Indonesia (Part 1) - Sumatra

October 2000

Indonesian immigration processed us on the boat and handed us our free 2-month visa, before we alighted into the ugly oil terminal and port of Dumai. We are talking seriously ugly! As the sole tourists, the taxi drivers and bicycle rickshaws rubbed their hands and saw dollar signs. We walked right past them. "Where are you going?" "The bus station" . "Bus station closed". "Yeah, right". "Bus station very far - 3 km" "Is that all?". "Only 5 Ringit" (Malaysian currency). "No thanks".

Unperturbed, and because they had nothing better to do, half a dozen rickshaw drivers peddled behind us like a mini entourage. Every half a kilometre, the price would come down "Ok, 4 Ringit", "Ok, 3 Ringit". It was a Sunday evening and cows were wandering around the littered streets. Locals would yell "Hey Mister!". It was a return to India!

We walked down the main strip in the dark, where various bus companies were based and enquired where the buses were going. We preferred to travel overnight rather than stay in this dump. As luck would have it, there was an overnight express heading to Medan, the major city in the north - about 11 hours away. It was a comfortable 'luxury' bus with legroom, cushions and fully reclining chairs (for less than £4) and I slept soundly all night on surprisingly good road surfaces, through the electric thunderstorms and non-stop pounding of rain on the windows.

There was one problem. The on-board toilet stunk like a dead animal. And we were seated nearby. If any unsuspecting passenger exited without closing the door, a putrid smell would head our way, followed by Paul yelling at the passenger "Close that bloody door man!". In an act of chivalry, Paul lent his waterproof poncho to a good-looking Indonesian girl sitting in front who was freezing from the air conditioning. Big mistake. When we woke up in Medan at 7am, he discovered that she had got off earlier and taken the waterproof with her. Chivalry will get you nowhere (and eventually wet).

Medan is the third largest city in Indonesia with 1.5m people and had absolutely nothing to offer us. Drenched in early morning rain, it was another ugly affair (I later met a traveller who spent 5 weeks there - I told him to go and see a doctor). We used the public transportation system of minivans to take us to the Pinang Baris bus station on the outskirts. Even this looked like an Indian bus station. We hung around in the rain for 90 minutes for a bus wondering what the hell we had done to deserve so much non-stop rain.

The grubby bus with a soaked muddy floor took us into tropical vegetation. There were wooden shacks with corrugated iron roofs, rubbish by the side of the road, pot bellied pigs, cows, dogs, geese and chickens running around the roads. The narrow twisty road was a nightmare of aggressive drivers trying to squeeze past buses and trucks oblivious to the corners. One bus had crashed into a ditch leaning 45' away from the road with the driver sitting at the wheel smoking a cigarette with an expression on his face of "what can you do? "I do not believe you wanted to do that" we yelled in Harry Enfield voices. I also saw a bicycle rickshaw laden with firewood upside down in a ditch. Ah - a return to survival travel.

But the Indonesian people were generally very laid back. They were friendly, helpful and intrigued. If you could speak a few Indonesian words they fell in love with you. "You speak Indonesian?" they would exclaim and Paul would count 1-10 to impress them. He was much better at picking up the easy language than me. I was suffering from sheer laziness at my 16th new language to learn. I'd have plenty of time to learn it later on. He was also still fresh from answering the same old questions "Hey mister. Where you from? What is your name? How long you been in Sumatra" ad nuseum. I let him do the talking. It was nice to be addressed as "Sir".

Sumatra is Indonesia's island of plenty with an extraordinary wealth of national resources, wildlife, wild jungle scenery and a remarkable diversity of cultures. Lying off the western coast of Malaysia, it is the 6th largest island in the world stretching for 2000km and covering 474,000 sq. km. It is divided in two by the Equator. The western side is dominated by the Bukit Barisan mountain range formed from 100 volcanoes, 15 of which are still active. The eastern side is mangrove swampland. The national resources of oil/natural gas, rubber and palm oil, timber, coffee, tea, tobacco and pepper produce most of Indonesia's export income. Religion is half Muslim and half Christian (thanks to the Dutch originally owning it). A teacher earns $30 a month and a litre of petrol costs 12p.

