Safety

“Aren’t you worried about being safe?”

This must be the most common question I have been asked when I told my family and friends that I will be riding my bicycle across Indonesia. I don’t want to lie and say I always feel completely safe, but if I use common sense and good judgment I feel extremely safe. In fact, so far I have felt safer here than in some places I have lived in the USA.

The most dangerous thing about riding a bicycle are the cars that drive next to you. This is dangerous at home, in the United States, as well as in Indonesia. I can’t control what other drivers do, but I can only do my best to react and try to avoid a collision. This is something that I just accept and don’t think about.

But, usually people are not thinking about bicycle safety when they ask me this question. They will mention in a somewhat mysterious way, "Indonesia is a Muslim country." Then they always remind me that there was a terrorist attack in Bali that killed hundreds of people in the past. This is true. In 2002, there was a suicide bombing and car bombing in Bali that killed 202 people near popular nightclubs in Kuta, an area of Bali that is very popular for westerners. A violent Islamic group was responsible for this terrible tragedy. I don’t have a perfect answer for this question.

Usually, I respond by saying I don’t want to live in fear. If we live in fear then I believe our life becomes a shell of what is possible. If we live in fear we would never visit New York City after September 11^th, we would avoid Charleston, South Carolina because of the recent church shooting, we would not travel to Boston because of the Boston Marathon bombing, or we wouldn’t dare go to Paris, France because of the Charlie Hedbo shootings.  I could list a thousand more examples, but I hope you can see what I mean. Most of us think of course we will go to New York, Paris, and Boston and not think much about it. I have this same view here in Indonesia. However, this is just my opinion and view. I have chosen to see and experience the world. I have chosen to live my life without fear, while at the same time being smart about it and using common sense. The world is huge and I want to see it all. So I am.

So far I have only met good people, with big hearts, who are just as curious about Western and American culture as I am about their Indonesian and local island culture and life. Are there bad people here? I'm sure there are, just as there are everywhere around the world. However, most people I have met so far think very similarly as we do in the USA. They are worried about their work or education, they want to earn more money for their families, they want their children to have a better life than they do, and they are just trying to find happiness with their life.

We might speak a different language, have a different religion, but once you get past these obvious differences, I believe people in the world are very similar. 

The Journey to Lombok

Getting to Lombok

Thursday, August 27, 2015

I left Syen’s place in Bali and rode about 40 miles to the ferry terminal in Padang Bai, Bali. It was a pretty easy ride. Once I get on the main coastal road it was just a straight shot on a very recently paved road. The traffic was very manageable once I left the Kuta area and I didn’t have any close encounters with cars or motorbikes. I still can’t get over how friendly everyone was. I am riding around and everyone is smiling and all the kids are waving at me. I think there must be some respect that you get from riding a bicycle around a country. I biked the 40 miles in about 2 and half hours and made it in time to catch the 4:30 pm ferry to Lembar, Lombok. The price for the ferry was 65,000 Rupiah ($4.50) for the bike and me. Security for me was nonexistent. The police were checking all the motorbikes and cars, but they didn’t care about the bags on the back of my bike or me. They just waved me past the line and I rode my bike onto the ferry. When I got on the ferry, I met a really nice security guard. He says all the workers on the boat work 24 hours shifts. They work 24 hours then get a 24-hour break. There is a ferry between these two islands hourly 24 hours a day. He told me that he will watch my bike and if there is any problem he will contact me on Whatsapp.

On the ferry, I start taking some pictures and videos with the go pro. I witness an incredible sunset with Bali in the background.  This is when a guy sees me and says hello. His name was Rozi and he was heading back to his home on Lombok. His English was quite good although he said he hadn’t spoken English in over a year. We talk about everything and it was a good way to get an insiders point of view about Lombok. Lombok is a predominantly Muslim island, with a small Hindu minority. Rozi goes into detail with me about Islam, which will become a common experience while I am in Lombok. The 5-hour ferry ride seemed very short as we discussed religion, culture, history, and the differences between America and Lombok while sharing his delicious, local Bali alcohol.

