The schedule has been
pushed back slightly and we're now looking to start from the Tsunami Museum in Banda
Aceh on Monday 28th September, and then try and be in Jakarta by Sunday 18th
October - a touch longer than the 5 minutes it will take you to watch the fly-over video below:).
* A massive thank you to team YCAB, and in particular Fauzan, for their help in putting this video together. Thank you.
We'll have a late start
on the 1st day to accommodate a small gathering at the start line before heading south. And again the
final 3 days will be short to allow for the ferry crossing between Sumatra and
Java, and hopefully also leave a spare hour or 2 should we need to make up time.
This means I'll be averaging 140 km/day down the length of Sumatra. Doesn’t sound a lot on a
bicycle, but on the becak, it will consume almost all the daylight hours available. And on days the schedule demands, we'll need to push on into the night; provided of course the road conditions permit.
During my long training rides, my speed has averaged out at around 12 km/hr,
which on a bicycle is desperately slow, but on a rickshaw - yes, it's desperately slow too! The becak as documented weighs a fair bit,
so on wee hills I’ll be off to the left and pushing it, and on big hills I’ll
be off to the front and pulling it. The pushing/pulling speed will be below 5km/hour.
From the video of the route, you see we'll be following the main eastern road artery (Jalan Raya Lintas Timur Sumatra), which
links the provincial capital cities of Medan, Pekanbaru, Jambi City, Palembang,
Bandar Lampung; to Banda Aceh in the north and Indonesia's capital city to the south-east, some 2,600kms away.
If anyone would like to
join me for any of the legs, please just drop me a line. As you will note below, I will
spend approximately 4 days in Aceh, 3 days travelling through North Sumatra, 4 days in Riau, a split second crossing the Equator, 3 more days in Jambi, 3 days in South Sumatra, 2
days in Lampung, 1 day in Banten, and the final run to Jakarta Raya. At least that's the plan for now.
With regards to help finding places to stay along the way, I really can't thank Raty and her team enough at PACTO Travel Services for their support. Finding places to stay has not been easy, and at this stage it only requires a single night home-stay. PACTO have been extremely generous in the past, and it is reassuring to have them back on board. Thank you very much PACTO.
In closing off, I would also like to extend my thanks to the children out at Yayasan Puspita. The young students very kindly researched each of the 8 provinces that we'll pass through on my journey to Jakarta, and they provided me with their research notes. All useful stuff, and as pointed out, through helping me it provided a great way to increase their knowledge of their own
country. Thank you team Puspita - your research notes will be a great introduction and very useful as I enter each new province.
Thank you guys for all your help! Becakterus...
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