As we approached the riverside village of Bukit Lawang, dense rainforest and local men carrying huge machete knives walked by. It was a very peaceful place set by a loud rushing river. We found a lovely wooden 'losmen' (resthouse/hotel) with a 4 posterbed and mosquito net draped over it. It would have been a nice place to have a romantic stay. Unfortunately, I was sharing the bed with Paul. ("See the Cubs? Hellava a game"). Our balcony overlooked the river and across to the wilderness of the Gunung Leusck National Park. Monkeys would jump onto this balcony looking for food.

The sun was finally shining and we walked up the trail to catch a pulley driven canoe across the river to visit the Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre - for the 3pm feeding time. It was the major reason to come here. Two dozen other tourists joined us but it wasn't crowded.

Opened in 1973, the centre's aim was to reintroduce domesticated orang-utans (i.e. pets) back into the wild and transfer others whose habitat had been destroyed by logging. In the quarantine section, they were kept in cages and re-taught the basics of being a wild orang-utan - training them to climb and build nests. Then they were freed into the forest near the centre to gain experience of living in the wild. These feral apes were still offered food twice a day at a feeding platform - but only milk and bananas - deliberately kept monotonous to encourage them to fend for themselves. Once they could do this, they were taken into the thick jungle and set free.

We had to climb a steep muddy trail up a 150m hill (much moaning by tourists - "They didn't tell me mud was involved") to the feeding platform. The centre had 4 sets of mothers and babies and we were lucky enough to see 3 of them tumble down from tall trees to collect their food and then retreat to watch us watching them. Their orange fur shone in the sun. Incredibly strong with long arms, they would hang off branches by one hand, 100ft up, or use their feet. Even the babies did this. They had wonderful friendly faces with big brown eyes drawing lots of arrhs from the tourists. Mothers live to around 40 years old and have about 4 babies in their lives - which they take care of for the first 5 years of their lives. They are not monogamous - and get 'seen to' by a procession of males. Not fussy, these women. It was a unique sight for me and certainly worth the long distances to reach it.

That evening, there was a complete powercut in the village. We needed torches to find our way down to the centre for "happy hour". There was a "reggae party" promised at a bar starting when the power resumed. The band, which preferred to play blues and Guns 'n Roses classics, was of laughable high school standard. A torrential downpour started outside again, as we watched the local Indonesian males shaking their booties to impress the female tourists. They all looked like early versions of Prince with big Afro hairstyles and tight clothes. They leapt around the dancefloor like they had just discovered dancing for the first time. They were no doubt fuelled by the 'magic mushrooms' that were readily available in the village. We had to wait until 2.30am when the rain stopped, before we dared return home, through the rivers of water.

The other activity you can do here is 'tubing' the river on a large inflatable inner tube. The river was very high, fast and rough. A least half a dozen locals warned me not to try it. ("Tourists and locals killed this year. Very dangerous") and one place even refused to rent me a tube. Having already done it in Laos, I felt confident and persisted until I was given permission.

This river turned out to be a torrent of rapids, that smacked into bare sided cliffs, under low lying branches and over submerged rocks and tree-trunks. The river would often split and I would have to choose which channel to take. I had to stay alert all the time. I attempted to keep facing forward with my flip-flops out in front to hit anything in advance and seemed to be doing very well until I suddenly disappeared over a very surprising 4 foot waterfall and was plunged into the river. I held onto the tube, and drifted down to slower water until I could climb aboard again. It was an exhilarating experience. I know it was fast because I covered the 15km in 90 minutes. One rafting trip of Indonesians came past "Doing it on your own?" they asked. "Brave man!". Other than that I had the roaring river and the surrounding slopes of jungle to myself.

I was able to hop out where the river met the road and return to Bukit Lawang by sitting on the roof of a pickup truck with the tube. This turned out to be much more dangerous than the tubing - the driver swerving all over the place. I nearly fell off the roof twice. I found Paul sunbathing and we decided to make tracks late in the afternoon. It was a Sunday and thousands of Medan locals head out here for a daytrip. The place was full of bloody Indonesian tourists!