I get off the ferry at about 10 pm and I am trying to make my way to my third Couchsurfing host, Iwan, who lives about 15 miles from the ferry. It is extremely dark outside and there are not many lights on the road. However, I have quite a few lights on my bicycle, and make sure to get some good music going. I take off and I make pretty good time. The road feels like it was recently paved. There was no traffic and the people give me lots of space when they pass me. I get close to Iwan's house, but I get a little bit lost at the end because Google maps does not seem to work on some of these back roads in Indonesia. Suddenly, I see a massive mosque in front of me lit up in the dark, like an oasis in the desert. I stop there and called Iwan. He said to wait there and he will meet me in 10 minutes. So I’m just hanging out in front of a giant mosque at 11 pm in the middle of nowhere when 10 teenagers and 5 adults surround me. They wonder what I’m doing at a mosque late at night on a bicycle with a bunch of stuff. I don’t think they have ever seen something like that before in their life. At first, it made me a bit apprehensive, but it quickly turned really fun. They all asked if I was lost, do I need help, do I want to eat some food with them. When I said I was waiting for a friend to come they started asking me really random stuff like: Do I like to play soccer? Do you like Terminator? Who is your favorite singer? Do you know Eminem? At the same time, people driving by would stop their cars or motorbike and ask if I needed help. It must have been quite a site to see this American on a bike with a bunch of bags on the back in front of a giant mosque at night in the middle of the countryside.

Eventually, Iwan arrived and he seemed to know everyone in this neighborhood. I followed him to his house and met his wife. We talk for a while and then they made me some food. It was buffalo meat, fish, and some chicken that is indigenous to Lombok. It was a feast of meat and I devoured it.

Before falling asleep, I counted my money and realized I had spent only 1,400,000 Rupiah ($99) in Bali and getting to Lombok. I have been in Indonesia for 5 days and have traveled up the coast of Bali and on a ferry across to Lombok, partied in a nice club, surfed, ate and drank whatever I wanted and have spent less than $100. I have done this without even thinking about money. I spend whenever I go anywhere and do whatever I want. Couchsurfing and riding a bicycle really can make a trip inexpensive.  

Bali (August 23-27)

I have now been in Bali for almost 4 days and so far it has been absolutely amazing. I keep a list of things I do on paper and then later I type everything up. So this blog post describes my adventures between August 23-August 27. I'm sorry for typos or grammar mistakes. I have to admit I just type this as fast as I can so I can go back outside and enjoy the adventure! 

Sunday, August 23, 2015

(biking distance – 15 km)

I arrived at the Bali airport after taking three flights: Seoul to Taipei, Taipei to Bangkok, and Bangkok to Bali. I had a 10-hour layover in Bangkok so overall it took me about 24 hours to get to Bali. I arrived in Bali and picked up my bike box that I had checked. Before I left my friend Kevin, owner of a bike shop in Seoul, and his other friend who also owns a bike shop helped me take my bike apart and put it into a bike box. Thai Airways allows one free checked bag, which also includes a massive bike box, so I was able to transport my bicycle for free. After I went through customs I set myself up in a corner outside and started getting to work putting everything back together. Suddenly, many people start watching me put the bike together. Eventually, there are about 50 people watching and every time I put a piece of the bike together they clap. I felt some pressure! After I finished everyone clapped some more and wanted to take pictures. Welcome to Bali! Where I have fun local experiences every day.

With my bike put together I take off for my first Couchsurfing host, Vina. She lives in the south of Bali near Jimbaran about 15 km south of the airport. I’m riding through pretty crazy Bali traffic, which drives on the other side of the road. Let me try to give you a picture of the traffic in Bali. First, there are no rules at all. 70 percent of the traffic are motorbikes and 30 percent cars. There are some streetlights, but besides that it is survival of the fittest. At first it was a little scary, but then it became like a really fun game. Also, since the cars are used to motorbikes they keep a clear distance of me.

I made it to Vina’s in one piece and she has a very nice 3 bedroom place up on a mountain. For those of you who don’t know Couchsurfing, it is a website where you can stay at a person’s place for free. It is so much more than free accommodation though. It is an opportunity to see what living in a country is like from a local’s perspective. The people who use Couchsurfing usually love traveling and  always want to share their knowledge about the place they live in. It’s like having a tour guide.  You sometimes get just a couch or a floor, but occasionally your own bedroom. So at Vina’s I actually get my own bedroom and start chatting with her and another French and American guy she has there. We grab some dinner and I try my first Indonesian dish. They have a lot of chicken, beef, yellow rice, vegetables, and it’s a tad spicy, but after Korea nothing is really spicy anymore. It’s a massive meal and after paying 35,000 Rupiah (about $2.50), I head with the French guy, Medhi to a place called Single Fin. It’s a really nice clifftop bar overlooking Uluwatu. After a few beers, and talking about French and American culture, we head back on the motorbike back to Vinas. It was a good start. I fall asleep easily.

