To the Nothern Tip of Indonesia

Devastation caused by landslide

Leaving Medan we headed back to the mountains and followed the road up through the spine of the country towards Gunung Leuser National Park - a huge area of mountains covered in untouched rain forest. The road follows a beautiful river valley which has been cultivated with the jungle rising up on either side.

Masonry house destroyed by landslide

Approaching one village on the road we met first saw many heavy vehicles and military and police personnel. Entering the village, many people were sitting round in groups talking quietly, and then we saw why. For around 1km the hillside had been washed down through the village, destroying their timber houses, overwhelming bridges and blocking rivers. We had seen images on the TV news a couple of days previously which said 8 people were killed. A massive clean up operation was in progress with diggers, and rescue teams and emergency food stations. It is only when you see the effect directly that you can appreciate the scale and devastation caused to these relatively poor rural communities.

Female wild OrangUtan

Mother with baby OrangUtan

The main road through Gunung Leuser passes through some areas of prime forest, and we were fortunate to see a family of wild OrangUtans feeding on a tree right beside the road. We managed to camp by the river and again saw them feeding in the same tree the following morning along with a pair of the ridiculous Rhinoceros Hornbills.

Gunung Leuser National Park

Rhinoceros Hornbill 

Start of forest clearance

Deciding to cut through to the west coast we followed a minor road which climbed through the untouched forest to 1600m. Sections of the road are in a very poor state and we used the 4WD capability of the Landcruiser a couple of times to overcome very steep and muddy sections.
From the west coast this road is controversially being upgraded, widened and surfaced and it soon becomes clear that where there is easy access the forest is soon cleared for the timber and for agriculture. Poignantly just before we reached the start of the forest clearance we were privileged to spend 3/4 hour watching a family of wild gibbons feeding and displaying their acrobatic abilities in a tree by the road.

Beautiful coast of Aceh Province

White Handed Gibbon

Having reached Aceh Province we were now in the area devastated by the 2004 tsunami and the west coast has many new houses and a fantastic new road which sweeps along the coastal plain to Banda Aceh in the north. This beautiful coastline of palm lined sandy beaches and rocky headlands feels very undeveloped and tranquil. Without stopping to see Banda Aceh we caught the ferry to Pulau Weh where we applied for a visa extension and due to a weekend and public holiday had to stay for a week. A beautiful island containing the northern most point of Indonesia (kilometre 0) with coral gardens and excellent snorkelling just a few metres from the beach provided an ideal place to relax for a few days before we start our journey south.        

 





Most Northely point of Indonesia 

Pulau Weh Campsite

Sunset from Pulau Weh Campsite

Crossing the Equator and Driving inside Volcanoes

The Caldera and Lake Maninjau

Minang Palace

The north of Sumatra has had some of the largest volcanic eruptions in history. In the past week we have driven round the inside of two old caldera, Lake Maninjau near Bukit Tinggi which erupted around 55,000 years ago and left a caldera 30kms by 8kms, now filled with a lake. We spent the night on the rim, then drove down the 44 hairpin bends on the road into the caldera. Once it was a developing tourist destination, but when tourism declined they turned to fish farming, with numerous nets of farmed tilapia. A road runs round the lake under the rim where landslides are a hazard and emergency escape signs and paths have been created. Every possible area of the caldera edges is farmed, the shallower places for rice, and the steeper slopes for vegetables.

Into the Northern Hemisphere

Having explored further the Minang culture with a visit to a traditional village centred round the mosque, a long meeting house, and the kings palace, recently rebuilt after a fire caused by lightening destroyed it in 2007, we headed north to Lake Toba, crossing the equator en route. As we moved into the province of North Sumatra from Central Sumatra there was a sudden change, as all the villages now had one or more Christian churches, and hardly a mosque in sight. North Sumatra also appeared much poorer with the villages frequently comprising of many very small wooden houses, and the minor roads to the villages in a very poor condition, although much work is underway to improve them.

Sumatra Surili Mitered Leaf Monkey

We climbed steadily until the turn off to Lake Toba when we started to drop down a steep cliff with spectacular views into the caldera. Lake Toba is huge - 100kms long by 30kms wide - and was created by the explosion of a supervolcano around 70,000 years ago - believed to be the largest explosive eruption on earth in the last 25 million years. 2,800 cubic kilometres of rock were ejected with the ash from the eruption leaving significant deposits in Lake Malawi in Africa and up to 9m of ash in India! Global temperatures are believed to have dropped by between 3 and 5 degrees Celcius for several years. The centre of the caldera has now flooded creating a huge lake, but uplift of the centre of the caldera has created a large island within the lake. We spent a day driving round the island, passing through lots of villages where the traditional Batak houses dominate and are still a significant part of the community. The caldera seems to create its own weather with clouds hanging over and along the walls and rain storms sweeping across the lake. Waterfalls cascade down the rim walls, which rise 800m from the lake, fed by the regular rain storms. Unlike most of Sumatra the forest on the rim is mainly conifer and there is a lot of natural grassland surrounding the caldera.


