Mon, 28 Aug 2000 04:34:45 +0100
From: simon @ millennium-ride.com
To: sponsors @ millennium-ride.com

2k/07/25
India making me laugh and cry

2k/07/17
Whitewater frights

2k/07/12
Aid, kayaks & muddy ruts

2k/06/12
Nepal, the launch-pad

2k/06/02
Priceless Pakistan
+April 08+22

2k/03/28
Karachi-bound

2k/03/08
Hi from Dubai

2k/02/19
Greetings from Jeddah

2k/02/09
South Sinai sun & scuba diving

2k/01/28
Istanbul

2k/01/21
Lap of the Med. instead

2k/01/10
Libya visa problem

99/12/26
I'm outa here

99/12/26
Tracker info

99/12/23
Yes I'm still alive ...

99/10/
Hello Sponsors

99/09/23
Millennium Motorcycle emerges as a Sponsor Monster

99/09/06
Medical

99/07/28
Engine swopping

99/07/17
Tea-table survival & Gambia

99/07/11
Note to Sponsors with pin badge

99/06/12
Bike moves & Budget

99/05/04
things fall into place

99/04/10
TV and the first jabs

[75kB 640x480] The Overlander at UNTAET (United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor) with UN peacekeeping troops and policemen in Kupang West Timor. I was trying to get permission to cross the East West Timor border, certainly one of the world's hot spots at this the first anniversar of independence of the new country.

I arrived in Kupang West Timor at 5am this morning and found a GSM network up and running. Wonders will never cease!

The United Nations offices are open tomorrow and I'm hoping they will give me a letter authorising me to cross the border to East Timor on the strength of my humanitarian fundraising work. There's a weekly barge to Darwin from there. Dili is 500km of mountain roads away - 2 days minimum. If I can't get through then the only solution is high-cost air transport from here. Apparantly the road is quite safe unless I meet some refugees (former pro-Jakarta militia) who blame the West (UN) for the loss of half their island.

Anyway, Indonesia is certainly the most interesting country so far. From Sumatra I rode through Java (the most populated place on earth which was so tiring and terribly polluted by belching smoke of all manner of vehicles), Bali (the palm fringed beach surfing 'paradise' where Westerners - mainly Australians - indulge in all the debauchery they cannot do at home, proper and 'pseudo' prostitution is popular), Lombok which I crossed in two hours, Sumbawa taking two days to cross and Flores (meaning flowers in Portugese though I expected more). A continental plate divide between Asia and Australasia/Pacific plates falls between the islands of Bali and Lombok in this area where there is a noticeble change in the flora and fauna, but it's only an hour or so's boat ride.

[49kB 640x480] Met at Gunung Bromo volcano in east Java, August 2000. Getting the bike up to the viewing point was even more interesting than this photo, 30 steps!

It's a massive country and to go anywhere takes ages - the last 2000 km were hairpin bends winding round volcanoes and mountains - up into cold and down into swealtering heat. The wear has shown on the bike with the rear tyre nearly down to canvas and the front looking like I've been going round roundabouts for a few days. The Showa rear shock absorbers died too, all the oil leaked out and pumping them up with air lasts 5 minutes. So I'm riding a hardtail now with the back end jacked up into the high-rider position for more ground clearance, the side boxes having been ground away leaving holes. With just 16 psi in the rear tyre giving a little suspension, I am reminded of my hardtail Triumph days, bobbing up and down over the bumps, skitting round corners and slight pains in the chest. (I hope I don't have to ride all the way to the motorcycling mecca of Elizabeth Street in Melbourne South Australia to get sponsored for a new set.) I've also decided to change the oil every 3000km instead of 6000 as it was looking quite black. Besides that a noise is coming from the engine, not serious Rotax tells me, but I'll get it looked at in Melbourne

I've averaging 300km per 12 hour day of hard riding. I had to take some rest, well hardly, in Bali, not for debauchery though, in any case I had no energy for it.
Even now after a leisurely ferry ride last night I am absolutely shattered, I need a good 2 weeks holiday! Some nights it has been hard to sleep due to traffic noise, mosquitos and heat. One night I was sleeping in an empty restaurant and along they came at 2am to open up! Mind you that was on a volcanic crater - they were preparing for the sunrise tourists - I was the earliest having got there 5 hours earlier .

