The long crossing of Sumatra

 Several people had told me that Sumatra was "the best of Indonesia", but honestly, after more than three months of cycling through this country, where over and over we had been dazzled and left speechless at what we experienced, it was impossible for me to even imagine that what would lie ahead could be any better than what we had already seen. 

If there was something that we confirmed immediately while pedaling the 148 km road that links Jakarta with the port of Merak, is that having hopped on a bus to avoid wasting time in western Java had been a truly wise decision. Leaving Jakarta was as infernal as it was entering it. During the 10 hours we cycled to the port on that endless day, heavy traffic and overcrowding were such all along the way that it felt like not having left the city at all. Jakarta's hell perpetuated itself throughout the whole day. We arrived in Merak after 9pm exhausted, not so much by the 150 km that we had cycled, but by the chaos of trucks, vans, buses, cars, motorcycles, pollution, noise, people, asphyxiating traffic jams, heat and other tortures that accompanied us during the whole day. That very night, we crossed by ferry the strait that separates Java from Sumatra in less than three hours and spent our first night in the place that would soon become our accommodation of choice during the days to come: the police station.