Batak Village

Needing to renew our visas we have now dropped down into Medan to visit the immigration office, and we will try and get the wheel bearings greased / replaced as they are running hot, not surprising after the hammering they have taken on the broken tarmac roads here in Indonesia. Once all sorted we are heading to the northern tip at Banda Aceh.
 
     


Lake Toba



Brahminy Kite

120m waterfall into lake Toba

 

Volcanoes, Lakes and Gibbons

Concentration required when driving

Our morning view over Lake Kerinci

Another week in Sumatra and we have made a little progress north - it is such a large and fascinating island. We have now reached Padang where we have stayed for a couple of days while some essential work is being carried out on the Landcruiser. The bushes on the rear springs are in poor condition and a seal on the front steering is leaking, all due to the severity of the potholes in the roads.
Remarkably all the roads here are surfaced, many recently, providing an excellent driving surface, but then many sections are in terrible condition with large sharp edged potholes causing heavy jolts to the suspension. Bizarrely the worst roads tend to be the main roads which carry the heavy lorries. These both break up the surface and in turn make them very slow as they try to avoid the worst of the holes.


The Gong Stone

Driving the main roads is frustrating as it is slow and there are always motorcycles weaving in and out of the traffic - concentration is essential. The side roads are fantastic, but often not signposted, or on any of our maps so again we have tried pot luck with some beautiful scenery.
From Bangkalun we have moved some 500kms up the coast to Padang, but have taken in some beautiful mountains, with the benefit of cooler, but wetter, weather.


Kerinci Volcano dominating the tea plantations

We spent several days in the Kerinci valley, seeing more 3000 year old carved stones, and climbing another extinct volcano (Gunung Tujuh) to see the lake in the caldera. A steep climb up a muddy and root strewn path led to a beautiful lake surrounded by steep tree clad walls of the old crater. We managed to get down just as a thunderstorm broke. Gunung Kerinci is the highest volcano in S E Asia at 3,800m and dominates the area, with large tea plantations on its flanks.


Path up Gununh Tujuh

Gunung Tujuh Crater Lake

From Kerinci we headed north on the minor roads eventually moving into the Minang tribal area where their characteristic peaked houses are a key feature of the landscape. As we were wandering along the village looking at the houses a reporter for a local radio station stopped and interviewed us, then spent half an hour showing us around, including arranging for us to visit one of the traditional houses. We later discovered, when visiting the museum in Padang that the piece had been broadcast and our photo and story shared with staff at the museum. There seem to be very few western visitors to Sumatra - everywhere we go we are asked for photos and people want to talk to us - incredibly friendly and welcoming.

Traditional Minang House

Traditional Minang Street with rice drying

As we drove round the Lake Singkarak area on Sunday morning we were surrounded by motorbikes and pickup trucks packed with people and their dogs - all heading down one narrow road. There must have been hundreds and hundreds of dogs congregating, seemingly for one of their favourite past times of hunting wild boar. The area round the lake is beautiful, terraces of paddy fields amongst coconut palms, all backed by forest rising up the surrounding mountains. It is interesting that as the climate is constant all year round the rice is in every stage of growth, some paddies being ploughed, whilst nearby they are planting, and harvesting from other paddy fields. So good is the climate and so fertile the soil they get three harvests per year.
Parking up that night we were again privileged to have a troupe of Sumatran Surilli Mitred Leaf Monkeys cross near our van and then roost in some nearby trees for the night.
From here we plan to head to Bukit Tinggi and spend some time in the hills and lakes of this most traditional Indonesian cultural area before heading north to Lake Toba.

Rich decoration on traditional Minang house

Rice Paddies - notice rice at all stages,
from just planted to ripe for harvest

Rice Paddies

Sumatran Surilli  - Mitred leaf monkey settled for the night

  

Into the Ring of Fire

Ex 1950's Russian built submarine in Surabaya 

After 10 days of chasing different bits of paperwork to satisfy Indonesian Customs we were eventually reunited with our cars and are now exploring Indonesia - often referred to as part of the Ring of Fire.
The 10 days in Surabaya passed reasonably quickly as we exhausted the sights and made a couple of trips out for the weekends when we knew there would be no progress with the cars. Surabaya sights we visited ;
- a 1950's Russian submarine, now on the bank of the river some 10kms from the sea!;
- Samoerna cigarette factory where hundreds of people hand roll local Kreak cigarettes, a mixture of tobacco and cloves;
- China town and the Arab Quarter, where we chose three types of dates from the 20 or so on offer,
- Surabaya Motor Show - with six car manufacturers exhibiting four cars each, and around 10 small stalls mainly selling window film

Cetho 10th century Hindu Temple

- as well as visiting several of the 32 shopping malls around town in search of a road atlas of Indonesia.
After an overdose of city life it was great to be back on the road and exploring this fantastic country. Looking for a respite from the heat and humidity of Surabaya we headed to a group of volcanoes to the south west of the city and spent a couple of days visiting the ruins of some of the 9th century Hindu temples, and enjoying the spectacular scenery of volcanoes rising from the plain.

