1 May 2009 Flores, Indonesia

It is with a tinge of sadness that I write this; our last blog of our journey. However, as I am sitting in sunshine, beside the beautiful ocean in Indonesia with a cold beer close at hand, I can’t feel too sorry for myself!

We arrived safely in Bali from Borneo with the bikes intact: always a serious concern when flying with the bicycles as they can so easily be damaged. We’ve got pretty handy at dismantling them and packaging them up now and we have been very lucky that over the total of 6 flights for this trip, we have had no serious damage.

The journey from Borneo to Bali involved two flights through the night, so when we arrived we were feeling less than sprightly having spent several hours between flights trying to sleep on pieces of cardboard on the tiled floor of Jakarta airport. So rather than cycle a full day straight to the port for the ferry to the island of Lombok, we decided to cycle a short distance to the resort of Sanur and spend a night there in a small homestay before continuing on. We made it a leisurely ride and spent our time marveling at the fabulous furniture stores along the roads selling absolutely beautiful new and antique furniture – you could easily fill a crate with house furnishings to ship home from here!

Bali far exceeds my own ill-informed expectations of mass tourism. It’s absolutely lovely – a tropical paradise filled with friendly people, Hindu temples and shrines everywhere you look, votive offerings along every pavement (usually flowers in little baskets made from palm fronds) and sunshine of course. The beaches are both white and volcanic black, often with wonderful surf crashing off shore. It is vibrant and colourful and we immediately decided that we like it here very much!

The next day we cycled to the port of Padang Bai and caught the ferry to Lombok. By chance, we met two other cyclists along the way to Padang Bai who have already explored Lombok and advised us against our planned route that was to head along a fairly remote and rough road following the coast – the road was apparently hellishly steep (too steep to cycle – a miserable prospect in this heat) and fairly unfriendly with stone-throwing kids. We were amazed to hear this – but Lombok is Muslim and perhaps some areas are hostile to non-Muslim foreigners! We’re not interested in cycling through areas where we are not wanted, so we changed our plan and took the main road to the south of Lombok (perfectly friendly, thank goodness) to overnight at the surfing Mecca of Kuta, Lombok (actually a tiny sleepy fishing village). Lombok is otherwise an incredibly populated island where the taxis are mostly horse drawn wooden traps.

Two more stinking hot but friendly and interesting days of cycling with some short but incredibly steep climbs brought us to the port of Labuhan Lombok and the short ferry ride to the island of Sumbawa. Here again, the guide book advises that this is strictly Muslim territory – but in fact we found it to be nothing of the sort. Some Muslims, yes, but certainly not strict. Women and men alike yelled the now common ‘Hello Mister!!’ from close and deafening range at every opportunity. It took us five days to cycle across Sumbawa – an island usually transited as quickly as possible by travellers in buses on their way through the islands to Flores. I can kind of see why – while there is some lovely countryside in places, it has a peculiar atmosphere and attracts virtually no tourists at all.

Below is an extract from the diary to give you a feel of the cycling days in these islands:

22 April 2009 Dompu, Sumbawa, Indonesia

Today was a killer of a day. We were both very sleepy when we headed out of town and feeling the weariness of having cycled for so many consecutive days without a day off. The road climbed to every promontory overlooking the sea, then dropped down into each bay before climbing once more. We were making incredibly slow progress.

Right from the start of the day, the next town was signposted – 36km away. When we finally reached it, it literally consisted of a roadside café/shop and mosque. That was it! Not another building in sight! I can’t quite understand why it merited mile markers from as far away as Empang!

We grabbed a pot noodle here before setting off on the next leg, at which point we realised this would be another 100km day, not 88km as we had thought! And then we started to climb in earnest. The heat was intense and before long I could feel my body starting to object with the tell tale sign of queasiness and light headedness. We pulled over in some shade, drank water, poured water on ourselves and waited for our temperatures to drop a bit. Eventually I felt I could carry on without being in danger of going into a meltdown.

We climbed very slowly for around 10km – a hell of a distance in heat like this. Mercifully, much of the way had trees offering patches of shade and once in a while a cloud covered the sun – without this, we would have been absolutely done for. As it was, I was amazed that my body made it through the day – I felt sure this was going to be one test too far.

Finally over the climb, we were rewarded with a descent that took us inland, away from the sea. Amazingly, it seems to be a fraction cooler inland and we continued to make better progress along the flat valley bottom once we reached it. With about 15km to go we could see storm clouds brewing ahead – would we make it without getting drenched? We pedaled hard and as the wind picked up and lightning struck, we knew we were in for a big storm – and we pulled up in to town at the first hotel just as the first raindrops fell. It was the perfect place – new and with a big restaurant (we were starving). Unfortunately, they had no room! Disaster! We scooted off quickly to the next hotel, and the next – all full! By now, the rains were absolutely pouring and we sheltered for a little while at the 3rd hotel, having been told, thankfully, that there is a 4th hotel in town. By this time we were both utterly exhausted and hungry and having unpleasant visions of trying to pitch our tent somewhere out of town on soaking ground and possibly still in a downpour.