Monday, August 24, 2014

(biking distance – 0km)

I woke up from a deep sleep and realized it was Monday, didn’t have to work, and I was in Indonesia. It was a great feeling, a feeling of freedom. I went out of my room, which has a very comfortable mattress to see Vina  making crepes with Nutella for Medhi and I. After breakfast, Vina gave me the grand tour on her motorbike. Our first stop was this epic secret beach that Vina discovered. We ride on the motorbike for 20 minutes, meandering through back roads and alleys and then a field until we arrive at this awesome cliff overlooking an empty beach. We walk down some stairs and then a dirt path about 200 feet, and I meet a completely empty sandy beach surround by rocks and cliffs. It was awesome. Before I came to Indonesia, this was what I had imagined an Indonesian beach to look like. We hung out and swam there for a while. We talked about our lives. Vina is a great person from another island in Indonesia and very worldly. She works at a very fancy resort in Bali. She loves the freedom that Bali offers. Compared to Bali, many of the islands in Indonesia are very conservative. Bali offers a type of freedom to live and be yourself that other islands in Indonesia might not.

After enjoying this empty beach for some time, we head back to the house and say goodbye to Medhi, who is going back to France. Vina then takes me to Balangan Beach, which is a famous beach for surfing in southern Bali. It has pretty epic waves, overhead and perfect barrels that go down a line to open up. After, we go to Seminyak, another beach area. It has nice outside bars on the beach all set up to watch the sunset. We sat in the front of the beach on these giant colorful beanbag chairs drinking a beer, listening to relaxing music, having good conversation, and watching the most incredible sunset. This is the kind of place a person can easily live at. After the sunset, we met one of Vina’s friends for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. She is a girl from Canada who has been here for a year working as a yoga instructor. Bali is full of people that have moved here from other western countries for the opportunity to live in paradise at a cheap price. Here is an example of why so many people come to Bali.

Nice place to live - $200-300 a month

Food: a good meal can be between $2-3

Sports: free if you have the equipment

Beach: free

The only thing you can easily spend money on is the alcohol.

You can easily live very well, surf or do whatever outdoor sports you enjoy, eat, and drink for less than $1000 a month.

Tuesday,  August 25, 2015
(biking distance – 0km)

I woke up and went with Sita (Vina’s roommate) and Yakuta, Sita’s couchsurfer from India, to get some food. We talk about India and Indonesian marriage and relationship customs from an Islamic point of view. A woman is not just marrying a man. She is marrying the man and his family. Instead of equality between the two sexes there is definitely an imbalance between man and woman. Being a strong and independent woman is difficult in these cultures. It’s such a difference from the western culture I’ve been brought up where independence and personal freedom is almost considered a birthright. These girls are trying to escape from this, but have trouble finding people from their cultures that respect this view. 

After our delicious breakfast,  Sita and I head to Canggu Beach in Bali on her motorbike with her surfboard attached to it.  We hang out and talk for a while there. She is a cool girl and we have similar interests. We get to the beach and I take her surfboard and surf for a few hours. The water is so warm and the waves are overhead, maybe about 9 footers. It’s the first time I have surfed in over a year, but I still am able to catch these waves and head down the line. It got my confidence up for what's ahead because when I get to Lombok and Sumbawa they have some pretty intense surf that I am excited to check out.

Later, Sita dropped me off at Double Six beach in Bali and I met up with this other couchsurfer Syen. Couchsurfing is not only a way to find a place to stay its also an easy way to meet up with people who like to hang out with travelers. Syen is 23 and from Java Island. She just moved to Bali and is a leasing agent for commercial space in malls in Bali. We eat dinner and after she drives me to Kuta beach and we just have some beer on the beach at night enjoying the view of the millions of stars in the sky and talking about life. Then, we enjoy a night of some clubbing at a place called Sky Garden. If you’re in Bali I recommend checking it out. It’s a 4-story club with different floors for different kinds of music.

Wednesday August 26

(biking distance – 20 km)

I woke up at Syen’s today and was stranded a bit from my stuff at Vina’s house. I’m about 20 km away. So I try this app called Go Jek. It’s similar to Uber but for motorbikes. I type in where I am and where I’m going. Then, I’m told I’ll have a motorbike arrive in 7 minutes. The total price for my journey was 10,000 Rupiah or about 70 cents USD. 70 cents to travel about 40 minutes. My motorbike driver was amazing. We were talking for a bit along the drive and it turns out he has lived in Norway for work in the past. He came back to Indonesia to help his sick mother. As we are getting close to my destination he said, “Stephen do you have some time? I would like to show you my two favorite overlook spots and they happen to be near where you are staying.” I said for sure and off we go to check them out. One of them was seriously amazing. You go to this abandoned temple that no one visits, then go behind it walking along a nature trail, and suddenly you are about 300 feet up on a cliff overlooking a small beautiful white sandy beach looking straight into the clear, blue ocean. It was seriously secluded. He said it was a good spot to bring the ladies. In all my taxi rides in the USA, I have never been shown a nice spot to take girls before. He just said most people who use the service don’t talk to him so he was happy to show me some spots. It shows being nice to people who are in any circumstance is very important. You never know where it will lead you. I said goodbye to my amazing hosts Sita and Vina and then went to meet Marjoana and Yudha who go to the university near Yina’s house for lunch.