"The Missing Link" - Homo Erectus

Our route took us to Sangiran, the location where a 2 million year old humanoid fossil of Homo Erectus was discovered which is often referred to as the missing link in human evolution. Three excellent museums provided a huge amount of detail on the history of humans, the history of the discoveries and how they link together as well as an idea of the living environment.
Sumatra beckoned so we lost no time driving the remaining 800kms past Jakarta to the ferry which links Java to Sumartra, where we boarded a modern car ferry which crossed the 30kms in a couple of hours.

Camping by the Indian Ocean

Whereas Java is very developed, Sumatra feels more relaxed with large areas of undeveloped forest. A couple of days parked on the west coast by the sea watching huge waves, driven by a low pressure crash onto the shore provided a rest. It was time to slow down and start exploring, so we headed north into the mountains along twisting switchback roads and were surprised to discover a large elevated plateau being intensively farmed in the cooler climate.

4000 year old Megalith

 The main purpose was to find some of the hundreds of carved megalithic stones which are scattered across the plateau. With many of the roads not showing on Maps.me, or even on Google Maps there was some try this road, turn round and try another, before we found the stones. We first found the groups at Tinggi Hari, and the following day those around Pagar Alam. No one seems to know the specific purpose of these 4000 year old stones, but many are surrounded by stone burial chambers, The stones themselves are carved representations of people and animals and although many are badly eroded some of the detailed features can still be seen along with remains of the red ochre pigmentation.

Tea Plantation near beautiful Kapihang

As there were limited camping possibilities available in the area Kepahing police allowed us to camp in their compound. Their generosity extended to guiding us to the local beautiful tea plantation where we were able to meet some of the pickers and see the lovely views over the city, before being taken to an old tea house where we were treated to local snacks along with tea from the plantation. Sadly the Rafflesia flowers in nearby Curup finished flowering 2 weeks before and just the stump of the previously 3m high flower was left.

Calling Gibbon

Tea and Snacks

Curup also offers a relatively easy climb to the top of a Bukit Kaba volcano along a well graded, surfaced path which winds through the forested slopes. As we ascended we were privileged to pass close to a group of very loud calling gibbons, catching glimpses of them as they moved around a tree around 30m away. The final ascent to the crater rim comprises around 250 steps, but the views into the crater with its sulphurous fuming vents is worth the climb. Already we have seen so much and we are only 1/6 of the distance up the west coast of Sumatra.

Bukit Kaba volcano crater

Typical scenery - rice paddies and volcanoes

 

Penang and onto Indonesia

Jungle trail

Turtle Beach Penang

Another very fast border crossing in Malaysia meant we were soon on the train to Butterworth and Penang Island where we arrived very tired after two days of pretty continuous travel. The reason for choosing Penang is that it has an Indonesian consulate which is requires less paperwork before it will issue a Visa. We applied on the Friday, and collected the Visa on Tuesday afternoon - an excellent service. Georgetown on Penang is an old colonial era trading port and a World Heritage site, but one which has not been overly smartened up and has gained its status for the remarkable mix of cultures and temples in a very small area. The streets are still networks of small two storey, relatively shabby buildings, but which are all true working places, with individual businesses operating ranging from workshops and mechanics, through small stores to specialists in wholesale of hardware, food, etc. etc. An amazing mix.


Resting Flying Lemur

There are also several clear quarters including a very vibrant Indian sector with many gaudy Hindu shrines and temples, an Arab sector with mosques, a Chinese sector as well as many European colonial buildings. So you find a mosque just around the corner from a Buddhist temple which has a Hindu shrine across the road and a Christian church further along. The west of the island is a national park and is covered in rainforest with some trails leading to white sandy beaches. One is a nesting ground for turtles and there is a turtle research station which collects the eggs and moves them to a protected area to hatch. During the six days we used the excellent bus service to get to and from the consulate, and also to get to the national park where we walked both the main trails.
The other feature of Penang is the excellence of the food. Not only is it of a very high standard it is very varied, featuring dishes from all the communities represented in its makeup. A vibrant place with lots to see and some lovely street art surprises around street corners.


Little India - Penang

Street Art

Leaving Penang we headed straight to Surabaya in Indonesia to meet the container with the cars. the ship having arrived on the Thursday we were unable to get a customs inspection until the following Monday, and will not get the cars back until tomorrow (Wednesday). They have now cleared customs, and are each in one piece, so that's a relief. A week is Surabaya is a long time so we headed to the local island of Madura just across the water which is another world. We were the only white faces we saw during the weekend and we attracted lots of welcoming calls of Hello Mister. One evening a local English teacher asked us to have dinner at his house so we could talk to his students, some of whom had only been studying English for a few weeks. It made for an interesting evening. Many of the students who were in their 20's had not been off the island (which is connected to Surabaya, 50kms away by a road bridge). With no particular attractions we took a Bemo along the coast to a small strip of sand then walked the 7kms back to town. Once we have our vehicle we plan  to head north to Sumatra.

Live Street Art

 

Penang Street business