It is a little bit painful for me to write about this day, not because I recollect it being terrible, simply long. Aspects of it took on the feel of a fairy tale and still others a bad dream. Without further delay I'll get along in telling this epic tale... I awoke under my mosquito net most unrested. First, truck drivers staying at our dingy no-star hotel sat outside of our room and chatted loudly until three in the morning. And, second the oppressive heat of the evening reduced me to a puddle of sweat. The benefit of spending a night so uncomfortably was that it was easy not to linger under the covers.
We managed to pack up and be out the door by day's first light. As we paid up Andy noticed that all of the occidentals who'd signed the hotel's guest book were Dutch cyclists, verifying our assumption that the only reason to stay in Kota Nopan was because it is the only place with accommodation within a hundred kilometers. After the previous evening's dinner bill debacle we set out to find another place for breakfast. An older Dutch building down the way housed a *losmen* (country downmarket hotel) and an eatery. After ordering Andy went in search of a postbox (which would prove equivalent to his holy grail du jour) while I entertained the restaurant staff.
A mid-fifties queeny waiter was intent on talking to me rather than letting me read the map and my book. I'd describe him as a toothless old hag, but he had at least three. His English was excellent \--which I found surprising for what a dumpy nowhere town this was. It seemed he'd worked for Mobil Oil in Sumatra. Fortunately Andy returned and my waiter friend turned his attentions back to Andy. The waiter found his command of Indonesian most stimulating in every dimension. His excitement culminated in a not so subtle invitation to the *kamar kecil* (bathroom, literally \"the little room\") for some hanky panky.
After letting his friend down as easily as he could, Andy and I hit the road. The road that could not settle down to follow the perfectly good river that ran down the valley instead wound us up and down the hills that lined either side. On the positive side the scenery was exquisite. Wild hills covered with ancient trees filled with birds and bugs squawking loudly made us feel we were in the deepest and darkest jungle. Cleared areas sported rice padi and tracts of vegetables. The villages looked clean and prosperous until we came to one very strange one.
It was packed full of shacks that were basically two meters cubed. The homes were so close together one wondered how the villagers could walk between them. A few kilometers down the road we saw signs touting Transmigration leading us to believe that these belonged to them. (What is *Transmigrasi*? Sukarno, the current ruler's predecessor, had a strategy to make Indonesia a world power that was to increase their population. He promoted large families and was most successful on Java. After Sukarno effectively overpopulated the island his successor, Suharto, started a program to redistribute the population to less crowded islands like Sumatra.
In the process he has \"Javanized\" the less populated islands. Transmigrants are given passage to their new home, a plot of land, material to build a house and rice for a year.) The Transmigrasi authority was in the process of clearcutting and burning large tracts of land for new arrivals, leaving large blemishes on the otherwise pristine terrain. We soon arrived in another village of two-by-two-by-two huts and decided to stop and talk to a couple of youths that were standing nearby. They explained that the housing was actually for students of the Islamic boarding school down the road and that they live three to a box.
One of the less polite students was pawing at my handlebar bag and indicated that he intended for me to give him my watch that was buckled onto it. As I shot a photo of Andy in one of the huts the kid reached over, unzipped the bag, unbuckled the watch and started to make off with it when I noticed. Andy shouted for him to return, demanded the watch and demeaned him in front of his peers. \"Is this the Islamic way?\" \"Is this what they teach you?\" \"How can you face yourself?\" \"Why is it that your friends trust you if you are a thief?\"
Meekly he returned the watch and confessed the crime, thus losing face in front of his friends. I was at the same time incensed and amazed. Furious because this little varmint made my illusion of a wholly honest and safe Indonesia evaporate and amazed that we hadn't lost anything of value on the trip. Now I will be much more careful with our chattels. The day before I was euphoric about our trip. It was like a fabulous dream. Kilometers rolled effortlessly under our wheels, the jungle surrounded us, and folks greeted us in the friendliest fashion. It reminded me of my first day riding in Lombok some weeks before.
The greetings turned from inspiration to annoyance. The day before \"hello mister\" were the words we heard from everyone we passed. Someone had coached everyone in the region this way. Today, somehow, a syllable got lost. \"Hello Miss\", was what we heard most often. At first, before we were worn down, we made a game of our responses. \"Hello little girl\" to boys, \"Hello boss\" to little girls, \"Hello agouti\" to others and soon it got uglier. \"Hello, now go pray\" and then silence until one especially annoying munchkin whining over and over again at the top of her lungs drove Andy over the top.
\"Fred, do you have you pepper spray handy?\" he asked. I realized that I was over it when I found myself reaching into my bag for it. Fortunately I restrained myself and put it back safely where it waits for a dog or tiger attack to warrant its use. Along a stretch of road we passed, literally, thousands of students on their way home from school. All dressed in their demi-boyscout uniforms, blocking the road and heckling us as we passed. Their size, age and numbers made me feel like Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians. I was ready for Andy to ask me about the pepper spray again and afraid of how I might respond this time.