We were squashed in a cramped minivan back to Medan. This would become a regular occurrence in Indonesia because we were about double the size of your average Indonesian and a seat which was comfortable for 2 of us would have another 3 people pushed onto it – regardless of the fact that the foreigners were fat bastards with long legs. A connecting bus took us to Berestagi in the hills. Its great when public transport is so frequent, you just leap from one bus to the next with little delay. Unless there are foodstops . <

Our final bus was packed and we were told to sit on the roof. It was now dark and getting cold. We also had a bird's eye view of how bad Indonesian driving is at night. Paul crawled under a blanket and tried to forget he was stuck on the roof of a bus about to crash down a steep slope. Chicken! I chatted to a friendly Indonesian who had 1000 questions about England, but also told me a lot about Sumatra above the roar of the traffic. The conversation went "Pardon? David Beckham? What did you say? Christ! did you see the car overtake in-between the traffic? I thought I was a goner. Pardon? what did you say again?" ad nuseum. We survived. By taking public transport as opposed to the tourist buses, we saved 75% in transport costs - but of course had to rough it a little. As we climbed to 1300m into the dark hills, we froze to death in T-shirts and shorts.

The big difference I discovered in travelling around Sumatra as opposed to any other country on this trip so far, was that smoking was allowed on every bus/minivan and positively encouraged. You never see anyone reading anything, but they chain smoke throughout the trips. There is obviously no Indonesian word for "Passive smoking". Stranger still, the preferred brand was clove scented.

We had come to Berestagi to climb volcanoes. A friendly women who ran a restaurant in town and a hostel on the outskirts met us off the bus. It was 10pm so we took advantage of both, but both were disappointing.

The next morning, an 18-year-old called Apen Geleng rolled up just as we were setting off. Did we want a guide? No. Well would we mind if he tagged along so he could practise his English. No problem, and for the next couple of days he learnt every bad phrase you can possibly know in English and Welsh. He particularly liked "a dog with two dicks" and kept repeating it to himself.

We caught a minibus 20km out of town to the base of Gunung Sinabung (2452m), the tallest volcano in the area. The trail had been changed since our 'guide' was last there and we found it for him through fields of cabbages. We had to trek up through thick wet tropical rainforest along a steep muddy trail and wet vegetation causing our sneakers to squelch in mud. Leeches attacked our guide, but we were walking so fast ahead of him, that they never caught us. I had told Apen that we were serious walkers and was he fit enough? "Of course" he replied. He never stood a chance, especially with badly fitting boots which he removed halfway up and completed the walk in bare feet. While Paul waited for Apen, I powered ahead out of the jungle up into steep river gullies where both hands were needed to pull myself up. The vegetation turned to scrub as I neared the crater. Supposedly the climb takes 3 hours. I was up at the summit in 90 minutes. Apen arrived about 30 minutes later, by which time, we had descended into the steep sided the dry sandy crater to leave our message in rocks along with everyone else. The smell of sulphur was everywhere, and fumes of smoke squeezed themselves through the rocks.

Poor old Apen was too out of breath to bother learning anymore English, but he was now able to vividly describe his thoughts about us for dragging him up at such speed. The views from the top were shrouded in mist, but at least the rain held off. We returned down the slippery and wet trail in 90 minutes which was just as bad going down.

We returned to Berestagi to sample market stall food - sati is the favourite - small beef or chicken kebabs covered in spicy peanut sauce. Meatball soups and spring rolls were ok, but generally we found Sumatrian food bland, and unappealing. Lots of fish heads, stringy chicken legs and rice. We lost a lot of weight. Apen invited us back to his home to meet the family. A plain wooden shack with a huge TV dominating the room. We could never work out Indonesians - they had no carpets (you always take your shoes off outside the house), and minimal furniture - but they always had huge state of the art TV sets and satellite dishes outside. They were very proud to present a western film to us ("The General's Daughter").

The next day, we ascended Gunung Sibayak (2094m). Apen had switched to flip-flops and kept up with us along an easy trail, leading to a series of concrete steps up to the crater. The mist swirled around and we could hear the roar of sulphuric fissures around us. Apen made an offering of a mango and egg to the volcanic spirits (Paul was unable to persuade him to cook the egg so he could eat it). The views were much better from this open crater that was very open (unlike the sheer drops yesterday). As before, we had the summit to ourselves. We were able to see the peak of Gerung Singabung (yesterday's conquest) poking out above a layer of white cloud and looking very impressive. "Been there. Done that!" we shouted. We descended down the other side, which was a dreadful series of steps in appalling condition, and nearly broke our legs on numerous occasions. Our reward were hotsprings at the bottom. For 10p, we could soak our aching bones in clear pools of hot water. It was a big mistake of trying to wash our clothes. They all stunk of sulphur. Better than sweat I suppose.