Yduha is from Sumatra Island and Marjoana is from an island near Singapore. They are both in their last year studying chemistry here in Bali. We go eat spicy chicken at some place they enjoy. It turns out I am the first American they have met in their life. They really like American TV shows and movies. What’s the first word they think of when someone says USA? Freedom. They say they are in Bali because it is more accepting of their choices and they are able to live their life according to how they want to. It is sad that they can’t do what they want in their home region or be who they want to be. We exchange culture and good feelings. They said when I’m back in Bali next month they will have to take me to class with them and snorkeling. We go back to where I parked my bicycle riding three people on one motorbike. It was my first time 3 on a motorbike. It sounds crazy, but since I have been here I have seen 4 people and 1 dog on a motorbike. 

I’m headed to Syen’s house to stay there for the night. I rode down the mountain and make incredible time. It is very fast on the road and I make it near Syen’s apartment in about 50 minutes. However, I got lost for a while trying to find her exact location. So I circle a 1-mile area for maybe 30 minutes. It’s okay because it turned into a good experience. While circling this area, I pass by a park where there are some kids playing with their kites. I stop and watch just thinking this could be anywhere in the world because it’s 15 kids between 12-16 years old just enjoying a nice evening and playing. I’m halfway around the world in a country that has a completely different religion, and economic status, but still kids just want to have fun and play. Suddenly, they see me watching and they call me over. One of the kids speaks really good English. He says, “Hey. Do you want to fly kites with us?” So I go over and grab this string and fly their gigantic kite high into the air. We do that together for a while and take some pictures together. It was really fun. I finally make it to Syen’s house. We go to some Turkish restaurant and then head back around 10. I am exhausted. It has been an amazing first three days in Indonesia.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

It’s Thursday morning and I am about to leave Bali.

As you may have noticed the amount of distance I have actually ridden my bicycle so far has been pretty small! This trip is all about what I want. This is one of the benefits of traveling solo. You are your own master. Some people have asked me if it’s lonely to travel alone. However, I think traveling alone is the opposite of being lonely because you are so much more likely to be outgoing and meet people. This is my 4^th day in Bali and I have already had so many great experiences and met so many people. It would be easy to get stuck here in Bali and keep having a great time, but it’s time to move on. Life is about change and adventure. I have about 60 miles of biking and a nice 4-hour ferry ride ahead of me to the next island. I’m off to Lombok!

Indonesian Bicycle Trip Background

Hello family and friends! Welcome to my blog about biking across Indonesia! I will be leaving Seoul, South Korea for Bali, Indonesia on Saturday, August 22, to start a pretty exciting 6-week vacation that I am happy to get from my work. I'll be riding my bicycle east across Indonesia from Bali to Timor (or around there) over the next 5 weeks. After, I will fly back from whichever place I am in Eastern Indonesia to Bali, which is where I will meet my mom for 1 week.

I'll try updating this blog throughout my trip with information, pictures, videos about where I go, and fill you in with any adventures that I have along the way. 

If you click here, Indonesia Bike Route, you can see the map I made for this trip.

This map is just a rough guide. If I want to go somewhere else I will. I plan to ride my bicycle east from Bali to Lombok to Sumbawa to Komodo Island to Flores to Timor.  I'll be surfing, scuba diving, snorkeling, camping, relaxing on beaches, couchsurfing and mingling with the locals, and of course riding my bicycle on this journey.

Why Indonesia? Indonesia has some of the most incredible beaches, dive sites, and surfing spots in the world. Along with the amazing beauty, Indonesia offers delicious food, unique culture, and a diverse population.

Why a bicycle? For me, traveling by bicycle offers experiences that no other form of transportation does. A bicycle moves fast enough that it feels like you are going somewhere, but at the same time provides the flexibility to stop whenever I want to enjoy something I see or talk with someone I meet. I am my own master. That versatility is one of my favorite parts about biking. Also, it is very satisfying to look at a map and see that I have traveled across a country under my own power

To say that I'm excited would be an understatement. Feel free to join me via this blog to share in the adventures. I'll leave you with a Mark Twain quote that explains my general life philosophy.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."