

On the other side of the forest, we followed the path onto a large paved road, that was a straight shot through about a kilometer of Hindu temple after Hindu temple, many of them devoted to Hanuman, though a diversity of deities were represented. We wheeled on, through another concentration of touristy places, out eventually into the country, where terraced rice paddies and deep ravines containing roaring rivers reigned again.

Feeling the onset of the madness, we stopped for a bowl of Bakso (that delightful Indonesian noodle and meatball soup, which had saved us so many times before).

The Bakso joint was little more than a wooden overhang, which contained a modified version of a cart that had at some point patrolled the streets selling Bakso. Now, in its old age, the cart had been incorporated into this permanent kitchen. In addition, the restaurant sported several very solid teak tables.

We continue to be astonished by the quality of furniture here in Indonesia. Even a humble roadside noodle stand sports very well made and comfortable wooden pieces. If only project K9 were a little further on it’s way to fruition…

The Bakso was delicious and, all be they typically modest portions, a bowl was less than a dollar, and we were back on the cycles in no time. Rain seemed destined to revisit Ubud, and sure enough we were forced to duck into a protected roadside stand (once again sporting very nice hand-made furniture) near the street of temples on our way back. We snacked on peculiar peanut butter-filled pastries, crackers, and jelly, while the rain fell in buckets.

Wheeling through the streets, we explored the back roads of Ubud and came across all manner of shops.  Bicycle repairmen, light bulb saleswomen, Internet cafes and theaters all lined the green streets of the city.  Coming across a strange and ruptured statue of a young boy cast in concrete, we were briefly spooked.  You can see why for yourself below.

It was no more than 20 minutes later that the sun reappeared and we took again to the cycles. We struck out again into the hills, and climbed up a long street of merchants selling musical instruments, wooden masks, and oodles of furniture. Of particular interest was a shop specializing in furniture cobbled together from pieces of old boats. Beautiful rugged wine racks, dining tables, Adirondack chairs, and chests of drawers lay with peeling paint seemingly varnished with seawater.  A fantastic opportunity for western import here, no doubt.

From the summit of this elongated strip of craft houses, we descended back to the main roundabout affixed with Arjuna’s statue, and headed back home to wash up and prepare for dinner.

Dinner was again at the Dewa Warung, which had treated us so well the evening before.  As rare as a repeat dining experience is for AsiaWheeling, we felt there was a certain magic to the cocktail of food, people, and atmosphere that this place involuntarily cultivated.  This evening, we ended up speaking with a woman in town to produce a line of clothing.  A former modern dancer and roommate of circus performers, she provided fantastic perspective on the trade-offs between garment production in Bali and Pushkar, Rajasthan.  As luck would have it, she was a fan of durian and put half of a very large fruit on the table.  We happily obliged by sharing the fruit with her, which was sweet and meaty.

From there, it was a quick wheel home to our nest, followed by a deep slumber before the next day of transit.

Scott packed up the last of our belongings inside the pleasant confines of our cottage at Prima Cottages while I haggled through the interpretation of the fellow at the front desk on the rate for a cab to Ubud. We had all intention of taking the tourist bus, but it seems it had been canceled. This, we later found may also have been a ploy by the cab company to secure our business. Regardless, the price was reasonable, and a fellow arrived just as Scott and I were finishing folding up the Speed TRs.

The drive to Ubud was beautiful and the driver allowed us to indulge in his curious collection of compilation CDs. It all seemed to be Euro-Techno remixes of B-pop tunes from the U.S. Fine by us.

We asked to be dropped off at the beginning of Monkey Forest Road in Ubud, and so we were. We paid the fellow and began to unfold the cycles. All around us were stone temples and giant arching jungle trees. The place was aptly named, as monkeys were to be found everywhere, picking through rubbish, begging from humans, and bounding out of the way of oncoming traffic. With a tip of the Panama hat to the prolific little monkeys, we were off on a somewhat savage uphill, fully loaded with gear. At one point, I actually had to dismount and hike it up the well-maintained but rather steep road.