Back in Berestagi, we caught a crammed local bus to Pematangsiantar and then a minivan to Parapat on Lake Toba - a vast crater lake. At the ferry terminal we met the portly Samuel who offered us the world at his hotel. We caught the last slow wooden ferry for an hour's ride across to the island of Palau Samosir, the size of Singapore, in the middle of the vast lake. As promised, a driver picked us up at the other end and took us to the hotel outside the village of Ambarita. As we passed through the village, an open room was full of women dressed in black. "There is a funeral going on. It gets more exciting tomorrow" the driver told us.

The cockerels started at 3am, driving Paul nuts. Finally he dragged himself out onto the patio and yelled "Shut up! I'm trying to sleep, you bastards!" for 30 minutes. They replied by moving onto the patio and keeping up the crowing. The next morning, he sheepishly commented "I finally lost it".

Leaving Paul to sleep in, I awoke early to find a landscape just like the Scottish Highlands. The hotel was set by the lakeside with hills across the water. It was like staying by a Scottish loch. "Lake Toba is one of Sumatra's most spectacular sights. It occupies the caldera of a giant volcano that collapsed on itself after a massive eruption 100,000 years ago. The flooding of the subsequent crater produced the largest lake in SE Asia covering an area of 1707 sq. km. The water is 450m deep in places" (Lonely Planet). Out of the middle of this huge blue lake, at 800m, stands the island of Pulau Samosir - the home of the Toba Batak people.

I caught a minibus around the island to Pangururan where a large Wednesday market takes place. En route, I caught my first glimpses of Toba Batak culture. The architecture was very distinctive. The wooden houses stood on 2 metre high pillars. There were two architectural features that stood out: firstly, the saddle shaped roof that sloped down towards the centre of the house, but rose at either end above the front and back entrances. Most of them had corrugated iron roofs. Secondly; was the highly decorated wooden gable, intricately carved into geometric patterns and painted in red, black and white. There were many tombstones on the hills with the same design, with stone sentries guarding them.

Pangururan was an ugly little town, dominated by the market. Hundreds of stalls sold everything - huge bowls of live fish wicker baskets, farming equipment, chickens, clothes and handicrafts. A woman walked past with a squealing piglet over her shoulder. I settled on shampoo and a Durian fruit (‘the King of fruits') to give Paul his first taste (and last it turned out - "it smells like my socks man!"). The muddy alleyways were similar to Myanmar markets where the rain had swamped the complex. At a cafe I ate the toughest piece of chicken in living memory. On the bus back, two local women clutching live squawking chickens with their legs tied up joined me. As a downpour commenced outside, the poor young conductor had to unload luggage from the roof in torrential rain. Fair play to him. I wouldn't want his job. He pulled on a cigarette after every soaking. "Its what I do" I think he said in Indonesian.

By the time, I arrived back at the hotel, the rain had stopped. Paul was up. Various cockerels lay dead in the yard. "Let’s go exploring" I ordered. We walked into Ambarita to find the funeral in full swing. There was a 10 piece band (drums, organ, lead and bass guitar, saxophones, trumpets and someone with a traditional flute). Guests would drop money into a bucket and the band would commence with a slow, jazzy, almost Caribbean sound. Each tune lasted about 15 minutes and was very hypnotic. Inside the open room, mourners would sway with the music. The dances were slow and repetitive with minimal movement because these dances go on for hours on end. They were pacing themselves. Both sexes wore traditional Batik costumes and sashes over their shoulders for the clan of the dead person. The men were smartly dressed but still wore dirty sneakers on their feet.

We hitched a ride to Tuk Tuk, the major resort, to find it deserted. Indonesia is not flavour of the month with all the separatist movements going on. Nothing was open. Even the souvenir woodcarvers couldn't raise the energy to haggle. Passing back through Ambarita, the mourners were still going strong. We checked out and caught a ferry back to Parapat. While we waited for the bus, Paul attempted to tune up a guitar. Throughout Sumatra, you hear people strumming on their porches. Every guitar is out of tune, but they persist.