We decided to just get the soaking, and headed out to the 4th hotel, passing masses of kids playing in the rain – lots of the young ones were splashing naked in the floods while the teenagers were all having a whale of a time playing football in the middle of the crossroads, which were now a raging torrent! To our complete relief, the 4th hotel had a room for us and it’s perfect and cheap – about ₤3.50.


Ahead of us lay the islands of Komodo and Rinca (famous for the Komodo Dragon) and Flores. We have been told that Komodo, interestingly enough, is the precise place where the Indian Ocean and the China Sea meet – one passing literally over the top of the other. According to our guide book, the islands that we have been cycling through since leaving Bali are known as Wallacea after the 19th Century British explorer, Wallace, who studied the flora and fauna in the area and drew the same conclusions that Darwin had (though had not yet made public). He shared his research with Darwin and together they published their ideas on evolution that made Darwin so famous (Wallace being out of the limelight in Indonesia at the time of publication). These islands, like the Galapagos that Darwin had visited many years earlier, show the same idiosyncrasies of species. Wallacea is the dividing line between Asia and Oceania/Australasia. We could see it for ourselves: the landscape was starting to look more like Australia and less like Asia.

It began to make sense to us that our trans-Asia bike ride was reaching its natural conclusion on the lovely island of Flores. Deciding, or knowing when to stop, on a journey like this, seems important to us. We didn’t want it to just peter out aimlessly. We wanted a logical end to our adventure and with the natural world telling us that Asia was over and a new continent beginning, we both agreed to bring our journey to its end in Flores.

By the time we reached the port of Sapa on the East coast of Sumbawa, we were finding the searing heat to be testing us to the limits. We boarded our final ferry for the long and uncomfortable overnight sailing to Flores.

Here, we have taken a trip to see the Komodo Dragons on the island of Rinca in the Komodo National Park: truly revolting creatures that can run at speeds of up to 18km per hour and to my alarm, often chase humans. In fact, there have been two attacks in the past year – one poor man got bitten when nipping into the bushes to go to the toilet but survived after being rushed to the hospital in Jakarta! The other victim – a local man, was less fortunate. The problem is that the saliva is highly poisonous – so if the mauling itself doesn’t kill you, the poison slowly does the trick. Hideous! The island has a fascinating landscape of rolling savannah, dotted with palm trees. You expect to see Jurassic Park style dinosaurs at any moment.
We have also stayed on a tiny deserted island just off Flores that has just a few bamboo bungalows on it, with a wonderful reef for snorkeling, from which we have both seen gorgeous turtles and Andrew has also seen sting rays and sharks (I’m not even slightly jealous – I would have freaked out!). I spent many happy low tides beachcombing - paradise for less than ten quid a day!

And so, after a final fling on the bikes up the coast a little way to try to reach a deserted beach on the end of the North West peninsula of Flores, we have finally reached the end of our journey.

The complete journey has covered 11,101 kilometres by bicycle over 228 days (including our rest days), passing through 12 countries. We have had no bicycle problems other than punctures (not sure how many – probably around a dozen – all caused by either thorns or wire), one damaged tyre (we think from over inflation), and only one set of brake pads replaced (my front brake pads)! We have had no serious injuries (I have fallen off my bike five times in total – always because I forget that my feet are clipped in to the pedals, causing a few grazes and mild embarrassment but nothing worse). We have had no tummy/bottom troubles throughout our entire journey (if you stick to the rules of good hygiene, NO untreated water ever, and no uncooked or unpeeled food ever then it evidently is possible to travel through Asia without getting sick!).

We have had an incredible journey and loved every minute of it – it’s been an enormous privilege to be able to take it.

We are both really looking forward to having a bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes and cold milk (the only thing we have really hankered after in the last 8 months). I’m almost beside myself with the idea of having a change of clothes and the concept of wearing something white that stands a chance of staying white for more than five minutes, is absolutely thrilling! Oh – and a haircut! I also cannot wait to be just a little bit chilly (not perishing cold you understand!). I am absolutely sick to the back teeth of being stinking hot and pouring sweat at all times of the day and night, which is how it has been for the last 3 months or so. I’m a hot blooded person – I get hot flushes just cooking dinner in mid winter! The heat has been crippling for me and a huge drain. I am looking forward to wearing jeans and a jumper and socks. Bliss!

We have survived almost entirely on our original budget of an average of ₤10 each a day (the exceptions being the Tibet part of our trip, the Borneo Rainforest Lodge and of course all flights).

As it’s the final blog – I’d like to thank you all for following our progress with such enthusiasm and offering so much support. We hope you’ve been able to enjoy some of our journey with us.