At the top of one of the many hills that lay ahead (Ubud is by far the hilliest place yet visited on AsiaWheeling), our first choice for a hotel proved full, but we were waved across the street to a location that proved very affordable and quite spacious. For about 15 U.S. dollars per night, we were given the entire top floor of a bamboo and concrete bungalow, with our own private balcony, and a delightful view of the city in one direction and the pool, the jungle, and distant mountains in another. We indulged in just a moment of relaxing and ukulele playing before taking to the streets, but not before applying sunscreen.

We headed north, climbing in elevation, past Hindu temples, and endless stands selling all kinds of souvenirs. We also passed many restaurants, which labeled themselves “Warung” but were decidedly different compared to the Warung we had seen in Java.

These were handsome sit-down joints with much more westernized menus, English signs all over, and significantly inflated prices. We hung a left onto a larger and cobbled street, which took us past more of the same, though the urban zone was thinning and more scraps of jungle and rice paddy were appearing on both sides.

We zoomed down a hill, thanking the kind Jogjakarta tailor for our newly modified Panama hats, and part way through the ascent we called an unscheduled waypoint at a local print shop.

Now dear reader, as very few of you know, there has been a recent development in the trip that required not only this stop, but a revision of the itinerary going forward. David Miller, the AsiaWheeling Dive Master, was to be joining us for the next leg of the trip, and the three of us will be scuba diving in Borneo.

This of course would, among other things, necessitate a set of business cards for Mr. Miller, and of course a revision of the Malaysian itinerary to include the easternmost islands of Borneo.

The fellow at the print shop was affordable and professional. He could tell that we had made a few business cards in our day, and quickly cut through the fat, launching his copy of Adobe Illustrator. He manipulated his yellowed Compaq with such finesse, and patiently waited while his machine responded lethargically to his commands. We selected a paper and a printing style, and after he confirmed that our PDF would open on his machine, we were back on the road. Once again, getting things done in Indonesia proved a painless and swift endeavor.

As the city began to dissolve into a lush rural landscape, we caught sight of another cue which required an impromptu waypoint. It was the fading painted corrugated asbestos roof of Naughty Nuri’s Warung. This was another of those Warung which are so by name and roadside location only. Rather pricey by Indonesian standards and filled with foreigners, it had recently been mentioned in the New York Times and for that reason we decided we might as well sample what it had to offer.

Immediately upon entry, we were flagged over by a table full of sun-baked white men, sipping noontime beers. “Do you speak English?” they asked. When we answered in the affirmative, they encouraged us to join them. “You know this place was in the New York Times?” “Hell yes, we do!” they replied, deeply unbuttoned Acapulco shirts fluttering in the wind.

This later turned out to be no surprise, as this group proved to be a kind of court held by the owners of the place (at least the male half) and a group of his friends. “No one should leave Ubud without having a Naughty Nuri’s Martini, they explained. And you must get the ribs.”

With a savage wheel ahead of us, and no interest in paying for $6 ribs, and a $10 martini in a country where lunch usually costs $2.50 including a beverage, we settled for two cups of coffee, some delightfully spiced BBQ’d chicken, a similarly spiced sausage, and some French fried potatoes.  The owner warned us, “I’m worried about the coffee.”  But we were sure as dawn and downed them with smiles.

It was all incredible, decently affordable (at least by western standards), and well worth the cost simply for the interesting conversation that we enjoyed as guests at court. Though the fellows continued to encourage us to hang around, have a cocktail, and continue our discourse (since after all it was going to rain any minute now, they said), we could not keep from wheeling when the sun was shining and the road so inviting.  We had also developed a bit of a sixth sense for Indonesian precipitation patterns by this time, and had reason to believe their forecasting was simply to keep us longer. So we remounted the cycles and kept wheeling.

One of the gentlemen of the court had suggested to us (in the unlikely event that the sun kept shining) that we might take the current road a little bit farther north and then take a side road up into the mountains. This we did, and it proved to be a truly stunning wheel, with gnarly ascents, and tearing downhills. Eventually we reached something of a demi-summit, and decided to hang a Rausch at a sign for the sunset lookout.

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.