Staying in Bukittinggi

Day 15 — We stand on the equator

When we lost the rental car I had nearly given up on reaching the equator, but then the idea came up: why not rent motorbikes from Bukittinggi and go? However, Indonesia currently doesn't issue licences for tourists, and international licences can't be used, so it would be driving without a licence. But we had heard that even if we were caught by the police, a bribe of about 200 yen would get us let off, so we judged it would be fine.

We got breakfast at a bakery.

At the bakery, as well as bread, we bought a yokan-like sweet that seemed to be made from coconut milk.

The clouds hadn't looked good since we left the lodging in the morning, and just as we went to rent the bikes it started to rain. We killed time at a café restaurant for a while, and when the rain eased to a drizzle we headed for the equator, about 70 km north-east of Bukittinggi. The bikes we rented were the ordinary kind we'd seen in every Indonesian city, all made in Japan. Indonesia is a motorbike society, and almost all the bikes are Japanese. But the models differ from Japan's: a Super Cub chassis with scooter bodywork. I wondered why they don't give Japanese Cubs a design like this. The transmission, like the Cub, is a clutchless rotary manual. 125 cc, equivalent to a Japanese class-2 moped (pink plate).

The tank wasn't full, so first we refuelled. 45 yen a litre is very welcome. Like the Cub, the fuel tank is under the seat.

We rode on north-east along a winding road through dense jungle.

Terraced rice fields, rarely seen in Japan since mechanisation. Here ox carts were still hard at work.

There was little traffic and the riding was pleasant, but just 5 km south of the equator was the police checkpoint we had been worried about... We had 50,000 rupiah tucked in a pocket, but the officer was very friendly ☆ He asked where we were from, and when we said Japan, he even shook hands and said welcome. Yamabe showed the international licence he had got just in case, and Nakakura his Japanese licence, but Ooi hadn't brought anything like a licence. But the officer just showed us a local licence, saying really in Indonesia you need one of these, and told us to go on through without any reprimand.

A few minutes' ride from the checkpoint, we finally arrived right on the equator, where there's a gate. As we got off the bikes and soaked it in, a man came over showing off T-shirts. They were printed T-shirts with an equator motif you could only buy here, so all three of us bought different colours and took a commemorative photo.

It was still before noon, and waiting for the sun to reach its zenith would be hot and boring, so we rode a little further north-east and did some sightseeing in the town of Bonjol.

Then at noon, we came back to the equator. There was something like a memorial park nearby, with the equator marked by a white line in the grounds. We straddled it for a commemorative photo. As you can see, our shadows are only directly beneath us. It had been a long road to get here...

After the equator, our next goal was Lake Maninjau, about 50 km west of Bukittinggi. From the equator we had to go back to Bukittinggi first. We had lunch at a diner a little south of the equator. There was no air conditioning, but once in the shade it was surprisingly comfortable. In the sun, the glare off the ground was fierce too, a scorching heat.

On the way back to Bukittinggi after lunch, trouble: Ooi's bike ran out of petrol. There were no petrol stations nearby; as I remembered it, we'd have to go about 10 km to find one. Yamabe and KEN went to the petrol station and asked if there was anything to put petrol in, and they filled an empty plastic bottle that had been thrown in the bin. Something that would never be allowed in Japan.

Refuelled and back in action!

Riding on along a winding road from Bukittinggi, we reached a point looking down on a beautiful lake reflecting the sun. This is Lake Maninjau.

From that point down to the shore of Lake Maninjau, the road descends through 44 hairpins. Each corner had a sign showing its number, which was fun. And many monkeys appeared along this road.

We reached the lakeshore. If the water had been clean we were thinking of swimming, but there were dead fish floating, and it didn't make us feel like swimming.

Beautiful Lake Maninjau and the rainforest.

Climbing back up the 44 hairpins, the sky had turned a little red, if not quite a sunset.

As expected, monkeys appeared everywhere.

After returning the bikes at the café restaurant where we started, dinner. This feast was about 300 yen each. Bukittinggi being a tourist town, the restaurants were of a high standard.

To the next day