The 9pm bus took us south overnight over the Equator. We never saw any "I just crossed the Equator" T-shirts or noticed anything different. The temperatures didn't rise. We didn't turn into monsters. It continued to rain all night. At 3am, we were awoken. I now know Indonesian for "Can you wake up the fat bastard at the back". The road had been washed away and all passengers were ordered out, while the bus crew laid planks of wood over large boulders to get the bus across the river gully. Everyone dived into the jungle for a piss.

Daylight revealed endless jungle. It was familiar scenery. We were dropped in Bukittinggi in the Minang Highlands. It was a bustling hill town, admin and commercial centre for the whole district. Paul had read his guidebook and said "I want to see the Ngarai Sianok Canyon" on the outskirts. The description promised a lot but ultimately, it was a mediocre canyon, now used as the town garbage dump. (The Dutch originally called it 'Buffalo Hole' because any animal grazing by the edge, inevitably fell into it). Monkeys clambered around the debris. The only exciting thing was peeing into the sheer drop below without guardrails. Why not? Everyone else did and it gave the monkeys a run for their money.

We caught a local bus to Danau Maninjau - another crater lake. The final descent was 44 hairpin bends down to the village with spectacular views over the lake. At an altitude of 500m, the lake is 17 km long and 8 km wide, set below the rim of an ancient volcanic crater and jungle covered crater walls. Only two hotels had hot water and we splashed out on one. The lake was 20ft from our room and was magnificent. We met two young Aussie girls who had had a nightmare getting here. Left in the middle of nowhere, ripped off, touched up on the bus. When their hot water failed to appear, they checked out never to be seen again. Ironically, we had so much hot water, we could run baths of the stuff. We found a local cafe selling the cheapest beer in Sumatra and excellent food. We had finally found a place worth staying at.

The next day, we decided to rent a canoe to cross the lake to the shore 8km away. It was a wooden dugout affair with no keel. We took ages to learn how to paddle in a straight line, drifted around in circles, and had to bale out water every 15 minutes. The surface of the lake was covered in green algae. It was like paddling across hot pea soup. Paul's camera was destroyed in the incessant flood. On the other side, we found a deserted Muslim village with all the males in the mosque for the lunchtime session.

We paddled back - it took 5 and half-hours there and back. One hell of a way to spend a day out on the water getting sunburnt to hell. In the end, there was only one way to handle it. I paddled, Paul steered. I came out dying of muscle fatigue. Paul came out dying of hunger. We returned to our cheap cafe for beers and everything on the menu. Spinach omelettes were a godsend.

No time to rest, though this would turn out to be the most pleasant place to stay in Sumatra. We were out by the bus stop by 7am the next morning, while hundreds of schoolkids walked past. The village had been deserted up to now. A packed local bus took us to Pedang, the major city/port of 600,000 people on the West Coast. We caught a slow bus down to Tulah by the coastline of deserted beaches. We were squashed, yet again, into the back seat. Every two hours, the bus would halt for a 1-hour foodstop. How much can you eat while travelling? In Indonesia, the answer is a lot. I gave up on foodstops and just slept on the bus. A passenger got chatting "What is your name?. Where are you from? Where are you going? etc. He told us he was heading to the same place as us. At a garage stop 20km from Tulah, he persuaded us to get out. "Another bus stops here". We climbed off. The bus roared away. "When?" "In 4 hours". " You pillock!" we cried.

We flagged down a truck driver at the garage who told us to climb aboard. The Indonesian man attempted to climb aboard but there was no more room in the front with our packs. We sped along the dark empty road into the junction of Tulah where a bus to Sungaipenuh picked us up 10 minutes later. This terrible crappy bus of missing seats and spare tires at the back where we were seated, ground to a halt within 20 mins for a 1-hour food stop. It was only 65km there for godssake. At the foodstop, we got talking to a Muslim man, Jalom - a teacher. He told us we wouldn't get there until midnight. (It was 8pm when we got picked up - 65 km?). Sure enough, it was midnight when we arrived. Jalom offered us a bed at his house ("all losmen will be closed") which we readily accepted. It was a lovely spacious place with the TV dominating the lounge - which had a carpet!).