The day wore on and the heat and humidity combined with hilliness to make the most dangerous biking cocktail. We stopped often, cooling down and drinking profusely to keep ourselves hydrated. Irritable, tired, hot, sweaty, cranky, fatigued, moist and dirty we arrived at our destination. I refuse to recognize this town by referring to its name. I hated it so. Sumatrans have not discovered the idea of a bus station, so finding a bus to Lake Toba as was our plan was most difficult here. We had to go from bus company to bus company inquiring meekly when their next bus would leave.
None were leaving any time soon and neither of us were willing to spend a moment more than necessary in this dirty town amongst the scumbags that were everywhere. I guess that our perceptions were colored by the length and challenge of the day and that this burgh may not have been as nasty as I am painting it, however I wanted to leave it pronto. Andy shared my sentiments and we booked the most expensive intercity transport we could find. For a small fortune (US\$30), a sports utility vehicle would take us two hundred-some kilometers to a cool haven in the mountains where we could chill.
Our driver had three children and had been driving a car for a living for ten years. He readily admitted that he hated his job to Andy. From his driving I can only surmise that he also hated his life. I could only bear sitting in the front seat, the only comfortable place in the truck, for an hour and one half of the four-hour journey. During that time I could scarcely watch as we careened down the twisty, narrow and rutted obstacle course of a road. I was certain that our end lay in the path of an unyielding oncoming bus or truck.
Our driver's nerves were of steel while mine frayed like a bad cloth. I retreated to the back of the truck and made a nest of our bags and bikes, zenning myself into a trance and praying for our safe conveyance to Toba. Our entire Samosir Island (actually a peninsula) experience seemed surreal. One event characterized the entire experience. As we were walking through the quiet town of Tuktuk we came a boy sauntering with wide swings of the hips wearing a round biscuit tin on his head. We'd seen many women carrying all kinds of goods as crowns but this was the first male.
To add to the novelty of the moment he smiled as we passed and said only \"cake\". Deftly he lifted the tin off of his head popped the lid and showed us the homemade Bundt inside. As if anticipating the next question before we even asked, \"*berapa?*\" (how much?) he tipped the lid to reveal the price. Seven hundred rupiah was too little to dicker with and we bought a slice without balking. As we munched our purchase we began to analyze why we'd bought a piece of cake, neither of us was actually hungry. It was the ingenuity of the offer that had lured us.
After being subjected to seemingly thousands of \"hello mister hav-a-looks\" and other unoriginal touts it felt only right to reward this entrepreneur. And, who could argue with the price, less than a dime? The next day's agenda seemed a recursive. We'd planned to circumnavigate an Island in the middle of Southeast Asia's biggest lake in the middle of one of Asia's biggest islands. (It could be even further complicated because there is another lake nested on the island of the lake....) A little investigation revealed that our itinerary was just a little too aggressive and neither Andy nor I were willing to subject our butts to similar hardship that we'd felt at Danau Maninjau.
We opted to rent motorbikes in order to do the 150+km tour of Somosir. Renting the bikes was a frustrating experience, but well worth the hassle. Within a few kilometers of Tuktuk the road disintegrated and we were soon motoring along a sandy potholed path some four hundred meters above the lake's surface. Had the air not been rendered hazy by local and remote forest fires we would have been treated to a spectacular view of the lake below. Samosir Bataks are Christian and this being a Sunday they were all in their best attire and on their way to churches that dotted the remote countryside.
It seemed strange to see crosses adorning roofs in the Indonesian landscape and even more unusual to see Indonesians in western dress. Men in dark suits and women in brightly colored long dresses walked the dirt roads to and from church. Unlike their Muslim counterparts, the Christian women of Samosir wear makeup and are unbelievably outgoing. Wearing sometimes clown-like countenances they heckled us and jeered us as we passed, seemingly with more vigor than the male Bataks. The concave-boat-hull rooflines of the Batak residences are almost as striking as the Minangkabau houses of around Bukkitinggi. Indonesians seem to take great pride in the look of their homes, especially their roofs.
Is there some function to go with all that form? Function was something missing in the bridges of Samosir. Most we crossed were in such disrepair as to be dangerous; no wonder there were so few four wheeled vehicles on the road. Most of the wood-decked crossings had gaps so large a basketball could easily fall to the river gorges below. Most had the trunks of palm trees replacing part of their planking. Still we'd see huge dump trucks tooling down the road leaving the unanswered question, \"how do they cross the bridges?\" By lunchtime the sun had baked us and we were ready for a breather.
At a sidewalk café we ate *mie goreng* next to a rather large community event being held under a canopy in the street. I had thought from the fidelity of the public address system and tone of voice of the announcer that it was a cattle auction. The dress of the attendees contradicted this assumption \--it turned out to be a funeral. After mourning our lunch we decided to brave the now mounting heat and continue our ride around the Island. Mercifully the road between the bridges had smoothed and we were able to ride with sufficient speed so that the wind cooled us.
Throughout the day we past copious numbers of Christian crypts fashioned from cement with stylized Batak roofs. We wondered if they spend more money housing the dead than the living. Certainly more was invested in crypts than river crossings.