Dealing with some Indonesians can be very tiring, often their attitude is infuriating, we are not all rich tourists. I've met some fellow budget travellers who had bad experiences - it can be an outlaw country. Things like paying a few $s for your bike to be loaded onto a ferry when it's moored sideways to the quay is OK. But a dock worker demanded a dollar for a push start off a ferry in the dark and threatened to put the bike in the harbour (I angrily told him to ---- off and he did) is way out of line. But foreigners are pretty much fair game for anyone, it is in their culture, filtering down from a corrupt government. When the roots are rotten you can't always have healthy fruit. The fact that we all are millionnaires compared to them presents a dilemma though.

So I didn't bother fundraising in this country of retched economy and no legal system. But I did get $150 stolen by a woman who had rebelled against her Muslim family and became a Christian! It could have been alot worse and I was partly to blame - education is a wonderful thing! I've been through a phase of losing things, just forgetting them, like my high-tech towel left dangling on a tree drying, and the Olypmus camera. I get so mad with myself sometimes.

I did indulge in one passion of mine in Bali:
woodcarving. I bought two magnifient cheap pieces: an eagle with upstretched wings and an Indonesian fisherman, the latter in mahogany. Sending them home was more expensive.

[42kB 640x480] A low mean hardtail Honda 400/4 chopper in the making, and a high big trail bike made! The chopper owner was one of 4 chopper riders in Indonesia and I met him by pure chane. Both bikes are hand-made. Java Indonesia August 2000.

I was invited to a meeting of the local chapter of the Motor Antique Club Indonesia (MACI) and also a Vespa Club in Jakarta. The big bikes here are mainly old singles from the war. It's just brilliant to see restored and rusting old AJS, BMW, BSA, Matchless and Norton machines being ridden on a daily basis by young people, thrashing them around as they were built for and not stagnating in museums. It brought a tear to my eye I can tell you. There must be a thousand of them in Indonesia. You hardly see Harleys and no big Japanese bikes at all. Small Hondas and Yamahas are made here under licence as in so many other Asian countries. There is no discriminatory bike legislation and my explanations of what we are doing for riders' rights in most of the developed world met with incomprehension. At least now we have the contact and if we need Indonesian bikers to help us on any global issue I'm sure we can count on them. The scooter scene in Java is also very healthy indeed.

The earth is really alive down here. Sulphuric acid was bubbling into the air a few metres in front of my face at the live volcano of the Dieng Plateau in central Java where there were also hot water lakes; the smoking Gunung Bromo in East Java at sunrise was unforgettable and Keli Mutu on Flores comprises three volcanic lakes of different and changing colours due to chemicals from the centre of the earth, one being bright turquoise.

[62kB 640x480] The car deck full of sleeping Timorese and one Englishman at 03.00h on 27 August 2000 en route Flores West Timor, Indonesia.

Indonesia is very musical, on all islands young people are strumming away on guitars even as they walk down the street. Last night on the ferry a group of boys and girls were singing together beautifully, as I was getting down to sleep next to my bike on the car deck. There were no cars just bodies everywhere on all decks, what a sight, with me and my bike the centre of attention. I was quite happy to stay right with my bike and all its equipment, venturing for a pee off the back of the ferry from up the landing ramp at 2am holding very tightly onto the rail. Oooh I couldn't bear thinking about how crazy this all was.

It's fascinating also how the islands are all different. Bali's Hinduism was blatently obvious the minute I disembarked from the ferry with great nightmarish masks staring down at me. Back to Islam on Sumbawa where the regular cries from the mosques even startled me above the sound of the bike's engine, Catholic Flores where I photographed a church being built, and Protestantism here in West Timor. The Timorese have bulbous wide noses! The cockerells crow properly here and in Flores but on other islands they sound like someone is strangling them - understandable when they go off 24 hours a day! Everyone seems to have a couple - the cruel sport of cockfighting is very popular, sharp blades are strapped to their feet legs.