The next day, while Paul slept in, until, ooh, 7am, I wandered the market streets and had an excellent breakfast of noodle soup, banana fritters and coffee. I had risen at 5am to find Jalom giving his mother in law a leg massage, before his morning prayers to Mecca. She was suffering from terrible varicose veins. To have a shower, I had to pour buckets of cold water over me. These lovely people did it everyday.

We caught a minibus up to the village of Kersik Tua, at the bottom of Gerung Kerichi. We dumped our stuff at a hostel near the start. You are supposed to take 2 days to get up and down the 3800 volcano. "You'll never get up there and back in day" said the owner, as did the Visitors Book. Yes, we did have a disadvantage for the 42km return climb. Once Paul had sorted his bowels out, and I had stocked up on overnight provisions (we assumed we would not return this same day), we didn't start out until 10.30am. Big mistake!

This is still an active volcano and in 1995, was at the epicentre of a 7.1 earthquake, which the locals weren't too happy about. We started the walk through a vast tea plantation, guarded by a naff roaring Tiger Statue. It was a pleasant fast 5km to the start of the trail, which turned out to be not so pleasant. We pushed hard up through the steady incline of the jungle trail, then into narrow river gullies, where claustrophobic wet vegetation soaked us. This was David Attenborough country. We passed a few open shelters (i.e. a roof over a few benches) and wondered if we'd end up sleeping there in our clothes and keeping the Sumatrian tigers at bay.

The mist surrounded us and waterproofs were needed. Suffering from a chest cold, I had to repeatedly clear my lungs. Climbing up through the river gullies, over fallen tree trunks, across mud and up steep slippery muddy banks really took it out of my legs. Apart from a couple of black pheasants, we saw no wildlife.

Boy Wonder Harris, took off ahead or me (while I lumbered up with a backpack full of provisions and 7 litres of water - there were no streams coming off this volcano), until he reached the level where vegetation stopped and the lava screes started. The altitude had also slowed him down (no affect on 'Everest Boy' here).

The ascent further up got extreme. We were filling our shoes with scree up 45% climbs. Surrounded by cloud and mist, we could only see the next ridge. We took ages to get up the slope. only to find another similar one ahead of us. It was 3.30pm and I was seriously worried about daylight and getting down. Defiantly, Paul said "Let’s give this slope a go. It must be the top".

Serious words. Paul was really suffering from altitude. "Your lungs aren’t big enough mate" I yelled, impervious. I climbed up ahead, reached the ridge and loudly proclaimed "It’s the top". "Thank Christ for that" he said at the top. "If it wasn't, I wasn't going to take another step!". Not that there was any view. The caldron was mist bound. All we could hear was rushing water, pouring out of the fissures. But we had reached 12,500 ft after 21km in 5 and half-hours. Astonishing climbing. Especially considering that 7 hours from the Tiger is optimistic (some poor sod in the Guest book said he took 26 hours!).

Apparently, if you arrive at dawn, you have a spectacular view over the crater with smoke erupting from the fissures. We spent 30 minutes on the ridge, looking at mist and wondering what was going to happen next. It was 4.30pm. We had a maximum of 2 hours of daylight left. We were at 3800m and had 21km to descend. Thank you very much. Surrounded in mist, we descended down the scree as rapidly as possible, shoes filling up with stones all the time. We attempted to find the same way down, but there were so many trails that we took whatever seemed logical. Follow the litter!. I missed the 2 litres of water, I had stashed en route, because I couldn't be buggered to carry it up. ("Honest, Paul, it was a large rock. Can't be missed". "You twat", he retorted).

We reached Shelter 3, at dusk, where locals told us were nuts going down and offered to sell us their dog. It suddenly turned dark and Paul produced his 'mag light' to lead the way from behind. I was the fall guy in front. If there were a large step, I'd fall into it. A low-lying branch? I'd walk into it. Roots? I'd trip over them. Progress was painfully slow. Night trekking through the jungle. Insects buzzed everywhere. Sometimes we saw illuminous fireflies or glowworms. But it was pitch black. I went 'arse over tip' two dozen times. The river gullies were a nightmare and took a lot of concentration.

We reached Shelter 1. Do we stay here or plough on? We'd already been negotiating darkness for 2 hours and decided to push on and try and reach home. It took another 3 hours, tramping through wet vegetation until we reached the Park HQ. Paul gave me a hug and exclaimed "By Christ, man, we made it". "Piece of piss" I replied, absolutely shattered. It was 11pm and we still had the 5-km walk back through the tea plantation. Ironically, I came closest to breaking my ankle in a pothole on this road.

