Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Toadjuice goes to Batam...

Spent the weekend on the dusty Indonesian Island of Batam. When I told a friend about it, all I got was a "Why you dirty old man." comment. Well, I did get downright dirty... riding 140km of the Barelang Highway isn't exactly the right kind of thing to be doing to stay squeaky clean. Heh heh... After 6 hours of riding, you get all kinds of grime stuck to your body with a nice sunburnt skin to match. Getting the bicycles onto the ferry was a puzzling experience. We had to wheel our bicycles up to the second floor... for check-in. I was like... ferry upstairs meh? Then when we entered the ferry, the bicycles were there... in the same place. The clowns from the other side of the counter kind of just wheeled them back down. The ferry was unbelievably crowded... with a lot of imaginary friends. Seats that looked empty were apparently occupied by 'friends' that never appeared. The bus ride to the hotel took about an hour, and gave us a preview of the hills to come. In fact, we were so intimidated by the hills that we decided that we had to eat more to fuel ourselves the for ride. Club Sandwich, Carbonara, Nasi Goreng, Mee Goreng, Beer Bintang... everyone had something... Breakfast in the hotel sucked big time. The only good thing about breakfast was the expresso machine. I was glad I had mee goreng in a corner stall the night before. 9am, the ride began... 10 km from the Holiday Inn to the beginning of the Barelang Highway... 10km more to the start of the first bridge... some hills to prepare us for what's to come. The ride to the first bridge was awesome. As we approached the first bridge, the grandeur of its massive cable stays appear before us, slowly revealing the whole bridge. The next bridge was not too far ahead, however with the numerous rolling hills to cover, I soon lost count of the numeber of bridges crossed. What seemed like a highway of endless hills finally ended with a small roundabout. 20 minutes of replenishing ourselves with nourisments, we were back on the road again. Thos endless rolling hills... finally, after 6 hours of ass breaking spinning, we were back at the hotel... indeed a ride worth remembering...

# Crapped by Toadjuice on 7/25/2006 12:17:00 pm