We had to awaken the astounded losmen owner to let us in at midnight. He couldn't believe we were back after 13 hours and made us coffee. Neither could my body. I managed to wash off the mud under cold water, but could hardly walk. I had a terrible night of sore limbs, exhaustion and continued coughing from the chest cold.

At 5am, the loudest, most distorted , most god-awful call to Islam awakened us. "Bring back the bloody cockerels" yawned Paul. We slept until 9am. I couldn't move. I hadn't felt this bad since overexerting myself on the first day of the Everest Base Camp trek in Nepal.

No time to rest. We had two days on buses back to civilisation to look forward to. A minibus took us back to Sungaipenuh and while waiting for the delayed bus, I just slept on the sidewalk. I had no energy to do anything apart from cough.

I don't remember much at this point except for foodbreaks, coughing a lot and taking medicines from Paul's first aid kit. 'Anti-biotics, Anadin and beer will sort you out". I slept all the way to Pedang. We changed buses to Pekanbaru. I was still feeling low. Any chatty Indonesian who said "can you speak Indonesian?" got short shrift. Consequently, I failed to learn "Can you wake up the fat tourist - its a food break" in Indonesian. I buried myself behind the excellent "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and ignored my surroundings.

At the bus stops, beggars were fortunately few, but the bus would fill up with foodsellars and occasional buskers - singing and playing guitar, or a kid wailing with a tambourine. No pressure. And not much response from me. A man boarded with a cockerel, which Paul eyed up, ready to strangle it if it made a sound. By the time I reached Pekanbaru, I looked like Withnail from the 'Withnail and I" movie after 60 hours "with only a raw potato passing between my lips".

Pekanburu was down from the hills in the swampland. Oil rich and money wise, they were an arrogant bunch of people. The echo of "Hey Mister" resounded every minute. I found an ATM that worked! saving the day. We checked into a decent hotel (and still got a cold shower). We needed it after the last few days. I had my energy back and got ferry tickets for the following morning. That night, we had an abysmal attempt to eat ourselves silly. Nightmarkets did not seem to exist. Only fast food joints stayed open. Paul ordered steak and ice cream (the ice cream came first), and I ordered hamburgers. Paul them outdid himself by ordering my order as well. That night, we learnt Indonesian for "what a greedy bastard". More sobering was our first sight of kids sleeping in the street outside the restaurant.

Inevitably, the bus taking us to the ferry was late. We rolled up at 7am and it rolled up at 7.45am and inevitably, we had a foodstop. "Bakso soup" - noodles with pork meatballs. This would be the only thing to pass my lips in the next 24 hours. On rough, sandy, Cambodian style roads, across the mangrove swampland to Buton, we passed by gas refineries with flames exploding out of pipes. Kids piled onto the bus at every opportunity to flog something, where they learnt English for "go away".

Buton was another ugly little frontier outpost of crappy wooden shacks and hundreds of Indonesians waiting for a ferry ride to somewhere better. A wooden shack had "Exsekutif Clas' scrawled across it. Here in the queues, we met a Swedish traveller, the first traveller we had seen in days, who was covered in lumps all over his face. "Have you been in a fight?" I asked. "No, I slept at a cheap hostel in Pekanbaru last night. It was full of bedbugs of every size you ever thought possible". Our upmarket hotel had obviously paid off.

A fast ferry ride took us out to the Indonesian island of Batam, 30 minutes south of Singapore. We suddenly left Indonesian prices and entered the west. We didn't have enough Indonesian money to pay for the ferry to Singapore (30 mins for the same price as we had just paid 8 hours to get here). The Swedish guy paid for us and we gratefully repaid him in US dollars plus a couple of books we needed to offload.

Indonesia was certainly going to be cheap, but much harder work than I had imagined. But it was in the future. Now I had to face, the 17th and most westernised and expensive country on the trip so far - Singapore - 'Fat City' . My money belt shivered at the outcome.

Costs in Sumatra for 14 days (in British Pounds Sterling)

Travel - £30.43
Accommodation - £11.15
Food - £25.09
Other - £4.20
Total - £70.89
Grand Total - £5141.64